“Can’t we go to our own rooms now, papa?” asked Lulu, when their
English friends had bidden good-night and gone.
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand and leading the way, Max following not
at all unwillingly.
“I suppose you want to finish your letter now, Lulu?” the captain said,
as they entered his bedroom, which they made their sitting-room also
when desirous of being quite to themselves.
“No, sir, I don’t. I’d rather let it wait till Monday, if I may sit on
your knee a little while and have you talk to me.”
“Have me talk to you? or let you talk to me?” he asked with playful
look and tone, as he sat down and drew her to the coveted place.
“Both, you dear papa,” she answered, putting her arms around his neck
and giving him an ardent kiss.
“And am I to do nothing but listen?” asked Max, pulling forward a chair
and seating himself close beside them.
“Just as you please, young man,” laughed his father; “but I doubt if
you can refrain from putting in a word now and then.”
“He’s been talking ever so fast almost all the evening,” said Lulu;
“only letting me have a word now and then.”
“Ah, indeed! I hope it has been good-humored and sensible talk?”
“Very sensible (I was quite proud of my brother)” replied Lulu, giving
Max a laughing glance, “but I’m not so sure about the good-humor. I
shouldn’t wonder if Albert Austin had made up his mind by this time
that Max and I are not very partial to the English.”
“I hope you haven’t been rude to Albert, my children?” the captain
said, with sudden gravity.
“I hope not, papa; I don’t think we were, though we stated a few
historical facts—perhaps a little strongly,” replied Lulu.
“What were they?” he asked, “you may tell me about it if you like.”
They then repeated the substance of their conversation with Albert,
their father listening with evident interest.
At the conclusion of the story, he said, “I think from your account
that Albert showed much good temper and moderation in the way he bore
your strictures on his country and countrymen. You can not be too
patriotic to please me, my dears, but I want you to be careful of the
feelings of others, never wounding them unnecessarily. Albert and his
father may be considered, to some extent, our guests, as strangers
visiting our country, so that we should be doubly careful to be kind
and considerate toward them.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind, papa,” said Max, “standing up for my
own country always but not abusing his—when I can help it. Just as we
were separating to-night he said to me in a low tone, ‘We must have
some more talks on the subject we were on to-night. I haven’t any books
at hand to consult, but I must inform myself by questioning papa, and
then I’ll be better prepared to stand up for old England.’”
“Did he look cross when he said it?” asked Lulu.
“No,” replied Max; “he’s quite a gentleman, I think.”
“As his father is,” remarked the captain. “‘Like father, like son,’ is
an old saying, so remember, my children, that people will judge of me
by your behavior.”
“Yes, sir,” said Max, “I think I shall be the more careful to behave
well on that account.”
“I too,” chimed in Lulu. “It would be a dreadful thing if we should
disgrace our father. Wouldn’t it, Max?”
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the lad earnestly. “I have often felt, oh, so
thankful that I had a father I could respect and reverence and honor;
for I’ve known boys whose fathers were drunken, wicked, men, that they
couldn’t help being ashamed of.”
“Give all the glory and thanks to God, who has kept your father from
drunkenness and crime, my boy,” the captain said, laying his hand
affectionately on his son’s shoulder, and giving him a look full of
fatherly affection. “But for His restraining grace I might have been
the worst of criminals.”
Then taking up the Bible and opening it, “Now, we will have our reading
and prayer,” he said, “and then go to our beds.”
“I just know Gracie is longing for this, if she’s awake,” said Lulu, as
her father took her in his arms, after prayers, to give her a goodnight
kiss.
“I trust she is asleep ere this, the dear pet!” he replied. “I seem to
see the dear little face lying on my pillow with the sweet blue eyes
closed in sleep and almost a smile on her lips; the babies asleep in
the nursery, with the door open between, and Mamma Vi seated somewhere
near, writing a letter to her absent husband. Ah, I should be homesick
to-night if I hadn’t these two of my loved flock with me.”
“And I’d be dreadfully homesick if I wasn’t with my dear father,” she
responded, clinging lovingly to him. “You are a good deal more than
half of home to me, papa; and, oh, but you were good and kind to bring
me with you!”
“And me, too,” added Max. “Papa, I am sure this trip to the far West
will be something to remember all my life.”
“I hope so, my boy,” his father said. “It has been my desire to make it
so enjoyable to you both that it will be to you a pleasant memory all
your days.
“To-morrow we will attend morning and evening service at the mission
church—Sunday school also—and in the afternoon have our usual home
exercises, going on with our regular Bible and catechism lessons
exactly as if we were at Woodburn.
“On Monday I expect to take you to see the cattle ranch Mr. Short
pointed out in the distance, this afternoon.”
Both thanked him, expressing themselves pleased with the plans he had
mapped out for the two days.
“Papa, shall I dress for church when I get up in the morning?” asked
Lulu.
“Yes,” he answered. “Wear one of your plainer dresses. I think we
should not dishonor God’s house by being shabby or slovenly in our
attire, nor should we dress in a way to attract attention and divert
the thoughts of others from the service.”
“Yes, sir, I know that’s what you have told me at home, and that you
never let me wear my gayest things to church. And I suppose it would
make even more difference here, where most of the congregation must be
quite poor and ignorant?”
“I think so,” he said; “and also that you will be less likely to be
taken up with thoughts of yourself and your own appearance if you are
not gayly dressed.”
Captain Raymond’s arrangements for spending the holy hours of the
Lord’s Day were duly carried out. The hour for morning service in the
church he had provided for Minersville, found him and his son and
daughter seated among the worshippers. The Austins were there also; and
it was the same again in the evening.
They all visited the Sunday school, too, and took part in its
exercises. The two gentlemen had not been acquainted many hours before
discovering that they were followers of the same Saviour, and each felt
it to be a closer bond of union than would have been that of the same
nativity without it.
The Austins joined the Raymonds by invitation, in Monday’s excursion,
and indeed in almost every other one taken while they all remained in
Minersville, which was for several weeks.
Captain Raymond took his children with him almost everywhere that he
went; to Lulu’s extreme satisfaction her days were spent principally
in walks and rides, the latter becoming more enjoyable as she made
better acquaintance with her pony and grew confident of her ability to
guide and control it. Her father, however, always rode by her side, and
kept constant watch over her safety.
Their evenings were apt to be spent on the porch, as the weather was
such as to make that the most enjoyable spot at that time. Often one or
more of the McAlpine family would be there—perhaps at the farther end
of the porch, so as not to seem to intrude upon the Raymonds and their
guests, for Mr. Austin and Albert were apt to be with them; Mr. Short,
too, not unfrequently.
But occasionally the young people were there without their elders, the
captain, perhaps, busied with some writing in his own room.
The lads, Albert and Max, were very good friends, in spite of an
occasional tilt over the respective claims of the two countries to
preeminence in one thing or another, usually in regard to the bravery
and competence of her soldiers and sailors.
One evening Albert began lauding Nelson as the greatest naval hero the
world had ever seen, winding up his eulogy with a challenge to Max to
mention any one to compare to him in seamanship, fighting qualities, or
bravery.
“Well, I don’t know of any other Englishman to compare to him,” replied
Max coolly, “but we’ve had a number of officers in our navy that I
think were quite equal to him.”
“Which, pray?” sneered Albert.
“There was Commodore McDonough, who whipped the British in the battle
of Lake Champlain. It was so terrible a fight that one of the British
sailors engaged in it, and who had been with Nelson at Trafalgar, said
that battle was a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
“But in the action at Trafalgar Lord Nelson defeated the combined
navies of France and Spain.”
“Yes, the British whipped them, and the Americans whipped the British,”
said Max. “You ought to think it a greater feat to whip the British
than to conquer in fight with Frenchmen and Spaniards,” he added
laughingly.
“But the odds against Nelson were very much greater. Our force in the
battle of Lake Champlain was only slightly superior.”
“I am not so sure about that,” replied Max, “I know at least one
historian says it was _decidedly_ superior. But McDonough was a
Christian, and before going into the fight he called his officers about
him, and kneeling on the quarter deck, asked help of God in the coming
battle.”
“Then, if his prayer was granted, he had better help than all the
navies of the world could have given him.”
“That’s so,” said Max. “And he gave the glory of the victory where it
belonged; in his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy he said God had
granted it.
“He was gallant and generous as a conqueror; when the British officers
tendered him their swords after the surrender, he put them back,
saying, ‘Gentlemen, your gallant conduct makes you worthy to wear your
weapons. Return them to their scabbards.’
“Commodore Perry was another of our naval heroes. He won the victory
in the battle of Lake Erie in the war of 1812, and wrote that famous
dispatch, ‘We have met the enemy, and they are ours, two ships, two
brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.’
“Then there were the great naval commanders of our civil war,” Max went
on. “I don’t believe a greater one than Farragut ever lived, or as
great a one, unless it might be Porter, who had a large share in the
taking of New Orleans; helping ever so much with his mortar boats.
“Why, the undertaking was so difficult, that a number of English and
French naval officers who visited Farragut while he was in the lower
Mississippi completing his preparations for passing on up to take
the city, told him they had carefully examined the defences of the
Confederates, and that it would be sheer madness for him to attack the
forts with wooden ships such as his; he’d be sure to be defeated.
“But he was not to be discouraged—the brave old man! He said, ‘You
may be right, but I was sent here to make the attempt. I came here to
reduce or pass the forts, and to take New Orleans, and I shall try it
on.’ And so he did try it on, and succeeded.”
“I admire such grit,” said Albert. “I’ve read quite a good deal about
that war—a tremendous one it was—and I think there were some very
plucky things done on both sides.”
“Yes,” returned Max; “I’m proud of the bravery shown by both the
‘Yanks’ and the ‘Johnnies,’ as they called each other.”
Here Lulu, who had thus far contented herself with listening, put in a
word:
“I don’t believe there ever was or could be a braver or more wonderful
feat than Lieutenant Cushing performed when he blew up the rebel ram
Albemarle. He dashed up along side of it, in his little vessel, through
a perfect shower of bullets, then, finding that the ram was behind
a wall of logs, he sheered off and dashed over that, he standing up
in the stern of his boat, with the tiller ropes in one hand and the
lanyard of a torpedo in the other, never flinching, though a big gun
was trained right on him; but he got his torpedo just where he wanted
it under the ram, gave his lanyard a jerk, and fired the thing off, so
that it blew up the ram at the same instant that their great gun sent
a hundred pound shot right through the bottom of his boat. Oh, such
a roar as the two—the torpedo and the gun—must have made, going off
together in that way!”
“It was a wonderfully brave deed!” exclaimed Albert with enthusiasm.
“Did Cushing himself, or any of his crew, escape alive? I have
forgotten, if ever I knew about it.”
“Yes,” replied Lulu; “he escaped to the Union fleet, after almost
incredible hardships and dangers, the only one of thirteen who had set
out on the expedition two days before.”
“And the ram was destroyed?”
“Yes, she was a total wreck. Cushing wasn’t sure of it till, while
he was lying in hiding in a swamp and half covered with water, two
Confederate officers passing along near him, said to each other that
the Albemarle was a total wreck.
“They didn’t see him, but he heard what they said, and it was such good
news that it gave him fresh courage to bear his sufferings and exert
himself to get back to the Federal fleet.”
“Your father was on the Union side, I suppose?” Albert said inquiringly.
“Yes, indeed!” replied Max and Lulu, both speaking at once; then Max
went on, “but he was only a boy, younger than I am now, when the war
began.”
“And what was it all about?” asked Albert. “I’m not sure I ever clearly
understood that?”
“The Confederates were trying to break up the Union, and the Federals
fought to save it,” replied Max. “Papa has made it very clear to
me that the Revolutionary War was fought to win freedom from Great
Britain’s galling yoke, and make ourselves a nation; the War of 1812
to convince the British that we were free and independent, and not to
be maltreated with impunity. Those two wars did that for us;—_made_
the dear old Union; and the Civil War saved it from being destroyed by
those who ought to have been ready to defend and preserve it at the
risk of their lives. I do believe they would now,” he added; “or rather
the new generation, who have taken their places, would. I believe, if
England or France or any other nation should attack us, the people of
the Southern states would fight for the Union quite as bravely and with
as much fury and determination as any men of any other part of our
great big country.”
“Is that so?” said Albert. “Well, I trust there will be no more wars
between England and the United States.”
“I am sure I can echo that wish,” returned Max. “It seems a dreadful
thing for two Christian nations to go to war with each other.”
“Very true,” said Albert; “it would certainly look strangely
inconsistent to the heathen peoples we are both trying to convert.”
“It couldn’t fail to do so,” assented Max. “War is a dreadful thing;
reading descriptions of the awful scenes of bloodshed and carnage on
board of vessels, and in land battles, too, I’ve sometimes thought
Satan must take great and fiendish delight in it.”
“Yes,” said Lulu, again joining in the talk; “I’ve heard papa make a
remark like that, but he said at the same time that there were worse
things than war, when it was waged to secure liberty, not only for
ourselves, but for others; that war could never be right on both sides,
but it often was on one. On the side of America in her two wars with
England, for instance.”
“My father surprised me by saying the same thing when I questioned him
on the subject after that talk we had about it before,” said Albert.
“He added that, of course, England being his native land, he loved her
better than any other, and always should, but for all that he couldn’t
shut his eyes to the fact that she had not always been in the right.
“The colonies were oppressed, and had a right to be free if they
desired separation from the mother country; and that after they had
been acknowledged free and independent states, they were no more
under English rule than any other foreign nation, and as, according
to international law, the public and private vessels of every nation
are subject, on the high seas, to the jurisdiction of the State they
belong to, and to no other, and no nation has the right of visitation
and search of the vessels of another nation, Americans were justly
indignant over the insistence upon, and the carrying out, of the
so-called right of search by British men-of-war; especially, as
native-born Americans had no security against being impressed as
Englishmen, and indeed very often were. It must have been awfully hard
on them, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” returned Max, “and your father must be an honorable and just man
to acknowledge it.”
“Just my opinion,” Albert said, with a frank, good-humored smile; “but
if it’s noble to acknowledge one’s own individual faults, why not to
own that your country may have sometimes been in the wrong?”
“Certainly,” said Max, “and I’ve heard papa say he thought we were the
aggressors in the war with Mexico, and that our government had done
grievous wrong to the poor Indians.”
“It’s very true that a good many Americans were impressed,” remarked
Lulu; “thousands of them; even while we were fighting France and so
helping England, she kept on impressing our sailors and seizing our
ships whenever she could find the smallest excuse for doing so; they
didn’t respect even the ships belonging to our government when they—the
British, I mean—were enough stronger to put resistance out of the
question on the part of the Americans.
“And they even impressed three of our sailors after the War of 1812
had begun. I read about it not long ago, and remember very well how
shamefully they were treated.
“They refused to serve against their country, and for that were
punished with five dozen lashes, well laid on. Still they refused, and
two days later got four dozen more, and two days after that two dozen
more.
“But all the beating the British could give them wouldn’t make them
fight against their country; so they put them in irons for three
months, till the ship reached London.
“There they heard of the glorious victory of the Constitution over the
Guerriere and were so rejoiced that they made a flag by tearing up
some of their clothes into strips and sewing them together, then hung
it on a gun and cheered for the Stars and Stripes. Of course, they got
another flogging for that.
“But there were twenty thousand American seamen in the British
navy, five times as many as we had in our own navy, and quite too
many to beat into subjection, so they imprisoned thousands of them
in old hulks, where they froze in winter and sweltered in summer and
suffocated all the time—so crowded together they were hardly able to
get a breath of fresh air; eaten up by vermin also, and only half-fed;
on very poor food, too.
“Of course they grew sick, and altogether had a dreadful, dreadful
life; all because they wouldn’t fight against their country.”
“It was awfully hard on them,” admitted Albert, “but please, Miss Lulu,
don’t hold Englishmen of the present day responsible for what was done
so many years ago.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said with a smile; “certainly I shall not hold
you responsible, for I feel quite sure you would never be so unjust and
cruel.”
“Thanks,” he returned with a gratified look, and she went on.
“I know there were Englishmen, even in that day, who wouldn’t have
had one poor sailor so treated if they could have helped it. Captain
Dacres, of the Guerriere, for one.
“He had an American captain prisoner on his vessel at the time of his
battle with the Constitution, and before the fight began politely told
him, as he supposed he didn’t want to fight against his country, he
might go below, if he chose; and he gave the same privilege to ten
American sailors who had been impressed on to his ship.”
“Yes,” said Max, “He was a fine fellow; and if all his countrymen had
been like him, I don’t believe there would have been any war between
England and America.”
“I admire his conduct,” Albert said, “and hope I should have acted as
he did, had I been in his place.”
“I dare say you would,” said Max.