A STORY OF SHIPWRECK. 3d 



devotee, to whom composition is quite its own reward ; 

 and truly it would need. How many of my chapters, 

 think you, will Professor Wilson read ? Some of them 

 are mortally heavy, and should he stumble on two or 

 three of these, alas for my Traditions ! 



' The story of the shipwreck to which you allude is a 

 truly affecting one, but you are only partially acquainted 

 with the circumstances which render it such. The master 

 was a fine young fellow barely turned of nineteen, who 

 had just been promoted to the charge, and who, on quit- 

 ting harbour on his first and last unfortunate trip, shook 

 his father heartily by the hand and assured him that 

 neither he nor mother might need want for anything 

 now. It was the first voyage too in the ill-fated vessel 

 to the lad Junner, a rough frank-hearted sailor, who, a 

 few days before, had quitted, under circumstances highly 

 honourable to him, a smack in which he had sailed for 

 several years. On coming down on the preceding trip 

 from London in very stormy weather, a large wood- 

 freighted American ship, when passing within a few 

 hundred yards of the vessel in which he sailed, was 

 struck by a sudden squall and fairly upset. Thirteen of 

 the crew succeeded in clambering to the keel, where they 

 began to cry for assistance in tones so fearfully energetic 

 that the sounds have been ringing in the ears of some of 

 the smacksmen ever since. There was a high broken 

 sea running at the time, but Junner, a thorough-bred 

 seaman, convinced of the possibility of saving at least 

 some of the poor men, weared ship and bore down on 

 the wreck, when the master came on deck and pro- 

 nouncing the attempt impracticable ordered him to bear 

 away. Junner remonstrated, backed by our old friend 

 Gilmour ; nothing could be easier, he said, than by run- 

 ning under the lee of the foundered vessel, to open up a 



