High tide—Seine pilot—To bed—Terrible scene—A tumble in—In the swell—Novel steeling—The Empress—Puzzled—Night thoughts—The Start—A draft on the deck—Balloon jib—On the deep.

On the Seine there is a tide phenomenon, called the barre, as in English rivers the bore, which, when not provided for, is very dangerous, especially at spring tides. The water then rushes up the narrowing funnel-shaped estuary, in a broad and swelling wave, sometimes four feet high, and this will sweep off even large vessels from their anchors, and it causes many wrecks.

On a former occasion when I happened to be in this neighbourhood, a high tide had been truly predicted by astronomers, which would culminate at the little town of Caudebec on the Seine, but would also rise higher than ever known before on all the adjacent coasts.

The news of this coming wonder spread over France, and there being then a lull in Europe as to revolutions, &c. (except, of course, the perennial revolution in Spain), the quidnuncs of the provinces had to run to the coast for an excitement. Excursion trains, and heavily-laden steamers poured volumes of people into Caudebec, and many of them had never seen salt sea before. At the fashionable bathing-town of Trouville the sight was a strange one when thousands of expectant observers paraded the soft white sand as the full moon shone on a waveless sea, and the brilliant dresses of the ladies coloured the beautiful tableau.

The tide flowed and flowed; it bubbled over the usual bounds of the shore; it trickled into the bathing sheds; it swelled still higher upon the trim-kept promenade, until it lapped the highest point and then went gently down again. Eclipses and tides are patent proofs to the people that physical science can appeal to. The “music of the spheres” hath also a true rhythm, “There is neither speech nor language but their voices are heard.”

To escape this barre on the Seine, our steamer anchored by the quaint old town of Quilleboeuf with other vessels; and, though the wind howled and the rain poured, the hill beside us sheltered all from its blasts, which were too wild and powerful in the sea outside to allow us to proceed next day. [156]

However, our Seine pilot pointed to an English steamer “which dared not go out;” so any remonstrance on the subject was silenced, and then he boldly asked if I would like a pilot on board the Rob Roy (towed by the steamer all the time), and I had sufficient command of countenance to decline with due gravity. Better, perhaps, it would have been for me not to carry then so much of the John Bull into these strange waters, as will be seen from what occurred that night.

The tide rushed up with extraordinary strength, until it was quite full. Then it paused for five minutes, and again it set off in the opposite direction with the same fury, increased, too, by the stream and the wind being also down the river.

At each of these changes every vessel, of course, swung round to its anchor, and so must have loosened its hold, while all the water picture changed from right to left like a scene shifted on the stage. During this short interval of quiet you could row ashore, but to get back again was almost impossible when the full torrent of water ran in straight.

As night came on I noticed that our steamer’s anchor was dragging, and that other steam vessels, more on the alert, were easing the strain on their cables by working their engines at half power all the time.

“Captain, we are dragging anchor.” “No, sir,” he said, “you are mistaken.” “I am sure we are dragging: I have watched for ten minutes.” “No, sir, I am certain we do not drag.” He said this with such firmness, that I confidingly believed it, and turned into bed.

But it was not to sleep, except in fitful snatches. The sound of the water hurrying by my side, like a mill race, and within a few inches of my ear, had a strange and unwonted effect, not now to soothe, but to drive sleep away. Bits of wood and other dÉbris often struck my mahogany sounding-board with a loud thump, until I became accustomed even to this, and was in a dreamy dozing about one o’clock.

Then there came a new noise,—a low, steady rap, tap, tap, tap, on the boat, and from underneath. For a moment or two there was a sensation without apprehension,—a sort of mesmeric, irresistible spell; but a sudden thought burst through the trance, and with a powerful impression of what was doing—one no less horrid than true—I dashed off covering, roof, hatchway, and all, and stood upon deck to meet a terrible scene.

Our steamer had drifted in the dark until we closed upon another steamboat astern. My yawl, tied to the stern of one, was between that and the bows of the other, the anchor chain of which had already got underneath the waist of the Rob Roy, and had been ringing the rap, tap, tap of a warning that undoubtedly saved her life. Light flashed from the riding lamp at the steamer’s bow full on my boat’s deck, which was now heeled over deeply until the dark water rushed through her gunwale; it seemed that only a few seconds more and the poor little yawl would sink in the flood, or be ground into splinters by the two great iron monsters nearing each instant in the dark.

All this was noticed in the same rapid glance which in such dangers grasps a whole scene in a moment and stamps it in the mind for years.

My boat hung on the cold iron chain, yet it wavered with equal poise to go this way or that. If she could be swerved to the stern she might possibly escape destruction, but if to the other side, then the strong rope at her bow would entirely prevent her escape. With a loud shout to arouse the crews I put every atom of bodily force into one strenuous shove, straining nerve and muscle in the desperate effort until I could not see. She trembled and surged—it was successful, and I fell into the water, but my yawl was saved. [159a]

Crash came the two steamers together. I heeded nothing of their din and smashing, and the uproar of the men, but I scrambled all wet into my cabin, nervously shaking with excitement and a chattering of teeth. Then I sat down to sum up my bruises,—a barked shin, sprained thigh, and bleeding cheek-bone; and a hapless object I must have seemed, bathing, by turns, my leg, and shin, and face, from a brandy bottle, and then a gulp inside. In a survey of the yawl made next day, there was to be seen (as still there is) the marks of the iron chain-links deeply impressed in the mahogany planks of her waist. The piece of wood that bears these mementoes of that night’s deed might well be cut out and kept as a curious memorial. The bowsprit also was found to have been nipped at the end (though it had been drawn in close to the stem), and the squeeze had quite flattened the strong iron ring upon it, and jammed up the wood into a pulp as if it were cork. [159b]

The weather did not moderate next day, but we started nevertheless, and when the waves of the wider sea were tumbling in I expected to have a wetting as in passing here before; but the sea was in fine long swells, and so the yawl rode over them buoyantly. Also the large twin-screw tugboat is far more pleasant to follow than the smaller steamer with its two paddle-wheels, one at each side of the stern. [160]

In another way also I managed better than before while undergoing the process of being towed. I set the hatch of the well in front of me, and then allowed the reflection of the funnel of the steamer upon the wet deck of my boat to be seen through a chink, while my head and body were entirely concealed and completely sheltered from spray.

Now, having marked where this reflection rested, when I was exactly in a proper line abaft the steamer, I was enabled to steer altogether by the shadowy image, although I could not see the object itself to which I was directing the bow of my boat. The captain and crew of the steamer were very much astonished with this proceeding. [161]

Arriving at Havre on July 21, there was need for a good rest, and the port was suited for it. There is quiet water in a sequestered nook of the harbour and plenty of amusement on shore. Havre, too, was in a state of much excitement, for the Empress was about to embark thence for England, and the Imperial yacht was in the basin, with a splendid crew on board. In the evening the Emperor also came to the town, to escort his wife when she embarked, and as his carriage drove past the crowd ran after it hallooing.

The last time I had seen the Empress Eugenie was under somewhat peculiar circumstances; she was floating in the sea, and we shall tell more of her Majesty afloat in a future page, when fair bathers at Margate appear.

The beautiful English yacht ‘Vindex’ was on the gridiron with the Rob Roy; that is to say, on a sunk stage of wood, on which you can place a vessel, if it is desired to examine or repair its hull and keel when the tide leaves it there dry.

‘Vindex’ had come to the Havre Regatta, and as she had won the prize there in the previous year a great deal of interest was shown about her now. But the regatta on this occasion was by no means interesting, for the wind fell into calm, and it was merely a drifting match.

My usual visits in the dingey had disposed of nearly all my store of French books and periodicals, and the remainder we took to a civil bookseller, from whom we bought French charts and a Pilot book of the English south coast soundings.

Meantime, after a rest and refreshment to my crew, a thorough scraping to my boat, and a good stock laid in of comfort for my voyage to England, the question had to be distinctly put, “How am I to get over the broad Channel to the Isle of Wight?” It was, of course, impossible to think of coming back as we had gone,—that is, along the French coast. This would never do. Again, it was also found that the steamers were not allowed to tow any boat to sea behind the passenger vessels unless in cases of distress, so that put an end to another solution of the problem, which was to get half way by towing and then to cast off and sail.

Well, shall I get an additional hand on board? But where is he to sit if it blows hard? And if it does not blow hard, what is the use of him? In fact I was steadily driven, as if by severe logic, to the conclusion already at the bottom of my mind, to sail right across alone.

Then I asked one or two experienced sailors if they thought the Rob Roy could do it, and they said, “Yes, she can; but can you? You may be three or four days out, and can you stand the fatigue? At any rate, do not start in a southwest wind: it raises a sea and the up and down of the waves will tire you soon in a long day’s work, and then there is the night besides.”

Having retired to my calm little creek, where the yawl was tied by a line to a large fishing-smack, I tried to read, but very soon found I was thinking of anything but the words on the printed page; then to sleep; but still I was musing on the prospect now opened of a hazardous and delightful sail.

About one o’clock I gazed out moodily on the quiet night scene of the harbour, sleeping around. Tall masts whitened by the moon, black hulls darkened in the shade, busy quays silent, long-necked iron cranes peering into the deep water that reflected quaint leaning houses, all distorted, and big buoys magnified by the haze.

“Why continue this anxiety about how to get over? See the clouds drift over the clear moon with an east wind. Will it ever be easier than now? I cannot sleep—why not start this moment?”

Once the decision was made, all was alert on the Rob Roy; and in half an hour I had breakfasted, and then very noiselessly loosed the thin line that bound us to the quay, and bid “adieu to France.”

Every single thing we could think of was perfectly prepared. The sails were all ready to set, but we had to row the yawl slowly into the main harbour, and there we met a low round swell coining in from the sea. We tugged hard to force her against the adverse tide, but progress was tediously slow. Presently some fishing luggers were getting under way, and soon the usual clatter and din of the French sailors, at full tide, rang forth as if by a magic call at two in the morning.

After shouting some time for a boat to tow me to the pier-head, at last one came.

“What will you charge?”

“Ten francs.”

“I’ll give you eight;” and after parley the two men in their little boat agreed to take the Rob Roy in tow.

Almost immediately I noticed that the moon was hid, and the wind had chopped round to the southwest, the very wind I was told not to start with, but now—well it was too late to withdraw, and so we laboured on, while the great clumsy luggers crossed and recrossed our course, and frequently dashed upon the piles of the pier in the stupidest manner, with much loud roaring of voices, and creaking of spars, and fluttering of sails.

Presently the men called out that, as the sea was getting higher, I had better pay them the money. “Certainly,” I said; but, alas! I could find only five francs of change, the rest being napoleons.

They shouted, “Give us gold—we will send the change to England;” but I bellowed out a better plan, to give them an order on the yacht agents at Havre for five francs, and the silver besides.

Finally this was accepted, so I got out paper and envelope, and on the wet deck, by moonlight, wrote the banker’s draft.

When they came near the harbour’s mouth, they sung out “Get ready your mizen.”

“Ay, ay!”

“Hoist;” and so up went the trim little sail, glad to flap once more in salt air. Then they bid me “Get ready your jib—we have cast you off; hoist!” Yes, and I did hoist.

Perhaps the reader may recollect that the end of my bowsprit had been squeezed by a collision, and was in fact as weak as a charred stick. But I had entirely forgotten this by some unaccountable fatality, during the three days at Havre, when it might have been easily repaired.

The moment therefore I had hoisted the jib, the bowsprit end broke sharp off into a ragged stump, and the jib instantly flew away into the air just like an umbrella blown inside out.

This was of course a most critical time for such a mishap, with a strong breeze dead ahead, driving me in upon piles, and a tumbling sea, and numerous large luggers sailing about me in the dark. Therefore I felt that this unlucky accident and the southwest wind meant, “I must not go out to-night. It will not do to begin a voyage of a hundred miles with a broken bowsprit.”

For a hundred miles

All this prudent reasoning was at once cut short by the Frenchmen calling out, “Voulez-vous sortir encore, monsieur?” and the Rob Roy thus hailed could make but one reply, “Oui, oui, certainement;” so I bid them lay hold again while I captured the truant jib, hauled down and reefed it, and made it fast to the stem, and then again “Lachez tous,” we are free on the rolling waves.

At the worst, methought, we can return in four or five hours, when the tide falls, if we find it unadvisable to go on; but meanwhile our yawl shot away westward to get a good offing from the Cape de la HÈve, and then I cooked breakfast (the former one counted of course in the former day, according to the excellent rule already explained), and about half-past four I laid on my straight course to old England, with a capital breeze on my quarter, and a hundred times glad that I had not gone back.