LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 567, 12 April 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE LIGHTHOUSE OF THE GANNETS. IN FOUR CHAPTERS!. Chapter I.—To the Rescue. (Continued.) ' They'll put back, of course, in the Delight, when they see the queer look of things,' said Lawless, half carelessly taking out his telescope, and adjusting it so as to sweep the sea in the direction of the Gannets.

' That's just what they won't do, unless I am greatly mistaken,' answered Malcolm, compressing his lips : ' That old Mawle is as obstinate as a mule; and unless they go about pretty early, they would not find it easy to make the harbour with the breeze fast freshening to a gale. Let me see if I can get a glimpse of them through the glass. Thanks. No ; I see nothing but sea-mews' wings and foaming wave crests. I hope Mawle may have the sense to run for Studley, or for St Kevin's, before the sea grows rougher. By this time it was clear, from the conversation and gestures of the fishermen and other blue-jackets on the quay, that their recent confidence in the settled serenity of the weather had been disturbed.

' We'll have half a gale,' observed one white-haired Nestor in a striped nightcap and elephantine sea-boots, as the young men went by. 'Ay ; and the other half to the back of that,' answered Gordon, sharply ; and then said, earnestly, 'I say, Lawless, I take it very kind of you if you would order your people to get the yacht ready for sea, and let us stand out, and overhaul that pleasure boat before worse comes of it. The Titania will have a tossing, but it won't hurt her.' ' Btit it would hurt me,' rejoined the owner of the vessel in question. ' This child only fancies the ocean when it is in good humour, thank you, and has not the least taste for mountain billows and their concomitant of sea sickness. But come, my dear fellow,' he added, glancing at Malcolm's anxious face, ' I'll lend you the craft, crew, skipper, and all; but I prefer keeping my feet on terra firma, and my appetite for dinner unimpaired. Luckily, here is Dawson. You two nautical authorities may settle the matter between you.' The sailing master, although now fully convinced that ' dirty weather' was brewing, was not unwilling to put out to sea, or to place himself under the orders of the young naval lieutenant, whom he knew by experience and repute to be a first-rate seamen. But it took some time to get all the hands mustered on board, and as the schooner stood out of harbour, the canvas flipped ominously, and the first low muttering of thunder made itself audible.

' They'll have to take in sail afore long, or the wind 'll spare them the trouble,' remarked a sailor on the pier, as he watched the Titauia's progress ; and indeed tbe weather was rapidly changing for the worse. Crash upon crash, peal upon peal, rang out the deep diapason of the thunder, while Hash after flash of lurid lightning illumined the fast deepening gloom ; and amid sheets of driving rain and clouds of blinding spray the schooner was seen staggering along, sorely buffeted by the first fury of the storm, but bravely beating up towards the distant, lighthouse on the Gannets. Jack Lawless, as he turned up the collar of his pea-jacket, began to entertain considerable apprehensions for the safety of his fine yacht, but the remembrance of his friend's danger turned his thoughts into another channel. ' I'd give, yes, I would give the Titatia, hull, masts, and cabin fittings, to see Malcolm safe and sound ashore again,' muttered the soft-hearted young fellow, as he lost sight of the tempest-beaten vessel, now sturdily working her way ont to sea. "' Chapter 11.— Danger. ' Are we not fortunate in our day ? Look, Rosa, love, how prettily Brooklands seems to smile down upon us from the hillside yonder, and how wonderfully near and distinct everything looks ! This must be quite a treat in Cornwall, if Mr Darner will forgive my saying so much of the climate of his native country,' said Mrs Lee, as the Delight glided smoothly out of harbour, prattling, as well-meaning women often do, in utter unconsciousness of coming mischief,

' I remember to have heard the Cumberland shepherds say,' rejoined her husband, ' that these excessively tine days, when distant objects seemed, as they now seem, to be brought so very near, and when every outline was sharply and clearly picked out, were not to be trusted. If so, this would be a good test for their theory.' ' Cornishmau as I am, I do not make the least pretence to weather wisdom,' said Mr Damer,' smiling. 'My simple philosophy teaches me, however, to enjoy a good thing when I have got it, and I hardly think that a more enjoyable morning could be welcomed anywhere. Why, the sky is blue enough, and the sea rich enough in colour, tor this to be Italy instead of Cornwall; and if we are lucky enough to be passing the ruins of Penluddra Castle when the moon is up, you will see a sight; Miss Lee, not easily to be matched, for beauty, anywhere.' Rosa bent her head, and uttered some commonplace reply ; she was not in a mood to be readily interested in anything that Mr Damer might choose to say ; and, indeed, as time progressed, Mrs Lee saw with regret that the attentions of the county magnate were to all appearance wholly thr.own away upon her daughter, and secretly deplored the discrepancy between Ilosa's views and her own. She had with feminine tact planned this expedition for the express purpose of throwing Mr Damer and Miss Lee into the society of one anothei', but, as it seemed, unsuccessfully, as regarded the weaning of Rosa's heart from its first attchment.

The earlier part of the voyage was pleasant and prosperous enough, but presently the motion of the boat increased perceptibly, the sunny splendour of the hitherto unclouded sky seemed to fade and darken, aud it Avas evident by the bustle among the boatmen, and their frequently consulting together iu an undertone, that some change of weather, hitherto unlooked for, was coining on. First one reef, and then another, reduced the spread of sail, and ballast was adjusted, and sheets made handy, while old Mawlc himself took the Delight's tiller in his horny hand, as the large boat bounded merrily over the surge.

' r could almost wish,'observed Mr Darner at length, ' that we had deferred our trip to the Gannets till another occasion ; and yet I much wanted the ladies to see one of the wildest hits of thoroughly maritime scenery off our coast here. The sea, however, is becoming somewhat more boisterous than it should be for so long an excursion. I am not sure, Mr Lee, but it would be better to forego part of our pleasure trip, .and have the boat's head turned towards Tregony Cave, Avhere we are to diue.' 'You can't, squire, begging your pardon,' said the bluff old owner of the Delight. 'lt would be a tempting of Providence to run for Tregony now, and if we were off the mouth of the cave, you'd not be able to land without wings, you wouldn't, through the surf that's on by this.' ' Perhaps, then, it would be better to return,' said Mr Lee, growing pale. ' The sea is becoming very rough, and the sky looks threatening.' Old Mawle shook his gray head. ' We couldn't put back to Ravenscombe, sir,' he answered, as under the skilful guidance the boat rode buoyantly over the huge glassy waves, ' not if our lives depended on it. We might make Studley, but we'd maybe get swamped in crossing the harbour bar, in such a sea as will be breaking on it. Our safest plan, my mates and me thinks, is to stand out for the Gannets, if the wind holds.' Mrs Lee uttered a kind of shriek, while Rosa could not repress an exclamation of alarm.

' The Gannets, surely not!' exclaimed the former of the two; •we shall never reach the lighthouse alive. It seems sheer madness to traverse miles and miles of raging sea in a cockleshell of an open boat, and so near to the shore as we still are.—Offer them money, Walter,' she added to her husband ; ' twenty pounds—fifty pounds, to land us safely somewhere on the coast.' There was a rugged dignity in the old boatman's bearing, as he made answer: ' Madam, if you could promise me to load the pinnace gunwale-deep with golden sovereigns, I couldn't earn them —if you 'll trust the word of a seafaring man of my age—by setting you ashore, dry and safe, from this to the Scilly Isles, except the one place I spoke of, where we'll be, I reckon, in threequarters of an hour. Bribes go for nought here. Tf I can't save my passengers for my just pay of thirty-six shillings, I can't do it for the wealth of the Indies. Squire Darner knows me, anyhow.'

' I really think,' said Mr Darner, leaning forward and speaking hurriedly and earnestly, ' that "wo had all of us better be guided by the advice of Mawle here, backed as it is by the opinion of the other sailors. At the lighthouse wo can take shelter until the storm abates, and' The remainder of the sentence was lost amidst the deep reverberations of the sullen thunder that new rolled ovei'head, and it was by a silent gesture that the tough old helmsman received the assent to his proposal. A minute later, and, under a mere rag of sail, that strained and tore at the bonding mast and the restraining cordage, the Delight was flying like an arrow through the savage sea, receiving blows that made her quiver from stem to stern, and seeming at each instant to be in danger of being swamped by some one of the many breaking waves that reared their foam-crested heads high above her, while far and wide the froth-bells flew, like snow-flakes in winter before the shrieking wind. Once and .again, too, somo enormous billow would come rolling towards the pinnace, and Kosa, as Mho sat with blanched face and dilated eyes, would watch tho oncoming of the mountain wave, and anticipate the disaster that seemed so imminent, until a dexterous movement of the helm evaded the peril. No steering, however skilful, could quite keep an open boat dry in such weather, and in spite of all that could be done to shield the ladies, the drenching spray flew ever and anon over the gunwale of the Delight, and first one man and then another had to work hard at baling. Then there rose through the misty atmosphere, phantoin-like, a gaunt white wooden tower, perched upon a hogbacked, sharp-edged rock, over which the sea broke furiously, and which was, on the seaward side, environed by a roughly traced semicircle of smaller rocks, some of which were so low in the water as to resemble thin black lines of ragged stone, lashed by waves. ' This be the Great Gaunet; yon's the Brood,' said Mawle gruffly, as he pointed to the lighthouse. ' Steady, now, ray lads, to down sail and chuck the grapnel, as I run her in for the lauding place. Save life and limb, if the boat must go to pieces.' I (To le continued,,)