He and his comrades were out catching bait. He heard our horn and then saw our lump of a brig loom through the fog. We were sorry to see him leave and row off to his schooner, of which he had the bearings. To hoist the anchor from where it had been stowed when we lost sight of Tory island and bitt it to the chain was tedious work but it was begun. We waited hopefully for the tide and, sure enough, it lifted us gently. On feeling we were afloat once more we gave a cheer. Soon after a faint breath of air was felt, the ship got steerage way, and we slowly hauled off the dreaded coast. The breeze cleared the fog and in the rays of the setting sun we saw the cliffs against which we might have been shivered and the fishing-boats to which our friend belonged.
On gathering in the hold our talk was of our escape. The master said it was proof to him God was with us; we thought we were lost when we grounded, yet that sandbank was what had saved us. Just then Mr Snellgrove came down the ladder. 'I have just bade the captain good night,' he said, 'and I am authorized by him to inform you all danger is past. Had an executive committee been appointed the moment the vessel struck matters would have gone on with less confusion. We are safe, however, notwithstanding we have a Jonah on board.'
Mr Kerr who was, like all of us, excited by the accident, asked, 'You mean me?'
Yes, you are a fugitive from the justice which would have punished you as you deserve for sedition. The world has come to a strange pass when tailors would dictate to the Powers ordained by God how the realm is to be governed. For one I am loyal to my King and his advisers in all they ordain. England's glorious bulwark is her throne and the nobility who surround it.'
The little man stood on the lower rungs of the ladder, in front of the lantern that swung from a beam, so I saw him clearly. To our surprise Mr Kerr came forward and spoke slowly and quietly. 'I do not wish you, my fellow passengers, to look upon me any longer as a fugitive from justice, and will explain how it comes that circumstances give color to the charge. I have a brother, older than myself and father of a large family. One day in April, a clerk in the sheriff's office, who is a cousin, came to me at night to tell me that a spy who had attended a meeting of the Liberal club, had laid an information that my brother had spoken disrespectfully of the King, George the Fourth, and his advisers. On the strength of this, a warrant was prepared for his arrest on the charge of sedition. The spy had made a mistake in the first name and had given mine instead of my brother's. My cousin said, if I would disappear the prosecution would be baffled. To save my brother, for a prosecution would ruin him, I fled at once, going to Troon, where I knew a ship was ready to sail for Canada. On the officers going to my lodging to arrest me, they found I had gone. How they came to know I had gone to Troon I cannot say. Probably they sent word to all ports where ships were ready to sail. As you know, I was arrested on board this boat and discharged, because the magistrate had no authority to hold me. It was to save my brother that I am here. What he said at the club I do not know, for I was not there.'
'A plausible story,' said Mr Snellgrove, 'but you told a lie when you answered to a false name before the Troon magistrate.'
'I told no lie,' answered Mr Kerr in a calm voice, 'for I was not asked to plead, but I knew I could have saved myself and have sent my brother to jail by correcting the mistake of the spy.'
Mr Snellgrove was about to say more when a murmur of disapproval caused him to slink to his berth. My master came forward and taking Mr Kerr by the hand said, 'I respected you before; I honor you now,' and all, men and women, pressed to shake his hand.
After breakfast next morning there was much talk over our escape from death, and the more light thrown on it in discussion the stronger grew the feeling that we had been saved by the interposition of Providence. Had the brig not struck the sandbank and done so at low tide, not a soul would have reached land, and relatives would never have known what became of the Heatherbell unless part of her wreckage was picked up. There ought to be public acknowledgment of our rescue and expression of our united thanks. The captain agreed it would be right, so, that afternoon, all hands assembled, except Mr Snellgrove, who sat at the bow pretending to read a book. The impression made on me, by the sight of the sailors joining in the psalms and the children gathering round their mothers' skirts in wonder, has survived these fifty-five years. The master at the request of the captain, took charge. He read the story of Paul's shipwreck and then prayed with a fervor that made me cry. To the surprise of all, he asked Mr Kerr to improve the occasion. He began by saying it was not for mortals to judge the ways of God, to complain of visitations or to condemn acts that are inscrutable, but it was the bounden duty of man, when good did befall him, to ascribe the praise to God. They had a marvellous escape from a cruel death, and without inquiring into the how or wherefore it was our part to acknowledge the hand that saved us. After a good deal more in that strain of thought he changed to the purpose of our voyage. We were crossing the ocean to escape conditions in the Old Land that had become a burden to us, hoping, in the New Land before us, there would be brighter surroundings. To preserve that New Land from the mistakes and evils that blast the Old was a duty. To try and reproduce another Scotland such as they had left would be to reproduce what we were leaving it for. What we ought to try is to create a new Great Britain in Canada, retaining all that is good and dropping all that is undesirable. I want, he said, to see a land where every man is free to secure a portion of God's footstool and to enjoy the fruits he reaps from it, without an aristocracy taking toll of what they did not earn, and a government levying taxes on labor to support soldiers or to subsidize privileged classes of any kind whatever their pretences.
How much more the speaker would have said I do not know, for Mr Snellgrove, who had come forward on his beginning to speak, here shouted 'Treason!' The master to prevent a scene, for a young shepherd moved to catch hold of the offender, gave out the 100th psalm, and we closed in peace.