s not the case. Would that
some practicable scheme for providing a pension for deserving working
men in their old age were before the country!

Jarvist Arnold is, however, not forsaken; he has good and honourable
children, and I know that with that inner gaze which sees more clearly
as eternity approaches, he too in simple faith beholds the advancing
lifeboat, and hears the glad words, 'When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not
overflow thee,' from the mouth of the Great Commander.

CHAPTER IX

THE ROYAL ARCH

Cease, rude Boreas, blust'ring railer!
List, ye landsmen ill, to me!
Messmates! hear a brother sailor
Sing the dangers of the sea.

This and the following chapter contains the story of cases of rescue in
which the ships in distress were saved, together with all on board, by
the skill and courage of the Deal lifeboatmen, and brought finally with
their respective cargoes safe into port.

A century ago, certain of our English coasts are described by the same
writer whose lines head this chapter, as--

Where the grim hell-hounds, prowling round the shore,
With foul intent the stranded bark explore.
Deaf to the voice of woe, her decks they board,
While tardy Justice slumbers o'er her sword.

But these pages recount, in happy contrast, the generous and gallant
efforts of the Deal boatmen, in the first instance to save life, and
then, when besought to stand by the vessel, or employed to do so, of
their further success in saving valuable property, often worth many
thousand pounds, from utter destruction in the sea.

I stood some years ago on the deck of a lightship stationed near the
wreck of the British Navy, a vessel sunk by collision in the Downs one
dreadful night, when twenty sailors went to the bottom with her, and I
saw her masts blown up and out of her by an explosion of dynamite to
remove the wreck from the Downs, while the water was strewn with the
debris of her valuable cargo. This cargo, amongst countless other
commodities, was said to have contained one hundred pianos; hence some
idea may be gathered of the pecuniary importance, apart from the
story's thrilling interest, of salvage of valuable vessels and precious
merchandize.

On March 29, 1878, the wind blew strong from the E.N.E., and only one
vessel, the Royal Arch, lay in the Downs. The great roadstead,
protected from the full fetch of an easterly sea by t