What Queeker knew he never explained. It may have had reference to certain suspicions entertained in regard to the impression made by the young student on Katie the night of their first meeting; we cannot tell, but we know that he followed up the exclamation with the muttered remark, “It was fortunate that I pulled up in time.”
Herein Queeker exhibited the innate tendency of the human heart to deceive itself. That furious little poetical fox-hunter had, by his own confession, felt the pangs of a guilty conscience in turning, just because he could not help it, from Katie to Fanny, yet here he was now basely and coolly taking credit to himself for having “pulled up in time!”
“Oh, look at the dear little children!” exclaimed Fanny, pointing towards a part of the crowd where several seamen were carrying the rescued and still terrified little ones in their strong arms, while others assisted the women along, and wrapped dry shawls round them.
“How dreadful to think,” said Katie, making a hard struggle to suppress her agitation, “that all these would have been lost but for the lifeboat; and how wonderful to think that some of our own friends should be among them!”
“Ay, there be many more besides these saved last night, miss,” remarked a sturdy old boatman who chanced to be standing beside her. “All along the east coast the lifeboats has bin out, miss, you may be sure; and they don’t often shove off without bringin’ somethin’ back to show for their pains, though they don’t all ’ave steamers for to tug ’em out. There’s the Broadstairs boat, now; I’ve jist heerd she was out all night an’ saved fifteen lives; an’ the Walmer and Deal boats has fetched in a lot, I believe, though we han’t got particklers yet.”
Besides those whom we have mentioned as gazing with the crowd at the arrival of the lifeboat, Morley Jones, and Nora, and Billy Towler were there. Jones and Billy had returned from London together the night before the storm, and, like nearly every one else in the town, had turned out to witness the arrival of the lifeboat.
Dick Moy also was there, and that huge lump of good-nature spent the time in making sagacious remarks and wise comments on wind and weather, wrecks and rescues, in a manner that commanded the intense admiration of a knot of visitors who happened to be near him, and who regarded him as a choice specimen—a sort of type—of the British son of Neptune.
“This is wot I says,” observed Dick, while the people were landing “so long as there’s ’ope, ’old on. Never say die, and never give in; them’s my sentiments. ’Cause why? no one never knows wot may turn up. If your ship goes down; w’y, wot then? Strike out, to be sure. P’r’aps you may be picked up afore long. If sharks is near, p’r’aps you may be picked down. You can never tell. If you gets on a shoal, wot then? w’y, stick to the ship till a lifeboat comes off to ’ee. Don’t never go for to take to your own boats. If you do—capsize, an’ Davy Jones’s locker is the word. If the lifeboat can’t git alongside; w’y, wait till it can. If it can’t; w’y, it can only be said that it couldn’t. No use cryin’ over spilt milk, you know. Not that I cares for milk. It don’t keep at sea, d’ye see; an’s only fit for babbys. If the lifeboat capsizes; w’y, then, owin’ to her parfection o’ build, she rights again, an’ you, ’avin’ on cork jackets, p’r’aps, gits into ’er by the lifelines, all handy. If you ’aven’t got no cork jackets on, w’y, them that has’ll pick ’ee up. If not, it’s like enough you’ll go down. But no matter, you’ve did yer best, an’ man, woman, or child can do no more. You can only die once, d’ye see?”
Whether the admiring audience did or did not see the full force of these remarks, they undoubtedly saw enough in the gigantic tar to esteem him a marvel of philosophic wisdom. Judging by their looks that he was highly appreciated, it is just possible that Dick Moy might have been tempted to extend his discourse, had not a move in the crowd showed a general tendency towards dispersion, the rescued people having been removed, some to the Sailor’s Home, others to the residences of hospitable people in the town.
Now, it must not be imagined that all these characters in our tale have been thus brought together, merely at our pleasure, without rhyme or reason, and in utter disregard of the law of probabilities. By no means.