Sturdily I swam in the direction in which I had last seen the beacon—I say last, for to one so low in the water as a swimmer, every wave interrupts the vision, and more than once I had to make a kind of leap like a flying fish, to ascertain whether or not I was proceeding in the right course.
I had soon for my guide the triple lines of light which shone from the three lamps of the beacon; and with joy and growing hope I perceived the distance to lessen between us more rapidly than I could have expected. The reason of this was, that the rising tide, and every long roller that chafed and boiled over the ridge of sand on which the beacon stood, impelled me towards it and the shore, which lay about two miles beyond my harbour of refuge.
Nearer and nearer I came! The beacon lights seemed to glare into my eyes with a dazzling radiance; and by the triple gleam they cast upon the tumbling water, I seemed to be swimming amid a sea of fire, until I got within the dark shadow of the edifice itself, and found myself among the sandy breakers that chafed and boiled against the strong and upright beams which formed its framework and substructure—upholding it in the air some fifteen feet above the ocean.
Panting, breathless, half-blinded by spray and salt, I reached the slimy iron steps, which descended from the door into the water, and were covered with seaweed, sharp shells, and clustering barnacles. Twice the recoiling waves, or back-wash, sucked me off, and twice the long rollers threw me forward again, ere I could clutch the lower step of the ladder, up which I swung myself; and then, as if every energy had departed, I sank down on the slimy seat, and for a time closed my eyes, covering them with my wet hands; feeling totally exhausted by the excitement of my sudden flight—the double dangers, by wave and bullet, I had escaped, and the toil and suffering of mind and body I had undergone for so many hours.
I must have sat there at least ten minutes, shuddering with cold, before ascending the ladder or stair to the oak door of the wooden lighthouse. I knocked and shouted again and again with all my little strength, fearing that the rising tide might sweep me off ere those within discovered me! The roar of the white waves that tumbled over the long and dreary ridge of sand drowned my voice; thus some time elapsed before the door, which was secured without and within by ringbolts, blocks, and ropes, like the gunports of a man-of-war, was undone and opened; and I was confronted by two persons, who were dressed like sailors or fishermen, in canvas frocks, long boots, which had never known blacking, red shirts, and red nightcaps; and who, with astonishment expressed in their grim faces, asked me sulkily and simultaneously, "how the devil I came there?"
One rudely held a lantern close to my face, while the other uncocked and laid aside a pair of long rusty pistols, with which he had armed himself; as it was not uncommon for lighthouse-keepers to be made prisoners, by the French and Dutch privateers, which prowled about the North Sea in those days. They were coarse and ruffianly in manner, and of most sinister and unprepossessing aspect.
Staggering in, I sank upon the floor, all wet and dripping. Then, while one made fast the door, and coiled the lashings of it round the belaying pins on each side, the other (after carefully investigating my pockets, and muttering an oath on finding them empty) gave me a glass of raw rum, which, though it went down my throat like fire, revived me considerably. Then he assisted me to a seat, upon a sea-chest, after which, I pulled off my wet clothes, and began to feel more collected, and to look about; while they questioned me with great rapidity, for, probably, their life in the beacon was not one of brilliant adventure, and my sudden visit bore somewhat the aspect of an incident.
"Did you tumble overboard, youngster?" asked one.
"No," I sighed.
"Were you wrecked anywhere hereabout?" said the other.
"No."
"Were you blown off shore, in a boat, or marooned on a hencoop, or hove overboard by any one,—eh?"
"None of these have happened to me," said I faintly, and afraid to tell the truth.
"My eyes and limbs! did you drop from the moon? Here, take another pull at the rum-bottle, and wrap this blanket round you; put on your considering cap, and tell us all about it."
I tasted the rum again, and wrapping about me the coarse blanket, which, though it resembled a Roman toga as a garment, smelt horribly of tar, grease, and tobacco, proceeded to relate the adventures which had befallen me of late, dwelling especially upon the lawless manner in which I had been seized by the city guard of Edinburgh, and delivered by the chamberlain to the lieutenant of the pressing-tender. To all this they listened, with their keen eyes fixed upon me, whiffing their long clay pipes the while, and exchanging strange and somewhat sinister glances from time to time.
I knew not what those deep glances portended; but, in that sequestered beacon, with the mournful gurgling, hissing, and chafing of the wavesunderand around me, my spirit began to sink, and I felt more abandoned by fate than when in the tender, with worthy Jack Joyce, the marine, to comfort and to counsel me. I remembered the examination of my pockets, when half-senseless, and shrewdly suspected I had fallen into bad hands.
When I had concluded, they continued to smoke in ominous silence, and to pass the rum-bottle to and fro between them. At last, one wiped his huge, blubber-like mouth with the back of his brown, hairy hand, and said,—
"Well, I rather like your giving a tap on the head to that psalm-singing Scotch landshark, lawyer Macfarisee, or what's his name? But itdoesseem to me, somehow, a twister,—a close laid yarn, that of yours, youngster."
"How?" I asked anxiously, for I was too completely in their power to express indignation at being doubted.
"Why, as to your being pressed, as you say, by sodgers," said the other, who was named Dick Knuckleduster (from a dangerous weapon of iron which he frequently wore, and by which, when fitted closely into the clenched hand, a most deadly blow can be given); "we don't believe a word of it! You have fairly run,—deserted."
"Because I was foully entrapped!"
"Heyday! don't go for to abuse the king's sarvice, my young 'un. I'm an old man-o'-war's man, and know Lufftenant Cranky, well. I sarved with him in theMonmouthline-o'-battle ship, at the Havannah; when I was captain of the mizentop, and know that, tho a little too ready with a curse or the cat, a better hofficer never drew a cutlass or slung his hammock under a beam."
"I care nothing for all this," said I; "I hate coercion, and was never intended for a seafaring life."
"Hate!" growled the fellow, with a hoarse laugh; "split me, Dick, did you ever hear the like o' that? He'd like to be in a clean-going channel frigate, where the helm is always put down when the captain wants fresh butter from shore; or, mayhap, in the King's Majesty's yacht, which, as everybody knows, never sails o' nights, but always anchors at sunset, in nice quiet places, like millponds. My precious greenhorn, it will be quite against our conscience, in this sharp war, to let the king lose such a valuable sarvant as you."
"Conscience!" I reiterated.
It was a great word with Macfarisee, and when using it their cruel banter made my blood run cold.
Too weak to remonstrate with them, I reclined upon the chest and closed my eyes. I thought of my mother, of Lotty and Amy, and strove to pray; but memory refused to supply me even with the most commonplace formula. However, by feigning sleep, I was relieved from the conversation of those two ruffians (they seemed no better) in whose society my malicious destiny had cast me.
"He's asleep, I think," said one, who was named Broken-nosed Bill, puffing a whiff under my nose.
I snored in corroboration thereof.
"Sound, sound as a timber-head," added Dick.
"You know what shares is at sea?" asked Bill in a low voice.
"I should think so! I warnt six years a privateersman among the Antilles for nought."
"And shares in a lighthouse, eh, Dick?"
"Yes; split me! aint it at sea as well as a ship?"
"Then we understand one another. We'll hoist a signal and hand him over to the first king's-pennant that passes her, as run from the service, and we'll share the bringing-money between us, parting it fairly on the capstan-head, eh?"
"Besides, onconscience, you know, we can swear he fled from a king's ship."
"He'll get a tight flogging, anyhow."
"That's his business, eh, Bill?"
I remembered the poor little boy whom I had seen so cruelly mangled on board the tender, and my heart sank within me.
"We must keep a bright look-out, that this young gudgeon don't take a swim for it, and give us the slip as he did old Cranky."
"A swim! why, split me, if the great sea sarpent could swim through the shoals and shifting sands from here to Compton Kennel!"
"Well, he came to us uninvited, like a mermaid, and blow me if we won't have what he is worth out of him! Does the young whelp think we are to keep him in grub and grog, on nothing a day or midshipman's half-pay? No, no; Dick, give a look at the glims, and then we'll turn in for the night. The wind is rising; we'll have a tough squall before morning, and who knows but the devil may send something ashore upon the Ridge by that time; there were two craft in the offing at sunset."
The reader may imagine my dismay on finding that I had escaped from Scylla only to fall into Charybdis; but nature was now completely exhausted, and ere long I sank into a sleep, so deep as to be undisturbed either by dreams or by the booming of the surf as it boiled and broke over the long waste of sand on which the beacon stood.
Wakened by rolling off the sea-chest, on which I had fallen asleep overnight, I found that day had broken—that it was considerably advanced indeed, by the appearance of the light, and for a minute I could scarcely realize my locality or that I was not in a dream.
Alone in the lower story of a lighthouse, against the timbers and below the floor of which I heard the sea gurgling and washing with ceaseless and monotonous sound; the apartment was octagonal: built like the sides of a ship, caulked and pitched, with enormous beams of oak bolted together by cramps and knees of iron. The furniture and appurtenances consisted of two sea-chests, two campstools, seated with old canvas; a few pistols, cutlasses, spy-glasses, and signal-flags, stowed away among salt beef, biscuits, combs, razors, butter, plates, pots, and pans on the dirty shelves, which were bracketed within the sloping timbers. Besides these, were various casks, and odds and ends, the salt-encrusted state of which indicated their having been found in vessels stranded among the adjacent sands.
I ascended a ladder which led to the upper story. It contained two truckle beds, which, being formed of teased oakum and tarry shakings, emitted a frightful odour, and thereon were my worthy hosts in profound slumber. I resolved to turn to account the brief liberty this gave me, and commenced an immediate inspection of the place. A ladder and hatch led me from this place to the roof, where I found the lights extinguished, and, from a slender iron gallery formed round the summit, I had a view of the dreary sea boiling over ridges of sand, that were dry or covered alternately, as the tide ebbed and flowed. The shore was visible, but so flat as to seem far off, though only a mile or so distant. The sky was grey and lowering—the sea a dingy russet green, flecked with foam and full of shifting sands. The blackened ribs of an old wreck, half-buried in sand and covered by sea-weeds, lay near, and thereon was perched a solitary gull with grey and drooping wings.
The only other feature in this cheerless scene was one of those old square church towers peculiar to England. It seemed dim and distant in the haze; but indicated the locality of a township or parish, and in that quarter now all my hopes were centred.
The lighthouse was evidently without a boat, the two occupants being apparently men who could not be trusted with one. Provisions and other necessaries were brought off to them, from time to time, by certain officials on shore.
My spirit writhed and my heart sank at the prospect of residing with such wretches, even for a week; and I had, moreover, the miserable conviction, that neither my life nor liberty were safe with them, after the conversation I had overheard. On that day, and the next, they were alternately sullen and sneering, while, telescope in hand, from their upper gallery they kept a sharp look-out for a king's ship.
So did I, but with very different feelings.
Finding the double necessity of killing the dreary and anxious hours, and perhaps of conciliating—if such were possible—these sullen and brutal spirits, I assisted them in trimming the huge lamps and reflectors, in cooking our repast of salt junk, and brewing a great can of egg-flip; but having been detected, in the evening, waving my handkerchief as a signal to a passing schooner, the master of which, on seeing it, actually altered his course and bore up for the lighthouse, I fell into a serious scrape.
Suddenly I was confronted by my two tyrants. Dick's eyes glared like those of a wild beast, as he gave me a violent blow on the ear with a heavy telescope, while the other, with gratuitous ferocity, struck me down by a stroke from a handspike, exclaiming,—
"Look out! or, split me, if I won't cut your rascally throat from clue to earing! Who the devil is going to keep a loblolly-boy like you in grub and grog for nothing?"
I fell senseless and bleeding on the upper deck, or roof of the lighthouse.
I must have lain long thus; for, on recovery, I found that darkness had set in, that the beacon was lighted, and its three lamps, from the cavity of their vast reflectors, were again shedding their radiated lustre far across the heaving waves of the darkened sea. There was no moon visible, but a few tremulous stars were shimmering through the gauze-like vapour that veiled the gloomy sky.
Stiff, sore, and chilled, with an aching head and eyes full of tears—my cheeks damp and my hair encrusted by the saline nature of the atmosphere—I staggered up and sat in the outer gallery for a time, gazing sadly, and full of bitter thoughts, upon the restless sea, which boiled and seethed some thirty feet below me.
Smarting still with the blows those ruffians had given me, I thought of all the evil fortune had wrought me, and burned for vengeance; and terribly I had it, ere the morning sun rose from the sea.
The sound of a strange voice—a woman's voice, too!—was now heard. A woman in that sequestered lighthouse! From whence, and how had she come? I heard also the ribald fun and coarse laughter of the two beacon-keepers. Slipping off my shoes, I crept down the ladder, and peeping through the hatch in the ceiling of the lower apartment, saw the Messieurs Dick Knuckleduster and Broken-nosed Bill seated near a table, drinking and smoking with a woman of repulsive aspect, but with whom they seemed on somewhat intimate terms.
Sinewy, bony, and gaunt, she had the hooked-nose, large keen black eyes, and thick animal mouth of a Jewess of the lowest class. She seemed to be about forty years of age, and was clad in a dirty cap, over which a red handkerchief was tied; a sailor's pea-jacket enveloped the upper part of her person, a short red linsey-wolsey skirt shrouded the lower; while her large feet, which in size bore a due proportion to her dingy, clumsy hands, were encased in a pair of old military boots. Her visage, which was as yellow as an old drumhead, was seamed by a hundred dirty wrinkles; and her mouth had certain hirsute appendages, of a hue so dark as to render her sex almost doubtful, and her aspect diabolical. She wore large gold ear-rings, and had in her mouth a short black pipe, which was only removed to make way for a battered tin mug, from which she was imbibing gin-and-water, hot.
By the number of bottles upon the table, she seemed to have brought to the beacon an ample supply of alcohol under cloud of night; and, from the tenor of the conversation that was in progress, I gathered that this fair daughter of Judah was not an unfrequent visitor.
My attention was next attracted by several jewels and trinkets which the worthy officials of this Pharos were offering her for sale. She seemed a bumboat woman, or slopseller, such as one may find keeping a shop of the humblest class in the meaner alleys of a seaport town; and they addressed her by the euphonious name of "Mother Snatchblock."
"This gold watch and ring ain't worth much," said she; "but where did they come from?"
"The sea," growled Bill.
"The sea is mighty productive hereabout; did they bite your jiggerhook, when fishing?"
"They came in the usual way, Mother Snatchblock; so, if you must know, we had 'em from a gentleman,asescaped from the wreck of the Dutch galley that foundered in the last gale on the tail of the bank."
"Did he swim from there to the Sandridge?"
"Ay—every fathom of the way; in a rough, wild sea, too, to the steps of the beacon."
"A strong fellow he must have been!"
"Strong—damn him! I should think so. Look at the knock on the head he gave me, when I took his dainty ring from him," said Bill, exhibiting an ugly and half-healed gash, which his red knitted cap had hitherto concealed.
"The ring was't worth it, Bill, my boy."
"Come now, old woman—don't cry stinking fish; the stone is a waluable stone."
"A bit of green glass."
"A real emerald, if I know aught about it."
"Which you don't," said the Jewess, placing the ring, which was of great beauty, on the tip of one of her thick dirty fingers; "but you should have waited till the gent was asleep, and then——"
"Then—what?"
She passed a finger significantly across her throat, a motion at which the ruffian laughed, and the other said,—
"Sleep—confound his bones, he sleeps sound enough now, lashed to an old kedge anchor. Do you see the round hole in the timber there?"
"Yes."
"The ball we sent through his brains lodgedthere; but pass the bottle o'stingo over here, and let us say no more about it; for sometimes I think he rises out o' the water o' nights, with the anchor on his back, and knocks at the door—and faith, I shall quit this place when I can!"
The reader may imagine the horror and repugnance with which I listened to these terrible details of the inner life of the inhabitants of this solitary beacon. After they had drunk and smoked for a time, during which the woman gave them all the shore gossip, squared accounts to their satisfaction, and concealed the jewellery and trinkets about her person, she said,—
"And now about this boy that you have on board—I mean above stairs?"
"Well, and wot about him?" asked Bill surlily.
"Didn't we cotch the young varmint making signals to a foreign schooner?" added Knuckleduster, with a sonorous expletive.
"How did you know her to be foreign?" asked Mother Snatchblock.
"By the swabs that hung over her side, and the lubberly way she lay to and then hauled her wind again, when filling her foreyard and standing off. She nearly lost her rudder on the shoal, so that youngster's signal might have cost her dear if the wind had freshened."
"You've been feeding this young biscuit-nibbler too well," said the kind Mrs. Snatchblock; "starve him, Bill—for starvation is the best tamer I know of."
"Now that you speak out, I think we shall."
"And a little starving, or saving, its the same thing, will increase the profit o' wot we makes on him, by giving him up to government, so pass the bottle of Old Tom over 'for a last pull.'"
"I'm blessed if it is ever out of your hand, Mother Snatchblock."
"I means the water mug."
"You've had so much of both, old woman, that you don't know one from tother; fire away, if you will—take the stuff stark naked—but if you get one more sheet in the wind, you'll find it troublesome work to fetch the cove of Compton Rennel to-night in that punt of yours."
"For this young powder-monkey as will be," resumed this hideous and now half-tipsy woman, "we shall get about one pound one, from the lufftenant of the press-gang at Compton Kennel, and we must go shares in that."
"Shares, in course, mother—but what! only one pound one, when the bounty is so high, and the North Sea fleet on the pint o' starting for the Texel?"
"Only a guinea, I tell you," responded the Jewess doggedly, with an oath; "if I arrange all about them jewels, you may well chuck this boy—what's his name——"
"Holliver Hellis," said Broken-nosed Bill.
"Into the bargain."
"Well, be it so," said the ruffians together.
"Now for another whiff, and then for the shore," said Mother Snatchblock, buttoning up her pea-jacket, and tightening the scarlet bandanna under her chin.
A sudden thought—a wild hope of escape now seized me.
This woman must have come off to us in some way. Could this have been by the schooner I had signalled? That was unlikely by the remarks I had heard—besides, she spoke of leavingimmediately.
I put my shoes in my pocket, slipped softly up to the gallery again, and looking round, saw a little punt moored to the steps of the beacon, and tossing like a cockle-shell on the rollers that came in succession over the ridge, about thirty feet below me.
"What shall I do?" I asked myself; "wait till she has pushed off—then leap into the sea and swim after her, in the hope of moving her sympathy?"
The revelations I had just heard, and the character of the wretch, alike forbade the hope of such a result; so my resolution was taken at once.
A lightning rod, which ascended from the water to the roof of the lighthouse, was close by me, and bolted securely to its side by iron cramps. I grasped it, swung myself over, and aided alike by my agility, by hope, and rage, at all I had undergone, I came down hand over hand with ease, my feet being firmly planted at every step, on the planked, and sloping side of the edifice.
On beginning my descent, I observed that one of the beacon lamps had been carelessly trimmed, and hung over to one side, by which the flame already reached the woodwork, and had set the joistson fire. To repair this neglect was still in my power; but to reascend might cost me liberty—perhaps life. My bones were yet aching from the brutality I had endured.
"Bah!" said I, "let them swim if they can," and continued my descent.
Easily reaching the steps, I sprang into the punt—untied the painter, mechanically, and with the celerity of one in a dream, pushed off vigorously from the accursed spot.
"Thank God! thank God!" I exclaimed, with a hurrah of joy, and shipping a pair of sculls that were lashed to the thwart, rowed away, I cared not in what direction, so that I placed the deep blue water between myself and the beacon, the door of which at that moment opened, and its two inmates appeared on the slimy iron steps, lighting down their fair visitor by means of a horn lantern.
The tipsy Jewess uttered an imprecation on discovering that her boat was gone; but I was only eight or ten yards from the beacon, and the broad glare of its triple lights, each blazing within a huge round reflector, shone full upon me.
I uttered a loud and exulting laugh. They saw me in an instant, and all shouted at once a volley of hoarse oaths, and orders "to come back," with threats of being shot if I disobeyed. But I laughed louder still, and pulled more vigorously away, quitting the line of light, however, lest they might actually put their threat in execution.
While the baffled Jewess screamed, stamped herself into a frenzy at the door of the beacon, the two men disappeared and hurried up stairs, I doubted not, to procure a couple of government muskets which they possessed, for the purpose of having a shot at me from the upper gallery; but the flames, which I saw already filling all the second story of the building, must have barred their way, for I soon saw them again at the door gesticulating violently, while their dark figures were strongly defined in black outline against the red and lurid light within.
But still I shouted exultingly, and pulled breathlessly away.
A strong odour of burning wood was soon wafted over the water, for the whole beacon was built of timber, which was old, dry, and being yearly pitched and painted, it burned with all the fierce rapidity of an ignited tar-barrel. Within, the entire edifice seemed filled with light and flame, like the cone of a furnace; suddenly there was a crash, as the red-hot machinery, with all its wheels, lamps, reflectors, and iron-work, vanished with the descending roof, and a pyramid of red and roaring fire shot upward into the dark midnight sky, diffusing a light in every direction, even to the far horizon of the German Sea, and all along the low flat shore. Every wave that broke above the desolate Sandridge, as it raised its crested head, seemed for the moment a wave of fire, for the whole sea became, as it were, a sheet of reflected flame.
This sudden spectacle and terrible catastrophe arrested my exertions; for a few minutes I gazed in wonder and bewilderment. Then moved by pity, I put the punt about, and, animated by an emotion of generosity, of which the objects were totally unworthy, sculled with all my strength towards the spot, to aid the three wretches who merited so little at my hands.
The iron gallery and the slender lightning-rod were distinctly visible against the dark sky, for both were glowing and red-hot; but the former fell, hissing into the sea, and the latter, after waving to and fro, bent over, willow-like, in the form of a slender arch, above the flames, which, as there was not a breath of wind, and the night was exceedingly calm, roared steadily upward, and with a terrible sound. The beacon was soon reduced to a mere skeleton, amid the charred timbers of which, the flames began to sink and die; thus, in less than half-an-hour, not a vestige of it remained, save the scorched heads of the wooden piles which had upheld it above the sea.
As the latter again became dark, and I heard no sounds but the lonely booming of the surf and the beating of my own heart, shudderingly I put the boat about, and pulled shoreward in the direction of a little red spark that seemed to indicate a habitation; and seeking the while to avoid the numerous boats which (now that the beacon was fairly burned down) put off rapidly, with all their crews, intent on rendering assistance when too late.
I had now no feeling either of vengeance or of anger at the three miserable creatures who must have perished in the wooden beacon; and, though in no way to blame for the dreadful catastrophe, their hideous visages seemed to pursue me as I pulled towards the shore, which rose rapidly as I approached it. I beached the punt upon a shelving slope of land, and sprang ashore with a shout of joy, although alike ignorant of where I was or what might next befall me.
The night was warm and the air was balmy, for it came from fields of ripening corn. I sought the shelter of a coppice that grew close to the sandy beach, and stretching my limbs at full length on the long thick grass, in my danger and solitude, there made many good and wise mental resolutions, now, when far, far from my mother's once happy home, never to say or do aught of which she could not approve, to remember all her instructions and precepts, and her love for me, as a restraint from the paths of temptation and vice. In these good resolutions I found a consolation in my loneliness, sorrow, and remorse, and so, after a time, I fell into a disturbed and uneasy sleep.
When I awoke, the pleasant rustle of the green foliage above me and the bright gleams of sunlight that flashed through the waving branches, with the songs of the birds that twittered from hedge to tree, excited a momentary astonishment; but the booming of the adjacent sea, as it rolled on the shelving beach, recalled all the adventures of the last night, and the complete desolation of my position. I clambered up a sloping bank, and for a time lay there under the shady chesnut-trees, gazing on the sunlit sea, and idly listening to the long rolling billows that broke in white foam and in endless succession on the sandy shore, abandoning myself "to the supreme happiness of doing nothing;" but soon came bitter reflections, and with them the necessity for action.
Seaward I saw a long white line of foam. That was theSandridge; a few black stumps appeared above its snowy line. These were the piles whereon the beacon had stood. I shuddered and turned away, resolving to be wary of whom I trusted now, for already I had been (as they say in Australia) twice bound and free within a week—bound by the aggression of others, and free by my own energy.
As I proceeded and quitted the coppice for a highway that lay between thick green hedgerows, the influence of the beautiful morning and the fertility of the scenery raised my spirit. I was in a strange place, true—and without a penny; yet, boylike, the joyous novelty of perfect freedom—the memory of dangers dared and escaped (for I might have been leftto perish amid the flames of the beacon), made me thankful and lighthearted, as I walked towards the red-brick English town, on the old grey Norman church tower of which the morning sun shone merrily.
Passing one or two manor-houses of quaint aspect, with oriel windows and clustered chimnies, that stood in lawns as flat and green as a billiard table; and by the wayside, a few rustic cottages, buried under arbours of honeysuckle and woodbine, a road that was so thickly arched over by oak, chesnut and plum trees in full foliage, as to resemble a leafy tunnel, brought me to the town, among the red-brick and square modern houses of which were many gable-ended, galleried and quaint old mansions of the Elizabethan age.
I paused at the head of the principal street, for I felt myself without friends, and what was still worse, without money. The morning seemed early, for few persons were yet abroad, and the almost grassy vista of the street, which was paved with little round pebbles, was silent and empty. Close by me were the parish stocks, and thereon I sat for a time to reflect on my loneliness. A man passed me, a bumpkin going afield. He had a pitchfork on his shoulder, and his face expressed that well-fed air of content which is as peculiar to England as his little round hat, his canvass frock, and hobnailed shoes.
"Good morning, measter," said he, passing thoughtlessly on.
"What town is this?" I asked.
"Where be you come from, not to ha' heerd o' Compton Rennel afore, eh? The best market town in any o' the Ridings o' Yorkshire," he replied, and passed on, singing merrily.
"Yorkshire!" I reiterated, while the name of the town caused an emotion of alarm. I remembered the press-gang, of which Mother Snatchblock and Dick Knuckleduster had spoken. I was afraid of being questioned as a stranger, and of being in some way implicated in the destruction of the lighthouse; or, by my involuntary residence therein, being deemed a comrade of those whose conversation and dealings proved them to be murderers and wreckers.
While these and many other unpleasant thoughts occurred to me, a large placard, surmounted by the royal arms and running somewhat in the following terms, caught my eye:—
"ALL GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS!
"That are willing to serve His Gracious Majesty King George III., in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, now commanded by Major-General the Honourable James Murray, of Elibank, lately Governor of Quebec, may apply to Sergeant Drumbirrel, at the Chequers, or the 'Maid and the Magpie,' in Compton Rennel, as twenty brave fellows are wanted to complete the strength of the battalion, which is about to sail for the West Indies, to fight the rascally French, Dutch, and Spaniards, and lick them right out of the world.
"Every gentleman enlisting shall receive pay at once, with two guineas to drink the very good healths of His Gracious Majesty and the noble General Murray, of Elibank,—not forgetting the Earl of Kildonan, Lieutenant-Colonel of the said regiment.
"God save the King! Hurrah!"DUNCAN DRUMBIRREL, Sergt., R.S.F."
My heart beat lightly as I read this rather grandiloquent document. The Fusiliers were my father's old regiment—"theregiment,"par excellence, of Lotty and me, and an emotion of joy came over me. Then, as if to supplement this invitation to glory, pipeclay, and gunpowder, I heard the sound of drums and fifes in the town. Anon a crowd of hobnailed rustics and other people appeared debouching into the main street, and amid them I saw the tall black bearskin caps and white feathers, the long streaming ribbons, the drawn swords and red coats of the recruiting party.
ThenI felt that I was not without friends in Compton Kennel, and pressing forward, I joined the gaping crowd. I was weary, hungry, and harassed; but the stirring sound of the sharply-braced drums and the notes of the shrill fife filled my heart with a new glow of joy and energy. I elbowed a passage to the sergeant, who, with his pike on his shoulder, erect and stiff as its shaft, marched at the head of his party, which consisted only of an Irish corporal, a private, two drums and fifes, and eight or ten cockaded recruits, straight to the "Maid and the Magpie," in front of which, after beating thePoint of War, all took off their caps and gave three cheers for the king and the gallant General Murray.
Wistfully I gazed at the seven soldiers in their red coats, faced with blue,—once so familiar to my boyish eyes; but they seemed "new hands;" at least, I failed to recognize them. Amid the hubbub about the inn door, I seized the arm of the halberdier, and inquired,—
"Are you Sergeant Drumbirrel?"
"Yes, my lad. What do you want with me?"
"To volunteer," said I.
"For the Twenty-first Foot?"
"Yes."
"All right, boy. What age are you?"
"Seventeen years."
"We don't reckon our time in the army by years, but by the enjoyments we have," replied Drumbirrel, who was quite master of the noble art of trepanning. "In his Majesty's name," he added, slipping the mystical coin into my hand; "and now, come into the bar for our morning glass, and to pass you under the standard."
And thus it was that I became a Royal Fusilier!
I was immediately placed upright against the sergeant's pike, on the shaft of which were accurately notched the number of feet and inches which formed the standard height for recruits in his Majesty's Twenty First Foot. Though considerably below the required gage, as a growing lad, I passed the ordeal, and ere mid-day, with a few other aspirants for fame and Chelsea, was duly attested by a jolly, red-faced rector, who was a J.P. in that Riding of Yorkshire. Two guineas of bounty were then paid to me, and in the evening, with the sergeant, Corporal Mahoney, the drummers, &c., and a few more recruits, I found myself enthroned on a table at the "Maid and the Magpie," spending my newly-acquired pieces of gold with singular facility; and more likely to become a bibber than a Hannibal, as I strove to drown care and extract recklessness from brandy and tobacco.
A crowd of bumpkins and idlers filled the large wainscotted smoking-room of the old-fashioned inn, which Sergeant Drumbirrel had made his head-quarters; and as red-coats were seldom seen in the rural district of Compton Rennel, our redoubtable halberdier, who had all thebonhommie, acuteness, and confidence requisite for a complete recruiting sergeant, found himself acknowledged king of the company. He was a tall and handsome fellow, about forty years of age; his hair was already becoming grey, and his face lined by years of hard drinking and hard service in America and the tropics; and his staple subjects for conversation were his personal exploits in the fields of Mars and Venus,—stories in which he usually stood prominently forward,—thus: how, by followinghisfriendly hints, Burgoyne beat the French on the banks of the Hudson; and how on another occasion he bilked an innkeeper at Chatham; for he deemed one exploit quite as worthy of consideration as the other.
He knew all the tricks of the recruiting service; enabled recruits to pass the standard by false scalps and glued cork heels, and made no secret of his art before his auditors. While he imbibed and expressed a hearty contempt for all civilians; he deemed it quite as much his duty to trepan as to enlist them; thus, by his own account, he had brought many gallant fellows into his Majesty's service by deluding them into an exchange of clothes with him, taking care to leave ashillingin one of the pockets; on the discovery of which, he desired the wearer to keep it in the king's name, and marched him straight to the nearest J.P. for attestation. He had freely proffered commissions, enlisting many as captains, colonels, and knights of the Bath and Garter; he had slipped "the shilling" into a bumpkin's pocket, or into his hand when shaking it, and then sworn in a whole vocabulary of oaths that it was given in the name of his Majesty.
From time to time, the health of the latter was drunk at my expense, with great vociferation and loyalty, the sergeant sitting the while at the head of a long bare table, armed with a huge Toby-tosspot jug (formed like a little squat man in boots, with a three-cocked hat, each angle of which was a mouth-piece); it was full of ruddy, foaming ale,—Yorkshire home-brewed.
"Are you wise," I whispered, "to let out all the secrets of your art before these fellows?"
"Wise, lad?" said he, "I never was wise, and 'tis too late to learn wisdom now; besides, what is the use of being wise? 'Tis better far to be jolly."
"But those who overhear you——"
"May go and be hanged," said he; "our beating order expires to-night, and to-morrow we march for Hull to join the regiment, and I don't care how soon we embark; for I begin to tire alike of barrack life, recruiting, and garrison duty."
"Hurrah! the sooner we embark the better," said I, with a shout; for now the fumes of liquor, tobacco, and the general odour of the room itself, were overpowering, while the noise, confusion, singing, quarrelling, and the voices of women lamenting the enlistment of sons, brothers, and lovers, made up a Babel, from which I could not escape, as Sergeant Drumbirrel was too old a soldier to trust a recruit for an instant out of his sight, until he was duly "turned over" to the staff at head-quarters.
"Oh, stay at home, my dear—dear son," exclaimed a poor old woman imploringly to a tipsy rustic, whose wide-awake hat was adorned by the tricoloured streamers of the gallant 21st; "stay at home with your old mother, who loves you so well, and do not go to the sodgering, leaving her to starvation and grief."
Though applied to another, these words sank deeply and bitterly into my own heart; but it was too late to retreat now. The bumpkin to whom she spoke tore off his gay cockade, and began to weep like a huge tipsy boy as he was.
"Here, you young devil, take a pull of this," said the sergeant, proffering his foaming jug. "Mother of Moses! wait, old lady, till you see your son in his red coat and captain'sepaulettes. The first duke that has any live stock in the shape of scampering daughters will have him to dinner directly. Hurrah for the old 21st! Keep up your hearts, my boys, for here are the sinews of war!"
With these words he refreshed us all, by displaying a handful of guineas, which, however, were not his own, but the marching money of the whole party. This timely display silenced the regrets of all, save one young fellow, upon whose shoulder a very pretty girl hung, and wept bitterly.
"Is this your sweetheart?" asked the sergeant, whose rubicund visage expressed a curious combination of commiseration and disgust.
"Yes," replied the recruit angrily, for he now viewed our commander as his tempter and enemy.
"Well, our colonel does not approve of married men on foreign service, so you may as well transfer her to some one else."
"Tony—my dear Tony!" sobbed the girl.
"So you're in love, my girl," continued the sergeant; "get out of it as soon as you can, for your Tony is a fusilier now, and love rarely survives a change of quarters. I have done a little in the love-making way myself, and speak from experience."
"Love, like destiny, should be fixed, unchanging," said I, enthusiastically, as I thought of poor little Amy Lee.
"Desthiny," reiterated Mahony, our Irish corporal; "and what the divil's that?"
"Our fate in life."
"I've known whatfatewere on the line o' march in Flanders, when my boots pinched—is it that ye mane?"
"Fate," said Drumbirrel, ponderingly—"don't know much about it. I know that every bullet has its billet—a saying we have in the army—and it comes pretty much to the same thing. But be jolly, youngsters, and you may all come in time to thehalbert," he added, with a wink which made all the soldiers laugh, as his speech contained an allusion known to them alone.
"Thunder and blazes!" exclaimed Corporal Mahony "here is that unbelieving fifer ating mate on a Friday, like a heretical Protestant."
"Well, there's no fast to thepoteen—glory be to God!" replied the fifer, who was his countryman; "so fire away, my boys, till the butt-end of the morning."
"Silence all!" commanded the sergeant, who seemed literally to live on tobacco-smoke and brandy-and-water; "silence for a song, or I'll knock the dominoes out of your jaws with my halbert—and, drummer, brace up, for an accompaniment."
With these words he struck up a rollicking barrack-room ditty of the day, in the prolonged "Tol-de-rol-lol" of which the whole party joined, and the drum was added, so that the din, with the clattering of jugs on the table, and iron heels on the floor, was tremendous.
Behold poor Will, just come from drill,'Twas only last night I enlisted;I sold my cart to pay the smart,But money King George resisted!I know not what my fate may be,Yet think it mighty odd, sirs,That a lad so trim and smart as meShould be in the awkward squad, sirs!Tolderol, lol, lol, &c.
Perhaps a recruit may chance to shootThe great citizen Bonaparte, sirs—
Our halberdier, who had become considerably the worse of his potations, here became inarticulate; and would have fallen off his chair, but was recovered by Corporal Mahony (a prompt doctor on such occasions), who, in five minutes, sobered him by pouring down his throat a little tea, dashed with strong vinegar.
The society among which I was thrown sickened, and the drunken uproar almost deafened, me; thus I gladly retired to my pallet, in a miserable garret, which was allotted to the corporal and myself. Drumbirrel, having discovered, through the medium of his brandy-and-water, that the blowsy landlady was absolutely beautiful, lingered behind.
Overcome by the effects of his recent orgie, Mahoney soon dropped asleep, and I was left to my own thoughts.
So I was to be a soldier, after all! It seemed the immutable dictum of fate—of a destiny against which there was no contending; and by this almost atheistical sophistry (rather than by the pressing argument of necessity) I endeavoured for a time to stifle regret, and the stings of a conscience that upbraided me, for deserting my mother in her old age and my sister in her early youth.
But the die was cast, and thus I strove to find consolation in deeming myself a fatalist.
I knew that my mother would weep for me—yea, bitterly; and that how dear my desertion (the whole circumstances of which I might never be able to explain) cost her, would be known only to God and her own gentle heart; and this conviction sank like iron into my soul.
Our quiet little cottage—the peaceful village home I might never see again, came vividly before me. With a swollen heart, and eyes full of bitter tears, I thought I never loved them all so dearly as on the night of that day, the most eventful of my life.
I never closed an eye, and when our drum beat before dawn, in the echoing market-place of Compton Rennel, I started unrefreshed from my tear-wetted pillow, and prepared to march, with other recruits, for the head-quarters of the Scots Fusiliers.
The regiment which I had joined was entirely composed of Scotsmen, with a very few exceptions, being one of the old national corps which had existed before the union of the countries; but, as twenty men were required to complete the strength before embarkation, the lieutenant-colonel, the Earl of Kildonan, had obtained a beating-order, and sent out parties from his head-quarters, to obtain recruits in England, and hence my meeting with Sergeant Drumbirrel in the little market town of Compton Kennel.
The regiment had been raised in 1678, by Charles, fifth Earl of Mar, for the service of Charles II.; it was then armed with light muskets, and hence the name ofFusiliers, which it still retains, even in these our days of breechloaders, Whitworth and Lancaster rifles. Its first baptism in blood was at the battle of Bothwellbrig, and after serving in all the useless and wanton wars of Orange William, of Queen Anne, down to the campaigns of Marlborough, Peterborough, and Cornwallis, it was now about to commence a new career of glory, under Sir Charles Grey, in the conquest of the West Indian Isles.
As we marched along the dusty highway, all this was told me by Sergeant Drumbirrel, who, with all his recruiting tricks, was a droll and intelligent fellow from Ayrshire; and a veritable record of all the past history of the Scots Fusiliers, which, with the trueesprit de corpsof a British soldier, he declared and believed to be thefirstregiment in the civilized world.
An irritated father having followed us, with the intention of giving a farewell horse-whipping to his son, who had enlisted, overtook our party, when halted at the first wayside inn, about ten miles from Compton Kennel; but our halberdier was ready for any emergency, being a man of endless resource. To save the youth's bacon, he tied him up in a sack, and placed him among twenty others, which were filled with potatoes, in a room, into which the astonished farmer had traced his son, without being able to discover him; and this trifling incident furnished the party with a subject for merriment and jokes, until we reached our halting-place for the night. The lad's name was Tom Telfer, of whom, more anon.
Perceiving that I was very much cast down in spirit, and also that I kept somewhat aloof from my companions, Sergeant Drumbirrel pressed me to drink.
"You made me take too much last night," said I, reproachfully.
"Too much! why, we drank the best of brandy, so that is impossible."
"My mother——"
"Come! don't be a Molly and quote your mother, now when you are a soldier; but what didshesay?"
I sighed bitterly and replied,—
"She ever taught me that liquor was an enemy."
"Then you should do as I do."
"How is that?"
"Make it afriend. Here, boy, the smallest drop in life won't do you the least harm; a hair of the dog—you know the rest."
Thus urged, I took a draught of brandy-and-water from the sergeant's canteen, and thereafter became considerably invigorated and more communicative.
"Did you know Captain Ellis, of the Fusiliers," I asked.
"Ellis—Ellis, who served with Burgoyne, and was killed on the banks of the Hudson?"
"Yes."
"Know him—odd's life, lad, and that I did! A kind good friend he was to me, and saved me once from the halberts, when found asleep on my post on a cold and wintry American night. A better officer or a braver one never wore a red coat! I was by his side when the death-shot struck him, and I was one of those who buried him at the foot of a tree before we retired, and just as night was coming on, for we all loved the captain too well to leave him without a soldier's grave. Was he a relation of yours, my lad?"
Touched by what the sergeant said in his blunt honest way, my eyes filled with tears, and I replied,—
"I am his only son."
"You!"
"I."
"You, little Oliver, whom I carried on my back on the march to Skenesborough, when the baggage-waggons broke down and were lost in the woods!" exclaimed the sergeant, grasping both my hands with friendly warmth; "well, well, what queer things do come about in this world! You have grown so much, I could never have known you; and ten years in America and Jamaica have made some change in me. I have no need for hair powdernow, Master Oliver; time is powdering me fast enough. You must tell me how this came to pass; and the good lady your mother——"
"I have been most ungrateful in leaving her; though the act was somewhat involuntary."
"Too late to think of that now. Your health again, Master Oliver. I hope to see you a captain yet, like your father (as tome, I've got to the top of my profession). You will find your name a password to every heart in the Fusileers."
The sergeant took a long draught from his canteen and resumed,—
"In the hard winter of '75, when Quebec was besieged by the Yankees, we suffered horribly, thoughI toldthe general how it would be. It made one melancholy to see the poor, pale, wasted soldiers full of spirit, though their canteens and haversacks were empty, patient though suffering, sick at heart in soul and body, wolf-eyed by famine, toil, and battle, standing on their dreary posts, at Quebec, among the frozen snow, through which the bare skeletons of men and horses were everywhere visible. One night I must have died of cold (for my watchcoat was frozen like a deal board, and the flesh of my fingers stuck to the barrel of my firelock), but for your father, Master Oliver. He gave me his blanket to wrap round me, and shared with me the contents of a canteen, as I to-day am proud to do with you. God bless him, he had the heart to feel for a poor comrade. I remember the storming of Skenesborough, when he got that ugly knock on the head. We were in brigade with the old '9th and 20th.' I volunteered for the forlorn hope; for being a bit of a devil, I always went for anything desperate; and I remember, as if 'twere yesterday, the night of the 5th of July and the preparations, we stormers made for the event of the next day."
"Preparations—you would be reading your Bibles, I suppose?" said I simply.
"Bibles!" reiterated the sergeant, bursting into a loud fit of laughter.
"How, then, did you prepare?"
"By changing every rag we possessed into ready money at the sutler's tent—by eating and drinking and fun; for if we survived, a dead man's kit would always come handy, and if we were knocked on the head, what the devil was the use of letting ours come to the drumhead, or be buried in the trenches with us? So a jolly night we had of it, cleaning our firelocks, snapping the flints, drinking and singing,
'Why, soldiers, whyShould we be melancholy boys,Whose business 'tis to die?'
Well, at three o'clock in the morning of the 6th, we landed—formed in the water, and rushing up the mountain, assailed the stockades, while the general, by my advice—for, as I said before, General Burgoyne always tookmyadvice—sent the 20th in rear of the fort to cut off the retreat of the Yankees; but they all escaped save a few prisoners. My eyes, Master Oliver, I remember well the first time the good captain and I were under fire together. It was on that 8th of July, when we were detached towards Fort Ann to support His Majesty's 9th foot, which was attacked by hordes of Yankees, French, and wild Indians, who are worse than incarnate fiends. A terrible march we had of it, cutting down trees to clear a way where men never trod before; fording weedy creeks, and floundering through reedy marshes in heavy marching order, with knapsacks and blankets, campkettles, and sixty rounds per man, till the 30th of July, when we crossed the Hudson by a bridge of boats. And there it was that General Sir John Burgoyne came galloping up to me and said,—
"'Duncan, what do you think of the position of these rascally Yankees?'
"'Send forward the 20th and the 62nd, general,' said I, 'and if they fail, the 21st will be sure to settle the business.'
"'You're right, sergeant—you always are right.'
"'Thank you kindly, general,' said I, saluting him, for I was always very respectful. So on went the old Kingsleys, as we always called the 20th, and next the 62nd; but deuce a thing they did but blaze away their powder and lose their men in heaps, till we—that is, the Fusiliers, Master Oliver—came up, shoulder to shoulder in line, with colours flying, and the drums and fifes playing 'Britons, Strike Home!' andhomewe did strike with the charged bayonet; for, as Sir John says in his despatch (though ungrateful enough, never to mentionme), 'just as night closed in, the enemy gave ground on all sides, and left us completely masters of the field.'"
The sergeant and I became sworn comrades; we had now a thousand things to talk of. He was kind, attentive, consolatory, and said everything he could think of to fire my energy and keep my spirit up. Under his influence, it rose superior to the thoughts that had crushed it; and I now resolved to become, if possible, the arbiter of my own destiny, agreeing with Musæus, that "anactiveman is not content with being what he is; but strives tobecomewhat hecan be."
We joined the head-quarters of the regiment, then lying in the barracks of Kingston-upon-Hull, and after being inspected and approved of, by our lieutenant-colonel—the Earl of Kildonan—a fine young soldier, who had served throughout the two campaigns of the War of Independence in America, I was "turned over," as the phrase is, to Captain Glendonwyn'a company, by Mr. Bolster, the adjutant, and forthwith commenced my initiation into the mysteries of the goose-step and other calisthenic exercises. I was passed rapidly from squad to squad. Though my heart, yet, was far away at home, my spirit went with the task that was set me; thus I was soon declared fit for duty and was put on guard.
The strictness with which I conformed to every rule soon attracted the attention of my captain and of the staff. I interfered with none, and even the most officious corporal could not discover a military fault in me. I soon ceased to be deemed a "new-come," or stigmatized as a "Johnnyraw." I was often too generous with my pittance of pay, for being unsuspicious, the artful fleeced me of it, and thus I was often obliged to "box Harry" till pay-day came; but as I was always on good terms with the pretty young Englishwoman (a sergeant's wife), who messed me, I did not find this so difficult as other spendthrifts, who were older, less favoured by nature, or less suave than I; for my gentler breeding made me a favourite with all the women in the barrack.
I remember my first guard well, for there was a grim incident connected with it.
When I was on sentry at the mainguard-gate, about the hour of five, on a cold, raw, misty morning, two of our officers passed quietly out. They were muffled in their blue regimental cloaks, and seemed pale, like men who had been all night awake. They were excited too—though somewhat silent. In a few minutesother two, accompanied by Dr. Splints, our assistant-surgeon, also passed out; and then I surmised that their expedition was nothing less than a hostile meeting, for such affairs were of every-day occurrence in those hot times of high punctilio, and when in every corps there were a few firebrands and fighting men, who made themselves the arbiters of every petty quarrel, and urged that blood alone could wipe out the most trivial or imaginary slight.
I was not wrong in my supposition. Being a young soldier, I was pondering whether or not I should call the officer of the guard, when I heard two shots fired simultaneously in a field not far from the barracks; and in a few minutes, a terrified rustic came hurriedly to the gate for a stretcher, on which two files of the guard, soon after, bore in one of the four officers whom I had seen pass out—a fine young lad, the lieutenant of our light company—who was shot through the lungs and dying; and this mournful tragedy was the sequel to the mere boyish joke of corking a pair of mustaches on the lip of another, as he lay on the mess-room chairs asleep overnight.
The officers were soon likely to have more of this sharp work cut out for them; for Lieutenant Rowland Haystone, of ours, a mere youth, having dined at the mess of a hussar corps, they conveyed him, well dosed with champagne, into the riding-school, and there carefully covering him up to the nose in sawdust, left him, tucked in thus, to his slumbers, which were undisturbed till the roughrider came with his horses ard squad about seven next morning. The non-commissioned officer, astonished to see a man's face among the sawdust and bark, dragged out our unfortunate subaltern, who had some difficulty in comprehending where he was; and he was brought home to his quarters in such a plight, that he had a narrow escape from losing his commission. To square accounts, he shot one of the hussars; but, as the affair was considered an insult to the whole regiment, the dragoons and fusiliers fought whenever they met in the streets and taverns, for some time after this, and Mr. Haystone actually tabled at mess a proposal for calling out the whole of the hussar officers by turns; but they were despatched to join the Duke of York's unfortunate army in Flanders, and so ended this feud and its follies.
Soon after this, I was detailed for a very unpleasant duty.
A number of men being required for the West India fleet, under Admiral Jervis, there came a secret order for the press-gangs to visit the docks and crimping-houses at Hull; and on the night selected by the authorities, fifty men of the fusiliers, provided each with twenty rounds of ball-cartridge, were paraded, about ten o'clock, under the command of Lieutenant Haystone and Ensign Bruce, and marched with great secrecy towards the principal dock, the gates of which were by that time closed. We were in light-marching order, with our forage-caps and great-coats.
At the gate, we were joined by fifty carefully-selected seamen, all armed with cutlasses and pistols, and wearing short flushing jackets. Among them, as I afterwards heard, were a number of the oldest midshipmen, and the whole body was officered by second and third lieutenants. They had already with them a few pressed men, whom they had picked up at the grog-shops and ale-houses, as they came along the quay, and these were easily discernible by their hands being fettered and their sullen air.
Mr. Haystone now gave the commands to prime and load with ball, and to fix bayonets; and on the gates being opened, he took possession of the pressed men, and sent guards, under sergeants or corporals, to keep the various avenues, with orders to defend them at the point of the bayonet against all who might attempt to escape or resist; for such was the aversion to the naval service, even at this time, when Nelson's pennant was streaming from theVictory, that press-gangs frequently met with the most desperate resistance: and at Hull, in those days, there lived near the docks a certain enterprising son of the Emerald Isle, who kept a large depôt of cudgels, and lent them out, at "a penny arow," to all who required them.
All was still and dark in the docks, and I could see the forest of masts and rigging standing in intricate masses against the cloudy sky, which, fortunately for our expedition, was moonless, and the month was October.
Dividing into numerous small parties, the press-gang boarded several large ships; and from the quay we could see the flashing of cutlass blades, and the gleam of lanterns on the masts above and the slimy water below, and on the pale and excited faces of the crews, as they were turned up from their hammocks, and their skippers forced to account for all their men, per list. Their papers were cursorily examined, and the best men selected for service. On the slightest resistance they were handcuffed, at the point of the cutlass and the muzzle of the levelled pistol.
While posted as sentinel inside one of the gates, I saw a fugitive seaman, who had dropped on the quay from the spritsail yard of a large bark, run towards the barrier, and heedless of my command to "fall back," he proceeded at once, and with desperate activity, to climb up by the crossbars of the gate, for the purpose of escaping.
Remembering all I had endured on board theTartar, I pitied the poor fellow; but my orders were imperative; moreover, the eye of a sergeant was upon me.
"Come back, sirrah!" I exclaimed, cocking my musket; "come back, or I shall be compelled to shoot you."
"Shoot away, then," he replied, and still continued to climb.
I know not how I might have acted had not his foot slipped when near the summit, and he fell heavily to the ground. Powerful and active, he sprang up at once, and boldly confronted me as I charged my bayonet; and perceiving that his intention was evidently to close with me and wrest away my musket, I said, resolutely,—
"Stand!—stir not one step, or I shall shoot you down, in the king's name!"
"Curse the king, and every slave who serves him!" he exclaimed, with an oath, which, however dreadful, seemed not unfamiliar to me; and, on drawing nearer, I recognized the mean and sinister visage of Dick Knuckleduster, whom I had last seen in the burning beacon.
"You were one of the keepers of the Sandbridge lighthouse?" said I, with some satisfaction; for, to tell the truth, the catastrophe of the beacon sometimes haunted me unpleasantly. He scowled at me under his shaggy eyebrows, and did not reply.
"Answer!" said I, threatening him with my bayonet.
"Well—what if I was?"
"You know that it was burned down?"
"Ay—pretty well," he growled, with a laugh and an imprecation.
"How did you escape?"
"By the water."
"Of course—but by what other means?"
"I swam."
"And Bill with the broken nose?"
"Was roasted like a crab, and like a buttered crab I heard him sputtering on the burning beams above me—ugh!—d—n me—burned alive!"
"And the wretched Jewess?"
"Mother Snatchblock?"
"Yes."
"Ha! ha! burned too; but who the devil are you, that you know all this?" he added, savagely, while coming forward.
"Back—back!" I exclaimed, "or I shall run my bayonet into you; I am Oliver Ellis, the boy whom you would have sold to the press-gang—do you hear me, rascal?—to the press-gang, to whom I shall surrender you in five minutes as a prisoner. Time about is fair play, Mr. Dick Knuckleduster."
For a few seconds the fellow was silent; and while our eyes glared into each other, we could hear the bustle on board the ships,—the breaking open of hatches,—voices calling the rolls of crews,—the scuffles, oaths, and plunging overboard of those who sought to escape the gang by swimming to the quays, where they were captured by the guards of fusiliers under Mr. Haystone. In muscular strength I was but a child, when compared to a ruffian so brawny as Knuckleduster; but my position as sentinel, and my loaded musket, gave me a power of life and death over him. He felt this; his features contracted with intense ferocity, and I could see his sinister eyes glaring like those of a polecat in the dark.
"What—here's our powder-monkey that bolted become a full-blown lobster!" he exclaimed, with an affected laugh; "but you'll shake hands, won't you, Oliver?"
"Back!" I replied, keeping my charged bayonet at his breast; "back, for my finger is on the trigger."
"You will let me past, won't you?"
"Not an inch."
"I was very kind to you in that ere beacon, I was," said the fellow, in a whining voice; "Bill wanted to shy you into the water one night, to save your grog and biscuits; but I thought it better——"
"To sell me——"
"To whom?"
"The press-gang, through Mother Snatchblock's respectable agency, eh?—sell me like the emerald ring and jewels of the unfortunate man, who was wrecked near the beacon, whom you foully murdered, and whose body you sunk with an old kedge-anchor, eh?—Knuckleduster, the wrecker, thief, and murderer!"
He uttered a growl like a bulldog, and literally writhed with fear and baffled rage as I said this.
"You have no proof for what you say, and I defy you," replied he; "but this I know, that I shall seizeyouas a deserter—a boy run from His Majesty's shipTartar, and all your denials, or jawing fore and aft, won't be worth a soldier's button. Besides, how do I know that you didn't burn that ere beacon, as well as steal Mother Snatchblock's boat, and so become guilty of murder as well as robbery? Oh! I see jolly well you'll think better of it than let me be taken to-night. A fine joke it would be, indeed, for Dick Knuckleduster to be beaten at this time o' day by a sucking-turkey like you!"
"Silence, dog, or I shall certainly bayonet you. I am no longer the friendless boy you thought me, but one of the Royal Fusiliers, and I defy alike your falsehoods and your malevolence."
The fellow again resorted to the most abject entreaties that I would permit him to escape; but I stood resolutely then, pinning him against the wall, until Mr. Stanley, a midshipman of theAdderfrigate, approached with a party of seamen, and pressed him into his Majesty's sea service. Then, as they dragged him away, he poured forth a torrent of imprecations upon me, mingled with threats of future vengeance, which I heeded less than the chafing of the slimy water upon the green and barnacled sides of the quay. At all this the midshipman and the sailors only laughed, saying they had "a boatswain, who would teach him better manners, on board theAdder."
However, this was not thelastI was fated to see of Master Richard Knuckleduster.