OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 45

 

It was with the utmost hazard the boat came near us; but it was
impossible for us to get on board, or for the boat to lie near the ship
side, till at last the men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives
to save ours, our men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to
it, and then veered it out a great length, which they, after much labour
and hazard, took hold of, and we hauled them close under our stern,
and got all into their boat. It was to no purpose for them or us, after
we were in the boat, to think of reaching to their own ship; so all
agreed to let her drive, and only to pull her in towards shore as much
as we could; and our master promised them, that if the boat was
staved upon shore, he would make it good to their master: so, partly
rowing, and partly driving, our boat went away to the northward,
sloping towards the shore, almost as far as Winterton Ness.

We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship,
but we saw her sink: and then I understood, for the first time, what
was meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge I had
hardly eyes to look up, when the seamen told me she was sinking; for,
from that moment they rather put me into the boat, than that I might
be said to go in; my heart was, as it were, dead within me, partly
with fright, partly with horror of mind, and the thoughts of what was
yet before me.

While we were in this condition, the men yet labouring at the oar to
bring the boat near the shore, we could see (when our boat mounting
the waves we were able to see the shore) a great many people running
along the shore to assist us, when we should come near; but we made
but slow way towards the shore, nor were we able to reach the shore,
till being past the light-house at Winterton, the shore falls off to the
westward towards Cromer, and so the land broke off a little the
violence of the wind. Here we got in, and, though not without much
difficulty, got all safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to
Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were used with great
humanity, as well by the magistrates of the town, who assigned us
good quarters, as by particular merchants and owners of ships, and
had money given us sufficient to carry us either to London, or back to
Hull, as we thought fit.

Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have gone
home, I had been happy, and my father, an emblem of our blessed
Saviour’s parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me; for hearing
the ship I went in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a great
while before he had any assurance that I was not drowned.

But my ill fate pushed me on now witn an obstinacy that nothing
could resist: and though I had several times loud calls from my reason