The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 386: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

‘ . 4 . THE STEAM PACKET, - 299 formed; and by nine o’clock the entire party was safely. embarked on board the steamer. ) Majestically did the steamer move out of the port of Boulogne and enter upon the open sea. There was something about the build of the gallant ship which struck with admiration the loungers upon the pier; and the gallant manner in which she met the billows proved that they were not'at fault. Riding over the waves with apparent ease, in spite of the enormous burden she carried on either side in the shape of paddle-boxes, she seemed like some living, breathing crea- ture to whom the water was a proper element. But as the vessel drew farther away from the French coast the weather became more tempes- tuous, the wind increased, and the fury of the waves augmented. The Luminaries were compelled to retreat to the cabins, and the ladies went through the same interesting little process of sickness and alarm which we have before described. Mrs. Pifpaf could scarcely obtain any sympathy for her “‘ poor head ;””—Aramintha murmured the word Augustus” without finding in it any charm or spell to settle the qualms which made her countenance assume a certain expression totally at variance with the sweet and calm melancholy of poetry ;— Belinda did not hesitate to declare that the rage of the elements was a judgment upon the steam-packet for having been the scene and medium of the cheat practised upon her by Buckram, and even expressed a faint regret that the real Jonah was not there to be offered as a pro-— pitiation to the angry ocean ;—and Sarah hummed to herself a stanza of her own composing, in which the words “gale’’ and “Smale” were introduced, doubtless for the convenience of the rhyme. In the gentlemen’s cabin, the only persons who did not give way to their alarms were Lord Noodleton, Sir William Staunton, and Captain Pen- tonville; and they sate conversing together as comfortably as if the ship were not tossing in the least, or the ocean one jot more un- quiet than a mill-pond. Captain Bloomfield having been privately consulted by Mr. Pifpaf relative to the propriety of running for Dover, instead of proceeding to London, declared that the longer passage was the more practicable; and the poor chairman resigned himself to his fate, which he prepared to meet with becoming coolness through the medium of cold brandy-and-water. The steam-ship was running rapidly with the tide at the back of the Goodwin Sands, from which it was distant about three or four miles, and over which the waves were breaking with fearful violence—rolling one after another, in huge floods, and bursting in mighty volumes of surf and foam,—when, on a sudden, the appalling cry of ‘Fire! ” echoed through the vessel. That dread alarm fell upon the ears of Gomicbooks (E(0)