After Elsie and I got "spliced," to use the old familiar language of my
boyhood, the expressive _argot_ of the sea, for which I shall always
retain a passionate love, only second to that I bear towards my dear
wife, we set off for the Continent, having determined to spend the happy
period of our honeymoon abroad, like the fine folk of the fashionable
world with whom, though, there is little in common between us, their
ways otherwise not being our ways, nor their thoughts, ambitions, hopes
or desires in any respect akin to ours.
First we went up the Seine to Rouen, where I had passed a couple of
years of my school life, studying French and teaching the young scions
of the Gallic race, with whom I was associated for the time the
exigencies of football, as we play the game in Lancashire, varied by an
occasional illustrative exhibition explanatory of the merits of _la boxe
Anglaise_.
Time passed swiftly with so sweet and sympathetic a companion; our
tastes were similar, both taking the greatest delight in ancient
buildings and lovely scenery; the weather, too, was charming, and
altogether we were as happy as two mortals can be on this earth.
Elsie and I saw all that was to be seen in the old city we first
visited, which, in addition to its architectural beauties, should have a
special charm for all Englishmen from the fact of the dauntless Richard
Coeur de Lion having such an affection for the town that he bequeathed
it his lion heart, and then we journeyed on through _la belle
Normandie_, loitering here and there at those historic spots, woven into
the life of our country, spots where artists of all nations love to
linger.
We stayed anon at slow, sedate Caen, as still as the stone for which it
is celebrated, and that furnished the building material of Winchester
Cathedral; Bayeux, boastful of its antique tapestry; and Dol and Saint
Servan, and away beyond, Sainte Michel, so like and yet unlike the like-
named Saint Michael's Mount of Cornwall, in our own sea-girt isle that
it might have been chipped out of the same block by its grand
handycraftsman to serve as a replica; until, entering brighter
Bretaigne, in the sunny south of France, where the landmarks of the past
seem to stand out in bolder relief, we visited Nantes and other places
of interest, and jogging on thence through Angouleme and Poictiers,
halting a day at Poictiers to fight our Plantagenet battles o'er again,
we finally ended our pilgrimage at Bordeaux.
At this wonderfully picturesque port, whose semi-ancient, quaintly
modern aspect strangely attracted us both, we anchored awhile, remaining
many weeks in excess of the customary limit of the traditional
honeymoon, ours being an indefinite one and only to be completed we
trust, when Elsie and I cease to breathe.
Late in the autumn, when the leaves had begun to turn russet and brown,
and the air of a morning assumed a crisper and more bracing tone,
telling us plainly as these signs tell that summer had fled for good and
aye, and winter was coming by-and-by, we bade adieu to dear old
Bordeaux, and taking a steamer there bound for the Thames, having had
enough of railways and land travel, we started to voyage home by sea, my
native element.
On the evening of the second day that had elapsed since losing sight of
Pointe de Graves at the mouth of the Garonne, towards sunset, we had
weathered Ushant and were shaping a course up Channel, north east, so as
to clear the dangerous Casquettes rocks of Guernsey, when I noticed a
large ship, close-hauled on the starboard tack, steaming inwards for the
French coast, as if heading for Brest, her nearest port.
At that moment the tired sun, which previously appeared to linger above
the horizon, uncertain whether to go or to stay, dipped suddenly as we
were looking at him, a pale, yellow radiance succeeding the dazzling
beams that had well-nigh blinded us, shining straight in our eyes, while
the afterglow, mounting rapidly into the western sky, became more and
more vivid each moment, two purple islands of cloud which floated across
this refulgent background having the lower edges dyed of a rich crimson
that seemed to set the sea on fire and tipped the spars and sails of the
passing ship with flame.
She was flying the French Tricolor, and as our steamer went by, saluting
her with a couple of blasts from her steam whistle in friendly greeting,
the stranger vessel as a return, in accordance with the time-honoured
rule of nautical etiquette always observed on such occasions, dipped her
ensign.
This action, coupled with the similarity of the scene and its
surroundings, the ship in the distance with her flag half on the hoist,
the sunset glow, and the fact of my being on board a steamer then as
now, brought back to my mind at once the incidents of that memorable
evening of the past, more than seven years ago now, the _vraisemblance_
between the two being simply astounding!
"Elsie, dearest Elsie!" I cried with a start, as the strange
coincidence of the presentment struck me, the date being even identical.
"Do you remember what day of the month this is, _querida mia_?"
"Why, of course, Dick, I do," she answered, nestling up to my side as if
for protection, for we were sitting in a warm corner by the taffrail,
just abaft the wheel-house, and screened from the observation of the
rest of the passengers who were walking up and down the deck as usual
after dinner. "Why, Dick, dear, it's the seventh of November, your
birthday, you know; surely you have not already forgotten the little
present I gave you this morning, my likeness in a locket for your watch
chain, a miniature done by that clever artist at Orleans, and you told
me you would always wear it for my sake. Dick, my husband, where is
your memory?"
"No, my little one, I have not forgotten it," said I, kissing her,
thinking she was going to cry at what she thought was forgetfulness on
my part. "Here it is next my heart, like yourself," said I laughingly.
"But, Elsie, _alma mia_, I was thinking of another anniversary, and a
Friday evening too, to make it all the more wonderful! Don't you
recollect now?"
"Oh Dick, my dear husband," she whispered, seizing my arm and gazing out
over the taffrail at the ship, all ablaze now from the reflection of the
sky, and nearly hull down to leeward. "I see, I see. What a strange
coincidence. It is really wonderful!"
"It is, my darling," said I. "But it was more extraordinary still that
you should have seen me that memorable evening, now more than seven
years ago, and when I too saw the _Saint Pierre_ with you on her deck,
and more wonderful still, when the captain and some of the crew even to
_this_ day insist we were actually several hundreds of miles apart!"
"Ah, but you are near me now, though, thank God!" she cried, looking up
into my face with the most charming expression of delight, causing me to
be foolish in bestowing another little kiss on her upturned face. "I
don't know how it was, but whether the ships were as far apart as the
captain and the others say, or whether they were not, I did see your
ship and you on her, as I told my dear, dear father at the time, and he
himself did not believe it. Dick, dear, it must have been the gift of
`second sight,' as the Scotch people call it. There was a nun at the
convent who had it, and could tell, so she said, when anything was about
to happen to any of her family, though she couldn't predict events
concerning persons who were not `blood relations,' as she termed them.
Don't be frightened, Dick, but I do think that I must really possess the
same faculty!"
"Well, if that is the case, sweetheart," said I, "there must be some
psychological affinity between us, and we are both endowed with the same
weird gift, although the possession of the same has never been brought
to the knowledge of us except on that one memorable occasion. That
cannot be otherwise explained; but the fact of the two ships meeting
afterwards may very readily be accounted for under the circumstances.
The winds and currents of the ocean drifted them together, like as they
did us, dear. Don't you think so?"
She did not answer for a moment, and, as our steamer speeded on her way,
the glow in the sky gradually faded and darkness crept over the face of
the sea, the flashing light of Ushant whirling its luminous arms round
in rapid rotation, like some spectral windmill, away in the distance
over our lee, where the French ship had long since disappeared.
Presently my Elsie, who had been looking down into the now gloomy depths
alongside, musing over the bitter-sweet memories of the past, lifted her
eyes to mine, glancing heavenwards.
"No, Dick, my dearest," said she, speaking at last, a certain hesitation
and catch in her throat and a tear in the broken intonation of her
voice, "Dick, I've been thinking and--and--it was a power greater than
that of the winds and seas that brought us together. It was God!"