The Wellington came bowling along under close-reefed topsails. Stanley Hall and Jim Welton stood leaning over the taffrail, looking down into the black foam-streaked water. Both were silent, save that now and then Jim put down his hand to pat a black muzzle that was raised lovingly to meet it, and whispered, “We shall be home to-morrow, Neptune,—cheer up, old boy!”
But Jim’s words did not express all his thoughts. If he had revealed them fully he would have described a bright fireside in a small and humble but very comfortable room, with a smiling face that rendered sunshine unnecessary, and a pair of eyes that made gaslight a paltry flame as well as an absolute extravagance. That the name of this cheap, yet dear, luminary began with an N and ended with an a, is a piece of information with which we think it unnecessary to trouble the reader.
Stanley Hall’s thoughts were somewhat on the same line of rail, if we may be allowed the expression; the chief difference being that his luminary beamed in a drawing-room, and sang and played and painted beautifully—which accomplishments, however, Stanley thought, would have been sorry trifles in themselves had they not been coupled with a taste for housekeeping and domestic economy, and relieving as well as visiting the poor, and Sabbath-school teaching; in short, every sort of “good work,” besides an unaccountable as well as admirable penchant for pitching into the Board of Trade, and for keeping sundry account-books in such a neat and methodical way that there remains a lasting blot on that Board in the fact of their not having been bound in cloth of gold!
Ever since his first visit to Yarmouth, Stanley had felt an increasing admiration for Katie Durant’s sprightly character and sterling qualities, and also increasing pity for poor Bob Queeker, who, he thought, without being guilty of very egregious vanity, had no chance whatever of winning such a prize. The reader now knows that the pity thus bestowed upon that pitiful fox-hunting turncoat was utterly thrown away.
“I don’t like these fogs in such dangerous neighbourhood,” observed Jim Welton, as a fresh squall burst upon the ship and laid it over so much that many of the passengers thought she was going to capsize. “We should be getting near the floating lights of the Goodwin sands by this time.”
“Don’t these lights sometimes break adrift?” asked Stanley, “and thus become the cause of ships going headlong to destruction?”
“Not often,” replied Jim. “Considering the constancy of their exposure to all sorts of weather, and the number of light-vessels afloat, it is amazin’ how few accidents take place. There has been nothing of the kind as long as I can remember anything about the service, but my father has told me of a case where one of the light-vessels that marked a channel at the mouth of the Thames once broke adrift in a heavy gale. She managed to bring up again with her spare anchor, but did not dare to show her light, being out of her proper place, and therefore, a false guide. The consequence was that eight vessels, which were making for the channel, and counted on seeing her, went on the sands and were lost with nearly all hands.”
“If that be so it were better to have lighthouses, I think, than lightships,” said Stanley.
“No doubt it would, where it is possible to build ’em,” replied Jim, “but in some places it is supposed to be impossible to place a lighthouse, so we must be content with a vessel. But even lighthouses are are not perfectly secure. I know of one, built on piles on a sand-bank, that was run into by a schooner and carried bodily away. Accidents will happen, you know, in the best regulated families; but it seems to me that we don’t hear of a floating-light breakin’ adrift once in half a century—while, on the other hand, the good that is done by them is beyond all calculation.”
The young men relapsed into silence, for at that moment another fierce gust of wind threw the ship over almost on her beam-ends. Several of the male passengers came rushing on deck in alarm, but the captain quieted them, and induced them to return to the cabin to reassure the ladies, who, with the children, were up and dressed, being too anxious to think of seeking repose.