“I can answer these questions for myself,” said the passenger referred to, who happened at that moment to come on deck. “My name is Stanley Hall, and I have taken a fancy to the Nora chiefly because she somewhat resembles in size and rig a yacht which belonged to my father, and in which I have had many a pleasant cruise. I am fond of the sea, and prefer going to Ramsgate in this way rather than by rail. I suppose you will approve my preference of the sea?” he added, with a smile.
“I do, indeed,” responded Jim. “The sea is my native element. I could swim in it as soon a’most as I could walk, and I believe that—one way or other, in or on it—I have had more to do with it than with the land.”
“You are a good swimmer, then, I doubt not?” said Stanley.
“Pretty fair,” replied Jim, modestly.
“Pretty fair!” echoed Morley Jones, “why, he’s the best swimmer, I’ll be bound, in Norfolk—ay, if he were brought to the test I do b’lieve he’d turn out to be the best in the kingdom.”
On the strength of this subject the two young men struck up an acquaintance, which, before they had been long together, ripened into what might almost be styled a friendship. They had many sympathies in common. Both were athletic; both were mentally as well as physically active, and, although Stanley Hall had the inestimable advantage of a liberal education, Jim Welton possessed a naturally powerful intellect, with a capacity for turning every scrap of knowledge to good use.
Their conversation was at that time, however, cut short by the springing up of a breeze, which rendered it necessary that the closest attention should be paid to the management of the vessel among the numerous shoals which rendered the navigation there somewhat difficult.
It may be that many thousands of those who annually leave London on voyages, short and long—of profit and pleasure—have very little idea of the intricacy of the channels through which they pass, and the number of obstructions which, in the shape of sandbanks, intersect the mouth of the Thames at its junction with the ocean. Without pilots, and an elaborate well-considered system of lights, buoys, and beacons, a vessel would be about as likely to reach London from the ocean, or vice versa, in safety, as a man who should attempt to run through an old timber-yard blindfold would be to escape with unbroken neck and shins. Of shoals there are the East and West Barrows, the Nob, the Knock, the John, the Sunk, the Girdler, and the Long sands, all lying like so many ground-sharks, quiet, unobtrusive, but very deadly, waiting for ships to devour, and getting them too, very frequently, despite the precautions taken to rob them of their costly food.
These sand-sharks (if we may be allowed the expression) separate the main channels, which are named respectively the Swin or King’s channel, on the north, and the Prince’s, the Queen’s, and the South channels, on the south. The channel through which the Nora passed was the Swin, which, though not used by first-class ships, is perhaps the most frequented by the greater portion of the coasting and colliery vessels, and all the east country craft. The traffic is so great as to be almost continuous; innumerable vessels being seen in fine weather passing to and fro as far as the eye can reach. To mark this channel alone there was, at the time we write of, the Mouse light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Mouse sand; the Maplin lighthouse, on the sand of the same name; the Swin middle light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Middle and Heaps sand; the Whittaker beacon, and the Sunk light-vessel on the Sunk sand—besides other beacons and numerous buoys. When we add that floating lights and beacons cost thousands and hundreds of pounds to build, and that even buoys are valued in many cases at more than a hundred pounds each, besides the cost of maintenance, it may be conceived that the great work of lighting and buoying the channels of the kingdom—apart from the light-house system altogether—is one of considerable expense, constant anxiety, and vast national importance. It may also be conceived that the Elder Brethren of the Corporation of Trinity House—by whom, from the time of Henry VIII down to the present day, that arduous duty has been admirably performed—hold a position of the highest responsibility.
It is not our intention, however, to trouble the reader with further remarks on this subject at this point in our tale. In a future chapter we shall add a few facts regarding the Trinity Corporation, which will doubtless prove interesting; meanwhile we have said sufficient to show that there was good reason for Jim Welton to hold his tongue and mind his helm.