A HORRIBLE SUGGESTION
“Can you guess what has brought me down here in this hurry?” Lord
Nelson asked Admiral Darling, having jumped like a boy from his yellow
post-chaise, and shaken his old friend's broad right hand with his
slender but strenuous left one, even as a big bell is swung by a thin
rope. “I have no time to spare--not a day, not an hour; but I made up my
mind to see you before I start. I cannot expect to come home alive, and,
except for one reason, I should not wish it.”
“Nonsense!” said the Admiral, who was sauntering near his upper gate,
and enjoying the world this fine spring morning; “you are always in
such a confounded hurry! When you come to my time of life, you will know
better. What is it this time? The Channel fleet again?”
“No, no; Billy Blue keeps that, thank God! I hate looking after a school
of herring-boats. The Mediterranean for me, my friend. I received the
order yesterday, and shall be at sea by the twentieth.”
“I am very glad to hear it, for your sake. If ever there was a restless
fellow--in the good old times we were not like that. Come up to the
house and talk about it; at least they must take the horses out. They
are not like you; they can't work forever.”
“And they don't get knocked about like me; though one of them has lost
his starboard eye, and he sails and steers all the better for it. Let
them go up to the stable, Darling, while you come down to the beach with
me. I want to show you something.”
“What crotchet is in his too active brain now?” the elder and stronger
man asked himself, as he found himself hooked by the right arm, and led
down a track through the trees scarcely known to himself, and quite
out of sight from the village. “Why, this is not the way to the beach!
However, it is never any good to oppose him. He gets his own way so
because of his fame. Or perhaps that's the way he got his fame. But to
show me about over my own land! But let him go on, let him go on.”
“You are wondering, I dare say, what I am about,” cried Nelson, stopping
suddenly, and fixing his sound eye--which was wonderfully keen, though
he was always in a fright about it--upon the large and peaceful blinkers
of his ancient commander; “but now I shall be able to convince you,
though I am not a land-surveyor, nor even a general of land-forces. If
God Almighty prolongs my life--which is not very likely--it will be that
I may meet that scoundrel, Napoleon Bonaparte, on dry land. I hear
that he is eager to encounter me on the waves, himself commanding a
line-of-battle ship. I should send him to the devil in a quarter of an
hour. And ashore I could astonish him, I think, a little, if I had a
good army to back me up. Remember what I did at Bastia, in the land that
produced this monster, and where I was called the Brigadier; and again,
upon the coast of Italy, I showed that I understood all their dry-ground
business. Tush! I can beat him, ashore and afloat; and I shall, if I
live long enough. But this time the villain is in earnest, I believe,
with his trumpery invasion; and as soon as he hears that I am gone,
he will make sure of having his own way. We know, of course, there are
fifty men as good as myself to stop him, including you, my dear Darling;
but everything goes by reputation--the noise of the people--praise-puff.
That's all I get; while the luckier fellows, like Cathcart, get the
prize-money. But I don't want to grumble. Now what do you see?”
“Well, I see you, for one thing,” the Admiral answered, at his leisure,
being quite inured to his friend's quick fire, “and wearing a coat that
would be a disgrace to any other man in the navy. And further on I see
some land that I never shall get my rent for; and beyond that nothing
but the sea, with a few fishing-craft inshore, and in the offing a sail,
an outward-bound East Indiaman--some fool who wouldn't wait for convoy,
with war as good as proclaimed again.”
“Nothing but the sea, indeed? The sweep of the land, and the shelter
of the bay, the shoaling of the shore without a rock to break it, the
headland that shuts out both wind and waves; and outside the headland,
off Pebbleridge, deep water for a fleet of line-of-battle ships to
anchor and command the land approaches--moreover, a stream of the purest
water from deep and never-failing springs--Darling, the place of all
places in England for the French to land is opposite to your front
door.”
“I am truly obliged to you for predicting, and to them for doing it, if
ever they attempt such impudence. If they find out that you are away,
they can also find out that I am here, as commander of the sea defences,
from Dungeness to Selsey-Bill.”
“That will make it all the more delightful to land at your front door,
my friend; and all the easier to do it. My own plan is to strike with
all force at the head-quarters of the enemy, because the most likely to
be unprepared. About a year ago, when I was down here, a little before
my dear father's death, without your commission I took command of your
fishing-craft coming home for their Sunday, and showed them how to
take the beach, partly to confirm my own suspicions. There is no other
landing on all the south coast, this side of Hayling Island, fit to be
compared with it for the use of flat-bottomed craft, such as most of
Boney's are. And remember the set of the tide, which makes the fortunes
of your fishermen. To be sure, he knows nothing of that himself; but he
has sharp rogues about him. If they once made good their landing here,
it would be difficult to dislodge them. It must all be done from the
land side then, for even a 42-gun frigate could scarcely come near
enough to pepper them. They love shoal water, the skulks--and that has
enabled them to baffle me so often. Not that they would conquer the
country--all brag--but still it would be a nasty predicament, and scare
the poor cockneys like the very devil.”
“But remember the distance from Boulogne, Hurry. If they cannot cross
twenty-five miles of channel in the teeth of our ships, what chance
would they have when the distance is nearer eighty?”
“A much better chance, if they knew how to do it. All our cruisers would
be to the eastward. One afternoon perhaps, when a haze is on, they make
a feint with light craft toward the Scheldt--every British ship crowds
sail after them. Then, at dusk, the main body of the expedition slips
with the first of the ebb to the westward; they meet the flood tide in
mid-channel, and using their long sweeps are in Springhaven, or at any
rate the lightest of them, by the top of that tide, just when you
are shaving. You laugh at such a thought of mine. I tell you, my dear
friend, that with skill and good luck it is easy; and do it they should,
if they were under my command.”
If anybody else had even talked of such a plan as within the bounds of
likelihood, Admiral Darling would have been almost enraged. But now he
looked doubtfully, first at the sea (as if it might be thick with prames
already), and then at the land--which was his own--as if the rent might
go into a Frenchman's pocket, and then at his old and admired friend,
who had ruined his sleep for the summer.
“Happily they are not under your command, and they have no man to
compare with you;” he spoke rather nervously; while Nelson smiled,
for he loved the praise which he had so well earned; “and if it were
possible for you to talk nonsense, I should say that you had done it
now. But two things surely you have overlooked. In the first place, the
French can have no idea of the special opportunities this place affords.
And again, if they had, they could do nothing, without a pilot well
acquainted with the spot. Though the landing is so easy, there are
shoals outside, very intricate and dangerous, and known to none except
the natives of the place, who are jealous to the last degree about their
knowledge.”
“That is true enough; and even I should want a pilot here, though I
know every spit of sand eastward. But away fly both your difficulties if
there should happen to be a local traitor.”
“A traitor at Springhaven! Such a thing is quite impossible. You would
laugh at yourself, if you only knew the character of our people. There
never has been, and there never will be, a Springhaven man capable of
treachery.”
“That is good news, ay, and strange news too,” the visitor answered,
with his left hand on his sword, for he was now in full though rather
shabby uniform. “There are not many traitors in England, I believe; but
they are as likely to be found in one place as another, according to my
experience. Well, well, I am very glad you have no such scoundrels here.
I won't say a single word against your people, who are as fine a lot
as any in the south of England, and as obstinate as any I could wish to
see. Of an obstinate man I can always make good; with a limp one I can
do nothing. But bear in mind every word you have heard me say, because I
came down on purpose about it; and I generally penetrate the devices of
the enemy, though they lead me on a wild-goose-chase sometimes, but only
when our own folk back them up, either by lies or stupidity. Now look
once more, for you are slower as well as a great deal wiser than I am.
You see how this land-locked bight of Springhaven seems made by the
Almighty for flat-bottomed craft, if once they can find their way into
it; while the trend of the coast towards Pebbleridge is equally suited
for the covering fleet, unless a gale from southwest comes on, in
which case they must run for it. And you see that the landed force, by
crowning the hill above your house and across the valley, might defy
our noble Volunteers, and all that could be brought against them, till a
hundred thousand cutthroats were established here. And Boney would make
his head-quarters at the Hall, with a French cook in your kitchen, and
a German butler in your cellar, and my pretty godchild to wait upon him,
for the rogue loves pretty maidens.”
“That will do. That is quite enough. No wonder you have written poems,
Nelson, as you told us the last time you were here. If my son had only
got your imagination--but perhaps you know something more than you have
told me. Perhaps you have been told--”
“Never mind about that,” the great sea-captain answered, turning away
as if on springs; “it is high time for me to be off again, and my chaise
has springs on her cables.”
“Not she. I have ordered her to be docked. Dine with us you shall this
day, if we have to dine two hours earlier, and though Mother Cloam rage
furiously. How much longer do you suppose you can carry on at this pace?
Look at me. I have double your bodily substance; but if I went on as
you do--you remember the twenty-four-pounder old Hotcoppers put into the
launch, and fired it, in spite of all I could say to him? Well, you are
just the same. You have not got the scantling for the metal you carry
and are always working. You will either blow up, or else scuttle
yourself. Look here, how your seams are opening!” Here Admiral Darling
thrust his thumb through the ravelled seam of his old friend's coat,
which made him jump back, for he loved his old coat. “Yes, and you will
go in the very same way. I wonder how any coat lasts so much as a month,
with you inside it.”
“This coat,” said Nelson, who was most sweet-tempered with any one he
loved, though hot as pepper when stirred up by strangers--“this coat is
the one I wore at Copenhagen, and a sounder and kinder coat never came
on a man's back. Charles Darling, you have made a bad hit this time.
If I am no more worn out than this coat is, I am fit to go to sea for a
number of years yet. And I hope to show it to a good many Frenchmen, and
take as many ships, every time they show fight, as there are buttons on
it.”
“Then you will double all your captures at the Nile;” such a series of
buttons had this coat, though mostly loose upon their moorings, for his
guardian angel was not “domestic”; “but you may be trusted not to let
them drift so. You have given me a lesson in coast-defence, and now you
shall be boarded by the ladies. You possess some gifts of the tongue,
my friend, as well as great gifts of hand and eye; but I will back my
daughters to beat you there. Come up to the house. No turning of tail.”
“I spoke very well in the House of Lords,” said Nelson, in his simple
way, “in reply to the speech of his Majesty, and again about the
Commissioner's Bill; or at least everybody tells me so. But in the House
of Ladies I hold my tongue, because there is abundance without it.”
This, however, he failed to do when the matter came to the issue; for
his godchild Horatia, more commonly called Dolly, happened to be in the
mood for taking outrageous liberties with him. She possessed very little
of that gift--most precious among women--the sense of veneration; and to
her a hero was only a man heroic in acts of utility. “He shall do it,”
she said to Faith, when she heard that he was come again; “if I have to
kiss him, he shall do it; and I don't like kissing those old men.”
“Hush!” said her elder sister. “Dolly, you do say things so recklessly.
One would think that you liked to kiss younger men! But I am sure that
is not your meaning. I would rather kiss Lord Nelson than all the young
men in the kingdom.”
“Well done, Faith! All the young men in the kingdom! How recklessly you
do say things! And you can't kiss him--he is MY godfather. But just see
how I get round him, if you have wits enough to understand it.”
So these two joined in their kind endeavour to make the visitor useful,
the object being so good that doubtful means might be excused for it.
In different ways and for divers reasons, each of these young ladies now
had taken to like Blyth Scudamore. Faith, by power of pity first, and of
grief for her own misfortunes, and of admiration for his goodness to his
widowed mother--which made his best breeches shine hard at the knees;
and Dolly, because of his shy adoration, and dauntless defence of her
against a cow (whose calf was on the road to terminate in veal), as well
as his special skill with his pocket-knife in cutting out figures that
could dance, and almost sing; also his great gifts, when the tide was
out, of making rare creatures run after him. What avails to explore
female reason precisely?--their minds were made up that he must be a
captain, if Nelson had to build the ship with his one hand for him.
“After that, there is nothing more to be said,” confessed the vanquished
warrior; “but the daughters of an Admiral should know that no man can be
posted until he has served his time as lieutenant; and this young hero
of yours has never even held the King's commission yet. But as he has
seen some service, and is beyond the age of a middy, in the present
rush he might get appointed as junior lieutenant, if he had any stout
seconders. Your father is the man, he is always at hand, and can watch
his opportunity. He knows more big-wigs than I do, and he has not given
offence where I have. Get your father, my dears, to attend to it.”
But the ladies were not to be so put off, for they understood the
difference of character. Lord Nelson was as sure to do a thing as
Admiral Darling was to drop it if it grew too heavy. Hence it came
to pass that Blyth Scudamore, though failing of the Victory and
Amphion--which he would have chosen, if the choice were his--received
with that cheerful philosophy (which had made him so dear to the
school-boys, and was largely required among them) his appointment as
junior lieutenant to the 38-gun frigate Leda, attached to the Channel
fleet under Cornwallis, whose business it was to deal with the French
flotilla of invasion.