Reprinted from The Skipper Parson: On the Bays and Barrens of Newfoundland by James Lumsden
Transcribed by Wanda Garrett, January 2015
Shipwreck
“When passing through the watery deep,
I asked in faith His promised aid,
The waves an awful distance keep,
And shrink from my devoted heard;
Fearless, their violence I dare’
They cannot harm, for God is there!” – Charles Wesley
The conference had appointed me to Random South Mission, on the north side of Trinity Bay, and it was arranged that I should take passage in the schooner Llewellyn. It may be observed that my baggage had been placed on two crafts previously, and changed from one to the other until the Llewellyn, because bound to a point nearer my destination than the others, became the final choice. The Rev. Henry Lewis, from Random North – the circuit adjoining mine – who was to be my superintendent, was in St. John’s at the time. He was very genial and brotherly, and his experience, which his kind-heartedness placed at my disposal, I found helpful in different ways. On the morning of Friday, September 30, [1881] I received word that all was ready for departure; this was about eight o’clock. A hurried breakfast, and an equally hurried farewell to my kind host and hostess, Captain and Mrs. Green, whose hospitality for about a week I had so thoroughly enjoyed, and I was soon on board.
The Llewellyn, the first sailing vessel I had ever board, was a little schooner of about sixty tons burden, totally lacking in a comfort – a fair sample of the kind of craft that carry Newfoundland fishermen to the distant shores of Labrador in pursuit of their precarious and arduous calling. She was loaded with provisions and household utensils necessary for life during the long winter in the isolated districts of Random. My companions in travel were three other passengers, including a young lady from Harbour Grace, and a crew of four men and a boy – nine of us in all.
The first circumstances that came under my notice was ominous of ill rather than good. Happening to look down the companion way, I saw an old man – a passenger – drinking spirits. The liquor was at once put away by one who, in a hoarse whisper, said, “It’s the minister.” The hoary-headed toper was not so easily frightened, and in a loud, defiant tone answered, “Never mind him.”
The morning was grandly fine, and we enjoyed that great desideratum, a free wind. There was an uncomfortable swell on the ocean, though none probably but a landsman would have thought so. We had, however, nothing to complain of as far as sky and sea were concerned, and, in sailor like fashion, could speak of
“A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast.”
It was not long before I began to feel very seasick, and was compelled to take refuge in the quarters below. The cabin could hardly be call “spick and span”, and the air was of that condition that increases the tortures of an already qualmish state, though otherwise soporific in its effects. Our wretchedness was increased by the stove’s provoking stubbornness in persisting to send its foul and blinding vapors the wrong way. But worse than all was the profane and senile speech of the devotee of the bottle. There was no alternative; so, divesting myself of coat and boots, I took the skipper’s bunk which had been kindly offered to me.
The old man seemed to have created something like a reign of terror on board. All stood in fear of him. Every hour, or at intervals he claimed to be hours, he called for a grog. An attempt was made on one occasion to keep the liquor from him, when he yelled in rage, “Mind you don’t anger me now; I’ll smash everything in the cabin if you do.”
Before night the other passengers like myself had “turned in.” Things became quieter, and even the votary of Bacchus held his peace at last. The heavy tread of the men on deck, the groaning and creaking of the spars, and the gurgling and splashing of the water around the ship were the only sounds now heard. We had ere this, I understood, entered Trinity Bay, and the wind was “head.” A hymn sung by one of the sailors on deck broke the dismal silence. The works being new to me, and suiting my mood, were especially pleasing: moreover, the singer did his part well. He sang:
“I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice,
And it told thy love to me.”
While occupied with my own thoughts, the other passengers being asleep, were gradually approaching a fearful catastrophe, and knew it not. It broke upon us at last. At about half-past eleven in the night, suddenly as a flash of lightning we heard a piercing cry from the skipper on the watch: “Hard down the helm, for God’s sake – she’s on a rock!” It was too late for any deft move of the helmsman to escape the rock. Instantly she struck with a heavy thud that shook her in every beam.
At this moment two of the crew were in the cabin lighting their pipes, which they dropped and rushed on deck. The awakened and alarmed passengers went after them almost as fast, and I, hardly realizing the danger, followed in their train. The outlook from the deck, to all appearance, was death. The night was not stormy, but dark – “as dark as the grave,” as the skipper expressed it.
The deck of the little craft now became the scene of intense and solemn excitement. The crew, with the single exception of the boy, who lay on the deck crying, behaved splendidly. They all displayed admirable coolness and promptitude, working with the energy of men who felt their lives at stake. The fright sobered the old man. Here he was, suddenly called from a drunken stupor to stand face to face with death. Poor fellow! This was a contest for which he was altogether unequal. It was pitiable in the extreme to see this man, whose stalwart frame and heavy looks alone made him an impressive figure, pacing the deck of the doomed ship in the darkness of that awful midnight hour, crying, “My God! My God! We’re lost! We’re lost! The young lady acted bravely, but it was heart-rending to hear her lamentations over her dear parents for the sorrow which she thought was in store for them on hearing of her untimely end, and also her oft-repeated prayer to God to have mercy on her soul. I shall not attempt to reveal fully my own thoughts and feelings in that most solemn of all moments, when we stood under the very shadow of eternity. But as an unprofitable servant’s testimony may be blessed to the strengthening of some soul nearing the borderland, or someone like myself called suddenly to stand face to face with Death, I will not wholly omit it. I realized that in all probability my last hour had come, and God gave me the grace of resignation to his will. I was not anxious: the cross of Christ was my peace. Safe in an almighty hand, I was able to repeat, as the language of my heart, words since doubly dear:
“If life be long, I will be glad
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To soar to endless day?”
All this took place the few minutes the crew were at work getting the vessel of the rock. She now glided back into deep water. “All hands to the pumps,” shouted the skipper. Hardly was the order given before he called to us standing aft, “See, if there’s any water in the cabin.” Instantly went back the answer, “She’s a foot deep; the water is pouring into her.” We all now fully realized that a few minutes would decide our fate. Thoroughly aroused, we joined with the men in the shout, “Get out the boat.” This was our only hope. Quicker than words the boat was launched and we were in it. There was no thought for anything now but our lives. By this time the water was nearing the level of the deck of the sinking schooner, and the excited cry went up for a hatchet to cut the rope that fastened our “lifeboat” to the fast-foundering vessel. A moment or two supremely critical, of great suspense, and the rope was cut and we were free. A few minutes later and we should have been lost. We pushed off. I kept my eyes on the ill-fated Llewellyn. We were only three or four boat-lengths away when she went down. The vessel was now under water. Slowly, steadily, the masts disappeared, until the topmost spar had vanished, and the Llewellyn was buried forever beneath the cold, relentless waters. At this moment, overwhelmed emotion I sang in a loud voice:
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.”
The rock on which the Llewellyn received her death blow was Shag Rock, Duck Island, about four miles off the northern side of Trinity Bay, as is shown on the map. The schooner had been beating her course up the bay, and at the moment of collision was sailing at a good speed, under a smart “sideling” breeze. The blow, as we have seen, was a fatal one for the Llewellyn. It was not for me to apportion blame, but merely to describe the actual occurrence. I saw no one take liquor except my aged friend.
It was well for us that the night was not stormy, for our boat – it is hard for me to speak slightingly of the boat that saved us – was but an ill-conditioned punt, “cranky,” to use the word applied to it by the sailors, and could never have survived in even a mildly boisterous sea. In our haste we had taken only two oars, and one of them was imperfect. The darkness was intense, and not even relieved by the friendly gleam of a distant lighthouse. I was without hat or coat or boots; others were in equally bad plight. We shivered with wet and cold, but there was no word of complaint. These inconveniences seemed nothing in presence of the fact that our lives had been so providentially spared. There was an unbroken silence, as when men have something unusually solemn to think about.
The silence was at last broken by an incident which for the first time revealed to me what I afterward proved again and again, the soft heart, the chivalrous spirit, possessed by many of Newfoundland’s hardy fishermen. One of the crew, called Jacob, rose at the other end of the boat and asked, “How is the parson?” I replied as cheerfully as possible, “All right, thank you.” Not satisfied, he plied me with questions until he found I had no boots, when he immediately pulled off his own, and, deaf to my loudest protestations, simply compelled me to put them on, thus exposing himself to the cold, and possibly injury from the sharp rocks on landing, to advantage me.
It was about half-past one in the morning when we entered a long, narrow creek called Ireland’s Eye. After paddling a space in the deeper darkness of frowning cliffs, suddenly from a cottage window, high and in the distance, a light shone, thrilling our hearts with joy. Its bright and friendly gleam seemed at once to assure us safety, and to welcome us to a refuge. We can never forget it, nor the gladness it brought to our sad hearts.
The old man, who had been significantly silent since the wreck, was one of the first to step on the wharf, exclaiming as he did so, “Thank God, I’m out of hell.” With this devout exclamation upon his lips, we bid good-bye to a fellow voyager and companion in misfortune, trusting that a gleam of light arose upon his soul, that in the end he found that mercy God delights to bestow. Needless to say we were all glad to be again on terra firma.
We had to arouse the people in the house from whose window shone the friendly gleam. Again and again we knocked, and at last a voice responded, “Who’s there?” “Shipwrecked men,” our skipper replied. Then we heard the same voice in a loud and excited soliloquy: “O my God!” I know all about it – I saw it all in my dream.” On entering this kindly shelter, after greetings and explanations, the first thing we did was to return thanks to God for our deliverance. We sang, “Jesus, lover of my soul,” and we knelt and gave expression to feelings of deepest gratitude, fervent “Amens!” broke from the lips of those around.
The people of the house received us most kindly. Of course it was impossible for them to accommodate their numerous and unexpected guests in the way they would have been glad to do under other circumstances, especially as we besieged their lonely dwelling at such an hour. In the words of the apostle, they cheerfully said, “Such as I have I give thee:” and more grateful to us poor castaways than ever beds of don to home-staying bodies were the beds extemporized on the floor of the fisherman’s cottage on the eventful morning.
When I awoke my eyes were bloodshot with cold, and realizing the position I was in I could not help feeling greatly depressed. I had saved from the wreck but one portmanteau, which happened to lie at my feet on the deck; all the rest had been left behind, and had not even been sought of. But now, through God’s mercy, I opened my eyes on the workaday world again, and for the first time in my life felt quite unprepared to meet it. There are few of us, I imagine, altogether oblivious to our surroundings. I confess having little of that stoicism. As cold causes the mercury to drop to zero, so a man’s surroundings will sometimes affect his spirits. This morning that peculiar condition of things prevailed with me. I was conscious of the absence, like a yawning gulf, of loved ones and familiar friends. Not a being did I know. Nature, too, was unsympathetic and somber; gray sky, gray sea, gray rocks. There was no comfort anywhere except in God. I stood on the giant rocks and looked out on “great, lone Trinity Bay” until my heart was sick, and I turned away well-nigh in despair. Not so much the loss of my outfit and library did I regret, though these were valuable, and I found myself without even a Bible, a hymn book, or a cent of money; but the sudden swallowing up of all that linked me with a bright and happy past, presents, heirlooms, treasures, things that money could not replace. Here I was a stranger in a strange land, a castaway.
These transcriptions may contain human errors. As always, confirm these as you would any other source material.