The breaking billows cast the flying foam
Upon the billows rising; all the deep
Is restless change; the waves so swelled and steep,
Breaking and sinking; and the sunken swells,
Not one, one moment, in its station dwells."
Crabbe.
The famous old life-boat Northumberland had done her work, and had done it nobly and well. Staunch, and true, she had breasted the hardest gales, stemmed the fiercest seas, and had been the means of rescuing hundreds of perishing men, women, and children from that which, without her, and the brave hearts and strong hands that sailed her, must have been swift, certain, and terrible death; but at last her time had come—weather beaten, wrenched, and worn, with her thousand battles with the gales, she was condemned as being no longer to be intrusted with the precious lives that she contained, as she went forth to contend with the wild seas that rage over the Goodwin Sands.
The Bradford, a very powerful and excellent boat presented to the Life-boat Institution by the good people of Bradford, and by the Institution appointed to Ramsgate, had not yet been sent down, and a smaller boat called the Little Friend was occupying her place for the time.
But it was a clear fine morning, with the waves fretting and fuming somewhat, but dancing and gleaming brightly in the sunshine; it had been squally during the night, and at times had blown very hard, but the morning promised better, and the life-boat was rocking gently at her moorings, no one thinking it likely that her services would be required for some time.