"If their vessels were like ours there would be no fear. We haven't an
unsound rope or block, but many of the smacks are shockingly ill-found,
and one rope or spar may cost a crew their lives if it's faulty. The
glass has gone down badly, and we are in for a gale, and a heavy one.
But my ship would be quite comfortable in the Bay of Biscay."
A trampling on deck sounded. "See if the ladies can look from the
companion," said Tom Lennard. "The sight should be splendid. You and I
must shove on oilskins, Blair, and see if we can keep our legs."
This was almost the end of the night's conversation. Those good
mission-folks, as has been seen, contrived to get on without saying
either clever things or bitter things, and persons who possess the
higher intellect may fancy that this was a sign of a poor spirit.
Perhaps; and yet I have read somewhere that the poor in spirit may not
fare so very badly in the long run.
*CHAPTER II.*
*THE BREEZE.*
The spectacle on deck was appalling, and the sounds were appalling also.
The blast rushed by with a deep ground note which rose in pitch to a
yell as the gust hurled itself through the cordage; each sea that came
down seemed likely to be the last, but the sturdy yacht--no floating
chisel was she--ran up the steep with a long, slow glide, and smashed
into the black hollow with a sharp explosive sound. Marion Dearsley
might have been pardoned had she shown tremors as the flying mountains
towered over the vessel. Once a great black wall heaved up and doubled
the intensity of the murky midnight by a sinister shade; there came a
horrible silence, and then, with a loud bellow, the wall burst into ruin
and crashed down on the ship in a torrent which seemed made up of a
thousand conflicting streams. The skipper silently dashed aft, flung
his arms round Tom Lennard, and pinned him to the mast; Mr. Blair hung
on, though he was drifted aft with his feet off the deck until he hung
like a totally new description of flying signal; the ladies were
drenched by the deluge which rushed down below, and the steward, when he
saw the water swashing about over his cabin floor, exclaimed with
discreet bitterness on the folly of inviting ladies to witness such a
spectacle as a North Sea gale.
Tom observed: "The grandeur is--ah! fahscinating, but it's rather damp
grandeur. It's only grandeur fit for heroes. Give me all my grandeur
dry, if you please."
"Yes, sir," said the streaming skipper, "that was a near thing for you
and me when she shipped it. If I hadn't been on the right side of the
mast, both on us must have gone."
Dawn rose slowly; the sky became blotched with snaky tints of dull
yellow and livid grey; the gale kept on, and the schooner was hove-to to
meet a sea of terrifying speed and height. Two of the ladies were below,
only craving to be left alone even by the stewardess; but the hideous
fascination of the storm drew Marion Dearsley again and again, and she
sheltered herself under the hatch, and looked with awe at the mad
turmoil which could be seen astern. Here and there, far up on the
rushing sides of the foaming mountains, stray smacks hung like specks;
the schooner shipped very little water now, and Ferrier kept the deck
with some difficulty. Events succeeded each other with the terrifying
suddenness of shocking dreams, and when the skipper said, "Thank God for
a good vessel under us, sir; many a good man has gone to meet his Maker
this night," Ferrier had quite a new sensation, which I might almost say
approached terror, were I not writing about an absolutely courageous
fellow.
Still the series of moving accidents went on. A smack hove up under the
stern of the schooner, and our skipper said gravely, "That Brixham man's
mad to try sailing that vessel. If one puff comes any harder than the
last, he'll be hove down." Then the skipper turned to look forward, and
Ferrier followed him. A low, strangled moan made them both start and
look down the companion. Marion Dearsley, pointing with convulsively
rigid arm, exclaimed, "The vessel--oh, the poor men!"
That smack was hove down, and her main-sail was held by the weight of
water.
"I expect we must carry away something, but I'm going down to him. Jump
to the wheel, sir, and cast that lashing. When I wave, shove it hard
a-starboard. That way, sir. The men and I must manage forrad. You must
go below at once, Miss. Jim, shove those bolts in."
There was a shock, and Ferrier thought the mainsheet had parted; then
three strongish seas hit the schooner until she shuddered and rolled
under the immense burden. It was a fearful risk, but the vessel freed
herself and drove to the smack. One man was hanging on over the
starboard side which was hove up; the schooner swept on in cruel danger,
and the skipper might well look stern and white. "We sha'n't save it,"
he growled. Then Ferrier groaned, "Oh, God," for the keel of the smack
at last heaved up, and she went down, down, slowly down, while her
copper showed less and less, till the last fatal sea completed the work
of wrath and ruin.
Ferrier felt that sensation of sickness which I have so often seen shown
by strong men. The skipper said: "We'll heave her to again. You'd better
get below. Your pluck's all right, but an unlucky one might catch you,
and you ain't got the knack of watching for an extra drop o' water same
as us."
Lewis Ferrier went below and found all his friends looking anxious.
Indeed, the clamour was deafening, and the bravest man or woman had good
reason for feeling serious. Marion Dearsley looked at Ferrier with
parted lips, and he could see that she was unable to speak; but her eyes
made the dread inquiry which he expected. He bowed his head, and the
girl covered her face with a tearing sob: "Oh, the fatherless! O Lord,
holy and true, how long? Bless the fatherless!" The poor prostrate
ladies in the further cabin added their moanings to that dreadful wail,
and you may guess that no very cheerful company were gathered in that
dim saloon. Of course they would have been swamped had not the
skylights been covered in, and the low light was oppressive. At six in
the morning the skipper came with a grin and beckoned Mr. Blair into the
crew's cabin.
"I pretended to laugh, sir," said he, "but it's not quite laughing now.
The fog's coming over, and we're just going into cloud after cloud of
it. Don't let either of the ladies peep up again on any account. I'm
afeared o' nothing but collision, but it's regular blind man's holiday
when one o' them comes down."
"I'll see my sister right, Freeman, and I'll come and try if I can have
a peep from your ladder."
Then Blair saw a thing which always seems more impressive than anything
else that can be witnessed at sea--except, perhaps, a snow-storm. A
mysterious portent came rolling onward; afar off it looked like a pale
grey wall of inconceivable height, but as it drew nearer, the wall
resolved itself into a wild array of columns, and eddies, and
whirlpools, and great full-bosomed clouds, that rolled and swam and rose
and fell with maddening complexity. Then came a breath of deadly
chillness, and then a horror of great darkness--a darkness that could be
felt. The skipper himself took to the fore rigging, and placed one of
the watch handy to the wheel; finally he called all hands up very
quietly, and the men hung on anyhow. One drift after another passed by
in dim majesty, and the spectacle, with all its desolation, was one
never to be forgotten. After half an hour or so, Blair glanced up and
noticed a dim form sliding down the shrouds; then the skipper rushed
aft, for the helmsman could not see him, and then came a strange dark
cloud of massive texture looming through the delirious dance of the
fog-wreaths. First a flare was tried, then the bell was rung with
trebled vigour.
"Down below, sir, and call all up. He's yawed into us."
Blair saw the shape of a large vessel start out in desperate closeness;
and running through to the saloon, cried quickly, "All up on deck!
Ferrier, Fullerton, Tom, lend a hand with the ladies."
A yell was heard above; the poor sick folk came out in piteously thin
wrappings, moaning as they walked, and all the company got on deck just
in time to see a big barque go barely clear.
The youngest girl fainted, and Marion Dearsley attended to her with a
steady coolness that earned the admiration of her assistant--the doctor.
The serried ranks of the wreaths ceased to pour on, and the worn-out
landsfolk went below.
Right on into the next night the unwearied gale blew; significant lumps
of wreckage drifted past the schooner, and two floating batches of
fish-boxes hinted at mischief. The frightful sea made it well-nigh
impossible for those below to lie down with any comfort; they hardly had
the seaman's knack of saving themselves from muscular strain, and they
simply endured their misery as best they could. The yelling of wind and
the volleying of tortured water made general conversation impossible;
but Tom went from one lady to another and uttered ear-splitting howls
with a view of cheering the poor things up. Indeed, he once described
the predicament as distinctly fahscinating, but this example of poetic
license was too much even for Thomas, and he withdrew his remark in the
most parliamentary manner. Ferrier was more useful; his resolute,
cheerful air, the curt, brisk coolness of his chance remarks, were
exactly what were wanted to reassure women, and he did much to make the
dreary day pass tolerably. His services as waiter-general were
admirably performed, and he really did more by resolute helpfulness than
could have been done by any quantity of exhortation.
He ventured to take a long view at sundown, and he found the experience
saddening. The enormous chequered floor of the sea divided with
turbulent sweep two sombre hollow hemispheres. Lurid red, livid blue,
cold green shone in the sky, and were reflected in chance glints of
horror from the spume of the charging seas. Cold, cold it was all
round; cold where the lowering black cloud hung in the east; cold where
the west glowed with dull coppery patches; cold everywhere; and ah! how
cold in the dead men's graves down in the darkling ooze! Ferrier was
just thinking, "And the smacksmen go through this all the winter long!"
when the skipper came up.
"It'll blow itself out now, sir, very soon, and a good job. We've had
one or two very near things, and I never had such an anxious time since
I came to sea."
"I suppose we didn't know the real danger?"
"Not when we shipped that big 'un, sir. However, praise the Lord, we're
all safe, and I wish I could say as much for our poor commerades. It'll
take two days to get the fleet together, and then we shall hear more."
At midnight a lull became easily perceptible, and the bruised, worn-out
seafarers gathered for a little while to hold a prayer-meeting after
their fashion. They were dropping asleep, but they offered their thanks
in their own simple way; and when Ferrier said, "I've just had a
commonplace thought that was new, however, to me: the fishermen endure
this all the year, and do their work without having any saloons to take
shelter in," then Fullerton softly answered, "Thank God to hear you say
that. You'll be one of us now, and I wish we could only give thousands
the same experience, for then this darkened population might have some
light and comfort and happiness."
And now let me close a plain account of a North Sea gale. When the
weather is like that, the smacksmen must go on performing work that
needs consummate dexterity at any time. Our company of kindly
philanthropists had learned a lesson, and we must see what use they make
of the instruction. I want our good folk ashore to follow me, and I
think I may make them share Lewis Ferrier's new sensation.
*CHAPTER III.*
*THE SECOND GALE.*
In thirty-six hours the gale had fined off, and the scattered and
shattered vessels of the fleet began to draw together; a sullen swell
still lunged over the banks, but there was little wind and no danger.
Fullerton said, "Now, Ferrier, we have an extra medicine-chest on board,
besides Blair's stock, and you've seen the surgery. You'll have plenty
of work presently. After a gale like this there are always scores of
accidents that can't be treated by rough-and-tumble methods. A skipper
may manage simple things; we need educated skill. The men are beginning
to know Blair's boat, and I wish we had just twelve like her. You see
we've got at a good many of the men with our ordinary vessels, and that
has worked marvels, but all we've done is only a drop in the sea. We
want you fellows, and plenty of you. Hullo! What cheer, my lads! what
cheer!"
A smack lumbered past with her mainsail gone, and her gear in a sadly
tangled condition.
"Can you send us help, sir? We'm got a chap cruel bad hurt."
"We've got a doctor on board; he shall come."
[Illustration: FERRYING THE FISH--BAD WEATHER.]
All round, the rolling sea was speckled with tiny boats that careered
from hill to hollow, and hollow to hill, while the two cool rowers
snatched the water with sharp dexterous strokes. After the wild ordeal
of the past two days these fishers quietly turned to and began ferrying
the fish taken in the last haul. While the boat was being got ready,
Ferrier gave Mrs. Walton and Miss Dearsley an arm each, and did his best
to convey them along the rearing deck. The girl said--
"Is that the steam-carrier I have heard of? How fearful! It makes me
want to shut my eyes."
To Marion Dearsley's unaccustomed sight the lurching of the carrier was
indeed awful, and she might well wonder, as I once did, how any boat
ever got away safely. I have often told the public about that frantic
scene alongside the steamers, but words are only a poor medium, for not
Hugo, nor even Clark Russell, the matchless, could give a fair idea of
that daily survival of danger, and recklessness, and almost insane
audacity. The skipper was used to put in his word pretty freely on all
occasions, for Blair's men were not drilled in the style of ordinary
yachtsmen. Freeman, like all of the schooner's crew, had been a
fisherman, and he grinned with pleasing humour when he heard the young
lady's innocent questions.
"Bless you, Miss, that's nothing. See 'em go in winter when you can't
see the top of the steamboat's mast as she gets behind a sea. Many and
many's the one I've seen go. They're used to it, but I once seen a
genelman faint--he was weak, poor fellow--and we took aboard a dose of
water that left us half-full. He would come at any risk, and when we
histed him up on the cutter's deck, and he comes to, he shudders and he
says, 'That is too horrible. Am I a-dreaming?' But it's all use, Miss.
Even when some poor fellows is drowned, the men do all they can; and if
they fail, they forget next day."
"Could you edge us towards the cutter, skipper?" said Fullerton.
"Oh, yes. Bear up for the carrier, Bill; mind this fellow coming down."
The beautiful yacht was soon well under the steamer's lee, and the
ladies watched with dazed curiosity the work of the tattered, filthy,
greasy mob who bounded, and strained, and performed their prodigies of
skill on the thofts and gunwales of the little boats. Life and limb
seemed to be not worth caring for; men fairly hurled themselves from the
steamer into the boats, quite careless as to whether they landed on
hands or feet, or anyhow. Fullerton exclaimed--
"Just to think that of all those splendid, plucky smacksmen, we haven't
got one yet! I've been using the glass, and can't see a face that I
know. How can we? We haven't funds, and we cannot send vessels out."
Miss Dearsley's education was being rapidly completed. Her strong,
quick intelligence was catching the significance of everything she saw.
The smack with the lost mainsail was drawing near, and the doctor was
ready to go, when a boat with four men came within safe distance of the
schooner's side.
"Can you give us any assistance, sir? Our mate's badly wounded--seems
to a' lost his senses like, and don't understand."
A deadly pale man was stretched limply on the top of a pile of
fish-boxes. Mrs. Walton said--
"Pray take us away--we cannot bear the sight."
And indeed Marion Dearsley was as pale as the poor blood-smeared
fisherman. Ferrier coolly waited and helped Tom and Fullerton to hoist
the senseless, mangled mortal on deck. The crew did all they could to
keep the boat steady, but after every care the miserable sufferer fell
at last with a sudden jerk across the schooner's rail. He was too weak
to moan.
"Don't take him below yet," said Ferrier. "Lennard, you help me. Why,
you've let his cap get stuck to his head, my man. Warm water, steward."
The man was really suffering only from extreme loss of blood; a falling
block had hit him, and a ghastly flap was torn away from his scalp.
That steady, deft Scotchman worked away, in spite of the awkward roll of
the vessel, like lightning. He cut away the clotted hair, cleansed the
wound; then he said sharply--
"How did you come to let your shipmate lose so much blood?"
"Why, sir, we hadn't not so much as a pocket-handkerchief aboard. We
tried a big handful of salt, but that made him holler awful before he
lost his senses, and the wessel was makin' such heavy weather of it, we
couldn't spare a man to hould him when he was rollin' on the cabin
floor."
"Yes, sir; Lord, save us!" said another battered, begrimed fellow. "If
he'd a-rolled agen the stove we couldn't done nothin'. We was hard put
to it to save the wessel and ourselves."
"I see now. Steward, my case. This must be sewn up."
Ferrier had hardly drawn three stitches through, when one of the seamen
fainted away, and this complication, added to the inexorable roll of the
yacht, made Ferrier's task a hard one; but the indomitable Scot was on
his mettle. He finished his work, and then said--
"Now, my lads, you cannot take your mate on board again. I'm going to
give him my own berth, and he'll stay here."
"How are we to get him again, sir?"
"That I don't know. I only know that he'll die if he has to be flung
about any more."
"Well, sir, you fare to be a clever man, and you're a good 'un. We're
not three very good 'uns, me and these chaps isn't, but if you haves a
meetin' Sunday we're goin' to be here."
Then came the usual hand-shaking, and the two gentlemen's palms were
remarkably unctuous before the visitors departed.
"Look here, Lennard, if I'd had slings something like those used in the
troopships for horses, I should have got that poor fellow up as easily
as if he'd been a kitten. And now, how on earth are we to lower him
down that narrow companion? We must leave it to Freeman and the men.
Neither of us can keep a footing. What a pity we haven't a wide
hatchway with slings! That twisting down the curved steps means years
off the poor soul's life.
The gentle sailors did their best, but the patient suffered badly, and
Ferrier found it hard to force beef-tea between the poor fellow's
clenched teeth.
Lucky Tom Betts! Had he been sent back to the smack he would have died
like a dog; as it was, he was tucked into a berth between snowy sheets,
and Tom Lennard kept watch over him while Ferrier went off to board the
disabled smack. All the ladies were able to meet in the saloon now, and
even the two invalids eagerly asked at short intervals after the
patient's health. Lucky Tom Betts!
Marion Dearsley begged that she might see him, and Tom gave gracious
permission when he thought his charge was asleep. Miss Dearsley was
leaning beside the cot. "Like to an angel bending o'er the dying who
die in righteousness, she stood," when she and Lennard met with a sudden
surprise. The wounded man opened his great dark eyes that showed like
deep shadows on the dead white of his skin; he saw that clear, exquisite
face with all the divine fulness of womanly tenderness shining sweetly
from the kind eyes, and he smiled--a very beautiful smile. He could
speak very low, and the awe-stricken girl murmured--
"Oh, hear him, Mr. Lennard, hear him!"
The man spoke in a slow monotone "It's all right, and I'm there arter
all. I've swoor, and I've drunk, and yet arter all I'm forgiven.
That's because I prayed at the very last minute, an' He heerd me. The
angel hasn't got no wings like what they talked about, but that don't
matter; I'm here, and safe, and I'll meet the old woman when her time
comes, and no error; but it ain't no thanks to me."
Then the remarkable theologian drew a heavy sigh of gladness, and passed
into torpor again. Tom Lennard, in a stage whisper which was calculated
to soothe a sick man much as the firing of cannon might, said--
"Well, of all the what's-his-names, that beats every book that ever
was."
Tears were standing in the lady's sweet eyes, and there was something
hypocritical in the startling cough whereby Thomas endeavoured to pose
as a hard and seasoned old medical character.
Meanwhile Ferrier was slung on board the smack which hailed first, and
his education was continued with a vengeance.
"Down there, sir!"
Lewis got half way down when a rank waft of acrid and mephitic air met
him and half-choked him. He struggled on, and when he found his
bearings by the dim and misty light he sat down on a locker and gasped.
The atmosphere was heated to a cruel and almost dangerous pitch, and the
odour!--oh, Zola! if I dared! A groan from a darkened corner sounded
hollow, and Ferrier saw his new patient. The skipper came down and
said--
"There he is, sir. When our topmast broke away it ketches him right in
the leg, and we could do nothin'. He has suffered some, he has, sir,
and that's true."