Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn

Of course this was enough to arouse all the sympathies of the villagers, few of whom had ever seen a real sailor of any kind in their lives—much less a shipwrecked one. So the poor fellow was received with open arms, entreated hospitably, lodged and fed at the public expense, and in the morning sent on his way rejoicing.

All the forenoon of that day the shipwrecked sailor limped on his way through a populous district of old England in the midst of picturesque scenery, gathering pence and victuals, ay, and silver and even gold too, from the pitying inhabitants as he went along. Towards the afternoon he came to a more thinly peopled district, and after leaving a small hamlet in which he had reaped a rich harvest he limped to the brow of the hill at the foot of which it lay, and gazed for a few minutes at the prospect before him.

It was a wide stretch of moorland, across which the road went in almost a straight line. There were slight undulations in the land, but no houses or signs of the presence of man.

Having limped on until the village was quite hidden from view, the sailor quietly put his crutch across his broad shoulder, and brightening up wonderfully, walked across the moor at the rate of full five miles an hour, whistling gaily in concert with the larks as he sped along.

An hour and a half of such walking brought him to a small patch of scrubby underwood, from the neighbourhood of which a large town could be seen looming against the evening sky in the far distance. The sailor entered the underwood with the air of a man who had aimed at the spot as a goal, and who meant to rest there a while. He reached an open space, in the centre of which grew a stunted tree. Here he sat down, and taking off his wallet, ate a hearty supper of scraps of excellent bread, cheese, and meat, which he washed down with a draught of gin. Afterwards he lit his pipe, and, while enjoying himself thus, reclining at the foot of the tree, proceeded to increase his enjoyment by counting out his gains.

While thus agreeably engaged, a rustling of the bushes caused him to bundle the gains hastily up in a handkerchief, which he thrust into his pocket, while he leaped nimbly to his feet, and seized his crutch.

“Oh, it’s only you, Bill! why, I declare I thought it was—well, well, never mind. How have ye got on?”

The individual addressed entered the enclosure, and sat down at the foot of the tree with a sigh, which might, without much exaggeration, have been termed a growl. Bill was also, strange to say, a sailor, and a wounded one, (doubtless a shipwrecked one), because his left arm was in a sling.

“It’s tough work, Jim, an’ little pay,” said the newcomer. “Why, I’ve walked twenty mile good, an’ only realised two pun’ ten. If it don’t improve, I’ll take to a better trade.”

“You’re a discontented dog,” replied Jim, spreading out his treasures. “Here have I limped the same distance, an’ bin an’ got five pun’ two.”

“Whew!” whistled the other. “You don’t say that? Well—we go ’alves, so I’m better—’ere pass that bottle. I’ll drink to your good ’ealth. ’Ow did you ever come by it, Bill?”

To this Bill replied that he had fallen in with several ladies, whose hearts were so touched by his pitiful tale that most of them gave him crown pieces, while two, who actually shed tears while he spoke, gave him half a sovereign each!

“I drink to them ’ere two ladies,” exclaimed Bill, applying the gin bottle to his mouth, which was already full of bread and beef.

“So does I,” said Jim, snatching the bottle from his comrade, “not so much for the sake of them there ladies, ’owever, as to get my fair share o’ the tipple afore you.”

The remainder of the sentence was drowned by gin; and after they had finished the bottle, which was only a pint one however, these two men sat down together to count their ill-gotten gains; for both of them were vile impostors, who had never been on the salt water in the whole course of their worthless lives.

“Now, madam,” said I, pointedly addressing Miss Flouncer, who had listened with rapt attention, “this circumstance happened before the existence of the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, and similar cases happened frequently. In fact, the interior of our land was at that time constantly visited by shipwrecked sailors of this kind.”

“Indeed!” said Miss Flouncer, undulating to me, with a benignant smile.

“Yes, madam,” said I. “Now observe another side of this picture.”

Hereupon I resumed my address, the substance of which was as follows:

It chanced that when impostor Jim started away over the moor at the slapping pace I have already referred to, he was observed by two of the village boys, who were lying in a hollow by the road-side amusing themselves. These urchins immediately ran home, and told what they had seen. The gossips of the place congregated round the inn door, and commented on the conduct of the pretended seaman in no measured terms—at the same time expressing a wish that they only had him there, and they would let him smell the peculiar odour of their horse-pond. At this point the courage and the ire of three stout young ploughmen, who had been drinking deeply, was stirred up so much that they vowed to be revenged, and set off in pursuit of the offender. As they ran nearly all the way, they soon came to the spot where Jim and Bill had been enjoying themselves, and met these villains just as they were issuing from the underwood to continue their journey.

A fight immediately ensued, but Jim made such play with his crutch that the ploughmen were driven back. Bill, too, who had been a London prize-fighter, unslung his left arm, and used it so vigorously that the rustics, after having had all their eyes blackened and all their noses bled, were fain to turn round and fly!

This event, as you may suppose, made a considerable sensation in the neighbourhood; travellers and carriers conveyed the news of it along the road from village to village; and the thing was thoroughly canvassed, and the impostors duly condemned.

Well, about three weeks afterwards a great storm arose; a ship was wrecked on the coast, and all the crew and passengers drowned except one man—a powerful seaman, who chanced to be a good swimmer, and who nearly lost his own life in his gallant efforts to save the life of the only female who was on board. This man swam to the shore with one arm, while with the other he supported the woman.

He could barely crawl up the beach through the heavy surf, dragging his burden after him. But he succeeded, and then lay for some time insensible. When he recovered, he found that the woman appeared to be dead. Anxious, however, to do all in his power to restore her, he tried to chafe her limbs; but seeing that he could make no impression, he hastened away to search for human dwellings and send help. Four miles did he stagger along before he came to a fishing village.

Here he told his tale; the men of the place hurried away to the scene of the wreck, but arrived too late to be of any use.

The sailor remained some days with the fishermen, who received him kindly, and gave him a few pence to help him on his way to the nearest town, where he received a few shillings from some charitable persons, and then set off to walk on foot to his native place, which happened to be on the opposite coast of England.

The poor fellow got on very well until he came to the road which led to the village where Jim had been so successful. All along this road he was scouted as an impostor, and, but for his imposing size and physical strength, would doubtless have received more kicks than halfpence. As it was he was well-nigh starved.

Arriving one afternoon, famishing and almost knocked up, at the village, he went in despair to the inn door, and began to tell his sorrowful tale. He told it to unsympathetic ears. Among his auditors were the three ploughmen who had been so roughly handled by Jim and Bill. These only heard the first two or three sentences when they rushed upon the sailor, calling on their comrades, who were numerous, to help them to duck the rascal in the horse-pond.

The stout tar, although taken by surprise and overpowered, was not disposed to submit without a struggle. He was a very Samson in strength. Rising up by main force with two of his foes on his back, he threw them off, drove his right fist into the eye of one, his foot into the stomach of a second, flattened the nose of a third on his face with a left-hander, and then wheeling round at random, plunged his elbow into the chest of another who was coming on behind, and caused him to measure his length on the ground. Before the rustics recovered from their surprise at the suddenness of these movements, two more of their number were sprawling in the dust, and the rest stood off aghast!

“Now, then,” shouted the indignant tar, as he clapped his back to the side of the inn, “come on! the whole of ’ee. I hope yer wills is made. What! ye’re afeard, are ye? Well, if ye won’t come on I’ll bid ye good afternoon, ye low minded, cowardly land-lubbers!”

And with that he made a rush at them. They tumbled over each other in heaps, trying to get out of his way, so that he could only get a passing dig at one or two of them, and cleared away as fast as he could run.

They did not follow him far, so Jack soon stopped and sat down on the road-side, in a very savage state of mind, to wipe the blood from his face and knuckles.

While he was thus engaged, an elderly gentleman in the garb of a clergyman approached him.

“What has happened to you, my man?” he asked.

“That’s none o’ your business,” answered Jack with angry emphasis. “Ax no questions, an’ you’ll be told no lies!”

“Excuse me, friend,” replied the clergyman gently, “I did not mean to annoy you; but you seem to have been badly wounded, and I would assist you if you will allow me.”

“I ax yer parding, sir,” said Jack, a little softened, though by no means restored to his wonted good-humour; “no offence meant, but I’ve been shamefully abused by the scoundrels in yonder village, an’ I am riled a bit. It’s only a scratch, sir, you don’t need to consarn yerself.”

“It is more than a scratch, if I may judge from the flow of blood. Permit me to examine.”

“Oh, it’ll be all right d’rectly,” said Jack; but as he said so he fell back on the grass, fainting from loss of blood which flowed from a large wound on his head.

When the sailor’s senses were restored, he found himself in a bed in the clergyman’s dwelling, with his head bandaged up, and his body a good deal weaker than he had ever before felt it. The clergyman took care of him until he recovered; and you may be sure that he did not miss the opportunity to urge the sailor to think of his soul, and to come to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, whose name is Love, and whose teaching is all summed up in this, “Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.”

When Jack was quite recovered, the clergyman gave him some money to enable him to reach his home without begging his way.

Now this case also occurred before the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society was instituted. I cannot say that such cases of rough handling were frequent; but cases in which true-blue shipwrecked tars were treated as impostors were numerous, so that, in those days, knaves and rascals often throve as wrecked seamen, while the genuine and unfortunate men were often turned rudely from door to door. This state of things does not exist now. It cannot exist now, for honorary agents of the society are to be found on every part of our coasts, so that the moment a wrecked man touches the land, no matter whether he be a Briton or a foreigner, he is at once taken care of, clothed, housed, fed, supplied with a little money, and forwarded to his home, or to the nearest consul of his nation. The society has therefore accomplished two great and good objects, for which the entire nation owes it a debt of gratitude; it has rid the land of begging impostors clad in sailors’ clothes, and it has provided relief and assistance to the shipwrecked among our brave and hardy seamen who are in every sense the bulwarks of our island, and without whose labours, in the most perilous of all callings, Great Britain would be one of the poorest and most uninfluential kingdoms on the face of the earth.

But the society does a great deal more than that, for it comforts and assists with money and advice hundreds and thousands of widows and orphans whose husbands, fathers, or brothers have been drowned; and this it does from year to year regularly—as regularly as the storms come and scatter death and destruction on our shores. It cannot be too earnestly impressed on the people of England, and especially on those who dwell inland, that at least a thousand lives are lost, two thousand ships are wrecked, and two millions sterling are thrown away upon the coasts of this country every year.

It is owing to the untiring energy of the National Lifeboat Institution that those figures are not much, very much higher; and it is the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society that alleviates much, very much, of the woe resulting from storms and wrecks upon our shores. Sailors and fishermen know this well, and support both institutions largely. I would that ladies and gentlemen knew this better, and felt that they have a positive duty incumbent on them in regard to these societies, for they are not local but national.

“Now, madam,” said I, again addressing myself pointedly to Miss Flouncer, “would you like to hear a few interesting facts in reference to the objects of this Society?”

Miss Flouncer smiled and undulated in order to express her readiness to listen; at the same time she glanced at Sir Richard, who, I observed, was sound asleep. I also noticed that Mrs Bingley sniffed impatiently; but I felt that I had a duty to perform, so with unalterable resolution I prepared to continue my address, when Miss Peppy, who had been nearly asleep during the greater part of the time I was speaking, suddenly said to Miss Flouncer—

“Well, it is a most surprising state of things that people will go to sea and get wrecked just to let societies like these spring up like mushrooms all over the land. For my part, I think I would rather do without the things that ships bring to us from foreign lands than always hear of those dreadful wrecks, and—but really one cannot expect the world to alter just to please one, so I suppose people must go on being drowned and saved by rocket-boats and lifeboats; so we had better retire to the drawing-room, my dear.”

The last observation was addressed to Mrs Bingley, who responded to it with a bow of assent as she drew on her gloves.

Immediately after, the ladies rose, and I was thus constrained to postpone my narration of interesting facts, until another opportunity should offer.