Twisted, tangled, and confused, the ropes lay together, and it was only by means of a free use of their clasp-knives that the beachmen and sailors set the poor fellow free.
Slowly and sadly we stood round, looking down upon the pale features of the brave man who had clung to his ship till the last of his crew was ashore; but there was no weeping and wailing wife to cast herself upon the cold, drenched form, and sweep the hair from his broad forehead; so slowly, and with the crowd following in silence, we bore the corpse to the inn, to lay it side by side with that of the wife he had tried to save.
A young, noble-looking pair, with faces calm and pale, seeming but to sleep as they lay there hushed in death—in that great mystery, for the sea had conquered.
“Sixty years have I lived down here, man and boy,” said a fisherman, in his pleasant sing-song tone, “and if I were to try and count up the lives of men as the great sea has taken, I could hardly believe it. I’ve seen the sea-shore strewn with wreck, and I’ve known the waves cast up the dead day after day for weeks after a storm; some calm and pale-faced, some beaten, torn, and not to be looked upon without a shudder. Seems, sir, as if the sea kept ’em as long as it could, and then cast them up and busily tried to hide ’em, throwing up sand and shells—sand and shells, so that I’ve found them, sometimes half-hidden, and the water lapping melancholy-like around. Now it’s some poor fisherman—now a sailor, or a gentleman been a-yachting, or a foreigner from some fine vessel. Every year hundreds taken, and every dead body with such a tale of sorrow, and misery, and wretchedness attached as would make your heart ache could you but read it. Ah, the sea is a great thing, and I as live by it knows it well. To-day you see it quiet and still—to-morrow it’s tearing at the shore with fury, and it’s only God who can still its rage.”
But still, year after year, in their calm dependence upon His great arm, our fishers and sailors put forth to tempt the perils of the vast deep for their livelihood. Right and left of them others are taken; but still the busy toilers thrust forth from the shore and make their voyage easily, or in an agony of fear are overtaken by the storm, and at length, “being exceedingly tossed with the tempest... lighten the ship.” And, again, when run ashore, cling terror-stricken to the vessel and its rigging, till beaten off before succour arrives when they are cast ashore.
Chapter Twenty Five.
The First Stray Hair.
What is a Wife? Well, that seems a question easily answered. But still the answer depends upon circumstances; in fact, there seem to be no end of replies to that little query, and answering the question, as one who has taken a little notice of wives in general, I’ll tell you what a wife is sometimes. It is a something to be kicked and sworn at, and beaten, knocked down and trampled upon, used in brutal ways that the vilest barrow-man would hesitate about applying to his donkey for fear of killing it, while when the poor woman is forced to appear before a magistrate and prosecute, why—well, he is her husband after all, and for lack of evidence the brute gets off. A wife is something to have her hair dragged down and her head beaten against the wall; to be neglected, half-starved, or made to work for the noble specimen of creation who hulks about in front of public-houses, and scowls at every decent-looking working man who passes him. She is the something who sits up for him and puts his drunken highness to bed; nurses his children; slaves for him worse than any drudge—ten times—no a hundred times, for money would not buy a soul to slave as some women do for their husbands. What is a wife? Why, often and often a poor, trusting, simple-hearted woman, toiling in hard bondage till there’s a place dug for her in one of the cemeteries and she goes to rest.