Morning on board the _Kestrel_, his Britannic majesty's cutter, lying on
and off the south coast on the lookout for larks, or what were to her
the dainty little birds that the little falcon, her namesake, would pick
up. For the _Kestrel's_ wings were widespread to the soft
south-easterly breeze that barely rippled the water; and mainsail, gaff
topsail, staysail, and jib were so new and white that they seemed to
shine like silver in the sun.
The larks the hover-winged _Kestrel_ was on the watch to pick up were
smuggling boats of any sort or size, or Jacobite messages, or exiles, or
fugitives--anything, in fact, that was not in accordance with the laws
of his most gracious majesty King George the Second, whose troops had
not long before dealt that fatal blow to the young Pretender's hopes at
the battle of Culloden.
The sea was as bright and blue as the sea can look in the Channel when
the bright sun is shining, and the arch above reflects itself in its
bosom. The gulls floated half asleep on the water, with one eye open
and the other closed; and the pale-grey kittiwakes seemed to glide about
on the wing, to dip down here and there and cleverly snatch a tiny fish
from the surface of the softly heaving sea.
On the deck of the little cutter all was in that well-known apple-pie
order customary on board a man-of-war, for so Lieutenant Lipscombe in
command always took care to call it, and in this he was diligently
echoed by the young gentleman who acted as his first officer, and, truth
to say, second and third officer as well, for he was the only one--to
wit, Hilary Leigh, midshipman, lately drafted to this duty, to his great
disgust, from on board the dashing frigate _Golden Fleece_.
"Man-o'-war!" he had said in disgust; "a contemptible little cock-boat.
They ought to have called her a boy-o'-war--a little boy-o'-war. I
shall walk overboard the first time I try to stretch my legs."
But somehow he had soon settled down on board the swift little craft
with its very modest crew, and felt no small pride in the importance of
his position, feeling quite a first lieutenant in his way, and for the
greater part of the time almost entirely commanding the vessel.
She was just about the cut of a goodsized modern yacht, and though not
so swift, a splendid sailer, carrying immense spars for her tonnage, and
spreading canvas enough to have swamped a less deeply built craft.
The decks were as white as holystone could make them, the sails and the
bell shone in the morning sun like gold, and there was not a speck to be
seen on the cabin skylight any more than upon either of the three brass
guns, a long and two shorts, as Billy Waters, who was gunner and
gunner's mate all in one, used to call them.
Upon this bright summer morning Hilary Leigh was sitting, with his legs
dangling over the side and his back against a stay, holding a fishing
line, which, with a tiny silvery slip off the tail-end of a mackerel,
was trailing behind the cutter, fathoms away, waving and playing about
in the vessel's wake, to tempt some ripple-sided mackerel to dart at it,
do a little bit of cannibalism, and die in the act.
Two had already been hauled on board, and lay in a wooden bucket,
looking as if they had been carved out of pieces of solid sea at
sunrise, so brilliant were the ripple marks and tints of pink and purple
and grey and orange and gold--bright enough to make the gayest
mother-o'-pearl shell blush for shame. Hilary Leigh had set his mind
upon catching four--two for himself and two for the skipper--and he had
congratulated himself upon the fact that he had already caught his two,
when there was a sharp snatch, the line began to quiver, and for the
next minute it was as though the hook was fast in the barbs of a silver
arrow that was darting in all directions through the sea.
"Here's another, Billy!" cried the young man, or boy--for he was on the
debatable ground of eighteen, when one may be either boy or man,
according to one's acts, deeds, or exploits, as it used to say in
Carpenter's Spelling.
Hilary Leigh, from his appearance, partook more of the man than the boy,
for, though his face was as smooth as a new-laid egg, he had well-cut,
decisive-looking Saxon features, and one of those capital
closely-fitting heads of hair that look as if they never needed cutting,
but settle round ears and forehead in not too tight clustering curls.
"Here's another, Billy," he cried; and a stoutly built sailor amidships
cried, "Cheer ho, sir! Haul away, sir! Will it be a mess o' mick-a-ral
for the lads to-day?"
"Don't know, Billy," was the reply, as the beautiful fish was hauled in,
unhooked, a fresh lask or tongue of silvery bait put on, and the leaded
line thrown over and allowed to run out fathoms astern once again.
Billy Waters, the gunner, went on with his task, rather a peculiar one,
which would have been performed below in a larger vessel, but here the
men pretty well lived on deck, caring little for the close stuffy
quarters that formed the forecastle, where they had, being considered
inferior beings, considerably less space than was apportioned to their
two officers.
Billy's work was that of carefully binding or lashing round and round
the great mass of hair hanging from the poll of a messmate, so as to
form it into the orthodox pigtail of which the sailors of the day were
excessively vain. The tail in question was the finest in the cutter,
and was exactly two feet six inches long, hanging down between the
sailor's shoulders, when duly lashed up and tied, like a long handle
used for lifting off the top of his skull.
But, alas for the vanity of human nature! Tom Tully, owner of the
longest tail in the cutter, and the envy of all his messmates, was not
happy. He was ambitious; and where a man is ambitious there is but
little true bliss. He wanted "that 'ere tail" to be half a fathom long,
and though it was duly measured every week "that 'ere tail" refused to
grow another inch.
Billy Waters had a fine tail, but his was only, to use his own words,
"two foot one," but it was "half as thick agen as Tom Tully's," so he
did not mind. In fact the first glance at the gunner's round
good-humoured face told that there was neither envy nor ambition there.
Give him enough to eat, his daily portion of cold water grog, and his
'bacco, and, again to use his own words, he "wouldn't change berths with
the king hissen."
"Easy there, Billy messmet," growled Tom Tully; "avast hauling quite so
hard. My tail ain't the cable."
"Why, you don't call that 'ere hauling, Tommy lad, do you?"
"'Nuff to take a fellow's head off," growled the other, just as the
midshipman pulled in another mackerel, and directly after another, and
another, for they were sailing through a shoal, and the man at the helm
let his stolid face break up into a broad grin as the chance of a mess
of mackerel for the men's dinner began to increase.
"Singing down deny, down deny, down deny down,
Sing--"
"Easy, messmet, d'yer hear," growled Tom Tully, straining his head round
to look appealingly at the operator on his tail. "Why don't yer leave
off singing till you've done?"
"Just you lay that there nose o' your'n straight amidships," cried
Billy, using the tail as if it was a tiller, and steering the sailor's
head into the proper position. "I can't work without I sing."
"For this I can tell, that nought will be well,
Till the king enjoys his own again."
He trolled out these words in a pleasant tenor voice, and was just
drawing in breath to continue the rattling cavalier ballad when the
young officer swung his right leg in board, and, sitting astride the low
bulwark, exclaimed--
"I say, Billy, are you mad?"
"Mad, sir? not that I knows on, why?"
"For singing a disloyal song like that. You'll be yard-armed, young
fellow, if you don't mind."
"What, for singing about the king?"
"Yes; if you get singing about a king over the water, my lad. That's an
old song; but some people would think you meant the Pretend--Hallo! look
there. You look out there forward, why didn't you hail? Hi! here fetch
me a glass. Catch hold of that line, Billy. She's running for
Shoreham, as sure as a gun. No: all right; let go."
He threw the line to the gunner just as a mackerel made a snatch at the
bait, and before the sailor could catch it, away went the end astern,
when the man at the helm made a dash at it just as the slight cord was
running over the side.
Billy Waters made a dash at it just at the same moment, and there was a
dull thud as the two men's heads came in contact, and they fell back
into a sitting position on the deck, while the mackerel darted
frightened away to puzzle the whole shoal of its fellows with the novel
appendage hanging to its snout.
"Avast there, you lubber!" exclaimed Billy Waters angrily. "Stand by,
my lad, stand by," replied the other, making a dart back at the helm
just as the cutter was beginning to fall off.
"Look ye here, messmet, air you agoin' to make my head shipshape, or air
you not?" growled Tom Tully; and then, before his hairdresser could
finish tying the last knot, the lieutenant came on deck.
For when Hilary Leigh ran below, it was to seize a long spyglass out of
the slings in the cabin bulkhead, and to give his commanding officer a
tremendous shake.
"Sail on the larboard bow, Mr Lipscombe, sir. I say, do wake up, sir;
I think it is something this time."
The officer in question, who was a hollow-cheeked man of about forty,
very sallow-looking, and far from prepossessing in his features, opened
his eye, but he did not attempt to rise from the bunker upon which he
was stretched.
"Leigh," he said, turning his eye round towards the little oval thick
glass window nearest to him, "You're a most painstaking young officer,
but you are always mare's-nesting. What is it now?"
"One of those three-masted luggers, sir--a Frenchman--a _chasse maree_,
laden deeply, and running for Shoreham."
"Let her run," said the lieutenant, closing his eye again; the other was
permanently closed, having been poked out in boarding a Frenchman some
years before, and with the extinction of that optic went the prospect of
the lieutenant's being made a post-captain, and he was put in command of
the _Kestrel_ when he grew well.
"But it _is_ something this time, sir, I'm sure."
"Leigh," said the lieutenant, yawning, "I was just in a delicious dream,
and thoroughly enjoying myself when you come down and bother me about
some confounded fishing-boat. There, be off. No: I'll come this time."
He yawned, and showed a set of very yellow teeth; and then, as if by an
effort, leaped up and preceded the young officer on deck.
"Let's have a look at her, Leigh," he said, after a glance at a long,
low, red-sailed lugger, about a couple of miles ahead, sailing fast in
the light breeze.
He took the spyglass, and, going forward, looked long and steadily at
the lugger before saying a word.
"Well, sir?"
"French lugger, certainly, Leigh," he said, quietly; "fresh from the
fishing-ground I should say. They wouldn't attempt to run a cargo now."
"But you'll overhaul her, sir, won't you?"
"It's not worth while, Leigh, but as you have roused me up, it will be
something to do. Here, call the lads up. Where's Waters? Waters!"
"Ay, ay, sir," replied that worthy in a voice of thunder, though he was
close at hand.
"Load the long gun, and be ready to fire."
"Ay, ay, sir."
There was no beating to quarters, for the little crew were on deck, and
every man fell naturally into his place as the lieutenant seemed now to
wake up to his work, and glanced at the sails, which were all set, and
giving his orders sharply and well, a pull was taken at a sheet here and
a pull there, the helm altered, and in spite of the lightness of the
breeze the _Kestrel_ began to work along with an increase of speed of
quite two knots an hour.
"Now then, Leigh, shall we ever have her, or shall we have to throw a
shot across her bows to bring her to?"
"Let them have a shot, sir," cried the young officer, whose cheeks were
beginning to flush with excitement, as he watched the quarry of which
the little falcon was in chase.
"And waste the king's powder and ball, eh? No, Leigh, there will be no
need. But we may as well put on our swords."
Meanwhile, Billy Waters was busy unlashing the tail of Long Tom, as he
called the iron gun forward, and with a pat of affection he opened the
ammunition chest, and got out the flannel bag of powder and smiled at a
messmate, rammer in hand.
"Let's give him his breakfast, or else he won't bark," he said, with a
grin; and the charge was rammed home, the ball sent after it with a big
wad to keep it in its place, and the men waited eagerly for the order to
fire.
Billy Waters knew that that would not come for some time, so he sidled
up to Hilary, and whispered as the young man was buckling on his sword,
the lieutenant having gone below to exchange a shabby cap for his cocked
hat, "Let me have your sword a minute, sir, and I'll make it like a
razor."
Hilary hesitated for a moment, and then drew it, and held it out to the
gunner, who went below, and by the time the young officer had had a good
inspection of the lugger, Billy came back with his left thumb trying the
edge of the sword.
"I wouldn't be too hard on 'em, sir," he said, with mock respect.
"What do you mean, Billy?"
"Don't take off too many Frenchies' heads, sir; not as they'd know it,
with a blade like that."
"Are we gaining on her, Leigh?" said the lieutenant.
"Just a little, sir, I think; but she creeps through the water at an
awful rate."
The lieutenant looked up at the white sails, but nothing more could be
done, for the _Kestrel_ was flying her best; and the water bubbled and
sparkled as she cut her way through, leaving an ever-widening train
behind.
There was no chance of more wind, and nothing could be done but to hold
steadily on, for, at the end of half an hour, it was plain enough that
the distance had been slightly reduced.
"However do they manage to make those luggers sail so fast?" exclaimed
the lieutenant impatiently. "Leigh, if this turns out to be another of
your mares' nests, you'll be in disgrace."
"Very well, sir," said the young man quietly.
And then to himself: "Better make some mistake than let the real thing
slip by."
The arms were not served out, for that would be but a minute's task; but
an arm chest was opened ready, and the men stood at their various
stations, but in a far more lax and careless way than would have been
observed on board a larger vessel, which in its turn would have been in
point of discipline far behind a vessel of the present day.
The gulls and kittiwakes rose and fell, uttering their peevish wails; a
large shoal of fish fretting the radiant surface of the sea was passed
and about a dozen porpoises went right across the cutter's bow, rising
and diving down one after the other like so many black water-boys,
playing at "Follow my leader;" but the eyes of all on board the
_Kestrel_ were fixed upon the dingy looking _chasse maree_, which
apparently still kept on trying hard to escape by its speed.
And now the time, according to Billy Waters' judgment, having come for
sending a shot, he stood ready, linstock in hand, watching the
lieutenant, whose one eye was gazing intently through the long
leather-covered glass.
"Fire!" he said at last. "Well ahead!"
The muzzle of the piece was trained a little more to the right, the
linstock was applied, there was a puff of white smoke, a heavy deafening
roar; and as Hilary Leigh gazed in the direction of the lugger, he saw
the sea splashed a few hundred yards ahead, and then dip, dip, dip, dip,
the water was thrown up at intervals as the shot ricochetted, making
ducks and drakes right across the bows of the lugger.
"Curse his impudence!" cried the lieutenant, as the men busily sponged
out and began to reload Long Tom; for the lugger paid not the slightest
heed to the summons, but sailed away.
"Give her another--closer this time," cried the lieutenant; and once
more the gun uttered its deep-mouthed roar, and the shot went skipping
along the smooth surface of the sea, this time splashing the water a few
yards only ahead of the lugger.
"I think that will bring him to his senses," cried the lieutenant, using
his glass.
If the lowering of first one and then another sail meant bringing the
lugger to its senses, the lieutenant was right, for first one ruddy
brown spread of canvas sank with its spar into the lugger, and then
another and another, the long low vessel lying passive upon the water,
and in due time the cutter was steered close up, her sails flapped, and
her boat which had been held ready was lowered, and Leigh with three men
jumped in.
"Here, let me go too," exclaimed the lieutenant; "you don't half
understand these fellows' French."
Hilary flushed, for he fancied he was a bit of a French scholar, but he
said nothing; and the lieutenant jumped into the boat. A few strokes
took them to the dingy lugger, at whose side were gathered about a dozen
dirty-looking men and boys, for the most part in scarlet worsted caps,
blue jerseys, and stiff canvas petticoats, sewn between the legs, to
make believe they were trousers.
"Va t'en chien de Francais. Pourquoi de diable n'arretez vous pas?"
shouted the lieutenant to a yellow-looking man with whiskerless face,
and thin gold rings in his ears.
"Hey?"
"I say pourquoi n'arretez vous pas?" roared the lieutenant fiercely.
"I ar'nt a Dutchman. I don't understand. Nichts verstand," shouted the
man through his hollow hands, as if he were hailing some one a mile
away.
"You scoundrel, why didn't you say you could speak English?"
"You never arkst me," growled the man.
"Silence, sir. How dare you address an officer of a king's ship like
that!"
"Then what do you go shooting at me for? King George don't tell you to
go firin' guns at peaceable fisher folk, as me."
"Silence, sir, or I'll put you in irons, and take you on board the
cutter. Why didn't you obey my signals to heave-to?"
"Signals! I never see no signals."
"How dare you, sir! you know I fired."
"Oh, them! We thought you was practisin', and hauled down till you'd
done, for the balls was flying very near."
"Where are you from?"
"From? Nowheres. We been out all night fishing."
"What's your port?"
"Shoreham."
"And what have you on board? Who are those people?"
Those two people had been seen on the instant by Hilary Leigh, as they
sat below the half-deck of the lugger, shrinking from observation in the
semi-darkness. He had noticed that, though wearing rough canvas
covering similar to those affected by a crew in stormy weather, they
were of a different class; and as the lieutenant was in converse with
the skipper of the lugger, he climbed over the lowered sail between, and
saw that one of the two whom the other tried to screen was quite a young
girl.
It was but a momentary glance, for she hastily drew a hood over her
face, as she saw that she was noticed.
"Jacobites for a crown!" said Hilary to himself, as he saw a pair of
fierce dark eyes fixed upon him.
"Who are you?" he exclaimed.
"Hush, for heaven's sake!" was the answer whispered back; "don't you
know me, Leigh? A word from you and they will shoot me like a dog."
At the same moment there was a faint cry, and Hilary saw that the young
girl had sunk back, fainting.