Jones Had
Discovered And Pointed Out To Me A Young Woman Who Was Remarkable
Among Her Fellows For A Pleasing And Interesting Air.
She was
poorly clad, to the verge, if not over the line, of
disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket
And a bit of a sealskin
cap no bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole expression,
and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true womanly
nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. She had a look, too,
of refinement, like one who might have been a better lady than
most, had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone she seemed
preoccupied and sad; but she was not often alone; there was usually
by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary of
speech and gesture - not from caution, but poverty of disposition; a
man like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting; whom she petted and
tended and waited on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of
Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, and this
delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, from first to last,
insensible of her caresses and attentions, and she seemed
unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish husband, who sang his
wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl serving her Orson, were the
two bits of human nature that most appealed to me throughout the
voyage.
On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and
soon a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her
bit of sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed
fingers. She also, it was said, was a stowaway of a sort; for she
was on board with neither ticket nor money; and the man with whom
she travelled was the father of a family, who had left wife and
children to be hers. The ship's officers discouraged the story,
which may therefore have been a story and no more; but it was
believed in the steerage, and the poor girl had to encounter many
curious eyes from that day forth.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW
Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean
combined both. 'Out of my country and myself I go,' sings the old
poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude
and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and
consideration. Part of the interest and a great deal of the
amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel situation in the
world.
I found that I had what they call fallen in life with absolute
success and verisimilitude. I was taken for a steerage passenger;
no one seemed surprised that I should be so; and there was nothing
but the brass plate between decks to remind me that I had once been
a gentleman. In a former book, describing a former journey, I
expressed some wonder that I could be readily and naturally taken
for a pedlar, and explained the accident by the difference of
language and manners between England and France.
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