Silverland | Page 2

circumstances, I should surely have declined with thanks, and without parley. But there are comrades and comrades you see; and, since the worthies who went out with Pendragon to war, I think there has not breathed stauncher backer, in field, feast, or fray, than he who stood looking on me, then, with wistful eyes.
So I said I would think about it.
Now most men and many women, for the matter of that know what such a concession comes to. Thus it befell that, on about the sunniest morning of a darksome January, Tressilian and I his is a name of travel, of course stood on the deck of the good ship=China,' outward bound.
Fair weather kept us company all down the Channel; and we made smcli good way, that, rounding Eoche's Point early in the forenoon, we were forced to anchor for some hours, waiting the mails. The tardy steam-tug took us on shore, too late to visit any of the beauties of the harbour. There is nothing to see, immediately around the railway station; and we saw it thoroughly. Some half-dozen passengers full of wassail, as it seemed, though the day was yet young drove up and down on low-backed cars, outyelling their charioteers. Watching such enthusiasts, you begin to understand, how the swings and merry-go-rounds at fairs and races are filled. Eight years had brought no changes to the dull squalid landing-place; there was the same beggar with his hoarse blessings, ten for sixpence, that sounded so like malisons, the same harridan, proffering sickly shamrocks, the same colleen., with dusky elf-locks, and broad blue eyes a fleur de tete, cackling treasonable ditties in a subdued treble, as though in fear of instant arrest; albeit she is probably subsidised by our indulgent rulers, to ensure the emigrant's latest sniff of Irish air having a flavour of faction. The farce does not repay a second visit; and we were well content to set foot on the c China once more.
The clouds began to bank up as we weighed anchor, and there was menace of foul weather in the watery moon. Before we passed Cape Clear, the good ship had given us a foretaste of the 'lively' qualities for which she is renowned; and, when dawn broke on the morrow, a sullen? grey sky brooded over a leaden sea.
My experience of nausea is entirely vicarious; nevertheless, I am acquainted with no such detestable winter quarters as the mid- Atlantic. There, you soon realise that 'unrest in rest' is not such a paradox after all. Without any pretence to seamanship, there are many who feel a kind of per j sonal interest in a battle with winds and waves, under sail; but you can hardly throw your heart into the efforts of mere machinery. The log supposing you have no bets on the result resolves itself into a question of knots and hours: if the ship has made extra good time, she has done her duty no more; if otherwise, the British grumbler, keeping well out of earshot of the Captain, asserts himself very freely. An ungracious, unchristian frame of mind; but what would you have? The struggle with garments and bath, attending each rising up and lying down, the struggle over meals, when the dishes, despite their leading-strings, tumble about in an idiotic infantile fashion, the struggle with an atmosphere innocent of fresh air, and laden with the stale odours of baked meats, the struggle with the sloping slippery deck, when you make a pretence of takingexercise, the eternal tremor and grind of the screw, that seems to vibrate through nerves and brain at last; all these minor miseries make up rather a high trial of the 'old Adam.' A practical divine, I believe, once estimated that "an even temper was worth 500/. a year." According to this tariff, and from this source alone, Tressilian's income ought to be about 2000/.," paid quarterly. But even he succumbed to the malign influences, ere long, in the form of a mild melancholy, which would have been quite touching, if one had had any compassion to spare.
The monotony of 'strong head winds from the west ' may, occasionally, be broken by a real tempest; and this diversion we did not lack. On the sixth forenoon, during a treacherous gleam of sunshine, the mercury began to fall, faster than it had ever done during our captain's long experience of these seas.
Then, with a sudden flaw,
Round veered the gusty skay;
and, at nightfall, we were running at full steampower, and with every stitch of canvas set that could safely be carried, before a furious south-easterly gale. The deck being impossible, and the saloon intolerable, I was 'bouning myself to rest,' seated on our scanty couch, when there came a lurch of lurches. At the moment, I was about as