The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands

Queeker made no reply. His mind was brooding on his wrongs and sorrows; for Katie had quietly whispered him to take care and not fall off, and Fanny had giggled again.

“I must cure him of his foolish fancy,” thought Katie as she re-entered the house, “for Fanny’s sake, if for nothing else; though I cannot conceive what she can see to like in him. There is no accounting for taste!”

“I can at all events die;”—thought Queeker, as he rode along, shaking the reins and pressing his little legs against the horse as if with the savage intention of squeezing the animal’s ribs together.

“There was prophetic inspiration in the lines!—yes,” he continued, repeating them—

“Fly, fly, to earth’s extremest bounds,With huntsmen, horses, horn, and hounds,        And die—dejected Queeker!

“I’ll change that—it shall be rejected Queeker now.”

For some time Tom Stoutheart and Queeker rode over “hill and dale”—that is to say, they traversed four miles of beautiful undulating and diversified country at a leisurely pace, having started in good time.

“Your father,” observed Queeker, as they rode side by side down a green lane, “said, I think, when we started, that this horse was apt to be skittish at the start. Is he difficult to hold in?”

“Oh no,” replied Tom, with a reassuring smile. “He is as quiet and manageable as any man could wish. He does indeed bounce about a little when we burst away at first, and is apt then to get the bit in his teeth; but you’ve only to keep a tight rein and he’ll go all right. His only fault is a habit of tossing his head, which is a little awkward until you get used to it.”

“Yes, I have discovered that fault already,” replied Queeker, as the horse gave a practical illustration of it by tossing his enormous head back until it reached to within an inch of the point of his rider’s nose. “Twice he has just touched my forehead. Had I been bending a little forward I suppose he would have given me an unpleasant blow.”

“Rather,” said Stoutheart junior. “I knew one poor fellow who was struck in that way by his horse and knocked off insensible. I think he was killed, but don’t feel quite sure as to that.”

“He has no other faults, I hope?” asked Queeker.

“None. As for refusing his leaps—he refuses nothing. He carries my father over anything he chooses to run him at, so it’s not likely that he’ll stick with a light-weight.”

This was so self-evident that Queeker felt a reply to be unnecessary; he rode on, therefore, in silence for a few minutes, comforting himself with the thought that, at all events, he could die!

“I don’t intend,” said Queeker, after a few minutes’ consideration, “to attempt to leap everything. I think that would be foolhardy. I must tell you, Mr Stoutheart, before we get to the place of meeting, that I can only ride a very little, and have never attempted to leap a fence of any kind. Indeed I never bestrode a real hunter before. I shall therefore content myself with following the hounds as far as it is safe to do so, and will then give it up.”

Young Stoutheart was a little surprised at the modest and prudent tone of this speech, but he good-naturedly replied—

“Very well, I’ll guide you through the gates and gaps. You just follow me, and you shall be all right, and when you’ve had enough of it, let me know.”

Queeker and his friend were first in the field, but they had not been there many minutes when one and another and another red-coat came cantering over the country, and ere long a large cavalcade assembled in front of a mansion, the lawn of which formed the rendezvous. There were men of all sorts and sizes, on steeds of all kinds and shapes—little men on big horses, and big men on little horses; men who looked like “bloated aristocrats” before the bloating process had begun, and men in whom the bloating process was pretty far advanced, but who had no touch of aristocracy to soften it. Men who looked healthy and happy, others who looked reckless and depraved. Some wore red-coats, cords, and tops—others, to the surprise and no small comfort of Queeker, who fancied that all huntsmen wore red coats, were habited in modest tweeds of brown and grey. Many of the horses were sleek, glossy, and fine-limbed, like racers; others were strong-boned and rough. Some few were of gigantic size and rugged aspect, to suit the massive men who bestrode them. One of these in particular, a hearty, jovial farmer—and a relative of Tom’s—appeared to the admiring Queeker to be big and powerful enough to have charged a whole troop of light dragoons single-handed with some hope of a successful issue. Ladies were there to witness the start, and two of the fair sex appeared ready to join the hunt and follow the hounds, while here and there little boys might be seen bent on trying their metal on the backs of Shetland ponies.

It was a stirring scene of meeting, and chatting, and laughing, and rearing, and curvetting, and fresh air, and sunshine.

Presently the master of the hounds came up with the pack at his heels. A footman of the mansion supplied all who desired it with a tumbler of beer.

“Have some beer?” said young Stoutheart, pointing to the footman referred to.

“No, thank you,” said Queeker. “Will you?”

“No. I have quite enough of spirit within me. Don’t require artificial stimulant,” said the youth with a laugh. “Come now—we’re off.”

Queeker’s heart gave a bound as he observed the master of the hounds ride off at a brisk pace followed by the whole field.

“I won’t die yet. It’s too soon,” he thought, as he shook the reins and chirped to his steed.

Slapover did not require chirping. He shook his head, executed a mild pirouette on his left hind leg, and made a plunge which threatened first to leave his rider behind, and then to shoot him over his head. Queeker had been taken unawares, but he pressed his knees together, knitted his brows, and resolved not to be so taken again.

Whew! what a rush there was as the two or three hundred excited steeds and enthusiastic riders crossed the lawn, galloped through an open gate, and made towards a piece of rough ground covered with low bushes and bracken, through which the hounds were seen actively running as if in search of something. The bodies of the hounds were almost hidden, and Queeker, whose chief attention was devoted to his horse, had only time to receive the vague impression, as he galloped up, that the place was alive with white and pointed tails.

That first rush scattered Queeker’s depression to the winds. What cared he for love, either successful or unrequited, now? Katie was forgotten. Fanny was to him little better than a mere abstraction. He was on a hunter! He was following the hounds! He had heard, or imagined he had heard, something like a horn. He was surprised a little that no one cried out “Tally-ho!” and in the wild excitement of his feelings thought of venturing on it himself, but the necessity of holding in Slapover with all the power of his arms, fortunately induced him to restrain his ardour.

Soon after he heard a shout of some sort, which he tried to believe was “Tally-ho!” and the scattered huntsmen, who had been galloping about in all directions, converged into a stream. Following, he knew not and cared not what or whom, he swept round the margin of a little pond, and dashed over a neighbouring field.

From that point Queeker’s recollection of events became a train of general confusion, with lucid points at intervals, where incidents of unusual interest or force arrested his attention.

The first of these lucid points was when, at the end of a heavy burst over a ploughed field, he came to what may be styled his first leap. His hat by that time had threatened so frequently to come off, that he had thrust it desperately down on his head, until the rim behind rested on the back of his neck. Trotting through a gap in a hedge into a road, young Stoutheart sought about for a place by which they might clamber up into the next field without going round by the gate towards which most of the field had headed.

“D’you think you could manage that?” said Tom, pointing with the handle of his whip to a gap in the hedge, where there was a mound and a hollow with a chevaux-de-frise of cut stumps around, and a mass of thorn branches sufficiently thin to be broken through.

Queeker never looked at it, but gazing steadily in the face of his friend, said—

“I’ll follow!”

Stoutheart at once pushed his horse at it. It could not be called a leap. It was a mere scramble, done at the slowest possible pace. Wildfire gave one or two little bounds, and appeared to walk up perpendicularly on his hind legs, while Tom looked as if he were plastered against him with some adhesive substance; then he appeared to drop perpendicularly down on the other side, his tail alone being visible.

“All right, come along,” shouted Tom.

Queeker rode up to the gap, shut his eyes, gave a chirp, and committed himself to fate and Slapover. He felt a succession of shocks, and then a pause. Venturing to open his eyes, he saw young Stoutheart, still on the other side of the fence, laughing at him.

“You shouldn’t hold so tight by the reins,” he cried; “you’ve pulled him back into the road. Try it again.”

Queeker once more shut his eyes, slacked the reins, and, seizing the pommel of the saddle, gave another chirp. Again there was a shock, which appeared to drive his body up against his head; another which seemed to have all but snapped him off at the waist; then a sensation about his hat, as if a few wild-cats were attempting to tear it off, followed by a drop and a plunge, which threw him forward on his charger’s neck.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, panting, as he opened his eyes, “I had no idea the shock would have been so—so—shocking!”

Tom laughed; cried “Well done!” and galloped on. Queeker followed, his cheeks on fire, and perspiration streaming from his brow.

“Now, then, here is an easy fence,” cried Stoutheart, looking back and pointing to a part of the field where most of the huntsmen were popping over a low hedge, “will you try it?”

Queeker’s spirit was fairly up.

“I’ll try it!” he said, sternly.

“Come on then.”

Stoutheart led the way gallantly, at full speed, and went over like an india-rubber ball. Queeker brought the handle of his riding-whip whack down on the flank of his astonished horse, and flew at the fence. Slapover took it with a magnificent bound. Queeker was all but left behind! He tottered, as it were, in the saddle; rose entirely out of it; came down with a crash that almost sent him over the horse’s head, and gave him the probable sensations of a telescope on being forcibly shut up; but he held on bravely, and galloped up alongside of his companion, with a tendency to cheer despite his increased surprise at the extreme violence of the shocks to which his unaccustomed frame was being exposed.

After this our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed to keep him well up with the hounds.

Towards the afternoon Queeker’s fire began to abate. His aspect had become dishevelled. His hat had got so severely thrust down on his head, that the brim in front reposed on the bridge of his nose, as did the brim behind on the nape of his neck. His trousers were collected in folds chiefly about his knees, and the glazed leggings had turned completely round, presenting the calves to the front. But these were matters of small moment compared with the desperate desire he had to bring his legs together, if even for a moment of time! Sensations in various parts of his frame, which in the earlier part of the day had merely served to remind him that he was mortal, had now culminated into unquestionable aches and pains, and his desire to get off the back of Slapover became so intense, that he would certainly have given way to it had he not felt that in the event of his doing so there would be no possibility of his getting on again!

“Where are they all away to?” he asked in surprise, as the whole field went suddenly off helter-skelter in a new direction.

“I think they’ve seen the fox,” replied Stoutheart.

“Seen the fox! why, I forgot all about the fox! But—but haven’t we seen it before? haven’t we been after it all day?”

“No, we’ve only got scent of if once or twice.”

“Well, well,” exclaimed Queeker, turning up his eyes, “I declare we have had as good fun as if we had been after the fox in full sight all the time!”

“Here is a somewhat peculiar leap,” said Stoutheart, reining up as they approached a fence, on the other side of which was a high-road, “I’ll go first, to show you the way.”

The peculiarity of the leap lay in the fact that it was a drop of about four feet into the road, which was lower, to that extent, than the field, and that the side of the road into which the riders had to drop was covered with scrubby bushes. To men accustomed to it this was a trifle. Most of the field had already taken it, though a few cautious riders had gone round by a gate.

When Queeker came to try it he felt uneasy—sitting as he did so high, and looking down such a precipice as it seemed to him. However, he shut his eyes, and courageously gave the accustomed chirp, and Slapover plunged down. Queeker held tight to the saddle, and although much shaken, would have come out of the ordeal all right, had not Slapover taken it into his head to make a second spring over a low bush which stood in front of him. On the other side of this bush there was an old pump. Queeker lost his balance, threw out his arms, fell off, was hurled violently against the old pump, and his right leg was broken!

A cart was quickly procured, and on trusses of straw the poor huntsman was driven sadly and slowly, back to Jenkinsjoy, where he was tenderly put to bed and carefully nursed for several weeks by his hospitable and sympathising friends.

Queeker bore his misfortune like a Stoic, chiefly because it developed the great fact that Fanny Hennings wept a whole night and a day after its occurrence, insomuch that her fair face became so swollen as to have lost much of its identity and all its beauty—a fact which filled Queeker with hopes so high that his recovery was greatly hastened by the contented, almost joyous, manner in which he submitted to his fate.

Of course Queeker’s secret mission was, for the time being, at an end;—and thus it came to pass that an old pump, as we said at the beginning of this chapter, was the cause of the failure of several deep-laid plans, and of much bodily anguish and mental felicity to the youthful Nimrod.

Queeker’s last observation before falling into a feverish slumber on the first night after his accident, was to the effect that fox-hunting was splendid sport—magnificent sport,—but that it appeared to him there was no occasion whatever for a fox. And ever after that he was wont to boast that his first and last day of fox-hunting, which was an unusually exciting one, had been got though charmingly without any fox at all. It is even said that Queeker, descending from poetry,—his proper sphere,—to prose, wrote an elaborate and interesting paper on that subject, which was refused by all the sporting papers and journals to which he sent it;—but, this not being certified, we do not record it as a fact.

Chapter Fourteen.

The Lamplighter at Home, and Threatening Appearances

We turn now to a very different scene—the pier and harbour of Ramsgate. The storm-fiend is abroad. Thick clouds of a dark leaden hue drive athwart a sky of dingy grey, ever varying their edges, and rolling out limbs and branches in random fashion, as if they were fleeing before the wind in abject terror. The wind, however, is chiefly in the sky as yet. Down below there are only fitful puffs now and then, telling of something else in store. The sea is black, with sufficient swell on it to cause a few crested waves here and there to gleam intensely white by contrast. It is early in the day, nevertheless there is a peculiar darkness in the atmosphere which suggests the approach of night. Numerous vessels in the offing are making with all speed for Ramsgate harbour, which is truly and deservedly named a “harbour of refuge,” for already some two dozen ships of considerable size, and a large fleet of small craft, have sought and found shelter on a coast which in certain conditions of the wind is fraught with danger. About the stores near the piers, Trinity men are busy with buoys, anchors, and cables; elsewhere labourers are toiling, idlers are loafing, and lifeboat—men are lounging about, leaning on the parapets, looking wistfully out to sea, with and without telescopes, from the sheer force of habit, and commenting on the weather. The broad, bronzed, storm-battered coxswain of the celebrated Ramsgate lifeboat, who seems to possess the power of feeding and growing strong on hardship and exposure, is walking about at the end of the east pier, contemplating the horizon in the direction of the Goodwin Sands with the serious air of a man who expects ere long to be called into action.

The harbour-master—who is, and certainly had need be, a man of brain as well as muscle and energy, to keep the conflicting elements around him in order—moves about actively, making preparation for the expected gale.

Early on the morning of the day referred to, Nora Jones threaded her way among the stalls of the marketplace under the town-hall, as if she were in search of some one. Not succeeding in her search, she walked briskly along one of the main thoroughfares of the town, and diverged into a narrow street, which appeared to have retired modestly into a corner in order to escape observation. At the farther end of this little street, she knocked at the door of a house, the cleanly appearance of which attested the fact that its owner was well-doing and orderly.

Nora knocked gently; she did everything gently!

“Is Mrs Moy at home?” she asked, as a very bright little girl’s head appeared.

No sooner was Nora’s voice heard than the door was flung wide open, and the little girl exclaimed, “Yes, she’s at ’ome, and daddy too.” She followed up this assurance with a laugh of glee, and, seizing the visitor’s hand, dragged her into the house by main force.

“Hallo, Nora, ’ow are ’ee, gal?” cried a deep bass voice from the neighbourhood of the floor, where its owner appeared to be smothered with children, for he was not to be seen.

Nora looked down and beheld the legs and boots of a big man, but his body and head were invisible, being completely covered and held down by four daughters and five sons, one of the former being a baby, and one of the latter an infant.

Dick Moy, who was enjoying his month on shore, rose as a man might rise from a long dive, flung out his great right arm, scattered the children like flecks of foam, and sat up with a beaming countenance, holding the infant tenderly in his left arm. The baby had been cast under the table, where it lay, helpless apparently, and howling. It had passed the most tender period of life, and had entered on that stage when knocks, cuts, yells, and bruises are the order of the day.

“Glad to see you, Nora,” said the man of the floating light, extending his huge hand, which the girl grasped and shook warmly. “You’ll excuse me not bein’ more purlite. I’m oppressed with child’n, as you see. It seems to me as if I’d gone an’ got spliced to that there ’ooman in the story-book wot lived in the shoe, an’ had so many child’n she didn’t know wot to do. If so, she knows wot to do now. She’s only got to hand ’em over to poor Dick Moy, an’ leave him to suffer the consickences.—Ah, ’ere she comes.”

Dick rose as he spoke, and handed a chair to Nora at the moment that his better, but lesser, half entered.

It must not be supposed that Dick said all this without interruption. On the contrary, he bawled it out in the voice of a bo’s’n’s mate, while the four daughters and five sons, including the baby and the infant, crawled up his legs and clung to his pockets, and enacted Babel on a small scale.

Mrs Moy was a very pretty, tidy, cheerful little woman, of the fat, fair, and forty description, save that she was nearer thirty-five than forty. It was clear at a glance that she and Dick had been made for each other, and that, had either married anybody else, each would have done irreparable damage to the other.

“Sit down, Nora. I’m so glad to see you. Come to breakfast, I hope? we’re just going to have it.”

Mrs Moy said this as if she really meant it, and would be terribly disappointed if she met with a refusal. Nora tried to speak, but Babel was too much for her.

“Silence!” burst from Dick, as if a small cannon had gone off in the room.

Babel was hushed.

“Mum’s the word for three minutes,” said Dick, pointing to a huge Yankee clock which stood on the chimney-piece, with a model frigate in a glass case, and a painted sea and sky on one side of it, and a model light-vessel in a glass case, and a painted sea and sky on the other.

There was profound wisdom in this arrangement. If Dick had ordered silence for an indefinite space of time, there would have been discontent, approximating to despair, in Babel’s bosom, and, therefore, strong temptation to rebellion. But three minutes embraced a fixed and known period of time. The result was a desperate effort at restraint, mingled with gleeful anticipation. The elder children who could read the clock stared eagerly at the Yankee time-piece; the younger ones who couldn’t read the clock, but who knew that the others could, stared intently at their seniors, and awaited the signal. With the exception of hard breathing, the silence was complete; the baby being spell-bound by example, and the feeble remarks of the infant—which had been transferred to the arms of the eldest girl—making no impression worth speaking of.

“You are very kind,” said Nora, “I’ll stay for breakfast with pleasure. Grandmother won’t be up for an hour yet, and father’s not at home just now.”

“Werry good,” said Dick, taking a short black pipe out of his coat-pocket, “that’s all right. And ’ow do ’ee like Ramsgate, Nora, now you’ve had a fair trial of it?”

“I think I like it better than Yarmouth; but perhaps that is because we live in a more airy and cheerful street. I would not have troubled you so early, Mr Moy”—(“’Tain’t no trouble at all, Nora; werry much the reverse”)—“but that I am anxious to hear how you got on with poor Billy—”

At this point Babel burst forth with redoubled fury. Dick was attacked and carried by storm; the short black pipe was seized, and an old hat was clapped on his head and thrust down over his eyes! He gave in at once, and submitted with resignation. He struck his colours, so to speak, without firing a shot, and for full five minutes breasted the billows of a sea of children manfully, while smart Mrs Moy spread the breakfast-table as quietly as if nothing were going on, and Nora sat and smiled at them.

Suddenly Dick rose for the second time from his dive, flung off the foam, tossed aside the baby, rescued the infant from impending destruction, and thundered “Silence! mum’s the word for three minutes more.”

“That’s six, daddy!” cried the eldest boy, whose spirit of opposition was growing so strong that he could not help indulging it, even against his own interests.

“No,” said Dick sternly.

“It was three minutes last time,” urged the boy; “an’ you said three minutes more this time; three minutes more than three minutes is six minutes, ain’t it?”

“Three minutes,” repeated Dick, holding up a warning finger.

Babel ceased; the nine pair of eyes (excepting those of the infant) became fixed, and Nora proceeded—

“I wanted to hear how you got on with Billy. Did they take him in at once? and what sort of place is the Grotto? You see I am naturally anxious to know, because it was a terrible thing to send a poor boy away from his only friend among strangers at such an age, and just after recovering from a bad illness; but you know I could not do otherwise. It would have been his ruin to have—”

She paused.

“To have stopped where he was, I s’pose you would say?” observed Dick. “Well, I ain’t sure o’ that, Nora. It’s quite true that the bad company he’d ’ave seen would ’ave bin against ’im; but to ’ave you for his guardian hangel might ’ave counteracted that. It would ’ave bin like the soda to the hacid, a fizz at first and all square arterwards. Hows’ever, that don’t signify now, cos he’s all right. I tuk him to the Grotto, the werry first thing arter I’d bin to the Trinity ’Ouse, and seed him cast anchor there all right, and—”