The Fortunes Of Glencore. Lever Charles James
With the aid of a hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail, labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course, too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them.
“The boy! – the boy!” cried Harcourt; “what has become of him? He never could have lived through that squall.”
“If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too,” said the sailor; “she’d have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter.”
“It is all over by this time,” muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully.
“Pace to him now!” said the sailor, as he crossed himself, and went over a prayer.
The wind now raged fearfully; claps, like the report of cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly keel uppermost; while the mast bent like a whip, and every rope creaked and strained to its last endurance. The deafening noise close at hand told where the waves were beating on the rock-bound coast, or surging with the deep growl of thunder through many a cavern. They rarely spoke, save when some emergency called for a word. Each sat wrapped up in his own dark reveries, and unwilling to break them. Hours passed thus, – long, dreary hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so often in this interval did life hang in the balance.
As morning began to break with a grayish blue light to the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more steadily, too, and less in sudden gusts; while the sea rolled in large round waves, unbroken above, and showing no crest of foam.
“Do you know where we are?” asked Harcourt.
“Yes, sir; we ‘re off the Rooks’ Point, and if we hold on well, we ‘ll soon be in slacker water.”
“Could the boy have reached this, think you?”
The man shook his head mournfully, without speaking.
“How far are we from Glencore?”
“About eighteen miles, sir; but more by land.”
“You can put me ashore, then, somewhere hereabouts.”
“Yes, sir, in the next bay; there’s a creek we can easily run into.”
“You are quite sure he couldn’t have been blown out to sea?”
“How could he, sir? There’s only one way the wind could dhrive him. If he isn’t in the Clough Bay, he’s in glory.”
All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to what Harcourt now suffered, in his eagerness to round the Rooks’ Point, and look in the bay beyond it. Controlling it as he would, still would it break out in words of impatience and even anger.
“Don’t curse the boat, yer honor,” said Peter, respectfully, but calmly; “she’s behaved well to us this night, or we ‘d not be here now.”
“But are we to beat about here forever?” asked the other, angrily.
“She’s doin’ well, and we ought to be thankful,” said the man; and his tone, even more than his words, served to reprove the other’s impatience. “I’ll try and set the mainsail on her with the remains of the sprit.”
Harcourt watched him, as he labored away to repair the damaged rigging; but though he looked at him, his thoughts were far away with poor Glencore upon his sick bed, in sorrow and in suffering, and perhaps soon to hear that he was childless. From these he went on to other thoughts. What could have occurred to have driven the boy to such an act of desperation? Harcourt invented a hundred imaginary causes, to reject them as rapidly again. The affection the boy bore to his father seemed the strongest principle of his nature. There appeared to be no event possible in which that feeling would not sway and control him. As he thus ruminated, he was aroused by the sudden cry of the boatman.
“There’s a boat, sir, dismasted, ahead of us, and drifting out to say.”
“I see her! – I see her!” cried Harcourt; “out with the oars, and let’s pull for her.”
Heavily as the sea was rolling, they now began to pull through the immense waves, Harcourt turning his head at every instant to watch the boat, which now was scarcely half a mile ahead of them.
“She’s empty! – there’s no one in her!” said Peter, mournfully, as, steadying himself by the mast, he cast a look seaward.
“Row on, – let us get beside her,” said Harcourt.
“She’s the yawl! – I know her now,” cried the man.
“And empty?”
“Washed out of her with a say, belike,” said Peter, resuming his oar, and tugging with all his strength.
A quarter of an hour’s hard rowing brought them close to the dismasted boat, which, drifting broadside on the sea, seemed at every instant ready to capsize.
“There’s something in the bottom, – in the stern-sheets!” screamed Peter. “It’s himself! O blessed Virgin, it’s himself!” And, with a bound, he sprang from his own boat into the other.
The next instant he had lifted the helpless body of the boy from the bottom of the boat, and, with a shout of joy, screamed out, —
“He’s alive! – he’s well! – it’s only fatigue!”
Harcourt pressed his hands to his face, and sank upon his knees in prayer.
CHAPTER XIII. A “VOW” ACCOMPLISHED
Just as Upton had seated himself at that fragal meal of weak tea and dry toast he called his breakfast, Harcourt suddenly entered the room, splashed and road-stained from head to foot, and in his whole demeanor indicating the work of a fatiguing journey.
“Why, I thought to have had my breakfast with you,” cried he, impatiently, “and this is like the diet of a convalescent from fever. Where is the salmon – where the grouse pie – where are the cutlets – and the chocolate – and the poached eggs – and the hot rolls, and the cherry bounce?”
“Say, rather, where are the disordered livers, worn-out stomachs, fevered brains, and impatient tempers, my worthy Colonel?” said Upton, blandly. “Talleyrand himself once told me that he always treated great questions starving.”
“And he made a nice mess of the world in consequence,” blustered out Harcourt. “A fellow with an honest appetite and a sound digestion would never have played false to so many masters.”
“It is quite right that men like you should read history in this wise,” said Upton, smiling, as he dipped a crust in his tea and ate it.
“Men like me are very inferior creatures, no doubt,” broke in Harcourt, angrily; “but I very much doubt if men like you had come eighteen miles on foot over a mountain this morning, after a night passed in an open boat at sea, – ay, in a gale, by Jove, such as I sha’ n’t forget in a hurry.”
“You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt; suum caique; and if only we could get the world to see that each of us has his speciality, we should all of us do much better.”
By the vigorous tug he gave the bell, and the tone in which he ordered up something to eat, it was plain to see that he scarcely relished the moral Upton had applied to his speech. With the appearance of the good cheer, however, he speedily threw off his momentary displeasure, and as he ate and drank, his honest, manly face lost every trace of annoyance. Once only did a passing shade of anger cross his countenance. It was when, suddenly looking up, he saw Upton’s eyes settled on him, and his whole features expressing a most palpable sensation of wonderment and compassion.
“Ay,” cried he, “I know well what’s passing in your mind this minute. You are lost in your pitying estimate of such a mere animal as I am; but, hang it all, old fellow, why not be satisfied with the flattering thought that you are of another stamp, – a creature of a different order?”
“It does not make one a whit happier,” sighed