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Title: The Yarn of Old Harbour Town


Author: William Clark Russell



Release Date: August 29, 2020  [eBook #63076]

Language: English

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THE YARN OF OLD HARBOUR TOWN


      *      *      *      *      *      *

By the Same Author.

_Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s._

+The Romance of a Midshipman.+


New Six Shilling Novels

_Crown 8vo, cloth._

+Stars of Destiny.+ By L. PARRY TRUSCOTT.
+Captain Sheen.+ By CHARLES OWEN.
+The House by the River.+ By FLORENCE WARDEN.
+A Royal Rascal.+ By Major ARTHUR GRIFFITHS.
+The Romance of the Fountain.+ By EUGENE LEE-HAMILTON.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN

      *      *      *      *      *      *


THE YARN OF OLD
HARBOUR TOWN

by

W. CLARK RUSSELL

Author of "The Romance of a Midshipman," etc., etc.

Second Impression


"Have you ne'er heard the yarn of Old Harbour Town?
She was sweeter than Hinda or Haidèe;
When the hatches were flush with goods, victuals and lush,
The Captain made sail with the lady."
                                    --_Old Rhymes, 1835._






London
T. Fisher Unwin
Paternoster Square
1905

[All rights reserved].




CONTENTS

CHAP.                                PAGE

   I. LUCY ACTON                        1

  II. WALTER LAWRENCE                  25

 III. THE OFFER                        48

  IV. THE AURORA                       75

   V. PAUL                            101

  VI. THE LETTER                      131

 VII. WHERE IS THE MINORCA?           156

VIII. WHERE IS LUCY?                  181

  IX. MR GREYQUILL'S VISIT            206

   X. MR LAWRENCE AND MR EAGLE        233

  XI. PRINCESS TATTERS                259

 XII. MR LAWRENCE REFLECTS            287

XIII. LUCY'S MADNESS                  311

 XIV. THE LOUISA ANN                  339

  XV. NELSON                          367

 XVI. THE CAPTURE                     404




THE YARN OF OLD HARBOUR TOWN




CHAPTER I

LUCY ACTON


Old Harbour House stood about a mile from the Harbour. It confronted
the town which lay about one mile and a half off, right across a wide,
romantic, heavily-wooded ravine. The banks of this gap sloped softly
and pleasantly into a plain of meadows and two or three farms whose
dyes of roof and cattle enriched the verdure; and down there ran a
river singing in measures of music as it flowed into the Harbour and
mingled its bright water with the brine of the deep beyond.

Above, on the placid slope of down close against Old Harbour Town, hung
a straggler building or two, lonely in importance, or consequential in
some trifling pomp of land; at the point of cliff on Old Harbour House
side, a low, pursy lighthouse wheezed at night a yellow gleam that was
a home-greeting or God-speed to some five score fishermen who dredged
in these and further waters; and on the brow confronting the lighthouse
a venerable windmill revolved its vans against the sky.

It has been said that Old Harbour House stood. The house takes its
place as a beauty of the past. On Christmas Eve 1832, fire reduced
it to a few blackened walls. All through the long night the flames
made a wild, grand show; sea and land were illuminated for leagues
and leagues. Out of the ashes of the beautiful building sprang that
commonplace phoenix, the local poet, who celebrated the one tradition
of Old Harbour Town in a copy of rhymes, of which the first verse
should be found imprinted on the title-page of this book.

The house, or at least the front of it, was built after a design by
Inigo Jones. The pediment was perforated by a circular window glazed
with a casement whose frame resembled the spokes of a ship's wheel. A
variety of antique symbolism resembling the hideous sculptures which
sometimes close the chapters in books of the seventeenth century,
under-ran the eaves. The tall, narrow windows gleamed blackly amidst
the skeletons of the winter, or the coloured embroidery of the summer
creepers. The hall door was noble and hospitable in expanse. A carriage
drive swept from it on either hand the oval lawn to a handsome gate
whose supports were crowned by the arms of the Actons on the one hand
and the arms of a family into which one of the Actons had married on
the other hand.

One bright morning in April in that memorable year 1805, Captain
Charles Acton, R.N. (retired), stood on his lawn in front of the
house watching a gardener who was at work at a flower-bed. He was a
slightly-built but tall, very gentleman-like man, one of the last in a
crowd to be picked out as a seafarer. He was pale, his nose aquiline,
lips thin, and the expression of the mouth firm. He was dressed in a
frill shirt, loose cravat of white cambric, red-striped waistcoat,
long green coat with a high collar and small cuffs, tight breeches to
the ankle buttoned to the middle of the thigh, and top-boots; a rather
low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat sat somewhat cocked on his head. His
hair was long, without powder, and tied a little way down the back in a
sort of tail.

He was suddenly hailed from the gate by a loud, hearty voice.

"What cheer! How are ye, Captain, how are ye this fine morning? Have
you heard the news?"

The gate was thrust open and there entered Rear-Admiral Sir William
Lawrence, a round-faced, bullet-headed seaman of the old type. He was
dressed in a bottle-green coat, metal buttons, red waistcoat, knee
breeches and stockings, shoes and large buckles; and being totally bald
he wore a wig, perched at the back of which was a little round hat.

Sir William again asked Captain Acton if he had heard the news.

"French landed?" enquired Captain Acton, as they strolled away from the
flower-bed and paced the grass, in which the daisies were springing,
in a quarterdeck walk, the Admiral taking about one and a half rolling
steps to Captain Acton's one.

"Yes, the French have landed, but not just in the way they like. One
of our frigates--I haven't got to hear her name--chased a French
privateersman ashore five miles up the coast yesterday afternoon; after
taking out of her ten thousand pounds in gold, which the beggars had
sneaked from a British West Indiaman off Dungeness two or three nights
before, they set her on fire. I had a mind this morning to ride over
and view the wreck or what remains of her."

"Lucy told me at breakfast this morning that on going to bed last night
she noticed a faint tinge in the air as of the rising moon away to the
eastward. 'Twas the burning wreck, I presume?"

"No doubt. She'd light up a wide area."

"I expect the frigate that chased her will be one of the Western
squadron," said Captain Acton. "How finely those ships are doing their
work! Since they've been sweeping these waters scarce a French picaroon
dare put his nose out; when before, the seas swarmed like a tropic calm
with bristling fins of sharks."

"You have to thank Pellew for the idea of those squadrons," said Sir
William. "What a gallant fellow he is! Whenever I hear his name I
recall the story told of him when he was a midshipman. He was aboard
the _Blonde_. You remember Pownoll?"

Captain Acton nodded.

"General Burgoyne arrived alongside to ship for America. The yards were
manned. The General climbed aboard, and looking aloft spied a youngster
standing on his head on the main topsail yard-arm. 'It's only young
Pellew, one of my midshipmen,' says Captain Pownoll. 'But suppose he
falls, sir?' said the General. 'Why, sir,' answers Pownoll, 'if he
falls he'll sink under the ship's bottom and come up t'other side.'"

"Yes. Very characteristic. I rank Pellew after Nelson."

"Why, no, sir."

"Who, then?"

"I consider Cochrane possesses all the potentialities of Nelson. Then
gallant old Jervis"--the Admiral interrupted himself and gazed with an
arch leer at his companion.

"As you know, I have had the honour," said Captain Acton with slight
sarcasm, "to serve under my Lord St Vincent when he was Sir John
Jervis, I may claim to know him."

"Oh yes, thoroughly--very thoroughly."

"I admit the gallantry of his action with the Pegase. It was as
brilliant as a hundred other actions between single ships, not one of
which nevertheless brought the victor an earldom. What made Jervis
a Lord? Was it his own, or the genius of Nelson? That manoeuvre of
the Commodore on the 14th won the battle. We took four ships from
the enemy, and two of them were captured by Nelson. But I dislike St
Vincent for opinions which he is at no pains to disguise. He objects to
the education of the poor."

"So do I, sir," said Sir William.

"We'll not argue the point. St Vincent objects to inoculation for
small-pox because he says that that disease is intended by God to keep
the population down."

Sir William laughed.

"He objects to service clubs. He said to a friend of mine, 'Take my
advice and have nothing to do with them; they are one of the signs
of the times of which I highly disapprove; these assemblies of Army
and Navy may in time become dangerous to the Government.' When he was
Commander-in-Chief he strongly discouraged matrimony. He hated to have
married officers in his fleet, for he said they were the first to run
into port, and the last to come out of it. I do not wonder that they
declined to drink his health at Bath."

"I never heard of that," said Sir William.

"It was in 1802; a Naval dinner was given at Bath--St Vincent was First
Lord, I need not tell you--his health was proposed and refused to be
drunk by many of the company. The party broke up in confusion; some
toasted him in a bumper and left the room; others turned down their
glasses and sat still. And you would rank this old gentleman next after
Nelson?"

"Talking of Nelson," said Sir William, "have you heard the yarn
that is told of Tom Cooke, the actor? He came on in the part of old
Barnwell, and when stabbed forgot the words, and would have died
speechless. His murderer whispered with agitation, 'For heaven's
sake, say something--anything,' on which Tom, throwing up his little
three-cornered hat, shouted in his thick lisp, 'Nelson for ever!'
and died amidst louder applause than was ever provoked by the finest
strokes of Garrick or Siddons."

The story was to Captain Acton's taste, and he laughed with enjoyment.

"I should like," said the Admiral, "to have met Nelson. In all my going
a-fishing I never fell in his way."

"Well," said Captain Acton, "I may say of Nelson as Pope said of
Dryden: _Virgilium tantum vidi_. I was on the Hard when two Naval
officers came ashore. I was thinking of other matters, and scarcely
observed them until they were abreast or a little past me. Then my
glance going to one I instantly perceived he was Nelson. His companion,
I believe, was Troubridge. In the glimpse I got of Nelson's face I was
struck by its paleness and careworn appearance. He looked at least
fifteen years older than his age. They passed rapidly out of sight. I
cannot express the emotions which that one-armed little figure excited
in me--St Valentine's Day, the Nile, Copenhagen!"

"And how much more?" cried the Admiral, with a flush in his cheek, and
with that expression of triumph and pride which lighted up the eyes
of men in those days when they pronounced the magic name of Nelson.
"I should like, I should much like to meet him, to see him, to grasp
his hand, for a minute only before my windlass is manned for the next
world."

"Who knows what lies before us?" said Captain Acton.

"Little enough before me, sir," exclaimed Sir William. "Sailors dream
of a cottage ashore, but when they come to it--I like my little
perch: 'tis not Old Harbour House," says he, casting his eye over the
building, "but I could wish the sea were within range of its windows. I
was down in the Harbour yesterday admiring the lines of your _Minorca_.
She lay upright on the mud, awash to her garboard strake about, and
I liked her lines in the run, and believed I could see a hint to our
shipwrights in the cleanness and beauty of her entry."

"She is a pretty example of the French form," said Captain Acton.
"I think I told you she was built at Bordeaux, from which port some
elegant structures are sent afloat. But the French cannot approach the
Americans as shipbuilders. Take that schooner of mine, the _Aurora_--by
the way, she is due here shortly. I wish she may not have been taken by
the enemy."

"I admire your venture," said the Admiral. "I believe if I could muster
two or three thousand pounds I should be disposed to purchase a prize
or two from the French, Spanish, or Yankees and follow your lead. Good
interest on money is hard to get. Your ships do well for you, sir."

"I am quite satisfied," exclaimed Captain Acton complacently; "but,
as you know, I was mainly actuated by the desire to promote the trade
of this decaying place. The inheritance of this property," said he,
sending his gaze over the wide grounds agreeably wooded afar by
orchards whose boughs in a season's yield supplied cider enough to keep
a parish merry through several generations, "brought with it urgent
obligations. I could not view Old Harbour going to pieces without a
resolution to do something that might serve to keep it together."

"You will add to your ships?" said Sir William.

"I think not. The prospect must brighten before I increase my fleet.
The war risks are stupendous. I never see one of my vessels quit her
berth, but that I say to myself, 'When I next hear of you, you'll be at
Cadiz or Dunkirk, or at the bottom of the sea.'"

Sir William Lawrence halted in the quarterdeck walk the two were taking
upon that bright green oval lawn, and looked at the ocean which ran in
a white line, pale and faint as ice at the horizon, betwixt the two
points of the ravine crowned on the right by the lighthouse and on the
left by a windmill; but the waters of the Channel broadened down from
their pearl-like margin into a delicate blue, which changed into dark
green and brown as the sea shoaled into the land. The Admiral seemed
to find something to delight him in the prospect, and Captain Acton
standing at his side viewed a scene, very familiar indeed to him, with
pleasure, which increased with the attention he gave it.

Indeed no piece of English landscape could have looked fairer on this
fine April morning than Old Harbour Town and its Harbour, and little
forefinger of pier; the windmill and the lighthouse resembled carvings,
so delicately were their outlines traced against the silver blueness
of the spring sky. In the Harbour against the wharves were visible the
mounting masts and yards of several craft with sails hanging loose to
dry, and the water of the Harbour was dotted with a few squab shapes of
smacks and the figure of a moored brig-of-war.

The picture was tender and mellow with colour: the springing lights
of the early growths of the young year, the venerable face of the
cliff as it swept from the slope of down where the windmill was to the
beach, the slow motion of violet shadows over green distances; and the
impression of placid provincial life was heightened by the calm in the
air which was scarcely vexed by the remote silver ringing of a chapel
bell in High Street, Old Harbour Town.

"I often wish I was at sea again!" exclaimed Sir William, as the two
started afresh on their quarterdeck walk. "What a noble, open, hearty,
soul-stirring life it is! What good fellows one meets, what brave
ships, what splendid crews! It is my hourly regret that my son should
be out of it. Though I am his father, I say that this young man had in
him--nay, he has in him--all the makings of a fine, dashing, even a
great officer. But that devil drink--not that the vice is immoderate
with him: but he takes too much; and when the fiend is in him, all that
is weak in his nature appears, and he falls: drink--but not so as to
justify the word drunkard--drink and gaming--these undid him. He was a
favourite with all he sailed with, and yet, through his own accursed
folly, he is forced to quit the Navy under circumstances which would
bring the moisture into my eyes if half a century of hard weather had
not dried all the dampness out of them."

Captain Acton looked at his companion in silence, but with an
expression of gentle concern.

"He must go to the dogs," continued the Admiral, "if he lingers on in
this neighbourhood. He can get nothing to do here, and idleness brings
with it the temptation of drink. I hear of him at 'The Swan.' There he
meets Lieutenant Tupman, and they grow merry together, God wot! over
recollections. I wish he had Tupman's berth: a cabbage garden and a
cottage and a pig-sty, and a gun-brig that is never ready. I wonder the
Admiralty keep up this farce of gun-brigs stationed on the coast to
guard against what they are never prepared for."

"I have heard Mr Lawrence highly spoken of. When I was last in London
I met Pettigrew of the _Circe_, and he was telling me of a cutting-out
affair in which your son was engaged in the West Indies--Antigua, I
think. Nothing could have been more gallant than his conduct."

"He could have done well," sighed the old Admiral. "A few evenings ago
I was waited upon by Mr Greyquill, a sleek and dingy little man whom
I do not love the sight of. Such a visit must be an intrusion. I was
sitting in the open window smoking my pipe, when he pushed the gate
and sneaked up the path in his land-stealing way, but before he could
fetch the door I hailed him: 'Hallo, Mr Greyquill,' says I, 'pray, what
business brings you on this visit?' But in my heart I knew devilish
well what he called about. He steps on to the grass over against my
window, and with a low congee says, 'I am sorry, Sir William, to
intrude upon you, sir, but I can obtain no satisfaction from your son,
and at the same time I have no desire to go to extremities.' 'You'll
not help your case by threatening me, Mr Greyquill,' said I. 'But look
how the case stands, sir,' he cries, 'your son has had three hundred
pounds from me.' 'No, sir,' I said. 'Well, sir, he owes me three
hundred pounds.' 'For how much advanced?' said I. 'For two hundred in
good cash,' he answered. I looked the old rogue full in the eye, and
said, 'You should be a rich man, sir.' 'I want my money, Sir William,'
says he. 'I trusted your son as an officer and a gentleman, and as
the son of an officer and a gentleman----' 'Hold, sir,' I shouted,
losing my temper. 'What right had you to trust me as an officer and a
gentleman when you never gave me your confidence? Did you drop a hint
to me that you were advancing money to my son? Do you suppose if I had
known the truth, that I would have suffered you to accept my credit as
a stake in these ignoble transactions?' 'Well, Sir William, I want my
money,' said the old rascal, 'and must get it, though I hope not to be
driven into extremities. Is Mr Lawrence in?' 'No, sir,' says I. 'Good
afternoon!' and I got up and left the window."

"This man Greyquill has managed to clap the thumb-screw of debt upon
the hands of a pretty good few in our district," said Captain Acton.
"But what's the use of locking up a man who owes you money? Leave him
at large and you stand to be repaid; but flinging a man into a debtor's
gaol, not because he won't pay, but because he can't pay, seems to
me folly as monstrous as locking up a man because being unable to
obtain work his wife and children come upon the parish. Look at the
cost you put the country to on this account! There is the expense of
the maintenance of the man in gaol, and there is the expense of the
maintenance of the wife and children on the parish. Now, by leaving the
man at large you give him the chance of obtaining a day's work."

"I hope old Greyquill will not go to extremes," exclaimed the Admiral,
with a flush in his face. "It is dishonour enough to be in his debt,
but to be imprisoned! There is no good in his looking to me for
repayment."

"I don't think he'll trouble your son in that way. He may be a Shylock,
but he is not one of those money scriveners who demand your money or
your flesh. At least, I should say not. I only know the man to nod to.
Of what use would a pound of your son's flesh be to him? I believe,
sir, that Mr Lawrence is not so immoderate in his love of the glass but
that he might be entrusted with the care of a ship?"

"No, sir; 'tis gambling not drinking that is his weakness. But he
has drunk and still drinks more than he should. Yet I have little
doubt if he could find himself in a situation of trust, knowing now
the hardships and difficulties of life, and the almost insuperable
obstacles to a man's advancement when by his own folly he has ruined
his professional career, that he would keep a stern watch over his
appetite for drink. He has considerable powers of mind, an uncommon
degree of spirit and resolution when he chooses to exert those
qualities; and I say, with the assurance of his profound sensibility
to his present melancholy condition, that he might be safely trusted
to discharge any duties he may have the good luck to be called upon to
execute."

"I think I told you, Sir William," said Captain Acton, after a short
interval passed in reflection, "that the _Minorca_ is in want of a
captain."

"Yes, I remember. The master died in the homeward passage, and the ship
was brought to port by the mate, to whom I suppose you intend to give
the command."

"Well, he is a respectable though a very illiterate man, and I had
half made up my mind to offer him the berth. But I am affected by your
trouble. I should be glad to be of service to your son. Whilst we
have talked I have been thinking, and if he is prepared to accept the
position I am quite willing that he should take the _Minorca_ out and
home from the West Indies this voyage on the terms I am in the habit of
giving--twelve pounds a month and a commission on the earnings of the
voyage."

The Admiral stopped short and looked at his companion with a face that
was warm, and with eyes that were dim with an emotion of gratitude
that was almost the conqueror of his manhood. He extended his arm in
silence, and the two officers clasped hands.

"Acton, you are good--this is indeed kind of you," said the Admiral
after a moment or two of silence. "It would be a great weight lifted
from my spirits to know that my son is shoved clear of the mischief
of the idleness of this place, and that he is once more honourably
employed. For, sir," said the old gentleman in a hearty, almost
rapturous way, "to be in charge of such a ship as the _Minorca_ is to
hold a command as honourable, if not as exalted, as any afloat. I do
thank you, sir. He will be most deeply obliged to you."

The two gentlemen released hands and continued their walk.

"Of course," said Captain Acton, "he is well up in navigation?"

"You will find him fully qualified in that, and in all else. A smarter
seaman never trod shipboard."

"I like the idea," said Captain Acton, "of a naval officer being in
charge of my vessel. The men of the Merchant Service are a very rough
lot. Many of the masters and mates can scarcely read or write. They
grope their way about by dead reckoning. They so little understand the
treatment of men that their crews consider themselves as good as they,
particularly when they bring the sailors aft, and hob-and-nob with the
rum cask lifted through the hatch and broached in the cabin, till half
the company lie motionless in drink, and the rest are fighting and
running about mad. Two things the Navy teaches us: discipline and the
art of it."

At this point the couple turned in their walk and confronted the house,
at the hall door of which, in the act of descending the broad flight
of steps, was a young lady putting on a glove, attended by a little
terrier, who at sight of the gentlemen bounded along the grass and
barked with fury up at the Admiral's face.

This young lady was Lucy, the only child of Captain Acton, one of
the most charming, indeed one of the most beautiful girls of her
time. The scene of garden and flower-beds quaintly shaped, and the
backing of the noble, mellow, gleaming building with its pediment
and symbolic carvings, was enchantingly in keeping with the figure
and appearance of the girl, who by the magic of her looks and attire
instantly transformed it into a picture charged with the colours of
youth and health and a sweet and delicate spirit of life. Her apparel
was prettily of the time: a straw hat, the brim projecting a little
over the forehead and seated somewhat on one side, a plain light blue
gown and long yellow silk gloves. The gown was without waist and bound
under the bosom by a girdle. Her hair this day was dressed in tresses
which hung around the face--not curls, but tender shadings of hair, as
though the effect had been contrived by the fingers of the wind; but
some curls reposed on her neck. Her eyes were unusually large, of a
dark brown and full of liquid light. The eyelids were somewhat heavy,
and looked the heavier because of their rich furniture of eyelash.
The eyelashes indeed suggested at first sight that she doctored her
eyes, as do actresses and others; but a brief inspection satisfied
the beholder that all was Nature transparent, artless, and lovely. A
conspicuous charm in Lucy Acton was her colour: her cheeks always wore
a natural bloom or glow; this, as in the case of her eyes, might have
been suspected as the effect of art, but she blushed so readily, even
sometimes on any effort of speech, the damask of her blood so wrought
in her cheek on any impulse of mood or humour, that it was quickly seen
the mantling glow was a charm of Nature's own gift. No girl could have
been more natural, and few more beautiful than Lucy Acton. Had she
lived half a century earlier she would have been one of the toasts of
the nation.

She was twenty-three years of age, and it will be readily supposed had
been sought in marriage by more than one ardent swain. But she had kept
her heart whole: nothing in breeches and stockings and long cut-away
coat and salutations adopted from the most approved Parisian styles
had touched the passions of Lucy Acton. She was like Emma as painted
by Miss Austen: she loved her home, she adored her father, she was
perfectly well satisfied with her present state of being, she could not
conceive anything in a man that was worth marrying for, and being well,
she meant to leave well alone.

Where did she get those wonderful eyes? From her mother, who in her day
had been a celebrated Irish actress; Kitty O'Hara, famed in such parts
as _Sir Harry Wildair_, the _Fair Penitent_, and _Ophelia_. Captain
Acton, when lieutenant and stationed at Kingston, had seen Mrs Kitty
O'Hara as "Ophelia" at the Dublin Theatre, and before she had been on
the stage five minutes he lost his heart to her. The beautiful and
accomplished actress was living with her mother, a noble-looking old
gentlewoman who claimed to possess the blood of Irish kings. Acton
made love and offered marriage, and was accepted. He had little more
than his pay to live upon; nevertheless he refused to allow his wife
to return to the stage. He was a sailor, and must by reason of his
vocation be often long absent from home, and he declined to subject
his beautiful young wife to the temptations of the stage. He might
also have been influenced by the case of Sheridan after his marriage
with Miss Linley, and sometimes quoted Dr Samuel Johnson's comment on
Sheridan's decision: "He resolved wisely and nobly to be sure. He is
a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife
singing publicly for hire? No, sir, there can be no doubt here."

"Down, ma'am! cease your clatter!" cried Captain Acton to the terrier,
whilst the Admiral saluted the young lady with a bow as full of homage
as he would have conceded to royalty. "Where are you bound to?"

"I am going to Old Harbour Town to do a little shopping," answered
Lucy, smiling at the Admiral and showing her milk-white teeth, the
whiter for the red of her lips and the bloom on her cheeks. "Can I do
anything for you, papa?"

"No, my dear."

"Can I be of service to you, Sir William?" said the girl, picking up
her dog to silence it.

"You do me service enough by suffering me to see you, madam," replied
the gallant old sailor. "Brighter lights and fresher colours seem to
attend you. Your grounds, sir, have grown gayer since your charming
daughter made her appearance."

"I know nobody who turns his compliments so prettily as you, Sir
William," exclaimed Lucy. "Do you know, sir," said she, addressing her
father, "that Bates (the butler) just now told me there was a fire at
sea last night."

"No, on the shore, Miss," said the Admiral. "A French corsair was
chased ashore about five miles up and burnt."

"I saw the light from my bedroom window," said Lucy. "Who chased the
Frenchman? Lieutenant Tupman?"

"He! More likely he was chasing one of his pigs, if indeed he was not
in bed, sound under the influence of flip. As those brigs are not
useful, and as they are not ornamental, why is the nation put to the
cost of maintaining them? Had my son received Tupman's berth--oh,
ma'am, I must tell you of a noble, generous deed of kindness your
excellent, large-hearted father has been good enough to do me and Mr
Lawrence. He has promised him the command of the _Minorca_."

Lucy looked at her father with an expression of surprise that vanished
from her fine dramatic eyes in an instant.

"I am very pleased to hear it," she said. "I am sure Mr Lawrence will
be glad to get away from Old Harbour Town. He has visited many parts
of the globe, and to be limited to two streets, and such streets as
High Street and Lower Street with their little shops and tame and
commonplace interests, must be such a trial to a man of spirit, as
every day can but make more and more a punishment."

"It gives me great pleasure to serve my old friend," said Captain
Acton. "Mr Lawrence is an officer with a career full of gallant things;
I have no doubt he is a capable navigator. Will you ask him to call
upon me this evening?"

"At what hour?"

"Eight o'clock will suit me very well."

"He shall wait upon you at the stroke, sir."

"Good-bye, Sir William," said Lucy, and in silence the two gentlemen
watched her walk to the gate and pass out.




CHAPTER II

WALTER LAWRENCE


Lucy Acton made her way towards Old Harbour Town by a lane that struck
down off the road used by the coaches and post-chaises. This lane was
broad and in places steep and rugged, with long spaces heavily flanked
with tall and spacious trees. Elsewhere the low hedge revealed the
sloping meadow or ploughed field whose margin where it sank low was
defined against the blue water of the ocean.

It was April, and some birds were in song; the sun shone brightly,
and the breeze blowing from the sea sang pleasantly amongst the trees
whose boughs were studded with little buds. The lane conducted Lucy
to the valley where the river was, and here she stepped upon an old
bridge. When half-way across she stopped to look in the direction of
Old Harbour. The river flowed prettily under this bridge and melted
its brilliance in the waters of the Harbour, where, when the tide was
at lowest ebb, it always had a bed for its discharge into the brine
beyond.

Lucy had often viewed this scene: her pause now was dictated by a
trifling feeling of curiosity. Against the wharves on the left-hand
side and over against the stump-ended projection of pier was moored her
father's ship the _Minorca_, of which she had just now been assured Sir
William Lawrence's son was to be offered the command. This vessel lay
with two or three others, a brig or two and a schooner, at the wharves,
and with her own and the drying sails of the others, the tall spars,
the yards across, the complicated lines of the rigging, provided a bold
and even ample figure of shipping to the eye. But in addition to these
there lay in the harbour a number of fishing craft, and this side the
extremity of the wharves within musket shot of where Lucy stood was
moored the _Saucy_ brig-of-war of about one hundred and eighty tons
armed with thirty-two pounder carronades. She was one of a number of
the like sort of brig which were to be found in that year (1805) on the
coasts of Sussex, Suffolk, and Norfolk. These brigs were usually hauled
into creeks or laid up in snug corners where the Lieutenant, as Sir
William had pointed out, had his cabbage garden and pig-sty. They were
designed as a provision against the invasion of the French, and were
quite worthless, as they were never ready, and always so anchored or so
secured as to demand as much time in getting under weigh as would take
a French army of invasion to march from Dover to Ashford.

This cool indifference on the part of the lieutenants in command of
the brigs is rendered the more surprising by contrast with the sincere
terrors which the prospect of invasion raised in the country. The
alarm indeed was very seriously justified, for in that year the French
Emperor had at his disposal at the Texel, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais,
Boulogne and Havre, a total of one hundred and eighty thousand men,
with a fleet of twenty-one sail of the line, besides frigates and
transports at Brest, a squadron at Rochefort, and a powerful fleet
at Toulon, and at this time Spain had joined her forces with those
of France against us. Nevertheless the lieutenants in charge of the
gun-brigs stationed on the coasts took life with that unconcern which
is one of the blessings of peace; they cultivated their cabbage
gardens, they attended to their pig-stys, and they smoked their pipes
and drank strong beer at taverns with sounding names such as "The Coach
and Horses," or "The Maid and the Harp"; and one of the worst offenders
was Lieutenant Tupman of the brig _Saucy_, which lay within gun-shot
of where Lucy stood.

The thought of Mr Lawrence having received from her father the offer
of the command of yonder little ship was put out of Lucy's mind by
the image of placid sun-lighted scenery she contemplated, taking
full possession of her. Familiar as the picture was, her beautiful
eyes, moving slowly, dwelt in their brooding way upon the objects she
directed them at, and her native loveliness seemed to gain by the
impulse which visited it, and she and the sweet and restful scene of
cliff and distant blue water and quiet haven into which the fabrics
that floated shook their lights and the delicate tracery of their gear,
were blent, and it was as though she was the spirit of the place.

Close to lay the gun-brig reflecting her white band broken by ports
in the calm surface. She looked to be ready for sea; all her yards
were across, the white sails furled with that exquisite finish which
expresses the pat of the man-o'-warsman's hand; but there was nobody
visible aboard of her. Beyond, the eye went to the short length of
timber pier, and on this side of it to some smacks which now floated at
little buoys or at their own anchors, though at ebb of tide Old Harbour
was mainly mud with the river's bed in the middle and vessels lying
high, black and gaunt in several postures, whilst out in the south
the ripple of the sea in smooth weather streamed to and fro with long
lashings of black weed, and the air was salt and nimble with the smell
of marine growths.

The wharves were old platforms black with tar or pitch, and at the back
of them were three warehouses for the accommodation of such merchandise
as this Old Harbour received or sent afloat. Perched midway on the
slope that was terminated by the brow of the cliff where the windmill
this morning was peacefully revolving its vans, was Old Harbour Town,
a romantic grouping of little grey houses full of sparkling lozenge
windows backed by a church spire, the whole looking in the distance
like a toy that could be put into a box and set out according to taste
upon a table by a child.

Lucy heard a church bell strike: she started from a fit of abstraction,
and, turning to move on, confronted an old man who was crossing
the bridge. The face of this old man was pale and wrinkled; his
hair was long and quite white. His nose streamed down his face in
a thin, curling outline; his mouth when his lips were compressed
might be expressed by a simple stroke of a pencil. His eyes were
deep-seated and extraordinarily luminous and swift in their motions,
and his eyebrows, which were as white as his hair, were so thick and
overhanging that they might have passed for a couple of white mice
sleeping on his brow. His apparel had that dim and faded look which in
fiction is associated with miserliness. His high and dingy white cravat
and the tall build of his coat at the back of his head, so sloped his
shoulders that they looked to make a line with his arms. He wore a
faded red waistcoat which sank very low, and under it dangled a bunch
of seals. His knee-breeches left painfully visible the pipe-stem shanks
clothed in grey hose and terminating in large shoes, burdened with
steel buckles.

He removed his little round hat and bowed low to Lucy.

"Good morning, Mr Greyquill," said the young lady, bestowing upon him
one of those sweet and gracious smiles with which she favoured nearly
all, thus rendering herself as much beloved for her cordial charm of
manner as she was admired by the women and adored by the men for her
singular beauty of face and graces of person.

He bade her good-morning with profound respect. Her dog barked in his
face, and she silenced it by lifting it under her arm.

"I hope your cold is better, Mr Greyquill," said she, making to proceed
in her walk.

"Much better--indeed, quite gone, I am greatly obliged to you, ma'am,"
he answered. "I find nursing of little account. Gruel and foot-baths
and a tallow candle for the nose do not help me so much as fresh air.
Fresh air seems to dry the cold up."

She agreed with him with a smile, and with a pleasant salutation of the
head, walked on.

The old man looked after her, and whispered to himself in admiration
of her kindness and person. A wooden-legged sailor just then came up
some steps from the river side on to that end of the bridge which the
money-lender was approaching, and when Greyquill was close to, the
tar, assuming a posture of abject despondency, pulled off his hat, and
extending it begged for alms.

"I have bled for my country, your honour," said the man.

"But you don't say you were paid to do so," answered Greyquill.

"Ay, but I wasn't paid to lose my leg," called out the man.

Greyquill, who saw little to fear in the pursuit of a man with a wooden
leg, turned his head upon his shoulder and cried back: "There are too
many of us."

"That ain't my fault!" bawled the man at the receding figure.

"Yes, it is," cried Greyquill. "For people like you who can't get on
ought to get out."

The laugh with which the malicious old fellow accompanied this sally
caused the sailor to gaze eagerly round the ground as though for a
stone to heave at him.

Meanwhile, Lucy crossing the bridge pursued the road to Old Harbour
Town. She walked up an incline as gradual and pleasant as the lane
which had brought her to the river. The hedges on either side stood
thick, and the road was sentinelled by trees which when robed in their
foliage transformed a long space of it into a beautiful avenue. The
way took her straight to Lower Street, at the corner of which stood
"The Swan" Tavern, a posting-house with a signboard that swang rustily
through the long dark night, but behind its little lower windows
a glimpse of old-world comfort could be caught: a sanded floor, a
dark-polished table ringed with impressions of immemorial mugs of ale
set down upon it, a little grate high perched in a setting of china, an
old Dutch clock, and a black-board for the score.

This house contained a room which caused it to be the haunt of the
seafaring men of the place. It was in the second story, and was lighted
by a large bow-window with a seat running round it from which a fine
view of Old Harbour was to be obtained and the spacious sea beyond.
Here on a table in the middle of the room were to be found telescopes,
newspapers, not older perhaps than a week, little sheaves of matchwood
for lighting pipes at the fire in winter or at a floating oil-mesh in
summer. This room always contained one or more seafaring men, and of a
night, if there was a tolerable presence of shipping in the Harbour, it
was sometimes full, on which occasions it was so heavily loaded with
tobacco fumes that one was at some pains to see one's friend through
the fog. Here were battles fought over again, and future victories
planned and won. Here you heard the argument running high on the
usefulness of certain sails in certain weather, on the best course to
adopt when taken by the lee, on the wisest thing to do when chased by
an enemy's cruiser. Here were told stories of admirals and captains
whose names are shining stars in our national story; yarns of Hawke and
Howe and Duncan, Rodney, and others. For this room was frequented by
several very old men who lived in Old Harbour Town and had served the
King; and one of them, like Tom Tough, had been coxswain to Boscawen.

Of this man, a toothless salt whose face was like an old potato, dark
with the weather of vanished days and covered with warts, an affecting
story was told: it was evening, and the room was full of seafaring
men, and this man, whose name was John Halliburton, sat at the table
with a long clay pipe trembling in one hand and a glass of hot rum and
water in reach of the other. Several songs had been sung by members of
the company, and some one, by way of a joke, asked old John to oblige.
To the amazement of everybody the old man put down his pipe, took off
his hat, out of which he drew a large red handkerchief with which he
polished his face, and then, fixing his lustreless eyes upon the man
who had asked him to sing, broke into a song in a strange, quivering,
fitful note, as though you should hear a drunken sailor singing in a
vault. The assembly was hushed into deep stillness. It was certainly a
most unparalleled circumstance for old John to sing. In the middle of
the second verse, some old nautical ballad popular fifty years before,
he stopped, put his handkerchief into his hat, and his hat upon his
head, and resumed his pipe, gazing vacantly at the man who had asked
him to sing.

"Pray, go on," said the man. "We are all delighted, Mr Halliburton.
Have you forgot the words? There's some here, no doubt, as are able to
remind ye."

"Oh yes," said a voice.

"Are ye speaking to me?" said old John.

"Certainly," was the answer.

"What d'ye want?"

"We want you to finish the song you was just now singing and broke off
in."

"_Me_ singing!" exclaimed old John.

"Why, yes, of course."

"Me singing!" quavered old John, with a voice of amazement. "Why, I
ha'nt sung this twenty year past."

It was easily seen that the poor old man was deeply in earnest and was
to be speedily distressed. It was an affecting exhibition of mental
decay, and rough as the company were, they had the good taste to change
the subject.

Lower Street was not the street in which Lucy shopped. It consisted
mainly of little houses with screen doors and bright brass knockers,
and lozenged windows which opened and shut in the French style, so that
a small piece of the window could be opened at will. These houses were
the dwelling-places of pilots, sailors, and fishermen belonging to the
district. In the middle of the street was a Nonconformist Chapel with
a burial ground spreading out in front of it till its outer confines
were half-way upon the footpath; a wonderfully tended resting-place:
its billows of grass marked in most cases the silent beds of seafarers;
the decoration of flower or memorial was largely nautical: the anchor,
the Liliputian bows of a ship as a headpiece, and here and there the
headpiece was a gun. Tombstones whose inscriptions endless discharges
of wet and the fretting action of the wind had rendered almost
illegible, leaned as though for support in their weariness against the
walls of the adjacent houses; so that a few bricks or stones might
separate a row of dead men from a little parlour full of cheerful
company where the fire crackled briskly, where the oil flame shook in
ripples of yellow radiance upon the walls and the ceiling, where the
atmosphere was good with the perfume of rum punch, and where a manly
voice in an interval of silence might be heard singing a nautical
ballad to the accompaniment of a fiddle.

Lucy walked on to High Street, into which she turned, and from nearly
every person that she passed, she received a respectful salute or a
ducking curtsy; and for all she had a kindly word and a smile as lovely
as a fine May day, and sometimes she would stop and speak to a child,
on which occasions she generally took a penny from her pocket.

This High Street was pleasantly furnished with shops: the butcher's,
the owner of which shouted in talk to his customers as he dexterously
chopped on his block; the baker's, with its little bow-window choice
with buns and cakes, and pretty shapes of bread; here too was the
post-office, which was like a pedlar's tray for variety of contents.

After Lucy had done her shopping--and the few articles were to be
delivered punctually that afternoon--she walked along High Street, so
as to return by the road she had come by. When her steps had brought
her abreast of "The Swan," she saw two men standing in conversation
in the doorway of that old hostelry. They both bowed low to her, but
it might have been noticed that after she had saluted them in return,
the fine natural glow of her cheeks slightly deepened and her step
appreciably quickened. If her object was to escape these men she must
either run, which would not have been seemly, or submit to being
overtaken if pursued, which happened in the case of one of them, and
within a few minutes a gentleman was walking at her side.

"Good morning, Miss Acton! I am going over to my father's. Are you
returning to Old Harbour House? If so, I hope you will allow me to do
myself the pleasure of accompanying you as far."

"No, sir," she answered. "I am not returning to Old Harbour House--not
immediately. I am going to the Harbour--I am going for a little walk."

"How I am always being disappointed!" he exclaimed, and she might
by the note in his voice, by a smile which did not show perfect
self-control, and by a heated colour of complexion, have by this time
suspected that this gentleman and his companion, who was Lieutenant
Tupman, had not looked in at "The Swan" Inn only to find out what
o'clock it was.

He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a
recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over
thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea
and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent,
had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age
between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely
handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved,
at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin,
and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor
who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was
flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water
called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men
dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine
and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of the
age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He
wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for
wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere
breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood
about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in
addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the
flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human
figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning,
and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not
even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter
sincerity of passion.

His companionship, however, in spite of his beauty, for more reasons
than one, must prove, then, as it had proved on other occasions,
extremely embarrassing to Miss Acton. Shortly after he had obtained
his promotion he arrived home on a visit to his father, and meeting
her, fell in love and offered her marriage. But Lucy had much good
sense, which is not often allied with so much beauty as she possessed.
Her heart admitted his fascination, and she had heard things of him
that did him honour; moreover, he was a member of a profession which
she adored. But it had come to her knowledge, by avenues difficult
to determine, that he was a gambler and drank without moderation,
and that his theory of life and morals was such as deserved severe
condemnation as it would surely end in provoking heavy punishment.

She declined his offer, yet with a maiden's secret fretfulness over
the perception that her judgment compelled her into a step against the
wishes and sighs of her heart.

He went to sea again and did not return for two years, and when he
arrived he came broken, to the grief and shame of his father. He had
been court-martialled and dismissed his ship. His offence was singular
and characteristic: he was in a foreign port, and at night-fall he
walked to the quay to return to his ship. He was intoxicated, and on
being challenged by a sentry, tumbled the fellow into the water and
immediately sprang after him and saved his life. Some in the face of
his gallant career thought the sentence too severe: others regarded
it as lenient. His own view of it he betokened by conceiving a bitter
hatred against the Service and by resigning his commission.

He returned to England, and went to his father ostensibly to seek a
berth ashore, but for many months past he had been hanging about Old
Harbour Town, an idler and a tippler, and handsome as he was, and
brilliant as had been his short naval story, he was not the man to
commend himself to Lucy Acton as a husband whatever may have been
her secret feelings in regard to his person and some points of his
character.

"How," he exclaimed, "I am always being disappointed! If you turn off
at the bridge I shall not be allowed more than ten minutes' talk with
you."

"I shall turn off at the bridge," she answered. "It is not long since
that I was with your father. I left him in conversation with Captain
Acton at Old Harbour House. I believe I heard your name mentioned as I
passed away from them."

"What would they have to say about me?" he exclaimed, with a rather
unmeaning smile. "I can believe that Sir William grows weary of my
presence, and that he sometimes wishes me at the bottom of the sea.
'Tis a pity that he did so ill in prize money. He was born to no
fortune, and married a moneyless lady, and here is my father, an
Admiral in the British Navy, obliged to dwell in a cottage fit only
to make a dwelling-house for a poet, whose calling is, I believe,
the poorest paid of any. I am much troubled," he continued in a
maudlin way, "to think that I should continue to be a burthen upon
the old gentleman. But I assure you on my honour, madam, if I am not
independent of him this moment 'tis not because I have not been as
diligent as Old Nick himself in looking about me. But go where I will
and ask where I will, the door is shut, the place is full, the answer
is nay. What a sweet little dog is that! How happy to be for ever
frisking about you and often lifted and caressed!"

Here he sighed so loudly that she could not fail to hear him, and
looked at her a little while with a somewhat tipsy steadfastness.

"There should be plenty to be done," said she. "There is the Army."

"The Army!" he cried. "Could you put a greater indignity upon a sailor
than to compel him to shoulder a handspike and march up and down as
though he were a soldier?"

She fell a-laughing at his sottish indignation, but quickly recollected
herself. He burst into a loud guffaw when he saw that he had amused
her, and said: "I was just now with Tupman. I wish I had his berth."
Here he looked behind him to see if the lieutenant was following, but
as a matter of fact Tupman had re-entered "The Swan." "He is stationed
here to guard us against being invaded by the French, which he provides
for so carefully by lying a-bed until ten in the morning, then sulking
over his breakfast of ale, new bread, and tobacco, then doing some
work in his bit of garden--he is a great lover of vegetables--then
lurching up to Old Harbour Town, where of an afternoon he may commonly
be found sitting over a pot reading the newspaper and yarning with
any man that will take a chair over against him, that I protest when
I met him at 'The Swan' not an hour gone by he had not heard that a
French privateersman had been chased ashore by one of our frigates last
evening, and burnt after ten thousand pounds had been taken out of her."

"I think if the French intend to invade us, they will not be stopped by
Mr Tupman and his brig."

"He thinks highly of his brig, though: says to me a day or two ago,
'I wish an enemy's cruiser would look in. She will not know that the
_Saucy_ is lying here. I believe I could make my carronades talk to
her, and it would please me to see the pier and the shore dark with
figures whilst I was towing my capture into Old Harbour.' I doubt if he
would rise out of bed to give an order to chase even if a suspicious
sail hove in sight. Here we are coming to the bridge, and you are
going for a walk to the pier. Will you pluck me a daisy before you go?
See, there are several amongst the grass just there. I have nothing to
remember you by. I will wrap it in silver paper, and it shall be the
only sacred thing I possess."

"Oh no, sir, you can do without a daisy from me," she answered, though
her cheeks were warm with one of those sudden blushes which seemed
to glow as though to prove that her lovely bloom was entirely due to
nature and not to art, as the suspicious eye might fancy or the cynical
eye desire.

"You will deny me even a daisy?" he cried, with a sudden passion in his
manner which alarmed her, as he was not sober. He sprang to the side of
the road, and picking a daisy returned to her, pulled off his hat, and
said earnestly--indeed in a voice of emotion and sincerity that put a
fine and appealing meaning into the expression of his eyes which by the
power of the impulse then governing him were superior to the drink in
his head: "Let me entreat you, madam, to put this little flower to your
sweet lips, and return it to me. It is but a trifle I ask: you are too
good and generous to refuse me."

She took the flower, put it to her lips, and handed it to him. His
passion for her was very visible as he received the flower with his
eyes fixed upon her face. He gave her a low bow, and then put on his
hat, and going to the hedge pulled a leaf in which he wrapped the
daisy, and carefully placed both in his waistcoat pocket.

"To prove my sincerity, madam," said he, "I could wish that the
possession of this little flower might depend upon the result of a
conflict between yonder brig with your humble obedient servant in
command of her, and the biggest corvette the Frenchman has afloat."

"Why, sir, do not you think that a great deal of nonsense is talked by
young men and old men to young women? But I believe your father will be
glad to see you. I may have a reason to suppose he is waiting for you
to return. Here we part, Mr Lawrence, and I wish you a good morning,"
and, sinking her figure in a curtsy fashionable in those days, she
crossed the road and went down the little flight of wooden steps that
led to the path by the river's bank and so to Old Harbour.

She had not intended to take this walk. At Old Harbour House dinner
was served at two o'clock, and if she was not punctual Aunt Caroline
would grow alarmed, and probably send the coachman on horseback in
search of her. But it was only just noon, and there was time enough for
her to arrive home at the dinner-hour, and also to make this little
diversion to escape Mr Lawrence, who, she suspected, would have forced
his company upon her even in this further walk had not she excited his
curiosity by saying that his father was waiting to see him. He was not
too far gone in liquor to understand that something of significance
to him lay in her reference to Sir William, and when presently she
was upon the river-side footpath and took a cautious peep over her
shoulder, she observed him through the trees mounting the lane and
walking somewhat fast.

"It is a very great pity," she thought to herself, "that so handsome
a young man, and one so spirited and daring as he has proved, should
abandon himself to his vicious tastes. The longer he remains here the
more sottish he will become, and the lower will his manhood sink till
he will be at no pains to relieve his father from the obligation of
supporting or helping him, and the gallant creature who, if he took the
right path, would march easily to fame and dignity and affluence, must
end as a drunken, trembling, degraded wretch, the object of pity or
scorn, and who has pity for such people?" The beautiful girl sighed.

She had no intention of crossing the river by the ferry to gain the
pier. When Mr Lawrence had advanced well ahead, she intended to resume
the road he was taking and go home. Her mind, however, was occupied
by him, and yonder, lying at the wharves, was the _Minorca_, of which
she understood he was to receive the command. She walked towards
the vessel; she supplied an object for the little excursion, and the
walk would give Mr Lawrence time enough to put the necessary distance
between them. The river widened rapidly when it passed under the
bridge. The smooth water at the mouth of it reflected the chequered
band of the _Saucy_ brig-of-war. Two or three smacks were hoisting
their coloured canvas and sailing out to sea. On either hand the banks
of the ravine sloped, well dressed in shrubs and wood, and here and
there stood a little house. Some small boats lay in black specks away
out between the two Heads fishing. Business was not very brisk in the
Harbour just then, and the wharves were quiet. They were three; each of
well-pitched timber long enough to supply berths stem and stern to two
or three small vessels apiece. They were backed by a row of warehouses,
some of which were Captain Acton's, and in these were stowed the rum,
sugar, and tobacco which his two ships brought from the West Indies.




CHAPTER III

THE OFFER


The small amount of work in the shape of discharging and receiving
cargo which was being done on the wharves of Old Harbour, had come
to a pause when the labourers' dinner-hour struck, and but three or
four figures were visible upon the tar-black platforms along which
the little ships were moored. Of these one was a brig and the other a
schooner, and one was the _Minorca_, a handsome coppered barque of five
hundred tons built by the French, and, as we have heard, taken from
that people.

The sails of these vessels had been furled, and the bright April breeze
blowing from the sea sang in their clean rigging. A couple of planks
communicated between the _Minorca's_ gangway and the wharf, and at the
wharf-end of these planks stood a man of a seafaring aspect, apparently
belonging to the barque.

As Lucy advanced holding her dog lest the creature should skip in
a fit of excitement into the water, the man viewed her as though
on catching her eye, or receiving the encouragement of a look of
recognition, he was prepared to salute her. Perhaps she did not heed
him, but on drawing close to the vessel, she looked at him, and thanks
to that gracious gift which by creating opportunities for tact, helps
more to render the individual beloved or popular than perhaps any other
quality, she immediately recollected the man, and not only the man, but
his name, as Mr John Eagle, mate of the _Minorca_, who, when the vessel
was last in harbour and she had gone on board of her with her father,
had been introduced to her by Captain Acton.

He was a man of rough appearance whose hand had been in the tar-bucket
for most of his life--a hard, reserved man, shy, so ignorant that
he read with difficulty, and wrote his name as painfully as a hand
tortured with gout inscribes with the pen.

"How do you do, Mr Eagle?" exclaimed Lucy.

He stiffened himself, and saluted her by a flourish of his hand to his
brow, and answered: "Just about middling, thank you, Miss."

"I am sorry you are not better than middling," she said.

"It's the rheumatics. It's got into my feet and my shoulders. It's a
pain as no spirits can stand up against."

"Are you doing anything to ease your suffering?"

"I drinks a drop of rum when it comes on very bad. I've given up
rubbing. I've been rubbed till I've scarce got any skin left."

"I'll speak to Miss Acton. I am sure she will have something that is
good for rheumatism, and if she has I will send it you."

"I thank you, Miss," said he, with an incredulous smile. "Was you going
on board?"

"No. What a big ship she looks compared with the other two! It is
difficult to think of her alone in the middle of the sea. I can only
imagine her lying at a wharf with protecting hills on each side. Does
she sail fast?"

"Give her a good breeze and she can find her legs, but she ain't to be
compared with the _Aurora_."

"She will be arriving shortly, I think."

"Doo any day, Miss, unless she's been nabbed, but the vessel that's
going to take the _Aurora_ 'ull want more than wings."

"When does the _Minorca_ sail?"

"Early next month, I believe, ma'am."

Her eyes reposed thoughtfully upon the hull of the ship, mounting
presently in a stealing way to the heights, and her colour seemed to
deepen slightly to the impulse of a romantic mood or fancy.

"If there was nothing to fear from the enemy's ships," she said, "and
if the sea was always calm and the breeze gentle and mild, I believe I
might wish to make a voyage in the _Minorca_ to the West Indies."

"You'd be taken all care of, ma'am."

"But the sleeping berths are very little, and I am certain that the
motion of the ship----" She shook her head and smiled, and then saying,
"Good morning, Mr Eagle. If my aunt has a remedy for the rheumatism
I will send it you," she returned the way she had come, mounted the
steps, gained the bridge, and proceeded home.

Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence had gone about three-quarters of a mile and
was now approaching his father's home. The Admiral's cottage was in a
lane off the main road. It was such an umbrageous retreat as Cowper,
had he been in earnest, would have hastened to when he sighed for some
boundless contiguity of shade. It stood in a little land protected by
hedges and walls full of orchards. The Admiral lived in the heart of
groves of cherry, plum, apple, pear, and other fruitful trees which
presently, in this month of April, would make the scene round about
as beautiful as driven snow shone upon by the sun, with almond-white
flowers.

The Admiral missed the sea; he was near it, nay, in heavy weather
within sound of it, but not a glimpse of the blue deep could be caught
through the windows. He had retired on a pension and on trifling
private means which rendered this retreat the fittest he could have
chosen for the convenience of his purse and for the simple tastes of
his life. Here he lived with an old servant and a young girl, and
now with his son; but he was always hoping that this last obligation
would not be continuous, though the prospect of getting anything to
do in such an obscure corner of the earth as Old Harbour Town was as
remote as the possibility of Mr Lawrence ever becoming Prime Minister
of England. Yet a secret hope, an indeterminable dream, one of those
imaginations which make blessed the possessors of the sanguine
temperament, buoyed the Admiral. Who could tell? Something might
happen! Walter might fall in with a man who should prove a friend,
even in that very haunt, "The Swan," which seemed obnoxious to his
interests. Thus the old fellow would reason without logic, or even
knowing what he was talking to himself about.

His mind was full of his son as he sat this day at his dinner, which
was put every afternoon punctually at half-past one upon the table
whether Mr Lawrence was at home or whether he was not. The window at
which the Admiral was wont of a pleasant evening to sit with his pipe
was open; the room was small, with a low ceiling, but one should say
a very dream of comfort to a nautical man. Its walls were embellished
with pictures of sea-fights, of frigates engaging forts, of encounters
between line-of-battle ships. A handsome telescope, a gift for some
deed of valour, lay in brackets over the small, richly-carved sideboard.

The Admiral sat at table before a meal that betokened total neglect on
his part of all thought of digestion. The dinner in short, so far as
it had been served, consisted of a round of boiled beef, carrots and
turnips, and a dish of potatoes smoking in their jackets, a stout loaf
of black crust, a dish of fine yellow butter, and at Sir William's
elbow was a silver mug with a thick glass bottom, just filled foaming
to the brim from a cask of the very best ale at that time brewed in
England, and in those days a glass of fine ale was a more delicious
draught, more thirst-quenching, more appealing to all the secret
feelings of the interior than the finest liquor that has been drunk
since, call it what you will.

Just as the Admiral was cutting a second helping for himself from the
round of beef, which being English was choicely tasted, he heard his
son's footsteps in the passage outside, and after a short interval,
during which Mr Lawrence fitted himself for the dinner table, that
gentleman walked in. He was almost immediately followed by the old
housekeeper with hot plates. She was very fond of Mr Lawrence. She
would listen for his footsteps. He was still "Master Walter" with her,
and would remain so. She had once, on hearing of his money troubles,
offered to lend him from her slender savings. But whatever may have
been his character he was a sailor in this: he would not take money
from a woman.

The Admiral viewed his son critically. The walk home, followed by
a sousing of the face in cold water, had helped to attenuate the
lingering fumes in the young man's brains, and on the whole his mind
was about as steady as could be expected in one who was always more or
less under the influence of drink.

"Have you dined?" asked Sir William.

"No, sir."

This question will not appear strange when it is understood that Mr
Lawrence occasionally took a seat at an ordinary at "The Swan," served
half an hour after noon.

The Admiral cut a plate of meat, and the pair fell to their dinner, the
housekeeper reappearing to place such another silver tankard foaming
full as graced Sir William's elbow, at the side of Mr Lawrence.

"I met Miss Acton as I was coming home," said Mr Lawrence, "and she
said she had left you and her father talking about me."

"Captain Acton and I were talking about you this morning," said
the Admiral. "I was lamenting your inability to procure a berth of
any sort, and told him that I could see no hope for you whilst you
continued to hang about Old Harbour Town, and to lounge in and out of
'The Swan.'"

"You'll admit, sir, that my failure to obtain employment has not been
due to neglect in searching for it."

"But what is to be hoped for in a place like this? Here are no
industries; there is nothing doing, you cannot turn smacksman or start
as a pilot."

"I am extremely anxious to relieve you of the burden of maintaining me,
and my fixed intention, if I can procure nothing to do between this and
next month, is to work my passage out before the mast to the United
States. If it should come to the backwoods, I am ready. I confess this
life grows insupportable, and the more burthensome to me because it is
a tax upon you, sir."

The Admiral buried half his face in his tankard, and after wiping the
froth from his lips and looking earnestly at the round of beef as
though he deliberated within himself whether he should take another
slice, he said: "I am happy to say that I have good news for you.
An opportunity has been offered which will do away with the need of
your shipping before the mast and seeking your fortune in America.
The _Minorca_, as you doubtless know, is in want of a captain. I was
speaking about you to Captain Acton this morning, and regretting, as
I must continue to regret whilst I have the capacity of a sigh--I do
not say a tear--left in me, that you should relinquish the Service in
which, had you behaved with prudence, you were eminently calculated to
make a shining figure."

The gallant old officer paused and looked at his son, and any one could
have easily seen that he was equally moved by pain and pride. Indeed
the man who sat opposite to him was one who by manly beauty of face,
worn as it was by weather and excess, by vigorous bearing of shapely
person, and by a story which, brief as it was, was as full of the stars
of gallant deeds as a short scope of wake is alive with the brilliant
pulses of the sea-glow, was one, let it be repeated, whom many a
father's heart would rejoice in, and approve of, bitterly as it must
deplore those lamentable, if fashionable, weaknesses, gambling and a
love of what Dibdin calls the "flowing can."

Mr Lawrence had closed his knife and fork and swallowed half his
tankard of ale, when the Admiral halted in his speech. He regarded
his father with eager earnestness. But the Admiral was not to be
interrupted in his further disclosure. Having ascertained that his
son wished for no more beef, he went to the fire-place and pulled a
bell-rope, and it was not until the housekeeper had removed the joint
and vegetables and replaced them by a dish of Norfolk dumplings with
white sauce sweetened and brandied--a homely dish of which Sir William
was uncommonly fond--that the old gentleman proceeded.

"I may now tell you," said he, "that Captain Acton this morning, on
my expressing my regret that you could not obtain employment, most
handsomely and liberally made you the offer of the command of a ship,
the _Minorca_."

Mr Lawrence's face lighted up, but the expression was curious; it
was composite; it seemed to be lacking in the elementary quality of
exultation or rejoicing which naturally would have been sought for or
expected.

"He is very kind," said he. "I should like the berth."

"He proposes that you should take the vessel out to the West Indies and
bring her home. He pays twelve pounds a month, and gives a commission
on the earnings of the ship. What do you say?"

"Why, sir, of course I accept without hesitation, and feel most deeply
obliged."

"It is a step," continued the Admiral, "that may lead to other and even
better things. But first and foremost it finds you in employment, and
will put some money into your pocket, and relieve the pressure which
not only you but I am made to feel. I do not choose that Mr Greyquill
should visit me. Yet he calls to enquire after you."

"He is a very impertinent old man, and why he should call here to see
me when he knows that every day I am within a stone's throw of his
office, I cannot tell. He'll get his head broke if he troubles you,
sir."

"Captain Acton wishes to see you at eight o'clock this evening. You'll
be there?"

"Oh, depend upon it. This is a great offer. He is extremely obliging."

"And I must hope," said the Admiral, "since this opportunity has been
brought about by me, that you will do me the justice to take care to
present yourself in such a state as shall not excite his resentment,
or, which is worse, result in the cancellation of his offer."

The old gentleman spoke with sternness, and held his eyes fastened upon
his son, who cried: "Oh sir, I am not such a fool as to run any risks
with this stroke of fortune."

"You will present yourself at eight," said the Admiral a little more
softly, "and I have no doubt whatever that you will receive the offer
which will be properly executed to-morrow. I believe that the _Minorca_
sails early next month. You will have time to obtain the few clothes
you may require. The dress of the Merchant sailor is inexpensive.
Indeed, a man in the Merchant Service dresses as he pleases. It is
a warm voyage, and you'll find a few white clothes useful. I do not
suppose you'll be expected to know anything about stowage and the like.
But you will pick up what you want as you go. Captain Acton spoke
of the mate as a respectable, though illiterate man. He doubtless
understands his part, and little more will be expected from you than
the navigation of the ship to her port, a careful attention to your
owner's interests, and a strict execution of such commands as you may
receive with regard to obtaining a freight and matters of that sort,
of which I confess I am ignorant."

Sir William now rose from the table and went to an armchair at the
open window, upon the seat or ledge of which stood a jar of tobacco,
some clay pipes, and a little machine for firing a match dipped in
brimstone, a very ingenious contrivance as old as the days of the
second Charles: namely, a little pistol-shaped fire-maker whose trigger
struck a full and brilliant spark from the flint and kindled the
tinder. He filled his pipe and lighted it, and sat in conversation
with his son, in whom the particular humour or mood would have been
extremely hard to settle by the most sagacious of critical observers.
He was speedy in answering his father, and his language did not show
much abstraction of mind; but even the Admiral noticed that there
was an undercurrent of thought in his son which was pursuing a very
different course from the stream as it appeared on the surface.

Sir William, however, was a man not in the habit of taking long or
deep views. His son was thinking of his good luck, of his meeting that
evening with Captain Acton, of the opportunities for advancement which
now lay before him, and these reflections would naturally colour his
manner and make him appear somewhat strange to those who knew him best.

Captain Acton received Mr Lawrence in his library, a small but very
elegant room. It was lighted by wax candles on the table and wax
candles on the chimney-piece. Its walls were covered with valuable
books in finely carved cases. Captain Acton was reading when Mr
Lawrence was announced. He immediately put down his book and rose. It
would have been easy to see that he was struck by and pleased with the
fine figure and handsome face of Mr Lawrence as he strode through the
doorway, bowing with dignity and grace as he advanced. Of course the
Captain was perfectly well acquainted with Mr Lawrence; he had been to
his house to dinner on more than one occasion with Sir William; they
had met at the Admiral's house and out-of-doors.

Yet Captain Acton appeared to find in Mr Lawrence this evening a
quality of bearing, a character of masculine beauty which had not
certainly before impressed him to anything like the same degree.
He had carefully dressed himself; his manner betokened complete
self-possession; his handsome eyes shone clear and steady, and his
face exhibited a mind whose command over itself was complete. The worn
look partly due to dissipation, partly due to the hard life of the sea
which was often injuriously visible by daylight, was now concealed in
the soft veil of light shed by the wax candles. They shook hands, and
seated themselves.

"Your father has doubtless acquainted you with my object in asking you
to call upon me this evening."

"He has, sir."

"Are you willing to accept the command of the _Minorca_?"

"I am indeed, and have no words in which to convey my thanks to you for
your kindness."

"Oh, say no more, sir, about that. I am pleased with the idea of a
Naval officer being in charge of my ship."

And here Captain Acton again viewed the face and form of the young man
with a pleasure and satisfaction the other could scarcely miss, though
it was delicately tempered by Acton's natural gravity and his well-bred
air. And now for a short time the conversation wholly referred to the
business part of the compact. Captain Acton named the terms, stated the
nature of the voyage and his expectations, spoke of the cargo and the
consignees, and of his agent at Kingston. Mr Lawrence listened with
intelligence, and the questions which he put were all to the point.

"The rig of the vessel," said Captain Acton, "is unusual. She is
called a barque. The idea of fore and aft canvas only upon the
mizzen-mast is French. I am told that rig is very handy in stays. Do
you know the ship, sir?"

"I was never on board of her, but I know her very well. I admire
her figure, though I do not think she is so finely moulded as your
schooner, the _Aurora_."

"Oh, certainly not, and as a consequence the _Aurora_ sails two feet to
the _Minorca's_ one. That schooner is almost due. She is commonly very
punctual. She earns more money than the _Minorca_. No doubt all will
have been well with her until she enters the Chops. But the Western
squadrons have done great work. They have swept the French corsairs
off the narrow waters and huddled the lily-livered rogues into their
own ports. The _Minorca_ is lightly armed: four eighteen-pounder
carronades, for her business is to run and not to chase. You'll have to
keep a bright look-out, sir. Your business must be to give your heels
to everything that stirs your suspicion."

"I assure you, sir," said Mr Lawrence, with a smile which added a
freshness to his beauty by that light, "that I have no idea of taking
command of your ship with a view to a French prison."

After some further conversation to this effect, during which it was
manifest that Captain Acton was very well satisfied with the generous
resolution he had formed that morning to offer the command of the
_Minorca_ to Sir William's son, he left his chair and conducted Mr
Lawrence to the drawing-room.

Wax candles burning purely and softly in sconces and candelabra
illuminated an interior of singular elegance and rich in luxury.
Lucy started from the piano, the sounds of which had been audible
outside before the gentleman opened the door. Her beauty, her costume
were in exquisite keeping with the objects which filled that room,
the repository of the tasteful and sumptuous selections of several
generations of Actons. Lucy's garb was the picturesque attire of that
age: the neck and a portion of the bosom were exposed; a handsome
medallion brooch decorated the bust; the arms were bare to above the
elbows; the girdle gave her gown a waist just under the bosom. In
that light all that was tender and lovely in her gained in softness,
sweetness, and delicacy. Her rich bloom had the divine tenderness of
the flush of sunset when in the east the velvet deeps are enriched with
the diamond-throb of the first of the stars.

Not far from the large old-fashioned hearth beside a little table on
which stood a work-basket, sat in a tall-backed arm-chair fit for a
queen to be crowned in, a figure that must have carried the memory of
a middle-aged or old man of that time well back into the past century.
She was Miss Acton, Lucy's Aunt Caroline, sister of Captain Acton, a
lady of about seventy years of age, who trembled with benevolence and
imaginary alarms, who was always doing somebody good, and was now at
work upon some baby clothing for an infant that had been born a week or
two before.

She belonged to a race whose extinction Francis Grose lamented. She was
what was termed an antiquated gentlewoman whose dress was a survival
of the fashion of two if not three earlier generations: consisting of
a stiff-starched cap and hood, a little hoop and a rich silk damask
gown with large flowers. She acted as housekeeper to her brother, and
the keys of the cupboards jingled at her side. She was choice in her
stores, which included cordial waters, cherry and raspberry brandy,
Daffy's Elixir, pots of currant jelly and raspberry jam, and her stock
also comprised salves, electuaries, and purges for the poor. When she
walked she leaned, perhaps a little affectedly, on an ivory-handled
crutch stick, and a fat pug dog rolled in her wake. This pug now snored
alongside of her, and the little terrier slept with its paws upon the
pug's stomach.

Mr Lawrence was extremely easy. There was nothing of the embarrassment
in the presence of ladies which is often visible even in well-bred
men who have fallen from their estate, and pass their days in liquor
and in looking in and out of such haunts as "The Swan." Indeed, his
well-governed behaviour had something of a pre-determined air as of a
man who acts a part and with all the resolution of his soul means to
carry it through, though he may be obstructed by physical pain or by
mental distress.

After a few airy nothings of salutation and the like had been exchanged
and all were seated, Captain Acton said: "Lucy, I am now to introduce
Mr Lawrence to you in a new character; he is the captain of the
_Minorca_."

"What is that you say?" cried Aunt Caroline, starting in her chair and
peering over her gold-rimmed glasses at Mr Lawrence.

"I have given Mr Lawrence the command of my ship, sister," said Captain
Acton.

"The news does not surprise me," said Lucy. "I think I told you this
morning, sir, that Sir William wished to see you. Do you like the idea
of commanding the _Minorca_?"

"Very much indeed, madam. My inclination leans wholly towards the
Merchant Service. I would rather command the _Minorca_ than a
line-of-battle ship."

He smiled faintly, as though he guessed she would not believe this, and
she could not miss the expression of bitterness in his smile which, as
she was well acquainted with the story of his career, she perfectly
understood. In truth she felt a little grieved for him. It was pitiful
to think of so handsome and gallant a young fellow descending from the
lofty platform of the King's Service to take charge of a poor little
Merchant vessel whose one officer, a mate, was as ignorant and common a
fellow as any that could be found in the 'tween decks of a man-of-war,
remote from the society of the ward and gun rooms, though on board the
_Minorca_ Mr Eagle would be Mr Lawrence's associate.

"Are you not afraid to take the command of a ship, sir?" enquired Miss
Acton, who continued to peer at Mr Lawrence over her glasses.

"Afraid, madam!"

"Afraid, sister!" echoed Captain Acton. "Your question reminds me of
a story of Lord Howe: a lieutenant having reported the ship on fire
returned, and said that his lordship need not feel afraid as the fire
was out. 'Afraid!' exclaimed Howe, 'How does a man feel when he is
afraid? I need not ask how he looks!'"

"It is such a very serious undertaking," said Miss Acton. "I cannot
imagine a more responsible position than that of captain of a ship.
If she sinks or is consumed by fire or strikes upon the rocks and the
people perish, the captain, whether he survives or not, is answerable.
If he dies with the people he goes before God, who judges him. It is
dreadful. If I commanded a ship and lost lives, I could never sleep. I
should not know what to do for seeing the spirits of the dead. I should
feel that they all looked to me to return them their lives, and how
terrible it must be to feel helpless when you are pleaded to by spirits
who wring their hands and wail."

Mr Lawrence viewed the old lady with silent astonishment.

"If all thought like you, aunt," said Lucy, "we should get no captains
at all for our ships, and how delighted the French would be to learn
that our men-of-war could not leave port because captains were not to
be got."

She received a smile full of perception of her point from Mr Lawrence.

"Well, I did not think of it in that way," said Miss Acton, who was
active again with her needle and talking at her work. "Of course we
must have captains for our men-of-war. I hope there is no fresh news of
invasion."

"Nothing more since the privateersman was run in," said Captain Acton.

"Oh, aunt, whilst I think of it," cried Lucy, "poor Mr Eagle, the mate
of the _Minorca_, is suffering badly from rheumatism in his ankles. He
can hardly stand. I told him that I would ask you to send him something
to ease him."

"I am sure I do not know what is good for rheumatism," said Miss Acton,
with the petulance that attends a sudden anxiety of benevolence. "It
is a most troublesome disease. You may rub and rub, and you only make
it fly to another place, and often rubbing takes the skin off. I will
send him some sulphur to put in his stockings, and I will see what
else there is to be done for the poor man." And here, looking over her
glasses again at Mr Lawrence, she said: "Pray, can you tell me how Mrs
Bigg is, sir?"

"Mrs Bigg, ma'am! I never heard of her."

"She lives at Uphill Cottage, and lay in of a very fine baby a
fortnight yesterday, and has done very poorly since. You cannot tell me
how she does?"

"I cannot, madam."

At this moment the door was opened and the butler entered with a large
sparkling silver tray of refreshments--wines and spirits, and cakes of
several kinds. But Mr Lawrence would take nothing. He had done very
well, he said. He had supped handsomely with his father off a round
of cold boiled beef. The hospitality of the tray was not pressed upon
him; Miss Lucy took some wine and water, and a small draught of cordial
waters was placed beside Miss Acton.

"Your father was telling me a few days ago," said Captain Acton, "of a
narrow escape of yours, sir."

"I have met with several. To which did he refer?"

"To that of the punt in which you attempted to sail from Plymouth to
Falmouth."

Mr Lawrence smiled. When his smile was dictated by some honest or
candid emotion, free from irritation or contempt, or any of the
passions which make merriment forced and alarming, the expression gave
a particular pleasure to the beholder. It was full of heart, and seemed
to lighten his beauty of much of its burden of wear and tear.

"What was the story, sir?" asked Lucy.

"A story of foolhardiness, madam, largely due to my difficulty in
foreseeing issues."

The remark appeared to impress Captain Acton, who fastened his eyes
upon the speaker.

"I had made up my mind to go from Plymouth to Falmouth in a small punt.
She was fourteen feet long. When I had got some distance away, my hat
was blown overboard. I secured the tiller a-lee, threw off my clothes,
and jumped after my hat. As I was returning with the hat the sail
filled, the boat got way on her and sailed some distance before she
came up in the wind. I had almost reached her when she filled again.
This happened three or four times. At length I managed by a frantic
struggle to catch a hold of the rudder, but I was so exhausted that it
was long before I had strength to get into the boat."

This tale induced Captain Acton to indulge in the recital of a
hair-breadth escape of his own, but a flow of exciting anecdotes was
arrested by Miss Acton declaring that she was not strong enough to bear
to hear such horrid, moving stories, particularly just a little before
bed-time.

Lucy was somewhat puzzled by Mr Lawrence. His behaviour was cool,
gentleman-like, distant, cautious, entirely sober, and for the most
part he expressed himself with a high degree of intelligence. She
could not but remember that in the morning when, to be sure, he might
be said to have been "flown with wine and insolence," he had, with a
passion which assuredly borrowed nothing of heat from liquor, plucked
a daisy and bade her put it to her sweet lips and return it to him,
and he had then concealed the little flower in his pocket as the only
sacred treasure he possessed. This evening his bearing was on the
whole as formal and collected as though she was but an acquaintance in
whose company he could sit without being overcome by her charms. The
passion of the morning was genuine and sincere, drink or no drink; the
behaviour this evening was calculated and extraordinary. Perhaps in the
delicate candlelight she might not catch every expression of eye, every
movement of mouth, every shade of change in the expression of the whole
face, so that she would justly imagine she had missed through defective
illumination the impassioned look, the swift pencilling by rapture of
the lineaments which her maiden's intuition gave her eloquently and
convincingly to know must be the secret homage of his heart, let him
mask his handsome and worn face as he would.

"I wish, madam," said he, "that you would return to the piano at which
we interrupted you.

"Papa will not thank me for making a noise."

"Oh, my dear, don't say that. I am quite sure that if you will play, Mr
Lawrence will afterwards sing, and I shall be charmed to hear you, sir,
for I recollect your sweet and powerful voice both here and at your
father's."

"There is little that I would not do to oblige you, sir," answered Mr
Lawrence, and going to the piano he stood beside it, as though waiting
for Lucy to seat herself at the instrument.

"Lucy, my dear," exclaimed Miss Acton, "play 'Now, Goody, Please to
Moderate,' or 'My Lodging is on the Cold Ground,' or 'Sally in our
Alley.' I do not care which. They are all very beautiful, and I know no
song, brother, that carries me back like 'Sally in our Alley.' Do you
remember how finely our father used to sing it? He was at Dr Burney's
one night, sir," said she, talking to Mr Lawrence, "when a famous
Italian singer of that day--who was it now?--she was as yellow as a
guinea, and her hoops were so large there were many doors she could
not pass through--who was it now? But no matter; after my father had
sung she stepped over to him, and curtsying as though she would sit
before him, she said: 'I have often heard this song sung and thought
nothing of it. But now, sir, I shall ever regard it as the loveliest
composition in English music.'"

"Ay, father had a very fine voice, to be sure," said Captain Acton,
"and so has Mr Lawrence."

Lucy had now taken her seat at the piano, and as the airs her aunt
desired were well known to her, she played them from ear, whilst
Miss Acton in her stiff-backed chair, kept time, with much facial
demonstration of enjoyment, with her starched cap and hood.

"Will you now sing us a song, Mr Lawrence?" exclaimed Captain Acton.

"With the greatest pleasure. What should it be?" As Miss Acton loved
"Sally in our Alley," he would be happy to sing it.

Lucy touched the keys.




CHAPTER IV

THE _AURORA_


Next morning after Captain Acton had read prayers, he stepped on to
the lawn to take the air for half an hour before breakfast, and was
immediately followed by Lucy, who had hardly reached his side when Miss
Acton appeared on the hall steps and carefully descended the broad
flight, leaning on her crutch cane and followed by her pug.

It was a charming spring morning, warm as June and brilliant as a
diamond. The sea was white with the light of the sun, and the radiance
of the water clarified the sky into a tender azure, along which floated
a number of little mother-of-pearl clouds brushed by a breeze which
kept sea and land in motion with a feathering of ripples and the dance
of shadows.

"I cannot think of anything but sulphur for poor Mr Eagle's feet," said
Miss Acton, as she approached father and daughter. "I will give you a
packet for him after breakfast. Is not this a morning to lift up one's
heart in rejoicing? How fair is this prospect! How tender and promising
this scene of garden! How quiet the old town looks upon the hill! The
heart swells in gratitude to God on such a morning as this."

"Very true, sister," said Captain Acton, "and I hope we are all
grateful; I am sure I am. I was very well pleased with our friend Mr
Lawrence last night. I witnessed nothing in him that I could have
wished not to see. I do not know that I ever met a more gentlemanlike
man. He holds himself very well. He has a fine figure, and I like his
type of good looks; it is manly. The face is a little weather-worn
perhaps."

"'Tis a pity he cannot command his appetites," said Miss Acton. "How
would my heart bleed if he were my son! Poor, dear Sir William! with
what Christian fortitude has he resigned himself to the wretchedness of
seeing his son out of the Navy, and squandering his precious time in
drinking with Lieutenant Tupman."

"He can control himself," said Captain Acton. "Did you observe,
Lucy, that he refused all refreshments last night? Now, a man who is
radically and incurably a sot cannot view a decanter of anything to
drink, and the stronger the worse, without thirsting for it. And
did ever such a man say no to an invitation to drink with the liquor
standing up in a bottle in front of him?"

"I am sure he is a man of resolution," said Lucy. "I never look at him
without seeming to see why it is he should be so gallant and desperate
a fighter at sea. He has a cast of face that is very uncommon, full of
power of thought, and the shape of his head is like that Greek bust in
the library. How is it that a man with his spirit is unable to deny
himself what he knows must speedily bring him to ruin?"

"It is not only drink," said Miss Acton. "They tell me he is accustomed
to bet very heavily."

"He will mend. He shall have a chance," said Captain Acton cheerily.
"I love his old father, and I am strongly disposed to like his son;
and I am an ill judge of human nature if I am wrong in predicting that
the command I have given him will lead to his reformation. I have
ever found it true that the way to make a man honest is to let him
understand that you have a cordial faith in his good intentions. He
must be a black-hearted rogue beyond hope who disappoints the high and
reassuring expectations you give him to know you have formed of him."

"Mr Lawrence has a beautiful voice," said Lucy. "How touchingly he
sang 'Tom Bowling'!"

"I could love him for his way of singing 'Sally in our Alley,'" said
Miss Acton. "But the song in his mouth has not the moving sweetness
papa gave it."

At this moment Captain Acton cried out, halting as he uttered the words
with his eyes fixed in the direction of Old Harbour: "Bless my soul!
what can have happened? Is the French Flotilla in sight?"

"The French Flotilla!" exclaimed Miss Acton. "In sight, do you say?"

"What can be the meaning of it?" said Captain Acton.

"What do you see? The French Flotilla?" cried Miss Acton in a voice
tremulous with agitation. She darted her eyes through her glasses over
the sea.

"If the French Flotilla is not in sight," said Captain Acton, "what
can be the intention of Mr Tupman rising at this very early hour and
getting his brig under weigh? For certainly the _Saucy_ is making a
start for something or somewhere. Do you see her sheeting home her
canvas, Lucy?"

"She is going out for a little cruise, no doubt," said Lucy.

"I quite agree, but it is so unusual for Tupman to be out of bed at
this hour that we cannot but think that something very important
and dangerous has called him from his moorings. No, sister, the
flat-bottomed boats are not in sight yet, and I suspect we shall
have to go on staring for many a week, and many a month, if not for
ever, before we sight them coming along in a shoal with the little
cocked-hatted usurper, his arms folded upon his breast, watching the
van from the hindmost, for he is one of those mighty conquerors who are
very careful of their own precious carcasses."

It was as Captain Acton said: the _Saucy_ brig-of-war was getting under
weigh, and it might be safely concluded for no other purpose than to
exercise the crew by an off-shore trip. Captain Acton and the two
ladies stood watching the little toy figure away down in the river's
mouth. Sail was made with man-of-war despatch; all the clews were
sheeted home together, the yards at the same time mounting, so that all
at once it seemed the little vessel broke into a broad, bright, shapely
glare of canvas, slightly leaning from the breeze as she softly crept
round and pointed her bowsprit seaward, and whitening the water under
her with the power of a floating body of radiance.

"Well done, Tupman!" cried Captain Acton, who watched the manoeuvre
with a sailor's interest. "Sluggard as you are, you have your little
ship and her people well in hand. I wonder if there's a foreigner
afloat that could have made sail with the despatch that brig exhibited?"

The little leaning vessel, diminished by the distance from which she
was surveyed into a size fit only to be manned by Liliputian sailors,
crept like a small white cloud along the placid water of Old Harbour,
and rounding the pier hauled the wind for a south-westerly course.
They watched her as she streamed onwards with a sparkle as pretty as
a rainbow at her fore-foot, and a short scope of trembling lustre
astern as though she towed a length of satin. A few minutes before
she disappeared from the sight of those who viewed her from the lawn
of Old Harbour House, past the bluff or round of cliff on which stood
the dropsical old lighthouse, she dipped her flag manifestly in
response to a hidden salutation, and scarcely had she vanished when
there stole out from the edge of the cliff round which she had gone,
the slanting figure of a large three-masted schooner with the English
ensign at her peak. She was steering directly for Old Harbour. Though
she had evidently come a long journey, she made upon those silver-white
rippling waters a far handsomer figure than the brig. She was clothed
from truck to waterway with sails which reflected the light of the
morning with something of the splendour of polished metal. Her hull
was black, but she was inclined sufficiently by the breeze to reveal a
narrow breadth of copper sheathing, which sprang pulses of wet dazzling
light upon the eye in keen flashes like gun fire.

"The _Aurora_!" cried Captain Acton. "How nobly she sits! How her sharp
bows eat into it! Does not she come along handsomely? What a slaver she
would make! Nothing flying the British flag could catch her. I did not
conceive her due before next Wednesday. She has not been nabbed this
voyage, at all events."

"She floats in like a swan," said Miss Acton.

"A most unfortunate image, sister," rejoined the Captain, laughing;
"for a swan's white bulk sits low upon the water, whilst yonder beauty
is all airy, cloudlike height."

The breakfast bell at this moment summoned them from the lawn. At table
Captain Acton said that he had asked Mr Lawrence to meet him at his
office down on the quay at half-past ten. This office was in a little
house a few minutes' walk from the warehouses. Captain Acton employed
a person who looked after his affairs, who, with the assistance of
a couple of clerks, saw to the delivery and loading of cargoes, to
the needs of the ships in respect of gear, canvas, carpenters' and
boatswains' stores, and so forth. But not the less did the gallant
Captain take an interest in his own business. He was laudably anxious
to promote the prosperity of Old Harbour and Old Harbour Town, but
though he was a rich man--a very rich man indeed in those days, having
come into a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, together with the finely
wooded and beautiful freehold estate known as Old Harbour House--he
was by no means disposed to lose money in marine speculation; so he
kept a keen eye upon the books, examined narrowly all the demands which
were made for the ship's furniture, closely watched the markets in
rum, sugar, and coffee, and having a clear perception of the risks of
war, justly appraised the value of his tonnage to those who desired
consignments through his bottoms.

Shortly after breakfast he left the house and walked by way of the lane
to the Harbour.

Lucy was not a young lady to sit idle. She could find something to do
in every hour in the day. As Miss Acton did the housekeeping, Lucy was
left to her own inventions, and being a girl of several resources,
she was very happy in pleasing herself. Miss Acton went to look after
the affairs of the home, and to attend to the needs of a little
congregation of poor who were ushered into the housekeeper's room one
after another every morning, excepting Sunday, where they stated their
wants and obtained such relief as Miss Acton's closets, stocked from
her own purse, could supply; and if they did not get always exactly
what they wished, they were sure of tender and consoling words, of
sympathetic enquiry into their troubles, of a promise of some stockings
for little James next week, of a roll of flannel for old Martha the day
after to-morrow. Pleasant and instructive it might have been to witness
this old lady in her hoop and flowered gown asking questions, handing
purges, promising little gifts of apparel to the poor people, who
ceaselessly sank in curtsies, or plucked at wisps of hair upon their
foreheads whilst they scraped the ground behind with their feet.

Lucy first of all spent three-quarters of an hour in drawing. She was a
charming picture as she sat in the library bending over her board; her
eyes dwelt in their beauty of lids and heavy lashes, sometimes with a
little fire of pleasure, sometimes with a little life of impatience,
upon the motions of her pencil and its results, and perhaps not always
did she think of what she was about, for now and again the pencil would
stand idle in her hand, the natural glow of her cheek would slightly
deepen as to some visitation of moving thought; her eyes would lift in
languor from her work to the open window, upon the bit of landscape
which it framed, beautiful with the small darts, and curves, and lights
of springtime in the trees, they appeared to brood in contemplation
from which she broke sometimes with a faint smile, sometimes with an
expression upon her sweet lips which found a deeper loveliness for her
naturally pensive look.

When she had done with her drawing, she went to the piano and passed
another half-hour at that instrument, then took up some work which she
presently neglected for a novel, and shortly after eleven o'clock she
mounted to her bedroom to prepare herself for a drive with her aunt.

At half-past eleven a carriage and pair drove through the gates and
stopped in front of the house, and there fell from the box a groom in a
livery of brass buttons and orange facings, who posted himself opposite
the hall door and with crooked knee studied the entrance with trained
intentness. He was not kept waiting long. The hall door was opened,
and Mr Bates, the butler, appeared with a shawl and rug and the pug. A
few minutes later Miss Acton and Lucy entered the carriage, one nursing
her pug, the other her terrier. And when some parcels were put in they
were driven away.

"I can think of nothing better than sulphur for poor Mr Eagle's feet.
Here is a packet of it, enough, I believe, to enable him to walk in
sulphur for quite a fortnight," said Miss Acton.

They had arranged to drive as far as the bridge, where they would quit
the carriage and walk along the wharves to view the _Aurora_ and give
the sulphur to Mr Eagle. But there were several places to be visited
first of all: Mrs Bigg was to be enquired after; a little basket of
comforts in the shape of tea, sugar, and the like was to be left at
Mrs Lavender's, whose husband had fallen into a disused pit, and after
lying in it all night, during which it rained heavily and continuously,
he was discovered by a boy, and later on hauled up with both his legs
broken. Several such errands of kindness and compassion must render the
drive to the bridge circuitous.

As the carriage went down a lane into the main road, it overtook Sir
William Lawrence, who was stoutly trudging along in the direction
of Old Harbour, striking the ground as he went with a staff with the
regularity of the pounding of a wooden leg whose owner marches steadily.

"Pray, get in! Pray, get in, Sir William!" cried Miss Acton, after
telling the coachman to stop, and in a few moments the hearty old
gentleman was seated opposite the ladies and the carriage proceeding.

"I am on a visit to Old Harbour," said the Admiral, "to inspect the
_Minorca_. Now that my son is in command of her I am doubly interested
in the ship. Were you ever on board of her, Miss?"

"Yes, sir," answered Lucy. "I paid her a visit with papa when she
returned home before this voyage, but I was never in her cabin."

"We will explore it together. I hope to have the pleasure of handing
you over the side, ma'am," said the Admiral to Miss Acton.

"If the ship is perfectly motionless I might venture to step on to
the deck," answered Aunt Caroline, "but I could not enter the cabin,
sir. I believe the smell would instantly oppress me with nausea. I am
a shocking bad sailor; even the sight of a rocking ship at a distance
provokes an indescribable and a very disagreeable sensation."

"You, madam, are not to be so easily upset," exclaimed the Admiral,
looking with undissembled admiration at the beautiful, glowing girl
seated opposite, never more fascinating than in the dress in which she
had apparelled herself this morning. Her large hat sat lightly on one
side her head, and the fringes of her rich and abundant hair were like
little pencilled shadowings upon her fair brow, save that now and again
the passage of the carriage made these fairy tresses tremble. "My son
passed a delightful evening at your father's."

"Nobody could have been more agreeable, sir," said Miss Acton. "He has
a sweet, strong voice, and sings with great feeling."

"Oh yes, he has the makings of a fine fellow in him," exclaimed the
Admiral, with his face clouding somewhat. "It is not for me to say
so, but there was a time when I was proud of my son. Such was his
zeal and gallantry in the Service that I sometimes flattered myself
the day would come when, like Lord Nelson, he would have a gazette to
himself. His opportunities in the Navy are passed. Even if he could be
reinstated I doubt if he would return, so lively, unnaturally lively,
is the resentment and aversion which the sentence of the court-martial
excited in him. It is a pity--it is a pity!"

The hearty old gentleman sighed, and his eyes reposed in thought upon
the face of Lucy.

She may have found an intelligence in his gaze which it did not
possess. Her cheeks were a little warmer. She cast her eyes down. The
expression of the whole face was peculiarly pensive.

Whatever may have been the thoughts in the Admiral's mind at that time
it is certain that among the mortifications and regrets his son's
conduct caused him, must be ranked the consideration that Mr Lawrence,
had he governed his conduct with prudence, would have stood a very good
chance of winning the hand of Lucy Acton. The Admiral knew that his
son had proposed to the lady, and his partiality as a father could not
blind him to the reasons of his rejection. He had cause to suppose that
in his quiet, unostentatious way Captain Acton had taken a favourable
view of Lawrence's suit. But the sentence of the court-martial, and
his subsequent lazy, sottish life ashore had utterly extinguished the
lieutenant's chances so far as Captain Acton was concerned.

Naturally Sir William grieved over this consideration. Here was a
beautiful girl and an heiress, belonging to one of the oldest families
in the country; her father had exhibited no marked ambition in the
direction of her marriage; he was willing to leave her to choose,
having confidence in her judgment, and convinced that her choice would
be dictated by regard to her own happiness. Like Sir William, he loved
his old calling, and a naval alliance would have been gratifying to
him. There was indeed much for the poor old Admiral to deplore, and no
doubt Lucy had some delicate sense of what might be or should have been
as she sat with her cheeks a little deepened in colour and her eyes
pensively bent downwards.

The carriage stopped opposite the steps on the bridge down which Sir
William, holding Miss Acton by the hand, conducted the old lady with
admirable solicitude for her safety, begging her not to hurry, but to
lean upon him and not trust to her cane. The two dogs were left behind.

The scene of the quay-side was gay and indeed festive. The few ships
had hoisted colours in celebration of the _Aurora's_ arrival, and the
large flags of those days streaming from mast-head and gaff-end and
ensign-staff and jack-staff combined with the brilliant blue of the
sky, the light and lovely greenery of spring that clothed the ravine's
slopes, the sober hue of the cliffs, the white shape of the squab
lighthouse past which some gulls were wheeling, the chocolate tint of
the revolving windmill, the sober grey of the houses and the diamond
sparkle of the river with its softened reflection of bridge and banks
streaming into its heart in dreamlike shadow of what was mirrored:
this combination, I say, coupled with the motions and colours of human
life on the quay-side, albeit the beer hour had struck and the picture
owed nothing of animation to the workmen, fascinated the eye with the
calm, the freshness, and the glory of a little English sea-piece,
Sabbath-like in repose, lighted by the sun of April beaming in a
perfectly fair heaven.

Naturally the arrival of the _Aurora_, as of any ship, but particularly
a vessel belonging to the port, must be an incident full of active
interest. The wives and children of the crew lived in Old Harbour
Town; the men were related to two-thirds of the people of the place.
The return from a considerable voyage of a ship in those days was not
the commonplace familiar happening of every day which it now is. Ships
sailed in convoys, and arrived in groups at long intervals. Again a
ship was attended with a passion of interest which is no longer felt.
Will she fall in with the enemy? Will she escape him? There was much to
tell after a voyage in those days no matter into what regions of the
globe a vessel sailed: new lands to discover; amazing and enriching
products of the soil to be reported. New races were to be met with.
Indeed in 1805 Sydney Cove in New Holland, which had been settled by
Phillip in 1787, was scarcely thought of as a new land in this country,
it was too recent and remote; it was to supply reports later on, news
which was to startle and excite the nation, differing only in kind from
the information ships returned with from the East Indies and China and
the great continent of South America.

Therefore, when a ship was newly come home even to a little maritime
scene such as Old Harbour, there was plenty to hold groups in animated
converse on the quay-side.

The _Aurora_ had hauled in to her berth; the crew were busy in
unbending her sails. The _Minorca_ lay close enough to establish a
contrast, and everybody would have admitted that if the barque was
a smart ship for her time, the three-masted schooner built by the
Americans was as shapely a fabric as the gracefullest then afloat. The
Admiral and the ladies paused before her on their way to the _Minorca_,
which lay further on. They would not go on board; there was too much
confusion. The captain, however, stumping the quarterdeck and shouting
orders, saw and recognised them. He was a thick-set man, brick-red in
complexion, with deep-red greasy hair, ear-rings, brown eyes, and a
mouth that through some injury was drawn a little way up into his left
cheek. He came to the bulwark-rail with his hat in his hand, and as
the Admiral and the ladies stepped to the quay-side to speak to him,
he exclaimed: "Happy to see you, ma'am. And my hearty respects to you,
Miss, and I hope that Admiral Lawrence is none the worse for remaining
ashore."

"Glad to see you safely back, Captain Weaver," cried Miss Acton.

"What a very quick voyage you have made this time, Captain Weaver!"
called out Lucy.

"Some Frenchman had the scent of ye, Captain, hey, and gave you heels?"
exclaimed Sir William. "There's sometimes the virtue of half a gale of
wind in a round shot, eh, Captain?"

"Why, sir," answered the Captain, "it is true that we was chased, but
that didn't make us the voyage the young lady's obliging enough to
praise us for. Off the Scillies a French frigate hove in sight on the
weather bow, but what could she do with us? I eased off and got her
abeam, soon afterwards on the quarter; I then luffed, sir, making a
tight jam of it, and crossed her bows at the distance of about three
mile. She threw a few shot at us, but what's a frigate a-going to do
with a vessel as can look up as the _Aurora_ does, until by thunder
the wind seems blowing fore-and-aft?"

He ran his eyes proudly over the spars of his vessel and along the
length of her.

"I am glad to know that you return and find your wife and little boy
well," said Lucy.

"Oh thank you, mum, thank you, and it's deeply beholden I am to you
and Miss Acton for calling and enquiring after them, not to mention
presents which leaves my Sarah most grateful indeed. That there little
Tommy of mine grows like a ship you're arisin'. Because I'm his father
I'm not goin' to pretend he don't improve every voyage."

"Put him into the Royal Navy," said the Admiral. "The King wants chips
of old blocks like you."

"No fear, sir," called the Captain over the bulwark-rail, with a steady
shake of the head and a smile that merely ran his mouth higher into his
cheek. "I've set my 'eart upon making him a lawyer. He shall end like
old Mr Greyquill, as rich and as comfortable; and when he's old he'll
hang out a white head of hair like a flag of truce, to let the world
understand he don't want any more quarrelling."

"Good!" cried the Admiral with a laugh and an applauding flourish of
the hand, and with this laugh, and smiles and bows from the ladies,
Sir William and his companions pursued their way to the _Minorca_.

It was apparently a morning half-holiday with Old Harbour Town.
Groups stood or walked about the wharves in talk. Most of the people
respectfully saluted the ladies and the Admiral, who, one or another,
had for every other person a kindly sentence or a pleasant smile.
Standing in the gangway of the _Minorca_ was Mr Lawrence, who had
manifestly seen the party approaching, though himself had been hidden
from them by the interposition of the main shrouds. He crossed the
planks which connected the ship with the shore, and stood with his hat
in his hand as though they were royalty.

"Is papa on board?" asked Lucy.

"No, madam. I left him at his offices about half an hour ago."

"We have come down to look over your ship, Walter," said the Admiral,
sending from the wharf-side a sailor's knowing glance up at the masts
and spars of the barque. "You'll not have had time yet, but I trust
whilst you're in harbour you will set a good example to others by
keeping your gear hauled taut and your yards square to a hair by lift
and brace."

"She shall look as smart as she can be made to look, sir," answered Mr
Lawrence. "Permit me to conduct you on board, madam."

He had the grace, sense, and tact, to offer his hand to Miss Acton, who
said: "Do not let go of me. Those are very narrow planks. If I should
be left alone in the middle, I should turn giddy and tumble."

"Trust to me, madam," said Mr Lawrence, and taking the old lady by the
hand he marched her on to the planks, and they went in safety over the
side into the ship. The Admiral and Lucy followed.

The decks were empty, the men were at dinner. She was a flush deck
ship, that is to say, her decks ran fore-and-aft without a break.
She was steered by a wheel placed aft, which was unusual. Her deck
furniture was simple: she had the necessary companion-way to the cabin,
a little caboose or kitchen abaft the foremast, and abaft that again a
long boat secured keel up to ring bolts by lashings. She also carried a
couple of boats secured under the bulwarks. Her artillery was trifling:
four eighteen-pounder carronades, two of a side, the purpose of which
it was idle to enquire, because, as she carried but twelve seamen, two
boys, a steward, and a cook, she was not likely to make much show of
resistance against a pirate with the blood-red flag of "No Quarter" at
his mast-head, or any ship of the enemy which, though but a lugger,
would certainly be far more heavily armed and manned than the _Minorca_.

"A fine sweep of deck," said the Admiral. "Lord, how the old spirit
comes into one with the feel of a ship's plank under foot!"

"Is Mr Eagle on board?" asked Miss Acton.

"No, madam. He is ashore getting his dinner."

"Will you give him this packet of sulphur, and tell him to put a little
into his stockings? I hope it may do the rheumatism in the poor man's
feet good."

Mr Lawrence pocketed the packet with a bow. Occasionally his eye went
to Lucy, but he never suffered it to dwell, nor indeed did he seem to
mark his sense of her presence by any particular behaviour. He was
perfectly sober, his eyes clear and beaming, his cheeks painted with
a little colour, and his apparel showed care. His father glanced at
him and seemed well pleased, and Lucy owned to herself that she had
never seen him look more handsome, and that somehow or other no stage
seemed to fit his peculiar type of beauty more happily, with a subtler
blending of all qualities of its furniture with the spirituality of the
man, than the deck of a ship with the rigging soaring.

"It is wonderful to think," said Miss Acton, "how far a ship like this
will go. I suppose she would go around the world."

"Again and again, madam, whilst her timbers held."

"Around the world!" exclaimed Miss Acton, looking about her with an
expression of awe in her face. "It is a long way from Old Harbour Town
to London. But around the world! I believe I should be proud had I been
around the world. How few who are not sailors can boast of it!"

"Let me conduct you into the cabin, madam," said the Admiral.

"No, sir, I must be content to stop on deck. It is about twenty years
ago since I was on the sea. I crossed from Dover to Calais. We were
two days terribly tossed about, and almost lost upon some sands. I lay
dreadfully ill all the time, and on our arrival at Calais, when I had
strength to speak, I said to papa: 'We must return by the sea, it is
true, to get home, but once I am at home, I will never more put my foot
into a ship.'"

"But the cabin is motionless, madam," said Mr Lawrence. "It is the
tumbling of the sea that makes you ill. Here we are as restful as a
painting."

"The very look of that hole," said the old lady, directing her eyes at
the companion-way, "makes me feel as though if I descended I should
suffer all that nearly killed me in my voyage from Dover to Calais."

"May I have the great honour of showing you the cabin, Miss?" said Mr
Lawrence.

"Yes; since I am here I should like to see the ship," answered Lucy.

"I will keep Miss Acton company on deck," said the Admiral.

Mr Lawrence led the way below.

A barque of five hundred tons, though she would be regarded as a
considerable ship in those days, will not supply lofty nor extensive
cabin accommodation. This little ship's interior consisted of a cabin
into which daylight passed through a skylight in the deck above. In the
middle of this cabin was a short table capable of seating one at each
end and two of a side. The cabin was painted brown and was somewhat
gloomy. The furniture merely supplied the ordinary needs of the
occupants. There were four sleeping berths, and a little compartment
which was used as a pantry.

"I never was in a place like this before," said Lucy, resting her hand
upon the table and gazing round her with the curiosity which a new and
striking scene of life must always excite in an intelligent mind.

"The bedrooms are very small," said Mr Lawrence, going to the berth
that confronted the aftermost end of the cabin table and opening the
door. "But at sea any little hole is good enough to stow oneself away
in. Amongst other things, a sailor learns how to sleep, and the habit
is so strong with me of slumbering anywhere that if there was room for
me I believe I could sleep in a hawse-pipe when the ship is pitching
bows under."

"What a very little room!" said Lucy, peering in through the door Mr
Lawrence held open. "How fearful to be locked up in such a box when the
ship is sinking."

"Oh, you must not think of such things, madam. How fearful to be locked
up in your bedroom, though it should be half as big as this ship, when
the house is on fire! Would not you enjoy a short voyage? The trip to
the West Indies is short. It is a tropical journey, and all the romance
of the sea is in it."

"In what things, sir?"

"Oh, madam, in magnificent sunsets, in storms of fire which harm
not, though they are as sublime as one might figure a vision of Hell
viewed through such tremendous doors as Milton described; in birds of
exquisite plumage, and flight which is beyond all other forms of grace;
in fish of a thousand lustrous dyes, and the dark wet blue of the long
shark; in nights magnificent with such stars as do not shine upon these
Islands. For as you strike south, madam, the glory of things which are
glorious waxes hourly, the moon expands into a nobler shield, and her
path upon the water is a torrent of silver that seems to mark the depth
of the mystic realm it sounds----"

As he spoke these words the companion ladder was darkened, and a moment
or two later Captain Acton entered the cabin.




CHAPTER V

PAUL


Captain Acton paused for a few moments at the foot of the companion
ladder with a grave smile on his face.

"This is the first time you have been in this cabin, Lucy, I think," he
said.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, and what do you think of the accommodation offered by the
_Minorca_?"

"I hope Miss Acton thinks well of it," said Mr Lawrence. "I was trying
this moment to tempt her to take a voyage to the West Indies by a poor
description of some of the wonders which are to be met in the trip."

"Oh, if we should think of a journey to the West Indies we should not
choose the _Minorca_," said Captain Acton. "I confess that I have
sometimes myself had a fancy for looking into one or two of the old
ports which I remember as a midshipman. The _Aurora_ would be the ship.
She has a speed that would make me indifferent to pursuit. At the same
time there is always the risk of capture, and as I can no longer serve
my country by taking my chance of a French prison, I believe I am
discreetly advised by leaving well alone, that is until peace comes,
if ever it comes. Is not this a very fine cabin, Lucy, considering the
size of the ship?"

"I daresay it is, papa, but how should I know? This is the first cabin
I ever was in, and the _Minorca_ and the _Aurora_ are the only two
vessels whose decks I have ever stepped upon."

"Then let me tell you there are countless Naval officers afloat who
would reckon themselves in Paradise if they had such quarters as these
to live in. Look at the _Saucy_! The well of a cod smack is more
comfortable than her sleeping places. Take a corvette or gun-brig
stationed on the West Coast of Africa, or kept cruising along the West
Indian shores; the heat strikes through the plank and a man sleeps in a
furnace; cockroaches in numbers thick as ropes blacken the beams, rats
ferocious with thirst are found drowned in the hook pot of cold tea you
want to drink. Everything simmers, the paint even below, if there is
any paint to be found, bubbles, and you are fed on scalding pea soup
and beef blue with brine, the very sight of which raises a craziness
of thirst which you slake by rum, for the cooling of which you might
offer your year's pay for a piece of ice. Now, these are airy quarters.
An admiral might well be content with such a living-room."

He looked into one or two of the cabins or sleeping berths, and
examined a stand of arms affixed to a bulkhead just before the
companion ladder.

"If, sir, you should be tempted whilst I have the honour of holding
command in your service into taking a trip in one of your vessels
to the West Indies," said Mr Lawrence, "I hope I shall be the one
privileged to navigate you and Miss Acton there."

"Oh, we should be in very good hands--very good hands," answered
Captain Acton, lightly regarding him; they had met by appointment not
long before at Acton's offices, and there the gallant Captain had taken
notice that Mr Lawrence was as sober as he himself was, whilst the care
with which he had attired himself had promoted all that was excellent
in his person to such a degree that Captain Acton had never thought him
handsomer and on the whole a finer specimen of the young British Naval
officer.

Indeed he had congratulated himself on behalf of his worthy old friend
Sir William on having resolved to give his son this appointment, for
it surely looked as though with this gift of a berth, with this
opportunity for honourably employing himself and so getting a little
money and easing his father of the burden of his maintenance, the young
fellow's reformation had begun, and naturally Captain Acton, who was
an exceedingly kind-hearted man and a sound Christian in principle and
behaviour, could not but be happy in the reflection that he might prove
instrumental in rescuing a handsome young man, a gentleman, the son of
an old friend, himself a Naval officer, a person whose character was
enriched by many meritorious and some rare qualities, from the ruin
physical and moral into which he was fast decaying through drink and an
idleness which was a consequence of an aversion to his old calling, and
the almost insuperable difficulty of obtaining anything to do whilst
loitering in Old Harbour Town and passing most of his time at "The
Swan" with Lieutenant Tupman.

"Mr Lawrence would represent the voyage to the West Indies as
beautiful, wonderful, and indeed magical, as an Arabian Nights dream,"
said Lucy. "But you did not tell me of cockroaches, sir," she added
with a smile, and with one of those looks which in her seemed a
brooding or dwelling of the eye, though if judged of its effect by time
the look was scarcely more than a glance; yet this was the consequence
of the peculiar beauty of her heavy lids rendered yet more languid by
the fringes through which the large dark brown orbs of vision directed
their gaze. "And you said nothing about the beef blue with salt which
creates thirst before it is tasted."

"We will undertake to keep you free from cockroaches, madam," said Mr
Lawrence. "And the beef Captain Acton speaks of is shipped for the
sailors. I believe, sir, it would not be difficult to send aft every
day such a dinner and breakfast as would convince Miss Acton that at
sea all that we eat is not bread-grubs and beef hard enough to carve
snuff boxes out of."

"For my part," said Captain Acton, "I don't want to sit down to a
better banquet than a piece of really good ship's pickled beef finely
grained, and cutting delicately and well fatted, and a crisp ship's
biscuit, and you may add a drop of real old Jamaica. I have dined more
heartily off such a dish than at many a dinner ashore of ten or twelve
courses."

"You were young, sir," said Lucy, "and you enjoyed all that you ate.
There was a good deal that you ate when you were young that you would
not eat now, and even now I doubt whether you would find the old relish
in your prime piece of pickled beef."

Captain Acton smiled, and looked fondly at his daughter, and said
pleasantly: "And pray, my dear, what are Mr Lawrence's temptations to a
voyage to the West Indies?"

"I think you spoke of sunsets," she said.

Captain Acton broke in: "We have finer sunsets in England than any you
get in the tropics."

"Birds of exquisite plumage, and beyond all forms of known grace in
flight."

"Ay, but they don't sing," said Captain Acton. "Give me the song of the
thrush or the blackbird before all the finest feathers in the world."

"Wonderfully dyed fish----" said Lucy.

"Oh, madam," said Mr Lawrence, with a little blush in his face, "I did
not intend my poor representation of the fascinations of a voyage to
the West Indies for the ear of so experienced a sailor, and so keen an
observer as Captain Acton."

"Well, we may go with you some day, sir," said Captain Acton
good-humouredly, "but peace must be declared before I embark. We are
keeping Miss Acton waiting."

He led the way up the companion ladder.

Amongst those who just then were standing upon the quay-side gazing
with more or less of interest at the _Minorca_ and the other vessels
moored to the walls, was old Mr Greyquill, whose figure was immediately
conspicuous by reason of his long white hair and heavily white
thatched eyebrows. And this day he wore a round velvet cap such as
might have been suggested to him by a portrait by some old Flemish
artist, and a velvet coat. He stood on the wharf a few paces behind
some people who formed a little group, and peered at the _Minorca_ with
the sharp of his hand pressed against his brow seeking to determine the
faces he saw on board. He was too far off to recognise the Admiral and
Captain Acton, who now appeared, but the moment Mr Lawrence's head was
visible above the bulwark-rail he knew him, and seemed to try to catch
his eye, but Lawrence, who instantly perceived him, averted his gaze or
turned his back, and after steadily staring for some moments under the
shelter of his hand the old fellow shuffled off.

"Have you secured a berth, Miss?" asked the Admiral, with a hearty,
jolly smile.

"Mr Lawrence paints the voyage to the West Indies in very tempting
colours," answered Lucy.

"If Lucy and I should take the trip we should go in the _Aurora_," said
Captain Acton.

"You! At your time of life, brother, going a voyage to the West Indies
with every probability of the French making a prisoner of you and
Lucy!" cried Miss Acton in the high key in which she saluted the ear
when she was alarmed.

"My dear sister, we are going to do nothing of the sort. Not that
a voyage to the West Indies in such a vessel as the _Aurora_ would
be a fearful adventure or a terrible ordeal. Indeed I never look at
that little ship," said he, turning his eyes in the direction of the
schooner, "without a longing to be on her deck when she is fully
clothed, when the liberal breeze of the sea blows steadily, and when
bending under her white heights she springs like the flying fish from
one sparkling sea to another, cradled always by the rocking hand of the
swell."

"You should add papa's description to your list of the charms of a
West Indian voyage," said Lucy, with a slight glance at Mr Lawrence,
for, when a girl has been proposed to by a man and has refused him,
and when she is perfectly well aware that his passion remains as great
for her as ever it was, she will be coy, shy, cautious, something
unintelligible perhaps, in his presence.

"Upon my word, Acton," said the Admiral, "you have just put into words
the fancies I have had whilst I have been conversing with Miss Acton.
The old spirit will speak in a man, the old love will grow eloquent
once again at the suggestion that quickens it into bright memory: and
whilst I have been talking to you, I have in imagination paced the
starboard side of the quarterdeck, which we will call the weather side;
this harbour, these wharves, the Old Town have disappeared, and I am
surrounded by a wide ocean in the heart of which this little ship is
rushing, streaming her wake like a comet's tail, bursting the surge in
rainbow-like arches for her progress, filling the air with the music of
shroud and back-stay, and lightening the heart with a sense of freedom
which the sea alone can give, and which used to visit me like a sense
of gratitude or rejoicing as though something had been given to me that
was gracious, beautiful, and rare."

Mr Lawrence viewed his father with astonishment, Miss Lucy with a smile
whose beauty was radiant with applause, Miss Acton with an expression
of awe, whilst Captain Acton burst out: "Upon my word, Admiral, forgive
me for saying so, but I never could have believed such thinking so
expressed was in your line of mind. I believe St Vincent would be very
pleased did he possess your powers of delivery."

"Oh come, come!" cried the Admiral, "don't make me feel more ashamed of
myself than I am. But, Miss Lucy, is not the sea a subject about which
you cannot think without being inspired with thoughts high above those
which visit you from other topics?"

"When such a man as Nelson is in your mind."

"Yes, Nelson is the great sea-poem of the age," said Captain Acton,
"and I find more melody in the thunder of his guns than in the
prettiest turns of the poetic measure. Are you going home, sister?"

"Yes, we have done all we came out to do. Where is Mr Eagle? Mr
Lawrence, you will not forget to give him the sulphur for his poor
feet?"

"I will not, madam, and I trust that the application of it may make him
a little better humoured."

"One might notice a man's ill-temper," said the Admiral, "if he were
over you; but when he is under you--there used to be a saying in my
day--it's in the power of an officer to ride down any man under him."

"I believe Mr Eagle is a very respectable man, though illiterate like
most of them in the lower walks of the Merchant Service," said Captain
Acton. "This sort of people come on board through the hawse pipe, but
at a pinch their knowledge which is uncommonly practical, is sometimes
vastly useful. They are acquainted with manoeuvres which would often
put their betters to their trumps. They know all about rigging, its
straining point, have little tricks above the average seamanship for
heavy weather, are learned in the pumps and their gear, and indeed know
ships not only with the familiarity of a master-rigger, but of a master
builder. One of these men I believe is Eagle, and I think, sir, you
will find him all that I tell you he is, though like most of his class
he is of a somewhat sour and sullen nature, and quick to grumble. I'll
go home with you, sister. Admiral, can we give you a lift?"

"No, I thank you, sir. I am to dine to-day with Mr Perry. I have long
promised to eat a cut of cold meat with him. His cider is the best I
know. His cider alone makes him worth dining with."

"Give Perry my kind regards," said Captain Acton.

"And thank him," twittered Miss Acton, "for the beautiful sermon he
gave us last Sunday, and tell him I am looking forward to such another
next Sunday."

This said, they all went over the side, the Admiral taking great care
of Miss Acton as she crossed the planks. Mr Lawrence remained in the
gangway. When on the wharf his father called to him.

"Where do you dine, Walter?"

"At 'The Swan,' sir."

"I have a few words to say to my son," said the Admiral. "I will bid
you good-bye here," and with the ceremonious courtesy of that age, he
took leave of Captain Acton and the ladies, who proceeded to their
carriage, where they were cordially welcomed by the passionate barking
of the pug and the terrier.

Mr Lawrence's eye reposed upon Lucy's figure whilst his father was
bidding the party farewell, whilst she walked away on Captain Acton's
right, Aunt Caroline strutting and leaning with some affectation on
her crutch-cane on his left, the three much saluted by the people who
lingered on the wharf, as they went. The young fellow's eyes still
reposed upon the girl even as the Admiral came stumping across the
planks pounding them with his staff as he walked.

"Well," said he, "I suppose you kept your appointment this morning with
Captain Acton."

"Oh, certainly, and his reception was all that I could have expected at
his hands."

"Are the terms pretty satisfactory?"

"Twelve pounds a month, and ten per cent. commission on the freight."

"On the freight?"

"On the money earned by the carriage of cargo, sir."

"I understand," said the Admiral. "This should prove a very good
offer--very good terms. What will this ship carry?"

Mr Lawrence reflected as though mentally gauging depth of hold and
breadth of beam, and answered, "I think when flush she should hold six
hundred tons."

"Six hundred tons out and six hundred home. That is twelve hundred.
I don't know what freights are, but they must rule high, and, kindly
creature as he is, Acton is the man to know to what market to drive his
pigs. I think you have done very well; besides obtaining occupation
which may conduct you to something higher or at least better, you stand
to clear about a hundred pounds by this voyage----"

"The value of its wages, sir, will depend upon its length," interrupted
Mr Lawrence.

"I know that," cried the Admiral. "But whatever the sum, it is good
money and honestly earned, made not as you could make it in this place,
and better a hundred pounds gained by toil which a man's conscience
approves and applauds, than one hundred thousand fetched from the
pockets of others by the crime of gambling."

He looked steadily at his son whose eyes were fixed upon the carriage
which the Actons were at that moment entering.

"Did you observe Mr Greyquill," continued the Admiral, "on the wharf
behind a little crowd of people viewing the ship under his lifted hand?
He was there when you came on deck."

"I saw him."

"What brings that old man here peering and mopping and mowing? Has he
heard of your appointment? I wish he may not be hatching some scheme,
planning some design to end this, your fortunate command, by arresting
you unless you pay him up in full."

"I don't know what his intentions are," said Mr Lawrence with some
blood colouring his face. "I saw the old rascal plain enough, but
avoided his eye as I feared he might have the insolence to step aboard
and address me in the presence of Captain Acton and the ladies, and
yourself, sir. But if he has heard of my appointment I cannot conceive
that he meditates my arrest as an alternative to my paying him in full,
which he knows I cannot do. I should tell him that by waiting he will
receive payment by instalments. This I can manage now that I have money
coming to me. Will he stop his sole chance of receiving back his loan
by clapping me into gaol?"

"Why, perhaps not," answered the Admiral. "He would be a fool as well
as a villain for so doing. Take an opportunity of putting the matter
to him as you put it to me. I do not want to see your chance obstructed
nor Captain Acton's kindness embarrassed by any action on the part of
old Greyquill. And I beg, sir," continued the old officer speaking
slowly and solemnly, "that during the rest of your time ashore you will
behave with that discretion which can alone secure you the continuance
of Captain Acton's goodwill. You are going to dine at 'The Swan'? I am
sure you will understand what must signify a report that you were not
master of yourself, for," continued the old Admiral with emphasis, "it
is idle to believe that the best natured man in the world will confide
his property and the care of valuable lives to the custody of a man who
is not fit to take charge of himself."

"You may trust me," said Mr Lawrence, making Sir William so low a bow
that it might have been thought that they were strangers, and had met
on an affair of ceremony.

The young man watched his father roll away towards the steps which
conducted him on to the bridge. His face was sunk in thought, a
peculiar gloom was in the expression of it. His beauty even in repose
always had something of sternness in it: now as he watched his father's
diminishing figure his mouth gradually put on an air of bitter
hardness, and a frown gave severity and even the light of anger to his
eyes.

He was lingering on board until the hour when the ordinary at "The
Swan" was served, and whilst he stood looking over the rail near the
gangway, so profoundly self-abstracted that his eyes, turning idly,
seemed without speculation, Mr Eagle came across the planks. He limped
a little, and the expression of his face was uncommonly acid with pain
and the nature of the man.

"Oh," said Mr Lawrence, waking up, "here is a packet left by Miss Acton
for you for your feet." He handed him the sulphur.

"I am much obliged I am sure," said Eagle. He put it to his nose. "I
have tried it again and again," he said, "and it ain't of no more use
than if you was to rub in snuff. But she's a kindly lady to remember
me," said he, putting the packet into his pocket. "And I hope, sir, as
when you meet her you'll present her with my humble acknowledgments."

Mr Lawrence gave him a nod and then turned his head away, not desirous
of further converse with a man he regarded as inferior to a boatswain's
mate or master-at-arms upon a man-of-war.

Eagle was on board to see to the arrival of cargo which came into Old
Harbour very leisurely in waggon-loads at a time. The _Minorca_ was
now receiving commodities for the passage out, but she did not sail
till the 3rd of May, and was not yet more than half full up.

Mr Lawrence looked at the clock which was affixed to the house at the
end of the wharf in which Captain Acton had his offices, and was about
to leave the ship to make his way to "The Swan," when a man who had
been standing a few moments on the quay side at the foot of the gangway
boards, stepped across and saluted him.

Mr Lawrence exclaimed: "Oh, it's you! What do you want?"

The man was almost a caricature owing to malformation and other
deformities. His red hair flamed; he was hunched, his arms were as long
as a baboon's and seemed designed for climbing. His legs were arched
and at the same time crooked at the knees, so that he appeared to be
stooping whether he walked or stood, and to complete the suggestion
of his origin he had a trick of scratching himself like a monkey. He
was about twenty-five years of age. Whose son he was he could not have
told. He preeminently belonged to the parish.

Lawrence had got to know of his existence by one day sauntering
into the justice's court. Among the prisoners charged with various
misdemeanours was this man, who had no other name than Paul. He was
accused of having taken a vegetable, a cabbage or a turnip, from
a field which lay invitingly open, and the punishment inflicted
was a fine or a term of imprisonment. Mr Lawrence, struck by the
extraordinary appearance of the man, or witnessing a very great
hardship in a pauper having to pay for so mean a thing as a turnip by a
considerable term of incarceration, put his hand in his pocket with a
sailor's liberality, and finding the money that was wanted, handed the
amount to an official of the court, and the man went free.

The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized
his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered
his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that
so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no
matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his
honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown
himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on
his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in
which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a
gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful
vagabond, a child of the parish, a no man's son, nor woman's either,
a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing
a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the
bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken
fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance
as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have
immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short,
was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that
Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when
he got rid of the fellow and walked away.

"I understand that your honour's got command of this ship," answered
Paul.

"Well!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence, eyeing him with that sort of regard with
which one views some hairy, human-like importation of the likeness of a
man, and perhaps better looking than some men, from an Indian or South
American forest.

"If your honour hasn't shipped a steward, sir, I should be mighty glad
if you'd take me. I could sail round the world with you, sir. I'd love
to be your shadder. Wherever your honour goes, I'd like to be there."

The strange face of the fellow with its red eyebrows and red eyelashes,
and red fluff upon his upper lip, and compressed nose, ape-like or
sheep-like, so that the nostrils seemed to be squeezed out of position,
and to gape from either side, quivered with feeling, with intensity,
and passion of desire.

Mr Lawrence, with a ridiculing smile, said: "What do you know about
waiting on people in the cabins of ships?"

"What I did should be to your honour's satisfaction. I could lay a
cloth and set a dish, and I'd learn in as many hours as much as it
would take others days."

"But you were never at sea. You'll be sick in your hammock, and I shall
be wanting some one to wait upon me."

"Oh yes, your honour, I've been to sea," answered Paul with prodigious
earnestness. "I've been in smacks. I've knocked about all my life in
boats belonging to this Harbour. Sick! No fear, your honour. I'll sarve
you for nothing."

Mr Lawrence looked at the red-headed, monkey-faced, pleading creature,
not, in that look designing, it was manifest, to give him the berth;
but all on a sudden his face slightly changed, an idea seemed to flash
up in him and work in his countenance, just as a light kindled suddenly
within a mask made of something transparent might, by the intention of
the artist, change its look.

"What's your name again?" he said.

"Paul, your honour," answered the fellow, brightening instinctively
with the face Mr Lawrence now viewed him with.

"No other name?--no matter; Paul will do very well for the books."

He mused a little with his eyes fastened upon the ship's decks. For a
space he was deeply sunk in thought. Presently his eyes rose to the
figure before him, and he examined him as curiously as though he had
never before seen him.

"Be here," said he, "on Saturday next. It may be that I'll give you the
berth. No more words. Off with you!"

The fellow made a dash with his hand at a red forelock, and in his
crooked gait went through the gangway and walked away up to the wharf,
just as Mr Eagle rose out of the main-hatch.

Mr Lawrence walked to "The Swan." The entrance was under a covered way
into which the stage coach drove for baiting. Mr Lawrence walked into
the bar and observed a letter fixed in a frame of red tape stretched
across a board covered with green baize. As he was in the habit of
receiving letters at this house he looked at this one and saw that
it was addressed to him. He pulled it out of its mesh of tape, and
addressing a middle-aged, comely woman who sat in the window in the
bar where she supplied lookers-in with pots of frothing beer, or
directed them to such parts of the house as they desired to visit, he
asked when that letter had been left, and was answered that the letter
carrier had brought it in about two hours before.

He seemed to know the handwriting on the envelope, and there was a
frown upon his face as he broke the big seal. He read it where he
stood. It was a letter from a Captain Rousby informing him that he owed
him the sum of one hundred guineas, that this money as a debt of honour
had been payable immediately on proof of the loss of the wager, but
that so far from having received it, Captain Rousby had been waiting
for nine months without obtaining further satisfaction than the now
wearisome and well-worn excuse that Mr Lawrence could not immediately
pay, that he was expecting to obtain employment in the course of the
month which would enable him to discharge this debt with interest
if Captain Rousby thought proper. The Captain informed Mr Lawrence
that last week Mrs Rousby had presented him with twins, a catastrophe
which greatly increased his expenses at a time when he was without
employment, and when money was never more urgently needed. Captain
Rousby then went on to inform Mr Lawrence that if a portion of this
debt, say twenty-five guineas, was not sent to him by the first of
June, it would be his unpleasant duty to visit Old Harbour Town, call
upon Sir William Lawrence and state the facts of the case to him as an
officer and a gentleman. If he could obtain no satisfaction from the
Admiral, it would be his painful duty--a duty that must be singularly
distasteful to a man who had been a messmate and shipmate of Mr
Lawrence--to take such steps as his lawyer might advise.

When Mr Lawrence had read this letter through, he was in the act
of crushing it by one of those spasmodic motions of the hand which
accompany a sudden violent gust of wrath, he met the eyes of the
female in the bar fixed upon him; in her gloomy beer-flavoured recess,
faintly luminous with hanging rows of highly-polished drinking pots,
and a sideboard well within laden with metal vessels for drinking from
and for holding drink, the landlady of "The Swan," for such was this
decoration of the bar, had manifestly been studying his face whilst he
read. She knew him very well, and she was also well acquainted with
his habits. In a breath on meeting her eyes he changed his resolution,
and folded up the letter into its original creases, giving her a smile
which did not seem in the least degree forced, and saying to her in
his pleasantest manner, "Is the ordinary on?" and receiving her answer
after she had darted a look at an invisible clock in her room, "In
another three minutes, sir," he passed on and went upstairs.

The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the
seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district.
Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of
that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the
landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of
beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes
of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of
fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod,
bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into
Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses,
too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without
being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the
palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port,
but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and
importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short
brewed his own beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no
better beer brewed in England.

This ordinary was held every day, for there were always people passing
through Old Harbour Town, and then Old Harbour Town itself was liberal
with its own supply of guests, pilots, smack-owners and others who
found it cheaper and much more convenient to get a cut at "The Swan,"
than to sit down to an ill-killed and ill-cooked joint, or a fried chop
or steak in their own homes. The ordinary was frequently graced by
the presence of distinguished people. A lord would occasionally take
a chair; several neighbouring squires were regular frequenters when
business brought them into those parts. Captain Acton had often made a
meal at that table, and so had Sir William.

Mr Short occupied the head of the table, and the oldest frequenter
who happened to be present the foot. Mr Short took his seat when Mr
Lawrence sat down, and all the people who had come to eat were then
assembled. In a picture they would figure as a homely old English lot:
men in bottle-green coats, in red coats, in purple waistcoats, in plain
pilot cloth, here and there a dandy built up in the latest style, here
and there an old fogey who stuck to the fashion of the last century
and figured in a little tye wig, a frill very fit for the harbouring of
snuff, a cut-away coat with immense pockets, such as Boswell might have
been found drunk in, in Edinburgh, and shoes with buckles.

Mr Short said grace, and prayed for the King and Royal Family, and
for the utter ruin and confusion of the French, Spanish, and all our
enemies. In two or three places the walls were adorned by maps, with
which no navigator of this age would dare to risk his life fifty miles
out of sight of land. A spinet stood in a corner; it was sometimes
customary when the ordinary was ended and the sentiments had been
brought to a conclusion for any one who could perform, to sit down to
this spinet and accompany any gentleman who was good enough to oblige.
But it was always understood that the song must carry a chorus which
everybody present knew so that everybody present might join in it,
hence the same old melodies were very often heard in that long room
with the low ceiling, and its clock whose voice was audible all over
the house at night.

Mr Lawrence was a quality guest, and being a frequenter, had a place of
his own, which was on the left hand of the landlord; thus he got the
fish of his choice, the cut of meat he liked best, the best draught of
ale the house could supply, and this ordinary was too useful to him to
allow him to be in debt to it.

Short was a large fat man with a pink face, merry little drunken
eyes almost buried out of sight in hairy eyebrows and eyelashes; his
pear-shaped nose was so purple at the end that it might have been
supposed he had just been fighting his way through a hedge full of
nettles. He treated his patrons as guests, and of those he knew, would
ask familiarly after their relations, and how their businesses went and
the like.

Mr Lawrence sat very silent, yet ate with appetite because what was put
before him he relished, but it was observed that he limited himself to
one tankard of beer. When the ordinary was ended, pipes were put upon
the table, and jars of tobacco, and then Mr Short, without rising,
exclaimed:

"Gentlemen! before I give you a sentiment I shall be pleased if you
will allow me to propose a toast. It was only known to me this morning
that my highly respectable friend on the left, Mr Lawrence, the son
of that distinguished officer, Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, has
received, through his friend Captain Acton of His Majesty's Navy,
the command of that beautiful barque, the _Minorca_. I am sure that
there is ne'er a gent here who takes an interest in our Old Harbour,
and who has the honour of the acquaintance of Captain Acton and
Mr Lawrence, but will feel proud and delighted that that beautiful
ship, the _Minorca_, which we all claim now as belonging to our town,
will be commanded by as fine an officer as ever walked His Majesty's
quarterdeck. Gentlemen all, I give you the health of Captain Acton, Mr
Lawrence, and the _Minorca_, and may prosperity attend the beautiful
ship, and may she return home to gladden the eyes of all well-wishers
of our grand old town by loading our store-houses with more foreign
produce."

Mr Lawrence looked startled when this toast was begun; but he composed
his face as Short proceeded, and when everybody was extending his glass
to him and wishing him all the good-luck that Short desired, he was
receiving the general salutation with a composed smile and an air of
courteous appreciation.

One sat at the table who peered at him hard when Mr Short began. This
was a middle-aged man in a brown wig. He was one of the two clerks kept
by Mr Greyquill, and regularly dined at "The Swan's" ordinary, a repast
which had never once been decorated by the presence of Mr Greyquill,
who, living in rooms over his offices, chose to eat for his breakfast
a little fish which he bought from a man with a barrow with whom he
haggled, and for his dinner a cutlet or a piece of steak, just enough
for one, with vegetables, and for supper whatever might have been left
from breakfast or dinner, and if nothing was left, then a piece of
"hearty bread and cheese," as he would term it, and a glass of beer.

The man with the brown wig peered with his head on one side at Mr
Lawrence, as though Mr Short's toast conveyed a piece of news to him.

When the landlord had made an end, and the healths named had been
pledged, Mr Short, filling a pipe and inviting those of his friends who
were smokers to follow his example, asked old Mr Sturgeon, a well-known
smack owner, for a sentiment, who in a feeble voice, and eyes from
which the light of being had almost been extinguished by time, broke
out in a sort of hiccough: "As we ascend the hill of life may we never
meet a friend."

This was enough for Mr Lawrence, who perfectly understood that all
the sentiments which were likely to be delivered at that table he had
heard over and over again. He rose, made a bow to the landlord and the
company, and walked from the room to the adjacent room, which was made
a reading-room of by the pilots, smacksmen, and others, and sitting
down at the long table, took a sheet of some paper which was there
for the accommodation of the frequenters, and after thinking deeply,
undisturbed by the sound of singing which started next door, he began
to write in pencil, obviously making a draft of a communication he
proposed to copy there, or more probably elsewhere.

Certainly what he wrote about did not refer to the letter he had
received on his arrival at "The Swan." This may be assumed, as he never
referred to that letter which lay in his pocket. He wrote leisurely
and with absorption, never heeding the noise next door, and when he
was done he carefully read through what he had written, and with his
handsome face stern with the quality of resolution and the temper which
enters into great or violent undertakings as their impulse or seminal
principle, he pocketed the letter, and left the room by another door.




CHAPTER VI

THE LETTER


Mr Greyquill's office was in High Street. He used two rooms for his
professional affairs, and the rest of the house, which was a small one,
he lived in. He was an attorney, and a flourishing one: so mean that
his name had passed into a proverb, but honourable in his dishonourable
doings, so that though every man agreed that Greyquill was a scoundrel,
all held that he kept well within the lines of his villainy, and that
he was unimpeachable outside the prescribed and understood rules of his
roguery.

Two mornings following the day on which Mr Short had proposed Mr
Lawrence's health, old Mr Greyquill rose from his chair at his office
table, and said to his clerk in the brown wig, who sat within eyeshot
at another table in the adjacent room, that he was going to collect his
rents at Greyquill's Buildings, and that he would not be back before
half-past twelve. He never looked so white as he did this morning. His
white hair seemed to rest like a cloud upon his head and shoulders. His
eyebrows bore so strong a resemblance to white mice that no one could
have overlooked the similitude, particularly as each eyebrow flourished
over the bridge of the nose a few little dark hairs which resembled
tails. His waistcoat was white, not having come from the wash above
three days, and his stockings were white.

He left his house and walked down the road which led to the bridge, but
instead of crossing the bridge he descended a short flight of steps
abreast of the flight that led to the wharves. These steps conducted
the passenger to the river-side walk that went up the banks of the
stream, and a very sweet walk it was this morning. The bright river
trembled in prisms and gems under the pleasant breathing of the wind,
which was aromatic with the odours it culled in its flight over the
country, the birds sang gaily with here and there a deep flute-like
note. It was a morning lovely and delightful with the virginal spirit
of spring, when all creation seems new, when no note in the trees, no
sweetness in the air, no bloom or flash of white on the bough, no timid
wayside flower that seems to have sprung into being since yester eve
and glances at you coyly from its little wayside bower, but delights
the senses as a beautiful surprise, as a something remembered but never
so fresh, so appealing.

A bend of the river's path shut out the view of Old Harbour Town and
the Harbour, and just when Mr Greyquill reached this turn, he saw
Mr Lawrence coming along the road, having manifestly gained it by a
little bridge, some distance beyond which was another way, but rather
roundabout, of getting to Old Harbour from Sir William Lawrence's
cottage.

Mr Lawrence looked very well; his colour was fresh, his eyes carried
the light which nature intended them to take, but which his hand was
perpetually seeking to extinguish by draughts of strong liquors. He
had been extremely temperate for three days, and his resolution was
producing its fruits in his general appearance. It is indeed surprising
how short is the period asked for by Nature even from men who live
harder and drink harder than Mr Lawrence, to restore to them as much
of their healthy old good looks as in some cases makes them almost
irrecognisable.

"Good morning, Mr Lawrence," said Mr Greyquill, making the gentleman
a low bow. "I may take it that you're going to the ship which I am
pleased to hear Captain Acton has given you the command of."

"You are very kind, sir, to take an interest in my affairs," answered
Mr Lawrence with slight sarcasm.

"I think I have some reason, Mr Lawrence," answered Mr Greyquill,
drooping his head to one side, and looking at the other with a
confidential and familiar expression which was scarcely a smile, but
which teased the hot blood of Mr Lawrence as though the look masked an
insult. Mr Lawrence viewed him in silence.

"I may trust, at all events," continued the money-lender, "now that you
are in receipt of money--and if the terms have been correctly named to
me they speak very highly in favour of Captain Acton's generosity--that
you will give my debt your immediate attention, and that if you cannot
pay all, you will pay as much as I have a right to expect from the
amount you receive."

"You shall be paid, sir," said Mr Lawrence.

"It would be convenient to me if you would fix a day for the first
payment if you cannot pay the whole," said Mr Greyquill.

"I shall not be able to pay you anything this side my first command of
the _Minorca_. If I hand you the sum of twenty-five guineas after my
return, that is, when I am paid off by Captain Acton, I believe you
will not have much reason to complain, sir."

Mr Greyquill shrugged his shoulders.

"Twenty-five guineas is a very small proportion of three hundred
pounds," he exclaimed.

"It is not three hundred pounds, sir," answered Mr Lawrence, with the
countenance of a man who is resolved in his intention, but desires to
speak with prudence and good humour.

"But from my point of view it is three hundred pounds," cried Mr
Greyquill. "What is the good of money without interest? I enter in my
books the interest on my money as a part of my money, and if you tell
me I am not to speak of my interest when I speak of what is due to me,
what is my situation? How am I to live? The profit the butcher makes by
the sale of his carcasses is the interest upon his outlay; deprive him
of that and he will not sell you meat, because he could not afford to
do so."

"The butcher does not charge at your rate, Mr Greyquill," said Mr
Lawrence with a faint smile.

"I will not declare what the butcher charges!" cried Mr Greyquill,
a little warmly for so sleek a man. "But take my word, the British
tradesman, whether tinker, tailor, butcher, baker, and we'll throw in
grocer as we do not value rhymes, charges at rates which if reduced
from profit to interest and called by that aggressive term discount,
would represent every shopkeeper in the nation as big a scoundrel as
the most voracious of your money-lenders, sir."

He bowed as though to the applause of an audience, and looked the
better pleased with Mr Lawrence for having heard him.

"Well, Mr Greyquill, twenty-five guineas when I'm paid off on my return
home. I can say no more, and can promise no more."

"You speak like a gentleman to me in this matter, which you do not
often do when I refer to it, nor your father neither----"

"Sir William Lawrence has nothing to do with my affairs."

"Still, he might recognise my claim and your debt, and treat me perhaps
with the commiseration with which he would pity himself if he lost
three hundred pounds."

"You have not lost it, Mr Greyquill."

"No, sir, and from my conversation with you this morning I am satisfied
I shall receive every penny. I wish you a truly prosperous voyage and a
safe return home, and that the Frenchman won't be the means of dishing
more hopes than your own."

He made another of his bows, and Mr Lawrence saluting him with a
slight smile and a lifted hat, passed on.

Just at the bend of the road not ten paces from where they had been
standing, Mr Lawrence drew forth his pocket-handkerchief to blow his
nose, and with it there came out of his pocket and fell upon the road
unobserved by him, a large sheet of paper folded into four. Mr Lawrence
blew his nose and went round the corner, and the paper would have been
out of sight had he looked behind.

Old Greyquill, trudging on busy in thought with Mr Lawrence's debt,
was moved by some idea of the man to look behind him. Mr Lawrence had
disappeared. Quite discernible from where Greyquill stood was the
sheet of paper Lawrence had let fall. Old Greyquill stopped, peered,
reflected that it might be a letter that he himself had unconsciously
been toying with and had dropped, or that in some other way had let
fall from his pocket. He retraced the few steps that lay between and
picked it up, and proceeded with it in one hand, whilst with the other
he fumbled for his spectacle-case.

He immediately saw that it was a sheet of paper about the size of
foolscap, but somewhat squarer, of a bluish tint; it was provided
free of cost to the frequenters of the sailors' reading-room at "The
Swan." He well knew the paper, for many a letter written upon it had
he received. It was of a convenient size for those who used it, as
first of all it was ruled on one side, which enabled a man to steer
a straight course with his pen. The page was likewise so large as to
enable a man to write big, and few who used it could write small. It
also supplied plenty of space for erasures, whether of expression or
spelling, and this was useful. When folded into four and sealed or
wafered, the sheet became a letter which needed but the address to
qualify it for the post.

In the case of the sheet Mr Greyquill held, it had been folded to
resemble a letter, but it had not been made one; it bore no address,
and the communication started at once without the prefatorial "Dear
sir," or the like, and it closed without signature or initials. But
Mr Greyquill immediately saw that the handwriting in pencil was
Mr Lawrence's, and that the document must have fallen from that
gentleman's pocket just now when they parted.

We have seen that the frame which bounded Mr Greyquill's portrait of
honour was large. Most men recognising the handwriting would have
denied themselves the right of reading this letter, because they had
found it lying in a public roadway, for two reasons: the handwriting
was known to them, and the recent presence of the writer where that
letter was found would have identified it as its owner's business in no
wise to be intruded on by a man of honour.

But this sort of argument did not fall within the frame of Mr
Greyquill's picture of integrity. It was a letter lying ready for
anybody's hand in a public way; next, it was not addressed; third, it
was not signed; and fourth, though the contents were apparently in
Mr Lawrence's handwriting, yet some people did write, as Greyquill
knew, so wonderfully alike that there was no reason to conclude
without strong internal evidence that the letter Mr Greyquill held was
written by Mr Lawrence. Whatever else it was, it was certainly a draft
roughly pencilled of a letter that had been copied in ink and no doubt
despatched. Here and there was an erasure in ink, which proved that it
had been copied in ink and corrected in certain places by the pen that
was transcribing it. He had not proceeded far when his eyebrows, which,
as we have heard, inimitably expressed the aspect of two white mice,
arched their backs to an extraordinary degree as though in imitation of
a cat when enraged; his mouth took on the posture of a whistle; with
his eyes rooted to the sheet he stopped and scratched his head until
he nearly tumbled his hat into the road.

Just then certain large white-bosomed April clouds which had been
leisurely sailing up from over the sea began to discharge some rain,
and one shower was so smart that Greyquill took refuge in a small
wayside barn, where, until the rain ceased he had the opportunity of
reading the letter several times.

His astonishment was unaffected and amazing; with the habit of senility
he kept on muttering to himself aloud whilst he perused and re-perused
the letter.

"Is it possible! Is this the officer and the gentleman! Could an egg
so full of criminal matter find any black fowl willing to hatch it
in so pleasing a nest! And I am called an old scamp because I part
with my honestly earned money for a consideration which is trifling
in comparison with the benefit I confer, the help that I am to the
man in need. This will require thought. I shall need to think pretty
considerably before I decide. Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence, I wish you a
prosperous voyage, and I wonder what you will do when you find out that
you have mislaid this letter, a copy of which to somebody or other, as
pretty a scoundrel as yourself no doubt, you have unquestionably by
this time posted?"

Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence walked towards his ship. He should have been on
the whole well satisfied with his meeting with Mr Greyquill. Perhaps
the profound indifference which in reality possessed him as to the old
scrivener's willingness to accept twenty-five guineas, or, in short,
anything as an instalment, was because he had long felt that the old
man never durst take extreme action. Greyquill knew that Mr Lawrence
was very popular in his own particular way in Old Harbour Town and the
neighbourhood. He drank and treated, and in a high degree possessed
the liberality of the sailor. The townspeople were proud of him, not
only because he was a handsome and finely built man, but because he had
shone in many deeds of gallantry whilst in the Navy, and everybody was
agreed that when Mr Lawrence was court-martialled the Service lost as
fine and plucky a seaman as was ever afloat, and one to be recalled to
his duties with apologies and without delay.

Admiral Sir William Lawrence was also highly respected, and people
spoke with pride of his living in their neighbourhood. It was likewise
well known that Mr Lawrence was a friend of the Actons, and in a small
town of small gossips the idea if not the circumstance of Mr Lawrence
having offered for the hand of the beautiful Miss Acton was not likely
to be neglected or overlooked, and to do the gossips justice, they
imputed the rejection of the handsome and dashing young Naval officer
to his loose habits.

Mr Lawrence well judged that if Greyquill locked him up for debt Old
Harbour Town would rise against him. His windows would certainly be
broken, his person might go in danger, for there was more than one who
had suffered at the hands of Greyquill who would be grateful for any
sort of excuse to administer a sound cudgelling to the old man, and
take his chance of the law, fortified by the conviction that if it came
to a fine the amount would be subscribed several times over.

Mr Lawrence's business on board the _Minorca_ did not keep him long. He
was primarily there to see to the arrangements of his own cabin, and
also of another cabin aft which it was his design to convert into a
sick-bay. This end was chiefly accomplished in this cabin by the rough
construction of a couple of bunks.

Just before he left the ship, the young fellow Paul, whom he had told
to come down on Saturday, stepped from the fore part of the ship where
he had been watching two or three men caulking, and gave Mr Lawrence
his usual salute of a pluck at a forelock and a scrape of a hinder
foot.

"Yes," said Mr Lawrence, running his eyes over him, "the articles are
opened at Mr Acton's offices. Go and tell the manager--but here----" He
pulled out a card upon whose face was some printed address, and with a
pencil struck out the address, and wrote to the effect that the bearer
called Paul had been engaged by Mr Lawrence as his cabin servant. These
lines he initialed, and giving the card to the youth, bade him present
it at the offices before one o'clock, or he would find them closed.

"Have you no better clothes than what you wear?" he said.

"No, sir."

"You may give an order for a suit of decent apparel fit to wait at
table with, for I want you to understand that your duties may bring you
to wait upon ladies and gentlemen, though you know nothing about that.
Do you hear?"

"Ay, your honour," answered the fellow with a grin decidedly above a
clown's intelligence.

"You can pay for the clothes on your return, or by drawing an advance
which Mr Acton's manager will let you have. Do you know Miss Acton?"

"The lady that lives at Old Harbour House along with Capt'n Acton?"
answered Paul.

"I mean Captain Acton's daughter."

"I should think I do, sir," answered Paul, grinning.

"You know her well enough, for example," said Mr Lawrence, critically
surveying him as though he took counsel within himself whilst he
talked, "that if I gave you a letter for her and for none other"--he
frowned, and with some passion emphasised _none other_--"you are not
likely to mistake, you are not likely to give it to another."

"I couldn't mistake, your honour. I know the lady as I know you, and if
so be as I did mistake, then I hope your honour would blow my brains
out, for I shouldn't leave your side till your honour did."

Mr Lawrence, with a nod and an expression of face that was scarcely a
smile, quitted the ship, and on the wharf found Mr Eagle, who had as a
matter of fact for a minute or two been watching him.

"That young fellow came aboard not long ago," said the mate, "and I
asked him his business. He replied that he was to be cabin servant by
your choosing. I was nigh telling him he was a liar, for I couldn't
suppose that the likes of him and his rags would suit a gent as has
sarved the King, and been waited upon, as I understand they do in the
Sarvice, by Marines."

Lawrence smiled, and answered: "The Marines may not be all you think
them, Mr Eagle, though they are a noble fighting corps. I took a pity
upon that young fellow. I once helped him out of a difficulty, and his
gratitude rose to the height of a dog's, which, as you know, is very
superior to man's. His ugliness interests me as the sort of beauty you
find in the toad or the snake or other things which make ladies scream.
He can bring dishes aft as well as another, and will look a very pretty
young man in a new suit of clothes. I may not be down to the ship again
till Monday. Good morning, sir."

He walked away, leaving Mr Eagle staring apace, and as he was going
over the side, Paul, who was coming down, received a very acid,
watchman-like look from the mate.

Mr Lawrence pursued the same road home by which he had gained Old
Harbour. In all probability had Mr Greyquill not looked back, the
young gentleman would have found his letter where he had unconsciously
dropped it. That side of the bridge--the up-river water path--was much
unfrequented, save on a Sunday, when lovers walked along it, and now
and again a little family dressed in their best. It was many chances
to one that the two or three who had passed along that path since Mr
Lawrence and Mr Greyquill had stood in conversation upon it, would
have picked up the letter or even taken notice of it, so very remote
from their ideas of things worth stopping for and examining on the
highway was a folded sheet of paper.

Mr Lawrence walked on. He thought of old Greyquill when he passed the
place where he had stopped to talk. He crossed the quaint old bridge
duplicated in the river, which streamed with becalmed surface up
here and mirrored with the precision of a looking-glass the hues and
shapes of every bird that swept the glassy surface for an insect, and
gaining a rich lane formed by seven or eight hundred years of growth,
for a monastery had stood here and a knight had had his manor where
now the land was without relic of stone or brick; but the vegetation
left by these people flourished, and though not above half a mile in
length that lane formed one of the most glorious, soothing, enfolding,
impulse-creating walks in all that country-side which abounded in
little paradisaical reaches of a like kind; I say Mr Lawrence crossed
the bridge, and emerging from the lane struck the high-road, and
presently gained his father's cottage.

Even in three days the weather had worked a miracle in the increase
of the beauty of the orchards in which the Admiral sat pipe in mouth,
tankard at elbow, embowered; a sort of figure who when at his window
would have greatly puzzled the Knight of Spenser's _Faerie Queene_;
for what should such a shape secretly ambushed in a spot fit only for
the dancing tread of the fairy, or the gaping stare of the ogre who
tries to see how the land lies by peering through two apple boughs,
what should such a shape signify, briefly arresting the clouds of
smoke which rose from his lips by vain efforts to extinguish by
copious draughts from his tankard the magical fires that blazed in its
interior? Whether the Knight would have tilted at the figure or pricked
his horse into headlong flight is a conjecture that must be left to
those who have read the poem and know the man.

The Admiral just now happened to be at dinner. A shoulder of mutton
and onion sauce with potatoes roasted with the shoulder and such other
vegetables as the season yielded was a dish fit to set before a king,
and the monarch who turned up his nose at such a dainty should be made
to banquet on nothing but the fare they give kings upon the stage.
Indeed, Sir William would tell his friends he knew for a fact that a
shoulder of mutton was the favourite dish of His Royal Highness Prince
William. If it was objected that the joint yielded more bone than meat
he had his answer:

"Sir, I once said to a sailor who had obtained a berth ashore on
sixteen shillings a week, 'How do you manage to rear your family? How
many are there of you?' 'Why,' he answered, 'there's me and the old
woman and four youngsters and grandfather!' 'You never see meat, of
course,' said I. 'Oh yes, we do,' he answered. 'Meat!' I cried, 'on
sixteen shillings a week and seven people to support, four of them
hungry youngsters!' 'Well,' he answered, 'I doos it in this way. On
Saturday I goes to the butcher and buys a shoulder o' mutton; on Sunday
we 'as it 'ot; on Monday we 'as it cold; on Toosday we 'ave what's left
of the cold; on Wednesday what's left of the cold we 'ave made into
ishee-ashee; on Thursday we makes what's left of the ishee-ashee into
ashee-ishee; on Friday we does without; and on Saturday I goes to the
butcher and I buys another shoulder of mutton.' Now," the Admiral would
say with his face warm with triumph, "name me any joint but a shoulder
of mutton that will supply what kept this family in meat, or the like
of meat, from Sunday to Thursday?"

The Admiral made his son welcome with unusual warmth.

"I never tasted a finer flavoured piece of mutton. This jelly, too,
lifts it to the dignity of a haunch. Those spring cabbages are very
tender. We do not eat nearly enough vegetables in this country. What
purifies the blood like a well-cooked spring cabbage that melts in the
mouth? I am in hopes that we shall get a very good show of potatoes.
Are you fresh from the ship?"

He asked this question with much importance. Indeed, during the last
two days he had manifested great interest in all that concerned the
Merchant Service; had found out, for instance, and avowed the fact to
Captain Acton, that our Colonial Empire was founded by British Merchant
seamen who, in the employ of merchant adventurers, sailed into all
parts of the globe and established settlements, and often fought for
the preservation if not for the conquest of principalities over which
the King's flag now waved. He also pointed to the Honourable East
India Company, and asked if our own or any Navy were superior in their
capacity and splendour to those ships, and whether our Navy treated
their officers with so much consideration, liberality, and prudent
foresight for each man's well-being.

"Yes, I have come straight from the _Minorca_."

"Will you complete your lading by the date announced for your sailing?"

"I think so--I hope so. I am very well disposed towards that scheme I
have put into being--the construction of a sick-bay. Every ship should
have a sick-bay. You must agree with me, sir."

"Wherever room can be found a sick-bay is most important," answered the
Admiral.

"A man falls sick of small-pox. What are you to do with him? You can't
cure him, and you can't heave him overboard. But because one falls ill
it surely does not follow that the others should go sick. Besides, we
carry no surgeon, which was an additional incentive to my suggesting a
sick-bay to Captain Acton."

"Oh, you have done well. Acton will value your foresight. A sick-bay is
a valuable detail in a ship's catalogue."

They talked of this and of other matters connected with the _Minorca_,
and then the Admiral went to the window to fill his pipe, and Mr
Lawrence to his bedroom.

Some thought whilst eating with his father had occurred to him, and he
felt in his pocket for the copy of the letter which he had drawn out
with his pocket-handkerchief and which Mr Greyquill had got possession
of. The handkerchief was there, but the letter was not. When he had
drawn out his handkerchief and felt and found the lining of his pocket
bare, when, in short, he completely understood that the letter was not
where it ought to be and where he knew it should be, he turned as pale
as the muslin curtain that partly veiled his window, started with an
abrupt swagger of motion as though he had been struck violently behind,
then with the energy of madness felt in all his pockets, pulling out
everything, meanwhile gazing around the room with eyes which seemed on
fire with their vigour of scrutiny and passion of fear.

He endeavoured to recollect himself that, by calming his terrors his
memory might better serve him. Urgent alarms often induce vain hopes
which we should laugh at in the cool mood. He believed he might have
put that letter down in his bedroom, and perfectly well knowing that
he had not done so, and yet coaxed by a will-o'-the-wisp hope, he
ransacked the room as though he knew that in it was to be found a gold
piece of value whose discovery demanded a careful search only. What
was certain in his mind was that that letter was in his pocket when he
walked that morning to visit the _Minorca_. He remembered withdrawing
it from his pocket, but in what part of the walk he knew not, and
re-perusing a portion of it to refresh his memory. He tried to find
comfort in the recollection that the letter bore no address and no
signature. But a thundercloud of horror came down on this feeble streak
of sunshine when he recalled the damning, incriminating contents of
that sheet which he had scrawled in pencil at "The Swan Inn." Whoever
found it would know that Mr Lawrence, and Mr Lawrence alone, had
written it, and this, too, irrespective of the handwriting.

But here he found another little hope; some squalls of wet, one
very heavy, had set the kennels running shortly after he had met Mr
Greyquill, and if that letter had lain exposed to those three or
four deluges, it not only stood to be changed into a mere rag to the
eye which none would dream of even glancing at, but the writing must
have been washed out to a degree to render the sense of the letter
unintelligible. He considered that it was not above two or three hours
when that letter was in his pocket, and that it must have fallen
somewhere betwixt his father's house and the _Minorca_ in that time,
for he had taken the same road to and fro. He reflected that that road
was but little used compared with the lane that led to the bridge
where the Actons' carriage had stopped. Understanding as a sailor the
preciousness of time, and conceiving that if the letter had by some
strange mischance fallen during his walk unobserved by him it might
still rest in the spot where it had dropped, insomuch that chance--for
the fellow was a gambler at heart--might concede him yet an hour,
even two hours, in which to find it, he put on his hat and marched
out of the house, just saying to his father in the window that he
had an appointment and should miss it if he didn't hasten, and then
stepped out, casting as he went to right and left of his path eyes as
piercingly scrutinising as those which the madman darts when he seeks
for the philosopher's stone.

It is needless, of course, to say that this searching walk was in vain.
Whatever lay white in his road he rushed at, and in his gizzard he
cursed the vast number of pieces of white paper which did somehow, as
though distributed by innumerable malicious Greyquills, attract his eye
and retard his progress whilst he turned them over.

On his way this side the bridge he met an old man with a stick who
stopped in his lame walk to turn about any little heap his eye met.
This old man was attended by a dog, who smelt at what the man touched.

"Have you seen a letter," cried Mr Lawrence, "a broad piece of paper
folded into four lying in the road?"

"Seen a what, your Anner?"

"Where are you from?"

"From Oozles."

Mr Lawrence repeated his first question.

"I don't know what you mean," said the old man.

Mr Lawrence easily perceived that he didn't, and went on his way
always hunting with his eyes. Past the bridge he met another old man,
a peasant with silver hair, fit, dressed as he was, to walk upon any
stage, and immediately take part in any performance that included
a peasant, a foster-child, and a baron. This white hair gave him a
reverend look, and his legs were strangely bandaged round about, and
his smock was a gown in which he could have preached a sermon without
exciting much suspicion as to the propriety of his dress.

"Have you seen a letter folded in four lying in the road?" shouted Mr
Lawrence.

"I'm a little 'ard of 'earing," was the answer, and the picturesque old
man put his hand to his ear shellwise.

Mr Lawrence went close to him and shouted.

"Gard bless your worship," said the old man in a sweet voice and a face
beautiful with the touches of the pencil of time upon a countenance
originally open, gracious, and good, "I ha'nt received a letter since
her last from my poor old woife, and that 'ull be twenty year ago, as I
know by the laying of the foundation stone----" Mr Lawrence broke away,
and asked no more questions during the rest of his walk.

He saw no letter--nothing like it. He went on board the _Minorca_, and
seeing the mate at the main-hatch, asked in an off-hand way if a copy
of a letter had been found in the cabin, or any other part of the ship
that morning.

"No, sir."

And there was an end. With wrath in his heart, and cursing himself
again and again as a barnyard idiot fit for spread eagling only to
carry such a missive as that about with him when its miscarriage might
prove his destruction, might even now be working it, he stepped on to
the wharf and came across Paul.

"Here!" said he.

The youth approached.

"I have lost a letter this morning," said Mr Lawrence, explaining
its form and size, "and it must have fallen from my pocket somewhere
between my father's house and this ship by way of Old Friar's Road. If
you can bring me that letter, or find out if it has been found, and if
so, by whom, before we sail, you shall have five pounds."

"Simply a letter, your honour, folded into four, without address,
written in pencil, and not sealed?" said the hunchback.

"That's it!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence.

"I'll do my best, sir, and I'll work from dawn to night to find it, if
it's to be found," was the answer.




CHAPTER VII

WHERE IS THE _MINORCA_?


Mr Lawrence was for a few days very uneasy, but uneasy is a mild term
to express the state of a man's mind that starts at a look or an
exclamation, who fancies he is whispered about when two go past him
talking, who expects that every man who approaches him is going to
speak to him about the letter he has found, who imagines that every
look that his father fastens upon him is a prelude to a tremendous
attack, who is willing to attribute the silence of Captain Acton to the
consideration of what steps in the face of such an enormity should be
taken by him against the son of his old friend Sir William Lawrence.

But Lucy Acton smiled and curtsied when he passed as usual. Old
Miss Acton was nervously polite in her way in her little chirrupy
salutations. Captain Acton was sometimes down at the ship, but had
nothing to say about the finding of a letter good or bad.

Therefore after a few days of miserable anxiety, during which he was
remarkable for sobriety and for conspicuous regard to his personal
apparel, Mr Lawrence allowed the subject of the letter to slip from his
mind, satisfied that it had been reduced to pulp by the wet that had
fallen on the morning he lost it, or that it had been blown by some
sportive stroke of breeze into a corner, or a place where it was as
much lost as if it had dropped from his pocket into the ocean.

As evidence that Mr Lawrence was improving in general esteem, a
brief conversation passed at Old Harbour House on the fourth evening
following the day of the loss of the letter. Captain Acton had invited
some friends to a rubber of whist. Sir William Lawrence was to be
amongst the guests, but as he lived near he was always late, explaining
that the fact of his living near excused him for taking plenty of time.
Miss Lucy was lovely in black muslin spangled with stars as the hair is
dusted with gold.

Whilst they waited for Sir William the conversation turned upon his son.

"How greatly Mr Lawrence has improved, not indeed in manners, for he
was always a very fine gentleman, a very pretty gentleman, but in
appearance, since you gave him the command of the _Minorca_, Captain
Acton."

This was said by Lady Larmont, the widow of an East India Director,
who had achieved a reputation for beneficence in the district without
spending very much money.

"What I much admire in Mr Lawrence," said Miss Acton, "is his art in
making a leg on entering a room. His art in this way rises to a degree
that is very unusual in men nowadays, and I should think particularly
in sea-faring men. His deportment embraces the whole room. A man has a
right to claim some sort of excellence who can make a leg with skill."

"'Tis a very old-fashioned term, madam," said General Groves, "current
in my time, but I question if much understood in this."

"It is most happily explained in the play of the _Man of the World_,"
said Miss Acton. "I was never more pleased than by Sir Pertinax
Macsycophant's reply to his nephew's question how he had made his way
in the world. Sir Pertinax replies, 'By booing, sir.' A great deal of
money and fine social positions have been obtained by booing."

"Hence the value of being able to make a leg in your opinion, madam,"
said General Groves.

"If trousers come in legs must go out," said Lucy. "What is the good
of being able to make a leg with elegance if fashion compels you to
conceal the eloquent member?"

"Well said, Miss, well said!" cried Miss Proudfoot, who was a very good
hand at whist and very quarrelsome over the game.

"I don't believe myself," said Miss Acton, "that trousers ever will
come in. Men whose calves are of a good shape and who have long been in
the habit of admiring and cherishing them, will be very reluctant to
conceal them in those ridiculous unmanly garments called trousers."

"As the majority of men strut this petty earth on drum-sticks," said
General Groves. "I expect that in a few years hence the universal male
wear will be trousers."

He looked at his own legs. Time had somewhat shrunk them.

"Mr Lawrence has wonderfully improved of late," said Miss Proudfoot,
with a glance at Lucy. "I should say that when in the Navy he was one
of the handsomest men in that glorious Service."

"All praise of him is gratifying to me for his father's sake," said
Captain Acton, whilst Lucy sat in silence with the shadow of a smile
lurking about her mouth, but invisible in her soft, dreamy half-veiled
eyes.

"Would not you like to take a trip to the West Indies in your father's
ship, Miss?" said the Reverend James Prettyman, who had been
headmaster at a fashionable school for young gentlemen for many years
past in a city about twenty miles distant from Old Harbour Town.

"Only the other day," replied Lucy, "I told Mr Eagle, the mate of the
vessel, that I could not imagine a pleasanter trip than a voyage to the
West Indies in the _Minorca_, but I stipulated that the sea should be
always smooth."

"There it is!" said Miss Acton. "Give me a sea as smooth as our lawn,
and I will accompany you, my dear."

Here Mr Pierpoint, who held some influential position in connection
with Old Harbour and was one of Captain Acton's frequent guests at his
whist tables, exclaimed: "The master of the _Aurora_ told me, a day
or two ago, that Mr Lawrence was attempting a wonderful innovation in
Merchant ships by the introduction of a sick-bay, after the custom of
men-o'-war."

"It is true, sir," said Captain Acton, "and Mr Lawrence loses nothing
in my esteem by his idea and application of it. The Merchants care
nothing about their sick. 'A sick man is no man's dog,' I believe, is
one of their adages. Every vessel, supposing her to be above a certain
tonnage, whether flying a pennant or not, should have quarters properly
fitted for the reception and treatment of the sick among her crew."

"I should think so indeed, poor men!" exclaimed Miss Acton.

"Suppose she carries no surgeon?" said Mr Pierpoint.

"Her master should be able to dispense physic with the aid of a book,"
said Captain Acton. "Besides, the idea is to isolate the sufferers from
the rest of the crew in the black, wet, slush-lighted holes in which
Merchant sailors are forced to live in dozens, breathing the aroma of
their own breath, and creating such an atmosphere that the wicked halo
of miasma gleams a corpse-light round the flickering, stinking flame
which hovers at the mouth of the spout of the lamp."

"What an awful picture!" cried Miss Proudfoot.

"Who'd be a sailor in the Merchant Service!" exclaimed General Groves.

"It is a noble life," said Lucy. "But it must be nobly lived."

"Oh, madam, I thank you," exclaimed Mr Prettyman. "To live nobly you
need pure air to begin with. But it certainly does young Mr Lawrence
great credit to be the first, as I apprehend from this conversation, to
introduce sick quarters for sick men on board Merchant ships. I doubt
even if the East India Company's vessels are fitted with such humane
receptacles."

"And yet Nelson," said Lady Larmont, "liked the Merchant Service so
well that he was reluctant to leave it to enter the Royal Navy. When he
came from his West India voyage in a Merchant ship his favourite saying
was, 'Aft the more honour. Forward the better man.'"

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the bustling
entrance of Admiral Sir William Lawrence, when of course the
conversation was immediately changed from the subject of his son and
sick-bays to other matters.

The _Minorca_ was announced to sail on Tuesday, 3rd May, at half-past
twelve o'clock. All her people without exception lived in or near Old
Harbour Town, consequently her crew was quickly assembled. On the day
previous they had bent all sails, rove all running rigging, done all
that was necessary to render a ship fit for the sea. She lay between
two other vessels, but was readily distinguished, not only by her rig
but by the height her masts towered above those of the others.

It had been arranged between Captain Acton and Admiral Lawrence that
the latter should breakfast at half-past nine with Captain Acton, who
would then fill an hour with transaction of certain business which he
could deal with in his own house, leaving the Admiral to amuse himself
in the grounds with his pipe, and, if he chose, a telescope; after
which they would walk leisurely down to Old Harbour, go on board the
_Minorca_, and take a farewell view of the vessel with a God-speed to
her new commander.

Lucy over-night had said she would join them, but she did not appear
at the breakfast table. Her father enquired for her, and was told that
she had left the house an hour earlier, or perhaps more, to take the
morning air and a walk with her dog.

Neither Captain Acton nor Miss Acton witnessed anything strange in
the absence of Lucy from the breakfast table. She was in the habit of
taking these early walks, and would often turn into a cottage whose
inmates she well knew and breakfast with the occupants, enjoying more
the egg warm from the nest, the home-cured rasher of bacon, the pot
of home-made jam, the slice of brown bread and sweet butter, the bowl
of new milk, or the cup of tea which on such grand occasions would be
introduced by her humble friends, than the choicest dainties which her
father's cook could send to the breakfast table at Old Harbour House.

"I expect you will find her down at the wharves waiting for the ship to
sail," said Miss Acton. "I met Mrs Jellybottle yesterday. She told me
that Farmer Jellybottle had received on the previous day a large parcel
of very substantial eatables from his brother, who is head gardener at
Lord Lancaster's. Lucy has possibly been tempted by the display."

"Here is her dog anyhow!" exclaimed the Admiral, as the little animal
marched into the room and stood near Lucy's chair with fore-foot lifted
as though she awaited her mistress.

"How sits the wind?" enquired Captain Acton, who being used to his
daughter's occasional absence took no particular interest in her
failure that morning to attend the breakfast table.

"I believe," said the Admiral, casting his eyes at the window, "that
it blows a pretty little off-shore breeze from the north. The sea is
rippled by it into a dark blue, and your ship will sail into it with
almost square yards."

"No ship of mine departs without my heart accompanying her," said
Captain Acton. "I believe I am bound to go in one of them to the West
Indies some day or other, but not whilst there's an enemy's cruiser to
be met with in the circle of the horizon."

"I suppose, sir," said Miss Acton to the Admiral, "that there is no
further news of the descent of the French."

"Plenty of news, madam," answered the Admiral, "but most of the reports
are lies born of fear. The French never can get a footing upon this
land."

This led to a brief argument between Captain Acton and Sir William,
who was making a prodigious breakfast off a large crab, which he
affirmed was much more delicate eating than the lobster, as the shrimp
is sweeter than the prawn, though people whom the actor Quin loved
to deride were of a different opinion. He had begun with crab, and
was now ploughing heartily through a dish of eggs and bacon, with a
view to letting go his anchor in some savoury sausages. Captain Acton
fed capriciously, as a man who thinks of his digestion more than his
appetite.

After breakfast the Captain went to his library to transact certain
business with a lawyer and one or two others, Miss Acton to the
housekeeper's room, there to receive certain poor people, and Sir
William Lawrence, filling his pipe, waited in the grounds until Captain
Acton should appear, and diverted himself as best he could with
conversation with the gardeners and in admiring the springing flowers.

He came from the kitchen garden and was standing in the middle of the
lawn, where he obtained a view of the sea betwixt the bluff on which
stood the windmill and the other bluff on which stood the lighthouse.
He sent his gaze in the direction of Old Harbour. It was a heedless
gaze. He took no particular note. Alongside the wharves a number of
small vessels were moored. They somewhat crowded the eye with their
rigging and spars. The brig-of-war lay in her accustomed place off the
pier. Apparently it was not Lieutenant Tupman's intention to put to sea
that day.

All of a sudden the Admiral's gaze, that was somewhat heedless--that
of a man who takes in a general prospect without regard to
particulars--grew intent: his eyes were fixed on Old Harbour. In a
minute they grew more than intent: astonishment dilated them, and they
were not without the sparkle of alarm. He rubbed his eyes, and removing
his pipe from his lips strained his gaze once more at the shipping in
the Harbour.

"Good God!" he ejaculated, "where is she?"

Only a little bit of sea lay within his sight; that which he had seen
ran in blue ripples between the points of cliff which framed the
entrance to Old Harbour. Though the scene was distant, his sight, for
a man of advanced age, was fairly good, and even all that distance off,
he could without much difficulty distinguish the fine lines of the
_Aurora's_ masts bearing their trucks high above the spars and rigging
of the vessels abaft and ahead of her.

He walked to a bed of flowers at which an under-gardener was at work,
and said to the man: "Have you good eyes?"

"I can see a good bit, your honour."

"Do you know the _Minorca_?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Could you distinguish her if she's in the Harbour at this distance?"

"Why, sartinly, your honour," answered the man, looking at the Admiral.

"Then tell me if you see her," and the Admiral watched him with such an
expression of face as he might have looked with at a falling barometer
in seas distinguished for cyclones and typhoons.

The gardener gazed and gazed, and his intent regard crumpled his brow,
for he seemed ambitious to be able to say he could see the ship. After
a considerable pause, during a portion of which the man sheltered his
eyes with his hand, he exclaimed: "If the _Minorca's_ a three-masted
vessel, square rigged forward, and fore-and-aft rigged on the
mizzen-mast, then all that I can say is, your honour, she ain't among
that shipping down there."

Without speech the Admiral walked away swiftly on the stout staff he
was used to carry, striking the sward with it till you witnessed the
energy of his thoughts with each blow, and, entering the hall of Old
Harbour House, took down from its brackets a very handsome, and for
those times, powerful telescope with which he returned to the place he
had left, where he might obtain the best view of the Harbour that was
to be got from the grounds of the mansion.

He levelled the tubes at the shipping, but witnessed no signs of the
_Minorca_. He was amazed. The glass sank in his hand, and he rubbed
his naked eye and fastened it again upon the Harbour. The vessel was
to sail at half-past twelve, and it was now about a quarter past ten,
and the _Minorca_ was gone. The old gentleman took aim with his glass
at the little breadth of sea that was in sight, in a hopeless way
conceiving that a sail, invisible to his bare vision, might leap into
the lenses out of the distant blue recess, and proclaim herself to his
nautical eye as the ship that was gone. Nothing was in sight.

He stood musing. It was, as we have seen, about a quarter past ten.
Captain Acton would not have completed his business until something
after eleven. Should the Admiral invade him with the announcement of
this strange disappearance of his ship? He considered the matter a
little, and concluded that it must be impossible but that, although
Captain Acton had been silent on the subject at the breakfast table, he
must know the business of his ship, and that it was understood between
him and Mr Lawrence that if the wind served, or anything unforeseen
befell, or if Mr Lawrence in his judgment chose to sail before the time
announced, he was at liberty to let go his fasts and blow into the open
at any hour he pleased. Thus it struck the old man, though secretly he
did not regard his own reasoning as sagacious.

Nevertheless he determined to await Captain Acton's arrival from the
business which was holding him in his library; so he lighted his pipe
afresh with his singular little pistol-shaped pipe-lighter and struck
about the grounds with his staff, blowing great clouds out of the depth
of his meditation, and often heaving a sailor's blessing at the two
points of cliff which interrupted the view of the sea to east and west
of the coast.

It was a few minutes past eleven when Captain Acton came out of the
house talking to Miss Acton, who was followed by her own and Lucy's
dog.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, Admiral!" exclaimed Captain
Acton.

"Why, sir," answered the Admiral, "I don't see that we should be late
if we did not go at all."

"I don't quite understand," said Captain Acton, gazing with friendly
interest at the jolly, round, weather-dyed face of Sir William, whose
looks certainly at this moment did not wear the jocund complexion they
were used to carry.

"Your telescope is in the hall, sir," said the Admiral. "But your sight
is very good. I presume that you are aware that your ship has left her
berth, and is not in the Harbour."

"Not in the Harbour!" cried Miss Acton. "Good gracious, has she sunk,
do you think?"

Captain Acton sent a swift and searching glance at the shipping in the
distance. He then with quick steps fetched his glass. By his movements
and countenance the Admiral immediately perceived that he did not know
his ship had sailed. He pointed the telescope at the shipping. The
_Minorca_ was certainly not one of them. The river flowed bare from the
sea under its bridges to its inland recesses, and offered no creek nor
shelter to the eye for a vessel of any tonnage. If the barque was not
in the Harbour, she had put to sea. Both observers on the lawn were
sailors, and did not need to be told this.

"If your son has sailed," said Captain Acton, with a face charged with
perplexity, doubt, irritation, and astonishment, "he had no authority
to do so. What has caused him to take this step? Surely as a sailor who
has served the State, he, before all masters in the Merchant Service,
ought to understand the meaning of the word of command."

Sir William's countenance resembled the expression that probably
decorated Captain Marryat's Port Admiral when he was told in no
uncompromising language, "You be damned!"

"And where, pray, is Lucy?" said Miss Acton, in a voice querulous with
alarm and other feelings, for Miss Acton was one of those old ladies
who are always praising Providence for its blessings, but who are very
willing to find calamity in trifles. "She is a long time gone. Who
says that she breakfasted with the Jellybottles? And at what time did
she leave the house? And if Mamie went with her why is she here?" she
added, turning her eyes upon the little terrier.

The hall door was wide open; a footman was crossing the hall. Captain
Acton called to him.

"What time this morning did Miss Lucy leave the house?"

"I don't know, sir. I'll ascertain, sir," and the man disappeared.

"The _Minorca not_ in the Harbour!" exclaimed Miss Acton, staring
at the cluster of rigs, beyond which rose the breadth of narrow sea
shining in a blue tremble to its horizon. "No accident could have
happened or you would have heard, brother."

"Miss Lucy went out at about half-past seven, sir," said the footman.

"Come, Admiral, we will walk to the Harbour and enquire into this
matter," said Captain Acton, who was somewhat pale and looked extremely
disconcerted.

"But where is Lucy?" cried Miss Acton.

"Send the people about and make enquiries," answered Captain Acton.
"She is making calls. It is the _Minorca_ that has disappeared."

"But what a dreadful responsibility to leave upon my shoulders," said
Miss Acton. "Suppose those I send about come back and say she is not to
be found? It is more than I can bear. The charge is too awful! What am
I to do if she is not to be found?"

"But she is to be found," cried Captain Acton, surveying his sister
with a quarterdeck severity of look. "What do you think? That Lucy has
run away with the ship? She has breakfasted somewhere and is gossiping
somewhere else. I leave you to make enquiries, sister. The area to be
covered is not wide. She will be telling you where she has been before
we return. Come, Sir William, this is the most extraordinary thing that
has happened to me in my time!"

The two gentlemen set out at a vigorous pace, leaving the poor old
lady overwhelmed, motionless, and gaping with the alarm raised in
her by this enormous obligation of discovering whether her niece had
breakfasted with the Jellybottles or with other folks, where she was,
and why she had not returned since half-past seven that morning.

All the conversation of the two officers consisted of idle speculations
as to the cause of the _Minorca_ having sailed some hours before the
time announced for her departure. It was clearly necessary that Mr
Lawrence should have much business to do before he could quit his
moorings, and that if the ship had sailed as early as the Captain
and the Admiral suspected, her captain had completed all necessary
arrangements on the previous day. For first the loading of the vessel
was to be fully completed, and all the necessary papers and documents
to be on board, the clearance or transire from the Customs duly
obtained, and the master furnished with copies of the charter party or
memorandum of charter party and of the policies of insurance on both
ship and goods.

"I saw Mr Lawrence on several occasions yesterday," exclaimed Captain
Acton, "and he did not suggest by a syllable that he was making ready
to sail early this morning before the various officials he would have
to see were aboard."

The Admiral struck his staff strongly upon the earth and stopped to
look through a break in the hedge in the lane or road which they were
descending, at Old Harbour: the Captain stopped too; they stared amain.

"But he must have had some object!" cried the old Admiral, whose face
was strongly flushed with heat and conflicting passions. "We shall very
shortly find out what that object is, and I shall feel very greatly
astonished if it does not satisfy you, sir, as well as myself."

They resumed their walk. When they had reached the bridge they found
old Mr Greyquill, leaning over the rail, and gazing with intentness,
with a sort of lifting leer which could not be defined as a smile,
though it was like the shadow of one, in the direction of Old Harbour.
This person was not used to address either of the gentlemen on meeting
them in the public streets. They were accustomed to nod in silence. But
this morning as the Admiral and the Captain passed him, the Admiral
so close as to brush his coat-tail, the old scrivener turned with a
rapid motion and exclaimed, still preserving his singular leer: "I
beg pardon, gentlemen, but as I fail to see the _Minorca_ amongst the
ships, may I enquire if she has sailed?"

"That, sir, is the errand which is carrying us to the wharves,"
answered the Admiral, and the two passed on, whilst Mr Greyquill,
retaining a hold on the rail of the bridge with his hand, gazed after
them with an unchanged face.

It was hard upon twelve o'clock when Captain Acton and his friend
reached the wharves. Though there was plenty of shipping about to
suggest occupation there was little apparently doing. Here and there a
song was monotonously sung by sailors or labourers who were leisurely
taking in or discharging cargo. Had the _Minorca_ sailed at her
appointed hour the little Harbour would no doubt have looked gay with
colours flying on the ships and plenty of gossips to see the vessels
off on the wharf.

Captain Acton and the Admiral turned into the Custom House, and the
first person they met after leaving it was Josiah Weaver, master of
the _Aurora_, a thick-set man of a dark-red complexion rendered more
glowing still by the sun, greasy deep-red hair, ear-rings, and brown
eyes which moved sharply in their sheaths.

"I find," cried Captain Acton, eagerly addressing him, "that the
_Minorca_ has sailed. How is this? Do you know anything about the
matter?"

"She left the Harbour at about a quarter past eight this morning, sir,"
answered Weaver.

"At about a quarter past eight!" exclaimed Captain Acton. "What was Mr
Lawrence's object in quitting his berth before the fixed time?"

Captain Weaver faintly smiled, slightly glancing at Admiral Lawrence.

"When I saw the ship starting," said he, "I walked over to her and
asked Mr Lawrence, who was standing right aft watching the crew
working, making sail and so forth, what made him in such a hurry, and
he answered that he had received news on the previous night of a French
cruiser that was hovering over this part of the coast, that when last
seen she was standing to the east'ard, and that he had made up his
mind to sneak the _Minorca_ out at daybreak if possible so as to have
the heels of her should she shift her helm, as he had no mind to start
his first voyage in Captain Acton's employ by being taken by a French
cruiser and locked up for a time no man could detarmine."

"And that was the reason for sailing which he gave you?" said Captain
Acton.

"Yes, sir."

Captain Acton looked at the Admiral, who was staring sternly into
Captain Weaver's face.

"Mr Lawrence told you," said Captain Acton, "that he had received the
news of this cruiser last night. At what hour, do you think?"

"That, sir, I couldn't say," answered Captain Weaver. "But we might
take it as his having heard it after eight o'clock."

"In that case he must have intended during the day," said Captain
Acton, addressing the Admiral, "to sail early this morning. For, as I
have explained to you, he could have had no time to do his business
at so early an hour at which he started this morning, nor would the
officials be seen at that time. Therefore he must have made the
necessary arrangements yesterday for what he contemplated as a daybreak
departure this morning."

"Does the ship call anywhere in England before her final departure for
her port?" asked the Admiral in a voice that proclaimed his heart hot
with bewilderment, doubt, and anger.

"No, sir," answered Captain Acton.

"A pity!" said the Admiral, striking the ground with his staff.
"Otherwise I would have posted it, caught him, and asked him his
reason, which to satisfy me would have to prove infinitely more
intelligible than the one Captain Weaver has repeated."

"I saw him two or three times yesterday," said Captain Acton. "He had
nothing to say about French cruisers in the offing. Nor did he give
me a hint that he was taking the necessary steps to quit this Harbour
early this morning."

"Is the ship in sight?" exclaimed the Admiral.

"No, sir. A man came down from the cliffs," answered Captain Weaver,
"and I asked him that question, and he said she'd rounded the coast to
the west'ard."

"The pilot," said Captain Acton, "was John Andrews. Was he on board, do
you know?"

"Yes, sir," answered Captain Weaver, "I took notice of him on the
fok'sle."

They could obtain no further information from Captain Weaver. They
called at "The Swan" and saw the landlord, who told them that he had
seen Mr Lawrence on the previous day, that, in fact, he had lunched at
the Inn and sat next him, but had said never a word about the change
in the sailing of his ship. They called upon Mrs Andrews, the pilot's
wife, who informed them that Mr Lawrence had told her husband the
day before that the hour of sailing had been changed, and that the
_Minorca_ would leave Old Harbour shortly after eight o'clock instead
of half-past twelve.

"Did Mr Lawrence state the reason of this change?" enquired Captain
Acton.

"Not to my husband, sir, who naturally thought the matter all right,
and said he would be on board at half-past seven."

They met Lieutenant Tupman of the _Saucy_ brig-of-war, a large, fat,
purple, smiling man, with the word grog written in small red veins over
his nose and parts of his cheeks: obviously a good-natured, drunken
fellow who would fight, no doubt, if a Frenchman opposed him, but who
preferred his bed and "The Swan" to frequent sentinel cruisings in his
little ship of war. Both gentlemen knew him slightly. They ventured on
this occasion to stop and accost him. They asked him if it was true
that news of a French cruiser being off the coast had come to hand, and
he answered that he had not heard of such a ship being near the coast.

The replies of other questions put to Mr Tupman were equally
unsatisfactory, and it now being past one o'clock and the information
the Captain and the Admiral had obtained not being worth the questions
that had elicited it, they stepped on to the bridge and walked in
the direction of Old Harbour House, the Admiral saying that he would
accompany the Captain to his home, as he was anxious to hear if Miss
Acton had obtained news of Lucy.




CHAPTER VIII

WHERE IS LUCY?


Captain Acton and the Admiral walked a few hundred paces in silence,
each lost in thought. Very abruptly the Admiral stopped, obliging his
companion to halt.

"If I have your permission, sir," he exclaimed, "I will at once
send a messenger in a post-chaise to the Commander-in-Chief at
Plymouth, and after stating the facts request him to send a ship to
overtake or intercept and arrest the _Minorca_, and you will then be
able to ascertain direct from my son the meaning and causes of his
extraordinary conduct."

Captain Acton resumed his walk, and the Admiral rolled by his side
beating the ground.

"That idea has occurred to me," he said, "and I have dismissed it, sir,
for what reception would the Commander-in-Chief give such a message as
you propose? The master of a ship, who is fully empowered to act in the
interests of his owners, chooses to leave a certain harbour some hours
earlier than the time announced. The reason he gives is that there
is a Frenchman in the neighbourhood whom he is anxious to avoid and
escape. The Commander-in-Chief's sympathy would be with him in that.
It is no case of piracy to ship a pilot, and the mate and crew which
the vessel carried last voyage; and besides, sir, would the sloop,
corvette, or frigate which the Commander-in-Chief might choose to
send, overhaul the _Minorca_ if your son determined that his purpose,
whatever it may be, should be prosecuted without interruption? She
is certainly as swift as the fastest thing that we have in the Navy,
and there is no reason to suppose that any vessel as fast would be
despatched in chase. Plymouth is a long distance from this spot, and
messengers are not always the rapid people we desire them to be. No,
sir, we have to accept the position as it is. The ship has sailed; Mr
Lawrence's conduct is unaccountable. We must continue to regard him
as the honourable, well-meaning man which I have found him during our
association in the matter of this command, and I must await with a
certain degree of confidence a letter in which he will communicate the
full meaning of what is now unintelligible to us."

The Admiral bowed in silence. He was the father of the person they were
talking about. Captain Acton's acceptance of an incident which must
instantly prove sinister to a suspicious intelligence was noble and
gracious, and it was certainly not for the father to endeavour to prove
his son a rogue and a scoundrel, and perhaps worse still, in the teeth
of the disposition of his employer to continue to place trust in him.

When they were within ten minutes' walk of Old Harbour House, they met
Mr Adams, who was an agent for a gentleman who lived in London, and who
owned a great deal of property in the neighbourhood of Old Harbour Town.

"I beg your pardon, squire," said Mr Adams, addressing Captain Acton,
who with the Admiral was passing on with a nod, "but I understand that
enquiries are being made after your daughter."

Both the old retired officers instantly stopped.

"Has she returned home?" asked Captain Acton.

"I cannot tell you that, sir, but this morning at about a quarter
before eight o'clock, I was about ten minutes' walk this side Old
Harbour Bridge. I was going up the road and met your daughter, who was
alone, coming down. A few minutes after I had passed her, I happened
to look round and perceived that she had been stopped by a young
man, humpbacked and otherwise deformed, well known to me as a fellow
who used to hang about Old Town, and called by the single word Paul.
As your daughter was alone I slackened my pace and continued to look
to see what the man wanted with her, and observed that he gave her
a letter which she read, and I heard her exclaim on reading it: 'Oh
dear! I hope it is not serious,' and she immediately walked swiftly on
followed by the fellow called Paul. She turned the bend of the road,
and I pursued my way."

"I beg your pardon," exclaimed Captain Acton, whose agitation was
marked when Mr Adams ceased to speak, "but may I enquire if you are
quite sure that it was my daughter whom you met?"

"Sir, there is but one Lucy Acton in this country, and no man who has
set eyes on her is ever likely to forget her beauty and sweetness."

Captain Acton bowed, but his distress was lively.

"What sort of a fellow was this who stopped Miss Acton?" enquired
the Admiral. "Was he a pauper? Broken clothes, whining voice, the
suppliant's demeanour--that sort of thing?"

"I have known the fellow by sight some years. He got his living by
running errands, and has in his day, I believe, been watched with
some attention by the magistrates. He is a red-haired, hunchbacked,
long-armed man with rounded legs, and I marked a peculiarity in him
whilst he addressed the lady which I have before taken notice of when
passing him as he lounged in the sun, or stood waiting in a door: I
mean that whilst the young lady was reading the missive, he scratched
his left shoulder precisely as a monkey scratches himself."

Captain Acton started, and stared hard at Mr Adams.

"Did you notice how he was dressed?" he asked.

"In a camlet jacket. There was something of the sailor's rig in his
costume."

"Then the fellow," said Captain Acton, "is steward of the _Minorca_!
This gentleman," said he, addressing the Admiral, "has exactly
described the figure of a man who passed me in the cabin two or three
days ago when I was talking to Mr Lawrence. Judging that he belonged to
the ship, and being struck by his appearance, I asked Mr Lawrence who
he was, and he answered that he was a poor devil whom he had shipped
as a steward or captain's waiter out of pity, and he said something
about having once paid a fine for the man to rescue him from a term of
imprisonment to which he would have been sentenced for some trifling
offence."

The Admiral's face wore an expression that was almost imbecile with
bewilderment.

"From whom was that letter? Who is the person that Miss Lucy has
fled to help? It cannot possibly be my son, sir. If he had met with
a serious accident, would the ship have sailed? But even if he had
met with a serious accident and left the duty of going to sea with
the mate, would he have sent to Miss Lucy? I am utterly beaten. I see
nothing, and can conjecture nothing!"

Captain Acton with a violent effort had by this time recollected
himself.

"I am much obliged to you, sir, for your information," he said to Mr
Adams. "We may find her at home, sir," he said, addressing the Admiral.
"An explanation will simplify the miraculous. Good day, sir, and many
thanks."

He bowed to Mr Adams, and again set off with the Admiral for Old
Harbour House.

"To me it is impossible to suppose," said Sir William, "that my son
could have written the letter which Mr Adams saw your daughter reading.
Captain Weaver told us plainly that my son was aft on the quarterdeck
of the _Minorca_ at the time that she was hauling out from the wharf.
It is perfectly clear therefore that no accident could have befallen
him. Nor is it imaginable that, even if he had met with a disaster, he
would dream of communicating with your daughter. Why your daughter,
sir? If they are on bowing terms we may take it that their intimacy
scarcely goes farther. Depend upon it, there is some man in connection
with this business, in whom your daughter is interested--of course,
sir, you will understand me to mean as a sweet and beautiful Christian
sympathiser, as one to whom every sort of misfortune appeals, to whom
suffering and misery are quick to make themselves known, being sure of
heartfelt, womanly pity. The moment I have had a peck, after hearing
whether Miss Lucy has arrived at home, I will devote the rest of the
day to enquiries about this person who wrote the letter which Mr Adams
saw delivered."

"Speculation is idle," exclaimed Captain Acton, with a slight flavour
of impatience in his manner. "I am profoundly puzzled. There can be no
question from Mr Adams's statement and from my own observation that the
fellow who delivered the missive is cabin-boy, or steward, or whatever
you please to call him, of the _Minorca_, chosen by your son, as he
admits, though it seemed to me as I looked at him that nobody less
likely and less inviting for such a post could have been found in the
district."

These and a few further words brought them to the gateway of Old
Harbour House. They entered and found Miss Acton in the dining-room.

"Well," she cried in a voice of tremulous eagerness, "have you heard of
her?"

This was proof conclusive that Miss Acton had not.

"She has not returned, then?" said Captain Acton.

"No, nor can I get to hear of her," answered Miss Acton, whose voice
trembled with tears and terror. "Wasn't she down on the wharves?"

"We have heard of her, but not as we could wish, sister," said Captain
Acton. "But what have _you_ done to find her, or to hear of her?"

"Why," answered the old lady, "I sent George and Joseph on horseback to
every house where she is known, and she has visited none, nor been seen
by any this morning. Yes, Mrs Moore as she was passing our gate, caught
a sight of her coming out of the house at half-past seven, or at some
such time, and gave her a curtsy and received a smile. But nobody else
that George and Joseph met and called upon has seen her this day. What
have you to tell me about her?"

Captain Acton repeated Mr Adams's statement. The old lady's face
was slowly moulded into a mask that her friends would scarcely have
recognised by the horror and terror that worked in her.

She cried: "A dirty fellow giving her a letter, and beguiling her and
luring her into some dreadful place, perhaps to her destruction! Oh
dear! oh dear! what is to be done? Can't she be discovered? Can't the
bell-man raise the alarm? Who can the wretch be that wrote to her? And
why should she rush away to his help? Oh dear! oh dear! what is to be
done?"

"I'll do something," said the Admiral. "I'll call upon you this evening
and tell you what I have found out. Farewell for the present. No, I
thank you, I must go home first and I'll get a bite that awaits me, and
then away to Old Harbour Town, and the place shall be dredged, and the
fellow who wrote the letter found, and the lady restored to her home if
wrong has been done her, if there is one ounce of energy left in this
old composition."

He bowed with the vehemence of a man who butts at another, struck
the floor hard with his staff, and rolled out on legs that showed
themselves more expeditious than his years seemed to promise.

Captain and Miss Acton sat down to dinner. An elegant repast was
rendered insipid in every dish by the absence of Lucy. The Captain's
excellent if fastidious appetite was gone, and his eyes often wandered
to his daughter's vacant place. Brother and sister had but one subject
in their minds; they talked but little, however, for servants were
present.

When they were alone, Miss Acton exclaimed: "I hope I may be forgiven
if I do him a wrong, and I love his old father, who is the soul of
honour and a fine example of a true gentleman of the sea, but I cannot
help thinking, brother, that Mr Lawrence has had a hand in our Lucy's
disappearance."

And the worthy old lady's eyes grew dim as she pronounced the words
"our Lucy."

Captain Acton started from a reverie and looked at her attentively.

"You want to imply," he cried, "that there was an understanding between
Mr Lawrence and my daughter?"

"I cannot imagine why the steward of the ship came to be employed, as
Mr Adams tells us--an assertion you justify by saying that you saw this
man in the cabin of the vessel--unless Mr Lawrence sent the letter."

Captain Acton expanded his chest, and a look of haughtiness entered his
face.

"Sister, is your opinion of Lucy such that you imagine she can have
anything to do with Mr Lawrence unknown to me?"

But a quality of stubbornness was one of Miss Acton's characteristics.

"He offered her marriage, brother."

"Yes. And she rejected him with the peremptoriness which I should have
expected in her."

"A woman," said Miss Acton, "cannot but think with more or less
kindness of the man who offers her marriage and who loves her. She may
reject him, but she will always feel a tenderness for him."

"But do I understand," said Captain Acton, "that you mean that Lucy
was secretly attached to the man whose hand she declined, and that she
speeds to him at the first call that is made upon her by such a missive
as the fellow Paul delivered?"

"I cannot but think," answered Miss Acton, "that Lucy had a secret
hankering after Mr Lawrence. He is exceedingly handsome. In bearing he
is superior to any man of quality I ever met, and for fine manners you
must look to the aristocracy of this country. He can make a leg with
the grace equal to any master of elegant salutations; and though his
character is bad, yet there are many points in him which women admire,
and I say," she continued, with perseverance and a fixity of meaning
truly astonishing in an old lady who in most matters scarcely knew
her own mind, who was easily filled with terror, and who seldom acted
without consulting her friends, "Lucy has a secret liking for the man,
which could scarcely escape the observation of any one who watched them
when they are in company."

With an expression of face that was near to amazement Captain Acton
said: "Do you want me to believe that Lucy has eloped with Mr Lawrence?"

"Lord forbid! She is too God-fearing, and too nobly and sweetly moulded
as a woman to be capable of any such descent."

"Then I do not understand you," said Captain Acton.

"What has become of her?" cried Miss Acton, sinking suddenly into her
tremulous voice and into a manner of alarm, bewilderment, and general
confusion of mind. "What shall you do to find out?"

"As I am quite convinced," said Captain Acton, "that Mr Lawrence has
nothing to do with this business, and as I feel persuaded that the
call made upon her is by some man or woman--for how are we to know
the sex of the person who wrote that letter?--in whom her charity is
interested, and whom she has been helping according to her wont in ways
unknown to us, I shall devote the afternoon as Sir William intends, to
making enquiries in Old Harbour Town and about the wharves----"

"But she cannot be in Old Town or even in the district," broke in Miss
Acton, "or why did she not return to dinner? She has had the whole
morning. From a little after seven till now is a very long time, and a
hundred acts of charity may be performed in less."

Though Captain Acton was not a man to be influenced by his sister's
opinions he knew her to be in many directions a shrewd, observant
woman, who could deliver herself of many stupid antiquated notions,
whilst at times she would astonish him by the sagacity of her views
and the penetration with which she interpreted human motives. We shall
not be surprised, therefore, when we learn that shortly after dinner
he ordered his mare to be saddled, and rode straight into Old Harbour
Town, where he stabled the mare at "The Swan" and walked direct to the
wharves, first of all to learn if anybody had seen Lucy down at the
shipping early that morning.

He made for the _Aurora_ and found Captain Weaver on board. He
immediately related Mr Adams' story, and asked Captain Weaver if he had
seen Miss Lucy Acton down by the _Minorca_ or near her, or aboard of
her shortly before she sailed.

"No, sir," was Captain Weaver's answer. "I came on to the wharf as
the _Minorca_ was warping out, and talked with Mr Lawrence from the
quay-side. I saw nothing of the young lady, who, depend upon it, sir,
would have immediately caught my attention had I seen her."

"It is very strange," said Captain Acton, "that that mis-shapen fellow
made by Mr Lawrence the steward of the ship, should be employed to
convey a letter to my daughter at so early an hour when there was very
little likelihood of finding the young lady abroad."

"The whole job of the ship sailing before her time is a mystery to me,
sir," said Captain Weaver.

"Walk with me, and we'll endeavour to find out if Miss Lucy Acton was
on the wharf after the hour of half-past seven this morning, and before
the _Minorca_ sailed."

Captain Weaver knew many who were engaged on the several wharves, and
so indeed did Captain Acton. They asked two or three score of different
persons the question, but the majority had not been down on the wharves
at that time, and the few who were at work declared that they had not
seen her. It seemed impossible to Captain Weaver as well as to Captain
Acton, that so beautiful and well known a lady as Miss Lucy should
make her appearance on the wharf at a time of day when scarce more than
labourers were about, without being either recognised or seen, and her
presence borne witness to by those who did not know who she was.

They went on board the several vessels lying in the harbour, but the
answer they received was that of the wharf: Miss Lucy Acton had not
been seen, or at all events noticed.

"I will leave you," said Captain Acton, "to make further enquiries,
sir, and you will be pleased to immediately communicate with me at my
home should you meet with anybody who can positively swear that my
daughter was down here between seven and eight this morning."

He seemed convinced by these enquiries at the wharves that at all
events Mr Lawrence could have had nothing whatever to do with the
communication which Mr Adams had seen Paul place in the hands of Miss
Lucy. Who, then, was the sender of the note, and how was it that Paul,
who should have been on board his ship since she was on the eve of
sailing, should have been engaged to carry the letter? There was really
no particular reason why the writer should be a man. Why should not she
be a woman? She might even be a relative of the fellow Paul. Lucy was
a girl of singular kindness, who was always helping others and going
amongst the poor and ministering to the afflicted; and though Captain
Acton could not positively say, he might readily believe that she had
one or two or three poor sufferers on her list whom she saw to and
helped with her purse, and one of these--possibly a woman--might have
written the letter in a moment of urgency intending it for delivery at
Old Harbour House.

Captain Acton walked slowly towards Old Harbour Town. He was sunk
in thought, and was in deep distress and at a loss to know what to
do. He had no machinery of police to command. 1805 was a year very
primitive as compared with 1905. He reflected that the first step in
the disappearance of his daughter as represented in the statement of
Mr Adams might indicate nothing in respect of the real cause of her
disappearance. Because, suppose his surmise was correct, and that she
had hastened to the help of some afflicted or humble person whom she
befriended, she might, after having left the place wherever it was,
have met with some disaster; she might have fallen over the cliff--she
might on some roundabout way home have been robbed and left for dying;
in short, when a person mysteriously disappears a hundred reasons for
his or her envanishment will occur to the mind, and any one of them
may so satisfy, so convince, that those who accept it will go to work
as though it were the truth though it possess but the very attenuated
merit of being a conjecture.

At six o'clock, greatly wearied, Captain Acton mounted his mare at "The
Swan" stables and rode home. He was very pale. Indeed this man loved
his daughter, who was his only child. His immediate question, put with
bright-eyed passion to the servant who came to the door, was, "Has Miss
Lucy returned?"

"No, sir."

"Has news been received of her?"

"I don't think so, sir."

"Has Admiral Lawrence been here?"

"No, sir."

Captain Acton walked into his house and sought his sister, whom he
found alone in the dining-room. She was seated on a high-backed chair
knitting. Her own and Lucy's dog lay at her feet. She started at the
entrance of Captain Acton, dropped her knitting in her lap, and half
rose at her brother, clutching the arms of the chair.

"Well!" she cried in a note that was like a suppressed scream with
excitement, fear, and expectation. "What have you heard? Is there any
news of her? What have you to tell me?"

He sat down, looking very weary.

"I have heard nothing of her, sister. Nobody saw her on the wharf at
the time the _Minorca_ sailed, and there was plenty about, labourers
ashore, and sailors in the ships."

"Then what have you done to find out what has become of her?"

"Believing that she might have met with some accident--God knows
of what serious nature--on her return from the person whose letter
she received"--Miss Acton looked stunned at such an idea--"I called
at Arrowsmith's first of all, and wrote out a placard, offering a
reward of fifty guineas to any one who can find Miss Lucy Acton, who
can state her whereabouts, or who can give any information as to her
disappearance since half-past seven o'clock this morning, which was
dated and the day named. This placard will be printed and pasted in Old
Harbour Town, and over a wide area of the district before nightfall.
I also gave a copy of this placard to the bell-man. What further
publicity could I command?"

"But what do you fear, brother? What could have happened to her?"

"Why, suppose on her way home by way of the cliffs, or by any other of
the roads by which this house may be gained, she fell upon the rocks,
or was met by a band of gipsies, or attacked for her money and left for
dead----"

His feelings overcame him, and he looked upon the ground in silence.

"Nothing of the sort. I am sure of it!" exclaimed Miss Acton. "Who
hears of such outrages happening here?"

"But to fall over the edge of a cliff is not an outrage," said Captain
Acton.

"She is too careful. She may safely be trusted. Besides, are there
not blockaders stationed along these cliffs, and would not one see
her on the rocks? No, no, no! an accident is not the cause of her
disappearance. The more I think, the more persuaded I am that Mr
Lawrence has had a hand in this horrid business. Why did he sail so
early and long before his time? Why was his steward Paul engaged to
carry the letter?"

"You again want to imply, sister," said Captain Acton with a darkling
face, "that my daughter has eloped with the man she rejected."

"Rejected, but she has a hankering for him still," said the old lady
with one of those smiles of knowingness which make the lineaments
ghastly when bitter sorrow and tragic trouble are the topics talked
about.

Captain Acton left the room to refresh himself with a change of
apparel, and returned after a brief absence. He was a man of
considerable but not powerful self-control. He entered the room with
a face that indicated a certain resolution of mind, and said to his
sister: "I have been thinking, perhaps, that we have been unnecessarily
flurried and somewhat hurried in our conjecture and efforts. I believe
I have done well in giving all possible publicity to the fact that
Lucy left her home this morning and has not returned. But when I come
to reflect that even now it is not twelve hours since she started on
her early walk, I consider that she has not been long enough absent to
cause us the bitter anxiety we have felt and are feeling. Suppose after
visiting the person from whom she received the letter, she breakfasted
with a friend on the other side of Old Harbour Town. This friend may
have induced her to stop to dinner; a drive might follow. There are
hundreds of things in this business which when explained would seem
perfectly reasonable, so that at any moment she may turn up and tell
us the story of her day's outing, and wonder that we should be so
troubled because of an absence that she makes perfectly comprehensible.
I shall hold to this view," he continued firmly, "until the night is
advanced. If she does not return to-night then we must take further
steps to-morrow."

"What steps?" asked his sister. "What steps have not been taken that
remain to be taken?"

He had suddenly sunk in reflection and did not answer her.

"I should be uneasy in my mind in any case," said Miss Acton. "But that
odious steward of the _Minorca_ being in the business together with the
unwarrantable sailing of the vessel hours before her time, fills me
with dread and terror, and I cannot, brother, listen to what you say
about her breakfasting and dining with a friend and going for a drive,
and so forth. She would guess at our suspense and anxiety. Is our Lucy
a girl to cause unnecessary pain and unhappiness, not indeed to those
who love her as we do, but to the humblest creature in the world?"

Just then the door was opened, and the footman announced "Admiral Sir
William Lawrence."

The old gentleman entered, not with his familiar deep-sea rolling
gait, but slowly and wearily, and with an air of dejection. Lucy's dog
welcomed him by barking and rushing at his shoe and trying to bite
through it. Miss Acton rose and sank in a curtsy which is to be seen
in these days only on the stage, but her kindly heart quickened her
gaze for anything that invited sympathy, and she immediately said: "Sir
William, you are quite worn out. You need refreshment. Pray sit, pray
sit! What will you take?"

"We will have some brandy and seltzer water," said Captain Acton,
pulling the bell, knowing this drink to be as great a favourite with
the Admiral as hock and soda water was with Lord Byron.

"I am sorry to say," said the Admiral, sinking into a chair, "that I
have brought no news."

"I have scoured Old Harbour Town and can obtain no information," said
Captain Acton; "but it is certain that no one seems to have seen her
down on the wharf between seven and eight this morning."

"I heard the bell-man recite your notice," said Sir William, speaking
leisurely, as one who is tired out; "that, and the bill which they were
beginning to paste as I came this way, should help. I've walked my
legs off. I have enquired everywhere. I, too, asked if Miss Lucy had
been seen down at the harbour at any hour this morning. But my fixed
idea was, and still is, that the person who wrote to her through the
_Minorca's_ steward was somebody that she helped, somebody in poverty
and want, and I called upon everybody likely to know of the existence
of such an individual; but to no purpose. The parson, the apothecary,
all the tradespeople I looked in upon, could tell me nothing. Once I
thought I had run the person we want to earth. Mrs Moore, who keeps
the greengrocer's shop, told me that there was an old woman who lived
in a cottage just out of Lower Street, out of whose house she had once
seen Miss Lucy Acton issue. I got the address, called at the cottage
and saw a squalid female who said she was Mrs Mortimer's niece, and
that Mrs Mortimer had died that morning at five o'clock. She said it
was true that Miss Acton occasionally visited Mrs Mortimer and brought
her little comforts and read to her. I got no further. This is the
extent and value of my report, and I am as profoundly puzzled," said
the Admiral, raising the glass of brandy and seltzer and examining it
before he drank, "as I was this morning."

"She may turn up at any moment," said Captain Acton, with more gloom
than the hope his words expressed justified. "She has only been twelve
hours missing."

"Only!" cried Miss Acton. "Sir William," she went on slowly, nodding,
at him whilst her face hardened, "I have a conviction which my brother
does not share. It seems to me, sir, impossible to think of the
unexpected and terrifying departure of the _Minorca_ hours before her
time, and the conveyance of a letter by the steward of the vessel,
without feeling the conviction I speak of."

"And what is that conviction, madam?" asked Sir William, from whose
jolly round face fatigue had robbed much of its warm colour.

"I regret to have to say it," said Miss Acton, "but I must think--I
cannot help it, that Mr Lawrence's hand is in this strange
disappearance of my niece."

Captain Acton slightly frowned upon the old dame, and exclaimed: "I
think, Caroline, you should have withheld your conviction, for the
present at all events, from Admiral Lawrence."

Sir William looked firmly and somewhat sternly at Miss Acton and said:
"I am very sorry, madam, that you should hold this opinion, very sorry
indeed. I had thought you the friend and well-wisher of my son--in this
respect eminently the charitable and warm-hearted sister of Captain
Acton. But if you mean to imply that Mr Lawrence wrote the letter to
Miss Lucy, then you have to confess (which would be an indignity done
to a beautiful character) that your niece was a willing recipient of
my son's missive, that she hastened to him on reading the contents of
his communication and that in short, the design of the _Minorca's_
premature sailing was that Mr Lawrence and Miss Lucy Acton should
elope--a thing not to be dreamt of--at an hour when few were abroad,
and when there was little or no chance of the news reaching her home
that Captain Acton's daughter had sailed in the _Minorca_."

Scarcely had the old gentleman pronounced these words when a footman,
throwing open the door, exclaimed: "Mr Greyquill presents his humble
respects to Captain Acton, and desires leave to speak with him."

"Mr Greyquill!" cried Captain Acton.

"Mr Greyquill!" echoed the Admiral, looking with a changed face at the
footman.

"Mr Greyquill!" cried Miss Acton. "Why, he may have come with news of
Lucy. Bid him step in!"

The footman disappeared.

"What on earth but some news of my daughter can bring Greyquill here at
this hour?" said Captain Acton.

The Admiral looked deaf, and continued to stare at the door, which in a
few moments was again flung open, and Mr Greyquill entered.




CHAPTER IX

MR GREYQUILL'S VISIT


Mr Greyquill entered the room by two paces, and placing his hand upon
the spot where he supposed his heart to lie, made three separate bows
to the company, each of the "Your most humble and obedient servant"
school; it was an expression of ceremony which for mingled respect and
senility should have pleased, as it no doubt did please, Miss Acton.

He was a figure striking in its way as he made these bows, with his
long, snow-white hair, his heavy white eyebrows, his long curling
nose, the purely congenital satiric leer that characterised the
formation of his thin lips; and his faded dress, which was a very good
representation of his mind, aided the impression produced by his face.

Admiral Lawrence gave him a nod which was barely a mark of recognition.
Captain Acton bowed to him in silence. Miss Acton cried out:

"Pray step in, Mr Greyquill, and be seated!"

Greyquill sidled rather than walked in and sat down on a chair removed
from the others, and observing enquiry strong in each face as those who
watched him would not condescend to enquire the purpose of his visit,
but waited to hear it, he said: "I was coming out of Lower Street this
afternoon, when I heard the bell-man recite the announcement that Miss
Lucy Acton had been missing from her home this morning since between
seven and eight o'clock, and a reward of fifty guineas is offered
to any one who shall proclaim her whereabouts, or who shall help to
restore her to her family."

"That is so," said Captain Acton, viewing him gravely.

"Have you news of her?" cried Miss Acton.

"I wish to state, sir," said Mr Greyquill, addressing Captain Acton,
"that if I should prove instrumental, not in the restoration of Miss
Lucy Acton to her home, but in your discovering where she is, and
how she got there, my candour will be due entirely to the very great
respect I entertain for the young lady who has always had a kindly word
for me, and whose character is an extremely lovable one, and to the
regret, I may say indignation, that one so young, beautiful and rich,
should fall into such unworthy hands."

He glanced at the Admiral, who returned the look with a compressed
brow, whilst with his right hand he seemed to be keeping time to an
inward and secret tune with the play of his fingers upon the knee where
the leg of his breeches fell into his stocking.

"Oh, pray continue, sir! Pray continue!" cried Miss Acton in a voice
that was almost husky with the hysteric quality of her emotions.

"In other words, sir," continued Mr Greyquill, still addressing Captain
Acton, "I beg to state that if I should be so fortunate as to help you
in your trouble I desire no money reward, nor should dream of taking
any."

Captain Acton merely bowed.

"I have not met with the usage," old Greyquill went on calmly, steadily
exasperating Miss Acton by a preface that was disgusting and needless
whilst she thirsted for the one essential fact, "that I certainly
think I deserve from either Admiral Sir William Lawrence, nor his son,
Mr Lawrence." He spoke with so complete a neglect of the Admiral's
presence that the old gentleman might have been out of the room. "They
have no claim upon my kindness."

"We shall be thankful to receive any news of Miss Lucy Acton," said
Captain Acton, with that collectedness of manner which implies the
glazing by a vigorous will of passions growing turbulent.

"Two or three days after your appointment of Mr Lawrence as master
of the _Minorca_, I chanced to be going by way of Old Friar's Road
to visit some houses belonging to me. At the bend of the road, which
conceals the bridge and Old Harbour Town I met Mr Lawrence, and we
exchanged a few sentences on the subject of the sum of three hundred
pounds which he owes me. He informed me that when you, sir, had paid
him off on his return he would hand me the sum of twenty-five guineas
in part payment of his debt. We each pursued our way. When I had gone
a few yards I stopped and turned to look after him. He had disappeared
round the bend of the road, but just about the place where he and I
had conversed I saw something white. It was a letter. Thinking I had
dropped it in unconscious play of my hands during our talk, I returned
and picked it up."

The old man put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the letter, which
he held on his knee, whilst he continued: "It was not addressed, as
you will presently see, but the contents which I took the liberty of
reading, the letter being open and manifestly a stray article which
was anybody's property, assured me that it had just now fallen from
the pocket of Mr Lawrence, who had brought it out possibly with his
pocket-handkerchief, but who would not know of his loss by looking
behind him as the turn of the road hid it from him. I was greatly
astounded by the contents of this letter, which is in Mr Lawrence's
handwriting, and somewhat incensed by reading that he termed me an
old scamp, I, who had proved his friend at a time when friendship was
valuable to him, and who have shown him every consideration since. Will
you read the letter, sir?"

Mr Greyquill left his seat and stepped across with the missive to
Captain Acton. The Captain glanced at the contents, and without reading
extended the letter to the Admiral, saying: "Is this your son's
writing, sir?"

The Admiral took the letter, ran his eyes over it, and answered,
returning the letter to Captain Acton: "It is."

"It is a draft or copy," said Captain Acton. "It is undated, and it is
without the formal beginning of My dear, etc."

He then read slowly and deliberately, the handwriting being good and
clear:


     "I should have answered your letter sooner but I have been so
     worried by debts and difficulties, by compulsory idleness and the
     absolute impossibility of finding anything congenial to do, that
     I have had no spirit to communicate with you or anybody else. But
     the wheel of fortune which has depressed me to the very bottom,
     has by another revolution, raised me. I must tell you that I am
     very heavily in debt. Even in this antiquated hole I owe an old
     scamp, named Greyquill, three hundred pounds, of which I have
     only had two hundred. I am in debt, some of them debts of honour,
     to several men, a few of whom I have spoken of in my time as
     brother-officers, and one of them quite recently threatened me
     with the law. In addition, I owe a lot to various tradespeople
     in London and elsewhere. So that my personal liberty hangs by a
     hair, and at any moment I may find myself clapped on the shoulder,
     arrested for debt, and flung into gaol, there to languish possibly
     for the remainder of my days, for it is quite certain that my
     father cannot, even if he would, come to my help. His private
     means are very small, and his pension inconsiderable, and though
     he has behaved very well in maintaining me since I quitted the
     Service, and allowed me to use his cottage as a home, he is a man
     whose morality is high and severe, and he is the last person to
     part with a farthing in discharge of debts which he regards as
     dishonourable.

     "I had made up my mind to ship before the mast in a vessel bound
     to America, where I should have left her, and sought my fortune
     in a new country; when through the great kindness that a rich
     gentleman in this district has for my father, I was offered the
     command of a barque called the _Minorca_, a handsome little vessel
     of about five hundred tons, on terms which a Merchant shipmaster
     would consider liberal, but which to one, in the face of what
     I owe, are as a penny piece in the value of a guinea. Captain
     Acton (R.N., retired)--you may have met him--is the owner of the
     two little ships. He lives in a beautiful old house, planted in
     the midst of a fine prospect of gardens and orchards. He has one
     child, a daughter, a young creature so beautiful that the instant
     I saw her I irrecoverably lost my heart to her. I offered her
     marriage; she rejected me, probably because she had been told that
     I was a drinker and a gambler. I am, nevertheless, determined to
     possess her as my wife, and with that view have promptly conceived
     a stratagem or plot which should either end in enabling me to pay
     off all my debts and live at peace in this country, or be hanged
     as a pirate."


The Admiral, who had heretofore discovered no signs of life, started in
his chair and clenched his fist.


     "It is you, my dear Dick, and old companion, mess-mate and
     friend, with whom I have enjoyed many a jaunt to which I could
     never recur without passionately lamenting the days that are no
     more, who will help me in this desperate undertaking. I propose
     to navigate the vessel, not to Kingston, Jamaica, to which port
     she ought to be bound, but to the port in which you live, Rio de
     Janeiro. By a ruse which must prove successful, I think, I shall
     inveigle Miss Lucy Acton on board, and everything being ready,
     shall make sail immediately after she is carefully confined in
     my cabin. I have had a cabin set apart for my own use, which I
     represented to Captain Acton was to serve as a sick-bay. This
     drama has been well rehearsed. When far out at sea the crew will
     be summoned aft. I shall read some pretended sealed orders from
     Captain Acton, requiring me to carry the ship to Rio de Janeiro,
     and to sell her, if possible, after discharging the mate and
     crew, who will receive from Captain Acton, on application, treble
     the amount of their wages they would have got for sailing the
     vessel to Kingston. I shall also take care to destroy the ship's
     papers. And my story will be that I was overhauled by an American
     cruiser, who sent an officer on board. He examined the box of
     papers and took it away to show to his Captain, as he considered
     them unsatisfactory. The cruiser then braced her main top-sail
     yard to the wind and sailed away with the box of papers. On my
     arrival, we will consult together as to the safest course to be
     adopted for the sale of the ship and cargo, by which time I have
     no doubt the lady will have agreed to marry me either for love,
     or because she has been placed in a situation which must render
     marriage imperative to her in the name of honour. With the money
     which I shall make, thanks to you, through this business, I will
     pay off all my debts in England, and Lucy Acton being my wife, or
     promising me her hand, I may count with absolute certainty upon
     the forgiveness of her father, who is not likely to abandon his
     only child for a behaviour that was no fault of hers, and the rest
     must be left to time.

     "I think our man to help us for a liberal commission will be your
     friend, José Zamovano Y Villa. His scrupulosity in financial
     matters is not likely to prove a great hindrance, eh, Dick? I
     shall follow this letter soon after the ship that takes it, so
     that you will not have long to wait before seeing me after you
     have read it."


This letter was unsigned. It was manifestly a rough draft of the posted
letter which had been amplified before it was sent. Captain Acton's
hand dropped with it on to his knee. He exclaimed:

"That is the end--there is no name."

On which Miss Acton screamed out: "What did I say? Are not my words
true? To think of our beloved Lucy imprisoned in a ship! Sailed away
with, never to be seen more perhaps, in the hands of--of--oh, what is
to be done? What is to be done?"

The Admiral started from his chair to his feet. His face was full of
blood, his hands were uplifted, and his fingers tightly locked. He
cried, in a voice that was like mimic thunder in its power, and breaks,
and falls:

"I will hire a vessel and chase him; I will pursue him, though he
should lead me to the very gates of Hell. Oh, my precious God! I, who
have ever striven to act my part well in the service of my country!
I, who have ever struggled to live an honourable and a stainless life
as a gentleman and a sailor! Why am I dishonoured and degraded by the
possession of such a son?"

He unclasped his hands and buried his purple face, and stood rocking
and reeling as though he were about to fall in a fit, and sobbed twice
or thrice with that dreadful note of grief in his dry-eyed agony, which
makes the fearlessness of manhood in suffering one of the most pitiful,
painful and pathetic of spectacles. Captain Acton laid his hand on the
Admiral's shoulder.

"Bear up!" he said gently. "Presently we will discuss the matter
calmly. God is good, and this blow may not prove nearly so heavy as we
now think it."

With kindly pressure he obliged the old seaman to resume his seat, and
then turned with something of fierceness upon old Greyquill.

"May I ask," said he, flourishing the letter, "how it is that you, sir,
being fully admitted by the perusal of this document into the base plot
Mr Lawrence was hatching, should have chosen to keep the intention to
yourself, when by the revelation of this letter you could have put it
out of Mr Lawrence's power to carry off my child."

Mr Greyquill stood up. His eyes had a peculiar light in them, a faint
flush was painted on each cheek, and seemed to make whiter yet the
whiteness of his brows and his hair.

"Sir," he answered, "I am much sneered at in this town and district. I
am very well aware that few have a kind word for me. If you, sir, or
Admiral Lawrence condescend to bestow a nod upon me as I respectfully
pass you in the street, it has the character of the recognition with
which you would honour something you disdain, which you are compelled
to see, and by that nod acknowledge the existence of. Your beautiful
daughter, Miss Lucy, on the other hand, has always been gracious and
kind to me. In the light and sweetness of her presence I am sensible
of the warmth and glow which make me feel that I am human and a man.
There is no office I would not discharge to oblige her. I make money
by lending it, but I would give her money--much if she needed it, for
the delight I take in her sympathetic, tender and generous nature. When
I read the letter you hold, sir, I did not believe that Mr Lawrence
would have the power or the art to carry out his scheme of kidnapping
your daughter, and I was only assured that his base plot, as you term
it, had proved triumphant by the calling of the bell-man, and by the
letterpress on the placards which they are pasting about the place.
Then I was determined that you should be instantly apprised through the
medium of Mr Lawrence's own letter of what had become of your daughter.
Otherwise, sir, the loss of your ship by an act of piracy must be
nothing to me. Mr Lawrence promises in his letter that he will repay
all his creditors, of which I am one to the extent of three hundred
pounds. And as I am of opinion that this is his honest intention in
order to enable him to dwell in England at liberty, I resolved to keep
my own counsel and to await the receipt of my money."

Thus speaking he picked up his hat from the floor, bowed to Captain
Acton and to Miss Acton, and left the room without noticing the Admiral.

"What a wicked, dreadful old man!" exclaimed Miss Acton, "to preserve
such a hideous secret, and to be willing to wait for payment of his
three hundred pounds out of another man's robbery. What is to be done?
What will you do, brother? Our Lucy must be rescued. Is it too late?
She was here in this house this morning at seven o'clock. The ship
cannot be far off. Cannot she be reached?"

Captain Acton, holding the Greyquill letter in his hand, stepped to a
bell rope and pulled it. The hue of his face was ashen, the expression
cold and severe: such a face as he would carry had he to confront a
crowd of armed mutineers.

"What is to be done? What is to be done?" cried Miss Acton.

"What is to be done?" exclaimed the Admiral, starting from a silence
in which his form was motionless, though his lips might have been
seen moving whilst his eyes were fastened upon the carpet. "This is
to be done, madam. I will commute my pension. I will mortgage my
household furniture. I will get together every penny that is to be had
by realisation of what I possess. I will post to London to-morrow."
He pulled out a great gold watch and surveyed it for two or three
breathless moments, "and in the river seek and assuredly find a
sharp-stemmed vessel which shall convey me to Rio de Janeiro, and I
shall be in that spot, if God but grant me wind enough, to greet the
arrival of that villain, my son, to secure the person of your daughter,
and return her in safety--that I will do!--that I will do!" And the
poor old fellow stood up snapping his fingers whilst he flourished
his arms at Captain Acton and his sister, and made several mouths in
inarticulate phrase.

A footman entered.

"Send George at once," said Captain Acton, "with the gig as fast as the
mare can trot to Captain Weaver. He must call at his house first--the
Paragon out of Lower Street. If not at home, he must find out where he
is, and drive him back here with express orders from me that I must see
him without loss of an instant's time."

The footman ran out. Miss Acton looked with eager, tearful expectation
at her brother, who addressing the Admiral, exclaimed:

"You are a sailor, sir, and so am I, and 'tis natural that we should
both light upon the same scheme. But there is not the slightest
occasion for you to sacrifice a farthing of your property, nor to post
to London to-morrow to find a ship, some little schooner or other swift
enough to enable you to be at Rio when the _Minorca_ arrives. Such a
ship," he said, his face brightening a little with an expression of
triumph, "I possess in the _Aurora_. She has discharged her lading. She
can be ballasted at once, and if a crew can be assembled by this time
to-morrow evening, I may be far down Channel in such pursuit as must
make the barque's chances of escape hopeless, unless indeed she eludes
me in the night, or in thick weather, in which case I shall thrash on
and be at Rio a week before she enters the Harbour."

"The _Aurora_," cried the Admiral with a sudden elation, which might
have passed as the flare-up of a man in his cups who has sat for a
while in maudlin dejection. "By heavens, Acton, you have hit it! where
should I find such a vessel for this purpose? Why, aboard of her in a
few days you would be alongside the _Minorca_, if you are fair in the
scent of the trail of her wake, and wanting that, why, your noble and
beautiful little clipper will have been at Rio a fortnight before the
barque heaves in sight. May I accompany you?--but you must allow me to
do so. You must permit me to be your companion, for, by God, Captain
Acton, it is for you to recover your daughter and your property, but it
is for me to greet that malefactor, my son."

He smote his thigh hard with the palm of his hand. The noise was like
the report of a pistol. He was wont to strike himself thus in the days
of his command when angered, or when he expressed a purpose, which he
intended to fulfil though it meant life or death.

"Certainly, Sir William," said Captain Acton. "I shall rejoice to have
you with me."

"Good, good!" cried the old fellow, and rolling across to his friend,
he grasped him by the hand, and held on, looking at his friend with
a face a-work with emotion, with an expression indeed that seemed
perilously close to further dry sobs.

"But," said Captain Acton, who was perhaps helped to a display of
comparative composure of mind by the Admiral's reception of the news,
"though if possible we shall sail to-morrow evening or the following
day in pursuit, my opinion is, sir, that even if Mr Lawrence were left
to his own shifts he would never be able to compass his undertaking.
First of all, he has a highly respectable man, who has proved a good
servant to me, to deal with in his mate. Will Mr Eagle permit him to
carry the _Minorca_ to Rio? Will the crew have nothing to say? What
will be thought by all hands when it gets about that my daughter is on
board, a prisoner in confinement in the cabin? And is my daughter so
enamoured of Mr Lawrence that because he has placed her in a highly
equivocal situation she will be willing to marry him, or to have
anything to say to him on their arrival at Rio?"

"Oh no, oh no!" interposed Miss Acton; "she would not be our Lucy if
she did."

"My conviction is," continued the Captain, "that when Eagle and
the crew get scent of Mr Lawrence's intentions, and understand the
blackguardly act he has been guilty of in trepanning my daughter, they
will turn upon him and either do him some serious mischief or lock him
up, and under Eagle, proceed direct to Kingston, or if they have not
gone far, return to Old Harbour."

"That's what will happen!" cried Miss Acton. "Would our sailors permit
a stranger like Mr Lawrence to steal your daughter and your ship and
what is in her, and be dismissed from your service by him at Rio
Janeiro with promises of your paying them treble wages when they got
home, and applied to you? Oh no, no, no!"

"And Mr Lawrence," continued Captain Acton, speaking in a cool
voice that was almost sarcastic, "little understands the habits and
customs of the Merchant Service when he supposes that owners give
their shipmasters sealed orders to be opened and read to the crew in
mid-ocean, or when they are well away from their port of departure.
This is the practice of our Service, sir, and Mr Lawrence as a Naval
man who is ignorant of the habits and discipline of the Merchant ship
greatly errs in supposing that the crew will be misled by any such
device."

"Suppose," said Miss Acton, "that a French man-o'-war should capture
you, and make you prisoners, what is to become of Lucy?

"We must defy every chance in our determination to recover my child,"
answered her brother.

"Ay, that must be," exclaimed the Admiral, "even though Heaven should
rain French men-of-war."

An hour passed from the time the message was sent before Captain
Weaver arrived. Captain Acton desired to see the skipper alone, out of
delicacy to Sir William, of whose son it would be impossible to speak
without causing the poor old gentleman distress more or less acute.
The Admiral found out Captain Acton's well-bred and considerate wish
in the one or two hints he dropped, but stuck manfully to his chair
nevertheless, and when Captain Weaver was announced, he still remained
one of the three occupants of the room.

The skipper entered, red, nervous, with a countenance slightly lifted
by astonishment. Of course he knew that Miss Lucy Acton had been
missing since the morning, but that was all he did know.

"Walk in, Captain Weaver. Pray, take that chair," said Captain Acton.
"I can ask you no questions until I make you acquainted with what has
happened."

"Then Miss Lucy hasn't been found, sir," said the Captain.

"She has been kidnapped by Mr Lawrence," answered Captain Acton.
"She left this house early this morning to take one of those fresh
morning-walks which she enjoys, and was seen to receive a letter from
the hunchback steward of the _Minorca_. She must have immediately
hastened on board the barque, urged by some statement which I am
disposed to agree with my sister Miss Acton, was forged or manufactured
by Mr Lawrence."

"My son, Captain Weaver, my son!" broke in the Admiral tremulously.

"The best of fathers have known your lot, sir," answered Captain
Weaver. "There is no need to go to the Old Testament to learn that."

"The long and short of it is, Captain Weaver," said Captain Acton,
"Mr Lawrence having lured my daughter on board the vessel he commands
through some ruse which I am unable to explain, made sail at once with
the lady on board, not for Kingston, Jamaica, but for Rio Janeiro,
where he proposes to discharge the mate and crew after reading to them
a forged promise by me that their wages to Kingston shall be trebled on
their return and on their application to me. He also proposes to sell
the ship and cargo, and he is manifestly acquainted with some scoundrel
out at Rio, who, in spite of such vigilance as the officials of Rio
may be in the habit of exercising, will undoubtedly discover a market,
though not necessarily at Rio."

"Rascally things can be done at sea, sir," said Captain Weaver, whose
face, instead of gaining in the look of amazement that had coloured it
on his entrance, was slowly settling as Captain Acton proceeded into
an expression of hard-a-weather composure. With such a look perhaps
a thoroughbred, stout-hearted British sailor would view the calamity
or catastrophe that was pressing strong men down upon their knees in
devotion, and causing tears of terror to flow from the eyes of others.

"Oh, Captain Weaver, there are many wicked people at sea!" cried Miss
Acton. "Think of the pirates! Think of the slavers! My poor, poor
niece!"

"Now, sir," continued Captain Acton, "it is not the intention of Sir
William Lawrence or myself to suffer my daughter to be kidnapped by an
act of treachery which I forbear to say more about in the presence of
my honourable and gallant old friend, Admiral Lawrence."

"Oh, Acton," exclaimed the Admiral, "nothing that you can say could
approach what I feel, could express what I suffer."

"My intention is," Captain Acton went on, "to fit out the _Aurora_
at once for a chase. We know where the _Minorca_ is bound to. Mr
Lawrence's course must necessarily be yours. Your vessel can sail two
feet to his one. If we are unfortunate enough to miss him on the high
seas, we shall be at Rio a week or a fortnight before the _Minorca_
arrives, to receive him. When can you get your ship ready for sea?"

Captain Weaver reflected. "To-day, sir," he said, "is Toosday. I'll
engage to be under way by Saturday."

"Not before?" cried Miss Acton, an exclamation which Captain Weaver
received with a faint smile.

"That will be giving the _Minorca_ long odds, won't it?" said Captain
Acton.

"No, sir. If we took a fortnight to fit the clipper for sea, we should
overhaul the _Minorca_ or be ahead of her long before she heaves her
port into sight."

"What's the distance to Rio, Captain Weaver?" asked the Admiral.

"All five thousand miles, sir."

"What would you call the _Aurora's_ average?" enquired Captain Acton.

"I'll put it low to make sure," responded Captain Weaver, "and call it
a hundred and twenty-five miles a day, though a hundred and fifty would
be nearer the mark."

The Admiral might have been observed to be calculating by the movement
of his lips. "It will be a run, then," said he, "of about forty days."

"At the utmost," said Captain Weaver, "and the _Minorca_ will want at
least sixty."

"What have you to do," said Captain Acton, "that we should wait until
Saturday?"

Here the conversation was stayed for a minute or two by the entrance
of a footman with a tray of sandwiches and cakes, and ale for Captain
Weaver, and wine, and the like.

"Why," answered Captain Weaver, who had had time to think, "the
_Aurora's_ copper wants cleaning badly. We shall need to take in more
ballast. There are the sails to bend and a lot to be seen to aloft;
stores to be shipped, and dozens of other matters to be attended to,
gentlemen. We're not a Naval dockyard down on the wharves. We can't rig
out a dismantled frigate and fill her with men with all her artillery
in place and send her to sea in twenty-four hours, and there may be
some little difficulty as to a few of the crew. Two or three of them
who are married will want a longer spell ashore than this time gives
them. If so, and I reckon upon it, I shall need others."

"You think a detention of four days will signify nothing in our
certainty of overhauling the _Minorca_, or getting to Rio in advance of
her?" said Captain Acton.

"I know the _Aurora_, sir. No highwayman could know his blood-mare
which has galloped him again and again clear of the noose of the gibbet
better than I know your Baltimore clipper. She'll look up to windward,
or hold her course when the _Minorca_ is falling points off. She was
built to sail, madam, and she do sail. There is nothing in the King's
service with her legs. I allow she was born to be a slaver."

"She looks swift even as she lies at rest," said Miss Acton.

"You are not armed, I think," said the Admiral, "whilst the _Minorca_
carries some carronades and a stand of small arms in her cabin. Mr
Lawrence is a fighting man, and his situation is one of desperation
and"--his voice sank as he added--"piracy."

"I do not propose to go armed," said Captain Acton. "Such armament
as the _Aurora_ of three hundred and ninety tons could carry, and
not perhaps without injury to her speed, would prove of little good
against an enemy to whom we could only show our heels, whilst as to the
_Minorca_ if we overhauled her we should hail her to back her topsail,
and if she declined we should hold her in sight."

"We might lose her in thick weather," said the Admiral.

"Then, sir, our policy will be to thrash on for Rio."

"You are quite right," said Captain Weaver. "Guns would only be in our
way, and sarve to check the beauty, which we don't want."

"Can you explain, Captain Weaver," interrupted Miss Acton, whose
irrelevancy was feminine, and whose question was based on her desire
to hear something that she could understand, for the talk now as it
ran was beyond her--"how it was that Miss Lucy Acton, who is one of
the best known ladies who reside in these parts, should pass along the
wharves and go on board the _Minorca_ to be made a prisoner of and
sailed away with, without anybody seeing her--without anybody being
able to say that he saw a young female pass along? Even if he could
describe her dress without knowing who she was, we should have been
able to conclude that Mr Lawrence had lured her on board: for we never
could have supposed that she would have gone to him without his being
guilty of some base stratagem to inveigle her."

"I can make no other answer than this, ma'am," said Captain Weaver.
"Suppose she was down on the wharves between half-past seven and eight.
Most of the labourers would have been away breakfasting. The few that
hung about might not have taken any notice of her, or if one or two
did, then they are people we didn't come across to question. Most of
the men on board the ships in the Harbour would be in their foc'sles
breakfasting and smoking and the like, and those that were on deck, and
few enough at that hour, might be thinking of other things than people
who were passing by. I don't see how else Miss Lucy Acton's not being
seen or noticed can be accounted for."

"No doubt you are right," said Captain Acton. "I see no other solution
to the puzzle, and a puzzle it is, for," said he, "it is quite certain
that my daughter was down on the wharves and was entrapped this
morning, which explains the reason of Mr Lawrence's hurried sailing."

"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said Captain Weaver very humbly and
respectfully, "both your honours are sea-faring men who've seen more
of the sea than my larnedest notions could heave into sight to me, but
I should like to say this: if our ship is made out aboard the _Minorca_
supposing we overhaul her, is she likely to back her topsail to our
hail? Mr Lawrence, we may guess, is a detarmined man, he'll know that
you've got the scent of him, and I allow that he'll keep all on with
his ship, even if there should be such a breeze as would sarve him to
run her under water."

"We must hoist foreign colours," said the Admiral quickly and
decisively. "American, I should think; there are many Yankees afloat
like the _Aurora_."

"Still begging of your honours' pardon," said Captain Weaver, "suppose
the _Minorca_ do back her topsail and we launch our boat; Mr Lawrence
makes out his father and Captain Acton in the starn sheets. Will he
stay to receive ye? Won't he fill on his topsail and be off?"

"You forget," said Captain Acton, "that Mr Eagle and my crew are on
board, and they will have something to say in response to Mr Lawrence's
orders."

"Your honours," said Captain Weaver, "I am greatly mistaken if Mr
Lawrence don't prove one of the hardest and most difficult skippers
that ever took command of a ship. He'll get his way, though it should
come to his sending balls to do it through the brains of those who try
to stop him."

"If the _Minorca_ won't heave-to after catching sight of us in the
boat," said Captain Acton, "we must return to the _Aurora_ and follow
her. Then, as I have said, we must head under a full press for Rio."

"But will Mr Lawrence make for Rio," said Captain Weaver, "when he
understands by the _Aurora_ chasing that you have found out his port of
destination?"

"Something at sea must be left to chance," said Captain Acton a little
impatiently. "Since you cannot be ready before Saturday Sir William and
I will have time to weigh your conjectures and views. I shall be down
early to-morrow morning, and hope to find that you have made a fresh
and vigorous start in getting the vessel ready for sea."




CHAPTER X

MR LAWRENCE AND MR EAGLE


It was a May morning in the English Channel. Over the soft blue of the
sky some large clouds as yellow and tender for the eye to dwell upon as
the spume of the sea from the receding breaker, with glories in their
brows and glories in their skirts, were sailing slowly and stately on
the mild breeze that blew sweet with mingled odours of land and brine
from the coast of Old England. There was weight enough in the wind
to grace the lines of streaming waters as they ran with feathers of
foam, and on this wide plain, with the shores of Britain dwelling in a
faint, violet shadow upon the starboard horizon north, but one ship was
visible and scarce to be wondered at!

War had swept the narrow seas, and for hours in the day little more
hove into view whether from the cliffs of our country or from those of
the enemy opposite, than sometimes a large convoy glimmering cloud-like
as it floated, some compact, some scattered, under the protection of
men-of-war up Channel to London town or to other ports, or down Channel
to their several destinations in various parts of the globe.

Or it might be a cloud of steam-like smoke far off indicating an action
between single ships. An Englishman had hailed a Frenchman to strike.
The Frenchman had answered with a broadside, and before the sun sets
the Englishman with her fore-topmast and mizzen topgallant mast gone is
making for Plymouth with a prize in tow.

Or again it will be a smuggling lugger chased by a Revenue cutter with
a flash of the sea-snow at her stem and the blaze of a long gun on the
forecastle.

The ship in sight carried in those days a very unfamiliar rig. She
was what is well known now as a barque. She was under all plain sail
and showed many wings, and she lifted sails which Lord St Vincent
when Captain Jervis was the first to introduce into the Navy, and
Merchantmen, always quicker than Navy ships to adopt improvements or
changes for the good, were using them when ships of the State, at least
a good many of them, were still satisfied with the truck above the
topgallant yard.

This vessel was the _Minorca_, which, as we know, had left Old Harbour
shortly after eight o'clock that morning, and now she had shrunk the
Mother Country into a delicate vision, and slightly leaning from the
wind was sliding with a steady keel through the water which beautified
the copper that shone ruddily under her weather-bow with the prisms and
crystals and gems of the ocean fountain. In spite of Admiral Lawrence's
admiration of her, she would excite laughter in this age as an example
of the stump-ended fabrics which the shipwrights of the eighteenth and
the nineteenth centuries were building for sailors. Yet many of these
structures made wonderfully long voyages and kept the seas, touching
here and there to careen, for as lengthy a period as the average life
of the modern steel fabric.

The _Minorca's_ length did not very greatly exceed her beam. Her bows
were round, though they fined down into keenness at her entry under
water. She had a large square stern with windows, and her buttocks
when her stern fell into the hollow, swept up as much foam as recoiled
from the plunge of her bows. Upon the weather-side of the quarterdeck
of the ship on this May morning in the English Channel Mr John Eagle,
the mate of the vessel, was walking to and fro, sometimes directing
his gaze to windward, sometimes aloft, sometimes sending it along the
ship's decks at the men who were employed on the numberless jobs which
attend a sailing ship's departure from port. High aloft, perched on the
fore-topgallant yard, was the figure of a look-out man, who was told to
report anything that hove into sight and to continue to report how the
distant sail was heading. These were Mr Lawrence's instructions.

Mr Eagle looked a very mean sort of man as he walked the deck. Neither
by form, face, nor manner did he express individuality or character.
The sole feature noticeable in him was a look of sullenness, a sour,
sneering, quarrelsome air about the mouth, to be found perhaps in the
curve of his thin lips.

Whilst he walked Mr Lawrence came up from the cabin through the
companion-hatch, and after standing a few moments looking about him, he
stepped to the side of Mr Eagle. The contrast between the two men was
remarkable. You could scarcely have believed that they belonged to the
same nation. Mr Lawrence's tall, elegant, and dignified figure towered
above the poor, unshapely conformation of Eagle; his handsome face wore
an expression of haughtiness, distance, and reserve. Both Mr Eagle and
the boatswain, named Thomas Pledge, who acted as second mate, and the
rest of the crew had already discovered that their captain perfectly
well understood and remembered that he had been an officer in the Royal
Navy, a sailor of His Majesty the King, that comparatively brief as
his story was it was brilliant with heroic incident and adventure,
and that instead of being greatly obliged to Captain Acton for this
command, he considered that he was acting with a very uncommon degree
of condescension in taking charge of a merchant vessel, unless indeed
she was a prize to his man-o'-war.

"There is nothing in sight, sir," he exclaimed, as he stood beside Mr
Eagle, who had come to a halt on the approach of the other. "You will
please see that a sharp look-out is kept for any sort of sail that may
heave into view; and I trust to you to keep a sharp look-out yourself.
When fairly clear of the Scillies, I may breathe with some ease."

"So far nothing's hove into sight, sir," said Mr Eagle.

"We have a pretty little breeze blowing," said Mr Lawrence, going to
the side and looking over, "and we are under all plain sail. The wind's
abeam and her speed is under six. Can she walk in strong weather?"

"She's done nine, sir, in my experience of her," answered Mr Eagle.
"But it took half a gale of wind on the quarter to make her do it."

Mr Lawrence came from the ship's side, and said: "Pray continue your
walk. I have something of importance to communicate to you," and he
looked down into Mr Eagle's face with a curiously mingled expression
of contempt, haughtiness and superiority. "It is not customary, I
believe," he said, "in the Merchant Service for shipmasters to take
their mates into their confidence. It is necessary, however, that I
should communicate one or two facts to you in connection with this
voyage. I presume you are not aware that Miss Lucy Acton is on board
this ship?"

"I saw her come over the side, sir, but didn't know she had stopped,"
said the mate, with an expression which might have passed for
incredulity in the sour, congenital curl of his lips.

"She remained on board, and is in my cabin, and I shall occupy the
cabin which was fitted up professedly for a sick-bay."

"Miss Lucy Acton aboard this ship!" cried the mate, giving way to his
amazement. "Well, I _am_ truly astonished."

"I don't care a damn about your astonishment, Mr Eagle!" exclaimed Mr
Lawrence with haughty severity. "I want you to understand that Miss
Lucy Acton is on board this ship, and I desire that you will regulate
your behaviour by thoroughly understanding the facts which I am going
to do you the honour to impart."

Mr John Eagle made no answer.

"I first of all wish you to understand," continued Mr Lawrence, "that
Miss Acton and I are in love with each other. We desire to be married.
Captain Acton objects on the grounds of what I am forced to term my
poverty; and certainly this quarter-deck would not know my tread if
I were not poor. At the same time the greatest esteem and friendship
exists between Captain Acton and myself, and his regard for me is
sufficiently expressed by his placing me in command here. Do you follow
me, sir?"

"I do, sir."

"Miss Acton and I agreed to elope. We found our opportunity in this
vessel. This could only be done by contriving what the French call a
ruse. It was to be assumed that her father had fallen ill in this ship
whilst inspecting her early this morning, and the stratagem was to be
carried out by his dictating a letter to me begging his daughter to
come at once to the vessel. This she did, and she is now below. Do you
understand me, Mr Eagle?"

"Oh yes, sir, I am a-following of you," answered the mate, with a face
crippled in meaning by astonishment and by other sensations excited by
this extraordinary story.

"Now," continued Mr Lawrence, still preserving his lofty, superior,
rather over-bearing manner, as though he would heave Mr John Eagle
overboard by scruff and breech if the fellow durst utter a syllable of
offence, "it is arranged by Miss Acton and myself that she should feign
that I have kidnapped her--sailed away with her, in short, against her
will. This attitude we preconcerted, to rescue her from the accusation
of having eloped, which might greatly prejudice her in the eyes of
her father, and injure her future and fortune. When, therefore, you
meet her, which you doubtless will, she will probably with the utmost
passion, nay, even with tears in her eyes, declare that she has been
torn from her home by a base artifice. And you'll understand, Mr Eagle,
that her sighs, her statements, and her tears are merely tricks and
parts of a play which has been carefully prearranged between the lady
and myself. Do you understand, sir?" he added, looking stormily at his
mean little companion from the altitude of his elegant and commanding
figure.

"Why, yes, sir, course I do. But I never should ha' thought it. Why of
all the young ladies----"

"I'm not asking you for any opinion, nor will any view that you can
take concern me. You have the facts, and you will repeat them to
the crew, to some of whom she may probably appeal, as indeed I have
advised, that her pretended situation may seem the more real, and
Captain Acton by such evidence be more fully convinced. You and the
crew will know what to think. It is simply a love affair and my own and
the lady's business essentially," and he stopped in his quarterdeck
walk, causing his companion to stop, and flamed threats from a pair of
eyes as imperious as ever glared command upon another.

Mr Eagle looked as obedient as a quartermaster to instructions sternly
delivered by a flogging captain.

"I have another matter to talk to you about," Mr Lawrence proceeded,
"and on this head I have to request without the smallest qualification
of what you must regard as my orders that you will preserve silence."

"I beg pardon," interrupted Mr Eagle, "but before you go on I should
like to say that I am only mate of this ship and take no interest lyin'
outside the sphere of my duties that don't consarn me."

"What I have to say," said Mr Lawrence, "will concern you--at least I
think so. It will concern you very much indeed. Yesterday, Captain
Acton placed in my hands sealed orders with strict instructions to
summon all hands and to read the document to you and the men, but on
no account to break the seal before the ship had arrived at latitude
twenty degrees north, and longitude--about--for we never can be sure of
that--thirty degrees west."

Mr Eagle's figure started as he walked. He knew his course to Kingston,
Jamaica as intimately well as you know your home when crossing from
over the way to it. He ventured to stare at Mr Lawrence, who went on:

"The nature of these instructions I can only guess at from several
conversations which I have had with Captain Acton, who without being
in any degree specific, yet seemed to suffer me to read between
the sentences of his conversation. And now, sir," said Mr Lawrence
with great austerity, "this is the communication you will preserve
strict silence upon until the sealed instructions are read. My belief
is--understand me: I say that the idea I have arrived at from Captain
Acton's conversation--is that I should carry this ship to a port that
certainly is not Kingston nor is it in Jamaica, though I am unable
to say more, and that he wishes this vessel to be handed over to the
representative of a South American merchant who does business in
London. What the port may be I am as curious as you undoubtedly now
are to learn. I believe also that the whole of us from captain to boy
will be paid off at this port and sent to England at Captain Acton's
expense, and each man will receive treble the amount of the wages that
he would have got for his voyage to Kingston and home. All this I infer
from Captain Acton's language, and I may be violating his good faith in
me in committing even these conjectures to the strict confidence which
I am sure you will observe."

Various sensations were depicted in Mr Eagle's face as he listened.
First he looked scared, then fierce by mere force of frown and
enlargement of eyes, then sceptical with his sour, sneering mouth, then
obstinate, sullen, mulish. He perfectly believed in the statement Mr
Lawrence had made. Captain Acton, the owner, was a naval officer, and
so was Mr Lawrence. They had agreed to abide in this matter of selling
the ship and discharging the crew by a custom of their Service, namely,
the sealed instructions.

A very short silence followed Mr Lawrence's delivery. Mr John Eagle
then said: "You'll find, sir, that when the crew comes to larn that
this voyage ain't bein' made to Kingston, Jamaica, but to another
place, they'll tarn to and refuse to work the ship, as their agreement
was for Kingston and nowhere else."

"That will be mutiny. To refuse an order aboard ship is mutiny. In the
Navy we hang men for that sort of conduct."

"Well, sir," said Mr Eagle, who uttered his convictions with the
misgiving which fear of the listener excites, "my own opinion is that
it wouldn't be reckoned as mutiny. It wouldn't be justice if it was
called mutiny, and treated as mutiny. 'Taint the crew that breaks the
agreement by refusing to do something which they never shipped to
undertake, but the owner who gives 'em a job when at sea which they
would have declined to hear of had they been told of it ashore. And I'm
surprised," he continued, emboldened by Mr Lawrence's silence, "that
Captain Acton, who is a gentleman born, and a man one could sarve all
his life with satisfaction to himself and employer, should get rid of
his ship and crew in such a fashion. But, perhaps, all that you say,
sir, won't be found in the instructions you are to read in latitude
twenty."

"I am talking to you," said Mr Lawrence, with acid contempt, "not to
gather your opinion of Captain Acton and of such instructions as he
may have given me, but to acquaint you as an officer of this ship with
such facts as I collected from Captain Acton's conversation, which must
presently become the property of the whole crew. It seems to me, sir,"
he continued, looking at his mean companion in his lofty, imperious,
flaming way, "that even on the bare hint of the possibility of such
a proceeding as I have stated, you are on the side of the crew, you
advocate and express the cause of the crew, you anticipate the action
which would be ranked as mutiny, and which would certainly cost human
lives, unless, indeed, I decide upon a course of my own, by which I
mean that if the crew refuse to work this ship to the place named by
Captain Acton, I would steer to the nearest port and get rid of the
whole of them and replace them by others; and if they refused to help
me to navigate the ship to the nearest place, I would hoist a signal of
distress and make my helpless situation known to the first man-o'-war
that was not French or Spanish that came along."

Having driven in his nail firmly and deeply enough (as he thought) to
sustain his wild, piratical, extravagant project, Mr Lawrence added in
his commanding way, "I hope, sir, I have said enough. Meanwhile, I must
repeat my order to you to keep a sharp look-out for ships and to see
that a sharp look-out is kept. We should be in a very serious plight
if we allowed a French cruiser to cross our hawse, and come between
us and the coast of England. The Frenchmen's frigates sail well, the
_Minorca_ has a shabby pair of heels. Therefore I am for putting my
helm to port should anything show ahead, and you will be good enough to
report any sail that springs into sight."

With that after a long penetrating look round he went below, leaving
Mr Eagle looking as if he was asleep with his eyes open and dreaming.
Indeed, Mr Eagle's mind was so shallow that all that he could think
of or conceive was simple even to silliness. He resumed his walk to
and fro on the quarter-deck, and every time that his face was turned
forward his eyes fastened upon Thomas Pledge, who was acting second
mate besides being boatswain and carpenter, and who just now was
superintending some shipboard business that was going on in the waist.

Mr Lawrence descended the steps into the cabin, which has already been
described, with its plain sea furniture and stand of arms, and entered
the after berth which he had pretended to convert into a sick bay.
Here were two rough bunks, one on top of the other, each containing a
mattress and bolster. It was the middle berth betwixt the Captain's and
the pantry. Mr Lawrence's sea-chest, clothes, and nautical instruments
were here collected. He stepped to a shelf and took from it a tin box
containing the ship's papers, and from this box he drew out a large,
portentous, heavily-sealed envelope, whose enclosure of stout paper
rendered it somewhat thick and bulky. He looked at the address. Upon
the envelope in a bold clerkly hand was written:


     "To WALTER LAWRENCE, Esquire., R.N.,
     in command of Captain Acton's barque-rigged
     vessel named the _Minorca_.

     "Secret instructions to be read to the officers and crew of the
     above said _Minorca_ by Mr Lawrence whenever the ship shall have
     arrived at twenty degrees of north latitude, and about thirty
     degrees of west longitude."


He looked attentively at the seals, which were impressed with the
Acton crest. He mused for a little while over this document manifestly
thinking of other things. Though his brow was knit, his handsome face
was a-work with thought. Under that knitted brow the expression of the
idea in him came and went. There never could have been a finer study
for an artist than this tall and elegant creature, slightly bowed, his
beauty lighted up so to speak by the several colours of the moods which
inspired him, and which seemed by the occasional movement of his lips
to indicate the rehearsal of a passage that was to follow. With an
impulse almost passionate as an effect of stern resolution he replaced
the tin box, walked out of the berth, and dangling a key which he had
withdrawn from his pocket, stood listening for a few moments at the
door of the berth which adjoined the one he had quitted.

He listened, then knocked, knocked again, and receiving no reply,
inserted the key, turned the handle and entered. This was the berth set
aside for the Captain, though as a matter of fact in Merchant vessels
the Captain used to occupy almost invariably the aftermost starboard
berth. It was plainly, but comfortably, furnished, the bedstead was
like those ashore, and such as in former times Spanish ships chiefly
were equipped with. It had a chest of drawers and a washstand in
combination, and a table in the middle, at which sat Miss Lucy Acton.
Her hands were clasped before her and rested on the table. She shot a
swift glance under her beautiful eyelids at the incomer, then looked
down upon her hands with a gaze which for motionlessness might have
been riveted, though nothing was to be seen of her eyes under their
lovely drooping clothing of lids and lashes. She was plainly dressed
in a gown whose waist was just under her bosom. In some such a gown,
or in some such attire she was wont of an early spring or summer
morning to amuse herself in the flower gardens, or to take walks,
occasionally remaining to breakfast at some poor neighbour's house.
The only conspicuous feature of her apparel was a hat lately introduced
from Paris and much affected by the fashionable ladies of London and
other parts of this country. I speak of it as a hat: it was in truth
a jockey-bonnet made of lilac-coloured silk decorated in front with a
bunch of fancy flowers, and on top was a lace veil that hung gracefully
down the back.

Mr Lawrence stood viewing her in silence for a few moments, and then
approaching the table so that he stood close to her, he said in a voice
of tenderness:

"Miss Acton--Lucy--my Lucy: for my Lucy you have ever been in my
heart since the day when I asked you to be my wife, and you know--but
you must believe--that my adoration of you then has not waned by a
single ray of its brilliance--nay, the flame is greater and purer and
more glowing than it was in that hour in which you refused my hand,
not because you could not love me, nor because you believed the half
of what had been told you about me, but because I was in too great
a hurry. I had not given you time to find me out and love me as I
believe, as I am sure you now do. Oh, my Lucy, this act of seeming
treason against you will be forgiven. Your heart will acknowledge that
violent as might seem the step I have taken, by no other could we have
been brought together, and all the artifices and all the falsehoods I
have been guilty of were, you will come to believe, the inspiration of
such a love as few men ever felt for the women of their worship."

He knelt on one knee by her side and tried to take her hand. She
started from her chair and recoiled some paces. On which he rose and
stood towering in his figure and gazing at her, but with a face whose
beauty could not have been more perfected than by the expression of the
emotion of his heart.

Her native blush, which was one of the delightful features of her
loveliness, had vanished: her face was colourless, and this uncommon
pallor which one would have thought could only have visited her cheek
in the day of dangerous sickness or in death, heightened the wonder,
the depth, the power of her dark eyes, whilst those lids of her's which
naturally drooped upon the loveliness they eclipsed in slumber, were
raised till the vision she might have been said to pour in soft light
upon her companion, looked unnatural and wild, the eyes of madness,
the incommunicable gaze of any one sooner than the half-veiled,
love-lighted sweetness of the orbs of Lucy Acton.

"I asked you when you first came in here to see me what you mean to do
with me," she exclaimed in a voice so strained and high, so entirely
lacking in its native music that her father, had she been unseen, would
not have recognised the tones as his child's.

"And I answered, I will marry you," he replied.

"That is no answer, sir," she cried. "You have basely and cruelly
stolen me from my home. I command you to return me to my father! Is
this your gratitude for his goodness to you and the affectionate regard
he has for Sir William Lawrence, who will be more shocked than even
Captain Acton by your unnatural, ignoble, treacherous conduct? Home
cannot be far, the ship has not sailed many miles. Return me at once,
sir! Ships must be in sight, any one of which will put me ashore. If
you detain me, if you carry me I know not where in the hope of my
marrying you, you will drive me mad, as I nearly am mad now," and when
she spoke these words, she delivered a wild, shrieking laugh, baring
her teeth by such strenuous elongation of her lips as left them ashen;
and the tragic quality of that ringing dreadful laugh was heightened by
the absence of the faintest stroke of merriment in her features.

"You are wrong, madam," he said, with an appearance of respect, and
even of sympathy colouring the tender voice he employed. "There is
no ship in sight. If there were she would probably prove an enemy's
cruiser which must end my dream of happiness by our consignment to a
French prison. You are in the hands of a man who loves you, who adores
you, who is indeed taking his chance of the gibbet to win you. Trust
in me. As my wife you shall be faithfully returned to your father, who
will not condemn an action which merely anticipates the sanction I was
looking forward to when he gave me command of this ship, and brought me
by this stroke of goodness closer to you."

"You will return me," she said. "You are not in earnest. This is a bold
and awful act of treachery attempted merely to test me. Marry you! Send
me back to my father at once whilst my home is at hand, or you will
discover that instead of having won a wife, you have driven a girl into
a madhouse."

Her wild look, the extraordinary change by dramatisation of the eyes
which she held in their soft brilliance fastened upon him, her raised,
painful, indescribable voice, her attitude, the hue of her face, might
well have suggested to him that her threat was no idle one, that being
a young woman of exquisite sensibility she might be so wrought by
his inhuman conduct as to lose her mind, her delicate intellect would
stagger into madness under the cruel blow he had dealt her in the name
of love.

"You are not likely to go mad," he said, smiling at her, and his
handsome face with that smile lighting it up might have helped to
conquer any woman, though betrayed into the imprisonment of a ship's
cabin, and sailed away with into unknown regions, who in her heart of
hearts felt towards this man as Lucy Acton did. But not in the way that
Mr Lawrence had devised was the victory to be his.

"When am I to leave this ship?" she asked.

"Will you be seated?"

"No, sir. When am I to leave this ship?"

"You know, madam--Miss Acton--Lucy--_my_ Lucy--that I am a man of
broken fortunes. I have struggled hard to retrieve the past, but the
world is full, and I have been unable to find room in it. You came in
my way. I adored your beauty, and worshipped you for your character.
You would not accept my hand, but I felt in my secret soul that I was
not indifferent to you--nay, that if I could advance higher claims than
those of a broken lieutenant and a man with the reputation of being
a gambler and a drunkard, you would have listened to me, you would
have consented. Nor would your father have objected, for he loves our
service, and his partiality for Sir William would have helped me. I
determined to win you, no matter the machinery I might set in motion.
I was determined to escape the horrible trouble of bankruptcy, and
the intolerable menace of a debtor's gaol, by carrying this ship to a
port and there selling her and her cargo through the agency of a man
who is known to me, and with the money thus got, I mean to pay off all
my creditors in England, and return with you as my wife, assured of
Captain Acton's forgiveness for your sake, and equally assured of his
approval, as it is my intention to hoist the flag of honour as high as
my father has mastheaded it, to be a gentleman, to live as a gentleman,
and to be deemed by the part I hope to play in the drama of life,
worthy of being the husband of Lucy Acton, and the son-in-law of her
gallant, generous, noble-hearted father."

She listened to him with the immobility of a ship's figurehead. No
astonishment at his extraordinary revelation of intention varied the
expression of her face which remained as it was when she shrank from
him. Truly a wonderful face, the face of an actress of supreme genius,
the face of the inheretrix of the surprising, most excellent art of her
mother, the famous Kitty O'Hara. Still did she keep bare her beautiful
teeth, still did the tension through the elongation of her sweet lips
hold them bloodless, her eyes had lost in their expression their lovely
quality of brooding. They stared, and the stare was that of madness.
Her colour was gone. Apparently this delicate, fascinating, lovable,
gentle girl, possessed powers of will and intellect which dominated
Nature herself in her; and even as it is known of some, that they have
been capable of arresting the pulsation of their heart and yet live, so
obviously in this lady was an influence, a passion, a very wizardry of
determination, which suffered her to drive the blood from her cheek,
to narrow the eyelid till the eye had lost its familiar seeking and
dwelling look, till the mouth took the form that was to convey the
intention of the artist.

Her only reply to his speech was (as though she had not attended to his
meaning), "Are you going to keep me a prisoner in this cabin?"

"For a day or two only, madam," he answered, with his face flushed with
disappointment, for he had hoped his candour would have produced a very
different effect. "But I may tell you frankly that Mr Eagle and the
crew know that you are on board, and I should have played my part ill
had I not provided that nothing you can say, no entreaties that you can
make, will persuade them that your elopement is not voluntary."

"Oh, sir, I had never thought you a villain!"

"You shall never find me one!" he cried with impetuosity. "But I am to
win you, and will you tell me the poet or the philosopher who has ever
spoken of the strategies employed in love as villainy?"

She continued to stare at him. Her figure still seemed to shrink as
though in her first recoil when he tried to take her hand. Her face
then suddenly underwent a change, her mouth relaxed what in homely
features might have been called its wild grin; she frowned; her eyes
took an unsettled look. There was something in her countenance that
could hardly have failed to arrest the attention of any one who had
a tolerable acquaintance with the insane. Mr Lawrence seemed to see
nothing but Lucy Acton in her beauty.

"You have stolen me from my home, sir," she exclaimed in a piteous,
almost whining voice, "and I am without clothes except the dress that
I am wearing, and they will soon be in rags, which will flutter if I
begin to dance."

"I am thankful to hear you speak of dancing. If ever your clothes
should become rags and flutter to the measures of your feet, your
beauty will still make them a finer garment, at least in my sight, than
the apparel of royalty in state. But you shall not want for clothes,"
he said, speaking in his gentlest voice, which, as he held command
over fine vocal powers that rendered him at the piano, or at any other
instrument, a sweet and engaging and manly singer, would have been
found soothing by any ear that had not Lucy Acton's to hear with. "Your
dress will last you till our arrival, and then you shall have plenty;
whatever your choice selects you may already call your own."

She delivered the same wild, screaming laugh which had before filled
the cabin with its insane music, and said, dropping her note into one
of plaintiveness, whilst she extended her skirt with both hands as
though she was about to make a step or two in a dance: "Think of poor
Lucy Acton in rags! Think of the lady who was notable, before a liar
and a rogue stole her from her father, for her fine dresses and modish
hats and bonnets; oh, think of her"--she paused to sigh deeply--"in
rags, a prisoner in a ship owned by her father, who would kill the
wretch that tore her from his side!"

And thus speaking she turned to the bulkhead, and putting her arm
against it buried her face in her sleeve, and fell to sobbing so
piteously that you would have thought her poor little heart was broken.




CHAPTER XI

PRINCESS TATTERS


Mr Lawrence approached the figure of the young lady sobbing against
the bulkhead, and placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder. She shook
him off with a passionate convulsion of her whole form, which was full
of disgust, aversion, and contemptuous wrath. It was a masterpiece of
movement, eloquent in the highest possible degree of what she chose
him to believe was in her mind. Her mother, Mrs Kitty O'Hara, had
been famous for her artful strokes in this way. No actress surpassed
her, and few were the equals of Mrs O'Hara in the remarkable gift of
personification of passion by action.

Mr Lawrence drew back a step.

"Loving you as I do," he exclaimed softly, "loving me as I know you
do, my dearest girl, my sweet mistress, the sole star of my desire,
how must it grieve me to see you weeping, how much more that I am to
think those tears flow through me? But I have faith in time, in the
unconquerable quality of my love, and in the assurance of my soul, for
though I have descended to artifice to enable me to win you, pure gem
of your sex as you are, you do not despise me for my struggle. You
recognise and approve an effort which has cost me many little pangs;
for, dearest madam, my sweetest Lucy, 'tis all for love, and the world
would be lost for me if you denied me, if I did not win you."

She stayed her sobbing to exclaim in the high, strained notes she had
before spoken in: "Send me home, sir! send me back to my father! There
are ships about. You speak falsely if you say there are no ships. We
are still near my home. Do as I say before you drive me mad!"

She rounded from the bulkhead as she pronounced these words. Her eyes
seemed to be on fire; her cheeks glowed. Again she bared her teeth in
her wild, insane grin. She appeared transformed. He knew that certain
violent and heart-changing passions and emotions could so work in a
beautiful face as to make it look repulsive and devilish, such as
jealousy or criminal insult, but he never could have believed of Lucy
Acton that her loveliness could undergo the amazing transformation he
witnessed; for he did not think to recall that her mother had been a
great actress, and that this girl might have inherited perhaps the
finest side of her genius.

"There is no ship, I assure you, madam. They have my instructions on
deck to keep clear of any sail that heaves into sight, because I am not
the man to allow my dream of happiness to be dissolved by a Frenchman's
capture of this vessel. And what must we expect to find in these narrow
waters but the ships of the enemy intent upon easy captures, bloodless
prizes such as the _Minorca_ would make?"

For answer she threw herself down upon the deck. She fell as though in
a swoon, and lay motionless with her face buried once more in her arm
that now reposed upon the carpeted planks. Her tears or sobs assured
him that she had not fainted, and understanding that his wisest policy
would be to leave her to her thoughts, he cast an adoring look upon
the prostrate figure and quitted the cabin, slamming the door noisily
after him that she might know he was gone, but silently turning the
key outside, for it was not then his intention that she should go on
deck and meet the crew until the statement he had made to Mr Eagle had
passed in growling whispers through the men.

It was customary on board the _Minorca_, and doubtless in many other
ships carrying merchandise, for the mate to dine in the cabin with
the captain in his watch below, that is to say, when he had no duty
on deck. The second mate kept a look-out, and when the chief mate was
done, the second went below to dinner. If the mate had the watch during
the dinner-hour, he remained on deck until he was relieved by the
captain.

The cabin dinner-hour on board the _Minorca_ was one o'clock. When Mr
Lawrence first met Mr Eagle, and perceived that he was little superior
to a working hand before the mast, he had made up his mind to hold no
intercourse with him outside the absolute requirements of the ship's
routine. He had told him plainly that he desired to dine alone, and
that when the mate's duty kept him on deck he, Mr Lawrence, would
relieve him after he had finished his meal. This arrangement perhaps
secretly pleased Mr Eagle, even on the spot when it was first named,
for he easily witnessed in Mr Lawrence a man so out and away superior
to himself that he judged he would feel like taking a great liberty
every time he sat down with the master of the ship.

The dinner was served this day at one o'clock. The humpbacked steward
brought the dishes aft from the galley or caboose, as the little
cooking place used to be called. The ship had only just come out of
port, and she had brought with her a stock of fresh provisions, meat,
and vegetables, and the like, which would supply the cabin and the
forecastle with fresh messes for some days. Mr Lawrence had also caused
a couple of hen-coops to be filled with poultry.

In those times sailors lacked the addition of the harness cask and
bread barge, to the bitter wooden beef and the coarse worm-eaten
ship's biscuit which science and experience have contributed to the
scurvy-making fare which seamen are obliged to eat. Yet a sort of
provision was made to supplement the brine-hardened meat and the worms
of the sailor's bread. The captain of a man-of-war, for instance, at
sea, would breakfast on coffee, toast, potted beef and tongue, sliced
_à la_ Vauxhall. Whole legs of mutton were tinned.

Mr Lawrence sat down alone in the plain little cabin of the _Minorca_
on this the first day of the vessel's sailing, and upon the table were
placed by Paul a boiled fowl, a piece of boiled bacon, a round of cold
fresh beef boiled, a dish of sausages, and two or three dishes of
vegetables. Paul having already received instructions placed a tray
furnished for a meal beside his master on the table; and Mr Lawrence
cut some fowl and bacon, adding vegetables, and filled a small tumbler
with red wine, and then, stepping to the door of the berth in which
Lucy Acton was confined, he almost noiselessly inserted the key and
softly shot the latch, and resumed his seat, and Paul, bearing the tray
of food, knocked on the door, and receiving no reply entered, and the
motion of the ship upon a long, steady heave of swell slammed the door
to after him.

Mr Lawrence, with his back turned upon this cabin door, heard Lucy's
voice, but not what she said. If Paul answered her his voice was so
sunk by the awfulness of her presence, by all that she meant being
at sea, by all that she had typified to this forlorn vagrant when on
shore, that his accents were inaudible in the cabin.

After a few minutes he came out. He approached the cabin table and
stood close. His face wore a mingled look of astonishment and fear, and
he was very pale. He was as grotesque as something fanciful in a fairy
story, with his red hair, hump, long arms, rounded legs, and whilst he
stood he scratched himself as a monkey does. His chin was enormous, and
out of all proportion to his face.

"Is Miss Acton eating her dinner?"

"No, sir."

"What did she say to you?"

"Why, your honour, when I went in she looked at me and burst into a
laugh that turned my blood cold."

"She didn't know you to be the man that gave her the letter that
brought her here?"

"She didn't look as if she remembered me, your honour, and she said
nothing about it."

"What did she say?"

"Why, your honour, she says whilst I hold the tray, 'What are you?'
'I'm the ship's steward, your ledyship,' says I. 'Ay, but what else?'
says she. 'What forest was you caught in?' I didn't understand her,
sir, and didn't answer. 'Do you come from Africa?' says she, 'or have
you broke loose from a travelling wild beast show?'"

Mr Lawrence arched his eyebrows. Certainly he did not recognise the
sweet and sympathetic Lucy Acton in these questions.

"And then she says, frowning as though she'd up with a knife off the
tray and run it into me, 'What have you got there?' 'Your dinner, your
ledyship,' says I. 'Put it down upon the floor!' says she in a sort of
shriek, as if she was trying to sing. 'Don't you see I'm in tatters?
They've got me here who am a princess at home, and these are my rags
and all I've got,' says she, spreading her dress with her hands as
though she was goin' to skip. 'Beggars in rags feed on the floor:
they feed so. Anywhere's good enough for them. I've seen 'em sitting
on the edge of ditches eating. Put the food on the floor! That's how
princesses in tatters dine.' I did as I was ordered, your honour, and
came away."

"Go in presently and see if she's done, and ask if she'll have some
fruit pie or cake, and report if the tray is still on the deck."

"Yes, sir," answered Paul, who was not sailor enough to say, "Ay, ay,
sir," which should have been his speech.

Mr Lawrence was exceedingly thoughtful. What opinion he was arriving
at, whether he was beginning to think that the girl was really mad or
that she was merely acting with extravagant absurdity in the hope of
disgusting him, you could not have told by looking at his face.

In about ten minutes after Paul had made his report, Mr Lawrence told
him to knock on Miss Acton's cabin door and enter. This time the door
swung to and fro, and Mr Lawrence, who had turned in his seat to follow
the steward's movements, saw Miss Acton upon all fours upon the deck
with her face close to the tray, as though she was taking up the food
with her mouth. A swing of the vessel hove the door to its latch, and
hid the extraordinary picture.

A minute or two later Paul came out, shutting the door after him.

"I saw her," said Mr Lawrence. "She is on her hands and knees. What did
you say?"

"I asked her if she'd have some fruit pie or cake. She didn't look up
nor answer. She's chucked most of what I took in about the cabin."

"She has made no meal, then?"

"I couldn't tell, your honour. The piece of chicken is on the bed, and
I see the piece of bacon under it. I dunno what she was doin' with her
nose a-nuzzling of the tray as though she was a-smelling of the salt."

"Don't enter the cabin for half an hour. Then go in and clear up. And
if she speaks, make no answer, and take no notice of her, but clean up
the mess."

He left the table, and turned the key softly in Lucy's door, withdrew
it, and went on deck. The breeze that had blown the _Minorca_ out
of Old Harbour still sang in her shrouds, but with a fresh and a
stronger song. The sea ran in lines of brine which flashed friskily.
The mountainous clouds sailed down the blue heavens with the solemn
majesty of line-of-battle ships draped in sun-empearled cloth from
truck to waterway. The bluff-bowed barque was darting foam from her to
right and left as she thrust through the streaming waters and rolled
with dignity, slowly to leeward and yet more slowly to windward as she
brought the violet shadowed cavities of her canvas to the wind. The
hens were noisy in their coops, and cocks crew. The sound of waters
broken and in motion was musical. The shadows of the rigging slided
gently to and fro over the wide breadth of white planks. The men in the
picturesque garb of the merchant sailor of that day, some of them in
striped pantaloons flowing to the shoe, some in short-cut blue jackets,
and most of them in round hats, were distributed over several parts of
the ship. Mr Eagle walked the weather side of the quarterdeck. In reply
to Mr Lawrence's question, he said that nothing had been in sight and
nothing was in sight. This Mr Lawrence verified by a searching sweep of
his gaze round the horizon, and Mr Eagle went below into the cabin to
eat his dinner.

When he was there he bade Paul go forward and tell Mr Pledge that
dinner awaited him. This privilege was Pledge's because, though he was
the ship's boatswain and also her carpenter, he kept watch and headed
the starboard division of the crew as second mate.

He was a tall, lank man, rather knock-kneed, with a long neck, and,
which was very unusual in those days, his chin was garnished with a
quantity of straggling reddish hair. His face looked as though it had
been put together without much judgment. His nose, which was broken,
was not in line; his mouth was somewhat on one side, one eyebrow was
raised and the other depressed. His eyes were small, of a deep, moist,
soft blue. He had served in the American Navy, and had much to tell
about Yankee captains and commodores. He was dressed in the garb of the
common sailor, and it is not wonderful that Mr Lawrence should decline
to meet him at table, which, if it did not make their footing equal,
must bring them into relations the fastidious, haughty, handsome naval
officer would regard in an uncommon degree objectionable.

He entered the cabin and took his place. Mr Eagle at the foot of the
table carved the boiled beef. When they were fairly under way with
their dinner Paul went forward, and the two men were alone in the
cabin, out of hearing of Mr Lawrence's ears through the open skylight
if they suppressed their voices, equally out of hearing of the inmate,
under lock and key, of the captain's cabin.

Though Mr Lawrence had communicated the intelligence of the girl being
on board and of his holding sealed orders from Captain Acton in
confidence to Mr Eagle, the sensations excited in this plain and acid
sailor by the extraordinary, astounding, and unexpected revelations had
filled him to bursting point with a fever and passion for giving the
news. In short, the man's mind was much too small to retain what had
been poured into it, and of course it overflowed. To whom other than
Tom Pledge could he speak? Pledge and he had sailed in Captain Acton's
employ for two or three voyages; they were friends, and visited each
other ashore where each had a little cottage and a wife. So after a
careful survey of the skylight, which lay open just above the table,
and a cautious look round, Mr Eagle said: "Tom, did you observe me and
the Capt'n walkin' up and down this morning in conversation?"

"Ay," answered Pledge, "and I wondered what there was between ye to
keep ye so busy in talk."

Mr Eagle again looked up at the skylight, and said as softly as his
gruff voice permitted: "What d'ye think, Tom, of our sailin' under
sealed orders from Captain Acton which the Captain's to read in
latitood twenty north and longitood thirty west? The contents of them
sealed orders aren't exactly known to the Capt'n, but he told me from
what Capt'n Acton let fall, he believed that the ship was to be
carried to another port, and there handed over to a Spanish gent as was
a-waitin' to receive her, and that the whole ship's company was to be
discharged and sent 'ome at Captain Acton's expense and the wages they
had agreed for trebled. What d'ye say to that?"

Pledge, who chewed slowly as a cow the cud, watched his companion
steadfastly, his temples throbbing with the action of his jaws, and
said: "Do you believe it, John?"

"So help me God, yes, then, as I sit here," answered Mr Eagle.

"Who is to work the ship for him?" asked Pledge. "For you may depend
upon it that if the crew are to be carried away to an unbeknown place,
they'll all go below to a man, for Jack's as good as his master when it
comes to his having to do something which he didn't agree for."

"I put it as you do, though in different words," said Mr Eagle, "and he
answered that Captain Acton's orders must be obeyed, that the crew's
refusal would be mutiny, and that if they wouldn't work the ship
to a port, where he could ship a fresh crew, he'd heave a-back the
main-topsail yard and wait for a man-o'-war to come along."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Mr Pledge, now looking slightly startled,
for he was an old sailor, he well understood the despotic powers of
the captain of a ship, and he readily perceived that Mr Lawrence's
threats in case of refusal by the crew were to be carried out.

"But that's not all," continued Mr Eagle, with another glance at the
skylight. "It ain't even 'arf all, and I think you'll agree with me
that the rummiest part's got to come."

"Another slice, John!" said Pledge, pushing his plate, and cutting a
big chunk from a loaf.

"Who d'ye think's aboard?"

"Who?"

"Why, Captain Acton's daughter, Miss Lucy Acton!"

"What's she a-doing' of _here_?" enquired Pledge, pulling away his
plate heavy with meat and fat.

"She's a-running away with Mr Lawrence!"

"Or is Mr Lawrence a-running away with _her_?"

"According to his yarn," said Eagle with sour solemnity, "they've
rooned away with each other."

"Where is she?" asked Pledge.

Eagle dumbly pointed to the Captain's cabin. "It's an artfully laid
plot," said he, "if the Capt'n's to be believed. She's supposed to be
locked up agin her will. By-and-by she's to go among the sailors and
swear that she's been carried off by violence. This is to make her
father believe that she never consented to run away, as she don't want
to lose the fortune as 'ud otherwise come to her."

"Wasn't there some talk a bit of a time past of him a-courting of her?"
said Pledge.

"Why, yes, now that you remind me, I recollect."

"Well, John," said Pledge, "it's not for me nor the likes of me to
interfere in such a galavantin' job as this. If the young lady's been
run away with with her own consent, it's not for me, I says, to pay any
attention to what's 'appening. People who fall in love with each other
and are objected to by their relatives will sometimes carry on their
business in a way as might make pious, respectable old parients feel
their hair standing short up on their heads. I've lived long enough in
this 'ere world to descover that no good ever comes to a man by messing
about in other people's consarns. But when it comes to this ship being
navigated to another port than the one agreed for, why, naturally
you set me a-thinking, John. I don't know nothing about them sealed
orders you refer to, but it seemed strange to me when I heard of it,
and it's strange to me still, that Mr Lawrence should have been chosen
to command this vessel when the berth was yourn by right of sarvice.
Was it because Captain Acton couldn't be sure of your a-executing his
wishes? What d'ye think yourself, John? You've got to consider it's
two naval officers acting together; they know each other's mind, and I
guess that when Captain Acton chose Mr Lawrence to take charge of his
ship he knew that he was in the 'ands of a man who'd listen to no talk,
who was used to man-o'-war's discipline, and would act if it came to
having to shoot men down so as to gain his ends."

Mr Eagle, whose views were undoubtedly in accord with Mr Pledge's,
viewed his companion in acid silence.

Just about this time the steward Paul came down the companion steps
with the cabin key which he had received from Mr Lawrence. He took
no notice of the two men seated at the table, but stepped to Lucy's
door, knocked, paused, inserted the key, and passed in. He emerged
in less than two minutes holding the tray that was covered literally
with broken victuals, and locking the door was about to step up the
companion ladder when Mr Pledge said: "Who've you got locked up in that
there cabin?"

"You must ask the Captain that, sir, if you want to know," Paul
answered.

"You dog! D'ye know I'm second mate? Answer me, or I'll flay ye before
sundown," said Pledge, turning scarlet.

"I durs'nt," whined Paul. "I've the Captain's orders to keep my mouth
shut," and he hastened up the steps.

He was followed by Mr Eagle, who thought it about time to relieve the
Captain.

Mr Pledge had eaten his last morsel of cheese and was leaving the
table, when his attention was arrested by a knocking on Lucy's door,
accompanied by the cries of a female; but what she said he could not
hear. So Mr Pledge, taking some steps, stood close to the door.

The voice of Lucy within cried out: "Is anybody there?"

"I'm here, ma'am," answered Pledge.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Thomas Pledge, acting second mate of this 'ere ship, ma'am."

"Open this door!"

"I can't, ma'am, it's locked," and in proof of his assurance, Pledge
turned the handle and shook the door.

"I demand to be set at liberty!" cried Lucy, in the strained, wild
voice that had frightened the hunchback steward. "The villain who
commands this ship lured me into her by pretending that Captain Acton,
who is my father and the owner of the vessel, lay seriously injured
through an accident, and wished to see me. I demand to be returned to
my home! I have been stolen away by a base artifice. The crew of this
ship are the servants of my father, and they would know his wish must
be to recover me, and your duty, and Mr Eagle's, and the men's, is to
turn the ship for Old Harbour, and surrender me up to my father. If
this is not done I shall go mad. I am mad now. The wretch who by a lie
has seduced me into this vessel, has driven me crazy."

And with that she fell to singing, from which she broke off after a few
moments to burst into a shrieking, lunatic laugh.

Thomas Pledge's mind was of a very common order. He had gathered from
Eagle that the girl was to pretend a situation of acute distress, that
when she was married her father should not hold her responsible for her
elopement. Her words might have carried weight, and even conviction,
but for the song and loud unmeaning laugh that closed them, in which
Mr Pledge saw nothing but acting, not having experience of insanity in
any shape or form. And shouting through the door, "I'll go and report
to the Captain, ma'am, that you're locked up and want to get out," he
turned, with the intention of making for the companion ladder, when he
saw Mr Lawrence standing a few paces abaft the steps, tall, stern,
frowning, his face fierce with the strain, and indeed almost fury, of
the attention with which he had bent his ears to catch the syllables of
Lucy through the bulkhead.

Mr Pledge started like a guilty thing surprised.

"What are you doing at that cabin door, sir?" asked Mr Lawrence. "I
do not enquire what you are doing in this cabin, for, according to
the custom of this ship, and perhaps of others in your Service, you
take your meals here. But what are you doing at that door, conversing
through it with the lady inside?"

"The lady thumped and I went to see what was the matter, sir," said Mr
Pledge, awed in his old man-o'-war instincts by the over-bearing, I may
say, the overwhelming demeanour of Mr Lawrence, which was to his words
as the thunder of the explosion is to the message of the firearm.

"Has Mr Eagle been talking to you about the subject of our conversation
this morning?" said Mr Lawrence.

Now, Tom was too sound a shipmate to betray John. He answered doggedly,
as though Mr Lawrence as well as himself must be aware that he was
trespassing on ground he had no right to tread: "We yarned of course
together. We've sailed together afore, and can always find something
to talk about, sir."

Mr Lawrence seemed to read the man's thoughts. Unscrupulous as was
this Naval gentleman, he was an extremely clever fellow. Preserving
a severe austerity of countenance, a demeanour upon which the word
discipline was writ large, he exclaimed: "It is not my intention to ask
you if Mr Eagle has broken his faith with me and communicated to you
the confidence I imparted to him this morning. You are, sir, by virtue
of your rank aboard the ship free of this cabin, and it is therefore
desirable that I should trust you. The lady in yonder berth is Miss
Lucy Acton, who consented to elope with me, providing it should be
understood by all on board that she was being kidnapped or stolen from
her home. That this should appear, it was arranged between us that she
should be locked up as though she were a prisoner, and then in a day or
two I should enlarge her, and she would go amongst the crew and speak
of my cunning and stratagem, and her desperate lot in being torn from
her father's home. All which would in due course reach her father's
ears, and mollify his wrath at her giving me her hand in the existing
state of my fortunes, and preserve to her the fortune she must inherit
as Captain Acton's only child. Now, sir," continued Mr Lawrence in his
frowning, imperious way, "this is submitted to you in confidence, and
it is manifestly my wish that some of the crew should credit her story
that they may give the evidence we desire when they are called upon to
tell what they know!"

"Well, sir," answered Mr Pledge, pleased by the skipper's candour and
condescension, "it's not for a plain sailor man like me to put his hand
into such a tar-bucket as this. I know my bit, and I'm a-willing for to
do it, and if the hands get to hear the story of the lady it'll come
from her or from that there humpbacked steward who waits upon her, and
not from me, for I'm for minding my own affairs, and sticking like a
barnacle to a ship's bottom to the ondertakings I enter into."

He said this with a grave nod of the head, that the significance of
the closing passage of his speech might be mastered, for it was then
running through his mind that more lay behind the presence of Lucy
Acton on board than Mr Lawrence suspected he knew: by which he referred
to the sealed orders.

Mr Lawrence made no answer, and Mr Pledge seeing that he was to
go, went on deck by the only exit, namely, the companion ladder.
Immediately after he had passed through the hatch the steward Paul
descended.

"Did you clear away the mess from Miss Acton's berth?" asked Mr
Lawrence.

"Yes, sir."

"The lady, I presume, ate nothing?"

"I couldn't see that she had, your honour."

"When you have cleared this table, go forward and tell the cook to
cut a plate of the most delicate beef and chicken sandwiches he can
contrive. Get a bottle of red wine and a glass, and be ready to carry
the refreshments to the lady when I've left her."

He approached Miss Acton's door. Lucy was seated on a locker under a
window, three of which embellished the stern of the _Minorca_. The
ocean as the ship lightly depressed her stern, was visible through this
window, a blue field decked with flowers of foam that rose and sank.
The large glazed space filled the cabin with light, which trembled with
the pulse of the white wake streaming fan-wise, and with the shivering
of the sunlight into splinters of diamond brilliance by the fretful
motions of the breeze-brushed waters.

Miss Lucy Acton sat with her eyes veiled by downcast lids fixed in a
stare as lifeless as the dead upon her hands, which lay clasped in her
lap. So motionless was she, you would have said she slept. Much of the
lovely bloom that always gave to her lineaments a choice sweetness
was absent, but not the less did as much of her face as was visible
express its refined and delicate beauty.

When Mr Lawrence entered she did not raise her eyes, nor whilst he
stood looking at her did she discover by any sort of movement the least
knowledge of his presence.

"Lucy!" he said, speaking the word in the wooing voice of love.

She made no sign. He repeated her name as though startled by her
immobility in which an element of tragedy might have been found in the
singular, unwinking fixity of her stare upon her hands. He stepped to
her side, and peered closely into her face and listened to hear if she
breathed. Oh yes: she breathed, she was alive. But though he put his
face so close to her's that she might have felt his breath upon her
cheek, her form did not move by so much as might indicate the passage
of a thrill, her eyes remained as steadfast in their gaze as though
they were painted.

He withdrew a step, and exclaimed: "Lucy, why will you not speak to me?
Why will you not look at me? You know that all this is done in the holy
name of love, and God who knows me knows that I would not cause you a
pang, that your beautiful eyes should not be shadowed by a tear drawn
by any action of mine if I could have believed that loving me as I know
you do, that loving you as you know I do, you would have come to me at
the summons of my passion, and hand in hand with me as my wife, taken
your chance of all that might have followed."

The emotion of an impassioned heart, the melody of a rich and manly
voice were in his words, and no man, though he should hate the fellow
for his wrong-doing, could have doubted his sincerity whilst listening
to his speech. Add to this his superb figure, his handsome face glowing
with feeling, the hereditary dignity of his demeanour; but these were
expressions of his meaning which she would not raise her eyes to
witness.

All on a sudden and when the silence that followed had not lasted ten
seconds, she sprang to her feet with a shriek; she dashed her hands to
her face, she rushed as though pursued to the other end of the cabin,
and there crouched with her face to the bulkhead, hidden in her hands;
and thus she stood rocking herself sideways, moaning: "Why am I not
sent home? Why am I here a prisoner? What will my father think has
become of me? Home, home, home! In the hands of a man that dare rob his
employer! At the mercy of one who of all Captain Acton's friends and
acquaintances should feel the most deeply obliged to him." She wheeled
round and out of her incommunicable attitude and language of distress,
and said, looking at him vacantly with a cold, pale smile: "Are you Mr
Lawrence, the son of Sir William Lawrence, Captain Acton's friend?"

"You know, madam, that I am," he answered, bowing with graceful
suavity, and with a light smile that was like saying, "I understand the
import of your tactics, and am willing to wait and watch you."

"I know, sir," she exclaimed with the vehement indignation and contempt
conveyed by that perfection of art which conceals art and which is a
gift of intuition beyond the reach of those not born with it, "that Sir
William Lawrence has a son, and that he was dismissed from the Navy for
a brutal, drunken outrage of which he alone, of all the gentlemen and
officers in the Service, was capable."

He coloured brightly at this, and his frown was as though a shadow had
come between him and the light that revealed his face.

"I know," she continued, still preserving her accent of scorn and
viewing him with eyes that did not seem to be her's, so did she
contrive to diminish the breadth of the beauty of the lids, so did she
manage to look passions and feelings which the memory of her oldest
friend could never have recalled as vitalising her brooding half-hooded
gaze: "I know that this man came ashore and lived upon his father who
was poor, and drank and gambled until his name provoked nothing but a
shrug, and that one day in a fit of pity, for which doubtless he has
asked God's pardon, Captain Acton, who loves Admiral Lawrence, gave
his poor creature of a son command of a ship. This I know," she said,
letting her eyes fall suddenly from his face down upon her fingers,
which she seemed to count as she proceeded. "But I had always supposed
that there was some spirit of goodness left in Mr Walter Lawrence. I
believed that though he might gamble and drink and live in idleness
upon the bounty of his father, he with all his imperfections was a
man incapable of outraging the feelings of a young girl, incapable
of betraying the generous confidence of one who stood to him as a
warm-hearted friend. Can _you_ be that Mr Lawrence?" she said, peering
at him in such a peculiar fashion, with such archness of contempt
that a spectator, short-sighted and at a little distance, would have
supposed she was looking at the handsome fellow through an eye-glass.
"Oh, I am going mad to suppose it--mad to think it possible!"

She flashed her hands to her forehead, sobs seemed to shake her, she
turned on her heel and went to the big stern window, and looked out
upon the sea.

He seemed to have been struck dumb by the fury of her candour. His
teeth were fastened upon his under lip, his cheek had grown pale.

"Will you leave this cabin," she said without turning, "and acquaint
the first ship you meet with that you have a young gentlewoman on
board who desires to be set ashore in England? I do not ask you," she
continued, with the cutting sneer that was on her lip as plain in her
voice as though her face was visible to him, "to return this ship and
her contents to their lawful owner. But if you suppose that you are
going to gain me by keeping me a prisoner in this den, if you imagine
that all the horror which my soul can feel for a wicked, unscrupulous
man is not likely to be with me in all thoughts of you that come to
me with your presence, or fill me with madness when I am alone, then
better for you if you should go to the stack of muskets which is in the
cabin, load one and shoot yourself."

And clapping her hands as though she was in the box of a theatre
ravished by some transcendently fine performance, she once more
delivered herself of the maniac laugh which had curdled Paul's blood
and which though ringing from lips, though proceeding from a face
hidden from him, seemed to strike Mr Lawrence as nothing which she
had spoken had, and save but for the swaying of the ship he stood as
motionless as a statue facing another statue whose back was turned to
him.




CHAPTER XII

MR LAWRENCE REFLECTS


When Mr Lawrence found that nothing he could say, nothing he could
implore, nothing he could entreat his companion to forgive, provoked
Lucy into looking round from the window through which she gazed at the
sea, nor caused her to alter her posture, which curiously suggested
with dramatic art that she was alone, that the man was gone, that
she was engrossed by thoughts of her own, he withdrew. After closing
the door he seemed to hesitate over turning the key, but turned it
nevertheless and pocketed it as before.

The cabin was empty. Mr Pledge was again superintending work forward.
Mr Eagle kept the look-out. This was the ship's first day from home.
The watches had not been set, and it would be "all hands" with the
ship's company until the second dog-watch came round. The vessel swayed
on the heave of the swell with the ponderosity, you would have looked
for in one of her mould. She creaked in every timber. She pitched
rapidly, albeit the blue afternoon hollow was very shallow, but the
sullenness of the sturdy round bows was in her longwise motion. If
Lucy meant to be sea-sick she was neglecting her chance, for here was
movement more fitted to discompose the land-going stomach than the
lofty billow that is swung by the storm. But so far this sweet and
amazing young lady had proved herself as good a sailor as Mr Lawrence
himself.

Whilst he stood in reflection at the cabin table, the steward Paul came
down the steps bearing a tray of refreshments so prettily decorated
as to prove that the ship's cook had been chosen with judgment. The
pyramid of sandwiches might have kindled a light in the dulled eye
of one lying oppressed with nausea. In addition were a plate of cold
tongue, a small plate of brawn, with two or three other delicacies. On
the tray stood a bottle of red wine and a tumbler. Mr Lawrence told
Paul, handing him the key as he gave him the directions, to take the
tray to Miss Acton, place it on the table in perfect silence, and quit
the cabin, making no answer if she spoke to him. When this was done and
the key received by Mr Lawrence, he took a tumbler from a rack out of
the skylight and entered the berth which under the name of "sick-bay"
had been fitted up for his own use. Here he contrived to find a bottle
of brandy, a small caulker of which without water he swallowed.

This interior presented a very inhospitable look; its rough-hewn bunks
might have been intended for the accommodation of prisoners. The
deck was without carpet. Indeed the only colour or warmth which this
melancholy hole presented to the eye or the mind was to be found in
such wearing apparel as swung from hooks, in Mr Lawrence's sea-chest,
in the nautical instruments, in the shelves with their little burden of
tin box, a few books, and so forth.

He sat down upon his chest, folded his arms and sank into thought. Had
he needed a motto for his reflections he might have found one in the
Duke of Gloster's speech:


    "Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
    Was ever woman in this humour won?"


He had been so transported by his scheme for winning the beautiful
young girl whom he worshipped that his survey of the vast canvas of his
intentions was in reality restricted to but one corner of it, so that
he saw only a little of the whole truth. First, and certainly foremost,
he had counted upon her love for him, which, however carefully the
secret might have been kept by her, was witnessed by him every time
they had met, and flourished as a conviction in him. He had looked for
her forgiveness for the rashness, and, it may be added, the cruelty of
his conspiracy of love, and he never could have believed that in the
sweet image of the girl dwelt such a character as she had exhibited
since, after inveigling her on board into his cabin, he confessed that
the story which had brought her to him was a lie, and with a face
filled with the light of worship for her avowed his intentions.

In some strokes of this character he might have indeed believed that
she was merely acting, but other features had impressed him to such
a degree that, though he was determined--not yet, perhaps--to accept
the suspicion, or the persuasion of his own opinion, he, behind the
darkest curtains of his heart, felt a fear that his stratagem would
force her reason from her brain, that she would go mad when she clearly
understood that the ship was bound to Rio to be feloniously sold there,
when she realised that she had been ruthlessly torn from her father,
from her home, and all that she loved, and that her name must ever
bear the stain, happen what might, of Mr Lawrence's ignoble feat of
abduction.

But as a rule men who act with excessive imprudence are endowed with a
quality of self-complacency which enables them to persuade themselves
that "it's all right," and to this belief they cling until time and
experiment prove that it's all wrong; whereupon their moral being falls
to pieces, they become mean, cheap, and weak, and bewail their folly
under the name of misfortune.

Mr Lawrence having meditated awhile, rose from his chest, unclasped his
arms, and whistling softly the familiar air of "Wapping Old Stairs,"
quitted his naked, forlorn, inhospitable berth.

As he advanced towards the companion steps the hatch was darkened by
the figure of Mr Eagle, who, on catching sight of the Captain, cried:
"A sail broad on the larboard bow, sir!"

Mr Lawrence rushed back to his cabin, whence he took from a shelf a
telescope of uncommon power for those times, the gift of no less a
man than Captain Acton after intelligence had been brought to him of
a particular heroic piece of behaviour on the part of Mr Lawrence.
With this telescope he sprang on to the deck, and levelling it at the
sea over the lee bow, viewed in the lenses the picture of a large
man-of-war with two white bands broken by gun-ports. She was far away,
yet not so distant but that a hand's breadth of her black side could
be seen shivering in mirage betwixt the lower white band and the
wool-white tremble of water running aft. All the men of the _Minorca_
were on deck at work here and there. They looked at Mr Lawrence as with
levelled telescope he stood on the quarterdeck viewing the distant
battleship. They all belonged to Old Harbour Town; all had heard of
him, and a few knew him by sight. They were members of a group of
inhabitants who felt that the presence amongst them of a man whose
sea story though brief was brilliant did them and Old Harbour Town
honour, and they regarded him as he stood with the glass at his eye, as
though they should say, "Yon's a man-o'-war, and she may be a Johnny;
but there's the Jack who will know what to do with her." And, may be,
some of those who thus reflected cast their eyes upon the figure of
Mr Eagle, who stood near enough to the Captain to enable the sight to
master the details of a very striking contrast.

"Hoist the ensign!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence.

Mr Eagle, breaking into a run, sent aloft at the peak of the barque the
meteor flag of Old England.

"British!" said Mr Lawrence in a moment, as though speaking to
himself, "as I thought," holding the man-o'-war in view in his
telescope, and marking the slow soaring of the British flag to the
gaff-end of the two-decker.

The Captain's exclamation had been overheard, and the gaze of the
Merchant seamen of the _Minorca_ was fixed upon the figure of one of
those fabrics which could never light up with their cloud of sail the
confines of the sea or the nearer fields of water, without exciting
a thrill of interest or causing the heart to leap up in momentary
transport of patriotic pride. She was under fore and mizzen jury
topmasts. With the main all was well, and the spars lifted their canvas
to the moon-like royal without hint of wreck or suggestion of wound.
Either she had been in action and had come away crippled, or had been
in trouble on a lee-shore or amongst rocks. And still she painted a
stately and a swelling picture upon the blue sky past her. The sun was
westering; his yellow light flung upon the distant canvas the delicate
sheen of fine silk. From the hand's breadth of black side under the
lower white band, the stately roll to leeward flashed lightning-sparks
from the wet, and, as she slightly pitched, the upheaval of her bows
exhibited at the fore-foot the snow-like crumbling of foam. She passed
in grandeur and in tranquillity.

All the hearts aboard the _Minorca_, British as they were, must wish
that that gallant show might not fall in with something superior to
herself in weight of broadside and perfect in equipment aloft. Though
every man felt that the sequel of such a rencountre must be the
inevitable one: that is the sailing of the jury-rigged two-decker in
company with a powerful prize both bound, let us suppose, for the sweet
and lovely waters of Plymouth Haven.

Mr Eagle approached Mr Lawrence, who turned upon him suddenly.

"The sails of that ship," cried the Captain, "must have been in sight
some time before you reported her. When I came on deck she was hull up.
Is this your idea of keeping a look-out?"

"I reported her as soon as I saw her, sir."

"Wasn't she reported from the masthead?"

"Yes, sir, and then I saw her and reported her to you."

"And this is the way that a look-out is to be kept aboard this ship,"
said Mr Lawrence with a biting insolence of scorn, and that sort of
pity which enrages more than kicks or execrations. "If you don't
hold to the instructions you receive from me, sir, you'll soon find
yourself eating black bread in a French dungeon with straw from a sty
for a bed."

He made a step to the ship's side, and the mate without answer slunk
away to leeward.

About this time the breeze began to freshen. The horizon slightly
thickened with some windy change in the atmosphere and with the shadow
of the evening. The _Minorca_ under all plain sail heeled into the
white smother of spume alongside, and as she sprang crushed the surge
with her round weather-bow till the bright brine sometimes leapt like a
fountain athwart the forecastle. Mr Lawrence watched her behaviour with
attention, and often sent a look at the creaming road of wake which was
so brilliant and long that, as the shadow deepened, the tail of it was
lost to view.

In the second dog-watch the crew were mustered aft and divided into
watches. It was tolerably certain that down to this moment no hint had
found its way amongst them that their course would presently be for any
other port in the world than Kingston.

Mr Lawrence supped alone as he had dined alone, and, as he intended,
to breakfast alone. At sea the last meal which in the old forecastle
days consisted of black tea and ship's biscuit was invariably called
supper. At six o'clock Mr Lawrence sat down to the last meal of the
day. A tray for the inmate of the Captain's cabin was prepared. It was
furnished with tea and milk (for the ship was but one day out, and
though she wanted a cow she could not need at least a day's supply of
milk), bread and butter, slices of ham and biscuits. When the steward
came from the cabin Mr Lawrence said: "Did the young lady speak?"

"No, sir."

"What is she doing?"

"She is pulling feathers and other stuff out of her bed which she has
drawed from its place on to the deck, and she is sitting alongside of
it a-fluffing of the feathers over the cabin floor."

"Did she look at you when you entered?"

"She didn't seem as if she even saw me, your honour."

"Has she eaten anything, can you tell me?"

"When I fetched her tray last time, sir, I noticed that some sandwiches
and tongue was gone, and there was a little red wine in the bottom of
the tumbler, as though she had drunk some and left a drop."

"She has ripped up her mattress and is throwing the inside of it round
about her!" Mr Lawrence frowned, pursed his lip, and stared upon the
deck with a strange admixture of gloom and anger.

In truth there had come into his mind the remembrance of a person who
had fallen mad, and amongst the earliest indications of his insanity
was his tendency to tear up everything that would yield to the power of
his fingers, including his clothes.

"By-and-by," said he, "go in and clear the mess up. Take no notice of
her, nor heed her if she speaks. Then fetch the mattress from the upper
bunk in my cabin and place it on her bedstead."

He finished his supper in a very gloomy mood. His character has been
imperfectly drawn if it leaves upon the reader the impression that he
was no more than a gallant, handsome, hectoring scoundrel, a drunkard,
a liar, and a gambler. He was more than this, and better than this. In
him was a very great deal of honest, sturdy, British human nature, and
amongst those who saw the white skin of his character peeping through
the rags and tatters of his morals was the young lady whom he had
locked up in his cabin. Was he driving, had he driven her mad? This
was an awful thought to him, a figure, a presentment on the canvas of
his scheme which his utmost imagination never could have painted. He
was passionately fond of her. In truth he was risking his neck to
win her. His inmost sensibility as a man and as a gentleman was in
perpetual posture of recoil over the reflection that his hand it was
that had made this gently-nurtured, beautiful, adorable girl a prisoner
in a little ship that was rolling to a port in which she was to be
fraudulently sold. He thought of her in the lovely drawing-room of Old
Harbour House: the soft illumination of wax lights; the sweet incense
of flowers; the piano whose keys were accompanied by her own melodious
warblings; her little dog; all the comforts and luxuries which wealth
could provide her with; all that a tender-hearted and loving father
could endow his only child whom he loved with. And then he thought of
her torn from all this pleasantness and sweetness and elegance, so
robed that in a short period she must become beggarly to the eye; after
her father's hospitable and plentiful table, fed with the poor fare of
a common little ship.

For some time after he had closed his knife and fork he sat at table
shading and supporting his forehead with his hand, his elbow resting,
and deep thought was in his attitude. To one who knew his story he
submitted a picture for memory to cherish. Night was near, though not
yet come, but its shadow was upon the ship, and three or four stars
like little balls of quicksilver ran to and fro athwart the gleaming
black panes of the skylight glass. The hum of a steady breeze in the
stout shrouds, in the cat-harpings, in the drumming hollow of many
sails sounded like the strains of an organ muffled to the ear by the
walls of the church that holds it. The low thunder of the surge washing
past the ship was as constant as its accompaniment of the concert
of creakings, jarrings, shocks in bulkhead, rudder-post and strong
fastenings.

Mr Lawrence started suddenly, stood up, looked round him, and viewed
steadfastly for a space Lucy's cabin door. Then muttering to himself,
"To-morrow--to-morrow!" he made his way towards the deck.

He had half mounted the cabin ladder when he was brought to a stand by
a sound of voices, of men speaking hard by the companion-way.

"What beats all my goin' a-fishing," said Mr Thomas Pledge in a voice
which, in spite of its being subdued, and in spite of the noises of
the wind aloft, and of waters washing along the bends yearning and
seething, was distinctly audible to Mr Lawrence as he stood in the
shelter of the companion-way, "is this: this 'ere ship belongs to
Captain Acton. His purchase of her was square and above-board. Why
should he go behind his own back, in a manner of speaking, and put a
man that was an officer in the Royal Navy in charge to carry her to a
port, and sell her by stealth, as though she was a piece of plunder,
and the officer in charge ordered to 'and her over to a fence, which,
John, as of course you know, is the vulgar name for a man as receives
stolen goods? Why is the crew kept in ignorance of Captain Acton's
intention? There's no 'arm in a man a-selling of his own property. But
I says there is a good deal of 'arm in a man deceiving of sailors for
making them an offer to do something which he don't rightfully explain,
and which they'd decline to undertake if they'd been told the nature of
it."

"In all what you say I agree with you, Tom," answered Mr Eagle, "and I
should have thought that Captain Acton was the last man on this earth
to have behaved himself in such a way. For my part I have always found
him so straightforward that the needle ain't truer to the Pole than he
is to his rightful and honourable meaning."

"Ay," said Pledge, "but don't you forget that the needle swings, and
leaves the Polar mark points off."

"But he swings back again," said Mr Eagle, "and is true as God's law
allows him to be in every atom of steel that goes to the making of
him. Have you talked at all forrards about this here matter?"

"Not yet," was the reply.

"Well," said Mr Eagle, "I'm for leaving these 'ere coils on the pin
until the time comes for chucking the fakes down and lettin' go, by
which I mean I'm for waitin' until the Capt'n calls the 'ands aft and
reads to 'em the sealed orders he told me about. It'll be time enough
to speak up when we know what Captain Acton's instructions to him are."

"You may be right," said Pledge, "but I should oncommonly like to larn
what old Jim is a-going to say to this 'ere traverse." Meaning by old
Jim the oldest hand forward, and one who had served Captain Acton ever
since that retired Naval officer had commenced ship-owning.

At this point Mr Lawrence, who judged that as much had been said as was
likely to interest him, put his foot over the coaming and passed on to
the deck, walking, without heeding the presence of the two men, to the
binnacle stand. He inspected the compass, and then looked along the
deck. Only one figure was now visible, and he had started to stump the
planks in the true deep-sea look-out fashion.

It was, of course, as Mr Lawrence had foreseen. Eagle had betrayed Mr
Lawrence's confidence, and Pledge manifestly was thirsty to carry
the report into the forecastle. As this was a part of Mr Lawrence's
programme his mind made no other comment upon it than that he was
pleased to discover that honest John Eagle, as Captain Acton held
him, was a rogue who could not keep a secret although imparted by so
exalted a personage as the commander of a ship, and that in breaking
his promise the sour, shallow-minded mate was doing exactly what Mr
Lawrence wished.

The night came down in a heavy shadow that was not lightened by its
burden of stars. The foam of the sea looked as spectral as the faint
astral splashes in the velvet deeps on high through which sailed many
visionary shapes of cloud. A little time before it fell dark, and when
the soft, moist crimson of the sun that was set yet lurked in the
west, the steward Paul went aft with lanterns for the cabins occupied
by the Captain, the mate, and Miss Lucy Acton. The great cabin, or
living-room, was already lighted by two lanterns which swung from hooks
on either side the skylight fore-and-aft. The lanterns Paul bore were
small, of iron frames fitted with glass, and in them was consumed a
mesh which was fed with oil.

Mr Lawrence was in the act of passing from the cabin steps to his
berth when Paul, who had received the key from him, came out of the
interior tenanted by Lucy. He looked pale in the lantern light, ugly,
and grotesque, and his face wore an expression as though he had been
terrified.

"Have you hung up the light in Miss Acton's cabin?" said Mr Lawrence.

"Yes, sir."

"What is she doing?"

"She was lying on the mattress I took in."

"Did she speak?"

"No, sir. At least not at once."

"Has she ripped up the mattress?"

"I didn't see she 'ad, your honour."

"What next?"

"As I turned after 'anging the lantern up I found her stannin' behind
me with a knife in her hand; one of the knives I took in the tray,
and didn't miss when I cleared away. She says to me, speakin' through
her teeth like as though she was tryin' to talk whilst holding on to
something with her mouth, and in the strangest, thinnest voice I ever
heard in all my life, like when you're trying to file down the head of
a nail, 'What do you want here, you loathsome creature? You come fresh
from your forest. Go back before I kill you!' And she flourished the
knife which glittered in her 'and as though it was a-fire, on which I
ran out, sir."

It would have been difficult to tell what was in Mr Lawrence's mind
as he stood viewing Paul for some moments in silence, after that
arched-legged hunchback had ceased. He said in a voice without a
tremor, in tones as steady and collected as those in which he would ask
a man how he was or bid him good-morning: "Have you ever met with mad
people?"

"Yes, sir."

"What proof have they given you that they were mad?"

"A-tearin' up of their clothes and a-goin' about without shame. He was
a man called Micky Cruppin, sir. Another 'ud stop at every pool to wash
his feet. I knowed a man who wouldn't attend sarvice 'cos he said that
the devil always came in, and took a seat beside him. There was old
Mother Compton, who'd spit at a dog if he barked at her, who used to
do her washin' on the Sabbath, sayin' that she was too good to go to
church, and that the parson ought to be 'anged for having committed a
forgery where he last lived. And this she'd say of a new parson just as
she would of t'other who had gone afore him."

"Do you think Miss Acton mad?" said Mr Lawrence, speaking with an
effort, but determined to have an independent opinion and willing to
believe that the wretch who stood humped, pallid, and terrified before
him might be able to distinguish clearly what was obscured by his own
prejudices, wishes, and dread.

"Yes, sir, I do," was the answer, swiftly delivered, as is the
characteristic of conviction.

Without further speech Mr Lawrence passed into his cabin.

Till midnight he was frequently up and down. The mate in charge
rounding upon his heel would see the figure of the Captain, who might
not have long before gone below, rising and falling against the stars
as he stood grasping a back-stay, watching the darkling ship as she
crushed the phantom lights of the deep out of the black coil of surge
with its trembling lading of stars of the sea-glow, and ever and anon
sending the eye of a man, who has been used to looking out for ships of
the enemy, around the gloom of the horizon. But the mate of the watch
did not know that Mr Lawrence varied this routine of vigilance by often
standing in his own cabin with his ear pressed to the bulkhead that
separated Lucy's berth from his, with the idea of catching any noises
that might be made within.

Shortly after midnight he softly turned the key in Lucy's door and
looked in, and deeming that she lay asleep he passed in, closing the
door behind him, that the roll of the ship might not slam the door and
awaken the sleeper. The light was dim, but sufficiently clear for eyes
that had come out of the gloom or darkness. A mattress lay upon the
deck close against the bedstead, which was emptied of its furniture,
and upon this mattress was stretched the figure of Lucy Acton. She
was fully dressed as in the day, save that she had removed her
jockey-shaped hat. The bolster from the bedstead supported her head.
Some of her dark hair had become disengaged and lay loosely about her
cheek, giving the purity of marble to her brow in that light, and her
sleep was so deep that she lay as though dead. On the deck close beside
her grasp was a common table knife.

Mr Lawrence made a step and quickly picked up the knife and drew back
again, conscious that the fixed gaze will often awake a slumberer even
from deep repose. He stood close to the door viewing this picture of
a sleeping girl in a ship's little cabin irradiated by a dim light,
whose motions, with the rolling and the pitching of the ship, filled
the darkling interior with a hundred dancing spectres. His marine
ear would take no heed of the voices of the ship in that cabin, the
groans and murmurs, the low whistlings and rusty strainings. This was
a concert which his seasoned sense of hearing must miss or overlook in
his perception of the picture he viewed.

He gazed at the sleeping figure for two or three minutes and then
left, again locking the door. He entered his own cabin and stretched
his form along the lower bunk; but used as he was to sleep well in an
hour betwixt one scene of slaughter, of belching broadsides, of fierce
and murderous boarding and another scene scarred by the cannon flame,
terrible with its thunder of guns whose muzzles yawned close to the
muzzles of the foe, slumber was not to be his.

Was it possible that Lucy's situation had driven her out of her mind?
Her behaviour throughout the day had been extraordinary. Features of
character had appeared in her in the extravagance of her moods and
humours which he never could have conceived would, though latent and
demanding the summons of insanity to become visible, have formed a part
of her nature. She, the gentle, the sweet, the refined, the tender, the
sympathetic had exhibited even coarseness. Could she be mad, and yet
slumber so soundly? How do the insane sleep?

He contrasted her wretched bed on that cabin floor with her home
bedchamber which he figured--he had never entered it; a room
sweet-scented with the flowers of the creepers at the windows, white
and fair in the apparel of a girl's bower of rest, elegant in its
equipment as were all the rooms of the home of the Actons.

He loved her passionately, even to madness, and must win her. But he
never would have sought to win her at the price of her reason, had he
foreseen the blow his stratagem must deal her. He must turn robber to
rescue himself from a life-term of imprisonment as a debtor, and he
could not steal his friend's ship without stealing his daughter too,
because he knew that his act of piracy would as effectually end all
chance of his possessing her as a wife as though she lay as dead as
Juliet in her tomb.

He was on deck early in the morning. Daybreak had turned ashen the
surface of the sea. The wind was a steady breeze, and the _Minorca_
crowded with every cloth she carried saving her stun-sails, plunged,
and pitched, and frothed, and foamed in prodigious fine style as she
was swept onwards by the wind that was a point abaft the beam. The sun
rose in wet pink splendour on the larboard quarter, and by his light,
which threw out the sea-line like the crystal rim of a tumbler against
the heavens which were full of travelling clouds, Mr Lawrence swept
with his glass the whole brimming circle. There was nothing in sight.

Mr Pledge walked the deck in charge of the watch. When Mr Lawrence
appeared Pledge saluted him in man-o'-war style, but Mr Lawrence's
policy towards Pledge was the same as his policy towards Eagle. He
would not sit at meals with him, or have anything to say to him outside
the necessities of strict discipline and the ship's routine. Pledge saw
pride, haughtiness, and contempt in the handsome face that was turned
to him when Mr Lawrence condescended to ask a few questions about the
ship's rate of going, and the like. But this much the Captain added:
"Did you ever serve in a man-o'-war, sir?"

"Yes, sir," answered Pledge.

"British?"

"American, your honour."

"Well, the Yankee's discipline is taut, though not so taut as ours by
the length of a log-line to a lead-line. You therefore understand the
necessity of obeying orders?"

With some astonishment Thomas Pledge answered: "I do, sir."

"I told Mr Eagle to keep a bright look-out for ships, and he reported
one to me when she was hull up. She might have been a Frenchman, and
if so, we should now be occupying her hold. You will please keep a
bright look-out for ships, sir!" he added, with which he stepped to
the weather-side of the quarterdeck, and Pledge crossed to leeward
thinking to himself: "If he talks to old Jim like this and with that
there face and manner, he'll find out that the discipline of the
British Merchant Service ain't all his Navy ideas would like to see it.
Damn me, on top of his talking to me like this, if I don't 'ave a yarn
with old Jim after breakfast, and blast the consequences," and he sent
a scowl at Mr Lawrence, who was looking to windward.




CHAPTER XIII

LUCY'S MADNESS


The monotonous and commonplace demands of everyday life on board ship
as well as on shore will enter into the most exalted and uncommon forms
of romance at sea. Whether Lucy Acton was mad, or whether she was
merely acting a part, it was as certain she must be fed as though she
was a vulgar, homely, steerage passenger with nothing more poetic and
soul-lifting in her life than the faded portrait of the milkman who
wooed and then jilted her.

The cabin breakfast was served at half-past eight. A tray for Lucy was
placed at the side of Mr Lawrence, who with his own hand furnished it.
He then directed Paul, whilst giving him the key, to leave the door
unlocked on quitting the berth, and, turning in his chair, he watched
the hunchback enter. But the door, as before, was closed by the swing
of the ship, and he caught but a glimpse of the interior, which did
not frame its inmate.

This time Paul was for some minutes in the berth. He came out, leaving
the door unlocked as ordered, though shut, and stood beside Mr Lawrence
to make his report.

"How does the lady seem?" said Mr Lawrence.

"She made me put the tray on the deck, sir," answered Paul, "and I see
her running her eyes over it, and she says, 'Where's the knife, you man
of the forest?' I says, 'I don't know, mum.'"

He paused.

"Nothing but a slice or two of tongue was sent to her," said Mr
Lawrence, "that requires a knife to cut it with. Go on! Tell me what
followed."

"After she told me to put the tray on the deck, and looked at it and
asked about the knife, she stares at me just as I was about to go, and
then, your honour, her face changes as if she'd pulled off a mask. She
smiled with so cunning a look, such a trembling of the eyelids, that
I reckoned she'd got something hidden and was going to stab me with
it, and she lifts her shoulders all the while, a-looking at me with a
cunning smile and trembling eyes, till I supposed she was a-imitating
of my figure; and then she whispers so soft that I could just hear
what she said, whilst she beckons to me, smiling: 'If I show it, swear
you'll keep it a secret.' 'I don't know what you mean, ma'am,' I says.
'Here,' she says, with her cunning smile, and still a-beckoning. 'But
if you don't keep the secret I'll kill you as sartin as that you was
born in a forest.'"

Here again the fellow paused, apparently striving to find words to
produce his picture.

"Go on!" said Mr Lawrence fiercely. "What did she show you?"

Paul started, and answered: "She took me to the locker that's under the
window, and, lifting the lid, pointed down into the inside, and began
to laugh with a strange, crying noise, like a cat quarrelling, and then
says she, 'Do you see it?' There was nothing in the locker, saving
that in one end of it she'd made a sort of bird's nest out of the bed
feathers which I 'adn't swept away, and in it was her rings, a piece
of soap, a salt-cellar which I hadn't missed from the tray, and what I
took for a ball, but which, I allow, was her gloves rolled up tight.
'Do you see it?' she said, looking so cunning and a-whispering so
mysterious, it was more like dreaming than living to see and watch her.
'That's my secret!' and then she slams the lid of the locker to, with
a noise which I thought your honour would believe was a pistol-shot,
and says, frownin' and starin' at me with eyes that seemed to be in a
blaze, 'If you says a word about what you've seen I'll kill you.'"

The fellow ceased. He had told all he had to relate, and he was by no
means such a fool as not to see in his listener's face that he had
related much more than enough. He scratched his thigh as a monkey
would, and fell to waiting upon his master.

When Mr Lawrence had finished breakfast he went on deck consistently
with the innovation he had made in the ship's routine aft to relieve
Mr Eagle, who had come on watch at eight o'clock, and who now with Mr
Pledge went to breakfast in the cabin.

It was a very fine, clear, sparkling May morning far down in the
English Channel, and still the sea stretched desolate to its dim blue
recesses: which, had all been right with Mr Lawrence, would have
pleased him very much indeed, but he had something else to think of.
The waters frolicked in little sliding runs; it was a chasing dance
of waters with the billows pointing their white satin shoes under
their brilliant skirts of liquid blue. Mr Lawrence walked the deck,
and seemed to be keeping a bright look-out as he swept the horizon
with the glass he had brought with him, and often his stern, haughty,
and handsome face was directed towards the men, who seemed to know
that a vigilant eye had hove into view through the companion, and they
clapped a fresh colour of activity into those motions of limbs which
accompanied their labours.

But in truth Mr Lawrence was all the while thinking of what he had
heard from Paul, and every time he took a turn his gaze went to the
companion hatch, whence, now that her cabin door was unlocked, he
expected at any moment to see the figure of Lucy Acton emerge.

What would she do if she came on deck? And what was he to do if
his treatment of her had driven her mad? It seemed like all the
world to a very little, for here was this one man in conflict with
really stupendous circumstances brought about by himself. Upon his
hands was the girl of his heart, the most adorable of women in his
opinion, as mad--if he was to trust the evidence of his own senses
and the report of his steward--as any howling, grimacing, jibbering
inmate of a lunatic asylum. Upon his hands, too, was the ship with
a crowd of sailors, the ship to be feloniously sold, the sailors to
be fraudulently got rid of: and much must depend upon the reception
accorded him and his friend Dick, if it ever should come to the
_Minorca's_ safe arrival at Rio de Janeiro, by the intelligent
scoundrel whom he had named in his letter as Don José Zamovano y Villa.

Mr Eagle did not keep him long waiting, and when that surly, awkward
seaman arrived Mr Lawrence went below and found Mr Thomas Pledge in the
act of leaving the table and the cabin, with his jaw still working in
mastication. It was clear that Mr Pledge had no intention of keeping
his seat, even though he had not entirely swallowed his last mouthful,
when Mr Lawrence hove in sight.

As the second mate climbed the companion steps Mr Lawrence stood
with his hand upon the table and his eyes fastened upon Lucy's door,
thinking. It was clear he was hanging in the wind, as sailors say. He
could head a boarding party, he could look a loaded cannon full in the
muzzle, he could risk seizing the side-rope which was connected with a
fuse for exploding the powder-room of a pirate that was to be boarded
and taken; but he seemed to lack heart for such an enterprise as his
opening of that door, and his entrance into that berth signified.

He formed his resolution, and stepping to the door, knocked. He
received no answer, whereupon he entered.

He started as though he was confronted by something totally different
from the lady he expected to see. In truth Mr Lawrence had never seen
Lucy Acton with her hair down. Always when they met her hair had been
dressed in the prevailing mode, with a little fringing or shadowing
of wisps on her fair brow and curls on the beautiful outlines of her
shoulders. Whether her hair had become disengaged from its fastenings
in the night, or whether the deck mattress had done half and she with
her fingers had let fall the rest, matters not; she was before him,
clothed all about her back and breast with her abundance of soft dark
hair.

She was kneeling or crouching at the breakfast tray which was upon
the deck, and when Mr Lawrence entered, she held in one hand a piece
of cold tongue, a bite or two out of which she was eating, and in the
other hand a white biscuit. The cup was half-full of tea. She did
not lift her eyes when he entered, nor seem to be aware that another
occupied the cabin besides herself. She looked at the piece of tongue
with a smile which was a miracle of idiotism in its perfect conveyance
of no meaning, then bit what was in her mouth, then smiled again; and
again as suddenly frowned with a marvellous swiftness of transformation
of facial expression. So that whilst she looked, she appeared idiotic
in one instant, in the next she wore a strange and alarming look of
angry madness, dreadful to witness, working in her lineaments so
sweetly feminine, so purely gentle.

Her natural colour had not wholly faded from her cheek, but the bloom
was very faint indeed, once removed only perhaps from pallor, so that
her eyes, which in the full glow of her beauty were as a sorceress's
for liquid softness and the lambent lights of passions and emotions,
making one think of a dark midnight sea illuminated by the moon,
gathered a keenness of outline, a vitality of colour and play which of
themselves would have suffered her to pass as the mad girl she was or
figured to be.

"I wish, madam," he said, "I could see you seated more comfortably. But
I wish more that you could see into my heart, what I feel there, and
how my pain is infinitely keener than yours, because my love for you,
my inexorable passion for you, my determination to win you and make
you my own for life, paralysing the efforts of those who would keep us
asunder, make the very soul within me shrink to behold you so uneasy,
so unhappy, so reluctant to cast upon me one look--even one look--to
persuade me that my stratagem was based upon my conviction that I am
not indifferent to you, nay, that deep in your spirit your love for
me dwells as a jewel in a casket that yourself dare not open, though
willing that I should."

She continued at one moment smiling her idiot smile, at another
moment frowning her madwoman's frown, whilst he spoke. Then looking
up she seemed to perceive him for the first time, sprang erect with a
wonderful convulsion of terror in her whole form, and a sharp, short,
piercing shriek of distress.

"Who are you, sir?" she cried, brushing her hair by a fling of both
hands from her brow and cheeks. "How durst you intrude upon me? Do you
know I am a woman--a lady--a lady--a princess--the Princess Tatters,
sir, the daughter of a great and powerful lord who would condemn you to
be hanged if he caught you here!"

It was sure that neither the spirit nor the inspiration of the genius
of the famous Kitty O'Hara was far distant from her child when this
sweet and astonishing young creature executed the above feat of
dramatic gymnastics and delivered the words just recorded.

The bewildered man stared at her as though he was himself bereft of
reason. Amazement, confusion, love, pity, horror, doubt were amongst
the expressions which ran through his countenance like shadow chasing
shadow.

"My dearest madam!" he cried. "My sweetest Lucy!" and here he clasped
his hands and swayed with passion in his posture of piteous and painful
appeal, which rendered him as a figure a really noble piece of flesh
and blood, exalted as it was by its peculiar manly beauty of face. "Is
it possible that you do not know me? How can I act to undo the dreadful
distress my love has brought upon you? Oh, thou fair and everlasting
darling of my heart, have those secret sweet feelings with which you
regard me no power to influence your moods, to control these strange
manifestations, to----"

He drew his breath in a gasp and stopped, arrested by her suddenly
turning her back upon him and bowing with the exquisite grace of the
finished curtsy of those days to what Mr Lawrence guessed was an
apparition.

"It is good of your Royal Highness," she exclaimed in softly modulated,
respectful tones, uttered in a measure that gave them a courtier-like
dignity, "to visit me in my loneliness and distress. The great Duke of
Clarence, sir"--again she curtsied--"will ever be remembered with love
and pride by a kingdom whose glory lies in the deeds of her sailors,
for his devotion to the sea, to those who sail it, and who bleed for
their country upon it."

She seemed to listen in a profoundly respectful attitude to the reply
of the vision, and then said as though in answer to it: "Your Royal
Highness, I am imprisoned in this ship by a man who is the son of a
sailor and was himself a sailor until he was expelled from the Service
of which your Royal Highness is one of the most brilliant lights, by a
shameful and a barbarous act unworthy of an officer and a gentleman.
He hopes to marry me, sir, by stealing me from my father, who was a
captain in the Royal Navy, and who trusted him. I entreat your Royal
Highness's influence to procure my immediate liberation from this
wicked man that I may return to my father who will be breaking his
heart over my disappearance and loss."

She pronounced the words "who will be breaking his heart" in a
plaintive Irish accent. But it did not occur to the listener that
the apparition she apostrophised was not H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence
but Mrs Kitty O'Hara, her mother, who was as famous in her day as
Peg Woffington and equal to Mrs Jordan in some scenes of romping and
roguishness.

Like most sailors of his time Mr Lawrence possessed the instinct of
superstition, a quality or element which has contributed the most
brilliant of the rays to the glory of the romance of the sea. He
was sensible of an emotion of awe as he watched Lucy bowing to and
addressing a royal apparition so well known to him as the Sailor Prince
whose viewless eye might be upon him, whose invisible ear might be
taking in his story whilst the wild-haired girl bowed apparently to the
bulkhead or addressed the thin air.

She appeared to be listening: then with a profound curtsy, said: "I
thank your Royal Highness for your gracious condescension. It is not
my wish that this unhappy man should be severely punished. If, sir, it
should be your pleasure to order him to be executed, I would travel
twenty miles upon my knees to beg him off. I am reduced to this one
gown, and am now the Princess Tatters. My cruel gaoler will not suffer
me to use a knife to cut the food he sends me. Look at that tray, sir!
I feed upon the floor because I have been made a beggar of, and as
though I were a savage, I am obliged to use my fingers to eat with."

Here she paused and looked round at the tray as though she would have
Mr Lawrence catch a sight of her face, whose composite expression of
indignation, distress, and eager yearning for help and sympathy was
heightened and scored by the mad look her eyes wore, and the unmeaning
smile which deformed her mouth. She again addressed the apparition.

"Can I trust your Royal Highness with a secret?... How good you are,
sir! Your Royal Highness shall see my treasure, but you are too great
as a Prince, and too virtuous as a man, to betray me."

With that, and looking round about her with insane cunning glittering
in her eyes as diamonds tremble in the dancer's ear, as though she
feared she might be watched by another in that berth, albeit her manner
persuaded Mr Lawrence that she did not know he was looking on, she went
to the locker, lifted the lid and disclosed her treasure-hidings of
rings, soap, and the rest of it, looking up meanwhile as though into
the face of a person who was bending a little to catch a sight of that
nest of feathers, but looking up with such marvellous vitality in the
composition of her lineaments, and in the penetrating glare of those
eyes of hers which in hours of repose and content seemed to brood upon
what they viewed, that Mr Lawrence could almost swear that he beheld
the spectral shadow of the Royal apparition into whose face she gazed,
stooping and peering into the nest at the end of the locker.

She spoke again to the phantom, but this time in such a mere muttering
of words that the listener caught nothing of her meaning, and then sank
her figure in a profoundly respectful curtsy whilst she seemed to kiss
a hand extended to her.

She stood a few moments with her hands clasped before her at arm's
length, and her head bowed as though deep in thought, then went to
the tray again, knelt beside it and continued her meal, taking the
biscuit and the tongue in her hands without seeming to be in the least
conscious of the presence of Mr Lawrence.

"Madam," said he softly, "after so lively a conversation with your
Royal but unrevealed visitor, have you no word for me--no look----"

"I have no piano in this cabin, sir," she answered, without raising her
eyes. "And I have no heart to sing without music."

"I do not ask you to sing," he said. "Give me but a word, give me but a
look. You tear my heart by this behaviour."

She looked up at him suddenly with her eyes trembling cunningly again
as when she asked the phantom to view her treasure, and with a look
impossible to portray but which convinced him that she did not know
him, and in a voice that was almost tender with its note of seeking
after sympathy and help, she exclaimed: "Are you come here to liberate
me, to restore me to my father, who weeps because he thinks I am lost,
to rescue me from the wicked arts of a treacherous man--oh, tell me so,
tell me so!" she cried, springing to her feet, and extending her arms.

What could the unfortunate, infatuated, handsome rascal say? Her
appeal was poignant by virtue of her deep distress, the misery of her
condition, the insane disposition of her beautiful face, wild and
almost white in its shadowing of hair. What could he say to her? His
countenance was filled with the confusion of his mind. His heart beat
tumultuously with love that raged with its sense of helplessness. These
phrases do not exaggerate a state that nothing but the highest form
of genius could delineate in its astounding complexity of adoration,
despair, horror at the consequences of his own lightly undertaken act,
honour that could be no stranger to a valiant nature, and a resolution
to persevere and conquer as a consequence of the character that could
lay upon its owner's soul this enormous obligation of the betrayal of
the girl he worshipped and the man who had stood his friend when the
world was sterile, and he must either flee the country or rot in gaol.

"Madam," he said in a broken voice, "it is plain that I have brought
upon me something that I had not foreseen, and if you are the sufferer,
I am the loser, and of the two the keener sufferer by my loss. This
door, madam, will remain unlocked, and you are at liberty to come and
go as you please."

He made her one of those elegant and stately bows which was his
greatest charm in the eyes of old Miss Acton, and left the berth,
closing the door.

Did he believe her mad, or did he conceive that she was merely feigning
a part?

It may be at once said that he had very little doubt that her ruthless
abduction based upon the fear that her father had met with a serious
injury, coupled with her imprisonment and the terrors excited in her by
the knowledge that she was being carried away into a remote part of the
world and that she was entirely at the mercy of a man who had proved
himself a scoundrel, had disordered her intellect, had played havoc
with her nerves and brain, so that though she might recover her reason
should she be rescued or returned to her home, she must continue mad
whilst in his ship or associated with him.

If he doubted her insanity at all his suspicion had no stiffer ground
than the shallow sand on which reposed his hope that she was acting.
Throughout this passage he did not think to consider her as the child
of a great actress. To him she had always been a gentle, sweet,
undemonstrative girl, ingenuous in speech, kind, charitable, beloved by
the poor, one whose pursuits were amiable and pure. She was nimble and
poetical with her pencil. She sang pretty songs prettily. Her beauty
informed with a colour of its own the melodies her fingers evoked from
the keys or strings of the instruments she touched. He could not think
of her as having the talents of an actress, or even the tastes of
one. He had never heard of her taking a part in a performance above a
charade. Nothing, therefore, but madness or an extraordinary dramatic
genius which it was impossible for him to think of her as possessing,
could create those parts which she had enacted before him in a manner
so immoderately life-like, so absolutely in unison with what he himself
could conceive of the behaviour of madness, that deep in his soul might
be found the conviction that she had lost her reason, and that his
passionate, unprincipled love was the cause of it.

Shortly before twelve the people of the _Minorca_ beheld on the
starboard bow one of those bland and beautiful pictures of the sea
which have vanished from the face of the waters to be seen no more.
The Lizard was painted in a soft, blue looming mass against the sky,
and to the right of it upon the sea-line, there sprang like stars in
their rising, the white cloths of ships--a numerous convoy from Torbay;
they rose fast with a pleasant breeze on the quarter, and one hundred
and sixty sail could have been counted with three line-of-battle ships
and some frigates to look after them. They were of all rigs known in
those days, from the commanding Indiaman armed like a man-o'-war,
hoisting her huge main and fore-yards by jeers, loosing her vast
topsails out of the tops, clothed as no ship now goes clothed with
sprit-sail and sprit-topsail, water sails and other devices in canvas
to catch even the faintest cat's paw that should tarnish the burnished
calm, down to the little snow bound to Lisbon; a gallant, an imposing,
a splendid sight, when every hull was shaped upon the sea which seemed
to be transformed into a mighty plain, brilliant for leagues with the
shining white cones of tents.

Mr Lawrence, who was on deck at noon, wisely concluding that the then
peculiar rig of the _Minorca_ would challenge the attention and excite
the suspicion of one or another of the convoying men-of-war, hoisted
British colours, and as no observation of the sun was deemed necessary
when there hung plain in sight the famous promontory of the Lizard
from which a departure was to be made, he overhung the rail gazing
apparently with absorbed interest at the grand spectacle of ships which
were making a more southerly course than he. Indeed he was so absorbed
either by that "vision splendid" or by thinking of the mad pictures he
had witnessed in the little berth from which he had lately emerged,
that he failed to notice that some of the hands forward for whom the
dinner-hour had arrived and who were hanging about the caboose, were
staring at him with a degree of obstinacy which perhaps had he regarded
it he would have deemed something more than strange, as they had a
fine show to arrest and detain their gaze on the bow. One of the most
steadfast of these starers was the man Mr Pledge familiarly styled Old
Jim.

At noon Mr Eagle, who had been in charge of the watch since eight
o'clock, was relieved by Mr Pledge, and went below. On entering the
cabin on his way to his berth, he started and stopped dead on beholding
Miss Lucy Acton standing at the table and looking up through the
skylight. She had gathered up her hair, but in such wise that had it
not been for the jockey-shaped hat which she had resumed she would
have looked as wild as though her tresses hung about her shoulders and
down her back as in her berth.

If she was sensible of the entrance of Mr Eagle she did not for
some moments running into a minute or two appear to notice him, but
continued to gaze fixedly through the skylight as though she beheld
something that riveted her vision through the open glazed cover.

Mr Eagle did not speak. Indeed, having started, he came to a stand and
scarcely moved, staring. Of course he knew that the young lady was on
board, but realisation had not been completed in his narrow, shallow
understanding, because down to this moment he had not been able to use
his eyes to see her. But now she stood before him, Miss Lucy Acton
indeed, but Lord defend him! how changed! "Why," he reflected with
the velocity of thought, "it was only a few days ago, in a manner of
speaking, that she comes aboard this vessel when we was lying at the
wharf and asks after my rheumatism, and says she'd like to make a
voyage to the West Indies if the weather could be kept fine and the
sea smooth. And I couldn't help thinking to myself that I never could
imagine a smarter and a more modish young party than she looked, whilst
now--well, if this rooning away to sea with a man is to be called love,
bust me if it ain't only another name for madness. For what young lady
in such sarcumstances as that there with a beautiful 'ome, carriages,
sarvants to wait upon her, and a loving father to give her everything
that she wants, and more than she wants, would dream of rooning away to
sea with a man with no other clothes than those on her back, onless she
was as mad as that there Miss Lucy Acton looks."

She turned her eyes upon him when the surly shell-back had come to this
part of his thoughts, and frowned without recognition in her face as
he read it. She stared at him, not with the heavy-lidded, beautiful
eyes of Lucy Acton, but with orbs of sight whose glances seemed keen
as rays of light as they shot from under her knitted brows. Though her
fair forehead was deformed by a scowl, her lips were curved into a
meaningless smile--the very expression of the idiot's highest facial
effort, and all meaning or no meaning that was in her countenance was
accentuated by the unusual, uncommon, very faint tinge which had taken
the place of the habitual bloom of her cheeks and paled her into an
aspect of distraction, wildness, and insanity.

"Do you belong to this ship?" she asked.

"Of course I do, ma'am," answered Mr Eagle, with profound astonishment
moving in his face as though it were some vitalising subcutaneous
influence that stirred in one part of his visage at a time. "Don't you
recollect me, ma'am?"

"Who is in command of this ship?" she enquired in a low, harsh voice,
almost a whisper. "Whoever he is," she rattled on, "I am his prisoner.
I am being carried away into captivity, I who am a princess, though
soon to be clothed in tatters. If you are a man with a heart have mercy
upon me, and turn this ship and steer me home!"

Eagle stood dumbfounded. He was prepared to hear her represent her
state in such fiction as had been preconcerted between her and Mr
Lawrence. But he never could have supposed that simulation of madness
was the posture of mind she had pre-arranged to feign, and she looked
so mad and spoke so madly that it was impossible for such a stubborn,
sour old fool to see the truth or know what she meant.

He gazed at her with the vacancy of a confounded mind, perplexed
not infinitely, for few understandings were more limited, and then
said: "I've got no power here, ma'am. It isn't for me to steer the
ship, if you was to condescend to go on your bended knees, which the
Lord forbid. Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what to say, and only know
what I've been told, and can but judge by what I see. It's not for
me as mate of this vessel to mess about with something that may be
all right or all wrong. There's one in this ship as could break me
and would break me if so be I gave him the chance, and a chance he'd
find"--here he lowered his voice and looked up at the skylight--"though
no other captain would think of taking advantage of it. If you've been
wronged, I'm 'eartily sorry for it. And if it's all right, why then,
ma'am, I wish you joy, though it's a very bold henterprise--a very
bold henterprise," he added, and he gloomily shook his head and sourly
viewed her.

Whilst this singular conversation was being conducted in the cabin, a
scene in the tragicomedy of which this book is the relation was being
prepared on deck. The convoy on the starboard bow had considerably
risen and was scattering, and flags from the armed fabrics which
watched the vessels streamed at gaff end and mizzen royal mast-head
in signal to the slow sailers and to other ships whose blockheads of
masters, indifferent to the safety of the bottoms they commanded, acted
without reference to the possibility of the enemy heaving into view,
and some of them with the contemptible determination to prove their
independence by giving the commodore and the naval officers in the
other ships as much trouble and annoyance as skilless seamanship could
provide.

Mr Lawrence kept the _Minorca_ away a point or two that he might hold
the convoy in view and hang upon their quarter without drawing close as
though he was one of the convoyed ships, for it must be intelligible
even to the most inexperienced in sea-going affairs that Mr Lawrence
had no wish to invite the attention of one of those British men-o'-war.

He leaned over the rail, and then walked the deck, whilst Mr Pledge
paced to leeward. On a sudden Mr Lawrence became aware that the whole
ship's company were on deck forward in the neighbourhood of the
caboose, and that a few talked together with frequent glances aft,
whilst others stared in the direction in which he moved, deliberately
and obstinately.

He stood a moment before he made a turn for another quarterdeck
excursion and viewed them, and then walked right aft with his back
turned to the bows of the ship, and in such an attitude that should the
man at the wheel look over his shoulder he would not be able to see
what he was doing. What he did was to pull from the pocket of his coat
a pistol whose priming he quickly examined; he replaced the weapon,
which was of a lighter pattern than the cumbrous engine which in those
days men stuffed into their belts, and none by observation of his coat
would conceive that he went about armed with a loaded pistol. This
done he wheeled round and walked the usual distance forward.

As he advanced, one of the sailors came away from a little crowd of men
manifestly with the object of addressing him. This man was Pledge's
friend "Old Jim." He was about forty-five, with a neck as long as
a piece of broken pillar, and lantern jaws deformed by a growth of
mustard-coloured hair sprouting in single fibres. He had but three or
four teeth in his gums, two of which shot outwards and lifted his upper
lip. He was generally reckoned the ugliest man in Old Harbour Town, and
esteemed by his brethren of the jacket as one of the best sailors that
ever stepped a ship's deck.

"May I have a word with you, sir?" he exclaimed in a coarse, hoarse,
broken voice.

"What do you want?" said Mr Lawrence, halting and viewing the fellow
with a frowning face and lips which grew tight-set the instant he
closed them.

"I beg your pardon, sir----" began the man.

"To the point! Out with it and bear a hand!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence with
a stern, contemptuous glance at the huddle of faces forward, and then
slightly turning his head to see in the tail of his eye what Mr Pledge
was doing.

"Well, sir, it's like this," said the man, pronouncing his words
forcibly in his determination to show a bold front. "Us sailors who
agreed to sail this 'ere ship to Kingston in Jamaica have got to hear
that we are bound to another port, though where it is ain't know'd."

"What's this matter got to do with you?" said Mr Lawrence fiercely.

"It's got to do with us all, sir, not alone with me," was the answer.

"If it's the owner's wish that this vessel shall be carried to another
port, there she shall go; and so you have it. Now, go forward!" said Mr
Lawrence, and he moved as though about to turn on his heel.

A murmur broke from the men.

"We are not willing to carry this ship to any other port than the port
we agreed to, sir," said Old Jim, speaking with great firmness, the
murmur that had risen behind him having stimulated his fortitude.

"I think you are a mutinous dog," said Mr Lawrence in a snarling,
sarcastic voice, but preserving a frown that was portentous of an
intellectual thunderstorm through the darkness of which the eyes would
flash lightning. "Do you see those men-of-war out yonder? I need but
make a signal to bring an armed crew aboard, and then you shall be
carried into the first port that's convenient and discharged to make
way for a crew of willing men--men willing to obey their commander, who
must be willing to obey his owner."

"There's no good in threatening us with your armed crew. We agreed for
Kingston," said a voice.

"Who said that?" shouted Mr Lawrence, with the blood red in his face.

"Me--Thomas Hanlin," was the answer, and a sailor made two or three
steps and stood close to Old Jim.

"Mr Pledge," cried Mr Lawrence, "clap that man in irons! go and fetch
them, sir!" and rounding again upon the man, and approaching him by
several paces, he pulled the pistol from his pocket and levelling it
direct at the man's head, cried in a tone that left not an instant's
doubt of his resolution in the mind of every man who saw and heard: "If
you utter another syllable I'll send this ball through your brains!"

As he flung himself into this posture of taking aim, with some of the
crew about the caboose cowering as do men who seek to dodge a missile,
whilst Old Jim and the other stood in the foreground steadily staring
at the enraged officer with the blood in his cheeks, Lucy Acton
came on deck, and, standing with her hand upon the companion-way,
wild-eyed, and pale and dishevelled, with a mien of distraction which
was a marvellously true copy of madness in momentary halt, watched the
proceedings.




CHAPTER XIV

THE _LOUISA ANN_


It was on the 4th of June 1805 that a large, handsome three-masted
schooner was softly, with a keen cut-water, rending a way for herself
over a smooth breast of sea. The sound under the bows was that of a
knife shearing through satin, and the note fell softly with a silken
noise upon the ear, without tinkle of bell-bubble, or serpent-like hiss
of expiring foam. Upon the stern of this schooner was painted in long
white letters the word _Aurora_.

The breeze was so light that it was scarcely to be felt on deck.
The gaff topsails faintly swelled with a summer-like softness and
tenderness of gleaming curve and delicately-fingered shadow; but the
heavier canvas hung with an occasional sway of boom only, as though
the little ship was at rest in a harbour into whose water breathed the
slow, low swell of the outer sea.

It was half-past seven in the morning; the sky was blue from line
to line, but the monotony of the morning's brilliance of azure was
relieved by a few little steam-white clouds which floated small violet
island shadows under them. The horizon was a clear line, a sweep of
crystal against the blue crystalline heaven it brimmed to.

The decks had been washed down, the ropes coiled away, and everything
was neat, sparkling with the swabbed brine from pump or bucket, and the
whole a pleasant picture to the eye with its lofty fabric of wide white
canvas, its glossy black sides descending into a ruddy coat of copper
sheathing which charged the water immediately under with a yellow
light as of fire, the canvas forward lifting and drooping in wings of
triangular cloth like the pinions of a sea bird that gently flutters
its plumes as it slowly breasts the water to the impulse of its webbed
feet. Smoke from the chimney of the little galley rose for a space in
a straight line, then curved like the liquid column of a fountain.
The cook was preparing breakfast for the cabin, and the savoury
smell of eggs and bacon in the process of cooking made the scarcely
breeze-disturbed atmosphere in the neighbourhood of the schooner's
kitchen shore-like and home-like, and in every sense delicious to
hungry sailors whose breakfast was black tea, ship's biscuit, and such
remains of yesterday's beef as they might have preserved.

The _Minorca_ had started early on the morning of 3rd May. The _Aurora_
followed her in pursuit on the 8th May, sailing on the afternoon of
that day. Her nimble keel had been delayed by contrary winds, and down
to this date--namely, 4th June--she had failed to even approach the
average daily speed which Captain Weaver had predicted of her in her
chase of the barque. She had met with one adventure only so far: it was
sufficiently filled, however, with excitement and danger to suffice for
twenty.

When in the Chops of the Channel the weather thickened all round: a
dingy drizzle of rain curtained the horizon into the distance of a
cannon shot, and out of this sullen dimness which was not to be shifted
nor broken into spaces showing recesses, the surge came in a steel-dark
curve upon whose polished back the foam that fell from the head of
the billow cast a deeper gloom filled with raven gleams like water at
night. A bright look-out was kept. The _Aurora_ under all plain sail
sprang through these glooming waters, and the brine swept from her
weather-bow in sharp shootings of brilliant hail.

Suddenly a little before eleven o'clock in the forenoon the deck
was hailed from aloft, and a sail reported three points on the
weather-bow. She came out of the thickness like one of the heads of
seas, in a shining light of canvas; she was sailing large; she showed
herself as an iceberg leaps from the snowstorm of the Antarctic ocean.
A brig-of-war with foam to the hawse pipes, and the white band along
her side broken by guns!

She was within a couple of miles when she shaped herself out of the
rain-thickened murkiness. The _Aurora_ was making a free wind, and
every stitch of canvas was doing its work. Was yonder stranger French
or English? The Admiral and Captain Acton, who were both on deck, left
Captain Weaver to his own devices, sensible that they were in the
hands of a shrewd, well-seasoned, practical sailor, who knew his ship
better than they did. "We'll test her," said he, and the tricolour was
run aloft. No flag aboard the brig was to be seen in response. The
schooner was crossing the stranger's bows when the brig suddenly let
fly a shotted gun at her. Whatever her nationality it was plain she was
not satisfied with the show of bunting flying aboard a vessel that any
practised eye could at once see was not of French paternity.

"Keep her away three points!" cried Captain Weaver, which shift of helm
would leave the schooner in fuller possession of her powers of flight.
And immediately afterwards he shouted: "Haul down that lie, and hoist
the British Ensign! She shall have the truth, and it'll make the truth
known to us."

Scarcely was the ensign blowing from its halliards when the brig fired
a second shot, and as the passage of the _Aurora_ and the shifting of
her helm had brought the brig's trysail-gaff into view the schooner's
crew saw the French flag streaming from the end of it.

Immediately the _Aurora's_ change of course was perceived the brig
trimmed her canvas for a chase; she set stun-sails from lower boom to
both topgallant yard-arms; these additional wings threw her out against
the weeping gloom in a large, looming, menacing mass irradiated by an
occasional flash of bow gun which dyed her canvas with a sudden yellow
glare as of lightning. But these explosions were soon stopped, and the
pursuit was continued in silence.

It was idle, however, to call it a pursuit. It was a procession with
the leader walking fast ahead and the follower lagging. On board the
_Aurora_ they saw the brig's round bows bursting the surge into sheets
of brilliant whiteness which raced under her row of iron teeth like the
foaming cascade of a weir; whilst alongside the keen fore-foot and the
clean copper and beautifully moulded run of the _Aurora_ the brine
swept past with no more noise than a shower of rain upon the sea, in a
narrow band on either hand which, uniting at the rudder, rushed off in
a ribbon of wake that shone like pearl.

It was not long before the brig that was chasing on the schooner's
weather-quarter swelled and paled in distortion with the encompassing
thickness, and presently she was a pallid square, and then she became
a smudge, after which the rain curtain dropped upon her, and she
vanished. Then it was that Captain Weaver luffed the schooner to
windward of her course, and she went ahead with flattened-in sheets,
leaning to it and severing the flint-coloured billow with her sharp
tooth of fore-foot: and so she held on, until, had the weather cleared,
the brig, even had she taken in her stun-sails and hauled the wind with
yards sweated fore and aft, would have been found dead to leeward and
far away beyond all dream of prize money amongst the French crew.

"I can't conceive of anything," said Captain Weaver, smiling with
something of pride at the Admiral and Captain Acton, "born--I don't
care in what shipwright's yard, whether British or French or Roosian
or Spaniard--as is going to have more than a look at the _Aurora_ when
it's her pleasure to show nothing but her heels."

Nevertheless it was an adventure fraught with danger to the schooner,
and neither the Admiral nor Captain Acton needed to be informed that
had the weather been a little thicker and the brig a knot or two
faster so that she could have brought the schooner within range of her
broad-side, it was odds if the fall of a mast or the ruin of a sail had
not resulted in the _Aurora's_ company finding a lodging in the brig
or under hatches in their own little ship and sailing for the nearest
French port, with the pursuit of the _Minorca_ immediately ended.

But the essential object of Captain Weaver and the very first desire
of Captain Acton and the Admiral was the overtaking of the _Minorca_,
her capture, and the rescue of Lucy. To this end it was extremely
necessary that they should speak ships to ascertain if the barque whose
rig would make her remarkable had been sighted or spoken, and if so
when and where? They had fallen in with two or three vessels which
after very careful inspection they had considered safe to speak. But
they could obtain no information. Nothing answering to a ship rigged as
the _Minorca_ was had been sighted. So Captain Weaver stuck as best he
could to his course for Rio, though much hindered by opposing winds. It
was to be hoped if the _Aurora_ lay fair in the wake of the _Minorca_
that the winds which had delayed the schooner had also baffled the
barque.

Now, as we have seen, the 4th day of June had come, and the _Aurora_,
with a light air aloft which put a gentle breathing into her gaff
top-sails and lighter canvas, was slowly scoring her way through the
heart of a wide circle of Atlantic ocean, along which the swell ran
gently, whilst the surface at a distance resembled a motionless sheet
of ice under a blue sky.

Admiral Lawrence was walking the deck alone. Captain Weaver stood on
the weather side of the wheel viewing the vessel as she leisurely
floated forward. They had kept a look-out aloft with the perseverance
of a whaler. The signalman was furnished with a glass with which he
continuously swept the sea-line from beam to beam. The Admiral, great
as his trouble was, looked uncommonly well and hearty. His cheeks wore
a deeper dye of colour. He rolled along the deck with enjoyment of the
sensation of the plank, whose motions were timed by the sea.

As he rounded in one of his fore-breakfast strolls, Captain Acton
stepped out of the deck-house, for this schooner was furnished with a
deck structure a little sunk so that you entered it by a short flight
of steps, and in front of it stood the wheel. The house contained six
berths each lighted with a window; the foremost larboard berth was the
pantry, and next door to it, abutting upon the sleeping place which the
Admiral occupied, was the spare room for Lucy.

Captain Acton's face as he emerged was grave and pale. His restlessness
and anxiety had increased with the voyage and the obstruction of the
wind. Realisation of the loss of his daughter was a pain in him that
was as a wound deeply planted, and there was no remedy but the recovery
of the girl. He joined the Admiral after looking aloft and around him,
and exclaimed: "Very slow work, sir. If it's to be this sort of thing
the _Minorca_ will not find us at Rio; and if she fetches Rio before we
do, my child is lost to me."

"I cannot see that, sir," answered the Admiral. "What can my son do?
She will not have him, and he must therefore leave her at Rio, because
I have never imagined that he will be able to sell the barque and
her cargo without exciting enquiries which he dare not challenge. If
therefore he puts into Rio, it will be with the hope of inducing Miss
Lucy to marry him there and promptly--an issue which he will have
satisfied himself upon before his arrival. And if, as 'tis certain,
she will have nothing to do with him, he will leave her at Rio and
make haste to sail to where he can dispose of your property without
risk. But," he continued cheerily, observing that his companion held
his peace, manifestly unconvinced by the Admiral's arguments, "we have
no right to assume that the weather is always to consist of baffling
breezes or light airs like this; and, sir, consider that what is bad
for the schooner may--indeed should--be bad for the barque. There is
but one course for Rio from the port we hail from. I have watched
Weaver's navigation with anxiety, and have full confidence in his
judgment. I have again and again considered his chart and prickings,
and in all that he said and says I have agreed, and still agree."

"But," said Captain Acton in a tone that marked the depression of his
spirits, "you must remember that this visible girdle of sea has, even
in brilliant weather and from the mast-head, but a narrow width, and we
might even now be abreast of the _Minorca_ which is sailing yonder, or
yonder, hull and spars down to a fathom below the sensible edge."

"We've allowed for that, sir," said the Admiral. "'Tis a contingency
which has had a very full share of contemplation. If we miss her and
pass her in the way you suggest, there is still Rio to receive us,
where we will await the _Minorca's_ arrival. And in that you will get
your way, and crown this struggle with success. So that let us miss her
by failing to sight her as you say, it can but mean that we shall be
first and ready for Mr Lawrence."

"True," answered Captain Acton.

At that moment the man at the mast-head with the telescope still at his
eye, shouted the magic words: "Sail ho!"

"Where away?" yelled Captain Weaver from the side of the wheel.

"Right ahead, sir."

"How standing?" bawled Weaver.

After a brief pause: "Coming for us, sir. We are rising her."

But the schooner might be rising her through overtaking her, and nearly
a quarter of an hour must elapse before the sailor aloft could shout
with emphasis down to the deck that the sail was standing right for
them and that she was square rigged.

The circumstance of a sail heaving into sight was necessarily brimful
of excitement and interest to Captain Acton and the Admiral. She
might prove a peaceful trader or a man-of-war, a friend or an enemy,
a privateer, or as likely as not the _Minorca_ rolling home in charge
of Eagle and her crew, who, conscious of the presence of Lucy on
board, and having learnt that the ship's destination was any port but
Kingston, had mutinied, and locked up the Captain in his cabin, and
turned tail for Old Harbour Town.

But the breakfast bell had been rung, and leaving Captain Weaver and
his mate to keep an eye upon the stranger and to act with the prudence
which was to be expected of a man of Weaver's sagacity and experience,
Captain Acton and his companion entered the deck-house. Here was a
cheerful little interior, gay with sunshine, which sparkled in the
furniture of the breakfast-table, on which smoked as relishable and
hearty a meal as was to be obtained at sea in those days. The two
gentlemen found much to talk about, and perhaps because of an argument
they had fallen into, their sitting was somewhat lengthened: until just
when they were about to rise, Captain Weaver came to the cabin door,
and after, with the old-fashioned courtesy of his period, begging their
pardon, he exclaimed: "The sail's now clear in the glass from the deck."

"What is she, do you think?" said Captain Acton.

"She looks to me, sir, a worn-out bit of a brig about a hundred tons.
Most sartinly there's nothing to be afraid of in her."

"She's not the _Minorca_?" cried the Admiral.

"No, sir, she carries no royals."

On this Captain Acton and his friend went on deck. The schooner was
travelling three or four knots one way, and the stranger was heading
directly for her at some small pace, so that the speed of the two
vessels being combined, the sail might be expected to show a clear
hull; which she did, and with the aid of their telescopes, Captain
Acton and Sir William confirmed the conjecture of Captain Weaver.
She was either a little brig or a brigantine--her after-sails were
concealed; her burden was very small. The dusty and rusty complexion
of her canvas neutralised the brilliance which most ships' sails shine
with when the silver glory of the morning sun pours strong upon them.
By half-past nine, three bells by the schooner's clock, the stranger
was on the larboard-bow with her main topsail to the mast, and so close
that it seemed almost possible to distinguish the faces of her people.

She was a little brig, and an immense but ragged British ensign
fluttered at her trysail gaff-end. She had been painted black, but
the fret of an ocean long kept, the hurl and whirl of prodigious seas
which were like to founder her, the blistering heat of tropic suns,
the viewless fangs of the wind had so worn her sides that she was
mottled with patches of different colour as though she was suffering
from some distemper which ravaged vessels of her sort when the voyage
was of great length. She rolled wearily, as though her old bones were
worn out, and every time she hove her bilge to the eye she disclosed
a very landed estate of weed, long, serpentine, trailing, like the
huge eel-like growths which sway from black rocks in the white wash of
breakers.

"Ho, the schooner ahoy!" shouted a man, standing close to the larboard
main-shrouds.

"Hallo!" was the answer from Captain Weaver.

"We are the brig _Louisa Ann_ of Whitby from Callao, one hundred and
seventy days out, bound to the port we belongs to. We are short of
provisions, and should feel grateful if you could let us have a cask of
beef."

This was clearly delivered, and every syllable caught on board the
_Aurora_. Captain Weaver looked at Captain Acton, who immediately
assented.

"Send a boat and we'll give you what you want!" shouted Weaver.

A few men were to be seen racing aft, and in a minute or two a squab
boat descended from a pair of davits as stout as catheads with four
men in her, two to row, one to bale, and one to steer.

Whilst they were coming Captain Weaver said to Captain Acton: "The
master of that brig, sir, seems to have his wife aboard."

But though Captain Acton and Admiral Lawrence heard him, their eyes
were busy with the boat as she approached, and neither raised a glass
to determine the appearance of the female.

The man who steered the boat was the captain; he climbed over the side
of the _Aurora_, and presented the aspect of a man not unlike Mr John
Eagle; he looked sour with succession of bad weather, with little ships
that made nothing but leeway on a wind, with immensely long voyages,
with shortness of rations and fresh water, and with the aridity of the
ocean which he had been forced to keep for nearly the whole of his life.

"I should be much obliged for a cask of beef, sir," he said, after
touching the narrow penthouse of a queerly constructed fur cap. "It's
still a long way home for that there _Louisa Ann_, whose bin a hundred
and seventy days in bringing us so fur."

"Have you spoke any ships lately?" asked Captain Weaver.

"The last we spoke," answered the man, "was the day before yesterday.
And we took out of her by request of her master, a young female who was
said to have gone mad, but for my part I never met with anybody saner.
She's an additional mouth, and a cask of beef would be grateful."

"A young female!" said Captain Acton. "What was the name of the vessel
you took her from?"

At this point the Admiral levelled his glass at the brig. The master of
the _Louisa Ann_ went to the side and shouted down, received an answer,
returned and said: "Her name was the _Minorca_."

"The _Minorca_!" shouted Captain Acton. "The day before yesterday! And
you received a young lady from her?"

"By God!" cried Admiral Lawrence in a voice of thunder, letting fly the
profanity with the bellows of a boatswain, "why, Acton, there's Lucy
aboard that brig! I can make her out plain in this glass."

"She's a beautiful young lady--highly eddicated," said the master of
_Louisa Ann_.

Captain Acton levelled his telescope. He did not need to long survey
the figure of the woman who was standing near the tiller that was
grasped by a man. The lenses brought her face close to him.

"It is Lucy!" he said, in a voice in which awe and amazement were so
mingled that one should say the apparition of a ghost, of something
spiritual and fearful to the observer, could not have filled the hollow
of his mouth with that tone.

He was now seized with a passion of delight.

"Lower a boat, Captain Weaver! Lower a boat!" he shouted, losing his
habitual gentlemanlike coolness and calm in the overwhelming sensations
of that moment. "Bear a hand now! Be quick! It is the lady for whom we
have been chasing the _Minorca_. Quick, I say!" He stamped his foot.

"She is waving her handkerchief!" cried the Admiral, with his eye at
the telescope. "God bless her! God bless us all! What a miracle of
discovery!"

"A relation, sir?" said the master of the _Louisa Ann_, addressing
Captain Weaver, whom he had immediately perceived was not of the
standing of the two Naval gentlemen.

"My daughter, sir!" cried Captain Acton.

"Then I'm proud and 'appy to have been the instrument of a-bringing her
to you. I'm a father myself and can understand your feelings, sir,"
said the captain of the brig.

But congratulations were not in place in such a moment as this. A fine
boat of the _Aurora_ was alongside manned by five sailors, who being
clad in much the same sort of apparel, carried a sort of warlike
aspect as though the boat was proceeding from something heavily armed
and much to be feared. Captain Acton and the Admiral sprang into
her with the agility of boys, thanks to the energy infused by the
apparition of Lucy waving her pocket-handkerchief, and whilst they were
being swept to the brig Captain Weaver asked her master one or two
questions.

This was the story his interrogatories elicited. On the day before
yesterday the brig that was very short of provisions and water sighted
a vessel, which on her approach proved to be so rigged that the master
declared he had never seen the like.

"She carried nothing but fore-and-aft sails on her mizzen-mast," said
he.

On which Captain Weaver exclaimed: "The _Minorca_, of course. She was
French, and what's called barque-rigged."

Well, the _Louisa Ann_ backed her topsail, and the strangely rigged
ship backed her's, and the master of the brig, not choosing to ask too
many favours at once, hailed to know if she could spare some fresh
water, as they had run to an allowance that was close upon famine. He
was received on board by a tall, commanding, handsome man, who, on the
arrival of the master of the _Louisa Ann_, said he was welcome to a
supply of fresh water, and that in return he would ask him to receive a
young lady who had gone mad during the voyage from England, and convey
her to that country. Her name was Miss Acton. She was a daughter of
Captain Acton of Old Harbour Town, and the captain of the _Louisa Ann_
might make sure of a handsome reward for his services from the father.
The lady, the tall, handsome man said, had consented to elope with him,
and they were to be married at Rio de Janeiro; but she had gone out
of her mind. The fine, handsome man felt he could do nothing better
than to restore her as soon as possible to her friends. The captain of
the brig said that he had but a poor accommodation for a lady of her
quality, but wanting the fresh water very badly and likewise reflecting
that he might receive a handsome reward, and learning from the fine,
handsome man that Miss Acton was by no means violent, but on the
contrary gentle and melancholy, he consented.

"And how did she seem," said Captain Weaver, "when she got into the
boat?"

"She never spoke nor smiled," answered the captain of the brig, "but
got quietly in and sat quietly down, and kept her eyes fixed upon
the thwart that was next her's whilst the water was being lowered;
but afterwards when I got her over the side and put her into the
best cabin we could accommodate her with, she began to talk, said she
thanked God for her deliverance, and was grateful indeed to Him for
now being on her way home. And she spoke as clear and collected as I
do, and is no more mad than I am. But she did not let me into the job
whatever it was. She hasn't given me an idea as to her elopement and
the reason of her being sent aboard me, and I'm always a-wondering what
the trick is."

The _Aurora's_ boat was swept alongside the brig, and Captain Acton and
the Admiral clambered over the side up a short flight of steps, and in
an instant Lucy was clasped in the devouring embrace of her father.
Such an old-world scene taxes the highest gifts of the pen or the
brush. This _Louisa Ann_ was about fifty years old; she was nearly as
broad as she was long. Her fore-mast was stepped far in the bows; her
decks were stained and grimy; the paint had faded out of the inside of
her bulwarks. Her sails were patched and so dingy that they might have
been coloured as a smack's. Her rusty sides were lined with yawning
seams amid which three little circular windows were merged with no
accentuation from the dirt-shrouded glass which prevented the sea from
entering the blistered, worn, mani-coloured hull. Her sailors looked as
though they were shipwrecked: long-haired, bearded, sallow, in clothes
considerably tattered, in aspect melancholy and dejected with lack of
nourishment, dullness of sailing and ceaseless motion: for here was
the tub wallowing like a buoy in a popple upon a smooth sea, and the
frightful weather she would make off Cape Horn or in a gale of wind the
imagination of a sailor could readily picture by witnessing her motions
now.

On the stage of this little marine theatre the father clasped his
daughter, whilst the Admiral, with emotion damp in his eyes, looked on.
Captain Acton released his child and surveyed her, whilst the Admiral
seizing both her hands, raised them to his lips, one after the other,
mumbling in broken tones: "May God bless you! I thank God we have found
thee!"

She was dressed, of course, in the costume in which she had been
kidnapped, and like the sailors she looked very much the worse for
wear and tear. Her jockey-shaped hat, so modish and even rakish when
purchased, had fallen into a confusion of headgear, a something that
might have wanted a name had it been found on the highway. Her hair
looked wild in the inartistic dressing it suffered from. Her rich
and characteristic bloom had faded, and what lingered was but as a
delicate faint flush of expiring sunset. But even as she stood, not
the most cynical and aspish of her own sex would have challenged her
beauty, the charms of her figure, the melting sweetness of her eyes on
whose dark-brown irids the white lids, rich in eyelash, reposed. Those
eyes were wet now, and tears were upon her cheeks.

But what was to be said aboard that loutish old brig, with a crew of
half-starved, weedy mariners looking on agape? In a very few minutes
Lucy was handed into the _Aurora's_ boat, and the party were making for
the schooner as swiftly as the dip and sweep of oars could impel the
keen-bowed little fabric.

"What a wonderful meeting!" cried Captain Acton, blessing his daughter
with a smile sweet and good with the pulse of the heart of a father who
adores his only child. "You will have much to tell us, my darling."

"Much," said the Admiral.

"Oh yes. It is a story that will make you wonder," said Lucy. "I fear
Aunt Caroline was terribly upset when she found me missing."

"Oh, we'll soon stand her up again," said Captain Acton. "Did you
recognise the _Aurora_?"

"Oh yes, sir; how could she be mistaken?" answered Lucy. "How
beautiful she looked as she came towards us!"

"You have been half-starved in that brig," said Captain Acton,
searching his daughter's face, and running his eyes over her dress.

"We'll soon have her back again to her old moorings," cried the
Admiral. "She cannot gain in beauty, but the schooner will give her the
colour she lacks."

There was very little to be said in that boat where there were
five oarsmen to listen. The few of the crew who remained on board
the schooner greeted Miss Lucy's recovery and arrival alongside by
springing into the rigging and delivering cheer after cheer with
much demonstration of arm and cap. She was carefully handed over the
side, Captain Weaver receiving her, hat in hand and a succession of
congratulatory bows, and without more ado she was conducted into the
cabin that had been assigned her by her father, who embraced her again
and again when he had her alone, saying that she looked tired, that she
must take some repose before she began to tell him and the Admiral what
had happened to her. He held her by the hands. He looked at her face;
his affection, his gratitude, his delight overwhelmed him.

"Oh, my dear, dear Lucy," he cried, "little can you conceive how the
man who carried you off has made your aunt and me, and his father,
suffer!"

"He acted wickedly in luring me on board only to steal me," said Lucy,
"and he is wicked to rob you of your property. But oh, father, villain
as he seems, his behaviour to me was that of a gentleman--and--and I am
sorry for him."

Captain Acton's face changed with the astonishment wrought in him by
his daughter's words and manner of speaking, and instantly to his
memory recurred the remark of his sister that, if Mr Lawrence was in
love with Lucy, she was equally in love with him, though she made no
sign save to the scrutinising eye of an old maid.

"We'll talk of that later, my dear one," he said. "You'll find several
changes of apparel in those boxes. I left it to your aunt to pack them.
She would know what you needed, though we had no hope of falling in
with you in this way. Some breakfast shall be got for you in the cabin
when you are ready, and then you will tell the Admiral and me your
story."

After further endearments between this devoted father and his daughter,
Captain Acton closed her cabin door and went on deck.

He found Captain Weaver, the master of the brig, and the captain of
the brig in conversation. The skipper of the brig had made no entry
touching his falling in with the _Minorca_. He could depend upon
nothing but his memory, and to the best of his recollection he had
given to Captain Weaver the latitude and longitude in which he had
spoken the _Minorca_ on the morning before the previous day. It was
at least certain that the barque was within easy sailing reach of the
schooner; it was equally sure that the schooner was almost directly
in the tail of the wake of the _Minorca_, and that if Captain Weaver
continued the course he had been steering he was bound to overhaul her,
providing the schooner was the swifter vessel.

Leaving Captain Weaver to converse with the skipper and to supply his
wants, Captain Acton passed his arm through the Admiral's and led him
aft.

"Now," said he in a soft voice full of the emotion which his daughter's
preservation and restoration had filled him with--"now that my dear
child, by the mercy and goodness of Almighty God, has been returned
to me I am for heading straight for Old Harbour Town, for she has had
enough of the sea--more than enough, and I am for having her at home,
safe again. She has gone through much, she looks ill, she needs the
rest and nursing she can only get at home."

The Admiral was violently agitated. He exclaimed in broken tones: "If
this is your decision I implore you to reconsider it. You, sir, who are
the soul of benevolence would not act with heartless cruelty towards
an old friend, but heartlessly cruel you must prove to me if, with the
opportunity which this schooner provides and with the _Minorca_ within
a few hours' reach, you suffer my worthless, ungrateful son to make
away with your property, and render me hopeless and helpless as a man
who has no means to repay you the loss you must sustain."

Captain Acton was silent for a few moments. He then said: "My dear
friend, have you reflected upon all that your son's return to England
must signify to him?"

"Your property must be recovered. My son must take the consequences
of his acts. I know what it means, sir--the gibbet and chains--for
thus they serve the pirate," exclaimed the poor old Admiral, grim and
desperate.

"God forbid!" exclaimed Captain Acton, whose spirits, it could be seen,
were suddenly and violently disordered by the Admiral's speech. "They
hang no pirate without a prosecution. Who is to prosecute? Admiral
Lawrence's old friend, Captain Acton? No, sir, by the holy name of
that good God who has restored my child to me, not I!"

"Oh, Acton, Acton, you overwhelm me!" murmured the Admiral, turning
his head away to sea, and speaking with a voice that trembled with the
tears of a man's heart.

"What I meant was," said Captain Acton, tenderly pressing his friend's
arm, "if your son returns to England he may be arrested for debt, in
which case his actions of abduction and piracy may be brought to light,
and if I was not compelled to prosecute, I should be held guilty of
conniving at a crime. All this must be avoided, and can be avoided."

"It can be avoided, and still your property may be preserved to you,"
exclaimed the Admiral. "My unhappy son will throw him self upon your
mercy----"

"It shall be extended sir, it shall be extended," broke in Captain
Acton.

"And we can land him privately," continued the Admiral, "at an English
port, where habited in the clothes of a common sailor he will seek a
berth before the mast, and sail away--to be heard of no more."

Here this fine old seaman fairly broke down, and stepping to the
bulwarks, hid his face in his hands, whilst convulsion after convulsion
seemed to rend his sturdy figure.

Captain Acton waited until this unconquerable fit of grief should have
abated. He then went to his friend's side, and, passing his arm round
his neck, said: "My dear old friend, keep up your heart! We will pursue
the _Minorca_ and regain her if possible, and depend upon it, your son
shall be made to suffer as little as can be helped. Meanwhile, let us
wait until we hear Lucy's story."




CHAPTER XV

NELSON


By the time that Lucy was seated at the cabin table of the _Aurora_ at
the meal which had been prepared for her, with her father on one side
and Sir William Lawrence on the other watching her with riveted eyes,
listening to her with impassioned attention, putting such questions as
must naturally arise from this most extraordinary adventure, the brig
_Louisa Ann_ was about three miles astern rolling and flapping onwards
for Whitby, her larder enriched by two casks of beef and a cask of
fresh water, whilst in her master's pocket was Captain Acton's address;
for it had been agreed that in consideration of the brig's skipper
having taken Miss Lucy Acton aboard his ship, he was to receive the
fifty guineas reward which had been offered for her recovery, and which
Captain Acton would forward when on his return he should know where to
address the skipper.

And meanwhile Captain Weaver had received instructions from Captain
Acton to continue his chase of the _Minorca_, and the schooner under
full and large breasts of canvas was gently leaning from a pleasant
little breeze which had sprung up whilst the _Aurora_ was sending meat
and water to the brig, and was sliding with some show of nimbleness
through a blue surface that was summer-like in peaceful rippling, in
beautiful dyes, and in splendid distances.

The cabin that Lucy was now to occupy had been fitted up and furnished
with all possible reference to her needs, for it had been hoped that if
she was not overtaken at sea she would be found at Rio, and Acton's and
his sister's expectations were not so forlorn but that they believed
the _Aurora_ would return with the girl, and the possibility was to
be provided for with as much foresight as could be bestowed on the
circumstance of her return as a fact. The boxes contained such wearing
apparel as she herself might have chosen from her wardrobe. The toilet
table was comfortably supplied: indeed nothing that she was accustomed
to use in dressing herself was absent.

So, then, as she sat at table she almost looked the same beautiful Lucy
Acton who had left her house early one morning for a walk in which
she had met the hunchback Paul and read a letter he gave her. The old
rich colour was indeed lacking; no charm of hat, no grace of coiffure,
no elegance of costume could immediately qualify or dispel the languor
of fatigue in the eyes, the delicate shadow pencilled by worry and an
enormous mental strain under the eyes, and a general expression in
movements of silence or repose, of anxiety, pain, and another quality
which you might have seen was present without being able to give it a
name.

One or two questions of no moment had been asked and answered when the
Admiral exclaimed: "I beg, dearest madam, and you, Captain Acton, will
forgive me for perhaps unseasonably thrusting in, by asking if you can
tell me that atrocious, and to me heartbreaking as has been the conduct
of my son, he acted nevertheless during his relations with you on board
the _Minorca_ as a gentleman?"

"He did. I can assure you on my word of honour, Sir William," answered
the girl, with a glow and fervour that caused her father to again
attentively examine her face with an expression which changed the look
it was wearing. "In my feigned madness I reproached him in language
which I knew was not ladylike. I called him a scoundrel, and a rogue,
and many injurious and aggravating words which came into my head I
flung at him, acting all the while the part of a madwoman. Yet, sir,"
she said, turning to her father, "never once did my violent attacks
upon his temper and character cause him to forget himself. He bowed to
me, he madamed me, he was throughout as gentlemanlike and respectful as
I had ever found him when we met at Old Harbour House or in Old Harbour
Town."

The Admiral put his hand upon her's.

"I thank you for this gracious assurance," he said, in a voice deep
with feeling, with eyes which looked humid as they reposed upon her,
and with a faint smile like the first illumination of the face by a
dawning happiness.

"Did you act the part of a madwoman?" said Captain Acton.

"Yes, papa. When I found myself his prisoner and at his mercy I quickly
thought over what I should do to rescue myself. I understood, first
of all, that I must disgust him if possible." Captain Acton and Sir
William exchanged a look at this stroke of _naiveté_ and lightly
smiled. "How was I to disgust him?" continued the beautiful young
creature. "I made up my mind to pretend to be mad."

"And you are so fine an actress as to have been able to persuade so
intelligent a man that you were actually mad?" enquired Captain Acton
with some astonishment.

"I was determined to try. I could see no other way of frightening and
disgusting him."

"The spirit of her mother came to her aid," said the Admiral, who had
heard much of the genius of Kitty O'Hara.

"Ha!" exclaimed Captain Acton, looking fondly at his child, "I don't
doubt it is in you. But you have suffered it to rest as an unsuspected
quality."

"And you made Mr Lawrence afraid of you?" said Sir William.

She answered by relating the story of some of those freaks with which
the reader has been made acquainted; she described other acts of
madness which had taxed her imagination to devise. She was mad to all
who spoke to her because, as she justly said, "it would have been
ridiculous for me to have been mad to the Captain and sane to everybody
else in the ship."

Captain Acton listened to her with profound interest. He was greatly
impressed and moved by his daughter's exhibition of traditionary
genius. She recalled his wife, of whom he was passionately proud and
fond. He had never imagined that Lucy had the talent of an actress,
but the dramatic character of her narrative and every point in her
extraordinary relation convinced him that she was a born artist, and
that accident had compelled her to reveal to herself gifts of power,
perception, and imagination of whose existence she had been as ignorant
as her father.

"My love," said Captain Acton, "will you tell me how it happened that
you should have allowed yourself to be lured on board the _Minorca_?"

"I will tell you exactly," said Lucy, and the Admiral bent his ear.
"It was a very fine morning and I was awake early, and I thought I
would walk as far as the pier and back, intending to be home before you
read prayers. I left Mamie behind, as she has a trick of running into
the water, and she swims so badly that I am afraid she will one day
be drowned. On the way I met the red-haired hunchback whom I had seen
about Old Harbour Town at times. There was something in his manner that
made me think he was making for Old Harbour House. He saluted me very
respectfully, and gave me a letter written in pencil. In my excitement
and alarm I did not know what I did with it. If I put it in my pocket
it was not there when I felt. It was signed by Walter Lawrence, who
wrote that Captain Acton had come on board the _Minorca_, had stumbled
over something the name of which I forget, and fallen a few feet into
the hold, which lay open. Mr Lawrence believed that Captain Acton was
not dangerously hurt, but he was in a very bad way and in great pain,
and he had asked Mr Lawrence to write to his daughter Lucy and acquaint
her with the accident and beg her immediate presence, but she must on
no account make the disaster known to her aunt or to any other member
of the household.

"I was completely deceived by this letter," continued Lucy, "and
hurried to the ship followed by the hunchback, who conducted me
downstairs and opened a cabin door. I entered, thinking to find you
there, sir. The door was instantly shut, and I found myself alone with
Mr Lawrence."

"The villain!" muttered the Admiral.

"But could you suppose, my love, that I should be down at that ship at
so early an hour?" said the Captain.

"I was too much agitated to reflect, papa," Lucy answered. "It seemed
so natural--so reasonable, and I hastened to the ship, in the belief
that you were lying in her seriously hurt."

"But suppose that fellow Paul had not met you?" said Captain Acton.

"Mr Lawrence is very daring," answered Lucy. "I can easily believe that
the hunchback Paul, as he is called, had orders if he did not meet me
to go to the house and deliver the letter to me in person."

"But wouldn't Mr Lawrence guess that I should be at home at that hour,
and that you would know I was at home?" said Captain Acton.

"The Devil," said the Admiral, "is very bountiful to his servants in
his gifts of opportunity."

"True!" answered Captain Acton. "Fortune certainly favoured Mr
Lawrence. And now, Lucy, I want you to explain how it was that neither
I, nor the Admiral, nor Captain Weaver, could find a single living
creature to tell us that you had been seen passing along the wharves to
the _Minorca_?"

"I am sure I cannot answer that question, sir. I was not disguised, nor
was my face concealed. I wore my jockey hat. My spirits were in too
great a hurry to allow me to take any notice, but I am quite sure that
there were very few people about; none of these might have known or
observed me, and it is not surprising, therefore, that you should not
have guessed what had become of me."

"What excuse did Mr Lawrence make to the men for sending you into
another ship?"

"I cannot believe that he made any excuses at all. He is not a man,"
Lucy answered, with a faint smile which was certainly not unsuggestive
of that sort of expression which the human face puts on when its wearer
speaks with secret pride of another, "to make excuses for his conduct
to the common sailors under him. Indeed, papa, I don't know which side
would be more surprised: he, in excusing his actions to the sailors, or
they, that he should condescend to explain. When I first went on deck
after being kept in the cabin the scene I witnessed might have been on
the stage of a theatre: the crew stood in a body in the fore-part of
the ship; two men were a little in advance of them, and at one of these
men Mr Lawrence had levelled a pistol. There he stood, pistol in hand,
and the sailor, stubborn and defiant, never budged. I felt faint. I
feared he would shoot and kill the man."

"He didn't shoot, then!" cried the Admiral.

"No, Sir William; something like a scuffle followed, and Mr Pledge,
who, I believe, was the boatswain, acting as an officer on board,
holding some irons in his hand, seized one of the men, but I thought in
a very gentle, friendly way, and carried him below."

"Did no mutiny amongst the crew follow?" enquired Captain Acton.

"I think not. I am sure not. Mr Lawrence awed them all. I could never
have believed in such a commanding, overwhelming manner as he put on."

The Admiral drummed with his fingers upon the table, looking down.

"But pray, Lucy," exclaimed Captain Acton, "what was Mr Eagle about?
Did not he know that you were Mr Lawrence's prisoner, though he might
not have been able to guess that it was Mr Lawrence's intention to
navigate the ship to Rio to sell her there? Did not he make any effort
to rescue you by appeals to the Captain, or by so working up the crew
as to determine them to sail the ship back to Old Harbour Town?"

"I can assure you, papa," answered Lucy, "that Mr Eagle is a very
silly, sour man, in whose rheumatism I shall no longer take any
interest. He thought I was mad, and was as much afraid of me as he was
of Mr Lawrence, and was careful to avoid me. As I just now said, if I
was to be mad to Mr Lawrence, I must be mad to the others, and fully
believing that I was mad, the crew would naturally think that the most
humane course Mr Lawrence could adopt was to send me home by any ship
that would receive me."

"You must have acted your part well, my child," said Captain Acton,
viewing the girl with admiration and fondness.

"I was forced to act many parts. Every day the strain grew more and
more unsupportable, and I prayed for the end to come in the way I was
working for. I was obliged to act many parts, some so base, sordid,
even disgusting, that my heart sickened at my imposition, and the
internal struggle with my feelings was as hard as my external efforts.
I had to invent my parts and rehearse them."

"What were the characters which could convince so shrewd and
intelligent a man as Mr Lawrence that you were mad?" enquired Captain
Acton, the habitual gravity of whose face was replaced by a constant
expression of astonishment.

"I pretended to hear voices, and answered, of course, when Mr Lawrence
was present," said Lucy. "I would bow to visionary persons and address
them. One was the Duke of Clarence, whose hand I kissed while Mr
Lawrence looked on."

Captain Acton's eyes opened wide; the Admiral gurgled a nervous laugh.

"I secreted my rings and some rubbish, and made signs with a mad face
to Mr Lawrence to come and look at the treasure I had hidden. I took
my meals on the deck crouching like an animal. I would shriek with
laughter which had nothing to do with what was said. A later and most
difficult effort was to believe that I was Mrs Siddons."

"What on earth have you been reading in your day about madness to give
you such extraordinary ideas?" said Captain Acton.

"I can't tell how the fancies came to me," said Lucy. "I know that mad
people see apparitions and reply to imaginary voices. I also remembered
old Sarah Hutchinson who was thought mad because she was always trying
to tear up things: her sheets, her gowns, anything that might be given
to her. It was the remembrance of this disease in her that made me rip
up my mattress and scatter the feathers about the cabin."

"Some of these days, madam," said the Admiral, "I trust you will favour
me with a sample of the genius that terrified Mr Lawrence and led to
your recovery, for which God be praised."

She looked at Sir William, and with that look her face underwent a
change--the change that had amazed Mr Lawrence, that transformation of
beauty into alternate idiocy and bright-eyed madness, that marvellous
facial motion which had done more to convince her kidnapper that his
act had driven her mad than all the rest of her impersonations put
together. Her rich and beautiful eyelids seemed to shrink up into the
sockets in which her eyes were lodged; the eyes themselves seemed to
sparkle with the uninterpretable passions of the afflicted brain; the
faint bloom which her cheek wore when she stepped on board faded as the
picture of a red rose overhanging its reflection in water disappears at
the blurring by the wind of its liquid mirror. Her lips were elongated
and parted, and grey with tension, and her teeth, white as sea foam,
were set. The whole expression of madness was incomparably life-like.

Sir William started back in his chair, crying faintly: "My God! Look at
her, Acton!"

The father caught that surprising face of dramatic genius a moment
before she composed her features to their natural calm beauty of
drooping lid and brooding eye and sweet expression of lip, and the
tenderness, the gentleness, the goodness that was her heart's and her
soul's, and the foundations of her moral nature.

"Well, Lucy," said Captain Acton, after fetching a deep breath of
astonishment, "should I die insolvent, you will know your fortune. You
have it in your face: I don't question the rest of your performance.
'Tis the very spirit of her mother, sir. Small wonder that Mr Lawrence
was convinced."

"The British stage misses a splendid figure, a shining light, in your
neglect of it, madam," said the Admiral.

"Oh, I have no taste for acting. I have no ambition to be an actress.
This effort was forced upon me. How was I to disgust him, sir?"

Again at this ingenuous remark the Admiral and the Captain exchanged a
smile.

"Do you think, my dear," said Captain Acton, "that the crew know they
are being carried to Rio de Janeiro? I believe, sir," he continued,
addressing the Admiral, "that in Mr Lawrence's letter that Mr Greyquill
brought to us reference was made to certain sealed orders given by
me to the captain of the ship to be opened and read to the crew in a
position that was or was not named--I forget."

"I have no doubt that the crew know that the ship is not being steered
to the West Indies," answered Lucy. "In silent weather in my cabin I
could hear any conversation that passed in the room where Mr Lawrence
or his officers sat at table, and more than once I overheard Mr Pledge
and Mr Eagle talking about the ship's navigation, wondering to what
port Captain Acton had in his sealed orders directed Mr Lawrence to
carry the ship, to sell her and dismiss the crew. I therefore supposed
that the rest of the men would know that the ship was not bound to
Kingston."

"I judge by this," said Captain Acton, addressing the Admiral, "that my
sealed orders"--he smiled sarcastically, and the Admiral listened with
a frown--"have not yet been read to the crew by Mr Lawrence."

"Where is the _Aurora_ going?" enquired Lucy.

"We are pursuing the _Minorca_," answered Captain Acton.

She looked down upon the table with a grave face. "She is not far
distant," she said, speaking as though in soliloquy. "It is only three
days ago that I was on board of her. This swift vessel is certain to
overtake her. And what then will happen?"

And as she said this she suddenly lifted her eyes half-veiled, dark,
and beaming to her father's face.

"The Admiral and I," answered Captain Acton, talking as though slightly
embarrassed, though moved by other feelings, "consider that we cannot
do better than remove Mr Lawrence into this ship, and carry him to
England."

"And what after?" enquired Lucy, observing that her father paused with
an expressive look at Sir William, "I mean what after as regards Mr
Lawrence?"

"You do not wish him to be hanged for piracy, even if abduction be not
a hanging matter," said Captain Acton with a smile in his eyes as he
met the Admiral's.

The girl shuddered. "I know they hang for piracy!" she exclaimed. "It
is what must happen if you convey him to England."

"He must be prosecuted before they can hang him," said Captain Acton,
whilst the Admiral's regard was fastened upon Lucy's face with such
tokens of affectionate gratitude and surprise which rose to a passion
of delight as made the worthy, poor old man's jolly, weather-scored,
truly British countenance moving to behold. "And who is to prosecute
him? I alone am the sufferer. I alone can prosecute. Am I likely to do
so? Am I the man to bring my friend's son to the gallows?"

"No, sir, no!" cried the Admiral in a deep, trembling voice.

"But though you do not prosecute him, sir," said Lucy, "might not his
story become known so that he might be arrested for piracy, and charged
and convicted on the evidence of his crew?"

"You are a Portia," said Captain Acton.

"She reasons exquisitely well!" exclaimed the Admiral, slowly and
dolefully wagging his head.

"We propose to provide against all that your fears picture, my dear,"
said Captain Acton, who could no longer doubt that Aunt Caroline was
right, and that there had been, and that there still lived, a deep
secret liking or love for Mr Lawrence in Lucy, which had not suffered
but rather gained by his rascality, "by landing Mr Lawrence at an
English port where he is unknown, where habited in the garb of a common
merchant sailor he will seek, and of course obtain, employment before
the mast, and sail away clear of all dangerous consequences of his
conduct."

"Sail away, madam, into the remotest part of the earth to be seen no
more--to be heard of no more," said the Admiral, trying to master
his face as he spoke. But he failed and turned his head from his
companions, and would have buried his face in his hands but that he
would not have them know that his love for his son was deeper than his
horror at his conduct.

The silence that followed was eloquent with recognition of the poor
old gentleman's trouble. Lucy left her chair, and going close to the
Admiral said, yet not so low but that Captain Acton overheard her:
"It will not be as you say, Sir William. Indeed it must not be. So
fine a character besmirched by acts into which a very bitter necessity
has forced him, ought not to be found in the common garb of a humble
working merchant sailor, nor buried in some distant parts where he can
never shine as a man of fine and heroic spirit fit to fill the highest
position in the service he has left; and above all, and which is best,
sir, capable of bitter regret, of deep feeling, of exerting the power
by which the humbled man is alone able to struggle--I mean the power of
self-regeneration."

She spoke like a young wild-eyed prophetess; her tones had a vigorous,
dramatic clearness which made her voice new to her father's ears. Her
language, which seemed exalted beyond her age, beyond anything one
would look for in the lips of so calm, modest, and undemonstrative a
girl, she appeared to make peculiarly appropriate to her years and sex,
by her delivery, her melodies of accentuation, the easy grasp with
which, it was clear, she held a subject that was deep in human nature.

The Admiral rose, and addressing her as though she were the consort of
a king, said: "Madam, as the father of the person you speak of, I ask
Almighty God, who is merciful and knows the human heart, to bless you
for your words."

Captain Acton was silent. He was astonished. He had never observed his
daughter as Aunt Caroline did. He was wanting in feminine sagacity
where the heart is concerned. He saw that if his daughter was not
in love with Mr Lawrence, she was dangerously near that passion; she
seemed to him to have been transformed into a sweetheart by usage
which would have made the heart of most young women fierce with hate
and horror. She was under a spell which she thought to break by the
practice of an inherited art, as miraculous in effect as it had been
unsuspected in being, and she had left her kidnapper seemingly as
enamoured of him as though his behaviour from the beginning had been
strictly honourable and chivalrous, an additament to the passion which
his gallant record, his lofty bearing, and his handsome looks had
inspired in her.

Her rising from the table had caused the gentlemen to rise. They went
on deck. Lucy said she was tired and would be glad to take some rest;
her accommodation on board the _Louisa Ann_ was very wretched, and
she had scarcely been able to sleep on account of the gruff voices,
the alarming creaking and groaning noises, and a strange hideous
smell which probably came from the cargo, all which she must always
associate in memory with the _Louisa Ann_. She wished however to see
the _Aurora_, and for some minutes she stood on the deck with her
father and the Admiral beside her, gazing round the picture as though
entranced. Once again her lovely eyes seemed to brood even in their
glances; they appeared to dwell with a dreamy delight on what they
beheld. Through her parted lips the sweet breeze rushed, and the hair
upon her brow flickered like shadows cast by the wavering of a silver
flame.

The bright, mild wind came gushing steadily over the bulwark rail;
the decks were slightly sloped, and their seams ran black, as defined
as the ebony lines ruled by standing rigging in moonshine, and the
planks between shone like ivory. On high the heeling structure was a
vast surface of canvas, with three square yards at the fore for the
fore topsail and topgallant sail, and over the swan-like stem of this
American clipper--for a clipper she was--the immensely long bowsprit
and jibboom spread the foot of huge triangular wings which gave the
hull a grand and noble look forward, as though she was about to spring
from the water in the brilliant flash of foam which darted from the wet
and metalled fore-foot, to form one of the squadron of cream-coloured
clouds royal in their progress with trailing robes of glory.

"What a contrast," exclaimed Lucy, "to the _Louisa Ann_!"

She turned her eyes into that remote part of the sea on the quarter
where the _Louisa Ann_ hung transformed by distance and sunshine into
a star of day. So marvellous is the magic wrought by the wand of the
deep in its passage over even such shapeless enormities as the Whitby
brig.

When she had drunk her full of the fine wide scene of sea and sky and
milk-bright schooner in the midst, with never a break the clear horizon
round save the _Louisa Ann_ that was fast fading, Lucy went below,
followed by her father, who kissed her again and again in a transport
of delight at having recovered her, and in being able once more to
hold his adored child to his heart, and before she entered her berth
to lie down and rest, he said to her: "I am so overjoyed, my darling,
in having recovered you that I take no interest in the _Minorca_. Mr
Lawrence may do with her what he pleases--I have you."

She smiled and kissed him, and then said: "But oh, sir, his poor old
father! You have regained me, your only child, but Sir William, an old,
a good man, an upright, a beautiful character, must lose his son, an
only child too."

"He shall not lose him through me," said Captain Acton, speaking
with the solemnity with which he might utter a sentence in a sacred
building. "Sir William shall never be made to suffer at my hands. I
will not lift a finger to prosecute Mr Lawrence, who, if he ever
returns to Old Harbour Town, will be safe from all but his creditors."

She slightly coloured as though surprised into an emotion of happiness,
and again kissing her father went into her berth, and Captain Acton
returned to the Admiral slowly and thoughtfully.

It was early next morning, about six bells--seven o'clock--when an
event of the deepest historic interest to those who took part in it,
broke the routine of the chase of the _Minorca_ by the _Aurora_. The
wind was a little to the north of west, and blew a gentle breeze which
rippled the waters upon the long-drawn swell that came heaving from
horizon to horizon, from north-west to south-east, as though a gale of
wind had been lately blowing or was to come. Though freckled with high
fine-weather clouds the dome of heaven sank in purity to its girdle of
sea line, and from the deck at daybreak nothing was in sight.

But soon as the east changed from darkness into a pale luminous grey,
with the stars fading above the soaring haze of light as though they
fled in scatterings, a sailor trotted up the forerigging of the
_Aurora_, and shinned as high as the topgallant yard over which he
flung a leg with his back against the mast, and taking the telescope
that was slung upon his back in his hands, he slowly and steadily
directed the lenses round the girdle of brine which was now faintly
stealing into a visible horizon in the west, and his silence betokened
to Captain Weaver, who stood on the quarterdeck with eyes fixed upon
the fellow up aloft, that nothing was in sight.

Captain Weaver was carrying out the instructions he had received at Old
Harbour Town. He was chasing the _Minorca_. The recovery of Lucy had
led to no change in those instructions. Though Captain Acton in his
gratitude for the restoration of his child was willing to relinquish
the pursuit and to leave the _Minorca_ and the handsome piratical
scoundrel who had sailed away with her and Lucy to their fate, he
had not revealed his thoughts to Captain Weaver, nor to the Admiral,
and the _Aurora_ at this hour of daybreak on a day in June 1805, was
steadily stemming in chase of the barque which she was to capture,
Captain Weaver did not exactly know how. For the _Aurora_ was unarmed,
whilst the _Minorca_ mounted four pieces of artillery, and was in
command of a naturally desperate fighting and fearless spirit, one
whose neck would certainly be broken by the hangman if he was taken:
unless indeed his crew turned upon him, and backed their yards and
stopped the ship, that her owner might come by his own, despite Mr
Lawrence's levelled pistol or any threats he might make use of in
reference to the powder magazine. "But," Captain Weaver had thought to
himself on several occasions, "time enough to know what's a-going to
happen when we heave the _Minorca_ into view or draw abreast of her,
for who's to tell but that we are bound to miss her, in which case we
shall receive her at Rio, providing her skipper hasn't got scent of
us and shifted his hellum for another port, and then there can be no
blazing away of carronades on one side and a trimming of sail to keep
clear of shot on the other."

Just as the sun rose the Admiral came on deck, and as the old gentleman
stepped over the coaming of the sunk door of the deck-house and mounted
the two or three steps that carried him on deck, the man on the
topgallant yard, with his telescope shooting straight from his eye into
the south-west quarter of the sea, bawled: "On deck there! Two sail, a
point and a half on the starboard bow."

Scarcely had the words been received by the ears on deck, when he
shouted: "Two more sail, just astarn of the two first."

"What's this going to be?" exclaimed the Admiral to Captain Weaver.

Another call from the mast-head, and yet another and another and
another in brief intervals of scarce half a minute's duration each;
and at last fourteen sail were reported in sight on the starboard bow,
sailing large, heading north-east or thereabouts so that the course of
the _Aurora_ would bring her into the thick of them.

At this moment Captain Acton came on deck. He saw the cloud of sail in
an instant, and the Admiral having taken the ship's glass from Captain
Weaver's hands, Acton rushed into the deck-house to get his own fine
telescope.

"A small convoy, sir, I think," said Captain Weaver.

"No, sir," responded Captain Acton, with his eye at his glass. "Line of
battle-ships, and three smaller vessels," for by this time the distant
fleet by combination of its own and the passage of the _Aurora_ through
the water had lifted above the horizon to the topsails of the hindmost,
the courses of the van swelling and falling plain in the lenses as the
structures bowed upon the large, wide, steel-coloured swell tinctured
by the day-spring.

"I agree with you, Acton: a fleet of men-of-war," said the Admiral.

"British or French?" enquired Captain Acton, letting his glass sink
whilst he looked at his companions. "Before we sailed the news had got
about that Villeneuve meant to go for the West Indies. It may be his
ships returning." He pointed his glass again, and counted: "Eleven sail
of the line and three frigates."

"Villeneuve's force was greater, sir," said the Admiral. "It was
reckoned at eighteen or twenty line-of-battle ships."

"All the same we must mind our eye," said Captain Acton. "Shorten sail,
Captain Weaver! But furl nothing! And stand by to get away close hauled
on the larboard tack before we're within gunshot."

Lucy came out of the deck-house. A long night's rest had restored much
of the bloom to her beauty. She wanted something of the freshness,
but she lacked nothing of the sweetness and the loveliness with which
she fascinated the gaze at home. She ran to her father and kissed
him, shook hands with the Admiral, and bowed to Captain Weaver most
cordially.

"What a lot of ships!" she cried.

The crew were busy with letting go halliards and brailing in and
clewing up, and the _Aurora_ floated forward, slowly swaying her
mast-heads with languor and dignity as the heave of the sea took her
and rocked her. The ships rose until every hull was visible.

Eleven line-of-battle ships, as Captain Acton said, and three frigates.
They flew no colours: nothing in that way could be seen save the
little patch against the flecked sky that denoted the flag-ship.

"If they are not British, sir," said the Admiral, after a prolonged
squint through the glass, "I'll swallow my cocked hat when I get
ashore."

"I could swear to one of them as the _Superb_," said Captain Acton, who
had also taken a prolonged view of the ships through his glass. "She
is a slow sailer. I know that she is rotten to the core for want of a
dockyard. If I am not greatly mistaken, her stun-sail booms are lashed
to the yards, and she is the only one with stun-sails set, which means
that her rotting keel marks the pace for the rest. Hoist our colours!
We'll chance it."

Captain Weaver sped aft, and in a few moments the English Ensign soared
to the mizzen-gaff end and streamed out fair to the sight of the
approaching fleet.

"British, as I guessed," cried the Admiral.

"And here comes a frigate to speak us," exclaimed Captain Acton, as one
of the smaller vessels which had hoisted English colours came out from
the crowd with yards braced for the shift of helm and, leaning under
her silk-white towers of cloths, and rolling as she came, made directly
for the _Aurora_.

The schooner was washing slowly along under her three lower gaff sails
only, and the frigate that carried everything but studding sails was
speedily within ranging and hailing distance. She was the _Amphion_,
without much beauty to detain the eye, unless the gaze climbed aloft
where every sail was cut and set with the perfection that was the
characteristic of the British man-of-war, and where the running and
standing rigging was ruled as delicately against the sky as though
exquisitely pencilled on paper, and on high, just under the gleaming
button of the truck, shimmered the long pennant in fluctuating dyes
like a thread of a girl's golden hair floating on the breeze. But her
sheathing was rusty and ungainly with marine growths, and her sides
wanted the paint-pot, but the run of the hammock cloths was as white
as snow, and her row of cannon and the sparkle of uniform buttons and
the colour got from the marine sentry posted here or there, heightened
the war-like spectacle to the degree of a marine piece charged with the
loveliness of finish and precision and imposing and stirring with the
spirit of war.

She put her helm over, and sailing broadside to broadside with the
_Aurora_, hailed her from the throat of a lieutenant who had hoisted
his figure by standing on a carronade.

"Ho, the schooner ahoy! where are you from?"

"Old Harbour Town, England," responded Captain Weaver.

"Have you seen anything of the French Fleet?"

"No, sir, we have sighted nothing of that sort."

This was manifestly all that the frigate had left the other ships to
ascertain, and the lieutenant was in the act of springing on to the
deck, when Captain Acton shouted: "Pray, sir, can you tell us what
those ships are?"

"They are the fleet under Lord Nelson," was the answer, "which have
been chasing Monsieur de Villeneuve across the Atlantic to the West
Indies, and are now bound to Europe, having missed the Frenchmen."

"I am Admiral Sir William Lawrence," was next bawled. "Will you be so
good as to inform me if Lord Nelson is on board one of those ships, and
which ship?"

"Yes, sir, he is on board the _Victory_. She is the one that is ahead
of and to windward of the ship that has stun-sails set."

So saying, and evidently not much impressed by meeting an Admiral of
whom he had never heard in a schooner that looked uncommonly like a
slaver or a pirate, the lieutenant disappeared, and a moment or two
after, the frigate trimmed sail to rejoin the fleet.

"Nelson!" cried Captain Acton, in a voice subdued by reverence for the
name it pronounced, addressing his daughter. "We must run down and have
a look at him. The deviation need not be above two or three miles,
which will not cause us to lose sight of the _Minorca_ by diverting us
from her track. Make all sail again, Captain Weaver, and head for that
flag-ship. You can see her: she is to windward of the ship with the
stun-sails."

All sail was immediately made on the schooner. And with a fine dancing
motion thrown into her by the swell, her coppered sides slipped nimbly
through the water, graced by the frolic of foam sheared out of the
feathering ripples by the sharp stem.

It was not very long before the eleven sail of the line with their
attendant frigates were swelling large, bristling, and close to the
_Aurora_, at whose signal halliards stood two sailors who dipped to
such battle-ships as the schooner passed receiving the acknowledgment
of small ensigns gaff-ended, and then hauled down to be hoisted no
more. The picture was full of a grandeur that borrowed majesty from
the sense of the power and the empire the ships symbolised. They were
lordly in slow motion; they bowed to the swell as though in lofty
homage to their mistress the sea; they were terrible in triple rows
of cannon and by virtue of the traditional magnificent spirit, silent
and concealed behind their lofty and invincible defences. It was the
breakfast hour, but the people aboard the _Aurora_ were very willing
to wait to break their fast. Not a man but was fascinated by the sight
and presence of that tall, majestic ship out there, with the little
flag at the fore. For Nelson--the Nelson of the North, of Aboukir Bay,
of Teneriffe, of St Vincent, the Nelson of a hundred wounds, the first
of all sea chieftains in the history of the world, Nelson, the truest
sailor, the kindest shipmate, the man of the purest and loftiest spirit
of chivalry and patriotism that ever stepped the planks of a ship's
decks--this great, this sublime hero, to be even greater and sublimer
in his victorious and immortal death a few months later--_Nelson was in
her_!

As the schooner, swifter by two to one than the battle-ships, passed
onwards on her road to the _Victory_, the Admiral and Captain Acton
recognised some of the three-deckers in which they had served as
midshipmen.

"There's the old _Canopus_!" cried the Admiral. "Lord, what a shivering
recollection I have of her main topmast cross-trees!"

"And there's the _Bellisle_," said Captain Acton. "I was in her"--and
he named the period to his daughter, whom he addressed, but who seemed
to have no eyes for any ship but the _Victory_. Other ships, the two
retired naval officers knew, were the _Superb_, _Spencer_, _Swiftsure_,
and _Leviathan_.

The position of the _Victory_ gave plenty of scope for the
manoeuvrings of the _Aurora_. Captain Weaver, finding that he would
rapidly outsail the liner and be ahead and out of hail before half a
dozen sentences could be exchanged, luffed the _Aurora_ to windward of
the _Victory_, wisely declining to be becalmed by the big ship's sails
if he stationed his little craft to leeward of her. A lieutenant stood
at the forward end of the raised deck, or poop as it really was. One
or two midshipmen were visible. The sentry on the forecastle was in
sight; otherwise scarce a man was to be seen. The lieutenant hailed as
the officer in the _Amphion_ had: "Schooner ahoy! Are you fresh from
England?"

"Direct, sir," answered Captain Weaver.

Scarcely had the _Aurora's_ skipper made this answer when there
appeared at the side of the lieutenant a figure whose apparition was
so sudden that, like Hamlet's ghost in the theatre, he might be
thought to have risen from below through an opening in the deck. He
wore a cocked hat athwartships. His frock uniform coat seemed somewhat
threadbare; amidst the folds of the left breast of his coat were four
weather-tarnished and lustreless stars. The right sleeve was empty and
was secured to the breast. One eye was protected by a green shade. He
looked a little man alongside the lieutenant who himself was not above
the average. Collingwood described him as small enough to be drawn
through an alderman's thumb ring.

At the sight of this immortal figure the Admiral and Captain Acton
instantly bared their heads, and the whole of the crew of the _Aurora_,
springing into the fore and main shrouds, roared hurrahs in such voices
as perhaps only British sailors' throats are capable of delivering.
Amidst those shouts of rapturous recognition and impassioned pride,
could be heard such exclamations as, "God bless you, Lord Nelson!"
"Down with the French, and glory to our Hero!" "Hurrah for the grandest
sailor in the world!"

Nelson, standing beside his lieutenant, who might have been Pasco (the
officer who, on the 21st day of the following October, made the Nelson
signal that is as dear as his heart's blood to every Englishman),
acknowledged the salutations of the schooner's quarterdeck and the
mobs in her rigging by bows and a smile, and a lifting of his hand and
certain flapping motions of the stump of his right arm, an action into
which he was frequently moved when irritated or pleased.

"I should like to know," he exclaimed, and every ear on board the
schooner was bent to catch his accents, with the greed with which a
crowd of men might be supposed to extend their hands to catch a shower
of gold flung amongst them from a height, "if you have seen anything of
the French Fleet under Admiral Villeneuve?"

"No, my lord," shouted the Admiral, "I am very sorry to say we have
not."

Nelson's stump wagged with annoyance.

"I have followed them to the West Indies," he exclaimed, "with eleven
sail of the line, and Villeneuve has eighteen or twenty; but you may
tell them at home, if you are returning shortly, that had I fallen in
with the French Fleet I should have brought them to action."

"We are honoured by your lordship's command," cried the Admiral. "May
I venture to introduce myself as Admiral Sir William Lawrence? And I
beg the honour of introducing my friend Captain Acton, late of His
Majesty's Royal Navy, and his daughter, Miss Lucy Acton."

Nelson flourished a salutation. Lucy sank in a curtsy that was almost
the same as kneeling. Most girls have a favourite hero, and Nelson
was her's, and had been her's ever since he came into renown on the
glorious St Valentine's Day. Had her father not been fascinated by the
figure on the _Victory_, he might have witnessed the almost magical art
with which his daughter had alarmed Mr Lawrence into releasing her, by
a brief study of her face as she gazed at the little figure on the deck
of the _Victory_, with his untenanted sleeve secured to his breast, and
a smile of acknowledgment on his pale and worn face, seamed about the
mouth with wrinkles such as are sometimes seen in persons deformed in
the back, or suffering from spinal complaint.

The _Aurora_ and the line-of-battle ship sailed so close that it needed
a special vigilance on the part of Captain Weaver to preserve his
schooner's spars from the yard-arms of the towering vessel within a
biscuit toss. Much exertion of voice was therefore not necessary for
conversation, and though Nelson occupied a platform high above the low
deck of his schooner, his features were perfectly visible, and his
voice fell as clear as though he stood beside those he addressed.

"Any relation, sir, of Lawrence of the _Peterel_ and _Curieux_ affair?"
he cried.

"I am his father, my lord," replied Sir William with a low bow, of
which the gravity that coloured it was very intelligible to Captain
Acton and Lucy.

"A brilliant piece of work, sir," cried Nelson.

Again the poor old Admiral bowed, this time with a glow of pride,
because a sentence of praise from the mighty Nelson excited in the
heart of this old sailor a transport that the highest honour conferred
by the King himself could not have induced.

"I have had the honour, my lord," exclaimed the Admiral, "to serve
under Howe, Duncan, and Sir Hyde Parker, but alas! I came into the
world too soon to reflect even a little of the glory with which those
who have had the unspeakable happiness to serve under your lordship
have covered themselves."

"Ah, three illustrious names, sir," said Nelson. "Howe was the greatest
of sea officers. Are you gentlemen making a voyage of discovery or of
pleasure?"

"We are in chase of a ship, my lord," cried Captain Acton, "which we
hope to capture."

"How? Unarmed!" exclaimed Nelson.

"We hope to effect our end without bloodshed, my lord," said Captain
Acton.

"You will be very clever. I wish I could learn how to effect ends in
the same way," were Nelson's closing words, as, saluting the people on
the deck of the _Aurora_ once more, he stepped back and disappeared,
followed by a storm of cheers from the men of the _Aurora_, in which
the Admiral and Captain Acton heartily joined, whilst Lucy flourished
her pocket-handkerchief, though her hero was out of sight.




CHAPTER XVI

THE CAPTURE


At breakfast, which was necessarily delayed on board the _Aurora_, the
conversation, as may be supposed, was almost entirely concerned with
undoubtedly the most memorable incident--the meeting with Nelson--in
the lives of Captain Acton and Sir William. The _Aurora_ had hauled out
of the Fleet with a dipping flag, and with wings eagerly straining to
the breath of the strengthening blue breeze that gushed with a tropic
warmth over the little seas which creamed and purred in heads that
would easily grow spiteful and change their fountain-like music into a
harsh hissing as of serpents, was heading as true a course as Captain
Weaver could imagine for the barque that Captain Acton wanted.

Nelson's reference to Mr Lawrence's brilliant action was going to prove
an overwhelming memory to the Admiral.

"When I think, sir," he exclaimed, as they breakfasted, "what a few
syllables of applause signify in the mouth of such a man as the hero
of the Nile, I feel as if I could spring overboard and drown myself
when I reflect that my unhappy son quitted the glorious Service under
ignoble circumstances, and that by remaining he might have come under
the command of Nelson, and gained the splendid renown which scarce a
sea officer who has served under that great man but has won."

"I for one should not need to meet Lord Nelson and hear him speak of
your son to fully agree in what you say, Sir William," said Lucy.

Her father looked at her with a questioning gaze, but made no remark.
Nearly all the talk at that breakfast table was about Nelson and his
ships and his pursuit of Villeneuve, but shortly before the three arose
the conversation had been deflected by a remark of Lucy, on which the
Admiral said: "If this breeze holds we shall be heaving the _Minorca_
into sight the day after to-morrow, or at latest the following day.
There can be no doubt that the schooner is fair in her wake. The
_Whitby_ brig seems to have steered a straight course from her to
us; and now, sir, Lord Nelson's remark comes home: we are unarmed.
The barque carries four guns with which she can pelt us without our
being able to make a reply. If she wings us she will escape, and
since she will very well know who we are that are in pursuit of her,
is my son likely to proceed to Rio? Will he not take advantage of
our being crippled to shift his course, and go away to some place,
unconjecturable by us, where he will be able to communicate with his
scoundrel friend at Rio and the Don with the long name who is to have
the management of the nefarious business?"

"You will know, sir," replied Captain Acton, "one of Nelson's favourite
sayings: at sea something must be left to chance. I count upon the
crew of the _Minorca_, when they sight the _Aurora_ and understand
her mission, which they will guess without explanation, backing her
main-topsail in defiance of your son's firearms and calling upon us to
take possession. If this does not happen, I shall not be at a loss, and
meanwhile, Sir William, let us get a view of the barque."

After breakfast Captain Acton and Lucy walked the deck, whilst the
Admiral, with his big pipe, seated himself right aft all alone, for
this little ship was steered by a wheel in front of the deck-house;
he sat puffing out clouds of tobacco with his eyes fixed upon the
glimmering phantoms of the British Fleet, which hovered in the
north-east quarter in a few dim, waning gleams; and the moods of his
mind were faithfully reproduced in his jolly, honest, well-bred,
kindly face.

The breeze blew bright and warm, and sang sweetly aloft. The brilliant
horizon ahead slided up and down past the prismatic edges of the clear
and shapely sails which yearned in steady breasts from mast-head to
jibboom and bowsprit ends; the parted water rolled past in wool-white
lines of yeast; the heavens were alive with the clouds of the air.
Nothing was in sight but Nelson's Fleet, fading.

Lucy had related much, but she had much more to tell, and she narrated
to her father fresh stories of her madness, and drew several graphic
pictures of Mr Lawrence whilst he laboured under the various sensations
her genius as an untutored artist excited. She spoke with contempt of
Mr Eagle, whilst she had little or nothing to say about Mr Pledge. Her
narratives were marked by a strong leaning in favour of Mr Lawrence.
Her father could not mistake. Her prejudice, indeed her fondness, was
expressed not so much in her admirable recitals and her references to
the dignified and gentlemanly manner with which Mr Lawrence had treated
her, with which he had received her aggravating, indeed her venomous,
references to his past and present conduct, as in the pause, the soft,
thoughtful smile, the brief exclamation, the sigh, and now and again
the little but significant remark.

"But it is impossible, Lucy," said Captain Acton, "to make a hero out
of such a fellow as this: a man who forges sealed orders supposed to be
written by me! A rogue who not only steals my property, but kidnaps my
daughter by a lie!"

"He must have done well, sir, for Nelson to have remembered him,"
said Lucy. "And, oh, papa, will not you make some allowance for the
misconduct of a man who is tempted by--by----"

"By what, my dear?"

"By love," said Lucy, hanging her head, whilst the blush that came
into her cheeks was like the revelation of the glory of the red rose
to the first delicate light of sunrise. Then with a sudden impulse of
confidence she added fluently: "He was wasting his time at Old Harbour
Town. He fell into vicious habits and modes of getting money which
he detested, but the opportunities offered, and strong as he is as a
sailor, he proved himself weak as a man."

"As a gentleman!" said Captain Acton, who followed his daughter's words
with mingled impatience and wonder.

"I feel that I am greatly to blame in this dreadful trouble," said
Lucy. "I am sure that it was his love for me, his desire to gain me as
his wife, his horror at the prospect of being an outcast through debt,
his resolution to lead an honest life and perhaps a noble life, should
I become his wife and should he obtain your forgiveness; these things I
am convinced drove him into a sort of madness in which he invented this
desperate plot which could never be forgiven in any man who was not as
brave and well-bred as Mr Lawrence, nor as--as----"

"D'ye mean handsome, Lucy?" said Captain Acton. "For the dog is that."

"But what is to happen to him," said Lucy, "if you carry him back
to England? I would rather hear," she cried, with an emphasis which
may have borrowed note and complexion from the impulse of her
late impersonations of madness, "of the _Minorca_ having sunk and
carried him down to the bottom of the sea with her, than live to
witness his degradation and perhaps his death and the misery and the
broken-heartedness that must come to his dear old father, if you do not
prove his friend, and help to reclaim a nature that in its essence is
beautiful, and a fulfilment of the purest woman's ideal."

Captain Acton walked half the length of the extent of deck they were
pacing, before he spoke. "Your dear mother," said he calmly, "whose
genius as an actress I cannot help thinking has descended to you,
though never once in all your life have you given me reason for
suspecting the existence of a gift, not wonderful by mere power of
mimicry, but astonishing by its art of persuading and convincing the
beholder that what he sees is the living thing itself: your sweet and
blessed mother, though a staunch upholder of her sex, was fond of a
saying which she had found in Pope:


    'Nothing so true as what you once let fall,
    Most women have no character at all.'


She meant by this, as Pope, or rather Horace, held, that a woman may
have a very great genius, and yet be so weak in the significant and
quint-essential actions of her life as to prove herself characterless.
You have behaved with amazing heroism. You found yourself in the hands
of one of the most unscrupulous of men----"

"No, sir," she said.

"You are placed in the most helpless situation a woman could find
herself in: at sea, locked up in a cabin, and all the crew, who might
otherwise have helped you, believing that you were running away with
Mr Lawrence, and that your imprisonment and your representations and
your madness were part of a programme preconcerted between you and
your lover. You realise the horrors and peril of your position, and
by virtue of the mother's genius that came to your help, you decided
upon a behaviour which you magnificently conducted. So much for the
better part of you: but what remains? To be wooed--shall I say won?--it
is necessary for your sweetheart to act the part of a scoundrel. He
must steal my ship and kidnap my only child, and heap lie upon lie,
and then, to be sure, he is a very pretty gentleman, a noble, gallant
rogue, at root a man of a lordly soul, of a most chivalrous and
fighting spirit to be made much of--in short, to fall desperately in
love with."

Lucy bit her under-lip, but certainly the general expression of her
face was not one of displeasure.

"So, my dear, you see that your mother was right in putting faith in
her quotation, 'Most women have no characters at all.'"

Whether Lucy would have replied to this cannot be known, for just then
the hand stationed aloft sung out: "Sail ho!"

"Where away?"

"Right ahead, sir."

But the stranger remained so long invisible from the deck whilst she
could be easily distinguished from the height of the fore-topgallant
and then from the fore-topsail yard, and then from midway the altitude
of the fore-shrouds, that it was not before the afternoon had passed
into a golden brightness of westering sunlight that the ship right
ahead revealed her canvas to the quarterdeck of the _Aurora_.

From the moment the ship in sight was reported expectation aboard the
_Aurora_ sprang and grew. Was she the _Minorca_? She was undoubtedly
square-rigged, but the lenses of the comparatively feeble telescopes
of those days could not determine before it fell dusk, whether she was
rigged aft with square yards or merely with the mizzen and gaff topsail
which made the _Minorca_ a barque.

The Admiral was restless; he paced the deck with unwearied legs, and
when the sail ahead had hove her canvas into view, he sent endless
searchings of her through his telescope, but never could arrive at an
opinion. Captain Acton was self-possessed, and his manner was marked by
contemplation as though the possibilities the ship in sight suggested
filled him with earnest and bewildering considerations.

Lucy was of opinion that the ship must prove the _Minorca_. She well
understood that the two vessels could not be far asunder, and quite
rationally concluded that the sail ahead was the barque. It would
have needed, however, a keener gaze than either Captain Acton or the
Admiral was capable of bringing to bear, to penetrate to the girl's
thoughts. Whilst the distant vessel leaned like a small orange flame
gently blown sideways by the wind upon the early evening purple of the
horizon, Lucy would overhang the rail with her brooding, beautiful
eyes dwelling upon that far-off vision, and the expression of her face
was in these intervals of motionless posture and steadfast regard, as
though she was asleep and dreamt, and that her dream was partly sweet
and partly vexing and bitter, so that her whole look was that of one
who slumbers, through whose sealed lids a vision of sleep slides to the
heart to trouble its pulse.

Captain Weaver believed that the vessel was the _Minorca_: because,
first, she carried royals; next, because she happened to be where she
was; third, the leisureliness with which the _Aurora_ rose her seemed
to prove that her pace was that of the barque. But the dusk drew round;
the gloom of night came along in that thickness of shadow which under
such heights as the _Aurora_ was then sailing, seemed swift to persons
accustomed to the northern twilights. And at the hour in which the
shades of the coming night had with their viewless fingers effaced the
stranger from the sight of the _Aurora_, and shaken some stars into
their places, the sail had been risen by the _Aurora_, till on the
heave of the swell her hull to the height of her bulwarks from the edge
of the sea was visible. And then she was steeped in darkness.

The moon was without power until shortly after midnight; her light
silvered the sails of the ship ahead, and she grew out of the gloom
into a fairy-like fantasy that might have been some symmetrical form
of moon-touched mist fleeting down the wind, or some snow-robed height
whose base lay behind the horizon.

The Admiral was on deck, and so was Captain Acton, and Captain Weaver
had also stepped out of the deck-house to take a look round. The
stranger was now sufficiently near to be determinable by the glass even
in moonshine; and so soon as she sprang into being under the magical
flourish of the wand of the moon, it was known for a surety that she
was not the _Minorca_. She was square-rigged aft, and made a big,
broad cloud as she rolled along under topgallant, topmast, and lower
stun-sails. The breeze that had blown throughout the day still blew,
and the circumstance of the stranger having kept ahead of the _Aurora_
for many hours was proof of her nimble keel.

"She sails faster than the _Minorca_, gentlemen," said Captain Weaver.

"She has the appearance of a frigate," said Captain Acton, working
away at her with his glass.

"Is that _your_ opinion, sir?" Captain Weaver asked the Admiral.

After a pause, during which he carefully scrutinised the vessel, "She
has every appearance of being a frigate," the Admiral answered.

Of what nation, if an armed ship? A wide berth was to be given to the
Tricolour or the Spanish Flag. After much debate the order was given
for sail to be reduced that the _Aurora's_ pace might not outmeasure
that of the stranger, until break of day should yield a better idea of
her character. Meanwhile she must be closely watched, and at the first
shift of the stranger's helm the _Aurora_ must out with all wings and
slide away from gun range with the despatch the wind could give her.

The dark moonlit hours thus passed, and the _Aurora_ followed the
stranger, but at a distance that was out of cannon reach.

At daylight the vessel proved to be a frigate; she was painted black,
with red gun-ports and red tompions. But this was no evidence of her
nationality, for it was only comparatively recently that Nelson had
caused ships under his command to carry white bands which the portholes
for the guns chequered with black squares. And many ships of the State
in 1805 were black in hull and some of them yellow.

"We must take our chance," said Captain Acton to Weaver, "and end our
doubts in the only possible way. See that our ensign blows clear for
the eyes aboard of her."

As the ship ahead was almost stern on, they ran the British ensign to
the _Aurora's_ mizzen-mast head whence it streamed, a "meteor flag," in
the silver-white glory of the sun. In a few moments the English colours
were hoisted aboard the stranger, on which the Admiral delivered a
British cheer, which was caught up and re-echoed by a few of the crew
forward.

Immediately every stitch of canvas that the schooner carried was
set, and bending to the pressure of the fine breeze that was now
flashing from right abeam, gracing the multitudinous run of the surge
with the various splendours of the morning's light; the three-masted
American-built clipper _Aurora_ thrashed through it in her pursuit of
the black British frigate at a rate of sailing that within three hours
brought her within speaking distance of the man-of-war.

Before this happened, however, Captain Acton had called a council of
his daughter and the Admiral, and a resolution had been arrived at of
which the nature will appear in a few moments.

The frigate seemed unquestionably of foreign build; but the name
_Phoebe_, written in large characters upon her stern over which from
the peak of the mizzen-gaff streamed the flag of our country, was a
warranty that whatever nationality her builders had boasted, she was
now a British ship. She was somewhat old in years, as was manifested
by her fore-mast that was stepped too far forward to please a critical
eye, whilst her main-mast stood too far aft, its nearness to the
mizzen-mast offending the gaze by an appearance of crowding. But she
was very spick and span: as fresh as though just launched; her glossy,
black sides trembled with the lustre of the sea; her canvas was
spacious and superb in cut and set. The white line of hammock cloths
delightfully contrasted with the gilt rope of beading which ran the
length of her below the wash streak, and which terminated on the stern
in a flourish of gilt scroll amid which the windows gleamed darkly
like those of Old Harbour House duskily shining amidst the foliage of
creepers.

The regular enquiry was made from the frigate's quarterdeck by an
officer, and the regular information was supplied by Captain Weaver.

"I will send a boat aboard of you!" was the shout which immediately
followed Weaver's response. "Shorten sail, or shake the way out of her
as you please!"

"Just what could have been wished!" exclaimed Captain Acton to the
Admiral. "She suspects us. 'Twill save a world of bawling."

Sail was at once shortened aboard the schooner and the helm put down,
which held the canvas shuddering in smart ripplings of shadow, whilst
on board the frigate the lower stun-sail was taken in, the other
stun-sails boom-ended, the main topsail yard backed to the wind and the
ship's way arrested, all with the alacrity and quietude which are to be
found only in a British man-of-war in perfection.

Down sank a boat from the davits with a lieutenant in the stern sheets,
and six sailors to pull her, and in a dozen strokes of the blades
feathering in fire to the sunlight and dropping jewels of brilliant
dyes ere they were buried for the next foaming impulse, the boat was
alongside the schooner. The lieutenant mounted the short length of
steps which had been flung over through the open gangway and saluted
the little ship as all sea-gentlemen do, or should, when they step
aboard a vessel, even though she should be as mean as an Irish hooker.

The Admiral, Captain Acton, and Captain Weaver stood in the gangway
to receive the officer, a man whose portrait should be painted by the
caricaturing brush of a Michael Scott. He was this side of forty, and a
great Roman nose stood out like a flying jib between two gaunt cheeks
whose hollows when he was silent made you think he was sucking in his
breath. He wore a pigtail under a very old, tarnished cocked hat. His
uniform coat was scarcely held together by the tailor's thread, and
appeared to have travelled a score of times round the world in an age
when a voyage round the world was regarded as something more prodigious
than we should now consider a voyage to the moon, if such a journey
were practicable. His shoes were rusty; his hose had gone into mourning
over an absence of soap that was all the same as the death of his
laundress. Yet despite a garb that made a travesty of the human figure
there was something distinguished and even noble in the man's bearing.
It was to be seen at once (and no masterful capacity of penetration was
needed) that in this officer was the gentleman of old blood, poor and
proud, a loyal subject whose heart's life was at the service of his
King and country.

It might be thought that the first person in the group this
gentleman's eyes fastened upon was Lucy. She would be held to appeal in
her sweetness, colour, freshness, and youth to a sailor as a nosegay of
lovely flowers to a lover of flowers who for months has lived forlorn
in a desert of sand. But instead of looking at Lucy, the lieutenant
stared at the Admiral with a very great deal of visible speculation in
the screwed-up cock of his eye, till his face relaxed with these words:
"Pray, sir, did you ever hear of Billy Lawrence?"

"Who commanded His Britannic Majesty's sloop _Merlin_?" cried Sir
William. "My dear Fellowes, this is indeed an unexpected meeting. And
you knew me before I should have known you!"

They grasped hands.

"Acton, let me introduce an old shipmate--Lieutenant Fellowes. Captain
Acton--Miss Lucy Acton."

"Of the Norfolk Fellowes?" enquired Captain Acton, after bows and
smiles had been exchanged.

"Ay, sir," exclaimed the Admiral; "and as a man of Norfolk myself I am
proud of the family whose records do honour to the dear old county."

"Pray, what is your ship, sir?" asked Captain Acton.

"The _Phoebe_."

"Who's her captain?"

"Lord Garlies."

"Ha!" said Captain Acton. "He was at St Vincent."

"As a spectator only, I think, sir," answered Mr Fellowes.

"His lordship evidently suspects us," said Captain Acton, laughing.

"Why, to be sure," said the lieutenant, laughing also, "you have a very
slaving, piratical look. Who would expect to find a British Admiral
aboard so rakish a craft?"

"But unarmed, Fellowes, unarmed!" exclaimed the Admiral. "You won't
want to see our papers, will ye?"

And the worthy old sailor chuckled heartily from his throat to the
bottom of his waistcoat.

"Will you step into the deck-house, sir," said Captain Acton, "and
learn our strange story, which shall not detain you long."

Mr Fellowes bowed with a smile which charmed Lucy by its good-nature,
and by the light it kindled in the man's face, where she witnessed that
sort of breeding which her heart, as the hearts of most women who are
ladies at heart, delight in. The party of four entered the structure,
and the cabin servant was ordered to put refreshments on the table.

"This is the yarn, Fellowes," said the Admiral, who, it had been
pre-arranged, was to tell the story. "My friend Acton is the owner
of this schooner; he is also the owner of another ship, called the
_Minorca_. Now, this ship, of which my friend was good enough to give
the command to my son----"

"A fine fellow," interrupted Mr Fellowes. "How is he?"

"Pretty well--pretty middling, I thank ye," answered the Admiral. "But
just now in a bit of a fix. It has come to our knowledge that there has
been a mutiny on board the _Minorca_, and that the crew are navigating
the vessel to Rio de Janeiro----"

"The _Phoebe_ is bound to that port," again interrupted Mr Fellowes.

"Good!" cried the Admiral, with an expressive look at Captain
Acton--"instead," continued Sir William, "of Kingston, Jamaica, to
which place her cargo is consigned. We are following her in this
clipper, which outsails her by two to one, and we have reason to know
that she is now about two days in advance of us. The _Minorca_ is
armed: we are not. And your captain will be conferring a very great
favour upon us if, seeing that the _Phoebe_ is almost as swift as this
schooner, he will allow us to keep him company, so that if we jointly
fall in with the _Minorca_, her crew may be overawed by the guns of the
frigate."

"Lord Garlies, I am sure, will be happy to oblige you, Sir William,
and your friend, in any way he can," said the lieutenant. "Pray, how
did you happen to hear of the seizure of the ship and her shift of
course to Rio?"

"The news was communicated to us," said the Admiral, "in a letter which
had been written before the ship sailed by a conspicuous member of the
crew. A copy of this letter fell into Captain Acton's hands on the very
day the _Minorca_ left Old Harbour Town, and my friend immediately
arranged to pursue his ship in this smart schooner when she could be
got ready."

The Admiral spoke with a steady face and with a steady voice. He was
giving a version of the story which to all intents and purposes was
true, and there was nothing in the relation, as previously devised, to
alarm his conscience as a gentleman and a man of honour by inaccuracy.

"I see," exclaimed Mr Fellowes. "But are you sure of the situation of
the chase?"

"Why, sir, yes, as sure as we can be of anything at sea," said Captain
Acton, who thought it judicious and proper to join in. "Yesterday
we spoke the brig _Louisa Ann_ of Whitby, who reported that three
days before, she had asked for some provisions from a ship named the
_Minorca_ whose rig was that of my barque. There is no doubt that my
ship is just ahead of us, and that our superior sailing will enable
us to overhaul her within a week. The effect of the frigate's presence
will be to rescue the capture from the trouble of bloodshed. When your
guns are seen, sir, and the character of your ship distinguished, the
mutineers will back their topsail yard and leave us to quietly take
possession."

The lieutenant politely nodded his agreement with this view, and
finished his glass of brandy and soda-water. At long intervals, to
compare the lapses with the short time he spent on board, he directed
a look at Lucy; but the glance was that of a man who knows that women
do not admire him, and do not want him, a poor, plain, and elderly man:
and whose policy, resolved long ago, was to give the marriageable part
of the sex a very wide berth.

The conversation at the Admiral's instance, and to his own and the
relief of Captain Acton and his daughter, was now changed into a few
questions and answers which have nothing whatever to do with this
narrative; and after a visit that had lasted about twenty minutes, Mr
Fellowes took his leave, cordially and with a hearty handshake bidding
his old captain God-speed and farewell, and bowing with dignity and
much respect and a pleasant kindness of expression of face to Captain
Acton, and the sweet girl whose story, had the Admiral or Captain
Acton thought fit to relate it, would no doubt have exchanged his
light, superficial, uncritical regard into a gaze of admiration and
astonishment.

"I suppose that is Lord Garlies whom he is addressing," exclaimed
Captain Acton, on the arrival of the lieutenant at his ship.

The question was answered by the person thus referred to coming to
the ship's side after receiving Mr Fellowes' report. The preliminary
hail having been bawled--the two vessels lay close together, and those
aboard one might hear the wash of the waters alongside the other, in
the falls of silence--the person referred to by Captain Acton shouted:
"I shall have much pleasure in complying with your request."

"We beg to thank you most cordially," replied the Admiral, who, in
response to Captain Acton's desire, was acting as spokesman in this
passage. "May I venture to ask if I have the honour of addressing my
Lord Garlies?"

His lordship bowed: upon which the Admiral and Captain Acton paid him
the homage of their hats in a well-accentuated flourish of courtesy,
for not only was Lord Garlies a brave man and a fine seaman: he was the
son of an earl and heir to a title which made a claim that in its way
was not less irresistible in 1805 than it may be found a hundred years
later.

"The best course we can adopt," cried Lord Garlies, "is to keep the
width of the horizons between us. I will take the western and you the
eastern seaboard. This from aloft will enable us to command a large
surface of sea. The rig of the vessel you are chasing will determine
her for us. If I sight such a vessel on the starboard bow, I will hoist
a large red flag at the mizzen-royal-masthead; if on the larboard bow,
a white flag at the same place. You will hoist your answering signal
and manoeuvre to close us; but that shall be as the wind may prove. If
you sight your ship, it will suffice if you hoist your ensign at your
mizzen topmast head, and an answering signal will tell you that we
intend to close with you in chase."

This was deliberately delivered and clearly heard, and, with a flourish
of his hand, Lord Garlies stepped back.

In a few minutes sail had been trimmed on both vessels, and when each
had measured a distance that gave the other no more than a sight of her
bulwarks upon the sea line, the helm was put amidships and the frigate
and the schooner were steered along that course in which they hoped in
a few days to overhaul the _Minorca_.

They were sailing in bright latitudes where the weather is warm,
where often the sea rolls in a languid silken swell like the gentle
heavings of a carpet of the sheen of satin under-blown, where the stars
shine with brilliance and the moon at her full has an almost sun-like
power. And very fortunately the two ships were favoured with fine and
sparkling days vital with favourable winds. Throughout the daylight
hours the two ships held each other steadily in view, the schooner
under slightly reduced canvas, and the frigate under a press, and at
night each signalled her place by rockets discharged at intervals, so
that always when day broke the brace of pursuing structures were found
to be either abreast, or almost so, each sunk from the sight of the
other to the line of her bulwarks.

Came a fine, glittering morning towards the middle of June. It was
about half an hour after daybreak: the sun had risen, and the flood
of brilliance lay broad upon the sea in the east. Captain Acton was
dressing in his cabin, when his door was rapped upon, and Captain
Weaver, whose manner was full of excitement, reported a sail in sight,
right in the centre of the horizon betwixt the two ships.

"The frigate has hoisted her signal, sir," he said, "and we have made
ours."

"I'll be with you in a minute. She is too far off, I suppose, for the
glass to resolve her."

"I guess she is the barque, sir, if the frigate's signal is right. They
command a greater height aboard of her than we can, and I fancy they
have twigged something fore-and-aft on the mizzen-mast."

It was two bells in the afternoon watch--one o'clock--at which hour the
frigate and the schooner had closed each other. By this time the ship
ahead had been raised to a full sight of her hull. But long before this
she had been made out as the _Minorca_, by that unmistakable signal of
her character--the fore-and-aft canvas on her mizzen- and top-masts.
The breeze was steady. All three ships heeled to it. The frigate foamed
bending under studding sails, the schooner under all the canvas she
could set, and the barque leaned under the heavy strain of every cloth
she carried.

It would be impossible to describe the feelings, sensations, passions
of three of the principal actors in this story. Who can analyse human
emotion when its state is one of almost chaotic conflict? Sir William
Lawrence being satisfied that the sail ahead was Captain Acton's
barque, fixed his face in a mask iron-hard with resolution to endure,
come what would. His answers were short, and to the point. He had
little to say. His tendency to the garrulity of old age had temporarily
withered; he was as grim and reserved as though he commanded a
line-of-battle ship, whose stern-walk was exclusively his promenade. He
was an old sailor and a gentleman: he prided himself upon his descent;
he greatly loved honour and loyalty, which is the spirit of honour,
and above all, he loved truth. Yonder was his son in charge of a ship
he was endeavouring to steal from his benefactor; he had by a base
stratagem kidnapped the sweet and beautiful daughter of his friend; he
had proved himself a liar, a thief, a scoundrel in the most voluminous
sense of the word. The people of the frigate commanded by Lord Garlies
might, doubtless must, come to hear all about his wrongdoing, and
through them the story would leak with plenty of colour and plenty of
exaggeration, into every ward-room and gun-room and cockpit in His
Majesty's Service. These were thoughts and considerations to hold the
Admiral austerely silent, and keep him to himself whilst the chase
continued.

Captain Acton and Lucy often walked the deck deep in talk. The
Captain had decided in his own mind to place Eagle in charge of the
_Minorca_, with orders to proceed to Kingston, providing there was no
disaffection amongst the crew, and Mr Lawrence would be transferred
to the _Aurora_ and conveyed to England. What excuses would he plead?
What apologies would he offer? What sort of a figure would he make
in the sight of his father? in the thoughts of the girl whom in the
sacred name of love he had used with such reckless cruelty, as to
deprive her of her reason, as he supposed? in the opinion of the kindly
gentleman whose confidence he had grossly abused? Would he, when landed
in England, consent to ship as a sailor before the mast, and conceal
himself for the remainder of his life in a distant land? If not, what
would he do? What must be his fate?

But though father and daughter talked these matters over whilst they
stepped the white planks and whilst the ship ahead slowly enlarged,
the topics which engaged them did not contain all, indeed they did not
contain even a very little, of the thoughts which crowded Lucy's mind
and gave a dozen varying expressions to her beauty in as many minutes.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon the frigate fired one of her
bow guns apparently at the _Minorca_, a stern, laconic message to her
to heave to; for hours ago it was perceived that the chase was the
vessel Captain Acton and the Admiral were hunting; and for hours it
must have been known aboard the barque that one of the pursuing ships
was a frigate heavily armed, and the other a fabric perfectly familiar
to every man in the _Minorca_, as the three-masted schooner _Aurora_,
the property of the owner of the barque.

Indeed the chase was now so near that with the unaided vision her
men might be seen moving upon her decks, and the Admiral's telescope
was levelled at a tall figure that stood solitary and apart upon the
barque's quarter, surveying with folded arms and erect carriage the
ships which were following him with foam to their hawse-pipes.

When the _Phoebe's_ cannon suddenly thundered, the Admiral dropped his
telescope to look at the frigate, and when he again directed the glass
at the _Minorca_, the tall figure, that he well knew to be his son, had
vanished.

Scarcely had the ball of satin-white smoke, belched from the cannon's
mouth, been shredded by the wind and carried low over the heads of the
breaking seas in rags and lengths like pieces of a torn silk veil, when
the helm of the barque was put down, stun-sail halliards were let go,
all in such a hurry that the sails fouled the booms and yard-arms, and
painted a scene of confusion aloft, that might have stood as a perfect
picture of panic at sea; the yards on the main were laboriously
hauled around and the main topsail backed and the barque was at rest,
rolling and tumbling very uncomfortably with a great deal of flying and
flapping aloft, one man at the wheel, two men standing close beside him
in a posture of waiting, and the fore-part of the bulwarks from the
gangway to the fore-rigging lined with the heads of the crew.

The barque was swiftly neared by the pursuing ships, and when they were
within easy oars' range or hailing distance their way was arrested, and
immediately down sank a boat from the frigate's side with Mr Fellowes
steering her and six sailors, as before, rowing her. The boat made
directly for the schooner.

"Before we board the _Minorca_," said Captain Acton to the Admiral, "we
must hear what Fellowes proposes, or what instructions he comes with
from Lord Garlies."

But as he said these words one of the two figures on the _Minorca_ who
stood close to the wheel, bawled, with his hand protecting his mouth
from the sidelong sweep of the wind: "The ship's at your sarvice, your
honours; and right glad we are that you've overhauled us, as it is
about time we was under lawful government."

"That's Eagle!" said Captain Acton. "'Tis clear that the crew have not
mutinied against my interests."

He flourished his hand in token that Mr Eagle's words had been heard,
and that the rest was to come. The man-of-war's boat swept alongside,
and Mr Fellowes, received by Captain Acton and the Admiral, stepped
through the gangway.

"Can I put you on board your ship, gentlemen?" he said. "My crew are
armed, and their presence alongside may calm the passions of the
turbulent among that lot," he added, with a nod at the barque.

The invitation was accepted with many thanks.

Sir William Lawrence was very grave, his looks were stern, almost
fierce, as he entered the boat. Captain Acton was cool and thoughtful.
His brow was knitted; his lips were set. His demeanour was that of
a self-possessed man confronted by a condition of things rendered
complex by features extraneous to the main trouble or difficulty, yet
confounding it by their existence. Lucy watched the scene from the
after-part of the _Aurora's_ quarterdeck. She stood alone in that part
of the ship leaning upon the rail, and once or twice her gaze followed
the boat that was bearing her father and the Admiral to the _Minorca_;
but it was chiefly directed at the barque whose length she explored
for a sight of the tall figure whom she had immediately recognised
as Mr Lawrence, whilst Sir William was surveying his son through his
glass. She mused upon the amazing passage of her life that had filled
the interval between the time of her going on board yonder ship,
believing her father to be lying dangerously injured in her, down to
the hour of her transference to the Whitby brig. Never was her pensive
beauty more fascinating than now, whilst her soft dark eyes brooded
upon the ship that had been her floating prison. What would Mr Lawrence
say or think when he came to understand that her madness was feigned, a
dramatic stratagem to obtain liberty and restoration? How would he--but
how _could_ he--face his father whom he had degraded, and her father
whom he had robbed and wronged?

She sighed; the distress of her heart saddened her face with a meaning
as of tears.

Mr Eagle stood at the head of the side ladder when Captain Acton and
the others stepped on board. At his elbow was Mr Pledge. Some of the
crew were grinning, and all seemed to be hugely delighted by what was
happening.

"We have followed and found you, sir," were Captain Acton's first words
to Mr Eagle.

"S'elp me, your honour, it's no fault of any man aboard saving the
party you gave the command of this ship to," answered Mr Eagle in a
profoundly respectful, obsequious, yet sour and protesting manner and
voice as though he had been wounded in a very delicate part of his
honour.

"I'm here to witness to that, sir, and so's the men," said Mr Pledge.

"Reserve what you have to say for my private ear!" exclaimed Captain
Acton, with a severe look and in a stern voice. "Where is your Captain?"

"He left the deck when the frigate fired a gun," replied Mr Eagle, "and
I haven't seen him since."

"I believe he's done for himself," said Mr Pledge, addressing nobody in
particular; "I fancied I heer'd a shot fired in the cabin."

"You didn't run down to see?" cried Captain Acton. "Come, Sir William!
Will you kindly follow, Mr Fellowes?" And attended by the two he had
named, he hastened to the companion-hatch and all three ran below.

The cabin--the "great cabbin," as it would have been called by our
ancestors--was empty of everything but its furniture. Captain Acton
knew his ship. He walked straight to the door of the Captain's berth or
cabin--that compartment in which Mr Walter Lawrence had locked up Miss
Lucy Acton--and threw it open. The sight that met their eyes caused
an instant arrest in the movements of the three gentlemen from one of
whom, the Admiral, an exclamation in the note of a groan escaped.

On his face stretched along the cabin floor, his arms extended, his
right hand grasping the butt-end of a pistol, was the body of Mr
Lawrence. That the pistol had quite recently been exploded might be
known by the smell of the gunpowder that lurked in the atmosphere. By
the side of this motionless figure lying prone, knelt the distorted
shape of Paul, the steward, who, on the door being flung open, and on
catching sight of Captain Acton and the Admiral, sprang to his feet and
recoiled into a corner of the cabin, with his face blanched by terror
which had immediately visited him on top of the wild, uncalculating
passion of grief which commonly besieges vulgar persons of this man's
mental calibre who are likewise freaks of nature.

After a moment or two of hesitation due to the consternation excited
by the unexpected spectacle upon the cabin deck, Captain Acton and
Mr Fellowes ran to the prostrate man, and Acton cried: "He has shot
himself!"

"Help me to turn him over, sir," said Mr Fellowes. "I don't think he is
dead."

They gently rolled the dead, or dying, man on to his back, and the
nature of his injury appeared. He was clothed in white trousers, a
light blue coat, and a shirt the front of which was ornamented by some
light tracing like flowers. He was without a cravat, and his head was
uncovered. The left side of his shirt was soaked in blood, and the
singed hole through which the bullet had passed from the weapon whose
muzzle he had pressed to his breast, was visible in the thick of the
dark crimson dye. His face was marble-white. It wore an expression of
torture. His lips were parted and grey. The eyelids were half-closed,
and the whites of the eye only were visible.

The Admiral stood looking as though petrified. All the wrath that was
in him, all the fierce and terrible thoughts which had raged in his
heart and prepared his tongue for a delivery desperate and fearful in
the mouth of a father, melted, vanished, faded as smoke in the air,
as a shred of mist torn from a cloud in the sky, and his face wore an
expression of unutterable grief, of horror beyond expression in words,
every passion and emotion it displayed being irradiated by the light
of a father's love which had seemed to be waning and expiring in its
socket, but which found life and power in that mute, irresistible
prayer addressed to him as a father by an only son whose valour he
had honoured, whose beauty he was proud of, whose life appealed to him
more deeply in that his career had been halted by an act of folly when
his reputation stood high for heroic daring. He went to the side of
the body; he looked down upon the face with tearless eyes, and with
that same dry sob in his throat which Captain Acton had heard when the
poor old gentleman spoke after Mr Greyquill's visit, then sank upon his
knees beside his son, muttering: "Walter, oh, Walter, that it should
have come to this! I loved you, my son--may God pity me, and have mercy
upon you!"

Captain Acton, deeply affected by his friend's distress, concealed his
face by turning his head. Mr Fellowes, who had grasped Mr Lawrence's
wrist, cried out: "I feel a thread of pulse. He is not dead. I'll away
for our medico, and shall be back with him in a jiffey."

He ran out of the cabin. The Admiral pillowed his son's head with his
arm, and gazed at the marble-still features. Never could any man appear
more stricken, though 'tis hard to tell by posture or by expression of
face the depth of human sorrow, the pang of the wound that death alone
can heal. His only son--whom he had cursed for his wickedness--whose
professional life, extinguished by an act of drunken madness, had
swelled the eyes of the father with the unshed tears of the spirit of
a man--lying dead or dying on his arm--self-slain!

"Were you here when Mr Lawrence shot himself?" exclaimed Captain Acton
to the hunchback Paul, who cowered in his corner with white cheeks and
terrified looks.

"No, your honour," howled the wretch; "I heard the shot and ran in.
I'd have asked him to shoot me instead--I loved him, your honour--I
worshipped him, kind gentlemen--he was good to me, he was the only
friend I ever had in the world. I'd have died over and over again for
him."

The hunchback broke down, and roared in tears.

"He lives, Acton," said the Admiral in a low voice. "Some brandy and
water might bring him to."

Captain Acton told Paul to fetch some, and the wild, deformed creature
of the forest, as Lucy had called him, sped from the cabin on the
errand.

It proved as the Admiral had said. After a little brandy and water
had been poured between the ashen lips, Mr Lawrence opened his eyes.
They opened full upon his father, whose face was stooped close to
him. Consciousness was tardy in her awakening, but on a sudden the
prostrate, bleeding man recognised his father, and with that look
of recognition there must have come to him some vision of memory
presenting scenes of his past. He frowned, sighed, turned his eyes upon
Captain Acton, and closed them, but not as though he had fainted, for
the lids were firm set.

Whilst they waited for the arrival of the frigate's surgeon, Captain
Acton asked Paul some questions which the hunchback answered as though
when the examination was over the Captain would send him to be hanged
forthwith at the yard-arm. In an agony of impatience the Admiral
awaited the arrival of the medical man, who, considering that there was
a space of blown and running sea for the boat to cross and re-cross,
returned with Mr Fellowes in a space of time that was the expression of
the habitual and disciplined promptitude of everything in which time
finds a place, that is carried on aboard a British man-of-war.

He had been told what had happened, and presented himself equipped with
wool, lint, and bandages. He speedily discovered that the pistol had
been discharged at the place where Mr Lawrence supposed his heart to
beat. The unfortunate man imagined that the heart is on the left side
of the body, whereas it is nearly in the middle, and is well protected
by the breast-bone and ribs, so well indeed that only a small portion
is unprotected. The bullet had passed clean through the chest and left
lung, and come out just below the left blade-bone of the shoulder. The
surgeon, on removing Mr Lawrence's shirt and vest, found the bullet,
which had not pierced the vest. The wounds of entrance and of exit were
easily seen, and the former was bleeding freely.

When the wound had been dressed, during which Mr Lawrence kept his eyes
shut and his teeth set--he was in mortal pain--the Admiral asked him
gently if he suffered much. Mr Lawrence opened his eyes and looked at
his father, and smiled slightly. Faint as the smile was, mingled as it
was with the distortion of anguish, it had in it the charm of a manly
beauty which only the decay of the grave could destroy, and in it also
were remorse and gratitude. His lips parted in the words, "No, sir,"
and again his eyes closed.

Captain Acton, the surgeon, and Mr Fellowes went into the cabin,
leaving the Admiral and his son to themselves.

"Will he live?" asked Captain Acton.

"I don't see why he shouldn't, sir; the wound is not mortal. But he
will require to be very carefully nursed," answered the surgeon, with
the coolness and manner of indifference which are a characteristic
of the official medical man who is unburdened with stimulating
considerations of practice and fees.

"There'll not be much nursing to be got out of this shipful of rough
sailors," said Mr Fellowes. "What a fine, manly, gallant young officer
was lost to the Service in Walter Lawrence! What made him shoot
himself?"

"Do you think, sir, that he could with safety be transferred to the
_Aurora_?" asked Captain Acton, with an appearance of anxiety that
seemed to render his evasion of Mr Fellowes' question undesigned.
"We could nurse him there. We are a comfortable little ship, better
found--certainly in the way of the cabin--than this vessel."

The three on this hint fell into a brief and earnest conversation,
and in a few minutes Sir William was called to participate in the
discussion and deliver his views, whilst the surgeon re-entered the
berth to consider afresh the condition of the patient.

Meanwhile Lucy Acton watched and waited on the quarterdeck of the
_Aurora_. The hour was about half-past four. The breeze was sinking
with the sun; it still blew with weight enough to keep the sails of the
three ships steady. But the dance of the sea was growing languid, the
rolling foam of the breaking head was wanting in brilliance of flash
and friskiness of somersault; the blue of the deep was darkening, and
spread in violet shot with light blue and purple gleams to the margin
of the reflected glory of the sun where the lines of light steeped
into the richer colour.

Lucy had watched the sailors of the barque gather in the confusion of
studding-sails until the vessel looked as trim and fit aloft as need
be; she had also watched the passage of the _Phoebe's_ boat to the
frigate, and its return to the barque with one man more, whose position
on board she could not imagine, neither that nor the reason for his
being fetched. The man-of-war lay near, rolling languidly, lifting
her copper sheathing on fire with wet sunshine, pointing her guns at
the sea as the bright buttons of her trucks described arcs upon the
blue sky like the flight of meteors in the velvet deeps of night.
But now at half-past four the girl seemed to witness a commotion on
board the barque. A man went aloft to the main-yard arm, and another
to the fore-yard arm, and some one standing upon the quarterdeck of
the _Minorca_, in a voice by which she guessed him to be Mr Fellowes,
hailed the schooner, and requested Captain Weaver to send whips aloft
to hoist a sick man in a litter aboard.

Lucy, having sought in vain for any signs of Mr Lawrence or her father,
or the Admiral on board the _Minorca_, ran to Captain Acton's cabin
and tried to see the barque through his glass. Unfortunately she could
not use both hands; she needed one to keep her eye shut; therefore,
when she balanced the glass upon the rail, the rolling of the schooner
caused the object she tried to see to slide up and down in the lens
like a toy monkey on a stick in the hands of a child. However, with her
unhelped vision, she presently saw a something resembling the short
stage which is slung over a ship's side for men to stand upon to paint,
or do carpentry work, float from the deck of the barque to a certain
elevation between the fore and main-yard-arms, where tackles or whips
had been rigged; she then perceived this something slowly descend into
the man-of-war's boat alongside, into which, immediately afterwards,
some figures tumbled from the flight of steps at the gangway, and the
boat made for the schooner.

As the little craft rapidly approached, swept onwards by six powerful
oarsmen, Lucy quickly began to distinguish the inmates who, in the
stern sheets or aft, consisted of the Admiral, Mr Fellowes, and a
stranger. She could also see what resembled a stretcher lying with its
head upon the aftermost thwart and the heel upon an unoccupied space in
the stern sheets. The girl trembled, and wondered, and stared. Where
was her father? Who was the sick man? Where was Mr Lawrence?

The boat drew alongside, but not until the arrangement of plank and
mattress upon which lay Mr Lawrence had been swayed over the rail of
the schooner, and softly and tenderly lowered on to the deck, did she
know that the sick man in the ship's litter was the lover whose passion
for her had defied the gibbet in its unscrupulous, reckless, daring,
headlong determination to achieve.

She ran to the side of what may be called the litter, and looked down
upon the face that rested upon a bolster. She clasped her hands. She
compressed her lips. No exclamation escaped her, but one saw in her
beautiful face the expression of that deep pity which is ever the
attendant of love where sorrow is or suffering.

Mr Lawrence's eyes were open. They looked straight up at her; tormented
as he was, his pain had no influence over the composition of his
feelings. It was a stare rather than a gaze: and in that stare was
profound astonishment at the sight of her, likewise amazement at the
sanity of a face, which, when he had last seen it, was deformed, as
he had believed, by the madness his behaviour had wrought in her; but
before all, and stealing into and illuminating the complicated emotions
conveyed by his eyes, was the love which had ever beamed in them when
he turned them upon her, a light not to be lessened or obscured by any
conflict of passion.

The Admiral, Mr Fellowes, and the surgeon had come on board when the
litter was being lowered, and stood in momentary pause beside it,
whilst men were summoned to convey the wounded man to his father's
cabin. Lucy swept round to the Admiral, and with her hands still
clasped, cried to him softly: "Oh, Sir William, it is your son--I could
not imagine--is he dying--will he die?"

The surgeon who stood close, and who had been gazing at the young lady
with admiration of her face and charms of figure and wonder at finding
so beautiful a girl in a little schooner at sea, exclaimed: "I am
surgeon of yonder frigate, madam. This gentleman will not die, provided
he is carefully and judiciously nursed."

"I will nurse him," cried Lucy.

A faint smile lighted up the features of Mr Lawrence, who slightly
moved his head to cast his eyes upon her.

"Oh, madam, my dearest madam," exclaimed the Admiral in a voice broken
with feeling, "how am I to thank you? What words do your angelic
goodness leave me for the conveyance of my gratitude?"

"You will tell me, sir," said Lucy, addressing the surgeon, "what I am
to do, and I will do it. Where is he wounded?"

"Near the heart. He shot himself!" said the Admiral.

Some men were now arrived. They picked up the litter with careful
hands, and in a sort of procession Mr Lawrence was conveyed into the
deck-house, Lucy walking beside him, whilst behind stepped the Admiral,
Mr Fellowes, and the _Phoebe's_ surgeon. Once only did Lucy speak in
that solemn march from the quarterdeck into the little interior. She
looked back and asked: "Where is my father?"

"He is remaining on board the _Minorca_ to see after affairs there,
madam," answered the Admiral. "I believe Captain Weaver is to take
charge of the barque, and Captain Acton will himself sail the schooner
home."

The litter was carried into the Admiral's cabin, and Lucy and the
surgeon followed.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

Lucy Acton's ardently uttered exclamation, "I will nurse him," cannot
fail to an intelligent and imaginative reader to immediately reveal the
end of this plain yarn of Old Harbour Town. But many may desire that a
specific character should be given to the conclusion of this narrative,
and they shall have it.

It would exceed the bounds of possibility to suppose that any charming
girl of great sensibility whose heart was disengaged, whose feelings
were fresh and sweet, could nurse for the space of five weeks so fine,
manly, and handsome a gentleman as Mr Lawrence without falling in love
with him. This may be true of ninety young ladies in every hundred. But
what was Lucy Acton's case? She was secretly but deeply in love with
Mr Lawrence when his own overmastering passion for her impelled him
into the perpetration of an outrage upon her person, and a criminal
offence against her father. She had loved him with a passion deep and
concealed in her spirit long before her abduction, and Aunt Caroline
had guessed the truth. She had loved him with an increasing fervency,
even after she had been cruelly abstracted from her home, when she knew
that her kidnapper's intention was to rob her father of his ship, and
the freighters of their goods, and the crew of their wages. And never
had she loved him so well as when she was feigning madness with the aim
of being transhipped and sent home by him, and when at every interview
his eyes reposed upon her with adoration in their expression and his
bearing towards her was as gentle, appealing, respectful, and dignified
as though he was courting her in hours of health and content, with her
father's sanction, and under her father's roof.

But the contradictions of the female heart! What mental physiologist
shall attempt more, without certain failure, than to describe without
addling his brains by trying to explain? You might call Lucy an
impossible character whose presentment may find a fit frame in a novel,
but for the like of whom the ranks of women, warm, living, with clear
minds and perceptions, must be searched in vain. If this is what shall
be thought, let the objection stand: it shall not be reasoned in this
place. Enough, if actual facts are recorded.

The schooner occupied five weeks in reaching England from the hour
of her parting company with the frigate and shortly after with the
_Minorca_. All that time Mr Lawrence lay upon his back; but the wounds
slowly healed, and he gradually recovered his strength. And when the
schooner brought up off Falmouth Mr Lawrence was nearly well.

He had been nursed by Lucy from the time of his being slung over
the side. The wounds were dressed by her hands. Day after day, hour
after hour, she sat beside him in his cabin. She carried his tray
of food into his little sea-bedroom, and fed him, or helped him to
feed himself. And though at night he was watched by his father, the
instructions given were that if the patient expressed a wish for her
presence, Lucy was to be summoned, no matter the hour of the night in
which the call was made.

What could such an association as this end in, but in such a love
between the two as must prove irresistible sooner or later as an appeal?

Another element of admiration supplied increase of vitality to his
passion when he gathered, from her own confession, that she simulated
madness to rescue herself from a voyage whose issue threatened lifelong
misery to her, and death by the hangman to the other.

Captain Acton easily perceived what was happening, and might as easily
have guessed what was to come. The Admiral was as perceptive as his
friend, and as reserved.

Captain Weaver had been sent on board the _Minorca_ to take charge
of her; Mr Eagle remained as the barque's first mate, and Captain
Acton himself navigated the _Aurora_ to the English Channel. He had
overhauled Mr Lawrence's cabin in the _Minorca_ and found the "Secret
Instructions" he was supposed to have written, and this paper he would
have shown to Sir William Lawrence but for the circumstance of the
envelope being sealed with the Acton crest, which signified that Mr
Lawrence had taken an opportunity of borrowing a large silver seal
which stood upon the library table in Old Harbour House, and replacing
it, after using it for a nefarious purpose: Captain Acton had himself
used that seal the day before he followed in pursuit in the _Aurora_.

The schooner having touched at Falmouth, proceeded to Old Harbour,
where her unexpected arrival aroused great excitement, and provoked
much wonderment, and started every tongue into a passion of gossip and
conjecture. The crew gave the populace the news that the Admiral and
his son, Mr Lawrence, had gone ashore at Falmouth, but whether to stop
there or whether to make sail from that port to foreign parts, the
Jacks were unable to affirm.

Captain Acton and Lucy were strictly reserved--in some directions
rigidly silent. Even Aunt Caroline, who had looked carefully after the
home, and particularly Lucy's little terrier Mamie, and who swooned
away in a bundle of flowered gown and hoop at the sight of her niece,
was kept in ignorance of many essential features of this story--where
it begins when she steps off the stage--for fear that her tongue should
betray more truth to outside ears than it was expedient or desirable
they should be made acquainted with.

In the course of a few weeks the Admiral arrived at his little cottage.
He was without his son, of whom no news could be obtained. Gossip had
ceased to flow when the _Minorca_ returned, and the tongues of her
crew once again opened the flood-gate of talk. But what could they
declare that should convict Mr Lawrence of piracy? They said that the
_Minorca_ had sailed under secret instructions from Captain Acton
which, Mr Lawrence had gathered, imported the sale of the barque at a
place named. These instructions were never read to the crew, because
she was overhauled by the frigate and the _Aurora_ before the defined
parallels of latitude and longitude had been reached. Captain Acton
never denied that he had given secret instructions to Mr Lawrence.
There was therefore no case against the Admiral's son. And from the
statements made by the crew, confirmed by Mr Eagle and Mr Pledge, it
was generally held by the honest gossips of Old Harbour Town that
between you and them and the bedpost, Miss Lucy Acton had eloped with
Mr Lawrence, had so acted as to persuade the crew that she had been
abducted, and had been recaptured by her father, whose sole motive in
pursuing the barque was to regain his child.

Six weeks after the arrival of the _Aurora_, the worthy, the excellent,
the benevolent Caroline Acton, sister of the Captain, departed this
life. About a month later news filtered into Old Harbour Town that
Mr Lawrence, who had perfectly recovered his health, had obtained,
through influence, which was subsequently traced to Captain Acton,
the command of a small Indiaman. Some weeks later old Mr Greyquill
was considerably astonished and gratified by the receipt of a draft
for three hundred pounds from Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, with
a request that he would credit Mr Walter Lawrence with the sum, and
rule his name off his ledgers. It was understood that much about this
time other troublesome, but not very formidable, debts incurred by Mr
Lawrence were discharged by the Admiral; but as it was generally known
that he was a poor man, it was confidently assumed, and not perhaps
without good reason, that Captain Acton, influenced by Lucy, had
supplied the money.

It is certain, anyway, that about nine months after the return of the
_Aurora_, Captain Acton, Sir William Lawrence, and Miss Lucy Acton,
left Old Harbour Town, for the neighbourhood of London, where after an
interval, the exact period of which being uncertain, is not of historic
value enough to demand research, Old Harbour Town received the news,
this time in print, in the _Annual Register_ or _La Belle Assemblée_,
or some such publication of the period, that Mr Walter Lawrence, late
of His Majesty's Royal Navy, only son of Rear-Admiral Sir William
Lawrence, K.C.B., was on such a day united in the bonds of Holy
Matrimony to Lucy, only daughter and co-heiress of Captain Acton, R.N.
(retired).

And thus ended the yarn of Old Harbour Town.


PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS

9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET



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