Read "A Marriage at Sea" by W. Clark Russell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I heartily appreciated the Earl of -- -- 's theory of sea-beds when I sprang into my narrow shelf of bunk, and found myself buoyant on some very miracle of spring mattress. I slept as soundly as one who sleeps to wake no more; but on going on deck some little while before the breakfast was served, I was grievously disappointed to find a wet day. There was very little wind, but the sky was one dismal surface of leaden cloud, from which the rain was falling almost perpendicularly with a sort of obstinacy of descent that was full of the menace of a tardy abatement. Fortunately, the horizon lay well open; one could see some miles, and the steamer was washing along at her old pace -- a full thirteen, with a nearly becalmed collier, ragged, wet and staggering, all patches and bentinck-boom, dissolving rapidly into the weather over the starboard quarter. Captain Verrion, in streaming oilskins, catching sight of my head, came aft to inquire if I had slept comfortably. We then talked of the weather.
"One may know the English Channel ain't fur off, sir," said he, with a grin, as he looked up at the sky.