Chapter III (4)

7.--Stepping on deck this morning to my astonishment saw land on either side--cape North and St Paul island, the sunlight bringing the lighthouses into sharp relief. Both spits looked desolate, but were a cheering sight, for they were the first land we have seen since we lost sight of the Kerry hills. Thank God for his goodness in bringing us to land, the sight of which cheered me beyond expression. It sent a thrill of excitement even through the steerage. During the night the wind changed to the southeast and the ship makes great progress, the water being smooth, for now being in the gulf of St Lawrence we have left behind us the swell of the Atlantic. As the morning wore on it grew warmer, and when the sun had climbed to his heighth his rays became almost unpleasantly hot. Passengers not seen on deck since we sailed, crawled up to have a sight of the land, which we quickly left astern, and to bask in the sunshine, until few except the sick remained below. It was wonderful the change heat and prospect of soon being on land, wrought on the spirits of us all. Hope sprung afresh, and the misery of the past was forgotten. Children played about the deck and the hum of conversation filled the air. There were a number of ships in sight, bound, like ourselves, for Quebec. The hours sped and we were bearing down on the Bird-rocks--lonely islets of rock, worn into fantastic shapes, shooting sheer up from the sea and whose cliffs give a foothold to sea fowl, squadrons of whom were careering above them. While intently watching these sentinels of the gulf of the mighty river we had entered, my eye chanced to fall on the face of an old woman whom Aileen had persuaded to stay on deck. More pinched and sallow it could not be, for she was wasted and worn, but, to my alarm, I saw its lines assuming the rigidity of coming death. I touched Aileen’s arm to direct her attention. She was down on her knees by her side in a moment. “Mother, dear, are you not feeling well?” The eyelids lifted and the answer came, “I thank God for his goodness,” and then they drooped over the poor dazed eyes. I stepped into my cabin for a tin of water and Aileen held it to her lips. She feebly motioned it away. The slip of a girl who belonged to her, a grandchild, now realizing the coming change, clasped her round the neck. “Granny, dear, don’t be aleavin me all alone; sure we see Ameriky now and will soon be walkin on it.” The soul was quitting its frail tenement but the child’s voice so far recalled it, that a slight look of recognition lightened the face. “Och, stay wid me, granny, an I’ll do yer biddin and nivir vix ye agin. We’ll soon be havin lashins of meat an wather, an ye wunna need to be givin me your share. O stay wid me!” At that moment there was a report of a musket fired near by. The passengers, grouped around the dying woman, raised their startled eyes and saw it was the mate, who had fired at the sea fowl on the rocks we were now passing. The angry scowl at the interruption melted again into sorrow when Aileen, lifting the gray head from her lap, reverently straightened it on the deck, and leaving the body to the care of the women who crowded near, led the sobbing girl, doubly orphaned, to our cabin. At sunset we buried the body and with it that of a poor cripple, who had been suffering from dysentery. We sat late that night, for the breeze was warm and the speed of the ship exhilarating, while the waters sparkled in the moonlight. I had been in bed some time, when voices outside wakened me. It was the boatswain and a sailor who were talking, and the sound of their voices seemed to express astonishment. I dressed and hurried out. “Is there anything gone wrong?” I asked. “Did you ever see the like of that?” the boatswain replied, by pointing to the sky. The wind had fallen and glancing up the masts I saw sail, and rope, and block were motionless. Above hung clouds the like of which I had never seen. There were thousands of them, all about a size, all spherical, and all placed together as exactly as the panes in a cathedral window. Though hid from view, the moon was in the zenith, and its downward rays fell on the cloudlets, illuminating them and transmitting a ghostly light, reflected by a ghostly sea. From the horizon to the apex the illusion of the clouds was perfect in representing the ship as standing beneath the centre of a great dome composed of spheres of grey glass, through which streamed a light mysterious and fearsome, revealing the face of a glassy sea, dark and dread. “What weather does this portend?” I whispered. The boatswain shook his head. “It ain’t weather, sir,” said the sailor, “It’s death. You see if the fever don’t grow worse.”

8.--I had sat so long on deck during the night that it was late in the day when I awoke. Aileen had gone out but returned when I had dressed and we had breakfast. A western breeze was blowing and the ship was tacking. The boatswain told me the gulf was over 200 miles wide so there was plenty of sea room, but before night we found there was not. As the day wore on the wind increased and the weather became thick, so that the men on the lookout kept sounding the horn nearly all the time. The captain was more afraid of ice than of a collision with another ship, and did not leave the deck after dinner. It was about 6 o’clock, when everything seemed to be going well, the ship tearing through the water on her northern tack, when the fog suddenly thinned, and to our surprise we saw land ahead. We were not over a mile from it. The captain shouted to the man at the wheel, who brought the ship up to the wind, the sails slatting like to break the masts. The yards of the foremast were soon braced round, and the question was whether the ship would wear in time to avoid striking, for the land was now so near that we could see the foam of the breakers on the shore. There was a dreadful period of suspense, during which the ship drifted broadside on towards the land, until the sails of the foremast bellied out on catching the wind, when she turned on her heel, and the order tacks and sheets given, when everybody who had been able to get a grip of the ropes hauled with all their strength. The ship was now on the other tack, when we left the land astern, and which presented a desolate appearance, a foreground of rock with low hills behind on which were patches of snow. The boatswain said it was the eastern end of the island of Anticosti, and had we struck the rocks, those who escaped drowning would have starved to death, for the island, save a lighthouse or two, is uninhabited. I thought it, but did not say it, for he is not responsible, that 500 people were being starved to death on board ship. Our having got out of our course, for the captain supposed he was well clear of the island, is blamed on the currents and tides of the gulf.

9.--Uncle’s oldest son died of the fever soon after daylight. The blow is a crushing one, but I have yet to hear the first murmur from uncle. His submission to the Divine Will is most touching. The body along with two more we dropped overboard when the sailors were at dinner. Tho’ near the end of our voyage, the little tyrant on the poop has given no order to increase the supply of water or biscuit. I did not think the stench of the hold could become worse, but the heat we had a day ago has intensified it. To descend into the hold has become more than I can well bear. I told Aileen today she must not even go near the hatchways. Wind unfavorable all day, and ship tacking.

10.--Wind again in the south but very light. Today in making the weather tack we came close to the south shore, which seemed to be a succession of ranges of high hills with trees to their tops. This was a sad day, five having died. Exchanged signals with a ship. She said she was from Liverpool with emigrants and many were sick. Lead was kept going all day.

11.--In beating across the gulf this morning, the wind being ahead, and cold enough to chill to the marrow, we noticed a small schooner bearing down upon us. It was a pilot boat that had sighted us. When alongside, a row boat left her and soon a pilot was climbing to our deck. He was a Frenchman and spoke broken English. When he saw he had got on board an emigrant ship, he seemed to hesitate, and looked as if he wished he was back, with the bundle he had in his hand, on the schooner again. The boat, however, was by this time near the schooner. “Any seek?” he asked the captain. What the captain answered I could not hear, for he turned and took the stranger to the cabin. When the pilot reappeared he took command, and I noticed he never left the poop. In the afternoon it grew foggy and from the forecastle the dismal sound of the fog horn came. Being now well up the gulf we were in the neighborhood of many vessels, and a collision was possible. We sighted no ship, however, until late in the afternoon, when we saw masttops above the fog. She proved to be a large vessel in splendid order. Ranging close to us, her captain asked if we had a pilot. Answered yes, he replied he had none. Our captain told them to follow us. Instead of that, the order was given to set more sail and in a few minutes she was lost to sight. Our pilot shook his head as he remarked, “She heading for Mingan rocks.” When it began to grow dark, order given to let go the anchor. The noise of the rattling cable was like thunder. A child died today, a sweet girl toddler that Aileen was fond of. Many of the sick are sinking tonight, not one of whom but might have lived with proper sustenance, for it is the period of convalescence that proves fatal in nine cases out of ten. Mouldy sea biscuit of the coarsest kind and foul water simply kill the patient who has got over the fever, yet we have nothing else to offer to satisfy their cravings.

12.-Anchor was weighed at daylight and when I came out on deck found we were tacking towards south shore, which was concealed by a fog-bank. Afterwards the wind veered to the east, and a drizzling rain set in. Weather thick all day, cold and disagreeable, with satisfaction, however, of knowing we are making good progress. The pilot, like the captain, is anxious to make all possible speed, and even the top stun sails were set. This was a sad day between decks. There were four deaths and the number of sick greatly increased. No wonder: the air is that of a charnel vault and the people are so weak from want of food that they have no strength to resist disease.

13.--During the night was roused by the noise of the anchor being let go. On leaving my cabin was astounded, for I stepped into brilliant sun shine, in whose beams the waters danced, while, like a panorama, a lovely landscape was unrolled on either side. No longer a weary waste of water, with an unchanging horizon, met my view, but a noble river, rolling between picturesque banks. The north was rugged, with lofty hills, wooded to the summit; the south was an undulating slope, along whose lower edge ran a line of small white-washed houses, so near each other as to form a street. The fields were flushed with green and some of the tree-tops thickened with bud and bursting leaf. Evidently the occupants of each house had a farm, which ran like a riband from the river to nigh the head of the slope, which was crowned with woods. At regular intervals in the line of houses there is a church--plain stone edifices with high pitched roofs, which, with steeples, are tinned, giving them a foreign look. We were waiting for the tide to turn, the breeze being insufficient to enable the ship to beat against the current. On the other side of the river were four large ships, at anchor like ourselves. As the morning wore on a boat was seen to leave the shore and row towards us. The gunwale of our ship was crowded with passengers watching her approach. On coming near us, the two men in the boat did not seem to fancy our looks, for they did not throw their line to us. They had evidently come to sell us the provisions they had aboard. “Lay to, what are you afeared of,” shouted the boatswain. One of the men shook his blue cowled head. “Parley vous Français?” he cried “What does he say?” the boatswain asked me “I think he wants to know if you speak French.” “Blast his himpudence; what does he think my mother was? I wants none sich lingo,” retorted the salt. Scared by the row of white faces the men had plainly decided to forego the profits of trade from fear of infection. One had seized his oar to bring the boat’s head to shore when, recalling all the French words I had ever heard, I shouted “Lait,” and held out a pail with one hand and sixpence with the other. They swung round, and one of the men caught my pail, filled it and handed it back. Pointing to some loaves he gave me one for a sixpence, and several other passengers bought the rest of them. This done, the boat left. With that milk Aileen hopes to save the lives of the few infants left. The bread was welcome, though it was heavy and had a peculiar sourish taste. When the tide began to make, the order to weigh the anchor was given. The ships to the north of us were doing the same, and the sailors’ songs came over the water with beautiful cadence, blending with the chorus of our own crew, which began with “haul in the bowline, the black ship’s arolling,” and ended declaring that “Katie is my darling.” With a large spread of canvas we moved slowly up the mighty river for the wind was light. In spite of our dismal surroundings, this was a day of quiet delight to Aileen and myself. The extraordinary width of the river, said to be over ten miles, its waters, pure and of deep blue color, clasping at intervals a picturesque island, the boldness of the wooded hills on the north shore and the brightness and softness of the cultivated landscape on the south, were a constant feast for eyes wearied of the sea. The depth and tender blue of the sky, so much more transparent than in the dear old land, particularly impressed Aileen. As we made our way up the glorious river, the shores trended nearer, the hills on the north grew loftier and the southern bank less steep. The sun had set in a glory of gold and crimson beyond the hills when the order was given to let go the anchor, the tide no longer serving us. Quarter a mile ahead of us a large ship did the same. The evening being calm Aileen got a wrap and we sat watching the darkening waters and the shores that loomed momentarily more faint, until the lights from the house windows alone marked where they were. “What is that?” she suddenly exclaimed, and I saw a shapeless heap move past our ship on the outgoing tide. Presently there was another and another. Craning my head over the bulwark I watched. Another came, it caught in our cable, and before the swish of the current washed it clear, I caught a glimpse of a white face. I understood it all. The ship ahead of us had emigrants and they were throwing overboard their dead. Without telling Aileen, I grasped her arm, and drew her to our cabin.

14.--An eventful day, the consequences of which I fear, although, recalling every detail, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise. Anxious to see this country, so new and bright to me, I rose at daylight. The ship was under plain sail, beating against a northwest wind, and making little headway. One of our lads who had been taken to help the sailors was ordered by the mate up the foremast to put to rights some tackle that had got entangled in the last tack. The boy blundered, and the mate repeated the order with his customary oaths. Again the lad tried to do what he was bid and failed. Ordering a sailor to go up and do the work, the mate shouted to the boy to come down. He did so reluctantly, for he saw the mate had grasped a rope’s end. Cursing him for his slowness, the mate seized his feet while still in the ratlines. He fell violently on the deck, when the mate proceeded to shower blows with the heavy rope on the head and back of the boy, who cried piteously for mercy. I could not stand it; my blood was boiling. “Stop,” I shouted, “have pity on the boy; he did not mean to disobey your order. It was his sorrow for his mother who died last night that confused him.” The mate paused in his lashing of the lad and glared at me with such a malignant look as I pray the saints I may never again have cast on me. “Mind your business, damn you, or I’ll have you put in irons for mutiny,” he shouted and again laid the rope across the lad’s quivering body with fiercer strength. It was, perhaps, foolish for my own interests but I could not help it. I sprang at the mate and dealt him a blow in the face. He clutched hold of me and we grappled. He was strong, with muscles toughened by fighting sea and wind, but a Sligo boy of my inches will take odds from no man in a wrestle. We fell time and again, he beneath me, but he always managed to wriggle up again, until I got a good hold of his neck, then I bent him under me and rained blows on every part of him my right fist could reach. All that the cheating villain had done, his cruelties to my people, his brutal indifference to their sufferings, flashed across my mind, and lent vim to every blow I dealt. How the scoundrel howled for help and, finally, for mercy. Not one of the sailors interfered. They drew off to the forepeak and looked on, glad to see his punishment. The passengers who were on deck formed in a circle around us, delighted at the sight. One of them, I recall, popped up from the hatchway and held out a blackthorn to me with the explanation, “To finish him off wid, yer honor.” I needed no shillelah. The fear that I might fatally injure the bully alone caused me to pause. I gathered him up in my arms for a final effort, when a strange thing happened me. I saw in my mind’s eye, as they passed before me, the white face of one after the other of the dead I helped to drop into the sea. It was one of those freaks the imagination plays when the mind is intensely excited. This could not have taken over a moment or two, but I saw them all, plainly and distinctly. Solemnized yet strengthened by the sight, I was given a power I had not. I raised the craven, who was whining and sobbing, as high as my breast and flung him away as far as I could. Fortune favored him, he fell on a coil of rope, where he lay helpless. The steward went to him, wiped the blood from his eyes, and finally he was able to rise and, leaning on the steward’s left shoulder, shuffled to the cabin. By this time every man of my people able to leave the hold was on deck, an excited throng, eager for fighting. “If they lay a finger on yees for what ye’ve so nately done, we’ll break the heads av ivery wan o’ thim,” said a county Leitrim man to me, and I knew that was the spirit of them all. Softly opening the door of our little cabin I was thankful to find Aileen asleep. Getting a change of clothes, for those I had on were torn and bloodstained, I slipped out, had a wash in a bucket of saltwater, and then dressed myself. At breakfast I told Aileen all. She was much shocked at the danger I had run, and when satisfied I had received no greater injury than sundry black and blue bruises from kicks and blows and some handfuls of hair the coward had torn from my head, she became alarmed for the result. Assaulting an officer on shipboard I knew was a serious offence in the eyes of the law, and so did Aileen. “I don’t think,” I said to her, “you need fear their punishing me according to law, for they know if I am taken before a court, all the villainy of captain and mate towards the passengers would come out. They have broken the law in fifty ways, and know it. What I fear is the captain trying to take the law into his own hands before we reach Quebec.” We passed the day on deck as usual, appearing as unconcerned as might be. Whether the captain entertained any notion of arresting me, I cannot say, for he made no sign. The sight of a score or so of my people keeping nigh me wherever I moved, from whose coats peeped the end of what they called “a bit av a shtick,” may have had some influence in deterring him, but the real cause I opine to be what the boatswain whispered to me in the evening, that the steward had told the captain the sailors to a man would refuse to put a hand on me. They hate the mate, who, by the way, according to the cabin boy, is lying in his berth, alternately groaning with pain and swearing from rage. We made little progress today. The wind was ahead and we kept tacking every half hour or so. In beating up the river thus, a ship overhauled us. She was a Clyde trader, and being shorter she wore more quickly and being heavier laden sailed more closely to the wind, and owing to these advantages she outsailed us. As she passed us, her captain stood at the stern and dangled a rope to us, as if offering to take our ship in tow. Our captain, with an oath, rushed down the companionway to hide his mortification. In the afternoon a discovery was made that sent joy to the heart of every passenger. A boy had hauled up a pailful of water to douse his head in, after getting his hair clipped, when he got a taste of it and found it was fresh. The tide was out, and at the point we now had reached, at the slack, the water is fresh. Pailful after pailful was hauled on board, and the sick were supplied without stint, with water sweet, clear and cool. Alas, the refreshing draught came too late for seven, who died during the day. I wanted to keep the bodies on board in hopes of giving them burial, but the boatswain advised otherwise, as he said, although we were within a short distance of quarantine with the present wind we might be two or three days of making it. Ship anchored at darkening, close to shore.

15.--Remained at anchor all day. Cold with strong wind from north-west. At intervals there were squalls, accompanied by driving showers of rain and hail. Three hours’ fair wind would see us at quarantine, yet here we are unable to advance a yard on our way. Five deaths today. I resolved the bodies be kept for burial. Boatswain told me mate is worse today, being feverish. The pilot bled him and the captain gave him a blue pill. Not being needed to work the ship, all hands were engaged in putting the vessel into her best trim, scraping, scrubbing, and painting. Outwardly the ship is neat and clean, a sight to delight a sailor’s eye, and to look at her from the deck it is hard to conceive of the putrid state of her hold. The steward bribed several of the passengers with whisky to clean the steps and alley-ways of the steerage. A steamer painted white and with a house the length of her deck, passed us, going east.

16.--The sound of the anchor being weighed awoke me and I heard it with joy. I dressed and gave the sailors a hand. The wind had veered into the east, and it looked as if rain was coming. The fore mainsail having been set, the ship swept on, keeping the channel as easily as if propelled by steam. When Aileen came out, the church bells were ringing for early mass, and we could make out the people driving along the roads to attend. Reports from the steerage are gloomy. There have been three deaths during the night. It seems as if a number of the sick had reached that point that their dropping off is inevitable. The river was dotted with ships following us, and the sight of so many large vessels moving majestically in a column in our rear fascinated me. By and by the rain came on, when Aileen left to pack our trunks, for we are fully persuaded the wind will hold and that we will land in Quebec before dark, bidding farewell to this ship of misery. When quarantine was sighted, I dropped in to see how she was getting on, and finding my help not needed, wrote this, in all probability, the last entry I will make on board.

Grosse Isle, May 31.--Fourteen days since I penned a line in this sorrowful record. I wish I had not lived to pen another. God’s will be done, but, oh, it is hard to say it. Yet I ask myself, what right have I to repine? Grievous as has been my loss, what is it compared with that of many of those around me, whose quiet submission rebukes my selfish sorrow. Enough of this, let me resume my record. When the ship came abreast of the quarantine buildings, all fresh from a new coat of whitewash, the anchor was dropped. It was nearly an hour before the quarantine officer came on board, and I heard him on stepping from his boat apologize to our captain for the delay, owing to his waiting for breakfast. The captain took him down to the cabin and it was a long while before he re-appeared, when he stepped down to the main deck, where all the passengers, able to be out of bed, were waiting him. He walked round us, asked a few to hold out their tongues, and then went down into the hold, where he stayed only a minute or so. Passing a few words with the captain, he re-entered his boat and was rowed back to the island. No sooner had he left, than the boatswain got orders to have all boats made ready to take the sick ashore. First the dead were brought up. The sailors shrank back, there was a muttered consultation, and the boatswain, taking me aside, told me they would not touch them or even row a boat that held them, and I had better drop them overboard. “Never,” I cried, “shall it be said that the bodies of the faithful did not receive Christian burial when it was possible to give it.” Calling out from among my people four men whom I knew were fishermen, I asked them if they would row the dead ashore, and on saying they would, the boatswain let me have a boat. Decently the bodies were passed over and we made our way to the landing. We had trouble in getting them out of the boat, for the steps of the quay were out of repair, but we managed it and carried them to what, from the cross on it, we saw was a church. The priest came out, and I told him our purpose. Leaving the dead in the church, we went back to the ship for the others. By this time the sick were being landed, and roughly handled they were. As it would be awhile before the graves would be ready, I lent a hand--the most miserable, heartrending work I had ever engaged in. With indecent haste they were hurried from the ship deck into the boats, and tossed on to the steps of the quay, careless of what injury they might receive. Most were unable to help themselves in the least, a few were delirious. Men, women, and children were all treated the same, as so much rubbish to be got rid of as quickly as possible. It was no better on land. The quarantine had only two men to spare to help the few relatives who came ashore to carry them from the wharf to the buildings, and many lay an hour in a cold pelting rain. It signified little as to their getting wet, for they were all doused by the waves in landing them on the quay. Small wonder two died on the quay, and were borne to the chapel to add to the number awaiting burial there. The priest was very considerate, and, although I did not ask it, said mass, which I knew would be a great consolation to the relatives. Leaving the cemetery with the priest, I thanked him from my heart, and ran to the quay. My heart was in my mouth when I saw on it Aileen, standing beside our boxes, and the ship, having tripped her anchor, bearing up the river. “What makes you look so at me, Gerald? I have come as you asked.”

“I never sent for you.”

“The steward told me you had sent word by the sailors for me to come ashore, that you were going to stay here. They carried the luggage into a boat and I followed.”

I groaned in spirit. I saw it all. By a villainous trick, the captain had got rid of me. Instead of being in Quebec that day, here I was left at the quarantine-station. “My poor Aileen, I know not what to do; my trouble is for you.” I went to see the head of the establishment, Dr Douglas. He proved to be a fussy gentleman, worried over a number of details. Professing to be ready to oblige, he said there was no help for me until the steamer came. “When will that be?” Next Saturday. A week on an island full of people sick with fever! Aileen, brave heart, made the best of it. She was soaking wet, yet the only shelter, apart from the fever sheds, which were not to be thought of, was an outhouse with a leaky roof, with no possibility of a fire or change of clothing. How I cursed myself for my rashness in making captain and mate my enemies, for the penalty had fallen not on me, but on my Aileen. There was not an armful of straw to be had; not even boards to lie on. I went to the cooking booth, and found a Frenchman in charge. Bribing him with a shilling he gave me a loaf and a tin of hot tea. Aileen could not eat a bite, though she tried to do so to please me, but drank the tea. The rain continued and the east wind penetrated between the boards of the wretched sheiling. What a night it was! I put my coat over Aileen, I pressed her to my bosom to impart some heat to her chilled frame, I endeavored to cheer her with prospects of the morrow. Alas, when morning came she was unable to move, and fever and chill alternated. I sought the doctor, he was not to be had. Other emigrant ships had arrived, and he was visiting them. Beyond giving her water to assuage her thirst when in the fever it was not in my power to do anything. It was evening when the doctor, yielding to my importunities, came to see her. He did not stay a minute and writing a few lines told me to go to the hospital steward, who would give me some medicine. Why recall the dreadful nights and days that followed? What profit to tell of the pain in the breast, the raging fever, the delirium, the agonizing gasping for breath--the end? The fourth day, with bursting heart and throbbing head, I knelt by the corpse of my Aileen. There was not a soul to help; everybody was too full of their own troubles to be able to heed me. The island was now filled with sick emigrants, and death was on every side. I dug her grave, the priest came, I laid her there, I filled it in, I staggered to the shed that had sheltered us, I fell from sheer exhaustion, and remember no more. When I woke, I heard the patter of rain, and felt so inexpressibly weary I could think of nothing, much less make any exertion. My eye fell on Aileen’s shawl, and the past rushed on me. Oh, the agony of that hour; my remorse, my sorrow, my beseechings of the Unseen. Such a paroxysm could not last long, and when exhausted nature compelled me to lie down, I turned my face to the wall with the earnest prayer I might never awaken on this earth. How long I slept I know not. Some motion of one leaning over me brought back consciousness.

“Pax tecum,” said a voice I seemed to recall. “Et cum spiritu tuo,” I mechanically responded.

I opened my eyes. Could I believe them? It was Father Moylan. I put my arms round his neck, and kissed him a score of times.

“Father, dear; sure it must be the Blessed Virgin herself sent you to console me for the loss of her daughter, my Aileen, my love.”

“My consolation would be of little aid; but as an unworthy servant of the church I may be the channel of communicating the consolation that doth avail. May the Mother of Sorrows, whose heart was pierced by the sight of her son’s death, heal thy wound. I knew not Aileen was dead.”

“Did Father McGoran not tell you?”

“Like everybody else in this wretched place his hands are too full to permit of speech that can be dispensed with. A lad called on me at Quebec to tell me of how you had been left behind and besought me to help you and your wife.”

“His name, father?”

“Michael Fagan.”

“The grateful soul; the boy I stopped the mate from lashing.”

“He it was, for he told me all and of what you had been to the sick on the voyage. I intended coming anyway to see what I could do for our poor country people, but when I knew of my pupil being here in distress, I went to the bishop to ask to be sent at once.”

“And how did you find me?”

“By searching. The last hour I have gone through every building looking for you and came in course to this outhouse.”

“May the saints ease your dying hour for this kindness, father. Oh that you had come while Aileen was alive!”

“Fret not over the past, Gerald; there is work calling for you which you must rise and do.”

“I have no heart to lift my head: I want to die and be with Aileen.”

“A wish natural to the flesh, my son, but I taught you to little avail if I did not ground you in the belief that it is the duty of the Christian to so direct the blind sorrow of fallen humanity that it become an impulse to more strenuous discharge of our daily duties. Aileen is dead; requiescat en pace. Is your sorrow for her to be a selfish sorrow that will add to your load of sin; or shall it become an incitement to you to do for those around you what she would wish you to do could she speak?”

“Do not ask me; I cannot forget her.”

“You are not asked to forget her. May you ever see her in your mind’s eye, beckoning you on to works of faith and mercy; may her precious memory be your inspiration to do what duty calls from your hand.”

“There is no need of my help now.”

“No need! I tell you every hour there are Irish men and women dying within a furlong of you for lack of the commonest help. Before I came here, I found sick who had not had their fever assuaged by a drop of water for 18 hours; children who had not tasted a bite since yesterday; the dead lying beside the living, and all because there is none to help.”

“I do not understand why that should be on land. There is plenty of food and help in Quebec.”

“Yes, and so there was on your ship, but a heartless captain and a greedy mate stood between the food and water and the passengers. There is abundance of everything within sight of here, yet our countrymen are perishing by the score, because the government of Canada is deaf to their cries.”

“What interest can the Canadian government have in acting so?”

“No interest. It is more heedlessness than intent. The politicians are too absorbed in their paltry strifes to give heed to a few thousand Irish emigrants dying at their door.”

“It sounds incredible.”

“That is because you do not know politics and politicians here. I tell you, Gerald, I have been in Canada now three years, and (always barring the tools of the Irish landlords) if there be a more despicable creature than the office-hunting Canadian politician, I have yet to see him.”

“If I must act, I should go first to Quebec to see after my people. They were promised ten shillings a head, to be paid by Lord Palmerston’s agent at Quebec, and a deed from the Canadian government for a hundred acres a family.”

“Faugh! Not a shilling, not an acre did they get. I saw them. Lord Palmerston has no agent in Quebec, the government will give no free grant of land. Mere lies told the poor crathurs to get them to leave Ireland.”

“Well, then, I could at least make an example of the captain of our ship.”

“Not a bit of it; you are deceiving yourself. The prosecution would have to be taken by the emigration agent, and he would not, if he could help it. Then, where are your witnesses? You would be bled of your last dollar by the lawyers and do nothing. No, Gerald, there is no use of thinking of leaving here. Providence has guided you to Grosse isle and here is your work. Come, man, get up and do it.”

I sank back with a groan. I did not want to move, the father insisted, however, and, after many remonstrances, grasped my hand and raised me to my feet. He took me to where the resident priest lived, insisted on my washing myself and gave me, out of his bag, one of his clean shirts. Then we sat down to dinner, Fathers McGoran and Taschereau joining us. The conversation was of the deluge of emigrants, every day bringing new arrivals, and every ship with its quota of sick and dying. Every available place having become crowded, the ships had to remain and become floating hospitals. The calamity with which they were face to face was so unexpected and appalling that how to devise means to grapple with it staggered them. They spoke of the need of urging the government to erect sheds and send plenty of nurses and doctors. I listened in silence until Father Taschereau asked me for my opinion, as one who was an emigrant. I said many had died on the voyage and many more had been landed who would certainly die, but of this I was confident, there would not have been a death from fever or dysentery on the voyage or one sick of these diseases landed at Grosse isle, had there been enough to eat. The solution of the difficulty therefore seemed to me simple. Give all who arrive plenty of wholesome food. Starvation is the cause of dysentery and fever. Remove the cause and these diseases will disappear. It is not medicine and nursing that are wanted, but food. The people fled from starvation in Ireland to be worse starved on board ship where their lot was made worse by the lack of pure air and water, of which they had no lack in Ireland. They asked me many questions about the treatment of the emigrants on shipboard. Father McGoran said he was inclined to believe I was right, that Dr Douglas was making the mistake of fighting the fever instead of removing what caused the fever. The fever was not to be looked upon as was the cholera visitation of 12 years before. I left the table with Father Moylan and as we went out at the door, he stood for a minute to look at the sight on the river. The clouds had cleared and the sun had come out strong, with a marvellously soft and clear atmosphere. So far as we could see from where we stood, the blue waters of the river bore a column of vessels of which neither head nor end was visible. “Let us take a step over and see them,” said Father Moylan. When we reached the bank, the sight was striking, and would have been most inspiring had we not known that each of these noble ships was a floating pest-house. There was a shout from the vessel opposite us. A man stood on the gunwale, and steadying himself with one hand grasping the rigging, gesticulated with the other. His agitation was so great neither of us could make out what he was saying. “Speak slowly,” cried Father Moylan, when clear the response came across the water, “For the love of God, father, come aboord; ye’re needed.” There was only one rowboat in sight, and it belonged to Dr. Douglas. The oars were out of her and the chain locked. “You’ll have to send a boat,” cried the father. There was a long delay, ending in a boat putting off from the ship. He wanted me to go with him, but I said I wished to find my uncle.

With heavy heart and unsteady step I turned to the buildings where the sick were. The nighest was the best. I looked in and to my joy espied my cousin Bridget sitting alongside a bunk. She started and gave a cry of fright when she saw me, for, she explained, she thought I was in Quebec and I looked like a ghost. It was her father and her sister Ellen who were in the bed. The latter had been landed sick of the fever; uncle had been stricken by it the day after arrival. He did not know me, and I feared the worst from the sound of his moaning. The girl seemed to be doing well. “Comfortable they be,” said Bridget, “this is the best place; the sheds are bad as the ship.” I told her to go and take the air for a while, and sat down to watch in her place. I was hardly seated when I distinguished a murmur of plaintive cries from every part of the room, mostly--“Wather, if ye plaze.” I bestirred myself, and when the poor souls found there was somebody to help, requests increased, and I was kept going from bed to bed. When Bridget returned I remarked that I saw none of our ship’s people in the place. She said there was only room for her father and Ellen and the others were in the sheds. It was growing dark when Father Malloy came to the door and beckoned me out. He had such a distressed and wearied look that I went with him without asking any questions. When we came near the outhouse I had lodged in, I turned towards it. He gripped my arm. “No, Gerald, not there; you’d lapse into your old mood.” He took me to the priest’s house, and a shake-down was made for me in the kitchen. I had a wakeful night and went out of doors before sunrise. To my surprise I saw Father Malloy walking up and down in front of the house, prayer-book in hand. When done he joined me. “Now, Gerald, we have work to do; we must make an examination of everything, for no plan can be laid until we know the actual state of affairs.” Re-entering the house with him, he got a loaf and a jug of milk. “I am going to tell you something you should never forget; when you have to go where there are sick, do not go with an empty stomach. Fasting and infection go together.” Having broken our fast, we started, the first thing to be done, the father said, being to see what the island was like. The morning was delightfully fresh and we walked briskly. We found the island larger than we supposed, and having a good deal of land fit for cultivation. Pausing at a field where a man was harrowing, the father had a conversation with him in French. He told him the island was about three miles long by one in width, and that Doctor Douglas farmed a considerable part of it, keeping a number of cows. Standing on its north bank a wide expanse of the St Lawrence lay at our feet, the blue waters ruffled by a western breeze. Beyond rose a chain of wooded hills, which swelled into a lofty peak, overhanging the river. “That is called cape Tourmente,” said Father Malloy. “Is it not a glorious scene! Who, looking upon it, would dream there is concentrated within ten minutes’ walk the misery of a nation? Gerald, we must give Ireland’s woe on this island a voice that will bring the help of Christian people.”

“I am afraid it will be hard to interest them. Everything is against the poor emigrant, father. He is not looked upon as a human being. The very sailors treat him as they would a steer given to carry from one port to another.”

“True, my boy, and you don’t know it all, for you have not lived in this country yet. I’ve seen in New York men and women shrink from the newly landed emigrant as an unclean thing, and at Quebec over there the very bar-room loafers sniff their noses in disgust at him. Unless they have money nobody makes them welcome; and if they have money everybody tries to get it from them. I buried a woman who had been left to die on the wharf at Quebec. The captain bundled her out, nobody would touch her, let alone give her shelter, and the poor sick crathur afore sundown found rest and is now where those who despised her will have little chance of going.”

I asked Father Malloy about his visit to the ship the day before. He told me the man who shouted for him had a brother dying, who wanted the church’s last rites. “It was my first visit to a fever-stricken ship,” he went on to say, “and it was a revelation. I could not stand upright in her hold, for it was not much over 5 feet high, and there was little more elbow than head room. Every side was lined with berths and I saw dead lying in them with the living. The stench made one gasp, and the sight of the vermin crawling over dead and living made my flesh creep. An Irish priest is used to the sights of disease and want, but the emigrant-ship, fever-stricken, embodies every form of wretchedness and multiplies them a ten-fold.”

The quarantine-buildings are huddled together at the upper end of the island and each we examined during the day. Except the one in which uncle lay, they are flimsy affairs, a shelter from the heat of the sun and no more, for the boards are shrunken and the roofs leaky. In one the berths are in double tier, like those of a ship, the result being the patient in the lower berth is made uncomfortable by the one above, and he, in turn, from weakness, can neither get out nor into it without help, which he seldom gets. Every place is crowded with sick, even the two churches being occupied. The government had prepared for 200 sick; already there are nigh a thousand, and many more on the ships who cannot be landed for want of room. Without regard to age or sex they are huddled together in the sheds, and left to die or recover. The attendance was hardly worth speaking of. At long intervals a man or woman would come round with drink and food, but there was no pretence at coming for their comfort. We were told by many nobody had been near them for hours. We saw the dead lying next the living, for the bodies are removed only night and morning, and in many cases there were two and three in a berth. Over all this sad scene, from which hope had fled, shone the virtues of patience and submission to the divine will. No querulous word was heard, no grumbling; the stricken flock bowed beneath the rod of affliction with pious resignation. Workmen were busy building a new shed and there were tents lying round, but all the preparations were wofully insufficient. Father Malloy agreed with me that the lack of nurses was even worse than the lack of shelter, and thought a supply might be had from the healthy emigrants. I thought not; emigrants in health were too eager to escape after being bound to scenes of horror on shipboard for a month and more. We labored to do our best, and many a pail of water did the father carry from the river to serve out in cupfuls in the sheds.

The weather has been sorely against the sick, rain with high east winds, adding to their discomfort. Nearly every day there is a fresh arrival of a ship, and not one without sick on board. The wind had been from the east the day before and on the morning of the 25th a whole fleet was seen bearing up the river, of which a dozen had emigrants. At Father Malloy’s request I spent a day with him going from ship to ship, a boat having been lent him by a friendly captain. The passengers cried with joy when they saw him and clustered round the holy man, whose services in administering the last consolations of the church were needed at every step. I spoke with the passengers while he was below, and it was an unvarying tale of starvation on the voyage and cruel usage. I found the passengers on ships that had been lying at anchor over a week to be still starving, for the captains had not increased the rations and Dr Douglas said he could not supply provisions from the shore unless authorized by the Canadian government. One of the new arrivals had 13 dead on board. The 40 ships now at anchor, have nigh 15,000 emigrants: of these I am sure one-third would not be passed as healthy. Sailors are at work on shore erecting a sort of shelter with spars and sails, where the ships will leave their healthy to perform quarantine, while they go on to Quebec.