The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands, Robert Michael Ballantyne [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

woman?

"What if mothers were no more;
If wives and sisters fled our shore,
And left no sweethearts to the fore--
No sign of darling woman?

"What dreary darkness would ensue--
what moral wastes devoid of dew--
If no strong hearts of men like you
Beat for charming woman?

"Who would rise at duty's call;
Who would fight to win or fall;
Who would care to live at all,
Were it not for woman?"


Prolonged and rapturous cheers greeted this effusion, in the midst of which the enthusiastic Jerry MacGowl sprang to his feet, waved his glass above his head--spilling half of its contents on the pate of a bald skipper who sat next to him--and cheered lustily.

"Men of the Ramsgate lifeboat," shouted Queeker, "I call on you to pledge the ladies--with all the honours!"

It is unnecessary to say that the call was responded to with a degree of enthusiasm that threatened, as Dick Moy said to Jack Shales, "to smash all the glasses an' blow the roof off." In the midst of the noise and confusion Queeker left the hall, ascended to the gallery, and sat himself down beside Fanny Hennings, with an air of intense decision.

"Oh, Mr Queeker!" exclaimed Fanny.

"Listen, Fanny," said the tall uncle at that moment, "they are giving one of the most important toasts of the evening--The Royal National Lifeboat Institution."

Fanny tried to listen, and had caught a few words, when she felt her hand suddenly seized and held fast. Turning her head quickly, she beheld the face of Queeker turned to bright scarlet.

What more she heard or saw after that it would be extremely difficult to tell. Perhaps the best way of conveying an idea of it is to lay before the reader the short epistle which Fanny penned that same night to her old friend Katie Hall. It ran thus:--

"RAMSGATE.

"OH, KATIE! DARLING KATIE!--He has done it _at last_! Dear fellow! And so like himself too--so romantically, so poetically! They were toasting the Lifeboat Institution at the time. He seized my hand. `Fanny,' he said, in the deep manly tones in which he had just made the most brilliant speech of the evening, `Fanny, my love--my life--my _lifeboat_--will you have me? will you _save_ me?' There was a dreadful noise at the time--a very storm of cheering. The whole room seemed in a whirl. My head was in a whirl too; and oh! _how_ my heart beat! I don't know what I said. I fear I burst into a fit of laughter, and then cried, and dear uncle carried me out--but it's all over now. That _darling_ Lifeboat Institution, I shall never forget it; for they were sounding its praises at the very moment when my Queeker and I got into the same boat--for life!--Your happy FANNY."

To this the next post brought the following reply:--

"YARMOUTH."

"MY DEAREST FANNY,--Is it necessary for me to say that your last short letter has filled my heart with joy? It has cleared up a mystery too! On Tuesday last, in the forenoon, Mr Queeker came by appointment to take lunch with us, and Stanley happened to mention that a supper was to be given to the Ramsgate lifeboat-men, and that he had heard _you_ were to be there. During lunch, Mr Queeker was very absent and restless, and appeared to be unhappy. At last he started up, made some hurried apology about the train for the south, and having urgent business to transact, looked at his watch, and rushed out of the house! We could not understand it at the time, but I knew that he had only a few minutes left to catch the train for the south, and I _now_ know that he caught it--and why! Ah, Fanny, did I not always assure you that he would do it in desperation at last! My earnest prayer is, that your wedded life may be as happy as mine has hitherto been.

"When your honeymoon is over, you must promise to pay us a visit. You know that our villa is sufficiently far out of town to warrant your regarding us in the light of country friends; and Stanley bids me say that he will take no denial. Papa--who is at present romping round the room with my eldest boy on his shoulders, so that I scarce know what I write--bids me tell you, with his kind love and hearty congratulations, that he thinks you are `not throwing yourself away, for that Queeker is a first-rate little fellow, and a rising man!' Observe, please, that I quote papa's own words.

"I _must_ stop abruptly, because a tiny cry from the nursery informs me that King Baby is awake, and demands instant attention!--With kindest love and congratulations, your ever affectionate, KATIE HALL."


CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.


CONCLUSION.

Once again, and for the last time, we visit the floating light.

It was a calm sunny evening, about the end of autumn, when the Trinity tender, having effected "the relief" of the old Gull, left her in order to perform the same service for her sister light-vessels.

"Good-bye, Welton, good-bye, lads," cried the superintendent, waving his hand as the tender's boat pushed off and left them, for another period of duty, in their floating home.

"Good-bye, sir," replied the mate and men, touching their caps.

"Now, sir," said Dick Moy to the mate, shortly after, when they were all, except the watch, assembled below round the galley stove, "are you goin' to let us 'ave a bit o' that there letter, accordin' to promise?"

"What letter?" inquired Jack Shales, who having only accomplished half of his period of service on board--one month--had not come off with his comrades, and knew little or nothing of what had occurred on shore.

"A letter from the lighthouse from Jim," said the mate, lighting his pipe, "received it this forenoon just as we were gettin' ready to come off."

"All well and hearty, I hope?" asked Jerry MacGowl, seating himself on a bench, and rolling some tobacco between his palms, preparatory to filling his pipe.

"All well," replied the mate, pulling out the letter in question, and regarding the address with much interest; "an' strange news in it."

"Well, then, let's 'ear wot it's all about," said Dick Moy; "there's time to read it afore sunset, an it ain't fair to keep fellers in all the hagonies of hexpectation."

"That's true enough," said Jerry with a grin. "Arrah! it's bustin I am already wid kooriosity. Heave ahead, sir, an' be marciful."

Thus entreated, Mr Welton glanced at his watch, sat down, and, opening his letter, read as follows:--

"DEAR FATHER,--Here we are, thank God, comfortably settled in the new lighthouse, and Nora and I both agree that although it is more outlandish, it is much more cheerful in every way than our last abode, although it _is_ very wild-like, and far from the mainland. Billy Towler, my assistant,--who has become such a strapping fellow that you'd scarce know him,--is also much pleased with it. The children, too, give a decided opinion in favour of the place, and even the baby, little Morley, seems to know that he has made a change for the better!

"Baby's name brings me to the news that I've got to tell you. Morley Jones has come back! You'll be surprised to hear that, I daresay, but it's a fact. He got a ticket-of-leave, and never rested till he found out where Nora was. He came to us one evening some time ago, and fell down in a sort of fit close to the lighthouse-door, while Nora was sitting in front of it, and the children were romping with Neptune beside her. Poor fellow! he was so changed, so old, and so white-haired and worn, that we did not know him at first; but after we had washed the blood off his face--for he had cut himself when he fell--I recognised the old features.

"But he is changed in other respects too, in a way that has filled my dear wife's heart with joy. Of course you are aware that he got no drink during the seven years of his imprisonment. Now that he is free he refuses to let a drop of anything stronger than water pass his lips. He thinks it is his only chance, and I believe he is right. He says that nothing but the thought of Nora, and the hope of one day being permitted to return to ask her forgiveness on his knees, enabled him to endure his long captivity with resignation. I do assure you, father, that it almost brings tears to my eyes to see the way in which that man humbles himself before his daughter. Nora's joy is far too deep for words, but it is written plainly in her face. She spent all her spare time with him at first, reading the Bible to him, and trying to convince him that it was not the thought of _her_, but God's mercy and love that had put it into his heart to repent, and desire to reform. He does not seem quite inclined to take that view of it, but he will come to it, sooner or later, for we have the sure promise that the Lord will finish the good work He has begun. We have hired a room for him in a little village within half a mile of us. It is small, but comfortable enough, and he seems to be quite content with it--as well he may be, with Nora and the children going constantly about him!

"I tell you what, father, the longer I live with Nora, the more I feel that I have got the truest-hearted and most loveable wife in all the wide world! The people of the village would go any length to serve her; and as to their children, I believe they worship the ground she walks on, as Jerry MacGowl used to say."

"Och, the idolatrous haythens!" growled Jerry.

"And the way she manages our dear youngsters," continued the mate, reading on, without noticing Jerry's interruption, "would do your heart good to see. It reminds me of Dick Moy's wife, who is about the best mother I ever met with--next to Nora, of course!"

"Humph!" said Dick, with a grim smile; "wery complimentary. I wonder wot my old ooman will say to that?"

"She'll say, no doubt, that she'll expect you to take example by Jim Welton when speaking of your wife," observed Jack Shales. "I wonder, Dick, what ever could have induced Mrs Moy to marry such a fellow as you?"

"I s'pose," retorted Dick, lighting his pipe, "that it was to escape the chance o' bein' tempted, in a moment of weakness, to marry the likes o' _you_."

"Hear, hear," cried MacGowl, "that's not unlikely, Dick. An', sure, she might have gone farther an' fared worse. You're a good lump of a man, anyhow; though you haven't much to boast of in the way of looks. Howsever, it seems to me that looks don't go far wid sensible girls. Faix, the uglier a man is, it's the better chance he has o' gittin' a purty wife. I have a brother, myself, who's a dale uglier than the figurhead