The Gentleman | Page 7

not a bad time neether--for them as like it, that's to say: seamen and such."
He was silent for a time, chewing his memories.
And what memories they were!--Had he not sailed under Boscawen in the fifties, when that old sea-dog stood between England and Invasion? Had he not lived to see Napoleon's Eagles brooding over the cliffs of France, intent on the same enterprise?--And between the two, what men, what deeds?--Hawke smashing Conflans in a hurricane; Rodney, gloriously alone, fighting his ship against a fleet; Duncan hammering the Dutch; Sam Hood, Jack Jervis, Nelson, Cuddie Collingwood; and all that grim array of big-beaked, bloody-fisted fighting men who for fifty years had held the narrow seas against all comers.
"D'you remember your father?"
The old man brooded over the boy. In a dumb and misty way he was puzzling out one of life's mysteries--this long stripling with the eyes sprung somehow from that other long stripling with the eyes, whom he had followed from the pit-mouth fifty years since.
"I just remember him coming into the nursery with mother and a candle the night before he sailed the last time, sir, to join Lord Howe."
"Ah," mused the old man, "that'd be a week afoor the First o June; and nigh three years afoor he died."
He paused again, rummaging in his memory.
"He was Post-Captain at St. Vincent; I was his First--aboord the old _Terrible_, 74.... You'll ha heard all about that tale. [Footnote: Sir John Jervis crushed the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent in 1797. In this action the Spanish fleet was in two divisions. In order to prevent a junction between them Nelson drew out of the British line and single-handed attacked the Spanish weather-division, including the Spanish flag-ship and five other sail of the line. See Mahan's "Life of Nelson."]
"'Plucky chap, Nelson,' says the Captain, as he tumbles to the little man's game. 'Wear ship, and a'ter him.' So we hauls out? the line, us and the _Culloden_--Tom Troubridge--and pushes up, all sail set, to help him.
"By then we got alongside, the _Captain_--Nelson's ship she were--was a sheer hulk. As we pass her, your father leans over the rail.
"'Well done, _Captain_,' says he, liftin his hat.
"Nelson blinks his one eye up--I can see him now.
"'That you, Kit?' he pipes through his nose that way of is'n. 'You've got it all your own way now. I'm a wreck. Good luck, Terrible.'
"So on we goes bang atween two Spanish Fust-rates--hundud and twenty guns apiece. Had em all to ourselves, and asked no better.
"'Just your style, Bill,' says the Captain. He was pacing up and down the lee of the poop with me. 'Pretty work, ain't it?'
"'Too pretty to last, sir,' says I; as our fore-mast went by the board.
"Just then up runs the carpenter's mate all of a sweat.
"'Well, Michael,' says the Captain, 'what is it to-day?'
"'Goin down with a run, sir,' pants old Chips. 'Twenty foot? water in her well.'
"The Captain turns to me.
"'Where's the nearest land, Willum?' says he, with that twinkle of is'n. Always called me Willum, when he meant mischief, did the Captain.
"'Why, sir,' says I, 'the bottom, I reck'n.'
"'Wrong again,' says he. 'That's the nearest land to me,' and he points at the _Santy Maria_, Don Somebody Somethin's Flag-ship. 'Hard a-starboard, if you please, Mr. Hardin,' says he. 'I'm a-goin to land.'
"So I luffs up alongside, and fell aboard Er Oliness--like a mighty great mountain above us she was, all poop, and galleries, and Armada fittins.
"When our bow scraped her quarter,
"'Anybody for the shore!' pipes the Captain; and he jumps into her main-chain....
"Ah, but you should ha heard the men cheer!"
The old man paused, breathing deep.
"Ten minutes a'terwards he was dying acrost my knees on the spar-deck of the Don.
"'Has she struck, Bill?' he whispers, coughing....
"'The three decker's struck, sir,' says I, 'and the four-decker's strikin.'
"He shuts his eyes.
"'Then I can depart in peace,' he sighs. 'Tell Marjory I done my duty.'
"And he up and died."
There was a cough in the darkness.
"So I calls a cutter away, and rowed aboord the _San Josef_, the men blubberin like a pack o babbies, to break it to Nelson. Like twins, them two, Nelson and your father: that like, ye see!
"Well, there was the Commodore on the Don's quarter-deck, Berry beside him, the Spanish Captain afoor him, and behind him a British Jack-Tar tuckin the Spaniards' swords under his arm like so many umberellas.
"I breaks it to him short and straight.
"'Captain Caryll's compliments, sir,' says I. 'And he's dead.'
"Nelson claps his hands to his face as though I'd struck him. Then he falls on my neck afoor em all--Dons too.
"'O Ding-dong!' says he. 'I loved him.'--Just like that. 'I loved him....'
"Yes, that was Nelson all through: one alf woman, t'other alf hero.
"Then he pulls himself together.
"'But there!' he says. 'He lived like an