The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" Part 9

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 sc.r.a.ping 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 pa.s.senger 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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 compa.s.s 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 n.o.bler 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 gra.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d?

If ignorance unfits me to judge this rightly, does not cla.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, then moral science must be a far n.o.bler 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.