He took me into the forecastle. I went down the little steep stairway into a gloomy space largely filled with bunks. I wasn’t so cheerful when I came up, and, as I walked home, I thought of the nice little room in which I had slept from infancy.
I have said that this was Saturday. In the evening my schoolmates came in. I did not betray my feelings. One of them said, “You look as happy as if you had just returned from a voyage.” On the following day my parents and I attended service as usual, in the Bethel. This little church was founded especially for sailors and was located on what was named “Johnny Cake Hill.” It still stands, looking just as it did sixty years ago. On the walls of the interior are cenotaphs erected to those who lost their lives on the deep. These had never interested me, but this morning, surrounded by sailors and realizing that this was my last Sunday at home, I thought of the perils in store for me as I read the following:—
In Memory of
Capt. William Swain
Associate Master
of the Christopher Mitchell of Nantucket
This Worthy Man after Fastening to a whale
Was Carried Overboard by the Line and Drowned
May 19th 1844
In the 49th Yr. of his Age