DIRTY WEATHER
I should only weary you by reciting the passage of the hours. After
breakfast I took Grace on deck for a turn, but she was glad to get
below again. All day long it continued dark weather, without a sight
of anything, save at intervals the shadowy figure of a coaster aslant
in the thickness, and once the loom of a huge ocean passenger boat,
sweeping at twelve or fourteen knots through the grey veil of vapour
that narrowed the horizon to within a mile of us. The wind, however,
remained a steady, fresh breeze, and throughout the day there was never
a rope handled nor a stitch of canvas reduced. The _Spitfire_ swung
steadfastly through it, in true sea-bruising style, sturdily flinging
the sea off her flaring bow, and whitening the water with the plunges
of her churning keel till the tail of her wake seemed to stretch to the
near sea line.
I will not feign, however, that I was perfectly comfortable in my mind.
Anything at sea but thick weather! I never pretended to be more than a
summer-holiday sailor, and such anxiety, as I should have felt had I
been alone, was now mightily accentuated, as you will suppose, by
having the darling of my heart in my little ship with me. I had a long
talk with Caudel that afternoon, and despite my eager desire to remain
at sea, I believe I would have been glad had he advised that the
_Spitfire_ should be steered for the nearest harbour. But his counsel
was all the other way.
"Lord love ye, Mr. Barclay, sir," he exclaimed, "what's agoing wrong
that we should tarn to and set it right? Here's a breeze of wind
that's adoing all that could be asked for. I dorn't say it ain't
thick, but there's nothen in it to take notice of. Of course, you've
only got to say the word, sir, and I'll put the hellum up; but even for
that there job it would be proper to make sartin first of all where we
are. There's no want of harbours under our lee from Portland Bill to
Bolt Head, but I can't trust to my dead reckoning, seeing what's
involved," said he, casting a damp eye at the skylight; "and my motto
is, there's nothen like seeing when you're on such a coast as this
here. Having come all this way it 'ud be a pity to stop now."
"So long as you're satisfied!" I exclaimed; and no doubt he was, though
I believe he was influenced by vanity too. Our putting into a harbour
might affect him as a reflection upon his skill. He would also suppose
that, if we entered a harbour, we should travel by rail to our
destination, which would be as though he were told we could not trust
him farther. After the service he had done me it was not to be
supposed I could causelessly give the worthy fellow offence.
"You steer by the compass, I suppose?" said I.
"By nothen else, sir," he answered in a voice of wonder.
"Well, I might have known that," said I, laughing at my own stupid
question that yet had sense in it too. "I should have asked you if the
compass is to be trusted?"
"Ay, sir. He's a first-class compass. There's nothen to make him go
wrong. Yet it's astonishing what a little thing will put a compass
out. I've heered of a vessel that was pretty nigh run ashore all along
of the helmsman--not because he couldn't steer; a better hand never
stood at a wheel; but because he'd been physicking of himself with iron
and steel, and had taken so much of the blooming stuff that the compass
was wrong all the time he was at the helm."
"A very good story," said I.
"I'm sure you'll forgive me, sir," he proceeded, "for asking if your
young lady wears any steel bones about her--contrivances for hoisting
her dress up astarn--crinolines--bustles--you know what I mean, Mr.
Barclay?"
"I cannot tell," said I.
"I've heered speak of the master of a vessel," he went on (being a very
talkative man when he got into the "yarning" mood), "whose calculations
was always falling to pieces at sea. Two and two never seemed to make
four with him; ontil he found out that one of his lady passengers every
morning brought a stool and sat close agin the binnacle; she wore steel
hoops to swell her dress out with, and the local attraction was such,
your honour, that the compass was sometimes four or five points out."
I told him that if the compass went wrong it would not be Miss
Bellassys' fault; and having had enough of the deck, I rejoined my
sweetheart, and, in the cabin, with talking, reading, she singing--very
sweetly she sang--we killed the hours till bed-time.
This was our third night at sea, and I was now beginning to think that
instead of three or four days we should occupy a week, and perhaps
longer, in making Mount's Bay; in which conjecture I was confirmed
when, finding myself awake at three o'clock in the morning, I pulled on
my clothes and went on deck to take a look round, and found the wind a
light off-shore air, the stars shining, and the _Spitfire_, with her
canvas falling in and out with sounds like the discharge of small arms,
rolling stagnantly upon a smooth-backed run of swell lifting out of the
north-east, but with a slant in the heave of it that made one guess the
impulse which set it running was fair north.
I was up again at seven o'clock, with a resolution to let the weather
shape my decision as to sticking to the vessel or going ashore, and was
not a little pleased to find the yacht making good way with a brilliant
breeze gushing steady off her starboard bow. The heavens looked high
with fine weather clouds, prismatic mare-tails for the most part, here
and there a snow-white, swelling shoulder of vapour hovering over the
edge of the sea.
Caudel told me we were drawing well on to Portland, but that the wind
had headed him, and he was off his course, so that, unless he put the
yacht about, we should not obtain a sight of the land.
"No matter," said I, "let us make the most of this slant."
"That's what I'm for doing, sir. My principle is, always make a free
wind, no matter what be the air that's ablowing. Some men's for
ratching with the luff of their fore and aft canvas rounding in
aweather, so cleverly do they try to split the eye of the breeze. I'm
for sailing myself," and he cast a glance up at the rapful canvas,
following it on with a look at Jacob Crew, who was suddenly gnawing
upon his quid at the tiller, as though to keep him in mind by the
expression of his eye of injunctions previously delivered.
The greater part of this day Grace and I spent on deck, but nothing
whatever happened good enough to keep my tale waiting whilst I tell you
about it. Strong as the off-shore breeze was, there was but little
sea, nothing to stop the yacht, and she ran through it like a sledge
over a snow plain, piling the froth to her stem-head and reeling off a
fair nine knots as Caudel would cry out to me with an exultant
countenance of leather every time the log was hove. He talked of being
abreast of the _Start_ by three o'clock in the morning.
"Then," said I to my sweetheart, "if that be so, Grace, there will be
but a short cruise to follow."
At this she looked grave, and fastened her eye with a wistful
expression upon the sea over the bows as though Mount's Bay lay there,
and as though the quaint old town of Penzance, with its long esplanade
and rich flanking of green and well-tilled heights, would be presently
showing.
I read her thoughts and said, "I have never met Mrs. Howe, but Frank's
letters about her to me were as enthusiastic as mine were about you to
him. He calls her sweetly pretty. So she may be. I know she is a
lady; her connections are good; I am also convinced by Frank's
description that she is amiable; consequently, I am certain she will
make you happy and comfortable until--" and here I squeezed her hand..
"It is a desperate step, Herbert," she sighed.
Upon which I changed the subject.
There was a noble flaring sunset that evening. The crimson of it was
deep and thunderous; the wild splendour was rendered portentous by an
appearance as of bars of cloud stretched horizontally across, as though
they railed in the flames of a continent on fire. All day long the
wind had been heading us a little off our course, which by magnetic
compass was about W.S.W., and this magnificence of sunset at which
Grace and I continued to stare with eyes of admiration and wonder,
neither of us having ever seen the like of the red and burning glory
that overhung the sea, stood well up on the starboard bow. The Channel
waters ran to it in a dark and frothing green till they were smitten by
the light, when they throbbed in blood for a space, then flowed in dark
green afresh, hardening into a firm, cold, darkly green horizon.
A small screw steamer, with her funnel sloping almost over her stern,
and her greasy poles of masts resembling fibres of gold in the sunset,
was bruising her way up Channel with a frequent cock of her bow or
stern which made one wonder where the sea was that tossed her so.
There was nothing else in sight, and by the time she vanished the last
rusty tinge of red had perished in the west, and the loneliness of the
sea came like a sensible quality of cold into the darkening twilight.
"How desolate the ocean looks on a sudden!" said Grace.
I thought so too as I glanced at the ashen heads of the melting billows
and up aloft at the sky, where I took notice of an odd appearance of
vapour, a sort of dusky smearing, as it were--a clay-like kind of
cloud, as though rudely laid on by a trowel--I cannot better express
the uncommon character of the heavens that evening. Here and there a
star looked sparely and bleakly down, and in the west there was a
paring of moon, some day or two old, shining and crystalline enough to
make the dull gleam of the stars odd as an atmospheric effect.
But the breeze blew steady; there was nothing to disturb the mind in
the indications of the barometer; hour after hour the little ship was
swarming through it handsomely, and we were now drawing on much too
close to Mount's Bay (albeit this evening we were not yet abreast of
the _Start_) to pause because of a thunder-coloured, smoking sunset,
and because of a hard look of sky that might yield to the stars before
midnight and discover a wide and cloudless plain of luminaries.
"How long shall you keep on this tack?" I asked Caudel.
"All night, sir, if the wind don't head us yet. It won't put us far
off our port even at this."
"Shall you sight the _Start_ light?"
"No, sir. Our stretching away all day'll have put it out of our
_spear_ of view. The Lizard light'll be all I want, and this time
twenty-four hours I hope to be well on to it."
I went below, and Grace and I killed the time as heretofore in talking
and reading. We found the evening too short indeed, so much had we to
say to each other. Wonderful is the quality and the amount of talk
which lovers are able to get through and feel satisfied with! You hear
of silent love, of lovers staring on one another with glowing eyes,
their lips incapable of the emotions and sensations which crowd their
quick hearts and fill their throats with sighs. This may be very well
too; but, for my part, I have generally observed that lovers have a
very great deal to talk about. Remark an engaged couple; sooner than
be silent they will whisper if there be company present; and when
alone, or when they think themselves alone, their tongues--particularly
the girl's--are never still. Grace and I were of a talking
age--two-and-twenty, and one not yet eighteen; our minds had no
knowledge of life, no experience, nothing in them to keep them steady;
they were set in motion by the lightest, the most trivial breath of
thought, and idly danced in us in the manner of some gossamer-light,
topmost leaf to the faintest movement of the summer air.
She withdrew to her berth at ten o'clock that night with a radiant face
and laughing eyes, for inane as the evening must have shown to others,
to us it had been one of perfect felicity; not a single sigh had
escaped her, and twice had I mentioned the name of Mrs. Howe without
witnessing any change of countenance in her.
I went on deck to take a last look round, and found all well; no change
in the weather, the breeze a brisk and steady pouring out of the north,
and Caudel pacing the deck well satisfied with our progress. I
returned below without any feeling of uneasiness, and sat at the cabin
table for some ten minutes or so to smoke out a cigar, and to refresh
myself with a glass of seltzer and brandy. A sort of dream-like
feeling came upon me as I sat. I found it hard to realise that my
sweetheart was close to me, separated only by a curtained door from the
cabin I was musing in. What was to follow this adventure? Was it
possible that Lady Amelia Roscoe would oppose any obstacle to our union
after even _this_ association of three or four days as it might be? I
gazed at the mirrors I had equipped the cabin with--picked up a
handkerchief my sweetheart had left behind her and kissed it--stared at
the little silver shining lamp that swung over my head--pulled a flower
and smelt it in a vacant sort of way of which, nevertheless, I was
perfectly sensible.... Is there anything wrong with my nerves
to-night? thought I.
I extinguished my cigar and went to bed. It was then about a quarter
to eleven, and till past one I lay awake, weary, yet unable to sleep.
I lay listening to the frothing and seething of the water thrashing
along the bends, broken into at regular intervals by the low thunder of
the surge, burying my cabin porthole and rising to the line of the rail
as the yacht's stern sank with a long slanting heel-over of the whole
fabric. I fell asleep at last, and as I afterwards gathered, slept
till somewhat after three o'clock in the morning. I was awakened by
suddenly and violently rolling out of my bunk. The fall was a heavy
one; I was a big fellow, and struck the plank of the deck hard, and
though I was instantly awakened by the shock of the capsisal, I lay for
some moments in a condition of stupefaction, sensible of nothing but
that I had tumbled out of my bunk.
The little berth was in pitch darkness, and I lay, as I have said,
motionless and almost dazed, till my ear caught a sound of shrieking
ringing through a wild but subdued note of storm on deck, mingled with
loud and fearful shouts, as of men bawling for life or death, with a
trembling in every plank and fastening of the little fabric as though
she were tearing herself to pieces. I got on to my legs, but the angle
of the deck was so prodigious that I leaned helpless against the
bulkhead, to the base of which I had rolled, though unconsciously. The
shrieks were continued; I recognised Grace's voice, and the sound put a
sort of frenzy into me, insomuch that, scarcely knowing how I managed,
I had in an instant, opened the door of my little berth, and was
standing, grabbing hold of the cabin table, shouting to let her know
that I was awake and up, and that I heard her.
_Now_, the uproar of what I took to be a squall of hurricane power was
to be easily heard. The bellowing of the wind was horrible, and it was
made more terrifying to land-going ears by the incessant hoarse shouts
of the fellows on deck; but bewildered as I was, agitated beyond
expression, not knowing but that as I stood there, gripping the table
and shouting my sweetheart's name, the yacht might be foundering under
my feet, I had wits enough to observe that the vessel was slowly
recovering a level keel, rising from the roof-like slant which had
flung me from my bed to an inclination that rendered the use of one's
legs possible. I likewise noticed that she neither plunged nor rolled
with greater heaviness than I had observed in her before I lay down.
The sensation of her motion was as though she was slowly rounding
before the wind, and beginning to scud over a surface that had been
almost flattened by a hurricane-burst into a dead level of snow. I
could hear no noise of breaking seas nor of rushing water, nothing but
a cauldron-like hissing, through which rolled the notes of the storm in
echoes of great ordnance.
Fortunately, I had no need to clothe myself, since on lying down I had
removed nothing but my coat, collar and shoes. I had a little silver
match-box in my trouser's pocket, and swiftly struck a match and
lighted the lamp and looked at Grace's door expecting to find her
standing in it. It was closed, and she continued to scream. It was no
time for ceremony; I opened the door, and called to know how it was
with her.
"Oh, Herbert, save me!" she shrieked; "the yacht is sinking."
"No," I cried, "she has been struck by a gale of wind. I will find out
what is the matter. Are you hurt?"
"The yacht is sinking!" she repeated in a wild voice of terror.
Spite of the lamplight in the cabin, the curtain and the door combined
eclipsed the sheen, and I could not see her.
"Are you in bed, dearest?"
"Yes," she cried.
"Are you hurt, my precious?"
"No, but my heart has stopped with fright. We shall be drowned. Oh,
Herbert, the yacht is sinking!"
"Remain as you are, Grace. I shall return to you in a moment. Do not
imagine that the yacht is sinking. I know by the buoyant feel of her
movements that she is safe."
And thus hurriedly speaking I left her, satisfied that her shrieks had
been produced by terror only; nor did I wish her to rise, lest the
yacht should again suddenly heel to her first extravagantly dreadful
angle, and throw her, and break a limb, or injure her more cruelly yet.
The companion hatch was closed. The feeling of being imprisoned raised
such a feeling of consternation in me that I stood in the hatch as one
paralysed, then terror set me pounding upon the cover with my fists,
till you would have thought in a few moments I must have reduced it to
splinters. After a little, during which I hammered with might and
main, roaring out the name of Caudel, the cover was cautiously lifted
to the height of a few inches, letting in a very yell of wind, such a
shock and blast of it that I was forced, back off the ladder as though
by a blow in the face, and in a breath the light went out.
"It's all right, Mr. Barclay," cried the voice of Caudel, hoarse and
yet shrill too with the life and death cries he had been delivering.
"A gale of wind's busted down upon us. We've got the yacht afore it
whilst we clear away the wreckage. There's no call to be alarmed, sir.
On my word and honour as a man there's no call, sir. I beg you not to
come on deck yet--ye'll only be in the way. Trust to me, sir--it's all
right, I say," and the hatch was closed again.
Wreckage! The word sounded as miserably in my ear as though it had
been the shout of "Heaven have mercy upon us!" What had been wrecked?
What had happened? Was the yacht stove? Had we lost our mast? I had
heard no crash, no noise of splintering, no resounding thump as of a
fall. I listened, struck another match, and then lighted the lamp
afresh. I might know now that the _Spitfire_ was dead before the wind,
seething almost soundlessly through the foam of the storm-swept
surface. She was going along with a steadiness that was startling when
one thought of and listened to the weather; for her plunges were so
long and buoyant as to be scarcely noticeable, whilst sea and swell
being directly in her wake, her rolling was of the lightest. This
scudding likewise took something of the weight out of the blast howling
after us; the echo as of thunder penetrating to the cabin was,
comparatively speaking, dulled; but I was sailor enough to know that we
should be having a heavy sea anon, and that if the yacht was crippled
aloft or injured below, then the merciful powers only knew how it was
going to end with us.
These thoughts were in my mind as I lighted the lamp. I now knocked on
Grace's door, and told her to rise and dress herself, and join me in
the cabin.
"There is no danger," I shouted, "nothing but a passing capful of wind."
She made some answer which I could not catch, but I might be sure that
the upright posture and buoyant motions of the scudding yacht had
tranquillised her mind; moreover, all sounds would penetrate her berth
in very muffled tones. Still, if she looked at her watch, she might
wonder why she had to rise and dress at half-past three o'clock in the
morning!
I sat alone for some ten minutes, during which the height and volume of
the sea sensibly increased, though as the yacht continued flying dead
before the wind, her plunges were still too long and gradual to be
distressing. Occasionally a shout would sound on deck, but what the
men were about I could not conceive.
The door of the forward berth was opened, and Grace entered the cabin.
Her face was white as death; her large eyes, which seemed of a coal
blackness in the lamplight, and by contrast with the hue of her cheeks,
sparkled with alarm. She swept them round the cabin, as though she
expected to behold one knows not what sort of horror, then came to my
side and linked my arm tightly in hers.
"Oh, Herbert, tell me the truth. What has happened?"
"Nothing serious, darling. Do you not feel that we are afloat and
sailing bravely?"
"But just now? Did not the yacht turn over? Something was broken on
deck, and the men began to shriek."
"And so did you, Grace," said I, trying to smile.
"But if we should be drowned?" she cried, drawing closer to me, and
fastening her sweet, terrified eyes upon my face.
I shook my head, still preserving my smile, though Heaven knows, had my
countenance taken its expression from my mood, it must have shown as
long as the yacht herself. I could see her straining her ears to
listen, whilst her gaze--large, bright, her brows arched, her lips
parted, her breast swiftly heaving--roamed over the cabin.
"What is that noise of thunder, Herbert?"
"It is the wind," I answered.
"Are not the waves getting up? Oh! feel this!" she cried, as the yacht
rose with velocity and something of violence to the under-running hurl
of a chasing sea, of a power that was but too suggestive of what we
were to expect.
"The _Spitfire_ is a stanch, noble little craft," said I, "built for
North Sea weather. She is not to be daunted by anything that can
happen hereabouts."
"But what _has_ happened?" she cried, irritable with alarm.
I was about to utter the first reassuring sentence that occurred to my
mind, when the companion was slid a little way back, and I just caught
sight of a pair of legs ere the cabin lamp was extinguished by such
another yell and blast of wind as had before nearly stretched me.
Grace shrieked and threw her arms round my neck; the cover was closed,
and the interior, instantly becalmed again.
"Who's that?" I roared.
"Me, sir," sounded a voice out of the blackness where the companion
steps stood; "Files, sir. The captain asked me to step below to report
what's happened. He dursn't leave the deck himself."
I released myself from my darling's clinging embrace and lighted the
lamp for the third time.
Files, wrapped in streaming oilskins, resembled an ebony figure over
which a bucket of dripping has been emptied, as he stood at the foot of
the steps with but a bit of his wet, grey-coloured face showing betwixt
the ear-flaps and under the fore-thatch of his sou'wester.
"Now for your report, Files, and bear a hand with it for mercy's sake."
"Well, sir, it's just this; it had been breezing up, and we
double-reefed the mainsail, Captain Caudel not liking the look of the
weather, when a slap of wind carried pretty nigh half the mast over the
side. We reckon--for we can't see--that it's gone some three or four
feet below the cross-trees. The sail came down with a run, and there
was a regular mess of it, sir, the wessel being buried. We've had to
keep her afore it until we could cut the wreckage clear, and now we're
agoing to heave her to, and I'm to tell ye with Capt'n Caudel's
compliments not to take any notice of the capers she may cut when she
heads the sea."
"One moment. Is she sound in her hull?"
"Yes, sir."
"Heaven be praised! And how is the wind?"
"About nor'-nor'-east, sir."
"Then, of course, we've been running sou'-sou'-west, heading right into
the open channel?"
He said yes.
"How does the weather look, Files?"
"Werry black and noisy, sir."
"Tell Caudel to let me see him whenever he can leave the deck," said I,
unwilling to detain him lest he should say something to add to the
terror of Grace, whose eyes were riveted upon him as though he were
some frightful ghost or hideous messenger of death.
I took down the lamp and screened it, whilst he opened the cover and
crawled out.