A NEAR THING.
Ferrier was anything but a fatalist, yet he had a happy and useful way
of taking short views of life. In times of extreme depression he used to
say to himself, "Things seem black just now, but I know when I get over
the trouble I shall look over the black gap of misery and try to imagine
what is on the other side." It is a good plan. Many a suicide would have
been averted if the self-slain beings had chosen to take a short view
instead of harbouring visions of huge banked-up troubles.
No young fellow was ever in a much more awkward position than that of
Ferrier. The _Haughty Belle_ smack, in spite of her highly fashionable
name, was one of the ramshackle tubs which still contrive to escape the
censure of the Board of Trade; and Bill Larmor, the skipper, skilful as
he was, could not do himself justice in a craft that wallowed like a
soaked log. Then poor Withers, the maimed man, was a constant care; all
the labour of two hands at the pumps was of little avail, and, last of
all, the unhappy little boy could hardly count at all as a help.
But the bricklayer's saying, "It's dogged as does it," holds all over
the world, and brave men drive death and despair back to their
fastnesses. Ferrier thought, "I'm all well except for the active
inhabitants of the cabin. They seem to be colonizing my person and
bringing me under cultivation; barring that I'm not so ill off. If I can
ease my patient, that is something to the good." So he claimed the boy's
assistance for the night, and determined to divide his time between
soothing Withers and lending a hand on deck. Skipper Larmor was
composed, as men of his class generally are; you rarely hear them raise
their voices, and they seldom show signs of being flurried. As quietly
as though he had been wishing his passenger good evening, he said--
"We're blowing away from them, sir, and we can't du much. I hope the
yacht will be able to stand by us. Later on we'll show them a few
flares, and if things get over and above bad I must send some rockets
up."
"I'm mainly anxious about my man below. If we only had any kind of easy
mattress for him I should not be so anxious, but he's thrown about, and
every bad jerk that comes wakes him out of his doze. A healthy
life-guardsman would be helpless after one night like this!"
"As I said, sir; Lord, help us; we must bear what's sent."
The _Haughty Belle_ became more and more inert, and the breeze grew more
and more powerful. The Mediterranean is like a capricious woman; the
North Sea is like a violent and capricious man. The foredoomed smack
was almost like a buoy in a tideway; the sea came over her, screaming as
it met her resistance, like the back-draught among pebbles. Ferrier
found to his dismay that, even if he wanted to render any assistance, he
was too much of a landsman to keep his feet in that inexorable cataract,
and he saw, too, that the vessel was gradually rolling more and more to
starboard. The pumps were mastered, and even on deck the ugly squelch,
squelch of the mass of water below could be heard. Every swing of that
liquid pendulum smote on our young man's heart, and he learned, in a few
short hours, the meaning of Death.
Can a seaman be other than superstitious or religious? The hamper of
ropes that clung round the mainmast seemed to gibber like a man in fever
as the gale threaded the mazes; the hollow down-draught from the
foresail cried in boding tones; it seemed like some malignant elf
calling "Woe to you! Woe for ever! Darkness is coming, and I and Death
await you with cold arms." Every timber complained with whining
iteration, and the boom of the full, falling seas tolled as a bell tolls
that beats out the last minutes of a mortal's life. The Cockney poet
sings--
"A cheer for the hard, glad weather,
The quiver and beat of the sea!"
Shade of Rodney! What does the man know about it? If his joints were
aching and helpless with the "hardness," he would not think the weather
so "glad"; if the "beat of the sea" made every nerve of him quiver with
the agony of salt-water cracks, I reckon he would want to go home to his
bath and bed; and if the savage combers gnashed at him like white teeth
of ravenous beasts, I take it that his general feelings of jollity would
be modified; while last of all, if he saw the dark portal--goal of all
mortals--slowly lifting to let him fare on to the halls of doom, I wager
that poet would not think of rhymes. If he had to work!--But no, a real
sea poet does not work.
Ferrier was a good and plucky man, but the moments went past him,
leaving legacies of fear. Was he to leave the kindly world? Oh!
thrilling breath of spring, gladness of sunlight, murmur of trees,
gracious faces of women! Were all to be seen no more? Every joyous hour
came back to memory; every ungrateful thought spoken or uttered was now
remembered with remorse. Have you looked in the jaws of death? I have,
and Ferrier did so. When the wheels of being are twirling slowly to a
close, when the animal in us is cowed into stupor, then the spirit
craves passionately for succour; and let a man be never so lightsome, he
stretches lame hands of faith and gropes, even though he seem to gather
but dust and chaff.
Roar on roar, volley on volley, sweep on sweep of crying water--so the
riot of the storm went on; the skipper waited helplessly like a dumb
drudge, and a hand of ice seemed to clutch at Ferrier's heart.
He went down to see Withers and found him patient as before.
"She du seem to have got a lot of water in her, sir. I never felt quite
like this since once I was hove down. Say, here, sir."
The man spoke with a husky voice.
"If so be you has to try the boat, don't you mind me. If you try to
shove me aboard you'll lose your lives. I've thought it round, and,
after all, they say it's only three minutes."
"But, my man, we won't leave you; besides, she's not gone yet. A tub
will float in a seaway; why shouldn't the vessel?"
"I knows too much, sir, too much. Excuse me, sir, have you done what
they call found Christ? I'm not much in that line myself, but don't you
think maybe an odd word wouldn't be some help like in this frap? I'm
passin' away, and I don't want to leave anything out."
Lewis slipped up on deck and signed for Larmor.
"Our man wants to pray. Don't you think we may all meet? You can do
nothing more than let the vessel drift. Leave one hand here ready to
show a flare, and come down." "I don't much understand it, sir; but Bob
and me will come."
Then, knee deep in water, the forlorn little company prayed together. I
do not care to report such things--it verges on vulgarism; but I will
tell you a word or two that came from the maimed man. "O Lord, give me a
chance if you see fit; but let me go if any one is to go, and save my
commerades. I've been a bad 'un, and I haven't no right to ask nothing.
Save the others, and, if I have no chance in this world of a better
life, give me a look in before you take me."
Who could smile at the gruff, innocent familiarity? A very great poet
has said, "Consort much with powerful uneducated persons." Fellows like
Withers make one believe this.
The prayer was not, perhaps, intelligent; but He who searches the hearts
would rightly appraise those words, "I've been a bad 'un." Ferrier felt
lightened, and he shook hands with Larmor before they once more faced
the war of the night.
The fire was out, it was bitter chill, yet hope was left--- a faint
sparkle--but still a stay for the soul of the tempest-tossed men. The
climax of the breeze seemed approaching at four o'clock; and, as Larmor
said, "it couldn't be very much worse." The skipper was then hanging as
he best could to the mizen rigging; Lewis had his arms tightly locked on
the port side round the futtock shrouds, and was cowering to get clear
of the scourging wind. There was a wild shriek forward.
"Water, skipper!"
Lewis looked up. There it was, as high as the mast-head, compact as a
wall, and charging with the level velocity of a horse regiment. The
doctor closed his eyes and thought, "Now for the grand secret." Then
came the immense pressure--the convulsive straining, the failing light,
the noise in the ears. First the young man found himself crushed under
some strangling incubus; then, with a shrieking gasp, he was in the
upper air. But he was under a hamper of ropes that strung him down as if
he were in a coop, and his dulled senses failed for a moment to tell
what ailed him. At last, after seconds that seemed like ages, it dawned
on him; the masts had snapped like carrots, both were over the side, and
the hulk was only a half-sunken plaything for the seas to hurl hither
and thither. Larmor? Gone! How long? These things chased each other
through his dim mind; he slipped his arm out and crept clear; then a
perception struck him with the force of a material thing; a return wave
leaped up with a slow, spent lunge on the starboard side, and a black
something--wreckage? No. A shudder of the torn nerves told the young man
what it was. He slid desperately over and made his clutch; the great
backwash seemed as though it would tear his arm out of the socket, but
he hung on, and presently a lucky lift enabled him to haul Larmor on
board! All this passed in a few lying instants, but centuries---
aeons--could not count its length in the anguish-stricken human soul.
I once knew a sailor who was washed through a port in a Biscay gale; the
return sea flung him on board again. I asked, "What did you think?"
He answered, "I thought, 'I'm overboard.'"
"And when you touched deck again, what did you think?"
"I thought, 'Blowed if I'm not aboard again.'"
"Did the time seem long?"
"Longer than all my lifetime."
Not more than half a minute had passed since the hulk shook herself
clear, but Larmor and Lewis had lived long. The doctor took out the
handy flask and put it to the skipper's lips; the poor man's eyes were
bright and conscious, but his jaw hung. He pointed to his chin, and the
doctor knew that the blow of falling mast or wreckage had dislocated the
jaw.
In all the wide world was there such another drama of peril and tenor
being enacted? Lewis's hands almost refused their office; he was
unsteady on his legs, but he gathered his powers with a desperate effort
of the will, and set the man's jaw. "Stop, stop! You mustn't speak.
Wait." With a dripping handkerchief and his own belt Ferrier bound
Larmor's jaw up; then for the first time he looked for the fellows
forward.
Both gone! Oh! friends who trifle cheerily with that dainty second
course, what does your turbot cost? Reckon it up by rigid arithmetic,
and work out the calculation when you are on your knees if you can. All
over the North Sea that night there were desolate places that rang to
the cry of parting souls; after vain efforts and vain hopes, the
drowning seamen felt the last lethargy twine like a cold serpent around
them; the pitiless sea smote them dumb; the pitiless sky, rolling over
just and unjust, lordly peer and choking sailor, gave them no hope;
there was a whole tragedy in the breasts of all those doomed ones--a
tragedy keen and subtle as that enacted when a Kaiser dies. You may not
think so, but I know. Forlorn hope of civilization, they met the onset
of the sea and quitted themselves like men; and, when the proud sun rose
at last, the hurrying, plundering, throbbing, straining world of men
went on as usual; the lovers spoke sweet words; the strong man rejoiced
exceedingly in his strength; the portly citizen ordered his fish for
dinner, and the dead fishermen wandered hither and thither in the dark
sea-depths, their eyes sealed with the clammy ooze.
That is an item in the cost of fish which occurs to a prosaic
arithmetician.
Lewis Ferrier had certainly much the worst so far in his defensive
battle with wind and wave. Here was a landsman on a swept hulk with a
dumb captain, a maimed man; two hands overboard, and a boy as the
available ship's company. Never mind. He got Larmor below, and the
dogged skipper made signs by hissing and moving his fist swiftly upward.
"The rockets?" Larmor nodded, and pointed to a high locker. Lewis found
the rockets easily enough; he also found a ginger-beer bottle full of
matches; but of what use would matches be in that torrent of blown
spray? The cabin was worse awash than ever, and there was no possibility
of making a fire. Ferrier felt in his inside breast pocket. Ah! the tin
box of fusees was there--all dry and sound inside. He beckoned Larmor,
and signed to him expressively; then he crouched under the hatch and
pressed the flaming ball to the root of the rocket. One swing, and the
rushing messenger was through the curtain of drift, and away in the
upper air. Larmor clapped his poor hands and bowed graciously. Two
minutes, three minutes, five minutes they waited; no reply came. With
steadiness born of grim despair the doctor sent away another rocket.
With fiercely eager eyes he and Larmor strove to pierce the lashing
mist, and then!--oh, yes, the long crimson stream flew, wavered in the
gale, and broke into scattered star-drift. Larmor and the doctor put
their arms round each other and sobbed. Then they told poor death-like
Withers, and his wan eyes flickered with the faint image of a smile.
Ferrier gave him the remainder of the wine, and the helpless seaman
patted his benefactor's hand like a pleased child.
The gale dropped as suddenly as it had risen, but it left an immense
smooth sea behind, for the whole impetus of two successive breezes had
set the surface water hurling along, and it mostly takes a day to smooth
the tumult down.
To say that the _Haughty Belle_ was in danger would be to put the matter
mildly; the wonder was that she did not settle sooner. The only hope was
that the wind might bring the signalling vessel down before it fell away
altogether.
Larmor pointed to the boat (which had remained sound for a mercy), and
the doctor saw that he wanted her got ready. He sung out to the boy,
"Ask Withers to steady himself the best way he can, and you come up and
tell me how to clear the boat." Only one of the wire ropes needed to be
thrown off; then the boy squeaked shrilly, "Make the painter fast to a
belaying-pin for fear a sea lifts the boat over," and then Ferrier was
satisfied. His strength was like the strength of madness, and he felt
sure that he could whirl the boat over the side himself without the aid
of the falls. His evolutions while he was working on the swashing deck
were not graceful or dignified, but he was pleased with himself; the
fighting spirit of Young England was roused in him, and, in spite of
numbing cold, the bite of hunger, and all his bruises, he sang out
cheerily, "Never mind, skipper; I'll live to be an old salt yet."
Only one quarter of an hour passed, and then a vessel came curtseying
gracefully down.
"What's that?" shouted Ferrier.
Larmor pointed to the questioner.
"Do you mean it's the yacht?"
The skipper nodded. The doctor would have fallen had he not brought all
his force to bear; the strain was telling hard, and soon Lewis Ferrier's
third stage of education was too be completed.
The schooner swam swiftly on, like a pretty swan. Ah! sure no ship come
to bear the shipwrecked men to fairyland could have seemed lovelier than
that good, solid yacht. Right alongside she came, on the leeward
quarter of the hulk. _Four_ ladies were on deck.
"Ah! the invalid ghosts are up. _That_ ship hasn't suffered very much,"
said Lewis.
When Tom Lennard caught sight of Ferrier he gathered his choicest
energies together for the production of a howl. This vocal effort is
stated by competent critics to have been the most effective performance
ever achieved by the gifted warbler. He next began a chaste but somewhat
too vigorous war-dance, but this original sign of welcome was soon
closed by a specially vindictive roll of the vessel, and Thomas
descended to the scuppers like another Icarus.
Ah! blessed sight! The boat, the good, friendly faces of the seamen; and
there, in the stern sheets, the pallid, spiritual face of Henry
Fullerton, looking, as Ferrier thought, like a vision from a stormless
world of beatified souls.
"Two of you men must come and help to lug my patient up."
Could you only have seen that gallant simpleton's endurance of grinding
pain, and his efforts to suppress his groans, you would have had many
strange and perhaps tender thoughts. Mr. Blair was watching the
operations from the yacht, and he said--
"Yes, Lennard, the doctor is right; we need a hospital here. Look at
that poor bundle of agonies coming over the side. How easy it would be
to spare him if we only had the rudiments of proper apparatus here! Yes,
we must have a hospital."
Tom answered: "Yes, and look at the one with the head broken. He'll
suffer a bit when he jumps."
And indeed he did, but he bore the jar like the Trojan that he was--the
good, simple sea-dog.
"Hurry away now, all. I wouldn't give the poor old _Belle_ another
half-hour," said the mate.
In a minute or two the cripples were safe, and Ferrier was in the power
of Blair and Lennard, who threatened to pull his bruised arms away. The
two gentlemen pretended to be in an uproarious state of jollity, and to
hear them trying to say, "Ha! ha!" like veritable war-horses, while the
tears rolled down their cheeks, was a very instructive experience.
And now I must speak of a matter which may possibly offend the finer
instincts of a truly moral age. Mrs. Walton totally forgot matronly
reserve; she stepped up to Mr. Ferrier, and, saying, "My brave fellow"
(it is a wicked world, and I must speak truth about it)--yes, she said,
"My brave fellow!" and then she kissed him! Blair's sister, Mrs.
Hellier, was more Scotch in accent than her brother, and she crowned the
improprieties of this most remarkable meeting by giving the modest young
savant _two_ kisses--I am accurate as to the number--and saying, "My
bonny lad, you needn't mind me; I have three sons as big as yourself."
Then the battered hero was welcomed by two joyous girls, and the young
Scotch niece said, "We fairly thought you were gone, Mr. Ferrier, and
all of us cried, and Miss Dearsley worst of all." Half dazed, starving,
weary to the edge of paralysis, the young doctor staggered below, ate
cautiously a little bread and milk, bathed himself, and ended this phase
of his lesson with an ecstatic stretch on a couch that was heavenly to
his wrenched limbs. Before he sank over into the black sleep of
exhausted men, he saw Henry Fullerton's beautiful eyes bent on him. The
evangelist patted the young doctor's shoulder and said, "God has sent a
sign to show that you are a chosen worker; you durst not reject it; you
have gone through the valley of the shadow of death, and you must not
neglect the sign lest you displease the One who made you His choice.
I've heard already what the men say about you. Now sleep, and I'll bring
you some soup when you wake."
Like all the men who move the world, Fullerton was a practical man
doubled with a mystic. A mystic who has a wicked and supremely powerful
intellect may move the nations of men and dominate them--for a
time--yes, for a time. Your Napoleon, Wallenstein, Strafford have their
day, and the movement of their lips may at any time be the sign of
extinction for thousands; the murder-shrieks of nations make the music
that marks their progress; strong they are and merciless. But they lean
on the sword; they pass into the Night, leaving no soul the better for
their tremendous pilgrimage.
But the good mystic plants influences like seed, and the goodly growths
cover the waste places of the earth with wealth of fruit and glory of
bloom. I think of a few of the good mystics, and I would rather be one
of them than rule over an empire. Penn, George Fox, and General
Gordon--these are among the salt of the earth.
So the young man slept on, and the good folk who had come through peril
as well, talked of him until I think his dreams must have been coloured
with their praises. The wounded seamen were carefully bestowed, and Tom
Betts crawled out to greet them.
When Marion went down to see Withers, she said, "I was so grieved to see
how you had to be thrown about; but never mind, I have made up my mind
that very few more men shall suffer like that. Now sleep, and the doctor
shall see you when he has rested--at least, I know he will."
Then Withers took Miss Dearsley's hand in his brown, ragged, cracked
paw, and kissed it--which is offence number three against the
proprieties. But then you know the soldiers used to kiss Florence
Nightingale's shadow! Didn't they?