Chapter Fifteen.
The “Good Sarah’s” Forget-me-nots.
“Tell me, is there any danger?” asked Mrs Gilmour, speaking quite calmly, in spite of her fears; for, although of a somewhat hasty disposition and apt to be put out at trifles, she was possessed of a strong, natural courage, which, as is the case with most of the so-called “tender sex,” only displayed itself in great emergencies. “You may disclose the worst. I can bear it!”
“Pooh!” grunted the Captain off-hand, rather impolitely. “There’s no ‘worst’ to tell, ma’am. All on board are quite safe, and will be put ashore securely as soon as the boats come off. My fears are for the unfortunate vessel, the loss of which will be a sad blow to her skipper, poor fellow, as he has staked his all in her!”
“But, Captain,” she rejoined, “why do you look so serious?”
“Serious?” he repeated after her, the hard lines in his face at once relaxing—“so would you, too, look serious, ma’am, if you thought of the matter in the same light. You see, I can’t help looking upon a ship as a sort of living creature; and to think of a fine boat like this coming to grief in such a lubberly fashion is enough almost to make one cry!”
His eyes blinked furiously as he said this, the bushy eyebrows above moving up and down; and, taking out his bright bandana handkerchief, he blew his nose with vigour, as if to give vent to his emotion,
Nellie, whose pale face had gained a little more colour since the Captain’s reassuring words to her aunt, now sidled up to him, catching hold of his hand affectionately.
“But will the poor steamer really be lost?” she inquired timidly; “wrecked, as sailors call it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so with the pack of nincompoops we’ve got on board,” he growled. “They’re talking of beaching her; and if so, with the wind chopping round to the eastwards, as those porpoises you saw this morning told us it will do by and by, for they’re unfailing weather prophets always, why, the unfortunate craft will lay her bones on the shingle. She will, at all events, if any sort of a sea get up, or call me no sailor!”
Bob, who on his return from the fore-part of the vessel in company with Captain Dresser had stationed himself again by the engine-room hatchway, here gave a shout.
“They’re moving,” he cried; “I see the piston going up and down, and the shaft turning round!”
The rapid beat of the paddle-wheels on the water alongside gave testimony to the truth of Bob’s statement; but to Nell’s surprise, no churned-up foam came drifting by astern as before, and she couldn’t make it out.
The paradox, however, was made plain to her by Hellyer, who did not seem to trouble himself much about the mishap, remaining seated on the hamper, which he had placed by the after sponsing of the starboard paddle-box. The coastguardsman, indeed, appeared as unconcerned throughout all the fuss as if he were safe ashore in his own little cabin on the beach; while Rover kept close beside him, as he had done since Hellyer took charge of the hamper which he had brought on board—the dog evidently considering himself still responsible for all the picnic goods and chattels that his young mistress had told him to watch.
“The paddles is backin’ astern,” replied Hellyer; “and so, miss, their wake drifts for’ard instead of aft. That’s the reason, miss, you sees nothing washing by.”
But this movement did not long continue, two strokes of the gong in the engine-room being heard as the captain of the steamer moved the brass handle of the mechanical telegraph on the bridge; whereupon, the machinery was suddenly stopped.
Then the gong sounded twice again, the signal being followed by the quick “splash—splash—splash!” of the paddles once more in the water; when Nellie was delighted by seeing the creamy foam tossing up alongside where she and her aunt were now standing again, they having vacated their seats on the first alarm, like others of the passengers.
“By Jove!” muttered the Captain, half aloud. “The fool of a fellow is actually going ahead again!”
“What!” cried Mrs Gilmour— “any new danger?”
“Oh, nothing,” he snapped out, evidently very grumpy at things not being done in the way he thought best. “I was only uttering my thoughts aloud, ma’am. If you must know, I think it very risky of our friend the skipper trying to drive the boat ahead when she’s down by the bows. Poor chap, I’m afraid he has lost his head, the same as the vessel has hers! Never mind, though, she cannot go very far in this shoal water, or I’m a Dutchman!”
Nor did she.
In less than a minute there was another heavy bump that shook the deck fore and aft, making all the passengers tumble about like ninepins. Bob nearly took a dive through the hatchway of the engine-room, into which he was still peering, and Nellie fell on poor Rover, causing him to utter a plaintive howl; while, as for Mrs Gilmour, she lurched against the Captain as if she were going to embrace him with open arms, treading at the same time on his worst foot, whereon flourished a pet corn that gave the old sailor infinite trouble, which he ever guarded as the apple of his eye.
“O-o-o-o-oh!” he groaned, hopping about the deck on one leg and holding up the injured foot with both his hands, “I knew some further mischief would come from what that idiot of a skipper was doing!”
Meanwhile, the steamboat people on the pier, off which they had grounded only some three or four hundred yards away, seeing the predicament of the vessel, set to work sending off boats to land the passengers.
The first of these reached the little vessel just as she struck the sandbank she had run foul of for the second time; then coming to a dead stop as if she meant now to remain there for good and all.
“Are we to go ashore in one of those?” asked Bob, pointing out the fleet of small boats making for the steamer, besides the two that had already come up to her; some being launched by the watermen on the beach in addition to those sent off from the pier. “What fun to have a boat all to ourselves, as I suppose we shall!”
“Yes, I suppose so, if we are to get to land at all,” replied the Captain, who had become a little more amiable, his natural good-humour asserting itself as the pain in his foot somewhat subsided; “I don’t see how we can otherwise, unless we swim for it; the vessel is now stuck quite fast with no chance of her moving until she is lightened of her cargo of passengers.”
“That will be jolly!” cried Bob. “Why it’s just like a regular shipwreck!”
“Ah, my boy,” said the old sailor, shaking his head, “if you ever experienced the realities of one, you would not speak so lightly. A shipwreck, let me tell you, is no laughing matter.”
“I didn’t mean that,” explained Bob, “I was only thinking how jolly it would be for us all to have a row, instead of landing at the pier quietly, as we would have done if nothing had happened.”
“Sure, and I don’t see where your ‘jollity’ comes in, Master Bob!” observed his aunt, not by any means relishing the prospect. “It may be all very well for you; but I can’t say I like the idea of scrambling down the side of the vessel into one of these cockleshells and running the risk of getting drowned.”
“Oh, no, you won’t, ma’am,” rejoined the Captain chuckling again, her comical consternation soothing the last acerbities of his temper. “You shan’t drown yourself if I can prevent you, ma’am!”
There was no necessity, however, for the Captain to exert himself especially on her behalf; for, the boats being hauled up in turn alongside and only a proper number being allowed to get into each, no casualty occurred such as Mrs Gilmour dreaded. Thus, in a very short space of time, all the passengers were safely transferred from the stranded steamer to the shore, where a large crowd of sympathising bystanders had now assembled.
“There!” exclaimed the Captain, as he jumped out of the wherry in which their little party had taken passage, “catch me going in one of those excursion craft again! Of all the clumsy lubbers I have ever had the misfortune to be shipmate with, that skipper is about the biggest and most lubberly. You can take the word of an old sailor for that!”
“Why, sure, what could the poor man have done, when the steamer was sinking?” said Mrs Gilmour, as he assisted her also carefully to land. “It’s none of his fault that I can see.”
“What could he have done, eh?” retorted the Captain warmly. “Why, anything else but what he did do. When he saw his fore compartment was full of water, he should have backed the vessel; and then he could have taken her stern-end foremost up to the pier, and landed us comfortably without any bother half an hour ago. Instead of that, what does he do but go backing and filling, first with his engines full speed ahead, and then ditto astern, ending by sticking hard and fast at the same spot where he first struck. While now, to clench the matter, he’s going to run the steamer ashore and beach her, he tells me, as soon as the tide floats her; the upshot of which will be that she’ll break her back and probably become a total wreck.”
“Why didn’t you advise him?” she asked. “Eh, my old friend?”
“The foolish fellow! I pitied him at first, but I can’t say I do so any longer. He wouldn’t listen to me. He’s just like the intelligent Isle of Wight farmer I’ve heard of, one of whose calves having got its head entangled in a wooden fence, in lieu of cutting the palings, thought the only way to release the calf was by cutting its head off!”
“Sure, nobody could have been so stupid!” cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. “What, cut off the poor thing’s head in order to extricate it?”
“Sure an’ they did, ma’am,” said he, mimicking her; “and, I’m sorry to say, our friend the skipper is one of the same kidney!”
While the two were thus talking, Bob and Nell remained down on the beach, awaiting the arrival of Dick and Hellyer, who through want of room in their wherry had to come ashore in another boat.
Rover, such was his strict sense of duty, strange to say, instead of accompanying his young master and mistress, was still intent on keeping in sight of the hamper.
Accordingly, he stopped on board the steamer till Hellyer, the hamper’s custodian, left her; when after seeing him and Dick embarked along with the hamper, the retriever jumped over the side of the stranded vessel and swam ashore in company with the boat containing his friends, apparently mistrusting the frail craft, and preferring to rely upon his own powers in the water.
Nor was he far behind, getting to land almost at the same moment that the wherry’s keel grated on the beach; when, after shaking himself decorously as he had been taught, so as to avoid wetting his friends by his excessive moisture, Rover barked and pranced round Hellyer and the hamper, and then round Bob and Nellie, as if to say in his dog language— “There, my dear young master and mistress, I have discharged my trust faithfully,” scurrying off then to the higher part of the shore, where Mrs Gilmour and the Captain were standing, to tell them the same tale, with a loud “Bow wow!”
“Come now,” cried Mrs Gilmour, on the little party being reunited again, “we must be off home at once; for, it is getting late, and Sarah will be wondering where we all are.”
“Well, we mustn’t keep ‘the good Sarah’ waiting,” said the Captain slily, with a wink to Nellie that set her off laughing so that she dropped the bunch of wild-flowers which her aunt was just handing her at the moment, and was obliged to stop to pick them up. “By Jove! though, ma’am, she may have forgotten us as she did the other things.”
“You’re too bad entirely!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour a little pettishly. “I suppose I shall never hear the last about that, nor poor Sarah either. Come on now, dearie; we must hasten home whether or no.”
So saying, she made the Captain wheel round from taking a last lingering look at the Bembridge Belle, whose skipper, now that she was a bit lightened aft by all the people having cleared out of her, had backed again into deep water; and then putting on full steam ahead, was trying to run her up high and dry ashore.
After this parting glance at the poor vessel, our party proceeded on their way across the common back to The Moorings, Miss Nell, as aforesaid, carrying the bouquet of wild-flowers, and Bob the tin bucket of sea-anemones, their “spoil” of the day, in sporting parlance; while Hellyer and Dick brought up the rear of the procession with the hamper and empty water-jar, representing the relics of their picnic feast.
Rover on this occasion, it may be added, acted anon as pioneer of the column when he caracoled for awhile in front of them all; anon as baggage-guard, when he followed at the heels of Hellyer, sniffing the empty hamper.
Poor Sarah, “that good Sarah” whom Mrs Gilmour had so unhappily praised, her penance was yet to come!
Bob was the first to assail her as she opened the door on their arrival home.
“Who forgot the bread?” he shouted out, so loudly that, starting back with fright, she almost tumbled. “Who forgot the bread?”
“Who forgot the tea?” cried Nellie, immediately behind him, following up her brother’s attack and making Sarah jump afresh. “Who forgot the tea?”
“And who forgot her head?” said the Captain from the rear, pressing the charge home; whereupon, they all, Mrs Gilmour included, halted on the doorstep and roared with laughter. “Aye, who forgot her head?”
This was too much for the girl.
“Oh my, me!” she exclaimed, staring at them in hopeless stupefaction. “Oh my, me!”
“Dear me!” observed Mrs Gilmour, her laugh subsiding into a broad smile. “Why, you are quite a poet, Sarah.”
“Me, mum?” ejaculated the other, more astonished than ever. “Whatever have I gone and done now?”
“Yes,” continued her mistress, “you’ve just supplied ‘the missing link’ in our rhyme; and people who make poetry, of course, are poets.”
“Oh, auntie, I see, I see!” called out Nellie excitedly, in great glee. “I see it—don’t you, Bob?”
“No, what is it?” asked that young gentleman. “See what?”
“Oh dear! and you began it, too,” cried Nell. “You really are a very stupid boy. Why, it’s a regular verse of poetry—
“Who forgot the bread?
Who forgot the tea?
And who forgot her head?
Oh, my—me!
“Don’t you see it now?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Bob, adding his usual expression when praising anything—“it’s jolly!”
“I confess I did not see it either at first; so, I suppose, you’ll call me a stupid too, Miss Nellie, eh?” chuckled Captain Dresser. “However, now you’ve made it all clear to us, I will, if you like, christen your short but sweet poem for you. What say you to ‘Sarah’s forget-me-nots’? Do you think that will do, eh?”
“Splendidly!” said Nell; an opinion which they all seemed to share, excepting poor Sarah, into whose ears the verselet was dinned so incessantly, both by Bob and Nellie, and even by the pert Dick, too, that its repetition, or any specific allusion to any one of the articles she had omitted in making up the historic hamper, would invariably make the unfortunate damsel wince; while if the simple name of the innocent flower which the Captain had adopted were but mentioned, even without any malice prepense, the poor girl would leave the room at once.
“Where are the forget-me-nots?” said Mrs Gilmour incautiously, for instance, to Nellie, while arranging the wild-flowers in vases shortly before going to bed. “I can’t see them at all anywhere. Can you, Sarah?”
There was no answer from her, however.
Sarah was off like a shot!