covered and brought to light. At dinner everybody drank wine. The steward was ordered to serve them first. Their opinion was asked by everybody on all possible occasions, and all regretted such a rich hoax had not been put in operation at an earlier period. CHAPTER XIX. BUT now this happy voyage was over; for happy it was to all but the sad mother and father, who, however, had found such substantial friends in Rivington and Lennox as were likely to guard them from future want. Harry was in a state of exquisite excitement, more like an enchanting dream than sober reality, and opened as his heart was by these novel and delicious sensations, he gave vent to his feelings in all the eloquence of his nature, to the constant admiration and amusement of his more quiet friends the Rivingtons. These amiable people took extreme delight in his freshness of character, his intelligence and nobleness of disposition, which could never appear to more advantage. With a sort of incredulous rapture, he beheld at last that little bit of blue, the first dim herald of the mighty old Europe. A fine breeze carried them swiftly along up the Channel, over water now smooth as a summer lake. The passengers appeared in new clothes and with shaved faces. The sky was bright, the air balmy. Everybody was animated. The very turkeys, and hens, and sheep, had a contented look; the very cock began to reassume his magisterial bearing (which, at one or two windy points of the passage, had been rather laid aside !). Ah, what is there on this earth so delightful as the American's first approach to England, his venerable and beloved mother? If it may be said without irreverence, it more resembles the sensations of a blessed spirit which has just passed the dark valley of the shadow of death, and rises into the enchantment of a new and brighter existence. The limpid, idle water has lost all its terrors, and the threatening wind sinks from a sublime and despotic fiend into the softest and sweetest of playful angels, and weeds and branches are seen floating around, lately washed from the near shore, and Mother Carey's chickens have long since disappeared with the flying froth of the tumbling billows, and land birds come singing in gay flocks from the yet unseen European groves, and English and French porpoises are tumbling together in amity, and a delicious, sunshiny atmosphere of hope and happiness wafts onward the good ship, after all her dangers, over the surface of the beautiful and lucid sea. Now do you behold all sorts of vessels passing you outward bound, and fishing-smacks lie scattered around, and give a supply of fresh fish to add to breakfasts and suppers which already seem perfect, and the pilot, a silent, weather-beaten English face, comes on board with newspapers, and your bewildered and half-incredulous fellowpassengers, on learning that the breeze is fair for landing that very afternoon, appear newly clad in still more fine clothes, so that you scarcely know them. Everything speaks the end of the mighty traverse. The poor captain looks like an ex-monarch. He who was regarded at sea with such profound veneration, the oracle of that mysterious and awful world, now stands with his hands in his pantaloon's pockets, unquestioned, uncared for, an actor off the stage. Harry was giddy with delight as he beheld, at last, the soft, sweet shore close at his side, and heard the new (and yet so old!) names of Dorset, Cornwall, Devonshire, Cowes, and Leamington, for they were gliding up to Portsmouth. Scenes, bright as if just from the easel, met his eyes. Old castles covered with ivy, antique towns, orchards and roads, gardens and hills, vales and creeks, peaceful cot and opulent palace, foliage and flowers, rock and hill, steeped in shadow and sunshine, all soft as a vision, all harmonious as music, all beautiful and pure as Heaven itself; and the land odours were upon the air, and the land sounds came floating to his ear, the barking of a dog, the lowing of a cow, and the ringing of a bell. "Oh!" exclaimed he, as Miss Rivington stood on one side of him and her father on the other, answering his questions, but not interrupting his enchantment by unbidden information, for they felt he was enjoying a rare sensation, perhaps granted only once or twice in a lifetime. "Oh," cried he, while his handsome face was all lighted with soul, "this is ecstasy. This it is to travel; and I have . crossed the Atlantic; I am looking on England! England! beautiful, merry, brave, time-worn, warlike, intellectual, immortal England!" 66 Yes, there she is," said Miss Rivington, and her own eyes, if not wet, were not quite dry; "there's my country." "I protest," said Harry, "that the spirits of the past seem hovering around me in the air and welcoming me to these renowned and hallowed shores. King and queen, fierce noble and unshrinking commoner, poet and statesman, orator and author, Shakspeare and Scott, Charles and Cromwell, Burke and Chatham, Elizabeth and Mary, the past and the present, all crowding together in my mind. Hail! great parent! Hail! England!" If these rhapsodies read rather wild on shore, they had no such appearance in the high-wrought excitement which reigned around him, nor did the Rivingtons see in them other than the manifestations of a clever, ingenuous, and very warm-hearted young man under circumstances well-calculated to awaken lively emotions. The ship at length came to anchor off the town of Portsmouth. The usual visit of the government officer was made, a pretty, yacht-like boat was sent by the packet agent to bring the passengers ashore, and Harry, with a thrill, at length placed his foot on English ground. His pleasure was a little dampened by the necessary separation from the Rivingtons, who said they had friends in Portsmouth, where they should first repair; that they might possibly go up to London without delay. Rivington, on parting with him on the quay, shook him warmly by the hand. His daughter, who, without the least idea of love on either side, had learned to entertain for him a sincere friendship, did the same. -- "You will find me at No. Grosvenor-street," said Rivington; come and see me when you get in town.” And so they parted. The doctor and his friend were not visible after landing. The unfortunate parents were not forgotten by Harry in his whirl of delightful sensations. He inquired particularly where they were going to put up, what their prospects were, and what they were going to do. He found he had been, however, anticipated by Rivington, who, besides a rather ample donation of glittering English gold, had given them his address in London, with a promise to do something for them. On their way up from the ship he requested them to stop with him into a book-store, where, remembering the scene in the steerage cabin, he bought a plain, well-printed Bible and prayer-book, and presented them to his unfortunate protegée. With tears in their eyes, the poor people made him their parting salutations. "This Rivington is really a fine fellow, and a true Englishman," said Harry to himself, as he took possession of his room at the Ship Hotel. "I wonder who he is?" If anything on earth can be more delightful than the deck of a ship on approaching the end of a voyage, it is the wellfurnished, neat, and comfortable apartments of an English hotel the different sort of meals you get from those on ship-board, the admirable attendance; in short, everything you see, hear, taste, and feel. Harry had brought Mr. Seers up with him. That excellent young man, although he regarded him as a mere enthusiast, was so pure, sincere, and intelligent, that he could not have wished a more agreeable companion. They spent a day together at Portsmouth; went to see Netley Abbey, and wandered round the town; breakfasted, dined, and supped-at least, so it appeared to them as if each had been the autocrat of all the Russias: the fine, fresh fruit, the very sweet butter, the uncommonly nice soles with shrimp sauce (did the reader ever eat sole with shrimp sauce?), the first-rate tea, milk, and beefsteaks. The fact is, so perfectly happy were they, that Harry spouted with Othello, "If it were now to die, "Twere now to be most happy; for I fear while Seers, who, when brought out, was full of sensibility and humour, proposed, with half-sincere gravity, to proceed no farther in their travels, but spend the rest of their lives happily at the Ship Hotel. Right heartily did they laugh over their voyage, and the glorious denouement of the little tragedy in which the two turkey-cocks, Mason and Barnett, had played such distinguished parts; while sometimes their sunshine was shaded by the remembrance of the sad events which had deprived the poor emigrants of their family. At length it was agreed that they should start the next day for London on the outside of a stage-coach, with VOL. II.-K which both were well acquainted (as who is not?) through the pen of the immortal Irving (whose health they drank with a right hearty blessing on his chaste and tender genius). Harry retired to his room, to sleep for the first time in a foreign country; but he could not sleep. The transcendent loveliness of the night, the cloudless sky, burning and glittering all over with stars, the only familiar objects which reminded him of home, the broad, full moon just opposite his window, slowly ascending up the hushed and magnificent heavens, and the soft air wafting into his apartment the land odours of which he had been so long deprived, disposed his mind for tender revery. He sat by the window, he knew not how long, lost in silent, sweet thought, fond dreams of the past and images of home mingling with vague, high aspirations of future bliss. Only the idea of Fanny Elton awakened a discord in the general harmony, which seemed to wrap earth, the heavens, and his own soul in one tranquil emotion of tender delight. "Ah, Fanny!" he thought, "if to all this I could be convinced you were not unworthy! if I had not heard those scornful words, and if Emmerson himself had not told me what he did, at this delicious moment I would dismiss all doubt from my mind, and my happiness would be complete, full, perfect. Perhaps she now sits also in solitary thought; perhaps she gazes on those flashing stars, that spotted moon." And he gazed and gazed, lover-like, lost in a tide of soft associations. me. "It is nonsense," at length he said: "it is but a boyish weakness. Years-travel will overcome it. In the mean time, let me enjoy myself. Her ungrateful and capricious conduct shall not prevent it. The world is bright before Who says it is not a happy one? Whining moralists and lying priests. It is at least happy enough for me. I ask no better, want no other. I have health, wealth, an affectionate, merry home: I have before me the most brilliant tour possible. After a few dazzling years abroad, I will return, and forget in the sober duties and mature pleasures of a man, boyhood's once sweet and tender dream of love." As he spoke he perceived the sky had changed its appearance. The yellow moon had assumed a silver cast; a new, pearly lustre had overspread the heavens, and the smaller of the but now glittering stars had disappeared, while the few large ones had paled their yellow beams. It |