doubtful if the little Hornet could pass in the narrow passage to
the harbor, where it was plain they would meet; but Dicky Carew had
no notion of shortening sail and hanging around outside until the
Frenchman had got out. So in contrast to the great lumbering Alceste,
the little Hornet came dashing on, with a free wind, making about two
knots to the Alceste's one, and her course as straight as the crow
flies. The French captain, who was also on his bridge, saw that the
Hornet had no mind to stand out of his way, but he laughed as he looked
at his own big hull and towering masts, and saw the little Hornet,
whose mainmast was no higher than the Alceste's lower spars. And not
the slightest sign was made that his topsails were to be lowered.
Now Dicky could stand the Alceste's bad seamanship, but it didn't suit
him to take the Alceste's snub, and then sit down and write to the
Admiralty and complain about it. He had been used to teaching Frenchmen
to behave themselves, and he meant to do so now.
"Barham," said he to his first lieutenant, "the rascals don't mean to
salute."
"Report 'em to the Admiralty as soon as we come to anchor," responded
Barham.
"Wouldn't it be better to smash his cabin windows, and splinter one of
his starboard boats beforehand--eh?"
"Decidedly better," said Barham, whose blood was up too. "With such a
lot of landsmen and marines as they've got aloft, it will go hard if
the Hornet can't scrape some of the paint off his sides."
By this time the French captain saw what was coming. The Hornet was
standing up beautifully to the breeze, and apparently making straight
for the Alceste. In two minutes more she was right on his starboard
quarter, and the French sailors began to yell. Barham had taken the
wheel, and kept his eye on Captain Carew, when, as Dicky waved his
hand, Barham threw down the helm, and the little Hornet scraped so
close to the Alceste that the quartermaster, taking up a boat-hook,
jammed it through the Alceste's cabin windows, bawling:
"Take that for yer manners, ye ornsightly lubbers!"
And then there was a crash--a boat on the Alceste's starboard quarter
was gone, and as the big frigate lurched across the yard of blue
water between them, the little Hornet's stanch mizzen mast struck the
Alceste's lower spars, that were only half secured, and tore through
the rigging as if it were a cobweb. In another minute the Hornet with
her helm righted had danced off, her men cheering and jeering, while
the French captain fairly danced with rage, and shook his fist at
Captain Carew, who raised his cap, and bowed and smiled politely.
Of course it was very wrong, and Captain Carew knew it, particularly
when he saw the Alceste deliberately put about to return to Portsmouth.
Dicky began to have dreadful visions of being obliged to go on the
Alceste in full uniform, and make an apology to the French captain,
than which he would much rather have had an arm cut off.
But all this was forgotten when Dicky caught sight of the Indomptable,
for Polly was still in Portsmouth, and not many days passed without
the captain's daughter coming on board the big frigate with her father
for an hour or two. Polly loved the Indomptable, as she had done the
old Xantippe, and was quite as much at home on her, although she no
longer had a little bed in her father's cabin. Captain Sarsfield looked
very serious when Dicky told him about it, and things generally began
to look grave when the French ambassador came down to Portsmouth and
looked at the Alceste, and then took the French captain back to London
with him. Dicky was not a whit behindhand in making his report to the
Admiralty about the French ship's omission--but that was all he was
entitled to do. The jabbing the boat-hook through the Alceste's cabin
windows, and the smashing her boat, while the Hornet's first lieutenant
was at the wheel and her captain on the bridge, was altogether
another thing. And in a very little time indeed came the order for a
court-martial, and young Captain Carew was ordered to turn his ship
over to his first lieutenant, and consider himself under arrest. What a
stir it made! And the people all said, "If they break him for crippling
a ship twice his size, without getting a scratch, they will have hard
work finding another captain who can do it; and if every man resented
an affront to the British ensign like that, why, it never would be safe
to affront it."
The captains, sitting stern and solemn around the table in the
admiral's cabin, heard the whole story. In vain they tried to bring out
that accident had something to do with it; but Dicky, cool and calm,
declared openly that he had done it on purpose, and would do it again,
to any man that did not salute the ensign flying on his Majesty's ship
Hornet--if he could.
The courts-martial in those times did not keep a man long in suspense.
There was indeed a fearful dispatch in taking an officer's commission
away from him. One whole May day was Dicky on the rack, and he
knew his fate before he left the admiral's ship. He left it a free
man--free with the dreadful freedom of a man whose country disowns him.
Track would be kept of him, so the Admiralty could set its seal of
condemnation on him too, but otherwise he could go where he pleased.
The first use he made of this new and terrible liberty, was to go on
board the Indomptable, where he was shown into the captain's cabin.
Dicky was as white as a sheet, but he held his head up manfully.
"Captain Sarsfield" he said "I am a ruined man. I have been dismissed
the service of my country. I came to say that although I am not
conscious of having done anything to disgrace my name, I can no longer
ask your daughter to accept it."
Captain Sarsfield too was pale. He loved Dicky, but he could not bring
himself to give Polly to a cashiered officer, and he said so. But just
then Polly herself appeared, and marching up to Dicky, with blazing
eyes, she put her hand on his arm.
"But I want to marry him, _and I will_!" she said. "He is the best
sailor in the British navy, and if they cashier him because he can do
what hardly anybody else can do, very well. Papa, I shall marry him."
Captain Sarsfield rubbed his eyes to see if he were awake or dreaming.
Was this his quiet, gentle Polly? As for Dicky, his heart swelled, but
he removed her hand gently from his arm.
"No, Polly," he said; "your father is right. I could not bring you
down to be the wife of a man counted unfit to serve his king and his
country."
"But I am not afraid of being poor," said Polly, with tears in her eyes.
"It is not that, my dear," answered Dicky, in a husky voice. "It is
because I am broken--don't you see? I shall have to take off the
uniform that I had hoped to wear as long as I lived. I shall have
to either live in my own country as a discredited man, or carry my
discredit with me to another country; no, Polly."
"But I say I will!" answered Polly, fiercely.
"Good-by," said Dicky, taking her hand. "You are too generous; it would
be cruel to take advantage of you, dear Polly--"
The captain had been standing there all the time. Both Dicky and Polly
had forgotten him until he spoke.
"Now, Polly," said he, firmly, "this must stop. Carew is right."
"Well, then," said Polly, standing up very straight and bold, "he may
refuse to marry me now; but I mean to let him know once a year that I
am ready and waiting for him, until--until he finds somebody else."
"There's no danger of that," said Dicky, kissing her hand; "but you
and I can never be married now, Polly."
Dicky did not go back to the Hornet, but went ashore and to an inn,
where, calling for a private room, he sat and tried to look the thing
in the face like a man; but he couldn't. His profession gone, his
mother's heart broken, separated from Polly, no longer Captain Carew,
commanding his Majesty's ship Hornet, but plain Dicky Carew commanding
nothing at all.
Oh, poor Dicky! How much easier would it have been to be killed in
those sea-fights with Boney's ships! What was he to do? All night
long Dicky sat up and walked the floor, and when day broke he was so
haggard and miserable that he was ashamed to show himself. All day he
sat in his little room; he would wait until nightfall before he took
the coach for London. Disgraced men ought to hide themselves from the
light of day. Toward evening, just as he was preparing to go out, a
furious knocking came at his door. Dicky opened it, and there stood
a functionary all in scarlet and gold--a king's messenger, so Dicky
knew. The messenger, making a low bow, handed a packet to Dicky. "I was
directed to deliver this into Mr. Carew's own hands," he said.
Dicky winced. It was the first time that he had been called "Mr. Carew."
Dicky broke the big red seal, and found two documents inclosed. One was
a letter from the Admiralty, and this is what it said:
RICHARD CAREW, ESQ.: Sir.--I am directed by the Lords of
the Admiralty to inform you that the sentence of the late
court-martial, finding you guilty of willfully running into the
French frigate Alceste, coming out of Portsmouth Harbor, on the
25th of March, has been submitted to his Majesty in council, and
the decision of the court--viz., that you be deprived of your
commission as commander--has been approved by his Majesty, without
regarding the provocation you were under, or the great skill,
daring, and capable seamanship you displayed on the occasion. But
his Majesty herewith incloses you a commission under the royal seal
as post-captain, and directs you to take command of his majesty's
ship Hornet, now lying in Portsmouth Harbor; and may all impudent
Frenchmen be served like the Alceste, as long as British hearts of
oak endure!
And then followed signatures and seals. But Dicky could read no more;
and although he was as brave a fellow as ever stepped, he fell down on
his knees and cried like a woman or a baby.
Within a month Dicky and Polly were married. The day was beautiful and
bright, and the little Hornet was dressed with bunting from rail to
main-truck, and the wedding bells clashed so merrily that they were
heard half across the water to Cherbourg.
NOTE.--In Thackeray's Roundabout Papers he says: "In George
II's time there was a turbulent young lieutenant, Tom Smith
by name, who was broke on complaint of the French ambassador
for obliging a French ship of war to lower her topsails to his
ship at Spithead. But by the king's orders, Tom was next day
made a captain." Tom's picture is at Greenwich. He was called
"Handsome Smith," but his portrait is by no means so handsome
as his conduct.
THE KOURÁSOFFS.
I.
My acquaintance with the brothers Kourásoff commenced as far back as
when I was sub-professor at the Polytechnic Institute in St. Petersburg
and Loris, the elder, was in the Guards, while Vladimir, the younger,
was still at the School of Gunnery. These two brothers were commonly
mistaken for twins, although Loris was no less than four years older
than Vladimir; but, though Nature had made them outwardly alike, she
had not failed to mark an extraordinary difference in their characters.
Fortune, too, having endowed them equally in the first instance, had
unequivocally declared one to be her favored child.
Vladimir Kourásoff was by turns morose and flippant. He had managed
to encumber himself with debts even sooner than young Russian nobles
usually do, and was, moreover, suspected of inclining to revolutionary
principles. The Government took good care to be informed of everything
Vladimir Kourásoff said and did.
Loris, on the contrary, enjoyed a high degree of imperial favor.
He had been sent, at his own request, to take command in one of the
disturbed districts near the Turkestan frontier--a position which
he filled to the satisfaction of the Government and of the local
authorities too, a thing difficult to do. About this time he invented
a new fuse, which was approved by the Ministry of War, and for which
he declined to accept any compensation, which induced the emperor to
decorate him. He belonged to the true party of order and progress,
which seeks to improve the Russ as he is without vainly attempting to
turn him into a German or a Frenchman. His estates near Wilna were
said to prove by their flourishing condition that emancipation could
be turned to the mutual benefit of proprietor and serf. Of his private
character my great affection for him makes me speak with diffidence. I
can only say that he had a multitude of friends who shared my opinion
of him. His talents and accomplishments were adorned with a singular
modesty, which, if it did not disarm jealousy, at least silenced it.
The Russ is essentially democratic; therefore it is not remarkable that
Count Loris Kourásoff, one of the darlings of St. Petersburg society,
should have for his friend a sub-professor who lived in modest lodgings
in an unfashionable quarter beyond the Izaak bridge. Once a year we
usually took a journey together; and one summer he accompanied me to
Germany on a mission of a sentimental nature, which, if not settled to
my satisfaction, was at least settled, and I set myself to forgetting
Maria von Spreckeldsen as quickly as I could. This proved to be easier
than I had imagined; and, though I wept tears of rage, and Maria tears
of disappointment, when her father refused to let us marry on my salary
as sub-professor, the anguish of both subsided by degrees, leaving
only a feeling of placid regret. Maria, who could not talk philosophy
so well as I, acted it much better, and in less than a year married
Herr Sachs, one of the richest brewers in Bavaria; and when I last
saw her I thought I would not exchange the image which dwelt in my
heart of my adored Maria in her youthful slenderness for the excellent
but stout Madame Sachs, while I am sure she would not have given her
brewer for all the professors in Russia and Germany together. But we
still correspond (with the full approbation of Herr Sachs), and in our
letters call each other Gottlieb and Maria. O youth! O folly! O Maria!
Count Loris frequently complained that my affair with Maria had
destroyed his fondest illusions, and that my inconstancy, as he was
pleased to call my devotion to my ideal Maria, had made him a skeptic
in love. He seemed to take a cruel pleasure in listening to my most
harrowing reminiscences, and when we dined together always toasted
Maria with a variety of unfeeling remarks.
I had never visited the Wilna estates of Count Kourásoff, but in the
summer of 18--, being engaged in making studies of Russian village
life, I presented myself at Ivánofka. Count Loris was at home when I
arrived, and was overjoyed to see me. The house was very much like
French chateaux of the best class, and maintained in a state of order
and repair not always found in Russia. Everything showed a generous but
wise expenditure. The village gave evidences of thrift and industry.
The communal land, as well as that belonging to Count Kourásoff, was
under an excellent system of husbandry. Instead of the complicated
agricultural machinery for which the Russian proprietors have a mania,
while their plows are made after the model of those used in the time
of Iwan the Terrible, I found at Ivánofka that they had judiciously
improved on their common tools and implements. The barley was of a
superior order, and the cattle were fat and well-shaped. All the credit
for this state of things was awarded to Count Kourásoff. It was he who
had given Iwan Tiska a horse when his own died of lockjaw; it was he
who had paid Mother Karlitch for her flax when it was all burned up;
it was he who had given them seed in the year of the bad harvest. In
short, the inhabitants of Ivánofka regarded Count Kourásoff as the
general benefactor of the human race.
The only dissatisfied man in the village appeared to be the parish
priest. The contempt in which the "White" or married clergy are
generally held is well known, and in this instance the dislike of
the parishioners was warmly reciprocated; but, in spite of the
head-shakings and evident disgust of my village friends, I had formed
a sort of intimacy with the old fellow, and sometimes amused myself
by listening to his hearty denunciations of the souls committed to
his charge. Once he said, shrugging his shoulders: "Count Loris is a
man of sense, but he treats them like rational human beings, when, to
show you how little they deserve it, about once a year the howling
sickness breaks out among them. It begins with some woman whose husband
has given her an extra beating--not a blow too much, I dare say" (the
priest was accused of using this method of persuasion on his own wife
occasionally)--"and in two days the whole village is howling."
"Well," I asked, "what happens then?"
"I will tell you. The first time it broke out, some disguised men--of
course _I_ knew nothing of it, you understand," said he, opening his
eyes and shutting them again with a cunning look--"took seven of these
howling devils in the middle of the night, and, cutting a hole in the
ice of the lake, dipped them in two or three times. One of them--old
Mother Petroff--died the next day, but that was no great loss--the
village has been twice as peaceable ever since."
"The remedy was severe, but does not appear to have been effectual,"
said I.
"Oh, yes, yes! Now, when they begin to be troublesome--that is, more
troublesome than women usually are--some fine morning they see a big
square hole cut in the ice, and they leave off as suddenly as they
began. Women are plagues at best," he continued after a pause of deep
reflection.
"Well, little father," said I, still laughing, "if one wishes a picture
of the dark side of Russian humanity, I know of no one so well fitted
to give it as you."
"I am indeed well acquainted with it in my own parishioners. St.
Nicholas help me to abuse them!" said he, piously crossing himself.
But there was for me something more interesting than the village priest
or the commune: Count Kourásoff was seriously contemplating marriage.
He scarcely allowed me time to make my modest toilet and eat my simple
dinner on the day of my arrival before I was carried off to see his
_fiancée_. He told me she was Mademoiselle Olga Orviéff, that she lived
at Antokollo,--one of the two fine suburbs of Wilna,--and that she
enjoyed a virtual independence, having as her only companion an old
aunt quite deaf, nearly blind, and totally incapable.
"I suppose," said I on the way to Antokollo, "that Mademoiselle Orviéff
is one of those gentle creatures with whom life flows--"
"As placidly as a canal," said my friend.
"I am gratified to hear it," I replied. "In marriage one needs repose."
"Exactly," said Count Loris.
"I imagine, therefore," said I after a pause, "she is not one of
those superficially gifted women who appear to have minds. Perhaps my
description of my beloved Maria may have inclined your fancy to the
same type; and, while she embodies my ideas of female excellence, I am
sure she never read a book through in her life."
"Mademoiselle Olga reads, I fear; but I can easily break her of that
after we are married," said Count Kourásoff gravely.
"Is she handsome?" I inquired.
"She is not ugly," was his guarded answer.
"The shallowness of women makes them easily read," said I; "although
I speak with diffidence. My knowledge of them is limited: yours,
doubtless, is extensive."
"Far from it," said he with energy; "the more I see of them the less I
know of them."
"Then what a frightful risk!" I cried. "My friend, I would not be in
your place for the wealth of the empire."
"But Mademoiselle Olga has such soft eyes and such dark eyelashes!"
said he. "That comforts me when the recollection of the vagaries of
her sex casts me down. After all, if we marry at all, we must marry a
woman--the philosophers give us no escape from _that_."
"Too true, my friend; but the philosophers bid us avoid marriage
altogether."
"They did not on that account refrain themselves. However, I escaped
until my time came; which is all that any of us can expect. Destiny can
overtake all of us--even you, my gay and youthful professor. But I do
assure you that Mademoiselle Olga has most beautiful eyes."
When at last I was presented to Mademoiselle Orviéff, I found that she
possessed the essence of beauty--which is the power to please. Her
appearance was exquisitely feminine, but there was a fire in her eyes
and a curve in her red mouth that showed a spirit beyond her outward
softness and delicacy. At first I thought her the simplest creature I
had ever met with; but I afterward found her to be the most complex.
This knowledge was not arrived at in a day, a week, or a month,
but in a long period of familiar intercourse. She was a beautiful
revelation to me; for the first time I comprehended the charm of a fine
intelligence in a woman. She possessed without knowing it, a cultivated
understanding, but she always appeared to me, in her serious moments,
like a child playing at being wise. She did me the honor to exert all
her powers of pleasing upon me, while Count Kourásoff looked on amused
at her adroit cajolery of me and her determined effort to win my good
opinion. She very soon established a remorseless tyranny over me under
cover of the gentlest and most insinuating manner. I was her "dearest
professor," her "best of friends," and meantime she held me in the
hollow of her little hand. Her devotion to Count Kourásoff was of the
nature of a religion. To me, and to all the world but him, she used all
the flattering wiles and pretty artifices that render women charming,
but she seemed to feel by a fine instinct that she needed but one art
with him--to be her own true and natural self.
But the destiny to be loved too much and by too many seemed to be
Olga's fate. Among those whom her evident preference for Count
Kourásoff had not discouraged was General Klapka, commandant of the
garrison at Wilna, and at the same time one of the richest men in
Russia. He was a man at all times unscrupulous and dangerous to
thwart, and a singular complication placed the power of inflicting a
terrible revenge in his hands. Vladimir Kourásoff was stationed with
his regiment at Wilna under a sort of surveillance, and General Klapka
could add still further to his painful and perilous position. He had
more than once intimated to Count Loris that he held Vladimir's life
in his hands; and this could be readily believed, for nothing seemed
to impress Vladimir with a sense of his danger. He openly and bitterly
complained of his banishment from St. Petersburg, and his conduct
showed equal levity and recklessness.
I was astonished at the tact and boldness with which Mademoiselle
Olga managed so troublesome and dangerous a lover as General Klapka.
But Count Loris did not seem disposed to aid her. Whatever anxiety
he might feel for Vladimir, he did not on that account do much
toward conciliating General Klapka on the occasions--and they were
not infrequent--when they met at Antokollo. I made no doubt that
each respected the personal courage of the other, but nothing but my
friend's coolness under all circumstances and unshaken self-possession
foiled General Klapka's evident efforts to disoblige him.
One day Count Loris proposed that we should drive over to Antokollo.
It was a lovely afternoon in August, and we went in an open calèche,
which we left at the entrance of the grounds. As we walked slowly
under the rich and dappled shadows of the beech-trees, we saw a group
before us--General Klapka and two aides in brilliant uniform, and
Mademoiselle Olga sitting in a rustic chair lazily fanning herself and
holding a gay pink parasol over her pretty bare head. No better foil
for her youth and loveliness could be imagined than General Klapka.
He was awkward and stout, with purplish moustaches and a suspiciously
black and luxuriant head of hair. Mademoiselle Olga always described
him as looking like a wild beast; and he certainly had a sort of savage
glare in his fierce eyes. He did not appear overjoyed to see us as we
made our greetings, but Olga, who had appeared somewhat bored before
noticing our approach, became all animation.
The two aides, after politely saluting Count Kourásoff and
superciliously surveying my plain coat, entered into a deeply
interesting conversation with each other. Thereupon Mademoiselle Olga
honored me with her particular notice, and, proposing a walk around the
grounds, coolly took my arm, leaving Count Loris and General Klapka
to pair off together. The latter, though not deficient in breeding,
did not respond very cordially to Count Kourásoff's well-bred efforts
at a good understanding, and perhaps felt the contrast between his
companion's graceful figure and his own ungainly appearance. But
whether they got on well or ill appeared to matter very little to Olga:
she left them to amuse themselves, and chattered on to me in her pretty
and entertaining manner.