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[Illustration: "_On the deck of a French man-o'-war._"
Page 186.]
AS WE SWEEP
THROUGH THE DEEP
[Illustration: "_The figure glided towards him._"
Page 66.]
T. NELSON AND SONS
London, Edinburgh, and New York
AS WE
SWEEP THROUGH
THE DEEP
_A Story of the Stirring Times of Old_
BY
DR. GORDON-STABLES, R.N.,
_Author of "Hearts of Oak," &c._
T. NELSON AND SONS
_London, Edinburgh, and New York_
1894
CONTENTS.
I. POOR JACK, 9
II. "HE NEVER SAID HE LOVED ME," 20
III. AN INTERRUPTED PROPOSAL, 27
IV. THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE, 33
V. "NOW THIS GOOD BLADE SHALL BE MY BRIDE," 43
VI. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE, 54
VII. "WENT GLIDING AWAY LIKE A BEAUTIFUL GHOST," 61
VIII. ON BOARD THE SAUCY "TONNERAIRE," 70
IX. "A SPLENDID NIGHT'S WORK, TOM!" 78
X. IN THE MOON'S BRIGHT WAKE, 87
XI. THE PHANTOM FRENCHMAN, 94
XII. A BATTLE BY NIGHT, 103
XIII. A HAPPY SHIP, 111
XIV. MUTINY, 123
XV. BEFORE CADIZ, 129
XVI. JACK AND THE MUTINEERS, 138
XVII. IN A FOOL'S PARADISE, 145
XVIII. "WOULD HE EVER COME AGAIN?" 152
XIX. THE BATTLE OF CAMPERDOWN, 162
XX. NELSON AND THE NILE, 171
XXI. WILLIE DIED A HERO'S DEATH, 180
XXII. STILL WATERS RUN DEEP, 189
XXIII. "IT'S ALL UP, MR. RICHARDS, IT'S ALL UP!" 197
XXIV. BY THE OLD DIAL-STONE, 206
[Illustration]
_As We Sweep through the Deep._
CHAPTER I.
POOR JACK.
"As ye sweep through the deep
While the stormy winds do blow,
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow."
CAMPBELL.
"Just two years this very day since poor Jack Mackenzie sailed away from
England in the _Ocean Pride_."
Mr. Richards, of the tough old firm of Griffin, Keane, and Co.,
Solicitors, London, talked more to himself than to any one within
hearing.
As he spoke he straightened himself up from his desk in a weary kind of
way, and began to mend his pen: they used quills in those good old
times.
"Just two years! How the time flies! And we're not getting any younger.
Are we, partner?"
Whether Mr. Keane heard what he said or not, he certainly did not reply
immediately. He was standing by the window, gazing out into the
half-dark, fog-shaded street.
"Fog, fog, fog!" he grunted peevishly; "nothing but fog and gloom. Been
nothing else all winter; and now that spring has all but come, why it's
fog, fog, fog, just the same! Tired of it--sick of it!"
Then he turned sharply round, exclaiming, "What did you say about Jack
and about growing younger?"
Mr. Richards smiled a conciliatory smile. He was the junior partner
though the older man--if that is not a paradox--for his share in the
firm was not a quarter as large as Keane's, who was really Keane by name
and keen by nature, of small stature, with dark hair turning gray,
active, business-like, and a trifle suspicious.
Mr. Richards was delightfully different in every way--a round rosy face
that might have belonged to some old sea-captain, a bald and rosy
forehead, hair as white as drifted snow, and a pair of blue eyes that
always seemed brimming over with kindness and good-humour.
"I was talking more to my pen than to you," he said quietly.
"But what's given you Jack on the brain, eh?"
"Oh, nothing--nothing in particular, that is. I happened to turn to his
account, that is all."
"Bother him. Yes, and but for you, Richards, never an account should
_he_ have had with _us_."
"Well, Jack gets round me somehow. He is not half a bad lad, with his
dash and his fun and his jollity. Ay, and his ways are very winning
sometimes. He does get round one, partner."
"I don't doubt it, Richards. Winning enough when he wants to get round
you and wheedle cash out of you. I tell you what, partner: Jack's got
all his father's aristocratic notions, all his father's pride and
improvidence. Ay, and he'd ruin his dad too, if--if--"
"If what, partner?"
"Why, if his dad weren't ruined already."
"Come, come, Keane, it isn't quite so bad as that."
"Pretty nigh it, I can assure you. And I can't get the proud old Scot
to retrench. Why doesn't he let that baronial hall of his, instead of
sticking to it and mortgaging it in order to keep up appearances and
entertain half the gentry in the county? Why doesn't he take a
five-roomed cottage, and let his daughter teach the harp that she
plays so well?"
"O partner! Come, you know!"
"Well, 'O partner' as much as you like; if old Mackenzie's pride were
proper pride, his daughter would take in washing sooner than the family
should go deeper in debt every day. But the crisis will come; somebody
will foreclose."
"You won't surely, partner?"
"Bother your sentiment, Richards. He owes me over forty thousand pounds.
Think of that. I declare I believe I'd be a better landlord than Mack
himself. Forty thousand pounds, Richards, and I don't see any way of
getting a penny, except by--"
"Except by foreclosing?"
Richards sighed as he bent once more over his desk. He had been family
lawyer to Mackenzie before he joined the firm of Griffin, Keane, and
Co., and dearly loved the family, or what was left of it.
He tried to work but couldn't now. Presently he closed the ledger with a
bang and got down off his stool.
"I say, Keane." he said, "I see a way out of this. Look here. You have
nobody to leave your wealth to except dear little Gerty--"
"Well?"
"Well, Jack is precious fond of her; why not--"
"He, he, he! ho, ho, ho!" laughed Keane. "Why, Richards, you're in your
dotage, man! I've a _baronet_ in view for Gerty. And Jack is a _beggar_,
although he does swing a sword at his side and fight the French."
Richards went back to his stool quiet and subdued. "Poor Jack!" he
muttered.
* * * * *
"Just two years this very day, Gerty dear, since poor Jack sailed away
from England in the _Ocean Pride_."
Flora Mackenzie bent listlessly over the harp she had been playing as
she spoke, her fingers touching a chord or two that seemed in unison
with her thoughts. The two girls, Gerty Keane and she, who were seldom
separate now, by day or night, sat in Flora's boudoir, which had two
great windows opening on to a balcony and overlooking the grand old
gardens of Grantley Hall, Suffolk. Grant Mackenzie, a sturdy old
one-armed soldier, was the proud owner of the Hall and all the wide,
wooded landscape for miles around. Jack, now far away at sea, was his
heir, and with his sister Flora, the only children the general had. The
fine old soldier had been in possession of the property only about a
dozen years, yet I fear he had inherited something else--namely, the
lordly fashions of his Highland ancestry. That branch of the Clan
Mackenzie to which he belonged was nothing unless proud. So long as it
could hold its head a little higher than its neighbours it was happy,
and when poverty came then death might follow as soon as it pleased.
There was every appearance of unbounded wealth in and around Grantley
Hall. The house was a massive old Elizabethan mansion, half buried in
lofty lime and elm and oak trees, approached by a winding drive, and a
long way back from the main road that leads through this beautiful shire
from north to south.
Everything was large connected with the Hall and estate. There were no
finer trees anywhere in England than those sturdy oaks and elms, no more
stately waving pine trees, and no more shady drooping limes than those
that bordered the broad grass ride which stretched for many a mile
across the estate. On the park-like lawn in front of the house--if this
ancient quaint old pile could be said to have a front--the flower-beds
were as big as suburban gardens, the statuary, the fountains, and even
the gray and moss-grown dial-stone were gigantic; and nowhere else in
all this vast and wealthy county were such stately herons seen as those
that sailed around Grantley and built in its trees. The entrance-hall
was spacious and noble, though the porch was comparatively small; but
if divested of its banners and curtains and emptied of its antique
furniture, its wealth-laden tables, on which jewelled arms and curios
from every land under the sun seemed to have been laid out for show,
its oaken chests, its sideboards, its organ and many another musical
instrument ancient and modern, the drawing-room was large enough to have
driven a coach-and-four around.
The bedrooms above were many of them so lofty that in the dead, dull
winter two great fires in each could hardly keep them warm.
The room in which the girls sat was the tartan boudoir. The walls were
draped with clan tartans, and eke the lounges and chairs; while the
heads of many a royal stag adorned the walls, amidst tastefully
displayed claymores, spears, shields, and dirks, and pistols.
"Just two years, Gerty. How quickly the time has fled!"
"Just two years, Flora. Strange that I should have been thinking about
Jack this very moment. But then you were playing one of Jack's favourite
airs, you know."
Flora got up from her seat at the harp. A tall and graceful girl she
was, with a wealth of auburn hair, and blue dreamy eyes, and eyelashes
that swept her sun-tinted cheeks when she looked downwards.
She got up from her seat, and went and knelt beside the couch on which
Gerty was lounging with a book.
"Why strange, sister?" she asked, taking Gerty's hand.
Gerty was _petite_, blonde, bewitching--so many a young man said, and
many a rough old squire as well. She was no baby in face, however.
Although of the purest type of Saxon beauty--without the square chin
that so disfigures many an otherwise lovely English face--there was fire
and character in every lineament of Gerty Keane's countenance.
She answered Flora calmly, candidly, quietly--I am almost inclined to
say, in a business way that reminded one of her father.
"Dear Flo," she said--and her eyes as she spoke had a sad and far-away
look in them--"it would be unmaidenly in me to say how much I should
like to be your sister in reality. It may not be strange for me to
think of Jack; we have liked each other, almost loved each other, since
childhood."
"Almost?" said Flora.
"Listen, Flo. I _may_ love Jack, but there is one other I love even
more."
"Sir Digby, Gerty?"
"No, dear Flo, but my father. I love him more because he has few
friends, and because others do not love him. I would do anything for
father."
"You would even marry Sir Digby?"
"Perhaps."
"O Gerty! poor Jack will break his heart."
She buried her face in the pillow for a few moments. She was struggling
with the grief that bid fair to choke her. When she looked up again
there was nothing but softness in Gerty's face, and tears were coursing
down her cheeks--tears she made no effort to wipe away.
Poor Jack!
* * * * *
"Just two years to-day, Tom, since you and I sailed away from dear old
England in the _Ocean Pride_."
"And hasn't the time flown too?" said Tom.
"Ah! but then we've been so busy. Just think of the many actions we've
fought."
"True, Jack, true! What a lucky, ay, and what a glorious thing for young
fellows like us to be in a ship commanded by so daring a sailor as Sir
Sidney Salt!"
"Yes, Tom, yes. And think of the haul of prize-money we shall have when
we once more touch British ground."
"O Jack, I _am_ surprised. Money! A Mackenzie of _the_ Mackenzies to be
mercenary! Jack, Jack!"
Jack and Tom were keeping their watch--that is, it was Tom's watch, and
Jack had come on deck to bear him company and talk of home.
Under every stitch of canvas, with a bracing beam wind that filled every
sail, jib, and square, and stay, the bold frigate _Ocean Pride_ was
skimming across the Atlantic like a veritable sea-bird. She was bound
for the lone Bermudas, and the night was a heavenly one. So no wonder
that, as the two young sailors leaned over the bulwarks and gazed at the
moonlit water that seemed all a-shimmer with gold, their thoughts went
back to their homes in merry England.
"Listen, Tom; don't call me mercenary, bo'. Did you ever hear those
lines of Burns, our great national bard?--
'O poortith cauld and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye;
But poortith cauld I well could bear,
If it werena for my Jeannie.'
Yes, Tom; I love the sweetest lass ever wooed by sailor lad. Does she
love me? Was that what you asked, Tom? She never said so, bo'; but ah! I
know she does, and as sure as yonder moon is shining she is thinking of
me even now. But sit here on the skylight till I tell you, Tom, where
the 'poortith' comes in."
And sitting there, with the moonlight streaming clear on both their
earnest young faces, and on their snow-white powdered hair, Jack poured
into the ear of his friend a story that was at once both sorrowful and
romantic.
Tom listened quietly till the very end, then he stretched out his soft
right hand and clasped his friend's.
"Poor Jack!" he said.
"Ay, _poor_ Jack indeed! And now I'll go below. I want to think and
maybe dream of home and Gerty."