Studies in the Art of Rat-catching

Over and over again I fancied I could hear the shrieks and groans of people in distress, and I turned for confirmation of my fancies to the faces of my companions; but all remained unmoved, but bore the quiet determined look that assured me that, had any unfortunate beings called for help from the midst of those wild waters, at the risk of those men's lives it would unhesitatingly have been given. Once for a moment, when a thin mist swept before the moon and made the light on the waters appear more like day than night, I clearly saw on the horizon the upper part of a ship's masts, with some sails bent to their yards, and all heeled over as if the ship were then about to founder, and I gave a loud exclamation; but an old sailor put his hand on my shoulder and called in my ear, "All right, master, all right! We have watched her for a quarter of an hour trying to make the point of the sands yonder, and she is now past them and has an open sea. She is as safe as you are now, thank God; but it was a near shave, and we thought she and all in her were gone." Often since then in my dreams I have seen that wind-tossed sea, and heard the roar of the waters and the screams of the storm, and seen those masts and sails heeling over, and have awoke with a start and dread fear in my heart.

I had been tired when I came in from work, and I had a snug warm bed waiting for me, and moreover I reasoned that watching a storm in the dead of night was no part of a rat-catcher's duty; but I was so fascinated I could not tear myself away, and I stood with my companions behind the boat till long after midnight. Then two other figures dressed like my companions joined us, and it was only when they spoke that I recognised one as the parson of the parish, and the other as the young curate who had helped us with the rabbits. Both asked a few questions of the sailors, who seemed eager to give them information; and then the rector, turning to me, said: "You will be perished by the cold if you stand here longer. Come with me, and I will show you a picture of a different sort, but yet one that I think will interest you." I readily accepted and followed my friend, who, though far from a young man, bore the buffeting of the storm manfully; and he led me up through the village street, and then turning down a short steep lane brought me to a little cove that was partly sheltered by a spit of rock that jutted out into the sea. There, such as it was, was the harbour of the village, and by the fitful light I could see some dozen fishing boats drawn up high on the beach above the force of the waves; and beyond, a cluster of low, one-storied cottages and sheds, with small boats, spars, timbers, windlasses, etc., all denoting the home of fishermen. From this cove, early that morning, two boats had sailed with their nets for the fishing grounds out beyond the sands, and it was for these my friends behind the boat were patiently watching, and it was to say a few words to cheer and comfort the wives and families of these men that the old rector had now come.

From a latticed window just in front of us a bright lamp shed its rays over the cove, and the rector took me straight to the door of this house, and having knocked and been told to come in, he lifted the latch and ushered me inside. The room was like hundreds of others along that coast, the homes of the toilers of the deep, and bore evident signs of being made by men more used to ships than stone or brick buildings. It was a good large room, very low, with heavy rafters overhead, which, with the planks of which the walls were constructed, had doubtless been taken from boats and ships that had served their time on the sea. The open fireplace at the end, with its wide chimney, was the only part of the building not made of old ship timbers and planks, and there was a strong smell of tar from these and from sundry coils of dark rope that were stowed away in a far corner. The long table down the middle of the room was of mahogany and had seen better days in a captain's cabin. The benches round the walls had served as seats on some big ship's deck; and there were swinging lamps and racks hung overhead from the rafters, with rudders, boat-hook, snatch-block, belaying pins, and various things I did not know the use of; but all were neatly arranged. There was a large arm-chair made out of a barrel set ready by the side of the hearth, on which were spread clean flannel clothes to warm and air, in readiness for the home-coming of the wet and tired husband.

In front of the fire, attending to it and to three or four pots and kettles that simmered on the hearth, stood a woman about thirty years of age – just an ordinary fisherman's wife, strong and well shaped, without beauty of feature, but bright and intelligent looking; and when a smile lit up her face, it shed such a kindly ray that one felt that the husband in the little fishing boat on the storm-tossed deep might have his eyes fixed on the lantern burning in the window, but it would be the light of the wife's smile that kept his hand steady on the helm and guided the boat, and made him long to round the point and come to anchor.

On the other side of the hearth was another arm-chair, also made out of a barrel, but much smaller; and in this, packed tightly and snugly round with cushions, half-sat, half-reclined a boy about ten years of age; but, alas! a pair of crutches leaning in the corner beside him at once told a sad tale. I know the points and beauties of all sorts of dogs, and always admire them, but I am not much of a hand at the good points and beauties of men and women, and as for boys, it is rare I see anything but mischief written in their faces; but somehow I could not take my eyes off the boy in the chair. I suppose because it was so different to an other young face I had ever seen, and so different to what one might expect to find amid the surroundings of a fisherman's cottage.

It was a dark, delicate, oval face, like a girl's, with finely cut features, and a complexion as fair as the petals of an apple blossom; but it was his great brown eyes and long eyelashes, black as night, that held the attention, together with a look of deep patient suffering, mingled with gentleness and love that lit all up, and filled even the heart of a rough old rat-catcher like me with a feeling of deep pity and an intense desire to protect and befriend a small creature who looked too fragile, too beautiful, and too good for this old work-a-day world of ours, and as if he were only tarrying for a short while before going to his eternal home, where his features will be beautified by perfect love, and will lose the look of suffering and pain.

The rector, taking off his "sou'-wester" as he entered, turned to the woman with a cheery voice, and said, "Well, Mary, how are you and the boy? – how are you, my man? I happened to be passing" (just as if it were quite a common thing for a parson to be out on the loose at one a.m. on a winter's night), "and I thought I would just call in to say that the men at the boats tell me that the bark of this gale is far worse than its bite, and that it is a fair, honest, rattling gale that such good sailors as your husband care nothing for, and that we may expect the boats in with the daylight, so you may keep the pots boiling. But why isn't that youngster snug in bed and asleep? Oh! he can't sleep when the wind howls, and Jack is away! Why, my boy, Jack will laugh at you when he comes home, and say he don't want such big, tired-looking eyes watching for him! Well, it will be morning soon, and, please God, Jack will be here, and will have popped you into bed himself before most of the world are up and about." At this Mary smiled; and the little boy, with a low laugh, said: "Jack knows Mary and I are waiting for him. Jack says he can often see us, and all we are doing, when he is out at sea in a raging storm, and the night is ever so dark; and he'd feel bad, Jack would, if I was not up to see him eat his supper; and besides, Mary could not sit here alone and listen to the wind and sea, and I am never tired and sleepy when waiting for Jack. Besides, Jack says he must tell someone all he has done and seen while he gets his supper, and Mary is too busy after the nets and things, so I sit here, and Jack tells me of such wonderful things: it is just lovely to hear him."

The rector would not sit down, and soon hurried me off to another cottage, much such another as the first; but instead of Mary and the boy, we found a great, tall, gaunt old woman, sitting up before the fire, waiting for her two grandsons, who were away in the same boat with Jack; but to the rector's cheery, hopeful words, the woman answered with a bitter, sharp, complaining tongue: "I don't want no stop-at-home idle chaps to tell me what a storm is. Danger! who says there's danger? Danger with a little puff of wind like this? Not but what both of those boys will be washed ashore one day as their grandfather and father were. It's in the blood, and trying for a lone woman. Drat the boys! I told them not to go off with Jack. I could see plain for days that it was coming on to blow; but oh, no! they know better than me, who have lived to lose their father in such a storm as this, and to see his boat with my own eyes go to pieces on the Point as she came in, and not a man saved, and me left with them boys to keep. God only knows how I did it, and now they are that masterful they won't pay no attention to me." And then, as a hurricane of wind dashed at the door and windows and sent the smoke from the wood fire far out into the room, the poor old thing started and turned to the night outside with a look of terror; and, as the storm rushed on, and then there was a lull, she threw her apron over her head and sobbed for fear and deep anxiety for her grandsons.

The rector comforted her with gentle words and praise of her pluck and nerves; and as he and I returned to the beach, he told me that the old woman had once been the prettiest girl for many miles round, that when her boys were far too young to help her the father had been drowned by the upsetting of his boat on the Point, and from that day she had worked and toiled, mending nets and selling fish in fair weather and foul, often weary and half-starved, but succeeding in the end to keep her old cottage over her head, and to bring her boys up respectably and turn them out two of the smartest fishermen along the coast.

As we left the cottage the first tender light of the morning was paling the eastern sky far out to sea, and hastening on to the Point, we could just make out a distant sail appearing now and then out of the departing darkness of the night, and before half an hour was over the rector declared it to be Jack's boat coming in fast before the wind. All the village was astir in a minute, old men and young women and children hurrying to the cove and making ready for the home-coming; and in a few minutes the boat, with Jack holding the helm and the old woman's boys sitting crouched low down, dashed past the Point, turned sharp into the cove, and down in a moment fell the sail and the anchor-chain rattled out of the bows. There was no cheering or noisy welcome or rejoicing, for such scenes were the daily incidents in the life of the village; but everyone lent a helping hand, and in a few minutes Jack and his men were on shore. The old grandmother was there, but took no notice of her grandsons, who marched off to the cottage laden with oars, etc., where the old woman had just preceded them to put out the breakfast.

The rector and I turned to go home, and as I passed the cottage where Jack lived I glanced in and saw him standing on the hearth, tall, massive, weather-beaten and rugged, with the lame boy high up in his arms looking hard in his face, and both man and child had such a happy contented smile on their faces that it did me good to see, and I think may have rejoiced even the angels above.

When parting from me at the inn door, the rector said that if I liked to step up to the rectory that evening after my supper he would find me a pipe of tobacco, and tell me all that was known of the history of the little boy who had awakened such an interest in me, for, he added, "it is a very curious story."

CHAPTER X

At eight o'clock, having fed my dogs and ferrets and left my boy Jack chatting in the harness-room with the rector's old coachman, I found myself in a snug arm-chair, pipe in mouth, my feet on the fender, and the rector sitting opposite me in his study, he also enjoying an after-dinner pipe; and after a chat over the events of the day and of the storm of the previous night, the rector began the history of the poor lame boy at the cottage thus —

"I dare say you remember that about eight years ago the Irish question was giving the authorities much trouble and anxiety owing to the active turn it had then taken. Hideous murders were of daily occurrence in that unfortunate country. Dynamite was being used in London to destroy our public buildings, and many of our statesmen were being tracked by paid assassins. Strict orders had been issued by the authorities to watch all our ports to prevent the landing from America of arms and infernal machines, and both the police and Customs officers were on the alert; and yet, in spite of all, bloodthirsty, cowardly dynamiters and assassins succeeded in sneaking into the country, and every now and then perpetrated some hateful outrage. Well, it was during this time that one November morning a queer-looking yacht-like vessel appeared in the offing, and for two days kept standing about. During the day-time it was well out in the offing, but once or twice at night it was noticed by the coastguard and sailors to have come close in to land, and altogether its movements were so mysterious that our suspicions were fully aroused, and the officer of the coastguard telegraphed to the captain of the gunboat stationed at Brockmouth to put him on the alert.

"For some days after this nothing was seen of the yacht, and our suspicions were lulled, and life in our quiet little village had settled down to its usual routine, when early one stormy morning the strange vessel was again seen close off the land, and a boat manned by six men put off for the little harbour; and just as it rounded the Point and got into smooth water, a dog-cart, that we all recognised as one let out for hire in a town ten miles inland, drove down to the beach. Beside the driver sat a tall, thin, dark man, but the few people on the beach had only time to observe this and that he had the dress and appearance of a gentleman, when he sprang from the cart and hurried to where the boat lay, and without hesitating a moment or speaking to anyone he waded out through the low surf to the boat, which at once left the harbour and made the best of its way to the yacht, which as soon as all were on board hoisted all sail and was soon out of sight, driven along by a storm that became in the course of the day as fierce a one as that of last night. There was much talk on the beach among the fishermen and in the village among us all as to what the yacht could be and who the stranger was; and we gathered from the driver of the dog-cart, who had put up his horse at the inn to rest, that he had been called by the porter at the railway station to drive the gentleman over; but that he had not heard his name, or what business brought him here. The driver, who was a sharp old fellow, said the gentleman had chatted with him as he came along, but kept pressing him to drive faster and faster, and gave him five shillings above his fare to use his best speed, and he added: 'I don't know who he is, or what his business may be, but I know one thing – he is an Irishman. I can tell it by his tongue, and by his queer-looking blue eyes and dark hair.'

"Four and twenty hours passed, and during that time many people, I among the number, did not go to bed, for the storm which had sprung up with the departing yacht had blown itself into half a hurricane, and there were fishing boats out, which made us all anxious. As we did last night, or rather this morning, I went round to a few of the fishermen's houses where there were anxious wives and mothers waiting for the absent, and chatted with and cheered them, and I was leaving the two cottages that I daresay you noticed close under the rock towards the Point when the first streaks of morning began to appear in the east. I love to see the day break at any time, but I especially like to watch it over a stormy angry sea; and therefore sheltering myself a little behind a boulder, I stood gazing for a while, when presently, like a thing of life, came plunging and driving from the very gates of the morning the same yacht that had so puzzled us. On and on it came, close-hauled to the wind, straight for the narrow rock-bound jaws of the cove; and I saw at a glance that, if it kept its course, it must strike on a group of rocks some half-mile out at sea; and, parson as I am, I knew, should she strike them, no human aid could save the lives of those on board.

"I hardly know what I did, except that I took off my coat and waved it frantically, and mounted the highest pinnacle on the rocky point to make myself seen by the fated crew; but though at last I could actually distinguish two men at the wheel holding the vessel close to the wind, yet they took no notice, and came on and on, leaping waves mountains high one minute, and lost to sight the next in the trough of the seas. Scores of fishermen soon joined me, and even their wives followed and crouched near, behind the rocks; and so fully was the ship's danger realized, that from time to time a deep groan, half of despair, half prayer, went up from all. There was but one hope – could the yacht be kept close enough to the wind to lead those steering her to believe they could make the entrance of the harbour? or would she be carried far enough to windward to make this impossible, and so force those in charge to alter her course to avoid the stiff cliffs beyond? Ah, no! We saw as we watched that she was too good a vessel to fall off to leeward, and those handling her too good sailors to allow her to do so, for she flew over the waves like a beautiful bird for the entrance of the harbour, and the sunken rocks were in her direct line!

"Suddenly as we watched, with every sense strained to the utmost, and our eyes rivetted on the doomed ship, we heard away out to sea the boom of a big gun, and then another, and presently we saw emerging from the fast diminishing darkness a low, long steamer. At first we thought it was a ship also in deep distress, making signals; but the old sailors soon saw this was not so, and declared it was a gunboat firing at the yacht in the hope of driving her on to the rock-bound coast, and also to attract the attention of the coastguard, so that, should she reach the harbour, those on board might be prevented from escaping the hands of justice. It was a cruel service for British sailors to be employed on, however necessary, and hard to witness. Man hunting man to his death, when the wind and waves already held open the portals of eternity before him, and little short of a miracle could avert his doom!

"A few minutes, a few hundred yards, and the yacht is on the rocks! Gallantly she glides along the side of that green wave and dashes the foam from her crest ere she plunges deep into the sea. A monster wave rolls fast upon her as if to swallow her quivering form. High, high she rises, till half her length is in the air over the crest of the wave, and then down she sinks; then the crash comes. Waves dash over her, her masts fall, her boats are wrenched from her sides, and the next minute we see her, a tangled mass of wreck and cordage, firmly embedded on the pitiless rocks. Don't suppose our fishermen had been quietly watching this and doing nothing to help. From the first, preparations had been made. Our friend Jack, and a score of other active young men, had shoved off the only boat on the beach that had the faintest hope of living in a storm like this, and had been waiting in it close to the harbour mouth some minutes before the yacht struck. But so small was the chance of that frail boat living in such a sea, that many of the most experienced of the sailors made signals to prevent the men starting off to meet what they thought was certain death. Others thought it might be done, and waved contrary signals; and it was then that one saw what sort of women our sailors' wives are, for though many standing there with us had near and dear ones in that boat, and were suffering tortures of anxiety, not a word was spoken, but all was left for the men to do as they thought right.

"As the yacht struck, a deep, wailing shout went up from all on land, and those in the boat knew what had happened, and the next moment we saw the boat plunge into the green waves at the harbour mouth. For a moment it seemed to stagger and quail, and then, impelled by those hands and muscles of iron, it was driven forward through the blinding spray into the angry sea beyond. Shall I ever forget how we watched that boat, now mounted high on the top of a wave, now for moments lost to sight, the men all straining at their oars to the utmost, and always creeping forward yard by yard? All this time, we on the Point could see, with increasing fears, that the hope of the yacht holding together till reached by the rescuers was but a faint one. Each monster wave that rolled in lifted it from the rocks and left it to fall back with an irresistible force midst spray and foam, that constantly wholly hid it from our sight; and even before the boat started, portions of the wreck were being tossed about on the sea, making its passage even more precarious. At one time a group of human beings was seen on the deck clinging to some cordage; but when the next wave passed, most of them had disappeared, and we knew they had perished before our eyes. It was difficult to distinguish objects midst the turmoil, but it soon was whispered among us that some one or more persons were crouching behind the bulwarks, probably lashed there for safety, and from an occasional flutter of a red scarf or garment, we feared there was an unfortunate woman among them; and once, as the waves receded from the deck, we distinctly saw a man rise up from the group and look for a moment towards the approaching boat, and then sink again beside his companions, just as the incoming wave swept high over the poor shelter the stout bulwark afforded.

"If the yacht could only hold together a few minutes longer! But no! once more it rises from its bed like some agonised, dying monster, and then as it falls back it parts in two, and half of it is a drifting mass of planks and timber, washing forward as if to meet the boat and destroy it. A portion yet remained fixed on the rock, and now and then we could still see the group crouching behind the bulwark. On and on fought the boat, now a little out of the direct line to avoid the wreckage, till it was close behind the wreck and partially sheltered by the rampart it formed against the sea; but at that moment all that remained of it was again lifted high in the air and dashed forward; and when the wave had passed by, there was only the frail boat with its brave crew to be seen on the surface. We see it pause for a moment, and then the oars all dip together, and the boat dashes forward. Someone leans over the bows, and there is a moment's struggle; but the mist and foam prevent our distinguishing clearly what is going on. After a while they evidently find there is nothing further that can be done; the boat is put before the waves and comes dashing back towards land.

"All on the Point hurried down to the entrance of the harbour; and many of the men, with coils of rope in their hands, stood ready to give assistance. As each wave rolled under the boat, it flew through the water, and then sank back again hidden from our sight; but nearer and nearer it came on, till at last on the crest of a wave it darted sharp round the Point, and lay tossing in comparatively calm water. Steadily its crew rowed it up the little harbour, and as it approached the beach scores of ready hands seized it and ran it high up on to dry land, and a cheer rang out above the roar of the wind to welcome those snatched from the jaws of death. But this was not responded to by the men in the boat. They all looked stern and anxious; and then we saw that Jack, who was crouched in the bows, was supporting in his arms the slight form of a fair young girl, with long, soft, tangled hair falling around her and forming a frame to the most beautiful saint-like face my eyes had ever seen. Her lips were parted in a smile, and her eyes looked down on a small boy about two years old, who was bound in her arms by a red scarf. At first I thought she was fainting or falling asleep, but the next moment – merciful Heavens! – I saw that the back of her sweet young head was battered in and bleeding, and that she was already beyond the storms of life and the cruel raging of the destroying elements.