Explained, handed him the checks, and meekly followed my innocent guide down the dirty stair, across a wide street, up some dirty-looking steps on to the wharf where the 'Ontario' lay, taking in her cargo. Large and strong-looking, dingy white was she, lying far below the wharf.
My guide enquired for the captain, who appeared suddenly from somewhere— a tall man with a resolute face and keen eye, gray as to hair and whiskers, every inch a captain. I knew that his face—once a handsome face, I am sure—had got that look of determination carved into it by doing his duty by his ship and facing many a storm on God Almighty's sea. I trusted him at once.
Did not sail through the night as I expected, but were still in Portland when morning came. We had fish for breakfast; found mine frozen beneath the crisp brown outside. After breakfast went up on deck. The sky was blue and bright, the air piercing cold. The town of Portland looked clean and beautiful in the fair sunlight. It is a place that goes climbing up hill. The floating ice and the liquid green water ruffled into white on the crest of the swells, are at play together. The ship moves out slowly, almost imperceptibly. Portland fades from a house- crowned hillside into a white line, darkness comes down. We are out at sea.
The glass has gone down; the storm has come up; the sea tyrant has got hold of the solitary passenger and dandles her very roughly, singing "The Wreck of the 'Hesperus'" in a loud bass to some grand deep tune, alternating with the one hundred and third Psalm in Gaelic. The passenger holds on for dear life and wonders why the winds sing those words over and over again.
Sabbath passes, day melts into night, night fades into day, the storm tosses the ship and sea-sickness tosses the passenger. The captain enquires, "Is that passenger no better yet?" Comes to see in his doctoral capacity, looks like a man not to be trifled with, feels the pulse, orders a mustard blister, brandy and ammonia, and scolds the patient for starving, like a wise captain and kind man as he is. All the ship stores are ransacked for something to tempt an appetite that is above temptation; but the captain is absolute, and we can testify that eating from a sense of duty is hard work. It was delightful to get rid of an occasional apple on the sly to one of the ship's boys and be rewarded with a surprised grin of delight.
It is grand to lie on cushions on the companion-way and watch long rollers as they heave up and look in at the door-way. They rise rank upon rank, looking over one another's shoulders, hustling one another in their boisterous play, like overgrown schoolboys, who will have fun at whoever's expense. Sometimes one is pushed right in by his fellows, and falls down the companion-way in a little cataract, and then the door is shut and they batter at it in vain. Then there is a great mopping up of a small Atlantic.
The storm roars without, and within the passenger lies day after day studying the poetry of motion. There is one motion that goes to the tune of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," but this rocking is so violent that as one dashes from side to side, holding on to the bars above and the edge of the berth, one is led to pity a wakeful baby rocked wickedly by the big brother impatient to go to play. The tune changes, and it is "Ploughing the Raging Main," and the nose of the plough goes down too deep; then one is fastened to the walking beam of an engine and sways up and down with it. A gigantic churn is being churned by an ogre just under our head, and the awful dasher plunges and creaks. Above all the winds howl, and the waves roll, and sometimes slap the ship till she shivers and leaps, and then the "Wreck of the Hesperus" recommences. Things get gloomy, the variations of storm grow monotonous, nothing delights us, no wish arises for beef tea, nothing makes gruel palatable. Neither sun nor stars have been visible for some days; the only sunshine we see is the passing smile of the ship's boys, who are almost constantly employed baling out the Atlantic.
It was the ninth night of storm. They say every ninth wave is larger than the rest; the ninth night the wind roared louder than ever, the Almighty's great guns going off. The ship staggered and reeled, struggling gallantly, answering nobly to the human will that held her to her duty, but shivering and leaping after every mighty slap of the mad waves. I got one glimpse at the waves through a cautiously opened door. I never thought they could climb upon one another's shoulders and reach up to heaven, a dark green wall of water ready to fall and overwhelm us, until I looked and saw the mountains of water all around.
Land in sight on the 8th of February, the Fasnet rock, then the Irish coast; the great rollers drew back into the bosom of the Atlantic: the winged pilot boats appeared; the pilot climbed up the side out of the sea; we steamed over the harbor bar and stopped at Birkenhead on the Cheshire side to land our fellow-passengers the sheep and oxen.
I might have gone up to Liverpool but was advised to remain another night on board and go direct to the Belfast packet from the ship. I considered this advice, found it good and took it.