“Ecod!” Jacky added, with a grin. “You’re the man t’ do it, dad—you’re the man t’ drive her!”
“Well, lads,” the flattered skipper admitted, resting from the wrestle with the obstinate sail, and giving his nose a pleased sort of tweak, “I isn’t sayin’ I’m not.”
So, low as she was—sunk with the load in her hold and the gear and casks and what-not on her deck—they took the Trap and Seine into the gale. And she made brave weather of it—holding her own stoutly, cheerily shaking the frothy water from her bows: though ’twas an unfair task to put her to. Skipper Tommy put the first hand at the mainsail halliards, the second hand at the foresail, with orders to cut away at the lift of his hand, lest the vessel get on her beam’s ends and capsize. ’Twas thus that they drove her into the wind—stout hearts and stout timber: no wavering or weak complaint, whatever the wind and sea. But night caught them off our harbour—deep night: with the headlands near lost in the black sky; no more than the looming, changing shadow of the hills and the intermittent flash of breakers to guide the way. They were now beating along shore, close to Long Cove of the mainland, which must then have lain placid in the lee of Naked Point. At the cry of “Hard-a-lee!”—sung out in terror when the breakers were fair under the bow—the ship came about and fell off towards the open sea. Then came three great waves; they broke over the bow—swept the schooner, stem to stern, the deck litter going off in a rush of white water. The first wrenched Jacky from his handhold; but Skipper Tommy, standing astern, caught him by the collar as the lad went over the taffrail. Came, then, with the second wave, Timmie, whom, also, the skipper caught. But ’twas beyond the old man’s power to lift both to the deck: nor could he cry for help, nor choose whom to drop, loving them alike; but desperately clung to both until the rush of the third wave tore one away.
It was Timmie.
Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, making into our harbour, by way of the Gate, in the depths of that wild night—poor old Skipper Tommy, blind and broken by grief—ran his loaded schooner into the Trap and wrecked her on the Seven Murderers, where she went to pieces on the unfeeling rocks. But we managed to get the crew ashore, and no man lost his life at that time. And Skipper Tommy, sitting bowed in my father’s house, told us in a dull, slow way—made tragic, from time to time, by the sweet light in his eye, by the flitting shadow of a smile—told us, thus, that Jagger of Wayfarer’s Tickle lay at the point of death, in fear of hell, crying for the help of his enemy: and then put his arm about Jacky, and went with him to the Rat Hole, there to bury his sorrow, that it might not distress us the more, who sorrowed, also.