The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands | Page 9

steer clear of him on
mere suspicion."
"No doubt," replied Jim, with some hesitation in his tone, "but there are
circumstances--"
"There you go again with your `circumstances,'" exclaimed Welton

senior with some asperity; "why don't you heave circumstances
overboard, rig the pumps and make a clean breast of it? Surely it's
better to do that than let the ship go to the bottom!"
"Because, father, the circumstances don't all belong to myself. Other
people's affairs keep my tongue tied. I do assure you that if it concerned
only myself, I would tell you everything; and, indeed, when the right
time comes, I promise to tell you all--but in the meantime I-- I--"
"Jim," said Mr Welton, senior, stopping suddenly and confronting his
stalwart son, "tell me honestly, now, isn't there a pretty girl mixed up in
this business?"
Jim stood speechless, but a mantling flush, which the rays of the
revolving light deepened on his sunburnt countenance, rendered speech
unnecessary.
"I knew it," exclaimed the mate, resuming his walk and thrusting his
hands deeper into the pockets of his coat, "it never was otherwise since
Adam got married to Eve. Whatever mischief is going you're sure to
find a woman underneath the very bottom of it, no matter how deep you
go! If it wasn't that the girls are at the bottom of everything good as
well as everything bad, I'd be glad to see the whole bilin of 'em made
fast to all the sinkers of all the buoys along the British coast and sent to
the bottom of the North Sea."
"I suspect that if that were done," said Jim, with a laugh, "you'd soon
have all the boys on the British coast making earnest inquiries after
their sinkers! But after all, father, although the girls are hard upon us
sometimes, you must admit that we couldn't get on without 'em."
"True for ye, boy," observed Jerry MacGowl, who, coming up at that
moment, overheard the conclusion of the sentence. "It's mesilf as
superscribes to that same. Haven't the swate creeturs led me the life of a
dog; turned me inside out like an owld stockin', trod me in the dust as if
I was benaith contimpt an' riven me heart to mortial tatters, but I
couldn't get on widout 'em nohow for all that. As the pote might say, av
he only knowd how to putt it in proper verse:--

"`Och, woman dear, ye darlin', It's I would iver be Yer praises
caterwaulin' In swaitest melodee!'"
"Mind your own business, Jerry," said the mate, interrupting the flow
of the poet's inspiration.
"Sure it's that same I'm doin', sir," replied the man, respectfully
touching his cap as he advanced towards the gong that surrounded the
windlass and uncovered it. "Don't ye see the fog a-comin' down like the
wolf on the fold, an' ain't it my dooty to play a little tshune for the
benefit o' the public?"
Jerry hit the instrument as he spoke and drowned his own voice in its
sonorous roar. He was driven from his post, however, by Dick Moy,
one of the watch, who, having observed the approaching fog had gone
forward to sound the gong, and displayed his dislike to interference by
snatching the drumstick out of Jerry's hand and hitting him a smart
blow therewith on the top of his head.
As further conversation was under the circumstances impossible, John
Welton and his son retired to the cabin, where the former detailed to the
latter the visit of the strange gentleman with the keen grey eyes, and the
conversation that had passed between them regarding Morley Jones.
Still the youth remained unmoved, maintaining that suspicion was not
proof, although he admitted that things now looked rather worse than
they had done before.
While the father and son were thus engaged, a low moaning wail and
an unusual heave of the vessel caused them to hasten on deck, just as
one of the watch put his head down the hatch and shouted, "A squall,
sir, brewing up from the nor'-east."
CHAPTER THREE.
A DISTURBED NIGHT; A WRECK AND AN UNEXPECTED
RESCUE.
The aspect of the night had completely changed. The fog had cleared

away; heavy clouds rolled athwart the sky; a deeper darkness
descended on the shipping at anchor in the Downs, and a gradually
increasing swell caused the Gull to roll a little and tug uneasily at her
cable. Nevertheless the warning light at her mast-head retained its
perpendicular position in consequence of a clever adaptation of
mechanism on the principle of the universal joint.
With the rise of the swell came the first rush of the squall.
"If they don't send the boat at once, you'll have to spend the night with
us, Jim," said the mate, looking anxiously in the direction