Читать книгу Dracula - Брэм Стокер, Bram Stoker, John Edgar Browning - Страница 8

24 July. Whitby. Lucy met me at the station, jookingsweeter

and loj/elie^thaiLe^er, and we drove up to the houseTftnTCres-

cen t irTwhlcf they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little

river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out

as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with

high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away

than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so

steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look

right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The

houses of the old town the side away from us are all red-

roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the

pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin

of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which

is the scene of part of «Marmion,» where the girl was built up

in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of

beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady

is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is

another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard,

all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in

Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of

the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called

Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply

over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some

of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the

stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway

far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through

the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking

at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come

and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing

now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three

old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing

all day but sit up here and talk.

The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long

granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards

at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy

sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall

59

60 Dracula

makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a light-

house. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the

harbour, which then suddenly widens.

It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals

away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk,

running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there.

Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a

mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out

from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy

with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mourn-

ful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship

is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about

this; he is coming this way….

He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is

all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he

is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland

fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very

sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and

the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:

«I wouldn’t fash maseP about them, miss. Them things be

all wore out. Mind, I don’t say that they never was, but I do say

that they wasn’t in my time. They be all very well for comers and

trippers, an’ the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them

feet-folks from York and -Leeds that be always eatin’ cured

herrin’s an’ drinkin’ tea an’ lookin’ out to buy cheap jet would

creed aught. I wonder masel’ who’d be bothered tellin’ lies to

them even the newspapers, which is full of fool- talk.» I thought

he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I

asked him if he would mind telling me something about the

whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to

begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up,

and said:

«I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-

daughter doesn’t like to be kept waitin’ when the tea is ready,

for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a

many of ’em; an’, miss, I lack belly- timber sairly by the clock.»

He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he

could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place.

They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of

them I do not know how many and they wind up in a delicate

curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up

and down them. I think they must originally have had some-

thing to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out

Mina Murray’s Journal 61

visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did

not go. They will be home by this.

i August. I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had

a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others

who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle

of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most

dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces

everybody. If he can’t out-argue them he bullies them, and then

takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking

sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful

colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not

lose any tune in coming up and sitting near her when we sat

down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love

with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not

contradict her, but gave me. double share instead. I got him on

the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of

sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:

«It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that’s what it be,

an’ nowt else. These bans an 7 wafts an’ boh-ghosts an’ barguests

an’ bogles an’ all anent them is only fit to set bairns an’ dizzy

women a-belderin’. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an’ all

grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome

beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’

to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to. It

makes me ireful to think o j them. Why, it’s them that, not

content with printin’ lies on paper an’ preachin’ them out of

pulpits, does want to be cuttin’ them on the tombstones. Look

here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin’

up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acant

simply tumblin’ down with the weight o’ the lies wrote on them,

«Here lies the body’ or «Sacred to the memory’ wrote on all of

them, an’ yet in nigh half of them there bean’t no bodies at all;

an’ the memories of them bean’t cared a pinch of snuff about,

much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin’ but lies of one kind or

another! My gog, but it’ll be a quare scowderrnent at the Day

of Judgment when they come tumblin’ up hi their death-sarks,

all jouped together an’ tryin’ to drag their tombsteans with them

to prove how good they was; some of them trimrnlin’ and

ditherin’, with their hands that dozzened an’ slippy from lyin 7

in the sea that they can’t even keep their grup o’ them.»

I could see from the old fellow’s self-satisfied air and

the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies

62 Dracula

that he was «showing off,» so I put in a word to keep him

going:

«Oh, Mr. Swales, you can’t be serious. Surely these tomb-

stones are not all wrong?»

«Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin :

where they make out the people too good; for there be folk

that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their

own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come

here a stranger, an’ you see this kirk-garth.» I nodded, for I

thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand

his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He

went on: «And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk

that be happed here, snod an’ snog?“ I assented again. „Then

that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of

these lay-beds that be toom as old Dun’s ’bacca-box on

Friday night.» He nudged one of his companions, and they all

laughed. «And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at

that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!» I went over

and read:

«Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates

off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, set. 30.» When I came back

Mr. Swales went on:

«Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered

off the coast of Andres! an’ you consated his body lay under!

Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland

seas above“ he pointed northwards „or where the currents

may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can,

with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here.

This Braithwaite Lowrey I knew his father, lost in the Lively off

Greenland in ’20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same

seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year

later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me,

drowned in the Gulf of Finland in ’50. Do ye think that all these

men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet

sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they

got here they’d be jommlin’ an’ jostlin’ one another that way

that it ’ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we’d

be at one another from daylight to dark, an’ tryin’ to tie up our

cuts by the light of the aurora borealis.» This was evidently local

pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined

in with gusto.

«But,» I said, «surely you are not quite correct, for you start

on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will

Mina Murray’s Journal 63

have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judg-

ment. Do you think that will be really necessary?»

«Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that,

miss!»

«To please their relatives, I suppose.»

«To please their relatives, you suppose!» This he said with

intense scorn. «How will it pleasure their relatives to know

that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place

knows that they be lies? "He pointed to a stone at our feet which

had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close

to the edge of the cliff. «Read the lies on that thruff-stean,» he

said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but

Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read:

«Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the

hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from

the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing

mother to her dearly beloved son. «He was the only son of his

mother, and she was a widow.» Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t

see anything very funny in that!» She spoke her comment very

gravely and somewhat severely.

«Ye don’t see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that’s because ye

don’t gawm the sorrowin’ mother was a hell-cat that hated him

because he was acrewk’d a regular lamiter he was an’ he

hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn’t

get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his

head off with an old musket that they had for scarin’ the crows

with. «Twarn’t for crows then, for it brought the clegs’ and the

dowps to him. That’s the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to

hopes of a glorious resurrection, I’ve often heard him say masel’

that he hoped he’d go to hell, for his mother was so pious that

she’d be sure to go to heaven, an’ he didn’t want to addle where

she was. Now isn’t that stean at any rate" he hammered it with

his stick as he spoke «a pack of lies? and won’t it make Gabriel

keckle when Geordie comes pantin’ up the grees with the tomb-

stean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!»

I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation

as she said, rising up:

«Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and

I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the

grave of a suicide.»

«That won’t harm ye, my pretty; an’ it may make poor Geor-

die gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap. That won’t

hurt ye. Why, I’ve sat here off an’ on for nigh twenty years past.

64 Dracula

an’ it hasn’t done me no harm. Don’t ye fash about them as lies

under ye, or that doesn’ lie there either! It’ll be time for ye to be

getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and

the place as bare as a stubble-field. There’s the clock, an’ I must

gang. My service to ye, ladies!» And off he hobbled.

Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that

we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about

Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little

heart-sick, for I haven’t heard from Jonathan for a whole month.

The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There

was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter

with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights

scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets

are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die

away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off

by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep

and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there

is a clatter of a donkey’s hoofs up the paved road below. The

band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and

further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a

back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I

hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is

thinking of me! I wish he were here.

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

5 June. The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more

I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely

developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get

at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled

scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeem-

ing quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such

curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnorm-

ally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catch-

ing flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had

myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break

out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple

seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: «May I

have three days? I shall clear them away.» Of course, I said that

would do. I must watch him.

18 June. He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got

several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his

Mina Murray’s Journal 65

flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly dimin-

ished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies

from outside to his room.

j July. His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as

his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He

looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of

them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave

him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much

while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some

carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exult-

antly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and,

before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and

ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very

good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave

fife to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must

watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep

problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he

is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled

with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in

batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he

were «focussing» some account, as the auditors put it.

8 Jiily. There is a method in his madness, and the rudimen-

tary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and

then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the

wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for

a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change.

Things remain as they were except that he has parted with

some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a

sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming

is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that

do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies

by tempting them with his food.

ig July. We are progressing. My friend has now a whole

colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliter-

ated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask

me a great favour a very, very great favour; and as he spoke he

fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said,

with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing:

«A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play

with, and teach, and feed and feed and feed!» I was not

66 Dracula

unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets wef. t

on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his

pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same

manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it,

and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten.

His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:

«Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you

should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would

they?» I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it

would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face

fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a

sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an

undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present

craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more.

10 p. m. I have visited him again and found him sitting in a

corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees

before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salva-

tion depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that

he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and

sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found

him. I shall see him in the morning early.

20 July. Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant

went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was

spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and

was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning

it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds,

and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied,

without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were

a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood.

I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if

there were anything odd about him during the day.

11 a. m. The attendant has just been to me to say that

Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of

feathers. «My belief is, doctor,» he said, «that he has eaten his

birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!»

ii p. m. I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough

to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to

look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain

lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac

is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification

Mina Murray’s Journal 67

for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac; what he

desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid

himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many

flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted

a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later

steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experi-

ment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men

sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why

not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect the

knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind

did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic I might

advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with

which Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowl-

edge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause!

I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good

cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an

exceptional brain, congenitally?

How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their

own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at

only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day

begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with

each day of our lives?

To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with

my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be

until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger ac-

count with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot

be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose

happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work.

Work! work!

If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend

there a good, unselfish cause to make me work that would be

indeed happiness.

Mina Murray’s Journal.

26 July. I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself

here; it is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same

time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols

that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy

and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some

time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins,

who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written

asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just

been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and

68 Dracula

says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan;

I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy,

although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walk-

ing in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we

have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night.

Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out

on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get sud-

denly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all

over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy,

and she tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same

nabit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go

out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married hi the autumn,

and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is

to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only

Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simply way, and shall

have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood he is the

Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming is

coming up here very shortly as soon as he can leave town, for

his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting

the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat

on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I

daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right

when he arrives.

2*7 July. No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy

about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish

that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks

more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving

about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she

cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being

wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and

wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy’s health keeps up. Mr. Holm-

wood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has

been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing

him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and

her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anaemic look

which she had. I pray it will all last.

5 August. Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan,

not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do

hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that

last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not

read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of

that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but

Mina Murray’s Journal 69

there is an odd concentration about her which I do not under-

stand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries

the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for

the key.

6 August. Another three days, and no news. This suspense

is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to

go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jona-

than since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience.

Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night

was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a

storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day

is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds,

high over Kettleness. Everything is grey except the green grass,

which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey

clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the

grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers.

The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with

a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost

in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant

rocks, and there is a «brool» over the sea that sounds like some

presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there,

sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem «men like trees

walking.» The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and

dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending

to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight

for me, and I can see, by the way he lif ts his hat, that he wants to

talk

I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man.

When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:

«I want to say something to you, miss.» I could see he was

not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and

asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:

«I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all

the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like,

for weeks past; but I didn’t mean them, and I want ye to remem-

ber that when I’m gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with

one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don’t altogether like to think of it,

and we don’t want to feel scart of it; an’ that’s why I’ve took to

makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit. But,

Lord love ye, miss, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit; only I don’t

want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now,

for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to

70 Dracula

expect; and I’m so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin’

his scythe. Ye see, I can’t get out o’ the habit of caffin’ about it

all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon

the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don’t ye

dooal an’ greet, my deary!» for he saw that I was crying

«if he should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his

call. For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than

what we’re doin '; and death be all that we can rightly depend on.

But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’

quick. It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’.

Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it

loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!» he

cried suddenly. «There’s something in that wind and in the hoast

beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death.

It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful

when my call comes!» He held up his arms devoutly, and raised

his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a

few minutes’ silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed

me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and

upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass

under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does,

but all the time kept looking at a strange ship.

«I can’t make her out,» he said; «she’s a Russian, by the look

of her; but she’s knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn’t

know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can’t

decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here.

Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn’t

mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of

wind. We’ll hear more of her before this time to-morrow.»