by G. A. Henty
A FISH-WIFE'S DREAM.
Falmouth is not a fashionable watering-place. Capitalists andspeculative builders have somehow left it alone, and, except for itsgreat hotel, standing in a position, as far as I know, unrivaled,there have been comparatively few additions to it in the last quarterof a century. Were I a yachtsman I should make Falmouth myheadquarters: blow high, blow low, there are shelter and plenty ofsailing room, while in fine weather there is a glorious coast alongwhich to cruise--something very different from the flat shores fromSouthampton to Brighton. It is some six years since that I was lyingin the harbor, having sailed round in a friend's yacht from Cowes.Upon the day after we had come in my friend went into Truro, and Ilanded, strolled up, and sat down on a bench high on the seaward faceof the hill that shelters the inner harbor.
An old coastguardsman came along. I offered him tobacco, and in fiveminutes we were in full talk.
"I suppose those are the pilchard boats far out there?"
"Aye, that's the pilchard fleet."
"Do they do well generally?"
"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; it's an uncertain fish thepilchard, and it's a rough life is fishing on this coast. There aint agood harbor not this side of the Lizard; and if they're caught in agale from the southeast it goes hard with them. With a southwesterthey can run back here."
"Were you ever a fisherman yourself?"
"Aye, I began life at it; I went a-fishing as a boy well-nigh fiftyyear back, but I got a sickener of it, and tramped to Plymouth andshipped in a frigate there, and served all my time in queen's ships."
"Did you get sick of fishing because of the hardships of the life, orfrom any particular circumstance?"
"I got wrecked on the Scillys. There was fifty boats lost that night,and scarce a hand was saved. I shouldn't have been saved myself if ithad not been for a dream of mother's."
"That's curious," I said. "Would you mind telling me about it?"
The old sailor did not speak for a minute or two; and then, after asharp puff at his pipe, he told me the following story, of which Ihave but slightly altered the wording:
I lived with mother at Tregannock. It's a bit of a village now, as itwas then. My father had been washed overboard and drowned two yearsbefore. I was his only son. The boat I sailed in was mother's, andfour men and myself worked her in shares. I was twenty-one, or maybetwenty-two, years old then. It was one day early in October. We hadhad a bad season, and times were hard. We'd agreed to start at eighto'clock in the morning. I was up at five, and went down to the boatsto see as everything was ready. When I got back mother had madebreakfast; and when we sat down I saw that the old woman had beencrying, and looked altogether queer like.
"My boy," says she, "I want you not to go out this trip."
"Not go out!" said I; "not go out, mother! Why? What's happened? Yourshare and mine didn't come to three pounds last month, and it would bea talk if I didn't go out in the _Jane_. Why, what is it?"
"My boy," says she, "I've had a dream as how you was drowned."
"Drowned!" said I; "I'm not going to be drowned, mother."
But what she said made me feel creepy like, for us Cornishmen goes agood deal on dreams and tokens; and sure enough mother had dreamedfather was going to be drowned before he started on that last trip ofhis.
"That's not all, Will," she said. "I dreamed of you in bed, and a chapwas leaning over you cutting your throat."
I didn't care much for going on with my breakfast after that; but in aminute or two I plucks up and says:
"Well, mother, you're wrong, anyhow; for if I be drowned no one has nocall to cut my throat."
"I didn't see you downright drowned in my dream," she said. "You wasin the sea--a terribly rough sea--at night, and the waves werebreaking down on you."
"I can't help going, mother," I says, after a bit. "It's a fine day,and it's our boat. All the lads and girls in the village would laughat me if I stayed at home."
"That's just what your father said; and he went to his death."
And my mother, as she says this, puts her apron over her head andbegan to cry again. I'd more than half a mind to give way; but youknow what young chaps are. The thought of what the girls of the placewould say about my being afraid to go was too much for me.
At last, when mother saw I was bent on going, she got up and said:
"Well, Will, if my prayers can't keep you back, will you do somethingelse I ask you?"
"I will, mother," said I--"anything but stay back."
She went off without a word into her bedroom, and she came back withsomething in her arms.
"Look here, Will, I made this for your father, and he wouldn't haveit; now I ask you to take it, and put it on if a storm comes on. Yousee, you can put it on under your dreadnaught coat, and no one willbe any the wiser."
The thing she brought in was two flat Dutch spirit-bottles, sewnbetween two pieces of canvas. It had got strings sewed on for tyinground the body, and put on as she did to show me how, one bottle eachside of the chest, it lay pretty flat.
"Now, Will, these bottles will keep you up for hours. A gentleman whowas staying in the village before you was born was talking aboutwrecks, and he said that a couple of empty bottles, well corked, wouldkeep up a fair swimmer for hours. So I made it; but no words could getyour father to try it, though he was willing enough to say that itwould probably keep him afloat. You'll try it, won't you, Will?"
I didn't much like taking it, but I thought there wasn't much chanceof a storm, and that if I put it under my coat and hid it away down inthe forecastle, no one would see it; and so to please her I said I'dtake it, and that if a bad storm came on I would slip it on.
"I will put a wineglass of brandy into one of the bottles," mothersaid. "It may be useful to you; who can say?"
I got the life-preserver, as you call it nowadays, on board withoutits being seen, and stowed it away in my locker. I felt glad now I'dgot it, for mother's dream had made me feel uneasy; and on my way downold Dick Tremaine said to me:
"I don't like the look of the sky, lad."
"No!" says I; "why, it looks fine enough."
"Too fine, lad. I tell ye, boy, I don't like the look of it. I thinkwe're going to have a bad blow."
I told the others what he had said; but they didn't heed much. Twoboats had come in that morning with a fine catch, and after the badtime we'd been having it would have taken a lot to keep them in afterthat.
We thought no more about it after we had once started. The wind waslight and puffy; but we had great luck, and were too busy to watch theweather. What wind there was, was northerly; but towards sunset itdropped suddenly, and as the sails flapped we looked round at the sky.
"I fear old Dick was right, lads," Jabez Harper, who was skipper,said, "and I wish we had taken more heed to his words. That's about aswild a sunset as may be; and look how that drift is nearing our boat."
Even I, who was the youngest of them, was old enough to read the signsof a storm--the heavy bank of dark clouds, the pale-yellow brokenlight, the horse-tails high up in the sky, and the small brokenirregular masses of cloud that hurried across them. Instinctively welooked round towards the coast. It was fully fifteen miles away, andwe were to the east of it. The great change in the appearance of thesky had taken place in the last half-hour; previous to that time therehad been nothing which would have struck any but a man grown old uponthe coast like Dick Tremaine.
"Reef the mainsail," Jabez said, "and the foresail too; take in themizzen. Like enough it will come with a squall, and we'd best be assnug as may be. What do you say? shall we throw over some of thefish?"
It was a hard thing to agree to; but every minute the sky waschanging. The scud was flying thicker and faster overhead, and theland was lost in a black cloud that seemed to touch the water.
"We needn't throw 'em all out," Jabez said; "if we get rid of halfshe'll be about in her best trim; and she's as good a sea-boat asthere is on the coast. Come, lads, don't look at it."
It
was, as he said, no use looking at it, and in five minutes half ourcatch of the day was overboard. The _Jane_ was a half-decked boat,yawl-rigged; she wasn't built in our parts, but had been brought roundfrom somewhere east by a gentleman as a fishing-craft. He had used herfor two years, and had got tired of the sport, and my father hadbought her of him. She wasn't the sort of boat generally used abouthere, but we all liked her, and swore by her.
"It will be a tremendous blow for the first few minutes, I reckon,"Jabez said after a while. "Lower down her sails altogether; get herhead to it with a sweep. I'll take the helm; Harry, you stand ready tohoist the foresail a few feet; and, Will, you and John stand by thehoists of the mainsail. We must show enough to keep her laying-to aslong as we can. You'd best get your coats out and put 'em on, andbatten down the hatch."
I let the others go down first, and when they came up I went in, tiedthe life-belt round me, and put on my oilskin. I fetched out a bottleof hollands from my locker, and then came out and fastened the hatch.
"Here comes the first puff," Jabez said.
I stowed away the bottle among some ropes for our future use, and tookhold of the throat halyard.
"Here it comes," Jabez said, as a white line appeared under the cloudof mist and darkness ahead, and then with a roar it was upon us.
I have been at sea, man and boy, for forty years, and I never rememberin these latitudes such a squall as that. For a few minutes I couldscarcely see or breathe. The spray flew in sheets over us, and thewind roared so that you wouldn't have heard a sixty-eight-pounder tenyards off. At first I thought we were going down bodily. It was luckywe had taken every stitch of canvas off her, for, as she spun round,the force of the wind against the masts and rigging all but capsizedher. In five minutes the first burst was over, and we were runningbefore it under our close-reefed foresail only. There was no occasionfor us to stand by the halyards now, and we all gathered in the stern,and crouched down in the well. Although the sun had only gone downhalf an hour it was pitch-dark, except that the white foam round usgave a sort of dim light that made the sky look all the blacker. Thesea got up in less time than it takes in telling, and we were soonobliged to hoist the foresail a bit higher to prevent the waves fromcoming in over the stern. For three hours we tore on before the gale,and then it lulled almost as suddenly as it had come on. There hadscarcely been a word spoken between us during this time. I was halfasleep in spite of the showers of spray. Jim Hackers, who was alwayssmoking, puffed away steadily; Jabez was steering still, and theothers were quite quiet. With the sudden lull we were all on our feet.
"Is it all over, Jabez?" I asked.
"It's only begun," he said. "I scarce remember such a gale as thissince I was a boy. Pass that bottle of yours round, Will; we shall bebusy again directly. One of you take the helm; I'm stiff with the wet.We shall have it round from the south in a few minutes."
There was scarce a breath of wind now, and she rolled so I thought shewould have turned turtle.
"Get out a sweep," Jabez said, "and bring her head round."
We had scarcely done so ere the first squall from behind struck us,and in five minutes we were running back as fast as we had come. Thewind was at first south, but settled round to southeast. We got up alittle more sail now, and made a shift to keep her to the west, forwith this wind we should have been ashore long before morning if wehad run straight before it. The sea had been heavy--it was tremendousnow; and, light and seaworthy as the _Jane_ was, we had to keep balingas the sea broke into her. Over and over again I thought that it wasall over with us as the great waves towered above our stern, but theyslipped under us as we went driving on at twelve or fourteen knots anhour. I stood up by the side of Jabez, and asked him what he thoughtof it.
"I can't keep her off the wind," he said; "we must run, and bymidnight we shall be among the Scillys. Then it's a toss-up."
Jabez's calculations could not have been far out, for it was justmidnight, as far as I could tell, when we saw a flash right ahead.
"That's a ship on one of the Scillys," Jabez said. "I wish I knewwhich it was."
He tried to bring her a little more up into the wind, but she nearlylay over onto her beam-ends, and Jabez let her go ahead again. We sawone more flash, and then a broad faint light. The ship was burning ablue light. She was not a mile ahead now, and we could see she was alarge vessel. I had often been to the Scillys before, and knew them aswell as I did our coast, but I could not see the land. It was as Jabezhad said--a toss-up. If we just missed one of them we might manage tobring up under its lee; but if we ran dead into one or other of themthe _Jane_ would break up like an egg-shell.
We were rapidly running down upon the wreck when the glare of a fireon shore shone up. It was a great blaze, and we could faintly see theland and a white cottage some hundred yards from the shore.
"I know it," Jabez shouted; "we are close to the end of the island; wemay miss it yet. Hoist the mainsail a bit."
I leapt up with another to seize the halyards, when a great wavestruck us; she gave a roll, and the next moment I was in the water.
After the first wild efforts I felt calm like. I knew the shore wasbut half a mile ahead, and that the wind would set me dead upon it. Iloosened my tarpaulin coat and shook it off, and I found that withmother's belt I could keep easily enough afloat, though I was halfdrowned with the waves as they swept in from behind me. My mother'sdream cheered me up, for, according to that, it did not seem as I wasto be drowned, whatever was to come afterwards. I drifted past thewreck within a hundred yards or so. They were still burning bluelights; but the sea made a clean sweep over her, and I saw that in avery few minutes she would go to pieces. Many times as the seas brokeover me I quite gave up hope of reaching shore; but I was a fairswimmer, and the bottles buoyed me up, and I struggled on.
I could see the fire on shore, but the surf that broke against therocks showed a certain death if I made for it, and I tried hard towork to the left, where I could see no breaking surf. It seemed to methat the fire was built close to the end of the island. As I cameclose I found that this was so. I drifted past the point of land notfifty feet off, where the waves were sending their spray a hundredfeet up; then I made a great struggle, and got in under the lee of thepoint. There was a little bay with a shelving shore, and here I made ashift to land. Five minutes to rest, and then I made my way towardsthe fire. There was no one there, and I went to the edge of the rocks.Here four or five men with ropes were standing, trying to secure someof the casks, chests, and wreckage from the ship. The surf was full offloating objects, but nothing could stand the shock of a crash againstthose rocks. The water was deep alongside, and the waves, as theystruck, flew up in spray, which made standing almost impossible.
The men came round me when they saw me. There was no hearing one speakin the noise of the storm; so I made signs I had landed behind thepoint, and that if they came with their ropes to the point they mightget something as it floated past. They went off, and I sat down by thefire, wrung my clothes as well as I could,--I thought nothing of thewet, for one is wet through half the time in a fishing-boat,--took offmother's belt, and found one of the bottles had broke as I got ashore;but luckily it was the one which was quite empty. I got the cork outof the other, and had a drink of brandy, and then felt pretty rightagain. I had good hopes the boat was all right, for she would getround the point easy, and Jabez would bring her up under the lee ofthe island. I thought I would go and see if I could help the others,and perhaps save someone drifting from the wreck; but I did not thinkthere was very much chance, for she lay some little distance to theright, and I hardly thought a swimmer could keep off the shore.
Just as I was going to move I saw two of them coming back. They had abody between them, and they put it down a little distance from thefire. I was on the other side, and they had forgotten all about me.They stooped over the figure, and I could not see what they weredoing. I got up and went over, and they gave a start when they saw me."Is he alive?" says I. "Dunno," one of 'em growled; an
d I could seepretty well that if I had not been there it would have gone hard withthe chap. He was a foreign, Jewish-looking fellow, and had around himone of the ship's life-buoys. There were lots of rings on his fingers,and he had a belt round his waist that looked pretty well stuffed out.I put my hand to his heart, and found he still breathed; and then Ipoured a few drops of brandy which remained in my bottle down histhroat.
While I was doing this the two men had talked to each other aside."He's alive, all right," says I. "That's a good job," one of 'em said;but I knew he didn't think so. "We'll carry him up to our cottage.You'll be all the better for a sleep; it must be past two o'clock bythis time."
They took the chap up, and carried him to the cottage, and put him ona bed. He was moaning a little, and between us we undressed him andgot him into bed. "I doubt he'll come round," I said.
"I don't believe he will. Will you have a drink of whisky?"
I was mighty glad to do so, and then, throwing off my wet clothes, Igot into the other bed, for there were two in the room.
The men said they were going down again to see what they could get.They left the whisky bottle on the table, and as soon as I was alone Ijumped out and poured a little into the other chap's teeth, so as togive him as good a chance as I could; but I didn't much think he'd getround, and then I got into bed and shut my eyes. I was just going off,when, with a sudden jump, I sat straight up. Mother's dream came rightacross me. I was out of bed in a moment, and looked at the door. Therewas no bolt, so I put a couple of chairs against it. Then I took myclasp-knife out of my pocket and opened it. I gave the other chap ashake, but there was no sense in him, and I got into bed again. Ithought to myself they would never risk a fight when they saw me armedand ready. But I soon found that I couldn't keep awake; so I got upand dressed in my wet clothes, and went to the door. I found it wasfastened on the outside. I soon opened the window and got out, butbefore I did that I rolled up some clothes and put 'em in the bed, andmade a sort of likeness of a man there. The poor fellow in bed waslying very still now, and I felt pretty sure that he would not livetill morning. The candle was a fresh one when they had first lightedit, and I left it burning.
When I had got out I shut the window, and went away fifty yards or so,where I could hear them come back. Presently I heard some footstepscoming from the opposite direction. Then I heard a voice I knew say,"There is the fire; we shall soon know whether the poor lad has gotashore."
"Here am I, Jabez," I said. "Hush!" as he and the other were going tobreak into a shout of welcome, "hush! Some wreckers are coming updirectly to cut my throat and that of another chap in that cottage."
In a word or two I told them all about it; and they agreed to waitwith me and see the end of it. Jabez had brought the _Jane_ up underthe lee of the island, and, leaving two of the men on board, had comeon shore in the cobble with the other to look for me, but with veryfaint hopes of finding me.
"You had best get hold of something to fight with, if you mean to takethese fellows, Jabez."
"A good lump of rock is as good a weapon as another," Jabez said.
Our plan was soon arranged, and half an hour later we heard footstepscoming up from the shore again. Two men passed us, went into thecottage, and shut the door. Jabez and I made round to the window,where we could see in, and John Redpath stood at the door. He was toopen it and rush in when he heard us shout. We stood a little back,but we could see well into the room. Presently we saw the door openvery quietly, little by little. A hand came through and moved thechairs, and then it opened wide. Then the two men entered. One, a bigfellow, had a knife in his hand, and drew towards the bed, where, asit seemed, I was sleeping, with my head covered up by the clothes. Theother had no knife in his hand, and came towards the other bed.
"Get ready, lad," Jabez said to me.
The big fellow raised his knife and plunged it down into the figure,throwing his weight onto it at the same moment, while the smaller mansnatched the pillow from under the other's head and clapped it overhis face, and threw his weight on it. As they did so we pushed thecasement open and leapt in. I seized the smaller man, who wassuffocating the other chap, and before he could draw his knife I hadhim on the ground and my knee on his chest. The big fellow had leaptup. He gave a howl of rage as Jabez rushed at him, and stood at baywith his knife. Jabez stopped, however, and threw his lump of rock, asbig as a baby's head, right into his stomach. It just tumbled him overlike a cannon-shot. John burst in through the door, and we had 'emboth tied tightly before five minutes was over. Then we lit a big firein the kitchen, and with warm clothes and some hot whisky and waterwe got the foreign chap pretty well round.
In the morning I went off and found a village on the other side of theisland. I woke them up and told my story, and, to do 'em justice,though there were some who would have shielded the fellows we hadcaught, the best part were on our side. Some of 'em told me there hadbeen suspicion upon these men, and that they bore a bad name. Therewas no magistrate in the island, and no one objected when I said wewould take them across to Penzance and give them in charge there.
So we did; and they were tried and got transportation for life forattempting to murder the foreign chap, who, it turned out, was aBrazilian Jew, with diamonds. He offered us all sorts of presents, butwe would have none; but that's neither here nor there.
So you see, master, mother's dream saved me from drowning and fromhaving my throat cut. I gave up fishing after that and went into thequeen's service. Mother sold the boat, and went to live with a sisterof hers at Truro. The Scilly Islands have changed since those times,and you'll meet as much kindness there if you're wrecked as you willanywhere else; but they were a rough lot in those days, and I had apretty close shave of it, hadn't I?