"It was, like the rest of these desolate isles, all of dark whinstone,
cracked in every direction, and worn with the action of winds, waves,
and tempests since the world began. Over the greater part of it was not
a blade of grass, nor a grain of earth; it was bare and iron-like stone,
crusted, round all the coast as far as high-water mark, with limpet and
still smaller shells. We ascended wrinkled hills of black stone, and
descended into worn and dismal dells of the same; into some of which,
where the tide got entrance, it came pouring and roaring in raging
whiteness, and churning the loose fragments of whinstone into round
pebbles, and piling them up in deep crevices with seaweeds, like great
round ropes and heaps of fucus. Over our heads screamed hundreds of
hovering birds, the gull mingling its hideous laughter most wildly."
One wild and stormy night in September 1838--such a night as induces
those on land to draw closer round the fire, and offer up, perchance, a
silent prayer for those who are at sea--a steamer was battling, at
disadvantage with the billows, off Saint Abb's Head. She was the
_Forfarshire_, a steamer of three hundred tons, under command of Mr
John Humble; and had started from Hull for Dundee with a valuable cargo,
a crew of twenty-one men, and forty-one passengers.
It was a fearful night. The storm raged furiously, and would have tried
the qualities of even a stout vessel; but this one was in very bad
repair, and her boilers were in such a state that the engines soon
became entirely useless, and at last they ceased to work. We cannot
conceive the danger of a steamer left thus comparatively helpless in a
furious storm and dark night off a dangerous coast.
In a short time the vessel became quite unmanageable, and drifted with
the direction of the tide, no one knew whither. Soon the terrible cry
arose, "Breakers to leeward," and immediately after the Farne lights
became visible. A despairing attempt was now made by the captain to run
the ship between the islands and the mainland; but in this he failed,
and about three o'clock she struck heavily on a rock bow foremost.
The scene of consternation that followed is indescribable. Immediately
one of the boats was lowered, and with a freight of terror-stricken
people pushed off, but not before one or two persons had fallen into the
sea and perished in their vain attempts to get into it. This party in
the boat, nine in number, survived the storm of that awful night, and
were picked up the following morning by a Montrose sloop. Of those left
in the ill-fated ship some remained in the after-part; a few stationed
themselves near the bow, thinking it the safest spot. The captain stood
helpless, his wife clinging to him, while several other females gave
vent to their agony of despair in fearful cries.
Meanwhile the waves dashed the vessel again and again on the rock, and
at last a larger billow than the rest lifted her up and let her fall
down upon its sharp edge. The effect was tremendous and instantaneous;
the vessel was literally broken in two pieces, and the after-part, with
the greater number of the passengers in the cabin, was swept away
through the Fifa Gut, a tremendous current which is considered dangerous
even in good weather. Among those who thus perished were the captain
and his wife. The forepart of the steamer, with the few who had happily
taken refuge upon it, remained fast on the rock. Here eight or nine of
the passengers and crew clung to the windlass, and a woman named Sarah
Dawson, with her two little children, lay huddled together in a corner
of the fore-cabin, exposed to the fury of winds and waves all the
remainder of that dreadful night. For hours each returning wave carried
a thrill of terror to their hearts; for the shattered wreck reeled
before every shock, and it seemed as if it would certainly be swept away
into the churning foam before daybreak.
But daylight came at last, and the survivors on the wreck began to sweep
the dim horizon with straining eyeballs as a faint hope at last began to
arise in their bosoms. Nor were these trembling hopes doomed to
disappointment. At the eleventh hour God in his mercy sent
deliverance. Through the glimmering dawn and the driving spray the
lighthouse-keeper's daughter from the lonely watch-tower descried the
wreck, which was about a mile distant from the Longstone. From the
mainland, too, they were observed; and crowds of people lined the shore
and gazed upon the distant speck, to which, by the aid of telescopes,
the survivors were seen clinging with the tenacity of despair.
But no boat could live in that raging sea, which still lashed madly
against the riven rocks, although the violence of the storm had begun to
abate. An offer of 5 pounds by the steward of Bamborough Castle failed
to tempt a crew of men to launch their boat. One daring heart and
willing hand was there, however. Grace Darling, fired with an intense
desire to save the perishing ones, urged her father to launch their
little boat. At first he held back. There was no one at the lighthouse
except himself, his wife, and his daughter. What could such a crew do
in a little open boat in so wild a sea? He knew the extreme peril they
should encounter better than his daughter, and very naturally hesitated
to run so great a risk. For, besides the danger of swamping, and the
comparatively weak arm of an inexperienced woman at the oar, the passage
from the Longstone to the wreck could only be accomplished with the
ebb-tide; so that unless the exhausted survivors should prove to be able
to lend their aid, they could not pull back again to the lighthouse.
But the earnest importunities of the heroic girl were not to be
resisted. Her father at last consented, and the little boat pushed off
with the man and the young woman for its crew. It may be imagined with
what a thrill of joy and hope the people on the wreck beheld the boat
dancing an the crested waves towards them; and how great must have been
the surprise that mingled with their other feelings on observing that
one of the rowers was a woman!
They gained the rock in safety; but here their danger was increased
ten-fold, and it was only by the exertion of great muscular power,
coupled with resolute courage, that they prevented the boat being dashed
to pieces against the rock.
One by one the sufferers were got into the boat. Sarah Dawson was found
lying in the fore-cabin with a spark of life still trembling in her
bosom, and she still clasped her two little ones in her arms, but the
spirits of both had fled to Him who gave them. With great difficulty
the boat was rowed back to the Longstone, and the rescued crew landed in
safety. Here, owing to the violence of the sea, they were detained for
nearly three days, along with a boat's crew which had put off to their
relief from North Sunderland; and it required some ingenuity to
accommodate so large a party within the narrow limits of a lighthouse.
Grace gave up her bed to poor Mrs Dawson; most of the others rested as
they best could upon the floor.
The romantic circumstances of this rescue, the isolated position of the
girl, her youth and modesty, and the self-devoting heroism displayed
upon this occasion, thrilled through the length and breadth of the
country like an electric shock, and the name of Grace Darling became for
the time as well known as that of the greatest in the land, while the
lonely lighthouse on the Longstone became a point of attraction to
thousands of warm admirers, among whom were many of the rich and the
noble. Letters and gifts flowed in upon Grace Darling continually. The
public seemed unable to do enough to testify their regard. The Duke of
Northumberland invited her over to Alnwick Castle, and presented her
with a gold watch. A public subscription, to the amount of 700 pounds,
was raised for her. The Humane Society presented her with a handsome
silver tea-pot and a vote of thanks for her courage and humanity.
Portraits of her were sold in the print-shops all over the land; and the
enthusiasm, which at first was the natural impulse of admiration for one
who had performed a noble and heroic deed, at last rose to a species of
mania, in the heat of which not a few absurdities were perpetrated.
Among others, several of the proprietors of the metropolitan theatres
offered her a large sum nightly on condition that she would appear on
the stage, merely to sit in a boat during the performance of a piece
illustrative of the incident of which she was the heroine! As might
have been expected of one whose spirit was truly noble, she promptly
declined all such offers. God seems to have put his arm tenderly round
Grace Darling, and afforded her special strength to resist the severe
temptations to which she was exposed.
All proposals to better her condition were rejected, and she returned to
her home on the island rock, where she remained with her father and
mother till within a few months of her death. The fell destroyer, alas!
claimed her while yet in the bloom of womanhood. She died of
consumption on the 20th of October 1842, leaving an example of
self-devoting courage in the hour of danger, and self-denying heroism in
the hour of temptation, that may well be admired and imitated by those
whose duty it is to man the lifeboat and launch to the rescue on the
stormy waves, in all time to come.