Captain Mugford | Page 6

storehouse, or perhaps dwelling for labourers. A shipwreck! a real wreck! and on our cape! stranded on the very shore of our Robinson Crusoe-like paradise! Just imagine our excitement.
The particulars of the wreck were as follows:--A brig of 300 tons burden, on a voyage from South America to the Thames, having lost her reckoning in consequence of several days' heavy gale and thick weather, suddenly made the light on the Lizard, and as quickly lost it again in the fog which surrounded her. The captain, mistaking the light he had seen for some other well-known beacon, set his course accordingly. That was near nine o'clock in the evening. The wind and tide helped him on the course steered, and a little after midnight the misguided brig struck on a rock three-quarters of a mile south-west of our point of land. The wind had then increased to a gale, and was gathering new strength with every moment. In less than an hour the thumping and grating of the vessel's keel ceased, and then the captain knew that the rising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig was leaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her--whither the captain knew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suction of the shore current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection of our cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she passed through them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by the fierce waves. The next day, when the storm had abated, the body was found far above where the brig lay fastened immovably in the vice-like fissure of enormous rocks. Twenty sovereigns, which perhaps the poor fellow had saved to bring home to his old mother, were found in a belt around his waist.
The damaged cargo was removed, and the wreck sold at auction, my father being the purchaser.
There was an old church situated on the summit of a neighbouring point of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on the stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied long, long histories of what might have been that sailor's life; and I wondered sadly if the poor mother knew where her son's grave was, and whether she would ever come to look at it. On the stone was written:--
HARRY BREESE LIES HERE, NEAR WHERE A CRUEL SHIPWRECK CAST HIM, MARCH 23RD, 1814: AGED 24 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 17 DAYS. REST IN PEACE, POOR BODY; THY SHIPMATE, SOUL, HAS GONE ALOFT, WHERE THY DEAR CAPTAIN, JESUS, IS.
By the 7th May everything was prepared for our departure. On the next morning early we were to start in the stage-coach, and, what had lately added to our brilliant anticipations, Harry and Alfred Higginson, two of our most intimate friends, were to go with us--to be with us all the summer, join our studies and our fun. But we were to separate from our father and mother, and from our dear sister Aggie and the little Charley--from all those dear ones from whom we had never been parted for a day and night before. We were to leave for half a year. All this, covered at first by the hopes and fancies we had built, and by the noise and activity of preparation, appeared then, when everything was packed, and we, the evening before the journey, drew our chairs about the tea-table. The prospect of such a magnificent time as we expected to have on the cape lost some of its brilliancy. Indeed, I positively regretted that we were to go. We boys were as hushed as frightened mice.
After tea, Drake and I got very close to our mother on the sofa, but Walter lounged nervously about, trying to appear, I think, as if such an affair--a parting for six months--were nothing to such a big fellow as he. Aggie came and held my hand. When our father had taken his usual seat, he and our mother commenced to give us careful instructions how we were to regulate our time and conduct during our separation from them; we were directed about our lessons, clothes, language, and play; to be kind and patient with Clump and Juno; and very particular were our orders about the new tutor, Mr Clare, to whom we had been formally introduced a few days before, and we were required to