In Appearance He Was Like An Imbecile
Henry The Third Of France.
The Scotsman, though perhaps as big an
ass, was not so dead of heart; and I have only bracketed them
together because they were fast friends, and disgraced themselves
equally by their conduct at the table.
Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly-married
couple, devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how they
had first seen each other years ago at a preparatory school, and
that very afternoon he had carried her books home for her. I do
not know if this story will be plain to southern readers; but to me
it recalls many a school idyll, with wrathful swains of eight and
nine confronting each other stride-legs, flushed with jealousy; for
to carry home a young lady's books was both a delicate attention
and a privilege.
Then there was an old lady, or indeed I am not sure that she was as
much old as antiquated and strangely out of place, who had left her
husband, and was travelling all the way to Kansas by herself. We
had to take her own word that she was married; for it was sorely
contradicted by the testimony of her appearance. Nature seemed to
have sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her
hair was incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought,
should be a man of saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence.
She was ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty
tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength
of her endeavour was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow
time till she should reach New York. They had heard reports, her
husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between
these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had
seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good
thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in
studying the watch. Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it
run down. It was inscribed on her harmless mind in letters of
adamant that the hands of a watch must never be turned backwards;
and so it behoved her to lie in wait for the exact moment ere she
started it again. When she imagined this was about due, she sought
out one of the young second-cabin Scotsmen, who was embarked on the
same experiment as herself and had hitherto been less neglectful.
She was in quest of two o'clock; and when she learned it was
already seven on the shores of Clyde, she lifted up her voice and
cried 'Gravy!' I had not heard this innocent expletive since I was
a young child; and I suppose it must have been the same with the
other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed our fill.
Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It
would be difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he
mine, during the voyage.
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