England and Canada. Fleming Sandford
and find we have been seven days and ten hours making the run from Rimouski. I took the opportunity here to send a cablegram home; it consisted of one word, but that word contained a page of family meaning.
We passed the Giant’s Causeway, at which the passengers intently looked. We could also see Islay and the Mull of Kintyre.
In the evening we have a second service. Our eloquent friend from Brooklyn satisfied us so well the previous Sunday that we begged of him to give us another sermon. He complied with our wishes, and with equal success.
It is our last night on board; to-morrow we are to separate. Many of us on this voyage have met for the first time, and in all human probability few of us will again come side by side. There is always a feeling of sadness in thinking you do something for the last time. I can fancy even a convict leaving his cell where he has passed some years pausing upon the threshold while a rush of the old recollections, the long, sad hours cheered by gleams of hope, crowd upon him, when he will feel some strange sentiment of regret that it is the last time he looks upon the place. The feeling may last but a second, but it is an impulse of our nature which is uncontrollable.
On board ship, with a certainty of gaining port to-morrow, the last hours are passed in packing up and preparing to leave, and a feeling of regret creeps in that now so many pleasant associations are to end, and in spite of yourself some of the good qualities of those who are set down as disagreeable people come to the surface in your memory. Some few friendships are formed at sea which are perpetuated, but generally the pleasantest of our relations terminate with the voyage. It is too often the case, as in the voyage of life, that those we have learned to esteem are seen no more.
We had to lose no time in order to pass the troublesome bar at the mouth of Liverpool harbour. With vessels of the draught of the American steamers it can only be crossed at high water. The officers generally calculate what can be done from the hour they leave Moville, and regulate their speed accordingly, so as to approach it at the right moment.
No one knows better than the occupants of the cabin corresponding with our own on the opposite side of the vessel that a great many tons of ashes have been thrown overboard during the voyage: we all know that a large volume of smoke has passed out of the funnel, a proof of the great weight of fuel which has been expended in keeping the screw revolving. The draught of the ship is consequently considerably less than when we left the St. Lawrence.
There is now no fog; the weather is fine; there is everything to encourage the attempt to run in, and it proves successful. On this occasion, had we been twenty minutes later, we should have had to remain outside until another tide. The lights of Galloway and the Isle of Man were passed before the most of us retired last night. We all awoke early; at a quarter to five we had crossed the bar; the “Parisian” was in the Mersey; the tender came alongside the ship, and very soon afterwards I stood again on English ground.
CHAPTER III.
ENGLAND.
Willie Gordon—Custom House Annoyances—Cable Telegram—Post Office Annoyances—London—Spurgeon’s Tabernacle—An Ancestral Home—English and United States Hotels—English Reserve—A Railway Accident—The Land’s End—A Deaf Guest.
As I stood on the landing stage at Liverpool awaiting patiently and with resignation for the Customs officers to allow the removal of our luggage, a host of recollections ran through my mind. My thoughts went back twenty years to another occasion when I landed from an ocean steamer at an hour equally early. My memory has been aided by one of those works which appear so frequently from the New York press, so fertile in this species of encyclopædiac literature, endeavouring to embrace in a few pages the truths learned only by a life’s experience. The small volume tells you what not to do, and it sententiously sets forth its philosophy in a series of paragraphs. There are ninety-five pages of this philanthropic effort, with about four hundred negative injunctions. The title of the book is “Don’t.” The injunction that struck my eye most forcibly may be taken as no bad type of the teaching of the book. It runs, “Don’t” is the first word of every sentence. “Don’t go with your boots unpolished, but don’t have the polishing done in the public highways.” These words met my eye as I was engaged in these pages, and they brought back the feelings which passed through my mind on the morning I left the “Parisian.”
My thoughts reverted to my visit to the Mother Country after eighteen years’ absence; the first made by me since I left home in 1845. I was a passenger on the “United Kingdom,” due at Glasgow. She had passed up the Clyde during the night, and arrived opposite the Broomielaw in the early morning. The night previous the passengers were in the best of humour, and the stewards had been kept up late attending to us. We were all in high spirits, and without exception delighted at returning to Scotland. I was particularly impatient to get ashore, to touch the sacred ground of my native land. I arose that morning one of the first of the passengers, before the stewards were visible. The ship was in the stream off the Broomielaw. A boat came to the side. I jumped into her and went ashore. I strolled along the quay. My foot was not literally on “my native heath,” but I enjoyed intensely the pleasure we all feel in revisiting our native shores, and in being near the scenes from which we have been long absent. Everything seemed so fresh and charming. I had no definite purpose in my wandering, but I was at home; it was Scotland. In my semi-reverie I was interrupted by a young voice in the purest Clydesdale Doric saying “hae yer butes brushed?” I looked down mechanically at my feet, and found that the cabin bootblack of our vessel had neglected this duty, probably owing to the irregular hours of the last night on board. Moreover, it was the first word addressed to myself, and I should have felt bound to accept the offer if it had been unnecessary in the fullest sense. I commenced conversation with the boy. He was very young. I summoned to my aid my best Scotch for the occasion. His name was Willie Gordon, and he told me his widowed mother was a washerwoman, that he had a number of brothers and sisters younger than himself, that his earnings amounted to about half a crown a week, and that between him and his mother they managed to earn ten shillings in that time. “And how do you live, Willie?” “Reel weel,” replied the boy, with the cheeriest of voices. “And now, Willie,” I said, when I had paid him his fee, “it is many years since I have been here. I want to see the places of greatest interest in Glasgow.” “Ou, sir,” he promptly said, “ye shuld gang ta see Corbett’s eatin hoose.” “Do you know the way there?” I asked. “Fine, sir. I ken the way vary weel. I’ll gang wi ye tae the door,” and his face looked even happier than before. I accepted his guidance, and, if my recollection is correct, the place was in Jamaica street. The boy walked by my side carrying his brushes and box, and chatted gaily of himself and his life. Apparently no prince could be happier. We reached the renowned establishment he had named. It was a species of home which a benevolent citizen had instituted, on the same principle on which the coffee taverns are now established: to furnish an early hot cup of tea or coffee to men going to work, to offer some other refreshment than whiskey and beer, to give a meal at cost price with all the comfort possible with cleanliness good cheer and airy rooms, warm in winter. After some hesitation, and persuasion on my part, Willie shyly entered with me. The menu was on the wall. Porridge and milk one penny, large cup of coffee one penny, bread and butter, thick, one penny, eggs and toast one penny, &c., &c.; everything, one penny. I cannot say that I give a precise account of what appeared, but it was essentially as I describe it. We were a little early even for that establishment, so Willie and I sat down. The buxom matron gave us some account of the place and its doings. The Duke of Argyle had dined with her a few days before. She told us the establishment was well patronized and prosperous. The time soon came for our order, for we were the first to be served. I set forth what I required for myself, and that was no light breakfast, as I had a sea appetite, sharpened by the early morning walk. I directed the attendant to bring the same order in double proportions for the boy, so that we had a splendid déjeuner. My little companion was in ecstasies. Never was hospitality bestowed on a more grateful recipient. He would not leave me, and he seemed bound to make a morning of it, and from time to time graciously