say, 'I hasten seawards; come with me; my music is sweet and soothing, but it is nothing to the great ocean's." Yes! I fancied it sang always-"I go to the sea! come with me!" and whom had I, dear old uncle, to care for where I slept but you?'

666

'Come, Polly, don't go on so,' said old Martin trying to smile,-'don't.'

"But she continued, 'Yes, Uncle, I longed to get near it, to be on it, to be far away from all land, and fancied I should die so much happier if clear of all those trifles, which were miseries to one in my health, but which I could not help nor avoid meeting. You know, Ursula, I came to die on the sea, if it was His will! having been often told and knowing well I should not live long. I feel it is not far-off-it is a wide grave, Mr. Treweeke!'

"I started at my name, and without opening my lips stole away on deck, and made some work to distract my thoughts -'Is it possible,' I kept muttering, 'that it is not all a dream? Can this young girl be resigned to early death and an ocean grave? No! it could hardly be. She dying, and I strong-hearted, and full of health, living on! No! it could hardly be.

"I saw very little of her after this, only calling at intervals to ask in a low voice how she was getting on. If she heard me, I would hear her asking nurse if that was Mr. Treweeke, and I would hasten away trying to stop the beating of my heart. The old man and Ursula were constantly with her, and either would come and tell me whenever

she had mentioned my name. I had never seen consumption, and would not allow myself to think but of her getting better, and re-appearing on deck in the finer weather coming.

"We had run down our easting, and were well up for the Strait. Still the weather was variable and squally with calms, when old Martin said one night :

"This is not good for poor Molly; she won't last long. I wish I hadn't brought her, Treweeke; but I did it all

thought we might have done her good, and got her safely out.'

My attention was taken up with a dark wall of black cloudy stuff rising in the south-westward, and I commenced taking in sail. Do you remember one beginning in the Bay of Bengal in this manner; that night we lost our foremast, where, when the clouds broke, we saw the moon eclipsed, and said we should never forget it?"

"I do," said I, "remember it well; every man and boy knew fear that night if never before; but go on describing your squall."

"I will, as near as I can," he went on. "It came slowly towards us with a sough and moaning, such as you hear when, sitting in doors at home, all ears listen as if to a supernatural voice outside. The squall struck us at eleven, and from thence till four hours afterwards we had a perfect battle with wind and rain. The wind veered and shifted, and no sooner had we the yards braced up on one tack, than everything would be aback, and she would be grinding round on her keel. Before I could get the topsails reefed she would sometimes be dashing through the water, and like a mad dog scattering foam from her on every side. But you know the kind of night, and the work it brings."

"Go on," I said, interrupting him, "go on; I realize it better when you describe minutely."

"Well, then! in a moment," he continued, "it would lull, and she would stagger uprightly, and shiver like a horse in battle, the sails flapping and slatting, the topsail sheets surging in the yard-arms with a loud snap, the lightning playing between the masts, and cracking like a coach-whip about our ears, while from the black masses rolling over our mastheads, peal after peal of thunder grumbled and burst, as if to annihilate a doomed ship.

"About three in the morning we were in a dead lull; the squall had passed over, and was moving away from us; but it had left an unearthly stillness and silence behind it, around us, and in

focation that even now I seem to feel. Rolling uneasily from side to side, now and then a mass of water would strike us on the bow or quarter, or anywhere, with the dull, hollow sound of a wooden hammer, subsiding again with a splash, as if breaking into a thousand fragments; fagged and worn out, the crew huddled under the forecastle, and a chilliness came over me, not from my wet clothes-they were warm to the touch-but as if a foreboding or foreshadowing of some disaster. It was very dark. I held on to the mizen topmast back-stay, and tried to see the helmsman, but couldn't. Thinking, Thinking, can I go down and see how they are?' and wringing the wet out of my coatsleeves, I only shrank and felt cold, suddenly cold, when a voice-I turned not to see whose, said—

"You may take in everything, sir; the wind went away with her; we shall have a quiet day, Mr. Treweeke, to bury Mary.'

"Was it all a dream, old fellow? all a dream?" and, leaning his head on the capstan, I heard him struggling to repress his sobbing.

"Are you tired, or shall I go on ?" he said, looking up after a long pause. "Not tired," I said, 66 pray go on." He did so, continuing in a kind of

reverie.

"How some days above others, with all their minutest events, and even our personal feelings at the moment of their occurrence, fix themselves on the mind, unconsciously exercising an influence on our inner life, and through it partly our outer one! Called up suddenly, in some out-of-the-way place, by a slight coincidence of nature perhaps, if nothing else, the whole of their incidents and their results coming vividly back, the good returning with its good, the evil with its evil, that retaining its sway mostly which has been most cherished in the interval. This beautiful night, and your mention of Procyon, recalled all that memorable voyage, and I feel relief at having told you, what, till now, has been all my own. Why did I merit

panionship of a young girl for a few short months should sink so deeply in my heart, and colour all my future with a hopeful radiance, making me strong for work, and braced for trouble, firm for success, and ready for adversity-that even now, telling you all this, I see angelic wings and hear an angel's voice, when trying to pierce the thick oceanic cloud that wraps her in the far-off Eastern sea!

"On board ship, as you know, one cannot retire to a secluded spot and indulge either his grief or joy in quietude.

There is always work to be done, and, light heart or heavy heart, there is no shirking it; it must be faced. The day of her death and of the squall, was one of those which, from a mixture of actual work with deep and sad thought, remains graven on the memory, although conscious at the time of having done and seen everything as if in a dream. The squall seemed to have dragged all the turbulence of the sea, and the vapours of the atmosphere, away with it, and left a life-giving warmth and vitality in the air as of a May-day in childhood. A mere thin veil of fleecy clouds rested round the horizon, into which the deep blue of the zenith faded in till it became grey, and this in turn melted into the silvery surface of the sea.

The wind had died completely away, and the throbbing of the ocean's heart after its night's wrestle with the dark spirit that had passed over it, was seen only in long thin black lines that, starting out from the haze, grew firmer and more distinct on their approach, ever rising and falling, gleaming and vanishing, until dying away near us they showed on the other side firmer and more distinct, retreating and sweeping, and bound on their long journey northwards. Every sound jarring on my ear, and acting under some curious idea that it would be more honourable with death on board, I gave the orders to haul all the sails up snugly; so stirless was the air, their flapping and fluttering made it more mournful; and, noting with what a subdued and quiet manner the

666

Come, Polly, don't go on so,' said old Martin trying to smile,-'don't.'

"But she continued, 'Yes, Uncle, I longed to get near it, to be on it, to be far away from all land, and fancied I should die so much happier if clear of all those trifles, which were miseries to one in my health, but which I could not help nor avoid meeting. You know, Ursula, I came to die on the sea, if it was His will! having been often told and knowing well I should not live long. I feel it is not far-off-it is a wide grave, Mr. Treweeke!'

"I started at my name, and without opening my lips stole away on deck, and made some work to distract my thoughts -'Is it possible,' I kept muttering, 'that it is not all a dream? Can this young girl be resigned to early death and an ocean grave? No! it could hardly be. She dying, and I strong-hearted, and full of health, living on! No! it could hardly be.

"I saw very little of her after this, only calling at intervals to ask in a low voice how she was getting on. If she heard me, I would hear her asking nurse if that was Mr. Treweeke, and I would hasten away trying to stop the beating of my heart. The old man and Ursula were constantly with her, and either would come and tell me whenever

she had mentioned my name. I had never seen consumption, and would not allow myself to think but of her getting better, and re-appearing on deck in the finer weather coming.

"We had run down our easting, and were well up for the Strait. Still the weather was variable and squally with calms, when old Martin said one night:

This is not good for poor Molly; she won't last long. I wish I hadn't brought her, Treweeke; but I did it all

thought we might have done her good, and got her safely out.'

My attention was taken up with a dark wall of black cloudy stuff rising in the south-westward, and I commenced taking in sail. Do you remember one beginning in the Bay of Bengal in this manner; that night we lost our foremast, where, when the clouds broke, we saw the moon eclipsed, and said we should never forget it?"

"I do," said I, "remember it well; every man and boy knew fear that night if never before; but go on describing your squall.”

on.

"I will, as near as I can," he went "It came slowly towards us with a sough and moaning, such as you hear when, sitting in doors at home, all ears listen as if to a supernatural voice outside. The squall struck us at eleven, and from thence till four hours afterwards we had a perfect battle with wind and rain. The wind veered and shifted, and no sooner had we the yards braced up on one tack, than everything would be aback, and she would be grinding round on her keel. Before I could get the topsails reefed she would sometimes be dashing through the water, and like a mad dog scattering foam from her on every side. But you know the kind of night, and the work it brings."

"Go on," I said, interrupting him, "go on; I realize it better when you describe minutely."

"Well, then! in a moment," he continued, "it would lull, and she would stagger uprightly, and shiver like a horse in battle, the sails flapping and slatting, the topsail sheets surging in the yard-arms with a loud snap, the lightning playing between the masts, and cracking like a coach-whip about our ears, while from the black masses rolling over our mastheads, peal after peal of thunder grumbled and burst, as if to annihilate a doomed ship.

"About three in the morning we were in a dead lull; the squall had passed over, and was moving away from us; but it had left an unearthly stillness and silence behind it, around us, and in

focation that even now I seem to feel. Rolling uneasily from side to side, now and then a mass of water would strike us on the bow or quarter, or anywhere, with the dull, hollow sound of a wooden hammer, subsiding again with a splash, as if breaking into a thousand fragments; fagged and worn out, the crew huddled under the forecastle, and a chilliness came over me, not from my wet clothes-they were warm to the touch-but as if a foreboding or foreshadowing of some disaster. It was very dark. I held on to the mizen topmast back-stay, and tried to see the helmsman, but couldn't. Thinking,

'can

go down and see how they are?' and wringing the wet out of my coatsleeves, I only shrank and felt cold, suddenly cold, when a voice-I turned not to see whose, said—

"You may take in everything, sir; the wind went away with her; we shall have a quiet day, Mr. Treweeke, to bury Mary.'

"Was it all a dream, old fellow? all a dream?" and, leaning his head on the capstan, I heard him struggling to repress his sobbing.

"Are you tired, or shall I go on?" he said, looking up after a long pause.

"Not tired," I said, "pray go on." He did so, continuing in a kind of reverie.

"How some days above others, with all their minutest events, and even our personal feelings at the moment of their occurrence, fix themselves on the mind, unconsciously exercising an influence on our inner life, and through it partly our outer one! Called up suddenly, in some out-of-the-way place, by a slight coincidence of nature perhaps, if nothing else, the whole of their incidents and their results coming vividly back, the good returning with its good, the evil with its evil, that retaining its sway mostly which has been most cherished in the interval. This beautiful night, and your mention of Procyon, recalled all that memorable voyage, and I feel relief at having told you, what, till now, has been all my own. Why did I merit

panionship of a young girl for a few short months should sink so deeply in my heart, and colour all my future with a hopeful radiance, making me strong for work, and braced for trouble, firm for success, and ready for adversity-that even now, telling you all this, I see angelic wings and hear an angel's voice, when trying to pierce the thick oceanic cloud that wraps her in the far-off Eastern sea!

"On board ship, as you know, one cannot retire to a secluded spot and indulge either his grief or joy in quietude. There is always work to be done, and, light heart or heavy heart, there is no shirking it; it must be faced. The day of her death and of the squall, was one of those which, from a mixture of actual work with deep and sad thought, remains graven on the memory, although conscious at the time of having done and seen everything as if in a dream. The squall seemed to have dragged all the turbulence of the sea, and the vapours of the atmosphere, away with it, and left a life-giving warmth and vitality in the air as of a May-day in childhood. A mere thin veil of fleecy clouds rested round the horizon, into which the deep blue of the zenith faded in till it became grey, and this in turn melted into the silvery surface of the sea. The wind had died completely away, and the throbbing of the ocean's heart after its night's wrestle with the dark spirit that had passed over it, was seen only in long thin black lines that, starting out from the haze, grew firmer and more distinct on their approach, ever rising and falling, gleaming and vanishing, until dying away near us they showed on the other side firmer and more distinct, retreating and sweeping, and bound on their long journey northwards. Every sound jarring on my ear, and acting under some curious idea that it would be more honourable with death on board, I gave the orders to haul all the sails up snugly; so stirless was the air, their flapping and fluttering made it more mournful; and, noting with what a subdued and quiet manner the

and personally grateful to them when I saw each man and boy had shifted his wet clothes with his best. When we had got everything aloft made as snug as possible, no sound broke the silence save the plashing and surging of the water about the rudder, the creaking of the lower yards on their trusses, and the sullen tap of the carpenter's hammer as he completed the rude coffin that was to hold that fair form. Old Martin and Ursula had never emerged from the cabin, and from my soul I pitied the old man and her at their sad task. This was to be my first burial at sea, and ' what wonder if strange and undefinable emotions stirred me, when, with the carpenter directing, we raised a platform at the starboard gangway, turning two waterbutts on their ends and placing planks on them with their outer edges on the gunwale? We spread an ensign over all, and our preparations were supposed to be complete. I then went in and asked if I could be of any use. 'No, my lad, no!' the old man said, 'Ursy and I'll manage all-'tisn't for a young lad like you to handle death. You'll read the service over her-about one, I think; and see the men are tidy. You need not work them much to-day!'

"Left to my own reflections, and with the terrible silence all about me, I scarcely think I should have been startled had the sound of that trumpet which

'To archangelic lips applied

Shall rouse the heavens, quench the stars,' suddenly burst on us from the blue overhead, and stopt our voyage over the ocean and through life. As it was, my mind seemed to become enlarged, and an awful sense of our own littleness and God's greatness stole over me. I thought of the strange fancy which had led her to choose the ocean for a resting-placeif that could be so-called, where there was no rest; wondered if the coffin would reach the bottom; fancied the strange sea-things staring at it in its descent of its being borne hither and thither, to and fro, in its never-resting

so shapely and full of beauty becoming part of the great sea itself, its dissevered particles would be borne round and round the world by its ever-throbbing pulsations; and, starting from my reverie, I felt as if my brain wandered.

"Getting the prayer-book, I looked over the portion I should have to read, and tried vainly to think of the mystery attending the changing of our vile body, that it may be like His glorious body.' But I was conscious of some new and strange knowledge stirring in my mind.

"After taking the sun at noon, I ordered one of the boys whenever he saw me coming out from the cabin to commence tolling the bell. It was a sad task for the poor little fellow, and he would willingly have handed it over to some other body; for many a time, I daresay, had a word or smile from her who was gone, made his little heart lighter, and his dull sea-life cheerier. On going into the cabin, I found the carpenter and Old Martin placing her coffin on the table, and, scarcely conscious of the feelings prompting me, motioned to the carpenter to hold on a little. Working up the latitude and longitude, I wrote them on a piece of paper, and put underneath in a firm hand, as if still expecting some one to read it—

MARY HAY.

Died at Sea, July 15th, 1844. F. TREWEEKE,

and tacked it on the inside of the coffinlid. Old Martin then whispered, 'Let the crew have a look, Treweeke; it'll do them good,' and took his own last kiss, with a 'good-bye, Polly.'

"The men and boys, who were all clustered silent and sorrowful at the front of the poop, came in one by one, stole a glance with tear-dazzled eyes on the sweet face-as sometimes happens, far more beautiful in death-and then the carpenter shut all up from our sight. Few there were who looked on then, even so briefly, but took away a thought to last a lifetime. At a wave of the hand