The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands

A light--clear, ruddy and brilliant, like a huge carbuncle--uprose one evening from the deep, and remained hovering about forty feet above the surface, scattering its rays far a...

It must not be supposed, from what has been said, that the Gull Lightship was the only vessel of the kind that existed at that time. But she was a good type of the class of vess...

The aspect of the night had completely changed. The fog had cleared away; heavy clouds rolled athwart the sky; a deeper darkness descended on the shipping at anchor in the Downs...

The gale was a short-lived one. On the following morning the wind had decreased to a moderate breeze, and before night the sea had gone down sufficiently to allow the boat of Mr...

If it be true that time and tide wait for no man, it is equally true, we rejoice to know, that authors and readers have a corresponding immunity from shackles, and are in nowise...

"An' wot are you breakin' the Queen's laws for like that?" retorted Billy Towler, dancing into the middle of the road and revolving his small fists in pugilistic fashion. "You b...

In a previous chapter it has been said that, after composing his celebrated lines to the lantern of the floating light, he resolved to drop in upon the Durants about tea-time--a...

A dead calm, with a soft, golden, half-transparent mist, had settled down on Old Father Thames, when, early one morning, the sloop Nora floated rather than sailed towards the mo...

Again we are in the neighbourhood of the Goodwin sands. It is evening. The sun has just gone down. The air and sea are perfectly still. The stars are coming out one by one, and...

The fact that we know not what a day may bring forth, receives frequent, and sometimes very striking, illustration in the experience of most people. That the day may begin with...

As landmarks--because of their affording variety, among other reasons-- are pleasant objects of contemplation to the weary traveller on a long and dusty road, so landmarks in a...

The river Hoogly. Off Calcutta. Tropical vegetation on the shore. Glittering sunshine on the water. Blue sky and fleecy clouds overhead. Equally blue sky and fleecy clouds down...

It is both curious and interesting to observe the multitude of unlikely ways in which the ends of justice are ofttimes temporarily defeated. Who would have imagined that an old...

We turn now to a very different scene--the pier and harbour of Ramsgate. The storm-fiend is abroad. Thick clouds of a dark leaden hue drive athwart a sky of dingy grey, ever var...

When the storm began to brew that night, George Welton, the mate of the floating light, walked the deck of his boiled-lobster-like vessel, and examined the sky and sea with that...

Let us turn back a little at this point, and see how the watchers on Ramsgate pier behaved themselves on that night of storm and turmoil. At the end of the east pier of Ramsgate...

At first the men of the lifeboat had nothing to do but hold on to the thwarts, with the exception, of course, of the coxswain, whose energies were taxed from the commencement in...

There were not a few surprising and unexpected meetings that day on Ramsgate pier. Foremost among the hundreds who pressed forward to shake the lifeboat-men by the hand, and to...

Katie Durant, sitting with a happy smile on her fair face, and good-will in her sweet heart to all mankind--womankind included, which says a good deal for her--was busy with a b...

Disappointed, displeased, and sorely puzzled, Billy Towler took his way towards the harbour, with his hands thrust desperately into his pockets, and an unwonted expression of di...

Let us change the scene and put back the clock. Ah, how many hearts would rejoice if it were as easy to return on the track of Time in real life as it is to do so in a tale!

When Morley Jones found himself suddenly deserted by his ally Billy Towler, he retired to the privacy of a box in a low public-house in Thames Street, and there, under the stimu...

If, as we have elsewhere observed in this narrative, time and tide wait for no man, it is not less true that time and tide work wonderful changes in man and his affairs and fort...

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 he...