I turned and ran. Before I reached the brow of the hill another rocket was fired and fell wide shorewards, partly because the wind blew with fresh fury at the very moment. I heard Roxton say—“She’s breaking up. It’s no use. That last did for her;” but I hurried off for the other side of the bay, to see what became of the life-boat. I heard a great cry from the vessel as I reached the brow of the hill, and turned for a parting glance. The dark mass had vanished, and the waves were rushing at will over the space. When I got to the shore the crowd was less. Many were running, like myself, towards the other side, anxious about the life-boat. I hastened after them; for Percivale and Joe filled my heart.
They led the way to the little beach in front of the parsonage. It would be well for the crew if they were driven ashore there, for it was the only spot where they could escape being dashed on rocks.
There was a crowd before the garden-wall, a bustle, and great confusion of speech. The people, men and women, boys and girls, were all gathered about the crew of the life-boat,—which already lay, as if it knew of nothing but repose, on the grass within.
“Percivale!” I cried, making my way through the crowd.
There was no answer.
“Joe Harper!” I cried again, searching with eager eyes amongst the crew, to whom everybody was talking.
Still there was no answer; and from the disjointed phrases I heard, I could gather nothing. All at once I saw Wynnie looking over the wall, despair in her face, her wide eyes searching wildly through the crowd. I could not look at her till I knew the worst. The captain was talking to old Coombes. I went up to him. As soon as he saw me, he gave me his attention.
“Where is Mr. Percivale?” I asked, with all the calmness I could assume.
He took me by the arm, and drew me out of the crowd, nearer to the waves, and a little nearer to the mouth of the canal. The tide had fallen considerably, else there would not have been standing-room, narrow as it was, which the people now occupied. He pointed in the direction of the Castle-rock.
“If you mean the stranger gentleman—”
“And Joe Harper, the blacksmith,” I interposed.
“They’re there, sir.”
“You don’t mean those two—just those two—are drowned?” I said.
“No, sir; I don’t say that; but God knows they have little chance.”
I could not help thinking that God might know they were not in the smallest danger. But I only begged him to tell me where they were.
“Do you see that schooner there, just between you and the Castle-rock?”
“No,” I answered; “I can see nothing. Stay. I fancy I can. But I am always ready to fancy I see a thing when I am told it is there. I can’t say I see it.”
“I can, though. The gentleman you mean, and Joe Harper too, are, I believe, on board of that schooner.”
“Is she aground?”
“O dear no, sir. She’s a light craft, and can swim there well enough. If she’d been aground, she’d ha’ been ashore in pieces hours ago. But whether she’ll ride it out, God only knows, as I said afore.”
“How ever did they get aboard of her? I never saw her from the heights opposite.”
“You were all taken up by the ship ashore, you see, sir. And she don’t make much show in this light. But there she is, and they’re aboard of her. And this is how it was.”
He went on to give me his part of the story; but I will now give the whole of it myself, as I have gathered and pieced it together.
Two men had been swept overboard, as Roxton said—one of them was Percivale—but they had both got on board again, to drift, oarless, with the rest—now in a windless valley—now aloft on a tempest-swept hill of water—away towards a goal they knew not, neither had chosen, and which yet they could by no means avoid.
A little out of the full force of the current, and not far from the channel of the small stream, which, when the tide was out, flowed across the sands nearly from the canal gates to the Castle-rock, lay a little schooner, belonging to a neighbouring port, Boscastle, I think, which, caught in the storm, had been driven into the bay when it was almost dark, some considerable time before the great ship. The master, however, knew the ground well. The current carried him a little out of the wind, and would have thrown him upon the rocks next, but he managed to drop anchor just in time, and the cable held; and there the little schooner hung in the skirts of the storm, with the jagged teeth of the rocks within an arrow flight. In the excitement of the great wreck, no one had observed the danger of the little coasting bird. If the cable held till the tide went down, and the anchor did not drag, she would be safe; if not, she must be dashed to pieces.
In the schooner were two men and a boy: two men had been washed overboard an hour or so before they reached the bay. When they had dropped their anchor, they lay down exhausted on the deck. Indeed they were so worn out that they had been unable to drop their sheet anchor, and were holding on only by their best bower. Had they not been a good deal out of the wind, this would have been useless. Even if it held she was in danger of having her bottom stove in by bumping against the sands as the tide went out. But that they had not to think of yet. The moment they lay down they fell fast asleep in the middle of the storm. While they slept it increased in violence.
Suddenly one of them awoke, and thought he saw a vision of angels. For over his head faces looked down upon him from the air—that is, from the top of a great wave. The same moment he heard a voice, two of the angels dropped on the deck beside him, and the rest vanished. Those angels were Percivale and Joe. And angels they were, for they came just in time, as all angels do—never a moment too soon or a moment too late: the schooner was dragging her anchor. This was soon plain even to the less experienced eyes of the said angels.
But it did not take them many minutes now to drop their strongest anchor, and they were soon riding in perfect safety for some time to come.
One of the two men was the son of old Coombes, the sexton, who was engaged to marry the girl I have spoken of in the end of the fourth chapter in the second volume.
Percivale’s account of the matter, as far as he was concerned, was, that as they drifted helplessly along, he suddenly saw from the top of a huge wave the little vessel below him. They were, in fact, almost upon the rigging. The wave on which they rode swept the quarter-deck of the schooner.
Percivale says the captain of the lifeboat called out “Aboard!” The captain said he remembered nothing of the sort. If he did, he must have meant it for the men on the schooner to get on board the lifeboat. Percivale, however, who had a most chivalrous (ought I not to say Christian?) notion of obedience, fancying the captain meant them to board the schooner, sprang at her fore-shrouds. Thereupon the wave sweeping them along the schooner’s side, Joe sprang at the main-shrouds, and they dropped on the deck together.
But although my reader is at ease about their fate, we who were in the affair were anything but easy at the time corresponding to this point of the narrative. It was a terrible night we passed through.
When I returned, which was almost instantly, for I could do nothing by staring out in the direction of the schooner, I found that the crowd was nearly gone. One little group alone remained behind, the centre of which was a woman. Wynnie had disappeared. The woman who remained behind was Agnes Harper.
The moon shone out clear as I approached the group; indeed, the clouds were breaking-up and drifting away off the heavens. The storm had raved out its business, and was departing into the past.
“Agnes,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” she answered, and looked up as if waiting for a command. There was no colour in her cheeks or in her lips—at least it seemed so in the moonlight—only in her eyes. But she was perfectly calm. She was leaning against the low wall, with her hands clasped, but hanging quietly down before her.
“The storm is breaking-up, Agnes,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” she answered in the same still tone. Then, after just a moment’s pause, she spoke out of her heart.
“Joe’s at his duty, sir?”
I have given the utterance a point of interrogation; whether she meant that point I am not quite sure.
“Indubitably,” I returned. “I have such faith in Joe, that I should be sure of that in any case. At all events, he’s not taking care of his own life. And if one is to go wrong, I would ten thousand times rather err on that side. But I am sure Joe has been doing right, and nothing else.”
“Then there’s nothing to be said, sir, is there?” she returned, with a sigh that sounded as of relief.
I presume some of the surrounding condolers had been giving her Job’s comfort by blaming her husband.
“Do you remember, Agnes, what the Lord said to his mother when she reproached him with having left her and his father?”
“I can’t remember anything at this moment, sir,” was her touching answer.
“Then I will tell you. He said, ‘Why did you look for me? Didn’t you know that I must be about something my Father had given me to do?’ Now, Joe was and is about his Father’s business, and you must not be anxious about him. There could be no better reason for not being anxious.”
Agnes was a very quiet woman. When without a word she took my hand and kissed it, I felt what a depth there was in the feeling she could not utter. I did not withdraw my hand, for I knew that would be to rebuke her love for Joe.
“Will you come in and wait?” I said indefinitely.
“No, thank you, sir. I must go to my mother. God will look after Joe, won’t he, sir?”
“As sure as there is a God, Agnes,” I said; and she went away without another word.
I put my hand on the top of the wall and jumped over. I started back with terror, for I had almost alighted on the body of a woman lying there. The first insane suggestion was that it had been cast ashore; but the next moment I knew that it was my own Wynnie.
She had not even fainted. She was lying with her handkerchief stuffed into her mouth to keep her from screaming. When I uttered her name she rose, and, without looking at me, walked away towards the house. I followed. She went straight to her own room and shut the door. I went to find her mother. She was with Connie, who was now awake, lying pale and frightened. I told Ethelwyn that Percivale and Joe were on board the little schooner, which was holding on by her anchor, that Wynnie was in terror about Percivale, that I had found her lying on the wet grass, and that she must get her into a warm bath and to bed. We went together to her room.
She was standing in the middle of the floor, with her hands pressed against her temples.
“Wynnie,” I said, “our friends are not drowned. I think you will see them quite safe in the morning. Pray to God for them.”
She did not hear a word.
“Leave her with me,” said Ethelwyn, proceeding to undress her; “and tell nurse to bring up the large bath. There is plenty of hot water in the boiler. I gave orders to that effect, not knowing what might happen.”
Wynnie shuddered as her mother said this; but I waited no longer, for when Ethelwyn spoke everyone felt her authority. I obeyed her, and then went to Connie’s room.
“Do you mind being left alone a little while?” I asked her.
“No, papa; only—are they all drowned?” she said with a shudder.
“I hope not, my dear; but be sure of the mercy of God, whatever you fear. You must rest in him, my love; for he is life, and will conquer death both in the soul and in the body.”
“I was not thinking of myself, papa.”
“I know that, my dear. But God is thinking of you and every creature that he has made. And for our sakes you must be quiet in heart, that you may get better, and be able to help us.”
“I will try, papa,” she said; and, turning slowly on her side, she lay quite still.
Dora and the boys were all fast asleep, for it was very late. I cannot, however, say what hour it was.
Telling nurse to be on the watch because Connie was alone, I went again to the beach. I called first, however, to inquire after Agnes. I found her quite composed, sitting with her parents by the fire, none of them doing anything, scarcely speaking, only listening intently to the sounds of the storm now beginning to die away.
I next went to the place where I had left Turner. Five bodies lay there, and he was busy with a sixth. The surgeon of the place was with him, and they quite expected to recover this man.
I then went down to the sands. An officer of the revenue was taking charge of all that came ashore—chests, and bales, and everything. For a week the sea went on casting out the fragments of that which she had destroyed. I have heard that, for years after, the shifting of the sands would now and then discover things buried that night by the waves.
All the next day the bodies kept coming ashore, some peaceful as in sleep, others broken and mutilated. Many were cast upon other parts of the coast. Some four or five only, all men, were recovered. It was strange to me how I got used to it. The first horror over, the cry that yet another body had come awoke only a gentle pity—no more dismay or shuddering. But, finding I could be of no use, I did not wait longer than just till the morning began to dawn with a pale ghastly light over the seething raging sea; for the sea raged on, although the wind had gone down. There were many strong men about, with two surgeons and all the coastguard, who were well accustomed to similar though not such extensive destruction. The houses along the shore were at the disposal of any who wanted aid; the Parsonage was at some distance; and I confess that when I thought of the state of my daughters, as well as remembered former influences upon my wife, I was very glad to think there was no necessity for carrying thither any of those whom the waves cast on the shore.
When I reached home, and found Wynnie quieter and Connie again asleep, I walked out along our own downs till I came whence I could see the little schooner still safe at anchor. From her position I concluded—correctly as I found afterwards—that they had let out her cable far enough to allow her to reach the bed of the little stream, where the tide would leave her more gently. She was clearly out of all danger now; and if Percivale and Joe had got safe on board of her, we might confidently expect to see them before many hours were passed. I went home with the good news.
For a few moments I doubted whether I should tell Wynnie, for I could not know with any certainty that Percivale was in the schooner. But presently I recalled former conclusions to the effect that we have no right to modify God’s facts for fear of what may be to come. A little hope founded on a present appearance, even if that hope should never be realised, may be the very means of enabling a soul to bear the weight of a sorrow past the point at which it would otherwise break down. I would therefore tell Wynnie, and let her share my expectation of deliverance.
I think she had been half-asleep, for when I entered her room she started up in a sitting posture, looking wild, and putting her hands to her head.
“I have brought you good news, Wynnie,” I said. “I have been out on the downs, and there is light enough now to see that the little schooner is quite safe.”
“What schooner?” she asked listlessly, and lay down again, her eyes still staring, awfully unappeased.
“Why the schooner they say Percivale got on board.”
“He isn’t drowned then!” she cried with a choking voice, and put her hands to her face and burst into tears and sobs.
“Wynnie,” I said, “look what your faithlessness brings upon you. Everybody but you has known all night that Percivale and Joe Harper are probably quite safe. They may be ashore in a couple of hours.”
“But you don’t know it. He may be drowned yet.”
“Of course there is room for doubt, but none for despair. See what a poor helpless creature hopelessness makes you.”
“But how can I help it, papa?” she asked piteously. “I am made so.”
But as she spoke the dawn was clear upon the height of her forehead.
“You are not made yet, as I am always telling you; and God has ordained that you shall have a hand in your own making. You have to consent, to desire that what you know for a fault shall be set right by his loving will and spirit.”
“I don’t know God, papa.”
“Ah, my dear, that is where it all lies. You do not know him, or you would never be without hope.”
“But what am I to do to know him!” she asked, rising on her elbow.
The saving power of hope was already working in her. She was once more turning her face towards the Life.
“Read as you have never read before about Christ Jesus, my love. Read with the express object of finding out what God is like, that you may know him and may trust him. And now give yourself to him, and he will give you sleep.”
“What are we to do,” I said to my wife, “if Percivale continue silent? For even if he be in love with her, I doubt if he will speak.”
“We must leave all that, Harry,” she answered.
She was turning on myself the counsel I had been giving Wynnie. It is strange how easily we can tell our brother what he ought to do, and yet, when the case comes to be our own, do precisely as we had rebuked him for doing. I lay down and fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER IX. THE FUNERAL
It was a lovely morning when I woke once more. The sun was flashing back from the sea, which was still tossing, but no longer furiously, only as if it wanted to turn itself every way to flash the sunlight about. The madness of the night was over and gone; the light was abroad, and the world was rejoicing. When I reached the drawing-room, which afforded the best outlook over the shore, there was the schooner lying dry on the sands, her two cables and anchors stretching out yards behind her; but half way between the two sides of the bay rose a mass of something shapeless, drifted over with sand. It was all that remained together of the great ship that had the day before swept over the waters like a live thing with wings—of all the works of man’s hands the nearest to the shape and sign of life. The wind had ceased altogether, only now and then a little breeze arose which murmured “I am very sorry,” and lay down again. And I knew that in the houses on the shore dead men and women were lying.
I went down to the dining-room. The three children were busy at their breakfast, but neither wife, daughter, nor visitor had yet appeared. I made a hurried meal, and was just rising to go and inquire further into the events of the night, when the door opened, and in walked Percivale, looking very solemn, but in perfect health and well-being. I grasped his hand warmly.
“Thank God,” I said, “that you are returned to us, Percivale.”
“I doubt if that is much to give thanks for,” he said.
“We are the judges of that,” I rejoined. “Tell me all about it.”
While he was narrating the events I have already communicated, Wynnie entered. She started, turned pale and then very red, and for a moment hesitated in the doorway.
“Here is another to rejoice at your safety, Percivale,” I said.
Thereupon he stepped forward to meet her, and she gave him her hand with an emotion so evident that I felt a little distressed—why, I could not easily have told, for she looked most charming in the act,—more lovely than I had ever seen her. Her beauty was unconsciously praising God, and her heart would soon praise him too. But Percivale was a modest man, and I think attributed her emotion to the fact that he had been in danger in the way of duty,—a fact sufficient to move the heart of any good woman.
She sat down and began to busy herself with the teapot. Her hand trembled. I requested Percivale to begin his story once more; and he evidently enjoyed recounting to her the adventures of the night.
I asked him to sit down and have a second breakfast while I went into the village, whereto he seemed nothing loth.
As I crossed the floor of the old mill to see how Joe was, the head of the sexton appeared emerging from it. He looked full of weighty solemn business. Bidding me good-morning, he turned to the corner where his tools lay, and proceeded to shoulder spade and pickaxe.
“Ah, Coombes! you’ll want them,” I said.
“A good many o’ my people be come all at once, you see, sir,” he returned. “I shall have enough ado to make ‘em all comfortable like.”
“But you must get help, you know; you can never make them all comfortable yourself alone.”
“We’ll see what I can do,” he returned. “I ben’t a bit willin’ to let no one do my work for me, I do assure you, sir.”
“How many are there wanting your services?” I asked.
“There be fifteen of them now, and there be more, I don’t doubt, on the way.”
“But you won’t think of making separate graves for them all,” I said. “They died together: let them lie together.”
The old man set down his tools, and looked me in the face with indignation. The face was so honest and old, that, without feeling I had deserved it, I yet felt the rebuke.
“How would you like, sir,” he said, at length, “to be put in the same bed with a lot of people you didn’t know nothing about?”
I knew the old man’s way, and that any argument which denied the premiss of his peculiar fancy was worse than thrown away upon him. I therefore ventured no farther than to say that I had heard death was a leveller.
“That be very true; and, mayhap, they mightn’t think of it after they’d been down awhile—six weeks, mayhap, or so. But anyhow, it can’t be comfortable for ‘em, poor things. One on ‘em be a baby: I daresay he’d rather lie with his mother. The doctor he say one o’ the women be a mother. I don’t know,” he went on reflectively, “whether she be the baby’s own mother, but I daresay neither o’ them ‘ll mind it if I take it for granted, and lay ‘em down together. So that’s one bed less.”
One thing was clear, that the old man could not dig fourteen graves within the needful time. But I would not interfere with his office in the church, having no reason to doubt that he would perform its duties to perfection. He shouldered his tools again and walked out. I descended the stair, thinking to see Joe; but there was no one there but the old woman.
“Where are Joe and Agnes?” I asked.
“You see, sir, Joe had promised a little job of work to be ready to-day, and so he couldn’t stop. He did say Agnes needn’t go with him; but she thought she couldn’t part with him so soon, you see, sir.”
“She had received him from the dead—raised to life again,” I said; “it was most natural. But what a fine fellow Joe is; nothing will make him neglect his work!”
“I tried to get him to stop, sir, saying he had done quite enough last night for all next day; but he told me it was his business to get the tire put on Farmer Wheatstone’s cart-wheel to-day just as much as it was his business to go in the life-boat yesterday. So he would go, and Aggy wouldn’t stay behind.”
“Fine fellow, Joe!” I said, and took my leave.
As I drew near the village, I heard the sound of hammering and sawing, and apparently everything at once in the way of joinery; they were making the coffins in the joiners’ shops, of which there were two in the place.
I do not like coffins. They seem to me relics of barbarism. If I had my way, I would have the old thing decently wound in a fair linen cloth, and so laid in the bosom of the earth, whence it was taken. I would have it vanish, not merely from the world of vision, but from the world of form, as soon as may be. The embrace of the fine life-hoarding, life-giving mould, seems to me comforting, in the vague, foolish fancy that will sometimes emerge from the froth of reverie—I mean, of subdued consciousness remaining in the outworn frame. But the coffin is altogether and vilely repellent. Of this, however, enough, I hate even the shadow of sentiment, though some of my readers, who may not yet have learned to distinguish between sentiment and feeling, may wonder how I dare to utter such a barbarism.
I went to the house of the county magistrate hard by, for I thought something might have to be done in which I had a share. I found that he had sent a notice of the loss of the vessel to the Liverpool papers, requesting those who might wish to identify or claim any of the bodies to appear within four days at Kilkhaven.
This threw the last upon Saturday, and before the end of the week it was clear that they must not remain above ground over Sunday. I therefore arranged that they should be buried late on the Saturday night.
On the Friday morning, a young woman and an old man, unknown to each other, arrived by the coach from Barnstaple. They had come to see the last of their friends in this world; to look, if they might, at the shadow left behind by the departing soul. For as the shadow of any object remains a moment upon the magic curtain of the eye after the object itself has gone, so the shadow of the soul, namely, the body, lingers a moment upon the earth after the object itself has gone to the “high countries.” It was well to see with what a sober sorrow the dignified little old man bore his grief. It was as if he felt that the loss of his son was only for a moment. But the young woman had taken on the hue of the corpse she came to seek. Her eyes were sunken as if with the weight of the light she cared not for, and her cheeks had already pined away as if to be ready for the grave. A being thus emptied of its glory seized and possessed my thoughts. She never even told us whom she came seeking, and after one involuntary question, which simply received no answer, I was very careful not even to approach another. I do not think the form she sought was there; and she may have gone home with the lingering hope to cast the gray aurora of a doubtful dawn over her coming days, that, after all, that one had escaped.
On the Friday afternoon, with the approbation of the magistrate, I had all the bodies removed to the church. Some in their coffins, others on stretchers, they were laid in front of the communion-rail. In the evening these two went to see them. I took care to be present. The old man soon found his son. I was at his elbow as he walked between the rows of the dead. He turned to me and said quietly—
“That’s him, sir. He was a good lad. God rest his soul. He’s with his mother; and if I’m sorry, she’s glad.”
With that he smiled, or tried to smile. I could only lay my hand on his arm, to let him know that I understood him, and was with him. He walked out of the church, sat down, upon a stone, and stared at the mould of a new-made grave in front of him. What was passing behind those eyes God only knew—certainly the man himself did not know. Our lightest thoughts are of more awful significance than the most serious of us can imagine.
For the young woman, I thought she left the church with a little light in her eyes; but she had said nothing. Alas! that the body was not there could no more justify her than Milton in letting her
“frail thoughts dally with false surmise.”
With him, too, she might well add—
“Ay me! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away.”
But God had them in his teaching, and all I could do was to ask them to be my guests till the funeral and the following Sunday were over. To this they kindly consented, and I took them to my wife, who received them like herself, and had in a few minutes made them at home with her, to which no doubt their sorrow tended, for that brings out the relations of humanity and destroys its distinctions.
The next morning a Scotchman of a very decided type, originally from Aberdeen, but resident in Liverpool, appeared, seeking the form of his daughter. I had arranged that whoever came should be brought to me first. I went with him to the church. He was a tall, gaunt, bony man, with long arms and huge hands, a rugged granite-like face, and a slow ponderous utterance, which I had some difficulty in understanding. He treated the object of his visit with a certain hardness, and at the same time lightness, which also I had some difficulty in understanding.
“You want to see the—” I said, and hesitated.
“Ow ay—the boadies,” he answered. “She winna be there, I daursay, but I wad jist like to see; for I wadna like her to be beeried gin sae be ‘at she was there, wi’oot biddin’ her good-bye like.”
When we reached the church, I opened the door and entered. An awe fell upon me fresh and new. The beautiful church had become a tomb: solemn, grand, ancient, it rose as a memorial of the dead who lay in peace before her altar-rail, as if they had fled thither for sanctuary from a sea of troubles. And I thought with myself, Will the time ever come when the churches shall stand as the tombs of holy things that have passed away, when Christ shall have rendered up the kingdom to his Father, and no man shall need to teach his neighbour or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord”? The thought passed through my mind and vanished, as I led my companion up to the dead. He glanced at one and another, and passed on. He had looked at ten or twelve ere he stopped, gazing on the face of the beautiful form which had first come ashore. He stooped and stroked the white cheeks, taking the head in his great rough hands, and smoothed the brown hair tenderly, saying, as if he had quite forgotten that she was dead—
“Eh, Maggie! hoo cam ye here, lass?”
Then, as if for the first time the reality had grown comprehensible, he put his hands before his face, and burst into tears. His huge frame was shaken with sobs for one long minute, while I stood looking on with awe and reverence. He ceased suddenly, pulled a blue cotton handkerchief with yellow spots on it—I see it now—from his pocket, rubbed his face with it as if drying it with a towel, put it back, turned, and said, without looking at me, “I’ll awa’ hame.”
“Wouldn’t you like a piece of her hair?” I asked.
“Gin ye please,” he answered gently, as if his daughter’s form had been mine now, and her hair were mine to give.
By the vestry door sat Mrs. Coombes, watching the dead, with her sweet solemn smile, and her constant ministration of knitting.