Richard Wagner, the great composer, weaves into one of his musical
dramas a beautiful story about a youth named Siegfried, who did not
know what fear was.
The story is a sort of fairy tale or myth,--something which has a deep
meaning hidden in it, but which is not literally true.
We smile at the idea of a youth who never knew fear, who even as a
little child had never been frightened by the imaginary terrors of
night, the darkness of the forest, or the cries of the wild animals
which inhabited it.
Yet it is actually true that there was born at Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk,
England, on September 29, 1758, a boy who never knew what fear was.
This boy's name was Horatio Nelson,--a name which his fearlessness,
ambition, and patriotism made immortal.
Courage even to daring distinguished young Nelson from his boy
companions. Many stories illustrating this quality are told of him.
On one occasion, when the future hero of England was but a mere child,
while staying at his grandmother's, he wandered away from the house in
search of birds' nests. When dinner time came and went and the boy did
not return, his family became alarmed. They feared that he had been
kidnapped by gypsies, or that some other mishap had befallen him. A
thorough search was made for him in every direction. Just as the
searchers were about to give up their quest, the truant was discovered
sitting quietly by the side of a brook which he was unable to cross.
"I wonder, child," said his grandmother, "that hunger and fear did not
drive you home."
"Fear! grand-mamma," exclaimed the boy; "I never saw fear. What is it?"
Horatio was a born leader, who never even in childhood shrank from a
hazardous undertaking. This story of his school days shows how the
spirit of leadership marked him before he had entered his teens.
In the garden attached to the boarding school at North Walsham, which
he and his elder brother, William, attended, there grew a remarkably
fine pear tree. The sight of this tree, loaded with fruit was,
naturally, a very tempting one to the boys. The boldest among the older
ones, however, dared not risk the consequences of helping themselves to
the pears, which they knew were highly prized by the master of the
school.
Horatio, who thought neither of the sin of stealing the schoolmaster's
property, nor of the risk involved in the attempt, volunteered to
secure the coveted pears.
He was let down in sheets from the bedroom window by his schoolmates,
and, after gathering as much of the fruit as he could carry, returned
with considerable difficulty. He then turned the pears over to the
boys, not keeping one for himself.
"I only took them," he explained, "because the rest of you were afraid
to venture."
The sense of honor of the future "Hero of the Nile" and of Trafalgar
was as keen in boyhood as in later life.
One year, at the close of the Christmas holidays, he and his brother
William set out on horseback to return to school. There had been a
heavy fall of snow which made traveling very disagreeable, and William
persuaded Horatio to go back home with him, saying that it was not safe
to go on.
"If that be the case," said Rev. Mr. Nelson, the father of the boys,
when the matter was explained to him, "you certainly shall not go; but
make another attempt, and I will leave it to your honor. If the road is
dangerous, you may return; but remember, boys, I leave it to your
honor."
The snow was really deep enough to be made an excuse for not going on,
and William was for returning home a second time. Horatio, however,
would not be persuaded again. "We must go on," he said; "remember,
brother, it was left to our honor."
When only twelve years old, young Nelson's ambition urged him to try
his fortune at sea. His uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, commanded the
Raisonnable, a ship of sixty-four guns, and the boy thought it would be
good fortune, indeed, if he could get an opportunity to serve under
him. "Do, William," he said to his brother, "write to my father, and
tell him that I should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice."
On hearing of his son's wishes, Mr. Nelson at once wrote to Captain
Suckling. The latter wrote back without delay: "What has poor Horatio
done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest, should be sent to
rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into
action, a cannon ball may knock off his head and provide for him at
once."
This was not very encouraging for a delicate boy of twelve. But Horatio
was not daunted. His father took him to London, and there put him into
the stage coach for Chatham, where the Raisonnable was lying at anchor.
He arrived at Chatham during the temporary absence of his uncle, so
that there was no friendly voice to greet him when he went on board the
big ship. Homesick and heartsick, he passed some of the most miserable
days of his life on the Raisonnable. The officers treated the sailors
with a harshness bordering on cruelty. This treatment, of course,
increased the natural roughness of the sailors; and, altogether, the
conditions were such that Horatio's opinion of the Royal Navy was sadly
altered.
But in spite of the separation from his brother William, who had been
his schoolmate and constant companion, and all his other loved ones,
the hardships he had to endure as a sailor boy among rough officers and
rougher men, and his physical weakness, his courage did not fail him.
He stuck bravely to his determination to be a sailor.
Later, the lad went on a voyage to the West Indies, in a merchant ship
commanded by Mr. John Rathbone. During this voyage, his anxiety to rise
in his profession and his keen powers of observation, which were
constantly exercised, combined to make him a practical sailor.
After his return from the West Indies, his love of adventure was
excited by the news that two ships--the Racehorse and the Carcass--were
being fitted out for a voyage of discovery to the North Pole. Through
the influence of Captain Suckling, he secured an appointment as
coxswain, under Captain Lutwidge, who was second in command of the
expedition.
All went well with the Racehorse and the Carcass until they neared the
Polar regions. Then they were becalmed, surrounded with ice, and wedged
in so that they could not move.
Young as Nelson was, he was put in command of one of the boats sent out
to try to find a passage to the open water. While engaged in this work
he was instrumental in saving the crew of another of the boats which
had been attacked by walruses.
His most notable adventure during this Polar cruise, however, was a
fight with a bear.
One night he stole away from his ship with a companion in pursuit of a
bear. A fog which had been rising when they left the Carcass soon
enveloped them. Between three and four o'clock in the morning, when the
weather began to clear, they were sighted by Captain Lutwidge and his
officers, at some distance from the ship, in conflict with a huge bear.
The boys, who had been missed soon after they set out on their
adventure, were at once signaled to return. Nelson's companion urged
him to obey the signal, and, though their ammunition had given out, he
longed to continue the fight.
"Never mind," he cried excitedly; "do but let me get a blow at this
fellow with the butt end of my musket, and we shall have him."
Captain Lutwidge, seeing the boy's danger,--he being separated from the
bear only by a narrow chasm in the ice,--fired a gun. This frightened
the bear away. Nelson then returned to face the consequences of his
disobedience.
He was severely reprimanded by his captain for "conduct so unworthy of
the office he filled." When asked what motive he had in hunting a bear,
he replied, still trembling from the excitement of the encounter, "Sir,
I wished to kill the bear that I might carry the skin to my father."
The expedition finally worked its way out of the ice and sailed for
home.
Horatio's next voyage was to the East Indies, aboard the Seahorse, one
of the vessels of a squadron under the command of Sir Edward Hughes.
His attention to duty attracted the notice of his senior officer, on
whose recommendation he was rated as a midshipman.
After eighteen months in the trying climate of India, the youth's
health gave way, and he was sent home in the Dolphin. His physical
weakness affected his spirits. Gloom fastened upon him, and for a time
he was very despondent about his future.
"I felt impressed," he says, "with an idea that I should never rise in
my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the difficulties I
had to surmount and the little interest I possessed. I could discover
no means of reaching the object of my ambition. After a long and gloomy
revery in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden flow of
patriotism was kindled within me and presented my king and my country
as my patrons. My mind exulted in the idea. 'Well, then,' I exclaimed,
'I will be a hero, and, confiding in Providence, I will brave every
danger!'"
In that hour Nelson leaped from boyhood to manhood. Thenceforth the
purpose of his life never changed. From that time, as he often said
afterward, "a radiant orb was suspended in his mind's eye, which urged
him onward to renown."
His health improved very much during the homeward voyage, and he was
soon able to resume duty again.
At nineteen he was made second lieutenant of the Lowestoffe; and at
twenty he was commander of the Badger. Before he was twenty-one, owing
largely to his courage and presence of mind in face of every danger,
and his enthusiasm in his profession, "he had gained that mark," says
his biographer, Southey, "which brought all the honors of the service
within his reach."
Pleasing in his address and conversation, always kind and thoughtful in
his treatment of the men and boys under him, Nelson was the best-loved
man in the British navy,--nay, in all England.
When he was appointed to the command of the Boreas, a ship of
twenty-eight guns, then bound for the Leeward Islands, he had thirty
midshipmen under him. When any of them, at first, showed any timidity
about going up the masts, he would say, by way of encouragement, "I am
going a race to the masthead, and beg that I may meet you there." And
again he would say cheerfully, that "any person was to be pitied who
could fancy there was any danger, or even anything disagreeable, in the
attempt."
"Your Excellency must excuse me for bringing one of my midshipmen with
me," he said to the governor of Barbados, who had invited him to dine.
"I make it a rule to introduce them to all the good company I can, as
they have few to look up to besides myself during the time they are at
sea." Was it any wonder that his "middies" almost worshiped him?
This thoughtfulness in small matters is always characteristic of truly
great, large-souled men. Another distinguishing mark of Nelson's
greatness was that he ruled by love rather than fear.
When, at the age of forty-seven, he fell mortally wounded at the battle
of Trafalgar, all England was plunged into grief. The crowning victory
of his life had been won, but his country was inconsolable for the loss
of the noblest of her naval heroes.
"The greatest sea victory that the world had ever known was won," says
W. Clark Russell, "but at such a cost, that there was no man throughout
the British fleet--there was no man indeed in all England--but would
have welcomed defeat sooner than have paid the price of this wonderful
conquest."
The last words of the hero who had won some of the greatest of
England's sea fights were, "Thank God, I have done my duty."