Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/294

284 can go with me to the port. I must see and hear for myself.”

Mrs. Gale rose from her bed and tried her best to move her daughter’s will. But a weird resolution had set the lines of that gentle face. It was very white, and very sad, but very firm. The two girls went bravely down to the port; it was dark; a thin rain hissed along with the gale. Fishermen, sailors, dockyardmen, and many less professional inhabitants, were grouped along the quays. Nor were women wanting to the crowd; but their wan and tearful faces told of something more than curiosity as the motive of their coming. What was the latest news? Two fishing-boats had gone to pieces on the rocks; one had just got across the bar; it was about three o’clock; the dawn would soon be breaking. Had anything been heard of the Camilla? Nothing. The men looked on Patience with a tender and respectful interest. More than one knew why she was out on that angry night. The morning light spread over the east, and the fury of the storm abated. When the sun rose over the horizon, it seemed to struggle to burst the black bank of clouds. Wider and wider grew the clefts of blue. At five o’clock the scene was one of the fairest that is to be beheld anywhere—a storm dying in sunshine. Great piles of white clouds, thick, massive, and of ever shifting shape, rolled over the heaven. Nearer the horizon the same mighty mountains of vapour rested in darker groups. The waves that had loomed so threatening in the darkness now seemed the very personification of strong joyous life. They swelled up tall and bulky before the wind, their green summits gladly housing the sunlight. At the top of their triumphant rise they broke into a thousand columns of foam and spray, tossing their glittering drops high into the clear air. All over their surface great circling lines of floating foam marked the commotions that raged below. And ever and anon it seemed as though the coursing waves lost the order of their flying march; they jostled one another; and then the crash of force and force and the roar with which each water-mountain strove to overtop his neighbour was glorious to hear and see. On they surged in swift succession to the shore, some soaking the crags for many yards above the beach; some trying hard to rend the plank of the jetty from its huge cramps, and force it upwards. All nature seem to shake with boisterous laughter. Of what account in the face of such a scene of life were the half-dozen corpses from the fishing boats broken in the bay? Or the dull, stupefying misery of one young girl?

For where was the Camilla? The Camilla was nowhere to be seen.

Patience had watched the dawn of day and the sinking of the tempest. She stood on the port stiff and cold, and watched for four weary hours. Rough men, who knew her father and herself, stood round her as a little body-guard, kindly and seasonably offering such comfort as they could. There was danger, no doubt; but there was hope. Harborough was a skilful seaman. It was by no means impossible for him to have kept his vessel clear of the shore. The Camilla was perhaps quite safe. Patience looked up with listless, uninterested eyes. Something at her heart told her that the Camilla was lost. She did not know. There was no certainty. But she dared not hope.

The hours wore on, and Patience was induced to go home. It was now eight o’clock. Not a ship was to be seen at sea. The Camilla must be either safe, or lost out of the reach of the Filby seamen.

While Mrs. Gale was lovingly tending her poor child—tending her with comfort both physical and mental—three men passed the parlour-window and stopped before the Gales’ door.

“Mother, they are come to say he’s dead.”

“Nay, child, we don’t know that. Don’t think the worst.”

The mother went out to speak to the strangers. One of them was a farmer, from a village some four miles from Filby. The other two were Filby men. Patience was not far wrong. The Camilla had gone ashore on the rocks close to this neighbouring village. The cottagers were some unwilling and all unable to be of any material service to the crew. The rocks were far spread and dangerous. The brig went to pieces before any communication could be established between her and the shore. The old yeoman’s eyes shewed two big tears as he narrated the scene of desolation when the morning broke.

“When a knew ’t were t’ Camilla, a coomed to t’ Master Gale. A knew t’ lass and skipper i’yon—” But here he fairly broke down; for out of the doorway of the inner room the white face of Patience glared with a fixed gaze of piteous intensity.

“Mother, I am going to Rilcar. Master Kirby, will you take me back with you?”

The old man shook his grey head.

“Nowt can coom on’t noo.”

“But I must go. I must see where he was killed. Perhaps they will find—” She shuddered, and, with little opposition from her parent, set off for the scene of the wreck.

The little cart rolled roughly over the road. Patience sat very still, her eyes fixed straight before her. Her conductor knew better than to trouble her with a word of pity or encouragement. They travelled in silence.

At last the scene of the wreck was reached. The tide was high, and the surf curled over the crags almost at the foot of the steep cliffs. Many yards to seaward the brig had struck and gone to pieces. Riven timbers were still seen floating on the surface. All that remained together of the ill-fated vessel was hidden under the waters of the sea.

Little knots of the country folk and strangers from Filby were gathered here and there on the narrow ledge of rock below the down, that the sea had not yet covered. They pointed everywhere, and then with strange significance to a fisherman’s hut hard by. There were laid the battered remnants of what had once been men. Seven bodies had as yet been washed on shore. Patience did not even ask if that of her betrothed were there. She still gazed wistfully out to sea. For, like the plaintive refrain that runs through some melody in a minor