Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

ally shut everything out of sight a ship's length ahead, requiring a constant, careful lookout, with frequent blowing of the fog-horn. But they kept driving the bark on her course, although she rolled heavily in the immense seas heaving under the quarter; and the rattling and crashing of tin pans and crockery below, and the faint gleams of lightning in the southwest, indicated the growing severity of the storm. But Captain Baker, judging from the barometer and certain signs significant to the experienced eye, inferred that there would be a shift of the wind ahead before morning, and was anxious to make all the longitude possible before the change.

It had just struck eight bells. There is something peculiarly solemn in the toll of a ship's bell on a dark, stormy night, when the wind is chanting a shrill, weird wail in the rigging, and the melancholy swash of the waves seems to shut out the lonely vessel and the isolated beings on her deck from all the rest of creation.

"Mr. Partridge," said the Captain to the mate, whose watch it was on deck-" Mr. Partridge, you'll keep a good lookout, and, if there's any sign of a change of weather, give me a call. If the wind hasn't shifted when they change the watch, we'll heave to, as we don't want to run in too close while it continues thick like this."

Captain Baker then turned to go below, and had just reached the companion-way, when the lookout on the forecastle sang out:

"Vessel dead ahead, close aboard of us!" "Port! hard-a-port!" rang out the thundertones of Captain Baker's voice, and like an echo of his own voice came back the cry from the unknown ship, "Port!" and the bark, suddenly arrested in her course, swung to windward, reeling over on her side, and her foretopmast snapping off even with the cap as she broached too. But it was too late. At the same instant she rose on a sea and rushed down with a tremendous crash into the vessel ahead; and as she swung back, stunned by the shock, and then surged on again, a schooner loomed up out of the gloom, ranged alongside, and went down with a last smothered cry of agony rising from her deck blending with the howling of the gale. Hencoops, spars, and life-preservers were thrown over from the bark, if haply some poor soul might lay hold of one; but, obviously, the first duty was to see whether the Jennie Lane had suffered such damage as would place her own existence in danger. The pumps were sounded, and a slight increase of water was found, indicating that she had started some of her forward timbers; but, most fortunately, the water did not rush in so fast as to be an object of immediate concern, proving under control of the pumps. But some of her upper works had been carried

away, including her jib-boom and foretopmast and top-gallant mast, so that she seemed to be in quite a forlorn condition. While the investigation as to the damage done was going on forward, a voice was heard in the fore-chains, and it was found that one of the schooner's crew was clinging there, who had managed to get a hold, but, spraining his ankle, was unable to climb farther. He was at once rescued and brought aft in a half-drowned condition.

"What schooner was that?" inquired Captain Baker.

"She was the Gentle Annie, of—”

"What! the Gentle Annie, John Baker skipper?" exclaimed the Captain, shaking like a leaf. "Yes, sir."

"My God! O my God!" groaned the poor Captain, leaning against the rail for support in the extremity of his emotion. "O my boy! my poor boy!"

But when the first paroxysm of sudden grief and despair was over, Captain Baker, like all men of action of his stamp, nerved himself to his duty, and, controlling the outward expression of his feelings, went about the ship to see that all was made snug and secure. To put a boat over in that sea and mist, in search of the schooner's crew, was a hopeless task, and would only needlessly risk other lives. He therefore gave orders to keep the bark as near as possible to the position of the catastrophe until daybreak; and, having assured himself that his vessel was in no present danger from the collision, he went below to pass the saddest night of his life.

A long and earnest search on the following morning brought no relief to the hopeless father. The wind had shifted and "scoffed" the fog away, but nothing was to be seen except here and there a distant sail. About mid-day a pilot was taken on board, and in twenty-four hours, with the aid of a tug, the Jennie Lane was alongside of Long Wharf.

The news of the collision, being in the nature of bad tidings, and involving the fate of three men at Captain Baker's home-the rest of the lost men were from other places-it reached the place without delay one evening after candlelight. As usual, when the mail arrived, there was a knot of loafers collected inside of the store, with such more reputable and industrious villagers as expected letters. The postmaster's paper was seized by one of those most greedy for news, and if any item of interest occurred he read it aloud. The audience being largely composed of seafaring people, the column of ship-news was naturally the first to receive attention. On this occasion Jerry Fuller, a lank-limbed specimen of the Cape Cod race, had the newspaper, and, with his slouched hat on the back of his head and his

[merged small][ocr errors]

"Just look a-here-just listen to this, boys! The Gentle Annie's been run down and sunk in a gale of wind by the bark Jennie Lane."

Every one in the store immediately crowded around Jerry while he read aloud the account of the calamity, which, although briefly and simply told, came home to them all with terrible emphasis.

"There was the Widow Fisher's boy and Tommy Sloane and Johnnie Baker, all from this place, all as likely fellows as ever grasped a marlinspike, and they've all gone to 'Davy Jones,' said Bill Tucker, heaving a sigh and moistening the fireless stove with tobacco-juice.

"I can't live this way, mother; I must take another v'yge, even ef I don't never come back here again.”

Not only did Mrs. Baker not hinder his going, but she decided to go with him; whatever be the fate before him, she would share it, and, great as was her sorrow, she knew that his was in some sort increased by the shadow of selfaccusing remorse, a self-blame not wholly unnatural for a calamity which it was out of his power to prevent. Leaving their daughter and Lucy May in their house with a maiden aunt who had been invited to make her home there during their absence, the faithful pair, at an age when most people are laying aside the burdens of life, sailed out once more on the rough, treacherous ocean which so emphatically symbolizes the troublous life of man. The gossips of the Cape, with a knowing shake of the head and pursed-up lips, acknowledged to a presentiment

"I'm thinkin' it's mighty hard lines for the that he would never return, that this was desold man," said Joey Greene.

"A drowning of his own boy! It's blamed hard luck now, I tell you," muttered Jerry.

[ocr errors]

tined too truly to be his last voyage, notwithstanding that he asserted with a grim smile that he was heading for the Cape of Good Hope this

'Derned if I don't think so," echoed Bill time, which was true enough; for, as if to reTucker.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

66

Anyway, it's mighty rough on him, you bet," answered old Captain Si Jones.

But the minister, realizing the fearful import of the fatal tidings when it should reach Mrs. Baker, and touched with anxious sympathy, hastened home to inform his wife, who immediately put on her hood and stepped over to the Captain's house to break the news to the afflicted wife and mother.

It is not for us to intrude upon that stricken household, or to reveal the sorrowful meeting of the parents of the lost Johnnie, or the despair of his betrothed, Lucy May, to whom it now seemed as if the light had gone out of the world.

But if it was hard for Captain Baker to remain at home before this tragedy had overtaken him, it was still harder now. Everything reminded him of his lost son, and of the blasted hopes which had centered around him. Although ten years seemed to have been added to his age, and a slight uncertainty seemed to some to have altered the firm tread of his massive frame, yet to the outside world he preserved a steady, almost cheerful demeanor. But the sea drew him again with a strange, irresistible influence, with the glamour of a witch.

new the days of early manhood, Captain Baker now took command of the Dhulep Singh for Calcutta, the port to which his first voyages were made.

The voyage out was unattended by any unusual incidents. The ship reached the Hooghly in safety, and, having discharged her cargo and reloaded, she started for home. If the outward voyage had often seemed monotonously melancholy to the old sailor and his wife, oppressed by the weight of their loss and the blasting of their hopes, the homeward voyage was more hopeless, for they felt, if they did not shape their thoughts in words, that the blank dreariness of their home on their return to it would tend to reopen the heart-wounds but partially healed. Gradually the Dhulep Singh plowed her way across the Indian Ocean toward the Cape of Good Hope. She had escaped the violent gales which accompany the change of the monsoons, and was running before a very fresh but favorable and seemingly steady breeze on the quarter, and it was hoped that she would weather the Cape and take the southeast trades without meeting any heavy gales. But it was otherwise ordained. Having taken his afternoon nap, Captain Baker got up and took a look at the barometer. The result was so unsatisfactory that he rubbed his eyes and gave another glance at the mercury, which only confirmed his first observation. He went on deck without delay. A great change was impending. A terrific gloom was overspreading the heavens, reaching up from the horizon across the zenith in ragged, livid streaks like the arms

of demons stretching out to clutch their victims. sky. The weather was fine, the ship jogging The sea under this pall rolled black and ominous, along under royals, and the crew engaged in boding no good, while ever and anon the dark repairing such damages as had occurred to the curtain of mist which was rapidly approaching rigging in the late storm. Two of the men, squatfrom the southwest was rent by appalling flashes ted on the deck in the gangway, were mending a of lightning, now white bolts riving the skies in topsail; Mrs. Baker was seated by the compantwain, now in vivid sheets which circled the whole ion-way sewing and chatting with the Captain, offing and rimmed the sea with a ring of fire. who, spy-glass in hand, scanned the offing from The distant but ceaseless roll of thunder, every time to time. Neptune, their white Newfoundmoment growing louder, was of a character to land dog, was standing on the taffrail snuffing impress the stoutest heart with awe and appre- the land, and gazing at the sea with an expreshension. sion truly human. It sometimes does seem as if, with their other gifts, some dogs may be permitted to claim a certain dim, far-off sense of the poetic feeling. It was, in a word, one of those average days between the repose of a calm and the excitement of a storm such as come in the life of a ship as in the life of man.

The officer of the deck had already begun to take precautions to meet the storm, and most of the watch were aloft furling the light sails; but Captain Baker, who was better acquainted with the weather of those seas than the mate, saw that not a moment was to be lost while the ship still had whole topsails and courses set.

"Come down from there!" he roared to the men aloft; "don't wait to furl the top-gallant sails!" then, turning to the mate, he bade him call the watch below. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the ship was taken aback by a fierce squall right in her teeth. The tremendous pressure on the topsails made it useless to let go the halyards or start the sheets, and, driven stern foremost, the ship began to bury her taffrail under the combers; the water boiled over like a sluice, rushing forward into the cabin and the waist; she was apparently entirely beyond human control, and in another minute would have gone down, as lightning, thunder, darkness, wind, and rain burst with a sublime, confused, and irresistible roar and fury over the devoted ship. But at that supreme moment the crew, by almost superhuman effort, succeeded in lowering the spanker and bracing the foreyard. The noble ship, writhing and wrestling for life, fell off in the trough of the sea, lying over almost on her beamends, while the sails were blown out of the boltropes and flew off to leeward like scraps of vapor. For the time she was saved, but how long could she live in that position was the question, especially if the storm settled down into a continuous hurricane. By skillful management they finally got the ship paying off before the wind, scudding with a rag of canvas in the fore-rigging. By the next morning the Dhulep Singh had run out of the vortex of the cyclone, and they were able to heave to, although a sea absolutely mountainous rolled up from the south pole in a manner that sometimes threatened to ingulf the ship.

The sun set that day in a clear offing, festooned with the pageantry of crimson and golden clouds, and the wind having shifted and greatly moderated, they were able to make sail. Two days after the Cape of Good Hope was sighted, like a gray cloud against the pale green of the horizon

[ocr errors]

"To-day is our John's birthday. Had you thought of it, Abijah? He would have been twenty-eight years old," said Mrs. Baker.

"Yes, mother, it was the first thing I thought of when I woke up."

"Well, one thing is sure-he's where he'll have no more hurricanes to fight." Although she had been heroically calm throughout the late storm, it had naturally made a lasting impression upon her, and, being the least bit superstitious, like most people, or call it belief in Providence if you prefer, she sincerely believed it was for some purpose she had been “spared," when others were overwhelmed by the winds and waves never more to see their homes.

"I suppose that's so; we don't know much about it; still, I'd be glad to see him back again, and I don't believe but what, to please his old parents and his poor girl mourning for him on the Cape, he'd be willing to come back for a while."

"You know the Bible says, 'He shall come back no more to me, but I shall go to him,'" repeated the good lady in a low tone.

"I wish I had your faith, mother, not because believing a thing makes it any more true, but then one feels better and takes life easier."

Thus the pair gossiped to themselves in the commonplaces characteristic of those whose lifework is action rather than speech. After a while one of the men aloft reported a sail in sight. Where away?”

"On the lee-beam; looks like a wreck, sir."

Everybody immediately sprang to his feet and scanned the offing, but, as the strange sail was not visible from the deck, Captain Baker went aloft with his glass, and discovered it to be a ship apparently in a sinking condition, her fore- and main-masts gone by the board, and a flag of distress in the mizzen-rigging; she had evidently been dismantled by the late hurricane.

[ocr errors]

Square the main-yard !' was the order that now rang through the ship, and she was then kept away for the wreck, which very soon became visible from the deck. As they drew nearer they could see that she was settling fast, and that the crew (her boats having been carried away) were rapidly constructing a raft alongside. The Dhulep Singh was hove-to a short distance from the wreck, which proved to be the Rothsay, tea-clipper of London, and a boat was lowered and sent off to her. The Rothsay was almost down to her scuppers, wallowing helplessly in the sea, and her end was fast approaching. Help had come to her crew just as she was about to go from under them and leave them adrift on the waste of ocean; nor was it safe for the boat to linger alongside, lest it should be sucked down by the whirling vortex caused by the death-throes of the foundering ship, liable to occur at any moment. A number of the Rothsay's crew had been washed off in the hurricane, and one, who had been maimed by falling spars, was already lying on the raft, and was gently transferred to the boat, which then shoved off. When it was midway between the two ships the Rothsay, lurching convulsively, buried her bow in a sea, and the waves closed over her as she went down, locked in their embrace till the sea give up her dead. There is no more solemn or impressive sight in this world than the sinking of a ship at When a man dies the body continues for a while to give the semblance of reality, and only by degrees wastes away to nothingness. When a house burns down, it is only gradually, and the ashes remain. When an earthquake fells a city, the fragments are still there. But when one moment we see the strong and mighty fabric of a ship actually before us, and the next can discern absolutely not a vestige or sign or semblance or shadow of it existing, we come very near to forming a conception of what annihilation is, if there be any such thing.

sea.

The Rothsay having disappeared, the attention of all on board the Dhulep Singh was directed to the returning boat, and the haggard faces of those who had been so opportunely rescued from a watery grave were eagerly scanned. But when it arrived alongside, and the features of the wounded man became distinctly visible, Mrs. Baker, shuddering as if with cold, pale as death, and with tongue almost paralyzed with overpowering emotion, clutched her husband's arm: “Abijah, don't he look like our Johnnie?"

“Elizabeth, what-you don't mean to say My God, it can't be !—and yet-if only the dead could come to life, I should say it was our John!"

Thus gasping and staggering, rather than walking, Captain Baker took two or three steps

forward, and gazed earnestly into the eyes of the maimed seaman, who at the instant looked up. As he caught the gaze of the Captain, a change came over his sunken features; reaching forward his arms and exclaiming, "Father!" he fell back apparently dead; it was this circumstance which aided to prevent the parents from yielding to the emotions caused by the violence of the shock received from this most extraordinary event. Descending into the boat, the Captain found that his son was only in a syncope, resulting from excitement from physical exhaustion. With the greatest tenderness and sympathy, in which every one of the crew joined—and it may be said to their credit that more than one of them drew his rough fist across his eyes-John Baker was hoisted out of the boat and carried into the cabin, where the usual remedies applied in such cases soon restored him to consciousness.

John Baker's story is soon told; hair-breadth as was his escape, it is at any rate no more remarkable than the adventures which are encountered by most seafaring men some time in the course of their adventurous lives. On the night of the collision he was on deck; the schooner was lying-to, and, as she was directly in the track of inward-bound vessels, anxiety was felt, and a sharp lookout maintained. He discovered the bark at the same instant that the schooner was perceived. Conscious at a glance that a collision was unavoidable, he at once took thought for his personal safety. As is common on our fishing schooners, there was a nest of dories amidships. He made a dive at this and lifted the upper one out of its bed just as the two vessels came together, and held fast to it by the painter. By great good luck it floated when the schooner went down, and he contrived to get into it. It glided over the seas before the wind, its very lightness giving it buoyancy, and helping to keep it clear of the combers. But it was only by the greatest management-may not one also add, by the aid of Providence ?—that dory and crew of one man lived till morning. He was then sighted by a ship outward bound; she altered her course, and flung a rope to him as she swept by: he caught it and was saved. The vessel was bound to China, and the Captain was loath to put back to land him, but promised to transfer him to some homeward-bound vessel if convenient. No such opportunity seemed to occur: either the sea was too high to launch a boat when they met such a ship, or they did not care to lose a fair wind; something always prevented. In the mean time John was given a berth in the forecastle, and worked his passage. At Shanghai he secured the place of second mate in the Rothsay, and started for home via England. The Rothsay was overtaken by the hurricane de

scribed above, and hove on her beam-ends; her captain was washed overboard with several of the crew; it was then found necessary to cut away the masts to right her, and John had his leg broken in two places by a falling spar. After the ship righted it was discovered that she had started a butt, caused perhaps by the pounding of a mast-head before the wrecked stuff was cleared away, and the water gained rapidly on the pumps.

John had suffered greatly from the severe accident which had befallen him, which had been aggravated by exposure and lack of surgical aid. And, although the tender care of his mother and the glad face of his father did much to relieve his pain, it was decided to put into Cape Town to procure the medical advice he so much needed. At the Cape of Good Hope they remained several days, and then under propitious auspices hoisted the topsails once more for home. Past St. Helena's rocky isle, across the line, and the Gulf Stream, the Dhulep Singh sped as if impelled by a consciousness of the glad tidings she bore to the forlorn heart on the Cape, gazing with despair along the far-off verge of ocean for the sail of one who would never return to cheer her life again.

It was a glad moment for all an board when the bare, yellow sand-hills of Cape Cod and the Highland Lighthouse hove in sight. "My country!" exclaimed Captain Baker with exultation, as he proudly gazed on the rising shores of his native land, while Neptune, wagging his bushy tail with becoming dignity, evidently regarded the scene with similar sentiments, and hailed every passing vessel with a sonorous, good-natured bark.

A question which often arises in life is whether

But

the happiness that succeeds adversity and sorrow is dearly purchased at that rate. Probably, if we had the choosing of our destiny, we should shrink from such a valuation of good fortune. Providence, which lays down the laws for man, has otherwise ordained, and decrees that as in art so in life the strangest effects of light shall be gained by a deep, contrasting shade; that repose shall come as a relief from toil and pain; that rapture shall be rapture because it is the revulsion from overpowering anguish of soul. Hard is the law, terrible the price we pay for what happiness we have in life, but there is only one philosophy that is of any practical value here below, and that is to accept the inevitable.

This train of thought received a practical exemplification when Captain Baker, with his good wife and son, arrived at home on a certain evening some years ago. The wedding which followed before many weeks needs little comment; it was one of unusual solemnity and happiness; and the chubby, blue-eyed, dimple-cheeked little girl, who appeared in due season thereafter, was regarded with peculiar feelings. It was a warm welcome indeed which she received from Grandmother Baker, who at one time had given up all prospect of ever seeing this little granddaughter. Ah, little one, you little know how near you came to never having a father!" said Captain Baker, as for the first time he gazed entranced on his first grandchild.

66

"One may truly say that she was brought to us out of the depths," said Mr. Plympton, the minister; "out of the depths of the sea, out of the depths of despair, she comes to us, bearing consolation and the smile of God reflected on. her brow."

S. G. W. BENJAMIN.

SOON

REMINISCENCES.*

PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTË. OON after I came to Halifax I made the acquaintance of a genius of the highest order, Patrick Branwell Brontë, who was at least as talented as any member of that wonderful family. Much my senior, Brontë took an unusual fancy to me, and I continued, perhaps, his most confidential friend through good and ill until his death. Poor, brilliant, gay, moody, moping,

* From "Pictures of the Past: Memoirs of Men I have met and Places I have seen," by Francis H. Grundy, C. E. London, 1879.

VOL. VII.-9

wildly excitable, miserable Brontë! No history records your many struggles after the goodyour wit, brilliance, attractiveness, eagerness for excitement-all the qualities which made you such "good company," and dragged you down to an untimely grave. But you have had a most unnecessary scandal heaped upon you by the author of your sister's "Biography," which that scandal does its best to spoil.

This generous gentleman in all his ideas, this madman in many of his acts, died at twentyeight of grief for a woman. But at twenty-two, what a splendid specimen of brain-power run

« AnkstesnisTęsti »