The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands
“That’s a beauty,” cried the mate, referring to the rocket; “fetch another, Jack; sponge her well out, Dick Moy, we’ll give ’em another shot in a few minutes.”
Loud and clear were both the signals, but four and a half miles of distance and a fresh gale neutralised their influence. The look-out on the pier did not observe them. In less than five minutes the gun and rocket were fired again. Still no answering signal came from Ramsgate.
“Load the weather gun this time,” cried the mate, “they’ll have a better chance of seeing the flash of that.”
Jack obeyed, and Jim Welton, having nothing to do but look on, sought shelter under the lee of the weather bulwarks, for the wind, according to Dick Moy, “was blowin’ needles and penknives.”
The third gun thundered forth and shook the floating light from stem to stern, but the rocket struck the rigging and made a low wavering flight. Another was therefore sent up, but it had scarcely cut its bright line across the sky when the answering signal was observed—a rocket from Ramsgate pier!
“That’s all right now; our duty’s done,” said the mate, as he went below, and, divesting himself of his outer garments, quietly turned in, while the watch, having sponged out and re-covered the guns, resumed their active perambulation of the deck.
James Welton, however, could not calm down his feelings so easily. This was the first night he had ever spent in a light-ship; the scene was therefore quite new to him, and he could not help feeling somewhat disappointed at the sudden termination of the noise and excitement. He was told that the Ramsgate lifeboat could not be out in less than an hour, and it seemed to his excited spirit a terrible thing that human lives should be kept so long in jeopardy. Of course he began to think, “Is it not possible to prevent this delay?” but his better sense whispered to him that excited spirits are not the best judges in such matters, although it cannot be denied that they have an irresistible tendency to judge. There was nothing for it, however, but to exercise philosophic patience, so he went below and turned in, as sailors have it, “all standing,” to be ready when the lifeboat should make its appearance.
The young sailor’s sleep was prompt and profound. It seemed to him but a few minutes after he had laid his head on the pillow when Jack Shale’s voice again resounded in the cabin—
“Lifeboat close alongside, sir. Didn’t see her till this moment. She carries no lights.”
The Weltons, father and son, sprang out of their bunks a second time, and, minus coat, hat, and shoes, scrambled on deck just in time to see the Broadstairs lifeboat rush past before the gale. She was close under the stern, and rendered spectrally visible by the light of the lantern.
“What are you firing for?” shouted the coxswain of the boat.
“Ship on the sands, bearing south,” roared Jack Shales at the full pitch of his stentorian voice.
There was no time for more, for the boat did not pause in her meteor-like flight. The question was asked and answered as she passed with a magnificent rush into darkness. The reply had been heard, and the lifeboat shot, straight as an arrow, to the rescue.
Reader, we often hear and read of such scenes, but we can tell you from experience that vision is necessary to enable one to realise the full import of all that goes on. There was a strange thrill at the heart of young Welton when he saw the familiar blue-and-white boat leaping over the foaming billows. Often had he seen it in model and in quiescence in its boat-house, ponderous and almost ungainly; but now he saw it for the first time in action, as if endued with life. So, we fancy, warriors might speak of our heavy cavalry as we see them in barracks and as they saw them at Alma.
Again all was silent and unexciting on board the Gull; but, not many minutes later, the watch once more shouted down the skylight—
“Tug’s in sight, sir.”
It was afterwards ascertained that a mistake had been made in reference to the vessel that had signalled. Some one on shore had reported that the guns and rockets had been seen flashing from the North sandhead vessel, whereas the report should have been, “from the vessel at the South sandhead.” The single word was all-important. It had the effect of sending the steam-tug Aid (which always attends upon the Ramsgate lifeboat) in the wrong direction, involving much loss of time. But we mention this merely as a fact, not as a reproof. Accidents will happen, even in the best regulated families. The Ramsgate lifeboat service is most admirably regulated; and for once that an error of this kind can be pointed out, we can point to dozens—ay, hundreds—of cases in which the steamer and lifeboat have gone, straight as the crow flies, to the rescue, and have done good service on occasions when all other lifeboats would certainly have failed; so great is the value of steam in such matters.
On this occasion, however, the tug appeared somewhat late on the scene, and hailed the Gull. When the true state of the case was ascertained, her course was directed aright, and full steam let on. The Ramsgate boat was in tow far astern. As she passed, the brief questions and answers were repeated for the benefit of the coxswain, and Jim Welton observed that every man in the boat appeared to be crouching down on the thwarts except the coxswain, who stood at the steering tackles. No wonder. It is not an easy matter to sit up in a gale of wind, with freezing spray, and sometimes green seas, sweeping over one! The men were doubtless wideawake and listening, but, as far as vision went, that boat was manned by ten oilskin coats and sou’westers!
A few seconds carried them out of sight, and so great was the power of steam that, despite the loss of time, they reached the neighbourhood of the wreck as soon as the Broadstairs boat, and found that the crew of the stranded vessel had already been saved, and taken ashore by the Deal lifeboat.
It may be as well to observe here, that although in this case much energy was expended unnecessarily, it does not follow that it is frequently so expended. Often, far too often, all the force of lifeboat service on that coast is insufficient to meet the demands on it. The crews of the various boats in the vicinity of the Goodwin Sands are frequently called out more than once in a night, and they are sometimes out all night, visiting various wrecks in succession. In all this work the value of the steam-tug is very conspicuous, for it can tow its boat again and again to windward of a wreck, and renew the effort to save life in cases where, devoid of such aid, lifeboats would be compelled to give in after the failure of their first attempt, in consequence of their being driven helplessly to leeward.
But we have forestalled our narrative. The drama, as far as the Gull-Light was concerned, ended that night with the disappearance of the tug and lifeboat. It was not until several days afterwards that her crew learned the particulars of the wreck in connection with which they had acted so brief but so important a part.
Meanwhile, Dick Moy, who always walked the deck with a rolling swagger, with his huge hands thrust deep into his breeches’ pockets when there was nothing for them to do, said to Jim Welton, “he’d advise ’im to go below an’ clap the dead-lights on ’is peepers.”
Jim, approving the advice, was about to descend to the cabin, when he was arrested by a sharp cry that appeared to rise out of the waves.
“Wot iver is that?” exclaimed Dick, as they all rushed to the port bow of the vessel and looked over the side.
“Something in the water,” cried Jack Shales, hastily catching up a coil of rope and throwing it overboard with that promptitude which is peculiar to seamen.
“Why, he can’t kitch hold on it; it’s only a dog,” observed Dick Moy.
All uncertainty on this point was cleared away, by a loud wail to which the poor animal gave vent, as it scraped along the ship’s hull, vainly endeavouring to prevent itself from being carried past by the tide.
By this time they were joined by the mate and the rest of the crew, who had heard the unwonted sounds and hurried on deck. Each man was eagerly suggesting a method of rescue, or attempting to carry one into effect, by means of a noose or otherwise, when Mr Welton, senior, observed that Mr Welton, junior, was hastily tying a rope round his waist.
“Hallo! Jim,” he cried, “surely you don’t mean to risk your life for a dog?”
“There’s no risk about it, father. Why should I leave a poor dog to drown when it will only cost a ducking at the worst? You know I can swim like a cork, and I ain’t easily cooled down.”
“You shan’t do it if I can prevent,” cried the mate, rushing at his reckless son.
But Jim was too nimble for him. He ran to the stern of the vessel, leaped on the bulwarks, flung the end of the coil of rope among the men, and shouting, “Hold on taut, boys!” sprang into the sea.
The men did “hold on” most powerfully; they did more, they hauled upon the rope, hand over hand, to a “Yo-heave-ho!” from Jerry MacGowl, which put to shame the roaring gale, and finally hauled Jim Welton on board with a magnificent Newfoundland dog in his arms, an event which was greeted with three enthusiastic cheers!
Chapter Four.
A New Character Introduced
The gale was a short-lived one. On the following morning the wind had decreased to a moderate breeze, and before night the sea had gone down sufficiently to allow the boat of Mr Jones’s sloop to come alongside of the floating light.
Before Jim Welton bade his friends good-bye, he managed to have an earnest and private talk with each of them. Although he had never been connected with the Gull, he had frequently met with the men of that vessel, and, being one of those large-hearted sympathetic men who somehow worm themselves into the affection and confidence of most of their friends and comrades, he had something particular to say to each, either in reference to wives and families on shore, or to other members of that distracting section of the human family which, according to Mr Welton senior, lay at the foundation of all mischief.
But young Welton did not confine himself to temporal matters. It has already been hinted that he had for some time been in the habit of attending prayer-meetings, but the truth was that he had recently been led by a sailor’s missionary to read the Bible, and the precious Word of God had been so blessed to his soul, that he had seen his own lost condition by nature, and had also seen, and joyfully accepted, Jesus Christ as his all-sufficient Saviour. He had come to “know the truth,” and “the truth had set him free;” free, not only from spiritual death and the power of sin, but free from that unmanly shame which, alas! too often prevents Christians from taking a bold stand on the Lord’s side.
The young sailor had, no doubt, had severe inward conflicts, which were known only to God and himself, but he had been delivered and strengthened, for he was not ashamed of Christ in the presence of his old comrades, and he sought by all the means in his power to draw them to the same blessed Saviour.
“Well, good-bye, Jim,” said Mr Welton, senior, as his son moved towards the gangway, when the boat came alongside, “all I’ve got to say to ’ee, lad, is, that you’re on dangerous ground, and you have no right to shove yourself in the way of temptation.”
“But I don’t shove myself, father; I think I am led in that way. I may be wrong, perhaps, but such is my belief.”
“You’ll not forget that message to my mother,” whispered a sickly-looking seaman, whose strong-boned frame appeared to be somewhat attenuated by disease.
“I’ll not forget, Rainer. It’s likely that we shall be in Yarmouth in a couple of days, and you may depend upon my looking up the old woman as soon after I get ashore as possible.”
“Hallo! hi!” shouted a voice from below, “wot’s all the hurry?” cried Dick Moy, stumbling hastily up on deck while in the act of closing a letter which bore evidence of having been completed under difficulties, for its form was irregular, and its back was blotted. “Here you are, putt that in the post at Yarmouth, will ’ee, like a good fellow?”
“Why, you’ve forgotten the address,” exclaimed Jim Welton in affected surprise.
“No, I ’aven’t. There it is hall right on the back.”
“What, that blot?”
“Ay, that’s wot stands for Mrs Moy,” said Dick, with a good-natured smile.
“Sure now,” observed Jerry MacGowl, looking earnestly at the letter, “it do seem to me, for all the world, as if a cat had drawed his tail across it after stumblin’ over a ink-bottle.”
“Don’t Mrs Moy live in Ramsgate?” inquired Jim Welton.
“Of course she do,” replied Dick.
“But I’m not going there; I’m goin’ to Yarmouth,” said Jim.
“Wot then?” retorted Dick, “d’ee suppose the clerk o’ the post-office at Yarmouth ain’t as well able to read as the one at Ramsgate, even though the writin’ do be done with a cat’s tail? Go along with ’ee.”
Thus dismissed, Jim descended the side and was quickly on board the sloop Nora to which he belonged.
On the deck of the little craft he was received gruffly by a man of powerful frame and stern aspect, but whose massive head, covered with shaggy grey curling hair, seemed to indicate superior powers of intellect. This was Morley Jones, the master and owner of the sloop.
“A pretty mess you’ve made of it; I might have been in Yarmouth by this time,” he said, testily.
“More likely at the bottom of the sea,” answered Jim, quietly, as he went aft and looked at the compass—more from habit than from any desire to receive information from that instrument.
“Well, if I had been at the bottom o’ the sea, what then? Who’s to say that I mayn’t risk my life if I see fit? It’s not worth much,” he said, gloomily.
“You seem to forget that in risking your own life you risk the lives of those who sail along with you,” replied Jim, with a bold yet good-humoured look at the skipper.
“And what if I do risk their lives?—they ain’t worth much, either, I’m sure?”
“Not to you, Morley, but worth a good deal to themselves, not to mention their wives and families and friends. You know well enough that if I had wished ever so much to return aboard last night your boat could not have got alongside the Gull for the sea. Moreover, you also know that if you had attempted to put to sea in such weather, this leaky tub, with rotten sails and running gear, would have been a wreck on the Goodwin sands before now, and you and I, with the two men and the boy, would have been food for the gulls and fishes.”
“Not at all,” retorted Jones, “there’s not much fear of our lives here. The lifeboat crews are too active for that; and as to the sloop, why, she’s insured you know for her full value—for more than her value, indeed.”
Jones said this with a chuckle and a sly expression in his face, as he glanced meaningly at his companion.
“I know nothing about your insurance or your cargo, and, what’s more, I don’t want to know,” said Jim, almost angrily. “You’ve been at Square-Tom again,” he added, suddenly laying his hand upon the shoulder of his companion and looking earnestly into his eyes.
It was now Jones’s turn to be angry, yet it was evident that he made an effort to restrain his feelings, as he replied, “Well, what if I have? It’s one thing for you to advise me to become a teetotaller, and it’s quite another thing for me to agree to do it. I tell you again, as I’ve often told you before, Jim Welton, that I don’t mean to do it, and I’m not going to submit to be warned and reasoned with by you, as if you was my grandfather. I know that drink is the curse of my life, and I know that it will kill me, and that I am a fool for giving way to it, but it is the only thing that makes me able to endure this life; and as for the next, I don’t care for it, and I don’t believe in it.”
“But your not believing in it does not make it less certain,” replied Jim, quietly, but without any approach to solemnity in his tone or look, for he knew that his companion was not in a mood just then to stand such treatment. “You remember the story of the ostrich that was run down? Finding that it could not escape, it stuck its head in the sand and thought that nobody saw it. You may shut your eyes, Morley, but facts remain facts for all that.”
“Shutting my eyes is just what I am not doing,” returned Jones, flinging round and striding to the other side of the deck; then, turning quickly, he strode back, and added, with an oath, “have I not told you that I see myself, my position, and my prospects, as clearly as you do, and that I intend to face them all, and take the consequences?”
Jim Welton flushed slightly, and his eyes dilated, as he replied—
“Have you not the sense to see, Morley Jones, that my remonstrances with you are at least disinterested? What would you think if I were to say to you, ‘Go, drink your fill till death finds you at last wallowing on the ground like a beast, or worse than a beast; I leave you to your fate?’”
“I would think that Jim Welton had changed his nature,” replied Jones, whose anger disappeared as quickly as it came. “I have no objection to your storming at me, Jim. You may swear at me as much as you please, but, for any sake, spare me your reasonings and entreaties, because they only rouse the evil spirit within me, without doing an atom of good; and don’t talk of leaving me. Besides, let me tell you, you are not so disinterested in this matter as you think. There is some one in Yarmouth who has something to do with your interest in me.”
The young man flushed again at the close of this speech, but not from a feeling of anger. He dropt his eyes before the earnest though unsteady gaze of his half-tipsy companion, who burst into a loud laugh as Jim attempted some stammering reply.
“Come,” he added, again assuming the stern aspect which was natural to him, but giving Jim a friendly slap on the shoulder, “don’t let us fall out, Jim you and I don’t want to part just now. Moreover, if we have a mind to get the benefit of the tide to-night, the sooner we up anchor the better, so we won’t waste any more time talking.”
Without waiting for a reply, Mr Jones went forward and called the crew. The anchor was weighed, the sails were set, and the sloop Nora—bending over before the breeze, as if doing homage in passing her friend the Gull-Light—put to sea, and directed her course for the ancient town and port of Yarmouth.
Chapter Five.
More New Characters Introduced
If it be true that time and tide wait for no man, it is equally true, we rejoice to know, that authors and readers have a corresponding immunity from shackles, and are in nowise bound to wait for time or tide.
We therefore propose to leave the Gull-stream light, and the Goodwin sands, and the sloop Nora, far behind us, and, skipping a little in advance of Time itself proceed at once to Yarmouth.
Here, in a snug parlour, in an easy chair, before a cheerful fire, with a newspaper in his hand, sat a bluff little elderly gentleman, with a bald head and a fat little countenance, in which benignity appeared to hold perpetual though amicable rivalry with fun.
That the fat little elderly gentleman was eccentric could scarcely be doubted, because he not only looked over his spectacles instead of through them, but also, apparently, read his newspaper upside down. A closer inspection, however, would have shown that he was not reading the paper at all, but looking over the top of it at an object which accounted for much of the benignity, and some of the fun of his expression.
At the opposite side of the table sat a very beautiful girl, stooping over a book, and so earnestly intent thereon as to be evidently quite oblivious of all else around her. She was at that interesting age when romance and reality are supposed to be pretty equally balanced in a well-regulated female mind—about seventeen. Although not classically beautiful—her nose being slightly turned upward—she was, nevertheless, uncommonly pretty, and, as one of her hopeless admirers expressed it, “desperately love-able.” Jet black ringlets—then in vogue—clustered round an exceedingly fair face, on which there dwelt the hue of robust health. Poor Bob Queeker, the hopeless admirer above referred to, would have preferred that she had been somewhat paler and thinner, if that had been possible; but this is not to be wondered at, because Queeker was about sixteen years of age at that time, and wrote sonnets to the moon and other celestial bodies, and also indulged in “lines” to various terrestrial bodies, such as the lily or the snowdrop, or something equally drooping or pale. Queeker never by any chance addressed the sun, or the red-rose, or anything else suggestive of health and vigour. Yet his melancholy soul could not resist Katie,—which was this angel’s name,—because, although she was energetic, and vigorous, and matter-of-fact, not to say slightly mischievous, she was intensely sympathetic and tender in her feelings, and romantic too. But her romance puzzled him. There was something too intense about it for his taste. If he had only once come upon her unawares, and caught her sitting with her hands clasped, gazing in speechless adoration at the moon, or even at a street-lamp, in the event of its being thick weather at the time, his love for her would have been without alloy.
As it was, Queeker thought her “desperately love-able,” and in his perplexity continued to write sonnets without number to the moon, in which efforts, however, he was singularly unsuccessful, owing to the fact that, after he had gazed at it for a considerable length of time, the orb of night invariably adopted black ringlets and a bright sunny complexion.
George Durant—which was the name of the bald fat little elderly gentleman—was Katie’s father. Looking at them, no one would have thought so, for Katie was tall and graceful in form; and her countenance, except when lighted up with varying emotion, was grave and serene.
As Mr Durant looked at it just then, the gravity had deepened into severity; the pretty eyebrows frowned darkly at the book over which they bent, and the rosy lips represented a compound of pursing and pouting as they moved and muttered something inaudibly.
“What is it that puzzles you, Katie?” asked her father, laying down the paper.
“’Sh!” whispered Katie, without lifting her head; “seventeen, twenty-two, twenty-nine, thirty-six,—one pound sixteen;—no, I can’t get it to balance. Did you ever know such a provoking thing?”
She flung down her pencil, and looked full in her father’s face, where fun had, for the time, so thoroughly conquered and overthrown benignity, that the frown vanished from her brow, and the rosy lips expanded to join her sire in a hearty fit of laughter.
“If you could only see your own face, Katie, when you are puzzling over these accounts, you would devote yourself ever after to drawing it, instead of those chalk-heads of which you are so fond.”
“No, I wouldn’t, papa,” said Katie, whose gravity quickly returned. “It’s all very well for you to joke about it, and laugh at me, but I can tell you that this account won’t balance; there is a two-and-sixpence wrong somewhere, and you know it has to be all copied out and sent off by the evening post to-morrow. I really can’t understand why we are called upon to make so many copies of all the accounts and papers for that ridiculous Board of Trade; I’m sure they have plenty of idle clerks of their own, without requiring us to slave as we do—for such a wretched salary, too!”
Katie shook her curls indignantly, as she thought of the unjust demands and inadequate remuneration of Government, and resumed her work, the frowning brows and pursed coral lips giving evidence of her immediate and total absorption in the accounts.
Old Mr Durant, still holding the newspaper upside down, and looking over the top of it and of his spectacles at the fair accountant, thought in his heart that if the assembled Board, of which his daughter spoke in such contemptuous terms, could only behold her labouring at their books, in order to relieve her father of part of the toil, they would incontinently give orders that he should be thenceforth allowed a salary for a competent clerk, and that all the accounts sent up from Yarmouth should be bound in cloth of gold!