"THE SEA! THE SEA! THE OPEN SEA!"
One of the most interesting of English highways is the old coach road
from London to Portsmouth. Its interest is in part due to the charming
scenery through which it runs, but as much to memories of a bygone time.
One travelling this road at the present day might well deem it lonely,
as there will be met on it only the liveried equipage of some local
magnate, the more unpretentious turn-out of country doctor or parson,
with here and there a lumbering farm waggon, or the farmer himself in
his smart two-wheeled "trap," on the way to a neighbouring market.
How different it was half a century ago, when along this same highway
fifty four-horse stages were "tooled" to and fro from England's
metropolis to her chief seaport town, top-heavy with fares--often a
noisy crowd of jovial Jack tars, just off a cruise and making
Londonward, or with faces set for Portsmouth, once more to breast the
billows and brave the dangers of the deep! Many a naval officer of name
and fame historic, such as the Rodneys, Cochranes, Collingwoods, and
Codringtons,--even Nile's hero himself,--has been whirled along this old
highway.
All that is over now, and long has been. To-day the iron horse, with
its rattling train, carries such travellers by a different route--the
screech of its whistle being just audible to wayfarers on the old road,
as in mockery of their crawling pace. Of its ancient glories there
remain only the splendid causeway, still kept in repair, and the inns
encountered at short distances apart, many of them once grand
hostelries. They, however, are not in repair; instead, altogether out
of it. Their walls are cracked and crumbling to ruins, the ample
courtyards are grass-grown and the stables empty, or occupied only by
half a dozen clumsy cart-horses; while of human kind moving around will
be a lout or two in smock-frocks, where gaudily-dressed postillions,
booted and spurred, with natty ostlers in sleeve-waistcoats,
tight-fitting breeches, and gaiters, once ruled the roast.
Among other ancient landmarks on this now little-used highway is one of
dark and tragic import. Beyond the town of Petersfield, going
southward, the road winds up a long steep ridge of chalk formation--the
"South Downs," which have given their name to the celebrated breed of
sheep. Near the summit is a crater-like depression, several hundred
feet in depth, around whose rim the causeway is carried--a dark and
dismal hole, so weird of aspect as to have earned for it the appellation
of the "Devil's Punch Bowl." Human agency has further contributed to
the appropriateness of the title. By the side of the road, just where
it turns around the upper edge of the hollow, is a monolithic monument,
recording the tragic fate of a sailor who was there murdered and his
dead body flung into the "Bowl." The inscription further states that
justice overtook his murderers, who were hanged on the selfsame spot,
the scene of their crime. The obelisk of stone, with its long record,
occupying the place where stood the gallows-tree.
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It is a morning in the month of June; the hour a little after daybreak.
A white fog is over the land of South Hampshire--so white that it might
be taken for snow. The resemblance is increased by the fact of its
being but a layer, so low that the crests of the hills and tree-tops of
copses appear as islets in the ocean, with shores well defined, though
constantly shifting. For, in truth, it is the effect of a mirage, a
phenomenon aught but rare in the region of the South Downs.
The youth who is wending his way up the slope leading to the Devil's
Punch Bowl takes no note of this illusion of nature. But he is not
unobservant of the fog itself; indeed, he seems pleased at having it
around him, as though it afforded concealment from pursuers. Some
evidence of this might be gathered from his now and then casting
suspicious glances rearward, and at intervals stopping to listen.
Neither seeing nor hearing anything, however, he continues up the hill
in a brisk walk, though apparently weary. That he is tired can be told
by his sitting down on a bank by the roadside as soon as he reaches the
summit, evidently to rest himself. What he carries could not be the
cause of his fatigue--only a small bundle done up in a silk
handkerchief. More likely it comes from his tramp along the hard road,
the thick dust over his clothes showing that it had been a long one.
Now, high up the ridge, where the fog is but a thin film, the solitary
wayfarer can be better observed, and a glance at his face forbids all
thought of his being a runaway from justice. Its expression is open,
frank, and manly; whatever of fear there is in it certainly cannot be
due to any consciousness of crime. It is a handsome face, moreover,
framed in a profusion of blonde hair, which falls curling down cheeks of
ruddy hue. An air of rusticity in the cut of his clothes would bespeak
him country bred, probably the son of a farmer. And just that he is,
his father being a yeoman-farmer near Godalming, some thirty miles back
along the road. Why the youth is so far from home at this early hour,
and afoot--why those uneasy glances over the shoulder, as if he were an
escaping convict--may be gathered from some words of soliloquy
half-spoken aloud by him, while resting on the bank:
"I hope they won't miss me before breakfast-time. By then I ought to be
in Portsmouth, and if I've the luck to get apprenticed on board a ship,
I'll take precious good care not to show myself on shore till she's off.
But surely father won't think of following this way--not a bit of it.
The old bailiff will tell him what I said about going to London, and
that'll throw him off the scent completely."
The smile that accompanied the last words is replaced by a graver look,
with a touch of sadness in the tone of his voice as he continues:
"Poor dear mother, and sis Em'ly! It'll go hard with them for a bit,
grieving. But they'll soon get over it. 'Tisn't like I was leaving
them never to come back. Besides, won't I write mother a letter soon as
I'm sure of getting safe off?"
A short interval of silent reflection, and then follow words of a
self-justifying nature:
"How could I help it? Father would insist on my being a farmer, though
he knows how I hate it. One clodhopper in the family's quite enough;
and brother Dick's the man for that. As the song says, `Let me go
a-ploughing the sea.' Yes, though I should never rise above being a
common sailor. Who's happier than the jolly Jack tar? He sees the
world, any way, which is better than to live all one's life, with head
down, delving ditches. But a common sailor--no! Maybe I'll come home
in three or four years with gold buttons on my jacket and a glittering
band around the rim of my cap. Ay, and with pockets full of gold coin!
Who knows? Then won't mother be proud of me, and little Em too?"
By this time the uprisen sun has dispelled the last lingering threads of
mist, and Henry Chester (such is the youth's name) perceives, for the
first time, that he has been sitting beside a tall column of stone. As
the memorial tablet is right before his eyes, and he reads the
inscription on it, again comes a shadow over his countenance. May not
the fate of that unfortunate sailor be a forecast of his own? Why
should it be revealed to him just then? Is it a warning of what is
before him, with reproach for his treachery to those left behind?
Probably, at that very moment, an angry father, a mother and sister in
tears, all on his account!
For a time he stands hesitating; in his mind a conflict of emotions--a
struggle between filial affection and selfish desire. Thus wavering, a
word would decide him to turn back for Godalming and home. But there is
no one to speak that word, while the next wave of thought surging upward
brings vividly before him the sea with all its wonders--a vision too
bright, too fascinating, to be resisted by a boy, especially one brought
up on a farm. So he no longer hesitates, but, picking up his bundle,
strides on toward Portsmouth.
A few hundred paces farther up, and he is on the summit of the ridge,
there to behold the belt of low-lying Hampshire coastland, and beyond it
the sea itself, like a sheet of blue glass, spreading out till met by
the lighter blue of the sky. It is his first look upon the ocean, but
not the last; it can surely now claim him for its own.
Soon after an incident occurs to strengthen him in the resolve he has
taken. At the southern base of the "Downs," lying alongside the road,
is the park and mansion of Horndean. Passing its lodge-gate, he has the
curiosity to ask who is the owner of such a grand place, and gets for
answer, "Admiral Sir Charles Napier." [See Note 1.]
"Might not _I_ some day be an admiral?" self-interrogates Henry Chester,
the thought sending lightness to his heart and quickening his steps in
the direction of Portsmouth.
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Note 1. The Sir Charles Napier known to history as the "hero of Saint
Jean d'Acre," but better known to sailors in the British navy as "Old
Sharpen Your Cutlasses!" This quaint soubriquet he obtained from an
order issued by him when he commanded a fleet in the Baltic,
anticipating an engagement with the Russians.