The Roll-Call of The Reef | Page 2

till it seemed the whole foreshore was
moving westward under him. The fence was gone, of course; not a stick
left to show where it stood; so that, when first he came to the place, he
thought he must have missed his bearings. My father, sir, was a very
religious man; and if he reckoned the end of the world was at
hand--there in the great wind and night, among the moving stones--you
may believe he was certain of it when he heard a gun fired, and, with
the same, saw a flame shoot up out of the darkness to windward,
making a sudden fierce light in all the place about. All he could find to
think or say was, 'The Second Coming! The Second Coming! The
Bridegroom cometh, and the wicked He will toss like a ball into a large
country'; and being already upon his knees, he just bowed his head and
'bided, saying this over and over.

"But by'm by, between two squalls, he made bold to lift his head and
look, and then by the light--a bluish color 'twas--he saw all the coast
clear away to Manacle Point, and off the Manacles in the thick of the
weather, a sloop-of-war with topgallants housed, driving stern foremost
toward the reef. It was she, of course, that was burning the flare. My
father could see the white streak and the ports of her quite plain as she
rose to it, a little outside the breakers, and he guessed easy enough that
her captain had just managed to wear ship and was trying to force her
nose to the sea with the help of her small bower anchor and the scrap or
two of canvas that hadn't yet been blown out of her. But while he
looked, she fell off, giving her broadside to it foot by foot, and drifting
back on the breakers around Cam Du and the Varses. The rocks lie so
thick thereabout that 'twas a toss up which she struck first; at any rate,
my father could'nt tell at the time, for just then the flare died down and
went out.
"Well, sir, he turned then in the dark and started back for Coverack to
cry the dismal tidings--though well knowing ship and crew to be past
any hope, and as he turned the wind lifted him and tossed him forward
'like a ball,' as he'd been saying, and homeward along the foreshore. As
you know, 'tis ugly work, even by daylight, picking your way among
the stones there, and my father was prettily knocked about at first in the
dark. But by this 'twas nearer seven than six o'clock, and the day
spreading. By the time he reached North Corner, a man could see to
read print; hows'ever, he looked neither out to sea nor toward Coverack,
but headed straight for the first cottage--the same that stands above
North Corner to-day. A man named Billy Ede lived there then, and
when my father burst into the kitchen bawling, 'Wreck! wreck!' he saw
Billy Ede's wife, Ann, standing there in her clogs with a shawl over her
head, and her clothes wringing wet.
"'Save the chap!' says Billy Ede's wife, Ann.
"'What d'ee mean by crying stale fish at that rate?'
"'But 'tis a wreck, I tell 'ee.'
"'Ive a-zeed 'n, too; and so has every one with an eye in his head.'

"And with that she pointed straight over my father's shoulder, and he
turned; and there, close under Dolor Point, at the end of Coverack town,
he saw another wreck washing, and the point black with people, like
emmets, running to and fro in the morning light. While he stood staring
at her, he heard a trumpet sounded on board, the notes coming in little
jerks, like a bird rising against the wind; but faintly, of course, because
of the distance and the gale blowing--though this had dropped a little.
"'She's a transport,' said Billy Ede's wife, Ann, 'and full of
horse-soldiers, fine long men. When she struck they must ha' pitched
the horses over first to lighten the ship, for a score of dead horses had
washed in afore I left, half an hour back. An' three or four soldiers,
too--fine long corpses in white breeches and jackets of blue and gold. I
held the lantern to one. Such a straight young man!'
"My father asked her about the trumpeting.
"'That's the queerest bit of all. She was burnin' a light when me an' my
man joined the crowd down there. All her masts had gone; whether
they carried away, or were cut away to ease her, I don't rightly know.
Her keelson was broke under her and her bottom sagged and stove, and
she had just settled down like a sitting hen--just the