



Produced by Al Haines










A MARRIAGE AT SEA



BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL





METHUEN & CO. LTD.

36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.

LONDON




_First Issued in this Cheap Form in 1919_

This Book was First Published (Two Vols.) ... February 1891

Second Edition (One Vol.) ........... February 1892




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I.  THE RUE DE MAQUETRA
   II.  THE ELOPEMENT
  III.  AT SEA
   IV.  SWEETHEARTS IN A DANDY
    V.  DIRTY WEATHER
   VI.  SWEETHEARTS IN A STORM
  VII.  THE CARTHUSIAN
 VIII.  OUTWARD BOUND
   IX.  WE ARE MUCH OBSERVED
    X.  A SINGULAR PROPOSAL
   XI.  GRACE CONSENTS
  XII.  A MARRIAGE AT SEA
 XIII.  THE MERMAID
  XIV.  HOMEWARD BOUND
   XV.  THE END
        POSTSCRIPT




A MARRIAGE AT SEA


CHAPTER I

THE RUE DE MAQUETRA

My dandy-rigged yacht, the _Spitfire_, of twenty-six tons, lay in
Boulogne harbour, hidden in the deep shadow of the wall against which
she floated.  It was a breathless night, dark despite the wide spread
of cloudless sky that was brilliant with stars.  It was hard upon the
hour of midnight, and low down where we lay we heard but dimly such
sounds of life as was still abroad in the Boulogne streets.  Ahead of
us loomed the shadow of a double-funnelled steamer--an inky dye of
scarcely determinable proportions upon the black and silent waters of
the harbour.  The Capecure pier made a faint, phantom-like line of
gloom as it ran seawards on our left, with here and there a lump of
shadow denoting some collier fast to the skeleton timbers.

The stillness was impressive; from the sands came a dull and distant
moan of surf; the dim strains of a concertina threaded the hush which
seemed to dwell like something material upon the black, vague shape of
a large brig almost directly abreast of us.  We were waiting for the
hour of midnight to strike and our ears were strained.

"What noise is that?" I exclaimed.

"The dip of sweeps, sir," answered my captain, Aaron Caudel; "some
smack a-coming along--ay, there she is," and he shadowily pointed to a
dark, square heap betwixt the piers, softly approaching to the impulse
of her long oars, the rhythmic grind of which in the thole-pins made a
strange, wild ocean music of the far-off roar of the surf, and the sob
of water alongside, and the delicate wash of the tide in the green
piles and timbers of the two long, narrow, quaint old piers.

"How is your pluck now, Caudel?" said I in a low voice, sending a
glance up at the dark edge of the harbour-wall above us, where stood
the motionless figure of a _douanier_, with a button or two of his
uniform faintly glimmering to the gleam of a lamp near him.

"Right for the job, sir--right as your honour could desire it.  There's
but one consideration which ain't like a feeling of sartinty--and that
I must say consarns the dawg."

"Smother the dog!  But you are right, Caudel.  We must leave our boots
in the ditch."

"Ain't there plenty of grass, sir?" said he.

"I hope so; but a fathom of gravel will so crunch under those hoofs of
yours that the very dead buried beneath might turn in their
coffins--let alone a live dog wide awake from the end of his beastly
cold snout to the tip of his tail.  Does the ladder chafe you?"

"No, sir.  Makes me feel a bit asthmatic-like, and if them duniers get
a sight of me they'll reckon I've visited the Continent to make a show
of myself," he exclaimed, with a low, deep-sea laugh, whilst he spread
his hands upon his breast, around which, under cover of a large, loose,
long pea-coat, he had coiled a length of rope-ladder with