Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Happy prospect of reaching England—Weather changes—Heavy gale—Expect to be lost—Days and nights of suffering—Our greatest comfort—A ship in sight—Disappointed again—Another ship appears—Our hopes and fears—A snow-storm—Get on board an emigrant ship—Carried far away from home—Death of shipmates.

Once clear of the harbour, without any sail in sight, we all gladly loosened our tongues. In spite of the cold of a winter’s night, our spirits rose, and all hands laughed and chatted, and talked of what they would do when they got on shore. We had no necessity to look at our compass, for the stars enabled us to steer a course for the northward.

With the wind as it was, we thought that we should probably make the land somewhere about the Dorsetshire coast, should we not in the meantime fall in with any homeward-bound ship.

From the position of Saint Malo on the coast of France, far down in the deep bay or bight in which is found the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, it will be seen that we had a long voyage before us to perform in an open boat of so small a size and in the middle of winter. However, not one of us thought about that. By daylight we had made such progress that we were completely out of sight of land. A difference of opinion now arose among us. La Motte very naturally wished to put into Guernsey. It was his own country; he knew it well, and he undertook to pilot us in there. Most of the men were anxious, as the breeze was fair, to stand on at once for the coast of England.

“Now, mates,” said he, “just listen to what I have to say. If the wind continues fair, and we do not fall in with an enemy’s cruiser, all well and good, we may hit some harbour, or we may beach the boat with safety, and get on shore; but now just look at the other side of the question. We may be picked up by an enemy, and as we are in a French boat with the name of her port on her stern, we shall be sent back from whence we have come, and be much worse off than if we had remained aboard the lugger. That’s one thing which may occur; or the wind may change, and a gale spring up, and instead of making the English coast in a couple or three days, as you expect, we may be swamped, or be knocked about for a week or ten days, and perhaps after all be driven back on to the coast of France. Now, what I say is this? Here is Guernsey on our starboard bow. We may be there by to-morrow morning at farthest. I’ve friends who’ll treat you kindly. You’d have time to look about you, and you’ll have no fear of being pressed; whereas if you land in England, after all, before you get to your homes you may find yourselves in the hands of a pressgang, and once more aboard a man-of-war.”

I thought that there was so much reason in what La Motte urged, that, anxious as I was to be in England, I could not help siding with him. All the rest of the men were, however, dead against us. They had talked so much of the delights of being on shore, that, in spite of all risks, they were unwilling that any delay should occur.

“No, no; hurrah for Old England!” they cried. “As long as the breeze holds, let us stand on. We are not likely to fall in with an enemy. If we see a stranger which looks suspicious, we’ll douse sail, and let her pass by. The weather, too, promises to be fine. Why think of evils which may never occur?”

Perhaps La Motte and I did not resist as much as we might have done. At all events, we yielded to the wishes of the rest, and stood on. The day passed away pleasantly enough. The sun came out and shone brightly, and for the time of the year it was tolerably warm; so that we all kept our spirits up, and, congratulating ourselves on our good fortune, did not think of coming disaster.

As is usual on such occasions, we soon got to telling the various adventures we had met with in our past lives. I have not here time to describe them, but I remember one remarkable thing was, that nearly all had been wrecked just as often as I had. Instead of looking at such disasters as punishments, they all agreed that they ought to consider themselves very fortunate in escaping, instead of losing their lives, as had so many of their shipmates. I could not help thinking the same thing, and I now began to be more convinced than ever that I was mistaken in my youthful idea that a curse hung over me. When I came to consider the matter, I perceived that I had brought on myself nearly all the misfortunes which had happened to me, or they could be very clearly traced to ordinary causes, which had affected in most instances others as well as myself. I talked the subject over with La Motte, who was a right-thinking man, and not without some wit.

“I perfectly agree with you, Weatherhelm,” said he. “It is in my opinion, far better to be wrecked a dozen times than drowned once, especially if you escape the twelfth time, and live happy ever afterwards. I hope sincerely that your disasters have now come to an end. You seem to have suffered a good many since we parted.”