In four-and-twenty hours Bob had recovered. But though physically
himself again, he was not at all sure of his position as a patriot. He
had that practical knowledge of seamanship of which the country stood
much in need, and it was humiliating to find that impressment seemed to
be necessary to teach him to use it for her advantage. Many neighbouring
young men, less fortunate than himself, had been pressed and taken; and
their absence seemed a reproach to him. He went away by himself into the
mill-roof, and, surrounded by the corn-heaps, gave vent to
self-condemnation.
'Certainly, I am no man to lie here so long for the pleasure of sighting
that young girl forty times a day, and letting her sight me--bless her
eyes!--till I must needs want a press-gang to teach me what I've forgot.
And is it then all over with me as a British sailor? We'll see.'
When he was thrown under the influence of Anne's eyes again, which were
more tantalizingly beautiful than ever just now (so it seemed to him),
his intention of offering his services to the Government would wax
weaker, and he would put off his final decision till the next day. Anne
saw these fluctuations of his mind between love and patriotism, and being
terrified by what she had heard of sea-fights, used the utmost art of
which she was capable to seduce him from his forming purpose. She came
to him in the mill, wearing the very prettiest of her morning jackets--the
one that only just passed the waist, and was laced so tastefully round
the collar and bosom. Then she would appear in her new hat, with a
bouquet of primroses on one side; and on the following Sunday she walked
before him in lemon-coloured boots, so that her feet looked like a pair
of yellow-hammers flitting under her dress.
But dress was the least of the means she adopted for chaining him down.
She talked more tenderly than ever; asked him to begin small undertakings
in the garden on her account; she sang about the house, that the place
might seem cheerful when he came in. This singing for a purpose required
great effort on her part, leaving her afterwards very sad. When Bob
asked her what was the matter, she would say, 'Nothing; only I am
thinking how you will grieve your father, and cross his purposes, if you
carry out your unkind notion of going to sea, and forsaking your place in
the mill.'
'Yes,' Bob would say uneasily. 'It will trouble him, I know.'
Being also quite aware how it would trouble her, he would again postpone,
and thus another week passed away.
All this time John had not come once to the mill. It appeared as if Miss
Johnson absorbed all his time and thoughts. Bob was often seen chuckling
over the circumstance. 'A sly rascal!' he said. 'Pretending on the day
she came to be married that she was not good enough for me, when it was
only that he wanted her for himself. How he could have persuaded her to
go away is beyond me to say!'
Anne could not contest this belief of her lover's, and remained silent;
but there had more than once occurred to her mind a doubt of its
probability. Yet she had only abandoned her opinion that John had
schemed for Matilda, to embrace the opposite error; that, finding he had
wronged the young lady, he had pitied and grown to love her.
'And yet Jack, when he was a boy, was the simplest fellow alive,' resumed
Bob. 'By George, though, I should have been hot against him for such a
trick, if in losing her I hadn't found a better! But she'll never come
down to him in the world: she has high notions now. I am afraid he's
doomed to sigh in vain!'
Though Bob regretted this possibility, the feeling was not reciprocated
by Anne. It was true that she knew nothing of Matilda's temporary
treachery, and that she disbelieved the story of her lack of virtue; but
she did not like the woman. 'Perhaps it will not matter if he is doomed
to sigh in vain,' she said. 'But I owe him no ill-will. I have profited
by his doings, incomprehensible as they are.' And she bent her fair eyes
on Bob and smiled.
Bob looked dubious. 'He thinks he has affronted me, now I have seen
through him, and that I shall be against meeting him. But, of course, I
am not so touchy. I can stand a practical joke, as can any man who has
been afloat. I'll call and see him, and tell him so.'
Before he started, Bob bethought him of something which would still
further prove to the misapprehending John that he was entirely forgiven.
He went to his room, and took from his chest a packet containing a lock
of Miss Johnson's hair, which she had given him during their brief
acquaintance, and which till now he had quite forgotten. When, at
starting, he wished Anne goodbye, it was accompanied by such a beaming
face, that she knew he was full of an idea, and asked what it might be
that pleased him so.
'Why, this,' he said, smacking his breast-pocket. 'A lock of hair that
Matilda gave me.'
Anne sank back with parted lips.
'I am going to give it to Jack--he'll jump for joy to get it! And it
will show him how willing I am to give her up to him, fine piece as she
is.'
'Will you see her to-day, Bob?' Anne asked with an uncertain smile.
'O no--unless it is by accident.'
On reaching the outskirts of the town he went straight to the barracks,
and was lucky enough to find John in his room, at the left-hand corner of
the quadrangle. John was glad to see him; but to Bob's surprise he
showed no immediate contrition, and thus afforded no room for the
brotherly speech of forgiveness which Bob had been going to deliver. As
the trumpet-major did not open the subject, Bob felt it desirable to
begin himself.
'I have brought ye something that you will value, Jack,' he said, as they
sat at the window, overlooking the large square barrack-yard. 'I have
got no further use for it, and you should have had it before if it had
entered my head.'
'Thank you, Bob; what is it?' said John, looking absently at an awkward
squad of young men who were drilling in the enclosure.
''Tis a young woman's lock of hair.'
'Ah!' said John, quite recovering from his abstraction, and slightly
flushing. Could Bob and Anne have quarrelled? Bob drew the paper from
his pocket, and opened it.
'Black!' said John.
'Yes--black enough.'
'Whose?'
'Why, Matilda's.'
'O, Matilda's!'
'Whose did you think then?'
Instead of replying, the trumpet-major's face became as red as sunset,
and he turned to the window to hide his confusion.
Bob was silent, and then he, too, looked into the court. At length he
arose, walked to his brother, and laid his hand upon his shoulder.
'Jack,' he said, in an altered voice, 'you are a good fellow. Now I see
it all.'
'O no--that's nothing,' said John hastily.
'You've been pretending that you care for this woman that I mightn't
blame myself for heaving you out from the other--which is what I've done
without knowing it.'
'What does it matter?'
'But it does matter! I've been making you unhappy all these weeks and
weeks through my thoughtlessness. They seemed to think at home, you
know, John, that you had grown not to care for her; or I wouldn't have
done it for all the world!'
'You stick to her, Bob, and never mind me. She belongs to you. She
loves you. I have no claim upon her, and she thinks nothing about me.'
'She likes you, John, thoroughly well; so does everybody; and if I hadn't
come home, putting my foot in it-- That coming home of mine has been a
regular blight upon the family! I ought never to have stayed. The sea
is my home, and why couldn't I bide there?'
The trumpet-major drew Bob's discourse off the subject as soon as he
could, and Bob, after some unconsidered replies and remarks, seemed
willing to avoid it for the present. He did not ask John to accompany
him home, as he had intended; and on leaving the barracks turned
southward and entered the town to wander about till he could decide what
to do.
It was the 3rd of September, but the King's watering-place still retained
its summer aspect. The royal bathing-machine had been drawn out just as
Bob reached Gloucester Buildings, and he waited a minute, in the lack of
other distraction, to look on. Immediately that the King's machine had
entered the water a group of florid men with fiddles, violoncellos, a
trombone, and a drum, came forward, packed themselves into another
machine that was in waiting, and were drawn out into the waves in the
King's rear. All that was to be heard for a few minutes were the slow
pulsations of the sea; and then a deafening noise burst from the interior
of the second machine with power enough to split the boards asunder; it
was the condensed mass of musicians inside, striking up the strains of
'God save the King,' as his Majesty's head rose from the water. Bob took
off his hat and waited till the end of the performance, which, intended
as a pleasant surprise to George III. by the loyal burghers, was possibly
in the watery circumstances tolerated rather than desired by that
dripping monarch. {303}
Loveday then passed on to the harbour, where he remained awhile, looking
at the busy scene of loading and unloading craft and swabbing the decks
of yachts; at the boats and barges rubbing against the quay wall, and at
the houses of the merchants, some ancient structures of solid stone,
others green-shuttered with heavy wooden bow-windows which appeared as if
about to drop into the harbour by their own weight. All these things he
gazed upon, and thought of one thing--that he had caused great misery to
his brother John.
The town clock struck, and Bob retraced his steps till he again
approached the Esplanade and Gloucester Lodge, where the morning sun
blazed in upon the house fronts, and not a spot of shade seemed to be
attainable. A huzzaing attracted his attention, and he observed that a
number of people had gathered before the King's residence, where a brown
curricle had stopped, out of which stepped a hale man in the prime of
life, wearing a blue uniform, gilt epaulettes, cocked hat, and sword, who
crossed the pavement and went in. Bob went up and joined the group.
'What's going on?' he said.
'Captain Hardy,' replied a bystander.
'What of him?'
'Just gone in--waiting to see the King.'
'But the captain is in the West Indies?'
'No. The fleet is come home; they can't find the French anywhere.'
'Will they go and look for them again?' asked Bob.
'O yes. Nelson is determined to find 'em. As soon as he's refitted
he'll put to sea again. Ah, here's the King coming in.'
Bob was so interested in what he had just heard that he scarcely noticed
the arrival of the King, and a body of attendant gentlemen. He went on
thinking of his new knowledge; Captain Hardy was come. He was doubtless
staying with his family at their small manor-house at Pos'ham, a few
miles from Overcombe, where he usually spent the intervals between his
different cruises.
Loveday returned to the mill without further delay; and shortly
explaining that John was very well, and would come soon, went on to talk
of the arrival of Nelson's captain.
'And is he come at last?' said the miller, throwing his thoughts years
backward. 'Well can I mind when he first left home to go on board the
Helena as midshipman!'
'That's not much to remember. I can remember it too,' said Mrs. Loveday.
''Tis more than twenty years ago anyhow. And more than that, I can mind
when he was born; I was a lad, serving my 'prenticeship at the time. He
has been in this house often and often when 'a was young. When he came
home after his first voyage he stayed about here a long time, and used to
look in at the mill whenever he went past. "What will you be next, sir?"
said mother to him one day as he stood with his back to the doorpost. "A
lieutenant, Dame Loveday," says he. "And what next?" says she. "A
commander." "And next?" "Next, post-captain." "And then?" "Then it
will be almost time to die." I'd warrant that he'd mind it to this very
day if you were to ask him.'
Bob heard all this with a manner of preoccupation, and soon retired to
the mill. Thence he went to his room by the back passage, and taking his
old seafaring garments from a dark closet in the wall conveyed them to
the loft at the top of the mill, where he occupied the remaining spare
moments of the day in brushing the mildew from their folds, and hanging
each article by the window to get aired. In the evening he returned to
the loft, and dressing himself in the old salt suit, went out of the
house unobserved by anybody, and ascended the road towards Captain
Hardy's native village and present temporary home.
The shadeless downs were now brown with the droughts of the passing
summer, and few living things met his view, the natural rotundity of the
elevation being only occasionally disturbed by the presence of a barrow,
a thorn-bush, or a piece of dry wall which remained from some attempted
enclosure. By the time that he reached the village it was dark, and the
larger stars had begun to shine when he walked up to the door of the old-
fashioned house which was the family residence of this branch of the
South-Wessex Hardys.
'Will the captain allow me to wait on him to-night?' inquired Loveday,
explaining who and what he was.
The servant went away for a few minutes, and then told Bob that he might
see the captain in the morning.
'If that's the case, I'll come again,' replied Bob, quite cheerful that
failure was not absolute.
He had left the door but a few steps when he was called back and asked if
he had walked all the way from Overcombe Mill on purpose.
Loveday replied modestly that he had done so.
'Then will you come in?' He followed the speaker into a small study or
office, and in a minute or two Captain Hardy entered.
The captain at this time was a bachelor of thirty-five, rather stout in
build, with light eyes, bushy eyebrows, a square broad face, plenty of
chin, and a mouth whose corners played between humour and grimness. He
surveyed Loveday from top to toe.
'Robert Loveday, sir, son of the miller at Overcombe,' said Bob, making a
low bow.
'Ah! I remember your father, Loveday,' the gallant seaman replied.
'Well, what do you want to say to me?' Seeing that Bob found it rather
difficult to begin, he leant leisurely against the mantelpiece, and went
on, 'Is your father well and hearty? I have not seen him for many, many
years.'
'Quite well, thank 'ee.'
'You used to have a brother in the army, I think? What was his
name--John? A very fine fellow, if I recollect.'
'Yes, cap'n; he's there still.'
'And you are in the merchant-service?'
'Late first mate of the brig Pewit.'
'How is it you're not on board a man-of-war?'
'Ay, sir, that's the thing I've come about,' said Bob, recovering
confidence. 'I should have been, but 'tis womankind has hampered me.
I've waited and waited on at home because of a young woman--lady, I might
have said, for she's sprung from a higher class of society than I. Her
father was a landscape painter--maybe you've heard of him, sir? The name
is Garland.'
'He painted that view of our village here,' said Captain Hardy, looking
towards a dark little picture in the corner of the room.
Bob looked, and went on, as if to the picture, 'Well, sir, I have found
that-- However, the press-gang came a week or two ago, and didn't get
hold of me. I didn't care to go aboard as a pressed man.'
'There has been a severe impressment. It is of course a disagreeable
necessity, but it can't be helped.'
'Since then, sir, something has happened that makes me wish they had
found me, and I have come to-night to ask if I could enter on board your
ship the Victory.'
The captain shook his head severely, and presently observed: 'I am glad
to find that you think of entering the service, Loveday; smart men are
badly wanted. But it will not be in your power to choose your ship.'
'Well, well, sir; then I must take my chance elsewhere,' said Bob, his
face indicating the disappointment he would not fully express. ''Twas
only that I felt I would much rather serve under you than anybody else,
my father and all of us being known to ye, Captain Hardy, and our
families belonging to the same parts.'
Captain Hardy took Bob's altitude more carefully. 'Are you a good
practical seaman?' he asked musingly.
'Ay, sir; I believe I am.'
'Active? Fond of skylarking?'
'Well, I don't know about the last. I think I can say I am active
enough. I could walk the yard-arm, if required, cross from mast to mast
by the stays, and do what most fellows do who call themselves spry.'
The captain then put some questions about the details of navigation,
which Loveday, having luckily been used to square rigs, answered
satisfactorily. 'As to reefing topsails,' he added, 'if I don't do it
like a flash of lightning, I can do it so that they will stand blowing
weather. The Pewit was not a dull vessel, and when we were convoyed home
from Lisbon, she could keep well in sight of the frigate scudding at a
distance, by putting on full sail. We had enough hands aboard to reef
topsails man-o'-war fashion, which is a rare thing in these days, sir,
now that able seamen are so scarce on trading craft. And I hear that men
from square-rigged vessels are liked much the best in the navy, as being
more ready for use? So that I shouldn't be altogether so raw,' said Bob
earnestly, 'if I could enter on your ship, sir. Still, if I can't, I
can't.'
'I might ask for you, Loveday,' said the captain thoughtfully, 'and so
get you there that way. In short, I think I may say I will ask for you.
So consider it settled.'
'My thanks to you, sir,' said Loveday.
'You are aware that the Victory is a smart ship, and that cleanliness and
order are, of necessity, more strictly insisted upon there than in some
others?'
'Sir, I quite see it.'
'Well, I hope you will do your duty as well on a line-of-battle ship as
you did when mate of the brig, for it is a duty that may be serious.'
Bob replied that it should be his one endeavour; and receiving a few
instructions for getting on board the guard-ship, and being conveyed to
Portsmouth, he turned to go away.
'You'll have a stiff walk before you fetch Overcombe Mill this dark
night, Loveday,' concluded the captain, peering out of the window. 'I'll
send you in a glass of grog to help 'ee on your way.'
The captain then left Bob to himself, and when he had drunk the grog that
was brought in he started homeward, with a heart not exactly light, but
large with a patriotic cheerfulness, which had not diminished when, after
walking so fast in his excitement as to be beaded with perspiration, he
entered his father's door.
They were all sitting up for him, and at his approach anxiously raised
their sleepy eyes, for it was nearly eleven o'clock.
'There; I knew he'd not be much longer!' cried Anne, jumping up and
laughing, in her relief. 'They have been thinking you were very strange
and silent to-day, Bob; you were not, were you?'
'What's the matter, Bob?' said the miller; for Bob's countenance was
sublimed by his recent interview, like that of a priest just come from
the penetralia of the temple.
'He's in his mate's clothes, just as when he came home!' observed Mrs.
Loveday.
They all saw now that he had something to tell. 'I am going away,' he
said when he had sat down. 'I am going to enter on board a man-of-war,
and perhaps it will be the Victory.'
'Going?' said Anne faintly.
'Now, don't you mind it, there's a dear,' he went on solemnly, taking her
hand in his own. 'And you, father, don't you begin to take it to heart'
(the miller was looking grave). 'The press-gang has been here, and
though I showed them that I was a free man, I am going to show everybody
that I can do my duty.'
Neither of the other three answered, Anne and the miller having their
eyes bent upon the ground, and the former trying to repress her tears.
'Now don't you grieve, either of you,' he continued; 'nor vex yourselves
that this has happened. Please not to be angry with me, father, for
deserting you and the mill, where you want me, for I _must go_. For
these three years we and the rest of the country have been in fear of the
enemy; trade has been hindered; poor folk made hungry; and many rich folk
made poor. There must be a deliverance, and it must be done by sea. I
have seen Captain Hardy, and I shall serve under him if so be I can.'
'Captain Hardy?'
'Yes. I have been to his house at Pos'ham, where he's staying with his
sisters; walked there and back, and I wouldn't have missed it for fifty
guineas. I hardly thought he would see me; but he did see me. And he
hasn't forgot you.'
Bob then opened his tale in order, relating graphically the conversation
to which he had been a party, and they listened with breathless
attention.
'Well, if you must go, you must,' said the miller with emotion; 'but I
think it somewhat hard that, of my two sons, neither one of 'em can be
got to stay and help me in my business as I get old.'
'Don't trouble and vex about it,' said Mrs. Loveday soothingly. 'They
are both instruments in the hands of Providence, chosen to chastise that
Corsican ogre, and do what they can for the country in these trying
years.'
'That's just the shape of it, Mrs. Loveday,' said Bob.
'And he'll come back soon,' she continued, turning to Anne. 'And then
he'll tell us all he has seen, and the glory that he's won, and how he
has helped to sweep that scourge Buonaparty off the earth.'
'When be you going, Bob?' his father inquired.
'To-morrow, if I can. I shall call at the barracks and tell John as I go
by. When I get to Portsmouth--'
A burst of sobs in quick succession interrupted his words; they came from
Anne, who till that moment had been sitting as before with her hand in
that of Bob, and apparently quite calm. Mrs. Loveday jumped up, but
before she could say anything to soothe the agitated girl she had calmed
herself with the same singular suddenness that had marked her giving way.
'I don't mind Bob's going,' she said. 'I think he ought to go. Don't
suppose, Bob, that I want you to stay!'
After this she left the apartment, and went into the little side room
where she and her mother usually worked. In a few moments Bob followed
her. When he came back he was in a very sad and emotional mood. Anybody
could see that there had been a parting of profound anguish to both.
'She is not coming back to-night,' he said.
'You will see her to-morrow before you go?' said her mother.
'I may or I may not,' he replied. 'Father and Mrs. Loveday, do you go to
bed now. I have got to look over my things and get ready; and it will
take me some little time. If you should hear noises you will know it is
only myself moving about.'
When Bob was left alone he suddenly became brisk, and set himself to
overhaul his clothes and other possessions in a business-like manner. By
the time that his chest was packed, such things as he meant to leave at
home folded into cupboards, and what was useless destroyed, it was past
two o'clock. Then he went to bed, so softly that only the creak of one
weak stair revealed his passage upward. At the moment that he passed
Anne's chamber-door her mother was bending over her as she lay in bed,
and saying to her, 'Won't you see him in the morning?'
'No, no,' said Anne. 'I would rather not see him! I have said that I
may. But I shall not. I cannot see him again!'
When the family got up next day Bob had vanished. It was his way to
disappear like this, to avoid affecting scenes at parting. By the time
that they had sat down to a gloomy breakfast, Bob was in the boat of a
Budmouth waterman, who pulled him alongside the guardship in the roads,
where he laid hold of the man-rope, mounted, and disappeared from
external view. In the course of the day the ship moved off, set her
royals, and made sail for Portsmouth, with five hundred new hands for the
service on board, consisting partly of pressed men and partly of
volunteers, among the latter being Robert Loveday.