Border and Bastille | Page 3

American passenger
made room for me very courteously, and I begun to talk to him--about
the weather, of course. It was a keen, intellectual face, pleasant withal,
and kindly, and in its habitual expression not devoid of genial humor.
But, at that moment, it was possessed by an unutterable misery. No
wonder.
"I was ill the whole way over from America," he said, "and then we
started with bright weather and a fair wind."
I was much attracted by the voice, betraying scarcely any Transatlantic
accent: it was quiet and calm in tone, like that of any brave man on his
way to encounter some irresistible pain or woe; but saddened by an
agony of anticipation, he presaged, only too truly, "the burden of the
atmosphere and the wrath to come."
Another struggle and scramble--and we are on board, at last. It is some
comfort to exchange that wretched little wet tug for the deck of the
Asia; though a trifle unsteady even now, she oscillates after the sober
and stately fashion befitting a mighty "liner." Half an hour sees the end
of the long stream of mail-bags, and the huge bales of newspapers
shipped; then the moorings are cast loose; there rises the faintest echo
of a cheer--who could be enthusiastic on such a morning?--the vast
wheels turn slowly and sullenly, as if hating the hard work before them;
and we are fairly off.
The waves and weather grew rapidly wilder; as we neared blue water,
just after passing the light, we saw a large ship driving helplessly
and--the sailors said--hopelessly, among the breakers of the North
Sands. She had tried to run in without a pilot, and ours seemed to think
her fate the justest of judgments; but to disinterested and unprofessional
spectators the sight was very sad, and somewhat discouraging. So with
omen and augury, as well as the wind dead against us.
"The Sword went out to sea."
All that day and night "The Asia" staggered and weltered on through
the yeasty channel waves, breaking in her passengers rather roughly for

a conflict with vaster billows. Thirteen hours of hard steaming barely
brought us abreast of Holyhead. The gale moderated towards morning,
and we ran along the Irish coast under a blue sky, making Queenstown
shortly after sundown.
By this time I had become acquainted with my cabin-mate, in which
respect I was singularly fortunate. M. ---- was a thorough Parisian, and
a favorable specimen of his class. Small of stature, and slender of
proportion--a very important point where space is so
limited--low-voiced, and sparing of violent expletives or gestures,
delicately neat in his person and apparel, one could hardly have
selected a more amiable colleague under circumstances of some
difficulty. I can aver that he conducted himself always with a perfect
modesty and decorum: he would preserve his equilibrium miraculously,
when his perpendicular had been lost long ago: he never fell upon me
but once (sleeping on a sofa, I was exposed defenselessly to all such
contingencies), and then lightly as thistle-down. On the rare occasions
when the mal-de-mer proved too much for his valiant self-assertion, he
yielded to an overruling fate without groan or complaint: folding the
scanty coverlet around him, he would subside gradually into his berth,
composing his little limbs as gracefully as Cæsar. His courtesy was
invincible and untiring: he was anxious to defer and conform even to
my insular prejudices. Discovering that I was in the habit of daily
immersing in cold water--a feat not to be accomplished without much
toil, trouble, and abrasion of the cuticle--he thought it necessary to
simulate a like performance, though nothing would have tempted him
to incur such needless danger. His endeavors to mislead me on this
point, without actually committing himself, were ingenious and wily in
the extreme. Sitting in the saloon at the most incongruous hours of day
and night, he would exclaim, "J'ai l'idée de prendre bientôt mon bain!"
or he would speak with a shiver of recollection of the imaginary plunge
taken that morning. I don't think I should ever have been deluded, even
if my curiosity had not led me to question the steward; but never, by
word or look, did I impugn the reality of that Barmecide bath. To his
other accomplishments, M. ---- added a very pretty talent for piquet; the
match was even enough, though, to be interesting, at almost nominal
stakes, and so we got pleasantly through many hours--dark, wet, or

boisterous.
We were not a numerous company--only thirty-three in all. Few
amateurs travel at this inclement season. I knew only one other
Englishman on board, an officer in the Rifle Brigade, returning to
Canada from sick-leave. Among the Americans was Cyrus Field, the
energetic promoter of the Atlantic Telegraph, then making (I think he
said) his