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

Bob Massey clung to the boat’s gunwale, and thus escaped. Rowing back instantly, however, to the spot where the ship had gone down, they sought eagerly for swimmers. Only three were discovered and rescued, but the others—seventy souls in all—found a watery grave in the dark cavern of that unknown land.

Story 1 – Chapter 7

So rapidly did the final catastrophe take place that it was difficult for the rescued party at first to credit the evidence of their senses. On the spot where the Lapwing had been beating her sides against the cruel walls of the cavern, and where so many hearts had been throbbing wildly between hope and fear, no living creature remained; nothing but a few feet of the shattered masts appearing now and then above the surging waves was left to tell of the terrible tragedy that had been enacted there.

For upwards of an hour the party in the boat hovered about the place, not so much with the hope of rescuing any of their shipmates as on account of the difficulty of tearing themselves away from the fatal spot. Perhaps the natural tendency of man to hope against hope had something to do with it. Then they passed silently out of the cavern and rowed slowly along the base of the tremendous cliffs.

At length the feeling of self-preservation began to assert itself, and Bob Massey was the first to break silence with the question—

“Does any one know if there’s anything to eat aboard?”

“We’d better see to that,” observed Dr Hayward, who was steering.

Bob Massey pulled in his oar, and, without remark, began to search the boat. It was found that all the food they had brought away consisted of nine tins of preserved meat and three pieces of pork, a supply which would not go far among ten persons.

The ten survivors were Dr Hayward and his wife; Massey and Nellie; Joe Slag; John Mitford and his wife Peggy; Terrence O’Connor, the assistant cook; Tomlin, one of the cabin passengers; and Ned Jarring. All the rest, as we have said, had perished with the ill-fated Lapwing.

Little was said at first, for the hopelessness of their condition seemed so obvious that the men shrank from expressing their gloomy fears to the women who sat huddled together, wet and cold, in the bottom of the boat.

As we have said, as far as the eye could see in any direction, the frowning cliffs rose perpendicularly out of deep water. There was not even a strip of sand or a bay into which they could run in case of the wind increasing.

“There is nothing for it but to push on till we come to an inlet or break of some sort in the cliffs by which we may land,” said Hayward, speaking encouragingly to the women. “God helping us, we are sure to find some such place ere long.”

“Don’t look very like it,” muttered Black Ned, gloomily.

“We can see how it looks about as well as you can,” retorted John Mitford, indignantly. “If ye can’t say somethin’ to cheer the women, there’s no need for to look blue an’ tell us what a mere babby could see for itself.”

This remark, coming as it did from lugubrious Mitford, caused Terrence O’Connor to smile.

“True for ye,” he said, “we can see what’s fornint us, but even Black Ned can’t see round the corner.”

“Besides, there may be a flat shore on the other side o’ the island,” added Bob Massey in a cheerful tone; “I’ve often noticed islands o’ this build, and when they’re so high on one side they usually are low on the opposite side; so we’ll only have to pull round—an’ mayhap there are people on it—who knows?”

“Ay, natives pr’aps,” growled Jarring, “an’ cannibals who are fond of eatin’ white folk—specially women!”

“Shut up your black muzzle, or I’ll heave ye overboard!” said Mitford, fiercely, for like many easy-going, quiet men, he was unusually savage when fairly roused.

Whatever Black Ned may have felt, he gave no expression to his thoughts or feelings by word or look, but continued calmly to pull his oar.

All that day, and all that night, however, the party pulled steadily along the shore without finding an opening in the cliffs or any part which could be scaled by man. During this period their plight was miserable in the extreme, for the weather at the time was bitterly cold; they were drenched through and through with spray, which broke so frequently over the side as to necessitate constant baling, and, to make matters worse, towards evening of the second day snow began to fall and continued to do so the greater part of the night. Fortunately, before dark they came to some small rocky islets, on which they could not land as the waves washed over them, but in the lee of which they cast anchor, and thus were enabled to ride out a furious gale, which sprang up at sunset and did not subside till morning.

It need scarcely be said that the men did all that lay in their power to shelter the poor women, who had exhibited great fortitude and uncomplaining endurance all that weary time; but little could be done for them, for there was not even a bit of sail to put over them as a protection.

“Nellie, dear,” said Massey, when the boat was brought up under the lee of the rocks, “d’ee feel very cold?”

“Not very,” replied his wife, raising her head. “I’m strong, thank God, and can stand it; but Peggy here is shudderin’ awful bad. I believe she’ll die if somethin’ isn’t done for her.”

“I think if she could only ring the water out of her clothes,” whispered Mrs Hayward to her husband, “it might do her some good, but—”

“I know that, Eva: it would do you all good, and we must have it done somehow—”

An exclamation in the bow of the boat at that moment attracted attention. It was John Mitford, who, having taken off his own coat, and wrapped it round his shivering wife, had gone to the bow to rummage in a locker there, and had found a tarpaulin. Massey had overhauled the locker for food before him, but the tarpaulin had been so well folded, and laid so flat in the bottom, that it had escaped his notice.

Retiring aft with this god-send, the lugubrious man speedily, with the assistance of his comrades, covered over the centre of the boat so completely that a small chamber was formed, into which the women could retire. It was not high enough, indeed, to stand in, but it formed a sufficient shelter from wind and spray.

“Now, Peggy, my dear,” said her husband when it was finished, “get in there—off wi’ your things an’ wring ’em out.”

“Th–thank you, J–John,” replied Peggy, whose teeth chattered like castanets, “but ’ow am I t–to d–dry ’em? For wet c–clo’es won’t dry wi–without a fire. At least I n–never ’eard of—”

The remainder of her remarks were lost to male ears as the tarpaulin dropped around her after Eva Hayward and Nellie had led, or half-lifted, her under its sheltering folds. How they managed to manipulate the shivering Peggy it is not our province to tell, but there can be no doubt that the treatment of her two friends in misfortune was the cause of her emerging from under the tarpaulin the following morning alive and comparatively well, though still far from dry.

The aspect of things had changed greatly for the better when the unfortunates resumed their voyage. The wind had abated, the sea, although still heaving, was smooth. The snow had ceased, and the sun arose in a cloudless sky, so that when poor Mrs Mitford raised her dishevelled head and felt the sun’s cheering rays she exclaimed, with a sigh of relief: “La! if the sun ain’t blazin’ ’ot! An’ I’m so ’ungry. Dear, dear, ’ave you bin rowin’ all night, John? ’Ow tired you must be; an’ your ’ands blistered, though you are pretty tough in the ’ands, but you couldn’t ’old a candle to Bob Massey at that— Yes, yes, Nellie, I ’ear you, but la! what does it matter ’ow your ’air an’ things is deranged w’en you’re wrecked at sea and—”

The abrupt disappearance of the dishevelled head at that moment suggested the idea that Mrs Mitford had either fallen backward suddenly or been pulled under cover by her companions.

“She’s all right, anyhow,” said O’Connor, adjusting his oar.

“She’s always all right,” remarked Mitford in a funereal tone, which, however, was meant to be confidential. “Bless your heart, I’ve seen that woman under all circumstances, but although she’s timid by nature, an’ not over strong in body, I’ve never seen her give in or fairly cast down. No doubt she was pretty low last night, poor thing, but that was ’cause she was nigh dead wi’ cold—yet her spirit wasn’t crushed. It’s my solemn conviction that if my Peggy ever dies at all she’ll die game.”

With a profound sigh of satisfaction at having thus borne testimony to the rare and admirable qualities of his wife, the worthy man applied himself to his oar with redoubled vigour.

It is quite a pleasure in this censorious world to see any man absolutely blind to his wife’s faults, and thoroughly awake to her good qualities. The opinion formed of Peggy—by Mrs Massey and Mrs Hayward respectively, did not quite coincide with that of John Mitford.

“How did you get on with poor Peggy last night, Eva?” asked Dr Hayward of his wife, in an undertone, as they breakfasted that forenoon beside the tiller, while the rest of their companions were similarly engaged in the middle of the boat, and at the bow.

“Pretty well, Tom, but she’s troublesome to manage. She is so unusually timid, poor creature, so prone to give way to despair when things look bad, yet so sweetly apt to bound into high spirits when things are looking hopeful,—and withal, so amusingly garrulous!”

Strange to say, at the very moment that this was uttered, Nellie was remarking to her husband in a low tone that, “poor Peggy was quite a puzzle, that she was all but dead at one moment, and quite lively at another, that she professed to be all submission, but was as obstinate as a pig, and that her tongue—soft though it was—went like the clapper of a mill!”

We have referred to breakfast, but the meal spread before the castaways hardly merits that name, for it consisted of only a small slice of pork to each; a few pieces of ship’s biscuit that Slag had discovered in his pockets; and a cup of water drawn from the pond which had accumulated in a hollow of the tarpaulin during the night.

“It is lucky that one of the pieces of pork happened to be cooked,” observed Dr Hayward, as he served out the allowance, “for I would have been sorry to break into the preserved meat tins till forced to do so. We must keep these as a reserve as long as possible.”

“Right you are, sir!” said Slag, with his mouth full, while with a clasp-knife he carefully cut off another morsel to be ready, “right you are! That ’minds me when we was starvin’, me and my shipmates in the Arctic regions, so as our ribs was all but comin’ through our skins, an’ we was beginnin’ to cast an evil eye on the stooard who’d kep’ fatter than the rest of us somehow, an’ was therefore likely to prove a more satisfyin’ kind o’ grub, d’ee see—”

“I say, Joe,” said Hayward, interrupting, for he feared that Slag’s anecdote might not tend to render the pork breakfast more palatable.

“Sir?” said Slag.

“Will you just go to the bow and take a squint ahead? I think there seems to be something like an end o’ the cliffs in view—your eyes are better than mine.”

Slag swallowed the mouthful on which he was engaged, thrust after it the morsel that was ready to follow, wiped the clasp-knife on his thigh, and went forward to “take a squint.”

It turned out that the “end” of the cliffs which the doctor had only supposed possible, was a reality, for, after a long gaze, Slag turned and said—

“Your eyes are better than you think, sir, for the end o’ the cliff is visible, an’ a spit o’ sand beyond is quite plain.”

As this report was corroborated by Bob Massey, and then by all the other men, it sent a thrill of gratitude into the hearts of most of the party—especially the women, who, having lain so long wet and almost motionless, were nearly benumbed in spite of the sunshine. Longer exposure, indeed, would probably have proved fatal to poor Mrs Mitford, possibly also to Mrs Hayward, who was by no means robust. As for our coxswain’s wife, having been reared among the health-giving breezes of the sea-shore, and inured from infancy to exposure and hard work, she suffered much less than her female companions, and busied herself a great part of the time in chafing their cold limbs. In doing this she reaped the natural advantage of being herself both warmed and invigorated. Thus virtue not only “is,” but inevitably brings, its own reward! Similarly, vice produced its natural consequences in the case of Black Ned, for that selfish man, being lazy, shirked work a good deal. It is possible to pull an oar in such a way that, though the rower may be apparently doing his best, he is, in reality, taking the work very lightly and doing next to nothing. Acting in this way, Ned Jarring became cold when the sleet and spray were driving in his face, his blood flowed sluggishly in his veins, and his sufferings were, consequently, much more severe than those of his comrades. Towards the afternoon of that day, they rounded the spit of sand mentioned by Joe Slag, and came upon a low-lying coast. After proceeding a considerable distance along which, they discovered a good harbour. This was fortunate, for grey clouds had again covered the sun and a bitter east wind began to blow.

“Thank God, Eva,” said Hayward, as he steered into the bay, “for if we had not come upon this harbour, your strength and that of poor Peggy, I fear, would have failed, but now you’ll be all right in a short time.”

“Oh, no, sir, I don’t think as my strength would fail,” said Peggy, in a feeble voice, for she had overheard the remark. “Not that I shouldn’t be thankful all the same, I allow—for thankfulness for mercies received is a dooty, an’ most on us do fail in that, though I say it that shouldn’t, but my strength ain’t quite gone yet—”

“Stand by, Slag, to fend off with your oar when we get close in,” said the doctor, interrupting Peggy’s discourse.

“Have any of you got matches in your pockets?” asked Massey, clapping his hands suddenly to the various receptacles about his person, with a look of unwonted anxiety.

“Ye may well ax that, Bob,” said O’Connor, using his own hands in the same way. “Cold, wet weather, and no house! It ’ud be death to the women, sure, av—”

“Here you are!” shouted Tomlin in a burst of triumph, in spite of his naturally reserved disposition.

He held up a box of vestas which, being a smoker, he fortunately had in his pocket.

“I hope they ain’t wet,” remarked Black Ned, suggestively.

“Wrap ’em well up,” said Slag.

Tomlin drew out his handkerchief and proceeded to do so. At the same moment the boat’s keel grated softly on the shingly shore.

Story 1 – Chapter 8

Seldom have the mysterious sparks of life been sought for more anxiously, or tended and nursed with greater care, than were the little sparks of fire which were evoked with difficulty from Tomlin’s match-box.

Drizzling rain had commenced just as the wrecked party landed. The tarpaulin had been set up as a slight though very imperfect shelter; the ground underneath had been strewn with twigs and grass, and a large pile of dead branches had been arranged to receive the vital spark before any attempt was made to create it.

“Everything must be quite ready, first,” said Hayward to Tomlin, “for our very lives depend, under God, on our securing fire; so keep the matches snug in your pocket till I ask for them.”

“I will,” replied Tomlin, “D’you know it never occurred to me before how tremendously important the element of fire is? But how will you ever manage to make the branches catch, everything being so thoroughly soaked?”

“You shall see. I have had to make a fire in worse circumstances than the present,” returned Hayward, “though I admit they are bad enough. Have you got the small twigs broken and ready, Slag?”

“All ready, sir.”

“Now look here, Tomlin.”

As he spoke, the doctor picked up a dead but wet branch, and, sheltering himself under the tarpaulin, began to whittle it with his penknife. He found, of course, that the interior of the branch was dry. The thin morsels which he sliced off were handed to Slag, who placed them with great care in the heart of a bundle of very small twigs resembling a crow’s nest. A place had been reserved for this bundle or nest, in the heart of the large pile of branches lying on the ground. Meanwhile, Slag held the nest ready in his hands.

“Now, Tomlin, get out your matches,” said the doctor.

With the utmost care the anxious man unfolded the kerchief, and, opening the box, looked into it earnestly.

“Wet?” asked Hayward.

Tomlin shook his head. “I fear they are.” He took one out, while the whole party assembled round him to note the result.

The first match dropped its head like a piece of soft putty when scraped on the lid. The second did the same, and a suppressed groan escaped from the little group, for it could be seen that there were not more than ten or twelve matches in the box altogether. Again and again a match was struck with similar result. The fifth, however, crackled a little, and rekindled, sinking hope in the observers, though it failed to kindle itself. The seventh burst at once into a bright blaze and almost drew forth a cheer, which, however, was checked when a puff of wind blew out the new-born flame.

“Och! let Bob Massey try it!” cried O’Connor. “Sure he’s used to workin’ in throublesome weather.”

“Right, boy,” said Slag, “hand it to the coxs’n.”

Tomlin readily obeyed, only too glad to get some of the failure shifted to other shoulders.

Massey readily undertook the task, and success attended his first effort.

“I knowed it!” said Nellie, in a quiet tone, as she saw the bright flame leap up and almost set her husband’s beard on fire. “Bob never fails!”

The burning match was quickly plunged into Hayward’s handful of shavings, which blazed up as he thrust it into Slag’s nest; and Slag, holding the nest with the tender care of a loving sick-nurse and the cool indifference of a salamander till it was a flaming ball, crammed it into the heart of the pile of sticks. Tremendous was the volume of smoke that arose from the pile, and anxious were the looks riveted on it.

“Sure ye’ve smothered it intirely,” gasped O’Connor.

“Oh, me!” sighed Peggy in a voice of mild despair.

“No fear, it’s all right,” said Massey, in a confident tone, while Joe Slag, on his knees, with cheeks inflated and nose all but kindling, blew at the glowing heart with unwearied determination, regardless alike of friend and foe.

“It’s going to do,” remarked John Mitford in his most dismal tone.

“Any child might tell that,” said Nellie, with a light laugh.

The laugh seemed infectious, for the whole party joined in as a glorious gush of flame rushed among the sticks, dried up the dampness, and effectually changed the pillar of smoke into a pillar of fire.

The fire thus kindled was rightly deemed of such vital importance that it was not permitted to go out thereafter for many months, being watched night and day by members of the party appointed to the duty by turns. It had, indeed, not a few narrow escapes, and more than once succeeded in reaching what appeared to be its last spark, but was always caught in time and recovered, and thus was kept burning until a discovery was made which rendered such constant attendance and care unnecessary.

“Now,” said Dr Hayward, when the fire was safely established, “we have not much daylight left, so it behoves us to make the most of it. You are a man of action and experience, Robert Massey, what would you advise us to do first?”

“Well, doctor, since you’re good enough to ask me, I would advise that we should appoint a leader. You see, mates,” he continued, addressing himself to the company in general, “there’s no possibility of a ship gettin’ along without a captain, or an army without a general. If we was going off to a wreck now, with or without a lifeboat, I would claim a sort o’ right to be coxswain in virtue o’ past experience; but, as we’ve now begun a sort o’ shore-goin’ business, which requires a deal o’ general knowledge, besides seamanship, an’ as Dr Hayward has got that by edication, I move that we make him our leader.”

“Right you are, Bob,” said Joe Slag. (“As he always is,” said Nellie, sotto voce.) “So I second the move—if that’s the reg’lar way to do it.”

“Hear, hear!” said every one with right good will, and a gleam of pride flashed from Eva’s pretty brown eyes as her husband was thus unanimously appointed leader of the shipwrecked band.

Like a sensible man, knowing his capacity, he at once accepted the command without any display of undue modesty, and proved his fitness by at once going to work.

“The first thing, then, is to thank God for our deliverance, which we all do, I am sure, most heartily.”

This was received with a responsive “Amen” from every one—not even excepting Black Ned.

“Next, we must find fresh water and boil a bit of pork—”

“Ah, then, we haven’t a kittle!” exclaimed O’Connor.

“Haven’t we a big baling-dish, Terrence?” said Hayward.

“Sure we have, sor, an’ it’s a tin wan as’ll stand fire,” returned Terrence with a reproved look.

“Well, then, you go fetch it; wash it well out and get the pork ready. Jarring and Tomlin will gather as much dead wood as they can find and pile it beside the fire. Mitford will search for fresh water—there must be a spring or brook not far off—and Massey and I will rig up some sort of shelter for the night.”

“Please, sir, may I go with Mitford to seek for water?” asked Nellie.

“By all means, if you wish to.”

“And I will keep you company, Nell,” said Mrs Hayward energetically.

“So will I,” chimed in little Mrs Mitford, feebly. “I was always fond of water. As a child I used to paddle about in it continually, an’ sometimes tumbled into it, for of course young people will—”

“No, Peggy, you must sit by the fire with my wife,” said the doctor. “Neither of you is fit for work of any kind yet, so sit down and warm yourselves.”

Eva was too wise and Peggy too weak to offer objection, so these two sat by the fire while the others went to work.

Energy of action tends to lighten the burdens that may be laid on human spirits, and to induce the most favourable view of the worst circumstances. The toil which the party now undertook was such a blessed relief to them after the prolonged exposure to cold and comparative inaction in the boat, that all returned to the camp-fire in a much more cheerful state of mind than they left it. The searchers for water came back first, having found what they sought close at hand; and Terrence, filling his baling-dish, soon had the pork boiling, along with some mysterious herbs gathered by the doctor to convert the liquid into soup. Tomlin and Black Ned returned heavily laden with firewood, and Bob Massey discovered a tree with branches sufficiently spreading and leafy to protect them to some extent from rain.

“’Tis as well we have found overhead protection, Massey,” said the doctor, when our coxswain led him to the spot, “for I have been thinking that as we have no blankets, we shall be obliged to use our tarpaulin as a quilt rather than an umbrella.”

“That’s true, sir,” returned Massey, “but how about the women?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” said Hayward, “and I’ve devised a plan for to-night at least; to-morrow I hope to hit on a better arrangement. First of all, we’ll spread in front of a fire, which we will kindle beneath this tree, a layer of branches and grass. In the middle of this the women will lie down side by side, after having dried and warmed themselves thoroughly at the fire. Then we’ll take two of the floor planks from the boat, and put one on each side of them—partially frame them, as it were. Then one half of us men will lie down on one side of the frame, the other half on the other side, and we’ll draw the tarpaulin over us all.”

“Hm! not very comfortable,” said Massey, “for the poor women to be framed like that.”

“Admitted; but what else can we do?” said Hayward. “It would risk our lives to sleep without covering of any kind in such cold weather, and with sleet falling as it does now. Better have the sheet spread upon us than merely over our heads. So now let’s kindle another fire, and do you arrange our couch, Bob.”

In spite of the cold and the sleet, things looked much more cosy than persons unacquainted with “roughing it” could believe possible, and they became comparatively happy when the couch was spread, and they were seated under the sheltering tree, with the fire blazing and crackling in front of them, suffusing their faces and persons and the leaf-canopy overhead with a deep red glare, that contrasted well with the ebony-black surroundings, while a rich odour of pork soup exhaled from the baling-dish.