“Now, Lucy,” said Mr. Challoner, “was not I right to come here instead of to any mere invalid resort? Why, it lifts up one’s soul—and one’s body with it—just to look at these Deal boatmen. They’re so ready to give their lives for you if need be, that a kind of exhalation of health comes from them.”
Before they left Deal, Lucy Challoner not only fully approved of her husband’s choice as for himself, but felt convinced that he had made his choice for her too, and with equal wisdom and foresight.
As the days passed on, and Charlie and his little boy made friends with many of the old salts who lounge along the shingle as if life was nothing but the sea view (which seems reflected in their very eyes), Lucy sometimes stayed indoors and occupied herself with details of her husband’s outfit. Her landlady came in and out of the room, generally silent, but cheerful and ready to respond to advances.
“We can see the Goodwin Sands very plainly to-day,” Lucy said once. “What a terrible trap they are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. May answered. “And if those in the other world know aught about what’s done in this—and why shouldn’t they?—I wonder how those men feel who neglected to keep down those sands, because they wanted to build a big steeple instead of doing their duty? On wild nights here, when we’re almost certain poor souls are going down by the score, I never can help thinking o’ those others. It must be mighty bad for them surely. And yet maybe they didn’t know what they were doing was so bad—or didn’t think! I’d not make them out worse than most of us, and we all need God our Saviour. Maybe God lets ’em receive the poor drowned souls, and comfort ’em and care for ’em.”
“But is it true that the sands became dangerous through neglect?” asked Lucy. “I have heard the story, but I have heard that geology has a different word to say.”
Mrs. May shook her head slightly.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” she said. “I’m speaking as if the story be true. And certain it is that men and money have been able to do a good bit to lessen the risks of the Sands as they are, and it is a pity that they did not do it sooner. And maybe they might do a great deal more yet. I wish gentlemen in power would think over such things instead of wanting to spend money on guns to kill poor folks in far-off countries. It’s wonderful what has been left for private folk to do before the others stir. I daresay you’ve never heard of one Powell, of Deal, living nigh two hundred years ago?”
“No,” answered Lucy reflecting, and unable to recall any Powell of popular memory, save Mary, the wilful wife of the poet Milton.
“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. May, with a slight drawing-up of her neat figure. “That Powell of Deal (my mother was of the family, though, of course, generations later), he seemed to be one of the first to think of saving people off the wrecks on the Sands. There were no lifeboats in his time, you know.”