Litchfield enquirer., 1869-04-15

night. When the lighted candles m the saloon grew fewer and fewer. When the deserted glasses with spoons in them grew more and more numerous. .s When waits of toasted cheese and strays of sardines fried in. batter slid 1anguidiy too and fro in the table-racks. When the man who always reads had shut up his book and blown out
 his candle. When the man who always talked had ceased from troubling. When
 the man who was always medically report ed as going to have delirium tremens, had
 who every night devoted himself to mid night smoke On deck, two hours in length,
 and who every night was in bed within ten
 minutes afterwards, was buttoning himself |upin his third coat for his hardy vigil
 For then, as we fell of one by one, and,
 entering our several hutches, came into a
 peculiar atmosphere of bilge-water and
 Windsor soup, the Voice would shake us
 to the centre. Woe to us when we sat
 down on onr sofa, watching the swinging candle forever trying and retrying to stand upon his head, or our coat upon its peg initiating us as we appeared in our, gym nastic days by sustaining itself horizontal ly from tho wall, in emulation of the light CT and moro facile towels! Then would
 the Voice especially claim us for it's prey,
 and rend us all to pieces.
 Lights out, we in our berths, and the
 wind rising. the Voice grows angrier and
 deeper. Under the matrass and, under
 the pillow, under the sofa and under the
 washing stand. under the ship and under
 the sea, seeming to arise from the founaa-
 ions under the earth with every scoop of
 the great Atlantic land o, why scoop soiJ, always the Voice. Vain to deny its exis-
 tenee in the night season; impossible to
 be hard of hearing; Screw, Screw, Screw.
 Sometimes it lifts out of the water, and
 revolves with whir, like the ferocious fire
 work-sxcept that it never expends itself,
 but is always ready to go off again; some. times it seems to be agQish and shivers; somstimes it seems to be terrified by it's last plunge, and has fit which causes it to struggle, quiver, and for an instant stop And now the ship sets in rolling, as only ships so fercely screwed through time and spaces day and night, fair weather and foal,
 can roll.
 Did she ever take roll before like that
 last2 Did she ever take g roll before like
 this worse one that is coming now? Here
 is the partition at my ear down in the deep on the lee side. Are we ever coming up
 again together?i Ithink not; the partition
 and are so long about it that really do believe we have over lone it this time Heavens, what a scoopl What deep scoop, what a hollow scoop, what long | scoop! Will it ever end. and can we bear the heavy mass of water we have taken on board, and which has let loose all the fur nitnre in the officers mess, and has beaten open the little door of the little passage
 between the pnrser and me. and is swash- ing about even there and even here? The tpurser snores reassuringiy, and, the ship
 bells striking, hear the cheerful "Ail,s welll" of the watch given back the length
 of the deck, as the lately dividing parti hon, now high in the air, tries (unsoftened
 by what we have gone through together to force me out of bed. 'si's' ois5 f0 n sAll's wellp' Comforting to know, though
 surely all might be better Pat aside the rolling and the rush of water, and think ol darting through such with such velocity, think of any other similar object coming in the opposite direction. ,EaS'2" ISi5!sTa4E Whether there may be an attraction in two such moving bodies out at sea, which may help accident to bring them into col.
 ision? Thoughts, too, arise ,fthe Voice
 never silent all the while,s but marvelously suggestiye)of the gulf below; of the strange unfruitful mountain ranges and deep val leys over which we are passing; of mon- strous fish, midway; of the ships suddenly altering her course, on her own account, and with a wild plunge settling down, and making that voyage. with crew 1, of dead l ldisc0yerers. Now, too, one recalls an d. most universal tendency on the part oi 1 passengers to stumble, at some time or other in the day, on the topic of a certain  ! was lost at sea and never heard of more. polling approach to the threshold of the grim subject, stoppage, diseomfture,h and pretense of never having been near it. The boatswain's whistle sounis!a A change in | the wind, hoarse orders issuing and the watch ever busy. a Sails come crashing home overhead, ropes (that seem all knob ditto; every man engaged seems to have
 twenty feet, with twenty times the average amount of stamping power in each. Grad ually the noise slackens, the h0arse cries die away, the boatswain's whistle .softens
 into the soothing and contented notes, which rather reluctantly admit that the
 job is done for the time, and the Voice sets Thus come unintelligible dreams of up
 hill and down hill, and swinging and sway
 ing, until consciousness reyives of atmos-
 pherical Windsor soap and bilge-water ,and
 the Voice announces that the giant has
 come from the Water Cure again. s1 a''} 7-'
 Such were my fanciful "reminiscences as
 as.I lay, part of that day, ia the Bay of
 New York O! Also, as we passed clear of
 the Narrows and got out to ssa; also, in
 many an idle hour at sea in sunny weather
 At length the observations and acomputa-
 tions showed that we should make the coast of Ireland to- night. So stood watch on deck all night tonight, to see how we
 made the coast of Ireland. l.nd tas4 etl5 o5 j. Very dark, and the sea most brilliantly
 phosphorescent. Great way on the ship land double lookout kept Vigilant Cap
 tain on the bridge, vigilant first officer
 looking over the port side, vfgilant second
 officer standing by the quartermaster at
 the compass, vigilant thirdn officer posted
 at the stern rail with a, lantern. No pas senger on the quiet decks, but expectation
 everywhere, nevertheless. The men at the wheel, very steady, very serious, and very prompt to answer orders. An order issued sharply now and then, and echoed back; otherwise the night drags slowly, silently, and with uo change. h saiA q sHssnien5 si ! All of sudden. at the blank ,hour oftwos in the morning q ya0ue, movement of ra