and
life-lines, they kept the lifeboat dead before the sea. They did not
dare to luff her to the west or bear her away to the east. They dared
not keep away to get to the Walmer lifeboat, nor in the other direction
toward the mainland, about six miles off.

The slightest exposure of the broadside of the lifeboat would either
have capsized her, or washed every soul out of her; onwards, therefore,
dead before the wind and right on the top of and in the breakers of the
Goodwins she flew her stormy flight for nearly four miles.

The Walmer lifeboat had got up anchor at the same time as the Kingsdown
men; for as the Kingsdown overcrowded lifeboat ran past the Walmer
lifeboat, which was waiting at anchor for them, they shouted to the
Walmer men, 'Slip your cable, and come after us!'

This the Walmer lifeboat did, and now ventured to approach the
Kingsdown lifeboat. Though handled with skill and caution, being
light, she took a sea; and she came right on top of the gunwale of the
Kingsdown lifeboat, smashing her oars, which were run out to steady
her, like so many pipe-shanks, and crunching into her gunwale.

But at last, with difficulty, half of the living freight of the Sabrina
was transferred to the Walmer lifeboat; and then both lifeboats luffing
in through Trinity Swatch, by God's mercy, escaped the deadly Goodwins,
and landed the rescued crew at Broadstairs.

And the gallant deed is still sung by the Kingsdown children in simple
village rhymes,

God bless the Lifeboat and its crew,
Its coxswain stout and bold,
And Jarvist Arnold is his name,
Sprung from the Vikings old,
Who made the waves and winds their slaves,
As likewise we do so,
While still Britannia rules the waves,
And the stormy winds do blow;
And the old Cork Float that safety brought,
We'll hold in honour leal,
And it shall grace the chiefest place
In Kingsdown, hard by Deal!

One of Jarvist Arnold's sons never recovered the strain of those awful
hours on the bridge of the Sorrento in her death-throes, and, to use
his father's words: 'He never was a man no more.' But Jarvist himself
did many a subsequent good deed of rescue, and stuck to his arduous
post as long as, and even beyond, what health and strength and age
permitted.

Would that I could say that the noble old fellow was in independent
circumstances! Despite the continued generosity of the Royal National
Lifeboat Institution to him, alas! this i