'Daniel M'farlane, and my advice is to quit Scotland right off, for these devils are mad angry at your giving them the slip. They will get the papers they need from Greenock and have you in jail if you are here tomorrow.' A grip of the hand, and the stranger was gone. The whole scene was such a surprise, so novel to me, that every part of it fastened on my memory.
On reaching the brig we found the sailors stowing away casks of water. Kerr and myself had been given the same berth, and Allan and Robbie had the next one. Saying he was dead-tired, for he had been on his feet since leaving Greenock, Kerr turned in though the sun had not set. An hour or so after, a number of men came to the wharf to see him. I found him asleep. They asked if I was the lad the officer took along with him to be a witness. Gathering in a quiet corner they had me repeat all that took place. They said they were Liberals and glad to hear the black nebs had won.
The noise overhead of washing the deck awoke me, and I knew by the motion of the ship we were sailing. On getting up I saw Troon several miles behind and Ailsa Craig drawing near. Allan and myself, with Robbie between us, were snuggled on the lee side of the longboat when Kerr appeared. He was interested on hearing of the men who came to visit him and said it was hard to be hounded out of Scotland, which he did not wish to leave, for saying constitutional reforms were called for. 'I am no worse used,' he added, 'than the man whom that county we are looking at starved when he was among them and built monuments to him when he was dead.' The town of Ayr was in sight and he named several of the points Burns had named in his songs. 'Think, my laddies, of a man like Burns being told by the officials over him to keep his Liberal views to himself, that it was not for him to think but to be silent and obedient. And he had to swallow their order to prevent his losing the petty office which stood between his children and starvation.'
The breeze that had taken the brig so far down the firth soon died away, and we rocked gently south of Ailsa Craig. In the hold folk were busy getting things in some sort of order, while on deck the sailors were putting everything in shipshape. This breathing spell was fortunate, for at dark the wind came in squalls, and on rounding the Mull of Cantyre the ocean swells sent most of the passengers to their berths seasick. I escaped and was able to help the family and Mr Kerr, who almost collapsed, and was not himself for a week. His first sign of recovery was his craving for a red herring. The mistress was early up and bustling round to find she had to face an entire change in the methods of housekeeping to which she had been used. There was a little house between the two masts named the galley, and here the cooking was done. The cook was an old man, gruff and crusty, who had spent most of his life in a Dundee whaler. In the Arctic region his good nature had got frozen and was not yet thawed out. He would allow nobody near and got angry when suggestions were tendered. He made good porridge and tasty soup, anything else he spoiled. As these alone were cooked in bulk and measured out, the passengers took to the galley the food they wished to be cooked. That each family get back what they gave in, the food was placed in bags of netted twine and then slipped into the coppers of boiling water. The mistress was a famous hand at roley-poley, and for the first Sunday after sea-sickness had gone, she prepared a big one as a treat. It looked right and smelled good, but the first spoonful showed it had a wonderful flavor. In the boiler the net beside it held a nuckle of smoked ham. The laughter and jokes made us forget the taste of the ham and not a scrap of the roley-poley was left. Our greatest lack was milk for the children, and we all resented being scrimped in drinking-water, though before the voyage ended we became reconciled to that, for the water grew bad.
CHAPTER III.
There were 43 passengers. There were two families besides our own, and outside of them were a number of young men, plowmen and shepherds, intent on getting land and sending for their people to join them the next spring. There was an exception in a middle-aged man, brisk and spruce, who held himself to be above his fellow-passengers, and said nothing about where he came from or who he was. The only information he gave was, that he had been in the mercantile line, and that he was to be addressed as Mr Snellgrove. He waved his right hand in conversation and spoke in a lofty way, which to Allan and myself was funny. When he had got his sealegs and his appetite, he began lecturing the passengers as to what they ought to do, enlarging on organizing a committee, of which he was to be head. I think I see him, strutting up and down the deck by the side of the captain with whom it gratified him to walk. The only other passenger besides him who was not connected with farming was Mr Kerr, to whom I became much attached. He was well-informed on subjects I had heard of but knew nothing, and we talked by the hour. His companionship was to me an intellectual awakening. Among his purchases in Troon was material for a suit of clothes, which he made during the voyage, for he was a tailor. He had left Greenock in such haste that he had not time to go to his lodging for any of his belongings. Mr Snellgrove affected to despise him both for his trade and his political principles, and never missed an opportunity to sneer at him; Mr Kerr never replied.
Day followed day without relieving the monotony. At times we would get a glimpse of the topsails of a ship gliding along the horizon, but usually the ocean seemed to have no other tenant than our own stout brig. One afternoon the cook rushed out of his den with the shout 'There she spouts!' and looking where he pointed we saw a whale cleaving the waves. We were in our third week out when we ran into a fog. The wind fell and the brig rolled in the swell, causing her tackle to rattle and sails to flap as if they would split. The second day the fog was thicker, and the ocean smooth as glass. For fear of collision with another ship, the lookout man kept blowing a horn which had a most dismal sound. The captain and mate tried to get the sun at noon but could not find the faintest trace. After dinner a gull flew past, which made the cook say he smelt danger. A few were below but the most of us were on deck when a slight bump was felt and then another. The rattling in the rigging stopped and the ocean swell broke on our stern. The mate started to the companion scuttle and shouted to the captain, that the ship was grounded. In a minute he appeared, his face white and twisted with anguish. His anxiety was not alone for the passengers and crew but for himself. He was owner of the brig and if she was wrecked he was ruined. The mate was casting the lead and when he shouted 'We are on a sandbank' there was a sigh of relief deepened by the carpenter's report that the ship was not making water. Grannie, who had managed to creep up the ladder from the deserted hold, remarked 'We are sooner in Canada than I expectit.' Her exclamation brought the reaction from our dread and we burst into laughter. 'It is not Quebec,' shouted Allan in her ear, 'we are aground.' 'A weel,' she replied, 'I will cling to the rock o' my salvation.'
The order was given to get ready the boats. There were two, the yawl that had been hauled on top of the house on deck, and lay keel up. Oars were mislaid and on hanging her to the davits it was noticed in time there was no plug in the hole for drainage. The other boat, which was our reliance, was the long boat abaft the foremast. Its cover was torn off and we saw it was filled with all sorts of odds and ends that had been stowed there to be out of the way. These were pitched aside by willing hands and the tackle had been fastened to hoist her overboard, when there was a shout from the fog of Ahoy. We saw a man in yellow oil skins rowing towards us. Jumping on board, he asked 'What is keeping you here?' 'You tell us,' replied the captain, who was overjoyed to see him. The fisherman said we had been drifted by the current towards Newfoundland, and had the ship not grounded she would in a few hours, have been dashed against the cliffs that line the shore and every soul been lost. It was the most wonderful escape he had ever known.
'How are we to get off?' asked the captain. 'You will float off when the tide makes.' 'And then what will we do if there is no wind?' 'You will go on the cliffs, but there will be a capful of wind at ebb tide.' The captain had sent for his chart, and the fisherman pointed out where the brig stood. He said if a breeze did not come in time for her to make a slant southwards we were to take to the boats and row to the cove which he covered with his thumb. 'If you can get your anchor over the side, it may help you,' he added.