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_ Never had I seen a year going out, or going on, under quieter
circumstances. Eighteen hundred and fifty-nine had but another day
to live, and truly its end was Peace on that sea-shore that
morning.
So settled and orderly was everything seaward, in the bright light
of the sun and under the transparent shadows of the clouds, that it
was hard to imagine the bay otherwise, for years past or to come,
than it was that very day. The Tug-steamer lying a little off the
shore, the Lighter lying still nearer to the shore, the boat
alongside the Lighter, the regularly-turning windlass aboard the
Lighter, the methodical figures at work, all slowly and regularly
heaving up and down with the breathing of the sea, all seemed as
much a part of the nature of the place as the tide itself. The
tide was on the flow, and had been for some two hours and a half;
there was a slight obstruction in the sea within a few yards of my
feet: as if the stump of a tree, with earth enough about it to
keep it from lying horizontally on the water, had slipped a little
from the land--and as I stood upon the beach and observed it
dimpling the light swell that was coming in, I cast a stone over
it.
So orderly, so quiet, so regular--the rising and falling of the
Tug-steamer, the Lighter, and the boat--the turning of the
windlass--the coming in of the tide--that I myself seemed, to my
own thinking, anything but new to the spot. Yet, I had never seen
it in my life, a minute before, and had traversed two hundred miles
to get at it. That very morning I had come bowling down, and
struggling up, hill-country roads; looking back at snowy summits;
meeting courteous peasants well to do, driving fat pigs and cattle
to market: noting the neat and thrifty dwellings, with their
unusual quantity of clean white linen, drying on the bushes; having
windy weather suggested by every cotter's little rick, with its
thatch straw-ridged and extra straw-ridged into overlapping
compartments like the back of a rhinoceros. Had I not given a lift
of fourteen miles to the Coast-guardsman (kit and all), who was
coming to his spell of duty there, and had we not just now parted
company? So it was; but the journey seemed to glide down into the
placid sea, with other chafe and trouble, and for the moment
nothing was so calmly and monotonously real under the sunlight as
the gentle rising and falling of the water with its freight, the
regular turning of the windlass aboard the Lighter, and the slight
obstruction so very near my feet.
O reader, haply turning this page by the fireside at Home, and
hearing the night wind rumble in the chimney, that slight
obstruction was the uppermost fragment of the Wreck of the Royal
Charter, Australian trader and passenger ship, Homeward bound, that
struck here on the terrible morning of the twenty-sixth of this
October, broke into three parts, went down with her treasure of at
least five hundred human lives, and has never stirred since!
From which point, or from which, she drove ashore, stern foremost;
on which side, or on which, she passed the little Island in the
bay, for ages henceforth to be aground certain yards outside her;
these are rendered bootless questions by the darkness of that night
and the darkness of death. Here she went down.
Even as I stood on the beach with the words 'Here she went down!'
in my ears, a diver in his grotesque dress, dipped heavily over the
side of the boat alongside the Lighter, and dropped to the bottom.
On the shore by the water's edge, was a rough tent, made of
fragments of wreck, where other divers and workmen sheltered
themselves, and where they had kept Christmas-day with rum and
roast beef, to the destruction of their frail chimney. Cast up
among the stones and boulders of the beach, were great spars of the
lost vessel, and masses of iron twisted by the fury of the sea into
the strangest forms. The timber was already bleached and iron
rusted, and even these objects did no violence to the prevailing
air the whole scene wore, of having been exactly the same for years
and years.
Yet, only two short months had gone, since a man, living on the
nearest hill-top overlooking the sea, being blown out of bed at
about daybreak by the wind that had begun to strip his roof off,
and getting upon a ladder with his nearest neighbour to construct
some temporary device for keeping his house over his head, saw from
the ladder's elevation as he looked down by chance towards the
shore, some dark troubled object close in with the land. And he
and the other, descending to the beach, and finding the sea
mercilessly beating over a great broken ship, had clambered up the
stony ways, like staircases without stairs, on which the wild
village hangs in little clusters, as fruit hangs on boughs, and had
given the alarm. And so, over the hill-slopes, and past the
waterfall, and down the gullies where the land drains off into the
ocean, the scattered quarrymen and fishermen inhabiting that part
of Wales had come running to the dismal sight--their clergyman
among them. And as they stood in the leaden morning, stricken with
pity, leaning hard against the wind, their breath and vision often
failing as the sleet and spray rushed at them from the ever forming
and dissolving mountains of sea, and as the wool which was a part
of the vessel's cargo blew in with the salt foam and remained upon
the land when the foam melted, they saw the ship's life-boat put
off from one of the heaps of wreck; and first, there were three men
in her, and in a moment she capsized, and there were but two; and
again, she was struck by a vast mass of water, and there was but
one; and again, she was thrown bottom upward, and that one, with
his arm struck through the broken planks and waving as if for the
help that could never reach him, went down into the deep.
It was the clergyman himself from whom I heard this, while I stood
on the shore, looking in his kind wholesome face as it turned to
the spot where the boat had been. The divers were down then, and
busy. They were 'lifting' to-day the gold found yesterday--some
five-and-twenty thousand pounds. Of three hundred and fifty
thousand pounds' worth of gold, three hundred thousand pounds'
worth, in round numbers, was at that time recovered. The great
bulk of the remainder was surely and steadily coming up. Some loss
of sovereigns there would be, of course; indeed, at first
sovereigns had drifted in with the sand, and been scattered far and
wide over the beach, like sea-shells; but most other golden
treasure would be found. As it was brought up, it went aboard the
Tug-steamer, where good account was taken of it. So tremendous had
the force of the sea been when it broke the ship, that it had
beaten one great ingot of gold, deep into a strong and heavy piece
of her solid iron-work: in which, also, several loose sovereigns
that the ingot had swept in before it, had been found, as firmly
embedded as though the iron had been liquid when they were forced
there. It had been remarked of such bodies come ashore, too, as
had been seen by scientific men, that they had been stunned to
death, and not suffocated. Observation, both of the internal
change that had been wrought in them, and of their external
expression, showed death to have been thus merciful and easy. The
report was brought, while I was holding such discourse on the
beach, that no more bodies had come ashore since last night. It
began to be very doubtful whether many more would be thrown up,
until the north-east winds of the early spring set in. Moreover, a
great number of the passengers, and particularly the second-class
women-passengers, were known to have been in the middle of the ship
when she parted, and thus the collapsing wreck would have fallen
upon them after yawning open, and would keep them down. A diver
made known, even then, that he had come upon the body of a man, and
had sought to release it from a great superincumbent weight; but
that, finding he could not do so without mutilating the remains, he
had left it where it was.
It was the kind and wholesome face I have made mention of as being
then beside me, that I had purposed to myself to see, when I left
home for Wales. I had heard of that clergyman, as having buried
many scores of the shipwrecked people; of his having opened his
house and heart to their agonised friends; of his having used a
most sweet and patient diligence for weeks and weeks, in the
performance of the forlornest offices that Man can render to his
kind; of his having most tenderly and thoroughly devoted himself to
the dead, and to those who were sorrowing for the dead. I had said
to myself, 'In the Christmas season of the year, I should like to
see that man!' And he had swung the gate of his little garden in
coming out to meet me, not half an hour ago.
So cheerful of spirit and guiltless of affectation, as true
practical Christianity ever is! I read more of the New Testament
in the fresh frank face going up the village beside me, in five
minutes, than I have read in anathematising discourses (albeit put
to press with enormous flourishing of trumpets), in all my life. I
heard more of the Sacred Book in the cordial voice that had nothing
to say about its owner, than in all the would-be celestial pairs of
bellows that have ever blown conceit at me.
We climbed towards the little church, at a cheery pace, among the
loose stones, the deep mud, the wet coarse grass, the outlying
water, and other obstructions from which frost and snow had lately
thawed. It was a mistake (my friend was glad to tell me, on the
way) to suppose that the peasantry had shown any superstitious
avoidance of the drowned; on the whole, they had done very well,
and had assisted readily. Ten shillings had been paid for the
bringing of each body up to the church, but the way was steep, and
a horse and cart (in which it was wrapped in a sheet) were
necessary, and three or four men, and, all things considered, it
was not a great price. The people were none the richer for the
wreck, for it was the season of the herring-shoal--and who could
cast nets for fish, and find dead men and women in the draught?
He had the church keys in his hand, and opened the churchyard gate,
and opened the church door; and we went in.
It is a little church of great antiquity; there is reason to
believe that some church has occupied the spot, these thousand
years or more. The pulpit was gone, and other things usually
belonging to the church were gone, owing to its living congregation
having deserted it for the neighbouring school-room, and yielded it
up to the dead. The very Commandments had been shouldered out of
their places, in the bringing in of the dead; the black wooden
tables on which they were painted, were askew, and on the stone
pavement below them, and on the stone pavement all over the church,
were the marks and stains where the drowned had been laid down.
The eye, with little or no aid from the imagination, could yet see
how the bodies had been turned, and where the head had been and
where the feet. Some faded traces of the wreck of the Australian
ship may be discernible on the stone pavement of this little
church, hundreds of years hence, when the digging for gold in
Australia shall have long and long ceased out of the land.
Forty-four shipwrecked men and women lay here at one time, awaiting
burial. Here, with weeping and wailing in every room of his house,
my companion worked alone for hours, solemnly surrounded by eyes
that could not see him, and by lips that could not speak to him,
patiently examining the tattered clothing, cutting off buttons,
hair, marks from linen, anything that might lead to subsequent
identification, studying faces, looking for a scar, a bent finger,
a crooked toe, comparing letters sent to him with the ruin about
him. 'My dearest brother had bright grey eyes and a pleasant
smile,' one sister wrote. O poor sister! well for you to be far
from here, and keep that as your last remembrance of him!
The ladies of the clergyman's family, his wife and two sisters-in-
law, came in among the bodies often. It grew to be the business of
their lives to do so. Any new arrival of a bereaved woman would
stimulate their pity to compare the description brought, with the
dread realities. Sometimes, they would go back able to say, 'I
have found him,' or, 'I think she lies there.' Perhaps, the
mourner, unable to bear the sight of all that lay in the church,
would be led in blindfold. Conducted to the spot with many
compassionate words, and encouraged to look, she would say, with a
piercing cry, 'This is my boy!' and drop insensible on the
insensible figure.
He soon observed that in some cases of women, the identification of
persons, though complete, was quite at variance with the marks upon
the linen; this led him to notice that even the marks upon the
linen were sometimes inconsistent with one another; and thus he
came to understand that they had dressed in great haste and
agitation, and that their clothes had become mixed together. The
identification of men by their dress, was rendered extremely
difficult, in consequence of a large proportion of them being
dressed alike--in clothes of one kind, that is to say, supplied by
slopsellers and outfitters, and not made by single garments but by
hundreds. Many of the men were bringing over parrots, and had
receipts upon them for the price of the birds; others had bills of
exchange in their pockets, or in belts. Some of these documents,
carefully unwrinkled and dried, were little less fresh in
appearance that day, than the present page will be under ordinary
circumstances, after having been opened three or four times.
In that lonely place, it had not been easy to obtain even such
common commodities in towns, as ordinary disinfectants. Pitch had
been burnt in the church, as the readiest thing at hand, and the
frying-pan in which it had bubbled over a brazier of coals was
still there, with its ashes. Hard by the Communion-Table, were
some boots that had been taken off the drowned and preserved--a
gold-digger's boot, cut down the leg for its removal--a trodden-
down man's ankle-boot with a buff cloth top--and others--soaked and
sandy, weedy and salt.
From the church, we passed out into the churchyard. Here, there
lay, at that time, one hundred and forty-five bodies, that had come
ashore from the wreck. He had buried them, when not identified, in
graves containing four each. He had numbered each body in a
register describing it, and had placed a corresponding number on
each coffin, and over each grave. Identified bodies he had buried
singly, in private graves, in another part of the church-yard.
Several bodies had been exhumed from the graves of four, as
relatives had come from a distance and seen his register; and, when
recognised, these have been reburied in private graves, so that the
mourners might erect separate headstones over the remains. In all
such cases he had performed the funeral service a second time, and
the ladies of his house had attended. There had been no offence in
the poor ashes when they were brought again to the light of day;
the beneficent Earth had already absorbed it. The drowned were
buried in their clothes. To supply the great sudden demand for
coffins, he had got all the neighbouring people handy at tools, to
work the livelong day, and Sunday likewise. The coffins were
neatly formed;--I had seen two, waiting for occupants, under the
lee of the ruined walls of a stone hut on the beach, within call of
the tent where the Christmas Feast was held. Similarly, one of the
graves for four was lying open and ready, here, in the churchyard.
So much of the scanty space was already devoted to the wrecked
people, that the villagers had begun to express uneasy doubts
whether they themselves could lie in their own ground, with their
forefathers and descendants, by-and-by. The churchyard being but a
step from the clergyman's dwelling-house, we crossed to the latter;
the white surplice was hanging up near the door ready to be put on
at any time, for a funeral service.
The cheerful earnestness of this good Christian minister was as
consolatory, as the circumstances out of which it shone were sad.
I never have seen anything more delightfully genuine than the calm
dismissal by himself and his household of all they had undergone,
as a simple duty that was quietly done and ended. In speaking of
it, they spoke of it with great compassion for the bereaved; but
laid no stress upon their own hard share in those weary weeks,
except as it had attached many people to them as friends, and
elicited many touching expressions of gratitude. This clergyman's
brother--himself the clergyman of two adjoining parishes, who had
buried thirty-four of the bodies in his own churchyard, and who had
done to them all that his brother had done as to the larger number-
-must be understood as included in the family. He was there, with
his neatly arranged papers, and made no more account of his trouble
than anybody else did. Down to yesterday's post outward, my
clergyman alone had written one thousand and seventy-five letters
to relatives and friends of the lost people. In the absence of
self-assertion, it was only through my now and then delicately
putting a question as the occasion arose, that I became informed of
these things. It was only when I had remarked again and again, in
the church, on the awful nature of the scene of death he had been
required so closely to familiarise himself with for the soothing of
the living, that he had casually said, without the least abatement
of his cheerfulness, 'indeed, it had rendered him unable for a time
to eat or drink more than a little coffee now and then, and a piece
of bread.'
In this noble modesty, in this beautiful simplicity, in this serene
avoidance of the least attempt to 'improve' an occasion which might
be supposed to have sunk of its own weight into my heart, I seemed
to have happily come, in a few steps, from the churchyard with its
open grave, which was the type of Death, to the Christian dwelling
side by side with it, which was the type of Resurrection. I never
shall think of the former, without the latter. The two will always
rest side by side in my memory. If I had lost any one dear to me
in this unfortunate ship, if I had made a voyage from Australia to
look at the grave in the churchyard, I should go away, thankful to
GOD that that house was so close to it, and that its shadow by day
and its domestic lights by night fell upon the earth in which its
Master had so tenderly laid my dear one's head.
The references that naturally arose out of our conversation, to the
descriptions sent down of shipwrecked persons, and to the gratitude
of relations and friends, made me very anxious to see some of those
letters. I was presently seated before a shipwreck of papers, all
bordered with black, and from them I made the following few
extracts.
A mother writes:
REVEREND SIR. Amongst the many who perished on your shore was
numbered my beloved son. I was only just recovering from a severe
illness, and this fearful affliction has caused a relapse, so that
I am unable at present to go to identify the remains of the loved
and lost. My darling son would have been sixteen on Christmas-day
next. He was a most amiable and obedient child, early taught the
way of salvation. We fondly hoped that as a British seaman he
might be an ornament to his profession, but, 'it is well;' I feel
assured my dear boy is now with the redeemed. Oh, he did not wish
to go this last voyage! On the fifteenth of October, I received a
letter from him from Melbourne, date August twelfth; he wrote in
high spirits, and in conclusion he says: 'Pray for a fair breeze,
dear mamma, and I'll not forget to whistle for it! and, God
permitting, I shall see you and all my little pets again. Good-
bye, dear mother--good-bye, dearest parents. Good-bye, dear
brother.' Oh, it was indeed an eternal farewell. I do not
apologise for thus writing you, for oh, my heart is so very
sorrowful.
A husband writes:
MY DEAR KIND SIR. Will you kindly inform me whether there are any
initials upon the ring and guard you have in possession, found, as
the Standard says, last Tuesday? Believe me, my dear sir, when I
say that I cannot express my deep gratitude in words sufficiently
for your kindness to me on that fearful and appalling day. Will
you tell me what I can do for you, and will you write me a
consoling letter to prevent my mind from going astray?
A widow writes:
Left in such a state as I am, my friends and I thought it best that
my dear husband should be buried where he lies, and, much as I
should have liked to have had it otherwise, I must submit. I feel,
from all I have heard of you, that you will see it done decently
and in order. Little does it signify to us, when the soul has
departed, where this poor body lies, but we who are left behind
would do all we can to show how we loved them. This is denied me,
but it is God's hand that afflicts us, and I try to submit. Some
day I may be able to visit the spot, and see where he lies, and
erect a simple stone to his memory. Oh! it will be long, long
before I forget that dreadful night! Is there such a thing in the
vicinity, or any shop in Bangor, to which I could send for a small
picture of Moelfra or Llanallgo church, a spot now sacred to me?
Another widow writes:
I have received your letter this morning, and do thank you most
kindly for the interest you have taken about my dear husband, as
well for the sentiments yours contains, evincing the spirit of a
Christian who can sympathise with those who, like myself, are
broken down with grief.
May God bless and sustain you, and all in connection with you, in
this great trial. Time may roll on and bear all its sons away, but
your name as a disinterested person will stand in history, and, as
successive years pass, many a widow will think of your noble
conduct, and the tears of gratitude flow down many a cheek, the
tribute of a thankful heart, when other things are forgotten for
ever.
A father writes:
I am at a loss to find words to sufficiently express my gratitude
to you for your kindness to my son Richard upon the melancholy
occasion of his visit to his dear brother's body, and also for your
ready attention in pronouncing our beautiful burial service over my
poor unfortunate son's remains. God grant that your prayers over
him may reach the Mercy Seat, and that his soul may be received
(through Christ's intercession) into heaven!
His dear mother begs me to convey to you her heartfelt thanks.
Those who were received at the clergyman's house, write thus, after
leaving it:
DEAR AND NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN FRIENDS. I arrived here yesterday
morning without accident, and am about to proceed to my home by
railway.
I am overpowered when I think of you and your hospitable home. No
words could speak language suited to my heart. I refrain. God
reward you with the same measure you have meted with!
I enumerate no names, but embrace you all.
MY BELOVED FRIENDS. This is the first day that I have been able to
leave my bedroom since I returned, which will explain the reason of
my not writing sooner.
If I could only have had my last melancholy hope realised in
recovering the body of my beloved and lamented son, I should have
returned home somewhat comforted, and I think I could then have
been comparatively resigned.
I fear now there is but little prospect, and I mourn as one without
hope.
The only consolation to my distressed mind is in having been so
feelingly allowed by you to leave the matter in your hands, by whom
I well know that everything will be done that can be, according to
arrangements made before I left the scene of the awful catastrophe,
both as to the identification of my dear son, and also his
interment.
I feel most anxious to hear whether anything fresh has transpired
since I left you; will you add another to the many deep obligations
I am under to you by writing to me? And should the body of my dear
and unfortunate son be identified, let me hear from you
immediately, and I will come again.
Words cannot express the gratitude I feel I owe to you all for your
benevolent aid, your kindness, and your sympathy.
MY DEARLY BELOVED FRIENDS. I arrived in safety at my house
yesterday, and a night's rest has restored and tranquillised me. I
must again repeat, that language has no words by which I can
express my sense of obligation to you. You are enshrined in my
heart of hearts.
I have seen him! and can now realise my misfortune more than I have
hitherto been able to do. Oh, the bitterness of the cup I drink!
But I bow submissive. God MUST have done right. I do not want to
feel less, but to acquiesce more simply.
There were some Jewish passengers on board the Royal Charter, and
the gratitude of the Jewish people is feelingly expressed in the
following letter bearing date from 'the office of the Chief Rabbi:'
REVEREND SIR. I cannot refrain from expressing to you my heartfelt
thanks on behalf of those of my flock whose relatives have
unfortunately been among those who perished at the late wreck of
the Royal Charter. You have, indeed, like Boaz, 'not left off your
kindness to the living and the dead.'
You have not alone acted kindly towards the living by receiving
them hospitably at your house, and energetically assisting them in
their mournful duty, but also towards the dead, by exerting
yourself to have our co-religionists buried in our ground, and
according to our rites. May our heavenly Father reward you for
your acts of humanity and true philanthropy!
The 'Old Hebrew congregation of Liverpool' thus express themselves
through their secretary:
REVEREND SIR. The wardens of this congregation have learned with
great pleasure that, in addition to those indefatigable exertions,
at the scene of the late disaster to the Royal Charter, which have
received universal recognition, you have very benevolently employed
your valuable efforts to assist such members of our faith as have
sought the bodies of lost friends to give them burial in our
consecrated grounds, with the observances and rites prescribed by
the ordinances of our religion.
The wardens desire me to take the earliest available opportunity to
offer to you, on behalf of our community, the expression of their
warm acknowledgments and grateful thanks, and their sincere wishes
for your continued welfare and prosperity.
A Jewish gentleman writes:
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR. I take the opportunity of thanking you
right earnestly for the promptness you displayed in answering my
note with full particulars concerning my much lamented brother, and
I also herein beg to express my sincere regard for the willingness
you displayed and for the facility you afforded for getting the
remains of my poor brother exhumed. It has been to us a most
sorrowful and painful event, but when we meet with such friends as
yourself, it in a measure, somehow or other, abates that mental
anguish, and makes the suffering so much easier to be borne.
Considering the circumstances connected with my poor brother's
fate, it does, indeed, appear a hard one. He had been away in all
seven years; he returned four years ago to see his family. He was
then engaged to a very amiable young lady. He had been very
successful abroad, and was now returning to fulfil his sacred vow;
he brought all his property with him in gold uninsured. We heard
from him when the ship stopped at Queenstown, when he was in the
highest of hope, and in a few short hours afterwards all was washed
away.
Mournful in the deepest degree, but too sacred for quotation here,
were the numerous references to those miniatures of women worn
round the necks of rough men (and found there after death), those
locks of hair, those scraps of letters, those many many slight
memorials of hidden tenderness. One man cast up by the sea bore
about him, printed on a perforated lace card, the following
singular (and unavailing) charm:
A BLESSING.
May the blessing of God await thee. May the sun of glory shine
around thy bed; and may the gates of plenty, honour, and happiness
be ever open to thee. May no sorrow distress thy days; may no
grief disturb thy nights. May the pillow of peace kiss thy cheek,
and the pleasures of imagination attend thy dreams; and when length
of years makes thee tired of earthly joys, and the curtain of death
gently closes around thy last sleep of human existence, may the
Angel of God attend thy bed, and take care that the expiring lamp
of life shall not receive one rude blast to hasten on its
extinction.
A sailor had these devices on his right arm. 'Our Saviour on the
Cross, the forehead of the Crucifix and the vesture stained red; on
the lower part of the arm, a man and woman; on one side of the
Cross, the appearance of a half moon, with a face; on the other
side, the sun; on the top of the Cross, the letters I.H.S.; on the
left arm, a man and woman dancing, with an effort to delineate the
female's dress; under which, initials.' Another seaman 'had, on
the lower part of the right arm, the device of a sailor and a
female; the man holding the Union Jack with a streamer, the folds
of which waved over her head, and the end of it was held in her
hand. On the upper part of the arm, a device of Our Lord on the
Cross, with stars surrounding the head of the Cross, and one large
star on the side in Indian Ink. On the left arm, a flag, a true
lover's knot, a face, and initials.' This tattooing was found
still plain, below the discoloured outer surface of a mutilated
arm, when such surface was carefully scraped away with a knife. It
is not improbable that the perpetuation of this marking custom
among seamen, may be referred back to their desire to be
identified, if drowned and flung ashore.
It was some time before I could sever myself from the many
interesting papers on the table, and then I broke bread and drank
wine with the kind family before I left them. As I brought the
Coast-guard down, so I took the Postman back, with his leathern
wallet, walking-stick, bugle, and terrier dog. Many a heart-broken
letter had he brought to the Rectory House within two months many;
a benignantly painstaking answer had he carried back.
As I rode along, I thought of the many people, inhabitants of this
mother country, who would make pilgrimages to the little churchyard
in the years to come; I thought of the many people in Australia,
who would have an interest in such a shipwreck, and would find
their way here when they visit the Old World; I thought of the
writers of all the wreck of letters I had left upon the table; and
I resolved to place this little record where it stands.
Convocations, Conferences, Diocesan Epistles, and the like, will do
a great deal for Religion, I dare say, and Heaven send they may!
but I doubt if they will ever do their Master's service half so
well, in all the time they last, as the Heavens have seen it done
in this bleak spot upon the rugged coast of Wales.
Had I lost the friend of my life, in the wreck of the Royal
Charter; had I lost my betrothed, the more than friend of my life;
had I lost my maiden daughter, had I lost my hopeful boy, had I
lost my little child; I would kiss the hands that worked so busily
and gently in the church, and say, 'None better could have touched
the form, though it had lain at home.' I could be sure of it, I
could be thankful for it: I could be content to leave the grave
near the house the good family pass in and out of every day,
undisturbed, in the little churchyard where so many are so
strangely brought together.
Without the name of the clergyman to whom--I hope, not without
carrying comfort to some heart at some time--I have referred, my
reference would be as nothing. He is the Reverend Stephen Roose
Hughes, of Llanallgo, near Moelfra, Anglesey. His brother is the
Reverend Hugh Robert Hughes, of Penrhos, Alligwy. _
Read next: CHAPTER III - WAPPING WORKHOUSE
Read previous: CHAPTER I - HIS GENERAL LINE OF BUSINESS
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