_Bang_!--_boom_!--_swirl_!
A large wave struck the shore on a boulder slope and sent a deluge of
water across the road, to strike the rock on the other side, and run
back like a stream.
Arthur, was sent staggering, and would have fallen but for his father's
hand; and all three, but for their shiny garb, would have been soaked
from head to foot.
"Oh, here's a game!" cried Dick. "I say, Taff--run--run--here comes
another."
They escaped part of the wave, but Dick had his weather ear full, and
the sea-water and foam streamed down their backs as they stood in the
shelter of a bit of cliff.
"Well, Arthur, what do you say to your oilskins now?" said Mr Temple.
"They're dreadfully stiff, father, and the boots are too large," said
Arthur ungraciously. "Hadn't we better get back?"
Poor Arthur repented his words most bitterly as soon as he had spoken
them, for there was a hard light going on in the boy's mind. Naturally
very conceited, he had had the misfortune to be made the head of a
little set at his school--a little set, for they were rather small boys,
who looked up to him,--and dressed at him as far as they could, the
effect being to make him more conceited still, and think his brother
rough and common in his ways.
All this had been pointed out to Mr Temple, who, however, had seen it
for himself, and he only said, smiling:
"It will all settle itself. These little spines will get knocked off by
contact with the world. Besides which I hope that he will find out for
himself the way to grow into a manly man."
Mr Temple was quite right, and Arthur was beginning to discover that,
where his brother was met with a genial smile by all whom he
encountered, he, who was particular and precise and, as he considered
it, gentlemanly in his ways, was either not noticed, or met with merely
the coldest reception.
He was learning too that a man--especially an Englishman, whether gentle
or simple--born in the lap of luxury, as people call it, or in the
humblest cot, must be one who will always keep up the credit of the
nation at large by being thoroughly English; and this brings one to the
question--while the storm is raging on the Cornish coast, and Arthur
Temple is in his glistening oilskins walking stiffly and awkwardly, and
wincing beneath his father's look, which said as plainly as look could
speak, "If you are afraid you can go back;"--this brings one to the task
of stating what one means by being thoroughly English, so let us set
down here, something approaching one's ideas of what an English lad
should be.
Courageous of course, full of that sturdy determination not to be
beaten, and when beaten, so far from being disheartened that he is ready
to try again, whether in a fight, a battle with a difficulty, or in any
failure.
Honest in his striving for what he knows to be right, and ready to
maintain it against all odds, especially of such enemies as banter or
ridicule, self-indulgence or selfishness.
That is enough: for so many wonderful little veins will start from those
two trunks, that, given a boy who is courageous and honest, or who makes
himself so, it would be almost an impossibility for him to turn out a
bad, mean, and cowardly man.
And pray don't imagine, you who read this, that by a cowardly man or boy
I mean one who is afraid to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves
and fight with his fists. I mean quite a different kind of coward--the
one who is afraid of himself and lets self rule him, giving up to every
indulgence because it goes a little against the grain, and Arthur Temple
is walking uncomfortably in his oilskins because they don't look nice.
The storm is raging, and he is still smarting under the belief that his
father thinks him contemptible and cowardly, physically cowardly. And
all the time, though the tears are rising in his eyes, and the wind is
deafening him, and the spray beating in his face so that his tears are
not seen, he is proving that, under his varnish, he is made of the right
stuff. For even as he battled with self in the boat when
conger-fishing, he is fighting the good fight again, has set his teeth,
and has made a sort of vow that no one shall say he has not as much
pluck as his brother Dick.
There is little work done at a fishing village when a storm comes down.
Going to sea is impossible, and men don't care to be mending or making
nets when at any moment they may have to be helping to haul up a boat
into a safer place, or to drag in a spar, or plank, or timber, that has
been washed ashore.
Then, too, there is the look-out kept for ships or boats in distress--
perhaps to lend a helping hand; if not, to look on with sympathetic eyes
and a thankful prayer at heart that they are in safety, as they think of
home, and wife, and child.
Mr Temple was not a violent angry man. His punishments to his boys
were conveyed in looks, and one look sufficed. When that look had been
given there was an end to the matter; and on this occasion, after Arthur
had been made to wince, his petulant display of fear was put back in the
past.
"Boys," he cried, "I would not like to have missed this scene. How
awful and how grand!"
They were standing in the shelter of a pilchard house, one of the long
buildings where these silvery, oily relatives of the herring are salted
before being pressed in barrels and sent away to the Mediterranean ports
by hundreds of tons every year. The building took the brunt of the
roaring wind and spray torn from the huge billows that thundered in and
raced up the beach, and pounded the rocks, so that the spectators could
gaze at the wild chaos of tossing waves, and watch the heaped-up waters
as they dashed in like some savage army, whose aim was to tear down the
rocky barriers of our isle and sweep all away.
In the harbour lay the luggers, and a good-sized brig, and a steam-tug
that had brought it in after missing Corn town; and as the great waves
came with a spang upon the stone pier, and leaped over the lanterns, and
poured down tons of spray upon their decks, they rocked and groaned as
they rubbed together, and in spite of mooring ropes a sharp crack now
and then told of damages to be repaired.
The cliff glistened with oilskin-clad men, many of whom bore long,
clumsy telescopes, while others in great high boots, and with their
sou'-westers tied beneath their chins, walked amongst the foam, a coil
of strong rope upon their shoulders, and a boat-hook in hand, ready for
anything in the way of flotsam and jetsam that might come ashore.
Already they had drawn up the mast of a lugger with its ropes and
blocks, telling tales of some misfortune at sea.
A barrel or two had come ashore; and as Dick watched, he saw one man run
out after a wave, catch at something, miss it, and then get hold of a
rope, with which he ran ashore.
Directly after they saw another figure leave a companion and run in
after a retiring wave, the foam knee-deep, and catch at something else
which came slowly.
"Mind, mind!" cried Dick excitedly; "the wave! the wave!"
Arthur gave a gasp and ran right out towards where the figure, fully a
hundred yards away, was clinging to something that looked brown against
the white foam, and apparently heedless of the fact that a tremendous
wave was racing in.
His comrade saw it though and ran to his help, catching hold of the
great brown tangle, and then turning with the other to escape.
They hardly did it, for the huge wave curled over just behind them with
a boom like thunder, and swept them up towards the shore amidst the
foam.
They would have been carried back, but a dozen hands were outstretched
and they and their prize were run up out of danger, where, for the next
ten minutes, the little party were busy hauling in what proved to be an
immense length of pilchard drift-net, with its corks, and buoys, and
ropes, which formed a goodly heap when they had done.
Out seaward there was nothing visible but the tossing waves, and it was
with a sense of relief that the boys saw that there was no prospect of
any wreck beyond that of the fishing-boat that had been dashed to pieces
upon some rock.
"Here! hi!" cried Dick, excitedly. "Why, it's Will! Was it you who ran
in after that net?" he continued, as the lad came up.
"Yes, Master Dick; Josh helped me," said Will, smiling. "There's two or
three hundred fathom."
"But was it not very risky, my lad?" said Mr Temple, shouting like the
others, for the noise made by the sea was deafening.
"Risky, sir? Oh! you mean the waves! There were plenty there to lend a
hand, and if we'd been caught they'd have thrown us a rope," said Will,
simply.
"Some boat has been lost, hasn't there?" cried Dick, excitedly.
"Saint Ives boat, we think," said Will; "and a timber ship has been
wrecked somewhere out Lizard way. There'll be a lot of balks and planks
come ashore, the men think."
"I say, Will, is it often as bad as this?" said Arthur eagerly.
"Yes, sir, very often," replied Will. "Old Pollard thinks it will be
worse to-night. I should go down to yonder house, sir, if I was you;
the young gentlemen would be more in shelter, and you could see the
wreck wood come in and the men draw it up, better there, for it's nearer
to the sea."
"How do you know it will come there?" said Dick hastily.
"The current. Tide washes it up. We always find wreck come about
there."
Will hurried away, his mission being to fetch another boat-hook; and
taking the hint, Mr Temple and his boys made a dash across the rock and
sand to the pilchard-house further east, the wind blowing in a furious
squall now, and just as they were half-way, battling against the spray
that cut their faces till they tingled, their numbers were diminished
one third, though Mr Temple did not know it, and then two thirds.
He had bidden his boys follow him closely, and then with bent head run
forward, Dick and Arthur following as fast as their stiff clumsy garb
would allow; but just as they were half-way and were caught by the full
force of the gale, Arthur, who was last, made a swerve, gave way a
little more and a little more, and then was literally carried shoreward
by the gale in a staggering run, for he had found it impossible to
resist its force.
"Don't it blow!" panted Dick. "Lean your head over towards it, Taff,
and then it won't cut your face. Come along."
He spoke loudly, but every word was swept away by the wind; and if
sounds do not melt away, his were taken straight over England and the
North Sea to Denmark, and then over the Baltic to the Russ's land.
"Here, give me your hand, Taff," he cried directly after, and turning a
little more he held out his hand to lend his brother a little help.
Confused and deafened as he was by the storm himself, he burst out into
a roar of laughter at the sight of his brother literally running before
the wind in the most comically absurd manner, till, finding a dry spot,
he flung himself down in the soft sand, sad clung there with all his
might while Dick scudded to him and plumped down at his side.
"Here's a game!" he roared into Arthur's ear.
"A game!" faltered the latter; "very--dread--ful--isn't it?"
"No," shouted Dick. "It's all right. Come along. No, no. Turn your
back to it."
"The rain cuts so," panted Arthur.
"'Tain't rain; it's spray. Hook hold tight," cried Dick. "Ahoy!
Coming!" he shouted, wasting his breath, for it was impossible for Mr
Temple to hear. "Here comes father after us. Now then, stoop down and
let's do it. Whoo! Knees."
They threw themselves on their knees to avoid being swept away, for just
then a sudden puff came with such violence that, as Dick afterwards
described the sensation, it was like being pushed with a big ball of
india-rubber.
Mr Temple came with the rush of wind, and as he stopped beside his boys
he confessed that it was as much as he could do to keep his legs.
It was only for a few moments that the storm had such tremendous force.
Then it lulled a little, and taking advantage of the comparative calm,
Mr Temple took hold of his boys' hands, and the three with bended heads
trotted towards the shelter on ahead.
They had not been long under the lee of the pilchard-house before they
saw Will return and stand with Josh and some more of the fishermen just
beyond the reach of the waves. Then first one and then another made a
rush at what looked at a distance like a piece of wood, tossed here and
there by the great billows. Into this they struck the boat-hook, and
ran with it shoreward, the piece of wood which looked so small proving
to be a deal that was a pretty good weight for two men to carry.
Quite a stack of these were dragged from the waves, some perfectly
uninjured, others snapped in two, others again twisted and torn asunder,
leaving long ragged threads of fibre, while others again were regularly
beaten by the waves and rocks, so that the ends were like bunches of
wood gnawed by some monster into shreds.
They went back to dinner and returned towards evening, Uncle Abram
giving it as his opinion that the worst of the gale was not over yet,
and pointing to the glass that hung in the passage for corroboration.
"Lower than she's been for months," said the old gentleman. "I hope no
ship won't get caught in the bay."
_Boom, bom_!
"What's that?" cried Mr Temple quickly.
"It's what I hoped would not happen, sir," said the old man, taking off
his hat; "a ship in distress, and may--"
He did not finish his sentence aloud, but closed his eyes, and they saw
his lips move for a few moments, before, clapping on his hat again, he
cried:
"Let's go down to the beach, sir. 'Tisn't likely, but we might be able
to do some good. Ah! there she is speaking again."
_Boom, bom_!
The hoarse echoing report of a large gun heard plainly above the roar of
the storm, and hastily putting on his great yellow oilskin coat, old
Uncle Abram led the way towards the shore.