CHAPTER XXII
Aunt Victoria was surprised herself to find how kindly Beth took to a regular life, how exact she was in the performance of her little housekeeping duties, and how punctual in everything; she had never suspected that Beth's whole leaning was towards law and order, nor observed that even in her most lawless ways there was a certain system; that she fished, and poached, and prowled, fought Bernadine, and helped Harriet, as regularly as she dined, and went to bed. Habits, good or bad, may be formed in an incredibly short time if they are congenial; the saints by nature will pray, and the sinners sin, as soon as the example is set them; and Beth, accordingly, fell into Aunt Victoria's dainty fastidious ways, which were the ways of a gentlewoman, at once and without effort; and ever afterwards was only happy in her domestic life when she could live by the same rule in an atmosphere of equal refinement – an honest atmosphere where everything was done thoroughly, and every word spoken was perfectly sincere. Of course she relapsed many times – it was her nature to experiment, to wander before she settled, to see for herself; but it was by intimacy with lower natures that she learned fully to appreciate the higher; by the effect of bad books upon her that she learned the value of good ones; by the lowering of her whole tone which came of countenancing laxity in others, and by the discomfort and degradation which follow on disorder, that she was eventually confirmed in her principles. The taste for the higher life, once implanted, is not to be eradicated; and those who have been uplifted by the glory of it once will strive to attain to it again, inevitably.
It was through the influence of this time that the most charming traits in Beth's character were finally developed – traits which, but for the tender discipline of the dear old aunt, might have remained latent for ever.
It would be misleading, however, to let it be supposed that Beth's conduct was altogether satisfactory during this visit. On the contrary, she gave Miss Victoria many an anxious moment; for although she did all that the old lady required of her, she did many other things besides, things required of her by her own temperament only. She had to climb the great tree at the end of the lawn, for instance, in order to peep into the nest near the top, and also to see into the demesne beyond the belt of shrubs, where the red-roofed house stood, peopled now by friends of her fancy. This would not have been so bad if she had come down safely; but a branch broke, and she fell and hurt herself, which alarmed Miss Victoria very much. Then Miss Victoria used to send her on errands to develop her intelligence; but Beth invariably lost herself at first; if she only had to turn the corner, she could not find her way back. Aunt Victoria tried to teach her to note little landmarks in her own mind as she went along, such as the red pillar-box at the corner of the street where she was to turn, and the green shutters on the house where she was to cross; and Beth noticed these and many more things carefully as she went, and could describe their position accurately afterwards; but, by the time she turned, the vision and the dream would be upon her as a rule, and she would walk in a world of fancy, utterly oblivious of red pillar-boxes, green shutters, or anything else on earth, until she was brought up wondering by a lamp-post, tree, or some unoffending person with whom she had collided in her abstraction; then she would have to ask her way; but she was slow to find it by direction; and all the time she was wandering about, Aunt Victoria would be worrying herself with fears for her safety until she was quite upset.
Beth was rebellious, too, about some things. There was a grocery shop at one end of the street, kept by a respectable woman, but Beth refused to go to it because the respectable woman had a fussy little Pomeranian dog, and allowed it to lick her hands and face all over, which so disgusted Beth that she could not eat anything the woman touched. It was in this shop that Beth picked up the moribund black beetle that kicked out suddenly, and set up the horror of crawling things from which she ever afterwards suffered. This was another reason for not going back to the shop, but Aunt Victoria could not understand it, and insisted on sending her. Beth was firmly naughty in the matter, however, and would not go, greatly to the old lady's discomposure.
One means of torture, unconsciously devised by Aunt Victoria, tried Beth extremely. Aunt Victoria used to send her to church alone on Sunday afternoons to hear a certain eloquent preacher, and required her to repeat the text, and tell her what the whole sermon was about on her return. Beth did her best, but if she managed to remember the text by repeating it all the time, she could not attend to the sermon, and if she attended to the sermon, she invariably forgot the text. It was another instance of the trickishness of her memory; she could have remembered both the text and sermon without an effort had she not been afraid of forgetting them.
But the thing that gave her aunt most trouble of mind was Beth's habit of making acquaintance with all kinds of people. It was vain to warn her, and worse than vain, for the reasons Aunt Victoria gave her for not knowing people only excited her interest in them, and she would wait about, watching, to see for herself, studying their habits with the patient pertinacity of a naturalist. The drawing-room floor was let to a lady whose husband was at sea, a Mrs. Crome. She was very intimate with a gentleman who also lodged in the house, a friend of her husband's, she said, who had promised to look after her during his absence. Their bedrooms adjoined, and Beth used to see their boots outside their doors every morning when she went down to breakfast, and wonder why they got up so late.
"Out again together nearly all last night," Prentice remarked to Aunt Victoria one morning; and then they shook their heads, but agreed that there was nothing to be done. From this and other remarks, however, Beth gathered that Mrs. Crome was going to perdition; and from that time she had a horrid fascination for Beth, who would gaze at her whenever she had an opportunity, with great solemn eyes dilated, as if she were learning her by heart – as, indeed, she was – involuntarily, for future reference; for Mrs. Crome was one of a pronounced type, as Beth learnt eventually, when she knew the world better, an example which helped her to recognise other specimens of the kind whenever she met them.
She scraped acquaintance with Mrs. Crome on the stairs, at last, and was surprised to find her as kind as could be, and was inclined to argue from this that Prentice and Aunt Victoria must be mistaken about her. But one evening Mrs. Crome tempted her into the drawing-room. The gentleman was there, smoking a cigar and drinking whisky-and-water; and there was something in the whole aspect and atmosphere of the room that made Beth feel exceedingly uncomfortable, and wish she was out of it immediately.
"Aren't you very dull with that old lady?" said Mrs. Crome. "I suppose she never takes you to the theatre or anything."
"No," said Beth; "she does not approve of theatres."
"Then I suppose she doesn't approve of me?" Mrs. Crome observed good-naturedly.
"No," said Beth solemnly; "she does not."
Mrs. Crome burst out laughing, and so did the gentleman.
"This is rich, really," he said. "What a quaint little person!"
"Oh, but she's sweet!" said Mrs. Crome; and then she kissed Beth, and Beth noticed that she had been eating onions, and for long afterwards she associated the smell with theatres, frivolous talk, and a fair-haired woman smiling fatuously on the brink of perdition.
Aunt Victoria retired early to perform her evening ablutions, and on this occasion she had gone up just as usual, with a little bell, which she rang when she was ready for Beth to come. In the midst of the talk and laughter in the drawing-room the little bell suddenly sounded emphatically, and Beth fled. She found Aunt Victoria out on the landing in her petticoat and dressing-jacket, and without her auburn front, a sign of great perturbation. She had heard Beth's voice in the drawing-room, and proceeded to admonish her severely. But Beth heard not a word; for the sight of the old lady's stubbly white hair had plunged her into a reverie, and already, when the vision and the dream were upon her, no Indian devotee, absorbed in contemplation, could be less sensitive to outward impressions than Beth was. Aunt Victoria had to shake her to rouse her.
"What are you thinking of, child?" she demanded.
"Riding to the rescue," Beth answered dreamily.
"Don't talk nonsense," said Aunt Victoria. Beth gazed at her with a blank look. She was saving souls just then, and could attend to nothing else.
Beth's terror of the Judgment never returned; but after she had been away from home a few weeks she began to have another serious trouble which disturbed her towards evening in the same way. The first symptom was a curious lapse of memory which worried her a good deal. She could not remember how much of the garden was to be seen from her mother's bedroom window at home, and she longed to fly back and settle the question. Then she became conscious of being surrounded by the country on every side, and it oppressed her to think of it. She was a sea-child, living inland for the first time, and there came upon her a great yearning for the sight and sound of moving waters. She sniffed the land-breeze, and found it sweet but insipid in her nostrils after the tonic freshness of the sea-air. She heard the voice of her beloved in the sough of the wind among the trees, and it made her inexpressibly melancholy. Her energy began to ebb. She did not care to move about much, but would sit silently sewing by the hour together, outwardly calm, inwardly all an ache to go back to the sea. She used to wonder whether the tide was coming in or going out; wonder if the fish were biting, how the sands looked, and who was on the pier. She devoured every scrap of news that came from home in the hope of finding something to satisfy her longing. Bernadine wrote her an elaborate letter in large hand, which Beth thought very wonderful; Harriet sent her a letter also, chiefly composed of moral sentiments copied from the Family Herald, with a view to producing a favourable impression on Miss Victoria; and Mrs. Caldwell wrote regularly once a week, a formal duty-letter, but a joy to Beth, to whom letters of any kind were a new and surprising experience. She had never expected that any one would write to her; and in the first flush of her gratitude she responded with enthusiasm, sending her mother, in particular, long descriptions of her life and surroundings, which Mrs. Caldwell thought so good she showed them to everybody. In replying to Beth, however, she expressed no approval or pleasure; on the contrary, she put Beth to shame by the way she dwelt on her mistakes in spelling, which effectually checked the outpourings, and shut Beth up in herself again, so that she mourned the more. During the day she kept up pretty well, but towards twilight, always her time of trial, the yearning for home, for mamma, for Harriet, for Bernadine, began again; the most gloomy fears of what might be happening to them in her absence possessed her, and she had great difficulty in keeping back her tears. Aunt Victoria noticed her depression, but mistook it for fatigue, and sent her to bed early, which Beth was glad of, because she wanted to be alone and cry. But one evening, when she was looking particularly sad, the old lady asked if she did not feel well.
"Yes, I feel quite well, thank you, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered with a great sigh; "but I know now what you meant about home-ties. They do pull strong."
"Ah!" said Aunt Victoria, enlightened; "you are homesick, are you?"
And from that day forward, when she saw Beth moping, she took her out of herself by making her discuss the subject, and so relieved her; but Beth continued to suffer, although less acutely, until her return.
CHAPTER XXIII
Rainharbour was not yet deserted by summer visitors, although it was late in the autumn when Beth and Aunt Victoria returned. It had been such a lovely season that the holiday people lingered, loath to leave the freshness of the sea and the freedom of the shore for the stuffy indoor duties and the conventional restrictions of their town lives.
On the day of their arrival, Beth looked about her in amaze. She had experienced such a world of change in herself since she went away, that she was surprised to find the streets unaltered; and yet, although they were unaltered, they did not look the same. It was as if the focus of her eyes had been readjusted so as to make familiar objects seem strange, and change the perspective of everything; which gave the place a different air, a look of having been swept and garnished and set in order like a toy-town. But the people they passed were altogether unchanged, and this seemed stranger still to Beth. There they had been all the time, walking about as usual, wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thoughts; they had had no new experiences, and, what was worse, they were not only unconscious of any that she might have had, but were profoundly indifferent; and to Beth, on the threshold of life, all eager interest in everything, caring greatly to know, and ready to sympathise, this vision of the self-centred with shrivelled hearts was terrible; it gave her the sensation of being the one living thing that could feel in a world of automata moved by machinery.
Bernadine and her mother had met them at the station, but Beth was so busy looking about her, collecting impressions, she had hardly a word to say to either of them. Mrs. Caldwell set this down as another sign of want of proper affection, but Aunt Victoria grumped that it was nothing but natural excitement.
The first thing Beth did after greeting Harriet, who stood smiling at the door, was to run upstairs to her mother's bedroom to settle the question of how much of the garden was visible from the window; and then she rushed on up to the attic, dragged a big box under the skylight in hot haste, and climbed up on it to look at the sea. It was the one glimpse of it to be had from the house, just a corner, where the water washed up against the white cliffs that curved round an angle of the bay. Beth flung the skylight open, and gazed, then drew in her breath with a great sigh of satisfaction. The sea! The sea! Even that glimpse of it was refreshing as a long cool drink to one exhausted by heat and cruelly athirst.
While she was away, Beth had made many good resolutions about behaving herself on her return. Aunt Victoria had talked to her seriously on the subject. Beth could be good enough when she liked: she did all that her aunt expected of her; why could she not do all that her mother expected? Beth promised she would; and was beginning already to keep her promise faithfully by being as troublesome as possible, which was all that her mother ever expected of her. Whether or not thoughts are things which have power to produce effects, there are certainly people who answer to expectation with fatal facility, and Beth was one of them. Eventually she resisted with all her own individuality, but at this time she acted like an instrument played upon by other people's minds. This peculiar sensitiveness she turned to account in after life, using it as a key to character; she had merely to make herself passive, when she found herself reflecting the people with whom she conversed involuntarily; and not as they appeared on the surface, but as they actually were in their inmost selves. In her childhood she unconsciously illustrated the thoughts people had in their minds about her. Aunt Victoria believed in her and trusted her, and when they were alone together, Beth responded to her good opinion; Mrs. Caldwell expected her to be nothing but a worry, and was not disappointed. When Beth was in the same house with both aunt and mother, she varied, answering to the expectation that happened to be strongest at the moment. That afternoon Aunt Victoria was tired after her journey, and did not think of Beth at all; but Mrs. Caldwell was busy in her own mind anticipating all the trouble she would have now Beth was back; and Beth, standing on the box under the attic skylight, with her head out, straining her eyes to seaward, was seized with a sudden impulse which answered to her mother's expectation. That first day she ought to have stayed in, unpacked her box, exhibited her beautiful needlework, got ready for dinner in good time, and proved her affection for her mother and sister by making herself agreeable to them; but instead of that, she stole downstairs, slipped out by the back-gate, and did not return until long after dinner was over.
She did not enjoy the scamper, however. Her home-sickness was gone, but her depression returned nevertheless, as the day declined, only in another form. She had still that curious sensation of being the only living thing in a world of figures moved by mechanism. She stood at the top of the steps which led down on to the pier, where the sailors loitered at idle times, and was greeted by those she knew with slow smiles of recognition; but she had nothing to say to any of them.
The tide was going out, and had left some of the ships in the harbour all canted to one side; cobles and pleasure-boats rested in the mud; a cockle-gatherer was wading about in it with his trousers turned up over his knees, and his bare legs so thickly coated, it looked as if he had black leggings on. Beth went to the edge of the pier, and stood for a few minutes looking down at him. She was facing west, but the sun was already too low to hurt her eyes. On her right the red-roofed houses crowded down to the quay irregularly. Fishing-nets were hanging out of some of the windows. Here and there, down in the harbour, the rich brown sails had been hoisted on some of the cobles to dry. There were some yachts at anchor, and Beth looked at them eagerly, hoping to find Count Bartahlinsky's Seagull amongst them. It was not there; but presently she became conscious of some one standing beside her, and on looking up she recognised Black Gard, the Count's confidential man. He was dressed like the fishermen in drab trousers and a dark blue jersey, but wore a blue cloth cap, with the name of the yacht on it, instead of a sou'wester.
"Has your master returned?" she said.
"No, miss," he answered. "He's still abroad. He'll be back for the hunting, though."
"I doubt it," said Beth, resentful of that vague "abroad," which absorbed him into itself the greater part of the year. When she had spoken, she turned her back on Gard and the sunset, and wandered off up the cliffs. She had noticed a sickly smell coming up from the mud in the harbour, and wanted to escape from it, but somehow it seemed to accompany her. It reminded her of something – no, that was not it. What she was searching about in her mind for was some way, not to name it, but to express it. She felt there was a formula for it within reach, but for some time she could not recover it. Then she gave up the attempt, and immediately afterwards she suddenly said to herself —
"… the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,
Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers."
She did not search for any occult meaning in the lines, nor did they convey anything special to her; but they remained with her for the rest of the day, haunting her, in among her other thoughts, and forcing themselves upon her attention with the irritating persistency of a catchy tune.
On the cliffs she paused to look about her. It was a desolate scene. The tide was so far out by this time it looked as if there were more sand than sea in the bay. The water was the cloudy grey colour of flint, with white rims where the waves broke on the shore. The sky was low, level, and dark; where it met the water there was a heavy bank of cloud, from which an occasional flash of summer lightning, dimmed by daylight, shot along the horizon. The air was peculiarly clear, so that distant objects seemed nearer than was natural. The sheltering headland on the left, which formed the bay, stood out bright white with a crown of vivid green against the sombre sea and sky; while, on the right, the old grey pier, which shut in the view in that direction, and the red-roofed houses of the town crowding down to it, showed details of design and masonry not generally visible to the naked eye from where Beth stood. There were neither ships nor boats in the bay; but a few cobles, with their red-brown sails flapping limp against their masts, rocked lazily at the harbour-mouth waiting for the tide to rise and float them in. Beth heard the men on them shouting an occasional remark to one another, and now and then one of them would sing an uncouth snatch of song, but the effort was spiritless, and did not last.
Leaving the harbour behind, Beth walked on towards the headland. Presently she noticed in front of her the dignified and pathetic figure of an old man, a Roman Catholic priest, Canon Hunter, who, sacrificing all worldly ease or chance of advancement, had come to minister to the neglected fisherfolk on the coast, most of whom were Roman Catholics. He led the life of a saint amongst them, living in dire poverty, his congregation being all of the poorest, with the exception of one lady in the neighbourhood, married to a man whose vices were too expensive to leave him much to spare for his wife's charities. She managed, however, to raise enough money for the rent of the top room in the public hall, which they used as a chapel, and so kept the flickering flame of the old religion alight in the place; but it was a severe struggle. It was whispered, indeed, that more of the gentry in the neighbourhood sympathised with the Catholics than was supposed, and would have helped them but for the discredit – did help them, in fact, when they dared; but no one outside the communion knew how true this report might be, and the fisherfolk loyally held their peace.
It was natural that Beth as she grew up should be attracted by the mystery that surrounded the Roman Catholics, and anxious to comprehend the horror that Protestants had of them. She knew more of them herself than any of the people whom she heard pass uncharitable strictures upon them, and knew nothing for which they could justly be blamed. For the old priest himself she had a great reverence. She had never spoken to him, but had always felt strongly drawn towards him; and now, when she overtook him, her impulse was to slip her hand into his, less on her own account, however, than to show sympathy with him, he seemed so solitary and so suffering, with his slow step and bent back; and so good, with his beautiful calm face.
As she approached, lost in her own thoughts, she gazed up at him intently.
"What is it, my child?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "Can I do anything for you?"
"I was thinking of the beauty of holiness," Beth answered, and passed on.
The old man looked after her, too surprised for the moment to speak, and by the time he had recovered himself, she had turned a corner and was out of sight.
After Beth went home that evening, and had been duly reproached by her mother for her selfish conduct, she stole upstairs to Aunt Victoria's room, and found the old lady sitting with her big Bible on her knee, looking very sad and serious.
"Beth," she said severely, "have you had any food? It is long past your dinner-time, and it does not do for young girls to fast too long."
"I'll go and get something to eat, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered meekly, overcome by her kindness. "I forgot."
She went down to the pantry, and found some cold pie, which she took into the kitchen and ate without appetite.
The heat was oppressive. All the doors and windows stood wide open, but there was no air, and wherever Beth went she was haunted by the sickly smell which she had first perceived coming up from the mud in the harbour, and by the lines which seemed somehow to account for it: —
"… the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,
Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers."
When she had eaten all she could, she went back to Aunt Victoria.
"Shall we read the psalms?" she said.
"Yes, dear," the old lady answered. "I have been waiting for you a long time, Beth."
"Aunt Victoria, I am very sorry," Beth protested. "I didn't think."
"Ah, Beth," the old lady said sorrowfully, "how often is that to be your excuse? You are always thinking, but it is only your own wild fancies that occupy you. When will you learn to think of others?"
"I try always," Beth answered sincerely; "but what am I to do when 'wild fancies' come crowding in spite of me, and all I ought to remember slips away?"
"Pray," Aunt Victoria answered austerely. "Prayer shapes a life; and those lives are the most beautiful which have been shaped by prayer. Prayer is creative; it transposes intention into action, and makes it inevitable for us to be and to do more than would be possible by any other means."
There was a short silence, and then Miss Victoria began the psalm. It was a joy to Beth to hear her read, she read so beautifully; and it was from her that Beth herself acquired the accomplishment, for which she was afterwards noted. Verse by verse they read the psalms together as a rule, and Beth was usually attentive; but that evening, before the end, her attention became distracted by a loud ticking; and the last word was scarcely pronounced before she exclaimed, looking about her – "Aunt Victoria, what is that ticking? I see no clock."
The old lady looked up calmly, but she was very pale. "You do hear it then?" she replied. "It has been going on all day."
Beth's heart stood still an instant, and, in spite of the heat, her skin crisped as if the surface of her body had been suddenly sprayed with cold water. "The Death Watch!" she ejaculated.
The ticking stopped a moment as if in answer to the words, and then began again. A horrible foreboding seized upon Beth.
"Oh, no – no, not that!" she exclaimed, shuddering; and then, all at once, she threw herself upon her knees beside Aunt Victoria, clasped her arms round her, and burst into a tempest of tears and sobs.
"Beth, Beth, my dear child," the old lady cried in dismay, "control yourself. It is only a little insect in the wood. It may mean nothing."
"It does mean something," Beth interrupted vehemently; "I know – I always know. The smell of death has been about me all the afternoon, but I did not understand, although the words were in my mouth. When things mean nothing, they don't make you feel queer – they don't impress you. Nine times running you may see a solitary crow, or spill the salt, or sit down thirteen to table, and laugh at all superstitious nonsense; then the sign was not for you; but the tenth time, something will come over you, and you won't laugh; then be warned and beware! I sometimes feel as if I were listening, but not with my ears, and waiting for things to happen that I know about, but not with my head; and I try always to understand when I find myself listening, but not with my ears, and something surely comes; and so also when I am waiting for things to happen that I know about, but not with my head; they do happen. Only most of the time I know that something is coming, but I cannot tell what it is. In order to be able to tell exactly, I have to hold myself in a certain attitude – not my body, you know, myself– hold myself in suspense, as it were, or suspend something in myself, stop something, push something aside – I can't get it into words; I can't always do it; but when I can, then I know."
"Who taught you this?" Aunt Victoria asked, as if she were startled.
"Oh, no one taught me," Beth answered. "I just found myself doing it. Then I tried to notice how it was done. I wanted to be able to do it myself when I liked. And it was just as if there were two doors, and one had to be shut before I could look out of the other – the one that is my nose and eyes and ears; when that is shut, then I know; I look out of the other. Do things come to you so, Aunt Victoria?"
The old lady had taken Beth's hand, and was stroking it and looking at her very seriously. "No," she said, shaking her head, "no, things do not come to me like that. But although I have only one set of faculties myself, my outlook is not so limited by them that I cannot comprehend the possibility of something beyond. There are written records of people in olden times who must have possessed some such power – some further faculty such as you describe. It may be that it lies latent in the whole race, awaiting favourable conditions to develop itself, and some few rare beings have come into possession of it already. We are complex creatures – body, soul, and spirit, says the saint; and there is spiritual power. Beth, lay hold of that which you perceive in yourself, cherish it, cultivate it, live the life necessary to develop it; for be sure it is a great gift – it may be a divine one."
When the old lady stopped, Beth raised her head and looked about her, as if she had just awakened from sleep. "What were we talking about before that?" she said. "Oh, I know – the Death Watch. It has stopped."
The equinoctial gales set in early that year, and severely. Great seas washed away the silver sands which had been the delight of the summer visitors, leaving miles of clay exposed at low water to add to the desolation of the scene. The bay was full of storm-stayed vessels, all headed to the wind, close reefed, and straining at their anchors. There were days when the steamers had to steam full speed ahead in order to keep at their berths; and then the big sailing ships would drag their anchors and come drifting, drifting helplessly towards the shore, and have to fly before the gale if they could, or take their chance of stranding if the water were low, or being battered to bits against the cliffs if the tide were in. Many a time Beth stood among the fishermen watching, waiting, praying; her whole being centred on some hapless crew, making for the harbour, but almost certain to be carried past. There was a chain down the middle of the pier in the winter to prevent people from being washed off, and she had stood clinging to this, and seen a great ship, with one ragged sail fluttering from a broken mast, carried before the wind right on to the pier-head, which it struck with a crash that displaced great blocks of granite as if they had been sponge-cakes; and when it struck, the doomed sailors on its decks sent up an awful shriek, to which those on the pier responded. Then there was a pause. Beth held her breath and heard nothing; but she saw the ship slip back, back – down amongst the mountainous waves, which sported with it once or twice, tossed it up, and sucked it down, tossed it again, then suddenly engulfed it. On the water afterwards there were ropes and spars, and dark things bobbing like corks, but she knew they were men in mortal agony; and she found herself shouting encouragement, telling them to hold on bravely, help was coming – the lifeboat! the lifeboat! She joined in the sob of excitement too, and the cheers of relief when it returned with its crew complete, and five poor wretches rescued – only five out of fifteen, but still —