The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands

“I felt a strange mixture of wild delight and alarm shoot through me. The chance had come in my way, but in anticipating it I had somehow always contemplated operating on some poor boy or old woman. My thoughts had never depicted such a herculean and rude specimen of humanity. At first, he would not believe me capable of extracting a tooth; but I spoke with such cool self-possession and assurance—though far from feeling either—that he consented to submit to the operation. For the sake of additional security, I seated him on the floor, and took his head between my knees; and I confess that when seated thus, in such close proximity to his rugged as well as massive head, gazing into the cavern filled with elephantine tusks, my heart almost failed me. Far back, in the darkest corner of the cave, I saw the decayed tooth—a massive lump of glistening ivory, with a black pit in the middle of it. Screwing up my courage to the utmost, I applied the key. The giant winced at the touch, but clasped his hard hands together—evidently prepared for the worst. I began to twist with right good-will. The man roared furiously, and gave a convulsive heave that almost upset myself and the big chair, and disengaged the key!

“‘Oh, come,’ said I, remonstratively, ‘you ought to stand it better than that! why, the worst of it was almost over.’

“‘Was it, though?’ he inquired earnestly, with an upward glance, that gave to his countenance in that position a hideous aspect. ‘Sure it had need be, for the worst baits all that iver I drained of. Go at it again, me boy.’

“Resolving to make sure work of it next time, I fixed the key again, and, after getting it pretty tight—at which point he evidently fancied the worst had been again reached—I put forth all my strength in one tremendous twist.

“I failed for a moment to draw the tusk, but I drew forth a prolonged roar, that can by no means be conceived or described. The Irishman struggled. I held on tight to his head with my knees. The chair tottered on its legs. Letting go the hair of his head, I clapped my left hand to my right, and with both arms redoubled the strain. The roar rose into a terrible yowl. There was a crash like the rending of a forest tree. I dropped the instrument, sprang up, turned the chair on the top of the man, and cramming it down on him rushed to the door, which I threw open, and then faced about.

“There was a huge iron pestle lying on a table near my hand. Seizing it, I swayed it gently to and fro, ready to knock him down with it if he should rush at me, or to turn and fly, as should seem most advisable. I was terribly excited, and a good deal alarmed as to the possible consequences, but managed with much difficulty to look collected.

“The big chair was hurled into a corner as he rose sputtering from the floor, and holding his jaws with both hands.

“‘Och! ye spalpeen, is that the way ye trait people?’

“‘Yes,’ I replied in a voice of forced calmness, ‘we usually put a restraint on strong men like you, when they’re likely to be violent.’

“I saw the corners of his eyes wrinkle a little, and felt more confidence.

“‘Arrah, but it’s the jawbone ye’ve took out, ye goormacalluchscrowl!’

“‘No, it isn’t, it’s only the tooth,’ I replied, going forward and picking it up from the floor.

“The amazement of the man is not to be described. I gave him a tumbler of water, and, pointing to a basin, told him to wash out his mouth, which he did, looking at me all the time, however, and following me with his astonished eyes, as I moved about the room. He seemed to have been bereft of the power of speech; for all that he could say after that was, ‘Och! av yer small yer cliver!’

“On leaving he asked what was to pay. I said that I’d ask nothing, as he had stood it so well; and he left me with the same look of astonishment in his eyes and words of commendation on his lips.”

“Well, that was a tremendous experience to begin with,” said Mr Durant, laughing; “and so it made you a doctor?”

“It helped. When my father came home I presented him with the tooth, and from that day to this I have been hard at work; but I feel a little seedy just now from over-study, so I have resolved to try to get a berth as surgeon on board a ship bound for India, Australia, China, or South America, and, as you are a shipowner and old friend, I thought it just possible you might be not only willing but able to help me to what I want.”

“And you thought right, Stanney, my boy,” said the old gentleman heartily; “I have a ship going to sail for India in a few weeks, and we have not yet appointed a surgeon. You shall have that berth if it suits you.”

At this point they were interrupted by the entrance of a servant maid with the announcement that there was a man in the lobby who wished to see Mr Durant.

“I’ll be back shortly,” said the old gentleman to Stanley as he rose; “go to the drawing-room, girls, and give Mr Hall some music. You’ll find that my Katie sings and plays very sweetly, although she won’t let me say so. Fanny joins her with a fine contralto, I believe, and Queeker, too, he sings—a—a what is it, Queeker?—a bass or a baritone—eh?”

Without waiting for a reply, Mr Durant left the room, and found Morley Jones standing in the lobby, hat in hand.

The old gentleman’s expression changed instantly, and he said with much severity—

“Well, Mr Jones, what do you want?”

Morley begged the favour of a private interview for a few minutes. After a moment’s hesitation, Mr Durant led him into his study.

“Another loan, I suppose?” said the old gentleman, as he lit the gas.

“I had expected to have called to pay the last loan, sir,” replied Mr Jones somewhat boldly, “but one can’t force the market. I have my sloop down here loaded with herrings, and if I chose to sell at a loss, could pay my debt to you twice over; but surely it can scarcely be expected of me to do that. I hear there is a rise in France just now, and mean to run over there with them. I shall be sure to dispose of ’em to advantage. On my return, I’ll pay your loan with interest.”

Morley Jones paused, and Mr Durant looked at him attentively for a few seconds.

“Is this all you came to tell me?”

“Why, no sir, not exactly,” replied Jones, a little disconcerted by the stern manner of the old gentleman. “The sloop is not quite filled up, she could stow a few more casks, but I have been cleaned out, and unless I can get the loan of forty or fifty pounds—”

“Ha! I thought so. Are you aware, Mr Jones, that your character for honesty has of late been called in question?”

“I am aware that I have got enemies,” replied the fish-merchant coldly. “If their false reports are to be believed to my disadvantage, of course I cannot expect—”

“It is not my belief in their reports,” replied Mr Durant, “that creates suspicion in me, but I couple these reports with the fact that you have again and again deceived me in regard to the repayment of the loans which you have already received at various times from me.”

“I can’t help ill-luck, sir,” said Morley with a downcast look. “If men’s friends always deserted them at the same time with fortune there would be an end of all trade.”

“Mr Jones,” said the other decidedly, “I tell you plainly that you are presumptuous when you count me one of your friends. Your deceased brother, having been an old and faithful servant of mine, was considered by me a friend, and it is out of regard to his memory alone that I have assisted you. Even now, I will lend you the sum you ask, but be assured it is the last you shall ever get from me. I distrust you, sir, and I tell you so—flatly.”

While he was speaking the old gentleman had opened a desk. He now sat down and wrote out a cheque, which he handed to his visitor, who received it with a grim smile and a curt acknowledgment, and instantly took his leave.

Mr Durant smoothed the frown from his brow, and returned to the drawing-room, where Katie’s sweet voice instantly charmed away the memory of the evil spirit that had just left him.

The table was covered with beautiful pencil sketches and chalk-heads and water-colour drawings in various stages of progression—all of which were the production of the same fair, busy, and talented little hand that copied the accounts for the Board of Trade, for love instead of money, without a blot, and without defrauding of dot or stroke a single i or t!

Queeker was gazing at one of the sketches with an aspect so haggard and savage that Mr Durant could not refrain from remarking it.

“Why, Queeker, you seem to be displeased with that drawing, eh? What’s wrong with it?”

“Oh, ah!” exclaimed the youth, starting, and becoming very red in the face—“no, not with the drawing, it is beautiful—most beautiful, but I—in—fact I was thinking, sir, that thought sometimes leads us into regions of gloom in which—where—one can’t see one’s way, and ignes fatui mislead or—or—”

“Very true, Queeker,” interrupted the old gentleman, good-humouredly; “thought is a wonderful quality of the mind—transports us in a moment from the Indies to the poles; fastens with equal facility on the substantial and the impalpable; gropes among the vague generalities of the abstract, and wriggles with ease through the thick obscurities of the concrete—eh, Queeker? Come, give us a song, like a good fellow.”

“I never sing—I cannot sing, sir,” said the youth, hurriedly.

“No! why, I thought Katie said you were attending the singing-class.”

The fat cousin was observed here to put her handkerchief to her mouth and bend convulsively over a drawing.

Queeker explained that he had just begun to attend, but had not yet attained sufficient confidence to sing in public. Then, starting up he suddenly pulled out his watch, exclaimed that he was quite ashamed of having remained so late, shook hands nervously all round, and, rushing from the house, left Stanley Hall in possession of the field!

Now, the poor youth’s state of mind is not easily accounted for. Stanley, being a close observer, had at an early part of the evening detected the cause of Queeker’s jealousy, and, being a kindly fellow, sought, by devoting himself to Fanny Hennings, to relieve his young friend; but, strange to say, Queeker was not relieved! This fact was a matter of profound astonishment even to Queeker himself, who went home that night in a state of mind which cannot be adequately described, sat down before his desk, and, with his head buried in his hands, thought intensely.

“Can it be,” he murmured in a sepulchral voice, looking up with an expression of horror, “that I love them both? Impossible. Horrible! Perish the thought—yes.” Seizing a pen:—

“Perish the thoughtWhich never ought            To be,Let not the thing.”

“Thing—wing—bing—ping—jing—ring—ling—ting—cling—dear me! what a lot of words with little or no meaning there are in the English language!—what will rhyme with—ah! I have it—sting—”

“Let not the thingReveal its sting            To me!”

Having penned these lines, Queeker heaved a deep sigh—cast one long lingering gaze on the moon, and went to bed.

Chapter Eight.

The Sloop Nora—Mr Jones Becomes Communicative, and Billy Towler, for the First Time in his Life, Thoughtful

A dead calm, with a soft, golden, half-transparent mist, had settled down on Old Father Thames, when, early one morning, the sloop Nora floated rather than sailed towards the mouth of that celebrated river, bent, in the absence of wind, on creeping out to sea with the tide.

Jim Welton stood at the helm, which, in the circumstances, required only attention from one of his legs, so that his hands rested idly in his coat pockets. Morley Jones stood beside him.

“So you managed the insurance, did you?” said Jim in a careless way, as though he put the question more for the sake of saying something than for any interest he had in the matter.

Mr Jones, whose eyes and manner betrayed the fact that even at that early hour he had made application to the demon-spirit which led him captive at its will, looked suspiciously at his questioner, and replied—

“Well, yes, I’ve managed it.”

“For how much?” inquired Jim.

“For 300 pounds.”

Jim looked surprised. “D’ye think the herring are worth that?” he asked.

“No, they ain’t, but there’s some general cargo besides as’ll make it up to that, includin’ the value o’ the sloop, which I’ve put down at 100 pounds. Moreover, Jim, I have named you as the skipper. They required his name, d’ye see, and as I’m not exactly a seafarin’ man myself, an’ wanted to appear only as the owner, I named you.”

“But that was wrong,” said Jim, “for I’m not the master.”

“Yes, you are,” replied Morley, with a laugh. “I make you master now. So, pray, Captain Welton, attend to your duty, and be civil to your employer. There’s a breeze coming that will send you foul o’ the Maplin light if you don’t look out.”

“What’s the name o’ the passenger that came aboard at Gravesend, and what makes him take a fancy to such a craft as this?” inquired Jim.

“I can answer these questions for myself,” said the passenger referred to, who happened at that moment to come on deck. “My name is Stanley Hall, and I have taken a fancy to the Nora chiefly because she somewhat resembles in size and rig a yacht which belonged to my father, and in which I have had many a pleasant cruise. I am fond of the sea, and prefer going to Ramsgate in this way rather than by rail. I suppose you will approve my preference of the sea?” he added, with a smile.

“I do, indeed,” responded Jim. “The sea is my native element. I could swim in it as soon a’most as I could walk, and I believe that—one way or other, in or on it—I have had more to do with it than with the land.”

“You are a good swimmer, then, I doubt not?” said Stanley.

“Pretty fair,” replied Jim, modestly.

“Pretty fair!” echoed Morley Jones, “why, he’s the best swimmer, I’ll be bound, in Norfolk—ay, if he were brought to the test I do b’lieve he’d turn out to be the best in the kingdom.”

On the strength of this subject the two young men struck up an acquaintance, which, before they had been long together, ripened into what might almost be styled a friendship. They had many sympathies in common. Both were athletic; both were mentally as well as physically active, and, although Stanley Hall had the inestimable advantage of a liberal education, Jim Welton possessed a naturally powerful intellect, with a capacity for turning every scrap of knowledge to good use.

Their conversation was at that time, however, cut short by the springing up of a breeze, which rendered it necessary that the closest attention should be paid to the management of the vessel among the numerous shoals which rendered the navigation there somewhat difficult.

It may be that many thousands of those who annually leave London on voyages, short and long—of profit and pleasure—have very little idea of the intricacy of the channels through which they pass, and the number of obstructions which, in the shape of sandbanks, intersect the mouth of the Thames at its junction with the ocean. Without pilots, and an elaborate well-considered system of lights, buoys, and beacons, a vessel would be about as likely to reach London from the ocean, or vice versa, in safety, as a man who should attempt to run through an old timber-yard blindfold would be to escape with unbroken neck and shins. Of shoals there are the East and West Barrows, the Nob, the Knock, the John, the Sunk, the Girdler, and the Long sands, all lying like so many ground-sharks, quiet, unobtrusive, but very deadly, waiting for ships to devour, and getting them too, very frequently, despite the precautions taken to rob them of their costly food.

These sand-sharks (if we may be allowed the expression) separate the main channels, which are named respectively the Swin or King’s channel, on the north, and the Prince’s, the Queen’s, and the South channels, on the south. The channel through which the Nora passed was the Swin, which, though not used by first-class ships, is perhaps the most frequented by the greater portion of the coasting and colliery vessels, and all the east country craft. The traffic is so great as to be almost continuous; innumerable vessels being seen in fine weather passing to and fro as far as the eye can reach. To mark this channel alone there was, at the time we write of, the Mouse light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Mouse sand; the Maplin lighthouse, on the sand of the same name; the Swin middle light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Middle and Heaps sand; the Whittaker beacon, and the Sunk light-vessel on the Sunk sand—besides other beacons and numerous buoys. When we add that floating lights and beacons cost thousands and hundreds of pounds to build, and that even buoys are valued in many cases at more than a hundred pounds each, besides the cost of maintenance, it may be conceived that the great work of lighting and buoying the channels of the kingdom—apart from the light-house system altogether—is one of considerable expense, constant anxiety, and vast national importance. It may also be conceived that the Elder Brethren of the Corporation of Trinity House—by whom, from the time of Henry VIII down to the present day, that arduous duty has been admirably performed—hold a position of the highest responsibility.

It is not our intention, however, to trouble the reader with further remarks on this subject at this point in our tale. In a future chapter we shall add a few facts regarding the Trinity Corporation, which will doubtless prove interesting; meanwhile we have said sufficient to show that there was good reason for Jim Welton to hold his tongue and mind his helm.

When the dangerous navigation was past, Mr Jones took Billy Towler apart, and, sitting down near the weather gangway, entered into a private and confidential talk with that sprightly youngster.

“Billy, my boy,” he said, with a leer that was meant to be at once amiable and patronising, “you and I suit each other very well, don’t we?”

Billy, who had been uncommonly well treated by his new master, thrust his hands into the waistband of his trousers, and, putting his head meditatively on one side, said in a low voice—

“H’m—well, yes, you suit me pretty well.”

The respectable fish-curer chuckled, and patted his protégé on the back. After which he proceeded to discuss, or rather to detail, some matters which, had he been less affected by the contents of Square-Tom, he might have hesitated to touch upon.

“Yes” he said, “you’ll do very well, Billy. You’re a good boy and a sharp one, which, you see, is exactly what I need. There are a lot o’ small matters that I want you to do for me, and that couldn’t be very well done by anybody else; ’cause, d’ye see, there ain’t many lads o’ your age who unite so many good qualities.”

“Very true,” remarked Billy, gravely nodding his head—which, by the way, was now decorated with a small straw hat and blue ribbon, as was his little body with a blue Guernsey shirt, and his small legs with white duck trousers of approved sailor cut.

“Now, among other things,” resumed Morley, “I want you to learn some lessons.”

Billy shook his head with much decision.

“That won’t go down, Mister Jones. I don’t mean for to larn no more lessons. I’ve ’ad more than enough o’ that. Fact is I consider myself edicated raither ’igher than usual. Can’t I read and write, and do a bit o’ cypherin’? Moreover, I knows that the world goes round the sun, w’ich is contrairy to the notions o’ the haincients, wot wos rediklous enough to suppose that the sun went round the world. And don’t I know that the earth is like a orange, flattened at the poles? though I don’t b’lieve there is no poles, an’ don’t care a button if there was. That’s enough o’ jogrify for my money; w’en I wants more I’ll ax for it.”

“But it ain’t that sort o’ lesson I mean, Billy,” said Mr Jones, who was somewhat amused at the indignant tone in which all this was said. “The lesson I want you to learn is this: I want you to git off by heart what you and I are doin’, an’ going to do, so that if you should ever come to be questioned about it at different times by different people, you might always give ’em the same intelligent answer,—d’ye understand?”

“Whew!” whistled the boy, opening his eyes and showing his teeth; “beaks an’ maginstrates, eh?”

“Just so. And remember, my boy, that you and I have been doin’ one or two things together of late that makes it best for both of us to be very affectionate to, and careful about, each other. D’ye understand that?”

Billy Towler pursed his little red lips as he nodded his small head and winked one of his large blue eyes. A slight deepening of the red on his cheeks told eloquently enough that he did understand that.

The tempter had gone a long way in his course by that time. So many of the folds of the thin net had been thrown over the little thoughtless victim, that, light-hearted and defiant though he was by nature, he had begun to experience a sense of restraint which was quite new to him.

“Now, Billy,” continued Jones, “let me tell you that our prospects are pretty bright just now. I have effected an insurance on my sloop and cargo for 300 pounds, which means that I’ve been to a certain great city that you and I know of, and paid into a company—we shall call it the Submarine Insurance Company—a small sum for a bit of paper, which they call a policy, by which they bind themselves to pay me 300 pounds if I should lose my ship and cargo. You see, my lad, the risks of the sea are very great, and there’s no knowing what may happen between this and the coast of France, to which we are bound after touching at Ramsgate. D’ye understand?”

Billy shook his head, and with an air of perplexity said that he “wasn’t quite up to that dodge—didn’t exactly see through it.”

“Supposin’,” said he, “you does lose the sloop an’ cargo, why, wot then?—the sloop an’ cargo cost somethin’, I dessay?”

“Ah, Billy, you’re a smart boy—a knowing young rascal,” replied Mr Jones, nodding approval; “of course they cost something, but therein lies the advantage. The whole affair, sloop an’ cargo, ain’t worth more than a few pounds; so, if I throw it all away, it will be only losing a few pounds for the sake of gaining three hundred. What think you of that, lad?”

“I think the Submarine Insurance Company must be oncommon green to be took in so easy,” replied the youngster with a knowing smile.

“They ain’t exactly green either, boy, but they know that if they made much fuss and bother about insuring they would soon lose their customers, so they often run the risk of a knowin’ fellow like me, and take the loss rather than scare people away. You know, if a grocer was in the habit of carefully weighing and testing with acid every sovereign he got before he would sell a trifle over the counter,—if he called every note in question, and sent up to the bank to see whether it wasn’t a forgery, why, his honest customers wouldn’t be able to stand it. They’d give him up. So he just gives the sovereign a ring and the note a glance an’ takes his chance. So it is in some respects with insurance companies. They look at the man and the papers, see that all’s right, as well as they can, and hope for the best. That’s how it is.”

“Ha! they must be jolly companies to have to do with. I’d like to transact some business with them submarines,” said the boy, gravely.

“And so you shall, my lad, so you shall,” cried Mr Jones with a laugh; “all in good time. Well, as I was saying, the cargo ain’t worth much; it don’t extend down to the keel, Billy, by no means; and as for the sloop—she’s not worth a rope’s-end. She’s as rotten as an old coffin. It’s all I’ve been able to do to make her old timbers hold together for this voyage.”

Billy Towler opened his eyes very wide at this, and felt slightly uncomfortable.

“If she goes down in mid-channel,” said he, “it strikes me that the submarines will get the best of it, ’cause it don’t seem to me that you’re able to swim eight or ten miles at a stretch.”

“We have a boat, Billy, we have a boat, my smart boy.”

Mr Jones accompanied this remark with a wink and a slight poke with his thumb in the smart boy’s side, which, however, did not seem to have the effect of reassuring Billy, for he continued to raise various objections, such as the improbability of the sloop giving them time to get into a boat when she took it into her head to go down, and the likelihood of their reaching the land in the event of such a disaster occurring during a gale or even a stiff breeze. To all of which Mr Jones replied that he might make his mind easy, because he (Jones) knew well what he was about, and would manage the thing cleverly.