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- 4353
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
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- 4290
- text
- To the curious questions of the sailors concerning who she was, the
steward used to answer, that she was the daughter of one of the
Liverpool dock-masters, who, for the benefit of her health and the
improvement of her mind, had sent her out to America in the Highlander,
under the captain’s charge, who was his particular friend; and that now
the young lady was returning home from her tour.
And truly the captain proved an attentive father to her, and often
promenaded with her hanging on his arm, past the forlorn bearer of
secret dispatches, who would look up now and then out of his reveries,
and cast a furtive glance of wonder, as if he thought the captain was
audacious.
Considering his beautiful ward, I thought the captain behaved
ungallantly, to say the least, in availing himself of the opportunity
of her charming society, to wear out his remaining old clothes; for no
gentleman ever pretends to save his best coat when a lady is in the
case; indeed, he generally thirsts for a chance to abase it, by
converting it into a pontoon over a puddle, like Sir Walter Raleigh,
that the ladies may not soil the soles of their dainty slippers. But
this Captain Riga was no Raleigh, and hardly any sort of a true
gentleman whatever, as I have formerly declared. Yet, perhaps, he might
have worn his old clothes in this instance, for the express purpose of
proving, by his disdain for the toilet, that he was nothing but the
young lady’s guardian; for many guardians do not care one fig how
shabby they look.
But for all this, the passage out was one long paternal sort of a
shabby flirtation between this hoydenish nymph and the ill-dressed
captain. And surely, if her good mother, were she living, could have
seen this young lady, she would have given her an endless lecture for
her conduct, and a copy of Mrs. Ellis’s Daughters of England to read
and digest. I shall say no more of this anonymous nymph; only, that
when we arrived at Liverpool, she issued from her cabin in a richly
embroidered silk dress, and lace hat and veil, and a sort of Chinese
umbrella or parasol, which one of the sailors declared “spandangalous;”
and the captain followed after in his best broadcloth and beaver, with
a gold-headed cane; and away they went in a carriage, and that was the
last of her; I hope she is well and happy now; but I have some
misgivings.
It now remains to speak of the steerage passengers. There were not more
than twenty or thirty of them, mostly mechanics, returning home, after
a prosperous stay in America, to escort their wives and families back.
These were the only occupants of the steerage that I ever knew of; till
early one morning, in the gray dawn, when we made Cape Clear, the south
point of Ireland, the apparition of a tall Irishman, in a shabby shirt
of bed-ticking, emerged from the fore hatchway, and stood leaning on
the rail, looking landward with a fixed, reminiscent expression, and
diligently scratching its back with both hands. We all started at the
sight, for no one had ever seen the apparition before; and when we
remembered that it must have been burrowing all the passage down in its
bunk, the only probable reason of its so manipulating its back became
shockingly obvious.
I had almost forgotten another passenger of ours, a little boy not four
feet high, an English lad, who, when we were about forty-eight hours
from New York, suddenly appeared on deck, asking for something to eat.
It seems he was the son of a carpenter, a widower, with this only
child, who had gone out to America in the Highlander some six months
previous, where he fell to drinking, and soon died, leaving the boy a
friendless orphan in a foreign land.
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