Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 19

by Unknown

“Now for a sermon!” he added, but the words faltered on his tongue, and he sat down in confusion.

“Sermon or no sermon,” said the skipper, entering from the foot of the cabin stairs, where he had descended to stop the singing himself, “I’ll neither allow Sabbath-breaking nor any wickedness that I can prevent, on board a ship o mine.”

“Come, old prig,” returned Stafford, “I’ve paid for my passage, I suppose, and I’ll have you to know that I’ll amuse myself as I please. Don’t think, my good fellow, that because I have listened to a little sermonizing from a pretty face, that I am to be bored with your croaking.” And he began to whistle a waltz.

“Poor thing!” resumed the skipper, “ye are to be pitied, after a’. I’ll declare, when I see bits o’ dandy creatures like you glorying in your wickedness, and doubling your nieves in the face o’ Heaven, it puts me in mind o’ a peacock spreading its tail to stop a whirlwind, or a cockle opening its shell to swallow a water-spout!”

At this moment the breeze sprang up, and the mate summoning all hands to deck, Mr Stafford was left unheeded to reflect on his own folly. During the night the wind blew very fresh; and the vessel having left the land and entered Boston Deeps, laboured considerably. From the ladies’ cabin issued prayers, shrieks, and groans of suffering, and every one devoutly wished to be once more blest with the tediousness of a calm; and, as the vessel yawed, rocked, and staggered with the heavy swell, and the ponderous boom, with its mainsail flapping like thunder, grating, crashing, clanking, and tearing with sudden jerk, or with fearful lunge reversing the laws of gravity, and tearing both mast and vessel into the sea, scream rose upon scream; sickness and terror met in conflict. Babel seemed above them and thunder below. The wind bellowed more madly. The plunging of the vessel became more frequent and more alarming. There was a running to and fro upon the deck—a bawling and a bustle. Darkness hung over them—thick, substantial darkness, rendering the very surge invisible. The heavy clouds seemed embracing the waters, and the crushed winds roared between the pressure of their meeting. A storm, by almost imperceptible degrees, had circled round them. Every sail of the vessel was reefed, and both anchors dropped; but the chain cable snapped like the web of a gossamer, and she lunged and tugged from her remaining anchor, dragging it after her, like a fiery horse tearing from the rein of a schoolboy. The mast bent as a proud man bends in the day of adversity; the topmast went overboard, striking heavily upon the deck as it fell. It struck immediately over the bed of the Honourable Edward Stafford. A loud shriek issued from the curtained railings; they were flung open, and out sprang Mr Stafford, dragging after him the bed-clothes, wringing his hands, and crying to Heaven for mercy. The dressed and the half-dressed now stood around the floor, clinging to each other and the furniture of the cabin for safety—each speaking and no one hearing;—but a clamour, loud, confused, and fearful, mingled with the noise of the winds and waves. Isabella alone remained tranquil. The vessel had dragged her anchor for several miles; they were in the midst of breakers, and the increased confusion upon deck announced the horrors of a lee shore, when she suddenly brought to, and half turning to the weather, a heavy sea broke over her, sweeping from the deck the boat, casks, and spars, and gushing down the cabin stairs, encompassed its terror-stricken inmates to the knees. The heart of Mr Stafford sprang to his throat, and his feet to the table, where he remained upon his knees, wringing his hands by the side of a flickering lamp. While he was in this position, the vessel was suddenly driven upon her side; for, through the darkness of the night, another vessel had run against her, and she being cracked with age, the bowsprit of the other went through planks and timbers, and, before it gave way, projected rudely several feet into the cabin, forming an unexpected and unwelcome intruder upon the motley scene of sickness and despair. Fear had already fastened the gurgling gasp in the throats of many of the passengers, when a voice from the deck exclaimed—“Ladies and gentlemen, look to yourselves!” It was the signal of death. A general groan followed. There was a rush to the cabin stairs. Calm as Isabella had hitherto been, she was now changed. It is difficult to look the grim angel in the face with indifference; but she rushed not to the stairs with the others. Mr Stafford was driven from the table by the uncourteous visit of the bowsprit, and now wallowed upon the floor, buffeting with the brine, imagining himself at the bottom of the vasty deep. The concussion of the vessels had brought his head in violent conjunction with the cabin floor, which, with his excited fears, deprived him of the consciousness of time and place; and being immersed in water, he continued to gasp, groan, shriek, and flounder upon the floor, seizing the heels of his fellow-passengers—who, in their eagerness for escape, had wedged up the cabin door—doubting nothing, as they trode upon his delicate fingers, that he had thrust them into the mouth of a ravenous fish, which had come to feast upon his unfortunate body.

“Save me!—save me!” he cried again and again, as he continued tossing and rolling in the water.

The vessel again righted, and he was swept to the feet of Isabella, who, aroused by his cries of terror, raised him to his feet. He struggled, gasped, trembled. His eyes and mouth opened to their utmost width—he appeared to draw the breath of an hour in a moment; and, gazing round vacantly, he seemed to marvel whether he was in the world of men, of fish, or of spirits.

“You are living, brave sir!” said Isabella, sarcastically, smiling at his excess of terror; “but,” added she, leaving him, “the Sabbath-breaker and the scoffer are not the most courageous in the hour of danger.”

It is only necessary to add, that the vessels having got disentangled, with daybreak the storm abated; and, on the ninth day, after leaving Newcastle, the vessel drew up off the Hermitage Stairs, Wapping, with the loss of topmast, anchor, and cables, beef and water casks, spars, oars, and other minor et ceteras, together with damaged bulwarks and hulk; but with the crew and passengers safe.

Isabella had not had an opportunity of writing to her husband, to acquaint him with the name of the vessel in which she would take her passage, nor when she would leave Newcastle; and, as they drew up in the pier, while the friends and relatives of other passengers thronged around them, to her no hand was extended. She stood as one deserted upon the threshold of the Nineveh of nations; and the crowds that passed before her seemed as the ghosts of solitude, giving tongues to bereavement, and forms to desolation. She felt herself alone in the midst of millions, solitary as a wearied bird whose wing has drooped in the wilderness.