Read Ebook: The Voyage Alone in the Yawl Rob Roy by MacGregor John

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Ebook has 371 lines and 44120 words, and 8 pages

Is there not among these last a writhing invisible agony to escape from the avowal that God governs? And why is this? Perhaps because man proudly relishes freedom, and hates to say that his life is inspected and controlled by another Being who will also judge him hereafter; and because the student of physical science knows that if there is a God, then moral science must be a far nobler pursuit than his own pursuit, even if it is less palpable and popular; also because the scientific man is tempted to do all he can to ignore that anything is outside the ken of science--that there is a Being on quite another plane, far above him and his researches.

But science has no exclusive or even predominant right in the decision of this matter; nor has it any solid success in the long battle, though one or other in its ranks may triumph in a skirmish. When one philosopher demolishes the Bible, an ordinary man cannot convince him he is wrong. But when a dozen savants tilt in the fray, even an ordinary man can see that their weapons demolish each other, and the old Book stands.

This geologist has scratched the varnish on the globe, and forthwith frames his new theory of creation. In ten years he is proved utterly wrong by that microscopist who has detected animal remains in an igneous rock. The simple bystander cannot understand either side, and far less tell which side is true. But when the combatants slay each other, the wayfaring man can understand this neutralization. The philosopher strikes me with awe so long as he keeps aloft beyond my knowledge or comprehension. When he comes down I can love him, but the reverence of his mystery is gone, and he is soon found out to be a brother mite. My friend can walk faster and farther on earth than I can; but when he wades into the water, I find I can swim just as well as he--while if we try to fly in the air, neither of us can soar a yard.

Thus the mind that is great in observing, collating, and even generalizing facts, gets immediately out of its depth a few feet from land in the ocean of hypothesis, and it can be drowned there like my own.

Reaching up higher, in search of First Cause, the clever brain grasps the liquid aether above, and yearns; but it holds nothing, not one atom more than an ordinary mind; nor has all the striving of all the world lifted one man a foot above the plain towards heaven.

If these sentiments are pretentious, they show that one can learn at least forwardness from philosophers, if not wisdom.

But it is not the Atheist that puzzles one so much as those who find it convenient to admit the one point to start from--"There is a God," be He styled in redundant reverence, "Nature," "Providence," or "Heaven." The vacuity behind that is too dark and abysmal to be a home for their soul, and therefore they will accompany you thus far.

This short creed is long enough to cover many different meanings, and elastic enough to be worn, at least outside, for common decency, and to fit almost any form of life and character.

Some men have never had more than this meagre garment. Others have been swathed in more ample folds from the nursery, but have stripped off the mental clothing of their childhood, feeling it tight, or encumbered with braid and tassels, and some have torn it all to tatters; but at last, as their inner being chills in the air of naked freedom, they take upon them this creed as the one general raiment of prudence.

There are others, again, who, frightened by the hurly-burly, after a short wild wandering alone, join any group, as a refuge, if it be only visible, and seek a Church as an asylum for the timid rather than a fortress for the brave.

But what Church shall give rest, or which of them is even quieter than the outer din? There is one, indeed, that, long nursed and dozing in the lap of the State, is now roughly shaken, but is she yet awake? She has grown in bulk at least, while sleeping. Is she not like an overgrown child too big to be carried, and too rickety to walk alone?

She is called National but is only Diocesan, with different doctrine and worship in different dioceses. The bishops meet, and thinking different, but trying to say the same, they say what is unanimous only when it means nothing. The clergy meet, but while some of them are true Ministers, others would be as Presbyters towards their bishops and Popes to their people. Each parish can wear the ribbons that are badges of its doctrine. We are crystallizing into congregations, and soon these will split into families, and so perhaps we shall get back at last to the simple old shape, when the message was for Nymphas and "the church which is in his house."

Meantime, my life-borne bark must not founder for lack of a guide. True, there is a chart, and precepts for the right way are clear, but my craving is for a living Spirit within which shall point me to the peaceful shore by an attraction powerful and unerring, though unseen, and, like that of the needle, incomprehensible.

And was it not the divinest act ever done by God to come down Himself among men, saying, "I am the Way," "and I will give you rest?"

Now we can safely steer, and will surely reach port.

Half-seas over--Thick night--Risky--Reckless--Tied in--Lying-to--Land ahead--Scottish replies--Sleep.

They called them mushrooms in Havre yesterday, and we know "there are 371 edible fungi;" but I assert that the rebellious species embarked with me were toadstools, and so giddiness followed upon sleep . . .

Gentle and cool is the first fresh murmur of a new breeze as it comes from afar, tripping along. Gratefully we watch its footsteps on the sea. Its garments rustle in the south, and the glassy rounded waves are now crested by its touch. Then the coolness of it fans the cheek, the flag flutters while the sails fill full, the mast bows gently under the soft pressure, and the Rob Roy runs eagerly again upon her proper course.

Dinner was instantly served up to celebrate the event. It is an Englishman's way. Still we were fifty miles from England, but wave after wave rose, dashed, and was left behind, till the sun got weary in his march, and hung, in the west, a great red globe. My course had been taken for the Nab light, which is in the entrance towards Portsmouth, but the Channel tide, crossing my path twice, could carry the yawl fast, yet secretly, first right, then left, and both ways once again.

In such thick weather it will never do to ferret out the channel to Cowes, even if we are near it. The night must be passed at sea, and better begin to do that now than go in too near the cliffs in darkness; and so we prepared to lie-to. Lowering the main-sail I tried the yawl first under mizen and jib; but the rolling in every trough of the waves was most uncomfortable, and besides she drifted north, which might end by going ashore.

Then I took in the jib and set the storm-mizen, and hung out the anchor with twenty fathoms of chain--not, of course, to reach the bottom, but to keep the boat's head easier in the sea, and this did perfectly well. The motion was a long, regular rise and fall, and the drift was to the east; quite out of our proper course, indeed, but I couldn't help that.

The motion of a vessel lying-to is far more easy than what would be supposed possible. When you are rocked in a boat making progress by sails or steam, the pressure of each wave is more or less of a blow, for the ship is going forward, and it resists the mass of water often with violence. At anchor, too, though in a modified degree, the action is the same, and in a swell without wind the oscillations are jerky and short, for they are not softened by the sails then merely hanging. But if a boat is staunch and strong, and the deck is tight, and she has plenty of keel, so as not to swerve round right and left, but to preserve a general average direction towards the wind, then she may lie-to in a very stiff gale and high sea with a wonderfully gentle motion. Her head then is slightly off the sea, and there is but little rolling. The sails are so set that they ease every lateral heave. She forges forward just a little between the wave tops, and when the crest of one lifts her up she courteously yields for the time, but will soon again recover lost ground by this well-managed "compromise."

When we saw how admirably the Rob Roy behaved in lying-to, and that scarcely a wave broke over her deck, we felt that if it came to the worst we might thus pass a whole week in her safely.

Now I must make my bed. Undoubtedly this was a risky deed about to be done; but pray what else could we do?

"You ought not to have come there at all," may be replied.

It would not do of course to go into my cabin. In the first place, the dingey was there, and then if I were to be enclosed inside when anything like a "run down" had to be dealt with, the cabin might be my coffin.

First I tried to crouch down in the well, but the constraint on limbs and joints was unbearable. My head slept while my knees ached with the pressure. No! there must be a positive lying down to sleep, if the sleep is to give true refreshment when you are rocked about on the waters; and this you have no doubt been convinced of any time at sea.

The strange twists of body I tried to fit into comfortably where the space was only three feet each way, reached at last to the grotesque--the absurd contortions of a man miserable on a pleasure jaunt--and I laughed aloud, but somehow it sounded hollow and uncanny.

As to the exact spot where the Rob Roy was at this particular time we had of course no possible idea, but judging from after circumstances, the position must have been about ten miles south of St. Catherine's Head, and she drifted twenty miles east while I dreamed.

Can any person be expected to describe his first feelings as he awakes in such a bed and finds it broad day? Bright and glorious sun, high up, how I stared at you! and then a glance to the side, and behold, there is land--England. Deliberately I rose and gave three hearty cheers--nobody there to hear, indeed, but myself--no matter, it did good to me to cheer, and to hear too. Breakfast was soon agoing. Ten hours' sleep had thoroughly refreshed me, mind and body; but I could not make out what part of the coast we had hit upon.

It was still about twelve miles distant, and as there were no cliffs in sight, it could not be the Isle of Wight. My chart told nothing; my French Pilot-book had woodcut pictures of all the coast, but nothing came of the search in these; and whether we had drifted east or west of the Isle of Wight we finally gave up as a question--we must go to the coast itself and see.

Therefore we steered due north, rapidly nearing the unknown land, and with a joyous morning, barometer high, wind south, and a coming fine day. Presently there loomed on the horizon one, and then another, and another, splendid ships of war. They steamed in line, and I tried to intercept them to put the query, "Where am I?" Baffled in this, the puzzle was, "Are they going to Portsmouth or Plymouth?" There were equally good reasons for either.

At length three towns could be seen, and the pictures of the French Pilot-book were closely examined, but several plates had each three towns which would fit the case before me, one as well as the other. Fortunately we chose the middle one of the three, because it had a little lighthouse. That on the left we found afterwards was Bognor, which has a reef of dangerous rocks upon its shore.

A fisherman was in his boat, and I hailed him, "Boat ahoy! What is the name of that town?"

"Town, sir?"

"Yes; that village right ahead; what do you call it?"

"The village there, sir?"

"Yes; what is its name? It has a name, hasn't it?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, sir, it's got a name."

"Well, what is the name? I don't know where I am."

"Where have you come from, sir? from the Wight?"

And after these Scottish answers to the questions of a Scotsman, at last I found my way into Littlehampton; and if ever you go to the Beach Hotel in want of a soft bed, after sleeping out of a bed for nearly a month, you will find it there.

This little place, between Bognor and Brighton, is a quiet bathing town just in the delicate stage of existence, when it has been found out and admired, but not yet spoilt. One row of houses fronts the sea with a fine grassy plain between, and a clean white strand.

The Inn was of olden times, and apart near the water, with a landlady of the good old English type; and her son, the waiter, rampant about canoes, kept an aviary under the porch and a capital swimming dog in the stable.

Lie on a sofa in the coffee-room detached, and read the 'Times,'--go into the drawing-room and play the piano, or sit under the garden trees and gaze on the fair blue sea, and hope fervently that, with a strong Tory government to protect our institutions, this hotel may be long kept hid from that merciless monster the "Company ." But already a railway runs here, and threatens its quiet. Even a steamer now and then from France screws its way into the very narrow channel, where the river Arun has wound down thus far from Arundel.

Heavy sea--Isle of Wight--The Commodore--A glance at gear--Bow--Running rigging--Sisterhooks--Horse--Tiller.

The boy and his dog formed a small crowd on the little pier to see the Rob Roy start again with a fine breeze off shore, but freshening every minute until near Selsea Bill it blew half a gale. The navigation round this point is difficult at low water, as may be seen from the markings in the chart copied at page 245, merely as a specimen of what a chart is for the sailor's eye.

At last it was necessary to reef main-sail and jib, the wind blew so hard and in gusts, and the adverse tide met me as it rushed out of Spithead with a heavy swell. Rain poured down slanting with the wind, and the rocks, uncovered at low water, looked very uninviting to leeward.

The little dingey was towed astern, as we had not expected so much sea with a north wind, but for the first time we found how perfectly this diminutive boat was adapted for towing, and after this trial she was never again stowed in the cabin. The bluff bow above, and the keelless, round, smooth bottom below, enabled the dingey to top the sharpest wave, and I often forgot my steering while turning round to watch the little creature as she nimbly leaped over the tumbling billows. The weather got worse, therefore we changed for a storm-mizen, and so many seas broke heavily over the Rob Roy, that the water in the well washed about my ankles, and finally we were compelled to give in and lie-to for an hour or more, after manning the pump.

This wind, rain, and sea together were the worst we had met with, but the yawl seemed in high spirits, like her owner; though the waves in the tide-way were sometimes so short and sharp that it was impossible to rise and fall fast enough, and she often buried deeply. It was here that my chart was so wet that it melted before my eyes, even with all endeavours to preserve it, and therefore I bore up for Brading Harbour, in the Isle of Wight, and somehow managed to get round Bembridge reef all safe into the quiet lake beyond.

Here, and on British soil again, was an end to all expected anxieties of the summer's voyage. The rest to come were to be met, but not anticipated. There had been first the goal of Paris to be reached at a certain time for the Regatta there, and then there was the unknown voyage over the Channel, homeward bound; but henceforth no more dates or wide seas had to be thought of, and the rest of the vacation was free.

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