Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/591

 584 Corner, and might miss the only chance of running into deep quiet water near the Cupboard Rock.

“All at once, while we were doubting what to do, we heard a crash and cry, such as only a stranded ship and the perishing souls on board of her can make. Ah! you talk of Cornish wreckers—but there was wet eyes among us then, and men’s hearts that never knew fear fluttered like leaves on the lime-tree.

“We stood right above where the vessel struck. Sheer up from the beach—we measured it afterwards—two hundred and fourteen feet. A mouse could not have found footing down that cliff, and as it was within an hour of high water, no help could come to them poor souls but by letting some one down from the place we stood on.

“The dim light of morning just enabled us to see each other, and the white line of the shore-waves. Some thought they could see the wreck; I cannot tell if it was so. For certain we could hear now and then, fainter and fainter, the cry of mortal man.

‘I can’t stand this no longer,’ says Ned, at last, ‘I can’t stand here in health and strength with my two hands idle, while they, poor creatures, are beaten to death against the very rocks we stand on. Bear a hand, here—I’ll go down this place.’

“We stood like men blind and deaf for a minute, and then all tried to persuade him out of it, for we thought it was certain death. The rope most likely would be cut through fraying over the cliff, or the wind might dash him with fatal force against the rocks. But nothing would stop him: he knotted the rope round his waist, and taking a short gaff in his hand, stood ready to slip off. He turned a moment, and, says he,

‘Give my love to Mary and the children, and if I never see them more, don’t let them come to the parish.’

“He shook hands all round, and then stepped off, and in a moment he was hanging all his weight on the rope we held.

‘For God’s sake, lower away!’ he cried, ‘I see them.’

“We saw them, too, for God rent the black clouds, and looked through to see that noble deed. In the east there was a space of clear sky, through: which a stream of light fell on the scene before us. An awful scene it was! The ship was broken to pieces, and with every turn of the waves her timbers tossed and worrelled, and among them were the sailors. Some past help for ever, and two or three still striving hard for life.

“Just as Ned touched the beach, one man was swept out from the narrow ledge they were trying to hold on to, with every third or fourth wave breaking over them. The man Ned came to first was just such another for height and strength as himself, and we held our breath with terror, when we saw by his actions that he was (as is often the case) driven mad by his danger, and was struggling with the only man who could save him.

“For full five minutes they wrestled together. Sometimes we thought of pulling Ned up, and so making sure of him; for ’twas a hard choice between that poor demented stranger and Ned’s young wife and three little children. But then the water left them once more, and we saw Ned had him down with his knee on his chest, and we knew if the tide gave him time he was his master. So it proved. He whipped a turn or two of rope round his arms, and catching him tight to him with his left, he gave the signal to haul away.

“They had barely left the rock—for we pulled easy at first—when the whole keelson of the vessel was thrown against the place they had stood on. We had them in our lift, however, and if the weight had been twice as much it would have come to grass if the ropes held.

“We were all too busy drawing them up to look to see what happened on the way. I hold it as Bible truth that there’s scarce another man but Ned would have brought that sailor up. He had, as I have said, one arm round him, and, with the other, warded himself from the sharp face of the cliff, but he had some grievous bruises for all his courage and strength.

“When the man found himself lifted up in that strange way he got more raving than ever, and finding he could not use his hands, he fixed his teeth in Ned’s cheek till they met. For all the pain and danger Ned held on, and I shall never forget to my last hour what I felt as we drew them in over the edge of the cliff, and knew they were safe.

‘Poor Ned, we laid him in a sheltered place, and would have put the stranger with him, but we soon found he was too wild to be trusted free, so we bound him for his own safety.

“In a few minutes after they were landed Ned’s wife came. We had sent a boy for some spirits and things, and he, youngster like, told what Ned was about. None that was there will ever forget that fair young thing as she fell on her knees by her husband’s side, and swooned away with her head on his breast.

“Ah, the man that had just braved such danger wept like a child, as he smoothed the golden hair of his wife.

“As weak as a child he was, too, from loss of blood. Well, other women came soon after and bound up their hurts, and we got a cart and brought them down to my house.

“Eleven men and three boys were the crew of the Hesperus, as the ship was called, and only that one man saved. He lay for days—very quiet at last—and scarce spoke a word. What he did say was about his mother, and the name of some young woman. When we stripped him—by the doctor’s orders—we found a little packet hung round his neck by a black riband, and as it was wet with the salt water we took it away to dry. My wife, who tended him more than the rest, said, he seemed to keep groping for something in his bosom, so she put it back round his neck again; and when he found it there all right, he never strove to rise and call out as he did before. It is not for me to say, but my old woman always considered that packet to hold some true love-token. She often said she wished she knew, for she thought how glad his mother and sweetheart would be to know he was alive.