The “Hovel” on Deal Beach—A Storm Brewing—Plans to Circumvent the Smugglers.
On a calm, soft, beautiful evening, about a week after the events narrated in the last chapter, Guy Foster issued from Sandhill Cottage, and took his way towards the beach of Deal.
It was one of those inexpressibly sweet, motionless evenings, in which one is inclined, if in ordinary health, to rejoice in one’s existence; and in which the Christian is led irresistibly to join with the Psalmist in praising God, “for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.”
Young Foster’s thoughts ran for a considerable time in this latter channel; for he was one of those youthful Christians whose love to our Saviour does not easily grow cold. He was wont to read the Bible as if he really believed it to be the Word of God, and acted in accordance with its precepts with a degree of bold simplicity and trustfulness, that made him a laughing-stock to some, and a subject of surprise and admiration to others, of his companions and acquaintance. In short, he was a Christian of a cheerful, straightforward stamp.
Yet Guy’s course was not all sunshine, neither was his conduct altogether immaculate. He was not exempt from the general rule, that “through much tribulation” men shall enter into the Kingdom. As he walked along, rejoicing in his existence and in the beauty of that magnificent evening, a cloud would rise occasionally and call forth a sigh, as he recollected the polite intimation of his uncle, that he had extended his leave of absence ad infinitum! He could not shut his eyes to the fact that a brilliant mercantile career on which he had recently entered, and on which he might naturally look as the course cut out for him by Providence, was suddenly closed against him for ever. He knew his uncle’s temper too well to expect that he would relent, and he felt that to retract a statement which he knew to be true, or to express regret for having boldly told the truth as he had done, was out of the question. Besides, he was well aware that such a course would not now avail to restore him to his lost position. It remained, therefore, that, being without influential friends, he must begin over again and carve his own way in the world.
But what then? Was this not the lot of hundreds of thousands? Little time had been lost; he was young, and strong, and hearty. God had written, “Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” “Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” Under the influence of such thoughts the clouds cleared away from Guy’s brow, and he raised his eyes, which for some minutes had been cast down, with a hopeful gaze to the heavens.
There he soon became lost in admiration of the clouds that were floating in masses of amber and gold; rising over each other—piled up, mass upon mass—grotesque sometimes in form, solid yet soft in aspect, and inexpressibly grand, as a whole, in their towering magnificence.
There were signs, however, among the gorgeous beauties of this cloud-land, that were significant to eyes accustomed to read the face of the sky. Various lurid and luminous clouds of grey and Indian-red hues told of approaching storm, and the men of Deal knew that the sea, which just then pictured every cloud in its glassy depths as clearly as if there had been another cloud-land below its surface, would, ere long, be ruffled with a stiffish breeze; perhaps be tossed by a heavy gale.
Men in general are not prone to meditate very deeply on what is going on around them beyond the reach of their own vision. This is natural and right to some extent. If we were to be deeply touched by the joys, sorrows, calamities, and incidents that at all times affect humanity, we should cease to enjoy existence. Life would become a burden. The end of our creation would not be attained. Yet there is an evil of an opposite kind which often mars our usefulness, and makes us unconsciously participators in acts of injustice. This evil is, partial ignorance of, and indifference to, much that goes on around us beyond the range of our vision, but which nevertheless claims our attention and regard.
Every one who reflects will admit that it is pleasant to think, when we retire to rest, that a splendid system of police renders our home a place of safety, and that, although there are villains more than enough who would do their best to get at our purses and plate, we need not make ourselves uneasy so long as the stout guardians of the night are on the beat. Do we not congratulate ourselves on this? and do we not pay the police-tax without grumbling, or at least with less grumbling than we vent when paying other taxes?
Should it, good reader, be less a subject of pleasant contemplation that, when the midnight storm threatens to burst upon our shores, there are men abroad who are skilled in the perilous work of snatching its prey from the raging sea; that, when the howling gale rattles our windows and shakes our very walls, inducing us perchance to utter the mental prayer, “God have mercy on all who are on the sea this night,” that then—at that very time—the heroes of our coast are abroad all round the kingdom; strong in the possession of dauntless hearts and iron frames, and ready to plunge at any moment into the foaming sea to the rescue of life or property?
Who can say, during any storm, that he may not be personally interested in the efforts of those heroes?
We knew a family, the members of which, like those of all the other families in the land, listened to the howling of that fearful storm which covered our shores with wrecks on the 25th of November, 1859. Their thoughts were sad and anxious, as must be the case, more or less, with all who reflect that in such nights hundreds of human beings are certainly perishing on our shores. But ah! what would the feelings of that family have been had they known—as they soon came to know—that two stalwart brothers of their own went down that night among the 450 human beings who perished in the wreck of the “Royal Charter?”
In regard to the “Royal Charter,” it may be truly said that there was no necessity for the loss of that vessel. God did not send direct destruction upon her. The engines were too weak to work her off the land in the face of the gale, and the cables could not hold her. These were among the causes of her loss. And when she did get ashore, every life might have been saved had there been a lifeboat or rocket apparatus at hand. We know not why there were neither; but may it not have been because lifeboats and rockets are not sufficiently numerous all along our shores? How many bleeding hearts there were that would have given drops of their life-blood to have provided the means of saving life on the coast of Anglesea on that terrible night! A few small coins given at an earlier date might have saved those lives! No individual in the land, however far removed from the coast, can claim exemption from the dangers of the sea. His own head may indeed lie safe from the raging billow, but at any moment the sea may grasp some loved one, and thus wreck his peace of mind, or engulf his property and wreck his fortune. Why, then, should not the whole nation take the affairs of the coast nearer to its heart? The Lifeboat Institution is not supported by taxation like our police force. It depends on the charity of the people. Don’t you think, reader, that it has a strong claim on the sympathies, the prayers, and the purse of every living soul in the kingdom? But to return, with many apologies, from this digression.
Guy Foster noted the peculiar appearance of the clouds, and concluded that “something was brewing.” All along the shores stout men in glazed and tarry garments noted the same appearances, and also concluded that it would be dirty weather before long. The lifeboat men, too, were on the qui vive; and, doubtless, the coxswain of each boat, from John o’ Groat’s to the Land’s-end, was overhauling his charge to see that all was right and in readiness for instant service.
“It’s going to blow to-night, Bax,” said Guy, on entering the hovel of the former.
“So ’tis,” replied Bax, who was standing beside his friends Bluenose and Tommy Bogey, watching old Jeph, as he busied himself with the model of his lifeboat.
Jeph said that in his opinion it was going to be a regular nor’-easter, and Bluenose intimated his adherence to the same opinion, with a slap on his thigh, and a huge puff of smoke.
“You’re long about that boat, Jeph,” said Bluenose, after a pause, during which he scanned the horizon with a telescope.
“So I am. It ain’t easy to carry out the notion.”
“An’ wot may the notion be?” inquired Bluenose, sitting down on a coil of rope, and gazing earnestly at the old man.
“To get lifeboats to right themselves w’en they’re upset,” replied Jeph, regarding his model with a look of perplexity. “You see it’s all very well to have ’em filled with air-chambers, which prevents ’em from sinkin’; but w’en they’re upset, d’ye see, they ain’t o’ no use till they gets on their keels again; and that ain’t easy to manage. Now I’ve bin thinkin’ that if we wos to give ’em more sheer, and raise the stem and stern a bit, they’d turn over natural-like, of their own accord.”
“I do believe they would,” said Bax. “Why, what put that into yer head, old man?”
“Well, it ain’t altogether my own notion,” said Jeph, “for I’ve heard, when I was in the port o’ Leith, many years ago, that a clergyman o’ the name of Bremer had made a boat o’ this sort in the year 1792, that answered very well; but, somehow or other, it never came to anything. There’s nothin’ that puzzles me so much as that,” said the old man, looking up with a wondering expression of countenance. “I don’t understand how, w’en a good thing is found out, it ain’t made the most of at once! I never could discover exactly what Mr Bremer’s plan was, so I’m tryin’ to invent one.”
As he said this, Jeph placed the model on which he was engaged in a small tub of water which stood at his elbow. Guy, who was much interested in the old man’s idea, bent over him to observe the result of the experiment. Tommy Bogey sat down beside the tub as eagerly as if he expected some wonderful transformation to take place. Bax and Bluenose also looked on with unusual interest, as if they felt that a crisis in the experimental labours of their old comrade had arrived.
“It floats first-rate on an even keel,” cried Tommy, with a pleased look as the miniature boat moved slowly round its little ocean, “now then, capsize it.”
Old Jeph quietly put his finger on the side of the little boat, and turned it upside down. Instead of remaining in that position it rolled over on one side so much, that the onlookers fully expected to see it right itself, and Tommy gave vent to a premature cheer, but he cut it suddenly short on observing that the boat remained on its side with one of the gunwales immersed, unable to attain an even keel in consequence of the weight of water inside of it.
“I tell ye wot it is, Jeph,” said Bluenose, with emphasis, “you’ll do it yet; if you don’t I’ll eat my sou’-wester without sauce, so I will. As the noospapers says, you’ll inaggerate a new era in lifeboats, old boy, that’s a fact, and I’ll live to see it too!”
Having delivered himself of this opinion in tones of much fervour, the captain delivered his mouth of a series of cloudlets, and gazed through them at his old friend with unfeigned admiration.
Guy and Bax were both impressed with the partial success of the experiment, as well as with Jeph’s idea, and said to him, encouragingly, that he had very near hit it, but Jeph himself only shook his head and smiled sadly.
“Lads,” said he, “very near is sometimes a long way farther off than folk suppose. Perpetual motion has bin very nearly discovered ever since men began to try their hands at engineerin’, but it ain’t discovered yet, nor never will be—’cause why? it ain’t possible.”
“Ain’t poss’ble!” echoed Bluenose, “you’re out there, old man. I diskivered it, years ago. Just you go up to Sandhill Cottage, and inquire for one Mrs Laker, a hupright and justifiable sister o’ mine. Open that ’ooman’s mouth an’ look in (she won’t bite if ye don’t bother her too much), and lyin’ in that there cavern ye’ll see a thing called a tongue,—if that ain’t an engine of perpetooal motion, shiver my timbers! that’s all.”
Just as the captain made this reckless offer to sacrifice his timbers, Peekins—formerly the blue tiger—entered the hovel, and going hastily to Bluenose, whispered in his ear.
A very remarkable transformation had taken place in the outward man of poor Peekins. After coming with Bax to Deal he had been adopted, as it were, by the co-partners of the hovel, and was, so to speak, shared equally by Bax, Bluenose, old Jeph, and Tommy. The wonderfully thin and spider-like appearance which he presented in his blue-tights and buttons on his arrival, created such a howl of derisive astonishment among the semi-nautical boys of Deal, that his friends became heartily ashamed of him. Bax, therefore, walked him off at once to a slop-shop, where sea-stores of every possible or conceivable kind could be purchased at reasonable prices, from a cotton kerchief, with the union Jack in the middle of it, to the old anchor of a seventy-four gun ship, with a wooden stock big enough to make a canoe.
Here Peekins was disrobed of his old garments, and clad in canvas trousers, pilot-cloth jacket and vest, with capacious pockets, and a sou’-wester; all of which fitted him so loosely that he felt persuaded in his own mind he could easily have jumped out of them with an upward bound, or have slipped out of them downwards through either leg of the pantaloons. He went into that store a blue spider, he came out a reasonable-looking seafaring boy, rather narrow and sloping about the shoulders, it is true, but smart enough and baggy enough—especially about the nether garments—to please even Bax, who, in such matters, was rather fa............