MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL
24 July. Whitby.--Lucy
met me at the station, looking
sweeter
and lovlier than ever, and we
drove up to the house at the
Crescent in which they have rooms.
This is a lovely place. The little
river, the Esk, runs through
a deep valley, which broadens
out as it comes near the harbour.
A great viaduct runs across,
with high piers, through which
the view seems somehow further
away than it really is. The valley
is beautifully green, and it
is so steep that when you are
on the high land on either side
you look right across it, unless
you are near enough to see down.
The houses of the old town--the
side away from us, are all red-roofed,
and seem piled up one over the
other anyhow, like the pictures
we see of Nuremberg. Right over
the town is the ruin of Whitby
Abbey, which was sacked by the
Danes, and which is the scene
of part of "Marmion," where the
girl was built up in the wall.
It is a most noble ruin, of immense
size, and full of beautiful and
romantic bits. There is a legend
that a white lady is seen in
one of the windows. Between it
and the town there is another
church, the parish one, round
which is a big graveyard, all
full of tombstones. This is to
my mind the nicest spot in Whitby,
for it lies right over the town,
and has a full view of the harbour
and all up the bay to where the
headland called Kettleness stretches
out into the sea. It descends
so steeply over the harbour that
part of the bank has fallen away,
and some of the graves have been
destroyed.
In one place part of the stonework
of the graves stretches out over
the sandy pathway far below.
There are walks, with seats beside
them, through the churchyard,
and people go and sit there all
day long looking at the beautiful
view and enjoying the breeze.
I shall come and sit here often
myself and work. Indeed, I am
writing now, with my book on
my knee, and listening to the
talk of three old men who are
sitting beside me. They seem
to do nothing all day but sit
here and talk.
The harbour lies below me,
with, on the far side, one long
granite wall stretching out into
the sea, with a curve outwards
at the end of it, in the middle
of which is a lighthouse. A heavy
seawall runs along outside of
it. On the near side, the seawall
makes an elbow crooked inversely,
and its end too has a lighthouse.
Between the two piers there is
a narrow opening into the harbour,
which then suddenly widens.
It is nice at high water, but
when the tide is out it shoals
away to nothing, and there is
merely the stream of the Esk,
running between banks of sand,
with rocks here and there. Outside
the harbour on this side there
rises for about half a mile a
great reef, the sharp of which
runs straight out from behind
the south lighthouse. At the
end of it is a buoy with a bell,
which swings in bad weather,
and sends in a mournful sound
on the wind.
They have a legend here that
when a ship is lost bells are
heard out at sea. I must ask
the old man about this. He is
coming this way . . .
He is a funny old man. He must
be awfully old, for his face
is gnarled and twisted like the
bark of a tree. He tells me that
he is nearly a hundred, and that
he was a sailor in the Greenland
fishing fleet when Waterloo was
fought. He is, I am afraid, a
very sceptical person, for when
I asked him about the bells at
sea and the White Lady at the
abbey he said very brusquely,
"I wouldn't
fash masel' about them, miss.
Them things be all
wore out. Mind, I don't say that
they never was, but I do say
that they wasn't in my time.
They be all very well for comers
and trippers, an' the like, but
not for a nice young lady like
you. Them feet-folks from York
and Leeds that be always eatin'cured
herrin's and drinkin' tea an'
lookin' out to buy cheap jet
would creed aught. I wonder masel'
who'd be bothered tellin' lies
to them, even the newspapers,
which is full of fool-talk."
I thought he would be a good
person to learn interesting things
from, so I asked him if he would
mind telling me something about
the whale fishing in the old
days. He was just settling himself
to begin when the clock struck
six, whereupon he laboured to
get up, and said,
"I must gang
ageeanwards home now, miss.
My granddaughter doesn't
like to be kept waitin' when
the tea is ready, for it takes
me time to crammle aboon the
grees, for there be a many of
`em, and miss, I lack belly-timber
sairly by the clock."
He hobbled away, and I could
see him hurrying, as well as
he could, down the steps. The
steps are a great feature on
the place. They lead from the
town to the church, there are
hundreds of them, I do not know
how many, and they wind up in
a delicate curve. The slope is
so gentle that a horse could
easily walk up and down them.
I think they must originally
have had something to do with
the abbey. I shall go home too.
Lucy went out, visiting with
her mother, and as they were
only duty calls, I did not go.
1 August.--I came up here an
hour ago with Lucy, and we had
a most interesting talk with
my old friend and the two others
who always come and join him.
He is evidently the Sir Oracle
of them, and I should think must
have been in his time a most
dictatorial person.
He will not admit anything,
and down faces everybody. If
he can't out-argue them he bullies
them, and then takes their silence
for agreement with his views.
Lucy was looking sweetly pretty
in her white lawn frock. She
has got a beautiful colour since
she has been here.
I noticed that the old men
did not lose any time in coming
and sitting near her when we
sat down. She is so sweet with
old people, I think they all
fell in love with her on the
spot. Even my old man succumbed
and did not contradict her, but
gave me double share instead.
I got him on the subject of the
legends , and he went off at
once into a sort of sermon. I
must try to remember it and put
it down.
"It be all
fool-talk, lock, stock, and
barrel, that's what
it be and nowt else. These bans
an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an'
bar-guests an' bogles an' all
anent them is only fit to set
bairns an' dizzy women a'belderin'.
They be nowt but air-blebs. They,
an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's,
be all invented by parsons an'
illsome berk-bodies an' railway
touters to skeer an' scunner
hafflin's, an' to get folks to
do somethin' that they don't
other incline to. It makes me
ireful to think o' them. Why,
it's them that, not content with
printin' lies on paper an' preachin'
them ou t of pulpits, does want
to be cuttin' them on the tombstones.
Look here all around you in what
airt ye will. All them steans,
holdin' up their heads as well
as they can out of their pride,
is acant, simply tumblin' down
with the weight o' the lies wrote
on them, `Here lies the body'
or `Sacred to the memory' wrote
on all of them, an' yet in nigh
half of them there bean't no
bodies at all, an' the memories
of them bean't cared a pinch
of snuff about, much less sacred.
Lies all of them, nothin' but
lies of one kind or another!
My gog, but it'll be a quare
scowderment at the Day of Judgment
when they come tumblin' up in
their death-sarks, all jouped
together an' trying' to drag
their tombsteans with them to
prove how good they was, some
of them trimmlin' an' dithering,
with their hands that dozzened
an' slippery from lyin' in the
sea that they can't even keep
their gurp o' them."
I could see
from the old fellow's self-satisfied
air and the way
in which he looked round for
the approval of his cronies that
he was "showing off," so I put
in a word to keep him going.
"Oh, Mr. Swales,
you can't be serious. Surely
these tombstones
are not all wrong?"
"Yabblins!
There may be a poorish few
not wrong, savin' where they
make out the people too good,
for there be folk that do think
a balm-bowl be like the sea,
if only it be their own. The
whole thing be only lies. Now
look you here. You come here
a stranger, an' you see this
kirkgarth."
I nodded, for I thought it
better to assent, though I did
not quite understand his dialect.
I knew it had something to do
with the church.
He went on, "And you consate
that all these steans be aboon
folk that be haped here, snod
an' snog?" I assented again. "Then
that be just where the lie comes
in. Why, there be scores of these
laybeds that be toom as old Dun's
`baccabox on Friday night."
He nudged one
of his companions, and they
all laughed. "And, my
gog! How could they be otherwise?
Look at that one, the aftest
abaft the bier-bank, read it!"
I went over
and read, "Edward
Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered
by pirates off the coast of Andres,
April, 1854, age 30." When I
came back Mr. Swales went on,
"Who brought him home, I wonder,
to hap him here? Murdered off
the coast of Andres! An' you
consated his body lay under!
Why, I could name ye a dozen
whose bones lie in the Greenland
seas above," he pointed northwards, "or
where the currants may have drifted
them. There be the steans around
ye. Ye can, with your young eyes,
read the small print of the lies
from here. This Braithwaite Lowery,
I knew his father, lost in the
Lively off Greenland in `20,
or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned
in the same seas in 1777, or
John Paxton, drowned off Cape
Farewell a year later, or old
John Rawlings, whose grandfather
sailed with me, drowned in the
Gulf of Finland in `50. Do ye
think that all these men will
have to make a rush to Whitby
when the trumpet sounds? I have
me antherums aboot it! I tell
ye that when they got here they'd
be jommlin' and jostlin' one
another that way that it `ud
be like a fight up on the ice
in the old days, when we'd be
at one another from daylight
to dark, an' tryin' to tie up
our cuts by the aurora borealis." This
was evidently local pleasantry,
for the old man cackled over
it, and his cronies joined in
with gusto.
"But," I said, "surely
you are not quite correct,
for you
start on the assumption that
all the poor people, or their
spirits, will have to take their
tombstones with them on the Day
of Judgment. Do you think that
will be really necessary?"
"Well, what
else be they tombstones for?
Answer me that, miss!"
"To please
their relatives, I suppose."
"To please their relatives,
you suppose!" This he said with
intense scorn. "How will it pleasure
their relatives to know that
lies is wrote over them, and
that everybody in the place knows
that they be lies?"
He pointed
to a stone at our feet which
had been laid down
as a slab, on which the seat
was rested, close to the edge
of the cliff. "Read the lies
on that thruff-stone," he said.
The letters
were upside down to me from
where I sat, but Lucy
was more opposite to them, so
she leant over and read, "Sacred
to the memory of George Canon,
who died, in the hope of a glorious
resurrection, on July 29,1873,falling
from the rocks at Kettleness.
This tomb was erected by his
sorrowing mother to her dearly
beloved son.`He was the only
son of his mother, and she was
a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales,
I don't see anything very funny
in that!" She spoke her comment
very gravely and somewhat severely.
"Ye don't see aught funny!
Ha-ha! But that's because ye
don't gawm the sorrowin'mother
was a hell-cat that hated him
because he was acrewk'd, a regular
lamiter he was, an' he hated
her so that he committed suicide
in order that she mightn't get
an insurance she put on his life.
He blew nigh the top of his head
off with an old musket that they
had for scarin' crows with. `twarn't
for crows then, for it brought
the clegs and the dowps to him.
That's the way he fell off the
rocks. And, as to hopes of a
glorious resurrection, I've often
heard him say masel' that he
hoped he'd go to hell, for his
mother was so pious that she'd
be sure to go to heaven, an'
he didn't want to addle where
she was. Now isn't that stean
at any rate,"he hammered it with
his stick as he spoke, "a pack
of lies? And won't it make Gabriel
keckle when Geordie comes pantin'
ut the grees with the tompstean
balanced on his hump, and asks
to be took as evidence!"
I did not know
what to say, but Lucy turned
the conversation
as she said, rising up, "Oh,
why did you tell us of this?
It is my favorite seat, and I
cannot leave it, and now I find
I must go on sitting over the
grave of a suicide."
"That won't harm ye, my pretty,
an' it may make poor Geordie
gladsome to have so trim a lass
sittin' on his lap. That won't
hurt ye. Why, I've sat here off
an' on for nigh twenty years
past, an' it hasn't done me no
harm. Don't ye fash about them
as lies under ye, or that doesn'
lie there either! It'll be time
for ye to be getting scart when
ye see the tombsteans all run
away with, and the place as bare
as a stubble-field. There's the
clock, and'I must gang. My service
to ye, ladies!" And off he hobbled.
Lucy and I sat awhile, and
it was all so beautiful before
us that we took hands as we sat,
and she told me all over again
about Arthur and their coming
marriage. That made me just a
little heart-sick, for I haven't
heard from Jonathan for a whole
month.
The same day. I came up here
alone, for I am very sad. There
was no letter for me. I hope
there cannot be anything the
matter with Jonathan. The clock
has just struck nine. I see the
lights scattered all over the
town, sometimes in rows where
the streets are, and sometimes
singly. They run right up the
Esk and die away in the curve
of the valley. To my left the
view is cut off by a black line
of roof of the old house next
to the abbey. The sheep and lambs
are bleating in the fields away
behind me, and there is a clatter
of donkeys' hoofs up the paved
road below. The band on the pier
is playing a harsh waltz in good
time, and further along the quay
there is a Salvation Army meeting
in a back street. Neither of
the bands hears the other, but
up here I hear and see them both.
I wonder where Jonathan is and
if he is thinking of me! I wish
he were here.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
5 June.--The case of Renfield
grows more interesting the more
I get to understand the man.
He has certain qualities very
largely developed, selfishness,
secrecy, and purpose.
I wish I could get at what
is the object of the latter.
He seems to have some settled
scheme of his own, but what it
is I do not know. His redeeming
quality is a love of animals,
though, indeed, he has such curious
turns in it that I sometimes
imagine he is only abnormally
cruel. His pets are of odd sorts.
Just now his
hobby is catching flies. He
has at present such
a quantity that I have had myself
to expostulate. To my astonishment,
he did not break out into a fury,
as I expected, but took the matter
in simple seriousness. He thought
for a moment, and then said, "May
I have three days? I shall clear
them away." Of course, I said
that would do. I must watch him.
18 June.--He has turned his
mind now to spiders, and has
got several very big fellows
in a box. He keeps feeding them
his flies, and the number of
the latter is becoming sensibly
diminished, although he has used
half his food in attracting more
flies from outside to his room.
1 July.--His spiders are now
becoming as great a nuisance
as his flies, and today I told
him that he must get rid of them.
He looked very sad at this,
so I said that he must some of
them, at all events. He cheerfully
acquiesced in this, and I gave
him the same time as before for
reduction.
He disgusted me much while
with him, for when a horrid blowfly,
bloated with some carrion food,
buzzed into the room, he caught
it, held it exultantly for a
few moments between his finger
and thumb, and before I knew
what he was going to do, put
it in his mouth and ate it.
I scolded him for it, but he
argued quietly that it was very
good and very wholesome, that
it was life, strong life, and
gave life to him. This gave me
an idea, or the rudiment of one.
I must watch how he gets rid
of his spiders.
He has evidently some deep
problem in his mind, for he keeps
a little notebook in which he
is always jotting down something.
whole pages of it are filled
with masses of figures, generally
single numbers added up in batches,
and then the totals added in
batches again, as though he were
focussing some account, as the
auditors put it.
8 July.--There is a method
in his madness, and the rudimentary
idea in my mind is growing. It
will be a whole idea soon, and
then, oh, unconscious cerebration,
you will have to give the wall
to your conscious brother.
I kept away from my friend
for a few days, so that I might
notice if there were any change.
Things remain as they were except
that he has parted with some
of his pets and got a new one.
He has managed to get a sparrow,
and has already partially tamed
it. His means of taming is simple,
for already the spiders have
diminshed. Those that do remain,
however, are well fed, for he
still brings in the flies by
tempting them with his food.
19 July--We are progressing.
My friend has now a whole colony
of sparrows, and his flies and
spiders are almost obliterated.
When I came in he ran to me and
said he wanted to ask me a great
favour, a very, very great favour.
And as he spoke, he fawned on
me like a dog.
I asked him
what it was, and he said, with
a sort of rapture
in his voice and bearing, "A
kitten, a nice, little, sleek
playful kitten, that I can play
with, and teach, and feed, and
feed, and feed!"
I was not unprepared for this
request, for I had noticed how
his pets went on increasing in
size and vivacity, but I did
not care that his pretty family
of tame sparrows should be wiped
out in the same manner as the
flies and spiders. So I said
I would see about it, and asked
him if he would not rather have
a cat than a kitten.
His eagerness
betrayed him as he answered, "Oh,
yes, I would like a cat! I
only asked for
a kitten lest you should refuse
me a cat. No one would refuse
me a kitten, would they?"
I shook my head, and said that
at present I feared it would
not be possible, but that I would
see about it. His face fell,
and I could see a warning of
danger in it, for there was a
sudden fierce, sidelong look
which meant killing. The man
is an undeveloped homicidal maniac.
I shall test him with his present
craving and see how it will work
out, then I shall know more.
10 pm.--I have visited him
again and found him sitting in
a corner brooding. When I came
in he threw himself on his knees
before me and implored me to
let him have a cat, that his
salvation depended upon it.
I was firm, however, and told
him that he could not have it,
whereupon he went without a word,
and sat down, gnawing his fingers,
in the corner where I had found
him. I shall see him in the morning
early.
20 July.--Visited Renfield
very early, before attendant
went his rounds. Found him up
and humming a tune. He was spreading
out his sugar, which he had saved,
in the window, and was manifestly
beginning his fly catching again,
and beginning it cheerfully and
with a good grace.
I looked around for his birds,
and not seeing them,asked him
where they were. He replied,
without turning round, that they
had all flown away. There were
a few feathers about the room
and on his pillow a drop of blood.
I said nothing, but went and
told the keeper to report to
me if there were anything odd
about him during the day.
11 am.--The
attendant has just been to
see me to say that Renfield
has been very sick and has disgorged
a whole lot of feathers. "My
belief is, doctor," he said, "that
he has eaten his birds, and that
he just took and ate them raw!"
11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong
opiate tonight, enough to make
even him sleep, and took away
his pocketbook to look at it.
The thought that has been buzzing
about my brain lately is complete,
and the theory proved.
My homicidal maniac is of a
peculiar kind. I shall have to
invent a new classification for
him, and call him a zoophagous
(life-eating) maniac. What he
desires is to absorb as many
lives as he can, and he has laid
himself out to achieve it in
a cumulative way. He gave many
flies to one spider and many
spiders to one bird, and then
wanted a cat to eat the many
birds. What would have been his
later steps?
It would almost be worth while
to complete the experiment. It
might be done if there were only
a sufficient cause. Men sneered
at vivisection, and yet look
at its results today! Why not
advance science in its most difficult
and vital aspect, the knowledge
of the brain?
Had I even the secret of one
such mind, did I hold the key
to the fancy of even one lunatic,
I might advance my own branch
of science to a pitch compared
with which Burdon-Sanderson's
physiology or Ferrier's brain
knowledge would be as nothing.
If only there were a sufficient
cause! I must not think too much
of this, or I may be tempted.
A good cause might turn the scale
with me, for may not I too be
of an exceptional brain, congenitally?
How well the man reasoned.
Lunatics always do within their
own scope. I wonder at how many
lives he values a man, or if
at only one. He has closed the
account most accurately, and
today begun a new record. How
many of us begin a new record
with each day of our lives?
To me it seems only yesterday
that my whole life ended with
my new hope, and that truly I
began a new record. So it shall
be until the Great Recorder sums
me up and closes my ledger account
with a balance to profit or loss.
Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be
angry with you, nor can I be
angry with my friend whose happiness
is yours, but I must only wait
on hopeless and work. Work! Work!
If I could have as strong a
cause as my poor mad friend there,
a good, unselfish cause to make
me work, that would be indeed
happiness.
MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL
26 July.--I am anxious, and
it soothes me to express myself
here. It is like whispering to
one's self and listening at the
same time. And there is also
something about the shorthand
symbols that makes it different
from writing. I am unhappy about
Lucy and about Jonathan. I had
not heard from Jonathan for some
time, and was very concerned,
but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins,
who is always so kind, sent me
a letter from him. I had written
asking him if he had heard, and
he said the enclosed had just
been received. It is only a line
dated from Castle Dracula, and
says that he is just starting
for home. That is not like Jonathan.
I do not understand it, and it
makes me uneasy.
Then, too, Lucy , although
she is so well, has lately taken
to her old habit of walking in
her sleep. Her mother has spoken
to me about it, and we have decided
that I am to lock the door of
our room every night.
Mrs. Westenra has got an idea
that sleep-walkers always go
out on roofs of houses and along
the edges of cliffs and then
get suddenly wakened and fall
over with a despairing cry that
echoes all over the place.
Poor dear, she is naturally
anxious about Lucy, and she tells
me that her husband, Lucy's father,
had the same habit, that he would
get up in the night and dress
himself and go out, if he were
not stopped.
Lucy is to be married in the
autumn, and she is already planning
out her dresses and how her house
is to be arranged. I sympathise
with her, for I do the same,
only Jonathan and I will start
in life in a very simple way,
and shall have to try to make
both ends meet.
Mr. Holmwood, he is the Hon.
Arthur Holmwood, only son of
Lord Godalming, is coming up
here very shortly, as soon as
he can leave town, for his father
is not very well, and I think
dear Lucy is counting the moments
till he comes.
She wants to take him up in
the seat on the churchyard cliff
and show him the beauty of Whitby.
I daresay it is the waiting which
disturbs her. She will be all
right when he arrives.
27 July.--No news from Jonathan.
I am getting quite uneasy about
him, though why I should I do
not know, but I do wish that
he would write, if it were only
a single line.
Lucy walks more than ever,
and each night I am awakened
by her moving about the room.
Fortunately, the weather is so
hot that she cannot get cold.
But still, the anxiety and the
perpetually being awakened is
beginning to tell on me, and
I am getting nervous and wakeful
myself. Thank God, Lucy's health
keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been
suddenly called to Ring to see
his father, who has been taken
seriously ill. Lucy frets at
the postponement of seeing him,
but it does not touch her looks.
She is a trifle stouter, and
her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink.
She has lost the anemic look
which she had. I pray it will
all last.
3 August.--Another week gone
by, and no news from Jonathan,
not even to Mr. Hawkins, from
whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope
he is not ill. He surely would
have written. I look at that
last letter of his, but somehow
it does not satisfy me. It does
not read like him, and yet it
is his writing. There is no mistake
of that.
Lucy has not walked much in
her sleep the last week, but
there is an odd concentration
about her which I do not understand,
even in her sleep she seems to
be watching me. She tries the
door, and finding it locked,
goes about the room searching
for the key.
6 August.--Another three days,
and no news. This suspense is
getting dreadful. If I only knew
where to write to or where to
go to, I should feel easier.
But no one has heard a word of
Jonathan since that last letter.
I must only pray to God for patience.
Lucy is more excitable than
ever, but is otherwise well.
Last night was very threatening,
and the fishermen say that we
are in for a storm. I must try
to watch it and learn the weather
signs.
Today is a gray day, and the
sun as I write is hidden in thick
clouds, high over Kettleness.
Everything is gray except the
green grass, which seems like
emerald amongst it, gray earthy
rock, gray clouds, tinged with
the sunburst at the far edge,
hang over the gray sea, into
which the sandpoints stretch
like gray figures. The sea is
tumbling in over the shallows
and the sandy flats with a roar,
muffled in the sea-mists drifting
inland. The horizon is lost in
a gray mist. All vastness, the
clouds are piled up like giant
rocks, and there is a `brool'
over the sea that sounds like
some passage of doom. Dark figures
are on the beach here and there,
sometimes half shrouded in the
mist, and seem `men like trees
walking'. The fishing boats are
racing for home, and rise and
dip in the ground swell as they
sweep into the harbour, bending
to the scuppers. Here comes old
Mr. Swales. He is making straight
for me, and I can see, by the
way he lifts his hat, that he
wants to talk.
I have been
quite touched by the change
in the poor old man.
When he sat down beside me, he
said in a very gentle way, "I
want to say something to you,
miss."
I could see he was not at ease,
so I took his poor old wrinkled
hand in mine and asked him to
speak fully.
So he said,
leaving his hand in mine, "I'm afraid, my deary,
that I must have shocked you
by all the wicked things I've
been sayin' about the dead, and
such like, for weeks past, but
I didn't mean them, and I want
ye to remember that when I'm
gone. We aud folks that be daffled,
and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal,
don't altogether like to think
of it, and we don't want to feel
scart of it, and that's why I've
took to makin' light of it, so
that I'd cheer up my own heart
a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss,
I ain't afraid of dyin', not
a bit, only I don't want to die
if I can help it. My time must
be nigh at hand now, for I be
aud, and a hundred years is too
much for any man to expect. And
I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man
is already whettin' his scythe.
Ye see, I can't get out o' the
habit of caffin' about it all
at once. The chafts will wag
as they be used to. Some day
soon the Angel of Death will
sound his trumpet for me. But
don't ye dooal an' greet, my
deary!"--for he saw that I was
crying-- "if he should come this
very night I'd not refuse to
answer his call. For life be,
after all, only a waitin' for
somethin' else than what we're
doin', and death be all that
we can rightly depend on. But
I'm content, for it's comin'
to me, my deary, and comin' quick.
It may be comin' while we be
lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe
it's in that wind out over the
sea that's bringin' with it loss
and wreck, and sore distress,
and sad hearts. Look! Look!" he
cried suddenly. "There's something
in that wind and in the hoast
beyont that sounds, and looks,
and tastes, and smells like death.
It's in the air. I feel it comin'.
Lord, make me answer cheerful,
when my call comes!" He held
up his arms devoutly, and raised
his hat. His mouth moved as though
he were praying. After a few
minutes' silence, he got up,
shook hands with me, and blessed
me, and said good-bye, and hobbled
off. It all touched me, and upset
me very much.
I was glad when the coastguard
came along, with his spyglass
under his arm. He stopped to
talk with me, as he always does,
but all the time kept looking
at a strange ship.
"I can't make her out," he
said. "She's a Russian, by the
look of her. But she's knocking
about in the queerest way. She
doesn't know her mind a bit.
She seems to see the storm coming,
but can't decide whether to run
up north in the open, or to put
in here. Look there again! She
is steered mighty strangely,
for she doesn't mind the hand
on the wheel, changes about with
every puff of wind. We'll hear
more of her before this time
tomorrow." |