Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands by R. M. Ballantyne (the reading list .txt) 📖
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
Book online «The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands by R. M. Ballantyne (the reading list .txt) 📖». Author R. M. Ballantyne
“Poor thing,” said Dick, with a sad shake of the head, as if pitying her ignorance.
“Yes,” continued Nora—still attempting to choke the infant—“she could not say a word at that time, but went away with her eyes full of tears. I saw her often afterwards, and tried to convince her there might be some good in Billy after all, but she was not easily encouraged, for her belief in appearances had got a shake that she seemed to find it difficult to get over. That was when Billy was lying ill in hospital. I have not seen much of her since then, she and her father having been away in London.”
“H’m, I’m raither inclined to jine her in thinkin’ that no good’ll come o’ that young scamp. He’s too sharp by half,” said Dick with a frown. “Depend upon it, Nora, w’en a boy ’as gone a great length in wickedness there’s no chance o’ reclaimin’ him.”
“Dick,” exclaimed Nora, with sudden energy, “depend upon it that that’s not true, for it does not correspond with the Bible, which says that our Lord came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
“There’s truth in that, anyhow,” replied Dick, gazing thoughtfully into Nora’s countenance, as if the truth had come home to him for the first time. What his further observations on the point might have been we know not, as at that moment the door opened and one of his mates entered, saying that he had come to go down with him to the buoy-store, as the superintendent had given orders that he and Moy should overhaul the old North Goodwin buoy, and give her a fresh coat of paint. Dick therefore rose, wiped his mouth, kissed the entire family, beginning with the infant and ending with “the missis,” after which he shook hands with Nora and went out.
The storm which had for some time past been brewing, had fairly brewed itself up at last, and the wild sea was covered with foam. Although only an early autumn storm, it was, like many a thing out of season, not the less violent on that account. It was one of the few autumn storms that might have been transferred to winter with perfect propriety. It performed its work of devastation as effectively as though it had come forth at its proper season. On land chimney stacks and trees were levelled. At sea vessels great and small were dismasted and destroyed, and the east coast of the kingdom was strewn with wreckage and dead bodies. Full many a noble ship went down that night! Wealth that might have supported all the charities in London for a twelvemonth was sent to the bottom of the sea that night and lost for ever. Lives that had scarce begun and lives that were all but done, were cut abruptly short, leaving broken hearts and darkened lives in many a home, not only on the sea-coast but inland, where the sound of the great sea’s roar is never heard. Deeds of daring were done that night,—by men of the lifeboat service and the coast-guard,—which seemed almost beyond the might of human skill and courage—resulting in lives saved from that same great sea—lives young and lives old—the salvation of which caused many a heart in the land, from that night forward, to bless God and sing for joy.
But of all the wide-spread and far-reaching turmoil; the wreck and rescue, the rending and relieving of hearts, the desperate daring, and dread disasters of that night we shall say nothing at all, save in regard to that which occurred on and in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin Sands.
When the storm began to brew that night, George Welton, the mate of the floating light, walked the deck of his boiled-lobster-like vessel, and examined the sky and sea with that critical expression peculiar to seafaring men, which conveys to landsmen the reassuring impression that they know exactly what is coming, precisely what ought to be done, and certainly what will be the result of whatever happens!
After some minutes spent in profound meditation, during which Mr Welton frowned inquiringly at the dark driving clouds above him, he said, “It’ll be pretty stiff.”
This remark was made to himself, or to the clouds, but, happening to be overheard by Jerry MacGowl, who was at his elbow, it was answered by that excellent man.
“True for ye; it’ll blow great guns before midnight. The sands is showin’ their teeth already.”
The latter part of this remark had reference to brilliant white lines and dots on the seaward horizon, which indicated breakers on the Goodwin sands.
“Luk at that now,” said Jerry, pointing to one of those huge clumsy vessels that are so frequently met with at sea, even in the present day, as to lead one to imagine that some of the shipbuilders in the time of Noah must have come alive again and gone to work at their old trade on the old plans and drawings. “Luk at that, now. Did iver ye see sitch a tub—straight up and down the side, and as big at the bow as the stern.”
“She’s not clipper built,” answered the mate; “they make that sort o’ ship by the mile and sell her by the fathom,—cuttin’ off from the piece just what is required. It don’t take long to plaster up the ends and stick a mast or two into ’em.”
“It’s in luck she is to git into the Downs before the gale breaks, and it’s to be hoped she has good ground-tackle,” said Jerry.
The mate hoped so too in a careless way, and, remarking that he would go and see that all was made snug, went forward.
At that moment there came up the fore-hatch a yell, as if from the throat of a North American savage. It terminated in the couplet, tunefully sung—
“Oh my! oh my!
O mammy, don’t you let the baby cry!”
Jack Shales, following his voice, immediately after came on deck.
“Have ’ee got that work-box done?” asked Jerry as his mate joined him.
“Not quite done yet, boy, but I’ll get it finished after the lights are up. Duty first, pleasure afterwards, you know.”
“Come now, Jack, confess that you’re makin’ it for a pretty girl.”
“Well, so I am, but it ain’t for my own pretty girl. It’s for that sweet little Nora Jones, who came lately to live in Ramsgate. You see I know she’s goin’ to be spliced to Jim Welton, and as Jim is a good sort of fellow, I want to make this little gift to his future bride.”
The gift referred to was a well-made work-box, such as the men of the floating light were at that time, and doubtless still are, in the habit of constructing in leisure hours. It was beautifully inlaid with wood of various kinds and colours, and possessed a mark peculiarly characteristic of floating-light boxes and desks, namely, two flags inlaid on the lid—one of these being the Union Jack. Most of the men on board displayed much skill and taste in the making of those boxes and desks, although they were all self-taught, and wrought with very simple tools in a not very commodious workshop.
“A great change from yesterday in the look o’ things, Jerry,” observed Shales, surveying the Downs, where, despite the stiff and ever increasing breeze amounting almost to a gale, numerous little pilot-boats were seen dancing on the waves, showing a mere shred of canvas, and looking out for a job. “Yesterday was all sunshine and calm, with pleasure-boats round us, and visitors heaving noospapers aboard. To-day it’s all gloom, with gales brewin’ and pilots bobbin’ about like Mother Cary’s chickens.”
“That’s true, Jack,” replied Jerry, whose poetic soul was fired by the thought:—
“‘Timpest an’ turmoil to-day,
With lots a’ salt-wather an’ sorrow.
Blue little waves on the say,
An’ sunny contintment to-morrow.’
“That’s how it is, Jack, me boy, all the world over—even in owld Ireland hersilf; an’ sure if there’s pace to be found on earth it’s there it’s to be diskivered.”
“Right, Jerry, peace is to be discovered there, but I’m afraid it’s in a very distant future as yet,” said Jack with a laugh.
“All in good time,” retorted Jerry.
“Up lights!” called the mate down the hatchway.
“Ay, ay, sir,” came in chorus from below.
Desks and boxes were thrust aside, the winch was manned, and the weighty lantern mounted slowly to its nocturnal watch-tower.
Its red eye flashed upon a dark scene. The gloom of approaching night was deepened by the inky clouds that obscured the sky. Thick fog banks came sweeping past at intervals; a cold north-easterly gale conveyed a wintry feeling to the air. Small thick rain fell in abundance, and everything attested the appropriateness of Jerry MacGowl’s observation, that it was “dirty weather intirely.”
The floating light was made snug—in other words, prepared for action—by having a good many more fathoms of her chain veered out, in order that she might strain less and swing more freely. Loose articles were secured or stowed away. Hatches were battened down, and many other little nautical arrangements made which it would require a seaman to understand as well as to describe in detail.
As the evening advanced the gale increased in violence tenfold, and darkness settled down like an impenetrable pall over land and sea. The roar of breakers on the Goodwin Sands became so loud that it was sometimes heard on board the Gull-light above the howling of the tempest. The sea rose so much and ran so violently among the conflicting currents caused by wind, tide, and sand-banks, that the Gull plunged, swooped, and tore at her cable so that the holding of it might have appeared to a landsman little short of miraculous. Hissing and seething at the opposition she offered, the larger waves burst over her bows, and swept the deck from stem to stern; but her ample scuppers discharged it quickly, and up she rose again, dripping from the flood, to face and fight and foil each succeeding billow.
High on the mast, swaying wildly to and fro, yet always hanging perpendicular by reason of a simple mechanism, the lantern threw out its bright beams, involving the vessel and the foam-clad boiling sea in a circle of light which ended in darkness profound, forming, as it were, a bright but ghostly chamber shut in with walls of ebony, and revealing, in all its appalling reality, the fury of the sea. What horrors lay concealed in the darkness beyond no one could certainly know; but the watch on board the Gull could form from past experience a pretty good conception of them, as they cowered under the lee of the bulwarks and looked anxiously out to windward.
Anxiously! Ay, there was cause for anxiety that night. The risk of parting from their cable was something, though not very great; but the risk of being run down by passing or driving ships during intervals of fog was much greater, and the necessity of looking out for signals of distress was urgent.
It was a night of warfare, and the battle had begun early. Mr Welton’s record of the earlier part of that day in the log ran thus:—
“At 4 a.m. calm, with misty rain; at 8, wind south-east, light breeze. At noon, west-south-west, fresh breeze and rain. At 4 p.m., wind south-west, fresh gale and heavy rain. A large fleet anchored in the Downs. A schooner was seen to anchor in a bad place about this time. At
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