A LIFE POEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9455, 10 March 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

A LIFE POEM.

[by hall caink.]

Charlie was the cox. of our Peel lifeboat. We buried him to-day. A braver sailor never sailed the sea. Four years ago, in a terrific gale, a ship from Norway, the St. George, came dead on for the wildest part of our coast, the fierce headland that lies back of the old Castle Rock. The soundfiignal was fired, and Charlie and his brave comrades went out to her. She was reeling on the top of a tremendous sea, and there was no coming near to her side. It was an awful task to get the crew aboard the lifeboat, but Charlie saved every soul and lost nob a haudof his own. When the " traveller" was rigged and the "breeches" were ready, and the crew of the doomed ship were at the bulwarks waiting to leave her, Charlie sang out over the clamour of the sea, "How many are . you ?" Twentyfour," came back as answer. Then Charlie cried, "I can see only twenty-three." " The other man is hurt. He's dying. No use saving him,".the Norseman shouted. " You'll bring the dying man on deck before a soul of you leaves the ship," cried Charlie. _ There was a woman among them, and when the carpenter came scudding down the -rope he had a canvas bag on his back. "No tools hero," shouted Charlie. It's the child," said the man. The captain came next. He had left everything else behind him—his money, his instruments, his clothes, his ship, bub out of his pocket there peeped the head of a baby's doll. It was a thrilling rescuo, but to see it in all its splendour you must have a drop of Manx blood in you. Our forefathers wore from Norway, our first Norse king was named Gorry. He landed on this island, not far from this spot. And now his children's children rescue from the sea the children's children of the kinsmen he left at home. Most of our men had Norse names. Ono of them was a Gorry—lineal descendant, beyond doubt, of the old seaking, The Norwegian Government felt the touch of great things in this incident. It was not merely that the bravery of the rescue fired their gratitude. Something called to them from that deep place where blood answers to the cry of blood. They sent medals for Charlie and his crew, and the Governor of the island distributed them inside the roofless walls of the old Castle of the Black Dog.. It was like grasping hands with the past across the space of a thousand years.

ANOTHER BRAVE RESCUE. The other day we had another great wind and another brave rescue. The sun had gone down overnight in a sullen red, very fierce and angry in his setting, and out of the black north the storm had come up while wo slept. In the heavy groy of the dawn the sound-signal fired its double shot over the town. A We'sh schooner, Which had run in for shelter during the dark hours, was riding to an anchor in the

bay and flying her ensign for help. The sea was terrific—a slaty grey, streaked with white foam, like quartz veins. It was coming over the breakwater in sheets that hid it. Sometimes it was flying in clouds to the top of the round tower of the Castle. The white sea-fowl were like dark specks darting through it, but no human ear could hear the cry of their throats in the thunderous quake of the breakers on the cavernous racks. A crowd of men answered the call, and there was no shortness of hands to man the lifeboat. The big slowlegged fellows who had been idling on the quay the day before, when the sea was calm, were struggling, chafing, and quarrelling to go out on it now that it was in storm, tor the blood of the old Vikings is in them still. It was a splendid rescue. The crew of the Welshman were brought ashore. Then the abandoned schooner rode three hours longer in the gale; and a hundred mem stood and watched her, talking of other winds and other wrecks, and of Peel boys who were out on the sea. At last the ship parted her cables, and wont rolling like a blinded porpoise dead on for the jagged - coast. Seven men took an open fishing-boat and went after her, and wo climbed the head to watch them. The wind smote us there like an invisible wing, sometimes swirling us out of our course, often bringing us to our knees, and whipping our ears with our hair like rods, Sheets of spray were coming up to us from below, and running along the cliffs like driven rain. The sun, which had broken in fierce brilliance from a green rent in the sky, made rainbows in the flying foam. From the heights wo watched the seven men and the open boat. They rose and fell, appeared and disappeared, bub they overtook the Welshman before she had drifted on to the coast, boarded her with difficulty, let go another anchor, and made her tight. There was nothing else to do, for she was disabled, and her sails were torn to shreds. The new anchor held the ship an hour longer, and then there was no help left for her. She was within a hundred feeb of the rocks, and she fell on them with the groan of a living creature. The instant her head was down

the white Hons of the sea leapt over her, the water swirled through her bulwarks and plunged down her hatch ; her helm was unshipped, her sails wore torn from their gaskets, and the floating home wherein men had sailed and sung and slept, and laughed and jested, was a broken wreck, in the heavy wallowings of the waves. " wasn't he oox. ?"

When ib was over, and we were coming back drenched through and green with the drift of the sea-foam caked thick on our

faces, some of us began to think of Charlie. He had not been there that day. A year or more ago, in the prime of a splendid manhood, he was stricken by heart disease. He kept a good heart, nevertheless, and by indomitable will held on for some time. First a little work, then no work at all, only a sail now and then if the sea was calm, but of late hardly ever well enough to take the open air. The old hulk of his poor body was anchored deep, but she was parting her cables ab last. Charlie lay dying while this second rescue was being made. He had nob answered the signal for the lifeboat, but he had heard it in the first light of morning, and they could nob keep him in bed. The soul of the old sea-dog leapt to the call, but his ailing body held him down. Ho wanted to go out. Wasn't he

cox. ? Had the boat ever gone out without him ? They had difficulty to keep him from the attempt. His house is one of the little places like children's Noah'a Arks which dob the line of this hungry shore. He could hear everything and see a good deal. Often he could hardly keep himself from crying and shouting aloud. In spirib he was out on the boiling surf, dipping, rising, Stooping, going over, righting again, clambering back, exalting, glorying, getting nearer the ship, standing off her, rigging the *' traveller," and retching the men aboard in the " breeches." And them away from the rolling hulk, and sing ho ! my lads, and haul through the white waves for home. Bub his poor dying body was down on the bed, and his face was sicklyscarlet.

Charley's volcanic soul did nob go off to the deep of deeps on the big breakers and through the wild noises of the storm. He died later. After the great; wind there came a great calm. The air was quiet and full of odour of seaweed ; banks of seaweed were on the shore, and the broken schooner was covered with brown wrack like any rock of the coast; the sky was round as the inside of a shell, and pale-pink like the shadow of flame; the water was smooth, and land and sea lay like a sleeping child. In this broad and steady weather our little town was startled by the double shot again. We wenb to the windows in surprise, and saw the red flag over the rockethouse, which is the signal for the lifeboat. Charlie was dead. He had just breathed his last, and his rugged comrades—who know nothing of poetry, but are poets, nevertheless, to the deepest grain of them —had run up the flag mast-high (not half-maßt) as signal to the Great Cox. of all that here was a soul in the troubled waters of death waiting: for the everlasting lifeboat to bear him to the eternal shore, 1