The Coxswain's Bride; also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue

Some of the passengers, however, seemed very soon to forget all about the death, and relapsed into their usual frames of mind. Among these was Ned Jarring. For several days after the funeral he kept sober, and it was observed that the Wesleyan minister tried to get into conversation with him several times, but he resisted the good man’s efforts, and, when one of his chums laughingly remarked that he, “seemed to be hand and glove wi’ the parson now,” Black Ned swung angrily round, took to drinking again, and, as is usually the case in such circumstances, became worse than before.

Thus the little world of ship-board went on from day to day, gradually settling down into little coteries as like-minded men and women began to find each other out. Gradually, also, the various qualities of the people began to be recognised, and in a few weeks—as in the greater world—each man and woman was more or less correctly gauged according to worth. The courageous and the timid, the sensible and the vain, the weak and the strong, the self-sacrificing and the selfish, all fell naturally into their appropriate positions, subject to the moderate confusion resulting from favouritism, abused power, and other forms of sin. It was observable also that here, as elsewhere, all the coteries commented with considerable freedom on each other, and that each coterie esteemed itself unquestionably the best of the lot, although it might not absolutely say so in words. There was one exception, namely in the case of the worst or lowest coterie, which, so far from claiming to be the best, openly proclaimed itself the worst, gloried in its shame, and said that, “it didn’t care a button,” or words, even more expressive, to the same effect.

Ned Jarring belonged to this last class. He was probably the worst member of it.

One night an incident occurred which tested severely some of the qualities of every one on board. It was sometime after midnight when the dead silence of the slumbering ship was broken by perhaps the most appalling of all sounds at sea—the cry of “Fire!”

Smoke had been discovered somewhere near the fore-cabin. Fortunately the captain had just come up at the time to speak with the officer of the watch on deck. At the first cry he ran to the spot pointed out, telling the officer to call all hands and rig the pumps, and especially to keep order among the passengers.

The first man who leaped from profound slumber into wide-awake activity was Dr Hayward. Having just lain down to sleep on a locker, as he expected to be called in the night to watch beside a friend who was ill, he was already dressed, and would have been among the first at the scene of the fire, but for an interruption. At the moment he was bounding up the companion-ladder, a young man of feeble character—who would have been repudiated by the sex, had he been born a woman—sprang down the same ladder in abject terror. He went straight into the bosom of the ascending doctor, and they both went with a crash to the bottom.

Although somewhat stunned, Hayward was able to jump up and again make for the region of the fire, where he found most of the men and male passengers working with hose and buckets in the midst of dire confusion. Fortunately the seat of the conflagration was soon discovered; and, owing much to the cool energy of the captain and officers, the fire was put out.

It was about a week after this thrilling event that Mrs Massey was on the forecastle talking with Peggy Mitford. A smart breeze was blowing—just enough to fill all the sails and carry the ship swiftly on her course without causing much of a sea. The moon shone fitfully through a mass of drifting clouds, mingling its pallid light with the wondrous phosphoric sheen of the tropical seas.

Mrs Mitford had been regaling her companion with a long-winded and irrelevant, though well-meant, yarn about things in general and nothing in particular; and Nellie, who was the personification of considerate patience, had seated herself on the starboard rail to listen to and comment on her lucubrations.

“Yes, as I was sayin’, Nellie,” remarked Peggy, in her soft voice, after a brief pause, during which a variety of weak little expressions crossed her pretty face, “I never could abide the sea. It always makes me sick, an’ when it doesn’t make me sick, it makes me nervish. Not that I’m given to bein’ nervish; an’, if I was, it wouldn’t matter much, for the sea would take it out o’ me, whether or not. That’s always the way—if it’s not one thing, it’s sure to be another. Don’t you think so, Nellie? My John says ’e thinks so—though it isn’t to be thought much of what ’e says, dear man, for ’e’s got a way of sayin’ things when ’e don’t mean ’em—you understand?”

“Well, I don’t quite understand,” answered Mrs Massey, cutting in at this point with a laugh, “but I’m quite sure it’s better to say things when you don’t mean them, than to mean things when you don’t say them!”

“Perhaps you’re right, Nellie,” rejoined Mrs Mitford, with a mild nod of assent; “I’ve sometimes thought on these things when I’ve ’ad one o’ my sick ’eadaches, which prevents me from thinkin’ altogether, almost; an’, bless you, you’d wonder what strange idears comes over me at such times. Did you ever try to think things with a sick ’eadache, Nellie?”

With a laugh, and a bright look, Mrs Massey replied that she had never been in a position to try that curious experiment, never having had a headache of any kind in her life.

While she was speaking, a broad-backed wave caused the ship to roll rather heavily to starboard, and Mrs Massey, losing her balance, fell into the sea.

Sedate and strong-minded though she was, Nellie could not help shrieking as she went over; but the shriek given by Mrs Mitford was tenfold more piercing. It was of a nature that defies description. Its effect was to thrill the heart of every one who heard it. But Peggy did more than shriek. Springing on the rail like an antelope, she would have plunged overboard to the rescue of her friend, regardless of her own inability to swim, and of everything else, had not a seaman, who chanced to be listening to the conversation—caught her with a vice-like grip.

“Hold on, Peggy!” he cried.

But Peggy shrieked and struggled, thus preventing the poor fellow from attempting a rescue, while shouts and cries of “man overboard” rang through the ship from stem to stern, until it became known that it was a woman. Then the cries redoubled. In the midst of the hubbub the strong but calm voice of the captain was heard to give orders to lower a boat and port the helm—“hard a-port.”

But, alas! for poor Nellie that night if her life had depended on shouters, strugglers, shriekers, or boatmen.

At the moment the accident happened two men chanced to be standing on the starboard side of the ship—one on the quarter-deck, the other on the forecastle. Both men were ready of resource and prompt in action, invaluable qualities anywhere, but especially at sea! The instant the cry arose each sprang to and cut adrift a life-buoy. Each knew that the person overboard might fail to see or catch a buoy in the comparative darkness. He on the forecastle, who chanced to see Nellie fall over, at once followed her with the life-buoy in his arms. Ignorant of this act the man near the stern saw something struggling in the water as the ship flew past. Without an instant’s hesitation he also plunged into the sea with a life-buoy in his grasp.

The faint light failed to reveal who had thus boldly plunged to the rescue, but the act had been observed both at bow and stern, and a cheer of hope went up as the ship came up to the wind, topsails were backed, and the boat was dropped into the water.

Twenty minutes elapsed before there was any sign of the boat returning, during which time the ship’s bell was rung continually. It may be better imagined than described the state of poor Bob Massey, who had been asleep on a locker in the fore-cabin when the accident occurred, and who had to be forcibly prevented, at first, from jumping into the sea when he heard that it was Nellie who was overboard.

At last oars were heard in the distance.

“Stop that bell! boat ahoy!” shouted the captain.

“Ship aho–o–oy!” came faintly back on the breeze, while every voice was hushed and ear strained to listen, “All right! all saved!”

A loud “Thank the Lord!” burst from our coxswain’s heaving chest, and a wild ringing cheer leaped upwards alike from passengers and crew, while warm tears overflowed from many an eye that was more intimate with cold spray, for a noble deed and a life saved have always the effect of stirring the deepest enthusiasm of mankind.

A few minutes more and three dripping figures came up the gangway. First came Nellie herself; dishevelled and pale, but strong and hearty nevertheless, as might be expected of a fisher-girl and a lifeboat coxswain’s wife! She naturally fell into, or was caught up by, her husband’s arms, and was carried off to the cabin.

Following her came two somewhat exhausted men.

The cheer that greeted them was not unmingled with surprise.

“The best an’ the worst men i’ the ship!” gasped Joe Slag, amid laughter and hearty congratulations.

He was probably right, for it was the young Wesleyan minister and Ned Jarring who had effected this gallant rescue.

The performance of a good action has undoubtedly a tendency to elevate, as the perpetration of a bad one has to demoralise.

From that day forward Black Ned felt that he had acquired a certain character which might be retained or lost. Without absolutely saying that he became a better man in consequence, we do assert that he became more respectable to look at, and drank less!

Thus the voyage progressed until the good ship Lapwing sailed in among some of the innumerable islands of the Southern seas.

Story 1 – Chapter 6

Darkness, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, is probably the greatest evil that man has had to contend with since the fall. At all events, the physical and mental forms of it were the cause of the good ship Lapwing sailing one night straight to destruction.

It happened thus. A pretty stiff breeze, amounting almost to half a gale, was blowing on the night in question, and the emigrant ship was running before it under close-reefed topsails. For some days previously the weather had been “dirty,” and the captain had found it impossible to obtain an observation, so that he was in the dark as to the exact part of the ocean in which he was sailing.

In an open sea this is not of serious moment, but when one is nearing land, or in the neighbourhood of islands, it becomes cause for much anxiety. To make matters worse, the ship had been blown considerably out of her course, and worst of all the night was so intensely dark that it was not possible to see more than a few yards beyond the flying jibboom.

The captain and mate, with several of the men, stood on the forecastle peering anxiously out into the darkness.

“I don’t like the look o’ things at all,” muttered the captain to the chief mate.

“Perhaps it would be well, sir, to lay-to till daylight,” suggested the mate.

Whether the captain agreed with his chief officer or not was never known, for just then a dull sound was heard which sent a thrill to the bravest heart on board.

“Breakers ahead!” cried the look-out, as in duty bound, but he was instantly contradicted by the mate, who shouted that they were on the starboard beam, while another voice roared that they were on the port-bow.

The helm was instantly put hard a-port, and immediately after the order was given “hard a-starboard,” for it was discovered that the sound of breakers came from both sides of the vessel. They were, obviously, either running in a narrow strait between two islands, or into a bay. In the first case the danger was imminent, in the second case, destruction was almost inevitable.

“Clear the anchor, and stand by to let go!” cried the captain, in loud sharp tones, for he felt that there was no room to turn and retreat. The order was also given to take in all sail.

But before either order could be obeyed, a cry of terror burst from many throats, for right in front of them there suddenly loomed out of the darkness an object like a great black cloud, which rose high above and seemed about to fall upon them. There was no mistaking its nature, however, for by that time the roar of the breakers right ahead told but too plainly that they were rushing straight upon a high perpendicular cliff. At this moment the vessel struck a rock. It was only a slight touch at the stern, nevertheless it tore the rudder away, so that the intention of the captain to put about and take his chance of striking on the rocks to starboard was frustrated.

“Let go,” he shouted, in this extremity.

Quick as lightning the anchor went to the bottom but with such way on the ship, the sudden strain snapped the chain, and the Lapwing rushed upon her doom, while cries of terror and despair arose from the passengers, who had by that time crowded on deck.

To the surprise of the captain, and those who were capable of intelligent observation, the ship did not immediately strike again, but sailed straight on as if right against the towering cliffs. Still onward it went, and as it did so there settled around them a darkness so profound that no one could see even an inch before his eyes. Then at last the ill-fated vessel struck, but not with her hull, as might have been expected. High up above them a terrific crash was heard.

“God help us,” exclaimed the captain, “we’ve sailed straight into a cave!”

That he was right soon became evident, for immediately after the crashing of the topmasts against the roof of the cave, a shower of small stones and several large fragments fell on the deck with a rattle like that of musketry. Some of the people were struck and injured, though not seriously so, by the shower.

“Get down below, all of you!” cried the captain, himself taking shelter under the companion hatchway. But the order was needless, for the danger was so obvious that every one sought the shelter of the cabins without delay.

The situation was not only terrible but exceedingly singular, as well as trying, for as long as stones came thundering down on the deck it would have been sheer madness to have attempted to do anything aboveboard, and to sit idle in the cabins with almost certain death staring them in the face was a severe test of endurance.

From the motion of the vessel several facts could be deduced. Although the scraping and crashing of the masts overhead told eloquently of destruction going on in that direction, the heaving of the ship, and her striking occasionally on either side, proved that there was deep water below her. That they were not progressing into an interminable cavern was made evident by the frequent plunging of the shattered bowsprit against the inner end of the cave. This action sent the vessel reeling backwards, as it were, every time she struck, besides shattering the bowsprit. That the cave, also, was open to the full force of the sea was only too severely proved by the rush of the billows into it, and the frequent and severe shocks to which they were in consequence subjected. These shocks had extinguished the lamps, and it was only by the aid of a few candles that they were delivered from sitting in absolute darkness.

In these awful circumstances the young Wesleyan proved that, besides the courage that he had already shown in facing danger on a sudden emergency, he also possessed that far higher courage which can face the slow and apparently sure approach of death with equanimity and self-possession. Moreover, he proved that the Word of God and prayer are the true resources of man in such extremities.

Calling those who were willing around him, he led them in prayer, and then quieted the timid among them, as well as comforted all, not by reading, but by quoting appropriate passages from Scripture, in which he was profoundly versed.

“D’ee know when it’ll be low water, sir?” asked Joe Slag of the captain, when the ship gave one of her upward heaves and rasped her timbers again on the sides of the cave.

“Not for three hours yet, but it’s falling. I expect there will be less sea on in a short time. If the ship holds together we may yet be saved.”

There was a murmured “thank God” at these words. Then Bob Massey expressed some fear that there might be a danger of striking the rocks underneath before low water.

“I wish it was the risin’ tide,” he said, and the words took his mind back, like a flash of lightning, to the time when he used them in a very different sense. Then all was peace, hope, sunshine, and his bride was sitting like a good angel beside him, with a sweet smile on her fair face. Now, something like darkness visible, showed him his poor wife—still beside him, thank God—but clinging to his arm with looks of terror amounting almost to despair. “What a contrast!” he thought, and for the first time a feeling of rebellion arose in his mind.

“There’s no use o’ sittin’ here to be drowned like rats,” he cried, starting up. “I’ll go on deck an’ take a cast o’ the lead, an’ see what chances we have.”

“No, you won’t, Bob,” cried Nellie, throwing her arms firmly round him. “There’s big stones falling all about the deck yet. Don’t you hear them?”

As if to corroborate her words, a piece of rock nearly half a ton in weight fell on the sky-light at that moment, crashed completely through it, through the table below, and even sank into the cabin floor. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though Slag had a narrow escape, but that worthy was not easily intimidated. He rose up, and, saying that, “it was as well to be killed on deck doin’ somethin’ as in the cabin doin’ nothin’,” was about to ascend the ladder when Dr Hayward suddenly entered, all wet and dishevelled, and with blood trickling down his face.

“No use going up just now, Joe,” he said, as he sat down beside his wife, and permitted her to tie a kerchief round his head. “Only a slight wound, Eva, got while taking soundings. I find that there are sixteen fathoms of water under us, and, although I couldn’t see my hand held up before my face, I managed to make out by the flash of a match, which burned for a moment before being blown out, that the sides of the cave are quite perpendicular, not the smallest ledge to stand on. The tide, however, is ebbing fast, and the water in the cave calming, so that if no bad leak has been made by all this thumping we may yet be saved. Our only chance is to stick to the ship.”

While he was speaking the vessel again surged violently against one side of the cave, and another of the huge masses of rock that were brought down by the swaying masts came crashing on the deck.

“There is no bad leak as yet,” said the captain, re-entering the cabin, which he had quitted for the purpose of sounding the well. “If we can keep afloat for an hour or two we may be able to use the boats. Just now it would be useless to attempt launching them.”

Although the captain’s words were not particularly reassuring, his confident tone and manner infused hope, and comforted the people greatly. Some of the male passengers even volunteered to face the shower of stones, if need be, and lend a hand in launching the boats, when the time for doing so arrived.

These boats, three in number, were lying bottom up on deck, and to reach them involved the risk of death to whoever should attempt it. They were therefore compelled to wait.

It is difficult to form even a slight conception of the horrors of that night. For several hours they sat in the after-cabin, and the ship surged and plunged in the wildly-heaving water, striking the sides continually, while rocks fell at intervals on the deck, thus adding to the noise of wind and waves as they raged with echoing, deafening noise in the black cavern. Each moment it seemed as if the ship must have her planks stove in and be sunk, but she was a new vessel and strong. Of course she leaked considerably, but when the tide went down the sea calmed a little, the rocks ceased falling from the roof, and they were enabled to rig the pumps and work them vigorously. The boats, meanwhile, were cast loose and got ready to launch at the first glimmer of daylight! Fortunately, they had received no serious injury from the falling rocks.

Oh, how they longed and prayed for the day! It came at last, a gleam so faint that it showed nothing of their surroundings save the outline of the cavern’s great mouth.

“Shall we launch the boats now, sir?” asked the first mate, who was becoming anxious, because the carpenter had just reported that the water in the hold was increasing dangerously in spite of the pumps.

“Not yet—not yet,” returned the captain, hurriedly. “We must have more light first. The loss of a boat would be fatal. I’m afraid of the rising tide.”

“Afraid of the rising tide!” Again the words struck strangely on Bob Massey’s ears as he stood wiping the perspiration from his brow after a long spell at the pumps—and once more carried him back to the sunlit sands of Old England.

Soon the increase of water in the hold was so great that the getting out of the boats could no longer be delayed. The first launched was a small one. It was lowered over the stern by means of the studding-sail boom, with a block and whip, which kept it from dropping too quickly into the water. Massey and his friend Slag, being recognised as expert boatmen in trying circumstances, were sent in it, with two of the crew, to run out a line and drop an anchor in the sea outside, so that the heavier boats might be hauled out thereby. Two hundred and fifty fathoms of rope were given them—more than sufficient for the purpose. On getting outside, Bob and his friend, according to custom as lifeboat men, kept a sharp look-out on everything around them, and the feeble daylight enabled them to see that the black cliff which had, as it were, swallowed up the Lapwing, was full six hundred feet high and a sheer precipice, in some places overhanging at the top, and without the symptom of a break as far as the eye could reach in either direction.

“A black look-out, Joe,” muttered Massey, as he assisted his comrade to heave the anchor over the side.

“Ay, Bob, an’ the worst of it is that the tide’s risin’. A boat can live here as long as that ridge o’ rocks keeps off the seas, but in an hour or so it’ll be rollin’ in as bad as ever.”

“I knows it, Joe, an’ the more need to look sharp.”

Returning to the ship, our coxswain made his report, and recommended urgent haste. But the captain required no urging, for by that time the ship’s main deck was level with the water, and the seas were making a clean breach over the stern. The passengers and crew crowded towards the port gangway where the large boat was being brought round to receive the women and children first. This was such a familiar scene to the two lifeboat men that they kept cool and self-possessed from the mere force of habit. Seeing this, the captain ordered Mitford to get into the boat first, and help to stow the others, for it would be a tight pack, he said, to stow them all. Dr Hayward was ordered to assist. Ned Jarring volunteered to help to fend the boat off during the operation, and, without waiting for permission, jumped into her.

Mitford had consigned his wife to the care of his friend Massey, who at once undertook the duty by tying a kerchief round Peggy’s head to keep her hair out of her eyes, after which he did the same for Nellie. Both women were perfectly quiet and submissive—the first owing to fear and exhaustion, the last from native courage, which enabled her to rise to the occasion. Massey then stripped off all his own clothes, except shirt and trousers, so as to be ready for swimming, and, catching up a rope, advanced towards his wife, intending to fasten it round her waist.

“Peggy first, Bob; I’ll wait for you,” said his wife.

“Look sharp!” cried the captain.

Bob turned at once to Peggy, and in a few seconds she was lowered into the boat. Mrs Hayward followed. Then Massey insisted on his wife going, and the obedient Nellie submitted, but, owing to a lurch of the ship at the moment, she missed the boat, and dropped into the water. One of the men attempted to pull her in, but could not, and, as all the others were engaged at the moment in trying to fend off the rocks, Massey at once jumped into the sea, and helped to get his wife into the boat.

At that moment there arose a cry that the ship was sinking, and a wild rush was made for the long-boat, which had also been successfully launched. Of course it was instantly overcrowded, for all discipline was now at an end. Before anything else could be done the Lapwing sank in sixteen fathoms of water, carrying the long-boat and all the people in her along with it, but those in the other boat had shoved off at the first wild cry, and hauling on the anchored cable, just escaped being sucked down by the sinking ship.