Transcriber's Note
Misspelling in quoted matter (journal entries, correspondence, etc.)
is preserved as printed.
Bold text is marked with =equals= symbols, italic text is marked with
_underscores_.
_Second Edition._
The Admiral
A Romance of Nelson in the
Year of the Nile
By
Douglas Sladen
Author of "A Japanese Marriage," etc.
_A law unto himself_
London
Hutchinson and Co.
Paternoster Row
1898
NOTE.
_The cover is an exact reproduction in the original colours of a rare
old print. The dates have of course been added. The clouds, to which
Nelson points with his sword, express the wars and rumours of wars,
with which the year 1798 was overhung. The sword indicates the spirit
with which he approached questions of national honour._
PREFACE.
Some years ago, Professor J. K. Laughton's admirable selection of
"Letters and Dispatches of Horatio, Viscount Nelson," inspired me with
such an interest in Nelson's wonderfully human and graphic
correspondence that I studied the larger and earlier "Dispatches and
Letters of Lord Nelson," collected by Sir Harris Nicolas. The present
book is the outcome of a long and affectionate study of these two
works, and the well-thumbed pages of Southey and Jeaffreson.
But since, at the time of my first visit to Sicily, a little more than
two years ago, I had definitely before me the project of writing a
Nelson novel for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the
Nile (August 1st, 1898), I have read most of the important works
dealing with Lord Nelson's life, especially Captain Mahan's "Life of
Nelson," which is a monument of impartiality, research, and the
application of professional knowledge to literature. I have also, by
the kindness of Lord Dundonald, Mr. Morrison, and others, had the
opportunity of seeing a quantity of unpublished Nelsoniana, which have
been of the utmost value to me in forming a final opinion of the
character of my hero.
The main object of this book is to present to the reader, in the year
of the centenary of the Nile, the real Nelson, without extenuation or
malice. No doubt it would have been easier to ensure popularity by
passing over the weaknesses in his character and representing him only
as an ever-victorious warrior. But this did not seem to me the right
course to pursue with a character like Nelson. Those who have studied
his letters in the pages of Nicolas and Laughton, and those who have
studied his life in the pages of Captain Mahan (who, it must be
remembered, is a professional writer, the chief naval expert of the
United States, writing upon the greatest English sea-strategist),
cannot fail to have been impressed by the intensely human note which
he struck in almost every letter.
People love to read about Nelson, not only because he was the
greatest sea-commander who ever lived, but because his own personal
character was so extraordinarily vehement and interesting. He was a
law unto himself. As a commander he forced his way into recognition by
detecting, and acting in defiance of, the errors of his superiors,
even of men like St. Vincent. He continued to do so when he was an
Admiral commanding fleets whose destruction would have meant almost
national ruin. And he was as much a law unto himself in his private
life. "A law unto himself" might have been his motto. It was the
keynote of his force.
But even Nelson, absolutely fearless as he was of danger and
responsibility, could hardly have extorted the liberty to assert this
force of character if it had not been tempered by one of the most
lovable dispositions recorded of a public man. Nearly all who were
ever thrown into contact with him were his willing slaves, or
affectionate friends--even the grim old St. Vincent and the austere
Hood. He was the most considerate, the most sympathetic, the most
generous of shipmates. His very simplicity was fascinating, and he was
wonderfully simple where his affections were concerned, though he
showed such intuition in gauging the character of a knave or an
enemy, and in forecasting the movements of politicians, as well as of
hostile commanders.
Nelson had the same faith in those he loved as he had in his own
genius. In the hour of danger his spirit rose to the sublime, and the
bodily ailments to which he was so constantly a prey, left him. In the
hours of waiting, when anxieties were accumulating and action was
impossible, his state of health sank very low. His passion for Lady
Hamilton shows how infatuated he could become over a woman who
appealed to his imagination. Few women in history have possessed her
great qualities in a higher degree than Lady Hamilton at the time when
Nelson first came under her influence, in 1798, after the Battle of
the Nile. Her letters to Mr. Greville and Sir William Hamilton prove
that she must have had a delightful disposition, and the part she took
in the stirring events of 1798 and 1799 shows her imagination, her
daring, and her ability.
I have endeavoured, at the risk of raising a stormy discussion, to
present the character of Nelson exactly as it was in 1798 and the
first half of 1799; and to present a general view of the historical
events in which he formed the central figure, though I am aware that
certain passages in the book, such as Chapter XVII., form rather
heavy reading for a novel. But, to bring out the character of Nelson,
it was necessary to detail the tangled political problems with which
he was confronted. As Captain Mahan pointed out, Nelson was one of the
most astute politicians of his day, as well as the greatest
sea-commander.
A large part of the book is in Nelson's own words. Appreciating the
importance, in treating a national hero, of keeping as close as
possible to history, _I have, wherever it was feasible, used, whether
in dialogue or description, the actual words of Nelson and his
contemporaries_. These I have derived from his own published and
unpublished correspondence and journals, from the narratives of his
officers, and similar sources. Similarly, I have derived my chapter on
his visit to Pompeii largely from an account of a visit to Pompeii
written in 1802. The style of the narrator of the story, Captain
Thomas Trinder, is founded upon unpublished journals and letters of
the time, in the possession of my father. They were mostly written by
his godfather, Mr. Henry Brooke, who lived at Walmer, and may be taken
as fair specimens of the writing of the travelled and better-educated
Kentish gentleman of his day. Mr. Brooke was one of the last heads of
the now abolished Alien Office, and as such had much to do with the
French princes exiled in England during the Napoleonic régime. He was
also present at the restoration of the French monarchy. Some of the
pieces of queer grammar, such as "I have wrote," were probably
idiomatic at the time, others are mere loose writing.
The scene of the book is mostly laid in Naples and Sicily, and to
acquire the requisite local knowledge I have paid two long visits to
these places in 1896-8. The Mont' alto Palace and the Castle of the
Favara, in fact nearly all the buildings described, actually exist,
though in most cases they are much decayed or altered. The Hamiltons'
Palace at Naples, though now divided into apartments, remains much as
it was, except that, in Nelson's time, the sea came close up to it.
The features of the sea-front of Naples are very much altered since
then; but the Comte de la Ville, who is at the head of the _Storia
Patria_, the excellent historical society of Naples, was kind enough
to show me almost contemporary plans of the places described. And here
I wish to take the opportunity of pointing out that the Neapolitans
and Sicilians of to-day differ as much from the corrupt hangers-on of
the Bourbons as the English public men of to-day differ from the
venal followers of Sir Robert Walpole. I need hardly say that the
denunciations of them, and above all of the French, are not my own,
but always derived from Nelson's expressed sentiments, and nearly
always given in his exact words.
In criticising the characters of my heroines it must be remembered
that the morals of the Neapolitan court in the time of Maria Carolina
are indescribable in an English novel; but this, as a matter of fact,
is the one point in which I have shrunk from presenting things without
extenuation. It will be noticed that at the period of which I write,
the year of the Nile, I believe Lady Hamilton to have been a lovely
and enchanting woman, and that I believe that the connection between
Nelson and her began as a pure romance, each worshipping the other as
the most splendid human being in the world. The beautiful letter of
hero-worship which she wrote to him after the battle of the Nile I
first saw in its entirety in Professor Laughton's sumptuous volume,
"The Companions of Nelson."
Before I conclude I have to express my thanks to Mr. E. Neville-Rolfe,
British Consul at Naples; to the Marquis A. de Gregorio, and the
Messrs. Whitaker, of Palermo; and to Miss A. Mason, a great-niece of
Nelson, besides those whom I have mentioned above. I am also indebted
to the writings of Mr. Clark Russell; to the highly valuable and
hitherto unpublished Nelson documents which have been appearing in
_Literature_; to the accurate and splendidly illustrated Nelsoniana
which have been appearing in the popular illustrated Service paper,
_The Army and Navy Illustrated_, and in the _English Illustrated
Magazine_; and to Lord Charles Beresford's and Mr. H. W. Wilson's
"Nelson and his Times," which was published as a supplement to the
_Daily Mail_. I have followed Lord Charles's view of Nelson himself
more closely than any other, because it is so sympathetic, and is
written by one who is at once a brilliant naval expert and the
sea-commander to whom the nation looks for exploits like Nelson's.
I am prepared for much censure and acrimonious discussion, especially
over the very point upon which I take my stand, that a novel dealing
with the character of Nelson ought above all things to be a human
document. He is, to me, the most intensely human figure in History.
Douglas Sladen.
Palazzo Monteleone, Palermo,
_April 6th, 1898_.
CONTENTS.
PROLOGUE. PAGE
INTRODUCING THE READER TO THE LADY KATHERINE
FLEET 1
CHAPTER I.
OF THE FINDING OF LORD NELSON'S JOURNAL 11
CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCING THE ADMIRAL 19
CHAPTER III.
OF THE LETTERS OF A BOY AND A GIRL 28
CHAPTER IV.
OF OUR ENTRY INTO SYRACUSE 31
CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH WILL HAS HIS FIRST CHANCE, AND HIS FIRST
ESCAPADE, AND HIS FIRST MEETING WITH THE PRINCESS
OF FAVARA 37
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF CYANÉ AND THE PAPYRUS BEDS OF
THE ANAPO 52
CHAPTER VII.
SATISFYING A PRINCE'S HONOUR 63
CHAPTER VIII.
OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE, ON THE FIRST OF AUGUST,
1798 76
CHAPTER IX.
HOW THE ADMIRAL BEGAN HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LADY
HAMILTON 101
CHAPTER X.
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE BALL GIVEN BY LADY HAMILTON
IN HONOUR OF THE ADMIRAL 112
CHAPTER XI.
HOW THE ADMIRAL ENTERED THE MAZE OF NEAPOLITAN
POLITICS 127
CHAPTER XII.
OF A VISIT TO POMPEII IN 1798, IN WHICH THERE WERE
LOVERS, AND OF THE SUPPER IN THE INN AT RESINA 139
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE SUPPER AT THE PALACE THAT FOLLOWED 166
CHAPTER XIV.
WHAT THE ADMIRAL WROTE OF MY LADY IN HIS JOURNAL 181
CHAPTER XV.
OF THE VOYAGE TO MALTA, WITH THE ACCOUNT OF WHAT
HAPPENED AT CASERTA 191
CHAPTER XVI.
WHAT THE ADMIRAL WROTE IN HIS JOURNAL ABOUT LOVE 213
CHAPTER XVII.
WHICH THE IDLE READER MAY SKIP, AS POLITICS. IT
SETS FORTH THE COWARDICE AND UNRAVELS THE
INTRIGUES WHICH LED TO THE FALL OF NAPLES 227
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE NEAPOLITANS DECLARED WAR, AND HOW THEY
WAGED IT 257
CHAPTER XIX.
HOW TWO MILLIONS AND A HALF OF TREASURE WERE
SMUGGLED FROM THE PALACE TO THE BRITISH
AMBASSADOR'S 265
CHAPTER XX.
HOW THE _VANGUARD_ TOOK THE ROYAL FAMILY TO PALERMO
IN THE GREATEST STORM THE ADMIRAL EVER KNEW 288
CHAPTER XXI.
HOW WILL WAS ENTERTAINED BY THE PRINCESS AT HER
PALACE OF THE FAVARA 309
CHAPTER XXII.
HOW ALL EUROPE WAS AT SIXES AND SEVENS 321
CHAPTER XXIII.
OF THE LOVE OF THE ADMIRAL AND MY LADY 334
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW THE ADMIRAL WENT TO THE FAVARA, AND THE
PROPHECY BEGAN ITS FULFILMENT 346
CHAPTER XXV.
HOW THE ADMIRAL TOOK NAPLES, AND OF THE HANGING
OF CARACCIOLO 365
CHAPTER XXVI.
OF THE STRANGE PLIGHT IN WHICH WILL FOUND KATHERINE 386
CHAPTER XXVII.
OF THE DEATH OF DONNA RUSIDDA, THE RESURRECTION OF
CARACCIOLO, AND THE HAPPY ENDING 404
THE ADMIRAL
PROLOGUE.--Introducing the Reader to the Lady Katherine Fleet.
My Lord Eastry belonged to the grand old race of East Kent squires,
who brought up their sons to fear nothing and hate the French, aye,
and brought up their daughters to be the wives and mothers of men who
should sail the salt seas till too stiff with age or wounds to climb
to their quarter-decks. For how could their sons help going to sea
when they saw the boatmen of Deal from their open beach defying the
guns of the French and the might of the fiercest storms that blew?
My Lord Eastry began his bold life as younger son of a squire, who
bore the old Kent name of Fleet. But of John Fleet, the eldest, there
is only an empty memorial in Eastry Church, which records that "his
body lies in the great South Seas in the hope of a joyful
resurrection." His ship, full of honour and glory and prize-money, was
spoken two days east of Trinidad in the great storm of 1759; and
mariners maintain that fighting Jack Fleet's black frigate sails there
still, whenever the cyclone is coming down, with canvas enough on her
to overset a hundred-gun ship. And Dick had his call on the glorious
1st of June--had the van-ship and sailed into the French with the
grand air of his family, as if he never could have his belly full of
fighting--laid alongside half a dozen of them at one time and another,
and had a chain-shot through his middle just as he sent the _Vengeur_
to the bottom with her colours in the act of striking. Once he was
hard pressed, though; and Harry, the Lord Eastry that, as he lay
dying, drank Wellington's health when the news was brought of
Waterloo, saw it and, leaving the line flat in neglect of signals,
bore up to him. Lord! what a family they were to fight! When the tall
_Ramillies_ ran in between the _Brunswick_ and the _Achille_ to
receive her fire, it was like an explosion of devils from hell. The
men, men of the Cinque Ports that all had a dead father or a dead
brother to charge to the French, would have followed Jack, Dick, or
Harry into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace.
Well, Harry Fleet--the Lord Harry, as they called him in the
Channel--came safe out of the great battle; and not so many months
afterwards fell upon a great convoy guarded by ships that should have
blown his squadron of frigates out of the water, drove their escort
under the guns of Martinique, and carried the convoy, with the army on
board them that should have taken our Indies, safe into Antigua, from
which he brought home more prize-money than ever. He was just too late
to close the eyes of his father, the tough old squire of Eastry who
lived his fourscore-and-odd years like his fathers before him, the few
of them that did not die with their shoes on and the flag overhead.
They made him the Lord Eastry and a Knight of the Bath, but he had had
so much lead through his leg by that time, that he could never fight a
ship again, so he came to the old home at Eastry to find his
fourteen-year old daughter the most wonderful bit of woman's flesh in
all the halls of Kent. Captain Jack and Captain Dick were never
married. What children they may have had fell not into any list of the
landed gentry, and so it came that the long-descended lands of the
Fleets, and Admiral my Lord Eastry's prodigious coffers of prize-money
must all come to Katherine Fleet, now the Lady Katherine.
Now, no man that ever breathed was less of a coxcomb than Admiral
Harry, but as the name of his ancient family was to pass out of the
earth with his death, he looked to it that the son-in-law who
succeeded to his honours and his great estate should be of such rank
and fame that it might be no regret even for the Fleets of Eastry to
be lost in their greater honours: some Duke it might be, or at least
an Earl, whose belted ancestors had fought for the White or Red Rose;
and Katherine Fleet, aged now eighteen, might have had any such an one
as came within the magic of her moods.
There are some women who are not completely graceful, and yet give the
onlooker a great sense of satisfaction. There is a sort of wild
freedom, a declaration of strength and health, an evidence of courage
and high spirits, which bespeak an animal perfection too intense for
the gentle ease of grace. Katherine was one of those mettlesome women
who make men's blood tingle, and whose own red blood never runs cold
in the direst peril. I suppose she was tall. She would have looked it
had she been more than common short. She was such a noble creature,
and she had the same blue eyes that were worth a dozen pikes to the
Lord Eastry, when, in his old frigate days, he had jumped aboard a
Frenchman and a wave had checked half his boarding party--gay blue
eyes withal, that could laugh like her dimples and white teeth--gay
blue eyes that could be as loving or reckless as the mobile mouth. And
she had the pure curves of cheek and eyebrow which are almost
necessary to beauty absolute like hers.
What follows, I, Thomas Trinder, Captain retired on half-pay in His
Majesty's Navy, and now of Beach Cottage, Walmer, who am writing this
chronicle, had from Will the night before I led his sister to Ripple
Church.
One March night of 1798 was Katherine's coming-out ball. And her
father's hopes looked like fulfilment, for the greatest of Kentish
peers, the young Marquis of Dover, had been spending week after week
at his mansion of Pegwell, where never within the memory of the
countryside, which noted all his doings, had he spent two days on end.
And Katherine in a ball-room was a witch. She danced as such women do,
light-footed and tireless, radiating health and high spirits, and with
the unconscious smile of conquest on their lips, until the victor
comes who makes them replace it with the most exquisite gentleness.
People looked to see that in Lady Katherine, before the night was
dead, for Ralph, Marquis of Dover, Earl of River, Viscount Ripple, and
Baron Waldershare, all in the Peerage of England, and Lord Lieutenant
of the County of Kent. For he was a fine man, who rode straight to
hounds, and had already climbed high in the Government, and Katherine
had shown herself well inclined to him.
* * * * *
The great minuet was to be at midnight, and Katherine was promised to
Lord Dover for it. In his fine scarlet uniform of Lord Lieutenant, he
was already waiting for her in the door of the great barn with
transepts like a church, which had been turned into a ball-room,
decked with the trophies of Lord Eastry's wars.
For in another two or three minutes the first stroke would clang from
the tower of Eastry's little Norman church. Katherine had been up to
her room,--she had girlish vanity enough to wish to look her best in
the great minuet,--and now she was stepping down the stairway with an
eloquent hesitancy, her left hand clearing from her lovely feet the
heavy shimmery satin, which, young as she was, it seemed natural for
such an imperial woman to wear. Dividing the line between her
beautiful throat and her shoulders, were the famous pearls that were
the trophy of Lord Eastry's wildest exploit.
Who could doubt but that when she went out from that minuet, it would
be to have the greatest name in all the kingdom of Kent offered for
her keeping?
But suddenly, through the open, ivy-shrouded Elizabethan pane at the
turn of the stair, came a low voice,--a young voice, with the low
distinctness which I shall never forget,--"Kitty Fleet, Kitty Fleet,
is it you, Kitty Fleet?"
A light came over the girl's face, which, I am prepared to swear, the
great Marquess of Dover had never seen, as she replied,
"Hush, Will! keep in the shadow, and I'll come--but only for a
minute."
But, instead of doing as she bade him, he came right into the
door,--into the full blaze of light. He was then a fair boy of
eighteen, and I can tell you that his charming figure was shown off to
great advantage by the quaint dress of our day,--the tight-fitting
Nankeen hose and short dark blue jacket. And when he bared his head he
showed fair hair, as glossy and golden as Katherine's own, in a very
long queue. I can picture him fidgeting with his sugar-loaf beaver,
for he had something great on his mind.
"Oh, Will," she whispered, "we shall be discovered."
"No matter."
"But why?" began Kitty; and suddenly prepared to fly, as the first
stroke of twelve rang out painfully clear to her anxious ear.
"I'm going with the Admiral, Kitty, and you know what that means."
"Yes,--that is, what does it mean?"
"It means,--well, it's Admiral Nelson: and it means that I shall
never come back at all, or come back a man."
"When do you start, Will?" asked Katherine, forgetting all about the
minuet and her marquess, and coming forward to take his hands and look
into his face. At eighteen it was a beautiful face, but even then so
proud that its natural frankness was almost obscured. And yet you
forgave its haughtiness, for you felt that such pride would not stoop
to anything cowardly or mean, anything that would prevent its keeping
itself aloof and aloft. As she took his hands in hers I know how the
stern, clean-cut mouth melted into one of the irresistible smiles that
such mouths mostly have once in a way.
"Oh, Will!" she said, "I was wondering why did you not come to my
coming-out ball--you, Will, my best friend."
"To see my Lord Dover's triumph when he had won you, Kitty?" he asked
almost bitterly: "I could not bear it. No, I should not have come at
all if I had not been going by the morning coach with my mother to
Portsmouth."
"Why, Will, what is Lord Dover to me?" she asked.
"He means to marry you."
"I don't mean to marry him."
"But what will your father say?"
"My father will say nothing. I have no need to marry the first lover
with a title who presents himself. I am a lord's daughter, passing
rich--and passably good-looking, Will?"
"Be serious, Kitty."
"Indeed I must, and say good-bye, Will," she cried, as the strokes had
ceased ringing out from Eastry Tower some two or three minutes, "for
the minuet was for twelve o'clock, and I am engaged to Lord Dover--for
that only. Good-bye, dear Will."
With a sudden impulse she sprang forward, and laying her hands on his
shoulders kissed him.
Hardly had she finished, when--
"What's this, what's this?" cried a bluff voice, with an accompanying
thud of a lame man's stick on the polished oak floor--"Will Hardres
off to fight the French! Nay, lad, not so sudden! the coach does not
start till six, and Cissy's at school, and your mother going with you.
This way, this way!"
He led Will into the ball-room and up to the Marquess.
"I have a favour to ask you, my Lord Dover. I wish Will Hardres here,"
the nobleman bowed, "to lead the minuet with my daughter. We Fleets
think it the greatest honour in the world to fight the French in a
King's ship; and Will is to have the special honour of sailing with
Admiral Nelson--a greater man, to my mind, than St. Vincent, or Hood,
or Howe."
"As you please," said the Marquess, in such a chilling way that Will,
as he said, could have killed him, and I know the kind of light which
came into Katherine's eyes.
"I cannot take my Lord Marquess's place," said Will.
"Then, by G--d, you shall take my daughter herself, if she'll have
you," said Lord Eastry, more thoroughly roused and vexed with himself
for the slight he had put upon the Marquess.
"By G--d, he shall, if he'll have me," said Katherine, also roused,
and using her father's not very elegant language.
Poor Will, the very pattern of good manners, which were well nigh all
that his widowed mother had to bestow upon him, was dumfounded. In a
moment of pique Katherine and her father had bestowed her hand upon
him--that which he coveted more than anything else in the world, and
dared not covet; and the bestowal had been made in a manner and
language so extraordinary that he was at a loss how to effect the
acceptance.
For the moment the Marquess came to the rescue.
"I think I am to have the honour--for the minuet."
It was not natural to Katherine not to be gracious; and she had
months of remembered kindnesses to this man's credit. Indeed she had
come within an ace of thinking of him as her husband. So she accepted
the situation with womanly tact, she afterwards maintaining that she
spoke as little as she might.
She danced the minuet with grave sweetness and gentleness, which, in a
mischievous girl like Katherine, who was little more than a child,
was, in itself, an ominous sign for the Marquess.
She also cast from time to time a tender glance, a speaking smile, to
Will.
"It seems to me," said his lordship, bitterly--he could not be
chilling to Katherine, who had his heart--"that you are stepping with
me, and dancing with that boy."
"I am but lately affianced to him, my lord," retorted Katherine, this
time with mischief in her eyes.
"You don't mean to say that you're taking this tomfoolery seriously,
Lady Katherine--Kitty?"
"It is no tomfoolery to me, my lord," she said, with a flash of rising
anger that warned him. "I had kissed him my love, before you nettled
my father into giving me the leave he might never have given
otherwise."
By this time the minuet was over, and Katherine had suffered herself
to be led into one of the aisles of the barn which had been rigged
into a ball-room.
"Oh, Kitty," cried the Marquess, with a change of tone, which made her
woman's heart gentle to him, "I won't call it that name again, because
it makes you angry; but tell me that you did not mean it seriously,
for you know I have loved you three months past, and been waiting for
the opportunity you have always fenced off with some jest or piece of
mischief."
"And could you not guess why, my lord?"
"Why?" he echoed, sadly.
"Because I knew I did not love you honestly, and, warmly as I liked
you, I was waiting to see if I could love you. You may rely on it,
that when I felt myself conquered, I should have thrown down my
weapons and surrendered at discretion."
"And can you not love me yet?"
"Never now, my lord, more than a friend."
"Why so suddenly?"
"Why? Because events have been like runaway horses to-night. They have
taken the bits between their teeth and dashed us over a precipice."
"Against your will?"
"Nay, not against my will; but it was a leap I might never have dared
to take."
"And you mean to marry him, Kitty?"
"Yes, my lord; when he is a man."
"And when will that be?"
"I know not; but manhood comes quickly in these piping times, and
lives are short," she added, with a little break in her voice.
"And he goes to sea to-morrow?"
"It is to-day," she answered, with a bigger break.
"Then I am an ill friend to be keeping you from him," he said, his
better nature asserting itself at the sight of the sorrow of the woman
he loved so well. "Good-bye, Kitty," he said gravely, bowing to kiss
her hand.
"Good-bye, my lord. You are not angry with me?"
"No; not with you. Not angry, but hurt, and heart-sick. You will be my
friend still, little Lady Kitty?"
"I am five feet six, Lord Dover. Is that tall enough to be the friend
of a Marquess and the Lord Lieutenant of Kent?"
"It is tall enough for my heart, Kitty."
"You must not talk of your heart any more, or I shall not let you come
and see me."
"But I may come and see you still, and walk and ride with you still.
How often may I come and see you?"
"As often as you can bring me news of the fleet--Admiral Nelson's
fleet."
This account of the leave-taking from Lord Dover I had from Katherine,
the day I had the honour of becoming her brother-in-law, through
Will's sister Cecilia. But what took place at her leave-taking from
her boy-lover I never had, for that is sacred to the girl and boy, who
have the honour of being lovers still.
CHAPTER I.--Of the finding of Lord Nelson's Journal.
I was sitting with Will in the morning-room of his mansion of Eastry,
which he had with Katherine, when one of his footmen came in to
announce that a lady wished to speak to him very particularly. She
refused to give her name, but she came on a matter of great importance
connected with Lord Nelson, whose confidence Captain Hardres had
enjoyed. It was, she told the footman, a very intimate personal matter
in connection with his late Lordship.
Now, Will was not ordinarily what is called an approachable person;
but she had hit upon the password to which he never could turn a deaf
ear, and he directed that she should be shown in.
No sooner had she entered the door, carrying a bundle, which, to the
footman's evident distress, she had refused to trust out of her own
hands, than, seeing me, she stopped. But Will said, in cold tones that
would have frightened any one not sure of her mission, "This gentleman
also had the honour of serving under the Admiral." To all who had
served under that immortal man he was always "the Admiral."
She looked at us both, and I am vain enough to think that she felt my
presence would make what she had come to say easier, rather than more
difficult, though Will's face had softened when he saw that she was a
gentlewoman of reduced circumstances.
The bundle she had brought with her, tied up in a piece of faded green
silk, contained something hard and square. When she unknotted it and
produced three leather-bound volumes of the kind used for journals,
and opened one at random, Will might have seen a ghost.
This was in the year 1819, you must remember,--long years after the
Admiral had seen his work finished, and had passed away like Moses in
sight of the fulfilled promise. And Will, who had been in constant
personal attendance nearer and more confidential than a secretary, saw
before him, as plainly as his eyes could show him, three volumes of
the identical kind always employed by the Admiral for his private
affairs, and written, as it seemed to Will, by the Admiral's very own
hand. And Will, though he was not wise in book-learning, nor had given
much attention to such matters, had had the very best opportunities
for observing the Admiral's writing. He knew every turn in the clear
but shaky characters, written with the left hand by one accustomed
till he was more than thirty-five years old to penning with his right.
The binding, the paper, and the ink, as well as the handwriting, were
the counterparts of what Will had seen so often before the Admiral on
his desk.
The old lady did not offer a word of explanation until we had examined
them for some minutes, and, looking up, had laid them down, and then
she told us a likely story enough.
It came out that she was Mrs. Hunter, and the good soul who had taken
my Lady Hamilton, then like to die, and in great destitution, into her
house at Boulogne, and had sheltered her and maintained and nursed her
free of charge until her death.
"These three volumes," she said, "were her Ladyship's last and
greatest treasure, which she never would have far away from her, and
which, when she was alone, she read to her great comfort."
When Lady Hamilton, some hours before her death, felt that the end was
surely coming, not having (after all the fortune which had poured
through her hands) the wherewithal to pay a lawyer's fee for drawing
up a will, she had given her these books, bidding her to sell them,
and take what they brought to recompense her for her kindness and the
expense to which she had been put. They were, her Ladyship said,
journals of the years 1798, 1799 and 1800; the happiest years of her
life, which she had spent in his Lordship's friendship on the shores
of their beloved Mediterranean, and presented by him to her as a
memorial of them. Had the ungrateful nation not neglected his last
charge that it should maintain her, she would have bequeathed these
volumes to it; but seeing that Mrs. Hunter had proved herself her best
friend since Lord Nelson's glorious death, it was right that she
should have them to sell and recompense herself.
Accordingly, having been given by My Lady Captain Hardres's name,
among others of his Lordship's dearest friends,--Will bowed
gravely,--and the sailing packet which had brought her from Boulogne
having landed her at Dover, she had come to him first, as being the
nearest of the gentlemen mentioned (Eastry is but a few miles from
Dover); and then she came direct to the point--would Will purchase
these journals of the Admiral?
She named a very great price; but then Will, living in such a
mansion-house as Eastry, in the style that he affected, was clearly a
man of great means.
As I expected, he would not promise her at once, and inquired where
she would sleep for the night; and, I think, he was about to require
her to leave them with him until the morning, which I am sure to the
simple soul would have seemed like leaving her purse in a strange
house, when Katherine came in, looking like her own daughter, with
the added gentleness of years of happy wifehood, though she was a
mettlesome creature, and not to be frightened by Will or the devil.
Will put his arm round her youthful waist, and led her into the oriel
to repeat everything, she glancing from time to time at Mrs. Hunter.
When he had finished they came back again, and Will began, with some
hesitation, "Mrs. ----," when Katherine, reading what was in his eyes,
said, "You are never going to let her who performed the last offices
for the woman the Admiral loved with all the wealth of his great
heart--you are never going to let the lady sleep in a poor village
inn, when there are two of the Admiral's officers in this very house?"
To which Will replied gallantly, "You are the mistress of this house,
Kitty, and such an invitation should come from a lady."
I think he was glad of the proposal, for it gave him the opportunity
of judging the woman that would sell the books, as well as the books
she would sell. Though no talker, Will was, as silent men are apt to
be, an observer of character, and I could tell that he was not wholly
satisfied.
And so it was settled that a groom or a gardener should bring her box
from the inn, and she dined and slept and breakfasted the following
morning at Eastry Place. Will had her on his right hand at meals, and
talked with her while we were in the ladies' company after dinner;
though I own we joined them late, for we had the journals at the table
while we sat over Madeira wine that had laid in the Goodwin Sands for
many a year in a wreck that was bared by their shifting--as fine a
wine as ever came into East Kent, duty or no duty.
Katherine, of course, saw much more of her than we, and had the more
opportunity of judging her. Katherine was no mean judge, though ever
inclined to condone those whom her judgment condemned. To Katherine's
eye, as well as our own, the creature had certain faults. As she felt
the more at home her garrulity and vanity ran away with her, till she
almost claimed her share of credit for the Admiral's victories by some
retrospective process of merit. In fact, like other garrulous persons,
she was inclined to fire without loading. But there did not seem any
reason to doubt that she was the Mrs. Hunter who had befriended Lady
Hamilton, which was, after all, the chief query.
Well, Will and I turned those journals over and over, at first while
we were sitting over our Madeira, and afterwards far into the night
over our pipes and grog; and, try where we would, we could find
nothing that seemed in the penmanship of another hand, or that the
Admiral, knowing him as we did, might not have put down in a journal;
for he was ever fond of his pen, and in the wont of writing down what
he felt strongly, and more especially is it true that when he was out
of health, which was so often the case, he would examine himself and
discuss from every point what he had done or should do.
In a matter like that of his affection for my Lady Hamilton, it was of
course impossible for him, by reason of his position in the Service,
as well as of his greatness, to talk with any on the ship; and what he
could not say in words it was quite in keeping with his habits for him
to commit carefully to paper, it may be, all along with the idea of
presenting them for My Lady's reading as another proof of his sincere
esteem, but more likely at first, at any rate, to ease his soul. And
therefore, when the morning came and we had risen from breakfast,
after a short absence with Katherine, Will came to Mrs. Hunter, whom
he had left with me in the gentle sunshine on the terrace, and said
that he should give her the price she asked. Which he did, by order on
Mr. Laurie's bank at Dover.
I think we were all glad to be rid of Mrs. Hunter, even Katherine,
who made excuses for her as being old, and a woman, though I know of
few men worthy to be compared with such a woman as Katherine. It was
Katherine who decided him, for she had read her Roman history and knew
the story about the Sybil bringing nine precious books to the Roman
King, and, when he would not have them at her price, destroying three
of them, and offering him the six for the same price, and when he
would not have the six, destroying three more, until he gave her for
the last three the money for which he might have had the whole nine.
She did not, she confessed, expect Mrs. Hunter to burn her books; but,
remembering the regret of the King when he found the value of the
three remaining books which he had bought, thought that Will might
feel just such a regret if he lost for ever the opportunity of buying
what seemed to be the journals of the Admiral, to whom England and he
owed everything. The story of the Sybilline books was new to Will, and
impressed him mightily. I daresay it did not lose anything in the
telling. Katherine was, after all, a woman, and she had read it in her
childhood.
This was, as I have said, in the year 1819, four years after the death
of her Ladyship. If Mrs. Hunter had brought them to us at once, upon
the death of her Ladyship, while the country was ringing with the
announcement of it, ten days after she died, in the _Morning Post_,
and with the talk of the Admiral's brother, the Earl, going over to
Calais to see what papers she might have left behind her, I think Will
might have done something about them there and then. The Earl's visit
in search of papers would be taken by some as sufficient evidence that
he knew of the existence of these journals, though I would not dare to
say so much.
But, as it was, he bought them rather for our private reading, to
recall our adored Admiral; and it was not until he had had them in his
possession for years, that the thought came to him of giving them to
the public to counteract the false and erroneous statements and
judgments, which seemed to be for ever on the increase.
Now Will, living inland at Eastry, with the affairs of a great estate
to administer, had little leisure or inclination for writing, even if
he had had the power, but he was a man of action only, one of the kind
that make history and leave it for smaller men, like myself, to
chronicle it; while I, living at Walmer, on the sea-shore, in the
midst of many retired naval men, and much discussion of naval affairs,
had fallen into a pernicious habit of writing letters to the _Post_,
giving an old salt's plain condemnations of this and the other
shortcomings, and writing over the signature of 'Cinque Ports'
indignant refutations of anything that was said against the memory of
the Admiral. So Will had come to look upon me for as great a writer as
the mysterious Scotchman, who wrote, the year before we had the
journals, "The Heart of Midlothian" and "The Bride of Lammermoor," and
who, if you could believe the reviewers, was the only writer in the
three kingdoms worthy of any consideration for any writing but poetry.
Having married Will's sister, and having nothing to do but to make the
best living I could on my stored-up prize money and my half-pay, I
often took her to Eastry. It was on one of these visits, while we were
keeping the fire warm before we went to bed, that Will took the pipe
from between his lips, and said to me,--
"Thomas, I have been thinking."
Unless his mind lay fallow, he must have thought a good deal in his
long, frequent silences. However, Will was not a man to jest with, so
I made no comment of this kind, but waited to hear, understanding that
he had a decision to communicate to me.
"Thomas, I have been thinking that we are getting on in years."
This seemed indisputable, but I did not know that I wished to be
reminded of it. I again waited, until he came to the point that we,
from our close personal attendance on him, knew much about the Admiral
which perhaps ought not to be lost to the world, and that he thought
that I should write it down, and give with it such portions of the
Admiral's journals as seemed necessary for letting the public know how
sincerely that immortal man always endeavoured to do the right.