My usual visits in the dingey had disposed of nearly all my store of French books and periodicals, and the remainder we took to a civil bookseller, from whom we bought French charts and a Pilot book of the English south coast soundings.

Meantime, after a rest and refreshment to my crew, a thorough scraping to my boat, and a good stock laid in of comfort for my voyage to England, the question had to be distinctly put, "How am I to get over the broad Channel to the Isle of Wight?" It was, of course, impossible to think of coming back as we had gone,—that is, along the French coast. This would never do. Again, it was also found that the steamers were not allowed to tow any boat to sea behind the passenger vessels unless in cases of distress, so that put an end to another solution of the problem, which was to get half way by towing and then to cast off and sail.

Well, shall I get an additional hand on board? But where is he to sit if it blows hard? And if it does not blow hard, what is the use of him? In fact I was steadily driven, as if by severe logic, to the conclusion already at the bottom of my mind, to sail right across alone.

Then I asked one or two experienced sailors if they thought the Rob Roy could do it, and they said, "Yes, she can; but can you? You may be three or four days out, and can you stand the fatigue? At any rate, do not start in a southwest wind: it raises a sea and the up and down of the waves will tire you soon in a long day's work, and then there is the night besides."

Having retired to my calm little creek, where the yawl was tied by a line to a large fishing-smack, I tried to read, but very soon found I was thinking of anything but the words on the printed page; then to sleep; but still I was musing on the prospect now opened of a hazardous and delightful sail.

About one o'clock I gazed out moodily on the quiet night scene of the harbour, sleeping around. Tall masts whitened by the moon, black hulls darkened in the shade, busy quays silent, long-necked iron cranes peering into the deep water that reflected quaint leaning houses, all distorted, and big buoys magnified by the haze.

"Why continue this anxiety about how to get over? See the clouds drift over the clear moon with an east wind. Will it ever be easier than now? I cannot sleep—why not start this moment?"

Once the decision was made, all was alert on the Rob Roy; and in half an hour I had breakfasted, and then very noiselessly loosed the thin line that bound us to the quay, and bid "adieu to France."

Every single thing we could think of was perfectly prepared. The sails were all ready to set, but we had to row the yawl slowly into the main harbour, and there we met a low round swell coining in from the sea. We tugged hard to force her against the adverse tide, but progress was tediously slow. Presently some fishing luggers were getting under way, and soon the usual clatter and din of the French sailors, at full tide, rang forth as if by a magic call at two in the morning.

After shouting some time for a boat to tow me to the pier-head, at last one came.

"What will you charge?"

"Ten francs."

"I'll give you eight;" and after parley the two men in their little boat agreed to take the Rob Roy in tow.

Almost immediately I noticed that the moon was hid, and the wind had chopped round to the southwest, the very wind I was told not to start with, but now—well it was too late to withdraw, and so we laboured on, while the great clumsy luggers crossed and recrossed our course, and frequently dashed upon the piles of the pier in the stupidest manner, with much loud roaring of voices, and creaking of spars, and fluttering of sails.

Presently the men called out that, as the sea was getting higher, I had better pay them the money. "Certainly," I said; but, alas! I could find only five francs of change, the rest being napoleons.

They shouted, "Give us gold—we will send the change to England;" but I bellowed out a better plan, to give them an order on the yacht agents at Havre for five francs, and the silver besides.

Finally this was accepted, so I got out paper and envelope, and on the wet deck, by moonlight, wrote the banker's draft.

When they came near the harbour's mouth, they sung out "Get ready your mizen."

"Ay, ay!"

"Hoist;" and so up went the trim little sail, glad to flap once more in salt air. Then they bid me "Get ready your jib—we have cast you off; hoist!" Yes, and I did hoist.

Perhaps the reader may recollect that the end of my bowsprit had been squeezed by a collision, and was in fact as weak as a charred stick. But I had entirely forgotten this by some unaccountable fatality, during the three days at Havre, when it might have been easily repaired.

The moment therefore I had hoisted the jib, the bowsprit end broke sharp off into a ragged stump, and the jib instantly flew away into the air just like an umbrella blown inside out.

This was of course a most critical time for such a mishap, with a strong breeze dead ahead, driving me in upon piles, and a tumbling sea, and numerous large luggers sailing about me in the dark. Therefore I felt that this unlucky accident and the southwest wind meant, "I must not go out to-night. It will not do to begin a voyage of a hundred miles with a broken bowsprit."

[Picture: For a hundred miles]

All this prudent reasoning was at once cut short by the Frenchmen calling out, "Voulez-vous sortir encore, monsieur?" and the Rob Roy thus hailed could make but one reply, "Oui, oui, certainement;" so I bid them lay hold again while I captured the truant jib, hauled down and reefed it, and made it fast to the stem, and then again "Lachez tous," we are free on the rolling waves.

At the worst, methought, we can return in four or five hours, when the tide falls, if we find it unadvisable to go on; but meanwhile our yawl shot away westward to get a good offing from the Cape de la Heve, and then I cooked breakfast (the former one counted of course in the former day, according to the excellent rule already explained), and about half-past four I laid on my straight course to old England, with a capital breeze on my quarter, and a hundred times glad that I had not gone back.



CHAPTER XII.

Nodding—Prancing—First Thoughts—England—Mid-channel thoughts—Battle—Religion—Science—Church—Guide.

Up rose the sun, and all was cheerful. Then I laid her to, and got out my axe, and chopped the bowsprit into shape, so that it would run out further, and then set the whole jib firmly on it.

All the feelings restrained so long by the river work, and regatta amenities, and Exhibition in Paris, now came forth powerfully in a flow of enthusiasm.

Boys seem to like the stories of the canoe voyages, and perhaps they will read this one of the yawl. If they have a sailor turn, they will imagine the new pleasure to be felt when you glide away from a fast-retreating land, and nothing is in front but sea, sea, sea. Then the little boat you are in, and know in every plank, and love too, becomes more than ever cherished as a friend. It is your only visible trust, and, if it is a good boat, you trust it well, for indeed it seems to try its very best, like a horse on the desert plain, that knows it must go on if it is ever to get to the other side. Then as the cliffs, that looked high behind you, dwindle into a line of deep blue, the compass by your knees becomes a magic thing, with no tongue indeed to speak, but surely a brain it must have to know the way so well.

For hours we went on thus in silent pleasure, gazing at the gentle needle as it moved without noise; and, with nothing around but plash of waves, bright sun, and a feeling of hot silence, the spell of sleep was overpowering. Homer sometimes nodded, it is said, and he would have certainly had a good nap had he steered long thus. The sinking off into these delicious slumbers was imperceptible, and perfectly beyond the will's control. In a moment of trance I would be far away in dreamland, and with a thousand incidents, all enacted in orderly succession, with fights, wrecks, or pageantry, or the confused picture of bright-coloured nothings which fancy paints on the half-alive brain.

From these sweet dreams there was a rude awakening; a slap from the sea on my face, as the yawl, untended, suddenly rounded to, or a rattling taptoo on the deck when the jib-sheets found they were free.

Then for a time I would resolutely insist upon attention—every moment of slumber being a positive wandering from the course; but no, the outer self that demands a nap will not be denied by the inner nobler self that commands alertness.

Only one single sea-gull did I see in thirty hours. One vessel also far off was the sole break upon the painfully straight horizon, and as the wind gradually died away into nothing, the prospect did not improve.

Then came the up and down riding over seas without gaining a yard, the "prancing" of the vessel which had galloped forth in the morning like a horse in its first bounds on grass when, leaving a hard road, its hoof paws gladly the springy turf.

Some feelings that came up then from deep recesses in the mind were new, but too new and unnamed to put in words. Alone on the waters, when you cannot see land, is a strange condition. However, if only fog or darkness hides the land you still feel that land is there. Quite another thing is it to be afloat alone, where, because it is fifty miles away, land cannot be seen. Doubtless it may seem foolish, but I am not able to tell the feelings of that time.

Becalmed midway between France and England, it was natural for the mind to think of both countries, and every time I have left France it has been with more admiration of that lively land; {171} but Frenchmen, during this visit, looked at by us for the twentieth time, had evident signs of wounded vanity: they were conscious of playing second fiddle in a grand German opera.

Thinking of England, on the other hand, religion and not politics became the theme; for is not religion at least more considered amongst us than ever before? It may be opposed or misapprehended or derided, but it is not ignored as it used to be.

Look at the three leading newspapers, the morning, the evening, and the weekly registers of the direction, warmth, and pressure of public thought, as noted by keen observers, who are shrewd and weatherwise as to the signs of the times, and are seldom wrong when they hoist a storm signal. More and more each of these secular papers occupies its best columns with religious questions, and not with the mere facts or gossip on the subject, or with records of philanthropy, important as these are, but with deep essential doctrines, and prolonged arguments about the very kernel of truth.

Religion is allowed to have a place now in every stratum of society, even if a wrong place and a very uncomfortable place for a slender religion, though sometimes, indeed, a politician laments that "Parliament has its time occupied by the subject," as if it were possible for the House to settle the Church and the School and the homes of men, without also considering their religion.

And if almost each family gives some place or other to it, so perhaps no one man in England would allow any other man to say of him that he has "nothing to do with religion."

Religion is more present among us; but this is a wide term—'religion.' If there is a God, then that there is a revealed religion is acknowledged, and that the Christian religion has the best, if not the only claims to be this. Who is to decide for me as to whether there is a God?

If ignorance unfits me to judge this rightly, does not class prejudice unfit others to be the arbiters?

Are not the official exponents of theology liable to be prejudiced in its favour as something that establishes or enhances the position of their order among men?

Are not the votaries of natural science subject to a prejudice against Theism as something that dethrones them from supremacy?

Is there not among these last a writhing invisible agony to escape from the avowal that God governs? And why is this? Perhaps because man proudly relishes freedom, and hates to say that his life is inspected and controlled by another Being who will also judge him hereafter; and because the student of physical science knows that if there is a God, then moral science must be a far nobler pursuit than his own pursuit, even if it is less palpable and popular; also because the scientific man is tempted to do all he can to ignore that anything is outside the ken of science—that there is a Being on quite another plane, far above him and his researches.

But science has no exclusive or even predominant right in the decision of this matter; nor has it any solid success in the long battle, though one or other in its ranks may triumph in a skirmish. When one philosopher demolishes the Bible, an ordinary man cannot convince him he is wrong. But when a dozen savants tilt in the fray, even an ordinary man can see that their weapons demolish each other, and the old Book stands.

This geologist has scratched the varnish on the globe, and forthwith frames his new theory of creation. In ten years he is proved utterly wrong by that microscopist who has detected animal remains in an igneous rock. The simple bystander cannot understand either side, and far less tell which side is true. But when the combatants slay each other, the wayfaring man can understand this neutralization. The philosopher strikes me with awe so long as he keeps aloft beyond my knowledge or comprehension. When he comes down I can love him, but the reverence of his mystery is gone, and he is soon found out to be a brother mite. My friend can walk faster and farther on earth than I can; but when he wades into the water, I find I can swim just as well as he—while if we try to fly in the air, neither of us can soar a yard.

Thus the mind that is great in observing, collating, and even generalizing facts, gets immediately out of its depth a few feet from land in the ocean of hypothesis, and it can be drowned there like my own.

Reaching up higher, in search of First Cause, the clever brain grasps the liquid aether above, and yearns; but it holds nothing, not one atom more than an ordinary mind; nor has all the striving of all the world lifted one man a foot above the plain towards heaven.

If these sentiments are pretentious, they show that one can learn at least forwardness from philosophers, if not wisdom.

But it is not the Atheist that puzzles one so much as those who find it convenient to admit the one point to start from—"There is a God," be He styled in redundant reverence, "Nature," "Providence," or "Heaven." The vacuity behind that is too dark and abysmal to be a home for their soul, and therefore they will accompany you thus far.

This short creed is long enough to cover many different meanings, and elastic enough to be worn, at least outside, for common decency, and to fit almost any form of life and character.

Some men have never had more than this meagre garment. Others have been swathed in more ample folds from the nursery, but have stripped off the mental clothing of their childhood, feeling it tight, or encumbered with braid and tassels, and some have torn it all to tatters; but at last, as their inner being chills in the air of naked freedom, they take upon them this creed as the one general raiment of prudence.

There may be quiet in this creed, for a time, if not comfort; but the garment fails to warm the heart if indeed it even covers the head; and the mind soon wonders whether God can be, and yet not do, and it yearns to know what God has said and done. Instinct tells it that to know the very truth upon this will make the man's creed a vascular body for action, not a mere decent clothing. The mind begins its search for this truth on a battle-field. It is a fight for peace as well as a search for treasure. Facts have to be settled, in hot conflict, which are felt to touch every point of life, and not mere fancies high in the air, or thoughts too deep for common people. Each man fights hand-to-hand here. Strategy and leaders avail not. Mere numbers on one side or the other do not count for individual conviction; we are not saved in bundles.

No man can keep out of reach of the turmoil, though many would be content to remain as bystanders, secure from remark or disturbance, in a hazy cloud where the only thing distinct is their denial that there is anything definite. Their creed is not strengthened by its being vague and curtailed. "Moral sense," "intuitive truth," "general utility"—their ultimate appeal—is just as far out of reach of algebraic logic as any of the propositions are which they reject because these cannot be proved thus. Try this scrimp creed by their own standard of proof, and it shrivels away, until no God,—no soul,—no being remains as absolutely demonstrated, and there is only a thing faintly conscious of its own existence. In this watery element of dim, soft fog, or hard cold ice, there is no rest for the soul.

There are others, again, who, frightened by the hurly-burly, after a short wild wandering alone, join any group, as a refuge, if it be only visible, and seek a Church as an asylum for the timid rather than a fortress for the brave.

But what Church shall give rest, or which of them is even quieter than the outer din? There is one, indeed, that, long nursed and dozing in the lap of the State, is now roughly shaken, but is she yet awake? She has grown in bulk at least, while sleeping. Is she not like an overgrown child too big to be carried, and too rickety to walk alone?

She is called National but is only Diocesan, with different doctrine and worship in different dioceses. The bishops meet, and thinking different, but trying to say the same, they say what is unanimous only when it means nothing. The clergy meet, but while some of them are true Ministers, others would be as Presbyters towards their bishops and Popes to their people. Each parish can wear the ribbons that are badges of its doctrine. We are crystallizing into congregations, and soon these will split into families, and so perhaps we shall get back at last to the simple old shape, when the message was for Nymphas and "the church which is in his house."

Meantime, my life-borne bark must not founder for lack of a guide. True, there is a chart, and precepts for the right way are clear, but my craving is for a living Spirit within which shall point me to the peaceful shore by an attraction powerful and unerring, though unseen, and, like that of the needle, incomprehensible.

And was it not the divinest act ever done by God to come down Himself among men, saying, "I am the Way," "and I will give you rest?"

Now we can safely steer, and will surely reach port.



CHAPTER XIII.

Half-seas over—Thick night—Risky—Reckless—Tied in—Lying-to—Land ahead—Scottish replies—Sleep.

See the sails are impatiently flapping. Each wave jerks the mast and canvas with a smart loud crack like that of a whip. The sound is unspeakably irritating, it seems so useless and wanton, and so perfectly de trop while the wind is absolutely calm. At other times, in such a case, you can stop this provoking clatter by hauling up the boom and lowering the jib; but here, in mid ocean, we must not hamper the sails but be ready for the first faint breath of wind, and moreover—best to confess it—I had in this case a serious disturbance within, yet not mental. Strawberries and cream imprisoned with mushrooms did not agree.

They called them mushrooms in Havre yesterday, and we know "there are 371 edible fungi;" but I assert that the rebellious species embarked with me were toadstools, and so giddiness followed upon sleep . . .

Gentle and cool is the first fresh murmur of a new breeze as it comes from afar, tripping along. Gratefully we watch its footsteps on the sea. Its garments rustle in the south, and the glassy rounded waves are now crested by its touch. Then the coolness of it fans the cheek, the flag flutters while the sails fill full, the mast bows gently under the soft pressure, and the Rob Roy runs eagerly again upon her proper course.

Dinner was instantly served up to celebrate the event. It is an Englishman's way. Still we were fifty miles from England, but wave after wave rose, dashed, and was left behind, till the sun got weary in his march, and hung, in the west, a great red globe. My course had been taken for the Nab light, which is in the entrance towards Portsmouth, but the Channel tide, crossing my path twice, could carry the yawl fast, yet secretly, first right, then left, and both ways once again.

Yet when the evening shade fell we expected to see at least some light in the horizon, for the English lights are clear, and they shine out twenty miles to sea. How I peered into the inscrutable darkness, and standing by the mast to get higher, but in vain; yet still the wind urged on, and the sea tumbled forward all in the right way. Hours passed, and ship-lights now could be descried; they were crossing my path, for they were in the great fair-way of nations bound east or west through the Channel. This at least was company, but it was also danger. We have left the lonely plain, and are walking now in the street of waters; but how am I to sleep here, and yet I must sleep this night. I tried to "speak" a goodly vessel sailing past like a shadow—I ventured even to near it—hailing, "How far to the Nab?" but the voice melted in the breeze. Low vapoury clouds began to rise from the sea; they looked like dark trees around; but the stars were clear up above. It was impossible not to feel as if land was there, yet, when my lead was cast, the deep only laughed at its little reach downward.

In such thick weather it will never do to ferret out the channel to Cowes, even if we are near it. The night must be passed at sea, and better begin to do that now than go in too near the cliffs in darkness; and so we prepared to lie-to. Lowering the main-sail I tried the yawl first under mizen and jib; but the rolling in every trough of the waves was most uncomfortable, and besides she drifted north, which might end by going ashore.

Then I took in the jib and set the storm-mizen, and hung out the anchor with twenty fathoms of chain—not, of course, to reach the bottom, but to keep the boat's head easier in the sea, and this did perfectly well. The motion was a long, regular rise and fall, and the drift was to the east; quite out of our proper course, indeed, but I couldn't help that.

The motion of a vessel lying-to is far more easy than what would be supposed possible. When you are rocked in a boat making progress by sails or steam, the pressure of each wave is more or less of a blow, for the ship is going forward, and it resists the mass of water often with violence. At anchor, too, though in a modified degree, the action is the same, and in a swell without wind the oscillations are jerky and short, for they are not softened by the sails then merely hanging. But if a boat is staunch and strong, and the deck is tight, and she has plenty of keel, so as not to swerve round right and left, but to preserve a general average direction towards the wind, then she may lie-to in a very stiff gale and high sea with a wonderfully gentle motion. Her head then is slightly off the sea, and there is but little rolling. The sails are so set that they ease every lateral heave. She forges forward just a little between the wave tops, and when the crest of one lifts her up she courteously yields for the time, but will soon again recover lost ground by this well-managed "compromise."

When we saw how admirably the Rob Roy behaved in lying-to, and that scarcely a wave broke over her deck, we felt that if it came to the worst we might thus pass a whole week in her safely.

Now I must make my bed. Undoubtedly this was a risky deed about to be done; but pray what else could we do?

"You ought not to have come there at all," may be replied.

Say that to the huntsman who has got into a field with the only way out of it over a chasm to leap. Tell it to the mountain climber scrambling down, who pauses before a crevasse; and do not forget to say the same to the poor old fisherman overtaken in the midnight winter's gale with his life in one hand and in the other a tangled net that has caught the fried sole for your comfortable dinner.

It would not do of course to go into my cabin. In the first place, the dingey was there, and then if I were to be enclosed inside when anything like a "run down" had to be dealt with, the cabin might be my coffin.

First I tried to crouch down in the well, but the constraint on limbs and joints was unbearable. My head slept while my knees ached with the pressure. No! there must be a positive lying down to sleep, if the sleep is to give true refreshment when you are rocked about on the waters; and this you have no doubt been convinced of any time at sea.

The strange twists of body I tried to fit into comfortably where the space (in the well) was only three feet each way, reached at last to the grotesque—the absurd contortions of a man miserable on a pleasure jaunt—and I laughed aloud, but somehow it sounded hollow and uncanny.

As to the exact spot where the Rob Roy was at this particular time we had of course no possible idea, but judging from after circumstances, the position must have been about ten miles south of St. Catherine's Head, and she drifted twenty miles east while I dreamed.

[Picture: Bed of the Sea]

One effect of extreme exhaustion is to make the mind almost reckless of risk, and we can well understand how in some shipwrecks, after days and nights without sleep, men are in a placid, callous composure of sheer weariness, and that the last agony of drowning then is nothing, just as Dr. Livingstone told me, the shake given by a lion to his victim paralyses the whole system before it is killed. Therefore, as danger was only likely, and sleep was imperative, I must have sleep at all hazards, and so we loosed out the folds of the main-sail on the wet deck. How white and creamy they looked while all was dark around, for no moon had risen. Then I put on my life-belt, and fastened the ship's light where it would not swing, but rested quite close to the deck. I rolled the thick, dry, and ample main-sail round me, stretching my limbs in charming freedom, and I tied myself to the boom, so as not to be easily jerked overboard by the waves. Of course it was my firm intention to sleep only by winks of one eye at a time; but the struggle with Morpheus was, we suspect, very faint; at any rate no record remained but a few dim visions that may have flickered in the soft vanishing of consciousness.

Can any person be expected to describe his first feelings as he awakes in such a bed and finds it broad day? Bright and glorious sun, high up, how I stared at you! and then a glance to the side, and behold, there is land—England. Deliberately I rose and gave three hearty cheers—nobody there to hear, indeed, but myself—no matter, it did good to me to cheer, and to hear too. Breakfast was soon agoing. Ten hours' sleep had thoroughly refreshed me, mind and body; but I could not make out what part of the coast we had hit upon.

It was still about twelve miles distant, and as there were no cliffs in sight, it could not be the Isle of Wight. My chart told nothing; my French Pilot-book had woodcut pictures of all the coast, but nothing came of the search in these; and whether we had drifted east or west of the Isle of Wight we finally gave up as a question—we must go to the coast itself and see.

Therefore we steered due north, rapidly nearing the unknown land, and with a joyous morning, barometer high, wind south, and a coming fine day. Presently there loomed on the horizon one, and then another, and another, splendid ships of war. They steamed in line, and I tried to intercept them to put the query, "Where am I?" Baffled in this, the puzzle was, "Are they going to Portsmouth or Plymouth?" There were equally good reasons for either.

At length three towns could be seen, and the pictures of the French Pilot-book were closely examined, but several plates had each three towns which would fit the case before me, one as well as the other. Fortunately we chose the middle one of the three, because it had a little lighthouse. That on the left we found afterwards was Bognor, which has a reef of dangerous rocks upon its shore.

A fisherman was in his boat, and I hailed him, "Boat ahoy! What is the name of that town?"

"Town, sir?"

"Yes; that village right ahead; what do you call it?"

"The village there, sir?"

"Yes; what is its name? It has a name, hasn't it?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, sir, it's got a name."

"Well, what is the name? I don't know where I am."

"Where have you come from, sir? from the Wight?"

And after these Scottish answers to the questions of a Scotsman, at last I found my way into Littlehampton; and if ever you go to the Beach Hotel in want of a soft bed, after sleeping out of a bed for nearly a month, you will find it there.

This little place, between Bognor and Brighton, is a quiet bathing town just in the delicate stage of existence, when it has been found out and admired, but not yet spoilt. One row of houses fronts the sea with a fine grassy plain between, and a clean white strand.

The Inn was of olden times, and apart near the water, with a landlady of the good old English type; and her son, the waiter, rampant about canoes, kept an aviary under the porch and a capital swimming dog in the stable.

Lie on a sofa in the coffee-room detached, and read the 'Times,'—go into the drawing-room and play the piano, or sit under the garden trees and gaze on the fair blue sea, and hope fervently that, with a strong Tory government to protect our institutions, this hotel may be long kept hid from that merciless monster the "Company (Limited)." But already a railway runs here, and threatens its quiet. Even a steamer now and then from France screws its way into the very narrow channel, where the river Arun has wound down thus far from Arundel. {188}



CHAPTER XIV.

Heavy sea—Isle of Wight—The Commodore—A glance at gear—Bow—Running rigging—Sisterhooks—Horse—Tiller.

The boy and his dog formed a small crowd on the little pier to see the Rob Roy start again with a fine breeze off shore, but freshening every minute until near Selsea Bill it blew half a gale. The navigation round this point is difficult at low water, as may be seen from the markings in the chart copied at page 245, merely as a specimen of what a chart is for the sailor's eye.

At last it was necessary to reef main-sail and jib, the wind blew so hard and in gusts, and the adverse tide met me as it rushed out of Spithead with a heavy swell. Rain poured down slanting with the wind, and the rocks, uncovered at low water, looked very uninviting to leeward.

The little dingey was towed astern, as we had not expected so much sea with a north wind, but for the first time we found how perfectly this diminutive boat was adapted for towing, and after this trial she was never again stowed in the cabin. The bluff bow above, and the keelless, round, smooth bottom below, enabled the dingey to top the sharpest wave, and I often forgot my steering while turning round to watch the little creature as she nimbly leaped over the tumbling billows. The weather got worse, therefore we changed for a storm-mizen, and so many seas broke heavily over the Rob Roy, that the water in the well washed about my ankles, and finally we were compelled to give in and lie-to for an hour or more, after manning the pump.

This wind, rain, and sea together were the worst we had met with, but the yawl seemed in high spirits, like her owner; though the waves in the tide-way were sometimes so short and sharp that it was impossible to rise and fall fast enough, and she often buried deeply. It was here that my chart was so wet that it melted before my eyes, even with all endeavours to preserve it, and therefore I bore up for Brading Harbour, in the Isle of Wight, and somehow managed to get round Bembridge reef all safe into the quiet lake beyond.

Here, and on British soil again, was an end to all expected anxieties of the summer's voyage. The rest to come were to be met, but not anticipated. There had been first the goal of Paris to be reached at a certain time for the Regatta there, and then there was the unknown voyage over the Channel, homeward bound; but henceforth no more dates or wide seas had to be thought of, and the rest of the vacation was free.

The shores and seas about the Isle of Wight looked more cheerful and lovely than ever, with a fair day next morning. Here we soon pass one of the new sea-batteries, a huge granite castle, reminding one of Bomarsund, but unfinished, and with scaffolds round that are worked or stopped, as Ministries go out or in, and as guns or iron plates are proved strongest in turn at Shoeburyness.

Portsmouth is in front, always with moving life on the waves. A squadron of ironclads presses heavy on the water at Spithead, and among them conspicuous is the five-masted Minotaur. White-winged yachts glide through the blue space between these and Ryde. Osborne basks in the sunshine with the "sailor Prince's" pleasure-boat by the shore. If there be a gap or two in the horizon it is soon filled up by some rich laden merchantman, with sails swelling full in the light, and gay signal flags flowing out bright colours; and all the scene is woven together, as it were, by swift steamers flitting to and fro like shuttles strung with a thread of foam across a warp of blue.

But it is to that wooded point at Cowes we are steering, and the tall yellow masts clustered there shew already what an assemblage the yawl will meet at the Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta.

There was a certain amount of sailor's pride as our yawl steadily advanced, steering in among these, the smallest of them all, but ready to be matched against any of its size and crew. She quietly approached the crowded quay, and I put my portmanteau ashore at the Gloucester Hotel; then the jib was filled again to sail up straight to Medina dock, where Mr. John White would see the craft he had modelled, and after a careful survey, the verdict upon her was entirely favourable. {192}

On her safe arrival at Littlehampton, after crossing the Channel, a short account of the voyage had been sent to the 'Times,' and this had reached the numerous yachtsmen at Cowes an hour before the boat herself appeared in front of the Club house. Therefore, the little craft required no more introduction. My flag was my card, and I was speedily made a member of the Club for the time being. Many old friends here greeted me, and many new visitors came on board to congratulate, while His Royal Highness the Commodore of the Royal Canoe Club, whose burgee flew at my mast-head, graciously shook hands.

While the ship carpenters at Medina Dock are making my new bowsprit, and a hundred other things, and Mr. Ratsey is putting the last finish to my sails, we may examine a little the upper gear of the yawl, for that has not yet been specially noticed; but as ladies and landsmen often come on board, who do not require a minute description of all the ropes and spars in the Rob Roy, they can skip the rest of this chapter.

* * * * *

From the sketches of the yawl given in our pages, it will be seen at once that she was under-masted and under-sailed. She could bear a spread of canvas double of that she carried; but for safety, for handiness, and for comfort, we must be content to sacrifice some speed.

Therefore, it was only in a very powerful breeze that the beautiful build and lines of the hull had anything like fair play for shewing her pace through the water. Then, indeed, and when other craft were reeling about and shipping seas, even under reefed canvas, the Rob Roy at once asserted her position.

We have spoken of the excellent mast already. The shrouds were of iron rope. This is affected by heat and wet, but not so much, as cordage is. The screw links to tighten the shrouds seldom had to be employed; a copper rope from the truck to a shroud acted as a lightning conductor.

The bowsprit is on the starboard side, for this allows you to use the light hand with the chain cable in the bitts. The jib has a foot of nine feet in stride. Its tack is on a rope round an open hook at the bowsprit end, so that in reefing you can get it in without danger of falling overboard while reaching out to detach it; then it is hooked on the stem. An iron bobstay we discarded, and an iron forestay, as difficult to keep taut; but, after trials with no bobstay at all, we found it advisable to replace this, although it is a troublesome rope in dealing with the anchor.

The gunwale has an opening of half an inch, all round, and this was enough for scuppers.

The forehatch is thirteen inches square, so that I can readily squeeze down into the fore-cabin.

I painted about a foot of the chain-cable of a bright red colour, at ten and at twenty fathoms, which was useful in telling how much ran out with the anchor. Fenders I got in Paris, very neatly made of line net-work, over canvas bags of cork.

The iron sheave on the stem for the anchor-chain was large, with a high cheek, and the comfort of this was well appreciated in weighing anchor at night or in a swell. The jib-sheets led aft, and the position of the cleats for these was most carefully chosen, as they are more worked than any part of the rigging; yet this position was twice altered, and the best place seems to be on the deck, two feet forward from your breast and two feet to the side.

The strain on these sheets in rough weather was greater than had been anticipated, and at last I had to put a tackle on the port jib-sheet, as that is the one less conveniently placed for belaying.

The peak halyard was fast to the gaff, then through a single block on the mast and one on the gaff, and again one aloft. The throat halyard was fast to the mast, and through a block on the throat, and then aloft. Both these halyards came down on the starboard side, and to separate cleats, but I found it generally more ready to haul on the two at once and belay them together.

The jib-halyard had a block on the sail, and then, with the topping lift, came down on the port side. A jib purchase I soon cut away—one learns to be economical of action when alone. Each of these four ropes then passed through a sheave on deck, two on each side, in an iron frame, properly inclined to give a clear lead. {195a}

Sisterhooks are troublesome things. Some much better plan as a substitute has to be invented, but I used for their "mousings" india-rubber rings, which answered perfectly well, and were easily replaced at six for a penny.

Stocking and re-stocking the anchor were the only operations when I felt the want of another hand, either to do the work at the bow or to give that one touch to the tiller at the critical moment, which an infant could do when near it, but which is hard for a man at a distance. The anchors were on deck, one at each side of the bitts, and fitting securely within the gunwale.

Two things, above all, I must try to devise for next voyage,—a cleat that will need no bends, {195b} but hold anywhere instantly, and an anchor-stock, self-acting in dark, rain, and wind, and without a forelock to slip out or get jammed.

[Picture: Dashing spray]

The hatch of the well was in two parts, and one of them, a foot in breadth, had chocks on each side, so that in rain and dashing spray it was fixed up at an angle before me, and thus only my eyes were above it exposed, and by moving my head down about one inch below the position shewn in the sketch, I could see the compass and the chart. A tarpaulin of one-faced india-rubber over the sloping board and under the horse, had its loose folds round one of my shoulders to the weather side, so that even in very rough water not much could get into the open well.

The main-boom had a ring working between cheeks and carrying a double block with a single block below. To reduce the long fall of the sheet I altered the upper block to a single one; but in the first heavy weather afterwards it was found to be too small a purchase. The force of the wind is underrated if you reason about it in fair weather.

The sheet block was fast to a strong, plain, copper ring, as a traveller, and after much trouble and expense about a horse for this, trying first an iron one, then a copper rope, and then hemp, I found that a rounded inch bar of red iron-wood straight across and about two inches above the bulkhead of the well, answered to perfection. {197}

The oars were stowed one on each side of the hatch combing with blades aft, and looms chock up to the gunwale at the bows, so as to be seldom moved by a rush of sea along the deck, and yet one or other or both could be instantly put into the iron crutches always kept ready shipped, and so placed that I could row comfortably while in the well and facing the bow. The boat-hook had its handle-end always near my right hand, and this saved me many a run forward in awkward times.

The tiller of iron-wood was well wedged into the rudder-head. Of course any joggling or slackness here is like a broken front tooth, or a loose steel pen. No plan that I heard of, or saw, or could devise yet, is entirely satisfactory for enabling the tiller to be set fast in a moment, at any angle, and yet to be perfectly free in ordinary times. I used a large piece of rough cork as a wedge to set the tiller, and a cord loop at each side of the gunwale, to keep it "hard down" when going about. At night, to stop the vibration of the rudder, I knocked in a brass wedge between its head and the iron bushing of the rudder hole.

Every bit of iron above water was galvanized; but this operation weakens small pieces of iron unless it is carefully done. However, the only part which carried away was my small anchor-stock, and this took place at the first cast of it into the Thames.

Such is the Rob Roy yawl, of 4 tons register, and the map (about 70 pages farther on) shews the general course of her first sea voyage by a dotted line, but many a long mile of zigzag had to be sailed besides.



CHAPTER XV.

Ducklings—Victoria Park—Yachtsmen—Cowes—Floating family—The 'Zara'—Lifeboats—Wrecked—Mop—An odd story—The law of anchors—Experiments—The Royal yacht.

Medina Dock is the place to see all sorts of ships and boats for steam, sailing, or rowing, lifeboats, rafts, and models. The basin is full of broken-backed men-of-war whose old black bones are being disjointed and dragged asunder here to make strong knees again, just because they are black and well seasoned. Alongside the quay we had seen the three American yachts, which came across the Atlantic amid many English cheers for the vessels of two hundred tons crossing from New York, while we scarcely record the voyages of our own hundred-ton vessels that have often sailed to Australia.

In Mr. White's garden there are Chinese junks and catamarans afloat in a pond, and even the walls around are not allowed to be quite of dry land, being painted with sea soundings and charts of the neighbouring coasts. This may indeed be called the Admiralty of the yacht fleet, and Cowes is its Portsmouth.

"Nauta nascitur non fit," which is in English, "British boys are ducklings born to the water."

Now many of these have affectionate parents not web-footed, and the filial duty of a little duck to the motherly hen is a very difficult question of conscience when a pond is near; but then there is no positive need to boat, while there is a positive command to obey. This ought to solve the question with all brave loving boys, who are manly enough to obey the woman dearest on earth to them.

A little vessel two feet long may be called a toy ship, but it is a toy that can teach much to an Admiral, and I should not like to have as my comrade on a voyage the man of forty who can pass the Serpentine without a glance at the little ragged urchin there, who is half in the water himself while he reaches with a twig his tiny lugger after its long voyage across the lake among ducks, and row-boats, and billows two inches high.

Victoria Park, again, has a feast of nauticalities now and then for boys who love boats, when the Model Yacht Club sails its liliputian squadron for a half-crown cup.

The competing yachts first lie on the green grass for inspection. They are made in "off hours" by working men, who sail as well as build them. Wife or a school-girl daughter has sewed the sails, and the paint on the hull is gorgeous. Crowds of all classes and ages are at the starting-post, and when the pistol fires the cheers begin. Each favourite in the fleet has its admirers, who run alongside, and the Secretary alone has a grave face, as of a man on important duty. Who can say what sailors' seedlings may be watered in that pond, and to grow up in manhood afterwards as hearts of oak?

And if a boy is too young, or lazy, or clumsy-fingered to make a boat for himself, let him go along Fleet Street till he comes to the spot where he can turn his back upon St. Dunstan's church. Depend upon it he will cross over to the Model Dockyard there, and after buttoning his jacket over his watch-chain, and a good shove down to his pocket-handkerchief, if he has one, let him wriggle in by elbow and knees till he gets a good place among the crowd at the window.

Even when it is time to go home he will not have seen half the naval stores here, or the little sailors—from Cork—all waiting to be engaged; but if he buys the Illustrated Handibook inside from the civil shopman, to con at home, perhaps at his next visit he may be admitted up-stairs to a delicious treat, where he can gloat over the more hidden fleet of the future.

Some, perhaps many, people keep yachts who do not enjoy sailing. We have sometimes seen a yacht-owner who could not steer his own dingey. There are others whose chief anxiety when once on board is for their speedy arrival at the next port. To have the best yacht of the year is no sign of its owner being a good sailor. The horse that wins the Derby would most likely not be first if he carried his owner, and a man may have a good carriage who cannot himself "handle the ribbons."

It is no discredit to anybody that he is not able to ride a race, or steer a schooner, or drive a drag; but it is well to remember more than we do whose is the skill that wins in each of these exercises.

At Cowes one perceives very soon that a good deal of yachtomania is fed upon the good meat and drink afloat, and balls and promenades ashore, and the pomp and bustle of getting from one to the other, not to forget the brass buttons which fasten more vulgar minds to some Clubs.

Leaving aside all these in peace, provided they play with the thing as they have a right to do, and as openly as now, so that none can mistake them, we have still to admire a splendid set of fellows, yes, and of women too, who really love the sea. We know a hardy canoeist who said he would not marry anybody unless she could "pull bow oar," and it certainly is an addition to the family hearth when the tender help-meet can "mind her luff."

In the regatta week the tide of a congregation coming out of the pretty church at Cowes is thoroughly aquatic. Fine stalwart men with handsome faces, girls with chignons as big as a topsail bunt, yacht skippers of bronze hue and anxious eye, well fed sailors with cerulean Jerseys, children with hat ribbons and neckties labelled with yacht names. There were 150 yachts on the water here, and the Rob Roy anchored close to the Hotel, from which the sight was magnificent at night, when each mast-light was hung, and the whole made a brilliant crescent reflected in calm sea, while excellent music played softly on shore, and at each half-hour the bell of every vessel tolled the time, the Rob Roy adding her note to the jingle by so many thumps on an iron pot.

Near the yawl was a strange little cutter of five tons, as remarkable for the number of people on board it as mine was for having so few. There was the grey-haired hearty papa, and when we had noticed him taking observations with a sextant, we knew he was "a character." Then there was his active son, and a younger brother, and a sister in bright red, and a sailor boy. They looked even more numerous, because they kept for ever moving out of sight, and then appearing in new costume, under and above the awning, which like a large umbrella, was spread on their boom.

It was a treat to lunch with this kind hale yachtsman, and to see the one minute cabin full of mirrors, pictures, statuettes, crockery, and furniture. To make room for the visitor two of the inhabitants ate their share of a huge pie in the punt alongside.

Then, to rise at once to the largest yacht of them all, there was the beautiful 'Zara,' a schooner of 315 tons, fitted out for a Mediterranean cruise, but making her first voyage from Cowes to Southampton, convoyed by the Rob Roy, and as her reefing topsails and her Flemish horse got entangled aloft by new stiff ropes, she drifted against another fine schooner; but with cool heads and smart hands on board of each of them, the pretty craft were softly eased away from a too rough embrace, and no damage was done.

About twenty of the yachts were steamers, and at least as many besides had steam-launches, a new adjunct rapidly becoming popular, and which soon will be almost a necessary for every yacht of 200 tons. All of these that I saw were lifeboats, built on "Lamb and White's" principle, that is, with air chambers along the sides, so that they decline to upset, and if they are filled by the sea, they are not only still floating but steady also.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution build boats with ballast below and with air-chambers so disposed at the ends and in the bottom as to cause the boat to right itself when it has been overturned, while Mr. S. White's boats are constructed so as rather to prevent a capsize than to right the boat afterwards.

During an experimental trial in a heavy sea, one of these side-chamber boats was intentionally overturned, and it then kept steadily floating bottom upwards, so that the crew clambered up safely on the keel, where the handles provided for the purpose enabled them to hold on. Of the fourteen men, however, only thirteen could be counted, and so it was found that "Jem" was missing; but when he was called, Jem answered from the inside of the boat, "All right!" "What! Are you inside?" "Yes, I'm looking for my cap." He was safe enough in the vacant space between the water and the floor, upturned over him, and there was room for several more of the crew inside.

The two rival systems then seem to represent (1) a boat which will speedily right, of which the men, if upset, may float outside until she rights, or may keep inside, and cling to the thwarts and trust to be soon righted; and (2) a boat which will upset only under strongest pressure, but the men can either stop inside, or if cast out can cling to the keel.

To decide between the merits of these lifeboats would require actual experiment outside and inside of each by the judge, who ought to look at all sides of the question; but my opinion is, at present, in favour of the side-chamber plan, for ships' boats, and of course for steam-launches; while the evidence in favour of the other plan for pure lifeboat service in rough water is convincing.

Whatever may be finally settled as to the best position of the air-cases in lifeboats—and the best men in the world for these matters are engaged in earnest upon the subject {206}—it certainly is prudent for all who care not to be drowned, that the boat they sail in should be so built as not to go down bodily when a mere hole is knocked in her, and this may be insured by dividing her into water-tight compartments.

Some years ago I had a sharp lesson on this point. It was in Dublin Bay, where I was sailing entirely alone in an iron cutter-yacht, very small, yet far too large to be managed by me, then a boy. The throat parrell suddenly broke, and the mainsail jammed at once, so that she would not stay. Then I tried to wear ship, but the running sea poured in over the counter at each plunge, and baling was impossible, for it ran fore and aft. As the water got deeper inside she settled down, for she had no compartments, and, being of iron, of course she must speedily sink. A yacht had humanely come out, seeing my distress, and she rounded to and dropped a boy on board me with a strong rope; but when the boy set foot on my bows they plunged deep under water, and with a loud cry he hauled himself back on board the other yacht.

The captain instantly tacked and came again, and cast the rope to me, which I fastened securely to my mast, and then got safely aboard the preserver's vessel, while mine sunk down, but suspended still by the rope, until we towed it into shallow water.

This sort of thing was fully provided against in the Rob Roy by the water-tight compartments, three in number, besides the air-chambers, so that if she was filled in any one, she could yet sail on, and if all three compartments had been entirely full of water, she would still float with her air-chambers, and with five hundredweight to spare. {208}

The buoyancy of the yawl was very remarkable. She easily carried twenty men, and in the same space one could accommodate five ladies of reasonable circumference.

A boat's mop is, of course, well known to be always fair spoil to him who can take it, and whatever other article the yachtsman leaves loose on an unguarded deck, he never omits to hide or lock up the mop, for a mop is winged like an umbrella, it strays, but seldom returns. The usual protection of mops is their extreme badness, and it is on this account, no doubt, that you never can find a good mop to buy. The Rob Roy's mop was the only bad article on board, and I left it out loose in perfect confidence. Often and often it had evidently been turned over, but on examination it was found supremely bad, worse than the thief's own mop, and not worth stealing. At last, however, and in Cowes, too, the focus of yachting, if not of honesty, my mop was stolen. The man who took it is to be pitied, for, clearly, before he coveted a bad mop, he must have been long enduring a worse one.

Nor is the property in boats' anchors quite free from the legal subtleties which allow but a dim sort of ownership in things that are attached to the soil.

When, indeed, your boat is at one end of the cable, you will scarcely fear that the anchor should be stolen from the other end. But when necessity or convenience causes you to slip anchor and sail away, you must recollect that though the anchor is the emblem of hope, it does not warrant any expectation that on returning you will find the anchor acknowledged to be yours. It has now passed into the category of "found anchors," and it is not yet decided how the rights to these are best determined. However, I may here mention one mode of settling the matter.

A gentleman we shall call N., sailing from a port on the Thames, had to slip his anchor, and he said to the lad ashore—"You see I am leaving my anchor here, and be good enough to tell your father to get it when the tide falls, and to carry it to where my yacht is, and when I return here to-morrow I will give him half-a-crown."

After his sailing was over, N. came back and said to the father, "Well, have you got my anchor?" "I have found an anchor," he answered. "Yes, that is mine, and I told your son I would give you half-a-crown if you brought it here." "I have found an anchor, and I'll not give it up under five shillings," said the man; and their argument and remonstrance gradually enveloped the subject in a hazy abstruseness, while the usual knot of idlers listened all round. At length N. said, "Come, now, we really must settle this matter. I'll fight you as to whether I am to pay five shillings or nothing for the anchor," and he took off his coat and waistcoat, so it was plain he was in earnest. The other man stripped too, a ring was formed, and after N., worsted at first, had well thrashed his opponent, the latter gave up the anchor. Here, perhaps, we might think the case had ended, but N. had still a point to be settled, saying to the man, "Your bargain was not only to give up the anchor, but to bring it here;" and as the fellow refused to do this, the valiant N. cut the second discussion short by saying, "Well, then, I'll fight you again as to who shall carry it up," and it need scarcely be said that the anchor was not carried up by N.

Is there any other country but England where two men can pummel each other in hard earnest, and yet with less passion at the time, and less grudge afterwards than often exists for years between two combatants who battle with their tongues, or even fight with their pens and post-stamps?

As anchors are important parts of one's equipment, I had begun early to experiment at once with mine, and the small one had been tried once as a kedge. With the first heave it broke off short; the stock had snapped in the place which ought to be the strongest, but which is really made the weakest, by the present faulty construction of anchor-stocks. The memo in my log-book was, "Invent a proper anchor;" and even at Cowes I could not find any plan that met this need. {211}

Before the end of my voyage, a score of minutiae as well as things of some importance were marked as lines for great improvement, when a nautico-mechanical brain shall be brought to bear upon them. The mental consideration of such points afforded varied subjects for many weeks' thought. Indeed all the fittings of a sailing-boat seem open to much improvement. Meanwhile we have laid down the large Trotman as moorings in the Medina, while we range about the bays of the island with the smaller anchor duly repaired.

Of course the dingey had its Sunday voyage at Cowes, and was everywhere received with kindness. It went to the Royal Yacht here, as it had done to the Emperor's yacht at St. Cloud, and the sailors were grateful for books to read, for they have plenty of time on Sundays. When I went afterwards with my canoe to the Nile, my next neighbour at the hotel dinner in Port Said was the owner of an English yacht, who gratefully expressed his thanks for books given to his crew at Cowes.

It did not appear to be the fashion at Cowes to work the crews for pleasure sailing seven days a week; indeed, we saw only one yacht sail in on Sunday, and she was arriving after a night's voyage.



CHAPTER XVI.

The life-raft—A travelled hen—Prussian adventure—American—Going up-stairs—Portsmouth—Fair visitor—Cruises—A review—Questions.

The 'Nonpareil' American life-raft was in Cowes after her Atlantic voyage of forty-three days at sea. Two of her three adventurous crew were Germans, who could speak English only imperfectly, and the third was a Yankee. This uncomfortable voyage was undertaken partly to promote the sale in England of these rafts, and partly to pay the three men by fees from visitors, while they could see Europe themselves at a cheap rate. One of Mr. White's steamers towed the raft in front of the Castle, where the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron Club have their spacious house, with a sea wall over the waves.

From the accompanying sketch it will be seen that she is schooner-rigged, and very coarsely rigged too. Gigantic flags and streamers overwhelm her masts, but fourteen of us on her deck seemed to sink the buoyant life-raft only an inch more in the water.

[Picture: The raft]

She is made of three long tubes of india-rubber blown up by bellows; and, when the air is out, these can be packed away snugly, weighing in all about a ton, and intended to be inflated and launched from a ship's deck in case of disaster. A small raft in the capacity of a dingey, but formed like the other, was towed beside her, and as a special favour I was piloted to go away in this, which was easily worked by oars or sculls upon outriggers.

The men had for shelter during their long voyage only a small waterproof tent on the deck, with a gutter round its edge to catch the rainwater, and so to replenish their supply, kept in bags on each side, and now handed about in glasses as "travelled liquor," to wash down biscuits, still surplus from the "sea store." Their cooking apparatus was at first worked by petroleum, but this speedily burned the metal out, and they were driven to manufacture a very ramshackle sort of oil-lamp, fed by the oil for their ship-light and their compass, and by some supplied from passing vessels.

Two centre-boards, like long narrow doors, placed diagonally between the web joinings of the tubes, dipped into the water, and served as a keel, so that when we cast her off from the steamer, the raft managed to sail a little over to windward. The whole raft being collapsible when the air is driven out, can be readily carried aboard ship, and for this it is valuable, but many other and better rafts compete with this for favour.

The actual substratum, or raft proper, seemed to be strong and substantial, but the sails and gear were miserably contrived, and worse executed, in preparation for a long dreary voyage of six weeks, drifting in wet and weariness, which I could not but contrast with the pleasant six weeks just passed in the Rob Roy.

The most interesting thing on the raft was a passenger, who had come on board her when about a thousand miles away in the sea. This was an old hen, given to the crew by a passing vessel. It was a common brown, dowdy, grandmother-looking hen, and in this prosaic state it was very odd and incongruous, tethered to the deck by a bit of tarred lanyard, and pecking away till you looked hard at it, then it cocked up one eye with an air that said, "Why are you staring at me?"

Among the visitors to the raft was a wealthy gentleman, who surveyed the whole with interest, and at last fixed his eye upon the barn-door fowl, and asked if it was to be sold. "Yes, sir, for a hundred guineas," was the answer; but he deferred any immediate purchase by saying, "If I thought that eating that hen's eggs would make me as plucky as you are, I might buy it." As for being "plucky" in the matter, what will not men risk for money? The risks run by many sailors in the rotten coffins that bring our scuttles of coals round Yarmouth Sands are quite as great as the hazard on this raft, and their forecastles are about as comfortable as the tent upon it. If it were not on such a serious subject as risk to human life, one might well be amused to hear the wrong estimates of the dangers in various sorts of voyages which are so hastily expressed by benevolent people who are ignorant of the whole matter.

I advised the raft-men to take her to Berlin, for exhibition as "the German raft from America," for such she is; but they persisted in their scheme for showing her in London, where folks are already tired of "flotsam and jetsam" from the West. Their enterprise failed; and the poor Germans had to depart from England deep in debt instead of laden with money, and their raft was left for sale.

Since the 'Nonpareil,' there has come to England from America another floating monstrosity, a boat called the 'John T. Ford,' worse "found" in every sense than the others, and which had three men drowned on the passage, and one nearly starved—a sad finale to the failures of the 'Henrietta,' 'Red, White, and Blue,' and 'Nonpariel,' as speculations. Another craft came in with man and wife as crew. Finally in July, the two Andrews came in the 'Nautilus.'

Every day at Cowes the yawl Rob Roy was under way for a sail, and sometimes in good breezes she would thread in and out among thickly clustered yachts, so as to show her handiness. Certainly, without previous practice, it would be highly improper to attempt this sort of cruising; for the yachts, with bowsprits run out, and jiggers and mizen-booms projecting, are at anchor here on the implied understanding that no one will wantonly endanger a collision by sailing about in the crowd, merely for fun. After practice, however, for weeks in the same craft, the operation of guiding her safely through a maze of boats, and on a strong cross-tide, becomes like the unnoticed and nearly involuntary muscular efforts of the body which carry us safely through a crowd on shore. I recollect once seeing some very dignified Arab Chiefs, who for the first time in their lives had to go up-stairs, and their awkward stumbling, even in the ascent of a few steps, showed how much our nerves and limbs have to learn before we can do so ordinary a thing without even a thought.

One day the Rob Roy sailed to Portsmouth, and into all the creeks and crannies, and through all the channels and guts she could find in that complicated waterway, and then anchored near the 'Duke of Wellington,' with the old 'Victory' close beside. There also was the 'Serapis,' one of the magnificent troop-ships, of a size and build found to be the best success of our last naval efforts. By the quay was the 'Warrior,' the first sea-going iron-clad, and of beauty indisputable, and the celebrated 'Wyvern,' with its tripod masts. Others later made, and always more and more stumpy and square, need a strong pressure of utilitarian conviction to restrain us from pronouncing that they are downright ugly. But we shall soon become reconciled, and then enamoured, of forms that are associated with proved utility, and the grand three-decker of our youth will look as clumsy then as the ships of Queen Elizabeth do now, which seem to have carried, each of them, a lot of toy guns, and a country mansion on its deck.

The church service on board old 'Victory' was most interesting to take part in when Sunday came round, and next day her captain came to visit us in his well-manned gig, which, indeed, was longer than our boat, and he said that the Rob Roy "fulfilled a dream of his youth." This from a "swell of the ocean" was a high compliment to our little yawl.

A boat full of boys, from the Portsmouth Ragged School, sang hymns on the water in the lovely evening.

Among the other remarkable visitors to the yawl was a pleasant young lady, who sat in a very pretty boat, rowed by a trusty man. She had hovered round and round the Rob Roy with a cautious propriety, which, however, could not conceal a certain wistful gaze as the narrowing spiral of her course brought her nearer at each turn. My little dingey was the attraction, and the lady confessed boldly that she "would so like to have a boat like that to row in." Next she consented to see dinner cooked on the Rob Roy, and—just because she was a lady—she complied with the request not to fly away when I began to eat. Finally, as curiosity increases by gratifying it, the good-humoured girl (with the full consent of the trusty guardian) accepted one mouthful of the newly cooked rations, stewed steak, on Rob Roy's fork, and then suddenly it had become "very late, and time to join papa."

The variety of life during a fortnight here, yet all afloat, was abounding. One day sailing in company with other small boats up the winding Medina, or tacking about, close-reefed, in rough water; the next day cruising in some splendid schooner away and away towards the Needles. Every one was kind and hospitable, and often dipping their ensigns to the yawl. Surely we have named her cruise wrongly as "the voyage alone;" and, indeed, I could scarcely get time in my cabin for a glance at a paper, to see the news and doings of the land folk, bricked up ashore: their wars and congresses and the general rasping they get for it all by a hard squeeze in the press at the end of every week, to keep them from forgetting their own discomforts or their neighbours' ills, for Parliament being dispersed in vacation, there is the fourth estate to legislate by public acclaim.

Most remarkable it is, and commendable, and a feature only a few years old, that the principal morning and evening papers should take up one after another of philanthropic institutions, and even of individual cases, and advocate them vigorously, while they spare no wrong from censure, and freely discuss remedies, which are much harder to talk of than any wrongs. Philanthropy is made popular by the press, and many a good worker is cheered by this powerful help. Blessings on their type!

But on the other hand, lest we should subside into doing good, hoping better, and making the best of things in a practical way, the whole has to be reviewed at the end of each week by a hard hebdomadal board, on which a dozen clear thinkers sit aside and criticise all the rest of us. Perhaps it is a part of the irreverence of our times that one should gradually lose awe in the presence of this weekly printed wisdom. Or is it that experience finds types are just as fallible as tongues for telling truth, and that years give us hardiness even in the presence of that most mighty, wise, and impudent of all earthworms,—man, that judges the very God of Heaven.

However, the brilliancy of these critics flares out and attracts, and it ought to attract, though it need not dazzle, even if it be the brilliancy of the electric light, warming as little, and darkening one side as much. Their thoughts reach thousands, and without the answers: thus to thousands they are judgments, not arguments. It is a tremendous responsibility to wield such powers, and perhaps it is not felt by a corporate body as each one of them would acknowledge for himself.

It is a good sign of them, or of the age, that they should yield to man's innate love of continuous detraction?

Is not their own shibboleth the hardest of all, the most shifting, the most inaudibly pronounced by themselves, if it be not a universal "No," and yet the most rigorously insisted upon? Is there not a "cant" of the vague and complacent denial, quite as bad as that of the too positive and assumed belief? Will it cure the weakness of the milk-and-water they complain of to pour in mustard and vinegar? and would not any one man, with all these bristling points of sarcasm, dispraise, and bitterness, be about as pleasant in social life as a porcupine? Surely this powerful literary lever could be plied to raise heavier stones, and to settle them in goodly order. Let others grub in the rubbish; but the leading organ of the week could sound with a grander harmony, more pleasant, and not less piquant if it gave rhythm to the mind of England in a forward march against misery.

Perhaps to write thus is too daring; for while Saturn masticates his own offspring it is a bold child that complains to his face; but it is better to be called rash than to be proved timid.

Meantime we are nearing Cowes in our sail from Portsmouth, and must mind the rocks and beacons rather than soliloquies, for this one question may be put after all:—Is it right to moralize at all in a log-book? and will not the reader say, that when there is not a storm in the yawl, or a swamp, there is sure to come a sermon?



CHAPTER XVII.

Continental sailors—Mal de mer—Steam-launches—Punt chase—The ladies—Fireworks—Catastrophe—Impudence—Drifting yachts—Tool chest—Spectre ship—Where am I?—Canoe v. yawl—Selfish—Risk and toil—Ridicule.

The regatta days opened with wind and rain; but even at the best of times, the sight of a sailing match from on shore is like that of a stag hunt from on foot,—very pretty at the start, and then very little more to see. It is different if you sail about among the competing yachts. Then you feel the same tide and wind, and see the same marks and buoys, and dread the same shoals and rocks as they do, and at every turn of every vessel you have something to learn.

No one can satisfactorily distribute the verdict "victor" or "vanquished" in a sailing-match between the designer, the builder, the rigger, and the course, the weather, the rules, the sailor of each craft, and chance; though each of these will conduce in part to the success or failure in every match. Still there is this advantage, that the loser can always blame, and the winner can always praise, which of these elements he finds most convenient. But if a sailing-match has little in it quite intelligible, even when you see it, the account of a past regatta is well worth keeping out of print—so be it then with this one, the best held at Cowes for many years.

The large crowds that attended, and their obstinate standing in heavy rain, were in marked contrast to the phlegmatic and meagre interest of the few French who came to the regatta at St. Cloud. But it is such occasions that remind us of England being a land of seamen, while continental sailors are at best of the land, except in northern nations.

Once it was my lot to sail in a small screw-steamer along the coast of Calabria. Of the four passengers one was a Neapolitan officer, who embarked in full uniform; and with light tight boots and spurs, and clanging sword, he stalked the quarter-deck, that is, he took three steps, and was at the end, and three steps back.

In going out of Messina I saw we should have a tough bit of sea outside, and was soon prepared accordingly. He did not so, and the first bursting wave wet him through in a moment, and down he went below. Some hours afterwards I descended too, and a melancholy sight was there, with very lugubrious sounds.

In the cabin was a huge tub full of water, and the officer (spurs, boots, and all) was sitting in it with his legs out of one end and his head groaning and bellowing from the other. This was his specific for sea-sickness, and for three days he behaved about as well as a fractious child who sadly wants a good whipping. It is no discredit to a man to be sea-sick. Nelson, we are told, was so far human. But it is somewhat unmanly for an officer to whine and blubber like a baby, and yet we have several times seen this phenomenon abroad. When we came into Naples this lachrymose hero was again in full feather, boots, spurs, and sword, stalking the quarter-deck as if no tub and tears had intervened.

Some excellent rowing-matches, after the Regatta in Cowes, were varied by a "punt chase,"—an amusement thoroughly English; when one man in a punt is chased by four in a low-boat, who have to catch both him and his boat within ten minutes.

Of course his path is devious and tortuous on the water, his resort being quick turns, while the chasers gain in speed. After numerous close escapes he leaps into the water. Then if the pursuers catch and hold his boat it clogs them in following him, and if they follow him while his boat is left free, he manages to escape round some tangled mass of shipping, and so regains his boat for a new start.

This is the sort of thing that tries both swimming and pluck in the water, as well as mere muscle or wind in rowing. It is to racing proper what a hunt is to a flat race. Rowing is only one small part of boating, and it is apt to monopolise our favour chiefly because many can row for one that can boat.

In one of these punt chases at Cowes the punter had several times plunged into the sea, and amid shouts and cheers he was always closely followed by one of his chasers who swam almost equally well.

At length the brave punter swam over to the 'Alberta,' one of the Queen's steam-yachts, which had several of the royal Princesses and others on board, who kindly thus patronized the races, and their presence was thoroughly appreciated by us all. The hardy sailor scaled the yacht, and actually ran among the ladies,—who doubtless were much amused, and indeed they tittered vastly. Then he mounted the lofty paddle-box, closely followed by his resolute pursuer, who would not be shaken off. With one moment of hesitation the punter took a splendid "header" into the sea, and as he was thus descending from the paddle-box the gun filed, showing that the ten minutes had expired. The pursuer could then, of course, have given up the chase as done. He had lost and could not win now. But there was still in him that fine free boldness which superadds brave deed to stern duty, and, amid a burst of cheers, he too leaped down into the sea.

[Picture: The Punt Chase]

The first diver, however, had heard the wished-for gun as he fell and so he claimed his prize when he came up, all red and watery, and both had well gained the applause of the spectators.

It is not for one who has rowed fifty races with pleasure to underrate, far less to disparage, mere rowing; but still we maintain that for the encouragement of pure manliness, and the varied capacities useful in a sailor's life, one punt chase is far better than ten of the others.

The rapid introduction of steam-launches into use for our large English yachts adds quite a new feature to every grand regatta. Here again, however, the French navy led the way, and England follows somewhat tardily. The French fleet at the Cherbourg review, some years ago had a swarm of these fussy little creatures buzzing about the great anchored iron-clads. English steam-launches were built to carry each a gun, and so they are bluff and slow. Our Admiralty declined to allow a race between these and the French launches in Paris, else, no doubt, the superior speed of the French boats would have astonished John Bull. All this has lately changed, so that launches and torpedo boats in England can steam twenty miles an hour.

The "voyage alone" had culminated at Cowes when the splendid exhibition of fireworks closed the grand show of British yachting. It was a beautiful sight those whizzing rockets speeding from wave to sky, and scattering bright gems above to fall softly from the black heaven; those glares of red or green that painted all the wide crescent of beauteous hulls, and dim, tall masts with a glow of ardent colour, and the "bouquets" of fantastic form and hue, with noise that rattled aloft, while thousands of paled faces cheered loud below. To this day the deck of the Rob Roy (which is now in Australia) bears marks of the fire-shower falling quietly, gently down, but still with a red scar burned in black at the last.

Luggage is all on board again, and our tiny "Blue Peter" flies at the fore, for the Rob Roy will weigh anchor now for her homeward voyage. The Ryde Regatta was well worth seeing, and she stopped there in an uneasy night, but we need not copy the log of another set of sailing matches.

Thus in a fine evening, when the sun sank ruddy and the breeze blew soft, we turned again to Brading harbour, and, just perhaps because we had come safely once before, there was listless incaution now, as if Bembridge reef could not be cruel on such a fine evening as this.

Various and doubtless most true directions had been given to me as to entering this narrow channel:—"Keep the tree in a line with the monument; that's your mark." But when you come there and see the monument, there are twenty trees; and which then is the tree to guide by? Here, therefore, and in mundane things on land too it is alike, the misapprehension of a rule was worse than the chance mistake of undirected mother-wit. A horrid crash brought us suddenly to rest; the Rob Roy had struck on a rock. Though I was lax at the time, and lolling and lazy, yet presence of mind remained. Down came the sails, out leaped the anchor, and shoving, and hauling, and rowing did their best; but no, she was firmly berthed on one of the north-west rocks. Presently a malicious wave lifted her stern round and the rudder soon bumped on another sharp ledge, until by sounding and patience I at last got her free, and rowed out through a channel unconscionably narrow, and then ran the sails up, and the yawl was safe again, sailing smoothly, with a deep sigh of deliverance.

A sailing-boat had put off from the shore to help, seeing the catastrophe, but I signalled to her, "Thanks—all right now," and she went back.

Soon another boat that had rowed out came near, and the man in her determined to be a salvor whether or no, and leaped on board the yawl. I made him get off to his boat; I had not invited him, nor had he asked permission to board me. He could see it was the other man's job, and he ought to have obeyed the signal, as the other did. Grumbling heavily, he at length asked me to tow him in. "Well," I said, "why, yes, I will give you a tow, though you have been very impudent." But the moment he came near he jumped on board again, resolved "to save me," though I might protest ever so hard. Once more, then, I bundled him into his boat, and this time rather by deeds than words. He kept up a volley of abuse all the way to the shore, and there I gave my yawl in charge of the first man, who had acted right both in coming out and in going back when signalled. A hospitable Captain R.N. offered me his moorings (as a good bed for my yawl), and asked me to breakfast next day, which was accepted, "subject to the wind," especially as the entertainer was of the clan "Mac," like his guest.

Calm night falls on the Rob Roy, in a little inland lake, profoundly still, more quiet indeed, in respect of current, tide, or wind, or human being than any night of the voyage. It was very difficult to turn in below with such a moon above, and water quite unruffled. So there was a long lean-to on propped elbows, and reverie reeled off by the yard.

Daybreak grey, with a westerly breeze, at once dissolved the breakfast engagement, and carried the Rob Roy to sea, with her own kettle briskly boiling; and now we are fairly started on our voyage to the Thames again. But the glowing sun also took its morning meal, and greedily ate up the wind; and so the yachts from Ryde could be seen far off, looking farther off in a misty curtain, all only drifting with the tide, while they raced their hardest for a cup. Yet there is science and skill in drifting well. If the skipper has no wind to show his prowess in with sails, he must win by his knowledge of current, tide, and channel, while he seems perhaps to be carried along helplessly. One after another the pretty racers slowly rounded the Warner light-ship, and then each sunk back, as it were, into the gauzy distance, until they seemed like white pearls dotted on grey satin, and the Rob Roy was alone again, while the fog thickened more. Land was shut out, then sky, then every single thing, and the glazed sea seemed to stiffen as if it had set flat and smooth for ever.

To know that this state of thing was to last for hours would make it intolerable, but the expectancy of every moment buoys up the mind in hope, and every past moment is buried as you reach thus forward to the next coming.

Then the inexorable tide turned dead against me, and down went my anchor; for, at any rate, we must not be floated backwards. Tool-chest opened, and hammer and saw are instantly at work, for there are still "things to be done" on board, and when all improvements shall have been completed then vacant hours like these will be tedious enough; but never fear, there is no finality in a sailing-boat, if the brain keeps inventing and the fingers respond.

Out of the thick creamy fog a huge object slowly loomed, with a grand air of majesty, and a low but strenuous sound as it came nearer and clearer to eye and ear. It was an enormous Atlantic Steamer, and it went circling round and round in ample bends, but never too far to be unexpected again. Sometimes her great paddles moved with a measured plash, but slow, until she dissolved before my eyes into a faded vision. Again, when hidden, there would still come a deep moaning from her hoarse fog-whistle out of the impenetrable whiteness, and she again towered up suddenly behind, ever wheeling, gliding on, vapour and water so commingled that you could not say she floated, but was somehow faintly present like the dim picture on a canvas screen from a magic lantern half in focus. She was searching in the fog for the 'Nab' light-ship, thence to take new bearings and cleave the mist in a straight course at half-speed for Southampton. When she found the 'Nab' she vanished finally, and I was glad and sorry she was gone.

After long waiting, the faintest zephyr now at last dallied with my light flag for a minute, and the anchor was instantly raised. A schooner, also outward bound, soon gently burst its way through the cloudy barrier, and I tried to follow her, but she too melted into dimness, and left me in a noiseless, sightless vacancy, except when the distant gong of the light-ship told that they also had a fog there.

How did the ancients by any possibility manage to sail in a fog without a compass? In those days, too, they had no charts; yes, and there was no "Wreck chart," to tell at the year's end all the havoc strewn at the bottom of the sea.

Well, we sailed on and on, always seeming to sail on into pure cotton-wool, which blushed a little with an evening tint as the sun tired down, and so here was a long day told off and ending; but where exactly am I now as darkness falls?

You will say, "Why, the chart tells that, of course;" and so it does, if you have anything like sure reckoning to indicate what part of the mazy groups of figures on it to look for as your probable place; otherwise a dozen different places in it will all suit your soundings, and eleven of them are wrong.

Consider the data, for our calculation. The Rob Roy had been carried by two tides; one this way, the other that. She had sailed on three different tacks, that is, in various angular directions, and with different speeds, and these complicating forces had acted for times very uncertain. Where is she now? an all-important question for settling the start point in a night cruise, and on a dangerous coast.

The last time I was sailing in fog was on the Baltic, in my canoe, where, just at the nick of time, a look-out man was descried on a high ladder far overlooking the low rocky islands of the Swedish coast, and he speedily showed me that my bow was then pointed exactly wrong for the desired haven.

This may be the time, perhaps, to compare the canoe voyages with the yawl cruise, even if we cannot settle the question so often put to me, "Which was the most agreeable?"

A canoe voyage can be enjoyed by several men, each in a separate boat, and yet all in a combined party; that is, with distinct responsibility but united companionship. The yawl cruise devolves both toil and care on one alone, but he also has all the pleasure, and so it might be pronounced at once to be more selfish than the other voyage. But after a score of tours, in large and small parties, I see that selfishness is quite independent of the number concerned. A man who is pleasing his wife or his children in a tour I do not count at all; for everything that delights or benefits them is of course a pleasure to him. Or again, he may journey with ten companions, and his travelling circle will indeed be larger, but the centre of it may be after all the same.

Of the thousand tourists who rush out over the Continent each summer there is little check on selfishness by meeting people in trains, steamers, and hotels for a temporary acquaintance which is speedily dissolved as soon as the interests or the likings of the companions are not coincident.

Unselfishness appears to consist in doing good when it is not exactly pleasant to do it, and to people who are not in our own groove, or in "our set," but like the people invited in the feast prescribed by Christ, and for whom we work as a duty, whether it is immediately agreeable or not. It is giving up our own will to God's command and obeying this ungrudgingly: and yet our own pleasure may be most in giving others pleasure, and we can be lavish of labour for others while we are selfish at the core. Thus it seems to be very difficult ever to be unselfish in the sense that it is often absurdly insisted upon; namely, that others are everything and yourself nothing. Nevertheless, after all casuistry, we know what is meant by "selfish," as an undue regard. But the result of an action is to be looked at, and it does not become selfish because we alone do one part of it. A man who steps out from a crowd to pluck flowers alone on the edge of the cliff may bring back a bouquet that will give fragrant pleasure to them all, while another who stays in the group of gatherers may gather none at all or may be very selfish about his handful. Our lonely labour may, in fact, be useful for other people in the end.

The anxieties of the canoe trip are more varied and less heavy than in a sailing cruise.

In the yawl I was always sure of food and lodging, but then in the canoe one does not fear wind, wave, calm, and fog; for, at any rate, one can at the worst take the canoe ashore. The risk of a total loss of the canoe is only fifteen pounds gone, but the other shipwreck risks ten times as much, and whereas each canoe danger can usually be avoided, those met in sailing at sea are often to be encountered without any escape.

The physical endurance required in a canoe is more under control of a previous arrangement. The muscular exertion with the paddle is generally voluntary, while that in the yawl was often hardest when one wanted most to rest. You need scarcely be forced, in canoeing, to go on two days and two nights without sleep, as will presently be seen was my fate in the yawl.

The scenery in traversing land and water in a canoe is of course more varied than in sailing always at sea, but the perils of the deep have a grandeur and wideness that seem to rouse far more the inner soul and with more profound emotions. The thoughts during a night storm at sea are of a higher strain than those in passing the rapids in a river.

Finally, there is at first a sense of incongruity in the appearance of a canoe when in a cart, on a train, or in a house, and you have often to meet an inexplicable but evident smile at the whole affair, which perhaps comes from pity, certainly from ignorance, and it may be from contempt; whereas a sailing-boat crossing the deep is doing what people in ports and ships know very well about, and if your boat keeps on doing it successfully they cannot despise the deed because the boat that does it is small. A man who comes to the "meet" on a little pony will not be laughed at if he is always well in at the death.

Perhaps the voyage alone in a yawl will not be so often repeated by other people as that in a canoe, but this last manner of touring became popular at once.

One of the members of the Royal Canoe Club (The late Hon. J. Gordon), a distinguished University oar and Wimbledon Prizeman, sailed {240} at night across the Channel from Dover to Boulogne, paddled through France and sailed to Marseilles, and thence from Nice to Genoa, through the Italian lakes, the Swiss lakes, and by the Reuss to the Rhine home again. A second coasted along England, and paddled across the Channel from the French side in a 'Rob Roy' made with his own hands. A third crossed from Scotland to Ireland in his 'Rob Roy.' A critic complacently denied, a few months before these voyages, that a canoe could cross a bay eight miles wide. The canoes of our Members have paddled over thousands of miles in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, including China and Japan, besides cruises in Australia, New Zealand, and many groups of islands far away.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Bedtime—A trance—Thunderings—Chart—Light dims—Night flies—First running—Newhaven—On the gridiron—Mr. Smith—Tumbledown walls—Derelict.

"Where is the yawl now?" was the question we had asked in the fog, and the natural answer was—that the chart would tell, of course. So let us look at the small slice of chart copied on page 245, which is crammed, you see, with figures of soundings, and names of banks, buoys, and beacons; but the only thing to be seen on the actual horizon around us, is the Owers light behind, and about N.W. in its bearing. The tide will soon turn against our progress towards the east, therefore we tack towards shore, so as to be within anchorage soundings should it become needful to stop, for the wind has just changed rather suspiciously, and we can even hear the sound of the drums at Portsmouth as they beat the taptoo. A few bright meteors shoot athwart the heavens above, reminding us that this is one of their usual epochs—the 14th of August.

Now we are in ten fathoms by the lead, and we must anchor here, for the tide has fully turned and the wind has lulled, and perhaps it will do to sleep for six hours now before going on again.