CHAPTER III.

RETURN TO SCOTLAND—­SCHOOL IN EDINBURGH.

No ship offering at this time from Antigua for Scotland, Mrs. Graham embarked with her family in one bound to Belfast, Ireland.  Major Brown and his brother officers saw her safely out to sea; and he gave her a letter to a gentleman in Belfast, containing, as he said, a bill for the balance of the money she had deposited with him.  After a stormy and trying voyage, she arrived in safety at her destined port.  The correspondent in Ireland of Major Brown delivered her a letter from that officer expressive of esteem and affection, and stating that as a proof of respect for the memory of their deceased friend, he and his brother officers had taken the liberty of defraying the expenses of her voyage.

Consequently the bill he had given was for the full amount of her original deposit; and thus, like the brethren of Joseph, she found all her money in the sack’s mouth. Being a stranger in Ireland, without a friend to look out for a proper vessel in which to embark for Scotland, she and her children went passengers in a packet; on board of which, as she afterwards learned, there was not even a compass.  A storm arose and they were tossed to and fro for nine hours in imminent danger.  The rudder and the mast were carried away; every thing on deck thrown overboard; and at length the vessel struck in the night upon a rock, on the coast of Ayr, in Scotland.  The greatest confusion pervaded the passengers and crew.  Among a number of young students, going to the University at Edinburgh, some were swearing, some praying, and all were in despair.  The widow only remained composed.  With her babe in her arms she hushed her weeping family, and told them that in a few minutes they should all go to join their father in a better world.  The passengers wrote their names in their pocket-books, that their bodies might be recognized and reported for the information of their friends.  One young man came into the cabin, asking, “Is there any peace here?” He was surprised to find a female so tranquil; a short conversation soon evinced that religion was the source of comfort and hope to them both in this perilous hour.  He engaged in prayer and then read the 107th Psalm.  While repeating these words, “he maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still,” the vessel swung off the rock by the rising of the tide.  She had been dashing against it for an hour and a half, the sea making a breach over her, so that the hold was now nearly filled with water.  Towards morning the storm subsided, and the vessel floated until she rested on a sand-bank.  Assistance was afforded from the shore, and the shipwrecked company took shelter in a small inn, where the men seemed anxious to drown the remembrance of danger in a bowl of punch.  How faithful a monitor is conscience!  This voice is listened to in extreme peril; but O, infatuated man, how anxious art thou to stifle the warnings of wisdom in the hour of prosperity.  Thousands of our race, no doubt, delay their preparation for eternity until, by sudden death, they have scarcely a moment left to perform this solemn work.