And there he went ashore without delay,
Having no custom-house nor quarantine
To ask him awkward questions on the way,
About the time and place where he had been:
He left his ship to be hove down next day.
Don Juan.
The prize vessel, at the time when she carried away her masts, had gained considerably to the northward of Ushant, although the master’s mate, from his ignorance of his profession, was not aware of the fact. The wind, which now blew strongly from the North West, drove the shattered bark up the Channel, at the same time gradually nearing her to the French coast. After twenty-four hours’ driving before the storm, during which Willy never once awoke from his torpor, the vessel was not many leagues from the port of Cherbourg. It was broad daylight when our hero awoke; and after some little time necessary to chase away the vivid effects of a dream, in which he fancied himself to be on shore, walking in the fields with his dear mother, he recollected where he was, and how he was situated. He ascended the companion-ladder, and looked around him. The wind had nearly spent its fury, and was subsiding fast; but the prospect was cheerless—a dark wintry sky and rolling sea, and nothing living in view except the sea-bird that screamed as it skimmed over the white tops of the waves. The mizen of the vessel was still hoisted up, but the sheet had disengaged itself from the belaying-pin, and the sail had been rent from the bolt-rope by the storm. Part of it was blown away, and the rest, jagged and tattered at its extremities, from constant buffeting, flapped “mournfully to and fro” with the heavy rolling of the vessel.
Willy, holding only the companion-hatch, scanned the horizon in every point of the compass, in hopes of succour, but for a long while in vain. At last his keen eye detected a small vessel, under a single close-reefed sail, now rising on the tops of the waves, now disappearing in the deep trough of the sea. She was sloop-rigged, and running down towards him.
In a quarter of an hour she had neared to within a mile, and Willy perceived, with delight, that the people were on deck, and occasionally pointing towards him. He ran down below, and opening the chest of Mr Bullock, which was not locked, took a liberty which he would never have dared to contemplate during that worthy officer’s lifetime, viz., that of putting forth one of his two best white shirts, reserved for special occasions. This he took on deck, made it fast to a boat-hook staff, and hoisted as a signal of distress. He did also mechanically lift his hand to his head with the intention of waving his hat, but he was reminded, by not finding it there, that it had been the first votive offering which had been made to appease the implacable deities presiding over the winds and waves. The vessel closed with him, hove-to to windward, and, after some demur, a small boat, capable of holding three persons, was hoisted over the gunnel, and two hands, jumping into her, rowed under the stern of the wreck.
“You must jump, my lad—there’s no going alongside a craft, without any sail to steady her, in such a sea as this. Don’t be afraid. We’ll pick you up.”
Willy, who had little fear in his composition, although he could not swim, leaped from the taffrail of the vessel into the boiling surge, and immediately that he rose to the surface was rescued by the men, who, seizing him by the waistband of the trousers, hauled him into the boat, and threw him down in the bottom under the thwarts. Then, without speaking, they resumed their oars, and pulled to the other vessel, on board of which they succeeded in establishing our hero and themselves, although the boat was stove in the attempt, and cast adrift as useless.
Willy’s teeth chattered, and his whole frame trembled with the cold, as he went aft to the captain of the sloop, who was sitting on deck wrapped up in a rough white great-coat, with his pipe in his mouth. The captain was a middle-sized, slightly-made young man, apparently not more than twenty-five years old. His face was oval, with a remarkably pleasing expression; his eye small and brilliant; and, notwithstanding the roughness of his outward attire, there was a degree of precision in the arrangement of his hair and whiskers, which proved that with him neatness was habitual. He had a worsted mitten on his left hand; the right, which held his pipe, was bare, and remarkably white and small. Perceiving the situation of the boy, he called to one of the men—“Here, Phillips, take this poor devil down, and put something dry on him, and give him a glass of brandy; when he’s all right again, we’ll find out from him how he happened to be adrift all by himself, like a bear in a washing-tub. There, go along with Phillips, boy.”
“He’s of the right sort,” said one of the men who had brought him on board, casting his eyes in the direction of our hero, who was descending the companion: “I thought so when I see’d him have his wits about him to hoist the signal. He made no more of jumping overboard than a Newfoundland dog—never stopped two seconds to think on’t.”
“We shall soon see what he is made of;” replied the captain, relighting his pipe, which had been allowed to go out during the time that they were rescuing Willy and the men from the boat when she returned.
Willy was soon provided with more comfortable clothing; and whether it was or was not from a whim of Phillips’s, who had been commissioned to rig him out, he appeared on deck the very picture of the animal which he had been compared to by the sailor. Thick woollen stockings, which were longer than both his legs and thighs, a pair of fisherman’s well-greased boots, a dark Guernsey frock that reached below his knees, and a rough pea-jacket that descended to his heels, made him appear much broader than he was high. A red woollen nightcap completed his attire, which, although anything but elegant, was admirably calculated to assist the brandy in restoring the circulation.