Saved by the Lifeboat

“If you could give my son Harry something to do, sir,” said Boyns, “you would oblige me very much. Harry is a smart fellow and a good seaman. He has been a short time in the coasting trade; perhaps—”

“Well, yes, I’ll see to that,” interrupted Mr Webster. “You shall hear from me again as to it.”

Now the fact is that Mr Webster did not feel attracted by young Boyns, and he would willingly have had nothing to do with him, but being unable to refuse the request after having invited it, he ultimately gave him a situation in one of his coasting vessels which plied between London and Aberdeen.

About a year after that, Captain Boyns sailed in the Warrior, a large new ship, for the Sandwich Islands and the Chinese seas.

True to his promise, Mr Webster spent the following summer with Annie and Mrs Boyns at Covelly, and young Boyns so managed matters that he got his captain to send him down to Covelly to talk with his employer on business. Of course, being there, it was natural that he should ask and obtain leave to spend a few days with his mother; and, of course, it was quite as natural that, without either asking or obtaining leave, he should spend the whole of these days in roaming about the shore and among the cliffs with Annie Webster.

It would be absurd to say that these two fell in love, seeing that one was only seven and the other fifteen; but there can be no doubt they entertained some sort of regard for each other, of a very powerful nature. The young sailor was wildly enthusiastic, well educated, manly, and good-looking—little wonder that Annie liked him. The child was winning in her ways, simple, yet laughter-loving, and very earnest—less wonderful that Harry liked her!

Another year fled, and again the Websters visited Covelly, and again Harry spent a few days with his mother; and although Mr Webster did not get the length of liking the youth, he at last came to the condition of not disliking him.

Year followed year, and still, each summer, Annie pressed her father to return to the old place, and he agreed, chiefly because it mattered little to him where he went. He regarded the summer trip in the light of a penance to be paid for the sin of being a member of society and the head of a household, and placed every minute so wasted to the debit of the profit and loss account in the mental ledger of his life’s affairs, for it must not be supposed that Mr Webster’s character was changed by the events which followed the rescue of his child from the sea. True, he had been surprised out of his habitual hardness for a short time, but he soon relapsed, if not quite back to the old position, at least so near to it that the difference was not appreciable.

As time ran on, men begun to look for the return of the Warrior, but that vessel did not make her appearance. Then they began to shake their heads and to grow prophetic, while those who were most deeply interested in the human beings who manned her became uneasy.

“Don’t fret over it,” said Harry one day to his mother, in a kind, earnest tone; “you may depend upon it father will turn up yet and surprise us. He never lost a ship in his life, and he has sailed in worse ones than the Warrior by a long way.”

“It may be so,” replied Mrs Boyns, sadly; “but it is a long, long time since he went away. God’s will be done. Whether He gives or takes away, I shall try to bless His name.”

At last Harry gave over attempting to comfort his mother, for he began to fear that his father’s ship was destined to be placed on the dark, dreary list of those of which it is sometimes said, with terrible brevity, in the newspapers, “She sailed from port on such and such a day, and has not since been heard of.”

In course of time Harry made one or two trips to the East Indies as first mate of one of Mr Webster’s vessels, and ultimately obtained the command of one.

At last a day came when there appeared in a Welsh newspaper a paragraph, which ran thus:– “A Message from the Sea—A bottle, corked and sealed, was found by a woman on the beach, above Conway, North Wales. Inside was a letter containing the following:—