CHAPTER XIX.

“HOVELLING” _v._ WRECKING.

The Contrast—The “Hovellers” defended—Their Services—The Case of the _Albion_—Anchors and Cables wanted by a disabled Vessel—Lugger wrecked on the Beach—Dangers of the Hoveller’s Life—Nearly swamped by the heavy Seas—Loss of a baling Bowl, and what it means—Saved on an American Ship—The Lost Found—A brilliant example of Life-saving at Bideford—The Small Rewards of the Hoveller’s Life—The case of _La Marguerite_—Nearly wrecked in Port—Hovellers _v._ Wreckers—“Let’s all start fair!”—Praying for Wrecks.

The wrecker was a land-ghoul, a monster in human form, who preyed on human life and property. The “hovellers,” a distinctive term on many parts of the coasts of this sea-girt isle, is applied to the hardy men who, in all weathers and at all risks, go to the assistance of ships in distress, and occasionally benefit by a wreck, but they are not wreckers. The Rev. Mr. Gilmore, who has so well described the dangers, perils, and triumphs of the life-boat service, very properly includes among the storm warriors the honest men who perform these practical deeds of naval daring. Visitors to Ramsgate and other seaside resorts of the southern coast will remember the luggers in which holiday excursions are made; many of these same boats are, in winter more especially, engaged in very serious work. “The more threatening and heavy the weather,” says our authority, “the greater the probability of disaster occurring or having occurred, then the more ready are the crew to work their way out to the Goodwin Sands, and to cruise round them on the look-out for vessels in distress; they dare not take the lugger into the broken water—there a life-boat alone can live: but still, she is a grand sea-boat, one that will stagger on, with a ship’s heavy anchor and chain on board, through weather bad enough for anything—a boat that is well suited for the hard and dangerous service which employs her during the winter months.” The hovelling lugger has generally a crew of ten men, and these receive no regular pay. Any salvage or reward the vessel earns is commonly divided into fourteen shares; the boat takes three and a half for the owners, half a share goes for the provisions, and each man of the crew receives one share. Mr. Gilmore says that “complaints are sometimes made of the amounts charged by these men for services rendered; but the cases of a good hovel are few and far between; and often the luggers put out to sea night after night throughout a stormy winter, hanging about the sands, in wind and rain, and snow and mists, the men half-frozen with the cold and half-smothered with the flying surf and spray, and often week after week they thus suffer and endure, and do not make a penny-piece each man; then at last, perhaps, comes a chance: a big ship is on the tail of a sandbank; they render assistance and get her off; they have saved thousands of pounds worth of property; and the captain, and the owners, and the underwriters all look aghast, and cry out with indignation when they ask perhaps a sum that will give them ten or fifteen pounds a man.”

Not uncommonly the lugger speaks a vessel, and finds that an anchor or anchors, cables, &c., have been lost, and must be replaced. They must make in all haste for shore, and obtain what is needed, and put out again to the distressed vessel. What all this may mean on occasions to the owners and men of the hovelling vessels is shown in the following example—the case of the _Albion_ lugger.

The _Albion_ meets a vessel driving before the gale, having lost both her anchors and cables; receives orders to supply her from shore; and the hardy crew, putting the vessel round, beat through the heavy seas, and make for Deal. “They have to force the boat against wind and tide, and much skill is required to prevent her being filled by the rising seas which sweep around her; now she rushes upon the beach, the surf breaks over her and half fills her with water; with a tremendous thump and shake she strikes the shore with her iron keel.

“As the wave which bore the lugger in upon the beach recedes, a man springs overboard from the bow with a rope in his hand; many catch hold of the rope, and haul their hardest to keep the boat straight, head on to the beach; there is a stem strap—a chain running through a hole in the front part of the keel; a boatman watches his opportunity, and, as a wave sweeps back, rushes down and passes a rope through the loop of the strap; the other end of this rope is fastened to a powerful capstan, which is placed high up on the beach. ‘Man the capstan! Heave with a will!’ and the strong men strain at the capstan bars until the capstan creaks again. There is no starting the lugger: she is so full of water from the surf breaking on the beach that she is too heavy for the men at one capstan to move her; ropes are led down from two other capstans, and rove through a snatch-block fastened to a boat on the beach; all put out their strength, round they tramp, with a ‘Ho! heave ho!’ and slowly the lugger travels up the beach, and is safe from the roll of the breakers. The men get the water out of her, haul her higher up on to a swivel platform, turn her round head to the sea, and the leading hands hurry away to inquire about an anchor and cable. The agent supplies them with such as seem suitable for the size of the vessel, and which will perhaps weigh together about seven tons.” Then follows the labour of getting them on board, but in a short time all are ready for sea.

“The gale has rapidly increased in force, and a frightful surf is running on the beach; the roar of the breakers on the shingle, the howling of the storm, the gleam of white foam shining out of the mist and gloom, all picture the wildness of the storm; but the undaunted boatmen do not hesitate. All is ready; the signal given; the boat rushes down the steep ways, and is launched into the sea. A breaking wave rolls in swiftly, it meets the bow of the lugger in its rush, fills her; for a moment the big boat runs under water, and then is lifted and twisted like a toy in the grasp of the sea, and is thrown, in the heave of the wave, broadside on to the beach; a cry of horror from all on shore, and a rush down to aid the crew, who are all—there are fifteen of them—struggling in the surf: now the men are washed up by the wave, and feel the ground and stagger forward; now they are caught again by a breaker and rolled over; it is for each of them a terrible battle with the fierce seas; here one gets on his feet and stumbles forward, he is caught by the men on shore and dragged up the beach; there a man is lying struggling on the shingle, trying in vain to rise, exhausted and confused, two men seize his collar, and pull him forward a yard or two, then get him to his feet, and he escapes the next wave, which would have washed him out to sea again. Now all the men seem to be saved; names are shouted—do all answer? No; there is one missing! All rush to the water’s edge and gaze into the darkness, eagerly watching each shadow mid the surf. ‘There he is! No! Yes it is! there—lifting on the surf! there, rolling-over!’ ‘Quick! quick! form a line!’ And the brave boatmen grasp each other’s hands with iron strength, and form a chain, the lowest of the four or five men at the sea end of the chain being in the water. The waves battle with them, but sturdily they persevere. At last the body is within reach of the seaward man; he grasps it; the men are dragged up the beach, and the poor insensible man is carried ashore. Alive or dead? They cannot say; and with a great fear in their hearts they carry him hurriedly up the beach, and soon, to the great joy of all, he gives signs of life, and gradually recovers.

“In the meanwhile, the poor boatmen on the beach have nothing that they can do but watch their fine boat, which was worth five hundred pounds, being torn and hammered to pieces in the surf. Plank after plank is wrenched from her. Now, with a loud crash, she is broken in half; the two halves part; the anchor and cable fall through her. They can see part of the forepeak, with one side torn away, floating in the breakers; soon that also is rent to pieces, and nothing but fragments of the boat float in the surf or are strewn about the beach; and the boatmen, heavy-hearted, but thankful that they have escaped with their lives, go slowly to their homes to rest for a few hours and recruit their strength, and then be ready to form part of the crew of any other boat, and at the first summons to rush out again to the encounter with the stormiest seas.” And that what the men of Deal are _par excellence_—hardy, brave, and skilful—the men of our coasts are very generally.

Sometimes the hovellers are distinctly associated with the life-boat men in their efforts to save life. Gilmore cites a case where a lugger’s boat had succeeded in taking a number of men off a wreck, when they themselves were caught in a squall, and were only too glad to make for the life-boat, to which the larger part were transferred. Then came a chapter of difficulties, for neither steamer nor lugger could be discovered through the fog, which obscured everything within a few yards of them. When they at length reached the _Champion_ lugger, the shipwrecked crew refused to leave the life-boat. They had been as nearly as possible wrecked a second time in the lugger’s boat. What a story had these poor men to relate!

Their vessel, the _Effort_, had been beaten about for days in the North Sea previous to grounding on the fatal Goodwins. They hoisted lamps, and were preparing to set a tar-barrel on fire, when their ship, which was very light, rolled from side to side, almost yard-arms under, and then suddenly capsized altogether. “At once,” said one of the narrators, “and with difficulty, we made for the weather rigging, and were glad to find that not any of the crew were lost as she fell over. We lashed ourselves to the rigging. We knew, to our great joy, that the tide was falling; had it been rising, we must have very soon been overrun by it, the vessel broken up, and every man of us lost. We were in danger enough as it was, for the brig, soon after she capsized, was caught by the tide, and worked round, with her deck towards the seas; and as the heavy seas broke over and came rushing up the deck, they fell on us with terrible weight, and beat us and crushed us against the ship’s rail, so that we were forced to unlash ourselves from the rigging; and what to do we did not know, till one of us said, ‘Our only chance is to lash the end of the ropes round our waists, and let go the rigging as the waves come.’ And so we did; and terrible work it was. As the waves came we slackened the ropes and went away a little with them; and as they passed, half smothered as we were, hauled ourselves back to the rigging and held on a bit; and then, when the next wave came, we let go, and were all adrift in the wash again; our hands were almost torn to pieces with the strain on the ropes and grasping at the side of the vessel.... You see, too, how our clothes were nearly dragged off us: it was indeed an awful time!” One man grew terribly excited as they told the dismal story. His limbs and features worked, and as the waves dashed over the life-boat he fancied himself being washed off the wreck, and his reason quite gave way for the time. He shouted out, “Let me drown myself! Let me drown myself! I can stand it no longer!” and was with the greatest difficulty held back by three men, who would not relinquish their hold till they got safe into harbour.

The hoveller’s life is necessarily full of danger, for his services are usually only required in the very worst weather; and if he can save anything from a wreck, it will generally be done under circumstances of great difficulty. Gilmore cites an example where some of these men were endeavouring to save the rigging of a wrecked vessel, when a squall came on, with driving snow and hail. The men in the rigging were somewhat interested in their work, and were at first inclined to risk the weather, but the gale increased so rapidly that it became evident that they must leave in their boat at once. Away for their lives the men pull, the little boat seethes through the troubled waters, and they soon near the edge of the sand, and are making for deep water, when they suddenly hear the noise of the surf beating on the shallows immediately ahead of them. They pull ahead a little, and can see the huge waves rolling in out of the deep water, mounting up, curling over, and breaking, meeting other breakers, foaming up against them—in fact, a sea of raging waters surrounding the sands in which their little boat would be swamped at once. As they mount on a wave they can see the lugger riding safely just outside the surf, only a quarter of a mile off, but that quarter of a mile it is impossible for them to pass, and equally impossible for the lugger to get any nearer to them. The seas break over them constantly, and for a while they return to the dangerous shelter of the wreck.

“The Goodwin Sands are about nine miles long; in the middle of them there is, at low water, a large lake, which is called on the chart ‘Trinity Bay,’ but which is known to the boatmen as the ‘In-Sand.’ The men row in the direction of the lake, and row over the sandbanks which surround it, as soon as the tide has flowed sufficiently to enable them to do so. Now they find themselves in completely smooth water, and are safe; but for how long? a short hour or so, for the hungry waves are following them up fast. Still higher and higher comes the tide, and a furious surf begins to rage over the banks that for a time protect the lake.” Well do the men know how short must be their period of rest.

Soon the heavy rollers come in and threaten to swamp them; the boat is nearly full of water. At this juncture the steersman, who has been steering and baling the boat for about four hours, suddenly lets the bowl with which he is baling fly from his hand; he gives a cry of horror, and the men cannot help repeating it, for may not this apparently small accident be fatal to them? To keep the boat afloat without baling is impossible; the surf breaks into her continually, and that bowl is indispensable to their safety, for the men cannot use their sou’westers for the purpose when both hands are so busily employed in freeing their oars from the seas and keeping the blades from being blown up into the air by the force of the gale. Most happily, the bowl is a wooden one, and it floats a few yards from them. The men watch it anxiously as they are tossed up and down by the quick waves. Back the boat down upon the bowl they cannot, and it is drifting away faster than they are floating. It would seem a simple matter to pick up a bowl floating within a distance so small, but the waves long render it impossible. Suddenly the coxswain cries, “Here is a lull; round with her sharp!” The men on the starboard side give a mighty pull, and the others back their hardest; then a pull altogether; the bowl is within reach; the coxswain grasps it with a hasty snatch. “Round! round with her quick!” and the boat is got head straight to the seas again before the waves can catch her broadside and roll her over. All breathe again: they have another chance of life.

They get clear of the Sands, but a fierce gale is still raging. “As they get into the Gull stream, they see vessel after vessel running with close-reefed topsails before the gale; the boatmen hail them, but they get no answer. One little sloop affords them slight hope, for she is evidently altering her course, but after a moment’s apparent hesitation, away she goes again before the gale, and abandons them to their fate. The captain of the little vessel related afterwards how, in the height of the storm, he saw some poor fellows in a small boat, and had a great wish to try and save them, but the sea was running so high that he felt it was impossible to heave his vessel to, and so had to leave them, and that they must have been driven on the Sands and lost. This sloop was about a quarter of a mile from the boat, and the men do not again get as near to any other ship; and as vessel after vessel passes, and the night begins to grow dark, the position of the men becomes more and more hopeless, and they all feel that if no vessel picks them up they must soon be blown in again upon the sands, and there perish.” The men work on, but solemnly, very solemnly.

But one vessel, a large American ship, remains at anchor in the Downs; vessel after vessel had slipped their cables and run before the gale. It is their last hope. “As they drop slowly towards her, they shout time after time, but cannot make themselves heard, and it is getting too dusk for them to be seen at any distance; the seas are running alongside the ship almost gunwale high, and it is impossible to get nearer to her than within fifty yards. Hail after hail the men give; still they get no answer. They can see a man on the poop, but he evidently neither sees nor hears them, and their last chance seems slipping away, for they are fast drifting past the vessel. ‘Get on the thwart, Dick, and shout with all your might!’ the coxswain says to the man pulling stroke oar. ‘I’ll hold you!’ hauling in his oar and catching it under the seat. The man springs upon the thwart, and balancing himself for a second, hails with all his force.”

“The man is moving; he hears us, hurrah!” is the glad cry in the boat; and they can soon see several astonished faces peering over them. The boat drifts by the ship; they give a pull or two, to get her under the stern of the vessel; a coil of rope with a life-buoy is thrown to them, and they manage to get it on board. The captain is now on deck; he orders other ropes to be sent down, and soon another life-buoy, with cord attached, comes floating by. Still the boat is in great danger; their safety hitherto has been in floating with the waves, yielding to them as they rolled on, but now the little boat has to breast the waves, and is tossed high in the air, and again plunged far down, running great risk of being overturned. “The difficulty now is how to get the men out of the boat, for they dare not haul her up closer to the vessel, as she will not ride with a shorter scope of rope. They send another rope down to the boat, with a bowline knot made in it, for the men to sit in, and then shout to the men, ‘We will haul you on board one at a time!’” A moment’s question as to the order in which the men shall go is quickly decided, for each feels that at any moment the boat may sink or upset. They leave in the order in which they sit, and one after another they plunge into the waves, and are hauled on board, dripping, but saved! Very soon the boat fills and turns over, and hangs by the ropes till morning.

The captain will hardly credit their story at first. “Impossible! impossible!” says he. “No boat could live in such a sea, and over the Sands. Impossible!” But he becomes convinced at last, and all on board show every attention and kindness. A little brandy and some dry clothes at once, a beefsteak supper and a glass of grog later on, followed by warm beds made up on the captain’s cabin floor, and their adventures in an open boat were but the memory of a horrid dream. The coxswain, however, fell very ill soon after, and was nigh death’s door; he did not recover his strength for a twelvemonth, so greatly had the anxiety of that night’s work told upon him.

Meantime, the lugger, after cruising backwards and forwards, the crew keeping an anxious and fruitless look-out for their comrades in the boat, is obliged to put in for Dover, from whence they telegraph the sad news that six of their men are to all appearance lost. Next morning they make one more effort to find some traces of their lost companions, and then steer, sad and disheartened, for Ramsgate. There the arrival of the lugger is most anxiously awaited. Alas! it is as they feared, and many a household is plunged in grief. While this is going on, the boatmen leave the American ship and row steadily for Ramsgate, near which they fall in with another lugger, on which they are taken. The lugger’s flag is hoisted, in token that they are the bearers of good news, and great is the curiosity of the men about the harbour. A crowd hurries down the pier to watch her arrival, and as soon as the men missing from the _Princess Alice_ are recognised, the cheers and excitement are wild in the extreme. Men rush off to bear the good news. “One poor woman, in the midst of her agony and mourning for her husband, and surrounded by her weeping friends, is surprised by her door being burst violently open, and at seeing a boatman, almost dropping with breathlessness, gasping and gesticulating and nodding, but trying in vain to speak; and it is some seconds before he can stammer out, ‘All right! all right! Your husband is safe—coming now!’”

The danger incurred by the hovellers is well illustrated by the following example, recorded by our leading journal(76) some years since. Nine of these men endeavoured to save a sloop, the _Wool-packet_, of Dartmouth, stranded on Bideford Bar, and the crew must have lost their lives but for the noble service performed, under great risks, by Captain Thomas Jones, master of the steam-tug _Ely_, of Cardiff. A shipowner of Bideford, who was an eye-witness of the brave deed, stated that the crew of the vessel had abandoned her, and the two boats’ crews, consisting of nine men, afterwards boarded the wreck, with the view of trying to get her off the bar; but when the tide rose the sea broke heavily over the vessel, and the men hoisted a flag of distress. The steam-tug _Ely_ now hastened to the rescue, against a strong tide and wind. Before, however, she could get near the wreck, the nine men were driven to seek refuge in the rigging. The sea was breaking fearfully in all directions and the vessel rolling from side to side, but Captain Jones and his crew bravely proceeded through the broken water, at the risk of their lives and vessel, and succeeded, at the first attempt, in saving three of the men. This was all that they could then accomplish, for the sea was now breaking so furiously over the wreck that the steamer was driven away; and the same want of success attended a second and third attempt to approach the wreck. The captain then backed astern, and, with consummate skill and boldness, actually placed the steamer alongside the vessel’s rigging, with her bow over the deck of the wreck, thus saving the six men in the rigging; and within the short space of two minutes the wreck had actually disappeared, and was not seen afterwards. But for this bold and successful service, nine widows (for the nine rescued men were all married) and forty fatherless children would to-day be lamenting the loss of husbands and fathers. The National Life-boat Institution presented a medal, &c., to the captain, and £1 each to the eight men forming the crew.

The greatness of the risk to the hoveller, and the comparative smallness of his reward, are illustrated in the case of _La Marguerite_, a small French brig, rescued from the Goodwin Sands and brought safely into Ramsgate Harbour. She was owned by her captain, and represented to him the labours of a hardworking life. She was bound from Christiania to Dieppe, with a cargo of deals, and was considerably hampered on deck, the timber being piled up almost to her gunwale. She lost her course in the night, and grounded on the Sands. “Where are they? Where can they be? What horrible mistake have they made?” writes Mr. Gilmore in his forcible manner. “They think they must have run somewhere on the mainland on the Kent coast; one man proposes to swim ashore with a rope, but the seas come sweeping over them with a degree of violence that quite does away with any thought of making such an attempt. They hurry to the long-boat, to try and get it out, but it and the only other boat which is in the brig are speedily swept overboard by the seas. The vessel is on the edge of the Sands, and feels all the force of the waves as they roll in and leap and break upon the bark. With every inrush of the seas she lifts high, and pitches, crushing her bow down upon the Sands, each time with a thump that makes her timbers groan, and almost sends the men flying from the deck.” For some twenty minutes she keeps thrashing on the Sands, when they glide off into deep water, and after much delay get their anchor overboard. The gale continues, and, after much entreaty—for the captain is a poor man—the crew succeed in inducing him to cut the foremast away, and the brig rides more easily when this is accomplished. They wait for daylight. They are then seen from Margate, and two fine luggers have a race to see which can get first to the vessel. The life-boat also puts off. One of the luggers gets alongside in fine shape, and the men at once recommend the captain to cut away the remaining mast, but he will not be persuaded. They raise the anchor, and passing a hawser on board, attempt to tow the brig from the Sands, but make little progress. To their satisfaction, they see the Ramsgate steam-boat and life-boat making their way round the North Foreland.

“The coastguard officer at Margate, when he saw that the Margate life-boat could not reach the brig, and knowing that if any sea got up where the vessel was that the luggers could be of no use, telegraphed to Ramsgate that the vessel was on the Knock Sands. The steamer and life-boat get under weigh at once, and proceed as fast as possible to the rescue. There is a nasty sea running off Ramsgate, but it is not until they get to the North Foreland that they feel the full force of the gale. Here the sea is tremendous, and as the steamer pitches to it the waves that break upon her bows fly right over her funnel—indeed, she buries herself so much in the seas that they have to ease her speed considerably to prevent her being completely overrun with them.” The boatmen at last get on board the brig; a glance shows that no time must be lost, and as rapidly as possible the steamer is enabled to take the water-logged vessel in tow. The French crew are utterly exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and are quite ready to leave their vessel in English hands. Away the brig goes, plunging and rolling, with the seas washing over her decks, which are scarcely out of the water, while the two boats are tossing astern, all being towed by the gallant little steamer. They have nearly reached the harbour.

In spite of the rough cold night, the interest in life-boat work is too great for all sympathisers to be driven away from the pier-head; and there is a crowd there ready to watch the boats return and to welcome the men with a cheer. The steamer approaches cautiously, and the brig seems well under command. A couple of minutes more and all will be safe, when suddenly the rush of tide catches the wreck on the bow; she overpowers the lugger, which is towing astern; round her head flies; she lurches heavily forward, and strikes the east pier-head. Crash goes her jib-boom first, and the steamer, towing with all its might, cannot prevent her again and again crushing against the pier. Her bowsprit and figure-head are broken and torn off, her stern smashed in. Ropes and buoys are thrown from the pier. “The poor Frenchmen are almost paralysed by the scene and by excitement—they cannot make it out; the harbour-master, Captain Braine, has enough to do: he sees the danger of the men on board the brig, but he sees more than this—he sees the danger of the crowd at the pier-head, for the brig’s mainmast is swaying backwards and forwards, coming right over the pier as the vessel rolls, and threatens to break and come down upon the people as the brig strikes the pier; and if it does it will certainly kill some, perhaps many.” Women shriek and men shout, and it looks as though the _Marguerite_ would be wrecked in sight of all. Meantime the crew of the hovelling lugger are in equal, if not greater, danger.

“As soon as the men on board the lugger saw the brig sweep and crash against the pier, they cast off their tow-rope, but before they could hoist any sail, the way they had on the boat and the rush of the tide carried the lugger almost between the vessel, as she swung round, and the pier. The men, however, escaped that danger, and indeed death, but the boat was swept to the back of the pier, and in the eddy of the tide was carried into the broken waters; then she rolls in the trough of the sea; wave after wave catches and sweeps her up towards the pier, as if to crush her against it, but each time the rebound of the water from the pier acts as a fender and saves her from destruction; but she is an open boat, and if one big wave leaps on board it will fill her, and she must sink at once; and the seas around her are very wild, the surf from their crests breaks into her continually. The people on the pier see her extreme peril; some run to the life-boat men, who are preparing to moor the boat, and shout to them to hasten out—that the brig is breaking up, and that the lugger will be swamped; before, however, the life-boat can get out the brig is towed clear of the pier, and, the lugger having drifted to the end of the pier, the men are able to get up a corner of the foresail; it cants the lugger’s head round; the men get the foresail well up: it fills; she draws away from the pier and away from the broken water, and is clear.” But now the brig, the rudder of which had been wrenched out of her on the Sands, has no boat to help her steer, and lurches about in all directions. A heavy sea strikes her bow; the steamer’s hawser tightens, strains, and breaks! Excited people on the pier crowd round the harbour-master, and beg him to order the life-boat men to take the crew and the boatmen off the wreck at once. That official knows, however, the boatmen too well: _they_ will not leave her while a stitch holds together.

The captain of the steamer knows their peril, and backs his vessel down to the wreck, now not over a hundred yards from the Dyke Sand. She is rolling heavily, and the seas sweep over her; her crew can hardly keep the deck. The steamer gets close to the brig, and soon another cable is out. Each time the brig sheers heavily to one side or the other she is brought up with a jerk that makes the steamer tremble from stem to stern, but that plucky little boat is not to be beaten. Five brave fellows come off from the pier in a small boat, bringing a line with them: with this they haul a second hawser to the wreck; a crowd of people on the pier pull their hardest, and succeed in moving the wreck. This cable breaks shortly afterwards, but the steamer has by this time again got hold of the vessel, and tows her safely into the harbour, a miserable wreck, with masts and rudder gone, her bow and stern crushed, but with everybody safe on board. The _Marguerite_ was ultimately repaired and sent to sea again, though she could never be the vessel she once was. And the Margate and Ramsgate men got a few pounds each for work that required each one to be a hero, and a very practical and seamanlike hero too. The old wreckers made ten times the money, with an infinitesimal proportion of the trouble.

Yes, times _have_ changed for the better. Individuals may, of course, be found capable of any amount of brutality for the sake of gain, but the shipwrecked mariner of to-day is morally certain that his life and remaining property are safe when he reaches the shore of any part of the United Kingdom, and that for every ruffian there will be twenty kindly and hospitable people ready to pity and to aid him. The same could not be said of the early part of this very century. It seems almost incredible, too horrible, to be possible, that in 1811 the remnant of a poor crew of a frigate wrecked on the Scotch coast were, after buffeting the breakers and struggling ashore for dear life, absolutely murdered on the beach for the sake of their wretched clothes, or, at all events, stripped and left to die. When morning dawned the beach was found strewn with naked corpses. The inhabitants of many fishing villages and seaside hamlets were open to similar imputations late in the last, and indeed early in the present, century. Whole communities have in bygone times—let us trust gone for ever—turned out at the tidings of a vessel in danger; solely with a view to plunder. A tolerably well-known yarn, in which, probably, implicit confidence should not be placed, tells us of a wreck which occurred near the village of St. Anthony, Cornwall, one Sunday morning. This being the case, and the parishioners assembling at the church, the clerk announced that “Measter would gee them a holladay,” for purposes on which that excellent clergyman well knew they were intent. This is only one part of the story, for it is stated that as the members of the congregation were hurrying pell-mell from the church, they were stopped by the stentorian voice of the parson, who cried out, “Here! here! let’s all start fair!” The fact is that the contents or material of a wreck scattered around a coast were, and, no doubt, are still in many places, looked upon as legitimate prey by fishermen and others who would scorn anything in the form of treachery, in luring the good ship ashore, or in brutal treatment to the survivors of her crew. “Within the past five-and-twenty years,” said a leader-writer a short time since, “it is said that a candidate for Parliamentary honours, while canvassing in a district near the coast, found that his opinion on the subject of wrecking was made a crucial point. Wrecking, indeed—so far as the appropriation of shipwrecked property is implied in the word—seems to have held very much the same position in popular ethics as smuggling has done. ‘Such was the feeling of the wreckers,’ writes one who was at one time Commissioner of the Liverpool Police, ‘that if a man saw a bale of goods or a barrel floating in the water, he would run almost any risk of his life to touch that article, as a sort of warrant for calling it his own. It is considered such fair game, that if he could touch it he called out to those about him, “That is mine!” and it would be marked as his, and the others would consider he had a claim to it, and would render him assistance.’” We are told that the natives of Sleswig-Holstein considered wrecking so legitimate that prayers were offered up in their churches at one time that “their coasts might be blessed.” Pastor and flock looked upon wrecks as much of blessings as they did a good fishing season. The parson, however, it was explained, did not really pray for wrecks. Certainly not! What he meant was that if there _must_ be wrecks, those wrecks might happen on their coasts!

The question of “salvage” is of a nature too technical for these columns. In some minor matters it would seem that the authorities do not offer proper encouragement to fishermen and others to be decently honest or humane. At the period of the wreck of the _Schiller_, on the Scilly Islands, a correspondent of our leading journal(77) tells us “that many floating bodies of drowned passengers and seamen were picked up by the fishing boats which abound in that part of Cornwall. Upon some of them money or valuables were found, and these were given up to the Customs when the body was sent ashore. In such cases the valuables were retained for the friends of the drowned persons, and a uniform reward of five shillings was paid to the finders. Now, for the sake of taking ashore such a body as I have described, the fishermen—seven or eight in number—would have lost their night’s fishing, for it would not have been safe, even if the crew were willing, to have done otherwise. The smallness of the reward given in return for the services rendered would therefore operate as a strong inducement to the more selfish among them to prefer their fishing to the dictates of humanity. My informants even told a story of a fishing boat which picked up a floating body, and, having collected all the papers and valuables from it, restored the body itself to the deep, and went on its way. The papers and valuables were given up in due course, and no charge of dishonesty was preferred against the crew; but the want of humanity caused (and not unnaturally) a strong feeling of indignation against the perpetrators of this act. The fishermen, however, argued that if they brought the bodies into port (as they were instructed to do), they would get, at most, a sum of sevenpence per man for their night’s work; and if they brought merely the property to the proper authorities, they were abused for their inhumanity; and that, therefore, their only alternative was to pass the bodies by, and attend to their own work. Should the view that I have here stated be found to be a general one, I think that it will be allowed that it is an argument for either paying more highly for the finding of bodies at sea, or allowing the finders the same salvage upon the property found upon the bodies that they would have received had the property been picked up in a chest.”

Pleasant it is to turn from what we may well believe is only an occasional example of want of feeling to such a case as the following—one out of thousands that might be cited. It is slightly abridged from a little publication(78) which should be in the hands of all readers of “The Sea” interested in benevolent efforts for the seaman’s welfare.

Some twelve miles westward from Tramore—a favourite watering-place and summer resort for the citizens of Waterford, and nearly half a mile from the coast—a farm is situated which has been long occupied by John Ronayne, a hardy and typical Irish farmer. The farm-house has few of the necessaries and none of the luxuries of civilised life, it is a true type of the poor class of farm-houses in many parts of Ireland, consisting of but two rooms—one the sleeping apartment, where Ronayne’s family of twelve children have been born, and the other the living-room, where it is to be suspected sundry four-footed friends occasionally find their way, and bask or grunt before the fire. Rather less than half a mile from the farm is the rugged shore, approached by a rough “boreen,” or narrow lane, emerging on the cliff near the course of a stream, which is a roaring foaming torrent in winter and spring-time. On winter days and nights, brown and turbulent, this stream rushes foaming into the ocean over crags and rocks and pebbly shore; but before it joins its fresh water with the salt sea foam, it plunges into a crevice, narrow and deep and deadly. Every coastman along the rock-bound shore knows this deep, treacherous hole, and warns the traveller to beware of it—for, once in it, there is no return. But this source of peril is little enough to that which is beyond.

A hundred yards or so from the cove into which this impetuous torrent pours frown two massive ridges of rock, offering to any venturesome ships attempting to run between their threatening sides destruction on either hand, while only some dozen yards of foaming breakers separate the one from the other. Skilful must be the steersman, and bold the skipper, who would dare the narrow channel, even though the only one by which they might hope to beach their sinking ship. And yet, on one fearful night in January, 1875, a large vessel, the _Gwenissa_, bound from Falmouth to Glasgow, and new but a few weeks before, successfully accomplished the dangerous passage. Not that any skill was shown, for none on the doomed ship knew of their proximity to rocks or shore, but, driving blindly on before the full fury of the gale, by chance were brought safely through. But in another instant the ship struck the rocky shore, and in a moment was shattered to pieces, timbers and tackle, cargo and living freight, being thrown, scattered and helpless, into the angry surf. Escaping, as by a miracle, the rocky dangers of Charybdis, the good ship _Gwenissa_ had been hurled upon Scylla, and her doom sealed.

The family at Killeton Farm little suspected, as they went to their humble beds, the tragedy which was being enacted on the shore; and even when some of the boys thought they heard cries of distress, little wonder—when the wind was blowing in great fitful gusts, sweeping round the homely cottage, shaking windows and doors, and moaning down the chimneys—that, after listening a while and hearing nothing further, they thought no more of the cries, and went to bed. Ronayne had, however, not been long in bed when a loud knocking awoke him, and he jumped up, and on opening the door was accosted by three men in sailor’s garb.

The first surprise over, the instincts of hospitality asserted themselves, and he heaped up the turf fire, and, as they warmed themselves, learned that they alone of the crew of the _Gwenissa_, nine in number, were certainly saved. But there was a possibility that one or two might yet survive; and though the wintry blast roared loud without, Ronayne lingered not a moment. Hurrying on his clothes, and taking a large sod of flaming turf by way of lantern, he rushed down the “boreen,” and soon reached the cove. Cautiously he made his way, and approached the edge of the stream, whence he now heard the shouts of several men. He followed up the cries of distress, and soon came upon a man in a most dangerous position.

Ronayne blew the turf until it glowed brightly, and, holding it down, saw a man waist-deep in the water, but so jammed between the crags that it was impossible for him to move, far less climb the overhanging rocks. He was bruised, stunned, and nearly insensible. Ronayne saw at a glance that the only way to help him was himself to go down, extricate his bruised legs from the rocks and wreck that held him like a vice, and then assist him to climb from his perilous position. This, by means of much pulling and hauling, he at length accomplished, and ultimately had the satisfaction of leading the poor fellow to a place of safety, where, for a time, he left him, sorely bruised, faint, and well-nigh frozen, for the others, who had never ceased calling for assistance from the moment of his arrival. They were four in number, and, as far as could be judged through the increasing darkness, lay in the very gorge down which rushed the swollen stream; and so it proved, for one was hanging to a spar which had become fixed in the rocks, while another was grasping a projecting crag, by which he contrived to keep afloat. The others, more fortunate, had been thrown on a ledge, which left them in comparative safety, though they were waist-deep in water. But though secure upon this ledge, they were quite as helpless as their companions, for the beetling face of the rocks defied their utmost efforts to scale them unaided. Here Ronayne’s knowledge stood him in good stead, and after much active assistance in the shape of climbing, swimming, pulling, and scrambling, he succeeded in rescuing one after the other, each assisting afterwards to make the task easier. Five men stood beside him, cold and hurt, but saved by his perseverance and bravery from a watery grave.

“But,” says the narrator—and here especially he should tell his own tale—“not without great labour had this been effected, for one of the men had his leg broken, and all were more or less bruised, and perishing of cold and exposure. Three men were at his house and five here; but where was the other? for nine men were on board the luckless vessel, and here were but eight. Leaving the rescued men in the lane, Ronayne ran again to the cove, and the dim spark expiring in the turf showed him where he had left it. He scraped off the ash, and, the wind fanning it, again it burned up brightly—too brightly, for now it burned down to his frozen fingers; but he only grasped it the tighter, for did it not light him on his errand of mercy? and if another life might be saved at the expense of a few burns, would it not be great gain? So on sped he along the shore, searching into every cranny and cleft and crevice lighted by the turf, and, burning and shouting between his labours, at length was rewarded by a faint cry as of a man in distress—more a moan than a cry, and at a distance. Rapidly but carefully he had scanned the beach, and partially searched every gully and cleft, and now and again receiving to his cries a faint response, but always from far away. No doubt the man was out on the rocks, to which he had been carried by a receding wave after the ship struck, and Ronayne knew that some further help must be procured before he could be reached. So he hastened back to the five men he had left in the lane. They then all proceeded to the farm-house—a melancholy _cortége_—carrying as best they could the helpless between them. He then started off, wet and weary as he was, to the coastguard station at Bonmahon, where he gave information of the wreck, and demanded assistance for the poor fellow out on the rocks.” The coastguard men lost no time in turning out with the rocket apparatus; but just as they were fixing it in position, Ronayne, who had been hunting about, came upon the very last and ninth man of the crew, lying, half in the water and half out, upon the beach among a quantity of wreck. His supposition had been correct in regard to his position on the rocks, but while assistance was being procured he had been washed ashore, with shattered limbs—bruised, helpless, unconscious, but _alive_! The poor fellow, who remained unconscious, was carried to the farm, where some old whisky-jars were filled with hot water and placed to his feet. The little whisky in the house was divided among the benumbed men, and more solid provision set before them.

And now Ronayne’s house contained over twenty inmates, most of them standing round the turf fire wringing the water from their clothes and warming their frozen limbs; the few beds, too, had their occupants. For Ronayne the work had but barely commenced. Saddling his young mare, he started to lay information of the wreck before Lloyd’s Deputy Receiver at Tramore, some _twelve miles_ distant, for eight shillings were to be earned, and for this trifling reward he was prepared to ride some twenty-four miles on a cold winter night.

On his road he passed the doctor’s house, and sent him to attend the injured men, arriving at Tramore a few minutes before the telegram from the coastguard station. Two of the sailors were afterwards removed to the hospital, and recovered, and they and the remainder cared for by the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society’s agents. Ronayne was indemnified for any expense he had incurred by the same Society, and the Life-boat Institution shortly after rewarded him.