IN THE CHANNEL
'Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep:
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.'--CAMPBELL.
One spring afternoon a gentleman was strolling along the cliff path
which led to a little fishing village on the Devonshire coast, some
miles from Plymouth. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, and
indeed to have no special destination, for he stopped once or twice and
looked about him, and turned off a little way into the fields as if he
were exploring a country that was new to him.
Presently he came in sight of an old man with a wooden leg, who was
standing near the edge of the cliff, scanning the wide expanse of
dancing water with a telescope. He was so much absorbed in what he was
looking at that he never noticed the stranger until he was close to
him, when he touched his hat and wished him good-day.
'You are on the look-out for some ship?' said the gentleman, following
the direction of the old man's eyes.
'Ay, sir, but my sight ain't what it was. I could have vowed I saw a
sail yonder, but I can't be sure. Take a look, will you kindly, sir?
Your eyes are a deal younger than mine.'
The new-comer took the glass accordingly, but though his eyes were
younger they had had less practice than the old sailor's, and he was
obliged to own that he could see nothing.
'You are more used to looking out for ships than I am,' he said, as he
gave the glass back.
'Ay, sir, I was afloat, boy and man, over fifty year, and good for a
few year more if the "froggies" had left me my leg. They want men with
all their limbs, you see, in these times, though I'm seaworthy yet, I
fancy, and if Boney ever got ashore here, I'd let 'em know I'd my arms
still.'
'And so you've settled down at home here,' said the stranger, throwing
himself down on the short green turf.
'Well, my home ain't just here, sir, so to speak. My folks live
further inland, but now and again I get a longing for a breath o' salt,
and an old messmate of mine here has given me a corner for a bit. For
you see, sir, the old ship's in the Channel now, and one might hear
something of her any day, or maybe see her even; and what's more, the
captain's got our boy with him, you see.'
'Your son, do you mean?'
'No, no, sir, I'm a single man, and this here's a quarter-deck young
gentleman, and will make as fine an officer as any in the service. And
when I said to our Miss Angel that I was thinking of coming down here
for a bit, where I could keep an eye on him, as it might be, I could
see she was pleased. And so here I am and on the look-out, for the
captain might be bringing in a prize any day, none more likely, and
then I'd make a shift to get in to Plymouth and see them both, and
there'd be news for the young ladies. But there, sir, you'll forgive
me running on like this; they say at home Kiah's the one for a yarn if
you've the time to listen; which is my name, sir, Hezekiah Parker, at
your service, Kiah for short, so to say, and my parents thinking it
maybe be presuming to call a bit of a boy the whole name of a Bible
king.'
'Oh, you won't tire me, Kiah,' said the stranger, lying back on the
grass with his arms under his head, while he followed with his eyes the
flight of a lark up into the untroubled blue sky. 'I've not so many
friends to talk to that I get tired of the sound of their voices.'
'You're maybe not from these parts, sir?'
'No, I've been away from England for years,' was the answer. 'I've had
some queer ups and downs, and tried being a prisoner, and come very
near to leaving my bones in foreign parts.'
Kiah touched his hat with increased respect.
'I ask your pardon, sir. I didn't guess as you'd seen service.'
'No, not your sort of service, Kiah; nothing so fine. I'm nothing
grander than a West Indian planter.'
'Well, sir, it's welcome home to you, all the same.'
'Well, I suppose my country is home,' said the stranger, rather sadly,
'but I don't know about the welcome. I've outstayed the time for that,
Kiah, and there's no one now will care to see me back.'
'I wouldn't be too sure of that if I was you, sir, especially if you've
women folks belonging to you. It's wonderful, sir, how they keep a
man's place warm for him, and a deal more than we deserve, I say, that
go knocking about the world all our lives, and coming back useless old
hulks when we can't do for ourselves any longer. Why, there's my
sister Martha, with a man and children of her own to think about, and
yet, when I come back with my hand and a half and my timber toe,
"Kiah," says she, "you're kindly welcome, so you are, and you shall
have a chair by our fire as long as we have a fire ourselves, my dear."
And as for our young ladies, I doubt there'll be nobody sit in the
young master's place till he comes back himself to fill it.'
'Oh, you and your young master have been good brothers, I daresay,'
said the stranger, looking up at the singing lark with rather sad eyes.
'Not so extra particular for me, sir, though Martha and me was good
friends enough; and as for the young gentleman, the ladies aren't his
sisters but his aunts, you see, he having neither father nor mother,
brother nor sister. Bless 'em, they're that wrapped up in him; and yet
they haven't spoilt him, not they. "You see, Kiah," Miss Angel says to
me, "we feel like as if we must answer to his dear papa, our brother
that's dead, for how we bring up his boy; we daren't be pleasing
ourselves, Kiah," says she. Dear, now, that's one thing I'm bound to
own I miss down here, them coming in and out. But, if you'll believe
it, sir, I've got a letter Miss Angel wrote me herself. I got my
mate's missus, that's a fine scholar, to write to her for me, and there
come a beautiful answer back; leastways them as read it to me says it's
written like a book. I can make shift with a chapter of the Bible, but
I can't get on with handwriting, you see. But it sounds just like as
if she was talking to me, and she sends me a sovereign for a poor soul
that lost her husband in a brush in the Channel last month--she's that
feeling, Miss Angel, and she knows what it is to have them belonging to
her in danger.'
The gentleman put his hand in his pocket.
'I'll give you something for her too,' he said; 'and mind you, Kiah,
there's a worse thing than having those belonging to you in danger, and
that's to have no one belonging to you at all. I'm staying at Plymouth
for a bit, and I shall see you again.'
'Well, I hope you will, sir, and I'm very grateful to you, I'm sure,
and so will she be; and you'll make yourself some friends, I doubt, if
you be short of relations.'
And then, after fumbling in his pockets, he produced a letter, wrapped
up with much care in a sheet of paper.
'May be, sir, you'd like to see the young lady's letter. No, you
needn't read it all at once, for you see it's a long letter and very
beautiful, and you being a scholar you'll understand that, and if
you're coming in to-morrow you'd bring it back to me.'
The stranger promised and put the precious paper in his pocket, and
then strolled away along the cliffs.
He had nowhere particular to go and nothing particular to do, only he
liked to be out here, where the breeze blew salt and fresh in his face,
and where he could see the dancing, plunging waves, and the beautiful
line of coast. He had had plenty of hard work in the last few years,
and had been tired and ill when he started a few months before for the
country which, as he had said to Kiah, must always be home.
And now he found himself wondering whether it were worth while to get
strong again, and to be brave and successful as he had been lately,
when there was no one in all the world to whom his success made any
difference. He had grown more happy and hopeful since he had come to
Plymouth, for in those days, when the safety of England was depending
from hour to hour upon her coast defences, the very life and heart of
England seemed to be stirring and throbbing in the great seaport town.
Even now, in these happier days, when no hostile ships are waiting for
our weak moments in the Channel, we can hardly stand on Plymouth Hoe
and see the stately ships in the port, and the guns ready to thunder
defiance from the citadel, and think of Drake turning cheerily from his
game of bowls to meet the Armada 'For God and Queen Bess,' without
thrilling and glowing at the thought of the little land that rules the
waves. And in those days every one was so eager and patriotic, and so
ready and willing to fight Boney if he came, that our traveller had
caught the enthusiasm too, and was wondering how he could give to his
country's service the life that seemed of little use to any one else.
Here, on the coast, where the danger was most real and present, people
drew together in the sympathy of the one great anxiety, and the lonely
man felt as if, in coming back to England, he had really got among
friends, who were all ready to talk and tell the latest news and
discuss the common safety with him as if he were indeed one of
themselves.
He liked the fisher folk, too, in the villages round about, they were
so frank and simple and kindly; and once or twice he had been out in
their boats, for after the hot southern climate he had come from he
felt as if he could not have too much of the fresh salt air. And there
was always excitement, too, in the Channel in those days, when even a
fishing-boat might have to make sail and get away at her best speed
before a French privateer.
When he got back to Plymouth late in the evening after his talk with
Kiah Parker he found every one in a state of great excitement. The
landlady of the lodgings he had taken during his stay there was eager
to tell him the latest news. A frigate had come into the port just at
sundown with a fine prize--a French gun-brig, taken after a stubborn
fight in which both vessels had suffered severely. The first
lieutenant had brought the ship in, the captain being wounded and
disabled, but the whole place was ringing with his praise.
It had been a most brilliant capture, only the greatest daring and most
skilful management could have carried it out.
Two brigs had both attacked the English frigate, and she had made a
feint of flight and then turned on them and managed to sink one and
disable the other. She would have to wait for repairs. So much the
good landlady had told before her lodger could ask a question, and when
she paused for breath he inquired whether she knew the name of the
English ship. Certainly, the _Mermaid_ frigate, Captain Maitland;
heaven send he was not badly hurt, poor gentleman! Had there been any
loss? Not many killed, she thought, a matter of one or two men, and
one officer downed, but a many wounded, they were in hospital; and she
branched off into stories of sailor friends of her own, while her
lodger tried to remember why the name of the ship and the captain were
so familiar to him. It came back to him later in the evening, when he
was reading his paper after a solitary supper. It was a midshipman of
the _Mermaid_ whom he had nursed in a fever in his far-away West Indian
home, and it was the praises of Captain Maitland that the lad was
always singing. What a pleasant visitor he had been! What a regretful
longing he had left behind him for such another blithe stout-hearted
English boy who might call that house his home! His late host wondered
if he were in Plymouth, and decided to try and find him out next
morning, but one of his fishermen friends came to invite him to go on a
two days' cruise, and he accepted readily.
It was a bright day, but there were clouds on the horizon and a fresh
breeze springing up; there might be a capful of wind at night, the
fisherman said, but the gentleman didn't mind that, he knew. The
gentleman said he would like it all the better, and he won the men's
hearts as they went along before the wind by his questions about
navigation, about rocks and shoals and sandbanks, and the adventures
which they were ready enough to tell over again. And their guest had
stories of his own to tell, about marvellous adventures with mutinous
slaves in the West Indies, and of how he had escaped from their hands
to be taken by a French privateer, and was freed by a storm in which
the ship went down. And in the interest of the tales and the weather
and the fishing he almost forgot about the excitement of the day
before, for the bringing in of a prize was a common enough event in war
time.
In the afternoon the wind freshened to something like a gale; the
fishermen were too busy and alert for talk, and their guest was left to
his own thoughts. And then he found himself going back to his
conversation with the old sailor. What a good cheery old fellow he
was, and what a happy view of life he managed to take after all his ups
and downs! And one piece of advice which he had given so frankly to
his new acquaintance kept running in the stranger's head, it had been
there ever since, though he wouldn't let himself think of it. 'It's
wonderful,' Kiah had said, 'how women folks keep a man's place warm for
him,' and involuntarily he found himself thinking how it would be if he
should test the old man's words on his own account.
'No, it's nonsense for me,' he thought; 'she probably doesn't remember
that she ever saw me, and since then she can't have heard very
attractive accounts. No, no, better not turn up to be an embarrassment
to them if they're alive, for even that I don't know.'
Just then one of the fishermen caught his attention by a remark to his
companion: 'Ay, poor old Kiah'll take it hard, such a work as he made
about him; but after all he couldn't look for better, only it's hard
like when the young uns go.'
'Do you know Kiah Parker?' asked the stranger.
'Ay, surely sir, everybody knows Kiah. Poor old chap, he'll be
breaking his heart over his young master, as he calls him, for I doubt
'twas him was drowned off the _Mermaid_ in the tussle the other day.'
'Drowned, was he? Is it certain?' asked the visitor, with sudden
interest.
'Ay, so they say, not a doubt of it. It's a pity, he was as smart a
middy as any afloat, so they say. I saw the bo's'un myself, that was
piping his eye like a baby to think of him safe ashore and the lad at
the bottom.'
The stranger did not answer. His thoughts had flown to Kiah's young
ladies, waiting and watching at home for the boy whom no favouring wind
would blow home to them. How strange it seemed, he thought, that that
young life should be cut off when so many would mourn for it, and that
he, whose life or death made no difference to any one, should have come
safely through so many strange accidents and changes and chances of
fortune! And then he suddenly remembered that letter which Kiah had
given him, and which had been in his pocket unthought of ever since.
He felt as if he hardly liked to look at it now, as if it were
presumption to read the words of one on whom so terrible a grief had
fallen. But he took it out of his pocket, and unfolded it from its
wrapping, and glanced at the beginning by the red light of the stormy
sunset which was beginning to blaze in the western sky. And as he did
so the heading caught his eye: 'Oakfield Cottage.'
He gave a great start, and half dropped the closely-written sheet. And
then he laughed at himself. There might be other Oakfield Cottages in
the world besides the one which stirred such a host of boyish memories
by the very sound of its name. He turned the letter over to look at
the signature. There it was, plain enough in the clear, legible
writing:
'Your sincere friend,
'ANGELICA WYNDHAM.'
The reader put his hand before his eyes for a moment, seeming to feel
again a pair of soft arms round his neck, a curly head pressed against
his cheek, while a trembling child's voice whispered to him not to cry
because they would wake Betty, and papa and mamma would come back.
Little Angel, the little sister whom he had never seen but that once
when they grew near together in a few minutes under the shadow of a
great grief, she might well have grown into such a woman as old Kiah
had spoken of with loving pride.
'Boat ahoy!'
The shout came faint and far away across the gleaming tossing water
from where that red glow burned in the west. The fishermen were on the
look out at once, a hail in those days might mean something serious;
but their passenger sat with the letter unread in his hand, unheeding
anything, reading instead a page out of the long ago past.
But after a minute or two the fishermen's excited words brought him
back to the present.
'Boat? Not a bit of it. 'Tis a bit of a raft, some poor chap on a
spar. English too, 'twas an English shout. Well, and if he was Boney
himself we're bound to get him aboard.'
'Where is he?' asked the stranger, shading his eyes from the dazzling
sun rays.
Yonder, sir, don't you see him, there, just where
you're looking? We'll have him aboard in a minute.'
All eyes were fixed on the black moving object in the water, which, as
they came nearer, proved to be a large piece of wreckage to which a
figure was clinging. Presently it could be seen that the figure was
that of a boy, who seemed to be holding to the tossing spars with the
last effort of his strength, for when he was hailed again he made no
reply, only lifting his head for a moment.
'He'll hardly get hold of a rope,' said one of the men doubtfully;
'he's about done for, that last hail was as much as he could do.'
The next moment the mass of wreckage disappeared for a moment, and when
it rose again there was a cry of dismay from the boat, for the boy was
gone. Another minute showed him lifted high on the crest of a wave,
and, before any one else could move, the strange gentleman was
overboard and striking out boldly towards him. A few breathless
moments, then he had hold of him, and immediately a rope, thrown by a
powerful arm, struck the water close to them. It was the work of a
minute to knot it about his waist, and he and his unconscious burden
were dragged on board amid the congratulations of the fishermen.
'Well done, sir! Didn't know you could swim like that. Never gave us
a chance, no more you did. Take a sup o' this,' and a can was put to
his lips; 'never mind about the lad, he'll do well enough. Lift his
head a bit, Jack, and loose his jacket. What's that bag hung round his
neck? Why, bless us, he's an officer, he is--see his clothes; may be
'tis Kiah's middy; there'd be a thing if we'd picked him up!'
'He's alive, isn't he?' gasped the stranger.
'Alive, sir? Bless you, yes! he's coming round this minute; give us
the can there, Tom; turn his face this way. How now, sir; won't you
live to drub the "froggies" again, eh?'
Even as he spoke the boy's eyelids fluttered, and then a pair of wide
grey eyes looked wonderingly round the group. He closed them again,
drew a long breath, and then looked about him with understanding coming
back to his face.
'Where am I?' he asked, and at the same moment his fingers seemed to be
seeking for something.
'Aboard the _Elizabeth_ of Plymouth, sir, thanks to this here gentleman
that took to the water for you when you and your raft parted company.
Is it a bit of a leather bag you might be looking for, sir?'
'Yes, is it here?' said the boy eagerly, and trying to lift his head;
'there are French papers in it, despatches I think. I dived after them
when they threw them overboard; I kept them as dry as I could.'
'Safe they are, sir, and wonderful dry considering,' said one of the
men after a hasty examination.
'You bean't the young gent from the _Mermaid_ frigate, I suppose?' said
another, pushing his head into the group.
'I'm Godfrey Wyndham, H.M.S. _Mermaid_', said the boy faintly, and
then, with sudden eagerness, 'Do you know anything about her?'
'Safe in Plymouth, sir, with a nice prize behind her. Every one taking
on fine about you, sir.'
'Thank God!' the boy said simply and reverently. At the same moment
there was an exclamation:
'What's wrong with the gentleman?'
The stranger had pushed his way through the group and was leaning over
the boy, looking whiter than Godfrey himself, and with a strange hungry
gaze in his eyes. The kindly fishermen took hold of him, for he was
trembling from head to foot.
'You let him be, sir, he'll do all right. Come you below and have a
drop o' something, you're dead beat. There, sir, let him be a bit, and
he'll talk to you fast enough. He's a tough little heart of oak, he
is; let him be a bit and he'll do.'
'What did he say his name was?' said the stranger, kneeling down by the
young midshipman and trying to steady his voice.
The fishermen shook their heads; they didn't rightly catch, only he
belonged to the _Mermaid_, they were sure of that. Did the gentleman
know him?
'I am not sure; perhaps I do,' said the stranger briefly, and he made a
movement as if to carry the boy down to the cabin himself. Two or
three pairs of stout arms were ready to help him, and plenty of hearty
voices to assure him that the young gentleman would be all right;
they'd get his wet clothes off and let him sleep, he was bound to be
about done; he'd be all right in no time. And Godfrey fulfilled their
prediction by sinking into the sound healthy sleep of a tired boy, with
a dreamy sense of satisfaction that the _Mermaid_ and the despatches
were all safe. But the strange gentleman did not take the advice of
his hosts and follow the boy's example. All that night he spent awake
and watchful by Godfrey's side. He had had a good many hard hours in
his life, but none that seemed quite so long as those night hours in
the narrow cabin of the fishing smack, while the boat rocked on the
heaving Channel, and the swinging lamp over his head showed him the
sleeping face of the young sailor to whom the sound of wind and waves
was the most familiar lullaby. How he studied the still young face by
the uncertain light, trying to trace in the broad-chested sturdy
midshipman some memory of a white-faced eager little boy who had once
looked up wonderingly into his own sad eyes! And if he turned his eyes
from him for a moment, it was to decipher by the dim lamplight that
letter of Kiah's with the heading and the signature that were so
familiar. And when the agony of uncertainty grew almost unbearable, he
dropped his head in his hands by the boy's side with the half-stifled
murmur:
'If it might be--far, far beyond my deserving--but if it might be!'
He scarcely noticed how the grey light of dawn grew stronger about
them, how the gale dropped and the boat sped along before a steady
breeze, until Godfrey suddenly opened his eyes and looked up with the
puzzled wondering gaze that thrilled the watcher through and through
with vivid recollection.
'I know I'm not on board the _Mermaid_' he said, 'but I can't remember
how I came here, and what boat this is.'
'You are on board a fishing smack from Plymouth,' said the stranger,
struggling hard to speak calmly; 'you were picked up last night
clinging to some wreckage in mid-Channel.'
Godfrey's face brightened with quick understanding.
'I know, I know,' he said, 'and the papers are all right, and the
_Mermaid_ too. That's the last thing I remember. I feel as if I'd
been asleep for weeks. I wonder if I shall get long enough leave to
run home, it would be rare to tell them all?' Then looking up
doubtfully at his companion, he added:
'I'm sure I ought to know you, sir; I beg your pardon, but I can't put
your name to you.'
'Where do you think you have seen me?' asked the stranger eagerly.
'I don't remember, sir. It's very stupid of me. Is--is anything
wrong, sir? Can I do anything?'
'Yes,' cried the stranger, with his self-control breaking down, 'you
can tell me in mercy the name of your father.'
'My father's name was Bernard Wyndham,' said Godfrey wonderingly. 'He
was killed in the West Indies some years ago. I say, what is it,
sir--you're ill, aren't you? I'll fetch----'
But the stranger had fast hold of him.
'Don't fetch any one,' he gasped, 'I want you, only you. Godfrey, my
boy, my son, look at me, don't quite forget me--you say you've seen me
before! Godfrey, believe me--don't say you can't believe me, my boy,
my only child!'
The colour rushed into Godfrey's face.
'I--I don't understand,' he faltered. 'Why didn't you come?'
'Because I thought you were dead, my little boy; because they told me
every one died together, and you too. Because when I got free and came
back they showed me the graves and told me yours was one.'
Still Godfrey held back doubtfully, though the pale eager face was so
strangely familiar.
'But why didn't you come home?' he asked; 'they've been so unhappy
about you, the aunts have. Why didn't you let them know?'
'Because I was a coward, Godfrey; because I never knew they cared for
me--why should they? Ay, and why should you?'
He had turned his head away, when he suddenly felt himself seized in
such an embrace as Godfrey generally kept for Angel and Betty.
'Father,' cried the eager young voice, 'papa, I'm a brute, I didn't
understand! I know you now--I half knew you all the time. Why,
they've talked about you all these years, they never let me forget. I
say, I mustn't make a baby of myself, I'm an officer, you know, but it
makes one feel as if one was standing on one's head to think of
bringing you home to them.'
And I don't think that Godfrey disgraced the King's uniform, even if he
laid his curly head down on his new found father's shoulder and hugged
him as he hugged his Aunt Angel.
[Illustration: Chapter IX headpiece]