menu_book Chapter 54

the day of the day chapter fifty four bruntsea defeated little sleep had i that night such conflict was in my mind about the proper thing to be done next and such a war of the wind outside above and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea of that sound much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff but the wind swung fiercely over this and rattled through all shelter in the morning the storm was furious but the major declared that his weather-glass had turned which proved that the gale was breaking the top of the tide would be at one o'clock and after church we should behold a sight he was rather proud of the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his patent concrete my dear i scarcely like such talk mrs hockin gently interposed to me it seems almost defiant of the power of the lord

remember what happened to poor smeaton at least i think his dame was smeaton or stanley was it but i dare say you know best he defied the strength of the lord like the people at the mouth of their tent and he was swallowed up mary my dear get your prayer-book raspers fly is waiting for us and the parson has no manners when he drops off i present to the living and i am not at all sure that i shall let george have it he is fond of possessions and all that stuff the only possession in the church of england is that of the lord of the manor to his pew i will be the master in my own church oh of course dear of course so you ought to be it was always so in my father's parish but you must not speak so of our poor george he may be high church as they call it but he knows what is due to his family and he has a large one coming we set off hastily for the church through blasts of rain and buffets of wind which threatened to overturn the cab and the seaward window was white as in a snow-storm with pellets of froth and the drift of sea-scrud

i tried to look out but the blur and the dash obscured the sight of everything and though in this lower road we were partially sheltered by the pebble ridge the driver was several times obliged to pull his poor horse up and face the wind for fear of our being blown over that ancient church with its red-tiled spire stands well up in the good old town at the head of a street whose principal object now certainly is to lead to it three hundred years ago that street had business of its own to think of and was brave perhaps with fine men and maids at the time of the spanish armada its only bravery now was the good old church and some queer gables and a crypt which was true to itself by being buried up to the spandrels and one or two corners where saints used to stand until they were pelted out of them and where fisher-like men in the lodging season stand selling fish caught at billingsgate but to bruncey itself the great glory of that street was rather of hope than of memory bailiff hopkins had taken out three latticed windows and put in one grand one of plate-glass with finishing blinds all varnished

and even on a sunday morning bruncey wanted to know whatever the bailiff was at behind them some said that he did all his pickling on a sunday and by putting up spectacle-glass he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his focus despite all the rattle and roar of the wind we went on in church as usual the vicar had a stout young curate from durham who could out shout any tempest with a good stone wall between them and the bruntsea folk were a thicker constitution than to care an old hat for the weather whatever was sent by the lord they took with a grumble but no excitement the clock in front of the galley told the time of day as five minutes to twelve when the vicar a pleasant old-fashioned man pronounced his text which he always did thrice over to make us sure of it and then he hitched up his old black gown and directed his gaze at the lord of the manor to impress the whole church with authority

major hockin acknowledged in the proper manner this courtesy of the minister by rubbing up his crest and looking even more wide-awake than usual whereas aunt mary whose kind heart longed to see her own son in that pulpit calmly settled back her shoulders and arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt attention while having a nice little dream of her own but suddenly all was broken up the sexton whose license as warden of the church and even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only fitfully from the tower arch while he watched the boys and sniffed the bakehouse of his own dinner to the consternation of everybody this faithful man ran up the nave with his hands above his head and shouted all brownsy be a wash a wash sounding it so as to rhyme with lash the z the z be all over us the clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window behind him while all the congregation rose it is too true the preacher cried the sea is in over the bank my friends every man must rush to his own home the blessing of the lord be on you through his fearful visitation

he had no time to say more and we thought it very brave of him to save that for his own home was in the lower village and there he had wife and children sick in half a minute the church was empty and the street below it full of people striving and struggling against the blast and breasting it at an incline like swimmers but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one another with tattered umbrellas hats gone and bonnets hanging and among them like gulls before the wind blew dollops of spray and chunks of froth and every now and then a slate or pantile all this was so bad that scarcely anybody found power to speak to think or to see the major did his very best to lead us but by no means could manage it and i screamed into his soundest ear to pull aunt mary into some dry house for she could not face such buffeting and to let me fare for myself as i might

so we left mrs hockin in the bailiff's house though she wanted sadly to come with us and on we went to behold the worst and thus by running the bys of the wind and craftily hugging the corners we got to the foot of the street at last and then could go no further for here was the very sea itself with furious billows panting before us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness torn by the screeching squalls and tossed in clashing tufts and pinnacles and into these came sweeping over the shattered chine of shingle gigantic surges from the outer deep towering as they crossed the bar and combing against the sky-line and then rushing onward and driving the huddle of the ponded waves before them the tide was yet rising and at every blow the wreck and havoc grew worse and worse that long sweep of brickwork the grand promenade bowed and bulged with wall and window knuckled in and out like wattles

the sea parade was a parade of sea and a bathing machine wheels upward lay like a wrecked noah's ark on the top of the saline silical calcareous the major stood by me while all his constructions went by the board as they say at sea and verily everything was at sea i grieved for him so that it was not the spray alone that put salt drops on my cheeks and i could not bear to turn and look at his good old weather-beaten face but he was not the man to brood upon his woes in silence he might have used nicer language perhaps but his inner sense was manful i don't care a damn he shouted so that all the women heard him i can only say that i am devilish glad that i never let one of those houses there was a little band of seamen under a shelter of a garden wall crouching or sitting or standing

or whatever may be the attitude acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather which cannot be solved as to center of gravity even by the man that does it and these men were so taken with the major's manifesto clinched at once and clarified to them by strong short language that they gave him a loud hurrah which flew on the wings of the wind over house-tops so queer and sound as english feeling that now major hockin became in truth what hitherto he was in title only the lord and master of bruntsea a boat a boat he called out again we know not who are drowning the bank still breaks the waves a stout boat surely could live inside it yes a boat could live well enough in this cockle though never among them breakers old barnes the fisherman answered who used to take us out for whiting but lord bless your honor all the boats are thumped to pieces except yanner one and who can get at her before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place his pockets he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat which we had not seen through the blinding scud

bereft of its brethren or sisters for all fluctuating things are feminine that boat survived in virtue of standing a few feet higher than the rest but even so and mounted on the last hump of the pebble ridge it was rolling and reeling with the stress of wind and the wash of wild water under it how nobly our lyceum stands the major shouted for anything less than a shout was done this is the time to try institutions i am proud of my foundations in answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge a mountain ridge seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of onset this great wave smote all other waves away or else embodied them and gathered its height against the poor worn pebble bank and descended

a roar distinct above the universal roar proclaimed it a crash of conflict shook the earth and the shattered bank was swallowed in a world of leaping whiteness when this wild mass dashed onward into the swelling flood before us there was no sign of lyceum left but stubs of foundation and a mangled roof rolling over and over like a hen-coup well that beats everything i ever saw exclaimed the gallant major what noble timber what mortise-work no london scamping there my lads but what comes here why the very thing we wanted barnes look alive my man run to your house and get a pair of oars and a bucket it was the boat the last surviving boat of all that hailed from bruntsea that monstrous billow had tossed it up like schoolboy's kite and dropped it whole with an upright keel in the inland sea though nearly half full of water

driven on by wind and wave it labored heavily toward us and more than once it seemed certain to sink as it broached to and ship seas again but half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope into the short angry surf to which the polled shingle-bank still acted as a powerful breakwater else all bruntsea had collapsed and they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer and ran her straight with yo heave ho and turned her on her side to drain and then launched her again with a bucket and a man to bail out the rest of the water and a pair of heavy oars brought down by barnes and nobody knows what other things nought to steer with rudder gone cried one of the men as the furious gale drove the boat athwart the street back again once another oar said barnes what fool i were to bring only two here you are shouted major hockin one of you can help me pull up this pole

through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden which had been the pride of the season at burnt sea and there from the ground they tore up a pole with a board at the top nailed across it and the following not rare legend lodging to lent inquire within first four front and back paulers fustrape thing to steer with would ha never believed ye had the sense so shouted barnes a rough man roughened by the stress of storm and fright get into starn sheets if so liketh ye know ye may be useful i defy you to push off without my sanction useful indeed i am the captain of this boat all the ground under it is mine did you think you set of salted radicals that i meant to let you go without me and all among my own houses look sharp guv'nor if you has the pluck then mind we are more likely to be swamped than not as the boat swung about major hockin jumped in and so on the spur of the moment did i we staggered all about with the heave and the roll

and both of us would have fallen on the planks or out over if we had not tumbled with opposite impetus into the arms of each other then a great wave burst and soaked us both and we fell into sitting on a slippery seat meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar and barnes himself steering with the signboard and the head of the boat was kept against the wind and the billows from our breakwater some of these seemed resolved though shorn of depth and height in crossing to rush all over us and drown us in the washerwoman's drying ground by skill and presence of mind our captain barnes spoiled all their violence till we got a little shelter from the ruins of the young men's christian institute hold all cried barnes only keep her head up while i look about what there is to do the sight was a thing to remember and being on the better side now of the scud because it was flying away from us we could make out a great deal more of the trouble which had befallen

the stormy fiord which had usurped the ancient track of the river was about a furlong in width and troughed with white waves vaulting over and the sea rushed through at the bottom as well through scores of yards of pebbles as it did in quiet weather even when the tide was brimming we in the tossing boat with our head to the inrush of the outer sea were just like people sitting upon the floats or rafts of a furious weir and if any such surge had topped the ridge such as the one which flung our boat to us there could be no doubt that we must go down as badly as the major's houses however we hoped for the best and gazed at the desolation inland not only the major's great plan but all the lower line of old bruntsea was knocked to pieces and lost to knowledge in freaks of wind-lashed waters men and women were running about with favorite bits of furniture or feather beds or babies cradles or whatever they had caught hold of the butt ends of the three old streets that led down toward the sea-ground were dipped

as if playing see-saw in the surf and the storm made gangways of them and lighthouses of the lamp-posts the old public-house at the corner was down and the waves leaping in at the post-office door and wrecking the globes of the chemist drift and dash and roar and rush and the devil let loose in the thick of it my eyes are worn out with it take the glass erema and tell us who is next to be washed away a new set of clothes props for mrs mangles i paid for the very day i came back from town with these words the lord of the submarine manor whose strength of spirit amazed me offered his pet binocular which he never went without upon his own domain and fisherman barnes as we rose and fell once more saved us from being swamped by his clever way of paddling through a scallop in the stern with the board about the first floor front to let the seamen just keeping way on the boat sheltered their eyes with their left hands and fixed them on the tumultuous scene i also gazed to the double glass which was a very clear one but none of us saw any human being at present in any peril

old pilot was right after all said one but what a good job as it come middle o day and best of all of a sunday i have heerd say replied another that the like thing come to pass nigh upon three hundred years agone how did you get your things out jim bishop jim the only one of them whose house was in the havoc regarded with a sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom window and was going to favor us with a narrative when one of his mates exclaimed what do i see yonner lads away beyond the town altogether seemeth to me like a feller swimmin miss will you lend me spyglass never seed a double-barreled one before can use him with one eye shut i spose no good that way joe cried barnes with a wink of superior knowledge for he had often used this binocular shut one eye for one barrel stands to reason then you shut both for two my son stow that said the quick-eyed sailor as he brought the glass to bear in a moment it is a man in the waters lad and swimmin to save the witch i do believe

bless me cried the major how stupid of us i never once thought of that poor woman she must be washed out long ago pull for your lives my friends a guinea apiece if you save her and another one for me i cried whereupon the boat swept round and the tough ash bent and we rushed into no small danger for nearly half a mile we had to pass a raging and boisterous water almost as wild as the open sea itself at the breaches of the pebble ridge and the risk of a heavy sea boarding us was fearfully multiplied by having thus to cross the storm instead of breasting it useless and helpless and only in the way and battered about my wind and sea so that my sunday dress was become a drag what folly what fatuity what frenzy i might call it could ever have led me to jump into that boat i don't know i only know that i always do it said my sensible self to its mad sister as they both shut their eyes at a great white wave

if i possibly survive i will try to know better but ever from my childhood am i getting into scrapes the boat labored on with a good many grunts but not a word from any one more than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great billow topped the poor shingle bank and we took so much water on board that men said afterwards that i saved them i only remember sitting down and working at the bucket with both hands till much of the skin was gone and my arms in many other places ached but what was that compared with drowning at length we were opposite desolate hole which was a hole no longer but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless dominance of water tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and rolling wreck played round it and the old gray stone of mullioned windows split the wash like mooring-posts we passed and gazed but the only sound was the whistling of the tempest and the only living sight a seagull weary of his wings and drowning

no living creature can be there the major broke our long silence land my friends if land we may we risk our own lives for nothing the men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the wind again when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight that startled manhood at the back of that ruin on the landward side on a wall which tottered under them there were two figures standing one a tall man urging on the other a woman shrinking at a glance or with a thought i knew them both one was lord castlewood's first love the other his son and murderer our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them and the major stood up and waved his hat and in doing so tumbled back again

i cannot tell how could i tell in the thick of it but an idea or a flit of fancy touched me and afterward became conviction that while the man heard us not at all and had no knowledge of us his mother turned round and saw us all and faced the storm in preference whatever the cause may have been at least she suddenly changed her attitude the man had been pointing to the roof which threatened to fall in a mass upon them while she had been shuddering back from the depths of eddying waves below her but now she drew up her poor bent figure and leaned on her son to obey him our boat with strong arms laboring for life swept round the old gable of the ruin but we were compelled to give it a wide berth as captain barnes shouted and then a black squall of terrific wind and hail burst forth we bowed our heads and drew our bodies to their tightest compass and every rib of our boat vibrated as a violin does and the oars were beaten flat and dashed their drip into fringes like a small tooth comb

that great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a hurricane it beat the high waves hollow as if it fell from the sky upon them and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt so that two of our men rolled backward and when we were able to look about again the whole roof of desolate hole was gone and little of the walls left standing and how should we guide our course or even save our lives we knew not we were compelled to bring up as best we might with the boat's head to the sea and so to keep it by using the steering gear against the surviving oar as for the people we were come to save there was no chance whatsoever of approaching them even without the mishap of the oar we never could have reached them and indeed when we first saw them again they seemed better off than ourselves were for they were not far from dry land and the man a skilful and powerful swimmer had a short piece of plank which he knew how to use to support his weak companion

brave fellow fine fellow the major cried little knowing whom he was admiring see how he keeps up his presence of mind such a man as that is worth anything and he cares more for her than he does for himself he shall have the society's medal one more long and strong stroke my noble friend o great god what has befallen him in horror and pity we gazed the man had been dashed against something headlong he whirled round and round in the white water his legs were thrown up and we saw no more of him the woman cast off the plank and tossed her helpless arms in search of him a shriek ringing far on the billowy shore declared that she had lost him and then without a struggle she clasped her hands and the merciless water swallowed her it is all over cried major hockin lifting his drenched hat solemnly the lord knoweth best he has taken them home chapter fifty four