He had determined to live henceforth on
biscuit; and when, two months later, he should return to England,
to make the passage by saloon. The second cabin, after due
inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the steerage.
He spoke apologetically of his emotion when ill. 'Ye see, I had no
call to be here,' said he; 'and I thought it was by with me last
night. I've a good house at home, and plenty to nurse me, and I
had no real call to leave them.' Speaking of the attentions he had
received from his shipmates generally, 'they were all so kind,' he
said, 'that there's none to mention.' And except in so far as I
might share in this, he troubled me with no reference to my
services.
But what affected me in the most lively manner was the wealth of
this day-labourer, paying a two months' pleasure visit to the
States, and preparing to return in the saloon, and the new
testimony rendered by his story, not so much to the horrors of the
steerage as to the habitual comfort of the working classes. One
foggy, frosty December evening, I encountered on Liberton Hill,
near Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging homeward from the
fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural that we should
fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, ignorant
creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance
of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I
confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred
pounds in the bank.
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