The Argosy — page 59: what you’re looking at

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

46 The Cruise of the Reserve Squadron. Our military men have not the same advantages—or disadvantages— and cannot expect similar results. ‘They have to wait for time and the slower discipline of life. But they, too, become the pleasantest of friends and companions when the first grey hairs begin to show them- selves, and—say thirty-five—has struck upon the gong of time. So, receiving and accepting an invitation to join the First Reserve on her cruise, I felt that pleasure and profit were in store when the actual day arrived, and the train from London steamed into the old, perhaps quaint, but certainly not very lively town of Weymouth. Crossing the Parade in front of the sea, I came full tilt upon my old friend Charlie Broadley. For a moment I thought I saw a ghost —only that the apparition was scarcely shadowy enough, and was by no means transparent. Broadley is very real; there is nothing of the dyspeptic or consumptive about him to raise sentimental emotions. Had he gone into the Church, for instance, he could never have degenerated into a ladies’ pet curate, but would have turned out a hard-working, thorough-going, earnest and muscular Christian. No parting the hair down the middle, or perfumed handkerchiefs ; no incense or vestments ; and no A‘sthetic rooms for receiving the fair sex to five o’clock tea as a prelude to Vespers. I thought it a ghost because he had written: “TI shall of meet you at Weymouth. Come on to Portland, and at 5.30 you will find one of our boats waiting for you at the pier-head. Bring a supply of serious literature with you. We are nearly all of a hard-working, studious turn on board, given to discuss science and all the ologies, | politics, the Land League and the Salvation Army; but we relax our minds at night with a little whist.” For Broadley to say a thing is to do it, and therefore I doubted for a moment what stood beforeme. But his wzshadowy form and his hearty laugh—Broadley’s laugh runs on for ever, like a brook, and is just as refreshing—assured me that no ghost was here. He, on his part, likewise thought he saw a spirit—and, in point of shadow and substance, with more excuse for his error. For, marvellous to relate, the train had come in before its time, and Broadley, then on his way to the station, looked to wait for it. As it was, we were just in time for the next train onward; so instead of turning in to the Club, and wasting our precious moments in the frivolous politics of the day, we said good-bye to Weymouth and went round to Portland. A short journey, but one that must often have been taken with a heavy heart: the end of many a man’s liberty, his last look, as it were, upon the world.. There was the prison-crowned hill, overlooking the sea and the breakwater. ‘The grey walls, like battlements and fortifications, stood out in contrast with the green slopes, steep, rugged, barren. Flocks of sheep without the walls, cropping the short grass, wandered at will—whilst the unhappy human goats within, laboured and sighed, and now and then rebelled, and, as far as liberty went, found no place for repentance. The hill reared Gomichooksico