The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“But you look too tired for it. Hadn’t you better lie down again?”

“It’s only the storm, papa.”

“The more reason you should not see it if it tires you so.”

“It does not tire me, papa. Only I keep constantly wondering what is going to come out of it. It looks so as if something must follow.”

“You didn’t hear me come into your room last night, Connie. The storm was raging then as loud as it is now, but you were out of its reach—fast asleep. Now it is too much for you. You must lie down.”

“Very well, papa.”

I lowered the support, and when I returned from changing my wet garments she was already looking much better.

After dinner I went to my study, but when evening began to fall I went out again. I wanted to see how our next neighbours, the sexton and his wife, were faring. The wind had already increased in violence. It threatened to blow a hurricane. The tide was again rising, and was coming in with great rapidity. The old mill shook to the foundation as I passed through it to reach the lower part where they lived. When I peeped in from the bottom of the stair, I saw no one; but, hearing the steps of someone overhead, I called out.

Agnes’s voice made answer, as she descended an inner stair which led to the bedrooms above—

“Mother’s gone to church, sir.”

“Gone to church!” I said, a vague pang darting through me as I thought whether I had forgotten any service; but the next moment I recalled what the old woman had herself told me of her preference for the church during a storm.

“O yes, Agnes, I remember!” I said; “your mother thinks the weather bad enough to take to the church, does she? How do you come to be here now? Where is your husband?”

“He’ll be here in an hour or so, sir. He don’t mind the wet. You see, we don’t like the old people to be left alone when it blows what the sailors call ‘great guns.’”

“And what becomes of his mother then?”

“There don’t be any sea out there, sir. Leastways,” she added with a quiet smile, and stopped.

“You mean, I suppose, Agnes, that there is never any perturbation of the elements out there?”

She laughed; for she understood me well enough. The temper of Joe’s mother was proverbial.

“But really, sir,” she said, “she don’t mind the weather a bit; and though we don’t live in the same cottage with her, for Joe wouldn’t hear of that, we see her far oftener than we see my mother, you know.”

“I’m sure it’s quite fair, Agnes. Is Joe very sorry that he married you, now?”

She hung her head, and blushed so deeply through all her sallow complexion, that I was sorry I had teased her, and said so. This brought a reply.

“I don’t think he be, sir. I do think he gets better. He’s been working very hard the last week or two, and he says it agrees with him.”

“And how are you?”

“Quite well, thank you, sir.”

I had never seen her look half so well. Life was evidently a very different thing to both of them now. I left her, and took my way to the church.

When I reached the churchyard, there, in the middle of the rain and the gathering darkness, was the old man busy with the duties of his calling. A certain headstone stood right under a drip from the roof of the southern transept; and this drip had caused the mould at the foot of the stone, on the side next the wall, to sink, so that there was a considerable crack between the stone and the soil. The old man had cut some sod from another part of the churchyard, and was now standing, with the rain pouring on him from the roof, beating this sod down in the crack. He was sheltered from the wind by the church, but he was as wet as he could be. I may mention that he never appeared in the least disconcerted when I came upon him in the discharge of his functions: he was so content with his own feeling in the matter, that no difference of opinion could disturb him.

“This will never do, Coombes,” I said. “You will get your death of cold. You must be as full of water as a sponge. Old man, there’s rheumatism in the world!”

“It be only my work, sir. But I believe I ha’ done now for a night. I think he’ll be a bit more comfortable now. The very wind could get at him through that hole.”

“Do go home, then,” I said, “and change your clothes. Is your wife in the church?”

“She be, sir. This door, sir—this door,” he added, as he saw me going round to the usual entrance. “You’ll find her in there.”

I lifted the great latch and entered. I could not see her at first, for it was much darker inside the church. It felt very quiet in there somehow, although the place was full of the noise of winds and waters. Mrs. Coombes was not sitting on the bell-keys, where I looked for her first, for the wind blew down the tower in many currents and draughts—how it did roar up there—as if the louvres had been a windsail to catch the wind and send it down to ventilate the church!—she was sitting at the foot of the chancel-rail, with her stocking as usual.

The sight of her sweet old face, lighted up by a moonlike smile as I drew near her, in the middle of the ancient dusk filled with sounds, but only sounds of tempest, gave me a sense of one dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, such as I shall never forget. It was no time to say much, however.

“How long do you mean to stay here, Mrs. Coombes?” I asked. “Not all night?”

“No, not all night, surely, sir. But I hadn’t thought o’ going yet for a bit.”

“Why there’s Coombes out there, wet to the skin; and I’m afraid he’ll go on pottering at the churchyard bed-clothes till he gets his bones as full of rheumatism as they can hold.”

“Deary me! I didn’t know as my old man was there. He tould me he had them all comforble for the winter a week ago. But to be sure there’s always some mendin’ to do.”

I heard the voice of Joe outside, and the next moment he came into the church. After speaking to me, he turned to Mrs. Coombes.

“You be comin’ home with me, mother. This will never do. Father’s as wet as a mop. I ha’ brought something for your supper, and Aggy’s a-cookin’ of it; and we’re going to be comfortable over the fire, and have a chapter or two of the New Testament to keep down the noise of the sea. There! Come along.”

The old woman drew her cloak over her head, put her knitting carefully in her pocket, and stood aside for me to lead the way.

“No, no,” I said; “I’m the shepherd and you’re the sheep, so I’ll drive you before me—at least, you and Coombes. Joe here will be offended if I take on me to say I am his shepherd.”

“Nay, nay, don’t say that, sir. You’ve been a good shepherd to me when I was a very sulky sheep. But if you’ll please to go, sir, I’ll lock the door behind; for you know in them parts the shepherd goes first and the sheep follow the shepherd. And I’ll follow like a good sheep,” he added, laughing.

“You’re right, Joe,” I said, and took the lead without more ado.

I was struck by his saying them parts, which seemed to indicate a habit of pondering on the places as well as circumstances of the gospel-story. The sexton joined us at the door, and we all walked to his cottage, Joe taking care of his mother-in-law and I taking what care I could of Coombes by carrying his tools for him. But as we went I feared I had done ill in that, for the wind blew so fiercely that I thought the thin feeble little man would have got on better if he had been more heavily weighted against it. But I made him take a hold of my arm, and so we got in. The old man took his tools from me and set them down in the mill, for the roof of which I felt some anxiety as we passed through, so full of wind was the whole space. But when we opened the inner door the welcome of a glowing fire burst up the stair as if that had been a well of warmth and light below. I went down with them. Coombes departed to change his clothes, and the rest of us stood round the fire, where Agnes was busy cooking something like white puddings for their supper.

“Did you hear, sir,” said Joe, “that the coastguard is off to the Goose-pot? There’s a vessel ashore there, they say. I met them on the road with the rocket-cart.”

“How far off is that, Joe?”

“Some five or six miles, I suppose, along the coast nor’ards.”

“What sort of a vessel is she?”

“That I don’t know. Some say she be a schooner, others a brigantine. The coast-guard didn’t know themselves.”

“Poor things!” said Mrs. Coombes. “If any of them comes ashore, they’ll be sadly knocked to pieces on the rocks in a night like this.”

She had caught a little infection of her husband’s mode of thought.

“It’s not likely to clear up before morning, I fear; is it, Joe?”

“I don’t think so, sir. There’s no likelihood.”

“Will you condescend to sit down and take a share with us, sir?” said the old woman.

“There would be no condescension in that, Mrs. Coombes. I will another time with all my heart; but in such a night I ought to be at home with my own people. They will be more uneasy if I am away.”

“Of coorse, of coorse, sir.”

“So I’ll bid you good-night. I wish this storm were well over.”

I buttoned my great-coat, pulled my hat down on my head, and set out. It was getting on for high water. The night was growing very dark. There would be a moon some time, but the clouds were so dense she could not do much while they came between. The roaring of the waves on the shore was terrible; all I could see of them now was the whiteness of their breaking, but they filled the earth and the air with their furious noises. The wind roared from the sea; two oceans were breaking on the land, only to the one had been set a hitherto—to the other none. Ere the night was far gone, however, I had begun to doubt whether the ocean itself had not broken its bars.

I found the whole household full of the storm. The children kept pressing their faces to the windows, trying to pierce, as by force of will, through the darkness, and discover what the wild thing out there was doing. They could see nothing: all was one mass of blackness and dismay, with a soul in it of ceaseless roaring. I ran up to Connie’s room, and found that she was left alone. She looked restless, pale, and frightened. The house quivered, and still the wind howled and whistled through the adjoining bark-hut.

“Connie, darling, have they left you alone?” I said.

“Only for a few minutes, papa. I don’t mind it.”

“Don’t he frightened at the storm, my dear. He who could walk on the sea of Galilee, and still the storm of that little pool, can rule the Atlantic just as well. Jeremiah says he ‘divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar.’”

The same moment Dora came running into the room.

“Papa,” she cried, “the spray—such a lot of it—came dashing on the windows in the dining-room. Will it break them?”

“I hope not, my dear. Just stay with Connie while I run down.”

“O, papa! I do want to see.”

“What do you want to see, Dora?”

“The storm, papa.”

“It is as black as pitch. You can’t see anything.”

“O, but I want to—to—be beside it.”

“Well, you sha’n’t stay with Connie, if you are not willing. Go along. Ask Wynnie to come here.”

The child was so possessed by the commotion without that she did not seem even to see my rebuke, not to say feel it. She ran off, and Wynnie presently came. I left her with Connie, put on a long waterproof cloak, and went down to the dining-room. A door led from it immediately on to the little green in front of the house, between it and the sea. The dining-room was dark, for they had put out the lights that they might see better from the windows. The children and some of the servants were there looking out. I opened the door cautiously. It needed the strength of two of the women to shut it behind me. The moment I opened it a great sheet of spray rushed over me. I went down the little grassy slope. The rain had ceased, and it was not quite so dark as I had expected. I could see the gleaming whiteness all before me. The next moment a wave rolled over the low wall in front of me, breaking on it and wrapping me round in a sheet of water. Something hurt me sharply on the leg; and I found, on searching, that one of the large flat stones that lay for coping on the top of the wall was on the grass beside me. If it had struck me straight, it must have broken my leg.

There came a little lull in the wind, and just as I turned to go into the house again, I thought I heard a gun. I stood and listened, but heard nothing more, and fancied I must have been mistaken. I returned and tapped at the door; but I had to knock loudly before they heard me within. When I went up to the drawing-room, I found that Percivale had joined our party. He and Turner were talking together at one of the windows.

“Did you hear a gun?” I asked them.

“No. Was there one?”

“I’m not sure. I half-fancied I heard one, but no other followed. There will be a good many fired to-night, though, along this awful coast.”

“I suppose they keep the life-boat always ready,” said Turner.

“No life-boat even, I fear, would live in such a sea,” I said, remembering what the officer of the coast-guard had told me.

“They would try, though, I suppose,” said Turner.

“I do not know,” said Percivale. “I don’t know the people. But I have seen a life-boat out in as bad a night—whether in as bad a sea, I cannot tell: that depends on the coast, I suppose.”

We went on chatting for some time, wondering how the coast-guard had fared with the vessel ashore at the Goose-pot. Wynnie joined us.

“How is Connie, now, my dear?”

“Very restless and excited, papa. I came down to say, that if Mr. Turner didn’t mind, I wish he would go up and see her.”

“Of course—instantly,” said Turner, and moved to follow Winnie.

But the same moment, as if it had been beside us in the room, so clear, so shrill was it, we heard Connie’s voice shrieking, “Papa, papa! There’s a great ship ashore down there. Come, come!”

Turner and I rushed from the room in fear and dismay. “How? What? Where could the voice come from?” was the unformed movement of our thoughts. But the moment we left the drawing-room the thing was clear, though not the less marvellous and alarming. We forgot all about the ship, and thought only of our Connie. So much does the near hide the greater that is afar! Connie kept on calling, and her voice guided our eyes.

A little stair led immediately from this floor up to the bark-hut, so that it might be reached without passing through the bedroom. The door at the top of it was open. The door that led from Connie’s room into the bark-hut was likewise open, and light shone through it into the place—enough to show a figure standing by the furthest window with face pressed against the glass. And from this figure came the cry, “Papa, papa! Quick, quick! The waves will knock her to pieces!”

In very truth it was Connie standing there.

CHAPTER VIII. THE SHIPWRECK

Things that happen altogether have to be told one after the other. Turner and I both rushed at the narrow stair. There was not room for more than one upon it. I was first, but stumbled on the lowest step and fell. Turner put his foot on my back, jumped over me, sprang up the stair, and when I reached the top of it after him, he was meeting me with Connie in his arms, carrying her back to her room. But the girl kept crying—“Papa, papa, the ship, the ship!”

My duty woke in me. Turner could attend to Connie far better than I could. I made one spring to the window. The moon was not to be seen, but the clouds were thinner, and light enough was soaking through them to show a wave-tormented mass some little way out in the bay; and in that one moment in which I stood looking, a shriek pierced the howling of the wind, cutting through it like a knife. I rushed bare-headed from the house. When or how the resolve was born in me I do not know, but I flew straight to the sexton’s, snatched the key from the wall, crying only “ship ashore!” and rushed to the church.

I remember my hand trembled so that I could hardly get the key into the lock. I made myself quieter, opened the door, and feeling my way to the tower, knelt before the keys of the bell-hammers, opened the chest, and struck them wildly, fiercely. An awful jangling, out of tune and harsh, burst into monstrous being in the storm-vexed air. Music itself was untuned, corrupted, and returning to chaos. I struck and struck at the keys. I knew nothing of their normal use. Noise, outcry, reveillé was all I meant.

In a few minutes I heard voices and footsteps. From some parts of the village, out of sight of the shore, men and women gathered to the summons. Through the door of the church, which I had left open, came voices in hurried question. “Ship ashore!” was all I could answer, for what was to be done I was helpless to think.

I wondered that so few appeared at the cry of the bells. After those first nobody came for what seemed a long time. I believe, however, I was beating the alarum for only a few minutes altogether, though when I look back upon the time in the dark church, it looks like half-an-hour at least. But indeed I feel so confused about all the doings of that night that in attempting to describe them in order, I feel as if I were walking in a dream. Still, from comparing mine with the recollected impressions of others, I think I am able to give a tolerably correct result. Most of the incidents seem burnt into my memory so that nothing could destroy the depth of the impression; but the order in which they took place is none the less doubtful.

A hand was laid on my shoulder.

“Who is there?” I said; for it was far too dark to know anyone.

“Percivale. What is to be done? The coastguard is away. Nobody seems to know about anything. It is of no use to go on ringing more. Everybody is out, even to the maid-servants. Come down to the shore, and you will see.”

“But is there not the life-boat?”

“Nobody seems to know anything about it, except ‘it’s no manner of use to go trying of that with such a sea on.’”

“But there must be someone in command of it,” I said.

“Yes,” returned Percivale; “but there doesn’t seem to be one of the crew amongst the crowd. All the sailor-like fellows are going about with their hands in their pockets.”

“Let us make haste, then,” I said; “perhaps we can find out. Are you sure the coastguard have nothing to do with the life-boat?”

“I believe not. They have enough to do with their rockets.”

“I remember now that Roxton told me he had far more confidence in his rockets than in anything a life-boat could do, upon this coast at least.”

While we spoke we came to the bank of the canal. This we had to cross, in order to reach that part of the shore opposite which the wreck lay. To my surprise the canal itself was in a storm, heaving and tossing and dashing over its banks.

“Percivale,” I exclaimed, “the gates are gone; the sea has torn them away.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Would God I could get half-a-dozen men to help me. I have been doing what I could; but I have no influence amongst them.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What could you do if you had a thousand men at your command?”

He made me no answer for a few moments, during which we were hurrying on for the bridge over the canal. Then he said:

“They regard me only as a meddling stranger, I suppose; for I have been able to get no useful answer. They are all excited; but nobody is doing anything.”

“They must know about it a great deal better than we,” I returned; “and we must take care not to do them the injustice of supposing they are not ready to do all that can be done.”

Percivale was silent yet again.

The record of our conversation looks as quiet on the paper as if we had been talking in a curtained room; but all the time the ocean was raving in my very ear, and the awful tragedy was going on in the dark behind us. The wind was almost as loud as ever, but the rain had quite ceased, and when we reached the bridge the moon shone out white, as if aghast at what she had at length succeeded in pushing the clouds aside that she might see. Awe and helplessness oppressed us. Having crossed the canal, we turned to the shore. There was little of it left; for the waves had rushed up almost to the village. The sand and the roads, every garden wall, every window that looked seaward was crowded with gazers. But it was a wonderfully quiet crowd, or seemed so at least; for the noise of the wind and the waves filled the whole vault, and what was spoken was heard only in the ear to which it was spoken. When we came amongst them we heard only a murmur as of more articulated confusion. One turn, and we saw the centre of strife and anxiety—the heart of the storm that filled heaven and earth, upon which all the blasts and the billows broke and raved.

Out there in the moonlight lay a mass of something whose place was discernible by the flashing of the waves as they burst over it. She was far above low-water mark—lay nearer the village by a furlong than the spot where we had taken our last dinner on the shore. It was strange to think that yesterday the spot lay bare to human feet, where now so many men and women were isolated in a howling waste of angry waters; for the cry of women came plainly to our ears, and we were helpless to save them. It was terrible to have to do nothing. Percivale went about hurriedly, talking to this one and that one, as if he still thought something might be done. He turned to me.

“Do try, Mr. Walton, and find out for me where the captain of the life-boat is.”

I turned to a sailor-like man who stood at my elbow and asked him.

“It’s no use, I assure you, sir,” he answered; “no boat could live in such a sea. It would be throwing away the men’s lives.”

“Do you know where the captain lives?” Percivale asked.

“If I did, I tell you it is of no use.”

“Are you the captain yourself?” returned Percivale.

“What is that to you?” he answered, surly now. “I know my own business.”

The same moment several of the crowd nearest the edge of the water made a simultaneous rush into the surf, and laid hold of something, which, as they returned drawing it to the shore, I saw to be a human form. It was the body of a woman—alive or dead I could not tell. I could just see the long hair hanging from the head, which itself hung backward helplessly as they bore her up the bank. I saw, too, a white face, and I can recall no more.

“Run, Percivale,” I said, “and fetch Turner. She may not be dead yet.”

“I can’t,” answered Percivale. “You had better go yourself, Mr. Walton.”

He spoke hurriedly. I saw he must have some reason for answering me so abruptly. He was talking to a young fellow whom I recognised as one of the most dissolute in the village; and just as I turned to go they walked away together.

I sped home as fast as I could. It was easier to get along now that the moon shone. I found that Turner had given Connie a composing draught, and that he had good hopes she would at least be nothing the worse for the marvellous result of her excitement. She was asleep exhausted, and her mother was watching by her side. It, seemed strange that she could sleep; but Turner said it was the safest reaction, partly, however, occasioned by what he had given her. In her sleep she kept on talking about the ship.

We hurried back to see if anything could be done for the woman. As we went up the side of the canal we perceived a dark body meeting us. The clouds had again obscured, though not quite hidden the moon, and we could not at first make out what it was. When we came nearer it showed itself a body of men hauling something along. Yes, it was the life-boat, afloat on the troubled waves of the canal, each man seated in his own place, his hands quiet upon his oar, his cork-jacket braced about him, his feet out before him, ready to pull the moment they should pass beyond the broken gates of the lock out on the awful tossing of the waves. They sat very silent, and the men on the path towed them swiftly along. The moon uncovered her face for a moment, and shone upon the faces of two of the rowers.

“Percivale! Joe!” I cried.

“All right, sir!” said Joe.

“Does your wife know of it, Joe?” I almost gasped.

“To be sure,” answered Joe. “It’s the first chance I’ve had of returning thanks for her. Please God, I shall see her again to-night.”

“That’s good, Joe. Trust in God, my men, whether you sink or swim.”

“Ay, ay, sir!” they answered as one man.

“This is your doing, Percivale,” I said, turning and walking alongside of the boat for a little way.