Robert Michael Ballantyne - Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters

“Sure it’s out they are!” cried the figure from the other end of the passage. “Joe Baldwin’s layin’ a charge under the wreck off the jetty to-day—no doubt that’s what’s kep’ ’im, and it’s washin’-day with Mrs Joe, I belave; but I’m his pardner, sur, an’ if ye’ll step this way, Mrs Machowl’ll be only too glad to see ye, sur, an’ I can take yer orders.”

Not a little amused by this free-and-easy invitation, Mr Hazlit entered a small apartment, which surprised him by its clean and tidy appearance. A pretty little Irishwoman, with a pert little turned-up nose, auburn hair so luxuriant that it could not be kept in order, and a set of teeth that glistened in their purity, invited him to sit down, and wiped a chair with her apron for his accommodation.

“You’ve got a nice little place here,” remarked the visitor, looking round him.

“Troth, sur, ye wouldn’t have said that if you’d seen it whin we first came to it. Of all the dirty places I iver saw! I belave an Irish pig would have scunnered at it, an’ held his nose till he got out. It’s very well for England, but we was used to cleaner places in the owld country. Hows’iver we’ve got it made respictable now, and we’re not hard to plaze.”

This was a crushing reply. It upset Mr Hazlit’s preconceived ideas regarding the two countries so completely that he was perplexed. Not being a man of rapid thought he changed the subject:—

“You are a diver, you say?”

“I am, sur.”

“And Mr Baldwin’s partner—if I understand you correctly?”

“Well, we work together—whin we’re not workin’ apart—pritty regular. He took in hand to train me some months gone by, an’ as our two missusses has took a fancy to aich other, we’re likely to hold on for some time—barrin’ accidents, av coorse.”

“Well, then,” said Mr Hazlit, “I came to see Mr Baldwin about a vessel of mine, which was wrecked a few days ago on the coast of Wales—”

“Och! The Seagull it is,” exclaimed Rooney.

“The same; and as it is a matter of importance that I should have the wreck visited without delay, I shall be obliged by your sending your partner to my house this evening.”

Rooney promised to send Baldwin up, and took his wife Molly to witness, with much solemnity, that he would not lose a single minute. Thereafter the conversation became general, and at last the merchant left the place much shaken in his previous opinion of Irish character, and deeply impressed with the sagacity of Rooney Machowl.

The result of this visit was that Baldwin was engaged to dive for the cargo of the Seagull , and found himself, a few days later, busy at work on the Welsh coast with a staff of men under him, among whom were our friends Rooney Machowl and surly David Maxwell. The latter had at first declined to have anything to do with the job, but, on consideration of the wages, he changed his mind.

The spot where the wreck of the Seagull lay was a peaceful sequestered cove or bay on the coast of Anglesea. The general aspect of the neighbouring land was bleak. There were no trees, and few bushes. Indeed, the spire of a solitary little church on an adjoining hill was the most prominent object in the scene. The parsonage belonging to it was concealed by a rise in the ground, and the very small hamlet connected with it was hid like a rabbit in the clefts of some rugged cliffs. The little church was one of those temples which are meant to meet the wants of a rural district, and which cause a feeling of surprise in the minds of town visitors as to where the congregation can come from that fills them.

But, bleak though the country was, the immediate shore was interesting and romantic in its form. In one place perpendicular cliffs, cut up by ragged gorges, descended sheer down into deep water, and meeting the constant roll of the Irish Channel, even in calm weather, fringed themselves with lace-work of foam, as if in cool defiance of the ocean. In another place a mass of boulders and shattered rocks stretched out into the sea as if still resistant though for the time subdued. Elsewhere a half-moon of yellow sand received the ripples with a kiss, suggestive of utter conquest and the end of strife.

As we have said, the spot was peaceful, for, at the time to which we refer, ocean and air were still, but ah! Those who have not dwelt near the great deep and beheld its fury when roused can form but a faint conception of the scene that occurred there on the night in which the Seagull went down!

Mr Hazlit thought of the place as something like the region of a “bad debt,”—where a portion of his wealth had been wrecked. Some knew it as the hated spot where they had suffered the loss of all their fortune; but others there were, who, untouched by the thought of material gain or loss, knew it as the scene of the wreck of all their earthly hopes—for the Seagull had been a passenger-ship, and in that quiet bay God in His providence had dealt some of the most awful blows that human beings are capable of bearing.

Close to a bald cliff on the northern shore the foretopmast of the wreck rose a few feet above the calm water. In a cove of the cliff the remains of a mast or yard lay parallel with a deep and thick mass of wreckage, which had surged out and into that cove on the fatal night with such violence that it now lay in small pieces, like giant matchwood. On a patch of gravel not far from that cliff a husband and father had wandered for many days, after being saved—he knew not how—gazing wistfully, hopelessly at the sea which had swallowed up wife and children and fortune. He had been a “successful” gold-digger! On that patch of gravel scenes of terrible suspense had been enacted. Expectant ones had come to inquire whether those whom they sought had really embarked in that vessel, while grave and sympathetic but worn-out or weary men of the Coast-guard, stood ready to give information or to defend the wreck.

In the church on the hill there were dreadful marks on the floor, where the recovered bodies had lain for a time, while frantic relations came and went day by day to search for and claim their dead. Ah, reader, we are not mocking you with fiction. What we refer to is fact. We saw it with our eyes. Peaceful though that spot looked—and often looks—it was once the scene of the wildest of storms, the most terrible of mercantile disasters, and the deepest of human woe.

But we are mingling thoughts with memories. The wreck which has crept into our mind is that of the Royal Charter . The Seagull , although a passenger-ship, and wrecked near the same region, does not resemble that !

At the time of which we write, Joe Baldwin and his men had already saved a considerable portion of the cargo, but during his submarine explorations and meditations Joe had conceived the idea that there was some possibility of saving the vessel itself, for, having recoiled from its first shock and sunk in deep water, the hull was comparatively uninjured.

But Joe, although a good diver, was not a practical engineer. He knew himself to be not a very good judge of such matters, and was too modest to suggest anything to competent submarine engineers. He could not, however, help casting the thing about in his mind for some time. At last, one evening while reading a newspaper that had been got from a passing boat, he observed the return of the ship in which his young friend Edgar Berrington had gone to India. At once he wrote the following letter:—

“My dear Mister Edgar,—I’m in a fix here. It’s my opinion there’s a chance of savin’ a wreck if only good brains was set to work to do it. It would pay if we was to succeed. If you happen to be on the loose just now, as is likely, run over an’ see what you think of it.—Yours to command,