Great was the surprise of Dame Anthony when, on sending down her servant
with a letter to Jack Stilwell, the woman returned, saying that he had
left his lodging two days before and had not returned. All his things
had been left behind, and it was evident that when he went out he had no
intention of leaving. The woman of the house said that Master Stilwell
was a steady and regular lodger, and that she could not but think
something had happened to him. Of course she didn't know, but all the
town were talking of the men who had been taken away by the press gang,
and she thought they must have clapped hands on her lodger.
Dame Anthony at once jumped at that conclusion. The pressing of fifty
men had indeed made a great stir in the town during the last two days.
The mayor's office had been thronged by angry women complaining of their
husbands or sons being dragged away; and the mayor had been the object
of many threats and much indignation, and had the evening before
returned home bespattered with mud, having been pelted on his way from
the town hall by the women, and having only been saved from more serious
assaults by the exertions of the constables.
Dame Anthony had been surprised that her husband had taken these things
so quietly. Some of the women had indeed been seized and set in the
stocks, but the mayor had made light of the affair, and had altogether
seemed in an unusually good state of temper. Dame Anthony at once
connected this with Jack's disappearance. She knew that the list had
been made out by the mayor, and the idea that her husband had taken this
means of getting rid of Jack, and that he was exulting over the success
of his scheme, flashed across her. As the mayor was away at the town
hall she was forced to wait till his return to dinner; but no sooner
had the meal been concluded and Andrew Carson and the two assistants had
left the table than she began:
“Richard, I want to look at the list of the men who were pressed.”
The request scarcely came as a surprise upon the clothier. He had made
up his mind that his wife would be sure sooner or later to discover
that Jack was missing, and would connect his disappearance with the
operations of the press gang.
“What do you want to see that for?” he asked shortly.
“I want to see who have been taken,” his wife said. “There is no secret
about it, I suppose?”
“No, there is no secret,” the mayor replied. “According to the act of
parliament and the request of her majesty's minister I drew up a list
of fifty of the most useless and disreputable of the inhabitants of
this town, and I rejoice to say that the place is rid of them all. The
respectable citizens are all grateful to me for the manner in which
I have fulfilled the task laid upon me, and as to the clamor of a few
angry women, it causes me not a moment's annoyance.”
“I don't know why you are telling me all this, Richard,” his wife said
calmly. “I did not cast any reflections as to the manner in which you
made your choice. I only said I wished to see the list.”
“I do not see that the list concerns you,” the mayor said. “Why do you
wish to see it?”
“I wish to see it, Richard, because I suspect that the name of my Cousin
Jack Stilwell is upon it.”
“Oh, mother!” cried Alice, who had been listening in surprise to the
conversation, suddenly starting to her feet; “you don't mean that they
have pressed Jack to be a soldier.”
“Leave the room, Alice,” her father said angrily. “This is no concern of
a child like you.” When the door closed behind the girl he said to his
wife:
“Naturally his name is in the list. I selected fifty of the most
worthless fellows in Southampton, and his name was the first which
occurred to me. What then?”
“Then I tell you, Richard,” Dame Anthony said, rising, “that you are a
wretch, a mean, cowardly, cruel wretch. You have vented your spite upon
Jack, whom I love as if he were my own son, because he would not put
up with the tyranny of your foreman and yourself. You may be Mayor of
Southampton, you may be a great man in your own way, but I call you a
mean, pitiful fellow. I won't stay in the house with you an hour longer.
The wagon for Basingstoke comes past at three o'clock, and I shall go
and stay with my father and mother there, and take Alice with me.”
“I forbid you to do anything of the sort,” the mayor said pompously.
“You forbid!” Dame Anthony cried. “What do I care for your forbidding?
If you say a word I will go down the town and join those who pelted you
with mud last night. A nice spectacle it would be for the worthy Mayor
of Southampton to be pelted in the street by a lot of women led by his
own wife. You know me, Richard. You know when I say I will do a thing I
will do it.”
“I will lock you up in your own room, woman.”
“You won't,” Dame Anthony said scornfully. “I would scream out of the
window till I brought the whole town round. No, Mr. Mayor. You have had
your own way, and I am going to have mine. Go and tell the town if you
like that your wife has left you because you kidnapped her cousin, the
boy she loved. You tell your story and I will tell mine. Why, the women
in the town would hoot you, and you wouldn't dare show your face in the
streets. You insist, indeed! Why, you miserable little man, my fingers
are tingling now. Say another word to me and I will box your ears till
you won't know whether you are standing on your head or your heels.”
The mayor was a small man, while Dame Anthony, although not above the
usual height, was plump and strong; and her crestfallen spouse felt
that she was capable of carrying her threat into execution. He therefore
thought it prudent to make no reply, and his angry wife swept from the
room.
It was some time before the mayor descended to his shop. In the interval
he had thought the matter over, and had concluded that it would be best
for him to let his wife have her way. Indeed, he did not see how he
could do otherwise.
He had expected a storm, but not such a storm as this. Never before
in his fifteen years of married life had he seen his wife in such a
passion, and there was no saying whether she would not carry all her
threats into execution if he interfered with her now. No. It would be
better to let her go. The storm would blow over in time. It was natural
enough for her to go over and stay a few weeks with her people, and in
time, of course, she would come back again. After all, he had got rid of
Jack, and this being so, he could afford for awhile to put up with the
absence of his wife. It was unpleasant, of course, very unpleasant, to
be called such names, but as no one had heard them but himself it did
not so much matter. Perhaps, after all, it was the best thing that could
happen that she should take it into her head to go away for a time. In
her present mood she would not make things comfortable at home, and, of
course, his daughter would side with her mother.
Accordingly, when the carrier's wagon stopped at the door the mayor
went out with a pleasant countenance, and saw that the boxes were safely
placed in it, and that his wife was comfortably seated on some shawls
spread over a heap of straw. His attention, however, received neither
thanks nor recognition from Dame Anthony, while Alice, whose face was
swollen with crying, did not speak a word. However, they were seated
well under the cover of the wagon, and could not be seen by the few
people standing near; and as the mayor continued till the wagon started
speaking cheerfully, and giving them all sorts of injunctions as to
taking care of themselves on the way, he flattered himself that no one
would have an idea that the departure was anything but an amicable one.
A week later a letter arrived for Dame Anthony and the mayor at once
recognized the handwriting of Jack Stilwell. He took it up to his room,
and had a considerable debate with himself as to whether he would open
it or not. The question was, What did the boy say? If he wrote full of
bitter complaints as to his treatment, the receipt of the letter by his
wife would only make matters worse, and in that case it would be better
to destroy the letter as well as any others which might follow it, and
so put an end to all communication, for it was unlikely that the boy
would ever return to England.
Accordingly he opened the letter, and after reading it through, laid
it down with a feeling of something like relief. It was written in a
cheerful spirit. Jack began by saying that he feared Dame Anthony and
Alice would have been anxious when they heard that he was missing from
his lodgings.
“I have no doubt, my dear cousin, you will have guessed what has
befallen me, seeing that so many have been taken away in the same way. I
don't think that my late master acted handsomely in thus getting rid of
me; for, as the list was made up by him, it was of course his doing. But
you will please tell him from me that I feel no grudge against him. In
the first place, he did not know I was going away to sea, and it must
naturally have angered him to see one known to be connected with him
hanging about Southampton doing nothing. Besides, I know that he always
meant kindly by me. He took me in when I had nowhere to go, he gave
me my apprenticeship without fee, and, had it not been that my roving
spirit rendered me disinclined for so quiet a life, he would doubtless
have done much for me hereafter. Thus thinking it over, it seems to me
but reasonable that he should have been angered at my rejection of the
benefits he intended for me.
“In the next place, it may be that his action in shipping me off as a
soldier may in the end prove to be for my welfare. Had I carried out my
intention and gone as a sailor, a sailor I might have remained all my
life. It seems to me that as a soldier my chances are larger. Not only
shall I see plenty of fighting and adventure, which accords well with
my spirit, but it seems to me--and a sergeant who has shown me much
kindness says that it is so--that there are fair chances of advancement.
The soldiers are for the great part disorderly and ignorant men; and,
as I mean to be steady and obedient so as to gain the goodwill of the
officers, and as I have received a good education from my dear father,
I hope in time to come to be regarded as one somewhat different from the
common herd; and if I get an opportunity of distinguishing myself, and
do not get killed by a Spanish bullet or pike thrust, or by the fevers
which they say are not uncommon, then it is possible I may come back at
the end of the war with some honor and credit, and, the sergeant said,
may even obtain advancement to the rank of an officer. Therefore my late
master, having done me many good turns, may perhaps find that this last
one--even though he intended it not--is the best of all. Will you make
my respects to him, dear cousin, and tell him that I feel no grudge or
ill will against him? Will you give my love to my Cousin Alice? Tell her
that I will bring her home some rare keepsakes from Spain should they
fall in my way; and you know I will do the same for yourself, who have
always been so good and kind to me.”
“The boy is not a bad boy,” the mayor said, well pleased as he laid down
the letter. “It may be that I have judged him too harshly, seeing that
he set himself against what was best for his welfare. Still, one cannot
expect men's heads on boys' shoulders, and he writes dutifully and
properly. I believe it is the fault of Andrew Carson, who was forever
edging me on by reports of the boy's laziness and carelessness. He
certainly has a grudge against him, and he assuredly exceeded his place
and authority when he lifted his hand against my wife's cousin. It seems
to me truly that I have acted somewhat hastily and wrong headedly in the
matter. I shall give Master Carson notice that at the end of a month
I shall require his services no longer--the fellow puts himself too
forward. That will please Mary; she never liked him, and women in these
matters of likes and dislikes are shrewder than we are. Perhaps when she
hears that he is going, and reads this letter, which I will forward
to her by the carrier, she may come back to me. I certainly miss her
sorely, and the household matters go all wrong now that she is away. She
ought not to have said things to me; but no wise man thinks anything of
what a woman says when she's angry; and now that I think things over, it
certainly seems to me that she had some sort of warrant for her words.
Yes, I certainly don't know what can have come over me, unless it was
that fellow, Andrew Carson. Richard Anthony has not been considered a
bad fellow else he would never have become the Mayor of Southampton; and
for fifteen years Mary and I have got on very well together, save
for the little disputes which have arisen from her over masterful
disposition. But she is a good wife--none could wish for better--though
she is given to flame out at what she considers unrighteous dealings;
but every woman has her faults, and every man too as far as that goes,
and upon the whole few of them have less than Mary. I will write to her
at once.”
The mayor was not a man to delay when his mind was once made up, and
sitting down at a writing desk he wrote as follows:
“DEAR WIFE: I inclose a letter which has come for you from your Cousin
Jack. I opened it, and you will think poorly of me when I tell you that
had it been filled with complaints of me, as I expected, it would not
have come to your hands; for your anger against me is fierce enough
without the adding of fresh fuel thereto. But the lad, as you will see,
writes in quite another strain, and remembers former kindnesses rather
than late injuries. His letter has put it into my head to think matters
over, and in a different spirit from that in which I had previously
regarded it, and I have come to the conclusion that I have acted
wrongly; first, that I did not make allowances enough for the boy;
second, that I insisted on keeping him to a trade he disliked; third,
that I have given too willing an ear to what Andrew Carson has said
against the boy; lastly, that I took such means of freeing myself from
him. I today give Andrew Carson notice to quit my service--a matter in
which I have hitherto withstood you. I am willing to forget the words
which you spoke to me in anger, seeing that there was some foundation
for them, and that when a woman is in a passion her tongue goes further
than she means.
“Now, as I am ready to put this on one side, I trust that you also will
put aside your anger at my having obtained the pressing for a soldier
of your cousin. You can see for yourself by his writing that he does not
desire that any enmity shall arise out of the manner of his going. For
fifteen years we have lived in amity, and I see not why, after this
cloud passes away, we should not do so again.
“I miss you sorely. Things go badly with us since you have gone. The
food is badly cooked, and the serving indifferent. If you will write
to tell me that you are willing to come back, and to be a loving
and dutiful wife again, I will make me a holiday and come over to
Basingstoke to fetch you and Alice home again. I am writing to Jack
and sending him five guineas, for which he will no doubt find a use in
getting things suitable for the adventure upon which he is embarked,
for the payment of her majesty to her soldiers does not permit of the
purchase of many luxuries. On second thoughts I have resolved to pay
Andrew Carson his month's wages, and to let him go at once. So that if
you return you will not find one here against whom you have always been
set, and who is indeed in no small way the author of the matters which
have come between us, save only as touching the impressment, of which
I own that I must take the blame solely upon myself. Give my love to
Alice, and say that she must keep up her spirits, and look forward to
the time when her Cousin Jack shall come back to her after the killing
of many Spaniards.”
Having signed and carefully sealed this letter, with that from Jack
inclosed within it, the mayor then proceeded to write the following to
the young soldier:
“MY DEAR COUSIN JACK: I have read the letter which you sent to my wife,
and it is written in a very proper and dutiful strain. Your departure
has caused trouble between my wife and me; but this I hope will pass
away after she has read and considered your letter. She carried matters
so far that she is at present with your Cousin Alice at the house of
her parents at Basingstoke. Having read your letter, I write to tell
you that I feel that I am not without blame toward you. I did not see
it myself until the manner of your letter opened my eyes to the fact.
I have misunderstood you, and, being bent on carrying out my own
inclinations, made not enough allowance for yours. Were you here now I
doubt not that in future we should get on better together; but as that
cannot be, I can only say that I recognize the kind spirit in which
you wrote, and that I trust that in future we shall be good friends. I
inclose you an order for five guineas on a tradesman in Dover with whom
I have dealings. There are many little things that you may want to buy
for your voyage to supplement the pay which you receive. Andrew Carson
is leaving my service. I think that it is he greatly who came between
us, and has brought things to the pass which I cannot but regret.”
A week later the cloth merchant's shop in the High Street was shut up,
and the mayor, having appointed a deputy for the week he purposed to
be absent, took his place in the stage for Basingstoke, when a complete
reconciliation was effected between him and his wife.
The starting of the expedition was delayed beyond the intended time, for
the government either could not or would not furnish the required funds,
and the Earl of Peterborough was obliged to borrow considerable sums
of money, and to involve himself in serious pecuniary embarrassments to
remedy the defects, and to supply as far as possible the munition and
stores necessary for the efficiency of the little force he had been
appointed to command. It consisted of some three thousand English
troops, who were nearly all raw and undisciplined, and a brigade, two
thousand strong, of Dutch soldiers.
Early in May the regiment to which Jack Stilwell belonged marched
for Portsmouth, where the rest of the expedition were assembled, and
embarked on board the transports lying at Spithead, and on the 22d
of the month set sail for St. Helens, where they were joined on the
following day by their general, who embarked with his suit on board the
admiral's ship. On the 24th the fleet sailed for Lisbon.
Fond as Jack was of the sea, he did not find the change an agreeable
one. On shore the constant drill and steady work had fully occupied
the men, and had left them but little time for grumbling. On board ship
things were different. In those days there was but little of the strict
discipline which is now maintained on board a troop ship. It was true
that the vessels in which the expedition was being carried belonged to
the royal navy; but even here the discipline was but lax. There were
many good sailors on board; but the bulk of the crew had been pressed
into the service as harshly and tyrannically as were the soldiers
themselves, and the grumblers of one class found ready sympathizers
among the others.
The captain was a young man of good family who had obtained his
appointment solely by interest, and who, although he would have fought
his ship bravely in an action with the enemy, took but little interest
in the regular work, leaving such matters entirely in the hands of his
first lieutenant. The military officers were all new to their work.
On shore they had had the support which the presence of a considerable
number of veteran troops in garrison in the castle gave them; but they
now ceased to struggle against the difficulty of keeping up discipline
among a large number of raw and insubordinate recruits, relying upon
bringing them into order and discipline when they got them ashore in a
foreign country. Beyond, therefore, a daily parade, and half an hour's
drill in the handling of their firelocks, they interfered but little
with the men.
Sergeant Edwards with twenty of his men had at the last minute,
to Jack's great satisfaction, been drafted into the regiment, and
accompanied them on their voyage.
“Ay, they are a rough lot,” the sergeant said in answer to an
observation of Jack as to the grumbling of the men after they had been
at sea a few days; “but what can you expect when you take men from their
homes against their will, pick out the worst characters in each town,
make up their number with jail birds, and then pack them off to sea
before they have got into shape? There's nothing tries men more than a
sea voyage. Here they are packed up as close as herrings, with scarcely
room to move about, with nothing to do, and with food which a dog
would turn up his nose to eat. Naturally they get talking together, and
grumbling over their wrongs till they work themselves up.
“I wish the voyage was over. It wouldn't matter if we had a good steady
old crew, but more than half of them have been pressed; many of them are
landsmen who have been carried off just as you were. No doubt they would
all fight toughly enough if a Frenchman hove in view, but the captain
couldn't rely on them in a row on board. As long as the fleet keeps
together it's all right enough. Here are nine vessels, and no one on
board one knows what's going on in the others, but if the captain of
any one of them were to hoist a signal that a mutiny had broken out on
board, the others would be round her with their portholes opened ready
to give her a dose of round shot in no time.”
“But you don't think that it is really likely that we shall have any
trouble, sergeant?”
“There won't be any trouble if, as I am telling you, the weather holds
fine and the fleet keeps together; but if there's a gale and the ships
get scattered, no one can't say what might come of it.”
“I can't think how they could be so mad as to get up a mutiny,” Jack
said; “why, even supposing they did take the ship, what would they do
with it?”
“Them's questions as has been asked before, my lad, and there's sense
and reason in them, but you knows as well as I that there's many a craft
sailing the seas under the black flag. There isn't a ship as puts to sea
but what has half a dozen hands on board who have been in slavers, and
who are full of tales of islands where everything grows without the
trouble of putting a spade in the ground, where all sorts of strange
fruit can be had for the picking, and where the natives are glad enough
to be servants or wives, as the case may be, to whites. It's just such
tales as these as leads men away, and I will warrant there's a score at
least among the crew of the Caesar who are telling such tales to any who
will listen to them. Well, you see, it's a tempting story enough to one
as knows no better. On the one side there is a hard life, with bad food
and the chance of being shot at, and the sartainty of being ordered
about and not being able to call your life your own. On the other side
is a life of idleness and pleasure, of being your own master, and, if
you want something which the islands can't afford you, why, there's
just a short cruise and then back you come with your ship filled up with
plunder. I don't say as it's not tempting; but there's one thing agin
it, and the chaps as tells these yarns don't say much about that.”
“What is it, sergeant?”
“It's just the certainty of a halter or a bloody grave sooner or later.
The thing goes on for some time, and then, when merchant ship after
merchant ship is missing, there are complaints at home, and out comes
a ship or two with the queen's pennant at the head, and then either the
pirate ship gets caught at sea and sunk or captured, or there's a visit
to the little island, and a short shrift for those found there.
“No, I don't think it can pay, my lad, even at its best. It's jolly
enough for awhile, maybe, for those whose hearts are so hard that they
think nothing of scuttling a ship with all on board, or of making the
crew and passengers walk the plank in cold blood. Still even they must
know that it can't last, and that there's a gallows somewhere waiting
for them. Still, you see, they don't think of all that when a chap is
atelling them of these islands, and how pleasant the life is there, and
how easy it would be to do for the officers, and take the command of
the ship and sail away. Two or three chaps as makes up their mind for it
will poison a whole crew in no time.”
“You speak as if you knew all about it.”
“I know a good deal about it,” the sergeant replied gravely. “It's a
tale as there ain't many as knows; but you are a sort of lad as one can
trust, and so I don't mind if I tell it you. Though you wouldn't think
it, I have sailed under the black flag myself.”
“You, sergeant!” Jack exclaimed incredulously; “do you mean to say you
have been a pirate?”
“Just that, my boy. I don't look like it, do I? There ain't nothing
buccaneering about my cut. I looks just what I am, a tough old sergeant
in a queen's regiment; but for all that I have been a pirate. The yarn
is a long one, and I can't tell it you now, because just at present, you
see, I have got to go below to look after the dinners of the company,
but the first time as we can get an opportunity for a quiet talk I will
tell it you. But don't you go away and think till then as I was a pirate
from choice. I shouldn't like you to think that of me; there ain't never
no saying at sea what may happen. I might tumble overboard tonight and
get drowned, or one of the convoy might run foul of us and sink us, and
tomorrow you might be alive and I might be dead, and I shouldn't like
you to go on thinking all your life as that Sergeant Edwards had been
a bloody pirate of his own free will. So you just bear in mind, till I
tells you the whole story, as how it was forced upon me. Mind, I don't
say as how I hadn't the choice of death or that, and maybe had you been
in my place you would have chosen death; but, you see, I had never been
brought up as you were. I had had no chances to speak of, and being only
just about your age, I didn't like the thought of dying, so you see I
took to it, making up my mind secret at the same time that the first
chance I had I would slip away from them. I won't tell you more now,
I hain't time; but just you bear that in mind, in case of anything
happening, that if Sergeant Edwards once sailed under the black flag, he
didn't do it willing.”
The sergeant now hurried below, leaving Jack wondering over what he
had heard. Some days elapsed before the story was told, for a few hours
later the sky clouded over and the wind rose, and before next morning
the vessel was laboring heavily under double reefed topsails. The
soldiers were all kept below, and there was no possibility of anything
like a quiet talk. The weather had hitherto been so fine and the wind
so light that the vessels had glided over the sea almost without motion,
and very few indeed of those on board had experienced anything of the
usual seasickness; but now, in the stifling atmosphere between decks,
with the vessel rolling and plunging heavily, the greater part were soon
prostrate with seasickness, and even Jack, accustomed to the sea as he
was, succumbed to the unpleasantness of the surroundings.
On the second day of the storm Sergeant Edwards, who had been on deck to
make a report to the captain of the company, was eagerly questioned on
his return below on the condition of the weather.
“It's blowing about as hard as it can be,” he said, “and she rolls fit
to take the masts out of her. There don't seem no chance of the gale
breaking, and none of the other ships of the fleet are in sight. That's
about all I have to tell you, except that I told the captain that if
he didn't get the hatches lifted a little we should be all stifled down
here. He says if there's a bit of a lull he will ask them to give us
a little fresh air, and in the mean time he says that any who are good
sailors may go up on deck, but it will be at their own risk, for some of
the seas go pretty nearly clean over her.”