Volume II Part 1 (1/2)

My Danish Sweetheart.

Volume 2.

by William Clark Russell.

CHAPTER I.

THE 'EARLY MORN.'

I told my story, and the three fellows listened attentively. Their eyes glowed in the lamplight as they stared at me. The weak wind raised a pleasant buzzing noise at the cut.w.a.ter, and the lugger stole in floating launches through the gloom over the long invisible heave of the Atlantic swell.

'Ah!' said the helmsman, when I had made an end, 'we heerd of that there Tintrenale lifeboat job when we was at Penzance. An' so you was her c.o.xswain?'

'Were the people of the boat drowned?' cried I eagerly. 'Can you give me any news of them?'

'No, sir,' he answered; 'there was no particulars to hand when we sailed. All that we larnt was that a lifeboat had been stove alongside a vessel in Tintrenale Bay; and little wonder, tew, says I to my mates when I heerd it. Never remember the like of such a night as that there.'

'What was the name of the Dane again?' said one of the fellows seated opposite me, as he lighted a short clay pipe by the flame of a match that he dexterously s.h.i.+elded from the wind in his hand as though his fist was a lantern.

'The _Anine_,' I answered.

'A bit of a black barque, warn't she?' he continued. 'Capt'n with small eyes and a beard like a goat! Why, yes! it'll be that there barque, Tommy, that slipped two year ago. Pigsears Hall and Stickenup Adams and me had a nice little job along with her.'

'You are quite right,' said Helga, in a low voice; 'I was on board the vessel at the time. The captain was my father.'

'Oh, indeed, mum!' said the fellow who steered. 'An' he's gone dead!

Poor old gentleman!'

'What is this boat?' said I, desiring to cut this sort of sympathy short.

'The _Airly Marn_,' said the helmsman.

'The _Early Morn_! And from what part of the coast, pray?'

'Why, ye might see, I think, sir, that she hails from Deal,' he answered. 'There's nothen resembling the likes of her coming from elsewhere that I knows of.'

'And what are you doing down in this part of the ocean?'

'Why,' said he, after spitting over the stern and pa.s.sing his hand along his mouth, 'we're agoing to Australey.'

'Going _where_?' I cried, believing I had not correctly heard him, while Helga started from her drooping posture and turned to look at me.

'To Sydney, New South Wales, which is in Australey,' he exclaimed.

'In this small open boat?'

'This small open boat!' echoed one of the others. 'The _Airly Marn's_ eighteen ton, and if she ben't big enough and good enough to carry three men to Australey there's nothen afloat as is going to show her how to do it!'

By the light shed by the dimly burning lantern, where it stood in the bottom of the boat, I endeavoured to gather from their faces whether they spoke seriously, or whether, indeed, they were under the influence of earlier drams of liquor than the dose they had swallowed from our jar.