CHAPTER I

THE VILLAGE OF OLD MAXHAM

"IT'S getting to be a regular storm! What a lot of storms we have had lately, to be sure! Just hark to the wind," said Jessie Perkins. "And I do believe I can hear the waves down at the Point. I do believe I can."

Miss Perkins sewed on solemnly. She was seated at the round deal table, with her shoulder towards the light.

"Aunt Barbara, you just listen. . . Can't you hear the waves? I can! . . . Mrs. Mokes will have it that nobody's ever heard them as far off as this; but I know better. I've heard them many a time at night, when it's rough; and I declare I can now. You just hark!"

"There isn't over much chance of anybody hearing anything, except your clapper, when you're in the room," Miss Perkins observed with severity.

"But I stopped talking twice on purpose, and you wouldn't try to listen. There it is again—a regular boom!—as clear as can be. And it's getting so dark. I can't think how ever you can manage to see at all, away there at the table. It's all I can do to thread my needle here."

"I'm not so desperate fond of staring out o' windows as some folks," snapped Miss Perkins.

Jessie sighed audibly, and took another peep through the clustering plants which intercepted her view of the outside world. It was not easy to see anything clearly, with so substantial a screen in the way. She had, however, a distinct glimpse of the shop opposite, beyond the wide and irregular village street, also of a group standing on the flagged pathway in front of the said shop.

"Something is the matter. I am sure something is the matter," she murmured, deeply interested.

Jessie allowed her work to fall upon her knees, whence it slid to the ground. Her pretty little short face, neatly rounded and rosily coloured, became altogether absorbed in what was going on across the road.

"I'll have that window blocked up some day,—see if I don't,—the bottom half of it," burst out Miss Perkins. "That's what I'll do."

Jessie had perhaps heard the threat before. "But where's the hurry?" she asked. "I've heaps of time, aunt Barbara. You said yourself I shouldn't need those night-dresses till next winter; and March isn't out yet. Just hear the wind! What a howl! I wish I was out in it . . . Something has happened somewhere, I'm quite sure. Mr. Mokes is all in a taking. And there's Mr. Gilbert, and a sailor,—I think it's Robins,—and—and there's Ben too."

Jessie's face grew more pink. Not that she cared a brass farthing for Ben Mokes; but he was one of her admirers, and she did care for admiration.

"Ben Mokes is as idle and useless a young spendthrift as ever lived," commented Miss Perkins. "I wonder at his parents for letting him go on as he does. I wouldn't! I'd make him work, or I'd send him about his business. Old Mokes just slaves, and Alice Mokes like another; and Ben don't do a single hand's turn that he isn't obliged. But there! They've spoilt him all through, and they've got to reap as they've sowed. He'll come to no good, nor nobody else that he has to do with."

This outburst seemed to amuse Jessie immensely. She had to bite her lips to keep in laughter.

"Poor Ben! Oh, he's well enough, aunt Barbara. He isn't handsome, and he's awfully lazy and rather stupid, but I don't see how he can help that. People can't help being stupid when they are made so. Can they?"

Miss Perkins did not feel herself competent to answer this question. It involved too much. She sewed in a persistent and combative fashion, the droop at the end of her thin pinched nose very near indeed to her needle. Perhaps her sight had begun to fail a little, for she was well over fifty; besides, it was uncommonly dark and dull for only half-past four o'clock on an afternoon in the end of March. Twice she looked round with indignant protest at the window, as if somehow it were to blame.

"I can't possibly see to work any more. I couldn't if you paid me for it," Jessie observed. "I'll wait till we have lights, or till it gets clearer. It's hours too early for lights yet. I don't see the good of sitting here doing nothing . . . Aunt Barbara, there is something wrong, and I'm going to see what it is. Don't hinder me. I must go."

Miss Perkins gazed in grim disapproval after the girl's retreating figure, and said nothing. She pretty well knew the extent of her own restraining power, and she did not often risk a battle where she could not be secure of victory. But, oh, the ways of these giddy young folks! Miss Perkins shook her head over them all, including Jessie.

Even while Jessie chattered the wind had been audible enough, and now nothing hindered her from listening. It came in rushes, with a roar each time as of a great gun, swirling round the cottages, bending trees like reeds, shrieking in the chimney, and making Jessie's light figure stagger as she struggled across the road. She had caught up a small woollen shawl, wrapping it round head and shoulders. Though Jessie wanted greatly to know what was wrong, she was not in the least alarmed or anxious. It only formed a nice excuse for getting away from the needlework which she abhorred.

But other people viewed the matter after a more serious fashion, and Jessie speedily found herself close to a troubled and intent group; far too much troubled and far too intent to pay any attention to her little self.

The village shop, outside which they were gathered, stood back, country-wise, in its own garden, where in summer stray ramblers from the neighbourhood were wont to sit and have their tea. On the front flagged pathway, between door and gate, stood Mokes himself, a man of elderly middle age, bareheaded and aproned. His manners were marked by mild suavity and by an air of proper dignity. His face was all over of a reddish tan, the nose thickish, but well-shaped; the light-tinted eyes, under bushy brows, keen and benevolent; the grey hair brushed upwards, converging to a point. Gusts of wind creeping round a corner of the house blew his apron to and fro in vehement jerks; but Mr. Mokes stood with an unruffled air and an expression of solemn concern.

Mrs. Mokes, having no customers on hand, was peering out of the front door; and Ben Mokes, her hopeful youngest, a limp lanky youth, lounged in his father's rear. Only Alice remained within. Somebody had to see to things, and Alice, as a matter of course, was that somebody.

Before Mokes stood a weather-beaten sailor, or rather fisherman, in blue jersey and sou'-wester; and beside him was a boyish-looking smooth-shaven individual, in black coat and white necktie, the new Vicar of Old Maxham. Judging from appearances, he might have been under one-and-twenty; but since he had already filled two Curacies, remaining in each about two years, and since no man can be ordained under the age of twenty-three, it is obvious that in his case looks were deceptive. The youthful features of the Vicar showed excitement.

"And you actually mean, Mr. Mokes, that there is no lifeboat nearer than twelve miles off!" Mr. Gilbert gave vent to these words, just as Jessie arrived on the scene, in an extraordinarily deep voice, which no one would have expected from his boyish appearance. "Twelve miles off, with such a coast, such rocks, such currents, as yours!" He had not been in the place a fortnight, and the pronoun "our" did not yet come readily.

"That's so, sir," admitted Mokes, with an air of regret. "It hadn't ought to be; and times and again we've talked over what could be done. But there's a lot of difficulties in the way."

"Talked! Ah, I see! Every time a ship goes to pieces on your rocks, you talk about a lifeboat. And then, when the storm is over, you forget it all,—till next time! That's it: eh?"

Mokes shook his head mildly. He "supposed it had ought to be seen to, but he didn't know; it didn't seem to be nobody's business in particular."

"It's everybody's business," declared Mr. Gilbert. "And it's a disgrace to Maxham to have no lifeboat. I don't care who hears me say it. A disgrace to Maxham!" The speaker's fair boyish face flushed, while his deep tones rolled down the street. "See now, if, instead of talking, you had all clubbed together and bought a boat, those poor fellows who are coming to their death upon the rocks might have been saved, one and all of them. Do you think the people of Maxham won't be reckoned accountable for the untimely death of those poor men? I tell you it's everybody's business, and everybody has a share in the responsibility."

Mokes could have been offended; but he remembered that it was the Vicar who spoke, and also that the Vicar was young.

"At all events, that reproach shall not lie upon Maxham much longer. I'll start a subscription for the boat next Sunday." Mr. Gilbert came from a large town, and, as everybody knows, a subscription list in a town is the panacea for all evils. "Why it hasn't been done before passes my comprehension. Well, but look here—what's to be done now? We can't leave those poor fellows to rush on their death without an effort to save them. Women on board, too, you say."

"Adams was sure he see'd one, sir, through his glass. But he doubted no boat could live in this sea, without it was a lifeboat."

"We can try; always possible to try. Better to die doing our duty than to live with the duty left undone!" The "our" came naturally enough here. "Out of the question that the lifeboat should arrive in time. She'll be on the rocks in less than an hour, and it will be short work then. Whose is the best boat? And who can row?"

Mokes gently rubbed the side of his head, surveying the speaker with dubious eyes.

"Come! Whose boat shall it be? And who will man it? I'm the first volunteer."

"Then I'm the second," added Robins. "I'll never be the one to hold back, though I doubt it'll be no good. They're doomed, poor chaps."

"No man is doomed while life remains—at all events, so far as our knowledge is concerned. Here are two of us ready, and we may count upon Adams. He is old, but he knows every inch of the rocks, and he must steer. Adams will be the third, I don't doubt. Who's fourth?"

"Here's your fourth, sir," a voice said behind; and at the sound Jessie clasped her hands under the shawl which she wore. A lithe well-built young fellow stood outside the gate. At sight of him Mokes' face fell, and on the younger Mokes' brow might be noted an unpleasant scowl.

"Right, my lad! And your name?"

"Jack Groates."

"Good at an oar?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know what it's for? A work of danger."

"Yes, sir, a barque drifting on to the rocks."

"She's disabled, and she'll be on them in less than an hour. If she doesn't break up with the first crash, we may get off the crew. But it will be a ticklish job. Ready?"

Jack Groates nodded.

"Then the sooner the better. Any more volunteers?" Mr. Gilbert looked towards young Mokes. "Are you good at rowing in rough weather?"

Ben Mokes knew himself to be probably as good as Jack Groates, but he said nothing, and a shrill voice sounded in his rear,—

"Not our Ben! Ben's not to go. You hear, Ben! You ain't going!"

Ben shuffled sheepishly from one foot to the other. Jessie's eyes sparkled, as the three started off at a swinging pace, and Mrs. Mokes came out with a red face of indignation.

"I never heard of such a thing in all my born days! To be wanting our Ben, the only boy we've got! Why, they'll all be drowned, as sure as fate."

"It's as bad for others, I s'pose, if they are," burst out Jessie. "Jack Groates has a mother too."

"He's one of seven; that's all the difference," retorted Mrs. Mokes. "You go home, Jessie, and don't be talking of things you can't understand. And you just tell your aunt—"

"Not yet. I'm going to take a look at the shore first and see what's doing."

"Of all idle girls—" began Mrs. Mokes. "Well, I'm sure Miss Perkins has a handful of her, and no mistake."

Jessie did not wait to hear the latter half of this utterance. The wind was cold as well as boisterous but she folded her shawl more closely round her, and set off at full speed for the nearest part of the distant shore—that jutting rock which was known among them as "Reef Point." Many and many a good vessel had come to grief on those rocks.