me. When next we met there, we knelt to be made man and wife, for
better or worse; blessedly, gloriously for better, forever and aye,
and all our troubles were over. For had we not one another?




CHAPTER II

I LAND IN NEW YORK AND TAKE A HAND IN THE GAME


The steamer _Iowa_, from Glasgow, made port, after a long and stormy
voyage, on Whitsunday, 1870. She had come up during the night, and
cast anchor off Castle Garden. It was a beautiful spring morning,
and as I looked over the rail at the miles of straight streets, the
green heights of Brooklyn, and the stir of ferryboats and pleasure
craft on the river, my hopes rose high that somewhere in this
teeming hive there would be a place for me. What kind of a place
I had myself no clear notion of. I would let that work out as it
could. Of course I had my trade to fall back on, but I am afraid
that is all the use I thought of putting it to. The love of change
belongs to youth, and I meant to take a hand in things as they
came along. I had a pair of strong hands, and stubbornness enough
to do for two; also a strong belief that in a free country, free
from the dominion of custom, of caste, as well as of men, things
would somehow come right in the end, and a man get shaken into the
corner where he belonged if he took a hand in the game. I think I
was right in that. If it took a lot of shaking to get me where I
belonged, that was just what I needed. Even my mother admits that