Sturdy and Strong Part 27

"I didn't answer a word, but held on all the harder. Presently Bill--he was my youngest boy--sang out:

"'Father, can't you get round and lend us a hand to get up? I can't hold on much longer.'

"'I can't help you, Bill,' says I. 'I've given my promise to take this young woman back, and I must keep my word. Her life's more precious to her father than yours is to me, no doubt, and she's got to be saved.'

"It was cruel of me, sir, and altogether unjust, and I knew it was when I said it, but I couldn't help it. I felt as if I had a devil in me. I was just mad with sorrow and hopelessness, and yet each word seemed to come as cold and hard from me as if it was frozen. For a moment she didn't move, and then, all of a sudden like, she gave a twist out of my arms and went straight down. I grabbed at her, and just got hold of her cloak and pulled her up again. She never moved after that, but just lay quiet on my arm as if she was dead. Her head was back, half in, half out of the water; and it was only by the tears that run down sometimes through her eyelids, and by a little sob in her breast, that I knew that she was sensible.

"Presently Bill says, 'Good-by, father. G.o.d bless you!' and then he let go his hold and went down. Five minutes afterwards, maybe, though it seemed a week to me, Jack did the same.

"There we was--the girl and I--alone.

"I think now, sir, looking back upon it, as I was mad then. I felt somehow as that the gal had drowned my two boys; and the devil kept whispering to me to beat her white face in, and then to go with her to the bottom. I should ha' done it too, but my promise kept me back. I had sworn she should get safe to sh.o.r.e if I could, and it seemed to me that included the promise that I would do my best for us both to get there. I was getting weak now, and sometimes I seemed to wander, and my thoughts got mixed up, and I talked to the boys as if they could hear me. Once or twice my hold had slipped, and I had hard work enough to get hold again. I was sensible enough to know as it couldn't last much longer, and, talking as in my sleep, I had told the boys I would be with 'em in a minute or two, when a sound of shouting quite close roused me up sudden.

"Then I saw we had drifted close to the brig. Some men had climbed along, taking hold hand-in-hand when they pa.s.sed across places where the sea was already breaking over, and bringing with them the rope which, as I afterwards heard, the man on horseback had brought back from Filey. It was a brave deed on their part, sir, for the tide was rising fast. When they saw I lifted my head and could hear them they shouted that they would throw me the rope, and that I must leave go of the boat, which would have smashed us to pieces, as I knew, if she had struck the rocks with us. Where they were standing the rock was full six feet above the sea; but a little farther it shelved down, and each wave ran three feet deep across the brig. They asked me could I swim; and when I shook my head, for I was too far gone to speak now, one of 'em jumped in with the end of the rope. He twisted it round the two of us, and shouted to his friends to pull. It was time, for we weren't much above a boat's length from the brig. Three of the chaps as had the rope run down to the low part of the rock and pulled together, while another two kept hold of the end of the rope and kept on the rock, so as to prevent us all being washed across the brig together. I don't remember much more about it. I let go the boat, sank down at once, as if the girl and I had been lead, felt a tug of the rope, and then, just as the water seemed choking me, a great smash, and I remember nothing else. When I came to my right senses again I was in a bed at Filey. I had had a bad knock on the head, and my right arm, which had been round the girl, was just splintered. They took it off that night. The first thing as they told me when I came round was that the gal was safe. I don't know whether I was glad or sorry to hear it.

I was glad, because I had kept my promise and brought her back alive.

I was sorry, because I hated her like pison. Why should she have been saved when my two boys was drowned? She was well-plucked, was that gal, for she had never quite lost her senses; and the moment she had got warm in bed with hot blankets, and suchlike she wanted to get dry clothes and to go straight on to Scarborough in a carriage. However, the doctor would not hear of it, and she wrote a little letter saying as she was all right; and a man galloped off with it on horseback, and got there just as they had got a carriage to the door to drive over to Filey to ask if there was any news there about the boat. They came over and slept there, and she went back with them next day. I heard all this afterwards, for I was off my head, what with the blow I had got and one thing and another, before I had been there an hour. And I raved and cussed at the girl, they tell me, so that they wouldn't let her father in to see me.

"It was nigh a fortnight before I came to myself, to find my arm gone, and then I was another month before I was out of bed. They came over to Filey when I was sensible, and I hear they had got the best doctor over from Scarborough to see me, and paid everything for me till I was well, but I wouldn't see them when they came. I was quite as bitter against her as I had been when I was in the sea drowning; and I was so fierce when they talked of coming in that the doctor told them it would make me bad again if they came. So they went up to London, and when I could get about they sent me a letter, the gal herself and her father and mother, thanking me, I suppose; but I don't know, for I just tore 'em into pieces without reading them. Then a lawyer of the town here came to me and said he'd 'struction to buy me a new boat, and to buy a 'nuity for me. I told him his 'nuity couldn't bring my boys back again, and that I warn't going to take blood-money; and as to the boat, I'd knock a hole in her and sink her if she came. A year after that lawyer came to me again, and said he'd more 'structions; and I told him though I'd only one arm left I was man enough still to knock his head off his shoulders, and that I'd do it if he came to me with his 'structions or anything else.

"By this time I'd settled down to work on the sh.o.r.e, and had got the name of Surly Joe. Rightly enough, too. I had one of them planks with wheels that people use to get in and out of the boats; and as the boatmen on the sh.o.r.e was all good to me, being sorry for my loss, and so telling my story to people as went out with them, I got enough to live on comfortable, only there was nothing comfortable about me. I wouldn't speak a word, good or bad, to a soul for days together, unless it was to swear at anyone as tried to talk to me. I hated everyone, and myself wuss nor all. I was always cussing the rocks that didn't kill me, and wondering how many years I'd got to go on at this work before my turn came. Fortunately I'd never cared for drink; but sometimes I'd find my thoughts too hard for me, and I'd go and drink gla.s.s after gla.s.s till I tumbled under the table.

"At first my old mates tried to get me round, and made offers to me to take a share in their boats, or to make one in a fishing voyage; but I would not hear them, and in time they dropped off one by one, and left me to myself, and for six years there wasn't a surlier, wuss-conditioned, lonelier chap, not in all England, than I was. Well, sir, one day--it was just at the beginning of the season, but was too rough a day for sailing--I was a-sitting down on the steps of a machine doing nothing, just wondering and wondering why things was as they was, when two little gals c.u.m up. One was, maybe, five, and the other a year younger. I didn't notice as they'd just c.u.m away from the side of a lady and gentleman. I never did notice nothing that didn't just concern me; but I did see that they had a nurse not far off. The biggest girl had great big eyes, dark and soft, and she looked up into my face, and held out a broken wooden spade and a bit of string, and says she, 'Sailor-man, please mend our spade.' I was struck all of a heap like; for though I had been mighty fond of little children in the old days, and was still always careful of lifting them into boats, my name and my black looks had been enough, and none of them had spoken to me for years. I felt quite strange like when that child spoke out to me, a'most like what I've read Robinson Crusoe, he as was wrecked on the island, felt when he saw the mark of a foot.

"I goes to hold out my hand, and then I draws it back, and says, gruff, 'Don't you see I aint got but one hand? Go to your nurse.'

"I expected to see her run right off; but she didn't, but stood as quiet as may be, with her eyes looking up into my face.

"'Nurse can't mend spade; break again when Nina digs. Nina will hold spade together, sailor-man tie it up strong.'

"I didn't answer at once; but I saw her lip quiver, and it was plain she had been crying just before; so I put my hand into my pocket and brings out a bit of string, for the stuff she'd got in her hand was of no account; and I says, in a strange sort of voice, as I hardly knew as my own, 'All right, missy, I'll tie it.'

"So she held the broken pieces together, and I ties 'em up with the aid of my hand and my teeth, and makes a strong, ship-shape job of it.

I did it sitting on the bottom step, with a child standing on each side watching me. When I had done it the eldest took it, and felt it.

"'That is nice and strong,' she said; 'thank you. Annie, say thank you.'

"'T'ank you,' she said; and, with a little pat on my arm as a good-by, the little ones trotted away to a nurse sitting some little distance off.

"It may seem a little thing to you, sir, just a half-minute's talk to a child; but it warn't a little thing to me. It seemed regularly to upset me like; and I sat there thinking it over and wondering what was come over me, till an hour afterwards they went past me with their nurse; and the little things ran up to me and said, 'The spade's quite good now--good-by, sailor-man!' and went on again. So I shook it off and went to my work; for as the tide rose the wind dropped, and a few boats went out; and thinking what a fool I was, was gruffer and surlier than ever.

"Next morning I was lending a mate a hand painting a boat, when I saw the two children coming along the sand again, and I wondered to myself whether they would know me again, or think any more of me, and though I wanted them to do so I turned my back to the way they was coming, and went on with my painting. Somehow I felt wonderful glad when I heard their little feet come, pattering along the sand, and they sang out:

"'Good-morning, sailor-man!'

"'Good-morning!' says I, short-like, as if I didn't want no talk; and I goes on with my work without turning round.

"Just then one of the men at the boats hails me.

"'Joe, there's a party coming down.'

"'I'm busy,' shouts I back; 'shove the plank out yourself.'

"The children stopped quiet by me for a minute or two, watching me at work, and then the eldest says:

"'May we get inside the boat, Joe? we've never been inside a boat, and we do want to so much.'

"'My hand is all covered with paint,' says I, making a fight with myself against giving in.

"Then the little one said:

"'Oo stoop down, Joe; sissy and me take hold round oor neck; then oo stand up and we det in.'

"Well, sir, the touch of their little arms and those soft little faces against my cheeks as they got in fairly knocked me over, and it was some time before I could see what I was doing.

"Once in, they never stopped talking. They asked about everything, and I had to answer them; and as I got accustomed to it the words came freer, till I was talking away with them as if I had known 'em all my life. Once I asked them didn't their papa and mamma ever take 'em out for a sail, and they shook their heads and said mammy hated the sea, and said it was a cruel sea; by which I judged as she must have lost someone dear to her by it.

"Well, sir, I must cut a long story short. Those children used to come every day down to talk with me, and I got to look for it regular; and if it was a wet day and they couldn't come I'd be regular put out by it; and I got to getting apples and cakes in my pockets for them.

After a fortnight I took to carrying them across the wet sands and putting them on the stand as I wheeled it out and back with people to the boats. I didn't do it till they'd asked their mother, and brought back the message that she knew she could trust them with me.

"All this time it never once struck me as strange that their nurse should sit with a baby-brother of theirs at a distance, and let them play with me by the hour together, without calling them away, for I wondered so much at myself, and to find myself telling stories to 'em just as I'd do with children who came out sailing with me in the old time, and in knowing as I was so wrapped up in 'em that I couldn't wonder at anything else. Natural like, I changed a good deal in other respects, and I got to give a good-morning to mates as I had scarce spoken with for years; and the moment the children turned down onto the sands there'd be sure to be a shout of 'There's your little ladies, Joe.'

"I don't know why my mates should ha' been pleased to see me coming round, for I had made myself onpleasant enough on the sh.o.r.e; but they'd made 'lowances for me, and they met me as kindly as if I'd c.u.m back from a vyage. They did it just quiet like, and would just say, natural, 'Lend us a hand here, Joe, boy,' or 'Give us a shoulder over the bank, Joe,' and ask me what I thought o' the weather. It was a hard day for me when, after staying nigh two months, the little ladies came to say good-by. It warn't as bad as might have been, though, for they were going to stay with some friends near York, and were to come back again in a fortnight before they went back to London. But they kissed me, and cried, and gave me a pipe and a lot o' 'bacca, and I was to think of them whenever I smoked it, and they would be sure to think of me, for they loved me very much.

"That very afternoon, sir, as I was standing by my stage, Jim Saunders--he'd been mate with me before I owned a boat of my own--says out loud:

"'Lor', here's my party a-coming down, and I've jammed my hand so as I can't hoist a sail. Who'll come out and lend me a hand?'

"Well, everyone says they were busy, and couldn't come; but I believe now as the whole thing was a got-up plan to get me afloat again; and then Jim turns to me as if a sudden idea had struck him.

"'Come, Joe, lend us a hand for the sake o' old times; come along, old chap.'

"I was taken aback like, and could only say something about my stage; but half a dozen chaps volunteers to look after my stage, and afore I scarce knew what I was after I was bundled aboard the boat; and as the party got in I'm blest if I don't think as every chap on the sh.o.r.e runs in to help shove her off, and a score of hands was held out just to give me a shake as we started.

"I don't think I was much good on that vyage, for I went and sat up in the bow, with my back to the others, and my eyes fixed far ahead.

"I needn't tell you, sir, when I'd once broken the ice I went regular to the sea again, and handed my stage over to a poor fellow who had lost his craft and a leg the winter before.

"One day when I came in from a sail I saw two little figures upon the sands, and it needed no word from anyone to tell me my little ladies had come back. They jumped and clapped their hands when they saw me, and would have run across the water to meet me hadn't I shouted to them to wait just a minute till I should be with them.

"'We've been waiting a long time, Joe. Where have you been?'

"'I've been out sailing, missy.'

"'Joe, don't you know it's wicked to tell stories? You told us you should never go on sea any more.'

"'No more I didn't think I should, missy; and I don't suppose I ever should if I hadn't met you, though you won't understand that. However, I've give up the stage, and have taken to the sea again.'

"'I'm glad of that, Joe,' the eldest said, 'and mamma will be glad too.'