When I got back, Uncle Jake was still watching.
"Ah!" he said. "Ah! Ah! I don't like they centre-keel boats wi' bumes
[booms]. They'm all right for fine weather, but.... Ah! They'm goin' to
gybe if they ain't careful. There! Did 'ee see? Why don't they ease
their sheet off more? If the wind catches thic sail the wrong side....
Did 'ee see that? Thic bume was all but coming over. Gybe, gybe, yu
fules! Yu'm capsized if yu du, wi' thic heavy bume. Look'se! Have 'em
got their drop-keel up, I wonder? Not they! They thinks that's the same
as extra ballast. 'Twon't make no difference if a sea takes charge of
'em. Ah! did 'ee see the leach o' the sail flutter? Nearly over! Let
'em gybe, if they'm set on it. 'Twill upset they.--O-ho! They'm goin'
to haul down an' row for it. Best thing the likes o' they can du. They
calls me an ol' fule for joggin' along in my ol' craft while they has
drop-keels and bumes, all the latest. I've a-know'd thees yer sea for
fifty year an' more, an' I say, I tell thee, that two oars be better
than two reefs any day. Le'but the seas take charge o' one o' they
boats running afore the wind.... All up! They spins like a top, an'
gybes.... 'Tis all up! Howsbe-ever, they'm saafe now, if they don't
sheer broadside coming ashore. But _they_ won't learn their lesson; not
they. They maakes fun o' us as knows.
"There! the wind be softening now. I've a-know'd they thunder-puffs
come down on 'ee like a hurricane. If they lasted long.... 'Tis blowin'
out in the Channel still. The horizon's black--see? 'Twill back, an'
blow from the nor'east to-night, in here, but 'twill be east to
south-east in the Channel, an' wi' thees flood tide runnin' up against
it, yu'll see the say make!"
23
It did blow during the night; it must have been rough out in the
Channel; then the wind dropped to a light breeze. But before ever Tony
and myself were out of doors we heard the heave and thump of the long
easterly swell.
We hauled the _Cock Robin_ down to the water's edge, put in five bags
of ballast ("Doesn't look 's if it's blow'd itself out," said Tony) and
a spare oar--and stood and looked.
"Be it wuth it?" he questioned.
"Not much wind now, is there?"
"Can the two o'us shove off in thees yer swell? Can ee see any o' the
other boats shoving down?"
"No...."
"There won't be much frighting to-day, for sure. Must make the day gude
if us can. Yer's a calm. Jump in quick. Shove! Shove, casn'! Row. Lemme
take an oar. Keep her head on. _Pull_--thic west'ard oar!"
[Sidenote: _PLUCK--_]
We were fairly afloat outside the surf-line, both of us very red in the
face. We upsailed--and away. After a few minutes' worry, deciding
whether the mainsail and mizzen without the foresail would be enough,
on a sea so much bigger than the wind, and looking for the _Cock
Robin's_ chronic leak, the bouncing, tumbling and splashing, the
heave up and the mighty rushes down, put us both in high spirits. We
decided to hoist the foresail after all. "Let her bury her head if her
wants to!"
Accordingly, I went for'ard to hook the foresail's tack to the bumkin
[short iron bowsprit]. The thimble was too small. As I sat on the bow
and leaned out over, my hand all but dipped into the waves. A stream of
water did once run up my sleeve. Looking round and seeing Tony smile, I
yelled back aft: "What be smiling 'bout, Tony?" He replied: "I was
a-gloryin' in yer pluck."
Which was very pleasant to hear--for a moment.
My position on the bow of the boat was absolutely safe, and I knew it.
There was no risk at all, except of a bruise or a wetting. My toe was
firmly hooked under the for'ard thwart, and short of my leg breaking, I
could not have lost my hold. Besides, even had I fallen overboard, I
could easily have swum round while Tony 'bouted the boat. Tony was
deceived. There was no pluck.
His words set me thinking, and I had to recognise, rather bitterly,
that what I call pluck did not form a great part of my birthright. I
find myself too apprehensive by nature; imagine horrid possibilities
too keenly; and indeed would far rather hurt myself than think about
doing so. I suppose I have a certain amount of courage, for I am
usually successful in making myself do what I funk; but I like doing it
none the better for that. And up to the present, I have not failed
badly in tight corners. On the contrary, I find (like most nervy
people) that actual danger, once arrived, is curiously exhilarating;
that it makes one cooler and sharper, even happy. One has faced the
worst in imagination, and the reality is play beside it.
[Sidenote: _AND COURAGE_]
In the dictionary, _courage_ is defined as 'The quality which enables
men to meet danger without fear.' _Pluck_ is merely defined as courage.
There is, or ought to be, an essential difference between the meaning
of the two words. Courage is a premeditated matter, into which the
will enters, whilst pluck is an unpremeditated expression of the
personality, an innate quality which, so to speak, does not need to be
set in operation by the will. Courage rises to the occasion; pluck is
found ready for it. Would it not, therefore, be more correct to say
that _pluck_ is the quality which enables men to meet danger without
fear: and that _courage_ is the quality which enables men to meet
danger with fear overcome? The greatest courage might go farther than
the greatest pluck, but for occasions on which either can be used,
pluck, the more spontaneous, is also the superior. Most of us are
irregularly, erratically plucky; one man with horses, who funks the
sea; another man at sea who is afraid of horses. One man who fears live
fists may think nothing of watching by the dead. Another who stands up
pluckily in a fight, refuses to go near a corpse. One of the pluckiest
men I know 'don't like dogs.' Pluck runs in streaks, but courage, to
whatever degree a man possesses it, runs through him from top to
bottom.
All the churches in the world may talk about sin and virtue, and make
most admirable and subtle distinctions. We know very well in our hearts
that pluck and courage are the great twin virtues, and that cowardice
is the fundamental sin. The perfectly plucky and courageous man would
never sin meanly; he would have no need to do so. He, and not the beefy
brute or the intellectual paragon, would be Superman. The Christ, it
often seems to me, keeps his hold on the world, and will keep it, not
because he was God-man or man-God, not because he was born normally or
abnormally, not because he redeemed mankind or didn't, not because he
provided a refuge for souls on their beam-ends, but because, of all the
great historic and legendary figures, he is the one who convinces us
that he was never afraid. In him, as we picture him, courage and pluck
were the same thing, and perfect.
But the present point is, or points are: How many men whose pluck and
courage I have admired so much, have deceived me as I deceived Tony?
And what combination of pluck and courage is it which enables these
fishermen to follow their constantly dangerous occupation with equable
mind; which, indeed, enables so many working men to follow their
dangerous trades? For it is one thing to approach danger by way of
sport, and another to work for a livelihood _in_ danger.
One's analytics fail. It is, however, stupid merely to say, "Ah, they
are inured to it. Familiarity has bred contempt." Seafaring men realise
the dangers of the sea a good deal better than anyone else. Familiarity
with the sea does not breed contempt; the older the seaman the more
careful he is. I have met old seamen, heroes in their day, whom one
would almost call nervous on the water. And in any case, what a state
of mind it is--to be _inured_ to danger! to be on familiar terms with
the possibility of death! to be able to flout, to play with, to live
on, that which all men fear!
24
[Sidenote: _LUSCOMBE_]
I have been up the coast to have dinner and a chat with my old
coastguard friend, Ned Luscombe, the man who taught me knots and
splices during the night watches when I was a visitor here years ago.
To go to his house now is very pleasant. For a long time after their
first baby died on the day they entered a new house, before even the
beds were up, it seemed as if Mrs Luscombe, a gentle, delicate woman,
'with the deuce of a will of her own,' Luscombe says, was going to
decline and die too. The new baby, which was to have killed her, has
put new life into her instead. They are touchingly proud of it, and
very happy altogether. I do like to see married couples happy.
Luscombe himself is rather an extraordinary man; short, vivacious and
solid; full of generous impulses, yet very well able to look after his
own interests. It was he who dared the neighbourhood, and caused his
wife to invite often to their house a crippled girl that had been raped
by a scoundrel and then given the cold-shoulder by everyone else.
Something of a sea-lawyer, he is one of the sharpest-brained--I don't
say deepest-thinking--men I have ever come across. Hardly educated at
all as a boy, he races through books (he read my Cary's _Dante_ in a
week), extracts the main gist of them, and is always learning some new
thing, from shorthand to cooking, though he has no need to do much but
behave himself for a pension. Almost harshly honest, he yet brings out
with pride a large edition of Pope that he 'nicked' from the
second-hand bookstall of a heathen Chinee at Singapore. That little
episode will not make a very big blot, I imagine, on the Book of
Judgment. If I remember aright, the British Navy was then occupied in
protecting land or concessions that the nation itself had 'nicked' from
the heathen.
Luscombe's opinion on books, men and things, unless it has been
borrowed from a newspaper, is always well worth hearing. His light of
nature, by which he judges, is exceptionally powerful.
While we were smoking in his front room--furnished with a curious
mixture of cheap English things and beautiful Eastern curios--a steward
from one of the great liners came in. He began talking about the
behaviour in a gale of a rich snobbish Jew and the behaviour of Jews
generally on shipboard, and was inclined to take up the high, superior,
patriotic attitude that Jews, not being Englishmen, were necessarily a
nuisance in a storm. "Well," said Luscombe, "all I know is, when a man
tells me he's never been afraid of anything anywhere, I tells him to
his face, 'You'm a damn'd liar!' One day, in a pub at Plymouth, there
was a man--a bluejacket too--boasting he'd never known what fear was,
and I up and asked him, 'Eh, chum? Did you say _Never_?'
"'Never!' he says. 'Never in me life!'
"'You'm a liar then,' says I.
"'We'll see,' says he--goodish-sized chap.
"'You'm a bloody liar,' says I, 'and what's more, you ain't truthful.'
"So we squared up there and then, and the bung and his men hyked us out
into the street and we was having our scrap out when the police came
up. He ran! 'Eh, Mr Liar!' I yelled after him. 'Did you say you was
never afraid?'
"If I hadn't wasted time doing that, I shouldn't have got caught
either. Very nearly landed me in chokey, that did. We was shipmates
afterwards, me and that man, and very good friends. He's a warrant
officer now."
[Sidenote: _LOWER DECK TO QUARTER-DECK_]
Thence the conversation passed naturally to promotion from the ranks.
"I don't believe in it, not as a general rule," said Luscombe.
"Officers ought to be officers, and men ought to be men, and a ship's
always more comfortable when both keep their places. Rankers as
officers are apt to be bullies: that we all know jolly well. And
besides that, the likes of us can't keep our kecker up the same as
gen'lemen, and therefore I says we ain't fit for the quarter-deck, not
yet awhile. Tisn't that the lower deck ain't so brave as the
quarter-deck, because it is; only it can't keep it up so long; it gets
discouraged like, when 'tis a long job, specially when 'tis one of
those waiting-an-doing-nothing jobs. We ain't bred up to it, and our
fathers wasn't, and there's no good to be got out of trying to pretend
'tisn't so."
We argued on. Luscombe would not yield an inch of his position. I can't
say offhand how far history bears him out, but I fancy that he is right
to this extent: the lower deck has less flexibility of mind. It cannot
view a depressing situation from so many sides at once. It is not, for
instance, so quick to see the underlying humour of an emergency; not so
ready to appreciate the so-called irony of fate. It cannot so easily
turn round and laugh at itself and its predicament. So, though the
lower deck's courage may be fully as great as, or greater than, that
of the upper deck, it is applied more constantly, with less mental
diversion, and therefore it tires sooner. Hence, it _may_ not be
so effective.
The argument undoubtedly has a true bearing on that sort of promotion
which, in the prevailing educational cant, is called giving every poor
boy (by free education, scholarships and other lures) his chance of
climbing to the top of the ladder--as if success in life were one great
tall ladder instead of many ladders of varying builds and heights. In
attempting to justify modern educational policy, its victims are egged
on too fast into a field of commercial, intellectual, or emotional
stress for which they lack the fundamental grit, or rather for which
the fundamental grit they do possess is not adapted, nor can be adapted
in a generation. Their spirit, fine and valuable for the old purpose
perhaps, is not suited to the new. Therefore, of good workmen _in
posse_ we make bad clerks and shopmen _in esse_; of good clerks
detestable little bureaucrats or mean-minded commercial men, and so on.
Possible wives and mothers we turn into female creatures. And Merrie
England swarms with makeshift folk and breakdowns.
Happily nature, heredity, sometimes intervenes, and at adolescence the
sharp boy, the pride of the examination room, develops into quite a
nice commonplace young man, like the missionaries' nigger boy, and is
saved, if he be not already committed to an unsuitable career.
Otherwise, what mental deformity and slaughter! It was well said that
education--what is called education--was the cruellest thing ever
forced upon the poor. Mam Widger agrees. She knows her two boys are
above the average in brains, but she says: "I'd far rather for them to
fend for themselves an' make gude fishermen like their father or gude
sailors like their uncles, than for 'em to be forced on by somebody
else to what they ain't fitted for. 'Tis God helps them as helps
themselves, they du reckon, but I can't see as he helps them as is
pushed."
25
Uncle Jake allows us fine weather for the Regatta. "But when it du
break up, after this yer logie [dull, hazy, calm] spell, look out!" he
says. "Iss; look out!"
[Sidenote: _WINKLING_]
The day before yesterday, we were having a yarn together on the Front.
"Must go t'morrow an' pick Jemima Cayley some wrinkles [periwinkles],"
he said. "I got a lot o' work to do wi' my taties up to my plat
[allotment], but I promised Jemima her should hae 'em for Regatta, an'
her shall, if I lives to get 'em. Her says my wrinkles be twice so
heavy as anybody else's what her has--an' so they be, proper gert
gobbets! They t'other fellows don' know where to go for 'em, but I
du--master wrinkles, waiting there for Jake to pick 'em. On'y I ain't
goin' to tell they beer-barrels where 'em be. Not I!--Wude yu like to
come? Nobody goes where I goes."
"Where's that?"
"Ah! Down to Longo. Yu'll see, if yu comes."
"Haven't yu got a mate for it then?"
[Sidenote: _UNCLE JAKE_]
"_Mate!_ I'd rather go be myself than wi' some o' they bladder-headed
friends o' brewers. _They_ don' like wrinklin' wi' Jake; makes 'em blow
too much when they has to carry a bushel o' wrinkles, like I've a-done
often, over the rocks an' up the cliff, two or dree miles home. They
Double-X Barrels can't du that. Lord! can't expect 'em to.--_We'll_ go
in the _Moondaisy_ t'morrow, an' then if we can't sail home, we can
row, an' if it comes on a fresh wind, we'll haul her up to Refuge Cove
an' go'n look how my orchards be getting on."
It is good to hear Uncle Jake talk about the work that nobody else will
do. (The exposure alone would be too much for many of them.) His face
wrinkles up within its grey picture-frame beard, his keen yet wistful
eyes open wide, and he draws up that youthful body of his--clad in
faded blue jumper and torn trousers--on which the head of a venerable
old man seems so incongruously set. He is the owner of a big drifter
which hardly pays her expenses; he feels that taking out pleasure
parties is no work for a fisherman--'never wasn't used to be at the
beck an' call o' they sort o' people when I wer young';--and therefore
he picks up a living, laborious but very independent, between high and
low tide mark for many miles east and west of Seacombe. Nobody learns
exactly when or where he goes, nor what little valuables are in the old
sack that he carries. He seldom sleeps for more than two hours on end;
has breakfast at midnight, dinner in the early morning, and tea-supper
only if it happens to be handy; and he feeds mainly on bread, cheese,
sugar and much butter, with an occasional feast of half a dozen
mackerel at once, or a skate or a small conger. Singularly
straightforward in all his dealings, a little of the old West-country
wrecking spirit yet survives in him, and he enjoys nothing better than
smuggling jetsam past the coastguards. Social position saves no one
from hearing what Uncle Jake thinks. His tongue is loaded with scorn
and sarcasm, but his heart holds nothing but kindness. He will jeer and
taunt a man off the Front, and give him money round the corner or food
in house. His nicknames are terrible--they stick. Few would care to
turn and fight such an old man, and if they did he would almost
certainly knock them into the dust or throw them into the sea. He is
childless; and, since her illness several years ago, his wife, an
untidy woman with beautiful eyes, has been scatterbrained and more
trouble than use, a spender of his savings. He nursed her himself for
many months. He does most of the housework now. He may remark on his
wife, if he knows you very well, but about the childlessness he never
talks.
At eight in the morning we made sail with the wind just north of east.
The little _Moondaisy_ was full of sacks, old boots and gear. Past
Refuge Cove we sailed, past Dog Tooth Ledge, and across the out-ground
of Landlock Bay, which holds the last long stretch of pebble beach for
some miles down. Uncle Jake pointed to the western end of it. "If ever
yu'm catched down here by a sou'wester, yu can al'ays run ashore, just
there--calm as a mill-pond no matter how 'tis blowing. Yu can beach
there when yu can't beach to Seacombe for the roughness o' the sea.
Aye, I've a-done it! But yu can't get out o' Landlock Bay, though I
mind when you could climb up the cliff jest to the east'ard o' thic
roozing [landslip]. Howsbe-ever, 'tis a heavy gale from the south-east
on a long spring tide as'll drive 'ee out o' thic cave there where the
beach urns up. Now yu knows that: 'tisn't all o'em does."
Similar bits of lore or reminiscence did he give me about every few
yards of the coastline. Most merrily had the easterly wind and a
following sea brought us down. Now we drew near the rocks, where at
high tide the land drops sheer to the water. In the dry sunshine, such
a sparkle was on the waves, such a shimmer on the high red cliffs, that
it was hard to follow Uncle Jake when he said, as if he revered the
place, "_'Tis_ an ironbound show! _'Tis_ a shop! Poor devils, what gets
throwed up here! But I know where ther's some fine copper bolts waiting
for me. I'll hae 'em! I've had some on 'em, an' I'll hae the rest when
they rots out o' the timbers. Year '63 that wreck was--lovely vessel,
loaded wi' corn. I mind it well. _'Twas_ a night!"
[Sidenote: _AN IRONBOUND SHOW_]
We ran the _Moondaisy_ ashore at Brandey-Keg Cove--a little beach
running up into a deep gloomy cave where the smugglers used to store
their cargoes and haul them up over the cliff. "Us can walk down to
Lobster Ledge an' west from there to Tatie Rock. I knows where they
master gobbets be, if nobody an't had 'em--an' nobody an't. They don'
like this iron-bound shop. They leaves it to Jake. But they wuden't, if
they know'd what was here."
I ate some of my breakfast while Uncle Jake was changing his boots and
shifting his outer clothing. He would accept only one of my small
cheese sandwiches. "I got some bread and butter here," he said, but I
'took partic'lar notice,' as Tony puts it, that he ate none of the
bread and butter. And he refused to take a second sip of my tea because
his sensitive nose detected that there had been whiskey in the bottle.
As we walked along the rocks, he placed above high-tide mark what bits
of wreckage he could find, and kept a sharp look-out for any rabbits
which might have fallen over the cliff. The only two we found, however,
had been partially eaten by sea-gulls and rats. "Let 'em hae 'em an'
welcome," said Uncle Jake. "The winter's coming. I can't think how they
poor gulls lives when all the sea round about is a hustle o' froth. I
al'ays feeds 'em when I can. Don't yu think that _they_ gets hungry
tu?"
At Lobster Ledge--a jumble of peaked rocks with pools between--he left
his sack conspicuously on the top of a high stone, and hopped--seemed
to hop--down to a pool. "They'm here!" he cried. I heard them
clatter-clatter into his old cake tin, and then a tin-full rattle into
his sack. On those rocks, where few can step at all without great care,
he raced about, bent down double, and jumped and glided as actively as
an acrobat--a veritable rock-man. "Come here!" he called. "Jest yu turn
over thic stone. Ther's some there. My senses, what gobbets they be! If
they ther fuddle-heads what goes nosing about Broken Rocks, on'y
know'd...."
Underneath the stone, clinging to it and lying on the bed of the pool,
were so many large winkles that instead of picking them out, I found it
quicker to sweep up handfuls of loose stuff and then to pick out the
refuse from the winkles. When Uncle Jake came across an unusually good
pocket he would call me to it and hop on somewhere else. There was an
element of sport in catching the dull-looking gobbets so many together.
I soon got to know the likely stones--heavy ones that wanted coaxing
over,--and discovered also that the winkles hide themselves in a green,
rather gelatinous weed, fuzzy like kale tops, from which they can be
combed with the fingers. They love, too, a shadowed pool which is
tainted a little, but not too much, by decaying vegetable matter. Uncle
Jake likes the stones turned back and then replaced 'as you finds 'em.'
[Sidenote: _WHAT GOBBETS THEY BE!_]
I emptied my baler, holding perhaps a quart, into the ballast-bag. How
one's back ached! How old and rheumaticy had one's knees suddenly
become! Uncle Jake feels nothing of that, for all his sixty-five years.
He still skipped from pool to pool. He flung me a lobster. "There! put
that in your bag for tay. Tide's dead low. The wind's dying away: sun's
burnt it up. Shuden' wonder if it don't come in sou'west, an' if it du
we'll hae a fair wind home along.--Well, how du 'ee like it? Eh?"
"All right."
"Ah! yu ought to be down here in the winter, like I been, when you got
to put your hands wet into your pockets to get 'em warm enough to feel
the gobbets--aye, to hold 'em! Then carry 'em five mile home on your
back to make 'ee warm again."
So we went on: grab, grab, grab! clatter-clatter! rattle! We talked
less and worked harder, because we were tired. The tide crept up. The
wind veered to south-east and strengthened. "'Tis time to be off out of
thees yer," said Uncle Jake. "The lop'll rise when the flid tide makes.
Yu may know everything there is to know about fishing, but," he added
grimly, "if yu don' know when to be off, 'twill all o'it be no gude to
'ee some day. Blast thees wind! We'll hae to row home now, or ratch out
a couple o' miles to fetch in."
We shouldered our sacks for the half-mile walk to the _Moondaisy_.
Walk.... Scramble! Uncle Jake seemed to glide from rock to rock, but
with two or three stone weight awkwardly perched on my shoulder, the
wet running down my neck and an arm going numb, I slithered down the
weed-covered slopes in a very breakneck fashion. I rather felt for the
bladderheads who refuse to go wrinkling far from home.
[Sidenote: _CAUGHT BY THE TIDE_]
Afloat again, we used the winkles for ballast in place of shingle. The
lop _had_ made, and was against us. We rowed up Landlock Bay to the
western side of Dog Tooth Ledge. Uncle Jake made an exclamation and
stood up. "What's that? Whoever's that? There! down there to Lobster
Ledge! A gen'leman an' lady, looks so. How did us come to miss they?
Look! They'm sittin' down, the fules!--Hi, yu! Hi! Hi!--They'm catched.
When yu see the water washing over the Dog's Tooth, yu can't get round
the ledge wi'out swimming.--Hi, yu! Hi!--They'm in for a night o'it
sure, till the tide falls, if we don' take 'em round to Refuge Cove.
Ther's nowhere there where they be, to get upon land.--Hi! Hi!
Yu!--They'm mazed. An' her an't got no stockings on nuther.--Hi! hi!
Hurry up!--Can't bide here all day. The flid and the sea's making
fast."
They came on at a leisurely pace. The Dog's Tooth was continuously
awash. Spray broke on it. "D'yu know," said Uncle Jake when they were
near enough, "that yu'm catched by the tide? Yu'm in for a night o'it
on this yer beach, wi'out yu swims round the ledge or lets we row yu to
the lane in Refuge Cove. Yu can't get up on land herefrom."
"Oh...." said the man. "We'd better come on board your boat then."
It took Uncle Jake nearly half-an-hour to row the three-quarters of a
mile across the tide-rip on the ledge and into Refuge Cove. I carefully
refrained from doing anything to lead them to suppose that they were
aboard other than a fishing boat. It was Uncle Jake's expedition: his
the prospective reward. When I helped the man ashore, he put some
coppers into my hand. "There's threepence for the old man's tobacco,"
he said with an air of great benevolence. I was too surprised to speak:
I pushed off and then burst into a laugh.
"What did 'er give 'ee?"
"Threepence. _Threepence!_ For your tobacco!"
"Thank yu. I don't use tobacco. Yu'd better keep thic donation. They'd
ha' catched their death o' cold there all night, an' there ain't no
other boats down here along, nor won't be. That's what they reckons
their bloody lives be worth, an' that's what the lives of the likes o'
they _be_ worth, tu! Dreepence! My senses...."
We roared with laughter. It put heart into us for our stiff row home
against wind, wave and tide. When I went for'ard to place the cut-rope
ready, Uncle Jake had to call me aft again: spite of his strength the
boat was being beaten to leeward.
It was nearly four o'clock when we had hauled up and were carrying the
winkles on our backs down one of the untidy little roadways into Under
Town. No dinner or high-tea was waiting for Uncle Jake. The house was
unswept. How draggled the little bits of fern in the old china pots
looked! The fire was out; the hearth piled up with ashes; and on the
table stood a basin of potatoes in water, most of them unpeeled.
Uncle Jake came to a standstill, acutely alive in the midst of a
domestic deadness. He raised himself upright beneath his load of
winkles. "That's what I got to put up wi'," he said. "An't had a bite
since breakfast at four by the clock this morning, 'cept thic sandwich
o' yours. Tis a wonder how I du put up wi' it. I don' know for sure."
[Sidenote: _MEASURING UP_]
"Thees is what I got to put up wi'!" he repeated when Mrs Jake came in
from a neighbour's.
"I forgot," she said with a gay high-pitched little laugh which had in
it a tang of acquiescent despair--the echo of a mind that has ceased
fighting anything, even itself.
"Forgot! Yu forgets!" Then in a softer tone: "Gie us the quart cup."
He emptied my winkles out upon the stone floor, knelt down, and
measured them back into the ballast-bag: "one--two--three--four, that's
one--five--six--seven--eight, that's two pecks--nine--ten--half a peck
over; good for you, skipper!" He had four pecks himself, together with
several small lobsters which he threw out to me.
"But you'll eat those...."
"No, I shan't. Don't want 'em. Take 'em in home for yer tay."
Then he hunted out of an inside breast-pocket a screw of newspaper, and
from it took a half-crown piece:
"That's your share."
"But...."
"Go on! If you hadn' a-come I should ha' been the poorer by more'n
that, an' that's what one o' they beery bladderheads would ha' had if
they'd a-come--on'y I won't hae 'em 'long wi' me. Better yu to hae it
than one o' they, to gie to the brewer. I wishes 'ee to take it. Yu've
earned it, an' thank yu for your help. _I_ done all right out
o'it."
26
The Regatta has gone off well. The day was fine, the wind nor'west and
not too squally. There was a brave show of bunting; very many people
and several bands came down to the short Front; and there were races on
the water, in the water, and, in the evening, on land. The sea
sparkled. The place was all of a flutter. Uncle Jake, irritated by the
invasion of his beach, became most scornful over the abundance of high
starched collars, and the kid gloves of the shop-assistants. Some of
the young Seacombe braves collected round to tease him and, if
possible, to work him into one of his famous passions. But they dared
not so much as nudge him; he is too earnest, too vigorous. He lashed
them off with his tongue. And when a dinghy capsized through trying to
sail off the wind in a squall, it was the old man who was quickest at
the water's edge with a punt, and first on the spot, although a
four-oared boat raced out to the rescue.
[Sidenote: _REGATTA_]
Some of the Widgers won races, I believe. One takes no great note of
prizes: they are too small. The Regatta is not primarily an affair of
the fisherfolk; to take any great part in it would be to neglect their
own work; and when they do race, they have a neat method of defeating
the patronage of the townsfolk who provide prize-money in order that
they and the visitors may enjoy the spectacle of fishermen (in fisher
phrase) pulling their insides out for nort. The prize-money is pooled
and divided among all the competitors. In consequence, the races are
rowed and sailed with great dignity, and many of the visitors excite
themselves halfway to delirium over the extreme--the make-believe
closeness of the finishes. It is not very sporting perhaps, but
indulgence in the sporting spirit is for those who can afford it. The
Seacombe fisherfolk can't.
A confounding number of the Widger family and its connexions arrived by
boat, road and rail. Two or three grand teas were provided one after
the other. Mrs Widger--looking really very young, alert, and
pretty--packed the children off to the beach with gentry-cakes in their
hands. Well she did so, for every chair in the kitchen was occupied by
some relative, and the display of best clothes was most alarming. Worst
of all, one party had brought the family idiot--a simpering, lollopy
creature, stiff in the wrong places, who could not feed himself
properly. With a vigorous tapping of the forehead, he was pointed out
to me. "He's a little deeficient, you know, sir--something lacking."
The idiot, finding himself the centre of attraction, fairly crowed with
delight. "Ou-ah!" he went. "Ou-ah! ou-ah!"
On the pretext that a boat wanted hauling up, I escaped, with a piece
of bread and jam in my hand, like the children.
A man of slightly unsober dignity accosted me in the Gut, and asked if
Jim somebody-or-other was within. "Him and me don't speak, nor eet
meet," he explained. "I won't hae nort to do wi' he, nor enter the
house where he is, for all we be related.--Come an' have a drink 'long
wi' me, sir; now du; I asks 'ee.--'Tis safer, yu know, for us not to
meet."
For the second time I lied, and escaped.
[Sidenote: _THE VETERANS' RACE_]
Uncle Jake ran up from the beach. "Yer!" he said, "there's a race to
Saltmeadow, a veteran's race, for men over fifty. Yu come wi' me, an'
I'll go in for it--an' beat the lot, I will. I knows I can." Off we
went, Uncle Jake in a high excitement. At the centre of the big oblong
ring, two clean-built jumpers, men in the heyday of their strength,
were making a local record for the high jump. Uncle Jake shouted out
praise and sympathy to them. We found our way to where the veterans
were grouped together, encouraging each other to enter with much foul
language--which made them feel young again, no doubt. What a lot they
were! some aged to thinness, others become fat and piggish. Only Uncle
Jake appeared quite sound in wind and limb. He took off his boots and
stockings, walked into the ring with a fine imitation of the athlete's
swagger combined with a curious touch of shyness. "Go it Uncle Jake!"
they shouted. At the end of the first lap, he found himself so far
ahead that he threw his old round sailor's cap high into the air and
caught it, and he skipped along to the winning-post like a young lamb.
A great cheer was echoed from cliff to cliff. Uncle Jake has not spoken
his mind all his life for nothing. Seacombe does not unanimously like
him, but it has the sense to be rather proud of him. A veterans' race
is usually a sad spectacle, a grotesque _memento mori_: for Uncle
Jake 'twas a triumph.
The next great sight of the evening was to watch the fishermen from
other villages put off to their boats. Most of them were 'half seas
over,' some nearly helpless. They were thrown aboard from the punts and
had their sails hoisted for them; or, if they did it themselves, it was
with most comic jerks. The gods, who undoubtedly have a tenderness for
drunkards--why not?--must have looked after them, for no news has come
of any accident.
On returning in house, I met Tony with several of his men relatives. He
drew me aside. "Maybe I'll come home drunk to-night, but I promise 'ee
I won't disturb 'ee, an' if yu hears ort--well, yu'll know, won' 'ee?"
For some reason not easily to be fathomed his kindly warning made me
feel ashamed of my own sobriety, ashamed that I dared not 'go on the
bust' with him. I firmly believe that it does a man good to 'go on the
bust' occasionally. It develops fellow-feeling. And besides, who has
the right to cast a stone at a man for snatching a little jollity when
he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no
craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of
the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly,
self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not.
However, he came home quite sober.
27
[Sidenote: _THE SQUARE'S AWAKENING_]
Up-country, next week, I shall greatly miss my window overlooking
Alexandra Square. I have lived (rebelliously) in suburban streets where
only clattering feet, tradesmen's carts and pitiful street singers
broke the monotony; in a Paris _chambre a garcon, au sixieme_, where
the view was roofs and the noise of the city was attenuated to a
murmur; in country houses which looked out on sweeps of hill, down,
vale and sea, so changeable and lovely that they were dreamlike and as
a dream abide in the memory.... Here I have quick human life just below
my window, and--up the Gut--a view of the sea unbroken hence to the
horizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls and
on the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which the
drifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet to and
fro, and
The stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill.
There is always, here, a sound of the sea. When, at night, the Square
is still, it seems to advance, to come nearer, to be claiming one for
its own.
But the Square, though still at night compared with daytime, is never
dead, never absolutely asleep. Fishermen returning from sea crunch on
the gravel. Lights in the windows (most of the people seem to burn
night lamps) give it a cosy appearance; the cats make one think that
fiends are pouring out of hell, through a hole in the roadway. Peep o'
day is the stillest time of all. The cats seat themselves on walls.
Sparrows chirp sleepily. Some rooks and a hoary-headed jackdaw come
down from the trees nearby, quarter the roadway for garbage, and fly
away croaking. Busy starlings follow. If the weather is hard and fish
offal scarce on the beach, the gulls will pay us a supercilious visit.
About six o'clock the children begin singing in bed, and soon
afterwards one hears the familiar conversation of families getting up.
"Edie! what for the Lord's sake be yu doing? Yu'll catch your death o'
cold. Johnnie, if yu don't make haste, I'll knock your head off, I
will!" A child or two may cry, but on the whole their merriment does
not seem greatly damped by their mothers' blood-curdling threats. I
hear also, but not very often, the shrill wailing monotone, the weep
dissolved in a shout, of a woman upbraiding her man for the previous
night.
The children being dressed, but not washed (it is useless to wash the
average child very long before sending it off to school), they run out
to the beach to see what there is to be seen and to inspect the
ash-buckets for treasure. An ash-bucket is Eldorado to them. If nothing
is happening, are they at a loss for something to do? By no means. They
come in house, fetch out tin cans, and beat them in a procession round
the Square.
The milkmen arrive, then several greengrocers. One would think that
Under Town lived on vegetables. The explanation is that the
greengrocers can come here, and, in tidying up their carts, can throw
their refuse upon the roadway, as they would not be allowed to do in
'higher class' streets. They swear genially at the housewives, and are
forgiven.
So the work and gossip of the day goes on, with a slight quieting down
in the afternoon and an incredible amount of conversation after work,
in the evening.
[Sidenote: _THE ALEXANDRA BACK-DOOR_]
On Sundays, the great fact of best clothes lends a different and, to my
mind, a less pleasant--a harder--tone to the children's voices. But
their merriment cannot wholly be suppressed. Did those who dislike the
Salvation Army wish to illustrate its shortcomings, they could find a
biting satire ready-made by the children of Under Town. A fat small boy
comes round here, who has attentively studied the meetings; who can
copy the canting, up-and-down, gentle-explosive, the _Behold I am
saved, ye sinners_! tone to a nicety. He marches at the head of a
band of serious infants who bear rags, tied to sticks and parasols, as
banners. Every now and then he circles them to a standstill for an
harangue about blood, fire and Jesus. (It is the gory part which
delights him.) Then the procession re-forms, imitating brass
instruments as unbroken voices can, and singing a Salvation hymn. They
are earnest, the children; except Tommy Widger, whose irrepressible
spirit causes him to march in the rear with a mocking dance and an
infinitely grotesque squint. He is a pagan. He can turn the children's
serious imitation into roaring Aristophanic farce. He represents the
healthful laughing element of an age wherein rest from sorrow is too
much sought in fever. He infects us all with jollity.
* * * * *
The back-door of the Alexandra, which opens on the Gut, is my home
comedy. It is strangely fascinating; sad in a way, but very human; for
nothing on earth, except one or two of the very great things of life,
is so democratic as the back-door of a public house. Soon after
breakfast, or even before, the tradesmen sneak round for their
pick-me-ups. Then the housewives go for their jugs of ale and stout.
Some people never enter the Alexandra except by the back way. They
march down the Gut as if on important business; then, in the twinkling
of an eye, they are gone within. One worn little woman, who wears a
loose cape and a squalid sailor hat, walks up and down the Gut till it
is completely clear, then jumps into the door, and closes it very
quietly. When she comes out again it is as a rabbit comes from a
bolt-hole when a ferret is just behind. She runs five yards, stands
still, looks up and down, and tries very hard to walk home
unconcernedly. Sunday evenings, she hangs about outside until the bar
is opened. With the turn of the key, in she goes. Once a servant,
gossiping with her sailorman, kept the little woman outside for fully
ten minutes after the lock was shot back. Poor little woman, how great
her craving must be!
Last week, I saw a policeman standing at the top of the Gut. Up he
looked; down he looked; Seacombe was orderly. Stepping as if to arrest
a malefactor, he marched down the Gut.... Where was the policeman? A
battered billycock and a rakish pipe looked round the corner, then
withdrew. The battered billycock knew where the policeman was. The
price of a glass, and billycock would have been there too.
I was glad; for a few days before that the same policeman had arrested
a man by flinging him halfway across the street into the mud. It was
only a tramp. His witnesses, being poor people, dared not volunteer to
give evidence on his behalf, and would not have been believed had they
done so. He was sentenced to fourteen days: drunk and incapable,
abusive moreover. A drunkard cannot legally be arrested unless he is
also incapable or disorderly. It used to be a trick of the police to
shadow a harmless _Weary Willie_ until he happened to stumble, or even
to butt him down themselves. He then becomes drunk and incapable within
the meaning of the act, for, if the magistrate should doubt, is there
not dirt on his clothes? Obviously, circumstantially, he was incapable.
_He_, of course, must be a poor man. The trick is not safe with
tradesmen. These things are commonplaces amongst the poor.
But billycock hat will not forget!
28
[Sidenote: _MACKEREL DRIFTING_]
Yesterday morning early there was a great excitement along the beach.
Drift-boats could be seen in the offing. "I tell thee what 'tis," they
said, "the whiting be in an' us chaps an't been out to look for 'em. Us
don't du nort nowadays like us used tu." Later on, however, we heard
that the Plymouth drifters had been out after an autumn shoal of
mackerel, had caught some thousands and had made good prices. The
season for mackerel drifting here usually ends with July or August, but
good October mackerel, mixed with herring, have occasionally been
caught. Tony, John and myself decided to put to sea. When the other
boats saw our fleet of nets being hauled aboard (in a furious hurry),
they fitted out too.
We shoved off just before dark. The wind was strongish WSW.--off land,
that is--so that inshore the sea was almost calm, except for the swell
running in from outside. What it was like outside the white horses and
the wind-streaks showed. Hardly had we gone half a mile before we heard
the queer clutching noise which meant that a strong puff of wind had
compelled Tony to let the sheet fly. The squall past, he hauled it in
again, put his legs across the stern and hung on. We sailed eight miles
from land in ten minutes under the hour--speed, that, for a
twenty-two-foot open boat with its mainsail reefed! Where we downhauled
to shoot the nets, the sea, unsheltered by cliffs and headlands,
was--as Tony beautifully put it--'rising all up in heaps.' Whilst I was
trying to keep the boat before the wind, for net-shooting, a great
comber plopped over the stern right upon my back. The sky was weird.
Great wind-drifts of rain-cloud constantly spread out from the west,
and wolves, higher up in the sky, were driving across the moon. We
heated tea, but did not try to sleep. Tony and John kept up a curious
dialogue. "What do 'ee think o' it, then?"
"'Tisn't vitty. I said so all along."
[Sidenote: _HAULING INBOARD_]
"If a skat o' rain comes--and 'tis raining on land, seems so--the
wind'll back out to sou'west, an' us'll hae to rin for it. A perty
lop'll get up tu, an' we'm more'n a mile from land."
"Us'll haul in be 'leven. No gude hanging on out here. If the wind
_du_ back...."
I have never heard them talk so much about the weather. And all the
while, the sky drove into splendid cloud-forms, all windy, nearly all
rainy. We lost the Eddystone light, then lost the Seacombe light and
recovered the former, as a storm drifted along shore. From time to time
we thought the wind was backing a bit.
Supper, for me, had to be crammed down on a rather queasy stomach.
"We'm all ways to once!" Tony remarked. The wind did definitely back a
point or two. "Only let it once die away," said Tony in the tone of _I
told you so_; "then yu'll see how it can spring from the sou'west when
'tis a-minded."
One minute I wished myself home, safe in bed, and thought with
grotesque grief of some unfinished work. Next minute, I knew that I
would not have missed the night out there for any consideration. The
grey, slightly sheeny boil of the sea around us; the sweeping savagery
of the sky; the intimacy of the waters....
But we were all relieved when eleven o'clock came. The watchfulness was
a strain.
When one is steering instead of hauling, the getting-in of nine
forty-fathom nets seems interminable. One net, two nets, three nets--a
third of nine,--four, five--more than half the fleet,--six--two-thirds
of nine,--seven, eight--nine all but one;--and so on, with an
occasional wave coming inboard, until the very last square buoy comes
bobbing towards the boat; hand over hand, buoy by buoy, net by net,
holding fast when the pull of the tide is too strong, and pausing
irritably to pick out the fish. We stepped the great mast, shifted all
the ballast to wind'ard. John came aft to steer, and seated himself on
the counter, a strangely powerful, statuesque figure in his wet
oilskins. "Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand?" Tony called out from
the bows.
John did not trouble to reply.
"Have 'ee got the sheet in yer hand, John?"
"No, I an't! What the hell do 'ee want the sheet for? Wind's abeam."
"Might want it bad," said Tony.
[Sidenote: _A REMBRANDTESQUE PICTURE_]
We left it fast however; and with the same, an elemental passion took
possession of my mind; ousted all else. I had been anxious about the
sheet, had thought John foolhardy. Now I didn't care. I could have
cried out aloud for joy as the brave old craft rose to the seas with a
marvellous easy motion and the waves came skatting in over the bows.
Before long, I was on my knees with the baler; John was getting every
inch out of the wind, and Tony was standing abaft the nets with the
sheet dangling through his hand. By the light of the riding-lamp on the
mizzen mast (its glass patched with an old jam cover), they in their
angular wet oil-skins--the rain was pelting--and the rich wet brown of
the boat's varnish, made a wonderful Rembrandtesque picture. I hardly
know how long we were sailing home; it slipped my mind to take the
time. About two o'clock I was halfway down the beach with Tony cursing
above me and John doing the same below. Someone had 'messed up' our
capstan wire. While Tony was putting that right in the dark--and
pinching his fingers severely--the boat washed broadside on and began
to fill. We had only five dozen fish. They sold badly.
In time, and with practice, I could, I believe, do most that these
fishermen do except one thing: I doubt I could stand the racket of my
own thoughts. Tony and John would go out to-night, to-morrow, every
night. But I have slept so dead (not from bodily tiredness) that, the
door being bolted against the children, they were unable to waken me
for dinner, and in the end Tony told them to 'let the poor beast bide.'
Of what nature was that passion, so exultant and so tiring? Are these
fishermen so used to it that they 'don't take much note o'it'? For they
feel it. I have seen it in their faces. One can always tell. The eyes
widen and brighten; hasty movements become so desperately cool. If what
was an episode in my life, is part and parcel of theirs, how much the
better for _them_!
29
To-day the sea passion, or whatever it is, came again.
While I was asleep, the wind backed and freshened. Balks of wood from a
naval target kept washing in. Balks make winter firing when coal is
dear and money scarce. Boats had been bringing them in all the morning,
till the sea became too rough. Tony had none however. In the afternoon
he complained bitterly:
"They all got some wude but me, an' us an't got enough in house for the
winter nuther." Just then we saw a large piece washing along on the
flood tide over the outside of Broken Rocks. "Get a rope--grass rope,
mind. Down with her. The _Cock Robin_! Quick. Jump aboard. Take oars.
Hurry up casn'? Get hold thic oar. Look out!"
[Sidenote: _OUT AFTER FLOTSAM_]
No time to wait for a smooth. Tony shoved the _Cock Robin_ into a surf
we should not otherwise have thought of facing. As it turned out, we
got off better than we usually do in only a moderate sea, though we
should have capsized to a certainty had the boat sheered. 'Twas, "Look
out! Damme, look out! Here's a swell coming! Get her head to it or we'm
over. Gude for us!" Some of the waves, rising and topping in the
shallow water over the rocks, seemed to make the _Cock Robin_ sit
upright on her stern, like a dog begging, and the higher the seas rose
the more we gloried in them. Sufficient for the moment was the wave
thereof. We swore at each other in a sort of chant. I had to repress an
impulse to jump overboard and swim to the balk, instead of trying to
work up to it with a boat that had, every other moment, to be turned
bows on to the sea. The slightest error of judgment on Tony's part, and
we should indeed have swum for it. I had such a curious feeling of
being _in_ the sea--as much a part of it as the waves themselves--that
the affair ceased to be a struggle. It became a glorious great big
game. Yet for work we were so cool that, though we towed our balk
ashore and shoved off after another, we hardly got wet above the knees.
We were beside ourselves, and all ourselves. Where does that exultant
feeling, that devil-beyond-oneself, come from? From what depth of human
personality does it uprise, whirling, like those primitive
passions--sex, hunger, rage, fear--which may be boxed up awhile by the
will, but which, once unloosed, sweep the will aside and carry one off
like froth in a gale, until physical exhaustion sets in and allows the
will to re-assert itself? One understands the evolution of the
primitive self-preservative and race-preservative passions. How has
this latent daredevilry become so implanted in us that it rises from
the bottom depths of one's nature; and how has it become ordinarily so
hidden?
Above all what is the effect of this passion on seafaring men? To say
that familiarity breeds contempt is--even if it be correct--to beg the
question. What is the effect of that familiarity? It might be said that
they are the subjects of a sub-acute, persistent form of the
daredevilry which uprose in me unexpectedly and acutely. But again, the
sub-acute lifelong form of it is likely to have the greater influence
on a man's self, on his morale and his character. Hence, I believe, the
width of these men, their largeness. It was good to hear Tony talk in
the most matter-of-fact manner (yet with a touch of reverence, as
towards an ever-possible contingency) of a Salcombe fisherman who was
drowned. "Her was drownded all through his own carelessness, and didn't
rise in the water for a month. ('Tis nine days down and nine days up,
wi' the crab bites out of 'ee, as a rule.) An' he wer carried up by the
tide an' collected, like, out o' the water just at the back o' his own
house. Nice quiet chap he was." That coolness of speech one saw
plainly, is the outcome not of contempt, still less of non-feeling, but
of familiarity, of a breadth of mind in looking at the catastrophe. I
have not noticed such breadth of mind elsewhere except among those who
live precariously and the few of very great religious faith.
An hour after bringing in the balks, we were hauling the boats over the
wall, and at high tide the seas swept across the road.
30
[Sidenote: _A SING-SONG_]
Many an evening we have had small sing-songs in the kitchen. To-night,
on account of my going and the need to give me a cheery send-off, we
had quite a concert. Tony was star.
Supper being pushed back on the table and a piece of wreckage flung on
the fire, he made himself ready by taking off his soaked boots and
stockings, and plumping his feet on Mam Widger's lap; then brought
himself into the vocal mood with a long rigmarole that he used to
recite with the Mummers at Christmas time. Soon we were humming,
whistling and singing "Sweet Evelina," whose sole musical merit is that
her chorus goes with a swing. The fire crackled and burnt blue. The
fragrant steam of the grog rose to the ceiling and settled on the
window. We leaned right back in our chairs.
"Missis," said Tony, "I feels like zingin' to-night."
"Wait a minute while I shuts the door, else they kids'll be down for
more supper."
"Us got it, an't us?"
"Yes, but _they_'ve had enough."
When Tony sings, he throws his head back and closes his eyes, so that,
but for the motions of his mouth, he looks asleep, even deathlike, and
is, in fact, withdrawn into himself.
I think he sees his songs, as well as sings them. I often wonder what
pictures are flitting through his mind beneath (as I imagine) the place
where the thick grizzled hair thins to the red forehead. His voice is a
high tenor. I make accompaniment an octave below, whilst Mrs Widger--a
little nasal in tone and not infrequently adrift in tune--supports him
from above.