CHAPTER XXIX
“ONCE MORE UPON THE WATERS”
Saturday, the twenty-eighth of May, was a very fine day. As early as seven in the morning the hacks engaged to take our travelers to the steamer were standing before the ladies’ entrance of the Metropolitan Hotel.
Their luggage had been sent aboard ship on the day before.
A little after seven the whole party came down and entered the carriages, and were driven off toward the pier where the Persia lay.
They arrived amid the bustle and confusion that always attends the sailing of an ocean steamer—crowds of carriages and drags of all sorts; crowds of men, women and children of all sorts; crowds of passengers going on; crowds of friends seeing them off; here and there a heartrending parting; a bedlam of sights; a babel of sounds, deafening noises, suffocating scents.
Such was the scene on the pier and such was the scene on the deck when Mr. Force had succeeded in navigating his party from the first to the last.
“For Heaven’s sake keep close together! Are we all here?” he anxiously inquired.
“All!” answered a score of voices.
“Where’s that dog?”
“Here, papa. I have him by the collar,” answered Wynnette.
“Keep hold of him, then. And sit down, all of you, and be quiet until this crowd leaves the deck. We cannot attempt to get to our staterooms at present.”
His party complied with this order.
“All ashore!” called out a voice in authority.
The words were magical.
Hurried embraces; laughing good-bys; weeping good-bys; fervent God bless yous; agonized partings; and then a pressure over the gang plank to the pier.
Five minutes later and the valedictory gun was fired, and the Persia stood out to sea.
“Oh,” said little Elva, as she observed the sad faces of some passengers who were leaning over the sides of the ship and waving handkerchiefs to friends on the pier—“oh, I am glad we are all going together and have not left any one behind to cry after—no, not even our dog.”
A little later on our passengers sought their staterooms below. Dickon—than whom no blacker boy ever was born—took the dog to that part of the ship for such four-footed passengers made and provided, and then went to look up his own berth in the second cabin.
Never was finer weather, a clearer sky, a calmer sea, or a swifter voyage than blessed the Persia, which sailed on that Saturday morning of May 28th.
Only those of the most bilious temperaments suffered from seasickness. None of our party were affected.
All the passengers rejoiced at the prosperity of the voyage—all except Wynnette, who longed to see a storm at sea.
She was disgusted.
“I had just as lief travel in a canal boat!” she growled, when they were about halfway across the Atlantic.
She was bound to be disappointed to the last. The voyage was continued in the finest early summer weather, until in the dead of a moonlight night the steamer anchored in the Cove of Cork.
Early the next morning all the passengers were out on deck to see the beautiful bay with its lovely hilly shores, and its picturesque little port of Queenstown.
The ship remained at anchor only long enough to deliver mails and freight, and then she put to sea again and headed for the mouth of the Mersey.
Wynnette, Elva and Rosemary remained on deck all day feasting their eyes on the shores of England, the isles of the channel, and later on the green banks of the Mersey with its pretty towns and villages, castles and cottages.
Early in the afternoon the ship reached Liverpool.
When the bustle of the debarkation and the nuisance of the custom house was over, and Mr. Force was handing the ladies of his party into a capacious carriage to convey them to the Adelphi Hotel, he inquired:
“Well, shall we take rooms there for the night, or only supper, and leave by the evening express for Cumberland?”
“Oh, let us go on, if you please! What time does our train leave?” inquired Mrs. Force.
“Ten-fifty.”
“Then we can reach Nethermost, the nearest station to Enderby Castle, by morning. If you telegraph to Enderby my brother will send carriages there to meet us.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Force, as he shut the carriage door and gave the coachman the address to which he was to drive.
Mr. Force then sent his two servants with the dog and the lighter luggage in another conveyance after his family, while he and Leonidas Force attended to the duty of having their trunks transferred from the custom house to the Lime Street Railroad Station.
An hour after this the whole family were gathered around the tea table in their private parlor at the Adelphi. The dog, stretched on a Russian rug before the sofa, was making himself at home.
“What do you think of all this, Rosie?” kindly inquired Mr. Force of little Rosemary Hedge.
“I—I—feel as if I were reading it all in a novel by Aunt Sukey’s evening fire at Grove Hill,” replied the quaint little creature.
“And you, Elva?”
“Oh, I feel so very much at home, as if I had come back from somewhere to grandmother’s house. A very strange, pleasant feeling of old familiarity,” said weird little Elva.
“As for me,” said Wynnette, “I see ghosts!”
“Ghosts!” exclaimed all the company in chorus.
“Yes, ghosts! ‘This isle is full of spirits.’ I see ghosts! All sorts of ghosts! Ghosts of savages in skins! These must be spirits of the ancient Britons! Ghosts of men in armor! These must be the medieval knights and men-at-arms! Ghosts of gentlemen in velvet and satin tunic and lace collars and pointed shoes! These must be the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth’s time! And now come the hideous powdered wigs, broad-bottomed coats, and long silk stockings of——Say, papa! give me some of those strawberries, or I shall see his Satanic majesty presently.”
Mr. Force gravely passed along the cut-glass bowl of the luscious fruit.
Immediately after supper the travelers left the hotel for the railway station.
There Abel Force engaged a whole compartment for his family, and took tickets in the second-class carriage for his two servants.
“And how can I carry a valuable dog?” inquired the squire of the guard.
“Take him in your own compartment, if you like, sir,” replied that officer, staring a little.
Joshua didn’t wait for permission, but jumped into the carriage after Wynnette.
The three other ladies followed. Last of all Abel Force and Le entered and took their seats, though the train was not yet quite ready to start.
Compartments on English trains differ from those on our own, in being entirely separated by a solid partition from other compartments on the same carriage, and they are thereby quite private for those who engage a whole one. This compartment taken by the Forces resembled the inside of a large coach, having eight cushioned seats, four being in front and four behind.
The train started at ten-fifty, and whirled on through the twilight of the summer night, which in England never seems to grow quite dark.
At the first station at which the train stopped, the guard came along and put his head into the window.
“Tickets, please, sir.”
Mr. Force handed over seven tickets for his party.
Guard counted them, and touched his hat.
“Dog ticket, please, sir.”
“What?” demanded the astonished squire.
“Dog ticket, please, sir.”
“Dog ticket? I have none. Didn’t know one would be required. Never heard of such a thing. But I will pay his fare.”
“Couldn’t take it, sir. ’Gainst the rules.”
“Then what shall I do?” exclaimed the distressed squire.
“Uncle, I will jump out and buy a dog ticket at the station here,” said Le; and without waiting a second he sprang from the carriage and vanished into the ticket office.
“Look sharp, young gent, or you’ll be left. Train starts again in two minutes,” called the guard.
Le did look sharp, and the next minute reappeared, flourishing the prize.
He jumped in, and the train moved on.
Everybody went to sleep except Wynnette, who went off into a waking dream, and saw the ghosts of all her ancestors, from the Druids down, pass in procession before her. A weird, unreal, magical night journey this seemed to the travelers. The night express stopped at fewer stations than any other train of the twenty-four hours.
Whenever it did stop, our passengers waked up and looked out upon the strange and beautiful land—old, but always new—dotted with its country towns and villages, its castles, farmhouses and cottages, dimly seen in the soft haze of the summer night, where evening and morning twilight seemed to meet so that it was never dark.
On the whole, it was a pleasant, charming journey, the last few miles being along the rough and rocky coast. The dawn was reddening in the east, and the northern morning air felt fresh and invigorating, when the train stopped at Nethermost, a picturesque little hamlet built up and down the sides of the cliff wherever there was room for a sea-bird’s nest.
“Oh, what a charming place!” exclaimed Rosemary, looking out upon it. The line of railway ran along under the cliff, and the little station was built against the rocks.
The guard came and opened the door.
Mr. Force jumped off, and then handed out the ladies of his party, one by one.
The porters were at the same time throwing off their luggage.
In another minute the train had moved on, and the travelers were left standing on the platform, with the sea on the west, the cliffs on the east, and the hamlet of Nethermost scattered at random on the sides of the latter.
“There are the carriages,” said Mr. Force, as he described three vehicles grouped together at a short distance.
At the same time a servant in livery approached, touched his hat, and respectfully inquired:
“Party for Enderby Castle, sir?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Force.
“This way, if you please, sir.”