The Toilers of the Sea (25 page)

No: no one should go to the Douvres. The engines must be abandoned along with the rest of the ship. No such savior as was required would present himself. Where was such a man to be found?

This, expressed in different words, was the gist of the murmured conversations among those present.

The skipper of the
Shealtiel,
who had once been a pilot, expressed the general view:

“No, there's nothing more to be done. There is no one who will go out there and bring back the Durande's engines.”

“Since I am not going,” added Imbrancam, “it means that no one can go.”

The skipper shook his left hand in a gesture expressing his conviction that the thing was impossible, and went on:

“If there were such a man—”

Déruchette turned round:

“—I would marry him,” she said.

There was a silence.

A man came forward, his face ashy pale, and said:

“You would marry him, Miss Déruchette?”

It was Gilliatt.

All eyes were turned on him. Mess Lethierry had drawn himself up to his full height. There was a strange light in his eye. He took off his seaman's cap and flung it on the ground, looked solemnly in front of him without seeing any of those who were present, and said:

“Déruchette would marry him. I give my word of honor to God.”

II

GREAT ASTONISHMENT ON THE WEST COAST

The moon was due to rise at ten that night; but however favorable the night, the wind, and the sea, no fishermen meant to go out either from La Hougue la Perre, nor from Bordeaux harbor, nor from Houmet Benet, nor from Le Platon, nor from Port Grat, nor from Vazon Bay, nor from Perelle Bay, nor from Pezeries, nor from Les Tielles, nor from Saint's Bay, nor from Petit-Bô, nor from any port or harbor on Guernsey. The reason was very simple: the cock had crowed at midday.

When the cock crows at an unusual time there are no fish to be had that day.

That evening, however, as night was falling, a fisherman returning to Omptolle had a surprise. As he came past Houmet Paradis, with the Platte Fougère buoy, which is in the form of an inverted funnel, on his left and the St. Sampson buoy, in the form of a man, on his right, he thought he detected a third buoy. What was this buoy, he wondered? Who had set it at that particular point? What hidden shoal was it marking? The buoy provided an immediate answer to his questions: it was moving; it was a mast. This by no means lessened the fisherman's astonishment. A buoy would have been cause for wonder; a mast even more.

No one could be fishing that day. When everyone was coming in, someone was putting out.

Who could it be? And why was he going out to sea?

Ten minutes later the mast, moving slowly, came within a short distance of the fisherman from Omptolle. He was unable to recognize the boat. He heard the sound of oars. He could make out only two oars, so there was probably only one man on board. The wind was northerly, and the man was evidently rowing out to catch the breeze beyond Fontenelle Point. There, probably, he would put on sail. So he was intending to round L'Ancresse and Mont Crevel. Whither was he bound?

The mast passed on its way, and the fisherman returned to port.

That same night, at different points along the west coast of Guernsey and at different times, a number of people observed a boat moving out at sea.

Just as the fisherman from Omptolle was mooring his boat, a man carting seaweed half a mile farther on was whipping his horses along the lonely Les Clôtures road, near the standing stones between Martello towers 6 and 7, when he saw a sail being hoisted some distance out at sea, in an area toward the Roque Nord and the Sablonneuse, which was little frequented because it required familiarity with these dangerous waters. He paid little heed to it, being more interested in carts than in boats.

Perhaps half an hour later a plasterer returning from his work in the town and skirting the Mare Pelée saw almost in front of him a boat daringly maneuvering amid the Quenon, Rousse de Mer, and Gripe de Rousse rocks. It was a dark night but it was light over the sea—an effect that commonly occurs—and it was possible to distinguish movements out at sea. The only craft visible was this boat.

A little later, and a little farther down the coast, a man setting his crayfish pots on the sandbank between Port Soif and Portinfer wondered why a boat was picking its way between the Boue Corneille
¹⁴⁹
and the Moulrette. You had to be a good pilot and in a great hurry to get somewhere to venture on that passage.

As eight o'clock was striking on the Câtel church the landlord of the tavern in Côbo Bay was astonished to see a sail beyond the Boue du Jardin and the Grunettes, close to the Suzanne and the Grunes de l'Ouest.

A little way beyond Côbo Bay, on the lonely Hommet promontory that bounds Vazon Bay, two lovers were taking a lingering farewell of each other. At the moment when the girl was saying to the boy: “I've got to go; it's not because I want to leave you but because I've house-work to do,” they were distracted from their parting kiss by a large boat that passed close to them, making for the Messellettes.

About nine o'clock that evening Monsieur Le Peyre des Norgiots, of Le Cotillon Pipet, was examining a hole made by marauders in the hedge around his field, La Jennerotte, and his little plantation of trees. While investigating the damage he could not help noticing a boat rounding Crocq Point—a reckless thing to do at that time of night.

The course followed by the boat was a risky one on the day after a storm, when the sea had still not settled down. It was an unwise venture except for a man who knew by heart the channels between the rocks.

At half-past nine, at the Équerrier, a trawler hauling in its net paused briefly to watch what appeared to be a boat making its way between Colombelle and the Souffleresse. It was a hazardous thing to do, for in that area there are sometimes sudden gusts of wind that are very dangerous. The Souffleresse, the Blower, is so called because it directs these sudden bursts of wind against passing boats.

At the moment when the moon was rising, the tide being fully in and slack in the little strait of Lihou, the solitary watchman on Lihou Island was much alarmed by the sight of a long black shape passing between the moon and him, a tall, narrow black shape that looked like a shroud standing erect and moving forward. It glided along above the wall-like ridges of rock. The watchman thought it was the White Lady.

The White Lady inhabits the Tas de Pois d'Amont, the Gray Lady inhabits the Tas de Pois d'Aval, the Red Lady inhabits the Silleuse, to the north of the Banc Marquis, and the Black Lady inhabits the Grand Étacré, to the west of the Hommet. These ladies come out at night, in the moonlight, and sometimes meet one another.

The black shape could, of course, be a sail. The long barrier of rocks along which it seemed to be walking might be concealing the hull of a boat sailing along beyond the rocks, showing only its sail. But the watchman wondered what boat would risk the passage between Lihou and the Pécheresse and between the Angullières and L'Érée Point. And why was she sailing that way? It seemed to the watchman more likely that it was the Black Lady.

Just after the moon passed the tower of St. Peter-in-the-Wood, the sergeant in Rocquaine Castle, while pulling up the inner half of the drawbridge, saw at the mouth of the bay, beyond the Haute Canée but not so far out as the Sambule, a sailing vessel that seemed to be dropping down from north to south.

On the south coast of Guernsey, beyond Pleinmont, in a bay fringed by cliffs and rock faces falling steeply down to the sea, is a curious little harbor that a Frenchman who has lived on the island since 1855—perhaps indeed the author of these lines—has christened the “harbor on the fourth floor,” a name that is now in general use. This harbor, which was originally called the Moye, is a rocky plateau, partly natural and partly shaped by man, some forty feet above the sea, communicating with the waves by two heavy beams forming an inclined plane. Boats are hauled up from the sea and launched into it on the beams, which are like two rails, with the help of chains and pulleys. For men there is a flight of steps. In those days the harbor was much used by smugglers. Being difficult of access, it suited their purposes.

About eleven o'clock a number of smugglers—perhaps the very men with whom Clubin had been expecting to travel—were gathered, along with their bales of goods, on the summit of the Moye plateau. Those who live by dishonesty need to be always on the alert; and the smugglers were keeping a good lookout. They were surprised to see a sail suddenly emerging from behind the black outline of Pleinmont Point. It was moonlight. The smugglers watched it closely, fearing that it might be a party of coastguardsmen on their way to lie in ambush behind the Great Hanois. But the sail passed beyond the Great Hanois, leaving the Boue Blondel behind it to the northwest, and disappeared into the pallid mists on the horizon.

“Where the devil can that boat be heading for?” the smugglers wondered.

That evening, just after sunset, someone was heard knocking at the door of the house at the Bû de la Rue. It was a boy dressed in brown with yellow stockings, indicating that he was a junior clerk employed by the parish. The house was closed up and shuttered. An old woman prowling about the beach with a lantern in quest of shellfish called to the boy:

“What do you want, boy?”

“The man of the house.”

“He isn't there.”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know.”

“Has he gone away?”

“I don't know.”

“The new rector of the parish, the Reverend Ebenezer Caudray, wants to come and see him.”

“I don't know.”

“The reverend has sent me to ask if the man who lives at the Bû de la Rue will be in tomorrow morning.”

“I don't know.”

III

DO NOT TEMPT THE BIBLE

For the next twenty-four hours Mess Lethierry neither slept nor ate nor drank. He kissed Déruchette on the forehead, asked after Clubin, of whom nothing had been heard, signed a declaration that he did not intend to lodge a complaint against anyone and had Tangrouille released from prison.

For the whole of the following day he remained in the Durande's office, half leaning on the table, neither standing nor sitting, answering quietly when anyone spoke to him. People's curiosity now being satisfied, no one came to Les Bravées. There is a fair measure of curiosity involved in the urge to offer sympathy. The door of the house remained closed, and Lethierry was left alone with Déruchette. The gleam that had flickered in Lethierry's eyes had been extinguished, and the gloomy air he had worn when he first heard of the catastrophe had returned.

Déruchette, anxious for him, had, on the suggestion of Grace and Douce, put beside him on the table, without saying a word, a pair of socks he had been knitting when the bad news arrived.

He gave a bitter smile, saying: “So they think I'm childish.”

After a quarter of an hour's silence he added:

“These things are all very well when you are not in trouble.”

Déruchette had removed the socks, and at the same time had taken away the compass and the ship's papers, on which he had been brooding too much.

That afternoon, a little before teatime, the door opened and two men dressed in black came in; one was old, the other young.

The younger man, it may be remembered, has already appeared in the course of our story.

Both men had an air of gravity, but of different kinds of gravity. The old man had what might be called the gravity of his position, the young one the gravity of his nature. One comes from a man's dress, the other from his mind.

As their garments indicated, both were clergymen belonging to the established church. The first thing in the appearance of the younger man that might have struck an observer was that his air of profound gravity, evidently springing from his mind, was not reflected in his person. Gravity is not inconsistent with passion, which it purifies and exalts; but the most striking characteristic of this young man was his personal beauty. As he was a priest he must have been at least twentyfive, but he looked like eighteen. He showed the harmony, and also the contrast, between a soul that seemed made for passion and a body made for love. He was fair-haired, pink-complexioned, fresh, neat, and lithe in his severe attire, with the cheeks of a girl and delicate hands. He had a lively and natural manner, though repressed. He was all charm, elegance, and almost sensuousness. The beauty of his expression redeemed this excess of grace. His frank smile, revealing the small teeth of a child, was thoughtful and devout. He had the gracefulness of a page and the dignity of a bishop.

Under his full head of fair hair, so golden that it seemed overattractive for a man, was a high, frank, and well-shaped forehead. A double wrinkle between his eyebrows created something of the appearance of a bird—the bird of thought—hovering with outspread wings on his forehead.

He had the appearance of one of those generous, pure, and innocent natures that develop in the opposite direction from the ordinary run of men, gaining wisdom from illusion and enthusiasm from experience.

His appearance of youth was transparent, allowing his inner maturity to shine through. Compared with his companion, the older clergyman, he seemed at first sight the son, at a second glance the father.

His companion was none other than the Reverend Dr. Jaquemin Hérode. Dr. Hérode belonged to the High Church, which is a kind of popish system without a pope. In those days the Church of England was agitated by the trends that have since been confirmed and condensed in the form of Puseyism. Dr. Hérode was of that school of thought, which is almost a variant of the Church of Rome. He was tall, very proper, stiff, and commanding. There was little sign of his inner vision in his outward appearance. He was more concerned with the letter than with the spirit of his faith. He had a rather haughty demeanor and an imposing presence. He was more like a monsignore than an Anglican clergyman; his frock coat had something of the cut of a cassock. His true spiritual home would have been Rome: he was a born prelate of the antechamber. He seemed to have been created on purpose to adorn a papal court, to walk behind the gestatorial chair, with all the pontifical train, in abito paonazzo.
¹⁵⁰
The accident of having been born an Englishman and a theological training directed more toward the Old than the New Testament had put that great destiny beyond his reach. All his splendors amounted only to being rector of St. Peter Port, dean of the island of Guernsey, and suffragan to the bishop of Winchester. This, to be sure, was glory enough.

This glory did not prevent Mr. Jaquemin Hérode from being, all in all, a good man.

As a theologian he stood high in the estimation of experts in this field, and was a man of weight in the Court of Arches, the English equivalent of the Sorbonne.
¹⁵¹

He had the air of a scholar, an authoritative way of screwing up his eyes, hairy nostrils, prominent teeth, a thin upper lip and a thick lower one, several academic degrees, a good living, titled friends, the confidence of the bishop, and a Bible always in his pocket.

Mess Lethierry was so completely absorbed that his only reaction to the arrival of the two clergymen was an imperceptible frown.

Dr. Hérode came forward, bowed, said a few words about his recent promotion in a tone of sober pride, and explained that he had come, in accordance with custom, to introduce to the leading men of the parish, and to Mess Lethierry in particular, his successor, the new rector of St. Sampson, the Reverend Ebenezer Caudray, who would now be Mess Lethierry's pastor.

Déruchette rose.

The younger clergyman, who was the Reverend Ebenezer, bowed.

Mess Lethierry looked at him and muttered under his breath: “Not much of a seaman.”

Grace set out chairs and the two clergyman sat down near the table.

Dr. Hérode now embarked on a speech. He had heard that a great misfortune had occurred. The Durande had been wrecked. He had therefore come, as pastor, to offer consolation and counsel. This shipwreck was unfortunate, but was also beneficial. Let us look in our hearts: were we not puffed up with prosperity? The waters of felicity are dangerous. Misfortunes must be taken in good part. The ways of the Lord are mysterious. Mess Lethierry was ruined, no doubt; but to be rich is to be in danger. You have false friends; they leave you when you fall into poverty, and you remain alone. Solus eris.
¹⁵²
The Durande was said to have brought in a thousand pounds sterling a year. That is too much for a wise man. Let us flee temptation and disdain mere gold. Let us accept with gratitude ruin and abandonment. Isolation brings much of good; it wins us the favor of the Lord. It was in solitude that Ajah found the hot waters while leading the asses of his father Zibeon.
¹⁵³
Let us not rebel against the impenetrable decrees of Providence. The holy man Job had increased in wealth after his misfortunes. Who knows but that the loss of the Durande might have compensations, even temporal compensations? For example he, Dr. Jaquemin Hérode, had invested some money in a very promising affair that was under way in Sheffield, and if Mess Lethierry were to join in the enterprise with what money remained to him he would recover his fortune: it was a large order for the supply of arms to the Tsar, who was then engaged in the repression of the revolutionary movement in Poland. There would be a profit of 300 percent.

The mention of the Tsar seemed to rouse Lethierry from his abstraction. He interrupted Dr. Hérode:

“I want nothing to do with the Tsar.”

The clergyman replied:

“Mess Lethierry, princes are part of God's plan. It is written: Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. The Tsar is Caesar.”

Lethierry, falling back into his reverie, muttered:

“Caesar? Who is Caesar? I know nothing about him.”

The Reverend Dr. Hérode resumed his exhortation. He did not pursue the Sheffield plan. A man who would have nothing to do with the Tsar must be a republican, and he realized that some people might be republicans. In that case Mess Lethierry should think of going to live in a republic. He would be able to restore his fortunes in the United States even more easily than in England. To multiply his remaining money tenfold he need only take shares in the great company that was developing plantations in Texas, employing more than twenty thousand slaves.

“I want nothing to do with slavery,” said Lethierry.

“Slavery,” replied Dr. Hérode, “was instituted by divine authority. It is written: If a master smites his slave he shall not be punished, for it is his money.”

Grace and Douce, standing at the door, were drinking in the reverend doctor's words in a kind of ecstasy.

Dr. Hérode continued with his discourse. As we have said, he was, all in all, a good man, and in spite of all social and personal differences between him and Mess Lethierry, he had come with the sincere desire to offer him all the spiritual, and indeed also temporal, aid within his power.

If Mess Lethierry was so completely ruined that he was unable to contemplate any financial speculation, whether Russian or American, why should he not take up salaried employment under government? There were some good places to be had, and the reverend doctor was ready to put forward Mess Lethierry's name for one of them. As it happened, there was a vacancy in the office of deputy viscount
¹⁵⁴
on Jersey. Mess Lethierry was popular and respected, and the Reverend Dr. Hérode, dean of Guernsey and suffragan of the bishop, was sure that he could secure this post for him. The deputy viscount was an officer of considerable standing; he was present, as the representative of His Majesty, at meetings of the Court of Chief Pleas, at the deliberations of the Cohue, and at executions.

Lethierry looked Dr. Hérode in the eye. “I am against hanging,” he said.

The reverend doctor had hitherto spoken in the same level tone, but now his voice took on a new and sharper intonation:

“Mess Lethierry, the death penalty has been divinely ordained. God has given man the sword. It is written: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

The Reverend Ebenezer drew his chair imperceptibly closer to the Reverend Jaquemin's chair and said, in a whisper that could be heard by no one else:

“What this man says is put in his mouth.”

“By whom? By what?” asked the Reverend Jaquemin in the same tone.

“By his conscience,” whispered the Reverend Ebenezer.

Dr. Hérode felt in his pocket, brought out a small, thick volume closed with clasps, laid it on the table, and said:

“
There
is your conscience.”

The book was the Bible.

The reverend doctor's voice now took on a gentler tone. His wish, he said, was to help Mess Lethierry, for whom he had a great respect. As a pastor, he had the right and the duty to give counsel; but Mess Lethierry was free to decide for himself.

Mess Lethierry, who had sunk back into his absorption and depression, was not listening. Déruchette, who was sitting near him and was also deep in thought, did not raise her eyes, bringing to this conversation, not very lively in itself, the additional embarrassment of her silent presence. A witness who does not speak is a burden on any encounter. The reverend doctor, however, did not appear to notice it.

When Lethierry did not reply, Dr. Hérode continued with his exhortations. Counsel comes from man, he said, but inspiration comes from God. In the counsel given by a priest there is an element of inspiration. It is wise to accept counsel and dangerous to reject it. Sochoth was seized by eleven devils for scorning the exhortations of Nathaniel. Tiburianus was stricken by leprosy for driving the apostle Andrew from his house. Barjesus, magician though he was, was struck blind for laughing at Saint Paul's words. Elkesai and his sisters Martha and Marthena are in Hell for rejecting the admonitions of Valentianus, who proved, as clear as daylight, that their thirty-eight-league-high Jesus Christ was a demon. Aholibamah, who is also called Judith, obeyed the counsel given her. Reuben and Peniel listened to advice from on high, as their names indicate: Reuben means “son of the vision,” Peniel “face of God.”
¹⁵⁵

Mess Lethierry struck the table with his fist.

“Of course!” he cried: “it was my fault!”

“What do you mean?” asked Dr. Jaquemin Hérode.

“I mean that it was my fault.”

“Why was it your fault?”

“Because I let Durande return on a Friday.”

Dr. Hérode whispered in Ebenezer Coudray's ear: “The man is superstitious.”

Then, raising his voice, he continued, in a didactic tone:

“Mess Lethierry, it is childish to believe that Friday is unlucky. You ought not to credit such fables. Friday is a day like any other. It is often a lucky day. Meléndez founded the town of San Agustín on a Friday; Henry VII gave John Cabot his commission on a Friday; the pilgrim fathers on the
Mayflower
landed at Provincetown on a Friday; Washington was born on Friday, the twenty-second of February, 1722; Columbus discovered America on Friday, the twelfth of October, 1492.”

He stood up, and Ebenezer, whom he had brought with him, also rose.

Grace and Douce, seeing that the reverend gentlemen were about to take their leave, opened the double doors.

Mess Lethierry saw nothing and heard nothing of all this.

Dr. Hérode said, aside, to Ebenezer Caudray:

“He does not even acknowledge our presence. This is not just his distress: it is sheer mindlessness. He must be mad.”

He took his pocket Bible from the table and held it clasped between his two hands, as one holds a bird to prevent it from flying away. His attitude created a feeling of expectancy among those present. Grace and Douce craned forward.