Map Of Western Europe In The Time Of Queen Anne.Map Of Western Europe In The Time Of Queen Anne.The shading represents the dominions of Louis XIV.
Map Of Western Europe In The Time Of Queen Anne.Map Of Western Europe In The Time Of Queen Anne.The shading represents the dominions of Louis XIV.
He was known as a brave and an able officer, not much more, except that he was known also to be a great miser. His wife, Sarah Jennings, now the Countess of Marlborough, was in high favour with the new Queen; indeed, she was at that time the most influential subject in the kingdom.
To Marlborough, then, was given the command of the combined English and Dutch forces.
It needs no telling that the declaration of war, a war in which the greater part of Europe would most likely be involved, caused no small consternation among those whose business was with the sea and with shipping. Fairburn's business necessitated that his single brig should be constantly running to and from London, and it was early rumoured that French cruisers and privateers were prowling about the North Sea and the Channel. A schooner of considerable size, belonging to Squire Blackett, had, indeed, been chased, off the Norfolk coast, and had escaped only by the fact that it was lightly laden—it was returning in ballast to the Tyne—and by its superior sailing qualities. Such things brought home to every collier the realities of the situation. George's mother grew alarmed.
"Who knows," said the good woman, "whether the same Frenchman may not still be on the watch, and seize theOuseburn Lassieand her cargo; and, worse than all, my dear boy on board of her?"
Her husband was not without his fears either, but George laughed at the notion of capture by a French vessel.
"I'll go and have a talk with old Abbott, the skipper," he said, "and see what he thinks about it."
"Well, George, my lad," the old salt said when the boy questioned him on the point, "it's like this. It's not impossible we may get a Frenchy down on us. But we shan't strike our colours if there's the least chance of doing anything by a bit of fighting. The master's a man of peace, but between you and me"—the old fellow sank his voice to a whisper—"I've got stowed away, unbeknown to him, four tidy little guns; real beauties they are, if small. You shall help me to use 'em on the Mounseers, if they won't leave us alone."
To a lad of George Fairburn's stamp such a prospect was glorious. "I'm quite ready to go, mother," he announced, "on the brig's very next trip." Mother and father made no reply, but the former turned away to hide her tears. The lad must go and begin his new life. For a few days all was bustle and preparation, George in the seventh heaven of delight. The long voyage in a grimy and uncomfortable collier had no terrors for him; he was too much accustomed to coal dust for that. And was there not a chance that before the Thames was reached he might see a brush with a Frenchman?
The last evening at home for him came, and he took a stroll to get a final look at the familiar surroundings. It was now the very heart of summer, the weather glorious: could any boy be sad at such a time, even though there was before him the parting from home, from an indulgent and much-loved mother, from a just and honourable as well as affectionate father? George whistled and sang as he wandered across the fields, careless whither his footsteps led him.
As fate would have it, he was proceeding generally in the direction of Mr. Blackett's great house, Binfield Towers, a mansion almost entirely hidden by thick woods from the public gaze. George knew these woods well, with their acres of bluebells and their breadths of primroses in the Spring, and their wealth of dogroses in June. He turned into the footpath that crossed the plantations, and presently found himself gazing at the mansion a hundred yards away. The place was almost new, the style that was known in later days as Queen Anne's. But George knew nothing of architectural styles, and was idly counting the multitude of windows when he was startled by a cracked old voice calling to him from the other side of the fence that separated the wood from the grassplots in front of the house.
"For God's sake, come along and help, my good lad," cried an old man in livery, beckoning him frantically.
"What's the matter?" George asked quickly.
"The house is on fire," was the reply, "and there's nobody at home but the women folk, except old Reuben, and he's just about as much use as me, and that's none at all, I reckon."
"Where's Mr. Blackett?" the lad asked as he cleared the fence at a bound, and stood by the old man's side on the lawn.
"Gone off to a party, and young Master Matthew with him. Run and do what you can, for Heaven's sake, and I'll follow."
George bounded across the grass like a hare, and bolted into the house without ceremony, for he now perceived smoke issuing from several of the front windows. In the hall he found old Reuben, the aged butler, whom Mr. Blackett still provided with a home, doing what he could to stay the progress of the flames, by throwing upon the burning staircase little pailfuls of water brought by the maid servants. But, in truth most of the women were screaming, and those who were not were fainting.
"I'm almost moidered with it all," the old fellow cried helplessly, to which the superannuated gardener, who now came wheezing in, added, "Aye, we're both on us moidered."
George glanced at the futile old couple, then cast his eye upwards, to the various stretches of the grand staircase which could be seen from the well below. Almost every length of the banisters was blazing, and the cracked and broken skylight above caused a fierce upward draught.
"It's at the top the water should be poured down," George cried, taking in the situation in an instant. "I'll see if I can get up." And in spite of the shouts of the old fellows, and the redoubled shrieks of the maids, the lad skipped up two or three of the flights that zigzagged up the staircase well.
At the second floor, however, he was almost overwhelmed by a great mass of smoke mingled with flame that shot suddenly out of the long corridor running right and left. Blinded, choked, scorched, George staggered back, tripped, and with a clatter fell down the six or eight steps he had mounted of that flight, and lay for a moment on the broad carpeted landing half-dazed. But speedily recovering himself, he perceived that the portion of the stairs from which he had just fallen was now blazing fiercely.
"It is useless!" he cried to himself, as he turned to descend to the servants below.
Then, before he had made two steps agonizing shrieks rang out from somewhere above, and he stopped dead, almost appalled.
"Miss Mary and Mrs. Maynard!" he heard the old men shout from below, and the cries of the women servants grew frantic, as the little band gazed terror-stricken upwards. George, too, cast his eyes aloft, and there, to his utter dismay, were dimly seen through the smoke a couple of female forms peeping from the topmost corridor.
He knew well enough by sight Mr. Blackett's little daughter of eleven and her governess, a stately old lady, said to be an impoverished relative of the Squire himself. The little pony chaise in which the two were wont to drive about the neighbourhood was, indeed, familiar to every soul in the district.
"We had forgotten them, we had forgotten them!" came a voice just below him, and there stood old Reuben, who had pulled himself up the steps a little way. "They are lost!" the aged servant moaned. "Oh dear, oh dear!" And the poor old fellow blundered down the steps again, weeping like a child.
"Is there any other staircase up to the top of the house?" the boy called after him.
"Only that in the servants' wing," was the reply, "and that is gone already. God help us all!"
"Any long ladders about? And the stablemen, where are they all?"
"Coachman with the Squire, the grooms gone off to the town for an hour or two." Reuben shook his head sorrowfully.
George waited no longer. With a bound he darted up the stairs again, and in a moment had reached the spot where the fire was fiercest. Without hesitation he dashed on, watching his chance after a big gust of smoke and flame had surged across the well. Through the fire he rushed, protecting his face with his arms, and stumbling blindly on. The worst was soon passed, and the next instant he had gained the top of the staircase.
"Save her—her!" Mrs. Maynard cried piteously, "leaveme, and see toher, for mercy's sake!"
George caught the girl in his arms and prepared to make a dash down the staircase. But he drew back in dismay. A big piece of the burning banister below them fell with a crash and a shower of sparks to the bottom of the well.
"It is impossible!" he cried. "Let us see what can be done from one of the windows." And the three ran to the end of the corridor farthest away from the fire. Into a room George dashed, and threw up the window. It was Mary's playroom, and it was in this place that she and her governess had been till now too much frightened by the flames and smoke to make a dash for safety.
Alas! there was no way of escape. The height from the ground was too great; to leap meant certain death. George gazed frantically down and around, to see if any help was arriving. Not a soul was to be seen. Smoke was pouring from almost every window. The ladies were speechless with alarm when they saw the look of despair on the boy's face.
"Don't leave us!" Mary pleaded piteously.
"No, no!" cried George. "We'll find a way yet." But cheerfully as he spoke, in his heart he almost despaired.
It was but a few seconds the three had been in the playroom, but when they looked out into the corridor again, to their horror they found it blazing, the flames leaping towards them with astonishing bounds, carried along by the evening breeze that had sprung up. The sight seemed to drive Mrs. Maynard demented. With a shriek she darted away, sped along the burning passage, and before the boy and girl could realize the situation, she had dashed down the blazing staircase. The sound of a crash and a fearful scream reached their ears, telling their own tale. The girl clung to George, her head sank, and she fainted.
Desperate now, the lad placed her on the floor, and, thrusting his head from the window, perceived that he could clamber up the two or three feet of rain spout that ran close by, and gain a position on the roof just overhead. If he could gain that, he thought he might run to a further wing of the building that seemed at present untouched by the fire. But the girl, what of her? He cast his eyes about and descried two or three skipping ropes in a corner. Hastily he tied them end to end, fastened a portion round Mary's waist, his movements hastened by the burst of flame that just then shot into the room. Then clambering desperately to the roof, the rope in his teeth, he got a footing on the parapet, and began to haul up the fainting girl.
Hand over hand he hauled up the cord and its burden. The child was dangling between earth and sky when suddenly a great shout came from below. George glanced down, and there, running with up-turned horror-stricken face, was Matthew Blackett. Help at last! But had it come too late?
THE RESCUE
THE RESCUE
Matthew stopped short, unable to move a yard further, his eyes fixed upon the slight form hanging so dangerously high above him. It was truly an awful moment for both the lads, a moment never afterwards to be forgotten by either of them. The time of suspense was but seconds; it seemed years. But George, his knees firmly pressed against the low parapet wall that ran along the top in front of the house, had no difficulty in supporting the weight, and not too much in actually hauling up his living burden. Another moment and he had seized one arm with a strong grip; the next he had pulled the child to him on the roof.
"Safe! thank God!" he murmured, almost breathless with his exertions and still more with his agitation.
Safe! As if to mock him a great tongue of flame shot from the window from which rescuer and rescued had but now emerged, and a cry of despair rose from Matthew below.
"Run for the library!" Blackett shouted, a thought suddenly striking him. "Run, run!" And the boy pointed to a sort of wing, an addition to the mansion recently made by the Squire, and devoted to his books and the extensive and valuable collection of antiquities and curiosities of which he was very proud. This building was connected with the body of the house by only one small arched door, on the ground-floor.
George understood, and cautiously but rapidly edging his way along the broad leaden gutter behind the parapet, he drew the girl, by this time conscious once more, but dazed with fright, to the outlying portion of the roof, which was as yet untouched by the flames. He peered over for Matthew, but could see nothing of him.
For the moment the two were in no danger. But the flames were already licking the portion of the library immediately adjoining the house proper; soon the whole wing must be ablaze. The boy gazed wildly around, to see if there was any means, however risky or even desperate, by which escape might be made. He saw nothing but the slender branches of a magnificent yew that grew in the retired garden behind and close to the library. These boughs overtopped even the tall building, and some of them overhung the roof a little. But the nearest of them was ten feet above the heads of the two, and hopelessly out of reach. Would that some great gust of wind would drive those branches within clutching distance!
This tantalizing thought had hardly taken possession of George's mind when his attention was attracted by shouts from below. Peering down he was astonished to see Matthew rapidly climbing the yew. The same thought had struck him also! Up the climber swarmed, higher and higher. Then he began without hesitation to crawl along some of the topmost branches that overhung the library roof. Outwards he crept, embracing tightly half a dozen of the long thin boughs; they seemed but little more than twigs.
"You'll be dashed to pieces!" Mary cried; "go back, go back!"
"Haven't you a rope anywhere?" George asked eagerly.
"Every rope and ladder locked up in the stable yard," was the breathless reply, "and the men away. This is our only chance. Catch hold."
As Matthew spoke, the end of the long swaying branches, swinging ever lower, came down to the roof, and a good yard or more of the greenery was within George's grasp. Matthew lay at full length on his collection of boughs in order that his weight might keep the ends down. It was a precarious position truly, but Matthew was very light, and had absolutely no fear for himself.
"Lash her well to three or four of the strongest of the boughs," he said hurriedly; "give the rope half a dozen good turns about her waist and the boughs. They are yew and very tough. Quick!"
Hardly knowing what he was doing, George obeyed. He was a bit of a sailor, and in a couple of minutes he had bound the child to the branches in a way to satisfy even Matthew, who still lay amongst the foliage, some three yards away.
"Now cling for your life to the rest of the branches you've got, Fairburn, till I go down to the long thick arm there below. Can you hold?"
"Yes!" cried the other cheerfully, light beginning to dawn upon him. "I can hold on; you go down."
Matthew moved down, and the branches, relieved of their burden, began to exert a considerable upward pull. But the weight of the boy and the girl held down the ends, and they awaited Matthew's call. It soon came, though the interval of waiting seemed an age.
"Now then!" came the shout, and George could see his quondam enemy firmly seated on a stout branch that had been cut shorter, its foliage having interfered with the light of one of the windows of the library. Matthew was sitting astride, his legs firmly gripping the branch. "Now drop yourselves over," he went on. "You'll fall right on the top of me, and I'll grab you. Throw one arm round Mary's waist, and then seize the branches with both hands and stick tight."
"I'll stick like a leech," George replied, "but it's a fearful drop."
"There's no other way, none! See! the blaze has caught the library roof behind you! It will be upon you in another minute. Drop over, for pity's sake!"
George set his teeth, placed one arm round the child's slender form, gripped hard a handful of the pliant boughs, and dropped over the parapet, Mary closing her eyes in her mortal fright. With a huge swing the branches bent, and in an instant the two were swaying a good fifteen feet below, George almost jerked from his hold. The boughs creaked but did not snap.
"Thank heaven!" cried Matthew, "I have you!" And reaching up, he got a grip of George's foot and dragged down the swinging pair.
"Grab the branch with your legs, Fairburn! and I'll cut Mary clear."
No sooner said than done. By the aid of a good clasp-knife Matthew severed the cords and secured his little sister, her weight, however, as it came upon him, almost knocking him from his perch. But he held desperately, and in another moment had Mary on the branch beside him. Then George, throwing his legs apart, suddenly loosed his hold of the branches and dropped also astride of the bough, which he grasped tight with both hands. He swung round and hung from the branch head downwards. But the next minute he had righted himself, and was ready to help with Mary.
The rescue was complete. To guide the child along the branch, towards the middle of the tree, and then to lower her from limb to limb of the old yew was mere play to the two boys. The three dropped the last four or five feet to earth just as a man rushed forward with a great cry, to clasp in his arms the fainting girl.
"God is merciful!" he ejaculated. It was Squire Blackett, who had arrived just in time to see his beloved child saved from an awful fate.
For a few moments father and children clung to each other. When at length they looked round to express their gratitude to the plucky rescuer, he was nowhere to be seen. Seeing a great crowd of the Blackett pitmen arrive with a run, George had felt that he could be of no more use, and slipping into the wood had made for home. He wanted no thanks, and moreover the brig was to sail at four in the morning, at which time the tide would serve.
"He's gone—George has gone!" cried Matthew.
"We can never repay him," murmured Mr. Blackett. "We must go on to see him at the earliest moment in the morning."
When Mr. Blackett, with Matthew and the rescued Mary, drove early next day to the Fairburns' house, it was only to learn that George had sailed for London some hours before. There was no help for it, and all they could do was to overwhelm the father and mother with words of gratitude and praise. They informed the Fairburns that by the exertions of the men the library and its contents had been saved; the rest of the mansion was left a wreck. Mrs. Maynard had been drawn from the mass of burning rubbish at the foot of the staircase, and was now lying between life and death.
George had had a bad quarter of an hour at the parting from his parents, but by the time the vessel felt the swell of the open sea he was full of spirits again. The sea voyage, even in a dirty collier, was a delight. Then there was London the wonderful at the end of it, and he had long desired to see the great capital of which he had heard and read so much.
The London of Queen Anne's reign was not the huge overgrown London of our own day. But it was a notable city, and to George Fairburn and his contemporaries the grandest city in the world. The Great Fire had taken place but twenty years before George was born, yet already the city had risen from its ashes, with wider and nobler streets, and with a multitude of handsome churches which Wren had built. The new and magnificent St. Paul's, the great architect's proudest work, was rapidly approaching completion. George's father had witnessed the opening for worship of a portion of the cathedral five years before, and soon the stupendous dome, which was beginning to tower high above the city, would be finished. Sir Thomas Gresham's Exchange, the centre of the business life of the city, had been replaced by another and not less noble edifice. The great capital contained a population of well over half a million souls, a number that seemed incredible to those who knew only Bristol, and York, and Norwich, the English cities next in size. The houses stretched continuously from the city boundary to Westminster, and soon the two would be but one vast town. George had heard much of London Bridge, with its shops and its incessant stream of passengers and vehicles, and he hoped to visit the pleasant villages of Kensington and Islington, and many another that lay within a walk of great London. He hoped one day, too, to get a glimpse of some of the clever wits, Mat Prior, Wycherley, Dick Steele, and others, who haunted the coffee-houses of the capital, and of the rising young writer, Mr. Addison, not to mention a greater than them all, the incomparable Sir Isaac Newton. For George had ever been a great reader, even while he loved a good game as well as any boy in the land.
It was many a long year, however, ere George Fairburn was destined to see the mighty capital. Once fairly at sea, the skipper brought out and mounted his four little guns, to the lad's huge joy.
"You mean business, captain," he remarked with a merry laugh.
"I do, if there comes along a Frenchy who won't leave us alone," the old fellow replied, "leastways if she isn't too big a craft for us altogether."
The evening was coming in, the town of Yarmouth faintly visible through the haze, when suddenly the crew of theOuseburn Lassiebecame aware of a big vessel in the offing.
"She's giving chase, by thunder!" cried the skipper, after he had taken a long look through the glass; and all was excitement on board the brig. Anxiously all hands watched the stranger, and at last the shout went up, "She's a Frenchy!"
"Aye, and a big 'un at that," somebody added.
Hastily the preparations were made to receive her, though the captain shook his head even as he gave his orders.
"It's no go," he whispered to George. "We've got these four small guns, but what's the good? We've nobody to man 'em; only a couple on 'em, leastways. And the Frenchman's a monster."
"We'll show them a bit of fight all the same," George put in eagerly. The old salt shook his head again.
Quickly the big vessel overhauled the collier brig, and signals were made to pull down her flag, whereupon the Englishman grunted.
Within a minute a puff was seen, and a round shot whizzed close past theOuseburn Lassie'sbows.
"Give them a reply!" George urged in great excitement.
"Wait a bit, my lad," and the skipper bided his time.
"Now!" came the order at length, and a couple of eight-pound balls flew straight to the Frenchman.
"Well hit!" shouted the Englishmen, as a shower of splinters was seen to fly upwards from the enemy's deck.
"It's enough to show 'em we've got mettle in us," growled the old captain, "and that's all we can say."
His words were justified, for the next moment there came another flash, and with a crash the brig's mast went by the board.
"Done for!" groaned the skipper. "We shall see the inside of a French prison, I reckon."
The enemy's long boat put out with a crew four times that of the brig. Within a quarter of an hour the Englishmen had all been transferred to theLouis Treize, and an officer and half a dozen men left in charge of the prize. The Frenchman at once set a course for Dunkirk, and, with a spanking breeze behind her, she made the port in fifteen hours. The noon of the next day saw George Fairburn and his companions clapped into a French prison.
"A bonny come off," the old skipper grumbled, "but we shall ha' to make the best on it."
It will not be forgotten that the war just begun was, to put it bluntly, a war to determine which of two indifferent princes, Philip of France and Charles of Austria, should have the Spanish crown. Lord Peterborough declared that it was not worth his country's while to fight for such "a pair of louts."
"Now!" came the order."Now!" came the order.
"Now!" came the order."Now!" came the order.
Into the war, however, England had thrown herself, under the direction of Harley, the famous Tory minister now in power, at home, and with Marlborough as commander-in-chief of both the English and the Dutch forces abroad. The General's first aim was to take back from Louis XIV all those fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands which had been seized and garrisoned by the French troops as if the country were a French possession.
He started from Kaiserwörth, a town on the Rhine, which his troops had captured from one of Louis's chief allies, the Elector of Cologne, before Marlborough arrived to take command. Venloo was taken in gallant style, and then the important city of Liége, on the Meuse. The result of the campaign was that the French had been chased from the Lower Rhine, and Holland, much to its relief, made far more safe from attack. Returning to England, the victorious commander was given a grand reception. And no wonder, for it was the first time for many a year that the French had received a real check.
While these things were going on in the Netherlands, another leader under the Grand Alliance, Prince Louis of Baden, took Landau, on the Rhine, from the French. In Italy, too, the allies triumphed, the gallant Prince Eugene, presently to be the warm and life-long friend of Marlborough, defeating the French brilliantly at Cremona, a fortunate thing for the Empire, which was thus secured from a French invasion through the Tyrol.
To crown the successes of the Grand Alliance during the campaign of 1702, the first of the war, the brave sailor Sir George Rooke, following the Spanish galleons and the French war vessels into the harbour of Vigo, destroyed the greater number of them. It was a repetition of Drake's famous expedition to "singe the King of Spain's beard."
All these things happened while George Fairburn and other English prisoners ate their hearts out in captivity at Dunkirk. The lad chafed under the surveillance to which he was subjected, and never passed a day without turning over in his mind some scheme of escape. How it was to be done, he did not see. But he waited for his chance, and meanwhile, partly to avoid being suspected, and partly to while away the hours he made friends with the soldiers on guard. He already knew a little French, and with his natural quickness he soon made rapid progress. At the end of a month he could get along capitally in the language; at the end of three months he could speak the tongue fluently; at the end of nine months—for thus did his term of captivity drag itself out—he was, so far as the language was concerned, almost a Frenchman. Thus the winter passed, and the spring of 1703 came round, George Fairburn still an inmate of a French prison, hopeless of escape, so far as he could see.
But his chance came at last suddenly and unexpectedly. One morning he was escorted to the Hôtel de Ville, to interpret for an officer examining a batch of English prisoners who had been brought in from the Netherlands border. The way to the town lay at no great distance from the shore, and he observed how a boat lay close in on the low sandy beach, no owner in sight. His heart leapt into his mouth, and he had much ado to keep himself from betraying his thoughts by the flush that mantled hotly on his cheek.
One, two, three hundred paces the boat was left behind. Now or never! Instantly the lad started off back to the spot, his feet flying across the sand.
A shout broke from the throats of his astonished guards, and a half score of bullets whistled after the runaway. George ducked his head and sped on unhurt. A second volley did little more harm than the first, merely grazing the lobe of his right ear. The race was furious, but the lusty English lad was far and away the superior of the heavy Frenchmen. He gained the boat, the enemy still a hundred paces behind. The painter was loosely wound round a large stone, and in a trice George had leapt with it into the little craft. He had just time to give a vigorous shove off before the pursuers came up, the foremost dashing into the sea after him.
GEORGE RECONNOITRES
GEORGE RECONNOITRES
Splash through the water rushed the French soldiers in full chase. Already they were beginning to cheer, for the leading man had all but grabbed the boat, and the prisoner was as good as retaken. George looked down for something with which to strike, for he did not intend to submit without a struggle, but there was no oar on board. There had been a small boat-hook, but that he had left sticking in the sand when he gave his lusty shove off. The pursuer, up to his neck in water, seized the boat, and for a moment his chin rested on the side. But the next instant the lad had kicked out with the clumsy wooden shoes he wore, and the soldier fell back half stunned into the sea. The rest of the fellows instantly raised their guns, but George did not wince; he perceived what they in their wild scamper after him had not noticed, that they had dragged their muskets through the water, and for the time had rendered the weapons useless. The boy laughed in spite of his predicament, as he hastily ran up the little sail.
The breeze at once caught the canvas, and the bark moved briskly away. But two of the soldiers, who had not entered the sea, hastily reloading—they had not done so hitherto, after the recent discharges—levelled their pieces at the retreating prisoner. George flung himself to the bottom of the boat as he saw the move, and the bullets whistled harmlessly overhead. Springing up again, he perceived that he was now beyond range, and with a shout of joy he waved his cap triumphantly. The whole escape had been planned and successfully carried out in the space of five minutes. He was free!
But his joy was presently tempered by the thought of what might follow. That the men would endeavour to give chase he well knew; indeed he could make out their forms running in search of another boat. However, he had gained a start; that was something. As to whither he was destined to be driven, or how he was to get food and water, these things were for the present of less consequence than the fact that he was free.
Fortune favoured him, for within ten minutes a thickness came on, and soon the boat was enveloped in fog. The chase was now rendered impossible to the enemy. Hour after hour George kept his sail hoisted, driving briskly he knew not whither.
"I am bound," said he to himself, "to stumble upon either the English or the Dutch coast, and in either case I shall be among friends." Thus the lad comforted himself.
The day wore on, and he was becoming ravenously hungry. He would have given much for a basin of even the prisonsoupe maigre. The sky was darkening and he began to feel drowsy; he resigned himself to a night of hunger. All at once he heard shouts, and the hull of a big vessel loomed up within a few yards of him. He was instantly wide awake. Was the stranger French? Thank Heaven, no! She was Dutch built, and as her flag showed, Dutch owned. Hurrah!
His cheer attracted the attention of the crew, and much wondering the sailors drew him up on deck. "A Frenchman," was the verdict in gruff Dutch. George did not understand Dutch, but he instantly guessed their meaning.
"Not I," he cried, in English, and was delighted to be answered in the same tongue by the skipper.
George's account of his escape, translated by the captain, set the fat Dutchmen a-rolling. And, after the lad had had the good square meal the skipper ordered for him, he spent the evening in going over his adventures again. The jolly-hearted English lad became an immediate favourite with the sailors and the soldiers, for, as he soon learnt, the ship was a Dutch transport carrying troops and stores for the war in Spain.
"Where are we, sir?" George inquired of the skipper next morning when he came on deck, to find a clear sky, and land faintly seen on the starboard bow.
"Off the Isle of Wight, my lad," replied the Dutchman.
"Can't you put me ashore, captain?" he pleaded.
The master smiled and shook his head.
"Impossible, boy; you must go with us to Spain. And here comes a gentleman to speak with you."
An officer in military uniform approached, and the boy touched his cap. With the skipper as interpreter the major made George an offer of service under him.
"We want fellows of your sort," he said. "And there will be brave doings in Spain, and plenty of good pay, and glory to be won. Besides, you will be fighting under one of your own countrymen, most likely Sir George Rooke himself. Say the word, my good lad."
George's face flushed.
"I have always wanted to be a soldier, sir," he stammered.
"Of course you have, my lad. Then we may take it that the matter is settled. Good luck go with you, my boy."
Here then was George Fairburn, who ought to have been driving a quill in the office of Mr. Allan, shipping merchant, of London, sailing to join the allied forces in Spain, and to fight against the French. His head swam with the thought of it.
But what of George's friends at home all this long while? When Fairburn learnt that his brig had not arrived in port, though she had been spoken in Boston Deeps by another collier which was returning to the Tyne, his heart misgave him. There had been a bad storm on the coast; it seemed only too likely that theOuseburn Lassiehad gone down in it! When week after week passed without news it seemed more and more likely that the vessel had foundered in the gale. News of captures by French privateers usually filtered through sooner or later; but for long there were no tidings of theOuseburn Lassie. The Blacketts did what they could to console the bereaved parents, but father and mother would not be comforted. At length, months afterwards, they learnt in a casual way that a collier had been captured off Yarmouth by a French privateer, about the time theOuseburn Lassiewas making her trip; at least that was the construction the Yarmouth salts who saw the affair from the shore put upon the movements of the two vessels. So a ray of hope came to Fairburn and his wife.
"The lad will be somewhere in a French prison," the father said, "and some day he will be set free and come home to us again."
The spring of 1703 brought Matthew Blackett's seventeenth birthday, and with it an ensign's commission in a well-reputed regiment of foot. He already stood six feet one in his stockings, and mighty proud he felt when his lanky figure was clothed in his gay uniform.
"Perhaps I shall come across George in my wanderings," he said, when he went to bid a very friendly adieu to the Fairburns. "Won't it be jolly if we do meet!" And the parents were constrained to smile in spite of their sadness.
One of the commonest subjects of conversation in our days is the state of "political parties," and every child of school age can tell you which is "the party in power." Three hundred years ago such expressions would not have been understood at all, in their modern sense, and "government by party" was a thing as yet undreamed of. Usually the strongest man of his time, whether sovereign or subject, was the real ruler in England. Elizabeth, for instance, was the sole mistress in her own realm, though even she was greatly helped by the famous minister Burleigh. In later times a Strafford, a Laud, an Oliver Cromwell, a Clarendon presided over the destinies of England.
But in the second half of the seventeenth century there began that division of politicians into two sides or parties which has continued ever since. This division sprang, no doubt, from the civil wars between King and Parliament, between Cavalier and Roundhead. By the times of Queen Anne the terms Whig and Tory, replaced in our days for the most part by Liberal and Conservative, had come into common use, and no one who desires to understand the history of her reign can wholly neglect the movements of these two opposing parties in politics. For Marlborough—with his wife—may be said to be the last powerful statesman who ruled England without the formal and acknowledged help of party. Since then the "party in power" has always, through its chief member, the Prime Minister, and his Cabinet, been the actual ruler in the State.
At the beginning of Anne's reign the Whigs were leading in matters of state, but presently Rochester and Nottingham, the former a very strong Tory, came into power. Later on, in 1703, the former was replaced by a more moderate Tory, Harley, and in the following year St. John succeeded Nottingham. The truth was, Marlborough, beginning to see that he was more likely to receive support in his great wars from the Whig side, was working gradually towards the placing of their party in office, though he himself had all along been a Tory. Thus it was that he tried to rule with a coalition, or a mixture of Whigs and Tories. This was in the year 1705, a little after the time to which this story has as yet been carried. But Marlborough and his Duchess were still the real power in the land.
We may rejoin George Fairburn, some three weeks after the day when he had been picked up by the Dutch transport. With others he had been landed in the Tagus, and at once drafted into one of the regiments under the Earl of Galway, a Frenchman by birth, but now, having been driven out of France by the persecutions he and the rest of the Protestants had had to endure, a general in the English army. George learned that Portugal had joined the Grand Alliance, in consequence of the Methuen Treaty between her and England, by which Portuguese wines were to be admitted into English ports at a lower customs duty than those of other countries. This step on the part of Portugal had greatly enraged the French King, and he had poured his troops into Spain. The Allies, therefore, were preparing to attack Spain from the eastern and the western sides of the Peninsula at the same time. So George and his comrades began their march eastward, while the gallant admiral Sir George Rooke was attacking Barcelona on the opposite coast.
It was a new life for the English lad, and the heavy marches in a hot climate tried him. But he was growing into a stout youth, and was not afraid of a bit of hard work.
"Besides," he would say to himself, when disposed to grumble, "am I not a soldier? And isn't that what I've always wanted to be? And I might have been chained up in a French prison still! A thousand times better be here, even in this scorching place."
If it seemed odd to the lad that the English soldiers were commanded by a Frenchman, it was still stranger that the French forces they were marching to meet were under an Englishman. Yet so it was; the commander of Louis's army in Spain being the Duke of Berwick, a son of James II and Arabella Churchill, Marlborough's sister. The two generals were well matched, according to the opinion that prevailed among the troops.
Weeks passed, and as yet George Fairburn had seen no actual fighting. He was all eager to get into action, and was not much comforted by the declaration of the old sergeant under whom he marched.
"Bide your time, my lad," the veteran would say, "you will get your full share of fighting; enough to satisfy even a fire-eater such as I can see you're going to be."
One evening, to his intense delight, the lad was sent forward with a skirmishing party, a report having come in that the enemy was concealed somewhere in one of the wooded valleys of the neighbourhood. After a cautious march of three or four miles, the little company, commanded by a lieutenant of foot, dropped down into a dingle, at the bottom of which ran a stream almost everywhere hidden by the thick growth of trees. The men were startled, on turning a corner in the break-neck path, to see below them the French flag flying from what appeared to be an old mill. Scattered about were the roofs of a dozen cottages, and at the doors could be perceived a number of soldiers lolling at their ease.
"The enemy, by Jove!" whispered George, who was leading in his usual eager fashion, pointing out the flag and the hamlet to the lieutenant. "Wouldn't it be a good joke to whip off their flag from that old mill, sir!"
The officer laughed at the notion; he was not much more than a boy himself.
"My lad," said he, "we must know how many the enemy are first."
"I'll climb to the roof there, and from it I can see right down into the village and command a view of everything in it."
"Do you mean to say, youngster, that you would risk it?" the officer asked in surprise.
"Oh, wouldn't I, sir," the lad replied with flushed face. "Say the word, sir, please."
The lieutenant nodded, saying, "It's worth it. But be cautious."
The soldiers looked on while the boy carried out his freak, for such they judged his bit of reconnoitring to be. Cautiously George crept towards the mill, the sloping roof of which came almost down to the very hill side. Tying a wisp of long grass and weeds round each boot, he crawled noiselessly up till within a foot or two of the ridge. He paused a moment to gaze down the dingle. There, well seen from his vantage point, a couple of miles away, ran a far larger valley, which was filled with tents. "The enemy's main body!" he thought. He waved his arm in the direction of the camp, but his comrades did not understand the action, as they stood peering down upon the lad from among the trees higher up the slope.
Now flat on his face the boy ventured to peep over the roof ridge down into the village street at no great distance below. Not an eye was directed upwards, so far as he could see, the men laughing and chattering gaily as they drank. Then the temptation seized him, and in a moment he had lifted the flag from the old chimney in which the staff was loosely set. "I'm in for it now!" he cried to himself, as he slid like an avalanche down the roof, leapt to the ground, and made off up the steep slope towards his comrades, the flag triumphantly in his hand.
He had reached a spot half way up when suddenly wild shouts were heard from below, and at the same instant a bullet whistled close past his ear. A little turn in the path had discovered his head to the enemy.
"In for a penny, in for a pound," shouted the lieutenant, and the Englishmen prepared to receive the French soldiers dashing up to the attack. George stumbled on unhurt, but fell at his officer's feet, utterly breathless. There he lay, unable to rise, while shots were rapidly exchanged. For a minute's space it was hot work, but then the French began to fall back, and with a shout the English handful followed. Fairburn pulled himself together and stood on the edge of the rock-shelf where he had fallen breathless. To his horror, he saw a Frenchman on the shelf below, taking deliberate aim at the lieutenant.
With a loud cry, the lad sprang down upon the enemy, regardless of the steepness of the place, and in an instant the man was locked in his arms, just as the musket report came. Down the two fell, bounding over two or three shelves of rock, and then pitching headlong some twenty or thirty feet into the thick brushwood below.
"You have saved my life, my lad; you are an Englishman worth knowing," were the next words the boy heard.
They came buzzing into George's ears some ten minutes later, when, the brush with the French over, the Englishmen were hastening back to report to the General.
"What happened when I fell, sir?" George asked with curiosity, as the officer walked by the side of the litter. He was astounded to learn that the Frenchman had been found still held in tight grip, his neck broken. The enemy had been put to the rout and had fled, leaving their flag behind them. Moreover, the French camp a couple of miles away had been spied.
"You have three ribs broken, Fairburn," the officer went on, "and you've got about as many bruises as there are days in a year. But what of that. By Jerusalem! I wish the honour had fallen to me!"
"I don't mind the wounds a bit, sir," George answered, cheerfully, "so long as I've been of some use."
The next day no less a person than the great Earl of Galway himself came to speak to the wounded lad.
"I have heard from your lieutenant here the tale of your doings yesterday," he said, with a smile. "You are a boy of pluck. You are done for so far as the present campaign is concerned, and must be sent back to hospital. But there's work cut out yet for a lad of your mettle."
George heard all this praise as if in a dream. He was never sure in after years whether the Earl had really said so much. But Lieutenant Fieldsend, who was destined to become his comrade on many a hard-fought field, and his warm friend for life, was always prepared to tell the full and correct story.