Chapter VII: Part 7

“‘What for?’ said I: ‘we shall be back for tea. We’re sure to eat the buns, and they’ll destroy our appetite for the shrimps.’ That was my reasoning. It was very shortsighted; but what should a man who is cooped up in the City of London for eleven months in every year know about the sea and how to provide against its dangers?

“We were pursued by four or five boatmen to the landing-stage, where I selected what looked to me a nice light wherry. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. We meant to be home by six. The sun was still very hot; but the boatman who helped us to get into the wherry said we should find a cool air on the sea. I removed my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my arm-sleeves and set my hat securely on my head. My wife sat upon a cushion in the hinder part of the boat, and the boatman put on the rudder and told my wife to lay hold of the strings--I don’t know what sailors call them. But she said she would rather not touch them, as she had no idea of steering, and besides, the baby kept her hands employed.

“‘I can steer,’ said I, ‘with my oars.’

“On this, an old man with a long stick with a hook at the end of it, pushed the boat off. There was quite a crowd of other boats--empty boats--in the way, and I was a good deal confused by the shouts of the boatmen telling me what to do. We ran into several of these boats, and twice I let one of the oars fall overboard, which gave me a great deal of trouble to recover. We got clear of these boats, and I was rowing pretty steadily when, to my surprise, I found the boat’s head turning and aiming for the pier. I endeavoured to remedy this by rowing more strongly with one oar than with the other, but the wherry would insist upon going the wrong way, and I had come to the conclusion that there was something seriously amiss with the boat, and was about to put back and exchange it for another that would go straight, when I perceived that the rudder was inclined, in consequence of my wife sitting on one of the strings connected with it.

“When this was freed the boat went straight, and I pulled vigorously for the open sea. We had several alarms, however, before reaching the open water. First, there were three boats full of schoolboys, splashing about with their oars, who kept on screeching to me to mind where I was going. Then a man on the pier roared to me to keep clear of the tug. Then, again, we were nearly run down by a smack.

“‘I certainly don’t call this enjoyment,’ said my wife faintly, striving to soothe the baby, who had been awakened by the boys, and was crying at the top of her voice.

“I made no answer, but continued rowing with great resolution, and, as I flattered myself, with a dash of science, too, all things considered, earnestly looking over my shoulders to see where I was going, until my neck was as stiff as an office-ruler. At last we got out of harbour into the open sea.

“There was a large steamboat arriving from some place or other; there were numbers of people on the pier, but all watching the steamboat and thinking about her, and so nobody took the least notice of us. The water was quiet, with what nautical men call a swell that lifted and sank us; there was a nice wind that cooled the air; I saw two or three wherries at anchor in the opposite direction to that I was rowing in, and I fancy the people in them were fishing. Very far out at sea were some ships, but the only vessel near the harbour was a smack that came out soon after us, and, filling her sails, pushed quickly past us. One of the men upon her called out something as the vessel went by, but I didn’t catch what he said.

“My wife now agreed with me that this was real happiness. There was a delightful quiet in the air, to enjoy which a man must live for eleven months every year in the bustle and noise of the City; the town looked beautiful in the afternoon light, the tops of the white cliffs as green as new silk, and over and over again, after rowing a few moments, I would hang on my oars and look at the houses in the distance and the different objects changing their shapes or shifting their places. As I had pulled the oars very leisurely indeed, I calculated that it would not take me more than a quarter of an hour of steady pulling to cover the distance I had been lazily traversing; I mean I reckoned that I could cover in a quarter of an hour the distance I had slowly come in three-quarters. That would make the hour; but my wife was enjoying the air and the sea so thoroughly that I thought it would not greatly matter if we broke into another hour. This was a treat we didn’t often get. My wife flattered me by saying I rowed very well, and made the boat go wonderfully quick, considering I put very little strength into the oars. I thought so, too, indeed, and was surprised to observe how rapidly, in proportion to my exertion, the land had receded away from us. By this time the pier was only a black line upon the water, and the people upon it invisible.

“‘You’ll be facing the shore, Sarah,’ said I, ‘when I turn the boat to row back, and you’ll be much interested in seeing the various objects growing bigger and bigger as we approach the land.’

“‘No wonder people are fond of the water,’ said she; ‘I could stop here for weeks.’

“Poor woman! I doubt if she’d say that now.

“It was six o’clock when I turned the boat’s head. I never doubted that I could row back in twenty minutes, and reckoned that the extra half-hour would be well worth the money. I rowed at first with a good deal of energy, and my wife was delighted at the manner in which I made the foam fly with my oars. Indeed, I worked too hard; the exertion soon tired me, and I perspired at every pore with the heat. It was slightly distracting that the baby, who had been sleeping very quietly, should now wake up and cry for what I suppose you might call her tea, if you can give regular names to milk-and-water administered about seven times a day.

“‘I am sorry, William,’ said my wife, ‘that we have stopped longer than the hour.’

“‘Oh,’ said I, knowing that the child was running in her head, ‘baby will do very well until we get home; we shan’t be long now;’ and again I exerted my strength and toiled like a champion rower.

“‘It’s very curious,’ said I, giving up after about ten minutes, and feeling quite exhausted, and panting for breath.

“‘What’s very curious?’ said my wife.

“‘Why,’ said I, pulling out my watch, ‘here it is twenty minutes past six, and the land seems rather farther off than it was before I turned the boat’s head towards it.’

“‘Yes,’ said she, growing a little pale; ‘I’ve been noticing that, too.’

“‘Perhaps it wants a steadier stroke,’ said I, wiping my forehead; and, settling to the oars again, I rowed for another ten minutes, and then looked over my shoulder. I could not be deceived. Row as I would, I not only could make no way, but the boat actually lost ground. I could not conceive of a current in the sea; a tide was an intelligible thing to me in a river, but I could not realize that the great body of water we were floating on was moving in a contrary direction to the land. There was nothing about to give me the idea; no buoys, or anything of that kind. All that I understood was that the harder I rowed towards the land the farther we fell away from it. I was heartily frightened, and pulled in the oars to stand up and look around me. My wife began to cry and the baby roared as babies can when they are particularly wanted to keep quiet. There were some ships, as I have said, a long distance off; and there was the smack that had passed us, two or three miles distant; but there was nothing near us. I put my hands to my mouth and shouted towards the land as hard as ever I could, flattering myself that there was a faint chance of the smooth water conveying the sound. I then stood waving and flourishing my hat for at least five minutes.

“‘Oh, William, what will become of us?’ cried my wife, sobbing piteously.

“I was much too upset to answer her. I had hoped that we should be noticed by some of the people who keep a look-out on the pier; but as the time went by, and the sun sank lower, and I could see no signs of anything coming to our rescue, my spirits fell, and I sat down and stared blankly at my wife. I put out the oars again, but was so wearied that I soon gave up rowing; besides, I felt that we were being carried away, and that the oars scarcely hindered our progress towards the ocean. All this while the baby was giving us the greatest trouble with its incessant crying. My wife filled up the pauses of its screams by anticipating all the horrors which might befall us. She assured me that she could see nothing before us but death from starvation, unless the sea should rise and upset the boat and drown us, or unless a passing vessel should crash into us when the darkness fell. What could I do? We were in one of those situations in which it is simply impossible for people to help themselves. I could not row; we had no sail, and even if we had had a sail I should not have known how to use it; I had no means of calling attention to our position except by waving my hat or flourishing an oar, which seemed an idle thing to do, considering what a speck the boat made upon the water, and how far off we were from everything but the miserable sea.

“Sure enough, presently the sun sank, and though the twilight lasted a good bit, yet the water soon grew dark, and speedily after sundown the coast grew faint, and the ships in the distance were swallowed up in the gloom. When the night fairly came the wind got up, not very much, but enough to disturb the water, and the wherry began to slop about horribly. What was worse, it blew off the land and helped to carry us farther away. How I cursed my folly for not having brought a man with me! The crying of the poor hungry little baby and my wife’s moans and reproaches were just maddening. It was very fine overhead, the sky full of stars, but there was no moon, and the sea looked as black as ink. I could see the lights on the land, and could even very faintly hear the strains of a band of music playing on the cliff, for, as I have told you, the wind blew from the shore. I pulled out my watch, but though I held it close to my nose I could not see what time it was. I kept on looking around in the hopes of observing a passing vessel, but, though no doubt some must have passed, I did not see them.

“My wife was continually saying, ‘Oh, William, what shall we do?’

“‘Do?’ said I. ‘What _can_ we do? We must sit here and wait.’

“‘Wait!’ she would cry. ‘What is there to wait for?’

“‘For daylight, if for nothing else.’

“‘But what will daylight do for us? We have been lost in daylight, and when daylight comes where shall we be?’ and here she would hug the poor crying baby and wish herself dead, and so on.

“Lord, what a time it was! The sea kept the boat rocking incessantly, so that it was impossible for me to stand up. The dew fell like rain, and my clothes were as heavy as if I had been exposed to a shower. My wife said her limbs felt like pieces of iron, and that she had the cramp in every joint, which I could easily understand, for I, too, suffered atrociously from having to keep seated and to balance myself to the tumbling about of the wretched little wherry. By degrees we lost sight of the lights on shore; and we felt as if we were in the middle of the Atlantic. Once or twice I thought of taking to the oars again, but when the lights disappeared there was nothing to aim for. How we passed the hours I can’t tell you. The baby would wake and cry until she cried herself to sleep, then wake and cry herself to sleep again, and so on, hour after hour. My wife and I fell silent; we had exhausted all that _could_ be said, and we sat there like two statues. To my dying hour I shall remember the gurgling and sobbing noise of the water splashing against the boat’s side, and the dreadful silence overhead and around, above the water, as I may say.

“It must have been past midnight, when I thought I heard a kind of groaning or rumbling sound in the wind. I could not imagine what it could be, until, looking into the darkness on my right hand, I spied three lights upon the sea--one green, one red, and one white--this last much higher than the others. Soon after there was a heavy noise of washing water, and just over the white light there was a shower of sparks, and presently a great black shadow stood up on the sea and blotted out the stars behind it. I was weak and worn out--terrified to a degree by the swift approach of this steamer--and though I managed to shout, my voice seemed to stick in my throat. The great vessel swept past us not above twenty yards distant; saving those lamps she was all in darkness, and soon after she had gone by I thought the wherry would have upset in the waves the steamer had left behind. My wife screamed as the boat sprang up and down, and every instant I expected the sea to rush into us. I shouted again to the steamer, hoping that I might be heard. This time my voice carried well, but nothing came of it; the steamer rushed on, and was soon out of sight.

“The dawn was just breaking, when I saw a vessel making a black mark against the pale green light in the place where the sun was coming. It took me some time to find out which way she was going, but presently the rising sun made her plain, and I saw that she was a small smack, and that she aimed directly for us. I managed to stand up in the wherry and flourish my hat. There was no coast to be seen--nothing visible upon the sea but that smack. So far as water went, we might have been in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world. I perceived before long that the smack saw us, for she lowered one of her sails, and came along slowly. I looked at my wife to see how this adventure had served her, and it seemed to me that she had aged twenty years. Her face was hollow, her dress draggled and limp with the dew; she was a most melancholy object to look at. I hardly knew her, indeed; and she was equally astonished by my appearance, as she afterwards told me. Who could suppose that a night spent in an open boat at sea would work such a change in people’s looks? As for poor little baby, she had been crying on and off all night, and, being pretty nearly perished with hunger, she was a distressing thing, truly, for us parents to see. It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the smack came close to us, counting from the time I had first seen her. A great man in yellow clothes bawled out, ‘What’s that boat, and what do you want?’ You might have supposed he would guess our want by our appearance.

“‘We’ve been carried away to sea,’ I answered, in a faint voice, for I felt as weak as an infant and just fit to cry like one, ‘and we’ve been in this boat all night.’

“‘Where do you come from?’ he called.

“I told him, and he answered, ‘We’ll tow you in. Look out for the end of the line;’ and another man threw a rope at me.

“I caught it, but did not know what to do with it; seeing which, the first man told me to keep hold, and dragged the wherry up to the smack, and then got into her and attached the line to the boat.

“‘Will you sit here or come aboard?’ he asked.

“‘Oh, come aboard, certainly,’ I replied; so he took the baby and passed it to a sailor on the smack, and then helped my wife up, and then me.

“So here we were, saved; but faint, broken-down, feeling as if we had been dug out of the grave. Luckily they had a few tins of Swiss milk in the cabin, and so poor little baby got something to eat at last. Also they gave us some corned beef and bread, which we devoured gratefully, after the manner of shipwrecked people. The captain of the smack laughed when I told him we had originally started for an hour’s row.

“‘How much do they charge you for an hour?’ says he.

“‘Eighteenpence,’ I answered.

“‘You have had a good eighteen-pennorth,’ said he. ‘You may thank the Lord, master, that ye’re alive to pay even eighteenpence. D’ye know how many miles you’ve drifted from your port?’

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well then,’ said he, ‘you’ve drifted eleven miles. There’s the coast--you can calculate for yourself;’ and he pointed to the white cliffs, which were visible from the smack’s deck, though not from the boat. A fearfully long distance off they looked, to be sure.

“‘William,’ said my wife at this moment, ‘I’ll never come upon the water again.’

“‘Nor I, Sarah,’ said I; ‘at least without a man.’

“‘Man or no man,’ said she, ‘I’ll never venture my life again.’

“‘And I have no doubt she will keep her word, though it won’t cost her a very great effort to do so, for I am quite sure I shall never attempt to make her break it.”

“And so,” said I, “you got home safe?”

“Yes,” he answered; “the smack landed us in about two hours. The boatman wanted to charge me for twelve hours’ use of his wherry; but I got off for half a sovereign, which I thought cheap, as he talked of having the law of me.”

And here terminated this middle-aged City clerk’s narrative. The moral of it is not far off, and may be found without much hunting; and that a little musing over it shall not be without value, any man may judge for himself if he will but take his stand upon a British pier and watch the typical seaside visitor enjoying “an hour’s row.”

_THE PLEASURES OF YACHTING._

Steam has played sad havoc with the beauty of our naval and merchant vessels; but, though it has not spared our pleasure fleets, it has left untouched numerous graceful fabrics among the yachts of the country, and sail-power may survive for many years yet in the most beautiful form it has ever been moulded to by the genius of man. There is a story told of a butterfly alighting on the breast of a dying girl and taking wing at the very moment she expired, and soaring into the blue sky with the sunshine sparkling on its bright wings. I thought of this tale the other day when I spied the hulk of what appeared to have been a sailing frigate or an old East India merchantman towing up Channel. There was a strong, clear wind, and the water flashed like a prism, and I was gazing with interest at the poor old dismasted hulk when a fine schooner yacht, beating to the eastward, swirled up under her stern. A noble sight was that pleasure vessel. Her lee rail was almost flush with the foam which swept like a storm of snow under the gleaming milk-white curve of her lower cloths; to windward her sheathing was hove high, and the yellow metal glittered like new gold as it glanced through the network of spray and the shining emerald-green fibres of water which leapt about her glossy sides. She might have been the very spirit of the old dismantled sailing ship, leaping into bright and beautiful being as the most exquisite and the completest expression of marine grace. It would have gratified the most morose sailor to see her. Here was a sight to comfort Jack for the loss of the noble sailing ships of his younger days. The grand piles of canvas, the little skysails topping the swelling pyramids, the magnificent sweep of jibbooms bearing their marble-coloured cloths in layers like a heap of clouds, the ringing minstrelsy of the wind among the taut hemp that resembles a spider’s web as you look at it against the sky of the horizon--these things are gone, or fast going; the ocean will soon be bare of them, and the star-like shine of sails upon the sea-line smothered by the long black coils of furnace smoke. But while such yachts as that whose flashing progress I watched remain afloat the sea will still possess her English beauties.

It is the owners of such vessels who are perpetuating all that is fair, all that is memorable, of the traditions of our English ship-building yards. The survival is a very fit one. It seems proper, indeed, that the stateliness and elegance of the sailing vessel should come into the keeping of men to whom the deep is its own exceeding great reward--as poetry was to Coleridge--who traverse it for love only of its caressing waters and the glorious life of its noble expanse, and who make it the framework for marine pictures into whose idealization enters all that money, fine taste, and devotion to what is beautiful and harmonious can furnish.

Surely to those who love her for herself the sea is a bountiful and great-hearted mother. The fascination the ocean exercises over the mind cannot be expressed in language; and happy is the man who, yielding to her spell, counts himself one of her sons as a yachtsman. Mercantile Jack may profess to despise such seafaring as a fresh-water job; but, nevertheless, let him own that he envies the sand-white decks, the snug forecastle, the easy life, the glorious runs under blue skies and over tumbling and silver-bright waters. No other form of “sailorizing” yields so much unalloyed pleasure. Privacy is the first grand privilege. You will get that in your yacht, but you will get it aboard no other kind of ship which ever I have heard of. No amount of passage-money will save you from worry and companionship you may not be in the humour to enjoy on board the finest passenger vessel. It is hotel-life: you are a number; you have luggage; you are making the voyage for a direct object; in short, you have a destination, and the having a destination makes one of the main differences between yachting and going to sea in any other way.

A yacht is a man’s home. He need never be in a hurry. Like Jefferson in “Rip Van Winkle,” he lives about in spots. He may leave a good deal to his skipper, but he is always master; he owns the craft which others steer, and never a humour can come into his head which he may not indulge without having anybody to argue with him. It is a fine thing to be lord of the sea in this fashion. A captain of a big ship is a great man, but he is a sort of a slave also. His business is to make haste, and obstacles vex his soul. The patent log that he tows astern typifies the condition of his mind. A head sea is an affliction, and most of the wonders of the deep are great nuisances to him. He wants to sight nothing. He objects to excitements and adventures. All that he prays for is fine weather and so many nautical miles a day. These are the penalties of having a destination.

The bliss of yachting lies in the having to go nowhere in particular, and one port being as good as another. If you can’t weather a point, then there is nothing to do but put your helm up and come back again. The barometer seldom tells lies, and one of its safe readings, which makes yachting so delightful, is “Keep the harbours aboard.” That certainly may always be done in the English Channel, and not for this reason only does one cease to wonder that it should be the most popular of all yachting waters. Much has been written about yachting in the Scotch lakes and northward among the isles. Such cruising might suit a man who is easily sea-sick, and who is never so comfortable as when his tow-rope is aboard a tug. But the yachtsman who has the instincts of a seaman will choose the wide waters of the English Channel, pushing away to the westward until the Atlantic swell is under his forefoot and his white sails mirrored in water as blue as the heavens. The Channel is a sea of itself, and most of the changes of the sea may be felt and enjoyed on its breast. Here you will get breezes which toss a yacht prettily enough, and the calms are made beautiful and soothing by the gentle swell that runs out of the vague horizon, and keep the water flashing and fading under the sun. Once to the westward of the North Foreland, there is no finer space of water for yachting, and nowhere more beautiful shores and nobler coast scenery. It is a great maritime highway, too, always full of ships, and so crowded with marine interests that the yachtsman is never weary of looking over the side of his vessel. Given a strong and sweeping wind from the southward of east, with the sharp blue sky which that sort of breeze makes; and let the sun still be soaring, and the atmosphere so transparent that the coast stands along like a photograph; and let your mainsheet be eased, and the white heights of the North Foreland on your starboard quarter, the whole of the grand old Channel is under your bowsprit. Though there be no cups to win, there shall be a hundred races to run as you go; and, keeping to leeward of the Goodwins, every jump of the yacht unrolls a glistening length of white, and green, and brown, and golden shore.

Indeed, there is not a little sport to be got out of the unpremeditated races of yachting. I remember once coming up Channel, homeward bound, in a fine clipper ship. We had the wind abeam, and fore-topmast studding-sail out, and we went ahead of everything like a roll of smoke, until, coming abreast of the Isle of Wight, a powerful yawl--as superb a yacht as ever I saw--came frothing and buzzing along, with her main boom almost amidships, and Dunnose like a blue shadow over her stern. She ratched like a phantom to windward of us, and then, settling herself upon our weather quarter, starboarded her helm, eased away her sheets fore and aft, and overhauled us as if she had a mind to tow us. She was in a smother of foam. It must have been up to a man’s knees in the lee scuppers. She showed us the whole of her deck--a lady sitting in the companion, coolly ogling us through a binocular glass; three or four yachtsmen aft, squatting under the weather rail. But the view she offered was not prolonged. She forged ahead of us like a “bonito,” and in a couple of hours was a small leaning white pillar upon the horizon dead over our bows.

These are the unpremeditated matches I mean, and I have known some of them to be run with as wild a desire for triumph as ever a regular yacht-race kindled. They used to make one of the heartiest pleasures of yachting; but nowadays where is the foeman worthy of the steel of the slashing yawls, and cutters, and schooners? Nearly everything that floats goes by steam, and for a yacht to race a steamer would be as sensible as to make up a Derby of locomotives and thoroughbreds. Yet those crank racers, with their enormous spread of cloths--though they be things of beauty--are certainly not a joy to everybody. They are very proper to take prizes, but those who love the sea most wisely will least envy the privileges of the owners of such craft. Sailing with your mast at an angle of fifty degrees, half the mainsail dark with water, the froth hissing and seething and bubbling up to the lee side of the skylights, all hands holding on to windward and wondering what’s going to happen next, may be exhilarating to some souls, but it is a mad sort of yachting. These crank and nimble spinners give you no chance of looking about. They are a fine sight to watch. I know nothing more exciting to witness than a great narrow-waisted yawl, almost on her beam ends, hurling through an ocean of foam, jumping the seas until half her keel is out of water, then burying her bows in the storm of froth as if she were about to dive out of sight, her metal to windward looking like a sheet of polished gold, with the sunshine sparkling in the wet of it. But to be aboard! Decks that one can walk on may be an unsailorly prejudice, yet they are comfortable; and the obligation to stick to windward and to hold on with clenched teeth grows tedious and even fatiguing if too long imposed.

But the word yacht is a generic term, and comprises many different kinds of vessels. The middle kind between the knife-like racer and the motherly, lubberly tub, is the best for those who go down to the sea in pleasure vessels, not to do business, but to enjoy the freshness and wonder and beauty of the ocean. There are scores of them afloat, superbly modelled craft, whose lines would have made the old Baltimore clipper-builders green with envy. I will name no names, but will think of a yacht I have seen--a schooner, near about 150 tons by yacht measurement, with magnificent spars exquisitely stayed, a bow bold about the figurehead, but fining away with delicate keenness at the forefoot, with such a swell of the side as promises stability in a gale of wind, but arching thence to the keel in a conformation so tenderly sinuous and beautifully clean that a sailor would want to know no more to enter her in his mind as one of the fastest vessels of her class. This she is, but she gives you a beam as well as speed. There is plenty of room to walk about her decks; there is no fear of falling down the forehatch for want of a gangway to get into the eyes of her; the coils of her running-gear are never in the road. Is there anything more tenderly beautiful than a vessel of this kind slightly leaning under her cotton-white cloths, her polished and swelling heights of canvas softly shaded at the leeches, the brass-work on her deck full of blinding crimson stars which wink like bursts of fire from the mouths of cannon watched from a distance, as the lift of the swell veers the brilliant metal in and out of the sphere of the sun, whilst a line of froth streams past her like a shower of silver dust upon the sea, and the gentle moaning of water at the stem mingles with the vibratory humming of the wind in the vessel. This is the sort of vessel in which a man can take his ease and enjoy all that the sea has to offer. And this, too, is your ship for Channel cruising. She would carry you round the world if you had the mind to try her. She’ll creep into the wind’s eye with the luff of her foresail blowing to windward, not shivering, but standing out full of wind that way, whilst the after half is drawing and doing its work. I know her to be a typical boat, and that is why I describe her. Whilst such craft as she remain afloat, the grace of the sailing vessel in its most beauteous form survives, and steam may be defied to demolish a lingering but most noble marine ideal realized.

Owners of yachts do not all take the same view of the delightful pastime. Between the yachtsman who never seems so happy as when he is out of soundings, and those sailors who creep from port to port, and take a three weeks’ spell of rest in every harbour they succeed in making, there is a prodigious stretch, filled up by a surprising variety of tastes. But the harbour-haunting yachtsman grows rare. His excursions to sea, even out of sight of land, are every year more frequent. He learns to hear a music in the wind that’s piping merrily, and the threat of lightning in the horned moon ceases to scare him. This is as it should be. Yachting is surely but a sorry entertainment when warps hold your vessel against a stone or wooden pier, and no livelier recreation offers than bobbing for flounders in the mud at the bottom of the water alongside. Our English summers are not very long, and there is much to be seen, much to inspirit the mind, much to invigorate the body. The warm and brightly-coloured sea, for many a league enriched with verdant and dazzling and tender stretches of coast scenery, courts the fortunate yachtsman with promises which it never breaks. It is not racing only, it is not sailing only; it is the calm day sleeping under the rich azure heaven; the water a breathless surface of molten glass, shadowed here and there where the shallow soundings are; the horizon streaked with floating wreaths of vapour or darkened by the blueish smoke of a long-vanished steamer; the coastline some miles away swimming in the haze of heat, and the water in the south blending with the flood of light which the sun flashes into it. Here and there is a motionless smack, with her reddish sail reflected without a tremor under her; or a distant ship whose white canvas seems to be melting upon the faint light blue over the horizon. Or it is the summer night, with a flood of moonlight shivering the ripples, whilst on either hand the sea stretches away in solemn darkness touched faintly in places by the lustre of the glorious planets unpaled by the moonshine. A soft breeze murmurs over the water, and keeps the spectral canvas on high sleeping, and a narrow wake goes away astern into the darkness, with fitful flashes of phosphorus in the circling eddies, in the run of the ripples as they break near the silent hull.

Small wonder, indeed, that the sea should court men as it does, and fascinate them too. Happy the man who can take the pleasure it yields as a yachtsman, and in his own beautiful vessel can traverse its glorious waters as idly, and freely, and gaily as the wind that impels him.

_A DRUNKEN SHIP._

In one of Edgar Poe’s stories there is an account of a crew clinging to the bottom of their capsized vessel, and watching a ship approach them. She comes yawing and steering very wildly, but there are people aboard, and the poor sailors are full of hope; until on a sudden an insufferable smell is borne to them by the wind, and they discover that the figures lolling upon the ship’s sides are putrifying corpses.

This tale of horror as well as of imagination came into my head some time ago, when I read the evidence that had been tendered in St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, by a certain pier-manager and coxswain of the lifeboat belonging to a north-western town. He said that at about half-past five in the morning he was roused out by a man who told him that there was a vessel drifting ashore. He hurried down to the beach, and saw a barque of between 300 and 400 tons a short distance off under lower topsails. There was a fresh breeze from the westward. He watched the vessel a few minutes, and perceived that she would sometimes fall off so as to bring the breeze on her quarter, and then round close to the wind, like Poe’s dreadful ship, and that she was coming ashore as fast as ever she could drive. The lifeboat was launched when this strangely-behaved barque was within a hundred and fifty fathoms of the beach, and on the boat getting alongside, a strong smell of rum and water was found to pervade the atmosphere. A man got on to the rail and dropped into the boat, and the coxswain said “he seemed stupefied, took no notice of anything, and did not speak.” This was the skipper. The rest of the crew tumbled into the lifeboat and were conveyed ashore, while the barque took the ground and became a total wreck, nothing being saved but some sails and a few stores.

Such a very unusual circumstance as that of a well-found barque sailing ashore, as one might put it, of her own will, was sure to have a queer story behind it. And assuredly the story is a queer one, making one of the most disgraceful narratives to be found in the modern marine annals. It shall be told by a specimen of one of those plain, honest, English seamen who captains say are no longer to be found, and whose extinction, they declare, obliges them to ship “Dutchmen.” I will not give this excellent man his name, glad as I should be to do so, for the punishment inflicted on the captain and mate by the court that inquired into their conduct would render a large public identification a needless supplementary penalty. The certificate of competency held by the captain has been cancelled, but to the mate there has been granted a twelve months’ chance of reformation, and this alone should explain the reason for suppressing all names.

“The barque was a vessel of 340 tons, and we had a crew of ten men, not counting the captain and mate. We were bound for Quebec, which, I reckon, should make a ship’s course about west by south; but on this, as you’ll take note presently, all mariners don’t seem to be agreed. The whole of the crew, saving me and another whose name shall be Bill, were drunk when the barque left Liverpool. Speaking of the fo’ksle, I don’t mean to say there’s anything unusual in this. Drink’s grown with legislation. In old times, when there was less law, there was less lush. It’s a teetotal age, this; nothing but water going in vessels, and the consequence is that men newly shipped, knowing that there’ll be no grog betwixt this and the next port, go in for a bout of drinking to serve them, as it might be, for the whole voyage. See ’em come aboard, sprawling and roaring, too sick to stand, rolling below, and leaving the ship to sail away with no one but the idlers--and them drunk, too, maybe--to do her work for twenty-four hours or longer. If I was an owner my ship shouldn’t be a teetotaler. Every day, at noon, there should be a can of rum on the capstan for the men--a tot apiece; but I’d make this rule, that any man as came aboard in liquor should have no grog served out to him for the rest of the voyage. That would stop the drunkenness ships carry away from the ports, and all the dangers which a drunken crew brings on a vessel that’s got to grope her way down rivers and along channels full of peril.

“Well, there was ten of us, and eight were drunk. I’m speaking of forrards; I’ll come aft presently. I never saw men worse in liquor. You remember them Scotchmen that used to stand at tobacconists’ doors, taking a pinch of snuff?--dummies they were, you’ll recall. Well, think of giving one of ’em a shove, and seeing him fall. If ye can fix such an object in your imagination you’ll comprehend the sort of helplessness of my eight shipmates. They lay in the fo’ksle as lifeless as bits of timber; and this being the condition of the barque, we were towed out with a pilot aboard, and then, when abreast of the Nor’-west Lightship, were left to shift for ourselves. The mate was aft, me at the wheel, and Bill forward. There was not an inch of canvas on our vessel, and no one on deck excepting those I’ve mentioned. Whilst we were towing, the mate came up to have a look at the compass now and again, and then I noticed that if he wasn’t downright slewed he didn’t want very many more nips to settle his business. He goes lurching along till he comes abreast of the main rigging, and here he lays hold and sings out, ‘All hands make sail. Tumble up, my lively hearties! Bear a hand with your hair oil and your silk stockings, my sweet and noble fellows!’

“But nobody took any notice except Bill, who sings out, ‘There’s no tumbling up aboard this galliant vessel, sir--leastways, forrards; there’s naught but tumbling down.’ At which the mate bursts into a loud laugh, swaying upon the rope he had hold of as though he meant to swig off on it. Then, looking up and around, he sings out--

“‘This ain’t a steamer. The sails must be loosed and the yards hoisted, bully, if the Liverpool gells are ever to clap eyes on us brave mariners again; so jump below among them dreadful drunkards and rout ’em out. Rout ’em out, do you hear?’

“Well, Bill did as he was told, and after a bit he managed to shove two or three of the crew through the scuttle on to the deck. They stood blinkin’ in the light like owls, rolling up against one another with their hair over their faces, and their clothes looking as if they had been put on upside down.

“‘Now, then! now, then!’ sings out the mate, who couldn’t keep his legs without holding on; ‘what’s the meaning of this here dissipation? There’s no drink allowed aboard this tidy little ship. There’s nothing but the teetotal lay to be found in this handsome hooker. Milk and water, my bully sailor lads! that’s the tap if ever ye want to end as philosophers. Loose the fore-topmast staysail. Loose the spanker. Get the main-topmast staysail on her. Lay out, some one, and loose the inner jib.’ And he rattled order after order as though he’d got a ship’s company of fifty men to do his bidding.

“How the drunken fellows scraped through the job I’m sure I don’t know. It was a bad look-out for us two sober men, but for the life of me I couldn’t help laughing to watch the sailors Bill had managed to shove on deck go aloft. Talk of hanging on with your eyelids! Again and again I expected to see ’em all drop overboard; but I suppose their instincts for holding on were there, though their senses were gone, and the same mental henergy it was, no doubt, as enabled them to get the gaskets adrift and loose the lower topsails. When those sails were sheeted home--the jib, staysails, and spanker being already set--the drunken men refused to do any more work; they rolled over to the scuttle and disappeared, the mate looking on, but too intoxicated to act. The skipper all this while never showed himself. I asked the mate what course I was to steer.

“‘Course?’ said he; ‘why, keep the vessel’s head followin’ the jibboom, can’t ye?’

“‘Easy enough,’ says I; ‘but where’s the jibboom a-going?’

“‘No impudence!’ he cries out. ‘Smother me if I know what the British sailor’s a-coming to. It’s all drink and jaw nowadays. What’s become of all the old, ’spectable, sober seamen?--tell me that, you terrapin.’

“There was no use arguing with a man who couldn’t stand without holding on. I says, ‘I’m not going to steer this barque all day--’specially as we seem bound to nowheres. My trick was up and out a long spell since.’

“‘And d’ye think,’ says he, ‘the vessel don’t know her way without you? Hook it forrard, afore I skin yer.’

“I let go the wheel and walked forward. I looked behind me as I went, making sure that he’d take my place. But the deuce a bit. He was leaning against the rail, and shook his fist at me when I turned my head, and there was the barque without any one steering her, her fore and aft canvas full, but her topsails aback, and her whole company, saving two, so drunk as to be incapable. It was a good job that old Drainings was not so drunk as the others, otherwise we should have been obliged to light the galley fire and get ourselves supper. We were not disposed to take this job upon ourselves, so we hauled him on deck and gave him several buckets of water, which appeared to wash some of the fumes out of his intellects, and he then turned to--in a very staggering fashion, sartinly--and got us some tea, being scared by our threats to drown him out of hand if he didn’t tend to our wants.

“Me and my mate hung about the deck forrard watching to see if the skipper showed himself, but he never appeared, which, taken along with the condition of the mate, made us suppose he was drunk too; but we couldn’t have swore to this without getting a sight of him first. I says to Bill, ‘Here’s a pretty look-out. What’s to be done? No one at the wheel; no one in charge; everybody drunk, and the night coming along.’

“‘There’s nothing to be done,’ answers Bill, ‘except to turn in and take our chance. It won’t do for us to take command of the barque. If there’s to be a mess, let it find the skipper boss, not us. I don’t want no magistrate’s job, for one. We’re but common sailors, and common sailors have but a poor chance now when it comes to law, and the fight’s between them and the captain.’

“This was a middlin’ sensible view; but still, life’s life, and I couldn’t quite see my way to turn in aboard a drifting ship, and take our chance of all going well throughout the night. So, calling old Drainings, who was getting his senses and beginning to understand the muddle we was all in, we lighted our pipes and had a long confab, the end of it being an agreement that the three of us should keep a look-out, turn and turn about. There was to be no steering--nothing but looking. Well, I kept the first look-out, and in all them hours I never see either the captain or the mate on deck. The breeze was small, and the ship lay steady enough, her topsails aback and her staysails drawing. Two or three steamers drove past, and I’m pretty sartin they’d have been into us if I hadn’t taken the precaution to get the side lights over. Bill relieved me at six bells, we having settled for his turn to follow mine, so as to give Drainings time to sleep off the rest of the rum that worked in his system. When I went below the fo’ksle was as hot as an oven, such a smell of liquor about as would have made you think yourself in a public-house, and all hands snoring so loud that you might have reckoned the barque was sailing ten miles an hour, and that noise the sound of the water rolling away from her stem. I turned in all standing, ready for whatever might happen, and fell asleep, and when I woke it was to the tune of a desperate hammering on deck. It was broad daylight, and, when I tumbled up, I found the mate beating the deck and bawling at the top of his voice, ‘Up with ye, you drunken swine! up naked, every mother’s son of you, and don’t stop to dress!’ he was roaring, filling up his meaning with more oaths than he had fingers and toes. He was just in the same condition he had been in all along, rolling and sprawling here and there, and fogging the air all about him with the smell o’ spirits.

“Old Drainings was at the wheel, and I spied the captain aft, holding on to a backstay with one hand and shaking his other hand at Drainings, who grinned in his face. Though pretty near the whole ship’s length was betwixt us, I easily saw that the captain was as drunk as his mate. By-and-by he turns his head and sings out for the mate to lay aft. The mate goes, and the skipper, fetching him a thumping whack on the back--meant for love and good fellowship--casts his arm round the other’s neck, and down they tumble below, for another reviver, no doubt. Drainings left the wheel and came forrard.

“‘I can’t help laughing at the old man,’ says he. ‘Never heerd such nonsense as he talks. But, all the same, what’s to do?’ says he. ‘We shall be driving ashore if we don’t mind. Have any of the men recovered?’

“‘I’ve not had time to see,’ I answers, and I dropped down the fo’ksle hatch to have a look. I stirred them as was on the deck with my foot and made some of them talk to me; but there was not one man among them as was of any use. They had not only come aboard steeped to the eyes in drink, but had brought a quantity of lush along with them, and two or three empty black bottles knocking about ’splained how it was that sleeping in all night hadn’t made these scowbanks fit for duty.

“Well, I don’t want to make an endless job of this yarn, or I’d give you the particulars of that day and the night as followed. By that time most of the men had recovered their senses, and me and Bill took care, as fast as ever we could get ’em to sit up and listen, to ’splain the quandary the vessel was in, and our danger. This sobered ’em quicker than water would have done. They came on deck and took a look around, saw nobody at the wheel, no one in charge, and nothing on the barque but what we had made shift to hoist after the tug had left us.

“This was the afternoon of the third day. The weather looked dirty in the south-west, and shortly before five o’clock the wind breezed up hard. Luckily we was under small canvas. I says to the men, ‘The best thing we can do is to haul down the staysails and heave her to. There’s no telling where she’s been drifting to all these days. No sights have been taken, the log never hove, no reckoning of any kind kept. Whether we’re off England, Hireland, or Scotland I’m not going to calculate; but one thing I’m certain sure of, we shall be having one of them kingdoms close aboard of us before long; and so I reckon our business is to slow down this here drift as fur as we can, whilst we see if the captain means to take charge and sail the vessel to Quebec, or keep drunk and send us all to the bottom.’