In one of the numerous mêlées of barges, boats, and steamers whirling round and round, amid entangled hawsers, and a swift stream, we had at last to invoke aid from shore, and a number of willing loungers gladly hauled on my rope. Some of these men, when I thanked them, said they had more to thank me for,—the books I had given them in my voyage up. Still, with all this aid, the Rob Roy was inextricably entangled with other heavier craft, and, in shoving her off I tumbled overboard, and had to put up with a thorough wetting; so, after a warm bath ashore, more à la mode, I returned to my little cabin for a profound sleep.
Rain, almost ceaseless for a whole day and night, had searched the smallest chink, and trickled ungraciously into my very bed-room. But I suspended an iron tea-cup in the dark just over my body, so that one little stream was intercepted. This was the first really hard pressure of wet on the Rob Roy, and all the defects it brought to light were entirely remedied afterwards at Cowes.
On each of the four preceding nights I had been aroused for the next day’s work at three, or two, or even one o’clock, in the dark, and yet for one night more there was to be no regular repose.
My mast had been made fast to the quay wall, but in forgetfulness that on a tidal river this fastening must be such as to allow for several feet of fall as the water ebbs. Therefore, about the inevitable hour of one o’clock, in the dark, there was a loud and ominous crack and jerk from the rope, and I knew too well the cause. In the rainy night it was a troublesome business to arrange matters, and next day was a drowsy one with me, spent in the strange old streets of the town.
The policeman had orders to call me at any hour when a steamer went by, and, being hooked at last to the powerful twin-screw Du Tremblay, with a pleasant captain, I rejoiced to near the very last bridge on the river, with the feeling at heart, “After this we are done with fresh-water sailing.”
It was a suspension-bridge, and the worthy captain forgot all about the Rob Roy and her mast, when he steered for a low part, where his own funnel could pass because it was lowered, but where I saw in a moment my mast must strike.
There was no time to call out, nor would it have availed even to chop the towing-line with my axe, for the boat had too much “way” on her to stop. Therefore I could only duck down into the well, to avoid the falling spars and the splinters.
The bridge struck the mast about two feet from the top, and, instead of its breaking off with a short snap, the mast bent back and back at least four feet just as if it were a fishing rod, to my great amazement. The strong vibration of its truck (pomme the French call it), throbbed every nerve of boat and man, as it scraped over each plank above, and then the mast sprang up free from the bridge with such a switch, that it burst the lashings of both the iron shrouds merely by this rebound.
Now was felt the congratulation that we had carefully secured a first-rate mast for the Rob Roy, one of the pieces of Vancouver wood, proved, by the competitions lately held, to be the strongest of all timber.
The moments of expected disaster and of happy relief were vivid as they passed, but I made the steamer stop, and on climbing the mast, I found not even the slightest crack or injury there. Henceforth we shall trust the goodly spar in any gale, with the confidence only to be had by a crucial test like this.