Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“I have enjoyed some very great blessings, too,” I answered. “I am sure I ought not to complain.”

“That is just the sentiment I like to hear,” he observed. “People think that they are to have all the plums and suet, and none of the hard dough, which makes up the pudding of life. We ought to be contented to take the two together—the sweets and the bitter, the rough and the smooth. That is what I have done, and I have saved myself a great deal of disappointment by not expecting more than I was likely to get.”

I have often thought since of La Motte’s practical philosophy.

We had every one of us soon need of all the courage and resignation we possessed. The wind, which had been steady all the day, began towards the afternoon to chop about. First it flew round to the north-east, and blew pretty hard, and we none of us liked the look of the weather. Still we hoped that it might not grow worse. We took a reef in the mainsail, and brought the boat close up to the wind.

Before long, however, it came on to blow still harder, and the sea got up very much, and the spray came flying over us, and now and then a sea broke on board, and we had to keep a couple of hands baling to prevent the boat from filling. Night was coming on: we close-reefed the mainsail, and took a reef in the foresail, and continued our course close-hauled. By degrees the wind shifted round to the north-north-east, and though close-hauled as we lay, we were fully four points off our course, and if it held on that way, it seemed a chance even if we should fetch the coast of Cornwall. Night was coming on, but there was no improvement in the weather.

Having taken a cheerless supper, for our spirits had sunk very low, we sat still in our places without speaking. The rain came down on us and wetted us through and chilled us to the bones, and the weather grew thicker and thicker. Sometimes we could scarcely see a yard ahead, and we ran a great risk of being run down by a vessel, or of running into one. Still we could do nothing further to help ourselves.

Away we flew into the pitchy darkness, the seas hissing and roaring around us, the boat tumbling and tossing about, now in the trough of a sea, now on the summit, surrounded by dense masses of foam, which seemed at times completely to wrap us up—the wind howling, and the rain coming down in torrents, sufficient of itself to swamp the boat.

Either La Motte or Andrews or I sat at the helm, and very nice steering it required to keep the boat from swamping. We lighted the binnacle lamp to enable us to keep as near as we could to our proper course. We had also our lantern ready to show as a signal in case we were able to make out any vessel approaching us.

I had been in many perils, as I have described, but none of them seemed greater than those I went through on that night. Often I thought that the boat could not possibly swim another minute. Often she was almost gunwale under before we could luff up in time to ease her. Now a huge black sea came roaring up, which I thought must come down and swamp us; but it broke just before it reached the boat and merely sent the foam flying over our heads. Thus hour after hour passed slowly away. Some of the men began to grumble, and to blame themselves for their folly in leaving the privateer.

Andrews declared that it would have been better if we had cut out a vessel, as at all events we should have been on board a craft fit to combat the gale. La Motte, with more justice, remarked, that it was a pity they had not consented to follow his suggestion, and to run for Guernsey while we could have done so.