Part 11

Off the north coast of Ireland, and a splendid coast it is. A stout party, on whom I do not the least rely, told me an hour or so ago, when I first went on deck, that we were passing the Giant’s Causeway. The morning is deliciously fresh, and there is just a little roll in the vessel which is slightly discomforting some of the passengers, I see. I slept like a top without turning, for which, indeed, I haven’t room in my tray on the top of the drawers. My only mishap has been that when they were sluicing the decks this morning, the water running down the ship’s side naturally turned into my wide-open porthole to see if I was getting up. The device was quite successful, as I shot out of bed at once to close it up and save my things lying on the sofa below. No damage done fortunately.

9.30 a.m., Friday.

Here we are lying quietly at anchor in Lough Foyle after an excellent breakfast. We wait here for the mails, but as it is nineteen miles I find by road up to Derry, I shall not make the attempt. The plot thickens on board, and I am already deeply interested. There are 150 emigrants from the East End, who are being taken over by their parson and a philanthropist whose name I haven’t caught yet. I have been forward amongst these poor folk, and have won several hearts or at least opened many mouths by distributing some few spare stamps I luckily had in my pocket. Lovely as the morning is, and delicious as the contrast between the exquisite air on deck, where they are all sitting, when contrasted with Whitechapel air, I can’t help looking at them with very mingled feelings. They are a fine steady respectable class of poor. The women nursing and caring for their children with grave, serious, sweet faces, and the men really attentive. All of them anxious to send off scraps of letters to their friends in Great Babylon. There is one slip of the foredeck roped off entirely for nursing mothers and small children, and there are a lot of quaint little plumps rolling and tumbling about there, with some of whom I hope to make friends. A bird-fancier from the East End has several cages full of larks and sparrows, and a magpie and jay in state cabins by themselves, all of which he hopes to make great merchandise of in Canada, where English birds are longed for, but are very hard to keep. He had lost his hempseed in Liverpool, but luckily a boat has gone ashore, and I think there is good hope of getting him a fresh supply. There is a little gathering of the emigrants for service at eight in the evening forward. I didn’t know of it last night, but shall attend henceforth. No thought of such a thing in the state saloon! “How hardly shall they that have riches”!

Here, as elsewhere, the truest and deepest life, because the simplest, lies amongst those who have little of the things of this world lying between them and their Father and this invisible world, with its realities.

On board the Peruvian.

We are well out on the broad Atlantic, which at present we are inclined to think a little of an imposture. There is certainly a swell of some kind, for the ship pitches more or less, but to the unpractised eye looking out on the waste of waters it is quite impossible to account for the swell, for, except for the better colour, the sea looks very much as it does off the Isle of Wight; great waves like the slope of a chalk down, following one another in solemn procession, up which the long ship climbs like a white road. However, it is early days to grumble about the want of swell, and when it comes I may not like it any more than another. After finishing my letter to you this morning, I went ashore to post it, and found that after all it wouldn’t reach London till to-morrow night. So I sent you a telegram, which I hope you got before bed-time at any rate, and redirected my letter to Cromer. To pass the time I took a jaunting car with two other passengers, and we drove to an old castle looking over Lough Foyle, formerly a stronghold of the O’Doherty’s till it was sacked and knocked about their ears by an expedition of Scotch Campbells, who did a good work for the district by destroying it. We found lots of shamrock in the ruins, and enjoyed the drive and still more a bathe afterwards. The country seems very prosperous. The people, strapping, light-haired, blue-eyed Celts, handsome and well-to-do; in fact, evidently much better fed and better educated than almost any English country district I know. The mails came down from Derry in a tender, which brought us the news of the first battle and the Prussian victory, which I for one always looked for, and we got away by seven, two hours later than we expected. However, the wind is fair and we are making famous way, and by the time I get up in the morning I expect we shall be 200 miles from the Irish coast.

9.30 p.m., Saturday.

A long calm day and we have made a splendid run--shall be in Quebec in good time to-morrow week if this weather holds; but knowing persons say it won’t, and that we have seen the last of fine weather, and must look out for squalls--for why? the wind has gone round against the sun, and it has settled to rain hard with a barometer steadily going down. The Roman Catholic bishop (who is not very expert in weather that I know of, but is a very, jovial party, who enjoys his cigar and gossip, and was one of the first to go in for a game of shovel-board on deck this morning) declares that we shall have it fine all the way, as he has made the passage six times and has never had bad weather yet. In any case I hope it won’t be rough to-morrow, for we are to have a real treat in the way of spiritual dissipation. First, the bishop is to have some kind of mass and preach a short sermon at nine (N.B. a time-table conscience clause is to run all day, so that only latitudinarians like me will go in for it all). Then the captain who is a rare good fellow, with a spice of sentiment about him, which sits so well on such a bulletheaded, broad-shouldered, resolute Jack-Tar, has his own service at eleven, in which he will do the priest himself, an excellent example, with a sermon by the emigrant parson, whose name is H------, afterwards. These in the saloon; then at 2.30 a service in the steerage by H------, or G------, the other parson, and a final wind up, also in the steerage at 7.30. G------is the clergyman of Shaftesbury, George Glyn’s borough; was formerly in the Navy, and was in the Ragged School movement of ’48, ’49, when I used to go off twice a week in the evening to Ormond Yard, when poor old M------ had the gas turned out, and his hat knocked over his eyes by his boys. He knew Ludlow and Furnival, but I don’t remember him. However, he is a right good fellow, and gave us a really good _extempore_ prayer last night at the midships’ service. The steerage is certainly most interesting. There are now nearly 500 emigrants on board there, and the captain says they are about the best lot he has ever had. Going round this morning I was struck by a dear little light-haired girl, who was standing with her arm round the neck of a poor woman very sick and ill, and such tenderness and love in her poor little face as she turned it up to us as almost brought tears into one’s eyes. Of course I thought the woman was her mother. No such thing; she was no relation at all. The little dear had never seen her till she met her on board, but was attracted by her misery, and had never left her side since she had been so ill. The poor woman had two strapping daughters on board who had never been near her. How strangely folk are fixed up in this queer world.

Monday.

We know what a good swell in mid-Atlantic means at last. We were pitching when I went to bed, finding it hard to get on with my penmanship. Off I went as fast as usual, and never woke except for one moment to grunt and turn round, or rather, try to turn round, in my tray on top of the drawers at something which sounded like a crash. In the morning we were swinging and bowing and jerking, so that I had to wait for a favourable moment to bolt out of bed for fear of coming a cropper if I didn’t mind.

As soon as I was out I saw what the crash had been in the night. My big portmanteau, which had been set on its end the night before, had had a jumping match with my water-jug in the night. Both of them had thrown a somersault across the cabin against the door, but the jug being brittle (jugs shouldn’t jump against portmanteaus), and coming down undermost, had gone all into little bits, and the water, all that wasn’t in my shoes at least, had soaked my carpet at the door end. But it was a glorious bright morning and the dancing hills of water and the bounding ship sent me up dancing on the deck. My high spirits were a little subdued after breakfast, for I had scarcely got on deck when parson H------ came to me to say the emigrants wanted me to give them an address. Well, I couldn’t refuse, as my heart is full of them, poor dear folk, so down I went to get my ideas straight, and put down the heads on paper. I thought I wouldn’t miss the air, though, so set open my porthole window, which as I told you is about a foot across, and set to work--as I write, this blessed porthole is about a yard away from my right ear, and perhaps two feet above my head. Well, I was just getting into swing with my work, when suddenly a great pitch, and kerswash! in comes all of a wave that could squeeze through my porthole, right on to my ear and shoulder, over my desk, drenching all my papers, lucifer-match boxes, hair-brushes, wideawake, tobacco-pouch and other chattels, and flooding all of my floor which my water-jug had left dry. I bolted to the porthole and closed him up before another curious wave could come prying in, and soon rubbed everything dry again with the help of the Captain’s cabin-boy, and no harm is done except that I have to sit with my feet up on my portmanteau while I write. This sheet was dowsed in my shower-bath this morning, but I laid it on my bed, and it seems all right now and doesn’t even blot; I shall however envelope it now with another sheet for safety, as I’m not going to keep my porthole shut notwithstanding the warning, and I don’t want my letters to you floated again.

Peruvian, 9th August 1870.

Since I put my last sheet into No. 1 envelope, everything in the good ship _Peruvian_ has been dancing. The long tables in the saloon, at which we are always eating and drinking, have been covered with a small framework, over which the cloth is laid, and which has the effect of dividing them into three compartments; a sort of trough down each side in which are the dishes. Notwithstanding these precautions there are constant catastrophes in the shape of spoons, forks, tumblers, and sometimes plates, jumping the partitions suddenly as the ship heels over. The story of the Yankee skipper saying to the lady on his left, “I’ll trouble you, marm, for that ’ere turkey--” the bird in question having fled from the table into her lap as he was beginning to serve it--becomes quite commonplace. How the steward’s men get about with plates and dishes, goodness knows; but though there is a constant clatter and smash going on all over the ship I haven’t seen them drop anything. I am almost the only passenger who hasn’t even had a twinge of squeamishness, but we muster pretty well considering all things. The Captain is one of the cheeriest fellows alive, and keeps up the spirits of all the women. If he sees any one of them who is still about looking peeky, he whisks her off under his arm and walks her up and down the deck, where they stagger along together, and the fresh breeze soon revives the damsel. He is a sort of temporary father to all the girls, and constantly has, it seems, three or four entrusted to him to take over or bring back.

Of course there is a great deal of discomfort on board, but I have visited the steerage and am delighted with the arrangements for feeding, ventilation, etc. To poor seasick people, however, it must be very trying. This morning I carried off to my cabin a poor forlorn young married couple, whom I had noticed on shore at Moville, and afterwards on board. I am sure they hadn’t been married a week, and they were evidently ready to eat one another. When I saw them settling down on a large bench in a covered place amidships where were twenty or thirty folk, mostly ill, and several men smoking, she with her poor head tied up tidily in a red handkerchief nestling on to his shoulder, I couldn’t stand it, and took them off to my cabin, where they could nurse one another for a few hours’ in peace. We have had a birth too on board, and mother and child, I am glad to say, are doing well. She is a very nice woman, I am told by one of the ladies who visits her, the wife of a school teacher. The baby is to have Peruvian for one of its names. I have really enjoyed the rough weather much; it has never been more than half a gale, I believe, though several men have been thrown from the sofas to the cabin floor, and more or less bruised. The cheery Captain has comforted us all by announcing that we shall be through the storm before midnight.

Up the St. Lawrence they say we shall want light summer clothing. If the weather settles down we are to have an amateur concert on board, which will be, I take it, very lame on the musical side, but amusing in other ways.

R------ was entrusted by the Captain with the task of getting it up, and before we got into rough weather had booked some six or seven volunteers. I daresay he will be well enough to-morrow morning to go on with it. My address is of course postponed for the present.

Wednesday.

The Captain was quite right--we sailed clear out of the storm before midnight yesterday, and though to-day some swell is left, it is so calm that the saloon tables have quite filled up again at meal-times. I was of course nailed by the parson for my address in the afternoon, and placed on one of the flat skylights amidships, as no other equally convenient and fixed stump could be found. As I know you would sooner get rubbish of mine than poetry of any one else, I give the outline. “I was there,” I said, “at their parson’s request, to talk, but it seemed to me that in the grand scene we were in, the great waves, the bright sky, the free breezes, could talk to them more eloquently than human lips. We were wont to use proverbs all our lives without realising their meaning. ‘We’re all in the same boat’ had never impressed me till now. Our week’s experience showed us before all things that the first duty of those in the same boat was to help, comfort, and amuse the rest. If I could do either I should be glad. What were we to talk about? (Shouts of ‘Canada.’) Well we would come to Canada, but first a word or two of the old country they were leaving. Love of our birthplace, otherwise called patriotism, is one of the strongest and noblest passions God has planted in man’s heart. You have a great birthright as Englishmen, are members, however humble, of the nation which has spread free speech and free thought round the world, which was the first to declare that her flag never should fly over a slave. Fellow-countrymen of Wycliffe, Shakespeare, Milton. Wherever you go cherish these memories, be loyal to the old country, keep a soft place in your heart for the land of your birth. You are now making the passage from the old world to the new, enjoying one of those rare resting-places which God gives us in our lives. It is time for bracing up the whole man for new effort, for casting off old, bad habits. One strong resolution made at such times often is the turning-point in men’s lives. As to the land you are going to, Remember you are getting a fresh start in life and all will depend on yourselves. In the old land there is often not enough work for strong and willing hands; in the new there are a hundred openings, and in all more work than hands. One thing wanted is honest, hard work. Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might, and you are sure of comfort and independence. Your new home is England’s eldest child and has a great destiny to work out. Be loyal therefore and true to your birthplace, keeping old memories alive and giving her a share of your love; be loyal to your new home, giving her your best work; above all, be loyal and true to yourselves and you shall not be false to any man or any land.” This, spread over half an hour, was my talk.

When I had finished I called on the Captain, who warned them against drink in a straightforward sailor’s speech. Then a grizzled old boy, who had been calling out “That’s true” whenever I spoke of hard work, scrambled up on the skylight and told them that he had come out thirty years ago from England with nine shillings in his pocket and seven children. He had given each of his daughters fifteen hundred dollars on their marriage, and helped each of his sons into a farm, and had a farm of his own, which he was going back to after visiting his old home in Cornwall. All this he had done by hard work. He was a blacksmith, but would turn his hand to anything. Times were just as good now as then, and every one of them might do the same. This was a splendid clencher to the nail I had tried to drive in. The parson wound up with more advice as to liquor, and an account of how well the sixteen hundred he had already sent out had done. The whole was a great success, and we all went off to dinner in the cabin in high spirits. If the fair weather lasts we shall see land to-morrow afternoon. To-morrow night we are to have our concert. My young couple have turned up trumps: he plays the old piano in the saloon famously, being an excellent musician, and she sings, they say, nicely when not sea-sick. The Canadians on board assure him he will be caught up as an organist directly to help out his other means of livelihood. Then for Friday we are to have “Box and Cox” in the cabin, played by the Captain and R------, who knows the part of

Cox perfectly already, having played it at Cambridge. Mrs. Bouncer has not yet been fixed on, but a nice little Canadian girl will, I think, play it.

Tuesday evening.

We had a fog this morning which lost us a couple of hours, seeing however, as compensation, a fog rainbow--a colourless arch, which as you looked over the side seemed to spring from the two ends of the ship. As the fog cleared away and we went ahead we saw an iceberg to the north, which soon looked like a great white lion lying on the horizon. During the day, which has been wonderfully bright and cold, we have seen several more icebergs and a lot of whales, one of which came quite close to the ship. We sighted land about seven, and in six miles more we should have passed into the Bay of St. Lawrence, when a rascally fog came on and forced us to lay-to. The Captain can’t leave the deck, so we didn’t have our concert, and we are all going to bed anxious to hear the screw at work again.

Friday.

We lay-to all last night, the jolly Captain up on the bridge, to watch for any lifting of the fog, so that he might go ahead at once; but the fog wouldn’t lift, and so we lay until eight this morning. Just before breakfast it cleared, and away we went, and soon entered the strait between Newfoundland and Labrador. By the time we had done breakfast we were running close by a huge iceberg, like a great irregular wedding cake, except near the water, where the colour changed from sugary white into the most delicious green. There were nine other icebergs in sight to the north, and a number of others round us, just showing above the water, one like a great ichthyosaurus creeping along the waves, or a white bear with a very long neck. Had we gone on last night it would have been a perilous adventure. Soon afterwards we sighted the _North American_, a companion ship belonging to the same Company, running some miles in front of us to the north. We had a most exciting race, coming abreast of her about twelve, and communicating by signals. Then we drew ahead, and shall be in Quebec nearly a day before her. Then we played shovel-board on deck, the air getting more balmy every minute as we drew out of the ice region. We had a grand gathering of emigrants amidships, and sung hymns, “Jesus, lover of my soul,” and others, with a few words from G------, the busy parson, who has recovered from his long sea-sickness at last, and is a famous fellow. The concert of the Peruvians came off with a great _eclat_ after dinner. They put me in the chair, and I introduced the performers with a slight discourse about the Smith family (the Captain’s name is Smith), and at the end they voted thanks to me, imparting the great success of the voyage to my remarkable talent for making folk agree and pull together--very flattering, but scarcely accurate. Then somebody discovered that it was a glorious moonlight, so up we all went, and very soon there was a fiddler and a dance on deck, which is only just over. We are well in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and all going as well as possible.

Mouth of the St. Lawrence.