Love's Gentle Journey

by Kay Cornelius

Overview

The harsh beauty of the West becomes the backdrop for a romance between two Scottish immigrants in this captivating historical novel.

A new world and a new way of life await young Ann McKay, as she makes the perilous journey across the ocean to the American frontier. Although she is afraid to leave the home and family that are all she has ever known, she knows that to grow she must move on. Caleb Craighead is a Scottish school-teacher, newly-ordained in the ministry. His firm beliefs and strong determination to make a difference in the world lead him to the shores of America. He feels that he has been called to this rough new land for a higher purpose. Little does he know that he will not be alone, as a special young woman comes to take her rightful place at his side.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497634114
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	06/10/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	136
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Kay Cornelius was an English teacher for twenty-five years before starting to write full time. Since writing Love’s Gentle Journey, she has completed nine full-length novels and one novella, as well as three nonfiction children’s books and many articles, essays, and devotions. Cornelius earned a bachelor of arts degree from George Peabody College for Teachers and later received a master of education degree from Alabama A&M University. She continued her studies at Auburn University.

Cornelius enjoys travel and researching folklore and history. She and her husband have two children and four grandchildren.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Ann stood on the deck of the Derry Crown and looked about her, overwhelmed by the mixture of sights, sounds, and smells aboard the square-rigged sailing vessel and compelled to let its many new sensations wash over her without making any attempt to sort them all out. In the month since her father's decision to leave Ireland, she had often wondered what this day would be like. Now it was here and nothing was as she had imagined.

"Come, lass, help your mother below," said William McKay as he set down the last bundle of their small store of worldly goods.

Ann helped her mother rise from the trunk where she had been sitting. The winter of 1739-40, just past, had been harsh and she was alarmed that Sarah's cough still lingered.

Despite the older woman's pallor and the dark shadows under her eyes, the resemblance between them was striking. Both women were blessed with gentle features and great dark eyes; though, at seventeen, Ann's figure was still girlish and only hinted of the beauty she would become. Sarah McKay, just over twice her daughter's age, moved slowly as if trying to conserve her meager energy.

Suddenly she stopped and looked anxiously about the deck. "Where is Jonathan?"

"Over there," her husband replied, nodding toward the aft rigging where the seven-year-old's curly head was bent in earnest conversation with one of the sailors. "There's much for the lad to see."

"Look to him, William. I believe I'll rest a bit before we sail."

Leaning heavily on Ann's arm, Sarah moved toward the narrow passageway leading to the cramped quarters that would be their home for the next two months. The McKays had been given aset of double bunks near the foot of the stairs, though the close confinement did not even allow one to sit on the lower bunks. Indeed, only curtains of some coarse fabric separated them from the next family's allotted space.

Ann eased her mother onto the bottom bunk and spread her shawl over her. "I'll go help Father with our things if there's naught else I can do for ye now," she said.

"No, don't go just yet, daughter. I would have a word with ye. Pull up that stool yonder and sit down."

Ann did as her mother asked, taking the frail hand the woman extended to her. "I can see that ye are grieving over this journey," Sarah began, and although Ann shook her head in denial, her eyes filled with tears.

"Our life at Coleraine was all I ever knew. I just feel..." She paused, not knowing how to describe her turmoil since her father's decision to emigrate to the American plantation country.

Like most of their neighbors, the McKays were Scots, and although the family had lived in Ireland for three generations, they clung to their Scottish ways. From the porridge they ate in the morning to the Border ballads they sang each evening the Scots, who had been brought from their lowland homes to curb the papist influence of the native Irish, had retained their own ways. Living in a land where the dispossessed Irish despised them, and their absentee English landlords exacted a heavy toll for the right to use their land, had not been easy, but they had always made the best of their situation.

Therefore, it was a surprise to learn that William McKay was ready to cast his lot, and that of his family, with the others leaving the green-gold hills of Ulster for the colonies in the new world. A surprise -- and a bitter disappointment.

"Take heart, daughter," Sarah encouraged softly, squeezing Ann's hand. ' "Twas hard for me to leave Scotland when I wed your father. 'Twas hard to leave our little ones who sleep in the churchyard. But we are together in this. Your father had no choice, for a man has to make a living for his family. It is best for us to accept what must be."

Accept it she must, but she would miss the bonny cow she milked twice a day, the soft, fluffy fleeces of the spring lambs, and the downy yellow chicks she raised and sold at the market. Ann had tried to imagine what America was like, but she could not, any more than she was able to picture the Scots town where her mother had been born and to which she had always longed to return. Ann had been to Coleraine, and the village of Downready, and last year she had bought some bright hair ribbons at the Cleary Fair, but she had never been to Londonderry, or ridden in a carriage, or sat in a boat. And of all these unfamiliar things, Ann was afraid. She listened as her father led their family prayer time by thanking God for the way they had been shown and asking Him to grant them a safe passage, and she was not comforted.

"I did not mean to complain," Ann said, her eyes downcast.

"Ye must have faith, Ann, and trust that God is working in all of it."

Ann was silent, feeling the hot tears squeeze through her closed lids. To her, the God of the church had always seemed a remote, silent judge. The small kirk where Reverend Duffle preached the Calvinist creed had never comforted her. She could not follow the long sermons, and the backless benches that served as pews grew harder and harder. Out of doors, where the storm clouds moved with awful majesty, and the covenant of the rainbow arched over the Ulster hills, Ann could feel a peace in the wonder of God's creation. But He had never seemed a guiding Presence in her life as He obviously was in her mother's. Even William, though he attended Sabbath services and dutifully led their daily prayers, was not as devout as his wife.

"I would like to believe that God is guiding us," she said in a weak voice.

Sarah sighed. "Ye will need more than your own strength to help Jonathan and your father when I am gone."

"Hush, Mother!" cried Ann in alarm.

"Listen to me now, child. I want ye to have my Bible. Keep it with your things."

"But--"

"Read it, child, and keep its words in your heart. 'Lean not unto thine own understanding,' the Scriptures tell us. Will ye promise to do that?"

"Yes," Ann said faintly.

"Now ye should go back to your father, dear. This time together has done me good. And, Ann," Sarah added, touching her daughter's face tenderly, "ye are not to worry him. Do ye understand that?"

Ann nodded, too near tears to speak. Her father must know, she thought, and even Jonathan could see that their mother had not recovered her health, indeed was growing weaker by the day. Ann could only do as she was instructed... and hope.

The brightness of the morning sun, in sharp contrast to the dimness below, caused Ann to blink as she climbed to the upper deck. If anything, the confusion here had increased, she thought. The docks teemed with sailors, passengers, agents, and hawkers, all moving amidst general noise and confusion. Swarthy sailors came and went hauling aboard great casks and wooden crates. Occasionally some of them would glance her way, exchange a comment in some unknown tongue, then laugh uproariously. Ann felt uncomfortable and ducked into a more secluded passageway where she could view the happenings unseen.

She tried not to stare at the women who thronged around the sailors, hanging onto their arms and even touching their laces. Their bodices were cut astonishingly low, and their lips and cheeks were unnaturally red. Ann had heard rouged women spoken of in whispers, but she had never before actually seen any. She glanced at Jonathan, but he was absorbed in watching a sailor with a beautifully-colored yellow and blue bird perched on his shoulder.

Here came other seamen and passengers up the gangplank, carrying sacks of provisions and barrels of grog and water. A few live animals were being prodded aboard, bawling and mooing their protest. Ann felt a momentary stab of sympathy. The poor things understood even less than she their sudden change of circumstance. Looking about for a glimpse of her father, she spied the bright red head of Isabel Prentiss.

"Hello, Ann!" the girl called, waving her hand. "I was wondering if ye had come aboard yet."

The Prentiss family had arrived in Londonderry about the same time as the McKays and with the same intentions. Although Isabel was just past sixteen, she already had the full figure of a woman. Today, dressed in a frock of vivid blue, she looked even older than her years, and Ann felt dowdy by comparison in her own drab homespun. Despite the differences in age and appearance, however, they had become friends, and Ann felt her heart lift a bit at the greeting.

"Oh, Isabel! Yes, we've been here for several hours now. My mother needed time to settle in before the crowds gathered."

"Have ye ever seen the likes of so many men!" Isabel cried, her eyes bright. "Why, there are more fine-lookin' young chaps in one place than ever set foot in Coleraine... or Londonderry, either, I'd vow. Mayhap this voyage won't be so bad, after all. A girl ought to be able to find a husband without half tryin'!"

"Most of the men I have seen are sailors, and look to be a rough lot," Ann observed.

"Yes, but there are lots of single men here, on their way to America, maybe even some rich ones wanting to invest in the colonies."

Ann glanced at Isabel, wondering if she had intended to make a joke, but the girl seemed quite serious. "Ye want a rich husband, then?"

"Why not? I'd like to have nice things and not be scolded if I spent a ha'penny now and again. How about ye, Ann? What sort of husband do ye seek?"

"I have not given it much thought," Ann said, half-truthfully.

"Well, ye ought to think about it," Isabel said firmly, with a characteristic toss of her red head. "If ye don't mind, ye'll likely wind up wedded wi' a poor crofter, and never have two coins to rub together. Look what's coming now!" cried Isabel, nodding toward the gangplank. Ann turned to see a party of men being escorted aboard ship. "Do ye suppose those are the prisoners being transported?"

It had been rumored that a number of convicts would be sailing with them, some of whom had asked to be sent to the colonies instead of remaining in Irish prisons. Others had been given no choice in the matter. There were at least a dozen of them, carefully guarded by red-coated soldiers carrying muskets.

"They aren't in chains," observed Ann, "but it appears that those soldiers are making certain they are safely aboard."

"They don't look like such a bad lot, do they?" Isabel mused, taking a closer look.

Most of the men were young and poorly garbed, but not any more so than most of the passengers.

" 'Tis a shame. My father says many men who are transported come from debtors' prison... that their only crime is poverty." Ann shuddered, wondering if her father might have shared their fate.

The soldiers, having turned over their charges to a burly seaman with a look of authority, disembarked and stood on the dock at attention, evidently awaiting the launching of the ship.

When Ann looked back to the deck, a man was speaking to her brother Jonathan. Plainly but neatly dressed, he was smiling at something Jonathan was saying.

"Should your brother be talking to a convict?" asked Isabel.

"Mother would be much displeased, I'm sure," Ann agreed. "But here comes my father. He'll attend to it."

As William started toward them, the man tousled Jonathan's hair and moved on toward the passageway leading to the deck where the sailors and single men were quartered. Unlike the others who carried cloth or canvas duffel bags, he was holding a large wooden box. Ann wondered what it might contain.

"Oh, let's listen to the captain, Ann. He's about to speak." Isabel interrupted Ann's thoughts and moved nearer the upper deck, where the captain had taken a position near the wheel and was calling the noisy crowd to attention.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! I wish to see the head of every household, the eldest males traveling with families, and all other single men here on the wheel deck. We sail with the tide to Cork. There we'll pick up two other vessels to form a convoy. Then we're bound for the port of Philadelphia. May the good Lord grant His mercy on our voyage."

A few scattered "Amens" were heard as the men pressed toward the designated meeting place. Jonathan and Sarah, who had left her bunk, were standing by Ann. She tried to count the men as they passed by, but soon gave up. Of the women and children who were left on the lower deck, there seemed to be around thirty, more than she had expected could be comfortably accommodated on a vessel as small as the Derry Crown.

"I wonder what the captain is saying," said Isabel.

"He might be telling them about pirates," Jonathan suggested, so solemnly that the girls laughed.

"Ye and your pirates!" Ann exclaimed fondly. "Such notions ye have! And I suppose ye'll be disappointed if we don't see any the whole voyage, won't ye?"

"Ye jest, Mistress Ann, but I heard the sailors talking of it," young Samuel Prentiss put in. "They said pirates like the English ships best, but will take a merchant ship like ours if it suits their fancy."

Mistress Prentiss joined them in time to hear her son's statement and nodded. " 'Tis true, what the lad says. I heard the captain say we are meeting the other ships at Cork because there's some safety in numbers."

"I know what a pirate ship looks like," Jonathan volunteered. "She flies the Jolly Roger flag, with a cannon on every deck."

"Aye, and we have a cannon, too. Did ye notice?" asked Mistress Prentiss.

"It looks like a toy," shrugged Isabel. "I doubt it has ever been fired."

"And let us all pray that it need never be," Sarah said quietly.

"The captain must be through instructing the men, for here comes Father now." Ann was glad for the diversion. The conversation seemed to be taking a morbid turn, and her mother needed no further worries.

"Well, at last we are to get underway," he said with a cheerful air. "With fair winds and God's grace, we should make Philadelphia in eight or nine weeks."

Noting how pale and drawn Sarah looked, Ann felt that nine weeks would be quite a long time, but she kept silent, fearing to make bad matters worse. Isabel, on the other hand, was not so cautious.

"Well I, for one, don't know how we shall endure it. But I suppose the sooner we begin, the sooner we arrive."

They watched as the ropes securing the vessel to the dock were released. The anchor was raised, and the rigging came alive with clambering sailors, maneuvering the sails to catch the freshening wind. A few people on the dock waved and shouted farewells to relatives aboard ship.

Keenly aware that she might never again see her native country, Ann watched the green hills slip from sight. Her vision blurred, but she was determined not to cry.

"Look. Jonathan, the seagulls are following us," she called to her brother.

Wild and free, they soared above the billowing sails. And she watched them, wondering what it must be like to live untethered to the earth. Then the gulls, too, returned to shore and Ann resigned herself to the brave ship that plowed on, through the trackless ocean that stretched forever ahead.

Copyright © 1985 by Kay Cornelius