There is not a more painfully diverting sight in the whole world than that of a cockney with a face as yellow as a London fog, a tall hat at the back of his head, his coloured shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, tugging upon the sea at a small pair of oars in a rather heavy wherry. He has no idea of tides, of waves, of winds, or weather. He looks to leeward for squalls, and over the stern for any other news of the sea. The current that dangerously and helplessly sweeps him away from the land delights him by a sense of velocity. The waves which rise and threaten to fill the boat gladden him with the sensation of going “up and down.” I once took the trouble to watch a cockney get into a wherry and row himself out to sea. I kept a very powerful glass bearing upon him, and had his face within reach of my hand, so to speak, when he was two miles off. There was a strong tide setting to the eastward, in which direction lay the North Sea. He went away very fast, and with my eye to the telescope I found myself smiling in sympathy with his radiant enjoyment of the speed at which his boat was going. He did not feather his oars, but rowed with prodigious contortions of his body, carrying his nose aft until I thought he would tumble upon it in the stern sheets, and then lying back at an angle so acute that I was constantly watching for his heels, whilst his oars flourished themselves in the air like a pair of tongs in the hands of a clown. I was sure, by the expression in his face, that he believed it was his fine rowing that made the boat go so fast. He did not know that the tide was helping him at the rate of very nearly three and a half land miles an hour.

At last he thought it was time to turn back. He let go one oar to pull at the other with both hands, and so he got his boat’s head round. He still smiled and looked confident, and rowed unintermittently for about ten minutes, in which time he had gone astern about the sixteenth of a mile. Then he stopped and took a look over the bows. His face was no longer radiant, but, on the contrary, very much puzzled, and even slightly distressed. He rowed hard again, and then stopped and took another look. This time he seemed horribly frightened. Indeed, examined through the telescope, his yellow face was a curious study. The emotions of his soul were finely expressed, and every time he stopped rowing to turn his head and gaze at the land, a fresh passion was depictured on his fog-coloured lineaments. Eventually a couple of boatmen went to succour him, and with much difficulty towed him home. He stepped on shore very defiantly, and, instead of rewarding the boatmen for their services, expressed his gratitude by offering to row either of them for a pound.

It is plain that hardy and dexterous landsmen of this kind must occasionally meet with exciting adventures on the deep. An experience not so commonplace but that another touch or two would have raised it into tragical dignity was encountered not very many days ago by a plain, honest, decently-educated Londoner, a City clerk, aged forty-four, who, being afflicted with the delusion that he could row, put forth in a wherry along with his wife and child. He told me the story, begging me to print it as a warning to others, but at the same time on no account to mention his name nor the port at which he embarked on his disastrous voyage. As nearly as I can remember, this is how his story went.

“I don’t know,” he began, “whether I shall ever live to keep a servant, but it would be more sensible for me to hope I may never live to feel the want of one. Any way, when a man can’t afford to keep a servant, then, if he has a baby it must always go along with the wife; and this being so, when I offered to take my wife out for an hour’s row we were bound to carry the baby with us. The baby was weaned six weeks ago. It’s a small thing to say, but worth taking notice of, as it made our troubles harder, as you’ll hear. I never professed to be an oarsman. I had in my time pulled a pair of sculls on the Thames, and got along middling well—well enough to enable me to say to my wife on this occasion, ‘Look here, Sarah, there’s no need to take a man. A man will be a shilling extra. I don’t say I can feather; and I don’t know, if I were to row with other men, whether I should be able to keep time. But I’m quite competent to pull in a boat by myself.’

“‘Very well, William,’ said she; ‘if you think there’s no danger, an hour on the water will be very enjoyable. But we don’t want more than an hour.’

“‘Certainly not,’ I answered; ‘an hour is eighteenpence.’

“The baby was dressed and fed, my wife put on her hat, and we left our lodgings for the place where the wherries lay. As we went along my wife suggested that we should carry a few buns with us.

“‘What for?’ said I: ‘we shall be back for tea. We’re sure to eat the buns, and they’ll destroy our appetite for the shrimps.’ That was my reasoning. It was very shortsighted; but what should a man who is cooped up in the City of London for eleven months in every year know about the sea and how to provide against its dangers?

“We were pursued by four or five boatmen to the landing-stage, where I selected what looked to me a nice light wherry. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. We meant to be home by six. The sun was still very hot; but the boatman who helped us to get into the wherry said we should find a cool air on the sea. I removed my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my arm-sleeves and set my hat securely on my head. My wife sat upon a cushion in the hinder part of the boat, and the boatman put on the rudder and told my wife to lay hold of the strings—I don’t know what sailors call them. But she said she would rather not touch them, as she had no idea of steering, and besides, the baby kept her hands employed.

“‘I can steer,’ said I, ‘with my oars.’

“On this, an old man with a long stick with a hook at the end of it, pushed the boat off. There was quite a crowd of other boats—empty boats—in the way, and I was a good deal confused by the shouts of the boatmen telling me what to do. We ran into several of these boats, and twice I let one of the oars fall overboard, which gave me a great deal of trouble to recover. We got clear of these boats, and I was rowing pretty steadily when, to my surprise, I found the boat’s head turning and aiming for the pier. I endeavoured to remedy this by rowing more strongly with one oar than with the other, but the wherry would insist upon going the wrong way, and I had come to the conclusion that there was something seriously amiss with the boat, and was about to put back and exchange it for another that would go straight, when I perceived that the rudder was inclined, in consequence of my wife sitting on one of the strings connected with it.

“When this was freed the boat went straight, and I pulled vigorously for the open sea. We had several alarms, however, before reaching the open water. First, there were three boats full of schoolboys, splashing about with their oars, who kept on screeching to me to mind where I was going. Then a man on the pier roared to me to keep clear of the tug. Then, again, we were nearly run down by a smack.

“‘I certainly don’t call this enjoyment,’ said my wife faintly, striving to soothe the baby, who had been awakened by the boys, and was crying at the top of her voice.

“I made no answer, but continued rowing with great resolution, and, as I flattered myself, with a dash of science, too, all things considered, earnestly looking over my shoulders to see where I was going, until my neck was as stiff as an office-ruler. At last we got out of harbour into the open sea.

“There was a large steamboat arriving from some place or other; there were numbers of people on the pier, but all watching the steamboat and thinking about her, and so nobody took the least notice of us. The water was quiet, with what nautical men call a swell that lifted and sank us; there was a nice wind that cooled the air; I saw two or three wherries at anchor in the opposite direction to that I was rowing in, and I fancy the people in them were fishing. Very far out at sea were some ships, but the only vessel near the harbour was a smack that came out soon after us, and, filling her sails, pushed quickly past us. One of the men upon her called out something as the vessel went by, but I didn’t catch what he said.

“My wife now agreed with me that this was real happiness. There was a delightful quiet in the air, to enjoy which a man must live for eleven months every year in the bustle and noise of the City; the town looked beautiful in the afternoon light, the tops of the white cliffs as green as new silk, and over and over again, after rowing a few moments, I would hang on my oars and look at the houses in the distance and the different objects changing their shapes or shifting their places. As I had pulled the oars very leisurely indeed, I calculated that it would not take me more than a quarter of an hour of steady pulling to cover the distance I had been lazily traversing; I mean I reckoned that I could cover in a quarter of an hour the distance I had slowly come in three-quarters. That would make the hour; but my wife was enjoying the air and the sea so thoroughly that I thought it would not greatly matter if we broke into another hour. This was a treat we didn’t often get. My wife flattered me by saying I rowed very well, and made the boat go wonderfully quick, considering I put very little strength into the oars. I thought so, too, indeed, and was surprised to observe how rapidly, in proportion to my exertion, the land had receded away from us. By this time the pier was only a black line upon the water, and the people upon it invisible.

“‘You’ll be facing the shore, Sarah,’ said I, ‘when I turn the boat to row back, and you’ll be much interested in seeing the various objects growing bigger and bigger as we approach the land.’

“‘No wonder people are fond of the water,’ said she; ‘I could stop here for weeks.’

“Poor woman! I doubt if she’d say that now.

“It was six o’clock when I turned the boat’s head. I never doubted that I could row back in twenty minutes, and reckoned that the extra half-hour would be well worth the money. I rowed at first with a good deal of energy, and my wife was delighted at the manner in which I made the foam fly with my oars. Indeed, I worked too hard; the exertion soon tired me, and I perspired at every pore with the heat. It was slightly distracting that the baby, who had been sleeping very quietly, should now wake up and cry for what I suppose you might call her tea, if you can give regular names to milk-and-water administered about seven times a day.

“‘I am sorry, William,’ said my wife, ‘that we have stopped longer than the hour.’

“‘Oh,’ said I, knowing that the child was running in her head, ‘baby will do very well until we get home; we shan’t be long now;’ and again I exerted my strength and toiled like a champion rower.

“‘It’s very curious,’ said I, giving up after about ten minutes, and feeling quite exhausted, and panting for breath.

“‘What’s very curious?’ said my wife.

“‘Why,’ said I, pulling out my watch, ‘here it is twenty minutes past six, and the land seems rather farther off than it was before I turned the boat’s head towards it.’

“‘Yes,’ said she, growing a little pale; ‘I’ve been noticing that, too.’

“‘Perhaps it wants a steadier stroke,’ said I, wiping my forehead; and, settling to the oars again, I rowed for another ten minutes, and then looked over my shoulder. I could not be deceived. Row as I would, I not only could make no way, but the boat actually lost ground. I could not conceive of a current in the sea; a tide was an intelligible thing to me in a river, but I could not realize that the great body of water we were floating on was moving in a contrary direction to the land. There was nothing about to give me the idea; no buoys, or anything of that kind. All that I understood was that the harder I rowed towards the land the farther we fell away from it. I was heartily frightened, and pulled in the oars to stand up and look around me. My wife began to cry and the baby roared as babies can when they are particularly wanted to keep quiet. There were some ships, as I have said, a long distance off; and there was the smack that had passed us, two or three miles distant; but there was nothing near us. I put my hands to my mouth and shouted towards the land as hard as ever I could, flattering myself that there was a faint chance of the smooth water conveying the sound. I then stood waving and flourishing my hat for at least five minutes.

“‘Oh, William, what will become of us?’ cried my wife, sobbing piteously.

“I was much too upset to answer her. I had hoped that we should be noticed by some of the people who keep a look-out on the pier; but as the time went by, and the sun sank lower, and I could see no signs of anything coming to our rescue, my spirits fell, and I sat down and stared blankly at my wife. I put out the oars again, but was so wearied that I soon gave up rowing; besides, I felt that we were being carried away, and that the oars scarcely hindered our progress towards the ocean. All this while the baby was giving us the greatest trouble with its incessant crying. My wife filled up the pauses of its screams by anticipating all the horrors which might befall us. She assured me that she could see nothing before us but death from starvation, unless the sea should rise and upset the boat and drown us, or unless a passing vessel should crash into us when the darkness fell. What could I do? We were in one of those situations in which it is simply impossible for people to help themselves. I could not row; we had no sail, and even if we had had a sail I should not have known how to use it; I had no means of calling attention to our position except by waving my hat or flourishing an oar, which seemed an idle thing to do, considering what a speck the boat made upon the water, and how far off we were from everything but the miserable sea.

“Sure enough, presently the sun sank, and though the twilight lasted a good bit, yet the water soon grew dark, and speedily after sundown the coast grew faint, and the ships in the distance were swallowed up in the gloom. When the night fairly came the wind got up, not very much, but enough to disturb the water, and the wherry began to slop about horribly. What was worse, it blew off the land and helped to carry us farther away. How I cursed my folly for not having brought a man with me! The crying of the poor hungry little baby and my wife’s moans and reproaches were just maddening. It was very fine overhead, the sky full of stars, but there was no moon, and the sea looked as black as ink. I could see the lights on the land, and could even very faintly hear the strains of a band of music playing on the cliff, for, as I have told you, the wind blew from the shore. I pulled out my watch, but though I held it close to my nose I could not see what time it was. I kept on looking around in the hopes of observing a passing vessel, but, though no doubt some must have passed, I did not see them.

“My wife was continually saying, ‘Oh, William, what shall we do?’

“‘Do?’ said I. ‘What can we do? We must sit here and wait.’

“‘Wait!’ she would cry. ‘What is there to wait for?’

“‘For daylight, if for nothing else.’

“‘But what will daylight do for us? We have been lost in daylight, and when daylight comes where shall we be?’ and here she would hug the poor crying baby and wish herself dead, and so on.

“Lord, what a time it was! The sea kept the boat rocking incessantly, so that it was impossible for me to stand up. The dew fell like rain, and my clothes were as heavy as if I had been exposed to a shower. My wife said her limbs felt like pieces of iron, and that she had the cramp in every joint, which I could easily understand, for I, too, suffered atrociously from having to keep seated and to balance myself to the tumbling about of the wretched little wherry. By degrees we lost sight of the lights on shore; and we felt as if we were in the middle of the Atlantic. Once or twice I thought of taking to the oars again, but when the lights disappeared there was nothing to aim for. How we passed the hours I can’t tell you. The baby would wake and cry until she cried herself to sleep, then wake and cry herself to sleep again, and so on, hour after hour. My wife and I fell silent; we had exhausted all that could be said, and we sat there like two statues. To my dying hour I shall remember the gurgling and sobbing noise of the water splashing against the boat’s side, and the dreadful silence overhead and around, above the water, as I may say.

“It must have been past midnight, when I thought I heard a kind of groaning or rumbling sound in the wind. I could not imagine what it could be, until, looking into the darkness on my right hand, I spied three lights upon the sea—one green, one red, and one white—this last much higher than the others. Soon after there was a heavy noise of washing water, and just over the white light there was a shower of sparks, and presently a great black shadow stood up on the sea and blotted out the stars behind it. I was weak and worn out—terrified to a degree by the swift approach of this steamer—and though I managed to shout, my voice seemed to stick in my throat. The great vessel swept past us not above twenty yards distant; saving those lamps she was all in darkness, and soon after she had gone by I thought the wherry would have upset in the waves the steamer had left behind. My wife screamed as the boat sprang up and down, and every instant I expected the sea to rush into us. I shouted again to the steamer, hoping that I might be heard. This time my voice carried well, but nothing came of it; the steamer rushed on, and was soon out of sight.

“The dawn was just breaking, when I saw a vessel making a black mark against the pale green light in the place where the sun was coming. It took me some time to find out which way she was going, but presently the rising sun made her plain, and I saw that she was a small smack, and that she aimed directly for us. I managed to stand up in the wherry and flourish my hat. There was no coast to be seen—nothing visible upon the sea but that smack. So far as water went, we might have been in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world. I perceived before long that the smack saw us, for she lowered one of her sails, and came along slowly. I looked at my wife to see how this adventure had served her, and it seemed to me that she had aged twenty years. Her face was hollow, her dress draggled and limp with the dew; she was a most melancholy object to look at. I hardly knew her, indeed; and she was equally astonished by my appearance, as she afterwards told me. Who could suppose that a night spent in an open boat at sea would work such a change in people’s looks? As for poor little baby, she had been crying on and off all night, and, being pretty nearly perished with hunger, she was a distressing thing, truly, for us parents to see. It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the smack came close to us, counting from the time I had first seen her. A great man in yellow clothes bawled out, ‘What’s that boat, and what do you want?’ You might have supposed he would guess our want by our appearance.

“‘We’ve been carried away to sea,’ I answered, in a faint voice, for I felt as weak as an infant and just fit to cry like one, ‘and we’ve been in this boat all night.’

“‘Where do you come from?’ he called.

“I told him, and he answered, ‘We’ll tow you in. Look out for the end of the line;’ and another man threw a rope at me.

“I caught it, but did not know what to do with it; seeing which, the first man told me to keep hold, and dragged the wherry up to the smack, and then got into her and attached the line to the boat.

“‘Will you sit here or come aboard?’ he asked.

“‘Oh, come aboard, certainly,’ I replied; so he took the baby and passed it to a sailor on the smack, and then helped my wife up, and then me.

“So here we were, saved; but faint, broken-down, feeling as if we had been dug out of the grave. Luckily they had a few tins of Swiss milk in the cabin, and so poor little baby got something to eat at last. Also they gave us some corned beef and bread, which we devoured gratefully, after the manner of shipwrecked people. The captain of the smack laughed when I told him we had originally started for an hour’s row.

“‘How much do they charge you for an hour?’ says he.

“‘Eighteenpence,’ I answered.

“‘You have had a good eighteen-pennorth,’ said he. ‘You may thank the Lord, master, that ye’re alive to pay even eighteenpence. D’ye know how many miles you’ve drifted from your port?’

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well then,’ said he, ‘you’ve drifted eleven miles. There’s the coast—you can calculate for yourself;’ and he pointed to the white cliffs, which were visible from the smack’s deck, though not from the boat. A fearfully long distance off they looked, to be sure.

“‘William,’ said my wife at this moment, ‘I’ll never come upon the water again.’

“‘Nor I, Sarah,’ said I; ‘at least without a man.’

“‘Man or no man,’ said she, ‘I’ll never venture my life again.’

“‘And I have no doubt she will keep her word, though it won’t cost her a very great effort to do so, for I am quite sure I shall never attempt to make her break it.”

“And so,” said I, “you got home safe?”

“Yes,” he answered; “the smack landed us in about two hours. The boatman wanted to charge me for twelve hours’ use of his wherry; but I got off for half a sovereign, which I thought cheap, as he talked of having the law of me.”

And here terminated this middle-aged City clerk’s narrative. The moral of it is not far off, and may be found without much hunting; and that a little musing over it shall not be without value, any man may judge for himself if he will but take his stand upon a British pier and watch the typical seaside visitor enjoying “an hour’s row.”