in
down, were all able seamen, friendly and companionable, and not so
numerous but that it was easy to make their individual acquaintance. The
most engaging friend of the small people was the carpenter, who had his
shop on deck, and from whom I acquired that passion for the profession
which every normal boy ought to have, and from the practice of which I
derived deep enjoyment and many bloody thumbs and fingers for ten years
afterwards.

But we had companionship historically at least more edifying. William
D. Ticknor, the senior partner of my father's publishers, was the only
figure familiar at the outset. He was one of the most amiable of men,
with thick whiskers all round his face and spectacles shining over
his kindly eyes; a sturdy, thick-set personage, active in movement and
genial in conversation. It was James T. Fields who usually made the
trips to England; but on this occasion Fields got no farther than
the wharf, where the last object visible was his comely and smiling
countenance as he waved his adieux. Conspicuous among the group on the
after-deck, as we glided out of the smooth harbor of Boston, was an
urbane and dignified gentleman of perhaps sixty years of age, with a
clean-shaven mouth and chin, finely moulded, and with what Tennyson
would call an educated whisker, short and gray, defining the region
in front of and below his ears. He spoke deliberately, and in language
carefully and yet easily chosen, with intonations singularly distinct
and agreeable, giving its full value to every word. This was our first
native Englishman; no less a personage than Mr. Crampton, in fact, the
British Minister, who was on his way to Halifax. He had fine, calm,
quietly observant eyes, which were pleasantly employed in contemplating
the beauty of that summer seascape--an opalescent ocean, and islands
slumbering in the July haze. Near him stood a light-built, tall,
athletic individual, also obviously English, but thirty years younger;
full, also, of artistic appreciation; this was Field Talfourd, who was
an artist, and many things besides; a man proficient in all forms
of culture. His features were high and refined, and, without being
handsome, irresistibly attractive. He turned out to be a delightful
playmate for the children, and astonished them and the rest of the
company by surprising gymnastic feats in the rigging. The speech of
these two Britishers gave the untravelled American a new appreciation of
the beauty and si