Gleaner Tales

by Robert Sellar

THE JOURNAL OF GERALD KEEGAN.

“The famine was heavy upon all the land.” According to the chronologists more than three thousand years have passed since the event recorded in these words. Strange that, after so long a period of time has gone, the world has made so slight an advance in providing food for the mouths it contains. At school today there was not a scholar who was not hungry. When I told Mike Kelly to hold out his hand for blotting his copy, he says, “I did not mane to: it was the belly gripe did it.” I dropped the ferule and when the school was dismissed slipped a penny into his hand to buy a scone at the baker’s. The poor school I have had this winter takes the heart out of me. My best scholars dead, others unfit to walk from their homes for weakness. For men and women to want is bad enough, but to have the children starving, crying for the food their parents have not to give them, and lying awake at night from the gnawing at their little stomachs; oh, it is dreadful. God forgive those who have it, and will not share their abundance even with His little ones. I came home from school this afternoon dejected and despairing. As I looked round me before opening the door of my lodging, everything was radiantly beautiful. The sunshine rested on the glory of Ireland, its luxuriant vegetation—its emerald greenness. Hill and valley were alike brilliant in the first flush of spring and the silver river meandered through a plain that suggested the beautiful fields of paradise. Appearances are deceitful, I thought; in every one of those thatched cabins sit the twin brothers, Famine and Death. As I opened the door, Mrs Moriarty called to me that my uncle Jeremiah had been twice asking for me. Poor man, I said to myself, he will have come to borrow to buy meal for his children and I will not have a shilling in my pocket until the board pays me my quarter’s salary. I respect Jeremiah, for both he and his brother in Canada were kind to my poor mother. How I wish all the family had gone to Canada; cold in winter and hot in summer, they say, but there is plenty to eat. I took up a book and had not long to wait for my uncle. He did not need to say a word, his face told me he knew what starvation meant. I called to my landlady to roast another herring; my uncle would share my dinner. He came neither to beg nor borrow, but to ask my advice. After high mass on Sunday the proctor got up on a stone and told them their landlord had taken their case into consideration, and went on to read a letter he had got from him. In it Lord Palmerston said he had become convinced there was no hope for them so long as they remained in Ireland, and their only means of doing better was to leave the country. All in arrears, who would agree to emigrate, he would forgive what they were due and pay their passage to Canada. Are you sure, I asked, this letter was really from Lord Palmerston?

“We have just the proctor’s word for it. Well,” my uncle went on to say, “the most of us jumped wid joy when we heard the letter and we all began talkin as soon as he druv aff in his car. Tim Maloney said nothin. He’s a deep one, Tim, a pathriot, an rades the papers. What hev ye to say, Tim? I’m considerin, says he, the likes o’ this must be deliberated on. Sure, I spakes up, the besht we can do is to get away from here. In the wan letther I iver got from my brother in Canada, he tould me he had two cows and a calf and three pigs, an a pair o’ oxen and as much as they could ate. That’s not the pint, answers Tim, this affer prisints itself to me as a plot to get us to lave the land widout an equitable equivalent.”

With doubt thrown on the landlord’s good faith, the poor people went on arguing among themselves, until a majority decided to stand out and demand better terms. On hearing this, the agent sent word they must decide within a week. If they rejected the offer, it would be withdrawn and no new one would be submitted. My uncle had come to get my advice, “For sure,” he said, “you are the only scholard in the family.” I comprehended the infamous nature of the offer. The people did not own the land, but they owned the improvements they had made on it, and had a right to be compensated for them. I knew my uncle when a boy had rented a piece of worthless bog and by the labor of himself, and afterwards of his wife, and children, had converted it into a profitable field. Should I advise him to give it up for a receipt for back rent and a free passage to Canada? I tried to find out what he thought himself. Are you for accepting the offer, uncle?

“That depinds,” he answered. “Give me a crop of spuds such as we had in the ould times, an niver a step wad I muv.”

I told him potatoes had been the ruin of Ireland; that placing sole dependence upon them had made her farmers neglect the proper care of the land and the raising of other crops. When the rot came or even a hard frost, such as they had in 1837, when potatoes froze in the ground, they had nothing. My uncle was a sample of his class. The lessons of Providence had been lost upon them. They would go on planting potatoes and hoping for days that would never return, for the land had become, by years of cropping, potato sick. Now, uncle, that Tim Maloney has had time for deliberating, what has he decided on?

“I mit him at O’Calaghan’s lasht night,” replied my uncle, “an he tould us to rejict the affer an jine the Young Ireland min. There’ll niver be peace and plinty in Ireland, ses he, until she’s free.”

“May be,” I remarked, “but you and your family will be dead from starvation before Tim and his friends free Ireland.” I cast the matter over and over in my head while we were eating our bite of dinner, but could not decide what advice to give my uncle and those who were going to be governed by what he did. Escape from the dreadful conditions under which they suffered would be a great blessing. On the other hand, my sense of what was fair revolted at the idea of their giving up their holdings, their homes for generations, for a nominal consideration. When my uncle rose to go, for he had a long walk before him, I said I could not decide then; I would think it over and on Sunday I would go and see them.

When Sunday came, I rose early, and let myself out quietly. It was a misty, soggy morning. I stepped out quickly, for I had a good way to go. The walking was heavy, so when I came in sight of the chapel, I saw late comers hurrying in for high mass. At the altar, to my surprise and joy, I saw my old companion, Tom Burke. When the sermon came it was like his old self, strong and bold. He compared the afflictions of the people of suffering Ireland to those of the Israelites in Egypt, ascribing the famine to the alien government, which wanted to wipe them from the face of the earth. It would prove as futile as all past persecutions directed against the Irish race, which would continue to cherish their faith and their love of country. He carried me away with him, but his hearers listened with countenances stolid and heavy. It was the hunger; they could think of nothing but their craving for food. Father Tom had noticed me, for when I was going out at the door the man whispered to me to step into the sacristy. Passing the word with my uncle, that I would be at his house in the afternoon, I joined my old fellow student, who would have me to break my fast with him. He had come on temporary duty, and I went with him to the priest’s house. Over the table we recalled old times at Maynooth and were living those happy days over again with joke and story, when our laughter was checked by the housekeeper coming in to say if we were done with our dinner Mrs Murtagh was waiting to see for what his reverence wanted her. “Send her here,” he ordered. A broken-down woman, haggard and in rags, stood at the door. “O ye have come, have ye, Mrs Murtagh.”

“Yes, yer rivirence; Mrs Maloney tould me ye wanted me, and didn’t know what for.”

“Oh, you know what I wanted you for, if Mrs Maloney did not. I wanted to see what kind of a baste you were that would go to the soupers—what kind of Irish woman you were that would sell your faith to thim white-livered divils.”

Father Burke here rose to his feet, his face lit with wrath, and his hand moving to grasp his cross. The woman sunk on her knees at his feet. “For the sake of the dear mother of God, don’t put the curse on me, yer rivirence,” she entreated.

“Why not? What have ye to say?”

“The childher were cryin all night for a bite, but it wasn’t that. Little Tim was adyin on my breast, an I cudn’t bear to have him tuk from me. I wint out, I tried everywhere, I could get nothin, an thin, I wint to the soupers. It was to keep the life in Tim, yer rivirence; I burned their thracks an never tasted myself what they gev me.”

With a piercing cry the woman fell prone on the floor. Father Tom’s anger passed as quickly as it rose. “Take her away,” he said to the housekeeper who hastened in, “I’ll see her after vespers.”

I rose to go; he was his old self again; and with a hearty word we parted. At my uncle’s house I found a number of his neighbors waiting and we were soon discussing the subject that filled their heads. The agent had given out he had got another letter, in which the landlord mended his offer, by promising that his agent at Quebec would pay ten shillings a head on their landing at that city, and saying the Canadian government would give each family a hundred acres free. There was to be no breaking or separating of families; all would go in the same ship. Against the lure of the free passage, the ten shillings, and the hundred acres, they put leaving Ireland for such a wild, cold place as Canada, and to people in rags the thought of its frost and snow was terrible. My uncle fetched his only letter from his brother and I read it aloud. I had to do so several times, as they argued over particular statements and expressions in it. The account it gave of his comfort weighed with them. After a great deal of talk my uncle says, “Well, boys, my brother never told me a lie an I believe every word of his letter. If ye says, I’ll go wid ye, I’m for takin the offer an lavin at onct.” His decision carried them by storm, and the listless downcast men became bright and energetic with the new hope born within them. As I walked home, I thought it over. There was the possibility of their being deceived by the agent. They were ignorant of business and could easily be imposed upon. Should I not go with them and protect their interests? What was there to keep me in Ireland? Everything I had tried had gone against me. When I was in a fair way at Maynooth, the thought had possessed me the priesthood was not my vocation and I left its loved walls. Failure and disappointment had marked every effort made in other callings since. To give up my situation as teacher would matter little; its salary was a mockery. I would see Aileen.

Feby. 28, 1847.—Aileen consents. Like myself an orphan, she has no ties to bind her to dear old Ireland beyond those common to all her children. We will be married the week before the ship sails. Gave up my school today. As I mean to keep a journal of the voyage, I sat down tonight and wrote the foregoing, to remind me in future years of the causes that led to my decision.

March 8.—Uncle came to see me this morning. What he tells me raises doubts of the good faith of the landlord. The agent was round yesterday with an attorney who got them to put their mark to a paper. A ship is promised beginning of April.

10.—Walked to town to see the agent. He was not for showing the paper at first. It was a release of all claims on the landlord and a promise to give him peaceable possession on the 1st April. The remission of what is due for rent and the free passage are specified as the quid pro quo of the landlord, but not a word about the ten shillings a head to be paid at Quebec or the 100 acres per family from the Canadian government. Nothing can now be done; the poor people are at Lord Palmerston’s mercy.

April 9.—We were married Monday morning, and spent three happy days with Aileen’s cousin in Limerick. Arrived here in Dublin today. The ship is advertised to sail tomorrow. Took out our tickets for second cabin and drive tomorrow morning to where the ship is lying.

10.—When the car drove alongside the ship, instead of finding her ready for sea she was a scene of confusion, carpenters at work on her hull and riggers perched in her cordage. There is a mountain of freight to go on board, which she is not ready to receive. It was a shame to advertise her to sail today when she cannot leave for several days. Our second cabin proves to be a cubby-hole in the house on deck. We might as well have gone in the steerage and saved £5. It was late in the day when uncle and his neighbors arrived; they formed a large party, and were footsore with their long tramp. The captain refused to allow them to go on board and they will have to spend the night on the quay. The weather fortunately is dry.

11.—I spoke to the captain on behalf of the emigrants. I showed him they had come on the day advertised and had a right to maintenance. He curtly told me to go and see the ship’s broker, who has his office far up in the city. I waited over an hour in an outer room to get an interview with the government emigration inspector. I implored him to put in force the law on behalf of the poor people shivering on the quay. He haughtily ordered me out of his office; saying he knew his duty and would not be dictated to by a hedge schoolmaster. Came away indignant and sore at heart. Looking over the emigrants I can see why Lord Palmerston confined his offer to those in arrears for rent and who had small holdings. Such persons must needs be widows or old men without proper help. His lordship has shrewdly got rid of those likely to be an incumbrance on his estates. The company is made up largely of women and children, with a few old or weakly men. The number of widows is surprising.

12.—The weather is cold and showery and the poor people are most miserable—wet, hungry, and shivering. I went to Dublin to see the ship’s broker. He received me very smoothly and referred me to the charterer, without whose instructions he could do nothing. The charterer I found to be out of town; the owner of the ship lives in Cork. I returned disconsolate. An infant died today from exposure. On going to see about the innocent’s burial, the priest told me it was common for ships to advertise they would sail on a day on which they had no intention of leaving. It was done to make sure of getting all the passengers they could pack into the vessel. They get £3 a head from the landlords, children counting as half, and the more they can force on board the greater their profit. His experience had been that charterers of vessels for carrying emigrants were remorseless in their greed, and, by bribing the officials, set the government regulations at defiance. Scenes he had seen on the quays drew tears from all save those whose hearts were hardened by the lust of gain.

14—The poor people are homesick and heartsick. Today a number of them tried to get on board and take possession of the berths between decks, which were finished yesterday. They were driven back by the mate and the sailors. One man was brutally kicked by the mate. It seems if the passengers got on board they would have a right to rations, hence their being denied shelter. Some of the men have got work along the quays, and every sixpence is a help to buy bread. Again ventured to remonstrate with the captain. He said he had nothing to say to an informer, referring to my visit to the government agent. I told him I would report his conduct to Lord Palmerston, and have just written a letter to his lordship.

15.—Matters have been going on from bad to worse. Two more children have died from cold and want. Not a soul in the crowd has had a warm bite since they left home. Their food is an insufficiency of bread, which is poor sustenance to ill-clad people camped in open sheds. The ship is ready for sea yet they will not let us go on board.

16.—This morning we were ordered to go on board and gladly hurried up the long plank. We had not been fairly settled in her until there was a hurroo, and looking ashore I saw a great crowd of men carrying bundles and babies, with women and children. They were worse clad and more miserable than our own people. To my surprise they headed for our ship and were soon crowding into her until there was not room to turn. No sooner was the last chest got on board than the sailors began to unmoor the ship. Before they were done a tug steamed up to us and passed her hawser. We had moved out into the bay some distance, when the paddles of the tug stopped, and we saw a six-oared cutter making for us, and when alongside the government inspector, in blue uniform with gilt buttons, leapt on board. He looked neither to left nor right, but walked with the captain across the quarter-deck and went down into the cabin. My mind was made up. My people had already suffered much at the hands of the shipping-men, and I resolved to protest against their being overcrowded. I knew the law, and knew full well that she had all on board she was competent for before this new arrival. I waited my opportunity, and when I saw the inspector emerge from the companion-way and head straight for his boat, I rushed forward. I had just shouted the words, “I protest—,” when I was tripped from behind. As I fell headlong, I heard the inspector say, “Poor fellow, has had a drop too much. Good-bye, captain; prosperous voyage.” When I rose to my feet he was gone, and the mate faced me. “Damn you,” he shouted, “try to speak to an outsider again and I’ll brain you.” Mortified at my failure and indignant at my usage, I left the quarter-deck. The tug was in motion again, and we were sailing down the bay—fair Dublin bay, with its beautifully rounded slopes and hills, bright with budding woods and verdant sward. To our surprise, for we thought we had started on our voyage, the tug dropped us when we had gone down the bay a bit, and our anchor was let go. Late in the evening the word went round the reason of our not sailing was that the crew, from the captain down to the apprentices, believed the ship would have no luck were she to begin her voyage on a Friday.

17.—At daybreak we were roused by the clanking of the capstan as the anchor was weighed. There was a light air from the north-east. Sails were spread and we slowly beat out of the bay and took a long slant into the channel, dropping our pilot as we passed Kingstown. Stores were broached and biscuit for three days served. They were very coarse and somewhat mouldy, yet the government officer was supposed to have examined and passed them as up to the requirements of the emigration act. Bad as they were, they were eagerly accepted, and so hungry were the people that by night most of them were eaten. How shamefully the ship was overcrowded was now to be seen and fully realized. There were not berths for two-thirds of the passengers, and by common consent they were given up to the aged, to the women and the children. The others slept on chests and bundles, and many could find no other resting place than the floor, which was so occupied that there was no room to walk left. I ascertained, accidentally, that the mate served out rations for 530 today. He counts two children as one, so that there are over 600 souls on board a ship which should not legally have 400, for the emigrant act specifies 10 square feet of deck to a passenger. Why was this allowed? What I heard a man telling this morning explains all. The government had sent £200 to be spent on relief works in his townland by giving employment at a shilling a day. When £50 had been paid out, the grant was declared to be exhausted. Where did the £150 go? Into the pockets of a few truly loyal defenders of the English constitution and of the Protestant religion. The British parliament has voted enough money to put food in every starving mouth in Ireland. Half and more of the money has been kept by bloodsuckers of the English garrison. I get mad when I think of all this. The official class in Ireland is the most corrupt under the sun. A bribe will blind them, as I saw yesterday, when the inspector passed our ship and stores. Wind continued light all forenoon, and fell away in the afternoon to a calm. After sunset a breeze sprung up from the west, but did not hold, and as I write we are becalmed in mid-channel.

18.—Light and baffling breezes from the west and north-west prevailed all day, so we made little progress on the long journey before us. One of our many tacks brought us close to the English coast. It was my first and likely to be my last view of that country. Aileen has made our cabin snug and convenient beyond belief. Her happy disposition causes her to make the best of everything.

19.—The westerly breezes that kept us tacking in the channel gave place, during the night, to a strong east wind, before which the ship is bowling at a fine rate. Passing close to the shore we had a view of the coast from Ardmore to Cape Clear. Aileen sat with me all day, our eyes fixed on the land we loved. Knowing, as it swept past us, it was the last time we would ever gaze upon it, our hearts were too full for speech. Towards evening the ship drew away from it, until the hills of Kerry became so faint that they could hardly be distinguished from the clouds that hovered over them. When I finally turned away my eyes from where I knew the dear old land was, my heart throbbed as if it would burst. Farewell, Erin; no matter how far from you I may roam, my heartstrings are woven to you and forget you I never shall. May the centuries of your sorrows soon be completed, and peace and plenty be yours forever. Land of my fathers, shrine of my faith, a last farewell!

20.—When I awoke this morning I became sensible of the violent motion of the ship. Going out I saw we were fairly on the bosom of the Atlantic and the ship was plunging through the ocean swell. The east wind still held and we were speeding on our course under full sail. I found my fellow-passengers to be in a deplorable condition. The bulwarks were lined with a number who were deadly seasick. Going between decks the scene nigh overcame me. The first time I went below I was reminded of a cavern—long and narrow and low in ceiling. Today it was a place for the damned. Three blinking oil lanterns cast light enough to show the outlines of forms that lay groaning on the floor, and give glimpses of white stony faces lying in the berths, a double tier of which surround the sides of the ship. A poignant wail of misery came through an atmosphere of such deadly odour that, for the first time, I felt sick, and had to beat a retreat up the narrow ladder. The cool ocean breeze revived me and Aileen, who proved a good sailor, had our modest breakfast ready when I joined her. On revisiting the steerage later in the day I found there were passengers down with more than seasickness. There are several cases of dysentery. I asked the steward to tell the captain. He informs me the captain can do nothing, having only a small medicine-chest for the crew. However he told him, and the captain ordered the steward to give them each a glass of whisky. I had plain proof today of my suspicions that drink is being sold, and on charging the steward he told me it was the custom for the mates of emigrant ships to be allowed to do so, and he would get me what I wanted at any time for sixpence a noggin. I told him I had taken the pledge at the hands of Father Matthew and considered drink unnecessary. My remonstrances fell on stony ground, for the steward, a decent, civil fellow, sees no wrong in drinking or in selling drink.

21.—The first death took place last night, when a boy of five years succumbed to dysentery. In the afternoon a wail suddenly arose from the hold—a fine young woman had died from the same cause. Both were dropped into the sea at sunset. There are fewer seasick today, but the number ill from dysentery grows. Cornmeal was served out today instead of biscuit. It was an injury instead of a sustenance, for it being impossible to make stirabout of it owing to no provision having been made for a galley for the passengers, it had to be mixed with water and eaten raw. Some got hot water, but most had to use cold. Such food when dysentery threatens is poison. Today was cold with a headwind that sent the spray flying over the bows. Had a long talk this afternoon with a very decent man who is going to Peterborough, Canada West. He thinks it is not disease that ails the children, but cold and hunger. Food and clothes is what they need, not medicine. The number of sick grows. Sighted 2 ships today, both too far away to speak them.

22.—Why do we exert ourselves so little to help one another, when it takes so little to please? Aileen coaxed the steward to let her have some discarded biscuit bags. These she is fashioning into a sort of gowns to cover the nakedness of several girls who could not come on deck. The first she finished this afternoon, and no aristocratic miss could have been prouder of her first silk dress than was the poor child of the transformed canvas bag, which was her only garment.

23.—This is Sunday. The only change in the routine of the ship that marks the day is that the sailors gave an extra wash down to the decks and after that did no work except trim the sails. They spent the forenoon on the forecastle mending or washing their clothes. During the afternoon it grew cold, with a strong wind from the northeast, accompanied by driving showers. Towards sunset the sea was a lather of foam, and the wind had increased to a gale. When the waves began to flood the deck, the order was given to put the hatches on. God help the poor souls shut in beneath my feet! With hatches open, the hold was unbearable to me. With them closed, what will it be by morning? It is growing so dark I cannot see to write more, for a light is forbidden to us. The wind is still rising and the thump of the waves as they strike the ship’s side grows more violent. The shouting of orders, the tramp and rush of the sailors to obey them, the swaying of the ship, the groaning of her timbers and masts, and the constant swish of water rushing across the deck, combine to make me most melancholy and forebodings of evil darken my soul. Aileen is on her knees, the calm and resignation of a saint resting upon her face. There is a faith in God that rises above the worst of the world’s trials.

24.—We had a dreadful night, and I slept only by snatches. At midnight the tempest seemed to reach its heighth, when its roar drowned all other sounds. The ship swayed and rolled as if she would capsize, while ever and anon she shipped a sea that flooded our little cabin, and threatened to tear the house, of which it forms part, from its fastenings and carry it overboard. How I prayed for daylight! When at last the dawn of another day came, the wind lessened somewhat in its force, but the waves were higher and stronger, and while the ship was still shuddering from the dreadful blow dealt by one, another struck her, and made her stagger worse than before. Peering out of the side-scuttle I could see naught but a wild tumult of waters—yawning abysses of green water and moving mountains crested with foam. The writhing, ceaseless activity of the raging waters deeply impressed me. Our ship at one time seemed to be about to be engulfed; the next moment she towered above the highest waves. So far as I could make out she was driving before the gale under her foresail, close reefed. It was noon before it was safe to step out on deck. The wind was dying away but the ocean was still a wild scene. With little way on the ship, she rolled and pitched, so that to keep from falling I had to clutch at whatever I could get a hold of. The sails were slatting against the masts with a noise like thunder. It was late in the day when a breeze came up, which steadied the vessel and caused her to ship no more water, when the mate ordered the hatches to be opened. I was standing by, concerned to know how it had gone with my people. The first man to come up was my uncle. He had been waiting anxiously to see me. His wife had taken ill during the night, and he was afraid her trouble was the fever. I hurried down with him and found her pulse high and her body racked with pains. All that we had in our power to do for her was to give a few drops of laudanum from a bottle Aileen had brought with her, which eased her pains and gave her some rest. Aileen wanted to go and see her but I would not allow her, the sights and stench of between decks being revolting and past description. Uncle says the passengers passed a dreadful night. The seams opened in the forepeak, and the water coming in caused a panic, the belief being the ship was about to sink. One old man was thrown against a trunk and had three ribs broken and a girl, ill from dysentery, died during the worst of the storm.

25.—Tired and worn out as I was, I had a broken night’s rest. I woke with a start from a dream that uncle’s wife was dead. So impressed was I that such was the case, that I dressed hurriedly to go and see. As I stepped on deck 8 bells were struck, indicating midnight. It was clear though cold, and the stars could be seen to the horizon. The column of heated air that rose from the hatchway was peculiarly fetid, but I did not hesitate to descend. Except for the cries and groans of the sick stillness prevailed. Exhausted by the watching of the preceding night all who could were asleep. On getting to uncle’s berth, I found him sleeping heavily, his wife tossing by his side with the restlessness of her disease. She was dosing and muttering, showing she was not herself. I tried to catch the words she uttered, and found in her delirium she was back in Ireland and to the happy days when uncle was a wanter and was coming to see her. I searched high and low before I found a pannikin of water. I raised her head and held it to her lips. She drank it to the last drop. Slipping back to my bunk, I slept until it was late in the day. My first thought on opening my eyes was, that it was my duty to speak to the captain, and as I took breakfast with Aileen I thought how I could approach him with some hope of success. I kept on deck watching my chance. The captain came up only for a short time at noon to take the sun, and then the mate was with him. I knew it was no use to speak when that fellow was near. After dinner I saw the mate go to his cabin for a sleep, and waited anxiously for the captain. When he did step from the companion and had taken a round or two on the poop, I stepped up. He looked surprised and as if he resented my intrusion. Before he could speak I said—“Pardon me, captain, for coming here. I thought you might not know what is on board ship.”

“What do you mean?” he asked roughly.

“There is fever on board,” I answered quietly. He paled a little, and then shouted, “You lie; what do you know about fever? You are not a doctor.”

“Come and see for yourself,” I said, “you have not been ’tween decks since we left Dublin.”

With an oath he retorted “Do you mean to tell me what I should do? I want you to understand I know my duty.”

“For heaven’s sake, captain, do it then. Fever is on board and unless a change is made half the passengers may die.”

“What change?” he asked sulkily.

“The steerage wants cleansing and the passengers need better food and more of it.”

“Grumbling, eh; what do they expect? Roast beef and plum pudding? The beggars get the government allowance. Begone, sir.”

I was trembling with repressed indignation but for the sake of those I pled for I kept cool. “Captain, the poor people ask nothing unreasonable. Go and see for yourself the biscuits and water served out to them, and I am sure you will order a change.”

“Complain about the water, too! What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s foul,” I told him, “it smells and bad though it be, there is not enough served out. The sick are calling for water and not a drop to be got.”

“Not enough served out—what do you mean?”

“That the allowance is scrimped.”

He clinched his fist and raised his right arm as if to strike me. “This to me, on my own ship; that passengers are cheated in measure!”

“Strike me, captain, if you will, but by our common faith I implore you to consider the case of my poor people. There are children who have died from starvation and they have been dropped into the sea. There are more dying and you can save them by ordering a larger ration of sound biscuit. There are men and women lying stretched in the fever, will you not ease their agony by letting them have all the water they can drink? They have suffered everything flesh and blood can suffer short of death. In fleeing from the famine in Ireland, do not let it be said they have found harder hearts and a worse fate on board ship. When you know a cup of water and a bite will save life and will make hundreds happy, sure, captain, you will not refuse to give them.”

“You vagabond,” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing with anger, “if you insinuate I am starving anybody I will pitch you overboard. The passengers get all the government regulations allow them and more they shan’t have. Begone, sir, and do not dare to come on the poop again.”

“One word, captain. I have been told you have a wife and children. For their sweet sake, have pity on the little ones and the women on board.”

“Do you hear me?” he shouted. “Leave the poop or I will kick you off. I’ll have no mutiny on my ship.”

I turned and left more sorrowful at my failure than indignant at my usage. My appeal did some good, however, for before the day was over wind-sails were rigged at the hatchways, which did a little to freshen the air ’tween decks. A sail ahead hove in sight during the afternoon, and we rapidly gained on her. At six o’clock we were abreast of the stranger, which was not over half a mile away. She was a small barque and had lost her foretopmast during the gale. She signalled us, but our captain took no notice, and we soon left her a long way astern. Asking the boatswain why she wanted to speak us, he said she likely was short of sails and spars to repair her damage and wanted to get them from us. “And why did the captain not help her?” The boatswain smiled. “They cost money and supplying them would have delayed us.” I had my own thoughts about the sailor who would not give a helping hand to his brother when overtaken by misfortune. If that ship be lost for lack of spar or sail, then that little tyrant who struts our quarter-deck is accountable.

26.—A beautiful morning, bright and milder than it has been. Every sail is drawing and the ship is bowling along at a fine rate. I got up early, being anxious about uncle’s wife. Found her no better. Worse than that, learned there were five besides her ill the same way. There is now not a shadow of a doubt that typhus fever is on board. Since we left port, no attempt has been made to clear the steerage, which is filthy beyond description. When I speak to the men to join in and shovel up the worst of the dirt, they despondently ask me, “What’s the use?” The despondency engendered of hunger and disease is upon them and they will not exert themselves. The steward is the only one of the ship’s company who goes down the hatch-steps, and it would be better if he did not, for his errand is to sell the drink for which so many are parting with the sixpences they should keep for their landing in a strange country. The day being passably warm in the afternoon the children played on the deck and I coaxed Paddy Doolan to get out his pipes and set them jigging.

27.—A dull, murky morning, with a mist that surrounded the ship as the wrapping of silk paper does an orange. It was almost a dead calm and the atmosphere was so heavy the smoke of the galley did not rise and filled the deck with its fumes. The main deck was deserted, save by myself and three old women who sat on the coaming of the main hatchway, smoking their pipes. The cabin boy flitted backwards and forwards carrying breakfast to the cabin, where the steward was laying the table. The boy’s motions did not escape the women, and I noticed them whispering and laughing as if concocting a plot. One presently went down into the hold, while the other two turned anxious glances for the return of the cabin boy. When he did come he loaded up with as many skillets and pans as he could carry. No sooner had he disappeared down the companion-way, than the women ran to the galley, which was deserted, for the cook, having completed his morning’s work, had gone to the forecastle, where the sailors were at breakfast, leaving the dishes ready for the boy to take to the cabin as wanted. In a twinkling the women were out again, one of them bearing a big copper teapot, the steam from its spout showing in the morning air. Hurrying to the hatchway they were met by the woman who had left them, ready with a lapful of tins of every description. Into these the tea was poured and handed below, as quickly as they could be handled. Curious to view the scene I went to the hatch and looked down, seeing a crowd of grinning passengers beneath, who carried off the tins as they got them. When the last drop was out of the kettle, the woman who held it ran back to the galley, and dipping it into an open copper of hot water replaced it where she got it. The women did not disappear, but resuming their seats on the edge of the hatch proceeded to discuss the tins of tea they had reserved for themselves. By-and-by the boy hove in sight, and, unsuspicious of the change in its contents, carried the kettle to the cabin. He had been away five minutes when he reappeared kettle in hand and went to the galley. I stood behind him. He looked bewildered. “Bedad, I was right; there’s no other kettle.” “Anything wrong, my boy?” “Och, yis; it’s hot say water instead of tay that’s in the kettle.” Going to the sailors’ quarters he returned with the cook who, on tasting what was in the kettle, looked perplexed. Accompanied by the boy he made his way to the cabin to report a trick had been played upon him. Telling Aileen of what was afoot, she drew a shawl over her head, came out and took her place by me in lee of the long boat, awaiting developments. The mate, followed by cook, steward, and boy, emerged from the companion. Striding the deck with wrathful haste the mate went to the galley and after hearing the explanations of the cook, shouted “I’ll flay the——thieves with a rope’s end.” Coming back, he asked me, “What do you know about this?”

“That I had no hand it,” I replied, “nor, I’m sorry to say, even a taste of it.” Aileen laughed, and eyeing me malignantly the mate retorted, “You know who did it; tell me right away.”

“Of course I know, but I would not tell a gentleman like yourself who hates informers. Remember Dublin bay.”

He ground his teeth and had Aileen not been there I believe he would have attempted to strike me. Wheeling round to the three old women who sat quietly on the hatchway he asked them.

“Is it the tay ye are askin afther? Sure an it wasn’t bad; was it, Mrs O’Flaherty?”

“Dade it was comfortin this saft mornin, Mrs Doolan, an good it was ov the gintlemin to send it to us. It’s a captain ye should be instead ov a mate, my dear.”

“Tell me who stole the tea-kettle from the galley,” yelled the mate.

“Och, dear, don’t be shoutin so loud,” replied Mrs Doolan, “if I be old, I’m not deaf yet. An as for stealin yer dirthy ould tay-kittle, sure I saw the boy with it in his hand this minit.”

“Come, no prevaricating. You know what I mean. Who stole the tea?” cried the mate.

“Mrs Finegan, ye sit there niver saying a word; can’t ye tell this swate gintlemin who stole the tay.”

“You’ll be manin the tay the landlord tould us he paid tin pounds into the hands of the mate to give us on the voyage. Where that tay wint to I don’t know at awl, at awl. Do you, Mrs O’Flaherty?”

“For shame, Mrs Finegan, to be purtindin sich a gintlemin wad kep the tin poun. He’s agoin to give us tay reglar afther this, an (here she raised her tin and drank the last drop) this is the first token. If ye plaze, sir, it would taste betther were ye to put a grain o’ shuggar in it.”

At this, Aileen, who had been quivering with restrained merriment, burst into a ripple of laughter, loud and long, and an echo from beneath showed there were amused auditors at the hatchway. The mate grew purple with wrath. Seizing Mrs O’Flaherty by the shoulder he fairly screamed, “You old hag, you know all about it; show me the thief.”

The woman rose to her feet, her long grey hair hanging damp and limp in straggling locks. With a twinkle in her eye she composedly regarded the mate and dropping him a curtsey, said, she could “not refuse so purlite a gintlemin. Thravellin in furrin parts is as good for manners as a boardin-school eddication, Mrs Finegan.”

With an oath the mate shouted, “Show me the thief.”

“It’s that same I’m going to do,” she replied, “Come afther me,” and she put her foot on the ladder that led into the hold. The mate shrank back as if shot. “Are you not acomin?” asked Mrs O’Flaherty. “Indade its proud we will all be to see yer bewtiful face below for ye have never been down to see us yet.”

“He’s bashful,” interjected Mrs Doolan, rising, “come wid me, if ye plaze, Mr Mate, an I’ll interjuce you.”

The mate was glaring with a look in which fear mingled with baffled rage. The crones noted his state of mind and enjoyed it. “Can ye tell me, Mrs O’Flaherty, where that fine parfume is comin from?”

“Is it the sint aff the mate, yer smellin?” remarked Mrs Finegan, who had relit her pipe and was looking on with a solemn face. “Sure it’s camfire, an he shmells av it like an ould maid’s chist o’ drawers.”

“Beggin yer pardon, Mrs Finegan,” retorted Mrs O’Flaherty, “it’s a docthur he be, an he is comin down to see thim sick wid the favor.”

With a volley of curses the mate turned away. As he went towards the poop he was followed by a chorus of cries from the old women, Wunna ye come an git the thafe? How did ye like hot say wather for tay? Remimber, an send us our tay reglar afther this, not forgittin the shuggar. There’s a favor patient wants to see ye, sir.

When he disappeared I said to Aileen “none but Irishwomen could have so settled a bully.” “And no other,” she laughingly replied, “have captured a cup of tea so neatly.” Towards noon the fog cleared, and the ship made some progress under a light breeze. There was no death today, but there are more cases of fever. The boatswain told me that the sight of the sun today showed we were 600 miles from Newfoundland. Saw the topsails of a full-rigged ship at the edge of the horizon before sunset.

28.—Rained all morning and miserably cold. The light breeze we had died away and we rolled helplessly until after dinner, when the wind came up from the south-east, which sent us bowling on our course. A huge staysail, that had been bent by the sailors two days ago between the main and foremast, was hoisted for the first time, and added perceptibly to the ship’s speed. Sickness increases and the body of a boy of 5 years of age was dropped into the ocean in the forenoon. The frequency of deaths has made the passengers callous, and, especially those of children, call out little comment. When men and women have sounded the deepest depth of wretchedness, as they have done, they seem to lose both hope and fear. Uncle’s wife is no better; so far as I can judge she is sinking. She might rally had we suitable nourishment to give her, but we have nothing. She has not even fresh air, but with every breath inhales the stench of a pestilence. Uncle, unable to do anything else for her, sits at the head of the berth, her hand clasped in his. We had a wonderful sunset. The change of wind brought warmth and dappled the sky with fleecy clouds. The forecastle being deserted Aileen went with me and we sat where, looking down, we could see the cutwater flashing the waves into foam, or, looking up, see the cloud of canvas and tracery of rope and block crimsoning in the waning sunlight. The sun was setting so directly ahead of us that it might be supposed the man at the wheel was steering for it. The glittering, burnished pathway it threw across the ocean, our ship sailed up.

“Sure,” whispered Aileen, “it is the road to the land of promise and the sun himself welcomes us as we pursue it.”

“Heaven grant it may be so, but for some on board the land of promise will never be.”

“Don’t be looking at the dark side, Gerald. See yonder clouds, their downy edges touched with pink. Let us fancy them the wings of the angels who are beckoning us to homes of plenty and content beyond that western wave, and cheer up.”

As I looked into her face, bright with enthusiasm, I felt if angels beckoned I had also one at my side to encourage me. We gazed in silence at the glowing scene, marked the sun’s disappearance, and the deepening colors in cloud and water. Turning our gaze to the ship we could trace the sun’s departing rays as they creeped up the tall masts. “Who would think,” I said, “to look upon this most beautiful of all man’s creations, a ship in full sail radiant in the sun’s richest tints, that in her hold she is bearing an unspeakable mass of misery and woe? How dark within; how bright without. How deceiving are appearances!”

“Nay, Gerald, rather look at it this way: How God in his goodness beautifies what man mars. Nothing so loathsome the sun will not bathe in the fullness of his brightness and glory.”

And in that I thought, the sunshine is type of woman’s love, which is not withheld by what is repulsive and like the sunshine takes no defilement from what it touches.

29.—Uncle’s wife died this morning. It would not be correct to say the fever killed her, for it had not reached its crisis. She was weakly when she left home, and the sojourn on the quay, waiting to get on board ship, gave her a bad cold. Her system was so reduced, she could not withstand the onset of the disease. Uncle wanted a coffin, and the carpenter agreed to make one for five shillings, but when he asked permission of the mate he refused, so she was buried like the others, slipped into the ocean. I recited the prayers for the dead, and the deck was crowded, many being there who had not left the hold since we sailed. Just as they were about to lift the corpse over the gunwale Aileen suddenly burst into song—that mournful, consolatory hymn of the ages, Dies Iræ, to whose strains so many millions of the faithful have been carried to the grave. It was her magnificent voice, sounding from the choir-loft of our chapel, that first drew me to her, and, never before, did I hear her put more feeling into her voice than now. When the last strain of melody floated over the waters, there was a hush for a minute, my uncle laid his hand for the last time on the head of her he so dearly loved, there was a plunge, and all was over. The breaking out of the fever has produced, even among us hardened to misfortune, something like a panic. The crew are in mortal terror of the infection and will not allow passengers to go on the forecastle, as was their wont. The ship being sent to sea purposely shorthanded, the owner relying on saving something by getting the emigrants to help, a few of our lads, who had been given bunks in the forecastle and allowed sailors’ rations, have been warned, if they go down the hatchways to see their people, they need not return. The captain and cabin passengers never leave the poop. As for the mate, he seems to put his faith for protection against infection on camphor, and so smells of it that he must have a piece in every pocket. Uncle’s sorrows are not ended, for two of his family are very ill.

30.—Cold and rainy with fog. A north-west wind is blowing that drives the ship at a good rate, though not straight on her course. The fever spreads and to the other horrors of the steerage is added the cries of those in delirium. While I was coming from the galley this afternoon, with a pan of stirabout for some sick children, a man suddenly sprang upwards from the hatchway, rushed to the bulwark, his white hair streaming in the wind, and without a moment’s hesitation leaped into the seething waters. He disappeared beneath them at once. His daughter soon came hurrying up the ladder to look for him. She said he had escaped from his bunk during her momentary absence, that he was mad with the fever. When I told her gently as I could that she would never see him again, she could not believe me, thinking he was hiding. Oh the piercing cry that came from her lips when she learned where he had gone; the rush to the vessel’s side, and the eager look as she scanned the foaming billows. Aileen led her away; dumb from the sudden stroke yet without a tear.

May 1.—Wind still from northwest; ship beating against it in short tacks. Most disagreeable motion. Cast lead at noon. At 150 fathoms found no bottom. A whale crossed our bows, not a hundred yards away. During the afternoon wind veered to northeast and before dark developed into a gale, before which we are driving. May it last long enough to bring us to land. Two deaths today, which has been a truly miserable May-day.

2.—There had been a flurry of snow during the night, so that yards and deck were white when I went out. The gale still holds and boatswain said if the weather cleared we would see Newfoundland. Two small booms cracked but that has not deterred the captain from keeping on all the sail the ship will bear. At times her lee rail almost touches the water, and the deck slants so it is difficult to cross it. The captain is anxious to end the voyage, and no wonder, for the fever spreads. One child and two adults have died within the last twenty-four hours. Their bodies were dropped overboard when the ship was going 12 knots an hour. A cold, miserable day.

3.—The gale blew itself out during the night and today it is calm, the ship pitching and rolling on a glassy swell, and the sails flapping as if they would split. There is a mist, and it is very cold, which, the boatswain tells me, indicates ice near. Lead cast and soundings found, showing we are on the Banks. Some of our people, who are fishermen, bargained with the cook for a piece of salt pork and using it as bait cast their lines. Their patience was tried for a while, until we struck a school of fish, when for half an hour they caught cod and dogfish as fast as they could haul them in. The school then left and few were caught afterwards. They gave a few of best fish to the cook and in consideration he cooked what they had, so for one day all between decks had enough to eat. The drinking-water has been growing daily worse, and now the smell of it is shocking. The barrels must have been filled from the Liffey near a sewer. Repugnant as it is to sight, smell, and taste it continues to be doled out in such meagre measure that the sick are continually crying for water with not a drop to give them. The number now sick is appalling—the young of dysentery, the old of fever, the cause of both diseases starvation. Uncle’s second boy died this afternoon of dysentery. Poor uncle, his lot is a sore one, yet he never complains. Wind came from southwest towards evening bringing milder temperature with light rain. Sighted several fishing schooners and saw sea-birds for first time since left coast of Ireland.

4.—This has been a variable day; at times bright and warm, at others foggy and chilly, according as the wind blew, and it has veered from west to southwest. Sailors busy getting anchors off forecastle and bitted to the catheads—a slow and laborious task. Passed a number of fishing smacks today and sailed through a school of porpoises. Our own fishermen did pretty well today, The fish they catch is a great boon to our starving people. No death today.

5.—Weather thick and bitterly cold; no child played on deck today. Passed large fields of ice requiring great skill in handling the ship to avoid them. Captain remained on deck all day. While I have no respect for him as a man, he is an excellent sailor. Passed two ships caught in the ice. Boatswain says they will have to drift with it until the wind opens a channel by which they can escape. Steady wind from north-east all day. One death this evening, body buried by moonlight.

6.—No ice seen today. Boatswain tells me the captain has brought the ship well south of it. Weather continued thick, with wind from east, and frequent showers of rain. Passed a beautifully shaped two-masted vessel, painted white. She hoisted the stars and stripes. Sighted two large vessels, one like ourselves crowded with emigrants, for her lee bulwark was black with them, looking at us. A patch of floating sea weed drifted by before dark, showing we must be near land. There were three deaths today. If it please God, may this agony soon end.

7.—Stepping on deck this morning to my astonishment saw land on either side—cape North and St Paul island, the sunlight bringing the lighthouses into sharp relief. Both spits looked desolate, but were a cheering sight, for they were the first land we have seen since we lost sight of the Kerry hills. Thank God for his goodness in bringing us to land, the sight of which cheered me beyond expression. It sent a thrill of excitement even through the steerage. During the night the wind changed to the southeast and the ship makes great progress, the water being smooth, for now being in the gulf of St Lawrence we have left behind us the swell of the Atlantic. As the morning wore on it grew warmer, and when the sun had climbed to his heighth his rays became almost unpleasantly hot. Passengers not seen on deck since we sailed, crawled up to have a sight of the land, which we quickly left astern, and to bask in the sunshine, until few except the sick remained below. It was wonderful the change heat and prospect of soon being on land, wrought on the spirits of us all. Hope sprung afresh, and the misery of the past was forgotten. Children played about the deck and the hum of conversation filled the air. There were a number of ships in sight, bound, like ourselves, for Quebec. The hours sped and we were bearing down on the Bird-rocks—lonely islets of rock, worn into fantastic shapes, shooting sheer up from the sea and whose cliffs give a foothold to sea fowl, squadrons of whom were careering above them. While intently watching these sentinels of the gulf of the mighty river we had entered, my eye chanced to fall on the face of an old woman whom Aileen had persuaded to stay on deck. More pinched and sallow it could not be, for she was wasted and worn, but, to my alarm, I saw its lines assuming the rigidity of coming death. I touched Aileen’s arm to direct her attention. She was down on her knees by her side in a moment. “Mother, dear, are you not feeling well?” The eyelids lifted and the answer came, “I thank God for his goodness,” and then they drooped over the poor dazed eyes. I stepped into my cabin for a tin of water and Aileen held it to her lips. She feebly motioned it away. The slip of a girl who belonged to her, a grandchild, now realizing the coming change, clasped her round the neck. “Granny, dear, don’t be aleavin me all alone; sure we see Ameriky now and will soon be walkin on it.” The soul was quitting its frail tenement but the child’s voice so far recalled it, that a slight look of recognition lightened the face. “Och, stay wid me, granny, an I’ll do yer biddin and nivir vix ye agin. We’ll soon be havin lashins of meat an wather, an ye wunna need to be givin me your share. O stay wid me!” At that moment there was a report of a musket fired near by. The passengers, grouped around the dying woman, raised their startled eyes and saw it was the mate, who had fired at the sea fowl on the rocks we were now passing. The angry scowl at the interruption melted again into sorrow when Aileen, lifting the gray head from her lap, reverently straightened it on the deck, and leaving the body to the care of the women who crowded near, led the sobbing girl, doubly orphaned, to our cabin. At sunset we buried the body and with it that of a poor cripple, who had been suffering from dysentery. We sat late that night, for the breeze was warm and the speed of the ship exhilarating, while the waters sparkled in the moonlight. I had been in bed some time, when voices outside wakened me. It was the boatswain and a sailor who were talking, and the sound of their voices seemed to express astonishment. I dressed and hurried out. “Is there anything gone wrong?” I asked. “Did you ever see the like of that?” the boatswain replied, by pointing to the sky. The wind had fallen and glancing up the masts I saw sail, and rope, and block were motionless. Above hung clouds the like of which I had never seen. There were thousands of them, all about a size, all spherical, and all placed together as exactly as the panes in a cathedral window. Though hid from view, the moon was in the zenith, and its downward rays fell on the cloudlets, illuminating them and transmitting a ghostly light, reflected by a ghostly sea. From the horizon to the apex the illusion of the clouds was perfect in representing the ship as standing beneath the centre of a great dome composed of spheres of grey glass, through which streamed a light mysterious and fearsome, revealing the face of a glassy sea, dark and dread. “What weather does this portend?” I whispered. The boatswain shook his head. “It ain’t weather, sir,” said the sailor, “It’s death. You see if the fever don’t grow worse.”

8.—I had sat so long on deck during the night that it was late in the day when I awoke. Aileen had gone out but returned when I had dressed and we had breakfast. A western breeze was blowing and the ship was tacking. The boatswain told me the gulf was over 200 miles wide so there was plenty of sea room, but before night we found there was not. As the day wore on the wind increased and the weather became thick, so that the men on the lookout kept sounding the horn nearly all the time. The captain was more afraid of ice than of a collision with another ship, and did not leave the deck after dinner. It was about 6 o’clock, when everything seemed to be going well, the ship tearing through the water on her northern tack, when the fog suddenly thinned, and to our surprise we saw land ahead. We were not over a mile from it. The captain shouted to the man at the wheel, who brought the ship up to the wind, the sails slatting like to break the masts. The yards of the foremast were soon braced round, and the question was whether the ship would wear in time to avoid striking, for the land was now so near that we could see the foam of the breakers on the shore. There was a dreadful period of suspense, during which the ship drifted broadside on towards the land, until the sails of the foremast bellied out on catching the wind, when she turned on her heel, and the order tacks and sheets given, when everybody who had been able to get a grip of the ropes hauled with all their strength. The ship was now on the other tack, when we left the land astern, and which presented a desolate appearance, a foreground of rock with low hills behind on which were patches of snow. The boatswain said it was the eastern end of the island of Anticosti, and had we struck the rocks, those who escaped drowning would have starved to death, for the island, save a lighthouse or two, is uninhabited. I thought it, but did not say it, for he is not responsible, that 500 people were being starved to death on board ship. Our having got out of our course, for the captain supposed he was well clear of the island, is blamed on the currents and tides of the gulf.

9.—Uncle’s oldest son died of the fever soon after daylight. The blow is a crushing one, but I have yet to hear the first murmur from uncle. His submission to the Divine Will is most touching. The body along with two more we dropped overboard when the sailors were at dinner. Tho’ near the end of our voyage, the little tyrant on the poop has given no order to increase the supply of water or biscuit. I did not think the stench of the hold could become worse, but the heat we had a day ago has intensified it. To descend into the hold has become more than I can well bear. I told Aileen today she must not even go near the hatchways. Wind unfavorable all day, and ship tacking.

10.—Wind again in the south but very light. Today in making the weather tack we came close to the south shore, which seemed to be a succession of ranges of high hills with trees to their tops. This was a sad day, five having died. Exchanged signals with a ship. She said she was from Liverpool with emigrants and many were sick. Lead was kept going all day.

11.—In beating across the gulf this morning, the wind being ahead, and cold enough to chill to the marrow, we noticed a small schooner bearing down upon us. It was a pilot boat that had sighted us. When alongside, a row boat left her and soon a pilot was climbing to our deck. He was a Frenchman and spoke broken English. When he saw he had got on board an emigrant ship, he seemed to hesitate, and looked as if he wished he was back, with the bundle he had in his hand, on the schooner again. The boat, however, was by this time near the schooner. “Any seek?” he asked the captain. What the captain answered I could not hear, for he turned and took the stranger to the cabin. When the pilot reappeared he took command, and I noticed he never left the poop. In the afternoon it grew foggy and from the forecastle the dismal sound of the fog horn came. Being now well up the gulf we were in the neighborhood of many vessels, and a collision was possible. We sighted no ship, however, until late in the afternoon, when we saw masttops above the fog. She proved to be a large vessel in splendid order. Ranging close to us, her captain asked if we had a pilot. Answered yes, he replied he had none. Our captain told them to follow us. Instead of that, the order was given to set more sail and in a few minutes she was lost to sight. Our pilot shook his head as he remarked, “She heading for Mingan rocks.” When it began to grow dark, order given to let go the anchor. The noise of the rattling cable was like thunder. A child died today, a sweet girl toddler that Aileen was fond of. Many of the sick are sinking tonight, not one of whom but might have lived with proper sustenance, for it is the period of convalescence that proves fatal in nine cases out of ten. Mouldy sea biscuit of the coarsest kind and foul water simply kill the patient who has got over the fever, yet we have nothing else to offer to satisfy their cravings.

12.-Anchor was weighed at daylight and when I came out on deck found we were tacking towards south shore, which was concealed by a fog-bank. Afterwards the wind veered to the east, and a drizzling rain set in. Weather thick all day, cold and disagreeable, with satisfaction, however, of knowing we are making good progress. The pilot, like the captain, is anxious to make all possible speed, and even the top stun sails were set. This was a sad day between decks. There were four deaths and the number of sick greatly increased. No wonder: the air is that of a charnel vault and the people are so weak from want of food that they have no strength to resist disease.

13.—During the night was roused by the noise of the anchor being let go. On leaving my cabin was astounded, for I stepped into brilliant sun shine, in whose beams the waters danced, while, like a panorama, a lovely landscape was unrolled on either side. No longer a weary waste of water, with an unchanging horizon, met my view, but a noble river, rolling between picturesque banks. The north was rugged, with lofty hills, wooded to the summit; the south was an undulating slope, along whose lower edge ran a line of small white-washed houses, so near each other as to form a street. The fields were flushed with green and some of the tree-tops thickened with bud and bursting leaf. Evidently the occupants of each house had a farm, which ran like a riband from the river to nigh the head of the slope, which was crowned with woods. At regular intervals in the line of houses there is a church—plain stone edifices with high pitched roofs, which, with steeples, are tinned, giving them a foreign look. We were waiting for the tide to turn, the breeze being insufficient to enable the ship to beat against the current. On the other side of the river were four large ships, at anchor like ourselves. As the morning wore on a boat was seen to leave the shore and row towards us. The gunwale of our ship was crowded with passengers watching her approach. On coming near us, the two men in the boat did not seem to fancy our looks, for they did not throw their line to us. They had evidently come to sell us the provisions they had aboard. “Lay to, what are you afeared of,” shouted the boatswain. One of the men shook his blue cowled head. “Parley vous Français?” he cried “What does he say?” the boatswain asked me “I think he wants to know if you speak French.” “Blast his himpudence; what does he think my mother was? I wants none sich lingo,” retorted the salt. Scared by the row of white faces the men had plainly decided to forego the profits of trade from fear of infection. One had seized his oar to bring the boat’s head to shore when, recalling all the French words I had ever heard, I shouted “Lait,” and held out a pail with one hand and sixpence with the other. They swung round, and one of the men caught my pail, filled it and handed it back. Pointing to some loaves he gave me one for a sixpence, and several other passengers bought the rest of them. This done, the boat left. With that milk Aileen hopes to save the lives of the few infants left. The bread was welcome, though it was heavy and had a peculiar sourish taste. When the tide began to make, the order to weigh the anchor was given. The ships to the north of us were doing the same, and the sailors’ songs came over the water with beautiful cadence, blending with the chorus of our own crew, which began with “haul in the bowline, the black ship’s arolling,” and ended declaring that “Katie is my darling.” With a large spread of canvas we moved slowly up the mighty river for the wind was light. In spite of our dismal surroundings, this was a day of quiet delight to Aileen and myself. The extraordinary width of the river, said to be over ten miles, its waters, pure and of deep blue color, clasping at intervals a picturesque island, the boldness of the wooded hills on the north shore and the brightness and softness of the cultivated landscape on the south, were a constant feast for eyes wearied of the sea. The depth and tender blue of the sky, so much more transparent than in the dear old land, particularly impressed Aileen. As we made our way up the glorious river, the shores trended nearer, the hills on the north grew loftier and the southern bank less steep. The sun had set in a glory of gold and crimson beyond the hills when the order was given to let go the anchor, the tide no longer serving us. Quarter a mile ahead of us a large ship did the same. The evening being calm Aileen got a wrap and we sat watching the darkening waters and the shores that loomed momentarily more faint, until the lights from the house windows alone marked where they were. “What is that?” she suddenly exclaimed, and I saw a shapeless heap move past our ship on the outgoing tide. Presently there was another and another. Craning my head over the bulwark I watched. Another came, it caught in our cable, and before the swish of the current washed it clear, I caught a glimpse of a white face. I understood it all. The ship ahead of us had emigrants and they were throwing overboard their dead. Without telling Aileen, I grasped her arm, and drew her to our cabin.

14.—An eventful day, the consequences of which I fear, although, recalling every detail, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise. Anxious to see this country, so new and bright to me, I rose at daylight. The ship was under plain sail, beating against a northwest wind, and making little headway. One of our lads who had been taken to help the sailors was ordered by the mate up the foremast to put to rights some tackle that had got entangled in the last tack. The boy blundered, and the mate repeated the order with his customary oaths. Again the lad tried to do what he was bid and failed. Ordering a sailor to go up and do the work, the mate shouted to the boy to come down. He did so reluctantly, for he saw the mate had grasped a rope’s end. Cursing him for his slowness, the mate seized his feet while still in the ratlines. He fell violently on the deck, when the mate proceeded to shower blows with the heavy rope on the head and back of the boy, who cried piteously for mercy. I could not stand it; my blood was boiling. “Stop,” I shouted, “have pity on the boy; he did not mean to disobey your order. It was his sorrow for his mother who died last night that confused him.” The mate paused in his lashing of the lad and glared at me with such a malignant look as I pray the saints I may never again have cast on me. “Mind your business, damn you, or I’ll have you put in irons for mutiny,” he shouted and again laid the rope across the lad’s quivering body with fiercer strength. It was, perhaps, foolish for my own interests but I could not help it. I sprang at the mate and dealt him a blow in the face. He clutched hold of me and we grappled. He was strong, with muscles toughened by fighting sea and wind, but a Sligo boy of my inches will take odds from no man in a wrestle. We fell time and again, he beneath me, but he always managed to wriggle up again, until I got a good hold of his neck, then I bent him under me and rained blows on every part of him my right fist could reach. All that the cheating villain had done, his cruelties to my people, his brutal indifference to their sufferings, flashed across my mind, and lent vim to every blow I dealt. How the scoundrel howled for help and, finally, for mercy. Not one of the sailors interfered. They drew off to the forepeak and looked on, glad to see his punishment. The passengers who were on deck formed in a circle around us, delighted at the sight. One of them, I recall, popped up from the hatchway and held out a blackthorn to me with the explanation, “To finish him off wid, yer honor.” I needed no shillelah. The fear that I might fatally injure the bully alone caused me to pause. I gathered him up in my arms for a final effort, when a strange thing happened me. I saw in my mind’s eye, as they passed before me, the white face of one after the other of the dead I helped to drop into the sea. It was one of those freaks the imagination plays when the mind is intensely excited. This could not have taken over a moment or two, but I saw them all, plainly and distinctly. Solemnized yet strengthened by the sight, I was given a power I had not. I raised the craven, who was whining and sobbing, as high as my breast and flung him away as far as I could. Fortune favored him, he fell on a coil of rope, where he lay helpless. The steward went to him, wiped the blood from his eyes, and finally he was able to rise and, leaning on the steward’s left shoulder, shuffled to the cabin. By this time every man of my people able to leave the hold was on deck, an excited throng, eager for fighting. “If they lay a finger on yees for what ye’ve so nately done, we’ll break the heads av ivery wan o’ thim,” said a county Leitrim man to me, and I knew that was the spirit of them all. Softly opening the door of our little cabin I was thankful to find Aileen asleep. Getting a change of clothes, for those I had on were torn and bloodstained, I slipped out, had a wash in a bucket of saltwater, and then dressed myself. At breakfast I told Aileen all. She was much shocked at the danger I had run, and when satisfied I had received no greater injury than sundry black and blue bruises from kicks and blows and some handfuls of hair the coward had torn from my head, she became alarmed for the result. Assaulting an officer on shipboard I knew was a serious offence in the eyes of the law, and so did Aileen. “I don’t think,” I said to her, “you need fear their punishing me according to law, for they know if I am taken before a court, all the villainy of captain and mate towards the passengers would come out. They have broken the law in fifty ways, and know it. What I fear is the captain trying to take the law into his own hands before we reach Quebec.” We passed the day on deck as usual, appearing as unconcerned as might be. Whether the captain entertained any notion of arresting me, I cannot say, for he made no sign. The sight of a score or so of my people keeping nigh me wherever I moved, from whose coats peeped the end of what they called “a bit av a shtick,” may have had some influence in deterring him, but the real cause I opine to be what the boatswain whispered to me in the evening, that the steward had told the captain the sailors to a man would refuse to put a hand on me. They hate the mate, who, by the way, according to the cabin boy, is lying in his berth, alternately groaning with pain and swearing from rage. We made little progress today. The wind was ahead and we kept tacking every half hour or so. In beating up the river thus, a ship overhauled us. She was a Clyde trader, and being shorter she wore more quickly and being heavier laden sailed more closely to the wind, and owing to these advantages she outsailed us. As she passed us, her captain stood at the stern and dangled a rope to us, as if offering to take our ship in tow. Our captain, with an oath, rushed down the companionway to hide his mortification. In the afternoon a discovery was made that sent joy to the heart of every passenger. A boy had hauled up a pailful of water to douse his head in, after getting his hair clipped, when he got a taste of it and found it was fresh. The tide was out, and at the point we now had reached, at the slack, the water is fresh. Pailful after pailful was hauled on board, and the sick were supplied without stint, with water sweet, clear and cool. Alas, the refreshing draught came too late for seven, who died during the day. I wanted to keep the bodies on board in hopes of giving them burial, but the boatswain advised otherwise, as he said, although we were within a short distance of quarantine with the present wind we might be two or three days of making it. Ship anchored at darkening, close to shore.

15.—Remained at anchor all day. Cold with strong wind from north-west. At intervals there were squalls, accompanied by driving showers of rain and hail. Three hours’ fair wind would see us at quarantine, yet here we are unable to advance a yard on our way. Five deaths today. I resolved the bodies be kept for burial. Boatswain told me mate is worse today, being feverish. The pilot bled him and the captain gave him a blue pill. Not being needed to work the ship, all hands were engaged in putting the vessel into her best trim, scraping, scrubbing, and painting. Outwardly the ship is neat and clean, a sight to delight a sailor’s eye, and to look at her from the deck it is hard to conceive of the putrid state of her hold. The steward bribed several of the passengers with whisky to clean the steps and alley-ways of the steerage. A steamer painted white and with a house the length of her deck, passed us, going east.

16.—The sound of the anchor being weighed awoke me and I heard it with joy. I dressed and gave the sailors a hand. The wind had veered into the east, and it looked as if rain was coming. The fore mainsail having been set, the ship swept on, keeping the channel as easily as if propelled by steam. When Aileen came out, the church bells were ringing for early mass, and we could make out the people driving along the roads to attend. Reports from the steerage are gloomy. There have been three deaths during the night. It seems as if a number of the sick had reached that point that their dropping off is inevitable. The river was dotted with ships following us, and the sight of so many large vessels moving majestically in a column in our rear fascinated me. By and by the rain came on, when Aileen left to pack our trunks, for we are fully persuaded the wind will hold and that we will land in Quebec before dark, bidding farewell to this ship of misery. When quarantine was sighted, I dropped in to see how she was getting on, and finding my help not needed, wrote this, in all probability, the last entry I will make on board.

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Grosse Isle, May 31.—Fourteen days since I penned a line in this sorrowful record. I wish I had not lived to pen another. God’s will be done, but, oh, it is hard to say it. Yet I ask myself, what right have I to repine? Grievous as has been my loss, what is it compared with that of many of those around me, whose quiet submission rebukes my selfish sorrow. Enough of this, let me resume my record. When the ship came abreast of the quarantine buildings, all fresh from a new coat of whitewash, the anchor was dropped. It was nearly an hour before the quarantine officer came on board, and I heard him on stepping from his boat apologize to our captain for the delay, owing to his waiting for breakfast. The captain took him down to the cabin and it was a long while before he re-appeared, when he stepped down to the main deck, where all the passengers, able to be out of bed, were waiting him. He walked round us, asked a few to hold out their tongues, and then went down into the hold, where he stayed only a minute or so. Passing a few words with the captain, he re-entered his boat and was rowed back to the island. No sooner had he left, than the boatswain got orders to have all boats made ready to take the sick ashore. First the dead were brought up. The sailors shrank back, there was a muttered consultation, and the boatswain, taking me aside, told me they would not touch them or even row a boat that held them, and I had better drop them overboard. “Never,” I cried, “shall it be said that the bodies of the faithful did not receive Christian burial when it was possible to give it.” Calling out from among my people four men whom I knew were fishermen, I asked them if they would row the dead ashore, and on saying they would, the boatswain let me have a boat. Decently the bodies were passed over and we made our way to the landing. We had trouble in getting them out of the boat, for the steps of the quay were out of repair, but we managed it and carried them to what, from the cross on it, we saw was a church. The priest came out, and I told him our purpose. Leaving the dead in the church, we went back to the ship for the others. By this time the sick were being landed, and roughly handled they were. As it would be awhile before the graves would be ready, I lent a hand—the most miserable, heartrending work I had ever engaged in. With indecent haste they were hurried from the ship deck into the boats, and tossed on to the steps of the quay, careless of what injury they might receive. Most were unable to help themselves in the least, a few were delirious. Men, women, and children were all treated the same, as so much rubbish to be got rid of as quickly as possible. It was no better on land. The quarantine had only two men to spare to help the few relatives who came ashore to carry them from the wharf to the buildings, and many lay an hour in a cold pelting rain. It signified little as to their getting wet, for they were all doused by the waves in landing them on the quay. Small wonder two died on the quay, and were borne to the chapel to add to the number awaiting burial there. The priest was very considerate, and, although I did not ask it, said mass, which I knew would be a great consolation to the relatives. Leaving the cemetery with the priest, I thanked him from my heart, and ran to the quay. My heart was in my mouth when I saw on it Aileen, standing beside our boxes, and the ship, having tripped her anchor, bearing up the river. “What makes you look so at me, Gerald? I have come as you asked.”

“I never sent for you.”

“The steward told me you had sent word by the sailors for me to come ashore, that you were going to stay here. They carried the luggage into a boat and I followed.”

I groaned in spirit. I saw it all. By a villainous trick, the captain had got rid of me. Instead of being in Quebec that day, here I was left at the quarantine-station. “My poor Aileen, I know not what to do; my trouble is for you.” I went to see the head of the establishment, Dr Douglas. He proved to be a fussy gentleman, worried over a number of details. Professing to be ready to oblige, he said there was no help for me until the steamer came. “When will that be?” Next Saturday. A week on an island full of people sick with fever! Aileen, brave heart, made the best of it. She was soaking wet, yet the only shelter, apart from the fever sheds, which were not to be thought of, was an outhouse with a leaky roof, with no possibility of a fire or change of clothing. How I cursed myself for my rashness in making captain and mate my enemies, for the penalty had fallen not on me, but on my Aileen. There was not an armful of straw to be had; not even boards to lie on. I went to the cooking booth, and found a Frenchman in charge. Bribing him with a shilling he gave me a loaf and a tin of hot tea. Aileen could not eat a bite, though she tried to do so to please me, but drank the tea. The rain continued and the east wind penetrated between the boards of the wretched sheiling. What a night it was! I put my coat over Aileen, I pressed her to my bosom to impart some heat to her chilled frame, I endeavored to cheer her with prospects of the morrow. Alas, when morning came she was unable to move, and fever and chill alternated. I sought the doctor, he was not to be had. Other emigrant ships had arrived, and he was visiting them. Beyond giving her water to assuage her thirst when in the fever it was not in my power to do anything. It was evening when the doctor, yielding to my importunities, came to see her. He did not stay a minute and writing a few lines told me to go to the hospital steward, who would give me some medicine. Why recall the dreadful nights and days that followed? What profit to tell of the pain in the breast, the raging fever, the delirium, the agonizing gasping for breath—the end? The fourth day, with bursting heart and throbbing head, I knelt by the corpse of my Aileen. There was not a soul to help; everybody was too full of their own troubles to be able to heed me. The island was now filled with sick emigrants, and death was on every side. I dug her grave, the priest came, I laid her there, I filled it in, I staggered to the shed that had sheltered us, I fell from sheer exhaustion, and remember no more. When I woke, I heard the patter of rain, and felt so inexpressibly weary I could think of nothing, much less make any exertion. My eye fell on Aileen’s shawl, and the past rushed on me. Oh, the agony of that hour; my remorse, my sorrow, my beseechings of the Unseen. Such a paroxysm could not last long, and when exhausted nature compelled me to lie down, I turned my face to the wall with the earnest prayer I might never awaken on this earth. How long I slept I know not. Some motion of one leaning over me brought back consciousness.

“Pax tecum,” said a voice I seemed to recall. “Et cum spiritu tuo,” I mechanically responded.

I opened my eyes. Could I believe them? It was Father Moylan. I put my arms round his neck, and kissed him a score of times.

“Father, dear; sure it must be the Blessed Virgin herself sent you to console me for the loss of her daughter, my Aileen, my love.”

“My consolation would be of little aid; but as an unworthy servant of the church I may be the channel of communicating the consolation that doth avail. May the Mother of Sorrows, whose heart was pierced by the sight of her son’s death, heal thy wound. I knew not Aileen was dead.”

“Did Father McGoran not tell you?”

“Like everybody else in this wretched place his hands are too full to permit of speech that can be dispensed with. A lad called on me at Quebec to tell me of how you had been left behind and besought me to help you and your wife.”

“His name, father?”

“Michael Fagan.”

“The grateful soul; the boy I stopped the mate from lashing.”

“He it was, for he told me all and of what you had been to the sick on the voyage. I intended coming anyway to see what I could do for our poor country people, but when I knew of my pupil being here in distress, I went to the bishop to ask to be sent at once.”

“And how did you find me?”

“By searching. The last hour I have gone through every building looking for you and came in course to this outhouse.”

“May the saints ease your dying hour for this kindness, father. Oh that you had come while Aileen was alive!”

“Fret not over the past, Gerald; there is work calling for you which you must rise and do.”

“I have no heart to lift my head: I want to die and be with Aileen.”

“A wish natural to the flesh, my son, but I taught you to little avail if I did not ground you in the belief that it is the duty of the Christian to so direct the blind sorrow of fallen humanity that it become an impulse to more strenuous discharge of our daily duties. Aileen is dead; requiescat en pace. Is your sorrow for her to be a selfish sorrow that will add to your load of sin; or shall it become an incitement to you to do for those around you what she would wish you to do could she speak?”

“Do not ask me; I cannot forget her.”

“You are not asked to forget her. May you ever see her in your mind’s eye, beckoning you on to works of faith and mercy; may her precious memory be your inspiration to do what duty calls from your hand.”

“There is no need of my help now.”

“No need! I tell you every hour there are Irish men and women dying within a furlong of you for lack of the commonest help. Before I came here, I found sick who had not had their fever assuaged by a drop of water for 18 hours; children who had not tasted a bite since yesterday; the dead lying beside the living, and all because there is none to help.”

“I do not understand why that should be on land. There is plenty of food and help in Quebec.”

“Yes, and so there was on your ship, but a heartless captain and a greedy mate stood between the food and water and the passengers. There is abundance of everything within sight of here, yet our countrymen are perishing by the score, because the government of Canada is deaf to their cries.”

“What interest can the Canadian government have in acting so?”

“No interest. It is more heedlessness than intent. The politicians are too absorbed in their paltry strifes to give heed to a few thousand Irish emigrants dying at their door.”

“It sounds incredible.”

“That is because you do not know politics and politicians here. I tell you, Gerald, I have been in Canada now three years, and (always barring the tools of the Irish landlords) if there be a more despicable creature than the office-hunting Canadian politician, I have yet to see him.”

“If I must act, I should go first to Quebec to see after my people. They were promised ten shillings a head, to be paid by Lord Palmerston’s agent at Quebec, and a deed from the Canadian government for a hundred acres a family.”

“Faugh! Not a shilling, not an acre did they get. I saw them. Lord Palmerston has no agent in Quebec, the government will give no free grant of land. Mere lies told the poor crathurs to get them to leave Ireland.”

“Well, then, I could at least make an example of the captain of our ship.”

“Not a bit of it; you are deceiving yourself. The prosecution would have to be taken by the emigration agent, and he would not, if he could help it. Then, where are your witnesses? You would be bled of your last dollar by the lawyers and do nothing. No, Gerald, there is no use of thinking of leaving here. Providence has guided you to Grosse isle and here is your work. Come, man, get up and do it.”

I sank back with a groan. I did not want to move, the father insisted, however, and, after many remonstrances, grasped my hand and raised me to my feet. He took me to where the resident priest lived, insisted on my washing myself and gave me, out of his bag, one of his clean shirts. Then we sat down to dinner, Fathers McGoran and Taschereau joining us. The conversation was of the deluge of emigrants, every day bringing new arrivals, and every ship with its quota of sick and dying. Every available place having become crowded, the ships had to remain and become floating hospitals. The calamity with which they were face to face was so unexpected and appalling that how to devise means to grapple with it staggered them. They spoke of the need of urging the government to erect sheds and send plenty of nurses and doctors. I listened in silence until Father Taschereau asked me for my opinion, as one who was an emigrant. I said many had died on the voyage and many more had been landed who would certainly die, but of this I was confident, there would not have been a death from fever or dysentery on the voyage or one sick of these diseases landed at Grosse isle, had there been enough to eat. The solution of the difficulty therefore seemed to me simple. Give all who arrive plenty of wholesome food. Starvation is the cause of dysentery and fever. Remove the cause and these diseases will disappear. It is not medicine and nursing that are wanted, but food. The people fled from starvation in Ireland to be worse starved on board ship where their lot was made worse by the lack of pure air and water, of which they had no lack in Ireland. They asked me many questions about the treatment of the emigrants on shipboard. Father McGoran said he was inclined to believe I was right, that Dr Douglas was making the mistake of fighting the fever instead of removing what caused the fever. The fever was not to be looked upon as was the cholera visitation of 12 years before. I left the table with Father Moylan and as we went out at the door, he stood for a minute to look at the sight on the river. The clouds had cleared and the sun had come out strong, with a marvellously soft and clear atmosphere. So far as we could see from where we stood, the blue waters of the river bore a column of vessels of which neither head nor end was visible. “Let us take a step over and see them,” said Father Moylan. When we reached the bank, the sight was striking, and would have been most inspiring had we not known that each of these noble ships was a floating pest-house. There was a shout from the vessel opposite us. A man stood on the gunwale, and steadying himself with one hand grasping the rigging, gesticulated with the other. His agitation was so great neither of us could make out what he was saying. “Speak slowly,” cried Father Moylan, when clear the response came across the water, “For the love of God, father, come aboord; ye’re needed.” There was only one rowboat in sight, and it belonged to Dr. Douglas. The oars were out of her and the chain locked. “You’ll have to send a boat,” cried the father. There was a long delay, ending in a boat putting off from the ship. He wanted me to go with him, but I said I wished to find my uncle.

With heavy heart and unsteady step I turned to the buildings where the sick were. The nighest was the best. I looked in and to my joy espied my cousin Bridget sitting alongside a bunk. She started and gave a cry of fright when she saw me, for, she explained, she thought I was in Quebec and I looked like a ghost. It was her father and her sister Ellen who were in the bed. The latter had been landed sick of the fever; uncle had been stricken by it the day after arrival. He did not know me, and I feared the worst from the sound of his moaning. The girl seemed to be doing well. “Comfortable they be,” said Bridget, “this is the best place; the sheds are bad as the ship.” I told her to go and take the air for a while, and sat down to watch in her place. I was hardly seated when I distinguished a murmur of plaintive cries from every part of the room, mostly—“Wather, if ye plaze.” I bestirred myself, and when the poor souls found there was somebody to help, requests increased, and I was kept going from bed to bed. When Bridget returned I remarked that I saw none of our ship’s people in the place. She said there was only room for her father and Ellen and the others were in the sheds. It was growing dark when Father Malloy came to the door and beckoned me out. He had such a distressed and wearied look that I went with him without asking any questions. When we came near the outhouse I had lodged in, I turned towards it. He gripped my arm. “No, Gerald, not there; you’d lapse into your old mood.” He took me to the priest’s house, and a shake-down was made for me in the kitchen. I had a wakeful night and went out of doors before sunrise. To my surprise I saw Father Malloy walking up and down in front of the house, prayer-book in hand. When done he joined me. “Now, Gerald, we have work to do; we must make an examination of everything, for no plan can be laid until we know the actual state of affairs.” Re-entering the house with him, he got a loaf and a jug of milk. “I am going to tell you something you should never forget; when you have to go where there are sick, do not go with an empty stomach. Fasting and infection go together.” Having broken our fast, we started, the first thing to be done, the father said, being to see what the island was like. The morning was delightfully fresh and we walked briskly. We found the island larger than we supposed, and having a good deal of land fit for cultivation. Pausing at a field where a man was harrowing, the father had a conversation with him in French. He told him the island was about three miles long by one in width, and that Doctor Douglas farmed a considerable part of it, keeping a number of cows. Standing on its north bank a wide expanse of the St Lawrence lay at our feet, the blue waters ruffled by a western breeze. Beyond rose a chain of wooded hills, which swelled into a lofty peak, overhanging the river. “That is called cape Tourmente,” said Father Malloy. “Is it not a glorious scene! Who, looking upon it, would dream there is concentrated within ten minutes’ walk the misery of a nation? Gerald, we must give Ireland’s woe on this island a voice that will bring the help of Christian people.”

“I am afraid it will be hard to interest them. Everything is against the poor emigrant, father. He is not looked upon as a human being. The very sailors treat him as they would a steer given to carry from one port to another.”

“True, my boy, and you don’t know it all, for you have not lived in this country yet. I’ve seen in New York men and women shrink from the newly landed emigrant as an unclean thing, and at Quebec over there the very bar-room loafers sniff their noses in disgust at him. Unless they have money nobody makes them welcome; and if they have money everybody tries to get it from them. I buried a woman who had been left to die on the wharf at Quebec. The captain bundled her out, nobody would touch her, let alone give her shelter, and the poor sick crathur afore sundown found rest and is now where those who despised her will have little chance of going.”

I asked Father Malloy about his visit to the ship the day before. He told me the man who shouted for him had a brother dying, who wanted the church’s last rites. “It was my first visit to a fever-stricken ship,” he went on to say, “and it was a revelation. I could not stand upright in her hold, for it was not much over 5 feet high, and there was little more elbow than head room. Every side was lined with berths and I saw dead lying in them with the living. The stench made one gasp, and the sight of the vermin crawling over dead and living made my flesh creep. An Irish priest is used to the sights of disease and want, but the emigrant-ship, fever-stricken, embodies every form of wretchedness and multiplies them a ten-fold.”

The quarantine-buildings are huddled together at the upper end of the island and each we examined during the day. Except the one in which uncle lay, they are flimsy affairs, a shelter from the heat of the sun and no more, for the boards are shrunken and the roofs leaky. In one the berths are in double tier, like those of a ship, the result being the patient in the lower berth is made uncomfortable by the one above, and he, in turn, from weakness, can neither get out nor into it without help, which he seldom gets. Every place is crowded with sick, even the two churches being occupied. The government had prepared for 200 sick; already there are nigh a thousand, and many more on the ships who cannot be landed for want of room. Without regard to age or sex they are huddled together in the sheds, and left to die or recover. The attendance was hardly worth speaking of. At long intervals a man or woman would come round with drink and food, but there was no pretence at coming for their comfort. We were told by many nobody had been near them for hours. We saw the dead lying next the living, for the bodies are removed only night and morning, and in many cases there were two and three in a berth. Over all this sad scene, from which hope had fled, shone the virtues of patience and submission to the divine will. No querulous word was heard, no grumbling; the stricken flock bowed beneath the rod of affliction with pious resignation. Workmen were busy building a new shed and there were tents lying round, but all the preparations were wofully insufficient. Father Malloy agreed with me that the lack of nurses was even worse than the lack of shelter, and thought a supply might be had from the healthy emigrants. I thought not; emigrants in health were too eager to escape after being bound to scenes of horror on shipboard for a month and more. We labored to do our best, and many a pail of water did the father carry from the river to serve out in cupfuls in the sheds.

The weather has been sorely against the sick, rain with high east winds, adding to their discomfort. Nearly every day there is a fresh arrival of a ship, and not one without sick on board. The wind had been from the east the day before and on the morning of the 25th a whole fleet was seen bearing up the river, of which a dozen had emigrants. At Father Malloy’s request I spent a day with him going from ship to ship, a boat having been lent him by a friendly captain. The passengers cried with joy when they saw him and clustered round the holy man, whose services in administering the last consolations of the church were needed at every step. I spoke with the passengers while he was below, and it was an unvarying tale of starvation on the voyage and cruel usage. I found the passengers on ships that had been lying at anchor over a week to be still starving, for the captains had not increased the rations and Dr Douglas said he could not supply provisions from the shore unless authorized by the Canadian government. One of the new arrivals had 13 dead on board. The 40 ships now at anchor, have nigh 15,000 emigrants: of these I am sure one-third would not be passed as healthy. Sailors are at work on shore erecting a sort of shelter with spars and sails, where the ships will leave their healthy to perform quarantine, while they go on to Quebec.

June 3.—Father Malloy has left with the design of making representations to the government about the condition of things here. He intended, if his bishop consented, to go direct to Montreal, and speak to the ministers themselves. The forwarding of emigrants passed as healthy has begun. They are crowded on to the steamers until there is barely room to move. The reason for this is, the passage money is a dollar a-head and the more packed on board, the more profit. Truth to tell, this class of emigrants are eager enough to leave, and get away from this place. The meanness of the Canadian government in dealing with them is shameful. Instead of allowing healthy passengers to go on with the ship as at first, they are now landed. Being compelled to land and stay here by the government’s orders, it would be reasonable to expect the government would provide for them. It does not; all it has done is to send an agent who offers to sell them provisions at cost. Uncle’s recovery is hopeless; his strength has gone.

5.—Poor uncle is dead. He was buried yesterday. Ellen keeps hovering between life and death; she has youth on her side. Poor Bridget is worn to a shadow, waiting on the sick. Being told a ship that came in this forenoon was from Sligo, I watched a chance to get on board, expecting to find some I knew among her passengers. I found her deck crowded with emigrants, watching the sailors fish up from the hold with boat-hooks the bodies of those who had died since entering the river. I soon learned there was bad blood between the crew and passengers, all of whom who could do so had left the steerage two days before and lived on deck. The hold had grown so loathsome with the warm weather that it became unbearable. The crew resented their living on deck. The captain stood at the poop rail, and proved to be a civil man. He told me he had done his best for the passengers on the voyage, but the charterers had poorly provisioned the vessel and he could not therefore give them the rations he wished. For the bad feeling between the sailors and passengers he could not blame either. Staying on deck the emigrants were in the sailors’ way, yet he could not order them back to the hold. Three sailors had caught the fever during the week, which incensed their comrades against the emigrants. He was to pay the sailors a sovereign for each body brought up. I told him of Captain Christian of the ship Sisters, who, the week before, when emigrants and sailors refused for any money to go into the hold to bring up the dead, went down himself and carried them to the deck on his shoulders. I hope he may live to know that Irishmen are grateful, for he is now down with the fever. I recognized none of the passengers, for they were from the northwest end of Lord Palmerston’s estates. Their poverty was extreme. They had no luggage and many had not rags enough to cover their nakedness. So haggard and white were they, so vacant their expression, that they looked more like an array of spectres, than of human beings. Coming back, I had painful evidence of the brutal indifference of the authorities in dealing with the sick. They continue to be brought from the ships to the quay in rowboats, and the line of ships being now two miles long, the journey is a long one, and often fatal in bad weather. A small steamboat for transferring them would be a godsend, but the government does not get one, does not even spend ten shillings to replace the broken planks of the steps on the quay, although the want of them causes many a feeble one to slip into the river.

6.—Dr Douglas exemplifies how a man may be estimable as an individual yet unequal for his duties as an official. He is so obliging and gracious personally that it is unpleasant to find fault with him, yet it is apparent he does not grasp the magnitude of the affliction he has to deal with and is unable to devise means to meet it. All the steps taken are ridiculous in their petty nature. I have been told that it is not him but the Canadian government that is to blame, that it will not allow him a free hand in meeting the emergency, does not respond to his calls, and warns him to be careful in incurring expenditure. Probably that is true, but the government is not accountable for the foolish rules by which the island is governed. There is now a large colony of supposed healthy emigrants confined to the northwest corner of the island. When one falls sick, instead of being taken to the fever-sheds, he is conveyed to the ship in which he was a passenger, and from her is taken to the sheds. The delay and the fatigue of the journey by land and water, if it does not kill the patient makes his recovery more doubtful. Although the population of the island has doubled in a few weeks, the boat with supplies from Quebec continues to come once a week only. We may be starving, many are starving this day, yet until the steamer comes there is no help. The dead are being buried in trenches, three tier deep. Men and women whose strong arms would add to Canada’s wealth are being held here by its authorities to die of want when within sight of plenty. I look at the row of farm-houses on the opposite bank of the river, on the little town whose roofs I see, and knowing there is comfort and plenty over there, marvel at the stupidity, the criminal disregard, that leaves us without bread to eat or even straw to die upon. Steamers pass daily but they are not allowed to stop at the island; my poor people are kept prisoners to perish amid the rocks of this island. The Almighty will surely have a day of reckoning with the rulers of Canada, for it is Canada’s territory we are on and it is Canada’s quarantine in which we lie bound. The sick are everywhere and are neglected. I found the body of a man in a thicket where he had crawled like a scared beast to die in peace. Bodies are taken from the tents daily where the healthy are supposed to lodge. The sheds have become repugnant to every sense, and the sick are worse off than on ship, for few have relatives to attend them, and they lie for hours without being helped even to a drink of water. The inmates of a tent told me nobody had been near them for two days, and not one among them able to stand for a minute. Everything is against us, for the weather is windy and wet. I go to spend the night in the old shed. My brain is overburdened with the sorrows of my people, and I would I were at rest with Aileen.

10.—A steamer came in this morning to take away emigrants, and I am sure over a thousand were packed on board. Her purser brought a package of letters; one of them was for myself.

Montreal, June 8, 1847.

My Dear Gerald,—I had it in mind to have written you several days ago, but postponed taking pen in hand day after day in expectation of being able to convey to you the intelligence that would cheer your heart—that the government had decided on adopting a policy of adequate relief. That, it grieves me to say, they have not done, although I have exerted myself to arouse them to a sense of their duty, but it is little a poor priest can do with our public men. When I reached here I went first to see the premier. After waiting my turn for an hour with a crowd of visitors, I was admitted. He was civil, but is a dull man, and did not seem to realize what I was telling him. He told me to go to the provincial secretary, to whose department emigration belongs, and see him. I left in no good humor, to do as Mr Sherwood bade me. Mr Daly was not at his lodgings; he had gone to the back of the mountain to dine. I have learned since, he is better at dining and wining than attending to his duties. I had an interview with him next day. You may not know that Mr Daly is of ourselves. He is a Galway man himself and his lady is from Kilkenny. Appealing to an Irishman and a Catholic I expected him to fall in with me—that all I had to do, was to seize him of the actual facts of the situation at Grosse isle and he would act with energy. That was what I expected of him but all I got from him, Gerald, was soft words and promises, and neither the one nor the other will feed the starving or cure the sick. He told me to call next day, as he wanted time to go over the reports. When I went, his servant man said he was out, and I never found him in again for me. When the house opened, I managed to get in, to hear what the governor would say about the emigrants. The words put in his mouth about them made me angry. The government pretended they had made ample preparation for the expected influx and that everything was going on well. Beside him stood two men smiling among a bevy of ladies who knew better, for I had told them all. In the debate since then, when a member on the opposition side referred to the rumors of the state of matters at quarantine, Mr Daly begged the house not to give heed to alarmist reports and to rest assured the government was doing everything that was required, had appointed a commission of three doctors to visit Grosse isle, and would act on their report. I had little respect before for Canadian politicians, I have less now. I was advised to wait on the new minister, John A. Macdonald, the youngest member of the government. I told my friend that if Mr Daly would not do the decent thing by his countrymen, I was not going to ask the member for the Orange city of Kingston, who, like all the others of them, is engrossed in intrigues to keep his party in office. The talk of the city is whether the ministry will stand, for its majority is only one or two, and there is a good deal of excitement about it. More attention is being paid to the ribaldry of The Pilot than anything else. This will not be for long. The evil has come to the door of this city. The forwarding by wholesale of all emigrants able to move, has brought the fever. The emigration sheds are at Windmill point, an inconvenient place, for there is not water enough to permit the steamers to come up to the wharf, and the emigrants have to be landed by scows, which is sore on the sick. I am not going to say that the journey from Grosse isle to here is as bad as the voyage across the Atlantic, but it has a few features worse than it. The steamers come in with emigrants packed on their lower deck like herrings in a fish-box. The steamers are chartered by the government from their supporters, and a few of them are old, worn-out tubs, that take two days to a trip that ought to be made inside 20 hours. Without food or cover, blistered by the sun in the day and chilled by the river breezes at night, the poor creatures are landed here more dead than alive. Many who went aboard feeling well, are carried off in a dying state. My curse and the curse of every Irishman be on the government that allows the helplessness of our countrymen to be traded upon to make money for their followers. If their transportation was left open to all ship-owners, the emigrants would be brought here in large and speedy steamers, and a limit could be put to the number they carry. Once landed, the emigrants are decently treated. I am thankful to be able to say that. It is the city and not the government that manages. For sick and well there is plenty of wholesome food, and no lack of doctors or nurses. The food, to be sure, is coarse and the cooking not good, but you know the saying, The poor drink wather and the rich sip tay. After Grosse isle it is fine. What I have seen here has shown me the necessity of moving the quarantine to the flats below Quebec. If the sick were moved from Grosse isle to near the city they would get all the supplies and service needed. I expect to return to Quebec in a day or so, and before leaving here hope to get the bishop to wait on the premier, to ask that the new fever sheds be placed on the outskirts of Quebec. I hear from the emigrants as they arrive of you, and as they speak they bless you. I hope to see you soon.

Your Old Preceptor.

12.—A ship that came in from Sligo has many of my old neighbors. They say after we left, the agents gave out that all who refused to emigrate would have the relief taken from them, which was all they had to keep life in them until next crop. The more that went, the more eager were those left behind to go. At the rate they are coming, Lord Palmerston will have his land clear of people by Michaelmas, and be able to lease it to Scotch cow-feeders. Most of the emigrants come expecting free land from the Canadian government and a pound a-head from the agents of their landlords at Quebec. Oh, the deceivers, to cheat these poor people with lies!

16.—Bridget is down with the fever, just when Ellen was recovering and likely to be able soon to leave with her sister for uncle’s farm in Huntingdon. It seems as if exposure, if long enough continued, is sure to induce the disease. Doctor Douglas says few can withstand breathing the air of the sheds for a fortnight without being laid down. I expect my turn will come yet. A company of soldiers has arrived to act as a guard over the camp of what is called the healthy emigrants to keep them from going near the fever sheds. It is of a piece with everything else. The fever is in the camp as well as in the sheds. Had they sent a few hundred boards from Quebec to floor the tents, it would have been more sensible than to supply a guard. The weather is still wet, and the ground under the tents is soaking, yet the people have nowhere else to lie. I was telling the head of the Church of England clergymen, Doctor Mountain, of what my friend had said about quarantine being moved near the city. He agreed it ought to be done, although the people of Quebec would resist. The cellar of the marine hospital having become full to overflowing with emigrants, workmen came three days ago to erect sheds on the hospital grounds. The people of St Rochs assembled, scattered the lumber, and drove away the workmen. Lamenting the lack of nurses, he told me it was partly due to the government’s not offering sufficient wages. Placards on the Quebec streets asking for nurses at 60 cents a day met with no response. Doctors were offered only $3.50 a day. A dollar a day for nurses and $5 for doctors would get a supply, but the authorities would not consent. I can believe anything of them. They will not send us a supply of straw, even, and many of the sick are lying without anything below them.

18.—I was witness today of an incident I want to preserve some note of. I was attending to an old neighbor, Mr Monaghan, who came in the ship from Sligo six days ago. He is mending, though still poorly. While bending over him, he gave a start, and turning I saw they were carrying in a new patient. They placed him in an adjoining bed. Wasted and sallow as he was, I recognized in him a man I had seen from boyhood, but had never spoken to. He had a farm in our townland and was a bitter Orangeman. With Monaghan he had a feud, which they tried to fight out on many a market day. Stanhope had led a party that beat his oldest son and four other boys nigh to death one St John’s eve, and had heaped insult on him and his times without count. I will not say Monaghan did not pay him back. If he did not, somebody else did, for he had his stackyard twice burned and one fine morning found four of his cows houghed. How would these mortal enemies meet now, far from their native land and laid side by side in deathly sickness? Stanhope was overcome with the fatigue of bringing him from the ship, and lay exhausted with his eyes shut. I held up his head to give him some cordial, and then he sank back and fell asleep. I kept my eye on him as I went about the shed, watching his waking. On Dr Mountain’s coming in, I told him of the new Protestant patient and of the circumstances I have here set down. We went to where the couple lay and were looking at them when Stanhope awoke. He gazed helplessly around until his eyes met those of Monaghan, which had been fixed on him from the time he came in. The glitter of the old fire sprung up in Stanhope’s eyes and a flush passed over his white face. Neither said a word for quite a while. During the pause the defiant look faded from Stanhope’s face, and I could see recollection of old neighborhood and a sense of community of suffering filled his bosom. The stern, hard features relaxed and a bony hand was thrust across.

“Is that yersilf, Monaghan; will ye shak hans wid me?”

“Glad an proud to do that same, and let bygones be bygones, Mr Stanhope.”

There was a moistness in Dr Mountain’s eyes as he said, “Love is the fulfilling of the law. May the Good Shepherd, who has sheep in every flock, bless you both, and in His own time gather you into His heavenly fold.”

“Amen,” I said with all my heart. “Dr Mountain, I have learned something in this island of horrors—that goodness is not bounded by creed, for I have seen you and your clergy nurse the sick and feed the hungry day after day although not one in a score of them are of your church. The thanks that have been in my heart for your kindness to my countrymen I am not ashamed now to speak.”

He clasped my hand. “My dear Mr Keegan, say not another word; when a man comes to die the most painful reflection he can have is, that he did not embrace every opportunity he had during his lifetime of doing good. You and I have simply done our duty, and, after all, have to confess we are unprofitable servants of the one God whom we worship at different altars.” Having said this he turned away to resume his visitation of the sick elsewhere.

26.—The weather has been steaming hot for a week, with heavy showers, and fog at night, making our situation worse and spreading infection. There is a stench both in and out of doors. Ships continue to come in and the number of sick to grow; a doctor told me there are over 2000. The nurses, both men and women, that come from Quebec, are a bad lot. They neglect their duties, smuggle in drink to those of the sick who can pay for it, and rob the dying. On this lone island, where everything else is so scarce, whisky can be got by whoever wants it. The greed of gain overcomes the fear of infection, and it is smuggled in by small boats from Quebec. Last night there was an uproar in the camp of the healthy, caused by drunkenness. The military guard is a hurt to the emigrants. Like soldiers everywhere, they have neither morals nor decency. Bridget grows worse and poor Ellen is making a bad recovery, for she exhausts her strength by trying to nurse her sister. Monaghan and Stanhope talk by the hour, and their converse has put new heart in them. Hope is better than medicine. Indeed, I have seen scores die from despondency or indifference to life, who, to all appearance, ought to have recovered. The two old enemies are the most cordial of friends and will soon be able to leave. They have agreed to go with the survivors of their families to the London district and take up land together. Both are industrious and steady and having buried their senseless hatred will be of mutual help to one another. Both have money enough to start them.

24.—Father Moylan has got back for a few days. There is need for more like him, but Irish priests are few in this part of Canada, and our people want them alone. The ships now arriving report larger mortality than those that came in May. This is due to the heat. The condition of the holds of the ships that come in is unspeakably revolting. Several buried over a hundred in the ocean, equal to a fifth of the number of their passengers.

July 2.—Father Moylan wanted me to go to Montreal as a witness before a committee of enquiry appointed by the legislature. I have no heart to leave here, and I told him if they would not believe him they would not believe me. There is no improvement in caring for the sick; the callousness of the Canadian government to the sufferings of God’s poor on this island I cannot understand. The weather is now settled, and beyond the sun being scorchingly hot at midday is as fine as could be wished.

9th.—This evening I took a walk to the far side of the island and enjoyed the solitude and the peace of nature. Sitting on the beach, I watched the sun sink behind the hills. I have a feeling that my own sun will soon disappear, for I am sad and disheartened beyond all my experience. Dr Fenwick told me the other day I should leave; that I needed a change. I cannot, indeed I will not, for I cherish the secret wish to die where my Aileen left me. A ship has arrived with 31 dead on board; she lost over a fourth of those who embarked on her at Liverpool. Another out of 470 emigrants, dropped 150 into the Atlantic. Sure, tragedies like these ought to direct the eyes of the civilized world to what is happening. My heart is broken at the sight of thousands of my own dear people, men, women, and little children, dying for lack of a crust on Canada’s shore.

14.—I think the end has come. Tonight my head throbs and my bones are sore. Bridget, after hovering a long while between life and death, sank to rest this morning, and is buried. Ellen leaves by tomorrow’s steamer, and will be in Huntingdon in a few days. I gave her a message to uncle. My life has been a failure. May God have pity on me and on my poor people. Oh, that Aileen were here; that I felt her hand on my racked forehead.

THE END.

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