Miscellanea Part 9

"Why, they always do. Look at Uncle Alfred, he drew a splendid picture of a s.h.i.+pwreck. Don't you remember his doing it at the dining-room table, and James coming in to lay the cloth, and he would have a bit of the table left clear for him, because he was in the middle of putting in the drowning men, and wanted to get them in before luncheon? And Uncle Herbert wrote a beautiful poem to it, and they were both put into a real magazine. And Uncle Alfred and Uncle Herbert never were in s.h.i.+pwrecks.

So there!"

"Well, Uncle Alfred drew it very well, and he made very big waves. So there!"

"Ah, but he didn't make waves like a great wall. He did it very naturally, and he draws a great deal better than those rubbishy old pictures in Father's _Robinson Crusoe_."

"Well, I don't care. The Bible says that when the Children of Israel went through the Red Sea the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. And I believe they were great waves like the wave in _Robinson Crusoe_, only they weren't allowed to fall down till Pharaoh and his host came, and then they washed them all away."

"But that's a miracle. I don't believe there are waves like that now."

"I believe there are in other countries. Uncle Alfred's s.h.i.+pwreck was only an English s.h.i.+pwreck, with waves like the waves at the seaside."

"Let's ask Cousin Peregrine. He's been in foreign countries, and he's been at sea."

The point in dispute between Maggie and her brother was this:--The nursery copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ was an old one which had belonged to their father, with very rough old wood-cuts, one of which represented Robinson Crusoe cowering under a huge wave, which towered far above his head, and threatened to overwhelm him. This wave Maggie had declared to be unnatural and impossible, whilst the adventure-book young gentleman clung to and defended an ill.u.s.tration which had helped him so vividly to realize the sea-perils of his hero.

It was the day following that of Cousin Peregrine's arrival, and when evening arrived the two children carried the book down with them to dessert, and attacked Cousin Peregrine simultaneously.

"Cousin Peregrine, you've been at sea: isn't that an impossible wave?"

"Cousin Peregrine, you've been at sea: aren't there sometimes waves like that in foreign places?"

"It's not very cleverly drawn," said Cousin Peregrine, examining the wood-cut; "but making allowance for that, I have seen waves not at all unlike this one."

"There!" cried the young gentleman triumphantly. "Maggie laughed at it, and said it was like a wall."

"Some waves are very like walls, but those are surf-waves, as they are called, that is, waves which break upon a sh.o.r.e. The waves I am thinking of just now are more like mountains--translucent blackish-blue mountains--mountains that look as if they were made of bottle-green gla.s.s, like the gla.s.s mountain in the fairy tale, or s.h.i.+ning mountains of phosph.o.r.escent light--meeting you as if, they would overwhelm you, pa.s.sing under you, and tossing you like the old woman in the blanket, and then running away behind you as you go to meet another. Every wave with a little running white crest on its ridge; though not quite such a curling frill as this one has which is engulfing poor Robinson Crusoe.

But his is a surf-wave, of course. Those I am speaking of are waves in mid-ocean."

"Not as tall as a man, Cousin Peregrine?"

"As tall as many men piled one upon another, Maggie."

"It certainly is very funny that the children should choose this subject to tease you about tonight, Peregrine," said Mamma.

We are all apt to speak inaccurately. Mamma did not mean that the subject was a comical one, but that it was remarkable that the children should have started it at dessert, when the grown-up people had been discussing it at dinner.

They had not been talking about Robinson Crusoe's wave, but about the loss of an Australian vessel, in sad circ.u.mstances which were in every one's mouth. A few people only had been saved. They had spent many days in an open boat in great suffering, and the particular question discussed at dinner was, whether the captain of a certain vessel which had pa.s.sed without rescuing them had been so inhuman as to see and yet to leave them.

"How could he help seeing them?" Mamma had indignantly asked. "It was daylight, and of course somebody was on the deck, even if the captain was still in bed. Don't talk to me, Peregrine! You would say black is white for the sake of argument, especially if it was to defend somebody.

But little as I know about the sea, I know that it's flat."

"And that's flat!" interposed Papa.

"It's all very well making fun of me," Mamma had continued with good-humoured vehemence, "but there were no Welsh hills and valleys to block the view of castaway fellow-creatures not a mile off, and it was daylight, and he _must_ have seen them."

"I'm not quite sure about the hills and valleys," Cousin Peregrine had replied; "and hills of water are quite as troublesome to see through as hills of earth."

At this moment the dining-room door had opened to admit the children, Maggie coming first, and making her courtesy in the doorway, with the old fat, brown-calf-bound _Robinson Crusoe_ under her arm. It opened without the slightest difficulty at the picture of the big wave, and the children appealed to Cousin Peregrine as has been related.

Maggie was a little taken aback by a decision which was in favour of her brother's judgment. She was apt to think rather highly of her own, and even now she pondered, and then put another question--

"But if the waves were so very, very big, Cousin, they would swallow up the s.h.i.+ps!"

"No, Maggie, not if the sailors manage their s.h.i.+p properly, and turn her about so that she meets the wave in the right way. Then she rides over it instead of being buried under it."

"It would be dreadful if they didn't!" said Maggie.

"I remember being in a s.h.i.+p that didn't meet one of these waves in the right way," said Cousin Peregrine.

"Tell us all about it," said Fred, settling himself with two or three severe fidgets into the seat of his chair.

"I _was_ going to have protested against the children asking you for another story so soon, Peregrine," said Mamma, "but now I feel selfish, for your wave-story will be quite as much for me as for the little ones."

"Where was it, Cousin Peregrine?"

"Where was the wave, do you mean? It was in the great South Seas. As to where I was, I was in a sailing-vessel bound for South Australia. To begin at the beginning, I must explain to you that this vessel was one of those whose captains accepted the instruments offered by the Board of Trade to any s.h.i.+p that would keep a meteorological log. I was fond of such matters, and I took the trouble off the captain's hands, by keeping his meteorological log for him."

"What is a meteorological log, Cousin?"

"A kind of diary, in which you put down the temperature of the sea and air, how cold or hot they are--the way the wind blows, how the barometer is, and anything special and interesting about the weather overhead or the currents in the sea. Now I must tell you that there had been a good deal of talk about currents of warm water in the Southern Ocean, like the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, which keeps the west coasts of Great Britain so warm. But these South Sea currents had not been very accurately observed, and information on the subject was desired. Well, one day we got right into a warm current."

"How did you know, Cousin?"

"By drawing up a bucket of water out of the sea, and putting the thermometer into it. But I ought to tell you what a thermometer is--"

"We know quite well," said Maggie. "Nurse always put it into Baby's bath when he had fits, to see if the water was the right warmth."

"Very good, Maggie. Then let me tell you that the water of the sea got nearly thirty degrees warmer on that day between noon and midnight."

"How did you know about midnight?" Maggie inquired doubtfully; "weren't you in bed?"

"No, I was not, I was very busy all day 'taking observations' every hour or two, and it was at twelve o'clock this very night that the 'comber'

broke on deck."

"What _is_ a 'comber'?"

"A 'comber' is the name for a large wave with a comb or crest of foam, a sort of wave over which our s.h.i.+p ought to have ridden; but I must tell you that it was no easy matter to meet them on this occasion, because (owing to the cross currents) the waves did not all go one way, but came at us from various points. The sea was very heavy, and the night was very dark. I tried the heat of the water for the last time that evening, and having bade good-night to the officer whose watch was just over, I stayed for a few minutes to talk to the officer whose watch was just beginning, before going below to go to bed. We were standing aft, and, fortunately for us, near one of the masts, when through the darkness we saw the sloping sides of a great South Sea wave coming at the fore part of the s.h.i.+p, but sideways. 'The rigging!' shouted the officer of the watch, and as we both clung to the ropes the wave broke on our bows, smashed the jib-boom, and swept the decks from stem to stern."

"And if you hadn't held on by the rigging you would have been washed away?"

"I am afraid we should, Fred, for every loose thing on deck was swept off in less than a minute. The bull kept his feet, by the bye; but then he had four, and I have only two."

"The bull! what bull?"

"We were taking some cattle out to Australia. There was a bull who lived in a stable that had been made for him on deck. When this comber broke over us it tore up the bull's house, and carried it overboard, but I met the bull himself taking a walk at large as I went below to change my clothes and get some sleep."

"Were you wet?"