The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands | Page 4

on hearsay, and whose taste in colour was violently
eccentric. This remarkable thing had one immense mast in the middle
of it, supported by six stays, like the Norse galleys of old, but it had no
yards; for, although the sea was indeed its home, and it incessantly
braved the fury of the storm, diurnally cleft the waters of flood and

ebb-tide, and gallantly breasted the billows of ocean all the year round,
it had no need of sails. It never advanced an inch on its course, for it
had no course. It never made for any port. It was never either
homeward or outward bound. No streaming eyes ever watched its
departure; no beating hearts ever hailed its return. Its bowsprit never
pointed either to "Greenland's icy mountains, or India's coral strand,"
for it had no bowsprit at all. Its helm was never swayed to port or
starboard, although it had a helm, because the vessel turned submissive
with the tides, and its rudder, being lashed hard and fast
amidships--like most weather-cocks--couldn't move. Its doom was to
tug perpetually, day and night, from year to year, at a gigantic anchor
which would not let go, and to strain at a monster chain-cable which
would not snap--in short, to strive for ever, like Sisyphus, after
something which can never be attained.
A sad destiny, some may be tempted to exclaim. No, reader, not so sad
as it appears. We have presented but one side of the picture. That
curious, almost ridiculous-looking craft, was among the aristocracy of
shipping. Its important office stamped it with nobility. It lay there,
conspicuous in its royal colour, from day to day and year to year, to
mark the fair-way between the white cliffs of Old England and the
outlying shoals--distinguished in daylight by a huge ball at its
mast-head, and at night by a magnificent lantern with argand lamps and
concave reflectors, which shot its rays like lightning far and wide over
the watery waste, while, in thick weather, when neither ball nor light
could be discerned, a sonorous gong gave its deep-toned warning to the
approaching mariner, and let him know his position amid the
surrounding dangers. Without such warnings by night and by day, the
world would suffer the loss of thousands of lives and untold millions of
gold. Indeed the mere absence of such warnings for one stormy night
would certainly result in loss irreparable to life and property. As well
might Great Britain dispense with her armies as with her floating lights!
That boiled-lobster-like craft was also, if we may be allowed to say so,
stamped with magnanimity, because its services were disinterested and
universal. While other ships were sailing grandly to their ports in all
their canvas panoply, and swelling with the pride of costly merchandise
within, each unmindful of the other, this ship remained floating there,

destitute of cargo, either rich or poor, never in port, always on service,
serene in all the majesty of her one settled self-sacrificing purpose--to
guide the converging navies of the world safely past the dangerous
shoals that meet them on their passage to the world's greatest port, the
Thames, or to speed them safely thence when outward-bound. That
unclipperly craft, moreover, was a gallant vessel, because its post was
one of danger. When other ships fled on the wings of terror--or of
storm trysails--to seek refuge in harbour and roadstead, this one merely
lengthened her cable--as a knight might shake loose the reins of his
war-horse on the eve of conflict--and calmly awaited the issue,
prepared to let the storm do its worst, and to meet it with a bold front. It
lay right in the Channel, too, "i' the imminent deadly breach," as it were,
prepared to risk encounter with the thousands of ships, great and small,
which passed to and fro continually;--to be grazed and fouled by
clumsy steersmen, and to be run into at night by unmanageable wrecks
or derelicts; ready for anything in fact--come weal come woe, blow
high blow low--in the way of duty, for this vessel was the Floating
Light that marked the Gull-stream off the celebrated and fatal Goodwin
Sands.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE FLOATING LIGHT BECOMES THE SCENE OF FLOATING
SURMISES AND VAGUE SUSPICIONS.
It must not be supposed, from what has been said, that the Gull
Lightship was the only vessel of the kind that existed at that time. But
she was a good type of the class of vessels (numbering at present about
sixty) to which she belonged, and, both as regarded her situation and
duties, was, and still is, one of the most interesting among the floating
lights of the kingdom.
When the keen-eyed traveller stepped upon her well-scrubbed deck, he
was courteously received by the mate, Mr John Welton, a strongly-built
man above