"Let me carry the child across for you," said Mr. George.
So saying he took the child up gently, but quickly, in his arms, and watching a momentary opening in the stream of carriages, he pressed through, the servant girl following him. He set the boy down upon the sidewalk. The girl said that she was very much obliged to him, indeed; and then Mr. George went on.
Just then a small and ragged boy held out his hand, and with a most woe-begone expression of countenance and a piteous tone of voice, begged Mr. George to give him a few pennies, to keep him from starving. Mr. George took no notice of him, but passed on. A moment afterward he turned round to look at the boy again. He saw him take a top out of his pocket, and go to spinning it upon the sidewalk, and then, suddenly seeing some other boys, the young rogue caught up his top and ran after them with shouts of great hilarity and glee. He was an impostor; Mr. George knew this when he refused to give him any money.
Mr. George then went on again. He came, at length, to the great gates which led to the pier. There was a man just within the gate, walking to and fro, near the door of a sort of office, or lodge, which he kept there. Mr. George attempted to open the gate.
"Please show your ticket, sir," said he.
Mr. George took out his ticket and gave it to the porter, whereupon the porter opened the gate and let him in.
Mr. George found himself under an enormous roof, which spread itself like a vast canopy over his head, and extended from side to side across the pier. Under this vast shed laborers were wheeling boxes and bales of merchandise to and fro, while small steam engines of curious forms and incessant activity were at work hoisting coal on board the ships from lighters alongside, and in other similar operations. There were two monstrous steamships lying at this pier, one on each side. Mr. George turned toward the one on the left. There was a long flight of steps leading up from the pier to the decks of this ship. It was formed by a staging, which extended from the pier to the bulwarks of the ship, like a stair-case, with a railing on each side. Mr. George ascended these steps to the bulwarks, and thence descended by a short flight of steps to the deck itself, and then went along the deck till he came to the door leading to the cabins.
He found within quite a number of cabins, arranged on different floors, like the different stories of a house. These cabins were very resplendent with gilding and carving, and were adorned with curtains and mirrors on every side. They presented to Mr. George, as he walked through them, a very imposing spectacle. Along the sides of them were a great many little bed rooms, called state rooms. These state rooms were all very beautifully finished, and were furnished with every convenience which passengers could require. Mr. George selected two of these state rooms. They were two that were adjoining to each other, and they were connected by a door. There were two beds, or rather bed places, in each state room, one above the other. Mr. George chose the lower berth in one state room for Rollo, and the lower one in the next state room for Jane. When he had chosen the berths in this manner, he wrote the name of each of the children on a card, and then pinned the cards up upon the curtains of the respective berths.
"There!" said he. "That is all right. Now perhaps some lady will take the other berth in Jane's room, and some gentleman that in Rollo's. Then they will both have company in their rooms. Otherwise I must find somebody to take care of them both."
Mr. George then left the ship and went back to the office in Wall Street, to engage the berths and pay the passage money. The office was spacious and handsomely furnished, and there were several clerks in it writing at desks. There were two rooms, and in the back room was a table, with large plans of the ship upon it, on which all the cabins and state rooms of the several decks were represented in their proper positions. The names of the various passengers that had engaged passage in the ship were written in the several state rooms which they had chosen. The clerk wrote the names, Master Holiday and Miss Holiday, in the state rooms which Mr. George pointed out to him, and, when he had done so, Mr. George looked over all the other names that had been written in before, to see if there were any persons whom he knew among them. To his great gratification he found that there were several such.
"Yes," said he, as he rose up from the examination of the plan, "there are several gentlemen there who will be very ready, under the circumstances of the case, to do Mr. Holiday the favor of looking after his children during the voyage."
Being thus, in a measure, relieved of all solicitude, Mr. George walked about the room a few minutes, examining the pictures of the several steamers of the line which were hanging on the walls, and then went away.
Chapter II.
The Embarkation
The time fixed for the sailing of the steamer was on Tuesday morning; and Mr. George, in order to have time to communicate with some of the gentlemen to whose care he intended to intrust the two children, planned his journey to New York so as to arrive there in good season on Monday. He supposed that he should be able, without any difficulty, to find one or the other of them in the afternoon or evening of that day.
"And if worst comes to the worst," added he to himself, in his reflections on the subject, "I can certainly find them at the ship, by going on board an hour or two before she sails, and watching the plank as the passengers come up from the pier."
Worst did come to the worst, it seems; for when Mr. George came home at nine o'clock in the evening, on Monday, and Rollo came up to him very eagerly in the parlor of the boarding house, to ask him whom he had found to take charge of them, he was forced to confess that he had not found any one.
"I am glad of it!" exclaimed Rollo, joyfully. "I am glad of it! I like it a great deal better to take care of ourselves."
He then began dancing about the room, and finally ran off in great glee, to inform Jane of the prospect before them. Rollo was very ambitious of being considered a man.
He found Jane sitting on the stairs with another child of her own age, that she had become acquainted with at the boarding house; for it was at a boarding house, and not at a hotel, that Mr. George had taken lodgings for his party. This child's name was Lottie; that is, she was commonly called Lottie, though her real name was Charlotte. She was a beautiful child, with beaming black eyes, a radiant face, and dark glossy curls of hair hanging down upon her neck. Jane and Lottie were playing together in a sort of recess at a landing of the stairs, where there was a sofa and a window. They had tiger and the cage with them. The door was open and tiger was playing about the cage, going in and out at her pleasure.
"Jane," said Rollo, "uncle George cannot find any body to take care of you, and so I am going to take care of you."
Jane did not answer.
"Are you going to England?" asked Lottie.
"Yes," replied Jane, mournfully; "and there is nobody to go with us, to take care of us."
"I went to England once," said Lottie.
"Did you?" asked Jane; "and did you go across the Atlantic Ocean?"
"Yes," said Lottie.
"Of course she did," said Rollo; "there is no other way."
"And how did you get along?" said Jane.
"O, very well," said Lottie; "we had a very good time playing about the decks and cabins."
Jane felt somewhat reassured by these declarations of Lottie, and she even began to think that if there was nothing to be done in crossing the Atlantic but to play about the decks and cabins all the way, there was a possibility that Rollo might be able to take care of her.
"Yes," said Lottie.
"Of course she did," said Rollo; "there is no other way."
"And how did you get along?" said Jane.
"O, very well," said Lottie; "we had a very good time playing about the decks and cabins."
Jane felt somewhat reassured by these declarations of Lottie, and she even began to think that if there was nothing to be done in crossing the Atlantic but to play about the decks and cabins all the way, there was a possibility that Rollo might be able to take care of her.
"My uncle is going on a voyage, too, to-morrow," added Lottie.
"What uncle?" asked Jane.
"My uncle Thomas," said Lottie. "He lives in this house. He is packing up his trunk now. He is going to Charleston. I wish I were going with him."
"Do you like to go to sea?" asked Jane.
"Yes," said Lottie, "pretty well. I like to see the sailors climb up the masts and rigging; and I like the cabins, because there are so many sofas in them, and so many places to hide."
Little Jane felt much less uneasiness at the idea of going to sea after hearing Lottie give such favorable accounts of her own experience. Still she was not entirely satisfied. As for Rollo, his eagerness to go independent of all supervision did not arise wholly from vanity and presumption. He was now twelve years of age, and that is an age which fairly qualifies a boy to bear some considerable burdens of responsibility and duty. At any rate, it is an age at which it ought to be expected that the powers and characteristics of manhood should, at least, begin to be developed. It is right, therefore, that a boy at that age should begin to feel something like a man, and to desire that opportunities should arise for exercising the powers which he finds thus developing themselves and growing stronger every day within him.
The fact that Lottie's uncle Thomas was going to embark for Charleston on the same day that had been fixed for Rollo's embarkation for Europe might seem at first view a very unimportant circumstance. It happened, however, that it led, in fact, to very serious consequences. The case was this. It is necessary, however, first to explain, for the benefit of those readers of this book who may never have had opportunities to become acquainted with the usages of great cities, that there are two separate systems in use in such cities for the transportation respectively of baggage, and of persons, from place to place. For baggage and parcels, there are what are called expresses. The owners of these expresses have offices in various parts of the city, where books are kept, in which a person may go and have an entry made of any trunk, or bag, or other package which he may wish to have conveyed to any place. He enters in the book what the parcel is, where it is, and where he wishes to have it taken. The express man then, who has a great number of wagons employed for this purpose, sends for the parcel by the first wagon that comes in.
For persons who wish to be conveyed from place to place, there are carriages all the time standing at certain points by the sides of the streets, ready for any one who calls them, and there are also stables where carriages are always in readiness. Now, it so happened that Lottie's uncle Thomas had concluded to have his trunk taken down to the Charleston ship by the express, intending to walk to the pier himself from his office, which was in the lower part of the city not far from the pier where his ship was lying. So he went to an express office, and there, at his dictation, the clerk made the following entry in his book:
Trunk at 780 Broadway, to steamer Carolina, Pier No. 4 North River. To-morrow, at half past nine o'clock.
On the other hand, Mr. George, as he required a carriage to take the children down, did not go to the express office at all. He intended to take their trunk on the carriage. So he went to the stable, and there, at his dictation, the clerk made on the book there the following entry:
Carriage at 780 Broadway. To-morrow, at half past nine o'clock.
In accordance with this arrangement, therefore, a little after nine o'clock both the trunks were got ready at the boarding house, each in its own room. The chambermaid in Rollo's room, when she saw that the trunk was ready, offered to carry it down, which, as she was a good strong Irish girl, she could very easily do. She accordingly took it up in her arms and carried it down stairs to the front entry, and put it down near the door. One of the waiters of the house was standing by when she did this.
"What is that, Mary?" said he.
"It is a trunk to go to the steamer," said Mary. "There is a man coming for it pretty soon."
She meant, of course, that it was to go to the Liverpool steamer, and the man who was to come for it was the driver of the carriage that Mr. George had engaged. She knew nothing about any other trunk, as the room which Lottie's uncle occupied was attended by another chambermaid.
Mary, having deposited the trunk in its place, returned up stairs, to assist in getting Rollo and Jane ready. A moment afterward the express man, whom Lottie's uncle had sent for his trunk, rang the door bell. The waiter opened the door.
"I came for a trunk," said the man, "to take to the steamer."
"Yes," said the waiter. "Here it is, all ready. They have just brought it down."
So the express man took up the trunk, and carrying it out, put it on his wagon; then, mounting on his seat, he drove away.
Five minutes afterward, the carriage which Mr. George had engaged arrived at the door. Mr. George and the children came down the stairs. Mr. George, as soon as he reached the lower hall, inquired,
"Where is the trunk?"
"The man has taken it, sir," said he.
"Ah, he has, has he? That is all right."
So Mr. George and the children got into the carriage, the driver holding the door open for them as they did so. As the driver was about to shut the door, Mr. George said,
"Steamer Pacific, foot of Canal Street."
The driver, taking this for his direction, mounted his box, and drove rapidly away.
When the party arrived at the gates which led to the pier, they found a great concourse of people and a throng of carts and carriages blocking up the way. The great gate was open, and a stream of carriages containing passengers, and of carts and express wagons conveying baggage, was pouring in. Mr. George's carriage was admitted, at length, in its turn, and drove on until it came opposite the long stairway which led on board the ship. Here it stopped, and Mr. George and the children got out.
"Where is the trunk?" said Mr. George, looking before and behind the carriage. "Why, where is the trunk? You have lost the trunk off of the carriage, driver, in coming down."
"No, sir," said the driver; "there was no trunk."
"There certainly was," said Mr. George; "and they told me that you had put it on."
"No, sir," said the driver. "This is the first time I have heard any thing about any trunk."
Mr. George was now quite seriously alarmed. He looked about this way and that, and did not seem to know what to do. In the mean time the line of carriages from behind pressed on, and the drivers of them began to call out to clear the way. Mr. George found himself compelled to decide upon something very promptly.
"Drive over to the other side of the pier," said he, "and wait there till I come."
Then, taking the two children by the hand, he began to lead them up the long plank by which the people were going on board.
Mr. George said nothing, but continued to lead the children along, the throng before and behind them being so dense that they could not see at all where they were going. When they reached the top of the stairway, they descended by a few steps, and so came on board. The children then found themselves moving along what seemed a narrow passage way, amid crowds of people, until at length they came to a short and steep flight of steps, which led up to what seemed to Jane a sort of a roof. The balustrade, or what served as balustrade for these steps, was made of rope, and painted green. By help of this rope, and by some lifting on the part of Mr. George, Rollo and Jane succeeded in getting up, and, at length, found themselves in a place where they could see.