News from the Duchy | Page 9

had been
going forward.
He was left alone at length. Even the children had lost interest in him,
and had run off to watch the boats as they crept out on the tide. He
ceased abruptly, came across to the bench where I sat smoking my pipe,
and dropped exhausted beside me. The fire had died out of him. He
eyed me almost shamefacedly at first, by and by more boldly.
"I would give, sir," said Pilot Matthey, "I would give half my worldly
goods to lead you to the Lord."
"I believe you," said I. "To my knowledge you have often risked more
than that--your life--to save men from drowning. But tell me--you that
for twenty minutes have been telling these fellows how Christ feels
towards them--how can you know? It is hard enough, surely, to get
inside any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know what Christ
feels, or felt--for an instance, in the Judgment Hall, when Peter
denied?"
"Once I did, sir," said Pilot Matthey, smoothing the worn knees of his
trousers. "It was just that. I'll tell you:"
"It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on the old Early and
Late--yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldest
daughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw him get
aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was all nervous

about it--my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on the East Coast
after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be back in time for
it--this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so well as we could calculate)
any time between Christmas an' New Year. Well, there was no sacrifice,
as it happened, in startin' for home-- the weather up there keepin'
monstrous, an' the catches not worth the labour. So we turned down
Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul-- south at first, then
west-sou'-west--headin' us all the way, and always blowin' from just
where 'twasn't wanted. This lasted us down to the Wight, and we'd most
given up hope to see home before Christmas, when almost without
warnin' it catched in off the land-- pretty fresh still, but steady--and
bowled us down past the Bill and halfway across to the Start, merry as
heart's delight. Then it fell away again, almost to a flat calm, and
Daniel lost his temper. I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and
Late--nor, for that matter, on any other boat of mine; but if Daniel
didn't swear a bit out of hearin', well then--poor dear fellow, he's dead
and gone these twelve years (yes, sir--drowned)--well then I'm doin'
him an injustice. One couldn't help pitying him, neither. Didn't I know
well enough what it felt like? And the awe of it, to think it's happenin'
everywhere, and ever since world began--men fretting for the wife and
firstborn, and gettin' over it, and goin' down to the grave leavin' the
firstborn to fret over his firstborn! It puts me in mind o' the old hemn,
sir: 'tis in the Wesley books, and I can't think why church folk leave out
the verse--
"The busy tribes o' flesh and blood, With all their cares and fears--"
Ay, 'cares and fears'; that's of it--
"Are carried downward by the flood, And lost in followin' years."
"Poor Daniel--poor boy!"
Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out over the water in the
wake of the boats that already had begun to melt into the shadow of
darkness.
"'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I mind," he resumed. "One o'

those calm spells that happen, as often as not, just about Christmas. I
remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, one Christmas when I passed
you the compliments of the season; and you put it down to kingfishers,
which I thought strange at the time."
"Kingfishers?" echoed I, mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes"--as light
broke on me--"Halcyon days, of course!"
"That's right," Pilot Matthey nodded. "That's what you called 'em. . . . It
took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. Then, about
sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to Bolt Tail, and after that
we mostly drifted all night, with here and there a cat's-paw, down
across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were inside the
Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon we was
just in the very same place. It was Christmas Eve, sir.
"I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion struck me. It was foolish I
hadn't thought of it before.
"'See here, boys,' I says. (There was three. My second son, Sam, Daniel,
and Daniel's brother, Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so.) 'Get out the
boat,' I says,' and we'll tow