William Clark Russell

“ Somewhere about this time Grace came out of her berth. She brought an atmosphere of flower-like fragrance with her, but the motions of the yacht obliged her to sit quickly, and she gazed at me with laughter in her eyes from the locker, graceful in her posture as a reposing dancer. Her face lengthened, however, when I told her about the weather, that in short there was nothing visible from the deck but a muddy, jumbled atmosphere of vapour and drizzle.
"I counted upon seeing the Isle of Wight," cried she; "there has been no land so far except those far-off high cliffs yesterday afternoon." ”

“ There was a frequent flash of glass; there were star-like glories in polished brass; and there was an odd farmyard smell of hay in the air, with the bleating of sheep forward and a noise of cocks and hens.
"A voyage in such a ship as this, Mrs. Barstow," said I, "should make the most delightful trip of a person's life."
"It is better than yachting," said Grace softly.
"A voyage soon grows tiresome," remarked Mrs. Barstow. "Miss Bellassys, I trust you will share my cabin whilst you remain with us."
"You are exceedingly kind," said Grace. ”

“ The long blue Atlantic surge came briming and frothing to her quarter, giving her a lift at times that set the propeller racing, but the clean-edged, frost-like band of wake streamed far astern, where in the liquid blue of the afternoon that way hung the star-coloured cloths of the Carthusian, a leaning shaft, resembling a spire of ice.
"Bless me!" I cried, "how we have widened our distance! When a man falls overboard with what hideous rapidity must his ship appear to glide away from him!"
"Is it not delightful to be independent of the wind, Herbert?" exclaimed Grace, as she took my arm. ”

“ Or it was a full-rigged ship, homeward bound, with yearning canvas and ocean-worn sides, figures on her poop crossing from rail to rail to look at what was passing, and seamen on her forecastle busy with the ship's ground tackle.
It was shortly after twelve that the delicate shadow of the high land of Beachy Head showed over the yacht's bow. By one o'clock it had grown defined and firm, with the glimmering streak of its white ramparts of chalk stealing out of the blue haze.
"There's Old England, Grace!" said I. "How one's heart goes out to the sight of the merest shadow of one's own soil! ”

“ The flashful trembling of the sunlit sea was in the atmosphere of the cabin, and bulkhead and upper deck seemed to race with the rippling of the waves of light in them. Through the open port came the seething and pouring song of the ocean; the music of smiting billows, the small harmonies of foam bells and of seething eddies. There was the presence of the ocean too, the sense of its infinity, and of the speeding ship, a speck under the heavens, yet fraught with the passions and feelings of a multitude of souls bound to a new world, fresh from a land which many of them would never again behold. ”

“ Next morning when I went on deck after nine hours of solid slumber, I at once directed my eyes over the rail in search of the Isle of Wight, but there was nothing to be seen but a grey drizzle, a weeping wall of slate-coloured haze that formed a sky of its own and drooped to within a mile or so of the yacht. The sea was an ugly sallowish green, and you saw the billows come tumbling in froth from under the vaporous margin of the horizon as though each surge was formed there, and there was nothing but blackness and space beyond. The yacht's canvas was discoloured with saturation ”

“ One motionless figure we passed, hard by the Cathedral—a policeman or gendarme—he might have been a statue; it was like pacing the streets of a town that had been sacked, in which nothing lived to deliver so much as a groan; and the fancy was not a little improved by our emergence into what resembled a tract of country through a gateway similar to that by which we had entered, over which there faintly glimmered out to the sheen of a near lamp the figure of Our Lady of Boulogne erect in some carving of a boat.
"Foreigners is a queer lot," exclaimed Caudel. ”

“ After our experience aboard the Spitfire, I was scarcely sensible of the motions of the deck of this big ship, albeit she was rolling and curtseying as she floated, clothed to her royal yards, over the sulky undulations of the water. But I was able to gather from certain sounds which penetrated through the closed doors of the berths that some of the passengers were not yet quite well. There was nobody in the saloon save one little man with a quantity of hair down his back after the manner of poets and professors. He was seated near the main-deck entrance with a countenance of a ghastly hue. ”

“ Barstow, seated close to the captain, nodded at us, and Parsons himself sung out quietly down the table:
"I believe, Mr. and Mrs. Barclay, this will be your last meal aboard the Carthusian."
I sprang with excitement to my feet.
"Anything in sight, captain?"
"Ay, a steamer—apparently a yacht. Plenty of time," added he, rising, nevertheless, leisurely as he spoke, on which all the passengers broke from the table—so speedily dull grows the sea-life, so quickly do people learn how to make much of the most trivial incidents upon the ocean—and in a few moments we were all on deck. ”

“ Two figures alone were visible; one in a sea helmet and oilskins at the wheel; a second in a long coat and fur cap, holding by a backstay. She vanished with the velocity with which she had emerged; but I could not have conjectured her nearness till I reflected how plainly I had seen the two men—all features of their clothing—their very faces, indeed!
Shall we be run down, sent helplessly to the bottom before this weather has done its work for us? thought I, and shuddering to the fancy of a blow from such a stem as that which had just swept past us, I descended the cabin steps. ”

“ There was a steady breeze off the port beam, and the yacht, with every cloth which she carried on her, was driving through it as though she were in tow of a steamboat. The scene was full of life. On one bow was an English smack, as gaudy in the misty brilliance of the sunshine as an acquatic parrot, with her red mainsail and brown mizzen, and white foresail topping, aslant, the gloomy black hull from whose sides would break from time to time a sullen, white flash, like a leap of fire from a cannon's mouth, as the swing of the sea swerved the black, wet timbers to the morning lustre. ”

“ I cried vehemently; "imprudent as we may seem, we are politic in this, Grace—that our adventure must force your aunt into sending us her sanction." She looked at me, but her face remained grave. "Caudel," said I, "who is as much your guardian as I am, put the same question to me. But there is no earthly good in supposing. It is monstrous to suppose that your aunt will object. She hates me, I know, but her aversion—the aversion of that old woman of the world with her family pride and notions of propriety—is not going to suffer her to forbid our marriage after this. ”

“ Was the yacht stove? Had we lost our mast? I had heard no crash, no noise of splintering, no resounding thump as of a fall. I listened, struck another match, and then lighted the lamp afresh. I might know now that the Spitfire was dead before the wind, seething almost soundlessly through the foam of the storm-swept surface. She was going along with a steadiness that was startling when one thought of and listened to the weather; for her plunges were so long and buoyant as to be scarcely noticeable, whilst sea and swell being directly in her wake, her rolling was of the lightest. ”

“ I exclaimed.
"The dip of sweeps, sir," answered my captain, Aaron Caudel; "some smack a-coming along—ay, there she is," and he shadowily pointed to a dark, square heap betwixt the piers, softly approaching to the impulse of her long oars, the rhythmic grind of which in the thole-pins made a strange, wild ocean music of the far-off roar of the surf, and the sob of water alongside, and the delicate wash of the tide in the green piles and timbers of the two long, narrow, quaint old piers. ”

“ He looked round him an instant, and then came straight up to Grace and me, taking the heaving and slanting deck as easily as though it were the floor of a ball-room.
"I am the second mate of the Carthusian," said he, touching his cap with an expression of astonishment and admiration in his eyes as he looked at Grace. "Are all your people ready to leave, sir? Captain Parsons is anxious that there should be no delay."
"The lady and I are perfectly ready," said I, "but my men have made up their minds to stick to the yacht with the hope of carrying her home." ”

“ They crackle worse nor gravel, Mr. Barclay."
"Clear yourself of the rope-ladder, and then I'll smother you in your big pea-coat whilst you light the lamp," said I. "Let us keep well in the shadow of the hedge. Who knows what eyes may be star-gazing yonder?"
The hedge flung a useful dye upon the blackness of the night; and our figures against it, even though they should have been viewed close to, must have been indistinguishable. With a seaman's alacrity Caudel slipped off his immense coat, and in a few moments had unwound the length of ladder from his body. ”

“ I re-entered the cabin, and found my sweetheart with her elbows on the table and her cheeks resting in her hands. The blush had scarcely faded from her face when I had quitted her; now she was as white as a lily.
"Why do you leave me alone, Herbert?" she asked, turning her dark, liquid eyes upon me without shifting the posture of her head.
"My dearest, I wish to see our little ship clear of Boulogne harbour. We shall be getting a pleasant breeze presently, and it cannot blow too soon to please us. ”

“ The water washed with a thunderous sobbing sound along the metal bends of the ship, that, as she stooped her side into the brine, flashed up the swell in froth, hurling towards us also a recoiling billow, which made the dance of the boat horribly bewildering and nauseating. One moment we were floated, as it seemed to my eye, to the level of the bulwarks of the stooping ship; the next we were in a valley, with the great bare hull leaning away from us—an immense wet surface of red and black and chequered band, her shrouds vanishing in a slope, and her yard-arms forking up sky high. ”

“ A small screw steamer, with her funnel sloping almost over her stern, and her greasy poles of masts resembling fibres of gold in the sunset, was bruising her way up Channel with a frequent cock of her bow or stern which made one wonder where the sea was that tossed her so. There was nothing else in sight, and by the time she vanished the last rusty tinge of red had perished in the west, and the loneliness of the sea came like a sensible quality of cold into the darkening twilight.
"How desolate the ocean looks on a sudden!" said Grace. ”