Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked ForYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
General
Modern Broods; Or, Developments Unlooked For
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Domestic fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; English fiction
cliffs, and then, God help us! Knowing what that coast is, I thought
there was no hope; and as it was beginning to grow light there rose
an awful wall, all black and white, ready to close upon us; but just
as I set my teeth and tried to recollect prayers, or follow the
Bishop’s, but I could only squeeze Agatha harder and harder, there
was a fresh shouting among the men, and the boat was heaved up in a
fearful way, then down. It was tide, and we were near upon breakers;
but there were answering shouts, or so they said—I believe a line was
thrown, and a light shown. But as the boat rose again, Nag and I
expected to be hurled on the rocks the next moment, and clung
together. But instead—though the waves had almost torn us asunder—we
were lying on a stony beach, and human hands were dragging at
us—voices calling and shouting about our not being dead. God had
helped us! We had been carried into a clift where there is a
coastguard station; and the good men had come down and were helping
us on shore. But before I well knew anything, Agatha was on her
feet; I heard her cry ‘Wilfred, Wilfred!’ and then I saw her dragging
him, quite like a dead thing, out of the surf, just in time before
another great wave rushed in which would have washed them both back,
if a man had not grappled her at the very moment, calling out, ‘Let
go, let go, he’s a dead man!’ She did not let go; when the wave
broke, happily, just short of them, and another came to help, and
saved them from being sucked back. Then the Bishop came and assured
us that he was alive, and got the men to carry him up to the
coastguard cottages; indeed, it was an awful escape; for of our
boatload most were lost altogether, three lie dead, dashed against
the rock, and two more, the mate one of them, have broken limbs.
Wilfred was unconscious for a long time, at least an hour; but by the
help of spoonfuls of whiskey he came round to a dreamy kind of state,
and he does not seem to suffer much; and the Bishop, the Preventive
man and Nag all are sure no limbs are broken, but he seems incapable
of movement except his hands. It may be only jar upon the spine, and
go off in another day or two; but we do not dare to send for a
doctor, or anything else, indeed, till we have some money; for we all
of us have lost everything except five shillings in my pocket and two
in Nag’s. Even our wraps were washed off—I believe Agatha gave hers
to a shivering woman in the boat. The Bishop, too, gave away his
coat, forgetting to secure his purse. But the people are very kind
to us—North, or Scotch Irish Presbyterians, I think—for they don’t
seem to know what to make of his being a Bishop when they found he
was not R.C., though they call him His Reverence. Please send us an
order to get cashed, at Larne, six miles off, where this is posted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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