CHAPTER II.A CRUCIAL TEST."When you sailed away in the Yarmouth ships,I waved my hand as you passed the pier;It was just an hour since you kissed my lips,And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.* * * * *For now they tell me you're dead and gone,And all the world is nothing to me;And there's the baby, our only one,The bonny bairn that you'll never see."("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)Suffering--monotonous, ceaseless suffering; gallant endurance; sordid filth; unnamed agonies; gnawing, petty pains; cold--and the chance of death. That was the round of life that Lewis Ferrier gazed upon until a day came that will be remembered, as Flodden Field was in Scotland, as Gettysburg is in America, as January 19th, 1881, is in Yarmouth. Ferrier had stuck to his terrible routine work, and, as Sir Everard Romfrey observes: "To stick to workafterthe great effort's over--that's what shows the man." The man never flinched, though he had tasks that might have wearied brain and heart by their sheer nastiness; the healer must have no nerves.A little break in the monotony came at last, and Mr. Ferrier and Mr. T. Lennard had an experience which neither will forget on this side of the grave. Contrary to the fashion of mere novelists, who are not dreamers and who consequently cannot see the end of things, I tell you that both men were kept alive, but they had something to endure.The day had been fairly pleasant considering the time of year, and our friends were kept busy in running from vessel to vessel, looking after men with slight ailments. There was no snow, but some heavy banks hung in the sky away to the eastward. When the sun sank, the west was almost clear, and Tom and Lewis were electrified by the most extraordinary sunset that either had ever seen. The variety of colour was not great; all the open spaces of the sky were pallid green, and all the wisps of cloud were leprous blue: it was the intensity of the hues that made the sight so overpowering, for the spaces of green shone with a clear glitter exactly like the quality of colours which you see on Crookes's tubes when a powerful electric current is passed through."That's very artistic, and everything else of the sort; it's ah-h better than any painting I ever saw, but there's something about it that reminds me of snakes and things of that kind. Snakes! If you saw a forked tongue come out of that blue you wouldn't be surprised.""You're getting to be quite an impressionist, Tom. The sky is horrible. I see all our vessels are getting their boats in; we'd better follow suit. How's the glass, skipper?""Never saw anything like it, sir. This night isn't over yet, and I reckon what's coming is coming from the nor'-east. We're going to reef down. I haven't seen anything like this since 1866, and I remember we had just such another evening."As usual, the gulls were troubled in their minds, and wailed piercingly, for they seem to be mercurial in temperament, and no better weather prophets can be seen.The two ambulance-service men went below, declining to show any misgivings, and they had a good, desultory chat before anything happened to call them on deck. They talked of the poor bruised fellows whom they had seen; then of home; then of the splendid future when men would be kinder, and no fisherman with festering wounds would ever be permitted to die like a dog in a stinking kennel. Pleasant, honest talk it was, for the talkers were pleasant and honest. No bad man can talk well. Our two gentlemen had learned a long lesson of unselfishness, and each of them seemed to become gentler and more worthy in proportion as he gave up more and more of his comfort and his labour to serve others.At last Ferrier said, "Well, Tom, we had a heavy turn in the autumn. If we go this time we'll go together, and I've often wondered what that could be like. What do men say when they meet the last together? Whew-w! How I hate death. The monster! The beastly cold privation. To leave even a North Sea smack must be bitter."The patients were listening; the man with concussion was gone, cured, and his place was held by a burly man who had tried (as heavy fellows will) to haul his own fourteen stone up to the main-boom during a breeze, in order to repair a reef-earring. The vessel came up to the wind, and the jar flung poor Ebenezer Mutton clash on to the deck. Luckily he did not land on his skull, but he had a dislocated ankle.Ebenezer whispered, "I heern you talkin' about the gale, sir, and you're right; we've got somethin' to come. I have a left arm that can beat any glass ever was seen. I come down from the jaws of the gaff just when we was snuggin' her before the gale in '66, and my arm went in four places. Ever since then that there arm tells every change as plain as plain can be. Yes, sir, it's hard to die, even out off a North Sea smack, as you say. Just before the '66 breeze I used often to think, 'Shall I go overboard?' but when we was disabled, and skipper told us 'twas every man for hisself, I looked queer. My arm says there's bad a-comin', and I know you don't skeer easy, or a wouldn't tell you."A hollow sound filled the whole arch of the sky; it was a great, bewildering sound like a cry--an immense imprecation of some stricken Titan."What can that be?" murmured Lennard, with his bold face blanched. "That caps everything."The masterful sound held on for a little, and then sank into a tired sort of moan."Callin' them together, sir,--that's what some o' the West Country chaps calls the King o' the Winds speakin'. It's only snow gettin' looked in the sky, and you'll see it come away in a little.""I don't know what it is, Ebenezer, but I don't like it."On deck the night was black, the splendid green of the west had burnt out, and a breeze was making little efforts from time to time, with little hollow moans."Bad, bad, bad, bad, sir," barked the skipper, angrily.The vanward flights of twirling flakes came on then, as if suddenly unleashed, the wind sprang up, and the great fight began. If you, whoever you may be, and two more strong men had tried to shut an ordinary door in the teeth of that first shock, you would have failed, for the momentum was like that of iron."Steady, and look out," the skipper yelled.The third hand was lifted off his feet and dashed into the lee channels. Ferrier fought hard, but he was clutched by the hand of the wind, and held against the mizen-mast; he could just clutch the rest in which a life-buoy was hanging, and that alone saved him from being felled.The Lord is a Man of War! Surely His hosts were abroad now. No work of man's hands could endure the onset of the forces let loose on that bad night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the hurricane had touched the nerve of the coolest.I am told by one who was on a wide heath at the beginning of that hurricane, that he was coated with solid ice from head to foot on the windward side; his hair and beard were icicles; his spaniel cowered and refused to move; and a splendid, strong horse, which was being driven right in the teeth of the wind, suddenly put its nose to the ground, set its forelegs wide apart, and refused to go on. Not far from the horse was a great poplar, and this tree suddenly snapped like a stick of macaroni; the horse started, whirled round, and galloped off with the wind behind.What must it have been at sea? Men durst not look to windward, for a hard mass seemed to be thrust into nostrils and eyes, so that one was forced to gasp and choke. As for the turmoil!--all Gravelotte, with half a million men engaged, could not have made such a soul-quelling, overmastering sound. Every capacity of sound, every possible discordant vibration of the atmosphere was at work; and so, with bellow on bellow, crash on crash, vast multitudinous shriek on shriek, that fateful tempest went on.Ferrier found that unless he could get under the lee of something or other, he must soon be sheathed in a coat of ice that would prevent him from stirring at all. Oddly enough, he found afterwards that the very fate he dreaded had befallen several forlorn seamen: the icy missiles of the storm froze them in; the wind did not chill them, it throttled them, and they were found frozen rigid in various positions.The mate came and whispered in Ferrier's ear (for shouting was useless), "The skipper would like a word with you. We'll keep some sort of a look-out, but it isn't much good at present. Come into our cabin."Lewis was not sorry, for the waves began to take the vessel without "noticing" her, as it were, just as a good hunter takes an easy ditch in his stride. If one came perpendicularly upon her, it was easy to see what must happen.The skipper said, "I want you gentlemen to assist me. I'm ordered to obeyyou, but I know this sea, and I tell you that I'm doubtful whether I shall save the vessel. I can't keep her hove-to much longer, for this simple reason as she'll bury herself and us. I've got two hundred and forty-four miles to run home. Will you let me run her? If so, I'll take her in under storm canvas. She's splendid before wind and sea, and I can save her that way; if we stop as we are, I fear we drown. I've seen so many years of it that I don't so much mind, but having you is a terrible thing. Hishht, a sea's coming!--I can tell by the lull."Then the two landsmen cowered involuntarily, and looked in each other's eyes with a wild surmise, for a shock came which made the vessel quiver like a tuning-fork in every fibre; the very pannikins on the cabin floor rattled, and all the things in the pantry went like rapidly chattering teeth. It was not like an ordinary blow of the sea. The skipper rushed aft, hoping to get on deck through Ferrier's cabin, but he met a cataract of water which blinded him, and he came back saying, "I doubt her deck won't stand another like that. Now, gentlemen, it's for you to decide.""Skipper, send Bill up to help me with the boat. That last's drove her abreast the skylight."The one look-out man had saved himself. How, only a smacksman can tell. The skipper came down again."Now, gentlemen, shall I run or not?""Well, skipper, if we get through this we shall be more needed than ever.""Yes, sir; but if that last sea hadn't glanced a bit on our starboard bow, weshouldn'thave got through. We've saved the boat, but she was snapped from the grips like a rotten tooth.""But, skipper, we may be pooped in running, or we may do some damage to the rudder and broach-to. Then we should be worse off than here.""Very well, gentlemen. I'm not concerned for myself. My duty's done now, and I'll do my best. I advise you to take some coffee, and try to get a few hours' rest before the pinch comes. You'll not get much rest then."Another sea came, and another; the sound of the wind paralyzed thought and made speech impossible. Had any one said, "The end of the world has come," you would have felt only a mild surprise, for even the capacity for fear or apprehension was stunned as the brain is stunned by a blow."I can't stand this any longer, Tom. Even brandy wouldn't do much good for more than an hour. Do you hear me?"Tom nodded in a dazed way."Well, then, let's go into the open somehow. Perhaps the skipper's strong, hot coffeewillwake us. Anyhow, let us try a cup."Oh! that indescribable night! To know that death was feasting in that blackness; to feel that vigilance was of no avail; to turn away convulsed from the iron push of the demoniac force which for the time seemed to have taken the place of an atmosphere. Smash! Rattle. Then a wild whistling; a many lashes, that flapped and cracked; then the fall of the spar, and the deep, quick sigh from Lennard as it whizzed close by him. The gaff of the mizen had broken away, halliards and all, as if a supernatural knife had been drawn across by a strong hand. The men were hanging on, while a bellying, uncontrollable canvas buffeted them as if it had volition and sense, and strove to knock their senses out of them. A canvas adrift is like an unruly beast. All hands came through the after-cabin, and attacked the thundering sail."For your lives now, chaps, before another sea comes! I can't slack away these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; cut them away."The gaff had fallen, but it was not clear yet. In some mysterious fashion the mizen halliards had yielded and slipped for some distance after a sudden shock had cut the gaff halliards and let the jaws of the gaff free; so now the sail would neither haul up nor come down. Like a cat Bob sprang up the remaining rings, and hacked at the gear; the sail fell--and so did Bob, with a dull thud."Oh! skipper, that's a bad 'un.""Cast a line round him till we've stowed. Jim, take hold of her; she's falling off! Shove her to the wind again till we're done! Now, lads, all of you on to the sheet! Haul! oh, haul! Slack away them toppin' lifts. So; now we've got her! Where's Bob?""Doctor's got him below, skipper."Poor Bob had tried to save himself with his right arm, and his hand had been bent backwards over, and doubled back on his forearm. Bob was settled for the rest of the gale. Lewis soon had the broken limb put up, and Bob stolidly smoked and pondered on the inequalities of life. Why was he, and not another, told off to spring up that reeling mizen into a high breeze that ended by mastering him, and flinging him as if he had been a poor wrestler matched with a champion? Here he was--crippled."Well, Bob, if this is a specimen, we shall see something when it clears.""Yes, doctor; you may say that, you may. I never see nothing like it. If you give a man ten hundred thousand goulden sovereigns, and you says, 'Tell me directly you see anything comin',' he couldn't. When I was on the look-out, I held this 'ere hand, as is broken, up before my eyes, and I couldn't see it, sir--and that's the gospel, as I'm here!""Do you think we're out of the track of ships?""I know no more than Adam, sir. Hello! what's that?""Up here, sir--up, quick!"Ferrier's heart jumped as he thought--"Tom.""Haul on here, sir, with us. God be praised, he took his rope over with him. Haul, for the Lord's sake! Now! now!"Ferrier lashed at his work in a fury of effort: a sea sent him on his knees, and yet he lay back against the inrush of water, and hauled with all the weight of body and arms."Haul, my men! A good life is at the end of that line. Haul! the ice may congeal his pulses before you get at him! Haul! oh, haul!"The skipper sprang to the grating abaft the wheel."Here he is. Glory be to God! Are you right, sir?"No answer."My God! are you sure, skipper?""Sure. Look!"Ferrier saw an object like a mass of sea-weed, but the night was so pitchy that no outline could he made out."Who durst try to pass a line under his arms?""Hand here, skipper; I will.""Oh, Lewis! Keep nerve and eye steady. The graves are twenty fathoms below."Lennard was inert, and no one could tell how he held on until he was flung on the deck."Lend us that binnacle lamp, Jim. Turn it on him."Then it was seen that Tom might have been hauled up without putting Ferrier in peril, for the rope was twice coiled under his arms and loosely knotted in front; he had taken that precaution after seeing Bob fall. Moreover, strange to say, his teeth were locked in the rope, for he had laid hold with the last effort of despair.The wind volleyed; the darkness remained impenetrable, and every sea that came was a Niagara; yet the gallant smack stood to it, and Tom Lennard slumbered after the breath came back to him. His ribs had stood the strain of that rope, but he had really been semi-strangled, and he was marked with two lurid, extravasated bands round his chest. He never spoke before falling asleep; he only pressed Ferrier's hand and pointed, with a smile, upward."If it goes on like this, sir, there won't be many of us left by the morning.""No, skipper. I hope the men will secure themselves like us. Mr. Lennard had a near thing. He has a jaw like a walrus, or his teeth must have gone."So, in fitful whispers, the grim scraps of talk went on while the blare of the trumpets of the Night was loosened over the sea."Look--over the port-side, there. It's beginning."Ferrier could make out nothing until the skipper gave him the exact line to look on. Then he saw a Something that seemed to wallow darkly on a dark tumble of criss-cross seas."He's bottom up, sir. If we'd been running and gone into him, we should have been at rest soon.""How beautifully we are behaving, skipper. I suppose there's no chance of our going like that?""Not without something hits our rudder. We seem to have got away from the track now. While you were below, you see, I got her mainsail in, and that strip of sail has no more pull than a three-cloth jib. Please God, we may get through. If anything happens to my mainmast I shall give in--but it's a good spar."Ferrier's mind went wandering with a sort of boding fierceness; he framed dramatic pictures of all that was passing in the chaotic ruin of shattered seas that rushed and seethed around. He had often spoken of the gigantic forces of Nature, but the words had been like algebraic formulæ; now he saw the reality, and his rebellious mind was humbled."To-morrow, or next day, I shall have to see the misery that this causes. But why should I talk of misery? The word implies a complaint. A hundred smacksmen die tonight. Pitiful! But if this hurricane and all the lesser breezes did not blow, then millions would die who live now in healthy air. If the sea were not lashed up and oxygenated, we should have a stagnant pest-hole like an old rotten fishpond all round the world. England would be like Sierra Leone, and there would soon be no human race. Who talks of kindness and goodness in face of a scene like this? We know nothing. The hundred fishermen die, and the unpoisoned millions live. We are shadows; we have not a single right. If I die to-night, I shall have been spent by an Almighty Power that has used me. Will He cast me to nothingness after I have fulfilled my purpose? Never. There is not a gust of this wind that does not move truly according to eternal law; there can be no injustice, for no one can judge the Judge. If I suffer the petty pang of Death while a great purpose is being wrought out, I have no more reason to complain than if I were a child sharply pushed out of the way to let a fire-engine pass. The great Purpose is everything, and I am but an instrument--just as this hurricane is an instrument. I shall be humble and do the work next my hand, and I will never question God any more. If a man can reckon his own individuality as anything after seeing this sight, he is a human failure; he is an abortion that should be wiped out. And now I'll try to pray."So in sharp, short steps the scholar's thought strode on, and the sombre storming of the gale made an awful accompaniment to the pigmy's strenuous musings. Ferrier's destiny was being settled in that cataclysm, had he only known it; his pride was smitten, and he was ready to "receive the kingdom of God as a little child," to begin to learn on a level with the darkened fishermen whom he had gently patronized. As soon as he had resolved that night on Self-abnegation, as soon as the lightning conviction of his own insignificance had flashed through him, he humbly but "boldly" came "to the Throne of Grace." Like every one else who thus draws near to God through the Saviour's merit, he learned what it is to "obtain mercy"; a brooding calm took possession of his purified soul, and he was born again into a world where pride, egotism, angry revolt, and despair are unknown.There would be no good in prolonging the story of this wrestle; there was a certain sameness in every phase, though the dangers seemed to change with such protean swiftness. For three days it lasted, and on the third day Tom Lennard, Ferrier, the patients, and the crew, were far more interested in the steward's efforts to boil coffee than they were in the arrowy flight of the snow-masses or the menace of towering seas. Ferrier attended his men, and varied that employment by chatting with Lennard, who was now able to sit up. Tom was much shaken and very solemn; he did not like talking of his late ordeal."Lewis, my dear friend, I have looked on the Eternal Majesty, and now death has no more terror for me. He will hide me in the shadow of His wings. I have seen what was known to them of old time; I knew when the gun seemed to go off inside my head, and I could feel nothing more, I knew that I should live: and that was the last light I saw in this world until you saved me--God bless you! We won't ever speak of it again."Thus spoke Tom, with a fluency and correctness of diction which surprised himself. And he has never dilated on his mishap throughout his life so far.It is not uncommon--that same awe-stricken reticence. This writer knows a man, a great scholar, a specimen of the best aristocratic class, a man fitted to charm both men and women. Long ago, he and two others slid two thousand feet down an Alpine slope. For two days and two nights the living man rested on a glacier--tied to the dead. "Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" My subject knows all about this; he has gazed on the Unutterable, and he has never mentioned his soul-piercing experience to any creature. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.* * * * *The worst of the ordeal was over; the snow ceased, the hurricane fined off, and only the turbulent water rushing in discoloured mountains under the last impetus of the wind--only that cruel water persisted in violence. It seemed as if for days the sea were sentient, and could not forget its long torture. Then came a griping frost and a hard sky, with slight breeze and a quiet sea.Oh, the marks of ruin and annihilation! The sea was strewn with wreckage; masses of timber swung around in loose rafts; vessels, bottom up, passed the smack from day to day; the fleet was dispersed, and only a few battered and ragged vessels could be seen rolling here and there in disorganized isolation. "Goodness knows when we shall ever see our people again, sir. We can't do nothin'; I'll keep a sharp look-out all through daylight, and we'll pick them up if we can, but I fancy most of them have run for home or the Humber. Before we settle to work again I was thinking of a little thanksgiving service. We're saved for some good purpose, sir, and it's only fit we should say a word humbly to our blessed Father in heaven."And all on board met in the simple North Sea fashion, and even the patients had their say. Only Tom Lennard remained impenetrably silent; he knew too much; he was a past-master in the mystery of mysteries. The people used to say in Ravenna, "Behold, there is the man who has been in hell," when they saw the awful face of Dante; poor, loose-brained Tom Lennard had also seen that which may not be made known."There's some on 'em right ahead, skipper, I think. Joe Questor's there, I know. He hasn't lost his new mainsail. See 'em, skipper?"A few dark grey shadows like slim poles were all that Ferrier could see; but the man was right, and when the deft fingers--those miraculous fingers--of the seaman had set the mizen right, the smack was sailed with every stitch on, until she buried herself in the sulky, slow bulges of the ground swell. Ferrier said, "You see, skipper, it's better to risk carrying away something, than to have some poor smashed customer waiting helpless." And the skipper cracked on with every rag he could show until, on a searing frosty morning, he shot in among the dismal remains of the gallant fleet.Ferrier's vessel would have pleased certain lovers of the picturesque if they had studied her appearance, but she was in a dreadful state from the prosaic seaman's point of view. Every wave had been laid under tribute by the frost, and a solid hillock had gathered forward; the anchor was covered in like a candied fruit; the boat was entirely concealed by a hard white mass; while as for the ropes--they cannot be described fittingly. Would any one imagine that a half-inch rope could be made the centre of a column of ice three inches in diameter? Would any one imagine that a small block could be the nucleus of a lump as large as a pumpkin? From, stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because every set of trawl-gear was banked in by a slippery, heavy rock.There was something dismal and forlorn in the sound of the salutations as Ferrier ran past each vessel; the men were in low spirits despite their deliverance, for there was damage visible in almost every craft, and, moreover, the shadow of Death was there. When Lewis came alongside of the Admiral he sang out "What cheer?" and the answer came, "Very bad. We shall be a fortnight before we get them together.""Do you think many are lost?""I knows of seven gone down, but there may be more for all I know. Some that ran for home would get nabbed on the Winterton or the Scrowby.""Up with our flag, skipper, and see about the boat." Ferrier knew that his task would soon be upon him, and he helped like a Titan, with axe and pick, to clear away the ice. A spell of two hours' labour, and the expenditure of dozens of kettles of hot water, freed the boat, and she was put out, regardless of the chance of losing her. (By the way, the men care very little about a boat's being swamped so long as the painter holds. I have seen three go under astern of one vessel during the delivery of fish. The little incident only caused laughter.)The chapter of casualties was enough to curdle the blood of any one but a doctor--a doctor with perfect nerve and training. All kinds of violent exertions had been used to save the vessels, and men had toiled with sacks sewn round their boots to avoid slipping on a glassy surface which froze like a mirror whenever it was exposed for a few seconds to the air between the onrushes of successive waves. Ferrier carried his life in his hand for three days as he went from vessel to vessel; the sea was unpleasant; the risk involved in springing over icy bulwarks on to slippery decks was miserable, and the most awkward operations had to be performed at times when it needed dexterity merely to keep a footing. One man had the calf of his leg taken clean away by a topmast which came down like a falling spear; the frost had caught the desperate wound before Ferrier came on the scene, and the poor mortal was near his last. The young man saw that the leg must go; he had never ventured to think of such a contingency as this, and his strained nerve well-nigh failed him. A grim little conversation took place in the cabin between the skipper, the doctor, and the patient. I let the talk explain itself, so that people may understand that Ferrier's proposed hospital was not demanded by a mere faddist. The man was stretched on a moderately clean tablecloth laid on the small open space in the close dog-hutch below; a dull pallor appeared to shine fromunderneath, and glimmered through the bronze of the skin. He was sorely failed, poor fellow. The skipper stood there--dirty, unkempt, grim, compassionate. Ferrier put away a bucket full of stained muslin rags (he had tried his best to save the limb), and then he said softly, "Now, my son, I think I can save you; but you must take a risk. We can't send you home; I can't take you with me until we get a turn of smooth water; if I leave you as you are, there is no hope. Do you consent to have the leg taken off?""Better chance it, Frank, my boy. I dursn't face your old woman if I go home without you.""Will it give me a chance? Can I stand the pain?""You'll have no pain. You'll never know, and it all depends uponafterwards.""I stand or fall with you, doctor. I have some little toebiters at home I don't want to leave yet.""Very good. Now, skipper, stand by him till I come back; I have some things to bring."Two wild journeys had to be risked, but the doctor's luck held, and he once more came on that glassy deck. Sharply and decisively he made his preparations. "Have you nerve enough to assist me, skipper?""I'll be as game as I can, doctor.""Then kneel here, and take this elastic bag in your hand; turn this rose right over my hands as I work, and keep the spray steadily spirting on the place. You understand? Now, Frank, my man, when I put this over your face, take a deep breath."* * * * *Ferrier was pale when Frank asked "Where am I?" He waved the skipper aside, and set himself to comfort the brave man who had returned from the death-in-life of chloroform."Bear down on our people and let my men take the boat back. I'm going to stop all night with you, skipper.""Well, of all the----well, there sir, it you ain't. Lord! what me and Frank'll have to tell them if we gets home! Why, it's a story to last ten year, this 'ere. And on this here bank, in a smack!""Never mind that, old fellow. Get my men out of danger."The extraordinary--almost violent--hospitality of the skipper; his lavishness in the matter of the fisherman's second luxury--sugar; his laughing admiration, were very amusing. He would not sleep, but he watched fondly over doctor and patient.Ferrier was fortified now against certain insect plagues which once afflicted him, and the brilliant professor laid his head on an old cork fender and slept like an infant. He did not return until next evening; he went without books, tobacco, alcohol, and conversation, and he never had an afterthought about his own privations.Frank seemed so cool and easy when his saviour left him, that Ferrier determined to give him a last word of hope."Good-bye, my man. No liquor of any sort. You'll get well now. Bear up for four days more, because I must have you near me; then either you'll run home with me, or I'll order your skipper to take you."Nothing that the Middle Ages ever devised could equal that suffering seaman's unavoidable tortures during the next few days. He should have been on a soft couch; he was on a malodorous plank. He should have been still; he was only kept from rolling over and over by pads of old netting stuffed under him on each side. Luxury was denied him; and the necessities of life were scarce indeed.Poor Frank! his sternly-tender surgeon did not desert him, and he was at last sent away in his own smack. He lived to be an attendant in a certain institution which I shall not yet name.After much sleepless labour, which grew more and more intense as the stragglers found their way up, Ferrier summarized his work and his failures. He had treated frostbite--one case necessitating amputation; he had cases of sea-ulcers; cracks in the hand. Stop! The outsider may ask why a cracked hand should need to be treated by a skilled surgeon. Well, it happens that the fishermen's cracked hands have gaps across the inside bends of the fingers which reach the bone. The man goes to sleep with hands clenched; as soon as he can open them the skin and flesh part, and then you see bone and tendon laid bare for salt, or grit, or any other irritant to act upon. I have seen good fellows drawing their breath with sharp, whistling sounds of pain, as they worked at the net with those gaping sores on their gnarled paws. One such crack would send me demented, I know; but our men bear it all with rude philosophy. Ferrier learned how to dress these ugly sores with compresses surrounded by oiled silk. Men could then go about odd jobs without pain, and some of them told the surgeon that it was like heaven.Well, there were half a score smashed fingers, a few severe bruises, several poisoned hands, a crushed foot, and many minor ailments caused by the incessant cold, hunger, and labour. Ten men should have been sent home; one died at sea; ten more might have saved their berths if they could have had a week of rest and proper treatment.My hero was downcast, but his depression only gave edge and vigour to his resolution in the end. He had learned the efficacy of prayer now--prayer to a loving and all-powerful Father; and he always had an assured sense of protection and comfort when he had told his plain tale and released his heart. I, the writer, should have smiled at him in those days, but I am not so sure that I could smile with confidence now.Lennard stuck to his favourite with helpful gallantry, and became so skilled a nurse that Ferrier was always content to leave him in charge. Both men tried to cheer each other; both were sick for home, and there is no use in disguising the fact. When Ferrier one day came across the simple lines--"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"he came near to imitating Ruth. He knew his duty well enough, but the affections and the spirit are strong. Then the almost ceaseless bad weather, and the many squalid conditions of life, were wearing to body and soul.An abominable day broke soon after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its possessor to keep his place on a high seat in that maddening jump. It was enough to jerk the pipe from one's mouth. The deck was all the time in a smother of half-frozen slush, and the seas were so wall-sided that the said slush fell in great plumps from side to side with a force which plucked the men off their legs several times. Again and again it appeared as if the smack must fall off the sides of the steep seas, as the long screw colliers sometimes do in the Bay of Biscay when the three crossing drifts meet. It was a heartbreaking day, and, at the very worst, a smack bore down as if he meant to come right into the Mission vessel. Sweeping under the lee and stopping his vessel, the smack's skipper hailed. "Got the doctor on board?" Down went the newcomer into the trough, leaving just a glimpse of his truck. Up again with a rolling wave."Yes. What's up?""We've got a man dying here, and not one of my white-livered hounds will go in the small boat.""Can't you persuade them?""No. They'll forfeit their voyage first.""Edge away from us, and I'll see."By this time the two smacks were almost in collision, but they went clear. The skipper went below and stated the case. Ferrier listened grimly."What do you think, skipper?""Your life's precious, sir. You've come to be like the apple of my eye; I'd rather die myself than you should go.""Are your men game enough?""I'm going myself if you go. If I die I shall be in my Master's service.""Is it so very bad?""Very.""What's our chance?""Ten to one against us ever coming back.""It's long odds. Shove the boat out.""Stop a bit, sir. Don't smile at an old man. Let's put it before the Lord. I never found that fail. Come, sir, and I'll pray for you.""All cant," do you say, reader? Maybe, my friend, but I wish you and I could only have the heart that the words came from. The skipper bared his good grey head, and prayed aloud."Lord, Thou knowest we are asked to risk our lives. We are in Thine hands, and our lives are nothing. Say, shall we go? We shall know in our hearts directly if you tell us. Spare us, if it be Thy will; if not, still Thy will be done. We are all ready."After a pause the skipper said, "We'll do it, sir. Shove on your life-jacket. I'll take two life-buoys."Lennard had kneeled with the others, and he said, "Shall I go?""You're too heavy, Tom. You'll over-drive the boat. I'll chance all."Even to get into that boat was a terrible undertaking, for the smack was showing her keel, and the wall-siders made it likely that the boat would overbalance and fall backward like a rearing horse. Six times Ferrier had his foot on the rail ready to make his lithe, flying bound into the cockleshell; six times she was spun away like a foambell--returning to crash against the side as the smack hove up high. At last the doctor fairly fell over the rail, landed astride on the boat's gunwale, and from thence took a roll to the bottom and lay in the swashing water. Then delicately, cautiously, the skipper and his man picked their way with short, catchy strokes--mere dabs at the boiling foam."God bless you," Tom sang out, and the big fellow was touched when he heard the weak voices of the patients below, crying "God bless you!" with a shrillness that pierced above the hollow rattle of the wind."There goes the boat up, perpendicularly as it appears. Ah! that's over her. No; it's broken aside. What a long time she is in coming up. Here's a cross sea! Ferrier's baling. Oh! it's too much. Oh! my poor friend! Here's a screamer! God be praised--she's topped it! Will the smack hit her? Go under his lee if you love me. They've got the rope now. In he goes, smash on his face! Just like him, the idiot--Lord bless his face and him!" Thomas hung on to the rigging and muttered thus, to his own great easement.When Ferrier got up, he said, "Skipper, only once more of that for me. Once more, and no more after. If a raw hand had been there we should never have lived. Thank goodness you came! You deserve the Albert medal, and you shall have it too, if I can do anything."The new patient was gasping heavily, and the whites of his eyes showed. The skipper explained: "You see, sir, he's got cold through with snow-water, and he sleeps in his wet clothes same as most of us; but he's not a strong chap, and it's settled him. He's as hard as a stone all round, and sometimes he's hot and sometimes he's cold.""Has he sweated?""No, sir; and he's got cramps that double him up.""Has he spoken lately?""Not a word.""Well now, give me every blanket you can rake up or steal, or get anyhow."When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose him. When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some muslin that I'll give you, and then merely wait till he's well."In that wretched, reeking hole Ferrier improvised a Russian bath with a blanket or two, a low stool, and a lamp turned down moderately low. He helped to hold up his man until the sweat came, first in beads, and then in a copious downpour; he wrapped him up, and did not leave till the patient professed himself able to get up and walk about. The men merely gaped and observed the miraculous revival with faith unutterable. Then our young man bade good-bye, merely saying, "You'll keep your berth for a couple of days, and then signal us if you want me."The sky was ragged and wild with the tattered banners of cloud; the sea was inky dark, and the wind had an iron ring. The Mission vessel had dropped to leeward of the fishing smack, and the boat had about three hundred yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills filled up the space and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big and equally black. The sides of these big hills were laced with lines of little jumping hillocks, and over all the loud wind swept, shearing off tearing storm-showers of spray. An ugly three hundred yards!"Well, how is it now, skipper?""Neck or nothing, sir. You can stop here if you like.""Oh, no! Mr. Lennard would have apoplexy. Let us try. It can't be worse than it was in coming.""Good-bye, sir. I'm sorry my comrades hadn't the risk instead of you. I'll take good care you don't attend one ofthem."Home, happiness, fame! The face of Marion Dearsley. Images of peace and love.--All these things passed through Lewis Ferrier's mind as he prepared for that black journey. A dark wave swung the boat very high. "Will she turn turtle?" No. But she was half full. "Bale away, sir." Whirr, went the wind; the liquid masses came whooping on. One hundred yards more would have made all safe, though the boat three times pitched the oars from between the thole-pins. A big curling sea struck her starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread half-minute she hung with her port gunwale in the water as she dropped like a log down the side of the wave. It was too cruel to last. Ferrier heard an exclamation; then a deep groan from the skipper; and then to the left he saw a great slate-coloured Thing rushing down. The crest towered over them, bent, shattered with its own very velocity, and fell like a crumbling dark cavern over the boat. There was a yell from both smacks; then the boat appeared, swamped, with the men up to their necks; then the boat went, sucking the men down for a time, and then Lewis Ferrier and his two comrades were left spinning in the desperate whirls of the black eddies."Run to them!" yelled Tom. "Never mind if you carry everything away. Only keep clear of the other smack." Ferrier found the water warm, and he let himself swing passively. His thoughts were in a hurly-burly. Was this the end of all--youth, love, brave, days of manhood? Nay, he would struggle. Had they not prayed before they set out? All must come right--it must. And yet that spray was choking. He could not see his companions. A yell. "Lewis, my son, I'll come over." But Tom was held back; the smack was brought up all shaking. First the skipper caught a rope. Good, noble old man! He was half senseless when they hauled him on board. Then Lewis heard, as in a torpid reverie, a great voice, "Lay hold, Lewis, and Iwillcome if you're bothered." What was he doing? Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered; then a heavy, dragging pain came--he was being torn, torn,torn.He woke in the cabin before the fire, and found Tom Lennard blubbering hard over him. "Warm it seems, Thomas? Reckon I almost lost my number that time.""My good Lewis! No more. I had to strip you, and I've done everything. The skipper's dead beat, and if Bob couldn't steer we should be in a pickle. Let me put you in a hot blanket now, and you'll have some grog." Then, with his own queer humour, Lewis Ferrier said, "Tom, all this is only a lesson. If we'd had a proper boat, a proper lift for sick men, and a proper vessel to lift them into, I should have been all right. We won't come back to have these baths quite so often. We'll have ashipwhen we come again, and not merely a thing to sail. And now give me just a thimble-full of brandy, and then replace the bottle amongst the other poisonous physic! I'm getting as lively as a grasshopper. A nautical--a nautical taste, Thomas!"And then Ferrier went off to sleep just where he was, after very nearly giving a most convincing proof in his own person of the necessity for a hospital vessel.Lennard brooded long, and at last he went to the skipper and asked, "Old man, shall Bob shove her head for home?"The skipper nodded.And now you may see why I purposely made this chapter so long.You have an accurate picture of what goes on during all the snowy months on that wild North water!
CHAPTER II.
A CRUCIAL TEST.
"When you sailed away in the Yarmouth ships,I waved my hand as you passed the pier;It was just an hour since you kissed my lips,And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.
"When you sailed away in the Yarmouth ships,I waved my hand as you passed the pier;It was just an hour since you kissed my lips,And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.
"When you sailed away in the Yarmouth ships,
I waved my hand as you passed the pier;
I waved my hand as you passed the pier;
It was just an hour since you kissed my lips,
And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.
And I'll never kiss you no more, my dear.
* * * * *
For now they tell me you're dead and gone,And all the world is nothing to me;And there's the baby, our only one,The bonny bairn that you'll never see."("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)
For now they tell me you're dead and gone,And all the world is nothing to me;And there's the baby, our only one,The bonny bairn that you'll never see."("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)
For now they tell me you're dead and gone,
And all the world is nothing to me;
And all the world is nothing to me;
And there's the baby, our only one,
The bonny bairn that you'll never see."("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)
The bonny bairn that you'll never see."
("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)
("The Mate's Wife,"by J. Runciman.)
Suffering--monotonous, ceaseless suffering; gallant endurance; sordid filth; unnamed agonies; gnawing, petty pains; cold--and the chance of death. That was the round of life that Lewis Ferrier gazed upon until a day came that will be remembered, as Flodden Field was in Scotland, as Gettysburg is in America, as January 19th, 1881, is in Yarmouth. Ferrier had stuck to his terrible routine work, and, as Sir Everard Romfrey observes: "To stick to workafterthe great effort's over--that's what shows the man." The man never flinched, though he had tasks that might have wearied brain and heart by their sheer nastiness; the healer must have no nerves.
A little break in the monotony came at last, and Mr. Ferrier and Mr. T. Lennard had an experience which neither will forget on this side of the grave. Contrary to the fashion of mere novelists, who are not dreamers and who consequently cannot see the end of things, I tell you that both men were kept alive, but they had something to endure.
The day had been fairly pleasant considering the time of year, and our friends were kept busy in running from vessel to vessel, looking after men with slight ailments. There was no snow, but some heavy banks hung in the sky away to the eastward. When the sun sank, the west was almost clear, and Tom and Lewis were electrified by the most extraordinary sunset that either had ever seen. The variety of colour was not great; all the open spaces of the sky were pallid green, and all the wisps of cloud were leprous blue: it was the intensity of the hues that made the sight so overpowering, for the spaces of green shone with a clear glitter exactly like the quality of colours which you see on Crookes's tubes when a powerful electric current is passed through.
"That's very artistic, and everything else of the sort; it's ah-h better than any painting I ever saw, but there's something about it that reminds me of snakes and things of that kind. Snakes! If you saw a forked tongue come out of that blue you wouldn't be surprised."
"You're getting to be quite an impressionist, Tom. The sky is horrible. I see all our vessels are getting their boats in; we'd better follow suit. How's the glass, skipper?"
"Never saw anything like it, sir. This night isn't over yet, and I reckon what's coming is coming from the nor'-east. We're going to reef down. I haven't seen anything like this since 1866, and I remember we had just such another evening."
As usual, the gulls were troubled in their minds, and wailed piercingly, for they seem to be mercurial in temperament, and no better weather prophets can be seen.
The two ambulance-service men went below, declining to show any misgivings, and they had a good, desultory chat before anything happened to call them on deck. They talked of the poor bruised fellows whom they had seen; then of home; then of the splendid future when men would be kinder, and no fisherman with festering wounds would ever be permitted to die like a dog in a stinking kennel. Pleasant, honest talk it was, for the talkers were pleasant and honest. No bad man can talk well. Our two gentlemen had learned a long lesson of unselfishness, and each of them seemed to become gentler and more worthy in proportion as he gave up more and more of his comfort and his labour to serve others.
At last Ferrier said, "Well, Tom, we had a heavy turn in the autumn. If we go this time we'll go together, and I've often wondered what that could be like. What do men say when they meet the last together? Whew-w! How I hate death. The monster! The beastly cold privation. To leave even a North Sea smack must be bitter."
The patients were listening; the man with concussion was gone, cured, and his place was held by a burly man who had tried (as heavy fellows will) to haul his own fourteen stone up to the main-boom during a breeze, in order to repair a reef-earring. The vessel came up to the wind, and the jar flung poor Ebenezer Mutton clash on to the deck. Luckily he did not land on his skull, but he had a dislocated ankle.
Ebenezer whispered, "I heern you talkin' about the gale, sir, and you're right; we've got somethin' to come. I have a left arm that can beat any glass ever was seen. I come down from the jaws of the gaff just when we was snuggin' her before the gale in '66, and my arm went in four places. Ever since then that there arm tells every change as plain as plain can be. Yes, sir, it's hard to die, even out off a North Sea smack, as you say. Just before the '66 breeze I used often to think, 'Shall I go overboard?' but when we was disabled, and skipper told us 'twas every man for hisself, I looked queer. My arm says there's bad a-comin', and I know you don't skeer easy, or a wouldn't tell you."
A hollow sound filled the whole arch of the sky; it was a great, bewildering sound like a cry--an immense imprecation of some stricken Titan.
"What can that be?" murmured Lennard, with his bold face blanched. "That caps everything."
The masterful sound held on for a little, and then sank into a tired sort of moan.
"Callin' them together, sir,--that's what some o' the West Country chaps calls the King o' the Winds speakin'. It's only snow gettin' looked in the sky, and you'll see it come away in a little."
"I don't know what it is, Ebenezer, but I don't like it."
On deck the night was black, the splendid green of the west had burnt out, and a breeze was making little efforts from time to time, with little hollow moans.
"Bad, bad, bad, bad, sir," barked the skipper, angrily.
The vanward flights of twirling flakes came on then, as if suddenly unleashed, the wind sprang up, and the great fight began. If you, whoever you may be, and two more strong men had tried to shut an ordinary door in the teeth of that first shock, you would have failed, for the momentum was like that of iron.
"Steady, and look out," the skipper yelled.
The third hand was lifted off his feet and dashed into the lee channels. Ferrier fought hard, but he was clutched by the hand of the wind, and held against the mizen-mast; he could just clutch the rest in which a life-buoy was hanging, and that alone saved him from being felled.
The Lord is a Man of War! Surely His hosts were abroad now. No work of man's hands could endure the onset of the forces let loose on that bad night. The sea jumped up like magic, and hurried before the lash of the wind. Then, with a darkening swoop, came the snowstorm, hurled along on wide wings; the last remnants of light fled; the vessel was shut in, and the devoted company on board could only grope in the murk on deck. No one would stay below, for the sudden, unexampled assault of the hurricane had touched the nerve of the coolest.
I am told by one who was on a wide heath at the beginning of that hurricane, that he was coated with solid ice from head to foot on the windward side; his hair and beard were icicles; his spaniel cowered and refused to move; and a splendid, strong horse, which was being driven right in the teeth of the wind, suddenly put its nose to the ground, set its forelegs wide apart, and refused to go on. Not far from the horse was a great poplar, and this tree suddenly snapped like a stick of macaroni; the horse started, whirled round, and galloped off with the wind behind.
What must it have been at sea? Men durst not look to windward, for a hard mass seemed to be thrust into nostrils and eyes, so that one was forced to gasp and choke. As for the turmoil!--all Gravelotte, with half a million men engaged, could not have made such a soul-quelling, overmastering sound. Every capacity of sound, every possible discordant vibration of the atmosphere was at work; and so, with bellow on bellow, crash on crash, vast multitudinous shriek on shriek, that fateful tempest went on.
Ferrier found that unless he could get under the lee of something or other, he must soon be sheathed in a coat of ice that would prevent him from stirring at all. Oddly enough, he found afterwards that the very fate he dreaded had befallen several forlorn seamen: the icy missiles of the storm froze them in; the wind did not chill them, it throttled them, and they were found frozen rigid in various positions.
The mate came and whispered in Ferrier's ear (for shouting was useless), "The skipper would like a word with you. We'll keep some sort of a look-out, but it isn't much good at present. Come into our cabin."
Lewis was not sorry, for the waves began to take the vessel without "noticing" her, as it were, just as a good hunter takes an easy ditch in his stride. If one came perpendicularly upon her, it was easy to see what must happen.
The skipper said, "I want you gentlemen to assist me. I'm ordered to obeyyou, but I know this sea, and I tell you that I'm doubtful whether I shall save the vessel. I can't keep her hove-to much longer, for this simple reason as she'll bury herself and us. I've got two hundred and forty-four miles to run home. Will you let me run her? If so, I'll take her in under storm canvas. She's splendid before wind and sea, and I can save her that way; if we stop as we are, I fear we drown. I've seen so many years of it that I don't so much mind, but having you is a terrible thing. Hishht, a sea's coming!--I can tell by the lull."
Then the two landsmen cowered involuntarily, and looked in each other's eyes with a wild surmise, for a shock came which made the vessel quiver like a tuning-fork in every fibre; the very pannikins on the cabin floor rattled, and all the things in the pantry went like rapidly chattering teeth. It was not like an ordinary blow of the sea. The skipper rushed aft, hoping to get on deck through Ferrier's cabin, but he met a cataract of water which blinded him, and he came back saying, "I doubt her deck won't stand another like that. Now, gentlemen, it's for you to decide."
"Skipper, send Bill up to help me with the boat. That last's drove her abreast the skylight."
The one look-out man had saved himself. How, only a smacksman can tell. The skipper came down again.
"Now, gentlemen, shall I run or not?"
"Well, skipper, if we get through this we shall be more needed than ever."
"Yes, sir; but if that last sea hadn't glanced a bit on our starboard bow, weshouldn'thave got through. We've saved the boat, but she was snapped from the grips like a rotten tooth."
"But, skipper, we may be pooped in running, or we may do some damage to the rudder and broach-to. Then we should be worse off than here."
"Very well, gentlemen. I'm not concerned for myself. My duty's done now, and I'll do my best. I advise you to take some coffee, and try to get a few hours' rest before the pinch comes. You'll not get much rest then."
Another sea came, and another; the sound of the wind paralyzed thought and made speech impossible. Had any one said, "The end of the world has come," you would have felt only a mild surprise, for even the capacity for fear or apprehension was stunned as the brain is stunned by a blow.
"I can't stand this any longer, Tom. Even brandy wouldn't do much good for more than an hour. Do you hear me?"
Tom nodded in a dazed way.
"Well, then, let's go into the open somehow. Perhaps the skipper's strong, hot coffeewillwake us. Anyhow, let us try a cup."
Oh! that indescribable night! To know that death was feasting in that blackness; to feel that vigilance was of no avail; to turn away convulsed from the iron push of the demoniac force which for the time seemed to have taken the place of an atmosphere. Smash! Rattle. Then a wild whistling; a many lashes, that flapped and cracked; then the fall of the spar, and the deep, quick sigh from Lennard as it whizzed close by him. The gaff of the mizen had broken away, halliards and all, as if a supernatural knife had been drawn across by a strong hand. The men were hanging on, while a bellying, uncontrollable canvas buffeted them as if it had volition and sense, and strove to knock their senses out of them. A canvas adrift is like an unruly beast. All hands came through the after-cabin, and attacked the thundering sail.
"For your lives now, chaps, before another sea comes! I can't slack away these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; cut them away."
The gaff had fallen, but it was not clear yet. In some mysterious fashion the mizen halliards had yielded and slipped for some distance after a sudden shock had cut the gaff halliards and let the jaws of the gaff free; so now the sail would neither haul up nor come down. Like a cat Bob sprang up the remaining rings, and hacked at the gear; the sail fell--and so did Bob, with a dull thud.
"Oh! skipper, that's a bad 'un."
"Cast a line round him till we've stowed. Jim, take hold of her; she's falling off! Shove her to the wind again till we're done! Now, lads, all of you on to the sheet! Haul! oh, haul! Slack away them toppin' lifts. So; now we've got her! Where's Bob?"
"Doctor's got him below, skipper."
Poor Bob had tried to save himself with his right arm, and his hand had been bent backwards over, and doubled back on his forearm. Bob was settled for the rest of the gale. Lewis soon had the broken limb put up, and Bob stolidly smoked and pondered on the inequalities of life. Why was he, and not another, told off to spring up that reeling mizen into a high breeze that ended by mastering him, and flinging him as if he had been a poor wrestler matched with a champion? Here he was--crippled.
"Well, Bob, if this is a specimen, we shall see something when it clears."
"Yes, doctor; you may say that, you may. I never see nothing like it. If you give a man ten hundred thousand goulden sovereigns, and you says, 'Tell me directly you see anything comin',' he couldn't. When I was on the look-out, I held this 'ere hand, as is broken, up before my eyes, and I couldn't see it, sir--and that's the gospel, as I'm here!"
"Do you think we're out of the track of ships?"
"I know no more than Adam, sir. Hello! what's that?"
"Up here, sir--up, quick!"
Ferrier's heart jumped as he thought--"Tom."
"Haul on here, sir, with us. God be praised, he took his rope over with him. Haul, for the Lord's sake! Now! now!"
Ferrier lashed at his work in a fury of effort: a sea sent him on his knees, and yet he lay back against the inrush of water, and hauled with all the weight of body and arms.
"Haul, my men! A good life is at the end of that line. Haul! the ice may congeal his pulses before you get at him! Haul! oh, haul!"
The skipper sprang to the grating abaft the wheel.
"Here he is. Glory be to God! Are you right, sir?"
No answer.
"My God! are you sure, skipper?"
"Sure. Look!"
Ferrier saw an object like a mass of sea-weed, but the night was so pitchy that no outline could he made out.
"Who durst try to pass a line under his arms?"
"Hand here, skipper; I will."
"Oh, Lewis! Keep nerve and eye steady. The graves are twenty fathoms below."
Lennard was inert, and no one could tell how he held on until he was flung on the deck.
"Lend us that binnacle lamp, Jim. Turn it on him."
Then it was seen that Tom might have been hauled up without putting Ferrier in peril, for the rope was twice coiled under his arms and loosely knotted in front; he had taken that precaution after seeing Bob fall. Moreover, strange to say, his teeth were locked in the rope, for he had laid hold with the last effort of despair.
The wind volleyed; the darkness remained impenetrable, and every sea that came was a Niagara; yet the gallant smack stood to it, and Tom Lennard slumbered after the breath came back to him. His ribs had stood the strain of that rope, but he had really been semi-strangled, and he was marked with two lurid, extravasated bands round his chest. He never spoke before falling asleep; he only pressed Ferrier's hand and pointed, with a smile, upward.
"If it goes on like this, sir, there won't be many of us left by the morning."
"No, skipper. I hope the men will secure themselves like us. Mr. Lennard had a near thing. He has a jaw like a walrus, or his teeth must have gone."
So, in fitful whispers, the grim scraps of talk went on while the blare of the trumpets of the Night was loosened over the sea.
"Look--over the port-side, there. It's beginning."
Ferrier could make out nothing until the skipper gave him the exact line to look on. Then he saw a Something that seemed to wallow darkly on a dark tumble of criss-cross seas.
"He's bottom up, sir. If we'd been running and gone into him, we should have been at rest soon."
"How beautifully we are behaving, skipper. I suppose there's no chance of our going like that?"
"Not without something hits our rudder. We seem to have got away from the track now. While you were below, you see, I got her mainsail in, and that strip of sail has no more pull than a three-cloth jib. Please God, we may get through. If anything happens to my mainmast I shall give in--but it's a good spar."
Ferrier's mind went wandering with a sort of boding fierceness; he framed dramatic pictures of all that was passing in the chaotic ruin of shattered seas that rushed and seethed around. He had often spoken of the gigantic forces of Nature, but the words had been like algebraic formulæ; now he saw the reality, and his rebellious mind was humbled.
"To-morrow, or next day, I shall have to see the misery that this causes. But why should I talk of misery? The word implies a complaint. A hundred smacksmen die tonight. Pitiful! But if this hurricane and all the lesser breezes did not blow, then millions would die who live now in healthy air. If the sea were not lashed up and oxygenated, we should have a stagnant pest-hole like an old rotten fishpond all round the world. England would be like Sierra Leone, and there would soon be no human race. Who talks of kindness and goodness in face of a scene like this? We know nothing. The hundred fishermen die, and the unpoisoned millions live. We are shadows; we have not a single right. If I die to-night, I shall have been spent by an Almighty Power that has used me. Will He cast me to nothingness after I have fulfilled my purpose? Never. There is not a gust of this wind that does not move truly according to eternal law; there can be no injustice, for no one can judge the Judge. If I suffer the petty pang of Death while a great purpose is being wrought out, I have no more reason to complain than if I were a child sharply pushed out of the way to let a fire-engine pass. The great Purpose is everything, and I am but an instrument--just as this hurricane is an instrument. I shall be humble and do the work next my hand, and I will never question God any more. If a man can reckon his own individuality as anything after seeing this sight, he is a human failure; he is an abortion that should be wiped out. And now I'll try to pray."
So in sharp, short steps the scholar's thought strode on, and the sombre storming of the gale made an awful accompaniment to the pigmy's strenuous musings. Ferrier's destiny was being settled in that cataclysm, had he only known it; his pride was smitten, and he was ready to "receive the kingdom of God as a little child," to begin to learn on a level with the darkened fishermen whom he had gently patronized. As soon as he had resolved that night on Self-abnegation, as soon as the lightning conviction of his own insignificance had flashed through him, he humbly but "boldly" came "to the Throne of Grace." Like every one else who thus draws near to God through the Saviour's merit, he learned what it is to "obtain mercy"; a brooding calm took possession of his purified soul, and he was born again into a world where pride, egotism, angry revolt, and despair are unknown.
There would be no good in prolonging the story of this wrestle; there was a certain sameness in every phase, though the dangers seemed to change with such protean swiftness. For three days it lasted, and on the third day Tom Lennard, Ferrier, the patients, and the crew, were far more interested in the steward's efforts to boil coffee than they were in the arrowy flight of the snow-masses or the menace of towering seas. Ferrier attended his men, and varied that employment by chatting with Lennard, who was now able to sit up. Tom was much shaken and very solemn; he did not like talking of his late ordeal.
"Lewis, my dear friend, I have looked on the Eternal Majesty, and now death has no more terror for me. He will hide me in the shadow of His wings. I have seen what was known to them of old time; I knew when the gun seemed to go off inside my head, and I could feel nothing more, I knew that I should live: and that was the last light I saw in this world until you saved me--God bless you! We won't ever speak of it again."
Thus spoke Tom, with a fluency and correctness of diction which surprised himself. And he has never dilated on his mishap throughout his life so far.
It is not uncommon--that same awe-stricken reticence. This writer knows a man, a great scholar, a specimen of the best aristocratic class, a man fitted to charm both men and women. Long ago, he and two others slid two thousand feet down an Alpine slope. For two days and two nights the living man rested on a glacier--tied to the dead. "Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" My subject knows all about this; he has gazed on the Unutterable, and he has never mentioned his soul-piercing experience to any creature. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
* * * * *
The worst of the ordeal was over; the snow ceased, the hurricane fined off, and only the turbulent water rushing in discoloured mountains under the last impetus of the wind--only that cruel water persisted in violence. It seemed as if for days the sea were sentient, and could not forget its long torture. Then came a griping frost and a hard sky, with slight breeze and a quiet sea.
Oh, the marks of ruin and annihilation! The sea was strewn with wreckage; masses of timber swung around in loose rafts; vessels, bottom up, passed the smack from day to day; the fleet was dispersed, and only a few battered and ragged vessels could be seen rolling here and there in disorganized isolation. "Goodness knows when we shall ever see our people again, sir. We can't do nothin'; I'll keep a sharp look-out all through daylight, and we'll pick them up if we can, but I fancy most of them have run for home or the Humber. Before we settle to work again I was thinking of a little thanksgiving service. We're saved for some good purpose, sir, and it's only fit we should say a word humbly to our blessed Father in heaven."
And all on board met in the simple North Sea fashion, and even the patients had their say. Only Tom Lennard remained impenetrably silent; he knew too much; he was a past-master in the mystery of mysteries. The people used to say in Ravenna, "Behold, there is the man who has been in hell," when they saw the awful face of Dante; poor, loose-brained Tom Lennard had also seen that which may not be made known.
"There's some on 'em right ahead, skipper, I think. Joe Questor's there, I know. He hasn't lost his new mainsail. See 'em, skipper?"
A few dark grey shadows like slim poles were all that Ferrier could see; but the man was right, and when the deft fingers--those miraculous fingers--of the seaman had set the mizen right, the smack was sailed with every stitch on, until she buried herself in the sulky, slow bulges of the ground swell. Ferrier said, "You see, skipper, it's better to risk carrying away something, than to have some poor smashed customer waiting helpless." And the skipper cracked on with every rag he could show until, on a searing frosty morning, he shot in among the dismal remains of the gallant fleet.
Ferrier's vessel would have pleased certain lovers of the picturesque if they had studied her appearance, but she was in a dreadful state from the prosaic seaman's point of view. Every wave had been laid under tribute by the frost, and a solid hillock had gathered forward; the anchor was covered in like a candied fruit; the boat was entirely concealed by a hard white mass; while as for the ropes--they cannot be described fittingly. Would any one imagine that a half-inch rope could be made the centre of a column of ice three inches in diameter? Would any one imagine that a small block could be the nucleus of a lump as large as a pumpkin? From, stem to stern the vessel was caked in glossy ice, and from her gaffs and booms hung huge icicles like the stalagmites of the Dropping Cave. All the other smacks were in the same plight, and it was quite clear that no fishing could be done for awhile, because every set of trawl-gear was banked in by a slippery, heavy rock.
There was something dismal and forlorn in the sound of the salutations as Ferrier ran past each vessel; the men were in low spirits despite their deliverance, for there was damage visible in almost every craft, and, moreover, the shadow of Death was there. When Lewis came alongside of the Admiral he sang out "What cheer?" and the answer came, "Very bad. We shall be a fortnight before we get them together."
"Do you think many are lost?"
"I knows of seven gone down, but there may be more for all I know. Some that ran for home would get nabbed on the Winterton or the Scrowby."
"Up with our flag, skipper, and see about the boat." Ferrier knew that his task would soon be upon him, and he helped like a Titan, with axe and pick, to clear away the ice. A spell of two hours' labour, and the expenditure of dozens of kettles of hot water, freed the boat, and she was put out, regardless of the chance of losing her. (By the way, the men care very little about a boat's being swamped so long as the painter holds. I have seen three go under astern of one vessel during the delivery of fish. The little incident only caused laughter.)
The chapter of casualties was enough to curdle the blood of any one but a doctor--a doctor with perfect nerve and training. All kinds of violent exertions had been used to save the vessels, and men had toiled with sacks sewn round their boots to avoid slipping on a glassy surface which froze like a mirror whenever it was exposed for a few seconds to the air between the onrushes of successive waves. Ferrier carried his life in his hand for three days as he went from vessel to vessel; the sea was unpleasant; the risk involved in springing over icy bulwarks on to slippery decks was miserable, and the most awkward operations had to be performed at times when it needed dexterity merely to keep a footing. One man had the calf of his leg taken clean away by a topmast which came down like a falling spear; the frost had caught the desperate wound before Ferrier came on the scene, and the poor mortal was near his last. The young man saw that the leg must go; he had never ventured to think of such a contingency as this, and his strained nerve well-nigh failed him. A grim little conversation took place in the cabin between the skipper, the doctor, and the patient. I let the talk explain itself, so that people may understand that Ferrier's proposed hospital was not demanded by a mere faddist. The man was stretched on a moderately clean tablecloth laid on the small open space in the close dog-hutch below; a dull pallor appeared to shine fromunderneath, and glimmered through the bronze of the skin. He was sorely failed, poor fellow. The skipper stood there--dirty, unkempt, grim, compassionate. Ferrier put away a bucket full of stained muslin rags (he had tried his best to save the limb), and then he said softly, "Now, my son, I think I can save you; but you must take a risk. We can't send you home; I can't take you with me until we get a turn of smooth water; if I leave you as you are, there is no hope. Do you consent to have the leg taken off?"
"Better chance it, Frank, my boy. I dursn't face your old woman if I go home without you."
"Will it give me a chance? Can I stand the pain?"
"You'll have no pain. You'll never know, and it all depends uponafterwards."
"I stand or fall with you, doctor. I have some little toebiters at home I don't want to leave yet."
"Very good. Now, skipper, stand by him till I come back; I have some things to bring."
Two wild journeys had to be risked, but the doctor's luck held, and he once more came on that glassy deck. Sharply and decisively he made his preparations. "Have you nerve enough to assist me, skipper?"
"I'll be as game as I can, doctor."
"Then kneel here, and take this elastic bag in your hand; turn this rose right over my hands as I work, and keep the spray steadily spirting on the place. You understand? Now, Frank, my man, when I put this over your face, take a deep breath."
* * * * *
Ferrier was pale when Frank asked "Where am I?" He waved the skipper aside, and set himself to comfort the brave man who had returned from the death-in-life of chloroform.
"Bear down on our people and let my men take the boat back. I'm going to stop all night with you, skipper."
"Well, of all the----well, there sir, it you ain't. Lord! what me and Frank'll have to tell them if we gets home! Why, it's a story to last ten year, this 'ere. And on this here bank, in a smack!"
"Never mind that, old fellow. Get my men out of danger."
The extraordinary--almost violent--hospitality of the skipper; his lavishness in the matter of the fisherman's second luxury--sugar; his laughing admiration, were very amusing. He would not sleep, but he watched fondly over doctor and patient.
Ferrier was fortified now against certain insect plagues which once afflicted him, and the brilliant professor laid his head on an old cork fender and slept like an infant. He did not return until next evening; he went without books, tobacco, alcohol, and conversation, and he never had an afterthought about his own privations.
Frank seemed so cool and easy when his saviour left him, that Ferrier determined to give him a last word of hope.
"Good-bye, my man. No liquor of any sort. You'll get well now. Bear up for four days more, because I must have you near me; then either you'll run home with me, or I'll order your skipper to take you."
Nothing that the Middle Ages ever devised could equal that suffering seaman's unavoidable tortures during the next few days. He should have been on a soft couch; he was on a malodorous plank. He should have been still; he was only kept from rolling over and over by pads of old netting stuffed under him on each side. Luxury was denied him; and the necessities of life were scarce indeed.
Poor Frank! his sternly-tender surgeon did not desert him, and he was at last sent away in his own smack. He lived to be an attendant in a certain institution which I shall not yet name.
After much sleepless labour, which grew more and more intense as the stragglers found their way up, Ferrier summarized his work and his failures. He had treated frostbite--one case necessitating amputation; he had cases of sea-ulcers; cracks in the hand. Stop! The outsider may ask why a cracked hand should need to be treated by a skilled surgeon. Well, it happens that the fishermen's cracked hands have gaps across the inside bends of the fingers which reach the bone. The man goes to sleep with hands clenched; as soon as he can open them the skin and flesh part, and then you see bone and tendon laid bare for salt, or grit, or any other irritant to act upon. I have seen good fellows drawing their breath with sharp, whistling sounds of pain, as they worked at the net with those gaping sores on their gnarled paws. One such crack would send me demented, I know; but our men bear it all with rude philosophy. Ferrier learned how to dress these ugly sores with compresses surrounded by oiled silk. Men could then go about odd jobs without pain, and some of them told the surgeon that it was like heaven.
Well, there were half a score smashed fingers, a few severe bruises, several poisoned hands, a crushed foot, and many minor ailments caused by the incessant cold, hunger, and labour. Ten men should have been sent home; one died at sea; ten more might have saved their berths if they could have had a week of rest and proper treatment.
My hero was downcast, but his depression only gave edge and vigour to his resolution in the end. He had learned the efficacy of prayer now--prayer to a loving and all-powerful Father; and he always had an assured sense of protection and comfort when he had told his plain tale and released his heart. I, the writer, should have smiled at him in those days, but I am not so sure that I could smile with confidence now.
Lennard stuck to his favourite with helpful gallantry, and became so skilled a nurse that Ferrier was always content to leave him in charge. Both men tried to cheer each other; both were sick for home, and there is no use in disguising the fact. When Ferrier one day came across the simple lines--
"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"
"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a pathTo the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"
"Perhaps the selfsame song has found a path
To the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn,"
he came near to imitating Ruth. He knew his duty well enough, but the affections and the spirit are strong. Then the almost ceaseless bad weather, and the many squalid conditions of life, were wearing to body and soul.
An abominable day broke soon after Frank had sailed for home, and a sea got up which threatened to shake the spars out of our smack. Half a gale blew; then a whole gale; then a semi-hurricane, and at last all the ships had to take in the fourth reef in the mainsail. The two Samaritans were squatting on the floor in the cabin (after they had nailed canvas strips across the sides of the berths to prevent the patients from falling out), for no muscular power on earth could have enabled its possessor to keep his place on a high seat in that maddening jump. It was enough to jerk the pipe from one's mouth. The deck was all the time in a smother of half-frozen slush, and the seas were so wall-sided that the said slush fell in great plumps from side to side with a force which plucked the men off their legs several times. Again and again it appeared as if the smack must fall off the sides of the steep seas, as the long screw colliers sometimes do in the Bay of Biscay when the three crossing drifts meet. It was a heartbreaking day, and, at the very worst, a smack bore down as if he meant to come right into the Mission vessel. Sweeping under the lee and stopping his vessel, the smack's skipper hailed. "Got the doctor on board?" Down went the newcomer into the trough, leaving just a glimpse of his truck. Up again with a rolling wave.
"Yes. What's up?"
"We've got a man dying here, and not one of my white-livered hounds will go in the small boat."
"Can't you persuade them?"
"No. They'll forfeit their voyage first."
"Edge away from us, and I'll see."
By this time the two smacks were almost in collision, but they went clear. The skipper went below and stated the case. Ferrier listened grimly.
"What do you think, skipper?"
"Your life's precious, sir. You've come to be like the apple of my eye; I'd rather die myself than you should go."
"Are your men game enough?"
"I'm going myself if you go. If I die I shall be in my Master's service."
"Is it so very bad?"
"Very."
"What's our chance?"
"Ten to one against us ever coming back."
"It's long odds. Shove the boat out."
"Stop a bit, sir. Don't smile at an old man. Let's put it before the Lord. I never found that fail. Come, sir, and I'll pray for you."
"All cant," do you say, reader? Maybe, my friend, but I wish you and I could only have the heart that the words came from. The skipper bared his good grey head, and prayed aloud.
"Lord, Thou knowest we are asked to risk our lives. We are in Thine hands, and our lives are nothing. Say, shall we go? We shall know in our hearts directly if you tell us. Spare us, if it be Thy will; if not, still Thy will be done. We are all ready."
After a pause the skipper said, "We'll do it, sir. Shove on your life-jacket. I'll take two life-buoys."
Lennard had kneeled with the others, and he said, "Shall I go?"
"You're too heavy, Tom. You'll over-drive the boat. I'll chance all."
Even to get into that boat was a terrible undertaking, for the smack was showing her keel, and the wall-siders made it likely that the boat would overbalance and fall backward like a rearing horse. Six times Ferrier had his foot on the rail ready to make his lithe, flying bound into the cockleshell; six times she was spun away like a foambell--returning to crash against the side as the smack hove up high. At last the doctor fairly fell over the rail, landed astride on the boat's gunwale, and from thence took a roll to the bottom and lay in the swashing water. Then delicately, cautiously, the skipper and his man picked their way with short, catchy strokes--mere dabs at the boiling foam.
"God bless you," Tom sang out, and the big fellow was touched when he heard the weak voices of the patients below, crying "God bless you!" with a shrillness that pierced above the hollow rattle of the wind.
"There goes the boat up, perpendicularly as it appears. Ah! that's over her. No; it's broken aside. What a long time she is in coming up. Here's a cross sea! Ferrier's baling. Oh! it's too much. Oh! my poor friend! Here's a screamer! God be praised--she's topped it! Will the smack hit her? Go under his lee if you love me. They've got the rope now. In he goes, smash on his face! Just like him, the idiot--Lord bless his face and him!" Thomas hung on to the rigging and muttered thus, to his own great easement.
When Ferrier got up, he said, "Skipper, only once more of that for me. Once more, and no more after. If a raw hand had been there we should never have lived. Thank goodness you came! You deserve the Albert medal, and you shall have it too, if I can do anything."
The new patient was gasping heavily, and the whites of his eyes showed. The skipper explained: "You see, sir, he's got cold through with snow-water, and he sleeps in his wet clothes same as most of us; but he's not a strong chap, and it's settled him. He's as hard as a stone all round, and sometimes he's hot and sometimes he's cold."
"Has he sweated?"
"No, sir; and he's got cramps that double him up."
"Has he spoken lately?"
"Not a word."
"Well now, give me every blanket you can rake up or steal, or get anyhow."
When the blankets were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose him. When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some muslin that I'll give you, and then merely wait till he's well."
In that wretched, reeking hole Ferrier improvised a Russian bath with a blanket or two, a low stool, and a lamp turned down moderately low. He helped to hold up his man until the sweat came, first in beads, and then in a copious downpour; he wrapped him up, and did not leave till the patient professed himself able to get up and walk about. The men merely gaped and observed the miraculous revival with faith unutterable. Then our young man bade good-bye, merely saying, "You'll keep your berth for a couple of days, and then signal us if you want me."
The sky was ragged and wild with the tattered banners of cloud; the sea was inky dark, and the wind had an iron ring. The Mission vessel had dropped to leeward of the fishing smack, and the boat had about three hundred yards to go. But what a three hundred yards! Great black hills filled up the space and flowed on, leaving room for others equally big and equally black. The sides of these big hills were laced with lines of little jumping hillocks, and over all the loud wind swept, shearing off tearing storm-showers of spray. An ugly three hundred yards!
"Well, how is it now, skipper?"
"Neck or nothing, sir. You can stop here if you like."
"Oh, no! Mr. Lennard would have apoplexy. Let us try. It can't be worse than it was in coming."
"Good-bye, sir. I'm sorry my comrades hadn't the risk instead of you. I'll take good care you don't attend one ofthem."
Home, happiness, fame! The face of Marion Dearsley. Images of peace and love.--All these things passed through Lewis Ferrier's mind as he prepared for that black journey. A dark wave swung the boat very high. "Will she turn turtle?" No. But she was half full. "Bale away, sir." Whirr, went the wind; the liquid masses came whooping on. One hundred yards more would have made all safe, though the boat three times pitched the oars from between the thole-pins. A big curling sea struck her starboard quarter too sharply, and for a dread half-minute she hung with her port gunwale in the water as she dropped like a log down the side of the wave. It was too cruel to last. Ferrier heard an exclamation; then a deep groan from the skipper; and then to the left he saw a great slate-coloured Thing rushing down. The crest towered over them, bent, shattered with its own very velocity, and fell like a crumbling dark cavern over the boat. There was a yell from both smacks; then the boat appeared, swamped, with the men up to their necks; then the boat went, sucking the men down for a time, and then Lewis Ferrier and his two comrades were left spinning in the desperate whirls of the black eddies.
"Run to them!" yelled Tom. "Never mind if you carry everything away. Only keep clear of the other smack." Ferrier found the water warm, and he let himself swing passively. His thoughts were in a hurly-burly. Was this the end of all--youth, love, brave, days of manhood? Nay, he would struggle. Had they not prayed before they set out? All must come right--it must. And yet that spray was choking. He could not see his companions. A yell. "Lewis, my son, I'll come over." But Tom was held back; the smack was brought up all shaking. First the skipper caught a rope. Good, noble old man! He was half senseless when they hauled him on board. Then Lewis heard, as in a torpid reverie, a great voice, "Lay hold, Lewis, and Iwillcome if you're bothered." What was he doing? Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered; then a heavy, dragging pain came--he was being torn, torn,torn.
He woke in the cabin before the fire, and found Tom Lennard blubbering hard over him. "Warm it seems, Thomas? Reckon I almost lost my number that time."
"My good Lewis! No more. I had to strip you, and I've done everything. The skipper's dead beat, and if Bob couldn't steer we should be in a pickle. Let me put you in a hot blanket now, and you'll have some grog." Then, with his own queer humour, Lewis Ferrier said, "Tom, all this is only a lesson. If we'd had a proper boat, a proper lift for sick men, and a proper vessel to lift them into, I should have been all right. We won't come back to have these baths quite so often. We'll have ashipwhen we come again, and not merely a thing to sail. And now give me just a thimble-full of brandy, and then replace the bottle amongst the other poisonous physic! I'm getting as lively as a grasshopper. A nautical--a nautical taste, Thomas!"
And then Ferrier went off to sleep just where he was, after very nearly giving a most convincing proof in his own person of the necessity for a hospital vessel.
Lennard brooded long, and at last he went to the skipper and asked, "Old man, shall Bob shove her head for home?"
The skipper nodded.
And now you may see why I purposely made this chapter so long.
You have an accurate picture of what goes on during all the snowy months on that wild North water!