WALTER LAWRENCE
Lucy Acton made her way towards Old Harbour Town by a lane that struck
down off the road used by the coaches and post-chaises. This lane was
broad and in places steep and rugged, with long spaces heavily flanked
with tall and spacious trees. Elsewhere the low hedge revealed the
sloping meadow or ploughed field whose margin where it sank low was
defined against the blue water of the ocean.
It was April, and some birds were in song; the sun shone brightly,
and the breeze blowing from the sea sang pleasantly amongst the trees
whose boughs were studded with little buds. The lane conducted Lucy
to the valley where the river was, and here she stepped upon an old
bridge. When half-way across she stopped to look in the direction of
Old Harbour. The river flowed prettily under this bridge and melted
its brilliance in the waters of the Harbour, where, when the tide was
at lowest ebb, it always had a bed for its discharge into the brine
beyond.
Lucy had often viewed this scene: her pause now was dictated by a
trifling feeling of curiosity. Against the wharves on the left-hand
side and over against the stump-ended projection of pier was moored her
father's ship the _Minorca_, of which she had just now been assured Sir
William Lawrence's son was to be offered the command. This vessel lay
with two or three others, a brig or two and a schooner, at the wharves,
and with her own and the drying sails of the others, the tall spars,
the yards across, the complicated lines of the rigging, provided a bold
and even ample figure of shipping to the eye. But in addition to these
there lay in the harbour a number of fishing craft, and this side the
extremity of the wharves within musket shot of where Lucy stood was
moored the _Saucy_ brig-of-war of about one hundred and eighty tons
armed with thirty-two pounder carronades. She was one of a number of
the like sort of brig which were to be found in that year (1805) on the
coasts of Sussex, Suffolk, and Norfolk. These brigs were usually hauled
into creeks or laid up in snug corners where the Lieutenant, as Sir
William had pointed out, had his cabbage garden and pig-sty. They were
designed as a provision against the invasion of the French, and were
quite worthless, as they were never ready, and always so anchored or so
secured as to demand as much time in getting under weigh as would take
a French army of invasion to march from Dover to Ashford.
This cool indifference on the part of the lieutenants in command of
the brigs is rendered the more surprising by contrast with the sincere
terrors which the prospect of invasion raised in the country. The
alarm indeed was very seriously justified, for in that year the French
Emperor had at his disposal at the Texel, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais,
Boulogne and Havre, a total of one hundred and eighty thousand men,
with a fleet of twenty-one sail of the line, besides frigates and
transports at Brest, a squadron at Rochefort, and a powerful fleet
at Toulon, and at this time Spain had joined her forces with those
of France against us. Nevertheless the lieutenants in charge of the
gun-brigs stationed on the coasts took life with that unconcern which
is one of the blessings of peace; they cultivated their cabbage
gardens, they attended to their pig-stys, and they smoked their pipes
and drank strong beer at taverns with sounding names such as "The Coach
and Horses," or "The Maid and the Harp"; and one of the worst offenders
was Lieutenant Tupman of the brig _Saucy_, which lay within gun-shot
of where Lucy stood.
The thought of Mr Lawrence having received from her father the offer
of the command of yonder little ship was put out of Lucy's mind by
the image of placid sun-lighted scenery she contemplated, taking
full possession of her. Familiar as the picture was, her beautiful
eyes, moving slowly, dwelt in their brooding way upon the objects she
directed them at, and her native loveliness seemed to gain by the
impulse which visited it, and she and the sweet and restful scene of
cliff and distant blue water and quiet haven into which the fabrics
that floated shook their lights and the delicate tracery of their gear,
were blent, and it was as though she was the spirit of the place.
Close to lay the gun-brig reflecting her white band broken by ports
in the calm surface. She looked to be ready for sea; all her yards
were across, the white sails furled with that exquisite finish which
expresses the pat of the man-o'-warsman's hand; but there was nobody
visible aboard of her. Beyond, the eye went to the short length of
timber pier, and on this side of it to some smacks which now floated at
little buoys or at their own anchors, though at ebb of tide Old Harbour
was mainly mud with the river's bed in the middle and vessels lying
high, black and gaunt in several postures, whilst out in the south
the ripple of the sea in smooth weather streamed to and fro with long
lashings of black weed, and the air was salt and nimble with the smell
of marine growths.
The wharves were old platforms black with tar or pitch, and at the back
of them were three warehouses for the accommodation of such merchandise
as this Old Harbour received or sent afloat. Perched midway on the
slope that was terminated by the brow of the cliff where the windmill
this morning was peacefully revolving its vans, was Old Harbour Town,
a romantic grouping of little grey houses full of sparkling lozenge
windows backed by a church spire, the whole looking in the distance
like a toy that could be put into a box and set out according to taste
upon a table by a child.
Lucy heard a church bell strike: she started from a fit of abstraction,
and, turning to move on, confronted an old man who was crossing
the bridge. The face of this old man was pale and wrinkled; his
hair was long and quite white. His nose streamed down his face in
a thin, curling outline; his mouth when his lips were compressed
might be expressed by a simple stroke of a pencil. His eyes were
deep-seated and extraordinarily luminous and swift in their motions,
and his eyebrows, which were as white as his hair, were so thick and
overhanging that they might have passed for a couple of white mice
sleeping on his brow. His apparel had that dim and faded look which in
fiction is associated with miserliness. His high and dingy white cravat
and the tall build of his coat at the back of his head, so sloped his
shoulders that they looked to make a line with his arms. He wore a
faded red waistcoat which sank very low, and under it dangled a bunch
of seals. His knee-breeches left painfully visible the pipe-stem shanks
clothed in grey hose and terminating in large shoes, burdened with
steel buckles.
He removed his little round hat and bowed low to Lucy.
"Good morning, Mr Greyquill," said the young lady, bestowing upon him
one of those sweet and gracious smiles with which she favoured nearly
all, thus rendering herself as much beloved for her cordial charm of
manner as she was admired by the women and adored by the men for her
singular beauty of face and graces of person.
He bade her good-morning with profound respect. Her dog barked in his
face, and she silenced it by lifting it under her arm.
"I hope your cold is better, Mr Greyquill," said she, making to proceed
in her walk.
"Much better--indeed, quite gone, I am greatly obliged to you, ma'am,"
he answered. "I find nursing of little account. Gruel and foot-baths
and a tallow candle for the nose do not help me so much as fresh air.
Fresh air seems to dry the cold up."
She agreed with him with a smile, and with a pleasant salutation of the
head, walked on.
The old man looked after her, and whispered to himself in admiration
of her kindness and person. A wooden-legged sailor just then came up
some steps from the river side on to that end of the bridge which the
money-lender was approaching, and when Greyquill was close to, the
tar, assuming a posture of abject despondency, pulled off his hat, and
extending it begged for alms.
"I have bled for my country, your honour," said the man.
"But you don't say you were paid to do so," answered Greyquill.
"Ay, but I wasn't paid to lose my leg," called out the man.
Greyquill, who saw little to fear in the pursuit of a man with a wooden
leg, turned his head upon his shoulder and cried back: "There are too
many of us."
"That ain't my fault!" bawled the man at the receding figure.
"Yes, it is," cried Greyquill. "For people like you who can't get on
ought to get out."
The laugh with which the malicious old fellow accompanied this sally
caused the sailor to gaze eagerly round the ground as though for a
stone to heave at him.
Meanwhile, Lucy crossing the bridge pursued the road to Old Harbour
Town. She walked up an incline as gradual and pleasant as the lane
which had brought her to the river. The hedges on either side stood
thick, and the road was sentinelled by trees which when robed in their
foliage transformed a long space of it into a beautiful avenue. The
way took her straight to Lower Street, at the corner of which stood
"The Swan" Tavern, a posting-house with a signboard that swang rustily
through the long dark night, but behind its little lower windows
a glimpse of old-world comfort could be caught: a sanded floor, a
dark-polished table ringed with impressions of immemorial mugs of ale
set down upon it, a little grate high perched in a setting of china, an
old Dutch clock, and a black-board for the score.
This house contained a room which caused it to be the haunt of the
seafaring men of the place. It was in the second story, and was lighted
by a large bow-window with a seat running round it from which a fine
view of Old Harbour was to be obtained and the spacious sea beyond.
Here on a table in the middle of the room were to be found telescopes,
newspapers, not older perhaps than a week, little sheaves of matchwood
for lighting pipes at the fire in winter or at a floating oil-mesh in
summer. This room always contained one or more seafaring men, and of a
night, if there was a tolerable presence of shipping in the Harbour, it
was sometimes full, on which occasions it was so heavily loaded with
tobacco fumes that one was at some pains to see one's friend through
the fog. Here were battles fought over again, and future victories
planned and won. Here you heard the argument running high on the
usefulness of certain sails in certain weather, on the best course to
adopt when taken by the lee, on the wisest thing to do when chased by
an enemy's cruiser. Here were told stories of admirals and captains
whose names are shining stars in our national story; yarns of Hawke and
Howe and Duncan, Rodney, and others. For this room was frequented by
several very old men who lived in Old Harbour Town and had served the
King; and one of them, like Tom Tough, had been coxswain to Boscawen.
Of this man, a toothless salt whose face was like an old potato, dark
with the weather of vanished days and covered with warts, an affecting
story was told: it was evening, and the room was full of seafaring
men, and this man, whose name was John Halliburton, sat at the table
with a long clay pipe trembling in one hand and a glass of hot rum and
water in reach of the other. Several songs had been sung by members of
the company, and some one, by way of a joke, asked old John to oblige.
To the amazement of everybody the old man put down his pipe, took off
his hat, out of which he drew a large red handkerchief with which he
polished his face, and then, fixing his lustreless eyes upon the man
who had asked him to sing, broke into a song in a strange, quivering,
fitful note, as though you should hear a drunken sailor singing in a
vault. The assembly was hushed into deep stillness. It was certainly a
most unparalleled circumstance for old John to sing. In the middle of
the second verse, some old nautical ballad popular fifty years before,
he stopped, put his handkerchief into his hat, and his hat upon his
head, and resumed his pipe, gazing vacantly at the man who had asked
him to sing.
"Pray, go on," said the man. "We are all delighted, Mr Halliburton.
Have you forgot the words? There's some here, no doubt, as are able to
remind ye."
"Oh yes," said a voice.
"Are ye speaking to me?" said old John.
"Certainly," was the answer.
"What d'ye want?"
"We want you to finish the song you was just now singing and broke off
in."
"_Me_ singing!" exclaimed old John.
"Why, yes, of course."
"Me singing!" quavered old John, with a voice of amazement. "Why, I
ha'nt sung this twenty year past."
It was easily seen that the poor old man was deeply in earnest and was
to be speedily distressed. It was an affecting exhibition of mental
decay, and rough as the company were, they had the good taste to change
the subject.
Lower Street was not the street in which Lucy shopped. It consisted
mainly of little houses with screen doors and bright brass knockers,
and lozenged windows which opened and shut in the French style, so that
a small piece of the window could be opened at will. These houses were
the dwelling-places of pilots, sailors, and fishermen belonging to the
district. In the middle of the street was a Nonconformist Chapel with
a burial ground spreading out in front of it till its outer confines
were half-way upon the footpath; a wonderfully tended resting-place:
its billows of grass marked in most cases the silent beds of seafarers;
the decoration of flower or memorial was largely nautical: the anchor,
the Liliputian bows of a ship as a headpiece, and here and there the
headpiece was a gun. Tombstones whose inscriptions endless discharges
of wet and the fretting action of the wind had rendered almost
illegible, leaned as though for support in their weariness against the
walls of the adjacent houses; so that a few bricks or stones might
separate a row of dead men from a little parlour full of cheerful
company where the fire crackled briskly, where the oil flame shook in
ripples of yellow radiance upon the walls and the ceiling, where the
atmosphere was good with the perfume of rum punch, and where a manly
voice in an interval of silence might be heard singing a nautical
ballad to the accompaniment of a fiddle.
Lucy walked on to High Street, into which she turned, and from nearly
every person that she passed, she received a respectful salute or a
ducking curtsy; and for all she had a kindly word and a smile as lovely
as a fine May day, and sometimes she would stop and speak to a child,
on which occasions she generally took a penny from her pocket.
This High Street was pleasantly furnished with shops: the butcher's,
the owner of which shouted in talk to his customers as he dexterously
chopped on his block; the baker's, with its little bow-window choice
with buns and cakes, and pretty shapes of bread; here too was the
post-office, which was like a pedlar's tray for variety of contents.
After Lucy had done her shopping--and the few articles were to be
delivered punctually that afternoon--she walked along High Street, so
as to return by the road she had come by. When her steps had brought
her abreast of "The Swan," she saw two men standing in conversation
in the doorway of that old hostelry. They both bowed low to her, but
it might have been noticed that after she had saluted them in return,
the fine natural glow of her cheeks slightly deepened and her step
appreciably quickened. If her object was to escape these men she must
either run, which would not have been seemly, or submit to being
overtaken if pursued, which happened in the case of one of them, and
within a few minutes a gentleman was walking at her side.
"Good morning, Miss Acton! I am going over to my father's. Are you
returning to Old Harbour House? If so, I hope you will allow me to do
myself the pleasure of accompanying you as far."
"No, sir," she answered. "I am not returning to Old Harbour House--not
immediately. I am going to the Harbour--I am going for a little walk."
"How I am always being disappointed!" he exclaimed, and she might
by the note in his voice, by a smile which did not show perfect
self-control, and by a heated colour of complexion, have by this time
suspected that this gentleman and his companion, who was Lieutenant
Tupman, had not looked in at "The Swan" Inn only to find out what
o'clock it was.
He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a
recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over
thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea
and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent,
had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age
between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely
handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved,
at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin,
and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor
who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was
flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water
called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men
dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine
and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of the
age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He
wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for
wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere
breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood
about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in
addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the
flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human
figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning,
and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not
even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter
sincerity of passion.
His companionship, however, in spite of his beauty, for more reasons
than one, must prove, then, as it had proved on other occasions,
extremely embarrassing to Miss Acton. Shortly after he had obtained
his promotion he arrived home on a visit to his father, and meeting
her, fell in love and offered her marriage. But Lucy had much good
sense, which is not often allied with so much beauty as she possessed.
Her heart admitted his fascination, and she had heard things of him
that did him honour; moreover, he was a member of a profession which
she adored. But it had come to her knowledge, by avenues difficult
to determine, that he was a gambler and drank without moderation,
and that his theory of life and morals was such as deserved severe
condemnation as it would surely end in provoking heavy punishment.
She declined his offer, yet with a maiden's secret fretfulness over
the perception that her judgment compelled her into a step against the
wishes and sighs of her heart.
He went to sea again and did not return for two years, and when he
arrived he came broken, to the grief and shame of his father. He had
been court-martialled and dismissed his ship. His offence was singular
and characteristic: he was in a foreign port, and at night-fall he
walked to the quay to return to his ship. He was intoxicated, and on
being challenged by a sentry, tumbled the fellow into the water and
immediately sprang after him and saved his life. Some in the face of
his gallant career thought the sentence too severe: others regarded
it as lenient. His own view of it he betokened by conceiving a bitter
hatred against the Service and by resigning his commission.
He returned to England, and went to his father ostensibly to seek a
berth ashore, but for many months past he had been hanging about Old
Harbour Town, an idler and a tippler, and handsome as he was, and
brilliant as had been his short naval story, he was not the man to
commend himself to Lucy Acton as a husband whatever may have been
her secret feelings in regard to his person and some points of his
character.
"How," he exclaimed, "I am always being disappointed! If you turn off
at the bridge I shall not be allowed more than ten minutes' talk with
you."
"I shall turn off at the bridge," she answered. "It is not long since
that I was with your father. I left him in conversation with Captain
Acton at Old Harbour House. I believe I heard your name mentioned as I
passed away from them."
"What would they have to say about me?" he exclaimed, with a rather
unmeaning smile. "I can believe that Sir William grows weary of my
presence, and that he sometimes wishes me at the bottom of the sea.
'Tis a pity that he did so ill in prize money. He was born to no
fortune, and married a moneyless lady, and here is my father, an
Admiral in the British Navy, obliged to dwell in a cottage fit only
to make a dwelling-house for a poet, whose calling is, I believe,
the poorest paid of any. I am much troubled," he continued in a
maudlin way, "to think that I should continue to be a burthen upon
the old gentleman. But I assure you on my honour, madam, if I am not
independent of him this moment 'tis not because I have not been as
diligent as Old Nick himself in looking about me. But go where I will
and ask where I will, the door is shut, the place is full, the answer
is nay. What a sweet little dog is that! How happy to be for ever
frisking about you and often lifted and caressed!"
Here he sighed so loudly that she could not fail to hear him, and
looked at her a little while with a somewhat tipsy steadfastness.
"There should be plenty to be done," said she. "There is the Army."
"The Army!" he cried. "Could you put a greater indignity upon a sailor
than to compel him to shoulder a handspike and march up and down as
though he were a soldier?"
She fell a-laughing at his sottish indignation, but quickly recollected
herself. He burst into a loud guffaw when he saw that he had amused
her, and said: "I was just now with Tupman. I wish I had his berth."
Here he looked behind him to see if the lieutenant was following, but
as a matter of fact Tupman had re-entered "The Swan." "He is stationed
here to guard us against being invaded by the French, which he provides
for so carefully by lying a-bed until ten in the morning, then sulking
over his breakfast of ale, new bread, and tobacco, then doing some
work in his bit of garden--he is a great lover of vegetables--then
lurching up to Old Harbour Town, where of an afternoon he may commonly
be found sitting over a pot reading the newspaper and yarning with
any man that will take a chair over against him, that I protest when
I met him at 'The Swan' not an hour gone by he had not heard that a
French privateersman had been chased ashore by one of our frigates last
evening, and burnt after ten thousand pounds had been taken out of her."
"I think if the French intend to invade us, they will not be stopped by
Mr Tupman and his brig."
"He thinks highly of his brig, though: says to me a day or two ago,
'I wish an enemy's cruiser would look in. She will not know that the
_Saucy_ is lying here. I believe I could make my carronades talk to
her, and it would please me to see the pier and the shore dark with
figures whilst I was towing my capture into Old Harbour.' I doubt if he
would rise out of bed to give an order to chase even if a suspicious
sail hove in sight. Here we are coming to the bridge, and you are
going for a walk to the pier. Will you pluck me a daisy before you go?
See, there are several amongst the grass just there. I have nothing to
remember you by. I will wrap it in silver paper, and it shall be the
only sacred thing I possess."
"Oh no, sir, you can do without a daisy from me," she answered, though
her cheeks were warm with one of those sudden blushes which seemed
to glow as though to prove that her lovely bloom was entirely due to
nature and not to art, as the suspicious eye might fancy or the cynical
eye desire.
"You will deny me even a daisy?" he cried, with a sudden passion in his
manner which alarmed her, as he was not sober. He sprang to the side of
the road, and picking a daisy returned to her, pulled off his hat, and
said earnestly--indeed in a voice of emotion and sincerity that put a
fine and appealing meaning into the expression of his eyes which by the
power of the impulse then governing him were superior to the drink in
his head: "Let me entreat you, madam, to put this little flower to your
sweet lips, and return it to me. It is but a trifle I ask: you are too
good and generous to refuse me."
She took the flower, put it to her lips, and handed it to him. His
passion for her was very visible as he received the flower with his
eyes fixed upon her face. He gave her a low bow, and then put on his
hat, and going to the hedge pulled a leaf in which he wrapped the
daisy, and carefully placed both in his waistcoat pocket.
"To prove my sincerity, madam," said he, "I could wish that the
possession of this little flower might depend upon the result of a
conflict between yonder brig with your humble obedient servant in
command of her, and the biggest corvette the Frenchman has afloat."
"Why, sir, do not you think that a great deal of nonsense is talked by
young men and old men to young women? But I believe your father will be
glad to see you. I may have a reason to suppose he is waiting for you
to return. Here we part, Mr Lawrence, and I wish you a good morning,"
and, sinking her figure in a curtsy fashionable in those days, she
crossed the road and went down the little flight of wooden steps that
led to the path by the river's bank and so to Old Harbour.
She had not intended to take this walk. At Old Harbour House dinner
was served at two o'clock, and if she was not punctual Aunt Caroline
would grow alarmed, and probably send the coachman on horseback in
search of her. But it was only just noon, and there was time enough for
her to arrive home at the dinner-hour, and also to make this little
diversion to escape Mr Lawrence, who, she suspected, would have forced
his company upon her even in this further walk had not she excited his
curiosity by saying that his father was waiting to see him. He was not
too far gone in liquor to understand that something of significance
to him lay in her reference to Sir William, and when presently she
was upon the river-side footpath and took a cautious peep over her
shoulder, she observed him through the trees mounting the lane and
walking somewhat fast.
"It is a very great pity," she thought to herself, "that so handsome
a young man, and one so spirited and daring as he has proved, should
abandon himself to his vicious tastes. The longer he remains here the
more sottish he will become, and the lower will his manhood sink till
he will be at no pains to relieve his father from the obligation of
supporting or helping him, and the gallant creature who, if he took the
right path, would march easily to fame and dignity and affluence, must
end as a drunken, trembling, degraded wretch, the object of pity or
scorn, and who has pity for such people?" The beautiful girl sighed.
She had no intention of crossing the river by the ferry to gain the
pier. When Mr Lawrence had advanced well ahead, she intended to resume
the road he was taking and go home. Her mind, however, was occupied
by him, and yonder, lying at the wharves, was the _Minorca_, of which
she understood he was to receive the command. She walked towards
the vessel; she supplied an object for the little excursion, and the
walk would give Mr Lawrence time enough to put the necessary distance
between them. The river widened rapidly when it passed under the
bridge. The smooth water at the mouth of it reflected the chequered
band of the _Saucy_ brig-of-war. Two or three smacks were hoisting
their coloured canvas and sailing out to sea. On either hand the banks
of the ravine sloped, well dressed in shrubs and wood, and here and
there stood a little house. Some small boats lay in black specks away
out between the two Heads fishing. Business was not very brisk in the
Harbour just then, and the wharves were quiet. They were three; each of
well-pitched timber long enough to supply berths stem and stern to two
or three small vessels apiece. They were backed by a row of warehouses,
some of which were Captain Acton's, and in these were stowed the rum,
sugar, and tobacco which his two ships brought from the West Indies.