Back Aa

Marriage at Sea

<h3> CHAPTER V </h3> <h4> DIRTY WEATHER </h4> I should only weary you by reciting the passage of the hours. After breakfast I took Grace on deck for a turn, but she was glad to get below again. All day long it continued dark weather, without a sight of anything, save at intervals the shadowy figure of a coaster aslant in the thickness, and once the loom of a huge ocean passenger boat, sweeping at twelve or fourteen knots through the grey veil of vapour that narrowed the horizon to within a mile of us. The wind, however, remained a steady, fresh breeze, and throughout the day there was never a rope handled nor a stitch of canvas reduced. The Spitfire swung steadfastly through it, in true sea-bruising style, sturdily flinging the sea off her flaring bow, and whitening the water with the plunges of her churning keel till the tail of her wake seemed to stretch to the near sea line. I will not feign, however, that I was perfectly comfortable in my mind. Anything at sea but thick weather! I never pretended to be more than a summer-holiday sailor, and such anxiety, as I should have felt had I been alone, was now mightily accentuated, as you will suppose, by having the darling of my heart in my little ship with me. I had a long talk with Caudel that afternoon, and despite my eager desire to remain at sea, I believe I would have been glad had he advised that the Spitfire should be steered for the nearest harbour. But his counsel was all the other way. "Lord love ye, Mr. Barclay, sir," he exclaimed, "what's agoing wrong that we should tarn to and set it right? Here's a breeze of wind that's adoing all that could be asked for. I dorn't say it ain't thick, but there's nothen in it to take notice of. Of course, you've only got to say the word, sir, and I'll put the hellum up; but even for that there job it would be proper to make sartin first of all where we are. There's no want of harbours under our lee from Portland Bill to Bolt Head, but I can't trust to my dead reckoning, seeing what's involved," said he, casting a damp eye at the skylight; "and my motto is, there's nothen like seeing when you're on such a coast as this here. Having come all this way it 'ud be a pity to stop now." "So long as you're satisfied!" I exclaimed; and no doubt he was, though I believe he was influenced by vanity too. Our putting into a harbour might affect him as a reflection upon his skill. He would also suppose that, if we entered a harbour, we should travel by rail to our destination, which would be as though he were told we could not trust him farther. After the service he had done me it was not to be supposed I could causelessly give the worthy fellow offence. "You steer by the compass, I suppose?" said I. "By nothen else, sir," he answered in a voice of wonder. "Well, I might have known that," said I, laughing at my own stupid question that yet had sense in it too. "I should have asked you if the compass is to be trusted?" "Ay, sir. He's a first-class compass. There's nothen to make him go wrong. Yet it's astonishing what a little thing will put a compass out. I've heered of a vessel that was pretty nigh run ashore all along of the helmsman—not because he couldn't steer; a better hand never stood at a wheel; but because he'd been physicking of himself with iron and steel, and had taken so much of the blooming stuff that the compass was wrong all the time he was at the helm." "A very good story," said I. "I'm sure you'll forgive me, sir," he proceeded, "for asking if your young lady wears any steel bones about her—contrivances for hoisting her dress up astarn—crinolines—bustles—you know what I mean, Mr. Barclay?" "I cannot tell," said I. "I've heered speak of the master of a vessel," he went on (being a very talkative man when he got into the "yarning" mood), "whose calculations was always falling to pieces at sea. Two and two never seemed to make four with him; ontil he found out that one of his lady passengers every morning brought a stool and sat close agin the binnacle; she wore steel hoops to swell her dress out with, and the local attraction was such, your honour, that the compass was sometimes four or five points out." I told him that if the compass went wrong it would not be Miss Bellassys' fault; and having had enough of the deck, I rejoined my sweetheart, and, in the cabin, with talking, reading, she singing—very sweetly she sang—we killed the hours till bed-time. This was our third night at sea, and I was now beginning to think that instead of three or four days we should occupy a week, and perhaps longer, in making Mount's Bay; in which conjecture I was confirmed when, finding myself awake at three o'clock in the morning, I pulled on my clothes and went on deck to take a look round, and found the wind a light off-shore air, the stars shining, and the Spitfire, with her canvas falling in and out with sounds like the discharge of small arms, rolling stagnantly upon a smooth-backed run of swell lifting out of the north-east, but with a slant in the heave of it that made one guess the impulse which set it running was fair north. I was up again at seven o'clock, with a resolution to let the weather shape my decision as to sticking to the vessel or going ashore, and was not a little pleased to find the yacht making good way with a brilliant breeze gushing steady off her starboard bow. The heavens looked high with fine weather clouds, prismatic mare-tails for the most part, here and there a snow-white, swelling shoulder of vapour hovering over the edge of the sea. Caudel told me we were drawing well on to Portland, but that the wind had headed him, and he was off his course, so that, unless he put the yacht about, we should not obtain a sight of the land. "No matter," said I, "let us make the most of this slant." "That's what I'm for doing, sir. My principle is, always make a free wind, no matter what be the air that's ablowing. Some men's for ratching with the luff of their fore and aft canvas rounding in aweather, so cleverly do they try to split the eye of the breeze. I'm for sailing myself," and he cast a glance up at the rapful canvas, following it on with a look at Jacob Crew, who was suddenly gnawing upon his quid at the tiller, as though to keep him in mind by the expression of his eye of injunctions previously delivered. The greater part of this day Grace and I spent on deck, but nothing whatever happened good enough to keep my tale waiting whilst I tell you about it. Strong as the off-shore breeze was, there was but little sea, nothing to stop the yacht, and she ran through it like a sledge over a snow plain, piling the froth to her stem-head and reeling off a fair nine knots as Caudel would cry out to me with an exultant countenance of leather every time the log was hove. He talked of being abreast of the Start by three o'clock in the morning. "Then," said I to my sweetheart, "if that be so, Grace, there will be but a short cruise to follow." At this she looked grave, and fastened her eye with a wistful expression upon the sea over the bows as though Mount's Bay lay there, and as though the quaint old town of Penzance, with its long esplanade and rich flanking of green and well-tilled heights, would be presently showing. I read her thoughts and said, "I have never met Mrs. Howe, but Frank's letters about her to me were as enthusiastic as mine were about you to him. He calls her sweetly pretty. So she may be. I know she is a lady; her connections are good; I am also convinced by Frank's description that she is amiable; consequently, I am certain she will make you happy and comfortable until—" and here I squeezed her hand.. "It is a desperate step, Herbert," she sighed. Upon which I changed the subject. There was a noble flaring sunset that evening. The crimson of it was deep and thunderous; the wild splendour was rendered portentous by an appearance as of bars of cloud stretched horizontally across, as though they railed in the flames of a continent on fire. All day long the wind had been heading us a little off our course, which by magnetic compass was about W.S.W., and this magnificence of sunset at which Grace and I continued to stare with eyes of admiration and wonder, neither of us having ever seen the like of the red and burning glory that overhung the sea, stood well up on the starboard bow. The Channel waters ran to it in a dark and frothing green till they were smitten by the light, when they throbbed in blood for a space, then flowed in dark green afresh, hardening into a firm, cold, darkly green horizon. A small screw steamer, with her funnel sloping almost over her stern, and her greasy poles of masts resembling fibres of gold in the sunset, was bruising her way up Channel with a frequent cock of her bow or stern which made one wonder where the sea was that tossed her so. There was nothing else in sight, and by the time she vanished the last rusty tinge of red had perished in the west, and the loneliness of the sea came like a sensible quality of cold into the darkening twilight. "How desolate the ocean looks on a sudden!" said Grace. I thought so too as I glanced at the ashen heads of the melting billows and up aloft at the sky, where I took notice of an odd appearance of vapour, a sort of dusky smearing, as it were—a clay-like kind of cloud, as though rudely laid on by a trowel—I cannot better express the uncommon character of the heavens that evening. Here and there a star looked sparely and bleakly down, and in the west there was a paring of moon, some day or two old, shining and crystalline enough to make the dull gleam of the stars odd as an atmospheric effect. But the breeze blew steady; there was nothing to disturb the mind in the indications of the barometer; hour after hour the little ship was swarming through it handsomely, and we were now drawing on much too close to Mount's Bay (albeit this evening we were not yet abreast of the Start) to pause because of a thunder-coloured, smoking sunset, and because of a hard look of sky that might yield to the stars before midnight and discover a wide and cloudless plain of luminaries. "How long shall you keep on this tack?" I asked Caudel. "All night, sir, if the wind don't head us yet. It won't put us far off our port even at this." "Shall you sight the Start light?" "No, sir. Our stretching away all day'll have put it out of our spear of view. The Lizard light'll be all I want, and this time twenty-four hours I hope to be well on to it." I went below, and Grace and I killed the time as heretofore in talking and reading. We found the evening too short indeed, so much had we to say to each other. Wonderful is the quality and the amount of talk which lovers are able to get through and feel satisfied with! You hear of silent love, of lovers staring on one another with glowing eyes, their lips incapable of the emotions and sensations which crowd their quick hearts and fill their throats with sighs. This may be very well too; but, for my part, I have generally observed that lovers have a very great deal to talk about. Remark an engaged couple; sooner than be silent they will whisper if there be company present; and when alone, or when they think themselves alone, their tongues—particularly the girl's—are never still. Grace and I were of a talking age—two-and-twenty, and one not yet eighteen; our minds had no knowledge of life, no experience, nothing in them to keep them steady; they were set in motion by the lightest, the most trivial breath of thought, and idly danced in us in the manner of some gossamer-light, topmost leaf to the faintest movement of the summer air. She withdrew to her berth at ten o'clock that night with a radiant face and laughing eyes, for inane as the evening must have shown to others, to us it had been one of perfect felicity; not a single sigh had escaped her, and twice had I mentioned the name of Mrs. Howe without witnessing any change of countenance in her. I went on deck to take a last look round, and found all well; no change in the weather, the breeze a brisk and steady pouring out of the north, and Caudel pacing the deck well satisfied with our progress. I returned below without any feeling of uneasiness, and sat at the cabin table for some ten minutes or so to smoke out a cigar, and to refresh myself with a glass of seltzer and brandy. A sort of dream-like feeling came upon me as I sat. I found it hard to realise that my sweetheart was close to me, separated only by a curtained door from the cabin I was musing in. What was to follow this adventure? Was it possible that Lady Amelia Roscoe would oppose any obstacle to our union after even this association of three or four days as it might be? I gazed at the mirrors I had equipped the cabin with—picked up a handkerchief my sweetheart had left behind her and kissed it—stared at the little silver shining lamp that swung over my head—pulled a flower and smelt it in a vacant sort of way of which, nevertheless, I was perfectly sensible.... Is there anything wrong with my nerves to-night? thought I. I extinguished my cigar and went to bed. It was then about a quarter to eleven, and till past one I lay awake, weary, yet unable to sleep. I lay listening to the frothing and seething of the water thrashing along the bends, broken into at regular intervals by the low thunder of the surge, burying my cabin porthole and rising to the line of the rail as the yacht's stern sank with a long slanting heel-over of the whole fabric. I fell asleep at last, and as I afterwards gathered, slept till somewhat after three o'clock in the morning. I was awakened by suddenly and violently rolling out of my bunk. The fall was a heavy one; I was a big fellow, and struck the plank of the deck hard, and though I was instantly awakened by the shock of the capsisal, I lay for some moments in a condition of stupefaction, sensible of nothing but that I had tumbled out of my bunk. The little berth was in pitch darkness, and I lay, as I have said, motionless and almost dazed, till my ear caught a sound of shrieking ringing through a wild but subdued note of storm on deck, mingled with loud and fearful shouts, as of men bawling for life or death, with a trembling in every plank and fastening of the little fabric as though she were tearing herself to pieces. I got on to my legs, but the angle of the deck was so prodigious that I leaned helpless against the bulkhead, to the base of which I had rolled, though unconsciously. The shrieks were continued; I recognised Grace's voice, and the sound put a sort of frenzy into me, insomuch that, scarcely knowing how I managed, I had in an instant, opened the door of my little berth, and was standing, grabbing hold of the cabin table, shouting to let her know that I was awake and up, and that I heard her. Now, the uproar of what I took to be a squall of hurricane power was to be easily heard. The bellowing of the wind was horrible, and it was made more terrifying to land-going ears by the incessant hoarse shouts of the fellows on deck; but bewildered as I was, agitated beyond expression, not knowing but that as I stood there, gripping the table and shouting my sweetheart's name, the yacht might be foundering under my feet, I had wits enough to observe that the vessel was slowly recovering a level keel, rising from the roof-like slant which had flung me from my bed to an inclination that rendered the use of one's legs possible. I likewise noticed that she neither plunged nor rolled with greater heaviness than I had observed in her before I lay down. The sensation of her motion was as though she was slowly rounding before the wind, and beginning to scud over a surface that had been almost flattened by a hurricane-burst into a dead level of snow. I could hear no noise of breaking seas nor of rushing water, nothing but a cauldron-like hissing, through which rolled the notes of the storm in echoes of great ordnance. Fortunately, I had no need to clothe myself, since on lying down I had removed nothing but my coat, collar and shoes. I had a little silver match-box in my trouser's pocket, and swiftly struck a match and lighted the lamp and looked at Grace's door expecting to find her standing in it. It was closed, and she continued to scream. It was no time for ceremony; I opened the door, and called to know how it was with her. "Oh, Herbert, save me!" she shrieked; "the yacht is sinking." "No," I cried, "she has been struck by a gale of wind. I will find out what is the matter. Are you hurt?" "The yacht is sinking!" she repeated in a wild voice of terror. Spite of the lamplight in the cabin, the curtain and the door combined eclipsed the sheen, and I could not see her. "Are you in bed, dearest?" "Yes," she cried. "Are you hurt, my precious?" "No, but my heart has stopped with fright. We shall be drowned. Oh, Herbert, the yacht is sinking!" "Remain as you are, Grace. I shall return to you in a moment. Do not imagine that the yacht is sinking. I know by the buoyant feel of her movements that she is safe." And thus hurriedly speaking I left her, satisfied that her shrieks had been produced by terror only; nor did I wish her to rise, lest the yacht should again suddenly heel to her first extravagantly dreadful angle, and throw her, and break a limb, or injure her more cruelly yet. The companion hatch was closed. The feeling of being imprisoned raised such a feeling of consternation in me that I stood in the hatch as one paralysed, then terror set me pounding upon the cover with my fists, till you would have thought in a few moments I must have reduced it to splinters. After a little, during which I hammered with might and main, roaring out the name of Caudel, the cover was cautiously lifted to the height of a few inches, letting in a very yell of wind, such a shock and blast of it that I was forced, back off the ladder as though by a blow in the face, and in a breath the light went out. "It's all right, Mr. Barclay," cried the voice of Caudel, hoarse and yet shrill too with the life and death cries he had been delivering. "A gale of wind's busted down upon us. We've got the yacht afore it whilst we clear away the wreckage. There's no call to be alarmed, sir. On my word and honour as a man there's no call, sir. I beg you not to come on deck yet—ye'll only be in the way. Trust to me, sir—it's all right, I say," and the hatch was closed again. Wreckage! The word sounded as miserably in my ear as though it had been the shout of "Heaven have mercy upon us!" What had been wrecked? What had happened? Was the yacht stove? Had we lost our mast? I had heard no crash, no noise of splintering, no resounding thump as of a fall. I listened, struck another match, and then lighted the lamp afresh. I might know now that the Spitfire was dead before the wind, seething almost soundlessly through the foam of the storm-swept surface. She was going along with a steadiness that was startling when one thought of and listened to the weather; for her plunges were so long and buoyant as to be scarcely noticeable, whilst sea and swell being directly in her wake, her rolling was of the lightest. This scudding likewise took something of the weight out of the blast howling after us; the echo as of thunder penetrating to the cabin was, comparatively speaking, dulled; but I was sailor enough to know that we should be having a heavy sea anon, and that if the yacht was crippled aloft or injured below, then the merciful powers only knew how it was going to end with us. These thoughts were in my mind as I lighted the lamp. I now knocked on Grace's door, and told her to rise and dress herself, and join me in the cabin. "There is no danger," I shouted, "nothing but a passing capful of wind." She made some answer which I could not catch, but I might be sure that the upright posture and buoyant motions of the scudding yacht had tranquillised her mind; moreover, all sounds would penetrate her berth in very muffled tones. Still, if she looked at her watch, she might wonder why she had to rise and dress at half-past three o'clock in the morning! I sat alone for some ten minutes, during which the height and volume of the sea sensibly increased, though as the yacht continued flying dead before the wind, her plunges were still too long and gradual to be distressing. Occasionally a shout would sound on deck, but what the men were about I could not conceive. The door of the forward berth was opened, and Grace entered the cabin. Her face was white as death; her large eyes, which seemed of a coal blackness in the lamplight, and by contrast with the hue of her cheeks, sparkled with alarm. She swept them round the cabin, as though she expected to behold one knows not what sort of horror, then came to my side and linked my arm tightly in hers. "Oh, Herbert, tell me the truth. What has happened?" "Nothing serious, darling. Do you not feel that we are afloat and sailing bravely?" "But just now? Did not the yacht turn over? Something was broken on deck, and the men began to shriek." "And so did you, Grace," said I, trying to smile. "But if we should be drowned?" she cried, drawing closer to me, and fastening her sweet, terrified eyes upon my face. I shook my head, still preserving my smile, though Heaven knows, had my countenance taken its expression from my mood, it must have shown as long as the yacht herself. I could see her straining her ears to listen, whilst her gaze—large, bright, her brows arched, her lips parted, her breast swiftly heaving—roamed over the cabin. "What is that noise of thunder, Herbert?" "It is the wind," I answered. "Are not the waves getting up? Oh! feel this!" she cried, as the yacht rose with velocity and something of violence to the under-running hurl of a chasing sea, of a power that was but too suggestive of what we were to expect. "The Spitfire is a stanch, noble little craft," said I, "built for North Sea weather. She is not to be daunted by anything that can happen hereabouts." "But what has happened?" she cried, irritable with alarm. I was about to utter the first reassuring sentence that occurred to my mind, when the companion was slid a little way back, and I just caught sight of a pair of legs ere the cabin lamp was extinguished by such another yell and blast of wind as had before nearly stretched me. Grace shrieked and threw her arms round my neck; the cover was closed, and the interior, instantly becalmed again. "Who's that?" I roared. "Me, sir," sounded a voice out of the blackness where the companion steps stood; "Files, sir. The captain asked me to step below to report what's happened. He dursn't leave the deck himself." I released myself from my darling's clinging embrace and lighted the lamp for the third time. Files, wrapped in streaming oilskins, resembled an ebony figure over which a bucket of dripping has been emptied, as he stood at the foot of the steps with but a bit of his wet, grey-coloured face showing betwixt the ear-flaps and under the fore-thatch of his sou'wester. "Now for your report, Files, and bear a hand with it for mercy's sake." "Well, sir, it's just this; it had been breezing up, and we double-reefed the mainsail, Captain Caudel not liking the look of the weather, when a slap of wind carried pretty nigh half the mast over the side. We reckon—for we can't see—that it's gone some three or four feet below the cross-trees. The sail came down with a run, and there was a regular mess of it, sir, the wessel being buried. We've had to keep her afore it until we could cut the wreckage clear, and now we're agoing to heave her to, and I'm to tell ye with Capt'n Caudel's compliments not to take any notice of the capers she may cut when she heads the sea." "One moment. Is she sound in her hull?" "Yes, sir." "Heaven be praised! And how is the wind?" "About nor'-nor'-east, sir." "Then, of course, we've been running sou'-sou'-west, heading right into the open channel?" He said yes. "How does the weather look, Files?" "Werry black and noisy, sir." "Tell Caudel to let me see him whenever he can leave the deck," said I, unwilling to detain him lest he should say something to add to the terror of Grace, whose eyes were riveted upon him as though he were some frightful ghost or hideous messenger of death. I took down the lamp and screened it, whilst he opened the cover and crawled out. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.