Saved by the Lifeboat. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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the matter without delay. I will go to Covelly to-night, and shall probably be back to-morrow.”
Saying this, Mr Webster left the office, and, on the evening of that day, found himself seated in Captain Boyns’s parlour, with little Annie on his knee. Her pretty head was on his shoulder, her fair curls straggled over his chest, and her round little arms tightly encircled his large body as far as they could reach, while she sobbed on his bosom and kissed him by turns.
This was quite a new experience in the life of the gold-lover. He had declined to submit to familiar caresses in former years, but on such an occasion as the present, he felt that common propriety demanded the sacrifice of himself to some extent. He therefore allowed Annie to kiss him, and found the operation—performed as she did it—much more bearable than he had anticipated; and when Annie exclaimed with a burst of enthusiasm, “Oh, dear, dear papa, I did feel such a dreadful longing for you when the waves were roaring round us!” and gave him another squeeze, he felt that the market price of the bundle of goods on his knee was rising rapidly.
“Did you think you were going to be drowned, dear?” said Mr Webster with the air of a man who does not know very well what to say.
“I’m not sure what I thought,” replied Annie smiling through her tears. “Oh, I was so frightened! You can’t think, papa, how very dreadful it is to see the water boiling all round, and sometimes over you; and such awful thumping of the ship, and then the masts breaking; but what I feared most was to see the faces of the sailors, they were so white, and they looked as if they were afraid. Are men ever afraid, papa?”
“Sometimes, Annie; but a white face is not always the sign of fear—that may be caused by anxiety. Did any of them refuse to obey orders?”
“No; they were very obedient.”
“Did any of them get into the lifeboat before you and nurse!”
“Oh, no; they all refused to move till we were put into it, and some of them ran to help us, and were very very kind?”
“Then you may be quite sure they were not afraid, however pale their faces were; but what of yourself, Annie—were you afraid?”
“Oh, dreadfully, and so was poor nurse; but once or twice I thought of the text that—that—you know who was so fond of,—‘Call upon me in the time of trouble and I will deliver thee,’ so I prayed and felt a little better. Then the lifeboat came, and, oh! how my heart did jump, for it seemed just like an answer to my prayer. I never felt any more fear after that, except when I fell into the sea; but even then I was not so frightened as I had been, for I felt somehow that I was sure to be saved, and I was right, you see, for dear Captain Boyns dived for me. I love Captain Boyns!” cried Annie, and here again she kissed her father and held him so tight that he felt quite angry with Mrs Niven, who entered at the moment, and said, apologetically—
“Oh! la, sir, I didn’t know as Miss Annie was with you. I only came to say that everythink is ready, sir, for going ’ome.”
“We don’t intend to go home,” said Mr Webster; “at least not for a day or two. I find that Captain Boyns can let us stay here while I look after the wreck, so you can go and arrange with Mrs Boyns.”
During the few days that Mr Webster remained at Coral Cottage (Captain Boyns’s residence), Mrs Niven found, in the quiet, sympathetic Mrs Boyns, if not a congenial friend, at least a kind and sociable hostess, and Annie found, in Harry Boyns, a delightful companion, who never wearied of taking her to the cliffs, the shore, and all the romantic places of the neighbourhood, while Mr Webster found the captain to be most serviceable in connection with the wreck. One result of all this was that Mr Webster offered Captain Boyns the command of one of his largest vessels, an offer which was gladly accepted, for the captain had, at that time, been thrown out of employment by the failure of a firm, in the service of which he had spent the greater part of his nautical career.
Another result was, that Mr Webster, at Annie’s earnest solicitation, agreed to make Covelly his summer quarters next year, instead of Ramsgate, and Mrs Boyns agreed to lodge the family in Coral Cottage.
This having been all settled, Mr Webster asked Captain Boyns, on the morning of his departure for Liverpool, if he could do anything more for him, for he felt that to him his daughter owed her life, and he was anxious to serve him.
“If you could give my son Harry something to do, sir,” said Boyns, “you would oblige me very much. Harry is a smart fellow and a good seaman. He has been a short time in the coasting trade; perhaps—”
“Well, yes, I’ll see to that,” interrupted Mr Webster. “You shall hear from me again as to it.”
Now the fact is that Mr Webster did not feel attracted by young Boyns, and he would willingly have had nothing to do with him, but being unable to refuse the request after having invited it, he ultimately gave him a situation in one of his coasting vessels which plied between London and Aberdeen.
About a year after that, Captain Boyns sailed in the Warrior, a large new ship, for the Sandwich Islands and the Chinese seas.
True to his promise, Mr Webster spent the following summer with Annie and Mrs Boyns at Covelly, and young Boyns so managed matters that he got his captain to send him down to Covelly to talk with his employer on business. Of course, being there, it was natural that he should ask and obtain leave to spend a few days with his mother; and, of course, it was quite as natural that, without either asking or obtaining leave, he should spend the whole of these days in roaming about the shore and among the cliffs with Annie Webster.
It would be absurd to say that these two fell in love, seeing that one was only seven and the other fifteen; but there can be no doubt they entertained some sort of regard for each other, of a very powerful nature. The young sailor was wildly enthusiastic, well educated, manly, and good-looking—little wonder that Annie liked him. The child was winning in her ways, simple, yet laughter-loving, and very earnest—less wonderful that Harry liked her!
Another year fled, and again the Websters visited Covelly, and again Harry spent a few days with his mother; and although Mr Webster did not get the length of liking the youth, he at last came to the condition of not disliking him.
Year followed year, and still, each summer, Annie pressed her father to return to the old place, and he agreed, chiefly because it mattered little to him where he went. He regarded the summer trip in the light of a penance to be paid for the sin of being a member of society and the head of a household, and placed every minute so wasted to the debit of the profit and loss account in the mental ledger of his life’s affairs, for it must not be supposed that Mr Webster’s character was changed by the events which followed the rescue of his child from the sea. True, he had been surprised out of his habitual hardness for a short time, but he soon relapsed, if not quite back to the old position, at least so near to it that the difference was not appreciable.
As time ran on, men begun to look for the return of the Warrior, but that vessel did not make her appearance. Then they began to shake their heads and to grow prophetic, while those who were most deeply interested in the human beings who manned her became uneasy.
“Don’t fret over it,” said Harry one day to his mother, in a kind, earnest tone; “you may depend upon it father will turn up yet and surprise us. He never lost a ship in his life, and he has sailed in worse ones than the Warrior by a long way.”
“It may be so,” replied Mrs Boyns, sadly; “but it is a long, long time since he went away. God’s will be done. Whether He gives or takes away, I shall try to bless His name.”
At last Harry gave over attempting to comfort his mother, for he began to fear that his father’s ship was destined to be placed on the dark, dreary list of those of which it is sometimes said, with terrible brevity, in the newspapers, “She sailed from port on such and such a day, and has not since been heard of.”
In course of time Harry made one or two trips to the East Indies as first mate of one of Mr Webster’s vessels, and ultimately obtained the command of one.
At last a day came when there appeared in a Welsh newspaper a paragraph, which ran thus:– “A Message from the Sea—A bottle, corked