The Lifeboat
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“Not so,” replied Bax, in a tone so deep and sad as to surprise his friend; “I brought you here because the lonely place accords with my feelings to-night. I have made up my mind to go to Australia.”
Guy stopped abruptly. “You jest, Bax,” said he.
“I am in earnest,” replied the other, “and since I have forced myself into your confidence, I think it but fair to give you mine. The cause of my going is love! Yes, Guy, I too am in love, but alas! my love is not returned; it is hopeless.”
“Say not so,” began Guy, earnestly; but his companion went on without noticing the interruption.
“The case is a peculiar one,” said he. “I have known the sweet girl long enough to know that she does not love me, and that she does love another man. Moreover, I love that man too. He is my friend; so, the long and the short of it is, I’m going to up-anchor, away to the gold-fields, and leave the coast clear to him.”
“This must not be, Bax; you may be wrong in supposing your case hopeless. May I ask her name?”
“Forgive me, Guy, I must not mention it,” said Bax.
It is not necessary to weary the reader with the variety of arguments with which Guy plied his friend in order to turn him from his purpose, as they wandered slowly over the sandhills together. He was unsuccessful in his efforts to arouse hope in the bosom of his friend, or to induce him to suspend his determination for a time. Nor was he more fortunate in attempting to make Bax say who was the friend—for whom he was about to make so great a sacrifice,—little suspecting that it was himself!
“Now,” said Bax, after having firmly resisted his companion’s utmost efforts, “I want you to leave me here alone. I may seem to you to be obstinate and ungracious to-night” (he stopped and seized Guy’s hand), “but, believe me, I am not so. My heart is terribly down, and you know I’m a rough matter-of-fact fellow, not given to be sentimental, so I can’t speak to you as I would wish on this subject; but wherever I may go in this world, I will never cease to pray for God’s blessing on you and yours, Guy.”
“I like to hear you say that, Bax,” returned the other; “it will rejoice my heart to think that love for me will be the means of taking you often to the throne of God.”
“You’re a good fellow, Guy; perhaps what you have often said to me has not been thrown away as much as you suppose. Come, now, instead of you having to urge the subject on me, I’ll ask you to give me a text. Supposing that you and I were parting to-night for the last time, and that I were going off to Australia to-morrow, what would you say to me in the way of advice and encouragement?”
Guy paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, “Delight thyself in the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will give thee the desires of thine heart.”
“Thank ’ee, lad, I’ll not forget the words,” said Bax, wringing his friend’s hand.
“Perhaps I’ll think of another and more suitable text when the time for parting really comes,” said Guy, sadly. “Good-night, Bax; mind you come up to the cottage to-morrow, and let me know your plans.”
“I shall be busy to-morrow, but I’ll write,” said Bax, as his friend left him. “Ay,” he added, “there goes a real Christian, and a true-hearted friend. Ah’s me! I’ll never see him more!”
Bax wandered slowly and without aim over the dark waste for some time. Almost unintentionally he followed the path that led past the Checkers of the Hope. A solitary light burned in one of the lower windows of the old inn, but no sound of revelry issued from its doors. Leaving it behind him, Bax soon found himself standing within a few yards of the tombstone of the ill-fated Mary whose name he bore.
“Poor thing, ’twas a sad fate!” he murmured, as he contemplated the grave of the murdered girl, who had been a cousin of his own grandfather. “Poor Mary, you’re at rest now, which is more than I am.”
For some minutes Bax stood gazing dreamily at the grave which was barely visible in the faint light afforded by a few stars that shone through the cloudy sky. Suddenly he started, and every fibre of his strong frame was shaken with horror as he beheld the surface of the grave move, and saw, or fancied he saw, a dim figure raise itself partially from the earth.
Bax was no coward in any sense of that word. Many brave men there are who, although quite fearless in regard to danger and death, are the most arrant cowards in the matter of superstition, and could be made to flee before a mere fancy. But our hero was not one of these. His mind was strong, like his body, and well balanced. He stood his ground and prepared to face the matter out. He would indeed have been more than human if such an unexpected sight, in such circumstances, had failed to horrify him, but the effect of the shock soon passed away.
“Who comes here to disturb me?” said a weak voice that evidently belonged to this ghost.
“Hallo! Jeph, is that you?” exclaimed Bax, springing forward and gazing into the old man’s face.
“Ay, it’s me, and I’m sorry you’ve found me out, for I like to be let alone in my grief.”
“Why, Jeph, you don’t need to be testy with your friend. I’ll quit ye this moment if you bid me; but I think you might find a warmer and more fitting bed for your old bones than poor Mary Bax’s grave. Come, let me help you up.”
Bax said this so kindly, that old Jeph’s temporary anger at having been discovered passed away.
“Well, well,” said he, “the only two people who have found me out are the two I like best, so it don’t much matter.”
“Indeed,” exclaimed the young man in surprise, “who is number two, Jeph?”
“Tommy Bogey. He found me here on the night when Long Orrick was chased by Supple Jim.”
“Strange, he never told me about it,” said Bax.
“’Cause I told him to hold his tongue,” replied Jeph, “and Tommy’s a good fellow and knows how to shut his mouth w’en a friend asks him to—as I now ask you, Bax, for I don’t want people know that I come here every night.”
“What! do you come here every night?” cried Bax in surprise.
“Ay, every night, fair weather and foul; I’ve been used to both for a long time now, and I’m too tough to be easily damaged.”
“But why do you this, Jeph? You are not mad! If you were, I could understand it.”
“No matter, no matter,” said the old man, turning to gaze at the tombstone before quitting the place. “Some people are fond of having secrets. I’ve got one, and I like to keep it.”
“Well, I won’t try to pump it out of you, my old friend. Moreover, I haven’t got too much time to spare. I meant to go straight to your house to-night, Jeph, to tell you that I’m off to Australia to-morrow by peep o’ day.”
“Australia!” exclaimed Jeph, with a perplexed look in his old face.
“Ay, the blue peter’s at the mast-head and the anchor tripped.”
Here Bax related to his old comrade what he had previously told to Guy. At first Jeph shook his head, but when the young sailor spoke of love being the cause of his sudden departure, he made him sit down on the grave, and listened earnestly.
“So, so, Bax,” he said, when the latter had concluded, “you’re quite sure she’s fond o’ the other feller, are ye?”
“Quite. I had it from his own lips. At least he told me he’s fond of her, and I could see with my own eyes she’s fond of him.”
“Poor lad,” said Jeph, patting his friend’s shoulder as if he had been a child, “you’re quite right to go. I know what love is. You’ll never get cured in this country; mayhap foreign air’ll do it. I refused to tell you what made me come out here lad; but now that I knows how the wind blows with you, I don’t mind if I let ye into my secret. Love! ay, it’s the old story; love has brought me here night after night since ever I was a boy.”
“Love!” exclaimed his companion; “love of whom?”
“Why, who should it be but the love o’ the dear girl as lies under this sod?” said the old man, putting his hand affectionately on the grave. “Ay, you may well look at me in wonderment, but I wasn’t always the wrinkled old man I am now. I was a good-lookin’ lad once, though I don’t look like it now. When poor Mary was murdered I was nineteen. I won’t tell ye how I loved that dear girl. Ye couldn’t understand me. When she was murdered by that”—(he paused abruptly for a moment, and then resumed)—“when she was murdered, I thought I should have gone mad. I was mad, I believe, for a time; but when I came back here to stay, after wanderin’ in foreign parts for many years, I took to comin’ to the grave at nights. At first I got no good. I thought my heart would burst altogether, but at last the Lord sent peace into my soul. I began to think of her as an angel in heaven, and now the sweetest hours of my life are spent on this grave. Poor Mary! She was gentle and kind, especially to the poor and the afflicted. She took a great interest in the ways and means we had for savin’ people from wrecks, and used often to say it was a pity they couldn’t get a boat made that would neither upset nor sink in a storm. She had read o’ some such contrivance somewhere, for she was a great reader. Ever since that time I’ve bin trying, in my poor way, to make something o’ the sort, but I’ve not managed it yet. I like to think she would have been pleased to see me at it.”
Old Jeph stopped at this point, and shook his head slowly. Then he continued—
“I find that as long as I keep near this grave my love for Mary can’t die, and I don’t want it to. But that’s why I think you’re right to go abroad. It won’t do for a man like you to go moping through life as I have done. Mayhap there’s some truth in the sayin’, Out o’ sight out o’ mind.”
“Ah’s me!” said Bax; “isn’t it likely that there may be some truth too in the words o’ the old song, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ But you’re right, Jeph, it wouldn’t do for me to go moping through life as long as there’s work to do. Besides, old boy, there’s plenty of this sort o’ thing to be done; and I’ll do it better now that I don’t have anybody in particular to live for.”
Bax said this with reckless gaiety, and touched the medal awarded to him by the Lifeboat Institution, which still hung on his breast where it had been fastened that evening by Lucy Burton.
The two friends rose and returned together to Jeph’s cottage, where Bax meant to remain but a few minutes, to leave sundry messages to various friends. He was shaking hands with the old man and bidding him farewell, when the door was burst open and Tommy Bogey rushed into the room. Bax seized the boy in his arms, and pressed him to his breast.
“Hallo! I say, is it murder ye’re after, or d’ye mistake me for a polar bear?” cried Tommy, on being put down; “wot a hug, to be sure! Lucky for me that my timbers ain’t easy stove in. Wot d’ye mean by it?”
Bax laughed, and patted Tommy’s head. “Nothin’, lad, only I feel as if I should ha’ bin your mother.”
“Well, I won’t say ye’re far out,” rejoined the boy, waggishly, “for I do think ye’re becomin’ an old wife. But, I say, what can be wrong with Guy Foster? He came back to the cottage a short while ago lookin’ quite glum, and shut himself up in his room, and he won’t say what’s wrong, so I come down here to look for you, for I knew I’d find ye with old Jeph or Bluenose.”
“Ye’re too inquisitive,” said Bax, drawing Tommy towards him, and sitting down on a chair, so that the boy’s face might be on a level with his. “No doubt Guy will explain it to you in the morning. I say, Tommy, I have sometimes wondered whether I could depend on the friendship which you so often profess for me.”
The boy’s face flushed, and he looked for a moment really hurt.
“Tutts, Tommy, you’re gettin’ thin-skinned. I do but jest.”
“Well, jest or no jest,” said the boy, not half pleased, “you know very well that nothing could ever make me turn my back on you.”
“Are you sure?” said Bax, smiling. “Suppose, now, that I was to do something very bad to you, something unkind, or that looked unkind—what then?”
“In the first place you couldn’t do that, and, in the second place, if you did I’d like you just as well.”
“Ay, but suppose,” continued Bax, in a jocular strain, “that what I did was very bad.”
“Well, let’s hear what you call very bad.”
Bax paused as if to consider, then he said: “Suppose, now, that I were to go off suddenly to some far part of the world for many years without so much as saying good-bye to ye, what would you think?”
“I’d find out where you had gone to, and follow you, and pitch into you when I found you,” said Tommy stoutly.
“Ay, but I did not ask what you’d do; I asked what you’d think?”
“Why, I would think something had happened to prevent you lettin’ me know, but I’d never think ill of you,” replied Tommy.
“I believe you, boy,” said Bax, earnestly. “But come, enough o’ this idle talk. I want you to go up to the cottage with a message to Guy. Tell him not to speak to any one to-night or to-morrow about what I said to him when we were walking on the sandhills; and be off, lad, as fast as you can, lest he should let it out before you get there.”
“Anything to do with smugglers?” inquired the boy, with a knowing look, as they stood outside the door.
“Why, n–no, not exactly.”
“Well, good-night, Bax; good-night, old Jeph.”
Tommy departed, and the two men stood alone.
“God bless the lad. You’ll be kind to him, Jeph, when I’m away?”
“Trust me, Bax,” said the old man, grasping his friend’s hand.
Without another word, Bax turned on his heel, and his tall, stalwart figure was quickly lost to view in the dark shadows of the night.
Chapter Sixteen.
Tommy Bogey forms a Mighty Resolve, and Mr Denham, being Perplexed, becomes Liberal
When Tommy Bogey discovered the terrible fact that his friend Bax had really gone from him, perhaps for ever, he went straight up to the cottage, sat down on the kitchen floor at the feet of Mrs Laker, laid his head on her lap, and wept as if his heart would break.
“My poor boy!” said the sympathising Laker, stroking his head, and endeavouring to comfort him more by tone and manner than by words.
But Tommy refused to be comforted. The strongest affection he had ever known was rudely and suddenly crushed. It was hard in Bax to have done it; so Tommy felt, though he would not admit it in so many words. So Bax himself felt when the first wild rush of sorrow was past, and he had leisure to consider the hasty step he had taken, while sailing away over the distant sea towards the antipodes. Bitterly did he blame himself and repent when repentance was of no avail.
Tommy’s grief was deep, but not loud. He did not express it with a howling accompaniment. It burst from him in gasping sobs for a time, then it subsided into the recesses of his young heart and gnawed there. It did not again break bounds, but it somewhat changed the boy’s character. It made him almost a man in thought and action. He experienced that strong emotion which is known to most young hearts at certain periods of early life, and which shows itself in the formation of a fixed resolve to take some prompt and mighty step! What that step should be he did not know at first, and did not care to know. Sufficient for him, that coming to an unalterable determination of some indefinite sort afforded him great relief.
After the first paroxysm was over, Tommy rose up, kissed Mrs Laker on the cheek, bade her goodnight with unwonted decision of manner, and went straight to the amphibious hut of his friend Bluenose, whom he found taking a one-eyed survey of the Downs through a telescope, from mere force of habit.
The Captain’s name was more appropriate that day than it had been for many years. He was looking uncommonly “blue” indeed. He had just heard of the disappearance of Bax, for the news soon spread among the men on Deal beach. Being ignorant of the cause of his friend’s sudden departure, and knowing his deliberate, sensible nature, the whole subject was involved in a degree of mystery which his philosophy utterly failed to clear up. Being a bachelor, and never having been in love, or met with any striking incidents of a tender nature in his career, it did not occur to him that woman could be at the bottom of it!
“Uncle,” said Tommy, “Bax is gone!”
“Tommy, I knows it,” was the brief reply, and the telescope was shut up with a bang, as the seaman sat down on a little chest, and stared vacantly in the boy’s face.
“Why did he do it?” asked Tommy.
“Dun’ know. Who knows? S’pose he must ha’ gone mad, though it don’t seem likely. If it wasn’t Guy as told me I’d not believe it.”
“Does Guy not know why he’s gone?”
“Apperiently he does, but he says he’s bound not to tell. Hope Bax han’t bin and done somethin’ not ’xactly right—”
“Bax do anything not exactly right!” cried Tommy, with a look and tone of amazed indignation.
“Right, lad, you’re right,” said Bluenose apologetically. “I’ve no doubt myself he could explain it all quite clear if he wos here for to do so. That’s my opinion; and I’ve no doubt either that the first letter he sends home will make all straight an’ snug, depend on it.”
“Uncle,” said Tommy, “I am going to Australia.”
Bluenose, who had just lighted his pipe, looked at the boy through the smoke, smiled, and said, “No, Tommy, you ain’t.”
“Uncle,” repeated Tommy, “I am. I once heard Bax say he’d rather go there than anywhere else, if he was to go abroad; so I’m certain he has gone there, and I’m going to seek for him.”
“Wery good, my lad,” said the Captain coolly; “d’ye go by steamer to-night, or by rail to-morrow mornin’? P’raps you’d better go by telegraph; it’s quicker, I’m told.”
“You think I’m jokin’, Uncle, but I’m not, as you’ll very soon find out.”
So saying, Tommy rose and left the hut. This was all he said on the subject. He was a strong-minded little fellow. He at once assumed the position of an independent man, and merely stated his intentions to one or two intimate friends, such as Bluenose, Laker, and old Jeph. As these regarded his statement as the wild fancy of an enthusiastic boy in the first gush of disappointment, they treated it with good-natured raillery. So Tommy resolved, as he would have himself have expressed it, “to shut up, and keep his own counsel.”
When Guy told Lucy Burton that the man who had saved her life had gone off thus suddenly, she burst into tears; but her tears had not flowed long before she asked Guy the reason of his strange and abrupt departure.
Of course Guy could not tell. He had been pledged to secrecy as to the cause.
When Lucy Burton went to tell Amy Russell, she did so with a trembling heart. For some time past she had suspected that Amy loved Bax and not Guy, as she had at first mistakenly supposed. Knowing that if her suspicions were true, the news would be terrible indeed to her friend, she considerately went to her room and told her privately.
Amy turned deadly pale, stood speechless for a few seconds, and then fainted in her friend’s arms.
On recovering she confessed her love, but made Lucy solemnly pledge herself to secrecy.
“No one shall ever know of this but yourself, dear Lucy,” said Amy, laying her head on her friend’s bosom, and finding relief in tears.
Time passed away, as time is wont to do, and it seemed as if Tommy Bogey had forgotten to carry out his determination. From that day forward he never referred to it, and the few friends to whom he had mentioned it supposed that he had given up the idea altogether as impracticable.
They did not know the mettle that Tommy was made of. After maturely considering the matter, he had made up his mind to delay carrying out his plan until Bax should have time to write home and acquaint him with his whereabouts. Meanwhile, he would set himself to make and save up money by every means in his power, for he had sense enough to know that a moneyless traveller must be a helpless creature.
Peekins was permanently received into Sandhill Cottage as page-in-buttons, in which capacity he presented a miserably attenuated figure, but gave great satisfaction. Tommy and he continued good friends; the former devoting as much of his leisure time to the latter as he could spare. He had not much to spare, however, for he had, among other things, set himself energetically to the study of arithmetic and navigation under the united guidance of old Jeph and Bluenose.
Lucy Burton paid a long visit to Mrs Foster, and roamed over the Sandhills day after day with her friend Amy, until her father, the missionary, came and claimed her and carried her back to Ramsgate. During Lucy’s stay, Guy Foster remained at the cottage, busily engaged in various ways, but especially in making himself agreeable to Lucy, in which effort he seemed to be very successful.
When the latter left, he suddenly discovered that he was wasting his time sadly, and told his mother that he meant to look out for something to do. With this end in view he set out for London, that mighty hive of industry and idleness into which there is a ceaseless flow of men who “want something to do,” and of men who “don’t know what to do.”
And what of Denham, Crumps, and Company during this period?
The rats in and around Red Wharf Lane could have told you, had they been able to speak, that things prospered with that firm. These jovial creatures, that revelled so luxuriously in the slime and mud and miscellaneous abominations of that locality, could have told you that, every morning regularly, they were caught rioting in the lane and sent squealing out of it, by a boy in blue (the successor of poor Peekins) who opened the office and prepared it for the business of the day; that about half an hour later they, the rats, were again disturbed by the arrival of the head-clerk, closely followed by the juniors, who were almost as closely followed by Crumps—he being a timid old man who stood in awe of his senior partner; that, after this, they had a good long period of comparative quiet, during which they held a riotous game of hide-and-seek across the lane and down among sewers and dust holes, and delightfully noisome and fetid places of a similar character; interrupted at irregular intervals by a vagrant street boy, or a daring cat, or an inquisitive cur; that this game was stopped at about ten o’clock by the advent of Mr Denham, who generally gave them, the rats, a smile of recognition as he passed to his office, concluding, no doubt, by a natural process of ratiocination, that they were kindred spirits, because they delighted in bad smells and filthy garbage, just as he (Denham) rejoiced in Thames air and filthy lucre.
One fine morning, speaking from a rat’s point of view, when the air was so thick and heavy and moist that it was difficult to see more than a few yards in any direction, Denham came down the lane about half-an-hour later than usual, with a brisk step and an unusually smiling countenance.
Peekins’ successor relieved him of his hat, topcoat, and umbrella, and one of the clerks brought him the letters. Before opening these he shouted—
“Mr Crumps!”
Crumps came meekly out of his cell, as if he had been a bad dog who knew he deserved, and expected, a whipping.
“Nothing wrong, I trust,” he said anxiously.
“No; on the contrary, everything right,” (Crumps’ old face brightened), “I’ve succeeded in getting that ship at what I call a real bargain—500 less than I had anticipated and was prepared to give.” (Crumps rubbed his hands.) “Now, I mean to send this ship out to Australia, with a miscellaneous cargo, as soon as she can be got ready for sea. The gold fever is at its height just now, and it strikes me that, with a little judgment and prudence, a good thing may be made out there. At any rate, I mean to venture; for our speculations last year have, as you know, turned out well, with the exception of that unfortunate ‘Trident,’ and we are sufficiently in funds just at this time to afford to run considerable risk.”
Crumps expressed great satisfaction, and agreed with all that Denham said. He also asked what the name of the new ship was to be.
“The ‘Trident,’” said Mr Denham.
“What! the name of the ship we lost in Saint Margaret’s Bay?” exclaimed Crumps, in surprise.
“I thought you knew the name of the ship we lost in Saint Margaret’s Bay,” said Denham sarcastically.
“Of course, of course,” replied Crumps, in some confusion, “but I mean—that is, don’t you think it looks like flying in the face of Providence to give it the same name?”