had occasion to undertake a sea voyage. I had to go out on business
to Canada, and embarked one fine Thursday at Liverpool. One of the
first things you do on board an ocean steamer is to find your
allotted place at table, and the names, etc, of your companions. I
soon found mine, and discovered with a pang that I was six seats
from the Captain at the side, between a lady and her daughter I had
already met at the North-Western Hotel and did not like, and
opposite to the Bishop of Saskabasquia, his wife and sister and
three children. There was no help for it, I must endure the placid
small talk, the clerical platitudes, the intolerable intolerance
born of a deathless bigotry that would emanate from my _vis-a-vis_.
What a fuss they made over him, too! Only a Colonial Bishop after all,
but when we were all at the wharf, ready to get into the tender, we
were kept waiting--we the more insignificant portion of the
passengers, mercantile and so on--till "my lord" and his family,
nine in number, were safely handed up, with boys and bundles and
baggage of every description.
The Bishop himself was a tall thin man, rather priestly in aspect
and careworn. Mrs. Saskabasquia as I called her all through the
voyage and the seven children--seven little Saskabasquians--and
Miss Saskabasquia, the aunt, were all merry enough it seemed though
dressed in the most unearthly costumes I had ever seen. Where they
had been procured I could not imagine, but they appeared to be made
of different kinds of canvas, flannel shirting, corduroy, knitted
wool and blankets. Of course we all mustered at the lunch table that
first day, people always do, and affect great brightness and
hysterical intellectuality and large appetites. I took my seat with
a resigned air. There was not a single pretty girl on board. There
were plenty of children, but I did not care much for the society of
children. The lady and her daughter between whom I sat, presumably
to hand them the dishes, did not like me any better than I liked them.
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