The Bondman: A New Saga. Hall Sir Caine

I, he's the spittin picsher of the big widda man Orry – Stephen Orry – brimstone and vinegar, and gunpowder atop of a slow fire."

      And it was just at that moment, as old Davy was laughing through his yellow eyes and broken teeth at young Jason, and the other men were laughing at Jason's adversary, and the dim forecastle under its spluttering slush-lamp echoed and rang with the uproar, that a wild voice came down from the deck – "Below there! All hands up! Breakers ahead!"

      Now the moment when the watch had been changed had been the very moment when Stephen Orry had run down the lamp, so that neither by the Manxman who gave up the helm nor by the Irishman who took it had the light been missed when it fell into the sea. And the moment when Stephen Orry shouted to the schooner to warn it had been the moment when the muffled peals of laughter at the bird's strange song had come up from the watch below in the forecastle. The wind had whistled among the sheets, and the flying spray had smitten the men's faces, but though the mist had lifted, the sky had still hung low and dark, showing neither moon nor stars, nor any hint of the land that lay ahead. But straight for the land the vessel had been driving in the darkness, under the power of wind and tide. After a time the helmsman had sighted a solitary light close in on the lee bow. "Point of Ayre," he thought, and luffed off a little, intending to beat down the middle of the bay. It had been the light on the jetty at Ramsey; and the little town behind it, with its back to the sea, lay dark and asleep, for the night was then well worn towards midnight. After that the helmsman had sighted two stronger lights beyond. "Ramsey," he thought, and put his helm aport. But suddenly the man on the lookout had shouted, "Breakers ahead," and the cry had been sent down the forecastle.

      In an instant all hands were on deck, amid the distraction and uproar, the shouting and blind groping of the cruel darkness. Against the dark sky the yet darker land could now be plainly seen, and a strong tide was driving the vessel on to it. The helm was put hard to starboard, and the schooner's head began to pay off towards the wind. Then all at once it was seen that right under the vessel's bow some black thing lay just above the level of the sea, with a fringe of white foam around it.

      "Davy, what do you make of it?" shouted the skipper.

      "Lord-a-massy, it's the Carick," screamed Davy.

      "Let go the anchor," roared the skipper.

      But it was too late even for that last refuge. At the next moment the schooner struck heavily; she was on the reef in Ramsey Bay, and pitching miserably with every heave of the sea.

      The two bright lights that led the vessel to her ruin came from the two little bays that lie under Maughold Head. The light in Port-y-Vullin was in the hut of Stephen Orry, who had lit his lamp and placed it in the window when he went out to bid farewell to Michael Sunlocks, thinking no evil thereby to any man but only that it would guide him home again when he should return in the boat. The light in Port Lague was from the cottage of three old net weavers, who had lived there without woman or girl, or chick or child, through more than forty years. Two or three were brothers, Danny and Jemmy Kewley, both over seventy years old, and their housemate, who was ninety, and had been a companion of their father, was known as Juan McLady. Danny and Jemmy still worked at the looms year in and year out, every working hour of the day and night, and Juan, long past other labor, cooked and sewed and cleaned for them. All three had grown dim of sight, and now groped about like three old earthworms. Every year for five years past they had needed an extra candle to work by, so that eight tallow dips, made in their own iron mould, swung from the open roof rafters over the meshes on that night when the Peveril struck on the Carick.

      It was supper-time, though old Danny and old Jemmy were still at the looms. Old Juan had washed out a bowl of potatoes, filled the pot with them, hung them on the chimney hook and stirred the peats. Then to make them boil the quicker he had gone out with the tongs to the side of the house for some dry gorse from the gorse heap. While there he had peered through the darkness of the bay for the light on the Point of Ayre, and had missed it, and on going back he had said:

      "It's out again. That's the third time inside a month. I'll go bail something will happen yet."

      He had got no answer, and so sat down on the three-legged stool to feed the fire with gorse lifted on the tongs. When the potatoes had boiled he had carried them to the door to drain them, and then, with the click-clack of the levers behind him, he had thought he heard, over the deep boom and plash of the sea in front, a voice like a cry. Going indoors he had said, "Plague on the water-bailiff and commissioners and kays and councils. I'll go bail there's smuggling going on under their very noses. I'd have the law on the lot of them, so I would."

      Old Danny and old Jemmy knew the temper of their housemate – that he was never happy save when he had somebody to higgle with – so they paid no heed to his mutterings. But when Juan, having set the potatoes to steam with a rag spread over them, went out for the salt herrings, to where they hung to dry on a stick against the sunny side of the porch, he was sure that above the click of the levers, the boom and plash of the sea and the whistle of the wind, he could hear a clamorous shout of many voices, like a wild cry of distress. Then he hobbled back with a wizzened face of deadly pallor and told what he had heard, and the shuttles were stopped, and there was silence in the little house.

      "It went by me same as the wind," said old Juan.

      "Maybe it was the nightman," said old Danny.

      At that old Jemmy nodded his head very gravely, and old Juan held on to the lever handles; and through those precious minutes when the crew of the schooner were fighting in the grip of death in the darkness, these three old men, their nearest fellow creatures, half dead, half blind, were held in the grip of superstitious fears.

      "There again," cried old Juan; and through the door that he had left open the cry came in above roar of wind and sea.

      "It's men that's yander," said old Jemmy.

      "Ay," said old Danny.

      "Maybe it's a ship on the Carick," said old Juan.

      "Let's away and look," said old Jemmy.

      And then the three helpless old men, trembling and affrighted, straining their dim eyes to see and their deaf ears to hear, and clinging to each other's hands like little children, groped their slow way to the beach. Down there the cries were louder than they had been on the brows above.

      "Mercy me, let's away to Lague for the boys," said old Juan; and leaving behind them the voices that cried for help, the old men trudged and stumbled through the dark lanes.

      Lague was asleep, but the old men knocked, and the windows were opened and night-capped heads thrust through. Very soon the house and courtyard echoed with many footsteps, and the bell over the porch rang out through the night, to call up the neighbors far and near.