The crusade against the smugglers--Sir Reginald's measures--The "Saucy
Bess"--My father's sermon, and its effects in different quarters--Ned
and I visit old Roger Riddle--Mr Reynell's picnic and how we enjoyed
it--Roger Riddle tells the story of his life--Born at sea--The pet of
the ship--Stormy times--Parted from his mother--His first visit to
land--Loses his parents.
Day after day went by and nothing was heard from Sir Reginald Knowsley
about my appointment as a midshipman. Aunt Deb took care to remark that
she had no doubt he had forgotten all about me. This I shrewdly
suspected was the case. If he had forgotten me, however, he had not
forgotten the smugglers, for he was taking energetic steps to put a stop
to their proceedings, though it was whispered he was not always as
successful as he supposed.
Whenever I went to the village I heard of what he was doing, yet from
time to time it was known that cargoes had been run while only
occasionally an insignificant capture was made, it being generally, as
the saying is, a tub thrown to a whale.
The "Saucy Bess" appeared off the coast, but it was when she had a clean
hold and no revenue officer could touch her. She would then come into
Leighton bay, which was a little distance to the westward of the bar,
and drop her anchor, looking as innocent as possible; and her hardy crew
would sit with their arms folded, on her deck, smoking their pipes and
spinning yarns to each other of their daring deeds, or would pace up and
down performing the fisherman's walk, three steps and overboard. On two
or three occasions I caught sight of them from the top of a rocky cliff
which formed one side of the little bay, and I acknowledge that I had a
wonderful longing to go on board and become better acquainted with the
sturdy looking outlaws, or rather, breakers of the law. As, however, I
could find no boat in the bay to take me alongside, and as I did not
like to hail and ask them to allow me to pay them a visit, I had to
abandon my design.
My father was busy in his way in carrying out the wishes of the baronet.
He spoke to a number of his parishioners, urging them to assist in
putting a stop to the proceedings of the smugglers, and endeavouring to
impress upon them the nefarious character of their occupation. More
than once he got into the wrong box when addressing some old sea dog,
who would curtly advise him to mind his own business, the man he was
speaking to probably being in league with the smugglers. He said and
did enough indeed to create a considerable amount of odium against
himself. He went so far as one Sunday to preach a sermon in which he
unmistakably alluded to smuggling as one of the sins certain to bring
down condign punishment on those engaged in it.
Sir Reginald Knowsley, who had driven over, as he occasionally did, to
attend the service, waited for my father in the porch, and complimented
him on his sermon. "Excellent, Mr Cheveley, excellent," he exclaimed,
"I like to hear clergymen speak out bravely from the pulpit, and condemn
the sins of the people. If the smugglers persist in carrying on their
nefarious proceedings, they will now do it with their eyes open, and
know that they are breaking the laws of God and man. I was delighted to
hear you broach the subject. I expect some friends in a few days, and I
hope that you will give me the pleasure of your company at dinner. I
have some capital old port just suited to your taste, and I will take
care to draw your attention to it. Good-bye, my dear Mr Cheveley,
good-bye; with your aid I have no doubt smuggling will, in a short time,
be a thing of the past;" and the squire walked with a dignified pace to
his carriage and drove off, not regarding the frowning looks cast at him
by some of his fellow-worshippers.
As I afterwards went through the churchyard I passed several knots of
persons talking together, who were making remarks of a very different
character to those I have spoken of on the sermon they had just heard.
They were at no pains to lower their voices even as they saw me.
"I never seed smuggling in the Ten Commandments, an' don't see it now,"
remarked a sturdy old fisherman, who was looked upon as a very
respectable man in the village. "What has come over our parson to talk
about it is more than I can tell."
"The parson follows where the squire leads, I've a notion," remarked
another seafaring man, who was considered an oracle among his mates.
"He never said a word about it before the squire took the matter up.
Many's the time we've had a score of kegs stowed away in his tool-house,
and if one was left behind, if he didn't get it I don't know who did."
On hearing this I felt very much inclined to stop and declare that my
father had never received a keg of spirits, or a bribe of any sort, for
I was very sure that he would not condescend to that, though I could not
answer for the integrity of John Dixon, our old gardener, who had been,
on more than one occasion, unable to work for a week together; and
although his wife said that he was suffering from rheumatics, the doctor
remarked, with a wink, that he had no doubt he would recover without
having much physic to take.
Some of the men were even more severe in their remarks, and swore that
if the parson was going to preach in that style, they would not show
their noses inside the church. Others threatened to go off to the
methodists' house in the next village, where the minister never troubled
the people with disagreeable remarks.
I did not tell my father all I had heard, as I knew it would annoy him.
It did not occur to me at the moment that he had introduced the subject
for the sake of currying favour with Sir Reginald, indeed I did not
think such an idea had crossed his mind.
He was greatly surprised in the afternoon, when the service was
generally better attended than in the morning, to find that only half
his usual congregation was present. When he returned home, after making
some visits in the parish, on the following Tuesday, he told us he
suspected from the way he had been received that something was wrong,
but it did not occur to him that his sermon was the cause of offence.
I, in the meantime, was spending my holidays in far from a satisfactory
manner. My elder brothers amused themselves without taking pains to
find me anything to do, while Ned was always at his books, and was only
inclined to come out and take a constitutional walk with me now and
then. My younger brothers were scarcely out of the nursery, and I was
thus left very much to my own resources. I bethought me one day of
paying the old sailor Roger Riddle a visit, and perhaps getting his son
Mark to come and fish with me.
I told Ned where I was going, and was just setting off when he called
out--
"Stop a minute, Dick, and I will go with you; I should like to make the
acquaintance of the old sailor, who, from your account, must be
something above the common."
I did not like to refuse, at the same time I confess that I would rather
have gone alone, as I knew that Ned did not care about fishing, and
would probably want to stop and talk to Roger Riddle.
I was waiting for him outside in front of the house, when a carriage
drove up full of boys, with a gentleman who asked me if my father was at
home. I recognised him as a Mr Reynell, who lived at Springfield
Grange, some five or six miles inland. Two of the boys were his sons,
whom I knew; the others, he told me, were their cousins and two friends
staying with them.
"We are going to have a picnic along the shore, and we want you and your
brother to come and join us," said Harry Reynell, the eldest of the two.
Ned came out directly afterwards, and said he should be very happy to
go.
"Can't you get any of your friends to go also? The more the merrier."
There were two or three other boys whom I knew staying with an aunt in
the village, and I offered to run down and ask them.
"By all means," said Harry, "we have provisions enough, so that they
need not stop to get anything; but I'm afraid we cannot stow them all
away; if it's not very far off we may go on foot."
"It is no distance to the prettiest part of the coast," I replied; "and
I know a capital spot where we can pick up shells and collect
curiosities of all sorts, if any of you have a fancy for that sort of
thing."
"That will do," said Harry Reynell; "go and fetch your friends, and we
will walk together."
I accordingly ran down the village to Mrs Parker's, whose nephews were
at home. We formed a tolerably numerous party. As my father was unable
to go, Mr Reynell was the only grown-up person among us. The spot I
had fixed upon was not far from Roger Riddle's cottage. As I had been
thinking of him, I proposed asking the old sailor and Mark to join our
party.
From the account I gave to Mr Reynell of Roger Riddle, he did not
object to this. As Harry Reynell, his brother, and friends were
good-natured merry fellows, we had a pleasant time as we walked or ran
along, laughing and singing, and playing each other tricks. We soon
left Mr Reynell behind, but he told us not to mind him, as he should
soon catch us up. The carriage followed with the prog, but as the road
was in many places heavy, it did not move as fast as we did. We at
length reached the spot I had proposed, a small sandy bay, with cliffs
on either side, out of which bubbled a stream of sparkling cold water,
with rocks running out into the sea.
"This will do capitally," said Harry. "See, the whole beach is covered
with beautiful shells, and there may be sea anemones and echini, and
star-fish, and all sorts of marine creatures."
Having surveyed the place, we heard Mr Reynell shouting out to us to
carry down the baskets of pies, tarts, cold ham, and chicken, plates,
knives and forks. While the rest of the party were so engaged, I ran on
to invite old Roger. I found him and Mark within.
"Much obliged to the young gentlemen, but I've had my dinner," he
answered; "however, I'll come and have a talk with them, if you think
they'll like it. May be, I'll spin them a yarn or two, which will do to
pass the time while they are sniffing in the breezes, which they don't
get much of while they are away up the country."
"You'll come as soon as you can," I answered, "for they will be
disappointed if you don't take a tart or two and a glass of wine."
"Never fear, I'll come before long," said old Roger.
Mark, however, looked as if he would have no objection to taste some of
the good things in our hampers, so he very readily agreed to accompany
me. We found the cloth spread out on the smooth dry sand, and covered
with pies and other dainties, and the plates and the knives and forks.
Mr Reynell was engaged in making a huge salad in a wooden bowl. I
introduced Mark in due form.
"Come and sit down," said Harry to him in a kind way which soon made him
feel quite at home. I don't know whether he had much of a dinner
before, but he did ample justice to the good things which our friends
had brought. We had nearly finished before old Roger made his
appearance.
"Your servant, gentlemen all," he said, making a bow with his tarpaulin;
"Master Dick here has asked me to come, saying it was what you wished,
or I would not have intruded on you."
"Very pleased to see you, Mr Riddle," said Harry, who did the honours
of the feast, "sit down, and have some of this cherry pie, you will find
it very nice, and, for a wonder, the juice hasn't run out."
Harry chose the largest plate, and filled it with fully a third of the
pie.
"Thank you, young gentleman; I may take a snack of that sort of thing;"
and the old sailor set to work, his share of the pie rapidly
disappearing, as he ladled up the cherries with his spoon.
"Take a glass of cider now, Mr Riddle," said Harry, handing him a large
tumbler, which the old sailor tossed off, and had no objection to two or
three more.
Meantime the tide had been rising, and no sooner was dinner over, than
we had to pack up and beat a rapid retreat. We soon washed the plates
and dishes in the water as it rose, and Ned packed them up. The
expectations of those of our party who hoped to pick up shells, and
collect sea curiosities were thus disappointed.
"Never mind, lads," said old Roger; "Master Dick here tells me that you
would like to hear a yarn or two; the grass here, as much as there is of
it, is dry enough," and Mr Riddle seated himself on the bank, while we
all gathered round him. Mr Reynell placed himself at a little
distance, although within earshot, when he took out his sketchbook to
make a drawing of the scene.
"None of you young gentlemen have ever been to sea, I suppose?"
continued the old sailor. "I dare say you fancy it all sunshine and
smooth sailing, and think you'd like to go and be sailors, and walk the
deck in snowy-white trousers and kid gloves. I have known some who have
taken that notion into their heads, and have been not a little
disappointed when they got afloat, to find that they had to dip their
fists into the tar-bucket, to black down the rigging, and swab up the
decks, though some of them made not bad sailors after all. If any of
you young gentlemen think of leading a seafaring life, you must be
prepared for ups and downs of all sorts, heavy gales, and rough seas,
shipwrecks and disasters. You'll be asking how I came to go to sea,
perhaps you may think I ran off, as some silly lads have done, but I
didn't do that. If I had run, it would have been ashore, seeing as how
I was born at sea. It happened in this wise:--My father, Bob Riddle,
was bo'sun's mate of the old `Goliath,' of eighty guns, and as in those
days two or three women were allowed on board line-of-battle ships to
attend to the sick, and to wash and mend clothes, provided the captains
did not object; so my mother, Nancy Riddle, who loved her husband in a
way which made her ready to go through fire and water for his sake, got
leave to accompany him to sea. She made herself wonderfully useful on
board, and won the hearts of all the men and officers too, who held her
in great respect, while the midshipmen just simply adored her; indeed,
I've heard say that she saved the lives of several who were sick of
fever by the careful way in which she nursed them. She had had no
children, and I've a notion that if she had known what was going to
happen, like a wise woman she would have remained on shore, but as the
ship was in the East India station, and she wanted her boy to be British
born, for she guessed she was going to have a boy, she had no help for
it but to remain on board and take her chance. The `Goliath' had just
been in action, and beaten off two of the enemy's ships which wanted to
take her but couldn't, when she was caught in a regular hurricane, and
had to run before it under bare poles. During that time I came into
this world of troubles. I can't say that I remember anything about it,
but I've been in many a typhoon and hurricane since then, with the big
foaming seas roaring, the wind whistling and howling in the rigging, the
blocks rattling, the bulkheads creaking and groaning, and the ship
rolling and pitching and tumbling about in a way which made it seem
wonderful that wood and iron could hold together. It wasn't exactly
under such circumstances that the wife even of a boatswain's mate would
have chosen to bring a puling infant into the world. The doctor thought
that mother would have died, and, as there was no cow on board, that I
should have shared her fate, but she got through it and nursed me, and I
throve amazingly, so that in six months I was as big as most children of
a year or more old. Before the ship was ordered home, I could chew
bacon and beef, and toddle about the decks. Of course I was made much
of by officers and crew. Mother rigged me out in a regular cut seaman's
dress. The midshipmen taught me the cutlass exercise, and to ride a
goat the captain bought as much for my use as his own. For'ard my
education was equally well attended to, and I don't remember when I
couldn't dance a hornpipe--double shuffle and all--or sing a dozen sea
songs, some of them sounding rather strange, I've a notion, coming from
juvenile lips. All went on smoothly till the ship was paid off, and my
early friends were scattered to the four winds of heaven. My father,
who felt like a fish out of water when ashore, soon obtained another
berth, with the same rating on board the `Victorious,' seventy-four, but
he had great difficulty in getting leave for my mother to accompany him,
and if another woman who was to have gone hadn't fallen ill just in the
nick of time, he would have had to sail without her. I was smuggled on
board instead of a monkey shipped by the crew, which fell overboard and
was drowned. It was some weeks before the captain found out that I
wasn't the monkey he had given the men leave to take. When the first
lieutenant at length reported to him that I was a human being without a
tail, he was very angry, and father was likely to have got into trouble.
Still as he had done nothing against the articles of war, which don't
make mention of taking babies to sea, he couldn't be flogged with his
own cat. The captain then swore that he would put mother and me ashore
at the first port we touched at; but the men, among whom I had many
friends, begged hard that we might be allowed to remain, and when he saw
me scuttling about the rigging in a hairy coat and a long tail, laughing
heartily, he relented, and as he got a hint that the men would become
very discontented if he carried his threat into execution, father was
told that he would say nothing more about the matter. Soon afterwards
the captain fell ill, and mother nursed him in a way no man could have
done, so that he had reason to be thankful that he had allowed mother
and me to remain on board. The `Victorious' became one of the best
disciplined and happiest ships in the service, all because she had a
real live plaything on board. She fought several bloody actions.
During one of them, when we were tackling a French eighty-gun ship, I
got away from mother, who was with the other women in the cockpit
attending to the wounded, and slipped up on deck, where before long I
found father. `Here I am,' I said, `come to see the fun. When are you
going to finish off the mounseers?' The round shot were flying quickly
across the decks, and bullets were rattling on board like hail, for
though the French were getting the worst of it, they were, as they
always do, dying game. `Get below, boy, get below!' shouted father,
`what business have you here?' As I didn't go, he seized me by the arm,
and dragged me to the hatchway, in spite of my struggles and cries. `I
want to see the fight. I want to see the mounseers licked,' I cried
out. `Let me go, father; let me go!' Just then there was a shout from
the upper deck, `The enemy has struck--the enemy has struck!' Father
let me go, and up I ran and cheered, and waved my hat among the men with
as hearty good will as any of them. When I saw the men shaking hands
with each other, I ran about, and, putting out my tiny fist, shook their
hands also, exclaiming, `We've licked the mounseers, haven't we? I knew
we would. Hoora! Hoora!' This amused the men greatly, and they called
me a plucky little chap, though I certainly could not boast of having
contributed to gain the victory, as I was considerably too young to act
the part even of a powder-monkey. We had lost a good many officers and
men, some of whom I saw stretched on the deck, and wondered what had
come over them, as they did not move or speak. As long as the
`Victorious' remained in commission, I continued with my father and
mother aboard her; but when she was paid off, an order came out,
prohibiting women from going to sea on board men-of-war, and mother,
greatly to her grief, had to live on shore. It was now a question
whether I should accompany my father or stay with my mother and get some
book-learning, of which I was as yet utterly ignorant, as I did not even
know my letters. I was scarcely old enough to be rated as a ship's boy,
though father would have liked to take me with him, but mother said she
could not lose us both, and, fortunately for me, father consented to
leave me with her. As the `Victorious' was paid off at Plymouth, mother
remained there, and father soon afterwards got his warrant as boatswain
to the `Emerald' sloop-of-war, ordered out on the West India station.
This was the first time I had been on shore, except for a few days when
the `Goliath' was paid off, during the whole of my life, and I did not
find it very easy to get accustomed to the ways of shore-going people.
At first I did not at all like them. There was no order or regularity,
and I missed more than anything the sound of the bell striking the hours
and half-hours day and night. However, I got accustomed to things by
degrees. I was sent to school, where I gained a good character for
regularity and obedience, just because I had been trained to it, do ye
see. I couldn't bear not to be there at the exact time, and I never
thought of disobeying the orders of these under whose authority I was
placed. I also was diligent, and thus made good progress in my studies.
I might have become a scholar had I remained at school, but after I had
been there about two years, when I got home one day I found mother
leaning back in her chair, in a fit, it seemed to me, and the parson of
the parish, who had a letter in his hand, trying to rouse her up. As
soon as I came in, he bade me run for the doctor, who lived not far off.
He came at once with a woman, a neighbour of ours, and while they were
attending to mother, the parson, sitting down, placed me between his
knees, and looking kindly in my face, said that he had some bad news to
tell me, which he had got in a letter from the West Indies. It was that
my brave father was dead, carried off by the yellow fever which has
killed so many fine fellows on that station. My mother was a strong and
hearty woman, and any one would have supposed that it would have taken a
great deal to kill her; but, notwithstanding her robust appearance, she
had gentle and tender feelings, and though for my sake she wished to
live, within a year she died of a broken heart for the loss of my father
and I was left an orphan."