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Menhardoc: A Story of Cornish Nets and Mines, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 27. A Terrible Time At Sea |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN. A TERRIBLE TIME AT SEA "Isn't it glorious, Taff?" cried Dick as he stood with his brother in their little low-roofed bed-room, whose window overlooked the sea. "Can't say that I like it," said Arthur languidly. "The place smells horribly of fish." "Pooh! That isn't fish. It's the sea-weed. It turns limp, and smells because the weather's moist and stormy. There, come on. Father must be ready now, and I want to go down and see the sea." Uncle Abram came in just as they were about to start, and insisted upon lending a couple of suits of oilskins, which he brought out of a room in the roof, where he kept his stores, as he called them. "Was Will's," he explained. "He growed out of 'em. Not much to look at, sir," he added apologetically to Mr Temple, "but they'll keep out the water. We like the sea, but we like to keep dry." Arthur looked horribly disgusted, for his father gladly accepted the hospitable offer, and he had to submit to being buttoned up in the stiff garb that Will had cast off years before, even to the high boots. Dick scuffled into his with delight, and tied the sou'-wester under his chin, turning the next minute to see his brother, and stamp on the floor with delight. "Oh! look at Taff, father; he does look such a Guy Fawkes." Arthur turned upon him fiercely, and it suddenly occurred to Dick that he was in precisely the same costume; but he only laughed the more as, well equipped to meet the storm, they started for the beach. "It's ridiculous," said Arthur, in tones of disgust, as they walked down towards the harbour under the lee of the houses. "There was no need to put on these wretched stiff things." Almost as the words left his lips they passed the last house, and-- _Bang_!--_boom_!--_swirl_! A large wave struck the shore on a boulder slope and sent a deluge of water across the road, to strike the rock on the other side, and run back like a stream. Arthur, was sent staggering, and would have fallen but for his father's hand; and all three, but for their shiny garb, would have been soaked from head to foot. "Oh, here's a game!" cried Dick. "I say, Taff--run--run--here comes another." They escaped part of the wave, but Dick had his weather ear full, and the sea-water and foam streamed down their backs as they stood in the shelter of a bit of cliff. "Well, Arthur, what do you say to your oilskins now?" said Mr Temple. "They're dreadfully stiff, father, and the boots are too large," said Arthur ungraciously. "Hadn't we better get back?" Poor Arthur repented his words most bitterly as soon as he had spoken them, for there was a hard light going on in the boy's mind. Naturally very conceited, he had had the misfortune to be made the head of a little set at his school--a little set, for they were rather small boys, who looked up to him,--and dressed at him as far as they could, the effect being to make him more conceited still, and think his brother rough and common in his ways. All this had been pointed out to Mr Temple, who, however, had seen it for himself, and he only said, smiling: "It will all settle itself. These little spines will get knocked off by contact with the world. Besides which I hope that he will find out for himself the way to grow into a manly man." Mr Temple was quite right, and Arthur was beginning to discover that, where his brother was met with a genial smile by all whom he encountered, he, who was particular and precise and, as he considered it, gentlemanly in his ways, was either not noticed, or met with merely the coldest reception. He was learning too that a man--especially an Englishman, whether gentle or simple--born in the lap of luxury, as people call it, or in the humblest cot, must be one who will always keep up the credit of the nation at large by being thoroughly English; and this brings one to the question--while the storm is raging on the Cornish coast, and Arthur Temple is in his glistening oilskins walking stiffly and awkwardly, and wincing beneath his father's look, which said as plainly as look could speak, "If you are afraid you can go back;"--this brings one to the task of stating what one means by being thoroughly English, so let us set down here, something approaching one's ideas of what an English lad should be. Courageous of course, full of that sturdy determination not to be beaten, and when beaten, so far from being disheartened that he is ready to try again, whether in a fight, a battle with a difficulty, or in any failure. Honest in his striving for what he knows to be right, and ready to maintain it against all odds, especially of such enemies as banter or ridicule, self-indulgence or selfishness. That is enough: for so many wonderful little veins will start from those two trunks, that, given a boy who is courageous and honest, or who makes himself so, it would be almost an impossibility for him to turn out a bad, mean, and cowardly man. And pray don't imagine, you who read this, that by a cowardly man or boy I mean one who is afraid to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves and fight with his fists. I mean quite a different kind of coward--the one who is afraid of himself and lets self rule him, giving up to every indulgence because it goes a little against the grain, and Arthur Temple is walking uncomfortably in his oilskins because they don't look nice. The storm is raging, and he is still smarting under the belief that his father thinks him contemptible and cowardly, physically cowardly. And all the time, though the tears are rising in his eyes, and the wind is deafening him, and the spray beating in his face so that his tears are not seen, he is proving that, under his varnish, he is made of the right stuff. For even as he battled with self in the boat when conger-fishing, he is fighting the good fight again, has set his teeth, and has made a sort of vow that no one shall say he has not as much pluck as his brother Dick. There is little work done at a fishing village when a storm comes down. Going to sea is impossible, and men don't care to be mending or making nets when at any moment they may have to be helping to haul up a boat into a safer place, or to drag in a spar, or plank, or timber, that has been washed ashore. Then, too, there is the look-out kept for ships or boats in distress-- perhaps to lend a helping hand; if not, to look on with sympathetic eyes and a thankful prayer at heart that they are in safety, as they think of home, and wife, and child. Mr Temple was not a violent angry man. His punishments to his boys were conveyed in looks, and one look sufficed. When that look had been given there was an end to the matter; and on this occasion, after Arthur had been made to wince, his petulant display of fear was put back in the past. "Boys," he cried, "I would not like to have missed this scene. How awful and how grand!" They were standing in the shelter of a pilchard house, one of the long buildings where these silvery, oily relatives of the herring are salted before being pressed in barrels and sent away to the Mediterranean ports by hundreds of tons every year. The building took the brunt of the roaring wind and spray torn from the huge billows that thundered in and raced up the beach, and pounded the rocks, so that the spectators could gaze at the wild chaos of tossing waves, and watch the heaped-up waters as they dashed in like some savage army, whose aim was to tear down the rocky barriers of our isle and sweep all away. In the harbour lay the luggers, and a good-sized brig, and a steam-tug that had brought it in after missing Corn town; and as the great waves came with a spang upon the stone pier, and leaped over the lanterns, and poured down tons of spray upon their decks, they rocked and groaned as they rubbed together, and in spite of mooring ropes a sharp crack now and then told of damages to be repaired. The cliff glistened with oilskin-clad men, many of whom bore long, clumsy telescopes, while others in great high boots, and with their sou'-westers tied beneath their chins, walked amongst the foam, a coil of strong rope upon their shoulders, and a boat-hook in hand, ready for anything in the way of flotsam and jetsam that might come ashore. Already they had drawn up the mast of a lugger with its ropes and blocks, telling tales of some misfortune at sea. A barrel or two had come ashore; and as Dick watched, he saw one man run out after a wave, catch at something, miss it, and then get hold of a rope, with which he ran ashore. Directly after they saw another figure leave a companion and run in after a retiring wave, the foam knee-deep, and catch at something else which came slowly. "Mind, mind!" cried Dick excitedly; "the wave! the wave!" Arthur gave a gasp and ran right out towards where the figure, fully a hundred yards away, was clinging to something that looked brown against the white foam, and apparently heedless of the fact that a tremendous wave was racing in. His comrade saw it though and ran to his help, catching hold of the great brown tangle, and then turning with the other to escape. They hardly did it, for the huge wave curled over just behind them with a boom like thunder, and swept them up towards the shore amidst the foam. They would have been carried back, but a dozen hands were outstretched and they and their prize were run up out of danger, where, for the next ten minutes, the little party were busy hauling in what proved to be an immense length of pilchard drift-net, with its corks, and buoys, and ropes, which formed a goodly heap when they had done. Out seaward there was nothing visible but the tossing waves, and it was with a sense of relief that the boys saw that there was no prospect of any wreck beyond that of the fishing-boat that had been dashed to pieces upon some rock. "Here! hi!" cried Dick, excitedly. "Why, it's Will! Was it you who ran in after that net?" he continued, as the lad came up. "Yes, Master Dick; Josh helped me," said Will, smiling. "There's two or three hundred fathom." "But was it not very risky, my lad?" said Mr Temple, shouting like the others, for the noise made by the sea was deafening. "Risky, sir? Oh! you mean the waves! There were plenty there to lend a hand, and if we'd been caught they'd have thrown us a rope," said Will, simply. "Some boat has been lost, hasn't there?" cried Dick, excitedly. "Saint Ives boat, we think," said Will; "and a timber ship has been wrecked somewhere out Lizard way. There'll be a lot of balks and planks come ashore, the men think." "I say, Will, is it often as bad as this?" said Arthur eagerly. "Yes, sir, very often," replied Will. "Old Pollard thinks it will be worse to-night. I should go down to yonder house, sir, if I was you; the young gentlemen would be more in shelter, and you could see the wreck wood come in and the men draw it up, better there, for it's nearer to the sea." "How do you know it will come there?" said Dick hastily. "The current. Tide washes it up. We always find wreck come about there." Will hurried away, his mission being to fetch another boat-hook; and taking the hint, Mr Temple and his boys made a dash across the rock and sand to the pilchard-house further east, the wind blowing in a furious squall now, and just as they were half-way, battling against the spray that cut their faces till they tingled, their numbers were diminished one third, though Mr Temple did not know it, and then two thirds. He had bidden his boys follow him closely, and then with bent head run forward, Dick and Arthur following as fast as their stiff clumsy garb would allow; but just as they were half-way and were caught by the full force of the gale, Arthur, who was last, made a swerve, gave way a little more and a little more, and then was literally carried shoreward by the gale in a staggering run, for he had found it impossible to resist its force. "Don't it blow!" panted Dick. "Lean your head over towards it, Taff, and then it won't cut your face. Come along." He spoke loudly, but every word was swept away by the wind; and if sounds do not melt away, his were taken straight over England and the North Sea to Denmark, and then over the Baltic to the Russ's land. "Here, give me your hand, Taff," he cried directly after, and turning a little more he held out his hand to lend his brother a little help. Confused and deafened as he was by the storm himself, he burst out into a roar of laughter at the sight of his brother literally running before the wind in the most comically absurd manner, till, finding a dry spot, he flung himself down in the soft sand, sad clung there with all his might while Dick scudded to him and plumped down at his side. "Here's a game!" he roared into Arthur's ear. "A game!" faltered the latter; "very--dread--ful--isn't it?" "No," shouted Dick. "It's all right. Come along. No, no. Turn your back to it." "The rain cuts so," panted Arthur. "'Tain't rain; it's spray. Hook hold tight," cried Dick. "Ahoy! Coming!" he shouted, wasting his breath, for it was impossible for Mr Temple to hear. "Here comes father after us. Now then, stoop down and let's do it. Whoo! Knees." They threw themselves on their knees to avoid being swept away, for just then a sudden puff came with such violence that, as Dick afterwards described the sensation, it was like being pushed with a big ball of india-rubber. Mr Temple came with the rush of wind, and as he stopped beside his boys he confessed that it was as much as he could do to keep his legs. It was only for a few moments that the storm had such tremendous force. Then it lulled a little, and taking advantage of the comparative calm, Mr Temple took hold of his boys' hands, and the three with bended heads trotted towards the shelter on ahead. They had not been long under the lee of the pilchard-house before they saw Will return and stand with Josh and some more of the fishermen just beyond the reach of the waves. Then first one and then another made a rush at what looked at a distance like a piece of wood, tossed here and there by the great billows. Into this they struck the boat-hook, and ran with it shoreward, the piece of wood which looked so small proving to be a deal that was a pretty good weight for two men to carry. Quite a stack of these were dragged from the waves, some perfectly uninjured, others snapped in two, others again twisted and torn asunder, leaving long ragged threads of fibre, while others again were regularly beaten by the waves and rocks, so that the ends were like bunches of wood gnawed by some monster into shreds. They went back to dinner and returned towards evening, Uncle Abram giving it as his opinion that the worst of the gale was not over yet, and pointing to the glass that hung in the passage for corroboration. "Lower than she's been for months," said the old gentleman. "I hope no ship won't get caught in the bay." _Boom, bom_! "What's that?" cried Mr Temple quickly. "It's what I hoped would not happen, sir," said the old man, taking off his hat; "a ship in distress, and may--" He did not finish his sentence aloud, but closed his eyes, and they saw his lips move for a few moments, before, clapping on his hat again, he cried: "Let's go down to the beach, sir. 'Tisn't likely, but we might be able to do some good. Ah! there she is speaking again." _Boom, bom_! The hoarse echoing report of a large gun heard plainly above the roar of the storm, and hastily putting on his great yellow oilskin coat, old Uncle Abram led the way towards the shore. _ |
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