Silent Night: Schooner Days MCCXIX (1219)

by C. H. J. Snider

DEEP LADEN, the stone-hooker lay in the piers of Port Credit. Dave Ford, master and owner, offered the younger fellow, who was me, a passage to Toronto. Accepted gladly. With all seven sails set we floated out under the stars on the river current, with just a breath of air from north of west.

"Dog tired," said Dave. "Hard at it since sunup."

So'm I, pop," said his little boy and, whole crew.

Well," said the Y.F., "there's nothing to do but steer. Why don't you both lie down for a spell? I'll give you a shout if we get any wind."

"B'lieve I will," yawned Dave, every muscle groaning with handling forty tons of blue limestone between daylight and dark. "Come on, son."

They disappeared into the box-like cabin. It had a bunk on either side, under the deck. There was a table in the middle. A small stove in one corner, and a food-and-dish locker formed the galley. A piece of bacon hung from the carlins. The cabin walls were painted white, with a green-trimmed window in each side. Below these were small half models of vessels, painted blue.

Ford Jr. reappeared with a mug of milk, two thick slices of fresh home-made bread, heavily buttered (though butter then retailed at 15¢ a pound) and a box of very large raspberries from the Ford farm at Oakville. And a cup of dark brown sugar.

"Case you're hungry," he said.

So the good ship Rover, her cargo of building stone, her master and owner and son and heir, were left to the hazards of the Y.F.'s night navigation of Lake Ontario. It was so dark one could not see the water, only the stars reflected in its surface.

The Rover was the dullest of all stonehookers, square and flat as her own scow dragging astern. With wind behind her she steered with the tiller hard up, all the time. No trimming of sheets ever took that quirk out of her.

She was so steady, bolt upright in the smooth night water, that she might have been still moored to the Credit pier. There was no of motion or of progress. The only "feel" to her helm was that she resented it. But the Port Credit coal oil lamp, shining in the wooden lighthouse astern slowly grew smaller, and after a while its snaky reflections in the black silky water became tired and ceased to follow.

There were few lights along the shore in those pre-Hydro days. Farmers went to bed with the hens and the villagers of Long Branch, Etobicoke and Mimico saved their oil against the bridegroom's coming. Far ahead a dim glow promised Toronto, for which the Rover so sedately roved. She moved as silently as Orion marching across the sky above, or the Dipper swinging counter clockwise around the Pole.

It was far from lonesome all night alone in the lake. The very silence was mighty music, like the words of the Psalms.

As the $1 alarm clock in the cabin ticked on above the mutedness of the sails and stars the dim glow of Toronto slowly spread. After uncounted thousands of ticks, prickles came from arc lights, gas lamps, coal oil lanterns. They strung out in one long line dim as dustmotes.

The most southerly, the Y.F. reasoned, must be on Toronto Island. He had never sailed into Toronto at night, and had to fumble among those dust-motes for the keyhole.

In the second or third hour could be made out one light, brighter than the others, that came and went. A flasher! That must be the century-old lighthouse on Gibraltar Point. Two miles south of the Western Gap. How far was two miles in that 6-inch ribbon of light-pricks?

"In the fourth watch of the night" one red point could be seen among the dozens of yellows-and whites. There was a red light on the north side of the Western Gap. Perhaps this was it. Heaving the tiller up still harder a-weather he worked the Rover's head on to it. But neither silent sky nor silent lake gave hint of harbor mouth.

In the fifth hour street lights spaced themselves regularly. A light yellower than the cold arc lamps was close to the solitary red. By hauling up and falling off alternately it could be made to close with the red light or move away from it. Therefore, a range light. The white lighthouse at the west end of the Queen's Wharf. The red light did be the back light, higher up, farther in. Keeping the two in line should find the hole.

Sky and water were no longer velvet black, and stars were paling. Shapes of buildings showed both piers of the Western Gap, even the little white lighthouse building, and the red one behind. And the double row of stakes which led into the piers.

Carefully he eased the Rover down the middle. The range lights floated quietly astern. Red elevators on the bay front loomed ahead. Three or four fishermen were dreaming over their rods on the Queen's Wharf.

"What time is it?" one asked as the Rover floated past.

"Four o'clock," answered the Y.F. quietly as he could.

But not quietly enough. Dave Ford's bearded face pushed out of the companion. "What the - where ye got us?" he gasped.

"In the bay," said the Y. F., concealing his pride.

"Why didn't you call is? You've been steering all night."

"No need. No wind. Take her?

"You done so well, you take her in, if you don't mind, and I'll get the kettle on. Breakfast'll be ready time we get to West-market street.

He yelled: " Heigh, son, show a leg!" and set the boy to clewing up the two gafftopsails."

It was the first time the Y. F. had taken anything into port. And now, for the first time, he was to "make a dock" - that is, bring a vessel to moorings. Sailing craft are hard to start. Harder still to stop. Especially when loaded deep.

Ford and Son got the lower sails off the Rover. Breathlessly the Y.F. steered that hard-mouthed box car between the West Market crusher wharf and a pair of stokehookers lying on the opposite side of the slip, at Adamson's elevator. She went through a space with only six inches to spare, and slowed to a stop as gently as a settling snowflake.

The captain of the nearest hooker called on the First Person of the Trinity, and dock wallopers at Brown and Love's called on the Second. All chanted in chorus: "Never thought ye'd make it!"

'P'rfeshnals," laughed Dave Ford. To the Y. F.: "Bacon's on. Come and get it!"