The dreadful message, which came to us directly after, told me nothing new—it only confirmed my belief that it was the minister's daughter Susanna they had borne up.
The parsonage boat had been only a little more than three-quarters of a mile away from home that Saturday morning when the storm came on so suddenly. A "windfall" had come down with terrible force from the mountains into the Sound, and had capsized the boat, which was not far from land.
The minister had quickly helped his wife up on to the boat, and the men held on round the edge, while they drifted before the wind the short distance in to the shore. But he searched in vain for his child, to find her and save her.
With the sea seething round the boat, the strong man three times in his despair let go his hold in order to swim to the place where he imagined he saw her in the water. He was going to try again, but his wife, in great distress, begged his men to hinder him, and they did so.
They said afterwards that they saw drops of perspiration running down the minister's forehead, as he lay there on the boat in the wintry-cold sea, and that they believed he even thought of purposely letting go his hold that he might follow his daughter.
Too late they found out that Susanna was under the boat. She had become entangled in a rope, so that she could not rise to the surface.
Her death had at any rate been quick and painless.
The whole of Saturday and Sunday, while the storm lasted, they were compelled to lie weatherbound at a peasant's house in the neighbourhood, where the minister's wife had kept her bed from exhaustion and grief.
The minister had sat nearly the whole time in the large parlour where they had laid Susanna, and talked with his God; and on Monday morning, when they were to go home, he was resigned and cairn, arranged everything, and comforted his poor, weeping wife.