Tide waiter—Beachy Head—Night Ghost—Man overboard—Ship ahoy!—Overfalls—Thoughts—Thunder—A question—Day—Good-bye, dingey!—Dungeness—A nap.

The barometer mounted steadily all Sunday, so we resolved to start next morning at break of day. But though the night was quiet the vessels near my berth were also getting ready, therefore at last I gave up all hopes of sleep, and for company’s sake got ready also after midnight, that we might have all the tide possible for going round Beachy Head, which, once passed, we could find easy ports all the way to London. So about two o’clock, in the dark, we are rowing out again on the ebbing tide, and the water at the pier-head looks placid now compared with the boiling and dashing it made there when the yawl passed in before.

Dawn broke an hour afterwards with a dank and silent mist skirting up far-away hills, and a gentle east wind faintly breathing as our tea-cup smoked fragrant on deck. The young breeze was only playful yet, so we anchored, waiting for it to rise in earnest or the tide to slacken, as both of them were now contrary; and meantime we rested some hours preparing for a long spell of unknown work; but I could not sleep in such a lovely daybreak, not having that most valuable capacity of being able to sleep when it is wanted for coming work, and not for labour past.

The east wind baffled the yawl and a whole fleet of vessels, all of us trying to do the same thing, namely, to arrive at Beachy Head before two o’clock in the day; for, if this could be managed, we should there find the tide ebbing eastwards, and so get twelve hours of current in our favour.

This feature—the division of the tides there—makes Beachy Head a well-marked point in the navigation of the Channel. The stream from the North Sea meets the other from the Atlantic here, and here also they begin to separate. After beating, in downright sailing, one after another of the schooners and brigs and barques in company, I saw at last with real regret that not one of us could reach the point in time, and yet the yawl got there only a few minutes too late; but it was dead calm, and I even rowed her on to gain the last little mile.

One after another the vessels gave it up, and each cast anchor. Coming to a pilot steamer, I hailed: “Shall I be able to do it?” “No, sir,” they said; “no,—very sorry for you, sir; you’ve worked hard, sir, but you’re ten minutes too late.” Within that time the tide had turned against us. We had not crossed the line of division, and so the yawl had to be turned towards shore to anchor there, and to wait the tide until nine o’clock at night, unless a breeze came sooner.

After three hours’ work she reached the desired six fathoms’ patch of sand, just under the noble white cliff that rears its head aloft about 600 feet, standing ever as a giant wall, sheer, upright, out of the sea.

Dinner done and everything set right (for this is best policy always), I slipped into my cabin and tried to sleep as the sun went down, but a little land-breeze soon began, and every now and then my head was raised to see how tide or wind progressed. Then I must have fallen once into a mild nap, and perhaps a dream, for sudden and strong a rough hand seemed to shake the boat, and, on my leaping up, there glanced forth a brilliant flash of lightning that soon put everybody on the qui vive.

Now was heard the clink of distant cables, as I raised mine also in the dark, with only the bright shine of the lighthouse like a keen and full-opened eye gazing down from the cliff overhead.

Compass lighted, ship-lantern fixed, a reef in each sail, and, with a moment’s thought of the very similar events that had passed only a few nights ago, we steered right south, away, away to the open sea.

It was black enough all around; but yet the strong wind expected after thunder had not come, and we edged away eastward, doubly watchful, however, of the dark, for the crowd of vessels here was the real danger, and not the sea.

Look at the ghost of Rob Roy flitting on the white sail as the lamp shines brightly. Down comes the rain, and with it flash after flash, peal upon peal of roaring thunder, and the grandeur of the scene is unspeakable. The wind changed every few minutes, and vessels and boats and steamers whirled past like visions, often much too near to be welcome.

Beachy Head Ghost

A white dazzling gleam of forked lightning cleaves the darkness, and behold! a huge vessel close at hand, but hitherto unseen, lofty and full-sailed, and for a moment black against the instant of light, and then utterly lost again. The plashing of rain hissed in the sea, and a voice would come out of the unseen—“Port, you lubber!” The ship, or whatever it is, has no lights at all, though on board it they can see mine. Ah, it’s no use peering forward to discover on which side is the new danger; for when your eye has gazed for a time at the lighted compass it is powerless for half a minute to see in the dark space forward; or, again, if you stare into the blackness to scan the faintest glimmer of a sail ahead, then for some time after you cannot see the compass when looking at it dazzled. This difficulty in sailing alone is the only one we felt to be quite insuperable.

Again a steam whistle shrieked amid the thunder, and two eyes glared out of the formless vapour and rain—the red and the green lights, the signals that showed where she was steaming to. There was shouting from her deck as she kept rounding and backing, no doubt for a man overboard. As we slewed to starboard to avoid her, another black form loomed close on the right; and what with wind, rain, thunder, and ships, there was everything to confuse just when there was every need of cool decision.

It would be difficult for me to exaggerate the impressive spectacle that passed along on the dark background of this night. To shew what others thought, we may quote the following paragraph from the ‘Pall Mall Gazette’ of next day, the 20th of August: [260]—

“The storm which raged in London through the whole of last night was beyond question by far the most severe and protracted which has occurred for many years. It began at half-past eight o’clock, after a day of intense heat, which increased as the evening advanced, though it never reached the sultriness which was remarked before the storm of last week. The first peal of thunder was heard about nine, and from that time till after five this morning it never ceased for more than a few minutes, while the lightning may be said to have been absolutely continuous. Its vivid character was something quite unusual in the storms of recent summers, and the thunder by which it was often instantaneously followed can only be described as terrific. The storm reached its greatest violence between two and three o’clock, when a smart gale of wind sprang up, and for about ten minutes the tempest was really awful.”

We had noticed some rockets sent up from Eastbourne earlier in the evening; probably these were fireworks at a fÊte there, but the rain must have soon drowned the gala. Certainly it closed up my view of all other lights but the lightning, though sometimes a shining line appeared for a moment in the distance, perhaps from Hastings; and at one time the moon came out red and full, and exactly at the top of a vessel’s lofty sails. One steamer had puzzled me much by its keeping nearly still. This drifted close up at last, and they called out, “Ahoy, there!—are you a fishing boat?” They wanted to know their bearings, as the current and shifting wind made the position of Beachy Head quite uncertain in the dark. [261] I replied to their hail—“No, I’m the yacht Rob Roy, crew of one man; don’t you see my white sails?” and they answered—“See? why, who can see to-night?”

Sometimes a sudden and dead lull came with an ominous meaning, and then the loud hissing of rain could be heard advancing to us in the dark till it poured on the yawl in sheets of water, and the mere dripping from the peak of my sou’wester was enough to obscure vision.

And yet, after a few hours of the turmoil and excitement, this state of things became quite as it were natural, so soon does one get accustomed to any circumstances, however strange at first. I even cooked hot tea; it was something to do, as well as to drink, and singing and whistling also beguiled the dark hours of eager, strained matching. In a lighter moment, once a great lumbering sloop sailed near, and we hailed her loudly, “How’s the wind going to be?”—for the wind kept ever changing (but the thunder and lightning were going on still). A gruff voice answered, “Can’t say; who can say—night—this sort—think it’ll settle east.” This was bad news for me, but it did not come true. The sloop’s skipper wished for an east wind, and so he expected it.

A stranger sound than any before now forced attention as it rapidly neared us, and soon the sea was white around with boiling, babbling little waves—what could it be? Instantly I sounded with the lead, but there was no bottom—we were not driving on shore—it was one of the “overfalls” or “ripples” we have mentioned before where a turbid sea is raised in deep water by some far-down precipice under the waves.

The important question at once arose as to which of the “overfalls” on my chart this could be—the one marked as only a mile from Beachy Head, or the other ten miles further on. Have we been turning and wheeling about all this dreary night in only a few square miles of sea, or have we attained the eastern tide, and so are now running fast on our course?

The incessant and irksome pitching and rolling which the overfalls caused, might be patiently borne, if only we could be assured that the yawl progressed. But all was still left in doubt.

So sped the storm for eight long hours, with splendours for the eye, and dark long thrills of the sublime, that stirred deep the whole inner being with feelings vivid and strong, and loosed the most secret folds of consciousness with thoughts I had never felt before, and perhaps shall never know again. The mind conjured up the most telling scenes it had known of “alone” and of “thunder,” to compare with this where both were now combined.

To stand on the top of Mont Blanc, that round white icicle highest in Europe, and all alone to gaze on a hundred peaks around—that was indeed impressive.

More so was it to kneel alone at the edge of Etna, and to fill the mind from the smoking water with thoughts and fancies teeming out of the hot, black, and wide abyss.

Map of English Channel

Thunder and lightning, also, in the crater of Vesuvius we had wondered at before; and it had been grander still, when the flashes lighted up Niagara pouring out its foam that glistened for a moment dazzling white and then vanished, while the thundering heavens sounded louder than the heavy torrent tumbling into the dark. But here, in my yawl on the sea, was more splendid than these. Imagination painted its own free picture on a black and boundless background of mind strung tight by near danger; and from out this spoke the deep loud diapason, while the quick flashing at intervals gave point to all. Then that glorious anthem came to my memory, where these words of the 18th Psalm are nobly rendered:—

“He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under His feet.

“He rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind.

“He made darkness His secret place; the pavilion round about Him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.

“The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice: hailstones and coals of fire.

“Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered: at Thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.

“He sent down from above, He took me, He drew me up out of many waters.”

The sensations were prolonged enough to be analyzed and reasoned upon, and it was a difficult question which cannot yet be answered—“Would I willingly have all this over again?” Lying on a sofa in a comfortable room, I would not go out to this scene; but in a boat, if all this began again, I certainly would not go ashore to avoid its discomforts and lose its grandeurs.

The profound uncertainty as to what was to come next moment being one of the most exciting features of the occasion; perhaps the whole scene would be tamed sadly by a mere repetition; but one sentiment was dominant over all at the time, that I had lived a long year in a night.

Soon after four o’clock, there suddenly stretched out what seemed to be a reef of breakers for miles under the sullen rain-clouds, and, with instant attention, the yawl was put about to avoid them.

This extraordinary optical illusion was the dawn opening on the coast, then actually ten miles away, and in a very few minutes, as the cloud lifted, the land seemed to rush off to its proper distance, until at last the curtain split in two, and I found to my intense delight that in the night we had crossed the bay!

Now came joyous sounds from our moist crew—“Hurrah for the day! Pipe all hands to breakfast—slack out the mainsheet, here’s the west wind;” and up rose the sun, well washed by the torrents of rain.

An elaborate friture of my last three eggs was soon cooked to perfection, and I held the frying-pan over the side, while it drained through a fork; when, alas! there came a heavy lurch of the boat, and all the well-deserved breakfast was pitched into the sea, with a mild but deep-meant “Oh, how provoking!” from the hapless, hungry, lonely sailor. Shame that, preserved through such dangers, we should murmur at an omelet the less! But this tyrant stomach exacts more, and thanks less, than all the body besides.

Hastings was soon passed, and we skirted the cliffs towards Rye. I had written to the harbourmaster [267] here to send out a boat if he saw my craft (enclosing him a sketch of it), as the entrance to that harbour seemed to be very difficult by the chart.

But the breeze was fresh and invigorating, and though sadly needing sleep after two nights without any, the idea of going to bed while such a fine breeze blew seemed preposterous, and Rye was soon left in the rear.

From this place a very low flat tongue of land stretches along in the strangest way, until at its end is the lighthouse of Dungeness. Martello towers are on the shore, but for miles outside of this, the nearest beach is all one can see; and therefore the tall lighthouse, viewed even through the glass, looked only like a small grey speck on the waves, without any land whatever between. About midday the yawl neared this very remarkable beacon, which is painted red and white; strong, lofty, and firm set on a cape of pure gravel, with here and there a house, not visible at all until you come close.

A heavy sea was here, and it was more and more as we came quite near the cape; until one fine bold wave, following our little craft, actually cast the dingey (then towing astern) right upon the deck of the yawl, and dealt me a severe stroke on the back, by which I was cast forward, and then an awkward thump on the head by which I was stunned. [268] Recovering again just in time, I saw another wave send the dingey once more on board with a crash, and splinters flew up, so we thought she was smashed, but it was the jigger-boom that was broken by the collision. The very next billow broke the dingey’s painter of strong canoe rope, but much worn. Away floated the tiny cockleshell, and it was very soon hid in the trough of the sea.

“Down with the helm!”—“Haul the sheet!”—“Slack the jib!” and we gave chase in great glee, and catching her soon with the boat-hook, we quickly pulled the dingey on board, and lashed her securely down to the deck, an arrangement that answered well.

One of the great delights of real sailing is the large variety of incident that comes. Mere sitting in a yacht, while others have all the work in a breeze, and all the responsibility, is no pleasure to me; nay, I confess frankly, it is a “bore.”

Once round Dungeness, we could see Folkestone and Dover cliffs; and after a few minutes of rest, to put all in readiness for a fast run before the wind, we steered straight for Dover pier.

The breeze freshened so much that the mizen had to be lowered, and as the wind was now favourable, the only thing to beware of was falling asleep; in which case the boom might jibe (swing-over from one side to the other) with great force, and if it hit me on the head, then I should certainly have either a very short nap or a very long one. [270]

Dover pier was, we must say, welcome to see. Often at other times we had intentionally lengthened the day’s journey, in arriving near a destination sooner than it was absolutely necessary to stop the pleasure of sailing, but now we ran into Dover as fast as the flying wind would speed us.

The friends who greeted the Rob Roy here knew her well from a long way off, as she danced lightly over the sea; for hence had we started months ago, and here was, in one sense, the end of my voyage, as Ulysses said when he came alone from his raft.

“And now two nights, and now two days were past,
Since wide I wandered on the wat’ry waste;
Heaved on the surge with intermitting breath,
And hourly panting in the arms of death.”

Pope’s ‘Odyssey,’ Book V.

“Then first my eyes, by watchful toils opprest,
Complied to take the balmy gifts of rest;
Then first my hands did from the rudder part,
So much the love of home possessed my heart.”

Ibid., Book X.

I went up to the Lord Warden hotel, meaning to write home, dine, and go to bed after fifty-three hours without sleep; but while waiting for the servant to bring hot water, and with my jacket off, I tumbled on the bed for a moment—then it was three o’clock, p.m.

Soon (as it seemed) awake again, I saw it was still light, and with bright sun shining; also my watch had run down, the water-jug was cold, and it was a puzzle to make out how I felt so wonderfully fresh.

Why, it was next day, and I had soundly slept on the top of the bed in my soaking wet clothes for seventeen hours!