Thus stood affairs when the day came upon which the Shamrock was to sail, and Ward must leave in the early train of cars for Liverpool, to be on board at the hour of starting. Lizzy had done little but cry all night, and Thomas had lain awake thinking of the unnatural separation, and listening to his wife’s but half-stifled sobs that ever and anon broke the deep silence of their chamber. At last daylight came, and Ward left his sleepless pillow to make hurried preparations for his departure. His wife arose also, and got ready his breakfast. The hour of separation at length came.
“Lizzy,” said the unhappy but firm-hearted man, “we must now part. Whether we shall ever meet again, Heaven only knows. I do not wish to blame you in this trying moment, in this hour of grief to both, but I must say that—No, no!” suddenly checking himself, “I will say nothing that may seem unkind. Farewell! If ever your love for your husband should become strong enough to make you willing to share his lot in a far-off and stranger land, his arms and heart will be open to receive you.”
Ward was holding the hand of his wife and looking into her face, over which tears, in spite of all her efforts to control herself, were falling. The impulse in Lizzy’s heart was to throw herself into her husband’s arms; but, as that would have been equivalent to giving up, and saying—”I must go with you, go where you will,” she braved it out up to the last moment, and stood the final separation without trusting her voice in the utterance of a single word.
“God bless you, Lizzy!” were the parting words of the unhappy emigrant, as he wrung the passive hand of his wife, and then forced himself away.
The voyage to New York was performed in five weeks. On his arrival in that city, Ward sought among his countrymen for such information as would be useful to him in obtaining employment. By some of these, the propriety of advertising was suggested. Ward followed the suggestion, and by so doing happily obtained, within a week after his arrival, the offer of a good situation as overseer and gardener upon a large farm fifty miles from the city. The wages were far better than any he had received in England.
“Are you a single man?” asked the sturdy old farmer, after Ward had been a day or two at his new home.
“No, sir; I have a wife in the old country,” he replied, with a slight appearance of confusion.
“Have you? Well, Thomas, why didn’t you bring her along?”
“She was not willing to come to this country,” returned Thomas.
“Then why did you come?”
“Because it was better to do so than to starve where I was.”
“It doesn’t matter about your wife, I suppose?”
“Why not?” Thomas spoke quickly, and knit his brows.
“If
“I shall send her half of my wages.”
“Ah, that’s the calculation, is it? But it seems to me that it would have been a saving in money as well as comfort, if she had come with you. Does she know any thing about dairy work?”
“Yes, sir; she was raised on a dairy farm.”
“Then she’s a regular-bred English dairy maid?”
“She is, and none better in the world.”
“Just the person I want. You must write home for her, Thomas, and tell her she must come over immediately.”
But Thomas shook his head.
“Won’t she come?”
“I cannot tell. But she refused to come with me, although I repeatedly urged her. She must now take her own course. I felt, it to be my duty to her as well as to myself, to leave England for a better land; and if she thinks it her duty to stay behind, I must bear the separation the best way I can.”
“I hope you had no quarrel, Thomas?” said the farmer, in his blunt way.
“No, sir,” said Thomas, a little indignantly. “We never had the slightest difference, except in this matter.”
“Then write home by the next steamer and ask her to join you, and she will be here by the earliest packet, and glad to come.”
But Thomas shook his head. The man had his share of stubborn pride.
“As you will,” said the farmer. “But I can tell you what, if she’d been my wife, I’d have taken her under my arm and brought her along in spite of all objections. It’s too silly, this giving up to and being fretted about a woman’s whims and prejudices. I’ll be bound, if you’d told her she must come, and packed her trunk for her to show that you were in earnest, she’d never have dreamed of staying behind.”
That evening Thomas wrote home to his wife all about the excellent place he had obtained, and was particular to say that he had agreed to remain for a year, and would send her half of his wages every month. Not one word, however, did he mention of the conversation that had passed between him and the farmer; nor did he hint, even remotely, to her joining him in the United States.
All the next day Thomas thought about what the farmer had said, and thought how happy both he and Lizzy might be if she would only come over and take charge of the dairy. The longer this idea remained present in his mind, the more deeply did it fix itself there. On the second night he dreamed that Lizzy was with him, that she had come over in the very next packet, and that they were as happy as they could be. He felt very bad when he awoke and found that it was only a dream.
At last, after a week had passed, Thomas Ward fully forgave his wife every thing, and sat himself down to write her a long letter, filled with all kinds of arguments, reasons, and entreaties favourable to a voyage across the Atlantic. Thus he wrote, in part:—
…….”As to wild Indians, Lizzy, of which you have such fear, there are none within a thousand miles, and they are tame enough. The fierce animals are all killed, and I have not seen a single serpent, except a garter snake, that
