Part 14 (1/2)
Handing the new-comers over to her, I caught up a line and made off hot-foot after Obed.
At low-water (and the tide had now scarcely an hour to ebb) the sands in Vellingey Porth measure a good half-mile from the footbridge at its head to the sea at its base. My legs were longer than Obed's; but I dare say he had arrived five minutes ahead of me. He was standing and calling to the boat's crew to get out an oar and pull her head-to-sea: for although the smoothing wind had taken most of the danger out of the breakers, they were quite able to capsize and roll over any boat that beached herself in that lubberly fas.h.i.+on.
I ran up panting, and shouted with him--”Pull her round head-to-sea, and back her in!”
Not a man moved or lifted a hand. The next moment, a wave tilted and ran a dozen yards with her, but mercifully pa.s.sed before it broke.
A smaller one curved on the back-draught and splashed in over her gunwale as she took ground. But what knocked the wind out of our sails was this--As the first wave canted her up, two men had rolled out of her like logs; and the others, sitting like logs, had never so much as stirred to help!
”Good Lord!” I called out, and fumbled with my line. ”What's the meaning of it?”
”The meaning is,” said Obed, ”they're dead men, every mother's son.
They're frozen,” said he: ”I've seen frozen seamen before now.”
”I'll have in the boat, anyway,” I said. ”Here, catch hold and pay out!” Running in, I reached her just as she lifted again; and managed to slew her nose in-sh.o.r.e, but not in time to prevent half-a-hogshead pouring over her quarter. This wave knocked her broadside-on again, and the water s.h.i.+pped made her heavier to handle. But by whipping my end of the line round the thwart in which her mast was stepped, for Obed to haul upon, and myself heaving at her bows, we fetched her partly round as she lifted again, and ran her into the second line of breakers, which were pretty well harmless.
”How many on board?” Obed sang out.
”Five!” called I, having counted them. Up to this I had had enough to do with the boat; besides looking after myself. For twice the heave had tilled me up to the armpits, and once lifted me clean off my feet; and I had no wish to try swimming in my sea-boots. ”Five,” said I; ”and two overboard--that makes seven. Come and look here!”
”Tend to the boat first,” he said. ”I've seen frozen seamen.”
”You never saw the likes of this,” I answered. So he ran in beside me.
The boat had her name (or that of the s.h.i.+p she belonged to) painted in yellow and black on the gunwale strake by her port quarter-- ”MARGIT PEDERSEN, BERGEN”: but by their faces we could not miss knowing to what country the poor creatures belonged. They were--
1. A tall man, under middle age; seated by the mast and leaning against it (his right arm frozen to it, in fact, from the elbow up) with his back towards the bows. The snow was heaped on his head and shoulders like a double cape. This one had no hair on his face; and his complexion being very fresh and pink, and his eyes wide open, it was hard to believe him dead. Indeed, while getting in the boat, I had to speak to him twice, to make sure.
2. A much older man, and shorter, with a rough grey beard. He sat in the stern sheets, with his right hand frozen on the tiller.
Our folk had afterwards to uns.h.i.+p the tiller when they came to lift him out: and carried him up to the house still holding it. Later on we buried it beside him. This man wore a good blue coat and black breeches; and at first we took him to be the captain. He turned out to be the mate, Knud Lote, who had put on his best clothes when it came to leaving the s.h.i.+p. His eyes were screwed up, and the brine had frozen over them, like a glaze, or a big pair of spectacles.
3. Against his knee rested the head of a third man--one of the three I had first seen sitting amids.h.i.+ps. When the other two toppled overboard this one had slid off the thwart and fallen against the steersman. He was an oldish man, yellow and thin and marked with the small-pox; the only one in the boat who might have come from some other country than Norway. His eyes were cast down in a quiet way, and he seemed to be smiling. He wore a seaman's loose frock, ragged breeches, and sea-boots.
4 and 5. Stretched along the bottom-boards lay a tall young man with straw-coloured hair and beard: and in his arms, tightly clasped, and wrapped in a shawl and seaman's jacket, a young woman.
Her arms were about the young man and her face pressed close and hidden against his side. He must have taken off his jacket to warm her; for the upper part of his body had no covering but a flannel s.h.i.+rt and cinglet.
While we stood there the tide drained back, leaving the bows of the boat high and dry. As I remember, Obed was the first to speak; and he said ”She has beautiful hair.” This was the bare truth: a great lock of it lay along the bottom-board like a stream of guineas poured out of a sack. He climbed into the boat and lifted the shawl from her face.
Those neighbours of ours, friends and acquaintances, who afterwards saw Margit Pedersen at Vellingey, and for whom this account is mainly written, will not need a description of her. Many disliked her: but n.o.body denied that she was a lovely woman; and I am certain that n.o.body could see her face and afterwards forget it. It was, then and always, very pale: but this had nothing to do with ill health. In fact I am not sure it would have been noticeable but for the warm colour of her hair and her red lips and (especially) her eyebrows and lashes, of a deep brown that seemed almost black. Her lips were blue with the cold, just now: but the contrast between her eyebrows and her pale face and yellow hair struck me at once and kept me wondering: until Obed startled me by dropping the shawl and falling on his knees beside her. ”Good G.o.d, Dom!” he sang out: ”the girl's alive!”
The next moment, of course, I was as wild as he. ”Get her out, then,” I cried, ”and up to the house at once!”
”I can't loosen the man's arms!” Though less than a yard apart, we both shouted at the top of our voices.
”Nonsense!” I answered: but it was true all the same--as I found out when I stepped in to Obed's help. ”We must carry up the pair as they are,” I said. ”There's no time to lose.”
We lifted them out, and making a chair of our hands and wrists, carried them up to Vellingey; leaving the others in the boat, now for an hour well above reach of the tide. And here I must tell of something that happened on the way: the first sign of Obed's madness, as I may call it.
All of a sudden he stopped and panted, from the weight of our load, I supposed. ”Dom,” he said, ”I believe that nine men out of ten would kiss her!”
I told him not to be a fool, and we walked on. In the town-place we happened on the shepherd, Reuben Santo, and sent him off for help, and to look after the frozen people in the boat. The sight of us at the door nearly scared Selina into her grave: but we allowed her no time for hysterics. We laid the pair on a blanket before the open fire, and very soon Obed was trying to force some warm milk and brandy between the girl's lips. I think she swallowed a little: but the first time she opened her eyes was when one of the lambs (which everyone had neglected for twenty minutes or so) tottered across the kitchen on his foolish legs and began to nuzzle at her face. Obed at the moment was trying to disengage the dead man's arms. A thought struck Selina at once.
”Put the lamb close against her heart,” she said. ”That'll warm her more than any fire.”
So we did, making the lamb lie down close beside her; and it had a wonderful effect. In less than half-an-hour her pulse grew moderately firm and she had even contrived to speak a word or two, but in Norwegian, which none of us understood. Obed by this time had loosened the dead man's arms; and we thought it best to get her upstairs to bed before the full sense of her misfortune should afflict her.
Obed carried her up to the spare-room and there left her to Selina; while I saddled horse and rode in to Truro, for Doctor Mitch.e.l.l.
Much of what followed is matter of public knowledge. Our folks carried the dead Norwegians up to Church-town, including one of the two that had fallen overboard (the next tide washed him in; the other never came to land); and there buried them, two days later, in separate graves, but all close together. The boat being worthless, we sawed it in two just abaft the mast and set the fore-part over the centre grave, which was that of Captain Pedersen, the young man we had carried up with Margit.