Homeward Bound | Page 6

will readily comprehend that the _pêle-mêle_ of the cabins can seldom offer anything very enticing to people of refinement and taste. Against this evil, however, there is one particular source of relief; most persons feeling a disposition to yield to the circumstances in which they are placed, with the laudable and convenient desire to render others comfortable, in order that they may be made comfortable themselves.
A man of the world and a gentleman, Mr. Effingham had looked forward to this passage with a good deal of concern, on account of his daughter, while he shrank with the sensitiveness of his habits from the necessity of exposing one of her delicacy and plastic simplicity to the intercourse of a ship. Accompanied by Mademoiselle Viefville, watched over by Nanny, and guarded by himself and his kinsman, he had lost some of his apprehensions on the subject during the three probationary days, and now took his stand in the centre of his own party to observe the new arrivals, with something of the security of a man who is entrenched in his own door-way.
The place they occupied, at a window of the hurricane-house, did not admit of a view of the water; but it was sufficiently evident from the preparations in the gangway next the land, that boats were so near as to render that unnecessary.
"Genus cockney; species, bagman," muttered John Effingham, as the first arrival touched the deck. "That worthy has merely exchanged the basket of a coach for the deck of a packet; we may now learn the price of buttons."
It did not require a naturalist to detect the species of the stranger, in truth; though John Effingham had been a little more minute in his description than was warranted by the fact. The person in question was one of those mercantile agents that England scatters so profusely over the world, some of whom have all the most sterling qualities of their nation, though a majority, perhaps, are a little disposed to mistake the value of other people as well as their own. This was the genus, as John Effingham had expressed it; but the species will best appear on dissection. The master of the ship saluted this person cordially, and as an old acquaintance, by the name of Monday.
"A mousquetaire resuscitated," said Mademoiselle Viefville, in her broken English, as one who had come in the same boat as the first-named, thrust his whiskered and mustachoed visage above the rail of the gangway.
"More probably a barber, who has converted his own head into a wig-block," growled John Effingham.
"It cannot, surely, be Wellington in disguise!" added Mr. Effingham, with a sarcasm of manner that was quite unusual for him.
"Or a peer of the realm in his robes!" whispered Eve, who was much amused with the elaborate toilet of the subject of their remarks, who descended the ladder supported by a sailor, and, after speaking to the master, was formally presented to his late boat-companion, as Sir George Templemore. The two bustled together about the quarter-deck for a few minutes, using eye-glasses, which led them into several scrapes, by causing them to hit their legs against sundry objects they might otherwise have avoided, though both were much too high-bred to betray feelings--or fancied they were, which answered the same purpose.
After these flourishes, the new comers descended to the cabin in company, not without pausing to survey the party in the hurricane-house, more especially Eve, who, to old Ann's great scandal, was the subject of their manifest and almost avowed admiration and observation.
"One is rather glad to have such a relief against the tediousness of a sea-passage," said Sir George as they went down the ladder. "No doubt you are used to this sort of thing, Mr. Monday; but with me, it is voyage the first,--that is, if I except the Channel and the seas one encounters in making the usual run on the Continent."
"Oh, dear me! I go and come as regularly as the equinoxes, Sir George, which you know is quite, in rule, once a year. I call my passages the equinoxes, too, for I religiously make it a practice to pass just twelve hours out of the twenty-four in my berth."
This was the last the party on deck heard of the opinions of the two worthies, for the time being; nor would they have been favoured with all this, had not Mr. Monday what he thought a rattling way with him, which caused him usually to speak in an octave above every one else. Although their voices were nearly mute, or rather lost to those above, they were heard knocking about in their state-rooms; and Sir George, in particular, as frequently called out for the steward, by the name of "Saunders," as Mr. Monday made similar appeals to the steward's assistant