for the tide to serve. About an equal number were below in the boats, getting things ready.
There was nothing unusual about Matthey, save that, although it was a warm evening in August, he wore a thick pea-jacket, and had turned the collar up about his ears. Nor (if you know Cornish fishermen) was there anything very unusual in what he did, albeit a stranger might well have thought it frantic.
For some time he walked to and fro, threading his way in and out of the groups of men, walking much faster than they—at the best they were strolling—muttering the while with his head sunk low in his jacket collar, turning sharply when he reached the edge of the quay, or pausing a moment or two, and staring gloomily at the water. The men watched him, yet not very curiously. They knew what was coming.
Of a sudden he halted and began to preach. He preached of Redemption from Sin, of the Blood of the Lamb, of the ineffable bliss of Salvation. His voice rose in an agony on the gentle twilight: it could be heard—entreating, invoking, persuading, wrestling—far across the harbour. The men listened quite attentively until the time came for getting aboard. Then they stole away by twos and threes down the quay steps. Meanwhile, and all the while, preparations on the boats had been going forward.
He was left alone at length. Even the children had lost interest in him, and had run off to watch the boats as they crept out on the tide. He ceased abruptly, came across to the bench where I sat smoking my pipe, and dropped exhausted beside me. The fire had died out of him. He eyed me almost shamefacedly at first, by and by more boldly.
"I would give, sir," said Pilot Matthey, "I would give half my worldly goods to lead you to the Lord."
"I believe you," said I. "To my knowledge you have often risked more than that—your life—to save men from drowning. But tell me—you that for twenty minutes have been telling these fellows how Christ feels towards them—how can you know? It is hard enough, surely, to get inside any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know what Christ feels, or felt—for an instance, in the Judgment Hall, when Peter denied?"
"Once I did, sir," said Pilot Matthey, smoothing the worn knees of his trousers. "It was just that. I'll tell you:"
"It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on the old Early and Late—yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldest daughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw him get aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was all nervous about it—my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on the East Coast after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be back in time for it—this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so well as we could calculate) any time between Christmas an' New Year. Well, there was no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home—the weather up there keepin' monstrous, an' the catches not worth the labour. So we turned down Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul—south at first, then west-sou'-west—headin' us all the way, and always blowin' from just where 'twasn't wanted. This lasted us down to the Wight, and we'd most given up hope to see home before Christmas, when almost without warnin' it catched in off the land—pretty fresh still, but steady—and bowled us down past the Bill and halfway across to the Start, merry as heart's delight. Then it fell away again, almost to a flat calm, and Daniel lost his temper. I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and Late—nor, for that matter, on any other boat of mine; but if Daniel didn't swear a bit out of hearin', well then—poor dear fellow, he's dead and gone these twelve years (yes, sir—drowned)—well then I'm doin' him an injustice. One couldn't help pitying him, neither. Didn't I know well enough what it felt like? And the awe of it, to think it's happenin' everywhere, and ever since world began—men fretting for the wife and firstborn, and gettin' over it, and goin' down to the grave leavin' the firstborn to fret over his firstborn! It puts me in mind o' the old hemn, sir: 'tis in the Wesley books, and I can't think why church folk leave out the verse—
"The busy tribes o' flesh and blood,
With all their cares and fears—"
Ay, 'cares and fears'; that's of it—
"Are carried downward by the flood,
And lost in followin' years."
"Poor Daniel—poor boy!"
Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out over the water in the wake of the boats that already had begun to melt into the shadow of darkness.
"'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I mind," he resumed. "One o' those calm spells that happen, as often as not, just about Christmas. I remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, one Christmas when I passed you the compliments of the season; and you put it down to kingfishers, which I thought strange at the time."
"Kingfishers?" echoed I, mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes"—as light broke on me—"Halcyon days, of course!"
"That's right," Pilot Matthey nodded. "That's what you called 'em. … It took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. Then, about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to Bolt Tail, and after that we mostly drifted all night, with here and there a cat's-paw, down across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were inside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon we was just in the very same place. It was Christmas Eve, sir.
"I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion struck me. It was foolish I hadn't thought of it before.
"'See here, boys,' I says. (There was three. My second son, Sam, Daniel, and Daniel's brother, Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so.) 'Get out the boat,' I says,' and we'll tow her into Plymouth. If you're smart we may pluck her into Cattewater in time for Daniel to catch a train home. Sam can go home, too, if he has a mind, and the youngster can stay and help me look after things. I've seen a many Christmasses,' said I, 'and I'd as lief spend this one at Plymouth as anywhere else. You can give 'em all my love, and turn up again the day after Boxin' Day—and mind you ask for excursion tickets,' I said.
"They tumbled the boat out fast enough, you may be sure. Leastways the two men were smart enough. But the boy seemed ready to cry, so that my heart smote me. 'There!' said I, 'and Dicky can go too, if he'll pull for it. I shan't mind bein' left to myself. A redeemed man's never lonely—least of all at Christmas time.'
"Well, sir, they nipped into the boat, leavin' me aboard to steer; and they pulled—pulled—like as if they'd pull their hearts out. But it happened a strongish tide was settin' out o' the Sound, and long before we fetched past the breakwater I saw there was no chance to make Cattewater before nightfall, let alone their gettin' to the railway station. I blamed myself that I hadn't thought of it earlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to them to ease up—we wouldn't struggle on for Cattewater, but drop hook in Jennycliff Bay, somewhere inside of the Merchant Shipping anchorage. As things were, this would save a good hour—more likely two hours. 'And,' said I, 'you can take the boat, all three, and leave her at Barbican steps. Tell the harbour-master where she belongs, and where I'm laying. He'll see she don't take no harm, and you needn't fear but I'll get put ashore to her somehow. There's always somebody passin' hereabouts.'
"'But look 'ee here, father,' said the boys—good boys they were, too—'What's to happen if it comes on to blow from south or sou'-west, same as it blew at the beginning of the week?'
"''Tisn't goin' to do any such thing,' said I, for I'd been studyin' the weather. 'And, even if it should happen, I've signals aboard. 'Tisn't the first time, sonnies, I've sat out a week-end on board a boat, alone wi' the Redeemer.'
"That settled it, sir. It relieved 'em a bit, too, when they spied another lugger already lyin' inside the anchorage, and made her out for a Porthleven boat, the Maid in Two Minds, that had been after the herrings with the rest
