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.
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