Part 17 (1/2)
The chief officer, the Scotch-faced man I have before written of, sat at the foot of the table, slowly and soberly eating.
”It would be strange, sir,” said I, addressing him, ”if we do not hereabout speedily fall in with something homeward bound.”
”I would, sir,” he answered, with a broad Scotch accent.
”Yet not so strange, Mr. M'Cosh,” said a pa.s.senger, sitting opposite to me, ”if you come to consider how wide the sea is here.”
”Well, perhaps not so strange either,” said Mr. M'Cosh, in his sawdusty voice, with his mouth full.
”Should you pa.s.s a steamer at night,” said I, ”would you stop and hail her?”
He reflected, and then said, he ”thocht not.”
”Then our opportunities for getting home must be limited to daylight?”
said I.
This seemed too obvious to him, I suppose, to need a response.
”Are you in a very great hurry, Mr. Barclay, to get home?” exclaimed a pa.s.senger, with a slight cast in his eye that gave a turn of humour to his face.
”Why, yes,” I answered, with a glance at Grace, who was eating quietly at my side, seldom looking up, though she was as much stared at, even after all these hours, as decent manners would permit. ”You will please remember that we are without luggage.”
”Eh, but that is to be managed, I think. There are many of us here of both s.e.xes,” continued the gentleman with the cast in his eye, sending a squint along the row of people on either side of the table. ”You should see New Zealand, sir. The country abounds with fine and n.o.ble prospects, and I do not think,” he added, with a smile, ”that you will find occasion to complain of a want of hospitality.”
”I am greatly obliged,” said I, giving him a bow; ”but New Zealand is a little distant for the moment.”
The subject of New Zealand was now, however, started, and the conversation on its harbours, revenue, political parties, debts, prospects, and the like, was exceedingly animated, and lasted pretty nearly through the dinner. Though Grace and I were seated at the foremost end of the table, removed nearly by the whole length of it from the captain, I was sensible that this talk to those near him mainly concerned us. He had, as I have said, Mrs. Barstow on one hand, and on the other sat the lady with the thin lips and sausage curls. I would notice him turn first to one, then to the other, his round sea-coloured face broadened by an arch knowing smile; then Mrs. Barstow would look at us; then the lady with the thin lips would stretch her neck to take a peep down the line in which we sat; others would also look, smirk a bit, and address themselves, with amused faces, in a low voice to Captain Parsons.
All this was not so marked as to be offensive, or even embarra.s.sing, but it was a very noticeable thing, and I whispered to Grace that we seemed to form the sole theme of conversation at the captain's end.
”What can they be talking about?” said I. ”I hope they are not plotting to carry us to New Zealand.”
”You would not permit it!” she exclaimed, giving me an eager, alarmed look.
”No,” said I, ”it is too far off. Were it Madeira now--it may come to Madeira yet; but the pity of it is, my sweet,” said I, low in her ear, ”we are not married, otherwise we might call this trip our honeymoon, and make a really big thing of it by going the whole way to New Zealand.”
She coloured and was silent, afraid, I think, of my being overheard, for my spirits were now as good as they were yesterday wretched, and whenever I felt happy I had a trick of talking rather loud.
When dinner was over we went on deck. Mrs. Barstow and the thin-lipped lady carried off Grace for a stroll up and down the planks, and I joined a few of the gentlemen pa.s.sengers on the quarter-deck to smoke a cigar one of them gave me. There was a fine breeze out of the east, and the s.h.i.+p, with yards nearly square, was sliding and rolling stately along her course at some six or seven miles in the hour. The west was flushed with red, but a few stars were trembling in the airy dimness of the evening blue over the stern, and in the south was the young moon, a pale curl, but gathering from the clearness of the atmosphere a promise of radiance enough later on to touch the sea with silver under it and fling a gleam of her own upon our soaring sails.
I had almost finished my cigar--two bells, seven o'clock had not long been struck--when one of the stewards came out of the saloon, and approaching me exclaimed:
”Captain Parson's compliments, sir, and he'll be glad to see you in his cabin if you can spare him a few minutes.”
”With pleasure,” I answered, flinging the end of my cigar overboard, instantly concluding that he wished to see me privately to arrange about terms and accommodation whilst Grace and I remained with him.
CHAPTER X