Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XII Part 10

"'Very fine, sir; steady breeze, smooth water; every st.i.tch of sail set that will draw.'

"'Take in all your small sails, sir, as fast as you can; the gla.s.s has fallen considerably since I turned in; we are going to have a breeze.'

"I looked at him with surprise, and then to windward; but to hear was to obey--the stunsails, smallstaysails, and royals were taken in. This was scarcely done, when the captain again made his appearance. 'Darby, the gla.s.s is falling fast--call the hands out, double-reef the topsails, and down topgallant and royal yards.'

"'Sir!' answered I, staring at him with astonishment.

"'Bear a hand, sir, and get the sail off the ship,' said he, sharply.

"His orders were obeyed, greatly to the surprise of all on board. But even this did not appear to satisfy him. He came on deck again, and this time I kept at a most respectful distance, for I really began to think his head was cracked, and that he might perhaps wish to try how I would look in the same predicament.

"'It's very odd, Darby,' said he; 'I don't understand it; the gla.s.s is still falling. Come and look at it.'

"I went with him into his cabin, where the barometer was hanging near his cot, with a swinging lamp beside it. The mercury was very low, uncommonly so; but, while I was looking at it, I heard a heavy drop upon the deck, and, looking downwards, I saw something glittering below the lamp. I stooped to look what it was, and the mystery was solved at once: there was a hole in the bottom of the tube, and the mercury had been oozing out. The captain looked very foolish at first, and then, staring me full in the face, burst into an uproarious fit of laughter, in which I heartily joined him. At daybreak the hands were called out again; but for a very different purpose. 'Crack on everything!' was now the cry; and we were soon spanking along again under a cloud of canvas. But you are not to suppose," continued Captain Darby, "from this anecdote, that I mean to depreciate the value of the marine barometer; it is the seaman's invaluable friend--a prophet whose warnings are not to be disregarded. Many and many a time has it enabled me to prepare in time for a coming gale, which would otherwise have a.s.sailed me unawares."

"The gale is freshening fast, sir," said an officer, putting his head into the cuddy-door. The captain hurried out, and gave orders for reefing the courses; and, during the whole of that long and, to us, miserable night, all hands were kept constantly at work; and we heard the loud orders of the officers, and the cries of the answering seamen, confusedly and at intervals, through the roaring of the wind and the rushing of the seas. I slept, or rather lay (for I could not sleep), in one of the round-house cabins; the edge of my cot, at every roll of the ship, knocking against the beams from which it was suspended; and I was every now and then nearly jerked out by the violent pitching, when the ship seemed as if she were endeavouring to dive head-foremost into the depths, to escape the violence of the winds. The ladies' cabins were abaft the round-house; the fair widow's divided from mine only by a thin bulkhead. I would have given all I was worth to be allowed to sit near her, to revive her spirits, and to soothe her fears. I was aware that she was dreadfully alarmed; for, whenever the vessel staggered under the overwhelming attacks of the sea, I heard from her cabin a shuddering of nervous terror. The gentlemen pa.s.sengers actually envied the poor seamen who were exposed to the pelting of the pitiless storm: _they_ were actively employed, the excitement of the storm left no time for reflection--besides, storm, tempest, and danger were their elements; but we lay idle and helpless, knowing just enough of our danger to imagine it to be much greater--brooding over the chimeras of our own fancies, and antic.i.p.ating we knew not what of approaching calamity. The continual creak, creak, creaking of the bulkheads--the pattering of the thick shower of spray upon our decks, following the dull, heavy "thud" of some giant sea, which made the ship reel and tremble through every timber--the cries of the seamen, heard indistinctly and at intervals, and then borne far away to leeward on the gale, as if the spirits of the air were shrieking above and around us--formed altogether a fearful medley of wild sounds. At length, towards morning, nothing was heard on deck but the deep, moaning voice of the gale, and the roar of the sea; but new and more ominous sounds arose from the lower deck: there was the monotonous clanking of the pumps, and the rash of water from side to side of the ship, as she rolled heavily and deeply. I could lie in my cot no longer--my nerves were worked up to such a state of excitement; and I rushed on deck to breathe the fresh air, and to see the state of affairs there. It was to me a beautiful, though awful, sight. The sun was just beginning to rise; and the lurid, threatening, angry glare he shed over the horizon gave additional horror to the gloomy scene. The ship looked almost a wreck to my eyes. The topgallantmasts had been got on deck; the booms were crowded with wet sails and rigging; the small ropes aloft were bellying out with the wind, and then striking violently against the mast with the roll of the ship; the hatches were battened down; lifelines were stretched along from the p.o.o.p to the forecastle; heavy seas were striking the bow, every now and then pouring volumes of clear blue water over the decks, while the spray flew like a thick shower overhead, nearly half-mast high; the horizon all round was pitchy black, except where a dull, hazy, fiery gleam marked its eastern verge; the surface of the water was one wide sheet of white foam, glistening through the gloom; and the strength of the gale seemed absolutely to blow the tops off the giant seas, and scattered them abroad in showers of spoon drift. The deck was deserted, except by the captain and the officer of the watch--one watch of the men having been sent below to the pumps, and the other to their hammocks. The captain was standing under the lee of the weather bulwark, holding on by the main brace, looking pale and exhausted; near him, with his arm round the p.o.o.p-ladder, stood the officer of the watch, m.u.f.fled up in his pea-jacket, his eyes red and inflamed, and speaking in a low, husky whisper, his voice being completely broken with the exertion of the night.

"Ah, Mr. Wentworth," said the captain, when I made my appearance, "you are soon tired of your cot. I did not expect to see any of you idlers on deck in such weather as this."

"It is more pleasant here than down below, I should think, Captain Darby. Sleep is out of the question. I hope the gale is not going to last much longer?"

"There is no chance of its moderating at present," said he; "the gla.s.s is still falling, and the appearance of the weather is as bad as it well can be!"

"Whereabouts are we now, captain? Are we not very near the English coast?"

"Yes--we're not very far from it; I hope we shall make the land soon."

I asked one or two more questions, which the captain evidently evaded answering. I accordingly desisted from my inquiries; but a dark and undefined presentiment of evil came over me, which I strove in vain to shake off. Finding the captain so uncommunicative, and the spray, that was constantly dashing over the decks, anything but comfortable, I thought my wisest plan would be to crawl to my cot again. On my way to my cabin, I lingered for a few minutes under the p.o.o.p awning, and happened to overhear the captain say, in a low voice, to the chief mate--

"Charters, I wish the sun would show his face again--I don't like this groping work. I'd give a hundred _pounds_ to be as many _miles_ to the westward--we are much too near a lee sh.o.r.e, for my taste."

"Oh, sir, we shall, perhaps, see some of the pilot-boats soon, and then we shall be right enough."

"Ten chances to one against it," replied the other, "in such weather as this. However, we will fire a gun every five minutes, in case any of them should be cruising in our neighbourhood. I wish we had bent our cables before this gale set in. As soon as the hands are called out, we will bend them, and get the anchors clear, that we may be prepared for the worst."

"Ay, ay, sir."

This was pretty comfort for me; but as I knew that talking would not mend matters, I did not mention what I had heard to any of the other pa.s.sengers. A very short time had elapsed when the hands were called out, and the orders of the captain were carried into effect as actively as possible. It was a work of considerable difficulty and no little danger to bend the cables, as the ship was plunging and rolling awfully, and every now and then taking green seas over all, and volumes of water rushed through the open hawse-hole into the lower deck. At last it _was_ accomplished, and the men had a temporary respite from their labour. The gale, so far from moderating, rather increased in fury; but the leak had not gained upon us, and the maintopmast still seemed to stand stiffly up to the gale, with the close-reefed sail upon it. About four o'clock in the afternoon, a heavy sea struck the quarter, filled one quarter-boat, and broke it away from the tackles, and stove the other; and at the same time the ship _lurched_ so deeply, that the muzzles of her quarterdeck guns were buried in the water, one of the maintopmast backstays gave way, and the mast, with a loud crash, went toppling over the side. I was standing under the p.o.o.p awning at the time, and was nearly washed off my feet by a body of water rushing out of the cuddy; and at the same time I heard the screaming of the ladies in the after cabin. I ran aft, and knocking at the fair widow's door, was immediately admitted, and found everything in the greatest confusion, and herself in extreme alarm. The sea had burst in the quarterport, and deluged the cabin with water; the deck was strewed with furniture, dashing and tumbling about with the motion of the ship; and Emily herself was clinging to one of the stanchions, pale with terror, and drenched to the skin. "Oh, Mr Wentworth!" was all she could utter, before she fell fainting into my arms. I will not enter into a description of my feelings at that moment, when the only woman I had ever truly loved was lying helpless in my embrace; suffice it that I felt I could die for her. In a short time she revived; and blushing deeply, apologised for the trouble and alarm she had occasioned me. My heart was on my lips. I had hitherto, from a feeling of delicacy, abstained from expressing all I felt towards her; but now she looked so lovely, so gentle, so confiding, that I was just on the point of giving utterance to the emotions of my heart, when the entrance of the servants coming to secure the furniture interrupted the unseasonable disclosure. I then hastened on deck, where a sight awaited me which almost paralysed my excited nerves. The ship was _lying to_, but anything but lying _still_, under the storm mainstaysail; the wreck of the maintopmast was hanging down the lee-mainrigging, banging backwards and forwards with the motion of the ship; the men were clinging like cats to the mainrigging, actively employed in endeavouring to secure and clear away the wreck; the wind had drawn more round to the eastward, and was blowing a perfect hurricane--when all at once a loud cry was heard from the forecastle, of "Breakers on the leebeam!" and their white tumbling crests were soon distinctly seen by all on deck, and it was evident we were fast approaching them. For an instant there was a pause of dead silence among the crew; officers and men looked at each other, and at the breakers, with blank dismay. The sharp, quick, distinct tones of the captain's voice startled them into habitual attention and activity.

"Stations, wear ship! hard up with the helm! run up the forestaysail!

square away the afteryards!"

The staysail just _bellied out_ with the gale, and blew to rags; the ship fell off for a moment, and then flew up to the wind again. "Cut away the mizzenmast!" was the next order; and in five minutes the tall mast fell crashing over the side. The helm was again put up, but in vain; the ship would not pay off; and we were bodily and rapidly drifting down upon the breakers.

"Have both bower cables clear below, and all ready with the sheet!"

shouted the captain.

I ran, or rather staggered, as fast as I could to the after cabin, and requested admittance. Emily was there, looking dreadfully pale. I suppose my countenance betrayed the agitation of my mind; for she instantly exclaimed--and her demeanour was unnaturally calm and collected, though her voice trembled, and her cheek was blanched with terror--

"Is there any hope, Mr Wentworth? Tell me the worst; I am prepared for it, and can bear it calmly." I hesitated. "You need not speak," said she; "your silence tells me there is no hope."

"There is indeed none," replied I, "but in the mercy of an overruling Providence. In another hour, our doom, whether for life or for death, will be sealed."

I saw the pang of agony that flitted across her countenance at this intelligence; she gasped for breath, and seemed as if about to faint; but she immediately recovered herself, and looking upwards, with mild resignation, she murmured, "It is a painful trial--but _His_ will be done." By my advice she put on some warmer but lighter clothing, and I then supported her to the quarterdeck. I felt the shuddering of her frame when the awful sight of approaching destruction was before her.

The scene, altogether, was one to appal the bravest--to make the boldest "hold his breath;" never will the remembrance of it be erased from my mind; and, to this hour, it sometimes haunts my dreams. Scarcely half-a-mile to leeward lay the coast--dark, frowning, precipitous, and apparently inaccessible; its lower line completely hidden from our view; but at intervals the dark and rugged summits of the rocks were seen through the sheets of white foam dashed over them by the breakers. To windward the prospect was as cheerless; darkness was beginning to settle on the waters; and in the distance nothing was to be seen but the foam of the crested seas, flashing indistinct and ghastly through the gloom.

Viewed by that uncertain light, and rising in such various waving forms, they seemed to my overwrought fancy as if the sea had given up her dead, and the spirits of the departed were a.s.sembling on the waters, to witness our approaching fate. The ship was already almost a wreck; the mizzenmast was still hanging alongside, having smashed the p.o.o.p hammock-nettings and bulwark in its fall; the stumps of the fore and maintopmast were all that remained aloft; the giant seas were dashing over the sides, deluging the decks fore and aft, and blinding us with their thick showers of spray; the lower yardarms dipped into the water, as the half-waterlogged ship rolled heavily and deeply, groaning and trembling in every timber, like a living creature in its mortal agony.

And then the accompaniments!--oh, how often since have I in fancy heard again the hollow, _ominous_ moaning of the gale, mourning, as it were, over the wreck of its own violence; the roaring of the waters, as they rose, and rushed, and dashed against our side; the dull, mournful, dirge-like sound of our minute-guns; the shuddering cries of the timid; the curses and imprecations of the hardened and desperate! Oh, if the recollection of it be so appalling, what must have been the reality?

Some of the men were actively employed in endeavouring to clear away the wreck of the mizzenmast; others cutting adrift the small booms and spars, and all such light articles as might be instrumental in bearing them to the sh.o.r.e; and the pa.s.sengers, and those who were unemployed, were gazing, in the gloomy silence of despair, upon their approaching destruction. I saw that there was no hope, and that the last struggle was fast approaching. I lashed the trembling and weeping Emily to a spar, and whispered in her ear, "Pray to the Ruler of the winds and waves, dearest Emily! _He_ can save when there is none other to help!"

She pressed my hand in silence, smiled through her tears, and looked upwards.

We had only one resource left now, and that was one of feeble promise--both bower anchors were cut away--the cables ran out to the clinches, and snapped like threads; the sheet-cable shared the same fate.

"I knew it," exclaimed the captain--"I knew it was in vain. No hemp that ever was twisted could stand the strain of such a sea and breeze. It is all over with us now! Every man look out for his own safety! You had better lash yourselves to the spars, my lads!"

The momentary check given to the ship brought her broadside round to the breakers. Never shall I forget the cold shudder which came over me when the vessel rose upon the crest of an enormous sea, and seemed to be balancing herself for a moment, as if loth to meet her doom; another instant, and she struck with a shock that made us all start from the deck, and a crash as if the whole fabric were falling to pieces beneath us. Again she was lifted by the sea, and dashed on the rocks nearer the sh.o.r.e, when she fell over on her side with her masts towards the beach, along which parties of men were hurrying, dimly visible in the dusk of evening, eager, but unable to afford us a.s.sistance; while the heights above were thronged with country people, who had been attracted to the spot by the report of our guns. The sea, which had dashed us on our broadside, swept away with it the boats, booms, spars--everything, in fact, from the upper deck; and bore its promiscuous prey onwards towards the beach. What was my agony to see the spar to which Emily was lashed sharing the fate of the rest! She tossed her arms wildly over her head, gave one shrill and piercing scream, and was borne away and hidden from my view by the following sea. "I will save her," I exclaimed, "or perish."

The hull of the stranded ship formed a kind of breakwater, and the sea was comparatively smooth under her lee. I had stripped myself, in preparation for the coming struggle, of all superfluous clothing; and, crawling out as far as possible on the mainmast, I committed myself fearlessly to the sea, which was to me quite a familiar element. A few vigorous strokes, and the friendly elevation of a rising wave gave me a sight of Emily; I immediately swam towards her, and by partly supporting myself on the spar, and directing it towards the sh.o.r.e, I was fortunate enough to succeed in bearing my precious charge in safety to the beach, against which we were dashed with great violence, but fortunately without any injury. She was quite insensible, and lay on the sand so still and pale that at first my heart died within me; I thought she was gone for ever.

"Emily! dearest Emily!" I frantically exclaimed.

A faint sigh was the answer. The sudden revulsion from grief to transport, at this a.s.surance that life was not extinct, was almost too much for me. Faintly, but fervently, did I breathe forth my thanksgivings to a merciful Providence, and then, with the a.s.sistance of some of the inhabitants, I bore the still unconscious form of my beloved companion to a fisherman's hut, which was perched in a fissure of the neighbouring rocks.

"Don't be afeared, sir," said the old fisherman who a.s.sisted me in supporting Emily; "don't be afeared. Her cheek is a little pale or so; but my ould ooman 'll soon bring the colour into it again. Bless her ould heart, she's a famous doctor? But here we are," said he, giving a thundering rattle against the door. "Betsy, Betsy, heave ahead, ould woman!--this is no night to keep flesh and blood on the wrong side of the house."

The door was cautiously opened, and, shading her candle with her hand from the rude blast, a tidily-dressed, respectable-looking woman made her appearance, who gave a cry of surprise and alarm when she saw the apparently lifeless body of Emily. She began pouring out a whole string of questions which her husband quickly cut short with--

"Come, come, Bet, there's no time for _backing_ and _filling_ now. Get the poor thing stripped, ould ooman, and put her into a warm bed as soon as ee can. There's a ship ash.o.r.e below there, and this ere lady comed ash.o.r.e with this ere gentleman."

"For Heaven's sake be quick, my good woman," said I; "you shall be handsomely rewarded for your trouble."

"Reward, sir!" replied the woman; "neither Bill nor me looks for reward for doing our duty. More's the luck, there's a good fire in both ends of the house to-night; bring her in here, poor thing."

In half-an-hour, thanks to blankets, hot water, and Schiedam, Emily was in a quiet and placid slumber; and the fisherman and I, after having fortified ourselves with a gla.s.s of good Hollands, hastened again to the beach. The storm was still raging in all its fury; lights were flashing along the sh.o.r.e, and parties of men were running up and down, some in search of plunder, others with the more benevolent wish to afford a.s.sistance to the shipwrecked crew of the Indiaman. The beach was strewed with broken spars, hen-coops, chests of tea, and ship timber; and every now and then the fisherman's light flashed upon a dead body, lying extended partly on the sand and partly in the water. As we were hurrying along, I stumbled, and nearly fell over something soft, which I could not distinguish in the darkness, the fisherman being some paces ahead of me with his lantern. I stooped down, and found it was a human body.

"Poor fellow!" muttered I--"he sleeps sound; 'tis the sleep of death."

As I spoke, my hand touched the face, which, to my great surprise, was still warm. "Ah, there is life here still!" And of this I soon had startling conviction; for my finger was suddenly and sharply bitten, and, at the same moment I saw a little, round, dim-looking bundle rolling over and over with great rapidity along the beach. I was startled at first; but quickly recovered myself, and gave chase to the mysterious-looking object, calling out to the fisherman to join me. We soon overtook the object of our pursuit; and, cold and wearied as we both were, and surrounded by sights and sounds of horror, I could not forbear laughing at the sight that met my eyes. There, rolled up like a hedgehog, with his leather bottle by his side, and a red nightcap fastened on with a pocket-handkerchief, his little round chubby face buried in his hands, and his knees drawn up to his chin, lay the little doctor, his whole body trembling with fright. I flashed the light across his face, but he kept his eyes obstinately shut, and buried his face deeper in his hands.

"Doctor!" said I, shaking him.

"Oh, oh," shuddered he, "don't kill me--that's a good fellow! I'll give you my brandy bottle if you won't." I touched him in the ribs. "Oh! I am a dead man," groaned he, recoiling from the touch; "drowned like an a.s.s at sea, and now going to be stuck like a pig on sh.o.r.e! Oh!"

"Doctor!"

"Never was one in my life!--my name's Posset. Drenched to the skin!--cold--cold! Don't kill me--that's a good fellow. I am so cold."

"Don't you know me, doctor?" said I, almost crying with laughter; "don't you know Wentworth?"