Chapter Sixteen.
In a West Coast Gale.
“That project is knocked over as if it were a card house,” said Duncan Leslie, as he reached home, and sat thinking of Louise and her brother.
He looked out to see that in a very short time the total aspect of the sea had changed. The sky had become overcast, and in the dim light the white horses of the Atlantic were displaying their manes.
“Very awkward run for the harbour to-night,” he said as he returned to his seat. “Can’t be pleasant to be a shipowner. I wonder whether Miss Marguerite Vine would consider that a more honourable way of making money?”
“Yes, a tradesman, I suppose. Well, why not? Better than being a descendant of some feudal gentleman whose sole idea of right was might.”
“My word!” he exclaimed; “what a sudden gale to have sprung up. Heavy consumption of coal in the furnaces to-night. How this wind will make them roar.”
He faced round to the window and sat listening as the wind shrieked, and howled, and beat at the panes, every now and then sending the raindrops pattering almost as loudly as hail. “Hope it will not blow down my chimney on the top yonder. Hah! I ought to be glad that I have no ship to trouble me on a night like this.”
“No,” he said firmly just as the wind had hurled itself with redoubled fury against the house; “no, she does not give me a second thought. But I take heart of grace, for I can feel that she has never had that gentle little heart troubled by such thoughts. The Frenchman has not won her, and he never shall if I can help it. It’s a fair race for both of us, and only one can win.”
“My word! What a night!”
He walked to the window and looked out at the sombre sky, and listened to the roar of the rumbling billows before closing his casement and ringing.
“Is all fastened?” he said to the servant. “You need not sit up. I don’t believe a dog would be out to-night, let alone a human being.”
He was wrong; for just as he spoke a dark figure encased in oilskins was sturdily making its way down the cliff path to the town. It was hard work and in places on the exposed cliff-side even dangerous, for the wind seemed to pounce upon the figure and try to tear it off; but after a few moments’ pause the walk was continued, the town reached, and the wind-swept street traversed without a soul being passed.
The figure passed on by the wharves and warehouses, and sheltered now from the wind made good way till, some distance ahead, a door was opened, a broad patch of light shone out on the wet cobble stones, Crampton’s voice said “Good night,” and the figure drew back into a deep doorway, and waited.
The old clerk had been to the principal inn, where, once a week, he visited his club, and drank one glass of Hollands and water, and smoked one pipe, talking mostly to one friend, to whom if urged he would relate one old story.
This was his one dissipation; and afterwards he performed one regular duty which took him close up to the watching figure, which remained there almost breathless till Crampton had performed his regular duty and gone home.
It was ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before he passed that watching figure, which seemed to have sunk away in the darkness that grew more dense as the gale increased.
Morning at last, a slowly breaking dawn, and with it the various sea-going men slowly leaving their homes, to direct their steps in a long procession towards one point, where the high cliff face formed a shelter from the south-west wind, and the great billows which rolled heavily in beneath the leaden sky. These came on with the regularity of machinery, to charge the cliffs at which they leaped with a hiss and a roar, and a boom like thunder, followed by a peculiar rattling, grumbling sound, as if the peal of thunder had been broken up into heavy pieces which were rolling over each other back toward the sea.
They were not pieces of thunder but huge boulders, which had been rolled over and over for generations to batter the cliffs, and then fall back down an inclined plane.
Quite a crowd had gathered on the broad, glistening patch of rugged granite, soon as the day broke, and this crowd was ever augmenting, till quite a phalanx of oilskin coats and tarpaulin hats presented its face to the thundering sea, while men shouted to each other, and swept the lead-coloured horizon with heavy glasses, or the naked hand-shaded eye, in search of some vessel trying to make the harbour, or in distress.
“She bites this morning,” said one old fisherman, shaking the spray from his dripping face, after looking round the corner of a mass of sheltering rock.
“Ay, mate, and it aren’t in me to tell you how glad I am my boat’s up the harbour with her nose fast to a buoy,” said another.
“There’ll be widders and orphans in some ports ’fore nightfall.”
“And thank the Lord that won’t be in Hakemouth.”
“I dunno so much about that,” growled a heavy-looking man, with a fringe of white hair round his face. “Every boat that sails out of this harbour aren’t in port.”
“That it is. Why, what’s yer thinking about?”
“’Bout Van Heldre’s brig, my lad.”
“Ah,” chorused half-a-dozen voices, “we didn’t think o’ she.”
“Been doo days and days,” said the white-fringed old fisherman; “and if she’s out yonder, I say, Lord ha’ mercy on ’em all, Amen.”
“Not had such a storm this time o’ year since the Cape mail were wrecked off the Long Chain.”
“Ah, and that warn’t so bad as this. Bound to say the brig has put into Mount’s Bay.”
“And not a nice place either with the wind this how. Well, my lads, I say, there’s blessings and blessings, and we ought all to be werry thankful as we aren’t ship-owners with wessels out yonder.”
This was from the first man who had spoken; but his words were not received with much favour, and as in a lull of the wind one of the men had to use a glass, he growled out:
“Well, I dunno ’bout sending one’s ship to sea in such a storm, but I don’t see as it’s such a very great blessing not to have one of your own, speshly if she happened to be a brig like Mast’ Van Heldre’s!”
“Hold your row,” said a man beside him, as he drove his elbow into his ribs, and gave a side jerk of his head.
The man thus adjured turned sharply, and saw close to him a sturdy-looking figure clothed from head to foot in black mackintosh, which glistened as it dripped with the showery spray.
“Ugly day, my lads.”
“Ay, ay, sir; much snugger in port than out yonder.”
Boom! came a heavy blow from a wave, and the offing seemed to be obscured now by the drifting spray.
Van Heldre focussed a heavy binocular, and gazed out to sea long and carefully.
“Any one been up to the look-out?” he said, as he lowered his glass.
“Two on us tried it, sir,” said one of the men, “but the wind’s offle up yonder, and you can’t see nothing.”
“Going to try it, sir?” said another of the group.
Van Heldre nodded; and he was on his way to a roughly-formed flight of granite steps, which led up to the ruins of the old castle which had once defended the mouth of the harbour, when another mackintosh-clothed figure came up.
“Ah, Mr Leslie,” said Van Heldre, looking at the new-comer searchingly.
“Good morning,” was the reply, “or I should say bad morning. There’ll be some mischief after this.”
Van Heldre nodded, for conversation was painful, and passed on.
“Going up yonder?” shouted Leslie.
There was another nod, and under the circumstances, not pausing to ask permission, Leslie followed the old merchant, climbing the rough stone steps, and holding on tightly by the rail.
“Best look out, master,” shouted one of the group. “Soon as you get atop roosh acrost and kneel down behind the old parry-putt.”
It was a difficult climb and full of risk, for as they went higher they were more exposed, till as they reached the rough top which formed a platform, the wind seemed to rush at them as interlopers which it strove to sweep off and out to sea.
Van Heldre stood, glass in hand, holding on by a block of granite, his mackintosh tightly pressed to his figure in front, and filling out behind till it had a balloon-like aspect that seemed grotesque.
“I daresay I look as bad,” Leslie muttered, as, taking the rough fisherman’s advice, he bent down and crept under the shelter of the ancient parapet, a dwarf breast-work, with traces of the old crude bastions just visible, and here, to some extent, he was screened from the violence of the wind, and signed to Van Heldre to join him.
Leslie placed his hands to his mouth, and shouted through them.
“Hadn’t you better come here, sir?”
For the position seemed terribly insecure. They were on the summit of the rocky headland, with the sides going on three sides sheer down to the shore, on two of which sides the sea kept hurling huge waves of water, which seemed to make the rock quiver to its foundations. One side of the platform was protected by the old breast-work; on the opposite the stones had crumbled away or fallen, and here there was a swift slope of about thirty feet to the cliff edge.
It was at the top of this slope that Van Heldre stood gazing out to sea.
Leslie, as he watched him, felt a curious premonition of danger, and gathered himself together involuntarily, ready for a spring.
The danger he anticipated was not long in making its demand upon him, for all at once there was a tremendous gust, as if an atmospheric wave had risen up to spring at the man standing on high as if daring the fury of the tempest; and in spite of Van Heldre’s sturdy frame he completely lost his balance. He staggered for a moment, and, but for his presence of mind in throwing himself down, he would have been swept headlong down the swift slope to destruction.
As it was he managed to cling to the rocks, as the wind swept furiously over, and chocked his downward progress for the moment. This would have been of little avail, for, buffeted by the wind, he was gliding slowly down, and but for Leslie’s quickly rendered aid, it would only have been a matter of moments before he had been hurled down upon the rocks below.
Even as he staggered, Leslie mastered the peculiar feeling of inertia which attacked him, and, creeping rapidly over the intervening space, made a dash at the fluttering overcoat, caught it, twisted it rapidly, and held on.
Then for a space neither moved, for it was as if the storm was raging with redoubled fury at the chance of its victim being snatched away.
The lull seemed as if it would never come; and when it did Leslie felt afraid to stir lest the fragile material by which he supported his companion should give way. In a few moments, however, he was himself, and shouting so as to make his voice plainly heard—for, close as he was, his words seemed to be swept away as uttered—he uttered a few short clear orders, which were not obeyed.
“Do you hear?” he cried again, “Mr Van Heldre—quick!”
Still there was no reply by voice or action, and it seemed as if the weight upon Leslie’s wrists was growing heavier moment by moment. He yelled to him now, to act; and what seemed to be a terrible time elapsed before Van Heldre said hoarsely—
“One moment; better now. I felt paralysed.”
There was mother terrible pause, during which the storm beat upon them, the waves thundered at the base of the rock, and even at that height there came a rain of spray which had run up the face of the rock and swept over to where they lay.
“Now, quick!” said Van Heldre, as he lay face downward, spread-eagled, as a sailor would term it, against the face of the sloping granite.
What followed seemed to be a struggling scramble, a tremendous effort, and then with the wind shrieking round them, Van Heldre reached the level, and crept slowly to the shelter of the parapet.
“Great heavens!” panted Leslie, as he lay there exhausted, and gazed wildly at his companion. “What an escape!”
There was no reply. Leslie thought that Van Heldre had fainted, for his eyes were nearly closed, and his face seemed to be drawn. Then he realised that his lips were moving slowly, as if in prayer.
“Hah!” the rescued man said at last, his words faintly heard in the tempest’s din. “Thank God! For their sake—for their sake.”
Then, holding out his hand, he pressed Leslie’s in a firm strong grip.
“Leslie,” he said, with his lips close to his companion’s ear, “you have saved my life.”
Neither spoke much after that, but they crouched there—in turn using the glass.
Once Van Heldre grasped his companion’s arm and pointed out to sea.
“A ship?” cried Leslie.
“No. Come down now.”
Waiting till the wind had dropped for the moment, they reached the rough flight of steps, and on returning to the level found that the crowd had greatly increased; and among them Leslie saw Harry Vine and his companion.
“Can’t see un, sir, can you?” shouted one of the men.
Van Heldre shook his head.
“I thought you wouldn’t, sir,” shouted another. “Capt’n Muskerry’s too good a sailor to try and make this port in such a storm.”
“Ay,” shouted another. “She’s safe behind the harbour wall at Penzaunce.”
“I pray she may be,” said Van Heldre. “Come up to my place and have some breakfast, Leslie, but not a word, mind, about the slip. I’ll tell that my way.”
“Then I decline to come,” said Leslie, and after a hearty grip of the hand they parted.
“I thought he meant Vine’s girl,” said Van Heldre, as he walked along the wharves street, “but there is no accounting for these things.”
“I ought to explain to him how it was I came to be walking with Miss Van Heldre,” said Leslie to himself. “Good morning.”
He had suddenly found himself face to face with Harry, who walked by, arm in arm with Pradelle, frowning and without a word, when just as they passed a corner the wind came with a tremendous burst, and but for Leslie’s hand Harry Vine must have gone over into the harbour.
It was but the business of a moment, and Harry seemed to shake off the hand which held him with a tremendous grip and passed on.
“Might have said thank you,” said Leslie smiling. “I seem to be doing quite a business in saving people this morning, only they are of the wrong sex—there is no heroism. Hallo, Mr Luke Vine. Come down to look at the storm?”
“Couldn’t I have seen it better up at home?” shouted the old man. “Ugh! what a wind. Thought I was going to be blown off the cliff. I see your chimney still stands, worse luck. Going home?”
“No, no. One feels so much unsettled at such a time.”
“Don’t go home then; stop with me.”
Leslie looked at the quaint old man in rather an amused way, and then stopped with him to watch the tumbling billows off the point where his companion so often fished.