Will Weatherhelm Part 31

The village of Southsea was but a small, insignificant place in those days. We had not gone far when we caught sight of a person with a wooden leg stumping along at a good rate some way ahead. Although his back was towards us, I at once felt sure that he was Uncle Kelson.

"All right!" cried Jerry, "that's Mr Kelson. He always carries a press of sail. It couldn't have been better. I'll go on and make him heave-to, and just tell him to guess who's come back; but I don't think there's much fear of his getting the 'high strikes' even though he was to set eyes on you all of a sudden."

I brought up for a moment so as to let Jerry get ahead of me.

"Heave-to, cap'en! heave-to! I ain't a thundering big enemy from whom you've any cause to run," I heard him shouting out. "Just look round, and maybe you'll see somebody you won't be sorry to see, I've a notion."

My uncle, hearing Jerry's voice, turned his head, and instantly catching sight of me, came running along with both his arms outstretched, his countenance beaming all over like a landscape lighted up by suns.h.i.+ne. I was somewhat fearful lest he should fall, but I caught him, and we shook hands for a minute at least, his voice almost choking as he exclaimed, "I am glad! I am glad! Bless my heart, how glad I am! And your wife, Will? You'll soon make her all to rights. Not that she is ill, but that she's been pining for you, poor la.s.s; but no wonder: it's a way the women have. Glad I hadn't a wife until I was able to live on sh.o.r.e and look after her. Come along! come along!" and he took my arm, almost again falling in his eagerness to get over the ground, which here and there was soft and sandy, and full of holes in other places.

"Please, Mr Kelson, as I was a-telling of your nevvy, it won't do just to come down on the la.s.s like a thunder-clap, or it may send her over on her beam-ends," said Jerry as he ranged up alongside, puffing and blowing with his exertions. "Just you stop and talk to him when we get near the house, and let me go ahead and I'll break the matter gently, like a soft summer shower, so that they'll be all to rights and ready for him when he comes."

Jerry, I guessed, wanted to undertake the matter himself, suspecting that my uncle would, notwithstanding his good intentions, blurt out the truth too suddenly.

I therefore answered for him, that we would wait till Jerry had gone to the house and summoned us, though I had to exert no small amount of resolution to stop short of the door when we got in sight of it.

Jerry ran on at first, but went more deliberately as he approached the door, when, knocking, he was admitted.

He must be spinning a tremendous long yarn, I thought, for it seemed to me as if he had kept us half an hour, though I believe it was only two or three minutes, when at length he appeared and beckoned.

"Come along, Will! come along, my boy!" cried my uncle, keeping hold of my arm; but, no longer able to restrain my impatience, I sprang forward and, brus.h.i.+ng past old Jerry, rushed into the house.

There was my Margaret, with Aunt Bretta by her side to support her; but she needed no support except my arm. After a little time, though still clinging with her arms round my neck, she allowed me to embrace my good aunt. My uncle soon joined us, and Old Jerry poked his head in at the door, saying with a knowing nod, "All right, I see there's been no 'high strikes.' I shall be one too many if I stop. Good-day, ladies; good-day, friends all. I'll look in to-morrow, or maybe the next evening; but I shall have plenty of work in the harbour, taking off people to see the prize and the s.h.i.+p which captured her."

"Stop, Jerry, stop!" cried my uncle; "have a gla.s.s of grog before you go?"

"No, thankee, cap'en," answered Jerry. "I must keep a clear head on my shoulders. If I once takes a taste, maybe I shall want another as I pa.s.s the Blue Posteses."

Uncle Kelson did not press the point, and the old man took his departure.

Of course it required a long time to tell all that had happened to me, but I need not describe those happy days on sh.o.r.e. My dear wife would scarcely allow me for a moment to be out of her sight. She once asked the question, "Must you go back?"

"I have given my word that I would," I answered. I knew full well what her heart wished, though she had too much regard for my honour even to hint at the possibility of my breaking my word.

Aunt Bretta and Uncle Kelson were of the same way of thinking; but old Jerry, who paid us a visit the second evening according to his promise, looked at the matter in a very different light.

"Now, Will, I've been thinking over this here business of yours every day since I first clapped eyes on you, and I've made up my mind that as they had no right to press you aboard that 'ere frigate, you have every right to make yourself scarce. I've got the whole affair cut and dry.

There's a friend of mine who is as true as steel. He's got a light cart, and we intend to bundle you in soon after dark, and drive away, maybe to Chichester, and maybe to some country place where you can lie snug till the frigate has sailed, and the hue and cry after you is over.

"It's all as smooth as oil. There'll only be one man less aboard, as there would be if a shot was to take your head off; so it can't make any odds to the captain and officers. And let me tell you, you'll have a different set over you; for Mr Morris the first lieutenant, has got his promotion, Mr Lake is too badly wounded to allow him to return on board for some time, and the captain is sure to get a better s.h.i.+p; so you don't know what double-fisted fellows you'll get in their places.

"Follow my advice, Will; escape from all the tyranny and floggings, for what you can tell, that are in store for you. Run, and be a free man."

"No, no, Mr Vincent; the advice you give is well meant, but I dare not even ask my husband to do as you propose," answered Margaret in a firm voice, though she looked very sad as she spoke. "He would not be a happy man if he broke his word, and he has given that word to return.

Even I can say, 'Go back to your duty.'"

"So do I," said Uncle Kelson, "though, if he had not given his word, I don't know what I might have advised."

"We can all pray for him," said Aunt Bretta, "and I trust that we shall see him again before long, when he is free and can with a clean conscience remain with us."

"I thank you, Jerry, for your good wishes," I put in. "It cannot be, you see. I wish I could get away from the s.h.i.+p; but until I am paid off, and properly discharged, though I was pressed, I am bound to remain; so if you care for me, do not say anything more on the subject."

"Well, well, if it must be, so it must," answered Jerry with a deep sigh. "Some people's notions ain't like other people's notions, that's all I've got to say; and now I think it's time for me to be tripping my anchor."

"No, no, not until you have wetted your whistle," said Uncle Kelson, beginning to mix a gla.s.s of grog.

The old man's eyes glistened as he resumed his seat, replacing his hat under the chair; and putting his hand out to take the tumbler which my uncle pushed towards him across the table, and sipping it slowly, he looked up and said:

"I forgot to tell you that Sir Edward Pellew, as we must now call him since he got the sword laid across his shoulders by the king, has been appointed to the command of the _Arethusa_, a fine new frigate which will make a name for herself, if I mistake not, as the old one did. You remember her, cap'en, don't you! It was her they writ the song about,"

and he began singing:--

"Come all ye jolly sailors bold Whose hearts are cast in honour's mould, While English glory I unfold: Huzza! to the _Arethusa_; She is a frigate tight and brave As ever stemmed the das.h.i.+ng wave, Her men are staunch to their fav'rite launch.

And when the foe shall meet our fire, Sooner than strike, we'll all expire On board of the _Arethusa_!

"'Twas with the spring fleet she went out, The English Channel to cruise about, When four French sail, in show so stout, Bore down on the _Arethusa_.

The famed _Belle Poule_ straight ahead did lie, The _Arethusa_ seemed to fly, Not a sheet or a tack or a brace did she slack, Though the Frenchman laughed and thought it stuff, But they knew not the handful of men how tough On board of the _Arethusa_!

"On deck five hundred men did dance, The stoutest they could find in France; We with two hundred did advance, On board of the _Arethusa_!

Our captain hail'd the Frenchman, 'Ho!'

The Frenchman then cried out 'Hullo!'

'Bear down, d'ye see, to our Admiral's lee.'

'No, no,' says the Frenchman; 'that can't be.'

'Then I must lug you along with me,'

Says the saucy _Arethusa_!

"The fight was off the Frenchman's land.

We forced them back upon their strand, For we fought till not a stick would stand Of the gallant _Arethusa_.

And now we've driven the foe ash.o.r.e, Never to fight with Britons more, Let each fill a gla.s.s to his fav'rite la.s.s, A health to our captain and officers true, And all who belong to the jovial crew On board of the _Arethusa_!"

"I mind," continued Jerry after another sip at his grog, "that she carried thirty-two guns, and was commanded by Captain Marshall. It was in the year 1778, just before the last war broke out. We hadn't come to loggerheads with the mounseers, though we knew pretty well that it wouldn't be long before we were that. We and two other frigates sailed down Channel with a fleet of twenty sail of the line under Admiral Keppel.

"When off the Lizard, on the 17th of June, we made out two frigates and a schooner to the southward. On seeing them, and guessing that they were French, the Admiral ordered us and the _Milford_ to go in chase.

The strangers separated, the _Milford_ frigate and _Hector_, a seventy-four, following the other s.h.i.+p, which turned out to be the _Licorne_, and took her; while the _Albert_ cutter pursued the schooner, and captured her by boarding after a sharp struggle. We meantime alone followed the other stranger, which was the French forty gun frigate _Belle Poule_.

"On getting within hailing distance, our captain, in the politest manner possible, invited the French captain to sail back with him to the English fleet.

"'No, no,' answered the French skipper, 'that it cannot be, seeing I am bound elsewhere.'

"'Then, mounseer, I must obey orders and make you come with me,' says our captain just as politely as before, and without further ado he ordered the crew of the foremost main-deck gun to fire a shot across the French s.h.i.+p's bows. It was the first shot fired during the war. We in return got the Frenchman's whole broadside cras.h.i.+ng aboard us.

"We then began pounding away at each other as close as we could get. It seemed wonderful to me that we were not both of us blown out of the water. Our men were falling pretty thickly, some killed and many more wounded, while our sails and rigging were getting much cut up.

"You see the enemy had twenty guns on a side to our sixteen, but we tossed ours in and out so sharply that we made up for the difference.

For two mortal hours we kept blazing away, getting almost as much as we gave, till scarcely a stick could stand aboard us; but our captain was not the man to give in, and while he could he kept at it. At last, our rigging and canvas being cut to pieces, and our masts ready to fall, so that we could not make sail, the _Belle Poule_ having had enough of it, shot ahead, and succeeded in getting under the land where we were unable to follow her.

"The song says that we drove her ash.o.r.e; but though we did no exactly do that, we knocked her well about, and she had forty-eight men and officers killed and fifty wounded. As it was, as I have said, the first action in the old war, it was more talked about than many others. We lost our captain, not from his being killed, but from his getting a bigger s.h.i.+p, and Captain Everitt was appointed in his stead.

"The old _Arethusa_, after this, continued a Channel cruiser. We had pretty sharp work at different times, chasing the enemy, and capturing their merchantmen, and cutting-out vessels from their harbours; but we had no action like the one the song was wrote about.