"Sir," said Frank Darling, after chasing the hat (which could not trundle as our pots do, combining every possible absurdity), "excuse me for interrupting you, but this appears to be your hat, and it was on its way to a pool of salt-water."

"Hat!—my hat?" replied the other gentleman. "Oh, to be sure! I had quite forgotten. Sir, I am very much obliged to you. My hat might have gone to the devil, I believe, I was so delightfully occupied. Such a thing never happened to me before, for I am very hard indeed to please; but I was reading, sir; I was reading. Accept my thanks, sir; and I suppose I must leave off."

"I thought that I heard a voice," said Frank, growing bold with fear that he should know no more, for the other was closing his book with great care, and committing it to a pouch buckled over his shoulder; "and I fear that I broke in upon a pleasant moment. Perhaps I should have pleased you better if I had left this hat to drown."

"I seem ungrateful," the stranger answered, with a sweet but melancholy smile, as he donned his hat and then lifted it gracefully to salute its rescuer; "but it is only because I have been carried far away from all thoughts of self, by the power of a much larger mind. Such a thing may have occurred to you, sir, though it happens very seldom in one life. If so, you will know how to forgive me."

"I scarcely dare ask—or rather I would say"—stammered the anxious poet—"that I cannot expect you to tell me the name of the fortunate writer who has moved you so."

"Would to Heaven that I could!" exclaimed the other. "But this great poet has withheld his name—all great poets are always modest—but it cannot long remain unknown. Such grandeur of conception and force of language, combined with such gifts of melody, must produce universal demand to know the name of this benefactor. I cannot express myself as I would desire, because I have been brought up in France, where literature is so different, and people judge a work more liberally, without recourse to politics. This is a new work, only out last week; and a friend of mine, a very fine judge of literature, was so enchanted with it that he bought a score of copies at once, and as my good stars prevailed, he sent me one. You are welcome to see it, sir. It is unknown in these parts; but will soon be known all over Europe, unless these cruel wars retard it."

With a face of deep gravity, Caryl Carne put into Frank Darling's hand a copy of his own book, quite young, but already scored with many loving marks of admiration and keen sympathy. Frank took it, and reddened with warm delight.

"You may not understand it at first," said the other; "though I beg your pardon for saying that. What I mean is, that I can well suppose that an Englishman, though a good judge in general, would probably have his judgment darkened by insular prejudices, and the petty feeling which calls itself patriotism, and condemns whatever is nobler and larger than itself. My friend tells me that the critics have begun to vent their little spite already. The author would treat them with calm disdain!"

"Horribly nasty fellows!" cried Frank. "They ought to be kicked; but they are below contempt. But if I could only catch them here—"

"I am delighted to find," replied Carne, looking at him with kind surprise, "that you agree with me about that, sir. Read a few lines, and your indignation against that low lot will grow hotter."

"It cannot grow hotter," cried the author; "I know every word that the villains have said. Why, in that first line that I heard you reading, the wretches actually asked me whether I expected my beautiful goddess to wear her crown upon her comely tail!"

"I am quite at a loss to understand you, sir. Why, you speak as if this great work were your own!"

"So it is, every word of it," cried Frank, hurried out of all reserve by excitement. "At least, I don't mean that it is a great work—though others, besides your good self, have said—Are you sure that your friend bought twenty copies? My publishers will have to clear up that. Why, they say, under date of yesterday, that they have only sold six copies altogether. And it was out on Guy Fawkes' Day, two months ago!"

Caryl Carne's face was full of wonder. And the greatest wonder of all was its gravity. He drew back a little, in this vast surprise, and shaded his forehead with one hand, that he might think.

"I can hardly help laughing at myself," he said, "for being so stupid and so slow of mind. But a coincidence like this is enough to excuse anything. If I could be sure that you are not jesting with me, seeing how my whole mind is taken up with this book—"

"Sir, I can feel for your surprise," answered Frank, handing back the book, for which the other had made a sign, "because my own is even greater; for I never have been read aloud before—by anybody else I mean, of course; and the sound is very strange, and highly gratifying—at least, when done as you do it. But to prove my claim to the authorship of the little work which you so kindly esteem, I will show you the letter I spoke of."

The single-minded poet produced from near his heart a very large letter with much sealing-wax endorsed, and the fervent admirer of his genius read:

"DEAR SIR,—In answer to your favour to hand, we beg to state that your poetical work the Harmodiad, published by our firm, begins to move. Following the instructions in your last, we have already disposed of more than fifty copies. Forty-two of these have been distributed to those who will forward the interests of the book, by commending it to the Public; six have been sold to the trade at a discount of 75 per cent.; and six have been taken by private purchasers, at the full price of ten shillings. We have reason to anticipate a more rapid sale hereafter. But the political views expressed in the poems—as we frankly stated to you at first—are not likely to be popular just now, when the Country is in peril, and the Book trade incommoded, by the immediate prospect of a French invasion. We are, dear sir, your obedient servants, TICKLEBOIS, LATHERUP, BLINKERS, & Co.—To Mr. FRANK DARLING, Springhaven Hall."

"You cannot call that much encouragement," said Frank; "and it is a most trusty and honourable house. I cannot do what a friend of mine has done, who went to inferior publishers—denounce them as rogues, and call myself a martyr. If the book had been good, it would have sold; especially as all the poets now are writing vague national songs, full of slaughter and brag, like that 'Billy Blue' thing all our fishermen are humming."

"You have nothing to do but to bide your time. In the long-run, fine work is sure to make its way. Meanwhile I must apologise for praising you to your face, in utter ignorance, of course. But it must have made you feel uncomfortable."

"Not at all; far otherwise," said the truthful Frank. "It has been the very greatest comfort to me. And strange to say, it came just when I wanted it most sadly. I shall never forget your most kind approval."

"In that case I may take the liberty of introducing myself, I trust. You have told me who you are, in the most delightful way. I have no such claim upon your attention, or upon that of the world at large. I am only the last of an ill-fated race, famous for nothing except ruining themselves. I am Caryl Carne, of yonder ruin, which you, must have known from childhood."

Frank Darling lifted his hat in reply to the other's more graceful salutation, and then shook hands with him heartily. "I ought to have known who you are," he said; "for I have heard of you often at Springhaven. But you have not been there since I came down, and we thought that you had left the neighbourhood. Our little village is like the ear of the tyrant, except that it carries more false than true sound. I hope you are come to remain among us, and I hope that we shall see you at my father's house. Years ago I have heard that there used to be no especial good-will between your family and mine—petty disputes about boundaries, no doubt. How narrow and ridiculous such things are! We live in a better age than that, at any rate, although we are small enough still in many ways."

"You are not; and you will enlarge many others," Carne answered, as if the matter were beyond debate. "As for boundaries now, I have none, because the estates are gone, and I am all the richer. That is the surest way to liberate the mind."

"Will you oblige me," said Frank, to change the subject, for his mind did not seek to be liberated so, and yet wished its new admirer to remain in admiration, "by looking along the shore towards Springhaven as far as you can see, and telling me whether any one is coming? My sisters were to follow me, if the weather kept fine, as soon as they had paid a little visit at the rectory. And my sight is not good for long distances."

"I think I can see two ladies coming, or at any rate two figures moving, about a mile or more away, where the sands are shining in a gleam of sunlight. Yes, they are ladies. I know by their walk. Good-bye. I have a way up the cliff from here. You must not be surprised if you do not see me again. I may have to be off for France. I have business there, of which I should like to talk to you. You are so far above mean prejudice. If I go, I shall carry this precious volume with me. Farewell, my friend, if I may call you so."

"Do wait a minute," cried the much admiring Frank; "or walk a few yards with me towards Springhaven. It would give me such pleasure to introduce you to my sisters. And I am sure they will be so glad to know you, when I tell them what I think. I very seldom get such a chance as this."

"There is no resisting that!" replied the graceful Carne; "I have not the honour of knowing a lady in England, except my aunt Mrs. Twemlow, and my cousin Eliza—both very good, but to the last degree insular."

"It is very hard to help being that, when people have never been out of an island. But I fear that I am taking you out of your way."

In a few minutes these two young men drew near to the two young women, whose manners were hard put to hide surprise. When their brother introduced Mr. Carne to them, Faith bowed rather stiffly, for she had formed without reason a dark and obstinate dislike to him. But the impetuous Dolly ran up and offered him both her hands, and said, "Why, Mr. Carne saved both our lives only a few days ago."



CHAPTER XXXVII

NEITHER AT HOME

Though Admiral Darling had not deigned to speak to his younger daughter about that vile anonymous charge, he was not always quite comfortable in his inner mind concerning it. More than once he thought of asking Faith's opinion, for he knew her good sense and discretion; but even this was repugnant to him, and might give her the idea that he cherished low suspicions. And then he was called from home again, being occupied among other things with a vain enquiry about the recent false alarm. For Carne and Charron had managed too well, and judged too correctly the character of Vickers, to afford any chance of discovery. So that, when the Admiral came home again, his calm and—in its fair state—gentle nature was ruffled by the prosperity of the wicked.

"Oh, he is a fine judge of poetry, is he?" he said, more sarcastically than his wont; "that means, I suppose, that he admires yours, Frank. Remember what Nelson said about you. The longer I live, the more I find his views confirmed."

"Papa, you are too bad! You are come home cross!" cried Dolly, who always took Frank's part now. "What does my godfather know of poetry, indeed? If he ever had any ear for it, the guns would have ruined it long ago."

"No mostacchio in my house!" said the master, without heeding her. "I believe that is the correct way to pronounce the filthy thing—a foreign abomination altogether. Who could keep his lips clean, with that dirt over them? A more tolerant man than myself never lived—a great deal too tolerant, as everybody knows. But I'll never tolerate a son of mine in disgusting French hairiness of that sort."

"Papa, you are come home as cross as a bear!" cried Dolly, presuming on her favour. "Lord Dashville was here the other day with a very nice one, and I hear that all Cavalry Officers mean to have one, when they can. And Mr. Carne, Frank's friend, encourages it."

"The less you have to say about that young man, the better. And the less he has to say to any child of mine, the better, both for him and her, I say. I know that the age is turned upside down. But I'll not have that sort of thing at my table."

When a kind and indulgent father breaks forth thus, the result is consternation, followed by anxiety about his health. Faith glanced at Dolly, who was looking quite bewildered, and the two girls withdrew without a word. Johnny was already gone to visit Captain Stubbard, with whose eldest daughter Maggie and the cannons of the battery he was by this time desperately in love; and poor Frank was left to have it out with the angry father.

"I very seldom speak harshly, my boy," said the Admiral, drawing near his son gradually, for his wrath (like good vegetables) was very short of staple; "and when I do so you may feel quite certain that there is sound reason at the bottom of it"—here he looked as if his depth was unfathomable. "It is not only that I am not myself, because of the many hours spent upon hard leather, and vile chalks of flint that go by me half asleep, when I ought to be snoring in the feathers; neither has it anything to do with my consuming the hide of some quadruped for dinner, instead of meat. And the bread is made of rye, if of any grain at all; I rather think of spent tan, kneaded up with tallow ends, such as I have seen cast by in bushels, when the times were good. And every loaf of that costs two shillings—one for me, and one for Government. They all seem to acknowledge that I can put up with that; and I make a strict point of mild language, which enables them to do it again with me. And all up and down the roads, everybody likes me. But if I was shot to-morrow, would they care twopence?"

"I am sure they would, sir; and a good deal more than that," answered Frank, who perceived that his father was out of his usual lines of thinking, perhaps because he had just had a good dinner—so ill do we digest our mercies. "I am sure that there is nobody in Sussex, Kent, or Hampshire who does not admire and respect and trust you."

"I dare say, and rejoice to see me do the work they ought to do. They have long nights in bed, every one of them, and they get their meals when they want them. I am not at all astonished at what Nelson said. He is younger than I am by a good many years, but he seems to have picked up more than I have, in the way of common sentiments, and such like. 'You may do everybody's work, if you are fool enough,' he said to me the last time I saw him; 'and ease them of their souls as well, if you are rogue enough, as they do in the Popish countries. I am nearly sick of doing it,' he said, and he looked it. 'If you once begin with it, you must go on.' I find it more true every day of my life. Don't interrupt me; don't go on with comfortable stuff about doing good, and one's duty towards one's Country—though I fear that you think very little of that. If I thought I had done good enough to make up for my back-aches, and three fine stumps lost through chewing patriotic sentiments, why, of course I should be thankful, and make the best of my reward. But charity begins at home, my boy, and one's shirt should be considered before one's cloak. A man's family is the nearest piece of his country, and the dearest one."

"I am sure, sir, I hope," replied Frank, who had never heard his father talk like this before, "that nothing is going on amiss with us here. When you are away, I keep a sharp lookout. And if I saw anything going wrong, I should let you know of it immediately."

"No doubt you would; but you are much too soft. You are quite as easygoing as I used to be at your age"—here the Admiral looked as if he felt himself to be uncommonly hard-going now—"and that sort of thing will not do in these days. For my own discomforts I care nothing. I could live on lobscouse, or soap and bully, for a year, and thank God for getting more than I deserved. But my children, Frank, are very different. From me you would never hear a grumble, or a syllable of anything but perfect satisfaction, so long as I felt that I was doing good work, and having it appreciated. And all my old comrades have just the same feeling. But you, who come after us, are not like that. You must have everything made to fit you, instead of making yourselves fit them. The result will be, I have very little doubt, the downfall of England in the scale of nations. I was talking to my old friend St. Vincent last week, and he most heartily agreed with me. However, I don't mean to blame you, Frank. You cannot help your unfortunate nature for stringing ends of words together that happen to sound alike. Johnny will make a fine Officer, not in the Navy, but of Artillery—Stubbard says that he has the rarest eyes he ever came across in one so young, and he wishes he could put them into his Bob's head. He shall not go back to Harrow; he can spell his own name, which seems to be all they teach them there, instead of fine scholarship, such as I obtained at Winton. But to spell his own name is quite enough for a soldier. In the Navy we always were better educated. Johnny shall go to Chatham, when his togs are ready. I settled all about it in London, last week. Nothing hurts him. He is water-proof and thunder-proof. Toss him up anyhow, he falls upon his feet. But that sort of nature very seldom goes up high. But you, Frank, you might have done some good, without that nasty twist of yours for writing and for rhyming, which is a sure indication of spinal complaint. Don't interrupt me; I speak from long experience. Things might be worse, and I ought to be thankful. None of my children will ever disgrace me. At the same time, things would go on better if I were able to be more at home. That Caryl Carne, for instance, what does he come here for?"

"Well, sir, he has only been here twice. And it took a long time to persuade him at all. He said that as you had not called upon him, he felt that he might be intruding here. And Faith, who is sometimes very spiteful, bowed, as much as to say that he had better wait. But Dolly, who is very kind-hearted, assured him that she had heard you say at least a dozen times: 'Be sure that I call upon Mr. Carne to-day. What will he think of my neglect? But I hope that he will set it down to the right cause—the perpetual demands upon my time.' And when she told him that, he said that he would call the next day, and so he did."

"Ah!" cried the old man, not well pleased; "it was Dolly who took that little business off my shoulders! She might have been content with her elder sister's judgment, in a family question of that sort. But I dare say she thought it right to make my excuses. Very well, I'll do that for myself. To-morrow I shall call upon that young man, unless I get another despatch to-night. But I hear he wants nobody at his ruins. I suppose he has not asked even you to go there?"

"No, sir; I think he took his little place here, because it would be so painful for him to receive any friends at that tumble-down castle. He has not yet been able to do any repairs."

"I respect him for that," said the Admiral, with his generous sympathies aroused; "they have been a grand old family, though I can't say much for those I knew—except, of course, Mrs. Twemlow. But he may be a very fine young fellow, though a great deal too Frenchified, from all I hear. And why my friend Twemlow cold-shoulders him so, is something of a mystery to me. Twemlow is generally a judicious man in things that have nothing to do with the Church. When it comes to that, he is very stiff-backed, as I have often had to tell him. Perhaps this young man is a Papist. His mother was, and she brought him up."

"I am sure I don't know, sir," answered Frank. "I should think none the worse of him if he were, unless he allowed it to interfere with his proper respect for liberty."

"Liberty be hanged!" cried the Admiral; "and that's the proper end for most of those who prate about it, when they ought to be fighting for their Country. I shall sound him about that stuff to-morrow. If he is one of that lot, he won't come here with my good-will, I can assure him. What time is he generally to be found down there? He is right over Stubbard's head, I believe, and yet friend Adam knows nothing about him. Nor even Mrs. Adam! I should have thought that worthy pair would have drawn any badger in the kingdom. I suppose the youth will see me, if I call. I don't want to go round that way for nothing. I did want to have a quiet day at home, and saunter in the garden, as the weather is so mild, and consult poor Swipes about Spring crops, and then have a pipe or two, and take my gun to Brown Bushes for a woodcock, or a hare, and come home with a fine appetite to a good dinner. But I never must hope for a bit of pleasure now."

"You may depend upon it, sir," said Frank, "that Caryl Carne will be greatly pleased to see you. And I think you will agree with me that a more straightforward and simple-minded man is not to be found in this country. He combines what we are pleased to call our national dignity and self-respect with the elegant manners, and fraternal warmth, and bonhomie—as they themselves express it—of our friends across the water."

"You be off! I don't want to be cross any more. Two hundred thousand friends there at this moment eager to burn down our homes and cut our throats! Tired as I am, I ought to take a stick to you, as friend Tugwell did to his son for much less. I have the greatest mind not to go near that young man. I wish I had Twemlow here to talk it over. Pay your fine for a French word, and be off!"

Frank Darling gravely laid down five shillings on his dessert plate, and walked off. The fine for a French word in that house, and in hundreds of other English houses at this patriotic period, was a crown for a gentleman, and a shilling for a lady, the latter not being liable except when gentlemen were present. The poet knew well that another word on his part would irritate his father to such a degree that no visit would be paid to-morrow to the admirer of the Harmodiad, whose admiration he was longing to reward with a series of good dinners. And so he did his utmost to ensure his father's visit.

But when the Admiral, going warily—because he was so stiff from saddle-work—made his way down to the house of Widow Shanks, and winking at the Royal Arms in the lower front window, where Stubbard kept Office and convenience, knocked with the knocker at the private door, there seemed to be a great deal of thought required before anybody came to answer.

"Susie," said the visitor, who had an especial knack of remembering Christian names, which endeared him to the bearers, "I am come to see Mr. Carne, and I hope he is at home."

"No, that 'a bain't, sir," the little girl made answer, after looking at the Admiral as if he was an elephant, and wiping her nose with unwonted diligence; "he be gone away, sir; and please, sir, mother said so."

"Well, here's a penny for you, my dear, because you are the best little needle-woman in the school, they tell me. Run and tell your mother to come and see me.—Oh, Mrs. Shanks, I am very glad to see you, and so blooming in spite of all your hard work. Ah, it is no easy thing in these hard times to maintain a large family and keep the pot boiling. And everything clean as a quarter-deck! My certy, you are a woman in a thousand!"

"No, sir, no. It is all the Lord's doing. And you to the back of Him, as I alway say. Not a penny can they make out as I owes justly, bad as I be at the figures, Squire. Do 'e come in, and sit down, there's a dear. Ah, I mind the time when you was like a dart, Squire!"

"Well, and now I am like a cannon-ball," said the Admiral, who understood and liked this unflattering talk; "only I don't travel quite so fast as that. I scarcely get time to see any old friends. But I came to look out for a young friend now, the gentleman you make so comfortable upstairs. Don't I wish I was a young man without incumbrance, to come and lodge with such a wonderful landlady!"

"Ah, if there was more of your sort, sir, there'd be a deal less trouble in the world, there would. Not that my young gentleman is troublesome, mind you, only so full of them outlandish furrin ways—abideth all day long without ating ort, so different from a honest Englishman. First I used to think as he couldn't afford it, and long to send him up a bit of my own dinner, but dursn't for the life of me—too grand for that, by ever so—till one day little Susie there comes a-running down the stairs, and she sings out, with her face as red as ever a boiled lobster: 'Looky see, mother! Oh, do 'e come and looky see! Pollyon hath got a heap of guineas on his table; wouldn't go into the big yellow pudding-basin!' And sure enough he had, your Honour, in piles, as if he was telling of them. He had slipped out suddenly, and thought the passage door was bolted. What a comfort it was to me, I can't configurate. Because I could eat my dinner comfortable now, for such a big heap of money never I did see."

"I am very glad—heartily glad," exclaimed the smiling Admiral. "I hope he may get cash enough to buy back all the great Carne property, and kick out those rascally Jews and lawyers. But what makes Susie call him that?"

"Well, sir, the young ones must have a nickname for anything beyond them; and because he never takes any notice of them—so different from your handsome Master Frank—and some simility of his black horse, or his proud walk, to the pictur', 'Pollyon' is the name they give him, out of Pilgrim's Progress. Though not a bit like him, for such a gentleman to pay his rent and keep his place untroublesome I never had before. And a fortnight he paid me last night, afore going, and took away the keys of all three doors."

"He is gone, then, is he? To London, I dare say. It would be useless to look for him at the castle. My son will be disappointed more than I am. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Shanks, in these days the great thing is to stick to the people that we know. The world is so full, not of rogues, but of people who are always wanting something out of one, that to talk with a thoroughly kind, honest person, like yourself, is a real luxury. When the gentleman comes back, let him know that I have called."

"And my Jenny, sir?" cried the anxious mother, running after him into the passage; "not a word have you said about my Jenny. I hope she show no sign of flightiness?"

"Jenny is as steady as the church," replied the Admiral. "We are going to put her on a pound a year from next quarter-day, by Mrs. Cloam's advice. She'll have a good stocking by the time she gets married."

"There never was such a pleasant gentleman, nor such a kind-hearted one, I do believe," said Widow Shanks, as she came in with bright eyes. "What are they Carnes to the Darlings, after all? As different as night and day."

But the Admiral's next visit was not quite so pleasant; for when he got back into the village road, expecting a nice walk to his luncheon and his pipe, a man running furiously almost knocked him down, and had no time to beg his pardon. The runner's hat was off his head, and his hair blowing out, but luckily for itself his tongue was not between his teeth.

"Has the devil got hold of you at last, Jem Prater?" the Admiral asked, not profanely; for he had seen a good deal of mankind, and believed in diabolical possession.

"For Parson! for Parson!" cried Jem, starting off again as hard as he could go. "Butter Cheeseman hath hanged his self in his own scales. And nobody is any good but Parson."

Admiral Darling was much disturbed. "What will the world come to? I never knew such times," he exclaimed to himself, with some solemnity; and then set off, as fast as his overridden state permitted, for the house of Mr. Cheeseman. Passing through the shop, which had nobody in it, he was led by the sound of voices into a little room beyond it—the room in which Mr. Cheeseman had first received Caryl Carne. Here he beheld an extraordinary scene, of which he often had to dream thereafter.

From a beam in the roof (which had nothing to do with his scales, as Jem Prater had imagined), by a long but not well-plaited cord, was dangling the respected Church-warden Cheeseman. Happily for him, he had relied on his own goods; and the rope being therefore of very bad hemp, had failed in this sad and too practical proof. The weight of its vendor had added to its length some fifteen inches—as he loved to pull out things—and his toes touched the floor, which relieved him now and then.

"Why don't you cut him down, you old fools?" cried the Admiral to three gaffers, who stood moralising, while Mrs. Cheeseman sat upon a barrel, sobbing heavily, with both hands spread to conceal the sad sight.

"We was afraid of hurting of him," said the quickest-witted of the gaffers; "Us wanted to know why 'a doed it," said the deepest; and, "The will of the Lord must be done," said the wisest.

After fumbling in vain for his knife, and looking round, the Admiral ran back into the shop, and caught up the sharp steel blade with which the victim of a troubled mind had often unsold a sold ounce in the days of happy commerce. In a moment the Admiral had the poor Church-warden in his sturdy arms, and with a sailor's skill had unknotted the choking noose, and was shouting for brandy, as he kept the blue head from falling back.

When a little of the finest eau de vie that ever was smuggled had been administered, the patient rallied, and becoming comparatively cheerful, was enabled to explain that "it was all a mistake altogether." This removed all misunderstanding; but Rector Twemlow, arriving too late for anything but exhortation, asked a little too sternly—as everybody felt—under what influence of the Evil One Cheeseman had committed that mistake. The reply was worthy of an enterprising tradesman, and brought him such orders from a score of miles around that the resources of the establishment could only book them.

"Sir," he said, looking at the parson sadly, with his right hand laid upon his heart, which was feeble, and his left hand intimating that his neck was sore, "if anything has happened that had better not have been, it must have been by reason of the weight I give, and the value such a deal above the prices."



CHAPTER XXXVIII

EVERYBODY'S MASTER

The peril of England was now growing fast; all the faster from being in the dark. The real design of the enemy escaped the penetration even of Nelson, and our Government showed more anxiety about their great adversary landing on the coast of Egypt than on that of England. Naval men laughed at his flat-bottomed boats, and declared that one frigate could sink a hundred of them; whereas it is probable that two of them, with their powerful guns and level fire, would have sunk any frigate we then possessed. But the crafty and far-seeing foe did not mean to allow any frigate, or line-of-battle ship, the chance of enquiring how that might be.

His true scheme, as everybody now knows well, was to send the English fleet upon a wild-goose chase, whether to Egypt, the west coast of Ireland, or the West Indies, as the case might be; and then, by a rapid concentration of his ships, to obtain command of the English Channel, if only for twenty-four hours at a time. Twenty-four hours of clearance from our cruisers would have seen a hundred thousand men landed on our coast, throwing up entrenchments, and covering the landing of another hundred thousand, coming close upon their heels. Who would have faced them? A few good regiments, badly found, and perhaps worse led, and a mob of militia and raw volunteers, the reward of whose courage would be carnage.

But as a chip smells like the tree, and a hair like the dog it belongs to, so Springhaven was a very fair sample of the England whereof (in its own opinion) it formed a most important part. Contempt for the body of a man leads rashly to an under-estimate of his mind; and one of the greatest men that ever grew on earth—if greatness can be without goodness—was held in low account because not of high inches, and laughed at as "little Boney."

However, there were, as there always are, thousands of sensible Englishmen then; and rogues had not yet made a wreck of grand Institutions to scramble for what should wash up. Abuses existed, as they always must; but the greatest abuse of all (the destruction of every good usage) was undreamed of yet. And the right man was even now approaching to the rescue, the greatest Prime-Minister of any age or country.

Unwitting perhaps of the fine time afforded by the feeble delays of Mr. Addington, and absorbed in the tissue of plot and counterplot now thickening fast in Paris—the arch-plotter in all of them being himself—the First Consul had slackened awhile his hot haste to set foot upon the shore of England. His bottomless ambition for the moment had a top, and that top was the crown of France; and as soon as he had got that on his head, the head would have no rest until the crown was that of Europe.

But before any crown could be put on at all, the tender hearts of Frenchmen must be touched by the appearance of great danger—the danger which is of all the greatest, that to their nearest and dearest selves. A bloody farce was in preparation, noble lives were to be perjured away, and above all, the only great rival in the hearts of soldiers must be turned out of France. This foul job worked—as foul Radical jobs do now—for the good of England. If the French invasion had come to pass, as it was fully meant to do, in the month of February, 1804, perhaps its history must have been written in French, for us to understand it.

So, at any rate, thought Caryl Carne, who knew the resources of either side, and the difference between a fine army and a mob. He felt quite sure that his mother's country would conquer his father's without much trouble, and he knew that his horn would be exalted in the land, when he had guided the conqueror into it. Sure enough then he would recover his ancestral property with interest and be able to punish his enemies well, and reward his friends if they deserved it. Thinking of these things, and believing that his own preparations would soon be finished, he left Widow Shanks to proclaim his merits, while under the bold and able conduct of Captain Renaud Charron he ran the gauntlet of the English fleet, and was put ashore southward of Cape Grisnez. Here is a long reach of dreary exposure, facing the west unprofitably, with a shallow slope of brown sand, and a scour of tide, and no pleasant moorings. Jotted as the coast was all along (whereon dry batteries grinned defiance, or sands just awash smiled treachery) with shallow transports, gun-boats, prames, scows, bilanders, brigs, and schooners, row-galleys, luggers, and every sort of craft that has a mast, or gets on without one, and even a few good ships of war pondering malice in the safer roadsteads, yet here the sweep of the west wind, and the long roll from the ocean following, kept a league or two, northward of the mighty defences of Boulogne, inviolate by the petty enmities of man. Along the slight curve of the coast might be seen, beyond Ambleteuse and Wimereux, the vast extent of the French flotilla, ranged in three divisions, before the great lunette of the central camp, and hills jotted with tents thick as limpets on a rock.

Carne (whose dealings were quite unknown to all of the French authorities save one, and that the supreme one) was come by appointment to meet his commander in a quiet and secluded spot. It was early February now, and although the day was waning, and the wind, which was drawing to the north of west, delivered a cold blow from the sea, yet the breath of Spring was in the air already, and the beat of her pulse came through the ground. Almost any man, except those two concerting to shed blood and spread fire, would have looked about a little at the pleasure of the earth, and felt a touch of happiness in the goodness of the sky.

Caryl Carne waited in the shelter of a tree, scarcely deserving to be called a tree, except for its stiff tenacity. All the branches were driven by the western gales, and scourged flat in one direction—that in which they best could hold together, and try to believe that their life was their own. Like the wings of a sea bird striving with a tempest, all the sprays were frayed alike, and all the twigs hackled with the self-same pile. Whoever observes a tree like this should stop to wonder how ever it managed to make itself any sort of trunk at all, and how it was persuaded to go up just high enough to lose the chance of ever coming down again. But Carne cared for nothing of this sort, and heeded very little that did not concern himself. All he thought of was how he might persuade his master to try the great issue at once.

While he leaned heavily against the tree, with his long sea-cloak flapping round his legs, two horsemen struck out of the Ambleteuse road, and came at hand-gallop towards him. The foremost, who rode with short stirrups, and sat his horse as if he despised him, was the foremost man of the world just now, and for ten years yet to come.

Carne ran forward to show himself, and the master of France dismounted. He always looked best upon horseback, as short men generally do, if they ride well; and his face (which helped to make his fortune) appeared even more commanding at a little distance. An astonishing face, in its sculptured beauty, set aspect, and stern haughtiness, calm with the power of transcendant mind, and a will that never met its equal. Even Carne, void of much imagination, and contemptuous of all the human character he shared, was the slave of that face when in its presence, and could never meet steadily those piercing eyes. And yet, to the study of a neutral dog, or a man of abstract science, the face was as bad as it was beautiful.

Napoleon—as he was soon to be called by a cringing world—smiled affably, and offered his firm white hand, which Carne barely touched, and bent over with deference. Then the foaming horse was sent away in charge of the attendant trooper, and the master began to take short quick steps, to and fro, in front of the weather-beaten tree; for to stand still was not in his nature. Carne, being beckoned to keep at his side, lost a good deal of what he had meant to say, from the trouble he found in timing his wonted stride to the brisk pace of the other.

"You have done well—on the whole very well," said Napoleon, whose voice was deep, yet clear and distinct as the sound of a bell. "You have kept me well informed; you are not suspected; you are enlarging your knowledge of the enemy and of his resources; every day you become more capable of conducting us to the safe landing. For what, then, this hurry, this demand to see me, this exposing of yourself to the risk of capture?"

Carne was about to answer; but the speaker, who undershot the thoughts of others before they were shaped—as the shuttle of the lightning underweaves a cloud—raised his hand to stop him, and went on:

"Because you suppose that all is ripe. Because you believe that the slow beasts of islanders will strengthen their defences more by delay than we shall strengthen our attack. Because you are afraid of incurring suspicion, if you continue to prepare. And most of all, my friend, because you are impatient to secure the end of a long enterprise. But, Captain, it must be longer yet. It is not for you, but for me, to fix the time. Behold me! I am come from a grand review. We have again rehearsed the embarkation. We have again put two thousand horses on board. The horses did it well; but not the men. They are as brave as eagles, but as clumsy as the ostrich, and as fond of the sand without water. They will all be sea-sick. It is in their countenances, though many have been practised in the mouths of rivers. Those infamous English will not permit us to proceed far enough from our native land to acquire what they call the legs of the sea. If our braves are sea-sick, how can they work the cannon, or even navigate well for the accursed island? They must have time. They must undergo more waves, and a system of diet before embarkation. Return, my trusted Captain, and continue your most esteemed services for three months. I have written these new instructions for you. You may trust me to remember this addition to your good works."

Carne's heart fell, and his face was gloomy, though he did his best to hide it. So well he knew the arrogance and fierce self-will of his commanding officer that he durst not put his own opposite view of the case directly before him. This arrogance grew with the growth of his power; so that in many important matters Napoleon lost the true state of the case through the terror felt by his subordinates. So great was the mastery of his presence that Carne felt himself guilty of impertinence in carrying his head above the level of the General's plume, and stooped unconsciously—as hundreds of tall men are said to have done—to lessen this anomaly of Nature.

"All shall be done to your orders, my General," he replied, submissively. "For my own position I have no fear. I might remain there from year to year without any suspicion arising, so stupid are the people all around, and so well is my name known among them. The only peril is in the landing of stores, and I think we should desist from that. A few people have been wondering about that, though hitherto we have been most fortunate. They have set it down so far to smuggling operations, with which in that tyrannical land all the lower orders sympathise. But it would be wiser to desist awhile, unless you, my General, have anything of moment which you still desire to send in."

"What sort of fellow is that Sheeseman?" asked Napoleon, with his wonderful memory of details. "Is he more to be confided in as a rogue or as a fool?"

"As both, sir; but more especially as a rogue, though he has the compunctions of a fool sometimes. But he is as entirely under my thumb, as I am under that of my Commander."

"That is very good," answered the First Consul, smiling with the sense of his own power; "and at an hour's notice, with fifty chosen men landed from the London Trader—ah, I love that name; it is appropriate—you could spike all the guns of that pretentious little battery, and lock the Commander of the Coast-Defence in one of his own cellars. Is it not so, my good Captain? Answer me not. That is enough. One question more, and you may return. Are you certain of the pilotage of the proud young fisherman who knows every grain of sand along his native shore? Surely you can bribe him, if he hesitates at all, or hold a pistol at his ear as he steers the leading prame into the bay! Charron would be the man for that. Between you and Charron, there should be no mistake."

"He requires to be handled with much delicacy. He has no idea yet what he is meant to do. And if I understand his nature, neither bribes nor fear would move him. He is stubborn as a Breton, and of that simple character."

"One can always befool a Breton; but I hate that race," said Napoleon. "If he cannot be made useful, tie a round shot to him, throw him overheard, and get a gentler native."

"Alas, I fear that we cannot indulge in that pleasure," said Carne, with a smile of regret. "It cost me a large outlay of skill to catch him, and the natives of that place are all equally stubborn. But I have a plan for making him do our work without being at all aware of it. Is it your wish, my General, that I should now describe that plan?"

"Not now," replied Napoleon, pulling out a watch of English make, "but in your next letter. I start for Paris in an hour's time. You will hear of things soon which will add very greatly to the weight and success of this grand enterprise. We shall have perfidious Albion caught in her own noose, as you shall see. You have not heard of one Captain Wright, and the landing-place at Biville. We will have our little Biville at Springhaven. There will be too many of us to swing up by a rope. Courage, my friend! The future is with you. Our regiments are casting dice for the fairest English counties. But your native county is reserved for you. You shall possess the whole of it—I swear it by the god of war—and command the Southern army. Be brave, be wise, be vigilant, and above all things be patient."

The great man held up his hand, as a sign that he wanted his horse, and then offered it to Caryl Carne, who touched it lightly with his lips, and bent one knee. "My Emperor!" he said, "my Emperor!"

"Wait until the proper time," said Napoleon, gravely, and yet well pleased. "You are not the first, and you will not be the last. Observe discretion. Farewell, my friend!"

In another minute he was gone, and the place looked empty without him. Carne stood gloomily watching the horsemen as their figures grew small in the distance, the large man behind pounding heavily away, like an English dragoon, on the scanty sod, of no importance to anybody—unless he had a wife or children—the little man in front (with the white plume waving, and the well-bred horse going easily), the one whose body would affect more bodies, and certainly send more souls out of them, than any other born upon this earth as yet, and—we hope—as long as ever it endureth.

Caryl Carne cared not a jot about that. He was anything but a philanthropist; his weaknesses, if he had any, were not dispersive, but thoroughly concentric. He gathered his long cloak round his body, and went to the highest spot within his reach, about a mile from the watch-tower at Cape Grisnez, and thence he had a fine view of the vast invasive fleet and the vaster host behind it.

An Englishman who loved his Country would have turned sick at heart and faint of spirit at the sight before him. The foe was gathered together there to eat us up on every side, to get us into his net and rend us, to tear us asunder as a lamb is torn when its mother has dropped it in flight from the wolves. For forty square miles there was not an acre without a score of tents upon it, or else of huts thrown up with slabs of wood to keep the powder dry, and the steel and iron bright and sharp to go into the vitals of England. Mighty docks had been scooped out by warlike hands, and shone with ships crowded with guns and alive with men. And all along the shore for leagues, wherever any shelter lay, and great batteries protected them, hundreds of other ships tore at their moorings, to dash across the smooth narrow line, and blacken with fire and redden with blood the white cliffs of the land they loathed.

And what was there to stop them? The steam of the multitude rose in the air, and the clang of armour filled it. Numbers irresistible, and relentless power urged them. At the beck of the hand that had called the horse, the grey sea would have been black with ships, and the pale waves would have been red with fire. Carne looked at the water way touched with silver by the soft descent of the winter sun, and upon it, so far as his gaze could reach, there were but a dozen little objects moving, puny creatures in the distance—mice in front of a lion's den. And much as he hated with his tainted heart the land of his father, the land of his birth, some reluctant pride arose that he was by right an Englishman.

"It is the dread of the English seaman, it is the fame of Nelson, it is the habit of being beaten when England meets them upon the sea—nothing else keeps this mighty host like a set of trembling captives here, when they might launch forth irresistibly. And what is a great deal worse, it will keep me still in my ruined dungeons, a spy, an intriguer, an understrapper, when I am fit to be one of the foremost. What a fool I am so to be cowed and enslaved, by a man no better endowed than myself with anything, except self-confidence! I should have looked over his head, and told him that I had had enough of it, and if he would not take advantage of my toils, I would toil for him no longer. Why, he never even thanked me, that I can remember, and my pay is no more than Charron's! And a pretty strict account I have to render of every Republican coin he sends. He will have his own head on them within six months, unless he is assassinated. His manners are not those of a gentleman. While I was speaking to him, he actually turned his back upon me, and cleared his throat! Every one hates him as much as fears him, of all who are in the rank of gentlemen. How would it pay me to throw him over, denounce my own doings, excuse them as those of a Frenchman and a French officer, and bow the knee to Farmer George? Truly if it were not for my mother, who has sacrificed her life for me, I would take that course, and have done with it. Such all-important news would compel them to replace me in the property of my forefathers; and if neighbours looked coldly on me at first, I could very soon conquer that nonsense. I should marry little Dolly, of course, and that would go half-way towards doing it. I hate that country, but I might come to like it, if enough of it belonged to me. Aha! What would my mother say, if she dreamed that I could have such ideas? And the whole of my life belongs to her. Well, let me get back to my ruins first. It would never do to be captured by a British frigate. We had a narrow shave of it last time. And there will be a vile great moon to-night."

With these reflections—which were upon the whole more to his credit than the wonted web of thought—Carne with his long stride struck into a path towards the beach where his boat was waiting. Although he knew where to find several officers who had once been his comrades, he kept himself gladly to his loneliness; less perhaps by reason of Napoleon's orders than from the growing charm which Solitude has for all who begin to understand her.



CHAPTER XXXIX

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

Though Carne had made light, in his impatient mood, of the power of the blockading fleet, he felt in his heart a sincere respect for its vigilance and activity. La Liberte (as the unhappy Cheeseman's schooner was called within gunshot of France) was glad enough to drop that pretentious name, and become again the peaceful London Trader, when she found herself beyond the reach of French batteries. The practice of her captain, the lively Charron, was to give a wide berth to any British cruiser appearing singly; but whenever more than one hove in sight, to run into the midst of them and dip his flag. From the speed of his schooner he could always, in a light wind, show a clean pair of heels to any single heavy ship, and he had not yet come across any cutter, brig of war, or light corvette that could collar the Liberte in any sort of weather. Renaud Charron was a brave young Frenchman, as fair a specimen as could be found, of a truly engaging but not overpowering type, kindly, warm-hearted, full of enterprise, lax of morals (unless honour—their veneer—was touched), loving excitement, and capable of anything, except skulking, or sulking, or running away slowly.

"None of your risky tricks to-night!" said Carne, as he stood on the schooner's deck, in the dusk of the February evening, himself in a dark mood growing darker—for his English blood supplied the elements of gloom, and he felt a dull pleasure in goading a Frenchman, after being trampled on by one of French position. "You will just make straight, as the tide and shoals allow, for our usual landing-place, set me ashore, and follow me to the old quarters. I have orders to give you, which can be given only there."

"My commanding officer shall be obeyed," the Frenchman answered, with a light salute and smile, for he was not endowed with the power of hating, or he might have indulged that bad power towards Carne; "but I fear that he has not found things to his liking."

"What concern is that of yours? Your duty is to carry out my orders, to the utmost of your ability, and offer opinion when asked for."

The light-hearted Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "My commanding officer is right," he said; "but the sea is getting up, and there will be wind, unless I mistake the arising of the moon. My commanding officer had better retire, until his commands are needed. He has been known to feel the effects of high tossing, in spite of his unequalled constitution. Is it not so, my commander? I ask with deference, and anxiety."

Carne, who liked to have the joke on his side only, swore at the moon and the wind, in clear English, which was shorter and more efficacious than French. He longed to say, "Try to keep me out of rough water," but his pride, and the fear of suggesting the opposite to this sailor who loved a joke, kept him silent, and he withdrew to his little cuddy, chewing a biscuit, to feed, if it must be so, the approaching malady.

"We shall have some game, and a fine game too," said Renaud Charron to himself, as he ordered more sail to be made. "Milord gives himself such mighty airs! We will take him to the cross-run off the Middle Bank, and offer him a basin through the key-hole. To make sea-sick an Englishman—for, after all, what other is he?—will be a fine piece of revenge for fair France."

Widow Shanks had remarked with tender sorrow—more perhaps because she admired the young man, and was herself a hearty soul, than from any loss of profit in victualling him—that "he was one of they folk as seems to go about their business, and do their jobs, and keep their skins as full as other people, without putting nort inside of them." She knew one of that kind before, and he was shot by the Coast-guard, and when they postmartyred him, an eel twenty foot long was found inside him, doubled up for all the world like a love-knot. Squire Carne was of too high a family for that; but she would give a week's rent to know what was inside him.

There was no little justice in these remarks, as is pretty sure to be the case with all good-natured criticism. The best cook that ever was roasted cannot get out of a pot more than was put in it; and the weight of a cask, as a general rule, diminishes if the tap is turned, without any redress at the bung-hole. Carne ran off his contents too fast, before he had arranged for fresh receipts; and all who have felt what comes of that will be able to feel for him in the result.

But a further decrease was in store for him now. As the moon arose, the wind got higher, and chopped round to one point north of west, raising a perkish head-sea, and grinning with white teeth against any flapping of sails. The schooner was put upon the starboard tack as near to the wind as she would lie, bearing so for the French coast more than the English, and making for the Vergoyers, instead of the Varne, as intended. This carried them into wider water, and a long roll from the southwest crossing the pointed squabble of the strong new wind.

"General," cried Charron, now as merry as a grig, and skipping to the door of Carne's close little cabin, about an hour before midnight, "it would afford us pleasure if you would kindly come on deck and give us the benefit of your advice. I fear that you are a little confined down here, and in need of more solid sustenance. My General, arise; there is much briskness upon deck, and the waves are dancing beautifully in the full moon. Two sail are in sight, one upon the weather bow, and the other on the weather quarter. Ah, how superior your sea-words are to ours! If I were born an Englishman, you need not seek far for a successor to Nelson, when he gets shot, as he is sure to be before very long."

"Get out!" muttered Carne, whose troubles were faintly illuminated by a sputtering wick. "Get out, you scoundrel, as you love plain English. Go direct to the devil—only let me die in peace."

"All language is excusable in those affected with the malady of the sea," replied the Frenchman, dancing a little to encourage his friend. "Behold, if you would get up and do this, you would be as happy inside as I am. But stay—I know what will ease you in an instant, and enable you to order us right and left. The indefatigable Sherray put a fine piece of fat pork in store before we sailed; I have just had it cooked, for I was almost starving. It floats in brown liquor of the richest order, such as no Englishman can refuse. Take a sip of pure rum, and you will enjoy it surely. Say, my brave General, will you come and join me? It will cure any little disquietude down here."

With a pleasant smile Charron laid his hand on the part of his commander which he supposed to be blameable. Carne made an effort to get up and kick him, but fell back with everything whirling around, and all human standards inverted. Then the kindly Frenchman tucked him up, for his face was blue and the chill of exhaustion striking into him. "I wish you could eat a little bit," said Charron, gently; but Carne gave a push with his elbow. "Well, you'll be worse before you are better, as the old women say in your country. But what am I to do about the two British ships—for they are sure to be British—now in sight?" But Carne turned his back, and his black boots dangled from the rim of his bunk as if there was nothing in them.

"This is going a little too far," cried Charron; "I must have some orders, my commander. You understand that two English ships are manifestly bearing down upon us—"

"Let them come and send us to the bottom—the sooner the better," his commander groaned, and then raised his limp knuckles with a final effort to stop his poor ears forever.

"But I am not ready to go to the bottom, nor all the other people of our fourteen hands"—the Frenchman spoke now to himself alone—"neither will I even go to prison. I will do as they do at Springhaven, and doubtless at every other place in England. I will have my dish of pork, which is now just crackling—I am capable of smelling it even here—and I will give some to Sam Polwhele, and we will put heads together over it. To outsail friend Englishman is a great delight, and to out-gun him would be still greater; but if we cannot accomplish those, there will be some pleasure of outwitting him."

Renaud Charron was never disposed to make the worst of anything. When he went upon deck again, to look out while his supper was waiting, he found no change, except that the wind was freshening and the sea increasing, and the strangers whose company he did not covet seemed waiting for no invitation. With a light wind he would have had little fear of giving them the go-by, or on a dark night he might have contrived to slip between or away from them. But everything was against him now. The wind was so strong, blowing nearly half a gale, and threatening to blow a whole one, that he durst not carry much canvas, and the full moon, approaching the meridian now, spread the white sea with a broad flood of light. He could see that both enemies had descried him, and were acting in concert to cut him off. The ship on his weather bow was a frigate, riding the waves in gallant style, with the wind upon her beam, and travelling two feet for every one the close-hauled schooner could accomplish. If the latter continued her present course, in another half-league she would be under the port-holes of the frigate.

The other enemy, though further off, was far more difficult to escape. This was a gun-brig, not so very much bigger than La Liberte herself—for gun-brigs in those days were very small craft—and for that very reason more dangerous. She bore about two points east of north from the greatly persecuted Charron, and was holding on steadily under easy sail, neither gaining much upon the chase nor losing.

"Carry on as we are for about ten minutes," said Charron to his mate, Sam Polwhele; "that will give us period to eat our pork. Come, then, my good friend, let us do it."

Polwhele—as he was called to make believe that he and other hands were Cornishmen, whereas they were Yankees of the sharpest order, owing no allegiance and unhappily no good-will to their grandmother—this man, whose true name was Perkins, gave the needful orders, and followed down. Charron could talk, like many Frenchmen, quite as fast with his mouth full as empty, and he had a man to talk to who did not require anything to be said twice to him.

"No fear of me!" was all he said. "You keep out of sight, because of your twang. I'll teach them a little good English—better than ever came out of Cornwall. The best of all English is not to say too much."

The captain and his mate enjoyed their supper, while Carne in the distance bore the pangs of a malady called bulimus, that is to say, a giant's ravening for victuals, without a babe's power of receiving them. For he was turning the corner of his sickness now, but prostrate and cold as a fallen stalactite.

"Aha! We have done well. We have warmed our wits up. One glass of what you call the grog; and then we will play a pleasant game with those Englishmen!" Carne heard him say it, and in his heart hoped that the English would pitch him overboard.

It was high time for those two to finish their supper. The schooner had no wheel, but steered—as light craft did then, and long afterwards—with a bulky ash tiller, having iron eyes for lashing it in heavy weather. Three strong men stood by it now, obedient, yet muttering to one another, for another cable's length would bring them into danger of being run down by the frigate.

"All clear for stays!" cried Polwhele, under orders from Charron. "Down helm! Helm's alee! Steady so. Let draw! Easy! easy! There she fills!" And after a few more rapid orders the handy little craft was dashing away, with the wind abaft the beam, and her head about two points north of east. "Uncommon quick in stays!" cried Polwhele, who had taken to the helm, and now stood there. "Wonder what Britishers will think of that?"

The British ship soon let him know her opinion, by a roar and a long streak of smoke blown toward him, as she put up her helm to consider the case. It was below the dignity of a fine frigate to run after little smuggling craft, such as she voted this to be, and a large ship had been sighted from her tops down channel, which might afford her nobler sport. She contented herself with a harmless shot, and leaving the gun-brig to pursue the chase, bore away for more important business.

"Nonplussed the big 'un; shall have trouble with the little 'un," said Master Polwhele to his captain. "She don't draw half a fathom more than we do. No good running inside the shoals. And with this wind, she has the foot of us."

"Bear straight for her, and let her board us," Charron answered, pleasantly. "Down with all French hands into the forepart of the hold, and stow the spare foresail over them. Show our last bills of lading, and ask them to trade. You know all about Cheeseman; double his prices. If we make any cash, we'll divide it. Say we are out of our course, through supplying a cruiser that wanted our goods for nothing. I shall keep out of sight on account of my twang, as you politely call it. The rest I may safely leave to your invention. But if you can get any ready rhino, Sam Polwhele is not the man to neglect it."

"Bully for you!" cried the Yankee, looking at him with more admiration than he expected ever to entertain for a Frenchman. "There's five ton of cheeses that have been seven voyages, and a hundred firkins of Irish butter, and five-and-thirty cases of Russian tongues, as old as old Nick, and ne'er a sign of weevil! Lor' no, never a tail of weevil! Skipper, you deserve to go to heaven out of West Street. But how about him, down yonder?"

"Captain Carne? Leave him to me to arrange. I shall be ready, if they intrude. Announce that you have a sick gentleman on board, a passenger afflicted with a foreign illness, and having a foreign physician. Mon Dieu! It is good. Every Englishman believes that anything foreign will kill him with a vault. Arrange you the trading, and I will be the doctor—a German; I can do the German."

"And I can do the trading," the American replied, without any rash self-confidence; "any fool can sell good stuff; but it requireth a good man to sell bad goods."

The gun-brig bore down on them at a great pace, feeling happy certitude that she had got a prize—not a very big one, but still worth catching. She saw that the frigate had fired a shot, and believed that it was done to call her own attention to a matter below that of the frigate. On she came, heeling to the lively wind, very beautiful in the moonlight, tossing the dark sea in white showers, and with all her taut canvas arched and gleaming, hovered with the shades of one another.

"Heave to, or we sink you!" cried a mighty voice through a speaking trumpet, as she luffed a little, bringing her port broadside to bear; and the schooner, which had hoisted British colours, obeyed the command immediately. In a very few seconds a boat was manned, and dancing on the hillocks of the sea; and soon, with some danger and much care, the visitors stood upon the London Trader's deck, and Sam Polwhele came to meet them.

"We have no wish to put you to any trouble," said the officer in command, very quietly, "if you can show that you are what you profess to be. You sail under British colours; and the name on your stern is London Trader. We will soon dismiss you, if you prove that. But appearances are strongly against you. What has brought you here? And why did you run the risk of being fired at, instead of submitting to his Majesty's ship Minerva?"

"Because she haven't got any ready money, skipper, and we don't like three months' bills," said the tall Bostonian, looking loftily at the British officer. "Such things is nothing but piracy, and we had better be shot at than lose such goods as we carry fresh shipped, and in prime condition. Come and see them, all with Cheeseman's brand, the celebrated Cheeseman of Springhaven—name guarantees the quality. But one thing, mind you—no use to hanker after them unless you come provided with the ready."

"We don't want your goods; we want you," answered Scudamore, now first luff of the brig of war Delia, and staring a little with his mild blue eyes at this man's effrontery. "That is to say, our duty is to know all about you. Produce your papers. Prove where you cleared from last, and what you are doing here, some thirty miles south of your course, if you are a genuine British trader."

"Papers all in order, sir. First-chop wafers, as they puts on now, to save sealing-wax. Charter-party, and all the rest. Last bills of lading from Gravesend, but you mustn't judge our goods by that. Bulk of them from St. Mary Axe, where Cheeseman hath freighted from these thirty years. If ever you have been at Springhaven, Captain, you'd jump at anything with Cheeseman's brand. But have you brought that little bag of guineas with you?"

"Once more, we want none of your goods. You might praise them as much as you liked, if time permitted. Show me to the cabin, and produce your papers. After that we shall see what is in the hold."

"Supercargo very ill in best cabin. Plague, or black fever, the German doctor says. None of our hands will go near him but myself. But you won't be like that, will you?"

Less for his own sake than his mother's—who had none but him to help her—Scudamore dreaded especially that class of disease which is now called "zymotic." His father, an eminent physician, had observed and had written a short work to establish that certain families and types of constitution lie almost at the mercy of such contagion, and find no mercy from it. And among those families was his own. "Fly, my boy, fly," he had often said to Blyth, "if you ever come near such subjects."

"Captain, I will fetch them," continued Mr. Polwhele, looking grave at his hesitation. "By good rights they ought to be smoked, I dare say, though I don't hold much with such stuff myself. And the doctor keeps doing a heap of herbs hot. You can see him, if you just come down these few steps. Perhaps you wouldn't mind looking into the hold, to find something to suit your judgment—quality combined with low figures there—while I go into the infected den, as the cleverest of my chaps calls it. Why, it makes me laugh! I've been in and out, with this stand-up coat on, fifty times, and you can't smell a flue of it, though wonderful strong down there."

Scudamore shuddered, and drew back a little, and then stole a glance round the corner. He saw a thick smoke, and a figure prostrate, and another tied up in a long white robe, waving a pan of burning stuff in one hand and a bottle in the other, and plainly conjuring Polwhele to keep off. Then the latter returned, quite complacently.

"Can't find all of them," he said, presenting a pile of papers big enough to taint Sahara. "That doctor goes on as bad as opening a coffin. Says he understands it, and I don't. The old figure-head! What does he know about it?"

"Much more than you do, perhaps," replied Blyth, standing up for the profession, as he was bound to do. "Perhaps we had better look at these on deck, if you will bring up your lantern."

"But, Captain, you will have a look at our hold, and make us a bid—we need not take it, any more than you need to double it—for as prime a lot of cheese, and sides of bacon—"

"If your papers are correct, it will not be my duty to meddle with your cargo. But what are you doing the wrong side of our fleet?"

"Why, that was a bad job. There's no fair trade now, no sort of dealing on the square nohow. We run all this risk of being caught by Crappos on purpose to supply British ship Gorgeous, soweastern station; and blow me tight if I couldn't swear she had been supplied chock-full by a Crappo! Only took ten cheeses and fifteen sides of bacon, though she never knew nought of our black fever case! But, Captain, sit down here, and overhaul our flimsies. Not like rags, you know; don't hold plague much."

The young lieutenant compelled himself to discharge his duty of inspection behind a combing, where the wind was broken; but even so he took good care to keep on the weather side of the documents; and the dates perhaps flew away to leeward. "They seem all right," he said, "but one thing will save any further trouble to both of us. You belong to Springhaven. I know most people there. Have you any Springhaven hands on board?"

"I should think so. Send Tugwell aft; pass the word for Dan Tugwell. Captain, there's a family of that name there—settled as long as we have been at Mevagissey. Ah, that sort of thing is a credit to the place, and the people too, in my opinion."

Dan Tugwell came slowly, and with a heavy step, looking quite unlike the spruce young fisherman whom Scudamore had noticed as first and smartest in the rescue of the stranded Blonde. But he could not doubt that this was Dan, the Dan of happier times and thoughts; in whom, without using his mind about it, he had felt some likeness to himself. It was not in his power to glance sharply, because his eyes were kindly open to all the little incidents of mankind, but he managed to let Dan know that duty compelled him to be particular. Dan Tugwell touched the slouched hat upon his head, and stood waiting to know what he was wanted for.

"Daniel," said Scudamore, who could not speak condescendingly to any one, even from the official point of view, because he felt that every honest man was his equal, "are you here of your own accord, as one of the crew of this schooner?"

Dan Tugwell had a hazy sense of being put upon an untrue balance. Not by this kind gentleman's words, but through his own proceedings. In his honest mind he longed to say: "I fear I have been bamboozled. I have cast my lot in with these fellows through passion, and in hasty ignorance. How I should like to go with you, and fight the French, instead of getting mixed up with a lot of things I can't make out!"

But his equally honest heart said to him: "You have been well treated. You are well paid. You shipped of your own accord. You have no right to peach, even if you had anything to peach of; and all you have seen is some queer trading. None but a sneak would turn against his shipmates and his ship, when overhauled by the Royal Navy."

Betwixt the two voices, Dan said nothing, but looked at the lieutenant with that gaze which the receiver takes to mean doubt of his meaning, while the doubt more often is—what to do with it.

"Are you here of your own accord? Do you belong to this schooner of your own accord? Are you one of this crew, of your own free-will?"

Scudamore rang the changes on his simple question, as he had often been obliged to do in the Grammar-school at Stonnington, with the slow-witted boys, who could not, or would not, know the top from the bottom of a sign-post. "Do you eat with your eyes?" he had asked them sometimes; and they had put their thumbs into their mouths to enquire.

"S'pose I am," said Dan at last, assuming stupidity, to cover hesitation; "yes, sir, I come aboard of my own free-will."

"Very well. Then I am glad to find you comfortable. I shall see your father next week, perhaps. Shall I give him any message for you?"

"No, sir! For God's sake, don't let him know a word about where you have seen me. I came away all of a heap, and I don't want one of them to bother about me."

"As you wish, Dan. I shall not say a word about you, until you return with your earnings. But if you found the fishing business dull, surely you might have come to us, Dan. Any volunteers here for His Majesty's service?" Scudamore raised his voice, with the usual question. "Good pay, good victuals, fine promotion, and prize-money, with the glory of fighting for their native country, and provision for life if disabled!"

Not a man came forward, though one man longed to do so; but his sense of honour, whether true or false, forbade him. Dan Tugwell went heavily back to his work, trying to be certain that it was his duty. But sad doubts arose as he watched the brave boat, lifting over the waves in the moonlight, with loyal arms tugging towards a loyal British ship; and he felt that he had thrown away his last chance.



CHAPTER XL

SHELFING THE QUESTION

There is a time of day (as everybody must have noticed who is kind enough to attend to things) not to be told by the clock, nor measured to a nicety by the position of the sun, even when he has the manners to say where he is—a time of day dependent on a multiplicity of things unknown to us (who have made our own brains, by perceiving that we had none, and working away till we got them), yet palpable to all those less self-exalted beings, who, or which, are of infinitely nobler origin than we, and have shown it, by humility. At this time of day every decent and good animal feels an unthought-of and untraced desire to shift its position, to come out and see its fellows, to learn what is happening in the humble grateful world—out of which man has hoisted himself long ago, and is therefore a spectre to them—to breathe a little sample of the turn the world is taking, and sue their share of pleasure in the quiet earth and air.

This time is more observable because it follows a period of the opposite tendency, a period of heaviness, and rest, and silence, when no bird sings and no quadruped plays, for about half an hour of the afternoon. Then suddenly, without any alteration of the light, or weather, or even temperature, or anything else that we know of, a change of mood flashes into every living creature, a spirit of life, and activity, and stir, and desire to use their own voice and hear their neighbour's. The usual beginning is to come out first into a place that cannot knock their heads, and there to run a little way, and after that to hop, and take a peep for any people around, and espying none—or only one of the very few admitted to be friends—speedily to dismiss all misgivings, take a very little bit of food, if handy (more as a duty to one's family than oneself, for the all-important supper-time is not come yet), and then, if gifted by the Lord with wings—for what bird can stoop at such a moment to believe that his own grandfather made them?—up to the topmost spray that feathers in the breeze, and pour upon the grateful air the voice of free thanksgiving. But an if the blade behind the heart is still unplumed for flying, and only gentle flax or fur blows out on the wind, instead of beating it, does the owner of four legs sit and sulk, like a man defrauded of his merits? He answers the question with a skip and jump; ere a man can look twice at him he has cut a caper, frolicked an intricate dance upon the grass, and brightened his eyes for another round of joy.

At any time of year almost, the time of day commands these deeds, unless the weather is outrageous; but never more undeniably than in the month of April. The growth of the year is well established, and its manner beginning to be schooled by then; childish petulance may still survive, and the tears of penitence be frequent; yet upon the whole there is—or used to be—a sense of responsibility forming, and an elemental inkling of true duty towards the earth. Even man (the least observant of the powers that walk the ground, going for the signs of weather to the cows, or crows, or pigs, swallows, spiders, gnats, and leeches, or the final assertion of his own corns) sometimes is moved a little, and enlarged by influence of life beyond his own, and tickled by a pen above his thoughts, and touched for one second by the hand that made him. Then he sees a brother man who owes him a shilling, and his soul is swallowed up in the resolve to get it.

But well in the sky-like period of youth, when the wind sits lightly, and the clouds go by in puffs, these little jumps of inspiration take the most respectable young man sometimes off his legs, and the young maid likewise—if she continues in these fine days to possess such continuation. Blyth Scudamore had been appointed now, partly through his own good deserts, and wholly through good influence—for Lord St. Vincent was an ancient friend of the excellent Admiral Darling—to the command of the Blonde, refitted, thoroughly overhauled at Portsmouth, and pronounced by the dock-yard people to be the fastest and soundest corvette afloat, and in every way a credit to the British navy. "The man that floated her shall float in her," said the Earl, when somebody, who wanted the appointment, suggested that the young man was too young. "He has seen sharp service, and done sharp work. It is waste of time to talk of it; the job is done." "Job is the word for it," thought the other, but wisely reserved that great truth for his wife. However, it was not at all a bad job for England. And Scudamore had now seen four years of active service, counting the former years of volunteering, and was more than twenty-five years old.

None of these things exalted him at all in his own opinion, or, at any rate, not very much. Because he had always regarded himself with a proper amount of self-respect, as modest men are almost sure to do, desiring less to know what the world thinks of them than to try to think rightly of it for themselves. His opinion of it seemed to be that it was very good just now, very kind, and fair, and gentle, and a thing for the heart of man to enter into.

For Dolly Darling was close beside him, sitting on a very pretty bench, made of twisted oak, and turned up at the back and both ends, so that a gentleman could not get very far away from a lady without frightening her. Not only in this way was the spot well adapted for tender feelings, but itself truly ready to suggest them, with nature and the time of year to help. There was no stream issuing here, to puzzle and perpetually divert the human mind (whose origin clearly was spring-water poured into the frame of the jelly-fish), neither was there any big rock, like an obstinate barrier rising; but gentle slopes of daisied pasture led the eye complacently, sleek cows sniffed the herbage here and there, and brushed it with the underlip to fetch up the blades for supper-time, and placable trees, forgetting all the rudeness of the winter winds, began to disclose to the fond deceiving breeze, with many a glimpse to attract a glance, all the cream of their summer intentions. And in full enjoyment of all these doings, the poet of the whole stood singing—the simple-minded thrush, proclaiming that the world was good and kind, but himself perhaps the kindest, and his nest, beyond doubt, the best of it.

"How lovely everything is to-day!" Blyth Scudamore spoke slowly, and gazing shyly at the loveliest thing of all, in his opinion—the face of Dolly Darling. "No wonder that your brother is a poet!"

"But he never writes about this sort of thing," said Dolly, smiling pleasantly. "His poems are all about liberty, and the rights of men, and the wrongs of war. And if he ever mentions cows or sheep, it is generally to say what a shame it is to kill them."

"But surely it is much worse to kill men. And who is to be blamed for that, Miss Darling? The Power that wants to overrun all the rest, or the Country that only defends itself? I hope he has not converted you to the worship of the new Emperor; for the army and all the great cities of France have begged him to condescend to be that; and the King of Prussia will add his entreaties, according to what we have heard."

"I think anything of him!" cried Dolly, as if her opinion would settle the point. "After all his horrible murders—worst of all of that very handsome and brave young man shot with a lantern, and buried in a ditch! I was told that he had to hold the lantern above his poor head, and his hand never shook! It makes me cry every time I think of it. Only let Frank come back, and he won't find me admire his book so very much! They did the same sort of thing when I was a little girl, and could scarcely sleep at night on account of it. And then they seemed to get a little better, for a time, and fought with their enemies, instead of one another, and made everybody wild about liberty, and citizens, and the noble march of intellect, and the dignity of mankind, and the rights of labour—when they wouldn't work a stroke themselves—and the black superstition of believing anything, except what they chose to make a fuss about themselves. And thousands of people, even in this country, who have been brought up so much better, were foolish enough to think it very grand indeed, especially the poets, and the ones that are too young. But they ought to begin to get wiser now; even Frank will find it hard to make another poem on them."

"How glad I am to hear you speak like that! I had no idea—at least I did not understand—"

"That I had so much common-sense?" enquired Dolly, with a glance of subtle yet humble reproach. "Oh yes, I have a great deal sometimes, I can assure you. But I suppose one never does get credit for anything, without claiming it."

"I am sure that you deserve credit for everything that can possibly be imagined," Scudamore answered, scarcely knowing, with all his own common-sense to help him, that he was talking nonsense. "Every time I see you I find something I had never found before to—to wonder at—if you can understand—and to admire, and to think about, and to—to be astonished at."

Dolly knew as well as he did the word he longed to use, but feared. She liked this state of mind in him, and she liked him too for all his kindness, and his humble worship; and she could not help admiring him for his bravery and simplicity. But she did not know the value yet of a steadfast and unselfish heart, and her own was not quite of that order. So many gallant officers were now to be seen at her father's house, half a cubit taller than poor Blyth, and a hundred cubits higher in rank, and wealth, and knowledge of the world, and the power of making their wives great ladies. Moreover, she liked a dark man, and Scudamore was fair and fresh as a rose called Hebe's Cup in June. Another thing against him was that she knew how much her father liked him; and though she loved her father well, she was not bound to follow his leadings. And yet she did not wish to lose this useful and pleasant admirer.