The Lifeboat Part 27

"Well, the fact is," began Summers, "it's a little matter of begging that I have undertaken for the purpose of raising funds to establish one or two lifeboats on parts of our coast where they are very much needed.

(Denham fidgeted in his chair.) You know I have a villa near Deal, and frequently witness the terrible scenes of shipwreck that are so common and so fatal on that coast. I am sorry to say that my begging expedition has not been attended with so much success as I had antic.i.p.ated. It is not such agreeable work as one might suppose, I a.s.sure you, one gets so many unexpected rebuffs. Did you ever try begging, Denham?"

Denham said he never had, and, unless reduced to it by circ.u.mstances, did not mean to do so!

"Ah," continued Mr Summers, "if you ever do try you'll be surprised to find how difficult it is to screw money out of some people." (Mr Denham thought that that difficulty would not surprise him at all.) "But you'll be delighted to find, on the other hand, what a number of truly liberal souls there are. It's quite a treat, for instance, to meet with a man,--as I did the other day,--who gives his charity in the light of such principles as these:--`The Lord loveth a cheerful giver;' `It is more blessed to give than to receive;' `He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,'--one who lays aside a certain proportion of his income for charitable purposes, and who, therefore, knowing exactly how much he has to give at any moment, gives or refuses, as the case may be, promptly and with a good grace."

"Ha!" exclaimed Denham, whose soul abhorred this sort of talk, but whose self-interest compelled him to listen to it.

"Really," pursued Mr Summers, "it is quite interesting to study the outs and ins of Christian philanthropy. Have you ever given much attention to the subject, Mr Denham? Of course, I mean in a philosophical way."

"Ha a-hem! well, I cannot say that I have, except perhaps in my capacity of a poor-law guardian in this district of the city."

"Indeed, I would recommend it to you. It is quite a relief to men of business like you and me, who are necessarily swallowed up all day in the matter of making money, to have the mind occasionally directed to the consideration of the best methods of getting rid of a little of their superabundance. It would do them a world of good--I can safely say so from experience--to consider such matters. I daresay that you also know something of this from experience."

"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr Denham, who felt himself getting internally warm, but was constrained (of course from disinterested motives) to keep cool and appear amiable.

"But forgive my taking up so much of your time, my dear sir," said Mr Summers, rising; "what shall I put you down for?"

Denham groaned inaudibly and said, "Well, I've no objection to give twenty pounds."

"How much?" said the old gentleman, as though he had heard imperfectly, at the same time pulling out a notebook.

There was a slight peculiarity in the tone of the question that induced Denham to say he would give fifty pounds.

"Ah! fifty," said Summers, preparing to write, "thank you, Mr Denham (here he looked up gravely and added), the subject, however, is one which deserves liberal consideration at the hands of society in general; _especially of ship owners_. Shall we say a hundred, my dear sir?"

Denham was about to plead poverty, but recollecting that he had just admitted that his friend had been the means of saving a thousand pounds to the business, he said, "Well, let it be a hundred," with the best grace he could.

"Thank you, Mr Denham, a thousand thanks," said the old gentleman, shaking his friend's hand, and quitting the room with the active step of a man who had much more business to do that day before dinner.

Mr Denham returned to the perusal of his letters with the feelings of a man who has come by a heavy loss. Yet, strange to say, he comforted himself on his way home that evening with the thought that, after all, he had done a liberal thing! that he had "given away a hundred pounds sterling in charity."

_Given_ it! Poor Denham! he did not know that, up to that period, he had never _given_ away a single farthing of his wealth in the true spirit of liberality--although he had given much in the name of charity.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

DARK DEEDS ARE DONE UPON THE SEA--TOMMY BOGEY IN GREAT DANGER.

"Well, Bluenose, hoo d'ye find yerself to-day?" inquired Supple Rodger one fine morning, as the Captain sauntered slowly along the beach in front of his hut, with his hands deep in the pockets of his pilot-coat.

"Thankee, I amongst the middlings. How's yerself?"

"I like myself," said Rodgers; "how's old Jeph?"

"Rather or'nary; but I dessay he'll come all square after a day or two in dock," answered the Captain; "I left him sh.o.r.ed up in bed with bolsters."

"So Tommy's slipped his cable, I'm told?" said Rodgers interrogatively.

"Ay, he's off, an' no mistake. I thought he was jokin', for I heard him talk o' goin' after Bax some time past, but nothin' more come of it till yesterday, when he comes to me and bids me good day, and then off like a galley after a French smuggler. It's o' no use tryin' to catch him.

That boy'll make his way and have his will somehow, whether we let him or no. Ay, ay," said Bluenose, lighting his pipe with a heavy sigh, "Tommy Bogey's gone for good."

That was the last that was heard of poor Tommy for many a long day on the beach of Deal. But as there is no good reason why the readers should be kept in the dark regarding his movements, we shall follow him on the rugged path he had selected, and leave the men of Deal to wonder for a time, and talk, and then forget him.

Having waited as long as his patience could hold out, and no letter having come from Bax, Tommy at last prepared to carry out his plan. By dint of hard labour among the boats at any odd jobs that people would give him, and running messages, and making himself generally useful to the numerous strangers who visited that fine and interesting part of the coast, he had sc.r.a.ped together a few pounds. By persevering study at nights he had acquired a fair knowledge of figures and a smattering of navigation. Thus equipped in mind and purse he went off to seek his fortune.

His intention was in the first place to go to London and visit the "Three Jolly Tars," where, he doubted not, every possible and conceivable sort of information in regard to shipping could be obtained.

There chanced at the time to be a certain small collier lying in the downs, awaiting a fair wind to carry her into the port of London. This collier (a schooner) was named the "b.u.t.terfly," perhaps because the owner had a hazy idea that there was some resemblance between an insect flitting about from flower to flower and a vessel sailing from port to port! Black as a chimney from keelson to truck, she was as like to a b.u.t.terfly as a lady's hand is to a monkey's paw.

The skipper of the "b.u.t.terfly" was a friend of Bluenose, and knew Tommy.

He at once agreed to give him a pa.s.sage to London, and never thought of asking questions.

Soon after the boy went aboard the wind changed to the south-west; the "b.u.t.terfly" spread her black wings, bore away to the nor'ard, and doubled the North Foreland, where she was becalmed, and left to drift with the tide just as night was closing in.

"I'm tired, Jager" (this was the skipper's name); "I'll go below and take a snooze," said Tommy, "for I've lots o' work before me to-morrow."

So Tommy went below and fell asleep. The three men who formed the crew of this dingy craft lay down on the deck, the night being fine, and also fell asleep, Jager being at the helm.

Now Jager was one of those careless, easy-going, reckless seamen, who, by their folly, ignorance, and intemperance are constantly bringing themselves to the verge of destruction.

He sat near the tiller gazing up at the stars dreamily for some time; then he looked round the horizon, then glanced at the compa.s.s and up at the sails, which hung idly from the yards, after which he began to mutter to himself in low grumbling tones--

"Goin' to blow from the nor'ard. Ay, allers blows the way I don't want it to. Driftin' to the southward too. If this lasts we'll drift on the Sands. Comfr'able to think on, that is. Come, Jager, don't you go for to git into the blues. Keep up yer sperits, old boy!"

Acting on his own suggestion, the skipper rose and went below to a private locker, in which he kept a supply of rum,--his favourite beverage. He pa.s.sed Tommy Bogey on the way. Observing, that the boy was sleeping soundly, he stopped in front of him and gazed long into his face with that particularly stupid expression which is common to men who are always more or less tipsy.

"Sleep away, my lad, it'll do ye good."

Accompanying this piece of unnecessary advice with a sagacious nod of the head, the skipper staggered on and possessed himself of a case-bottle about three-quarters full of rum, with which he returned to the deck and began to drink.

While he was thus employed, a breeze sprang up from the north-east.

"Ease off the sheets there, you lubbers!" shouted the drunken man, as he seized the tiller and looked at the compa.s.s. "What! sleeping again, Bunks? I'll rouse ye, _I_ will."

With that, in a burst of anger, he rushed forward and gave one of the sleepers a severe kick in the ribs. Bunks rose sulkily, and with a terrible imprecation advised the skipper "not to try that again"; to which the skipper retorted, that if his orders were not obeyed more sharply, he would not only try it again, but he would "chuck him overboard besides."

Having applied a rope's-end to the shoulders of one of the other sleepers, he repeated his orders to ease off the sheets, as the wind was fair, and staggered back to his place at the helm.

"Why, I do believe it is a sou'-wester," he muttered to himself, attempting in vain to read the compa.s.s.

It was in reality north-east, but Jager's intellects were muddled; he made it out to be south-west and steered accordingly, almost straight before it. The three men who formed the crew of the little vessel were so angry at the treatment they had received, that they neither cared nor knew how the ship's head lay. A thick mist came down about the same time, and veiled the lights which would otherwise have soon revealed the fact that the skipper had made a mistake.

"Why, wot on airth ails the compa.s.s?" muttered Jager, bending forward intently to gaze at the instrument, which, to his eye, seemed to point in all directions at once; "come, I'll have another pull at the b-bottle to steady me."

He grasped the bottle to carry out this intention, but in doing so thrust the helm down inadvertently. The schooner came up to the wind at once, and as the wind had freshened to a stiff breeze and a great deal of canvas was set, she heeled violently over to starboard. The skipper was pitched into the lee scuppers, and the case-bottle of rum was shivered to atoms before he had time to taste a drop.