Rough Passage to London: A Sea Captain's Tale

by Robin Lloyd

  “Welcome home, Captain!” they shouted. He could see people whispering and pointing in his direction. He hadn’t realized it, but news of his career was followed on both sides of the river. A packet captain in the London line was viewed as a position of great prestige. His success as one of the elect of the seagoing community had been touted by some of the older captains like Daniel Chadwick of the Red Swallowtail Line and Henry Champlin of the Black X Line. Morgan had to rely on Josiah to tell him who many of these strangers were. He’d forgotten so many of the names.

  The farm that Josiah bought with his help two years earlier was every bit as well situated as Ely had imagined. Part of it sat up on Low Point Hill where it commanded an excellent view of the river. The land was several hundred acres, but only a fraction of it was under cultivation with buckwheat, rye, corn, tobacco, and hay. The old country road wound its way past a pasture where a small herd of milking cows lazily chewed their cuds under the shade of a large oak tree. Off to the side, several horses were grazing. In the distance, he could hear a confused rooster crowing. The farmhouse soon came into view. The two-storied wooden house was originally built early in the previous century, and most of the beams had been hand hewn with an adze. The floorboards were wide pine planks stained a dark brown. When they walked into the kitchen, his father was seated by the large fireplace reading the Bible. The old man looked up, his face stern and rigid, his eyes locking onto him like a hawk spotting its prey. The bushy eyebrows, once stormy black, were now snowy white, as was his once thick, curly head of hair. Morgan stood there silently until his father broke the awkward moment.

  “Finally decided to come home, eh?”

  Morgan choked back his anger at this brusque remark but said nothing.

  “I was wondering if your mother and I would ever lay eyes on you again.”

  Morgan felt a knot in his throat move down into his chest.

  “We had to sell the old farm, you know,” he said. “It was too much for your mother and me.”

  Morgan remained silent.

  “We might have kept it if you’d stayed on.” His voice now had a slight edge to it. “But I reckon you had other aspirations.”

  Morgan’s fists closed as he fought back his anger.

  “I reckon what happened was for the best, father. That was your farm, not mine. We were never meant to work together. You know that. Let’s leave the past behind us.”

  Abraham Morgan scowled at his son but said nothing. Fortunately for both men, Eliza bounced through the door at that moment with a broad smile and a light step. The old man’s face seemed to soften. “Tell me, young lady, how you came to become a member of this family.”

  That first evening home for Morgan was a blur of emotions. His father, whose hawklike stare and stern countenance used to terrify him as a boy, now seemed to be somehow diminished. His back was hunched over, his body frail and thin, his face gaunt. He sat up rigid in the high-backed chair. He was an old man now. The chilly reception when they first greeted each other soon gave way to more conviviality. Morgan sat down next to his father by the fire and began to tell him about their journey from New York on board the steamship. He seemed so different. Some of the anger and the bitterness appeared to have gone out of him like a sudden gust of wind in the summer, which fills the sails and then leaves them limp. Even the old man’s voice seemed different. His thunderous shout was replaced with a softer, more balanced tone of voice. His strident manner also seemed quieter and more relaxed.

  To his surprise, the vitriolic hatred Abraham Morgan used to have toward all sailors and the seagoing community seemed to have been replaced by an interest, even a curiosity, in hearing about his son’s adventures. He wanted to know about London, the packet trade, and the stormy weather in the Atlantic. In turn, Morgan asked him about Josiah’s new farm, the changes along the river, and all of his brothers and sisters, most of whom were now married. Maria Louisa and Jesse were the holdouts. They lived on the farm and helped with the many errands and chores. His father told him proudly about his many grandchildren. All three of Morgan’s older sisters, Sarah, Asenath, and Nancy, had married deacons in various Congregational meetinghouses in the valley, and all but Nancy had a handful of children now.

  His father clearly thought highly of his sons-in-law. Asenath’s Deacon Talcott, Sarah’s Deacon Lord, and Nancy’s Deacon Bushnell were all prominent figures in their communities. Abraham Morgan’s face filled with boyish joy as he talked about Asenath’s and Sarah’s pack of boys along with Josiah’s two children, all of whom he liked to take on hayrides in the summer. Morgan could see that his father was now quite a different person to his grandchildren than he had been with his sons. He even smiled and laughed at their games, which was something he’d never seen him do before.

  As Morgan watched his father rub noses and make faces with Josiah’s youngest child, Walter, talking to the little boy about pony rides and cherry pie, he marveled that this was the same man who had raised him. It was almost as if his father was making amends for the cruelty and anger he’d demonstrated toward his own sons in their youth. All that rage seemed to have been silenced. Morgan became aware that his eyes were moist. He wiped them dry with the back of his hand and walked outside onto the porch to breathe in some fresh air. Two of Asenath’s young sons, Will and Sam, ran after him, pulling at the tails of his long coat. “Uncle Ely! Uncle Ely!” they both cried out. He jumped in surprise. He’d never been called that before. He looked down at these two freckle-faced boys, his nephews, and for a moment he saw Abraham and himself years ago. For a moment, he was transported back in time. He and his brother were sitting on the rough-hewn wooden floor of the Lyme country store listening to an old tar tell his adventurous sea tales. Abraham had leaned over, his face flushed with excitement, and whispered that one day he would be a deep-water man just like that sailor.

  “Tell us about crossing the ocean! Tell us about pirates and sea monsters.”

  Morgan’s gaze lingered on the smiling faces of his two nephews. He held up his hand to his chin to show that he was giving their request some serious thought.

  “Have you boys heard about the old ship merchant who felt he was cursed?” Morgan asked with a flourish.

  “No, no, we haven’t heard that one. Tell us that story, Uncle Ely!”

  Morgan sat down on the rocking chair outside on the porch and motioned for the two boys to share a nearby bench.

  “You see there was a proud, rich old gentleman ship merchant who was having his troubles. None of his ships was coming in on time. He was convinced that Satan held a grudge against him. His ships were always running into strong headwinds. So this clever old merchant devised a plan to trick the Devil.”

  Morgan raised his eyebrows and contorted his face so that he looked like he was a clever merchant plotting against the Devil. He rubbed his hands together as he continued to play the part of the scheming merchant. His voice now turned into a hushed whisper. “The old gentleman devised a strategy where four of his homeward bound ships would sail simultaneously from the four quarters of the compass. He thought the Devil couldn’t possibly harm him now. At least one of his ships would be in luck and get favorable winds. That’s what the shipping merchant reckoned. He went out and celebrated his clever plan, telling all his fellow merchants he’d outsmarted the Devil.”

  “Did it work?” asked the two boys, their eyes wide with wonder.

  “That old gentleman may have been too clever by half because for the next six weeks, there was no wind. There was a dead calm across the entire ocean. Not even a slight breeze. His four ships floated along with their sails limp and lifeless, and he was forced to cancel all his contracts. He went to church the next day and told the minister he never should have tried to outwit the Devil.”

  Morgan laughed at the sight of the puzzled faces of the two boys. They ran off to tell their cousins about this story from the sea they had just heard from their Uncle Ely.

  On a cold Thanksgiving Day morning, Morgan an
d Eliza accompanied his parents and Josiah and Amanda with their two children to the service at the meetinghouse in Lyme. The tall, square building with its steeple stood on a small triangle of land and dominated the town’s Common. The clanging of the steeple bell brought Morgan back to when he was a boy. The whole town had turned out to see the new bell arrive in town on the back of an ox cart, which had come all the way from Boston. He and Abraham had run alongside the cart to try to be the first ones to touch the new bell.

  “Going to meeting” also reminded him of sailing amidst a field of icebergs. He could already feel the cold, chilly draft as they sat down in the long pews with the rest of his family. The soaring thirty-two-foot-high ceilings had much to do with the bitter cold temperatures. Eliza was shivering, her teeth chattering as she knelt to say her prayers. When they stood up with the rest of the congregation to begin singing the opening hymn, Morgan whispered, “You know why you’re so cold, don’t you?”

  Eliza looked up at him with a quizzical look.

  “You are supposed to be cold. It was the intent of the builders.”

  He gazed up at the high ceiling. Eliza again looked at him in puzzlement. He leaned closer and breathed into her ear.

  “They wanted to test the resolve of the truly devoted.”

  Eliza almost laughed, but quickly controlled herself by shooting him a baleful, disapproving glare.

  The service went on from eleven in the morning to two in the afternoon, and the church was crowded. His mother told him there were lots of new members thanks to the new young pastor. Some of the other seafaring families were there, the Chadwicks, the Pratts, the Tinkers, and the Lords. Reverend Erdix Tenny, who was around Morgan’s age, spoke from a pulpit reached by a winding stairway with a lofty view of the entire congregation. The sermon was long and the meetinghouse increasingly cold, but the singing of some of the hymns with the accompaniment of the big bass viol and the flute brought back childhood memories for Morgan. The congregation belted out the rousing words of the “Missionary Hymn” and he felt a reassuring warmth inside of him at the sound of these familiar lyrics. It wasn’t that he felt overly religious. It was more a moment of remembering the past. He thought to himself that this choir music was all his family had ever listened to, so different from the refined world in London he was now being exposed to.

  After the meeting Abraham Morgan, despite his frail condition, was intent on introducing his packet shipmaster son to all the deacons and their wives. Morgan felt like he was being shown off like a prize bull at the annual fair. He may have softened somewhat, he thought to himself, but his father was still as proud and stubborn as ever. Still as he made the rounds amongst Abraham Morgan’s friends and watched his father’s face, he began to understand a bit more about the man he had once feared, a man devoted to his church. He could see the pride in his father’s face, a man so conscious of his image and his standing in the community. That pride in the way others perceived him was all-important to Abraham Morgan. He had been ashamed of having his sons become sailors, fearful they would return home as penniless drunks, and concerned this would bring dishonor to the family name. And when the family received the tragic news in that letter, old Abraham had seen it as a message from God, a punishment from the heavens. His family had been marked as sinners.

  When Morgan ran away from home, it was as if the Devil himself had been mocking him for his inability to control the wayward behavior of his own sons. Now that the rebellious younger one had at last returned, miraculously not as a drunken sailor, but as a successful packet ship captain and a part owner of several of the line’s newest ships, he wanted to bask in some of that prestige. To him his son’s success was a sign that God now approved. The shame had gone and the pride had returned. Shame and pride, Morgan thought to himself as he watched his smiling father shake hands with some of the deacons’ wives. They are close cousins indeed, flip sides of the same coin.

  It was only later when he was helping his mother in the kitchen by bringing in more firewood that he heard the reason for his father’s metamorphosis. It was the sale of the farm, she explained. At first, he had been depressed, but then he gradually came to enjoy his free time. He still mostly read the Bible, but he was also reading some poetry by Cowper and some of the frontier novels of Cooper. They had moved in with Josiah and because of his shortness of breath, he was forced to stay in the house. That confinement had meant he spent more time with grandchildren.

  “It seems like your father has finally discovered the magic of children, Ely. I am sorry for the way he treated you. Perhaps in his own way, he is too. I am sure he has his many regrets, but I am afraid his stubborn pride will keep him from ever sharing them with you.”

  Then she stopped and smiled, adding, “Even though your father can’t express it, I know he’s proud of you. And I’m so proud of you, Ely, for finding such a fine girl to marry. She must love you if she is willing to go to sea with you.”

  The Thanksgiving meal was a happy occasion. All of Morgan’s older sisters and their husbands arrived in buggies. Their children screamed and laughed as they ran around the farm, playing hide-and-seek in the tobacco shed. The adults put the small ones on horseback and led them around the apple orchard. The older children pretended they were Indians and began stalking and scaring the younger ones. All the women clustered together in the big kitchen around the stove, chopping and cutting the potatoes and onions on the kitchen table, stuffing the turkey, rolling out the dough for the mince, pumpkin, and cherry pies, and basting the roast pig. Eliza was soon made to feel that she was part of a large, welcoming family. Morgan had never felt happier as his family sat down for the Thanksgiving supper, their heads bowed as Asenath’s husband, Deacon Talcott said grace, giving thanks for the plentiful food and the return of those in peril on the sea. He looked at Morgan and Eliza as he said this, and then closed his eyes, and bowed his head. “And finally, O Lord, let us give thanks for the happiness that comes with reuniting a family.” A resounding amen echoed around the dining room table.

  After dinner, Morgan looked over at his mother, who was knitting by the fire, her wooden needles clacking and clicking in a slow, soothing rhythm, the soft yarn spilling to the floor. She was seemingly lost in the simple soothing repetition of one stitch, one purl, and then the same task all over again. Her gaze downward at her knitting appeared profound, meditative, and beyond his reach. He decided to say nothing as he watched her engage in the simple rhythmic process of knitting that he also found strangely calming. The small children were being read to by their mothers, while the men talked about the people they’d seen and spoken to at the meeting, the new hymns they sang, and Reverend Tenny’s simple, but stirring words about driving temptation away.

  No one noticed as he and Josiah walked out of the house toward Low Point to smoke cigars as dusk set in. It was there, overlooking the river, that Morgan shared Abraham’s journal with his brother. He told him about John Taylor and how the man had run off as quickly and as mysteriously as he had surfaced. They read the journal together. Josiah remained quiet for a long time after that. Morgan watched him hold the journal, gingerly turning the pages, his face disturbed and intent. He could see that his brother was lost in the words. He turned away to give him time to recover his emotions. He walked to the overlook to gaze down at the river. Two men in a flat bottom pole boat carrying some livestock were navigating the serpentine shallows.

  He finished his cigar and then walked back to find Josiah with his head down and the journal clasped tightly in his hands. Morgan asked his brother whether or not they should show it to their parents.

  Josiah pondered that thought for a moment, and finally said, “Mother is not as strong as she might seem, Ely. She spends most of her time clacking away with those wooden needles. It’s her way to forget her troubles, forget the past.”

  He paused to remove the cigar from his mouth.

  “Do you think there be any chance that Abraham is still with the living, Ely?”

  M
organ looked at Josiah for several seconds before he answered.

  “I can’t say. My mind tells me one thing. My heart tells me another. I suppose that after all these years you would have to say no. It has been too long. What do you think, Josiah?”

  “I would have agreed with you all these years, Ely. Ever since we got that letter, I never expected to see him again. But just last month something pretty strange happened. A man introduced himself to me just outside the general store in Lyme. Big fellow, beet-red hair. Had a patch over one eye and kept looking at me strange with that one eye. Asked if I was Josiah Morgan. He sounded like an Englishman. Something about him made me shy of trusting him from the first so I asked what business did he have. He wasn’t going to gull me any sooner than he could catch a weasel asleep. He asked if I had seen my brother Abraham recently, and as you might imagine, I thought it was a bad joke. I told him no, that Abraham had gone to sea a good many years ago and never come home. Then this Englishman looked at me real funny with that uneasy eye and said if for some reason he does come home I should tell him that one of his old mates is looking for him.”

  Morgan was dumbstruck by this news. It was both encouraging and unsettling. Who was this man?

  “He walked away, but then all of a sudden he turned around and smiled, not kindly either, and said how he’d been here on the Connecticut River once long ago when the town of Essex was called Potapoug.”

  A slight chill went down Morgan’s back as he pondered that cryptic clue. An English sailor who knew the name Potapoug, he thought to himself. That was strange. The words of John Taylor came to mind. “Big Red,” he’d said. “A man by the name of Big Red had been pursuing him.”