United States or Estonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But Captain Mainhill knew nothing about the affair on the river beyond the fact that an attempt had been made to capture the Bellevite, and he had not ascertained that more than one was injured. "We found the Vampire aground half a mile below where the shot disabled her," continued the leader of the expedition. "Her machinery was badly smashed.
She was a small steamer, and had at least twenty men on her deck, so that the captain thought it necessary to learn her object before she came any nearer. A boat with two men was sent from the Alert, and one of them was permitted to come on board. This one proved to be Captain Mainhill, with whom the owner of the Bellevite was well acquainted.
"I shall be greatly obliged to you, Captain Mainhill, if you will land me as near as you can to the house where this wounded man is, and show me where it is. Mrs. Passford will go with me," said the owner. "Very glad indeed to do it," replied the leader of the searching party.
In March 1825 Carlyle again set his face northward, and travelling by coach through Birmingham, Manchester, Bolton, and Carlisle, established himself, in May, at Hoddam Hill; a farm near the Solway, three miles from Mainhill, which his father had leased for him. His brother Alexander farmed, while Thomas toiled on at German translations and rode about on horseback.
In his journal of February 28th 1854, he tells us that he had on the Sunday before seen a vision of Mainhill in old days, with mother, father, and the rest getting dressed for the meeting-house. "They are gone now, vanished all; their poor bits of thrifty clothes, ... their pious struggling efforts; their little life, it is all away.
On March 26, 1825, he removed to the farm of Hoddam Hill, about two miles from Mainhill, which he had leased; his brother Alexander doing the practical work of farming, while he himself translated German romances. Miss Welsh now consented to become his wife, after a lengthened correspondence.
I think they landed on the east shore, and went over to the railroad, where they probably took the first train that came along," replied Captain Mainhill. "Of course, they saw the Bellevite going down the river, and perhaps they have gone down to New York to finish the job they begun here," suggested Captain Passford. "Do you know if the enemy lost any of their number when the boat was smashed?"
"Mainhill," says his biographer, "was never a less happy home to him than it was this summer . He could not conceal the condition of his mind; and to his family, to whom the truth of their creed was no more a matter of doubt than the presence of the sun in the sky, he must have seemed as if possessed." Returning to Edinburgh in the early winter, he for a time wrote hopefully about his studies.
Word Of The Day