FullReads

“You have taken her in a bit too near, my son. The bilge chocks is both pulled off; look you, they’re gone away astern.” And, sure enough, two long planks drifted away behind the boat. They had been torn off by the force with which she rushed upon the outlying rock. Tommy said, “Let’s have another reef in, mates.” But before the sail could be half lowered, a storming gust swept out of the bay, and struck the boat with a roar. The long rudder smashed; a green sea doubled up behind her, and she turned over exactly as the coble had done when Tommy first prayed.

In the wild waves it was hard for the men to get hold. The bilge chocks were gone, and thus all chance of a hand grip was lost. Half-way down the square stern of the boat a hole had been bored, through which a rope had been passed and knotted at both ends. This rope served the men in hauling the boat down to the sea. Only one could hold on to this short scrap, and Tommy, who was the first to think of it, seized it, and held on with the strength of his despair. The boat lunged and struck the faces of the two men who were holding on to her sides. Billy Armstrong was bleeding from the mouth, and his front teeth were gone–dashed out by one stroke which had met him as he tried to climb and catch hold of the deep iron keel in the fore part of the coble. The other man said suddenly, “I have got a broken arm, Tommy.” A few minutes went by, during which the men dared not speak–only Tommy was perfectly safe. The others were slipping and writhing in their efforts to hang on to the smooth planks. The man with the broken arm had the nails of his sound hand torn, and the blood streamed down as he clutched again and again at the slippery seams. At last he said, “I cannot do it any longer. Tell Mary the money is under the bed at the right-hand side next the wall, and ask my grandfather to take little Adam for me and keep him.” A thought came into Hob’s Tommy’s mind. He cried out, “Don’t let yourself go down. Edge yourself round here to the stern, and you shall have this rope.” The maimed man came slowly round, and took the rope as Tommy let go. For a single minute the bruised giant rested his hands on the lunging stern of the little vessel. He did not look up, and his face had no devotional aspect, but the two men who were saved remembered his words to the end of their lives. He said, “O Lord Jesus, I am even with you now. I am going to die.” The stern of the boat flew up into the air as a short sea hit her, and Hob’s Tommy lost his grip. He lay back quietly on the water, and the men said that he even smiled. Presently the foam covered him over.