The next day the passengers come on board, and the company’s servants in the tenders and lighters gleefully escape, after banging about and muddling the baggage so mercilessly that state-room trunks yawn bruisedly in the holds, and huge chests, bursting with useless trophies of travel, lumber up your narrow quarters below—this, to the despair and tears of forlorn women who pursue the hapless purser with unrelenting fury when they learn that nothing can be unearthed until after the ship has left Queenstown, and that until then they must hopelessly shift for themselves. Steam is spluttering and flickering in little curls at the escape-pipes, the officers—every button of their best coats on duty—are at their stations, the pilot is looking wiser than ever pilot could be, and on the bridge with the impatient captain lingers a representative of the company. By and by, after the final instructions are given, this person departs, and as he goes over the side the captain waves his hand in salute and then gives a quiet order to the chief officer.
The wheel is shifted, the capstan reels noisily, and link by link the chain comes home. At last, after a vicious tug or two on the cable, the ground is broken, and, smothered and sputtering with cleansing water from the hose, the anchor, ring and stock, appears above the foam-streams rippling at the bow. When the cat-fall is hooked the ship’s head swings around with graceful sheer, the engines slightly increase their speed, the wake straightens its curves, the ensign dips in answer to salutes, and a long blast from the whistle sonorously claims the right of channel. Slowly, carefully, the gallant ship threads her way among the fleet of inward and outward bound shipping; the shores darken with moist shadows and gleam in broad bands of fading sundrift; the lights of Birkenhead and Liverpool glisten, blaze, twinkle, fade; the breeze blows with spice of salt and briny coolness; the stars blink from silvery steel into points of golden fire; and in the west, where the splendor and warmth deepen seaward, the rolling mists, as yet resplendent in borrowed radiance, close, broodingly, as a pall. Sails burn in the heart of the sunset, and long trails of smoke show where other ships have sunk below the verge. Finally the bar is crossed, the lanterns on board the Northwest Light-ship flame in the star-gemmed dusk, and with a swinging grip of the wheel the ship is headed, at half speed, just as night is falling, to clear the lights of Holyhead.