NEW NOVELS.
THE DUCHESS OF POWYSLAND. By GRANT ALLEN. 3 vols.
CORINTHIA MARAZION. By CECIL GRIFFITH. 3 vols.
A SONG OF SIXPENCE. By HENRY MURRAY. 1 vol.
SANTA BARBARA, &c. By OUIDA. 1 vol.
IN THE MIDST OF LIFE. By AMBROSE BIERCE. 1 vol.
TRACKED TO DOOM. By DICK DONOVAN. 1 vol.
COLONEL STARBOTTLE’S CLIENT, AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE. By BRET
HARTE. 1 vol.
ADVENTURES OF A FAIR REBEL. By MATT. CRIM. 1 vol.
IN A STEAMER CHAIR. By ROBERT BARR. 1 vol.
THE FOSSICKER: a Romance of Mashonaland. By ERNEST GLANVILLE.
1 vol.
London: CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W.
ALONE
ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
VOL. I.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
MY SHIPMATE LOUISE ‘THE ROMANCE OF JENNY HARLOWE’ ETC.
[Illustration]
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1892
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PIERTOWN 1
II. A BOATING TRIP 39
III. ‘WHO AM I?’ 76
IV. ALPHONSE’S CONJECTURES 111
V. ON BOARD ‘NOTRE DAME’ 135
VI. A TERRIBLE NIGHT 193
VII. CAPTAIN FREDERICK LADMORE 225
VIII. A KIND LITTLE WOMAN 262
ALONE ON A WIDE WIDE SEA
CHAPTER I
PIERTOWN
In the West of England stands a city surrounded by hills. Its streets
are wide, its shops fine and plentiful, and there are many handsome and
some stately terraces of houses in it. In the heart of the city a gem
of ecclesiastical architecture rears its admirable tower, and this fine
old structure is known everywhere as the Abbey Church.
How am I to convey to one who has never beheld them the beauties of
the scene when viewed from some commanding eminence--say on a rich
autumn afternoon whilst the sun paints every object a tender red, and
before the shadows have grown long in the valley? Orchards colour the
landscape with the dyes of their fruit and leaves. White houses gleam
amidst trees and tracts of vegetation. The violet shadow of a cloud
floats slowly down some dark green distant slope. In the pastures
cattle are feeding, and the noise of the barking of dogs ascends from
the river-side. Rows and crescents of buildings hang in clusters upon
the hills, blending with the various hues of the country and lending
a grace as of nature’s own to the scene. The river flows with a red
glitter in its breast past meadows and gardens and nestling cottages.
Many roads more or less steep conduct to the several eminences, in
the valley of which peacefully stands this western city. One of them
in a somewhat gentle acclivity winds eastwards, and as the wayfarer
proceeds along this road he passes through a long avenue of chestnuts,
which in the heat of the summer cast a delicious shade upon the
dust, and here the air is so pure that it acts upon the spirits like
a cordial. The ocean is not very many miles distant, and you taste
the saltness of its breath in the summer breeze as it blows down the
hill-sides, bringing with it a hundred perfumes, and a hundred musical
sounds from the orchards and the gardens.
About a mile beyond this avenue of chestnuts there stood--I say there
stood, but I do not doubt there still stands--a pretty house of a
modern character, such as would be offered for letting or for selling
as a ‘villa residence.’ I will speak of it as of a thing that is past.
It was situated on the edge of the hill; on one side the white road
wound by it; on the other side its land of about one acre and a half
sloped into meadows and pastures, and this wide space of fields sank
treeless, defined by hedges, well stocked in the seasons with sheep and
cows and other cattle, to the silver line of the river.
Now have I brought you to my home, to the home in which I was living a
little while before the strange and terrible experience that, with the
help of another pen, I am about to relate befel me. And that you may
thoroughly understand the story which I shall almost immediately enter
upon, it is necessary that I should submit a little home picture to you.
It was a Sunday afternoon early in the month of October in a year that
is all too recent for the endurance of memory. A party of four, of
which one was a little boy aged two, were seated at table drinking tea
in the dining-room of the house, which stood a mile beyond the chestnut
avenue. Upon the hearth-rug, where was stretched a soft white blanket,
lay a baby of eight months old, tossing its fat pink legs and dragging
at the tube of a feeding-bottle. A lady sat at the head of the table.
This lady was in her twenty-sixth year--no one better knew the date
of her birth than I. She was a handsome woman, and presently you will
understand why I exhibit no reluctance in speaking of her beauty.
I will be brief in my description of her, but I will invite your
attention to a sketch that, in its relations to this tale, carries, as
you will discover, a deeper significance than ordinarily accompanies
the portraits of the heroes or heroines of romance.
She was in her twenty-sixth year, I say. Her hair was dark, not black.
I am unable to find a name for its peculiar shade. It was so abundant
as to be inconvenient to its owner, whose character was somewhat
impatient, so that every morning’s wrestle with the long thick tresses
was felt as a trouble and often as a cause of vexatious delay. Her
eyebrows were thick and arched, and, as she wore her hair low, but a
very little of her white well-shaped brow was to be seen. Her nose was
after the Roman type, but not too large nor prominent, yet it gave her
an air as though she held her head high, and it also communicated an
expression of eagerness to the whole countenance. Her complexion was a
delicate bloom, her mouth was small, the teeth very white and regular.
She had a good figure, a little above the medium height of women,
with a promise in her shape of stoutness when her years should have
increased. She was simply dressed, and wore but little jewellery, no
more than a thin watch-chain round her neck and a wedding-ring and two
other rings on the same finger.
Such was the lady in her twenty-sixth year who sat at the head of the
tea-table on that October Sunday afternoon.
At her side was her little boy, two years old. He was a beautiful child
with golden hair and dark blue eyes. He sat in a high child’s chair on
his mother’s left, and whilst he waited for her to feed him he beat the
table with a spoon.
At the table on the right sat the husband of this lady, a man entering
upon his thirty-first year. He was tall, thin, and fair, and wore small
whiskers, and his eyes were a dark grey. Handsome he was not, but he
had a well-bred air, and his face expressed a gentle and amiable nature.
Confronting the lady at the head of the table was her twin sister.
Nearly always between twins there is a strong family likeness. I
have heard of twins who resembled each other so closely as to be
mistaken one for the other unless they were together, when, to be
sure, there must be some subtle difference to distinguish them. There
was undoubtedly a family likeness between these two sisters, but it
appeared rather in their smile and in certain small tricks of posture
and of gesture, and in their walk and in the attitudes which they
insensibly fell into when seated; in these things lay a family likeness
rather than in their faces. Their voices did not in the least resemble
each other’s. That of the lady who sat at the head of the table was
somewhat high-pitched; her accents were delivered with impulse and
energy, no matter how trivial might be the subject on which she
discoursed. Her sister, on the other hand, had a sweet, low, musical
voice; she pronounced her words with a charming note of plaintiveness,
and she never spoke much at a time nor often. Her hair was not so
plentiful as her sister’s; it was a light bright brown, with a gloss
upon it like that of the shell of a horse-chestnut, but it had not
the rich deep dye of that nut. She wore it with a simplicity that was
infinitely becoming to her beauty. Beautiful she was, far more so
than her sister; hers was a beauty far more tender and womanly than
her sister’s; you thought of the meekness and the sweetness of the
dove in looking at her, and the expression of her dark-brown eyes was
dove-like. She was shorter than her sister, but equally well shaped,
and she was the younger.
These four sitting at table, and the little baby of eight months
tossing its tiny toes shod with knitted shoes upon a blanket on the
hearth-rug, formed the occupants of that parlour, and were the living
details of the domestic picture that the curtain of the terrible drama
of my life rises upon. The rays of the westering sun streamed upon the
windows of the room, and the atmosphere was warm with crimson light.
One window stood open, but the church bells had not yet begun to ring
for evening service, and the peace of the English Sabbath lay upon
the land outside: a peace scarcely disturbed by the distant barking
of dogs, by the occasional moaning lowing of near cattle, and by the
drowsy murmuring hum of bees and flies amongst the flowers under the
windows.
Who were these people, and what was their name? The name of the
gentleman was John Campbell, and the lady seated at the head of the
table was his wife, Agnes--Agnes Campbell, whose story she herself
now relates, and the sweet sister at the foot of the table was Mary
Hutchinson.
I had been married at the time when my story opens a little above
three years. My father was Colonel Hutchinson, of the Honourable
East India Company’s service. He had distinguished himself in India
in a period of terrible peril, but he had died before he could reap
the reward of his valour and his judgment. He died a poor man, his
whole fortune amounting to no more than five thousand pounds; but the
pension my mother drew, conjointly with the interest of my father’s
little fortune, enabled her to live in tolerable comfort, and after
my father’s death we took up our abode in the noble old city of Bath,
where we dwelt happily, making many friends and enjoying a round of
simple pleasures.
Society in Bath is largely, almost wholly, composed of ladies; young
men are scarce, and marriage at the best is but vaguely dreamed of,
though hope is sufficiently constant to support the spirits.
It chanced that Mary and I were invited one evening to play a round
game of cards at the house of a friend. We went, expecting to find the
company formed entirely of girls like ourselves, with perhaps one or
two old fogeys. But soon after our arrival a gentleman was shown into
the room, and introduced to us as Mr. John Campbell. He was the only
young man present; the other gentlemen were composed of a general, a
colonel, and an admiral, whose united ages I afterwards calculated
would have exactly amounted to two hundred years. I did not notice that
Mr. Campbell paid me much attention that evening. Mary afterwards said
he seldom had his eyes off me, but _that_ I did not observe. On the
contrary, I thought he looked very often and very admiringly at _her_.
Well, he saw us to the door of our house, to use the homely phrase, and
on the following afternoon he called upon us; but if it was love at
first sight on his part, I cannot say that he illustrated his fervour
by his behaviour. He was very polite, very kind, very attentive; seemed
happy in my society, was a frequent visitor at our house, would steal
an hour from business to find himself an excuse to meet us in the
gardens or park where we walked; but that was all.
If I had been led by the reading of novels to suppose that a man looks
love when he means love, I might have searched Mr. Campbell’s face in
vain for any expression of deep-seated sentiment. Indeed, after three
months, I could not have said that he was more in love with me than
with my sister. But by the end of that time I must own that I was very
much in love with him. And though so tenderly did I love my sister that
I would gladly have relinquished him to her, had her love for him been
as mine, yet to no other woman could I have parted with him without the
belief--which to be sure I used to laugh at after I was married--that
my heart would break if he did not make me his. But my heart was not to
be broken because of his not loving me and making me his, for within
six months from the date of our meeting we were married, and I was
the happiest girl in all England, and my sister as happy as I in my
happiness.
My husband was a solicitor. His practice in those days was small and
would not have supported him even as a bachelor; but he had been the
only son of a man who was able to leave him an income of several
hundreds a year. We went abroad for a month, and I returned to find
my poor mother dead. This loss left my sister without a relative in
the world saving myself. It is seldom that this can be said of man or
woman. To be without a relative in this complicated world of aunts
and uncles, of nieces and nephews, and of cousins no matter how far
removed, seems incredible. There may be plenty of people who are alone
in the sense of not knowing who their relatives are, though they would
find they had relations in plenty were they to seek them or were they
to come into a fortune; but it is rare indeed to hear of anyone who
out of his or her perfect knowledge of the family connections can
positively assert, ‘I have not a relative in the world.’
Yet thus it was with my sister and me when my mother died. But I will
not delay my story to explain how this happened. Therefore, being
alone in the world, my sister came to live with my husband and me. How
greatly her making one of us added to my happiness I cannot express.
I will not pretend that it did grieve me to leave my poor mother: no,
nature works forwards; the fruit falls from the tree, the young bird
flutters from its nest; it is nature’s law that a child should part
from its parent, and deep as the sadness of separation may seem at the
time, it will show but as a light-hearted grief at the best when looked
back upon and contrasted with other sorrows of life.
But it was a bitter pain to me to part with my sister. We had grown up
side by side; we were as blossoms upon one stalk, and the sap of the
single stalk fed the two flowers.
And now as we sat drinking tea in the parlour of our house on that fine
October Sunday afternoon, our conversation was as homely as the picture
we made. Nevertheless it involved a topic of considerable interest
to us. My little boy Johnny had been looking somewhat pale, and his
appetite was not as I, his mother, considered it should be. The summer
had been a very hot one, and when it is even moderately warm in most
parts of England, it is commonly very broiling indeed in our city of
the Abbey Church, where there are tall hills to protect the population
from the breeze, where the roads are steep, glaring, and dusty, and
where the width of many of the streets is quite out of proportion to
the stature of the houses, so that you do not know where to look for
shade.
My husband’s business would not suffer him to leave home until the
early autumn, and he could not prevail upon me to go away without him;
but now he was able to take a holiday for a month, and the doctor had
recommended the seaside for little Johnny and the baby, and as we sat
drinking tea we talked of the best place to go to.
‘It does not matter to me what part of the coast you choose,’ said my
husband. ‘I only stipulate that you shall not select a town that is
confidently recommended by the whole of the medical faculty, and whose
medical officer every year sends to the newspapers a statement that
the death-rate is the lowest in England, and that it is the healthiest
seaside resort in the United Kingdom.’
‘Then you shut every seaside town against us,’ said my sister, ‘for
every seaside town is the healthiest in England.’
I named Margate; my husband made a grimace.
‘No,’ he exclaimed, ‘I should not like to return to Bath and say we
have been to Margate. It was only the other day I heard General Cramp
swear that Margate was not the vulgarest place in all England, oh no!
but the vulgarest place in all the world.’
‘Its air is very fine,’ said I, ‘and it is fine air that we want.’ And
here I looked at Johnny. ‘What does it matter to us what sort of people
go to Margate, if its air is good?’
‘I will not go to Margate,’ said my husband.
My sister named two or three towns on the coast.
‘Let us,’ said my husband, ‘go to some place where there is no hotel
and where there is no pier.’
‘And where there is no circulating library,’ cried I, ‘and where there
are two miles of mud when the water is out.’
And then I named several towns as my sister had, but my suggestions
were not regarded. At this point baby began to roar, and my husband
rose to ring for the nurse, but it was nurse’s ‘Sunday out,’ and Mary
and I were taking her place. Mary picked baby up off the blanket, and
holding its cheek to hers, sung softly to it in her low sweet voice.
The darling was instantly silent. The effect of my sister’s plaintive
melodious voice upon fretful children was magical. I remember once
calling with her upon a lady who wished that we should see her baby.
The baby was brought into the room, and the moment it saw us it began
to yell. My sister stepped up to it as it sat on the nurse’s arm, and
looking at it in the face with a smile began to sing, and the infant,
silencing its cries, stared back at her with its mouth wide open in
the very posture of a scream, but as silent as though it had been a
doll. When she ceased to sing and turned from it, it roared again, and
again she silenced it by singing.
My baby lay hushed in her arms, and the sweet eyes of Mary looked at
us over the little fat cheek that she nestled to her throat, and we
continued to discourse upon the best place to go to.
My husband named a small seaside town, and I could see by the
expression of his face he meant that we should go there. It was many
years since he had visited it, but he recollected and described the
beauties of the scenery of the coast with enthusiasm. It was on the
Bristol Channel, at no very considerable distance from the city in
which we dwelt, and he said he wished to go there because, should there
come a call upon him from the office, he would be able to make the
double journey, with plenty of leisure between for all he might have
to do, in a day, computing that day from eight till midnight.
‘Oh! it is a beautiful romantic spot, Agnes,’ said he. ‘Its sands, when
the water is out, are as firm as this floor. It has high, dark cliffs,
magnificently bold and rugged, and when the breaker bursts upon the
sand, the cliffs echo its voice, and you seem to hear the note of an
approaching tempest.’
‘But it is a cheerful place, John? Cliffs and sands are very well, but
in a month one wearies of cliffs and sands, and in a month again how
many days of wet will there be?’
‘It is cheerful--very,’ said my husband. ‘Its cheerfulness is inborn,
like good-nature in a man. It owes nothing of its brightness to
excursionists, to steamboats, to Punch and Judy, and to German bands.
It has three good streets and a number of clean lodging-houses.’
‘Has it a pier and a hotel?’ asked Mary.
‘It has what the cockneys call a jetty,’ answered my husband. ‘I should
prefer to term it a pier. What is the difference between a pier and a
jetty? This jetty is short, massive, very richly tarred, and just the
sort of jetty for Johnny to fall over the edge of if he is not looked
after. There is a wooden canopy at the extremity of it under which,
Mary, you will be able to sit and read your favourite poet without risk
of being intruded upon. The verses of your favourite poet will be set
to music by the rippling of the water among the massive supports of the
pier, and you will have nothing to do but to be happy.’
‘Are there any boats?’ I asked.
‘Many capital boats,’ he answered.
‘Sailing boats?’ said I.
‘Sailing boats and rowing boats,’ said he.
‘I shall often want to go out sailing,’ said I. ‘What is more heavenly
than sailing?’
‘You will have to go alone so far as I am concerned, Agnes,’ said Mary.
‘Yes, but John will often accompany me,’ said I.
‘Not very often,’ he exclaimed. ‘Had I been a lover of sailing I should
have gone to sea, instead of which I am a solicitor, and I spell sails
with an “e” and not with an “i.” Well, is it settled?’ he continued,
drawing a pipe case from his pocket and extracting the pipe from it. ‘I
believe there will be time for half a pipe of tobacco before we go to
church.’
But the nurse being out I could not go to church, and my sister would
not leave me alone with the children, and my husband, instead of
filling half a pipe filled a whole one, and took no heed of the church
bells when their happy peaceful chimes floated through the open
window. Indeed it was _not_ settled; the subject was too interesting to
be swiftly dismissed, yet my husband had his way in the end, as usually
happened, for before evening service was over we had arranged to spend
a month at the little town whose praises he had sung so poetically.
Next day he made a journey to the shores of the Bristol Channel to seek
for lodgings. But the accommodation he required was not to be found in
apartments, and when he returned he told me that he had taken a house
standing near the edge of the cliff in a garden of its own. A few
days later our little family proceeded to the sea coast. We left two
servants behind us to look after the house, and the only domestic we
took with us was the nurse, a person of about my own age, who had been
with me at this time about six weeks, having replaced an excellent,
trustworthy young woman who had left me to get married.
I will call the little place from which dates the story of my terrific
experiences, Piertown.
What with having to change here, and to get out there, and to wait
somewhere else, the journey was a tedious one, and when we arrived it
was raining hard and blowing very strong, and I remember as we drove
from the railway station catching sight through the streaming window
glass of the white waves of the sea rushing like bodies of snow out
of the pale haze of the rain and the spray, and I also remember that
I heard a strange low voice of thunder in the air, made by the huge
breakers as they tumbled in hills of water upon the beach and rushed
backwards into the sea in sheets of froth.
It was so cold that we were very glad to find a cheerful fire in the
parlour, that was rendered yet more hospitable to the sight by the
table being equipped for a two o’clock dinner. The house was small, but
very strongly built, with thick plate-glass windows in the lower rooms,
against which the wind and the rain were hissing as though an engine
were letting off steam close by. A couple of maid-servants had been
left in the house. Never could I have imagined that servants would be
willing to sleep as those two did in one small bed, in a tiny garret
where all the light they had fell through a skylight window about the
size of a book. But I have noticed in the country, that is to say, in
rural parts and quiet towns such as Piertown, servants are grateful and
dutiful for such food and lodging as would cause them to be incessantly
grumbling and changing their places in cities like Bath.
Baby and little Johnny were taken upstairs by the nurse, and my husband
and Mary and I went to the window and stood gazing at the sea. We had
a very clear view of it. The house stood within a few yards of the edge
of the cliff, and the extremity of the garden between was bounded by a
dwarf wall of flint which left the prospect open.
‘What do you think of that sight, Agnes?’ said my husband. ‘Would
sailing be heavenly to-day, do you think?’
‘Never more heavenly if one could feel safe,’ said I. ‘How swiftly a
boat would rush before such a wind as this! Hark to the roaring in the
chimney! It makes me feel as if I were in the cabin of a ship. It is
delightful. It is like being at sea and enjoying the full spirit of it
without suffering the horrors of being tossed and bruised, and without
any chance of being upset and shipwrecked.’
‘You should have married a sailor,’ said my husband dryly.
‘What have you been reading lately, Agnes, to put this sudden love
of the sea into your head?’ said Mary. ‘You used not to care for the
water.’
‘I have been reading nothing to make me love the sea,’ I answered;
‘but when I look at such a sight as that I feel that if I were a man I
should consider that the earth was formed of something more than land,
and that the best part of it is not where trees grow and where houses
are built.’
My husband laughed. ‘One hour of _that_ would cure you,’ said
he pointing. ‘One _hour_, indeed! Ten minutes of it. I tell you
what--there is a very heavy sea running to-day. It _must_ be so, for we
are high-perched here, and look how defined are the shapes of the waves
as they come storming out of the mist towards the land.’
‘I wish a ship would pass,’ said I. ‘I should like to see her roll and
plunge.’
And for some time after my husband and Mary had withdrawn from the
window I stood gazing at the bleared and throbbing scene of ocean,
hoping and longing to see a ship go by, little suspecting that my
wishes were as wicked as though they were those of a wrecker, for had
any ship been close enough in to the coast to enable me to see her
amid the thickness that was upon the face of the streaming and rushing
waters, nothing could have saved her from being driven ashore, where in
all probability her crew would have perished.
But in the afternoon the weather cleared; it continued to blow a strong
wind right upon the land, but the sky opened into many blue lakes, and
changed into a magnificent picture of immense bodies of stately sailing
cream-coloured cloud, upon which the setting sun shone, colouring their
skirts with a dark rich gold, and the horizon expanded to as far as
the eye could pierce, with one staggering and leaning shaft of white
upon the very rim of the sea.
‘Let us go and look at the town,’ said my husband; and Mary and I put
on our hats and jackets and the three of us sallied forth.
We had to walk some distance to reach the little town, and when we
arrived there was not very much to see. The three streets were neither
spacious nor splendid; on the contrary, they struck me as rather mean
and weather-beaten. But then people do not leave cities in order to
view the shops and streets of little seaside towns. Piertown lay in a
sort of chasm. It was as though a party of fishermen in ancient days,
wandering along the coast in search of a good site for the erection of
their cottages, and falling in with this great split in the cliff, as
though an earthquake had not long before happened, had exclaimed, ‘Let
us settle here.’ There was a peculiar smell of salt in the streets, and
the roadways and pavements presented a sort of faint sparkling surface,
as though a great deal of brine had fallen upon them and dried up.
There was also a smell of kippered herring in the strong wind, and it
seemed to proceed from every shop door that we passed.
Very few people were to be seen. We were much stared at by the shopmen
through their windows, and here and there a little knot of lounging men
dressed as boatmen hushed their hoarse voices to intently gaze at us.
‘This is what I like,’ said my husband. ‘Here is all the privacy
that we could desire, and the most delightful primitiveness also. A
professional man when he takes a holiday ought to give crowded places a
very wide berth, and put himself as close to nature--to nature, rugged,
homely and roaring, after this pattern,’ said he with a sweep of his
hand, ‘as his requirements of eating and drinking and sleeping will
permit.’
‘It seems a very dull place,’ said I when, having reached the top of
one of the three steep streets, we turned to retrace our steps. ‘If the
weather does not allow me to have plenty of boating I shall soon wish
myself home again.’
‘You will not find a circulating library here,’ said Mary, looking
around her. ‘I should not suppose that many people belonging to
Piertown are able to read.’
‘The place is made up of grocers’ shops,’ said my husband. ‘What a
queer smell of bloaters!’
I amused myself by counting no less than five grocers’ shops in one
street, and I did not see a single person resembling a customer in any
one of them. I pulled my husband’s arm to stop him opposite a shop in
whose windows I believed I saw three men hanging by the neck. They
proved to be complete suits of oilskins, each surmounted by one of
those nautical helmets called sou’-westers, and at a little distance,
as they dangled in the twilight within the windows, they exactly
resembled three mariners who had committed suicide.
We now walked down to the pier, and there the great plain of the
ocean stretched before us without the dimmest break of land anywhere
along its confines, and the white surf boiled within the toss of a
pebble from us. The pier projected from a short esplanade; along this
esplanade ran a terrace of mean stunted structures, eight in all; and
my husband, after looking and counting, exclaimed: ‘Five of them are
public-houses. Yes! this is the seaside.’
The pier forked straight out for a short distance, then rounded sharply
to the right, thus forming a little harbour, in the shelter of which
lay a cluster of boats of several kinds. The massive piles and supports
of the pier broke the weight of the seas, which rushed hissing white as
milk amongst the black timbers; but the water within was considerably
agitated nevertheless, and the boats hopped and plunged and jumped and
rubbed their sides one against another, straining at the ropes which
held them, as though they were timid living creatures like sheep,
terrified by the noise and appearance of the waters, and desperately
struggling at their tethers in their desire to get on shore.
We stood looking, inhaling deeply and with delight the salt sweetness
of the strong ocean breeze. The land soared on either hand from the
little town, and ran away in dark masses of towering cliff, and far
as the eye could follow went the white line of the surf, with a broad
platform of grey hard sand betwixt it and the base of the cliff. Here
and there in one or another of the public-house windows glimmered a
face whose eyes surveyed us steadfastly. We might make sure by the
manner in which we were looked at, that Piertown was not greatly
troubled by visitors.
There was a wooden post near the entrance of the pier, and upon it
leaned the figure of a man clad in trousers of a stuff resembling
blanket, a rusty coat buttoned up to his neck, around which was a large
shawl, and upon his head he wore a yellow sou’-wester. He might have
been carved out of wood, so motionless was his posture and so intent
his gaze at the horizon, where there was nothing to be seen but water,
though I strained my sight in the hope of perceiving the object which
appeared to fascinate him. A short clay pipe, of the colour of soot,
projected from his lips. He seemed to hold it thus as one might wear
an ornament, for no smoke issued from it.
We drew close, and my husband said: ‘Good afternoon.’
The man looked slowly round, surveyed us one after another, then
readjusting himself upon his post and fastening his eyes afresh upon
the horizon, he responded in a deep voice: ‘Good arternoon.’
‘Is there anything in sight?’ said my husband.
‘No,’ answered the man.
‘Then what are you looking at?’
‘I ain’t looking,’ answered the man; ‘I’m a-thinking.’
‘And what are you thinking of?’
‘Why,’ said the man, ‘I’m a-thinking that I han’t tasted a drop o’ beer
for two days.’
‘This, indeed, is being at the seaside,’ said my husband cheerfully,
and putting his hand in his pocket he produced a sixpence, which he
gave to the man.
The effect was remarkable; the man instantly stood upright, and went
round to the other side of the post to lean over it, so that he might
confront us. And it was remarkable in other ways; for no sooner had my
husband given the man the sixpence than the doors of two or three of
the public-houses opposite opened, and several figures dressed like
this man emerged and approached us very slowly, halting often and
looking much at the weather, and then approaching us by another step,
and all in a manner as though they were acting unconsciously, and
without the least idea whatever that my husband had given the man some
money.
He was a man of about forty-five or fifty years of age, with a
very honest cast of countenance, the expression of which slightly
inclined towards surliness. You will wonder that I should take such
particular notice of a mere lounging boatman; and yet this same plain,
common-looking sailor, was to become the most memorable of all the
persons I had ever met with in my life.