HAPPINESS AT HOME--WAR BREAKS OUT AGAIN--PRESSGANGS ABROAD--MYSTERIOUS
APPEARANCE OF CHARLEY IFFLEY--HIS UNACCOUNTABLE CONDUCT--ANECDOTES ABOUT
SMUGGLERS--THE OLD COUPLE AND THEIR LOST SON--SEA-YARNS.
No happiness could be more complete than ours, and I saw no reason why
it should not be permanent. Happy it undoubtedly is that we do not see
the dark clouds of adversity gathering in the horizon, yet it would be
wiser in men if they would still recollect that, however bright the sky
and fine the weather, storms may arise, and thick mists may overshadow
them--perhaps sent as punishments, perhaps in mercy to try and purify
them. I was actively engaged all day in the duties of my office, and in
the evening, when I returned home, I was welcomed by the smiles of my
wife, and the cordial kindness of Aunt Bretta. I desired no change--I
should have been content to live the same sort of life to the end of my
days. I had a few little rubs and annoyances to contend with in my
employment, but I did not allow them to vex me, and went on steadily
doing my duty, neither turning to the right hand nor to the left.
War with France had again broken out, and England was making every
effort to renew the struggle with the numerous foes which her prosperity
and greatness had won for her. A difficulty existed then, as now, in
manning the navy, and the pressgangs were always hard at work
endeavouring to secure by force or stratagem the necessary crew for the
ships.
I knew that I was not exempt from the risk of being taken, but as I
dressed in shore-going clothes, and as I was not likely to meet any of
my old shipmates or other people who knew me to have been a seaman, I
had little fear on the subject. Had I been single and without the ties
of home, I would gladly have once more gone afloat to serve my country;
but how could I be expected to tear myself from all I loved on earth to
do duty before the mast among rough and uneducated men, subject to all
the rigours of the naval discipline of those days? I talked the subject
over with my uncle.
"If the time comes when every man who can handle a rope is wanted, I
shall be the first to say `Go,'" said he. "Till then, my boy, stay at
home, do your duty, and look after your wife."
I was too glad to follow his advice. There was no grass growing in the
streets of Portsmouth in those days. The place swarmed with seamen and
officers; troops were marching in and out; carriages-and-four were
dashing down from London; bands were playing; the hotels swarmed with
visitors come to see their friends off; ships were being commissioned
and fitted out with unwonted rapidity; and all was life, activity, and
energy. I now and then, on my way home, took a walk up High Street, for
the amusement of observing the bustling, laughing, talking, busy throng.
One evening, as I turned to go back, my eye fell on the countenance of a
man whose features I felt sure I knew. In an instant I recollected that
they were those of Charles Iffley. Forgetting all I had heard to his
disparagement, I was going to follow him, when he turned into a cross
street among a crowd who were looking on at some itinerant tumblers, and
I lost sight of him. I felt very sorry, for I should have been glad to
have shaken him again by the hand and invited him to our house. My wife
and aunt used constantly to walk out a little way on the common to meet
me.
Two days after that, when they met me, they told me that, in the
morning, as they were returning home, they had suddenly encountered
Charles Iffley. He knew them at once, but did not speak. He stopped
for an instant, stared hard at them, and then moved on. When, however,
they reached our house door, they observed that he had followed them at
a distance and remarked where they had gone in. Just as they had
finished their account, the very person we were speaking of appeared at
the further end of the road coming towards us. Directly, however, he
saw us, he stopped short and looked at me with an astonished and
inquiring gaze. He remained long enough, apparently, to ascertain
positively who it was. At first he evidently was in doubt. He had
heard of my death, and believed that I was dead, I concluded, and that
when he saw me alive, and, as he might have suspected, married to the
very woman who had refused to become his wife, he at first could not
trust his senses.
My impulse was immediately to run forward to meet him, but my wife
pressed my arm so tightly that I could not leave her.
"No, no, do not go," she whispered. "I do not like his look. He means
us mischief." She must have felt very strongly, I knew, before she
could have given way to such an expression. Of course, I yielded to her
wish, though it went much against my feelings to turn away from my old
associate, ill as I had too much reason to think of him. I could not
help agreeing with my wife, as I watched him, that I did not like his
look. There was something very evil in his expression as he watched us
proceeding towards our home, and I could no longer have any doubt that
he recognised me. I never before had seen his countenance wear so
malignant an expression, and I feared, not without reason, that even at
that moment he was plotting to do us some mischief. A picture I had
once seen was forcibly recalled to my memory. It represented Satan
watching our first parents in Paradise, and when he is envying them the
happiness he can never enjoy, he is considering how he may the most
effectually destroy it.
When we got home, we talked the matter over. I did not express my own
suspicions to my wife, as they could not fail to agitate her, but I
endeavoured rather to make light of it, and to appear as if I hoped,
should Charles Iffley feel any desire of revenge, that he would be
unable to effect it. I felt regret, also, that I had not hurried after
Iffley. Whatever were his feelings, I thought that I might perhaps have
turned his heart to better thoughts by talking of bygone days and of our
early friendship. "Well, it may not yet be too late," I thought to
myself; "I will seek him out and try to persuade him to discard those
feelings of jealousy and envy which are now influencing him." When,
however, I mentioned my intentions to Uncle Kelson, he rather laughed at
my notion.
"An idle, conceited young puppy. What business has he to interfere with
you or yours?" he exclaimed. "Because a girl, of whom he is utterly
unworthy, does not choose to have anything to say to him, is he to set
himself up and to look daggers at any man she may happen to marry? Let
him alone. Let him go his own gait, as your Aunt Bretta would say.
He'll find a rope long enough to hang himself, depend on it."
My uncle thought he was giving good advice, but even at the time I felt
that better is given elsewhere. "Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals
of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with
good." I felt that if I could have met with Iffley, I might have heaped
coals of fire on his head. I might have softened his heart, just as the
contents of a pot are melted by piling up coals, not only around it, but
on the very head or top of it. I did not do what I felt and knew was
right, and the result of my neglect will be seen.
Aunt Bretta was more indignant than any of us with Iffley. "If he does
come to the door, in my opinion, he ought to be turned away!" she
exclaimed. "The idea of a person whom I knew as a little boy, glad to
receive a slice of gingerbread, giving himself such airs! I have no
notion of it." This was very severe for Aunt Bretta, whose heart was
kindness itself.
On making inquiries of the servant, she discovered that a man exactly
answering his description had, while they were out, knocked at the door
and asked all sorts of questions.
"She could not mind what exactly," she said. "They were about Mr
Wetherholm. Where he had come from! When he had got married? What he
was doing? And all sorts of such like things." After I had heard this
account of the servant girl, I could not help feeling somewhat
suspicious of Iffley's object. The mere asking them was very natural,
and had he come frankly forward to meet us, I should not have
entertained any ill thoughts of him; but now, in spite of all my
resolution, I could not help dreading that he contemplated doing me some
mischief or other. Still I did my best to get rid of such thoughts of
an old friend, for they were not pleasant.
When the evening came, I forgot all about the matter. Old Jerry Vincent
looked in, and several other friends, among them two former shipmates of
Uncle Kelson's, and anecdotes and stories innumerable were told. We got
on the subject of smuggling. In those days it was certainly not looked
on in its proper light, and a smuggler, if he was bold and daring, was
considered a very fine fellow. Most of our guests were Hampshire or
Isle of Wight men, and had been personally acquainted with many of the
smugglers in their day, and might, perhaps, not have refused to purchase
any of the goods they had to offer.
"Some of you may have known Jim Dore?" began Jerry.
One or two nodded.
"I thought so," said Jerry. "Well, then, when he began the work he was
very young, and there wasn't a bolder or more daring hand in the trade.
We were boys together, and a braver fellow or better seaman never
stepped. He was a Yarmouth man, born and bred, just inside the Needles
there. There was a large family of them. He wasn't always as prudent
as he might be, and one day he and the cutter he was in was taken with
three hundred tubs on board. Of course he was sent to serve his
Majesty. When he found that there was no help for it, he vowed that he
would do his duty like a man, and he kept his word.
"He was sent aboard a brig of war employed in looking after smugglers,
and though before she had never taken one, now scarcely a month passed
that through his means she did not make a prize.
"Once upon a time the brig attacked a large armed smuggler, the crew of
which had vowed that they never would be taken alive. There was a
desperate fight for more than three hours, and in the end the smugglers
kept their word, for they went down with colours flying, under the guns
of the brig which was just about to board them. On this occasion, as on
every other, Dore behaved so bravely that the captain put him on the
quarter-deck, and if he had chosen to follow it, there was the road open
to him to become an admiral. But you know there are people who cannot
give up habits, so to speak, born and bred with them, as one may say.
"Well, Dore's time of servitude was up for the smuggling affair, and
soon after that the brig put into Portsmouth harbour. The next day Dore
got leave to go and see his friends, so he hired a wherry, and got ready
for a start for Yarmouth. Just as he was shoving off, I saw him and
asked him for a cast down there, as I had some friends in those days in
the same place. Now, though he was an officer with a cocked hat on his
head, and a sword by his side, I knew that he was in no way proud, at
all events. He told me to jump into the boat, by all means. On our way
down I asked him if he was going to be long away from his ship.
"`Long away, do you say?' he answered, in an indignant tone. `I'll tell
you what it is, Vincent, it will be long, I'm thinking, before I go back
again. I've been made an officer of, it's true, but I haven't been
treated as one or looked on as one, because I wasn't born a gentleman,
and slavery in a cocked hat I, for one, will not bear.'
"In that way he talked till we got pretty nearly down to Yarmouth. At
last he worked himself up into a regular rage, for he was a passionate
man, do you see.
"`Give us a knife, some one of you,' he sang out.
"I handed him mine. When he got it, he began cutting off the buttons
from his coat. Then he unbuckled his sword, and took off his hat. He
jumped up, and holding all the things together, as it were in a lump, he
hove them away into the sea as far from him as he could, uttering at the
same time a loud and deep curse. `There goes the last link of the chain
that binds me to slavery!' he exclaimed. `Now, my lads, I'm once more
Jim Dore, the bold smuggler.'
"The men in the boat thought what he had done was very fine, and so did
I in those days, and so we all cheered him over and over again. When he
landed at Yarmouth, every one turned out to welcome him as if he had
been an admiral just come home after a great victory; and certainly the
people did make much of him. Those Yarmouth men are great smugglers,
there's no doubt about it. I don't think, however, myself, as I did in
those days. Dore was a brave man, and it's a great pity he had not been
taught better, and he might have been an ornament to the service he
deserted.
"When his leave was up, and he did not return, an officer with a boat's
crew was sent to look for him. He got notice of their coming, and got
stowed out of the way, for there were plenty of people to help him. He
had to keep in hiding for a long time, and often, I dare say, he wished
himself back aboard the brig. When the war was over he took to
smuggling again, and he soon got command of a large cutter. At last he
and some other Yarmouth men went away in her, and from that day to this
have never been heard of. It is supposed that the cutter was run down
or foundered in a tremendous gale of wind, which sprung up soon after
she was last seen."
One of our friends who came from Poole in Dorsetshire, told us a very
good story, when Jerry Vincent and one or two others sang out in chorus,
"Howe! howe! howe!"