My
homicidal
maniac is of a peculiar kind.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
It is nice at high tide; but when the tide is out it shoals away to
nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between
banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this
side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of
which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of
it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a
mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is
lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he
is coming this way. . . .
He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all
gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is
nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing
fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical
person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady
at the abbey he said very brusquely:--
"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.
Mind, I don't say they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in
my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers an' the like,
but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York
and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an'
lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd
be bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of
fool-talk. " I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting
things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something
about whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to
begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and
said:--
"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My granddaughter doesn't like
to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to
crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lack
belly-timber sairly by the clock. "
He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could,
down the steps. The steps are a great feature of the place. They lead
from the town up to the church; there are hundreds of them--I do not
know how many--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so
gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they
must originally have had something to do with the Abbey. I shall go
home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only
duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this.
_1 August. _--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most
interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come
and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should
think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not
admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't out-argue them
he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his
views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has
got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old
men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat
down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love
with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict
her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the
legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to
remember it and put it down:--
"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an'
nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests and
bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women
a-belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs! They, an' all grims an' signs
an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beuk-bodies an'
railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to
do somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to
think o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on
paper an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them
on the tombsteans. Look here all round you in what airt ye will; all
them steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their
pride, is acant--simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote
on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all
of them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all;
an' the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less
sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My
gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment, when they
come tumblin' up here in their death-sarks, all jouped together an'
tryin' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was;
some of them trimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened
an' slippy from lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup
o' them. "
I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in
which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was
"showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going:--
"Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not
all wrong? "
"Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make
out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl
be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only
lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this
kirk-garth. " I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did
not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with
the church. He went on: "And you consate that all these steans be aboon
folk that be happed here, snod an' snog? " I assented again. "Then that
be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds
that be toom as old Dun's 'bacca-box on Friday night. " He nudged one of
his companions, and they all laughed. "And my gog! how could they be
otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank; read it! "
I went over and read:--
"Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast
of Andres, April, 1854, aet. 30. " When I came back Mr. Swales went
on:--
"Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the
coast of Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name
ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above"--he pointed
northwards--"or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the
steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of
the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey--I knew his father, lost
in the _Lively_ off Greenland in '20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in
the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year
later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned
in the Gulf of Finland in '50. Do ye think that all these men will have
to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums
aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an'
jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice
in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an'
tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis. " This
was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and
his cronies joined in with gusto.
"But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the
assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to
take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think
that will be really necessary? "
"Well, what else be they tombsteans for? Answer me that, miss! "
"To please their relatives, I suppose. "
"To please their relatives, you suppose! " This he said with intense
scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote
over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies? " He
pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on
which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the
lines on that thruffstean," he said. The letters were upside down to me
from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over
and read:--
"Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a
glorious resurrection, on July 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at
Kettleness. This tomb is erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly
beloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. '
Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that! " She spoke
her comment very gravely and somewhat severely.
"Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm
the sorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was
acrewk'd--a regular lamiter he was--an' he hated her so that he
committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put
on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket
that they had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for
it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off
the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often
heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was
so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to
addle where she was. Now isn't that stean at any rate"--he hammered it
with his stick as he spoke--"a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel
keckle when Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean
balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence! "
I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she
said, rising up:--
"Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot
leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a
suicide. "
"That won't harm ye, my pretty; an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome
to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why,
I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't
done me no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that
doesn' lie there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when
ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a
stubble-field. There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye,
ladies! " And off he hobbled.
Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we
took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and
their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I
haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month.
* * * * *
_The same day. _--I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no
letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan.
The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the
town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly;
they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my
left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next
the Abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind
me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below.
The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and farther
along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street.
Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them
both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he
were here.
_Dr. Seward's Diary. _
_5 June. _--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get
to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed:
selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the
object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his
own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a
love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that
I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd
sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a
quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he
did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in
simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: "May I have
three days? I shall clear them away. " Of course, I said that would do. I
must watch him.
_18 June. _--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several
very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the
number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has
used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room.
_1 July. _--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his
flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked
very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at
all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same
time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for
when a horrid blowfly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the
room, he caught it, held it exultingly for a few moments between his
finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in
his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that
it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life,
and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I
must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep
problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is
always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses
of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the
totals added in batches again, as though he was "focusing" some account,
as the auditors put it.
_8 July. _--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary
idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then,
oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your
conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that
I might notice if there were any change. Things remained as they were
except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He
has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His
means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished.
Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the
flies by tempting them with his food.
_19 July. _--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of
sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came
in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour--a very,
very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked
him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and
bearing:--
"A kitten, a nice little, sleek, playful kitten, that I can play with,
and teach, and feed--and feed--and feed! " I was not unprepared for this
request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and
vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows
should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so
I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a
cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:--
"Oh, yes I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should
refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they? " I shook
my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but
that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of
danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant
killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him
with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know
more.
_10 p. m. _--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner
brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and
implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it.
I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon
he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner
where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early.
_20 July. _--Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his
rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar,
which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his
fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I
looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they
were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away.
There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of
blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if
there were anything odd about him during the day.
_11 a. m. _--The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has
been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is,
doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took
and ate them raw! "
_11 p. m. _--I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night; enough to make
even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The
thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and
the theory proved.
My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall
have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous
(life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he
can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He
gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then
wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later
steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It
might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at
vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science
in its most difficult and vital aspect--the knowledge of the brain? Had
I even the secret of one such mind--did I hold the key to the fancy of
even one lunatic--I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch
compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain
knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I
must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might
turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain,
congenitally?
How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope.
I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has
closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How
many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?
To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope,
and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great
Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to
profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be
angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on
hopeless and work. Work! work!
If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a
good, unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness.
/Mina Murray's Journal. /
_26 July. _--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here;
it is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time.
And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it
different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I
had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but
yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter
from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the
enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle
Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like
Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too,
Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of
walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we
have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs.
Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of
houses and along the edges of cliffs, and then get suddenly awakened
and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place.
Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that
her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit; that he would get up in
the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy
is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her
dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for
I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple
way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is
the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming--is coming up here
very shortly--as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very
well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She
wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him
the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her;
she will be all right when he arrives.
_27 July. _--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about
him, though why I should I do not know; but I _do_ wish that he would
write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and
each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the
weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and
the perpetually being awakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am
getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up.
Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has
been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him,
but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks
are a lovely rose pink. She has lost that anaemic look which she had. I
pray it will all last.
_3 August. _--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even
to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill.
He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but
somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it
is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much
in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her
which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching
me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room
searching for the key.
_6 August. _--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting
dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should
feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last
letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable
than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and
the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and
learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is
hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except
the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock;
grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the
grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The
sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar,
muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey
mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and
there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom.
Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded
in the mist, and seem "men like trees walking. " The fishing-boats are
racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into
the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is
making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that
he wants to talk. . . .
I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat
down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:--
"I want to say something to you, miss. " I could see he was not at ease,
so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak
fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:--
"I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked
things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such-like, for weeks past;
but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I've gone.
We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal,
don't altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of
it; an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up
my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin',
not a bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be
nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any
man to expect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin'
his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it
all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the
Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an'
greet, my deary! "--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this
very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all,
only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be
all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to
me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin'
and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin'
with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look! "
he cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast
beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's
in the air; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call
comes! " He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth
moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got
up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled
off. It all touched me, and upset me very much.
I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his
arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time
kept looking at a strange ship.
"I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her;
but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind
a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to
run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is
steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel;
changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before
this time to-morrow. "
CHAPTER VII.
/Cutting from "The Dailygraph," 8 August. /
(_Pasted in Mina Murray's Journal. _)
From a Correspondent.
_Whitby. _
One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been
experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had
been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of
August. Saturday evening was as fine as ever was known, and the great
body of holiday-makers set out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods,
Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips
in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers _Emma_ and _Scarborough_
made excursions along the coast, and there was an unusual amount of
"tripping" both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till
the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff
churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of
sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show
of "mares'-tails" high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then
blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical
language is ranked "No. 2: light breeze. " The coastguard on duty at once
made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century
has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an
emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was
so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds,
that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the
old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the
black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its
downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour--flame,
purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here
and there masses not large, but seemingly of absolute blackness, in
all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The
experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the
sketches of the "Prelude to the Great Storm" will grace the R. A. and
R. I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then
and there that his "cobble" or his "mule," as they term the different
classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed.
The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there
was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on
the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There
were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers,
which usually "hug" the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but
few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign
schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The
foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for
comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal
her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she
was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating
swell of the sea,
"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. "
Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite
oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep
inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and
the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord
in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came
a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to
carry a strange, faint hollow booming.
Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the
time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realise,
the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in
growing fury, each over-topping its fellow, till in a very few minutes
the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster.
White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the
shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume
swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of
either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew
with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept
their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was
found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers,
or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold.
To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog
came drifting inland--white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly
fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort
of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were
touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and
many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. At times
the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the
glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such
sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling
under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. Some of the scenes thus
revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interest--the
sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty
masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl
away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with a rag of sail,
running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white
wings of a storm-tossed sea-bird. On the summit of the East Cliff the
new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried.
The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the
pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once
or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing-boat, with
gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of
the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers.
As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy
from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to
cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. Before long the
searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails
set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the
evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a
shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realised the terrible
danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great
flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered,
and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite
impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was
now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in
their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the
schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the
words of one old salt, "she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in
hell. " Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto--a
mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey
pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar
of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the
mighty bellows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before.
The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across
the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless.
The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the
sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, _mirabile dictu_, between the
piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept
the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained
the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder
ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with
drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the
ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on
all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the
harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took
place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner
paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that
accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms
into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff,
known locally as Tate Hill Pier.
There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up
on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of
the "top-hamper" came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very
instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from
below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from
the bow on to the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the
churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some
of the flat tombstones--"thruff-steans" or "through-stones," as they
call them in the Whitby vernacular--actually project over where the
sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which
seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight.
It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier,
as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed
or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the
eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier,
was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after
scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then
turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran
aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it and
recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to
pique the general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run.
It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate
Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well
ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled
on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to
come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boat-man, I was, as your
correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group
who saw that dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel.
It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for
not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened
by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between
the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which
it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast
by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one
time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through
the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords
with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was
made of the state of things, and a doctor--Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of
33, East Elliot Place--who came immediately after me, declared, after
making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two
days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a
little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The
coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the
knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board
may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for the
coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first
civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are
wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights
of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held
in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as
emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a _dead
hand_. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently
removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till
death--a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca--and
placed in the mortuary to await inquest.
Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; the
crowds are scattering homewards, and the sky is beginning to redden over
the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further
details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into
harbour in the storm.
_Whitby. _
_9 August. _--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the
storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It
turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called
the _Demeter_. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with
only a small amount of cargo--a number of great wooden boxes filled
with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr.
