“Heaven grant it may be so, but for some on board the land of promise will never be.”
“Don’t be looking at the dark side, Gerald. See yonder clouds, their downy edges touched with pink. Let us fancy them the wings of the angels who are beckoning us to homes of plenty and content beyond that western wave, and cheer up.”
As I looked into her face, bright with enthusiasm, I felt if angels beckoned I had also one at my side to encourage me. We gazed in silence at the glowing scene, marked the sun’s disappearance, and the deepening colors in cloud and water. Turning our gaze to the ship we could trace the sun’s departing rays as they creeped up the tall masts. “Who would think,” I said, “to look upon this most beautiful of all man’s creations, a ship in full sail radiant in the sun’s richest tints, that in her hold she is bearing an unspeakable mass of misery and woe? How dark within; how bright without. How deceiving are appearances!”
“Nay, Gerald, rather look at it this way: How God in his goodness beautifies what man mars. Nothing so loathsome the sun will not bathe in the fullness of his brightness and glory.”
And in that I thought, the sunshine is type of woman’s love, which is not withheld by what is repulsive and like the sunshine takes no defilement from what it touches.
29.—Uncle’s wife died this morning. It would not be correct to say the fever killed her, for it had not reached its crisis. She was weakly when she left home, and the sojourn on the quay, waiting to get on board ship, gave her a bad cold. Her system was so reduced, she could not withstand the onset of the disease. Uncle wanted a coffin, and the carpenter agreed to make one for five shillings, but when he asked permission of the mate he refused, so she was buried like the others, slipped into the ocean. I recited the prayers for the dead, and the deck was crowded, many being there who had not left the hold since we sailed. Just as they were about to lift the corpse over the gunwale Aileen suddenly burst into song—that mournful, consolatory hymn of the ages, Dies Iræ, to whose strains so many millions of the faithful have been carried to the grave. It was her magnificent voice, sounding from the choir-loft of our chapel, that first drew me to her, and, never before, did I hear her put more feeling into her voice than now. When the last strain of melody floated over the waters, there was a hush for a minute, my uncle laid his hand for the last time on the head of her he so dearly loved, there was a plunge, and all was over. The breaking out of the fever has produced, even among us hardened to misfortune, something like a panic. The crew are in mortal terror of the infection and will not allow passengers to go on the forecastle, as was their wont. The ship being sent to sea purposely shorthanded, the owner relying on saving something by getting the emigrants to help, a few of our lads, who had been given bunks in the forecastle and allowed sailors’ rations, have been warned, if they go down the hatchways to see their people, they need not return. The captain and cabin passengers never leave the poop. As for the mate, he seems to put his faith for protection against infection on camphor, and so smells of it that he must have a piece in every pocket. Uncle’s sorrows are not ended, for two of his family are very ill.
30.—Cold and rainy with fog. A north-west wind is blowing that drives the ship at a good rate, though not straight on her course. The fever spreads and to the other horrors of the steerage is added the cries of those in delirium. While I was coming from the galley this afternoon, with a pan of stirabout for some sick children, a man suddenly sprang upwards from the hatchway, rushed to the bulwark, his white hair streaming in the wind, and without a moment’s hesitation leaped into the seething waters. He disappeared beneath them at once. His daughter soon came hurrying up the ladder to look for him. She said he had escaped from his bunk during her momentary absence, that he was mad with the fever. When I told her gently as I could that she would never see him again, she could not believe me, thinking he was hiding. Oh the piercing cry that came from her lips when she learned where he had gone; the rush to the vessel’s side, and the eager look as she scanned the foaming billows. Aileen led her away; dumb from the sudden stroke yet without a tear.
May 1.—Wind still from northwest; ship beating against it in short tacks. Most disagreeable motion. Cast lead at noon. At 150 fathoms found no bottom. A whale crossed our bows, not a hundred yards away. During the afternoon wind veered to northeast and before dark developed into a gale, before which we are driving. May it last long enough to bring us to land. Two deaths today, which has been a truly miserable May-day.
2.—There had been a flurry of snow during the night, so that yards and deck were white when I went out. The gale still holds and boatswain said if the weather cleared we would see Newfoundland. Two small booms cracked but that has not deterred the captain from keeping on all the sail the ship will bear. At times her lee rail almost touches the water, and the deck slants so it is difficult to cross it. The captain is anxious to end the voyage, and no wonder, for the fever spreads. One child and two adults have died within the last twenty-four hours. Their bodies were dropped overboard when the ship was going 12 knots an hour. A cold, miserable day.
3.—The gale blew itself out during the night and today it is calm, the ship pitching and rolling on a glassy swell, and the sails flapping as if they would split. There is a mist, and it is very cold, which, the boatswain tells me, indicates ice near. Lead cast and soundings found, showing we are on the Banks. Some of our people, who are fishermen, bargained with the cook for a piece of salt pork and using it as bait cast their lines. Their patience was tried for a while, until we struck a school of fish, when for half an hour they caught cod and dogfish as fast as they could haul them in. The school then left and few were caught afterwards. They gave a few of best fish to the cook and in consideration he cooked what they had, so for one day all between decks had enough to eat. The drinking-water has been growing daily worse, and now the smell of it is shocking. The barrels must have been filled from the Liffey near a sewer. Repugnant as it is to sight, smell, and taste it continues to be doled out in such meagre measure that the sick are continually crying for water with not a drop to give them. The number now sick is appalling—the young of dysentery, the old of fever, the cause of both diseases starvation. Uncle’s second boy died this afternoon of dysentery. Poor uncle, his lot is a sore one, yet he never complains. Wind came from southwest towards evening bringing milder temperature with light rain. Sighted several fishing schooners and saw sea-birds for first time since left coast of Ireland.