By Conduct and Courage Part 23

"Will you come this way?" the girl said, leading him to a sitting-room. A minute later Mrs. Archer appeared. She bowed and asked: "What can I do for you, sir?"

"Then you do not know me, madam?" said Will.

She looked at him carefully. "I certainly do not," she said, and after a pause: "Why, it can't be!-yes, it is-Willie Gilmore!"

"It is, madam, but no doubt changed out of all recognition."

"I have from time to time got your letters," said Mrs. Archer, "and learned from them with pleasure and surprise that you had become an officer, but never pictured you as grown and changed in this way. I hope you have got my letters in return?"

"I only got one, Mrs. Archer, and it reached me just before we sailed from the Mediterranean two years ago. I was not surprised, however, for of course the post is extremely uncertain. It is only very seldom that letters reach a ship on a foreign station."

"Dear, dear, you have lost some fingers!" Mrs. Archer cried, suddenly noticing Will's left hand. "How sad, to be sure!"

"That is quite an old story, Mrs. Archer. I lost them at the attempt to capture St. Pierre, and am so accustomed to the loss now that I hardly notice it. It is surprising how one can do without a thing. I have to be thankful, indeed, that it was the left hand instead of the right, as, had it been the other way, I should probably have had to leave the navy, which would have meant ruin to me."

"It is all very well to make light of it," she said, "but you must feel it a great drawback."

"Well, you see, Mrs. Archer, the loss of three fingers is of course terrible for a sailor, who has to row, pull at ropes, scrub decks, and do work of all sorts; but an officer does not have to do manual work of any kind, and hardly feels such a loss, except, perhaps, at meals. I am going to sea again almost directly, but the first time I have a long holiday I shall have some false fingers fitted on, more for the sake of avoiding being stared at than for anything else."

"Well, I am more than pleased at seeing you again, Willie. It is so natural for me to call you that, that it will be some time before I can get out of it. So you have got on very well?"

"Entirely owing to you, Mrs. Archer, as I told you in the first letter I wrote to you after I got my promotion. You taught me to like study, and were always ready to help me on with my work, and it was entirely owing to my having learned so much, especially mathematics, that I was able to attract the attention of the officers and to get put on the quarter-deck.

I have, I am happy to say, done very well, and I am sure of my step as soon as I have pa.s.sed.

"I had the extraordinary good fortune," he said, after chatting for some time, "to be put in command of a prize that had been taken from some pirates, and was thus able to earn a good deal of prize-money. But nothing has given me greater pleasure since I went away than the purchasing of this little present for you as a token, though a very poor one, of my grat.i.tude to you for your kindness;" and he handed her a little case containing a diamond brooch, for which he had paid one hundred and fifty pounds as he came through London.

"Willie!" she exclaimed in surprise as she opened it, "how could you think of buying such a valuable ornament for me?"

"I should have liked to buy something more valuable," he said. "If I had paid half my prize-money it would only have been fair, for I should never have won it but for you."

"I have nothing nearly so valuable," she said. "Well, now, you must take up your abode with us while you stay here. How long have you?"

"I have a fortnight's leave, but it has taken me four days to come down here, and of course I shall have to allow as many for the return journey.

I have therefore six days to spare, and I shall be very pleased indeed to stay with you. I must, of course, spend one day going over to the village to see John Hammond and his wife. I am happy to say that I shall be able to make their declining days comfortable. Your father is, I hope, well, Mrs. Archer?"

"Yes, he is going on just as usual. I was over there a fortnight ago. I am sure he will be very glad to see you; he always enquires, when I go over, whether I have had a letter from you, and takes great interest in your progress."

"Tom Stevens has come back with me, and has gone on to-day to the village.

I told him not to mention about my coming, as I want to take the old couple by surprise."

"That you certainly will do. Of course they have aged a little since you went away, but there is no great change in them. Ah, there is my husband's knock! Lawrence," she said, as he entered, "this is the village lad I have so often spoken to you about. He has completely changed in the three years and a half he has been away. We heard, you remember, that he had become an officer, but I was quite unprepared for the change that has come over him."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Gilmore. My wife has talked about you so often that I quite seem to know you myself, but, of course, as I did not know you in those days I can hardly appreciate the change that has come over you. One thing I can say, however, and that is that you bear no resemblance whatever to a fisher lad."

Will was soon quite at home with Mr. and Mrs. Archer, who introduced him with pride as "our sailor boy" to many of their friends. On the third day of his stay he hired a gig and drove over to Scarcombe. Alighting at the one little inn, he walked to John Hammond's cottage, watched on the way by many enquiring eyes, the fisher folk wondering whether this was a new revenue officer. He knocked at the door, lifted the latch, and entered.

The old couple were sitting at the fire, and looked in surprise at the young officer standing at the door.

"Well, sir," John asked, "what can I do for you? I have done with smuggling long ago, and you won't find as much as a drop of brandy in my house."

"So I suppose, John," Will said; "your smuggling didn't do you much good, did it?"

"Well, sir, I don't see as that is any business of yours," the old man answered gruffly. "I don't mind owning that I have handled many a keg in my time, but you can't bring that against me now."

"I have no intention of doing so, John. I dare say you gave it up for good when that dirty little boy who used to live with you chucked it and got into trouble for doing so. You recollect me, don't you, mother?" he said, as the old woman sat staring at him with open eyes.

"Why, it is Willie himself!" she exclaimed; "don't you know him, John, our boy Willie, who ran away and went to sea?"

"You don't say it is Will!" the old man said, getting up.

"It is Will sure enough," the lad said, holding out his hand first to one and then to the other. "He has come back, as you see, an officer."

"Yes, Parson told us that. Well, well! Why, it was only two days ago that Tom Stevens came in. He has growed to be a fine young fellow too, and he told us that you were well and hearty and had been through lots of fights.

But he didn't say nothing about your having come home."

"Well, here I am, John; and what is better, I have brought home some money with me, and I shall be able to allow you and the mother a guinea a week as long as you live."

"You don't mean it, lad!" the old man said with a gasp of astonishment; "a guinea a week! may the Lord be praised! Do you hear that, missis? a guinea a week!"

"Lord, Lord, only to think of it; why, we shall be downright rich!" said his wife. "Plenty of sugar and tea, a bit of meat when we fancy it, and a drop of rum to warm our old bones on Sat.u.r.day night. It is wonderful, John. The Lord be praised for His mercies! But can you afford it, Will? We wouldn't take it from you if you can't, not for ever so."

"I can afford it very well," Will said, "and it will give me more pleasure to give it you than to spend it in any other way. Now, mother, let us say no more about it. Here is a guinea as a start, and I wish you would go to the shop and get some tea and sugar and bread and b.u.t.ter and a nice piece of bacon, and let us have a meal just as we used to do when we had made a good haul, or taken a hand in a successful run."

"It is three years and a half since I saw a golden guinea," the old woman said as she put on her bonnet, "and they won't believe their eyes at the shop when I go in with it. You are sure you would like tea better than beer?"

"Much better, though if John would prefer beer, get it for him; but I think we had better put that off till this evening, then we will have a gla.s.s of something hot together before I start."

"You are not going away so soon as that, Will, surely?" the old man said when his wife had left them.

"Yes, John, this is a short visit. I have only four days, and am staying with Miss Warden; that is to say, Miss Warden that was. I must go in and see her father for a few minutes. We'll have plenty of time to talk over everything before I leave, which I won't do till eight o'clock. I don't suppose you have much to tell me, for there are not many changes in a place like this. This man, perhaps, has lost his boat, and that one his life, but that is about all. Now I have gone through a big lot, and have many adventures to tell you."

"But how did you come to be made an officer, Will? That is what beats me."

"Entirely owing to my work at books, which you used always to be raging about. But for that I should have remained before the mast all my life.

Now in a couple of years or so I'll be a lieutenant."

"Well, well! one never knows how things will turn out. I did think you were wasting your time in reading, and reading, and reading. I didn't see what good so much book-learning would do you; but if it got you made an officer, there is no doubt that you were right and I was wrong. But you see, lad, I was never taught any better."

"It has all turned out right, John, and there is no occasion for you to worry over the past. I felt sure that it would do me good some day, so I stuck to it in spite of your scolding, and you will allow that I was never backward in turning out when you wanted me for the boat."

"I will allow that, Will, allow it hearty; for there was no better boy in the village. And so you have been fighting, I suppose, just like Tom Stevens."

"Just the same, father. We have been together all the time, and we have come back together."

"And he didn't say a word about it!" the old man said. "He talked about you just as if you were somewhere over the sea."

"I told him not to tell," Will said, "as I wanted to take you by surprise."

"But he is not an officer, Will. He is just a sailor like those revenue men. How does that come about? Didn't he fight well?"