LISTENERS HEAR NO GOOD
“Not that there is anything to make one so very uneasy,” said Mr.
Twemlow, “only that one has a right to know the meaning of what we are
expected to put up with. Nothing is clear, except that we have not one
man in the Government who knows his own mind, or at any rate dares to
pronounce it. Addington is an old woman, and the rest--oh, when shall
we have Pitt back again? People talk of it, and long for it; but the
Country is so slow. We put up with everything, instead of demanding that
the right thing shall be done at once. Here is Boney, a fellow raised up
by Satan as the scourge of this island for its manifold sins; and now he
is to be the Emperor forsooth--not of France, but of Europe, continental
Europe. We have only one man fit to cope with him at all, and the voice
of the nation has been shouting for him; but who pays any attention
to it? This state of things is childish--simply childish; or perhaps I
ought to say babyish. Why, even the children on the sea-shore know, when
they make their little sand walls against the tide, how soon they must
be swept away. But the difference is this, that they don't live inside
them, and they haven't got all that belongs to them inside them. Nobody
must suppose for a moment that a clergyman's family would fail to know
where to look for help and strength and support against all visitations;
but, in common with the laity, we ask for Billy Pitt.”
“And in another fortnight you will have him,” replied Captain Stubbard,
who was dining there that day. “Allow me to tell you a little thing that
happened to my very own self only yesterday. You know that I am one of
the last people in the world to be accused of any--what's the proper
word for it? Mrs. Stubbard, you know what I mean--Jemima, why the deuce
don't you tell them?”
“Captain Stubbard always has more meaning than he can well put into
words,” said his wife; “his mind is too strong for any dictionary.
Hallucination is the word he means.”
“Exactly!” cried the Captain. “That expresses the whole of what I wanted
to say, but went aside of it. I am one of the last men in the world to
become the victim of any--there, I've lost it again! But never mind. You
understand now; or if you don't, Mrs. Stubbard will repeat it. What I
mean is that I see all things square, and straight, and with their own
corners to them. Well, I know London pretty well; not, of course, as
I know Portsmouth. Still, nobody need come along with me to go from
Charing Cross to St. Paul's Church-yard; and pretty tight I keep all my
hatches battened down, and a sharp pair of eyes in the crow's-nest--for
to have them in the foretop won't do there. It was strictly on duty that
I went up--the duty of getting a fresh stock of powder, for guns are not
much good without it; and I had written three times, without answer or
powder. But it seems that my letters were going the rounds, and would
turn up somewhere, when our guns were stormed, without a bit of stuff to
make answer.”
“Ah, that's the way they do everything now!” interrupted Mr. Twemlow. “I
thought you had been very quiet lately; but I did not know what a good
reason you had. We might all have been shot, and you could not have
fired a salute, to inform the neighbourhood!”
“Well, never mind,” replied the Captain, calmly; “I am not complaining,
for I never do so. Young men might; but not old hands, whose duty it is
to keep their situation in life. Well, you must understand that the air
of London always makes me hungry. There are so many thousands of people
there that you can't name a time when there is nobody eating, and this
makes a man from the country long to help them. Anyhow, I smelled roast
mutton at a place where a little side street comes up into the Strand;
and although it was scarcely half past twelve, it reminded me of Mrs.
Stubbard. So I called a halt, and stood to think upon a grating, and the
scent became flavoured with baked potatoes. This is always more than I
can resist, after all the heavy trials of a chequered life. So I pushed
the door open, and saw a lot of little cabins, right and left of a fore
and aft gangway, all rigged up alike for victualling. Jemima, I told you
all about it. You describe it to the Rector and Mrs. Twemlow.”
“Don't let us trouble Mrs. Stubbard,” said the host; “I know the sort of
thing exactly, though I don't go to that sort of place myself.”
“No, of course you don't. And I was a little scared at first, for
there was sawdust enough to soak up every drop of my blood, if they had
pistolled me. Mrs. Twemlow, I beg you not to be alarmed. My wife has
such nerves that I often forget that all ladies are not like her. Now
don't contradict me, Mrs. Stubbard. Well, sir, I went to the end of this
cockpit--if you like to call it so--and got into the starboard berth,
and shouted for a ration of what I had smelled outside. And although
it was far from being equal to its smell--as the character is of
everything--you might have thought it uncommon good, if you had never
tasted Mrs. Stubbard's cooking, after she had been to the butcher
herself. Very well. I don't care for kickshaws, even if I could afford
them, which has never yet been my destiny. So I called for another
ration of hot sheep--beg your pardon, ladies, what I mean is mutton--and
half a dozen more of baked potatoes; and they reminded me of being at
home so much that I called for a pint of best pine-apple rum and a
brace of lemons, to know where I was--to remind me that I wasn't where I
couldn't get them.”
“Oh, Adam!” cried Mrs. Stubbard, “what will you say next? Not on
weekdays, of course, but nearly every Sunday--and the samples of his
powder in his pocket, Mr. Twemlow!”
“Jemima, you are spoiling my story altogether. Well, you must
understand that this room was low, scarcely higher than the cabin of a
fore-and-after, with no skylights to it, or wind-sail, or port-hole that
would open. And so, with the summer coming on, as it is now--though a
precious long time about it--and the smell of the meat, and the thoughts
of the grog, and the feeling of being at home again, what did I do but
fall as fast asleep as the captain of the watch in a heavy gale of wind!
My back was to the light, so far as there was any, and to make sure of
the top of my head, I fetched down my hat--the soft-edged one, the same
as you see me wear on fine Sundays.
“Well, I may have gone on in that way for an hour, not snoring, as Mrs.
Stubbard calls it, but breathing to myself a little in my sleep, when I
seemed to hear somebody calling me, not properly, but as people do in
a dream--'Stoobar--Stoobar--Stoobar,' was the sound in my ears, like my
conscience hauling me over the coals in bad English. This made me wake
up, for I always have it out with that part of me when it mutinies; but
I did not move more than to feel for my glass. And then I perceived that
it was nothing more or less than a pair of Frenchmen talking about me
in the berth next to mine, within the length of a marlin-spike from my
blessed surviving ear.
“Some wiseacre says that listeners never hear good of themselves, and
upon my word he was right enough this time, so far as I made out. The
French language is beyond me, so far as speaking goes, for I never can
lay hold of the word I want; but I can make out most of what those queer
people say, from being a prisoner among them once, and twice in command
of a prize crew over them. And the sound of my own name pricked me up to
listen sharply with my one good ear. You must bear in mind, Rector,
that I could not see them, and durst not get up to peep over the
quarter-rail, for fear of scaring them. But I was wearing a short
hanger, like a middy's dirk--the one I always carry in the battery.”
“I made Adam promise, before he went to London,” Mrs. Stubbard explained
to Mrs. Twemlow, “that he would never walk the streets without steel or
firearms. Portsmouth is a very wicked place indeed, but a garden of Eden
compared with London.”
“Well, sir,” continued Captain Stubbard, “the first thing I heard those
Frenchmen say was: 'Stoobar is a stupid beast, like the ox that takes
the prize up here, except that he has no claim to good looks, but the
contrary--wholly the contrary.' Mrs. Stubbard, I beg you to preserve
your temper; you have heard others say it, and you should now despise
such falsehoods. 'But the ox has his horns, and Stoobar has none. For
all his great guns there is not one little cup of powder.' The villains
laughed at this, as a very fine joke, and you may well suppose that I
almost boiled over. 'You have then the command of this beast Stoobar?'
the other fellow asked him, as if I were a jackass. 'How then have you
so very well obtained it?' 'In a manner the most simple. Our chief has
him by the head and heels: by the head, by being over him; and by the
heels, because nothing can come in the rear without his knowledge.
Behold! you have all.' 'It is very good,' the other villain answered;
'but when is it to be, my most admirable Charron?--how much longer?--how
many months?' 'Behold my fingers,' said the one who had abused me; 'I
put these into those, and then you know. It would have been already,
except for the business that you have been employed upon in this black
hole. Hippolyte, you have done well, though crookedly; but all is
straight for the native land. You have made this Government appear more
treacherous in the eyes of France and Europe than our own is, and you
have given a good jump to his instep for the saddle. But all this throws
us back. I am tired of tricks; I want fighting; though I find them
quite a jolly people.' 'I don't,' said the other, who was clearly a low
scoundrel, for his voice was enough to settle that; 'I hate them; they
are of thick head and thick hand, and would come in sabots to catch
their enemy asleep. And now there is no chance to entangle any more.
Their Government will be of the old brutal kind, hard knocks, and no
stratagems. In less than a fortnight Pitt will be master again. I know
it from the very best authority. You know what access I have.' 'Then
that is past,' the other fellow answered, who seemed to speak more like
a gentleman, although he was the one that ran down me; 'that is the
Devil. They will have their wits again, and that very fat Stoobar will
be supplied with powder. Hippolyte, it is a very grand joke. Within
three miles of his head (which is empty, like his guns) we have nearly
two hundred barrels of powder, which we fear to bring over in those
flat-bottoms for fear of a volley among them. Ha! ha! Stoobar is one
fine fat ox!'
“This was all I heard, for they began to move, having had enough sugar
and water, I suppose; and they sauntered away to pay their bill at the
hatch put up at the doorway. It was hopeless to attempt to follow them;
but although I am not so quick in stays as I was, I slewed myself round
to have a squint at them. One was a slight little active chap, with
dapper legs, and jerks like a Frenchman all over. I could pardon him
for calling me a great fat ox, for want of a bit of flesh upon his own
bones. But he knows more about me than I do of him, for I never clapped
eyes on him before, to my knowledge. The other was better built, and of
some substance, but a nasty, slouchy-looking sort of cur, with high fur
collars and a long grey cloak. And that was the one called Hippolyte,
who knows all about our Government. And just the sort of fellow who
would do so in these days, when no honest man knows what they are up
to.”
“That is true,” said the Rector--“too true by half. But honest men
soon will have their turn, if that vile spy was well informed. The
astonishing thing is that England ever puts up with such shameful
anarchy. What has been done to defend us? Nothing, except your battery,
without a pinch of powder! With Pitt at the helm, would that have
happened? How could we have slept in our beds, if we had known it?
Fourteen guns, and not a pinch of powder!”
“But you used to sleep well enough before a gun was put there.” Mrs.
Stubbard's right to spare nobody was well established by this time.
“Better have the guns, though they could not be fired, than no guns at
all, if they would frighten the enemy.”
“That is true, ma'am,” replied Mr. Twemlow; “but until the guns came,
we had no sense of our danger. Having taught us that, they were bound to
act up to their teaching. It is not for ourselves that I have any fear.
We have long since learned to rest with perfect faith in the Hand that
overruleth all. And more than that--if there should be a disturbance, my
nephew and my godson Joshua has a house of fourteen rooms in a Wiltshire
valley, quite out of the track of invaders. He would have to fight, for
he is Captain in the Yeomanry; and we would keep house for him till all
was over. So that it is for my parish I fear, for my people, my schools,
and my church, ma'am.”
“Needn't be afraid, sir; no call to run away,” cried the Captain of
the battery, having now well manned his own portholes with the Rector's
sound wine; “we shall have our powder in to-morrow, and the French can't
come to-night; there is too much moon. They never dare show their noses
nor'ard of their sands, with the man in the moon--the John Bull in the
moon--looking at them. And more than that, why, that cursed Boney--”
“Adam, in Mr. Twemlow's house! You must please to excuse him, all good
people. He has sate such a long time, without saying what he likes.”
“Jemima, I have used the right word. The parson will back me up in every
letter of it, having said the same thing of him, last Sunday week. But
I beg Mrs. Twemlow's pardon, if I said it loud enough to disturb her.
Well, then, this blessed Boney, if you prefer it, is a deal too full of
his own dirty tricks for mounting the throne of the King they murdered,
to get into a flat-bottomed boat at Boulogne, and a long sight too
jealous a villain he is, to let any one command instead of him. Why,
the man who set foot upon our shore, and beat us--if such a thing can be
supposed--would be ten times bigger than Boney in a month, and would sit
upon his crown, if he gets one.”
“Well, I don't believe they will ever come at all,” the solid Mrs.
Stubbard pronounced, with decision. “I believe it is all a sham, and
what they want is to keep us from attacking them in France. However, it
is a good thing on the whole, and enables poor Officers, who have
fought well for their country, to keep out of the Workhouse with their
families.”
“Hearken, hearken to Mrs. Stubbard!” the veteran cried, as he patted his
waistcoat--a better one than he could have worn, and a larger one than
he could have wanted, except for the promised invasion. “I will back my
wife against any lady in the land for common-sense, and for putting it
plainly. I am not ashamed to say thank God for the existence of
that blessed Boney. All I hope is that he will only try to land at
Springhaven--I mean, of course, when I've got my powder.”
“Keep it dry, Captain,” said the Rector, in good spirits. “Your
confidence makes us feel comfortable; and of course you would draw all
their fire from the village, and the houses standing near it, as this
does. However, I pray earnestly every night that they may attempt it in
some other parish. But what was it you heard that Frenchman say about
two or three hundred barrels of powder almost within three miles of us?
Suppose it was to blow up, where should we be?”
“Oh, I don't believe a word of that. It must be brag and nonsense. To
begin with, there is no place where they could store it. I know all the
neighbourhood, and every house in it. And there are no caves on this
coast in the cliff, or holes of that kind such as smugglers use.
However, I shall think it my duty to get a search-order from Admiral
Darling, and inspect large farm-buildings, such as Farmer Graves has
got, and another man the other side of Pebbleridge. Those are the only
places that could accommodate large stores of ammunition. Why, we can
take only forty barrels in the fire-proof magazine we have built. We
all know what liars those Frenchmen are. I have no more faith in the 200
barrels of powder than I have in the 2000 ships prepared on the opposite
coast to demolish us.”
“Well, I hope you are right,” Mr. Twemlow answered. “It does seem a very
unlikely tale. But the ladies are gone. Let us have a quiet pipe. A man
who works as hard as you and I do is entitled to a little repose now and
then.”