He had determined to live henceforth on biscuit; and when,
two months later, he should return to England, to make the passage by
saloon. The second cabin, after due inquiry, he scouted as another
edition of the steerage.
He spoke apologetically of his emotion when ill. 'Ye see, I had no
call to be here,' said he; 'and I thought it was by with me last
night. I've a good house at home, and plenty to nurse me, and I had
no real call to leave them.' Speaking of the attentions he had
received from his shipmates generally, 'they were all so kind,' he
said, 'that there's none to mention.' And except in so far as I
might share in this, he troubled me with no reference to my services.
But what affected me in the most lively manner was the wealth of this
day-labourer, paying a two months' pleasure visit to the States, and
preparing to return in the saloon, and the new testimony rendered by
his story, not so much to the horrors of the steerage as to the
habitual comfort of the working classes. One foggy, frosty December
evening, I encountered on Liberton Hill, near Edinburgh, an Irish
labourer trudging homeward from the fields.
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