The King's Own Part 41

"Not for the world, my dear Prose: what may insure your promotion would be my ruin. I never nursed a child or sh.e.l.led a pea in my life; the first I should certainly let fall, and the second I probably should eat for my trouble. So pray continue at your post of honour, and I will go for the fresh beef every morning as you were accustomed to do when we we were last in port."

Captain M--- did not receive the immediate benefit which he had antic.i.p.ated from a return to his native land. Bath, Cheltenham, Devonshire, and other places were recommended one after the other by the physicians, until he was tired of moving from place to place. It was nearly two years before he felt his health sufficiently re-established to resume the command of the _Aspasia_, during which period the patience of officers was nearly exhausted; and not only was all the furniture and fitting up of the cottage complete but Captain Capperbar had provided himself with a considerable stock of materials for repairs and alterations. At last a letter from the captain to Macallan gave the welcome intelligence that he was to be down at Portsmouth in a few days, and that the ship was ordered to fit for foreign service.

We must not omit to mention here, that during these two years Seymour had been able to procure frequent leave of absence, which was invariably pa.s.sed at the McElvinas; and that the terms of intimacy on which he was received at the hall and his constant intercourse with Emily, produced an effect which a more careful mother would have guarded against. The youth of eighteen and the girl of sixteen had feelings very different from those which had actuated them on their first acquaintance; and Seymour, who was staying at the McElvinas when the expected arrival of Captain M--- was announced, now felt what pain it would be to part with Emily. The intelligence was communicated in a letter from Prose, when he was sitting alone with McElvina, and the bare idea of separation struck him to the heart.

McElvina, who had often expressed his opinion on the subject to his wife, had been anxious that our hero should be sent on a foreign station, before he had allowed a pa.s.sion to take so deep a root in his heart that, to eradicate it, would be a task of great effort and greater pain. Aware, from the flushed face of Seymour, of what was pa.s.sing within, he quietly introduced the subject, by observing that in all probability, his favourite, Emily, would be married previous to his return--pointing out that an heiress of so large a property would have a right to expect to unite herself with one in the highest rank of society.

Seymour covered his face with his hands, as he leant over the table. He had no secrets from McElvina, and acknowledged the truth of the observation. "I have brought up the subject, my dear boy," continued McElvina, "because I have not been blind, and I am afraid that you will cherish a feeling which can only end in disappointment. She is a sweet girl; but you must, if possible, forget her. Reflect a moment. You are an orphan, without money and without family, although not without friends, which you have secured by your own merit; and you have only your courage and your abilities to advance you in the service. Can it, then, be expected, that her parents would consent to an union--or would it be honourable in you to take any advantage of her youthful prepossession in your favour, and prevent her from reaping those advantages that her fortune and family ent.i.tle her to?"

Seymour felt bitterly the justice of the remark; a few tears trickled through his fingers, but his mind was resolved. He had thought to have declared his love before his departure, and have obtained an acknowledgment on her part; but he now made a firm resolution to avoid and to forget her. "I shall follow your advice, my dear sir, for it is that of a friend who is careful of my honour; but if you knew the state of mind that I am in!--How foolish and inconsiderate have I been!--I will not see her again."

"Nay, that would be acting wrongly; it would be quite unpardonable, after the kindness which you have received from Mrs Rainscourt, not to call and wish them farewell. You must do it, Seymour. It will be an exertion, I acknowledge; but, if I mistake not his character, not too great a one for William Seymour. Good night, my dear boy."

On the ensuing morning, Seymour, who had fortified himself in his good resolutions, walked to the hall to announce his approaching departure on foreign service, and to take his farewell, his last farewell, of Emily.

He found the carriage at the door, and Mrs Rainscourt in her pelisse and bonnet, about to pay a visit at some distance. She was sorry at the information, for Seymour was a great favourite, and delayed her departure for a quarter of an hour to converse with him; at the end of which, Emily, who had been walking, came into the library.

Communicating the intelligence to her daughter, Mrs Rainscourt then bade him farewell, and expressing many wishes for his health and happiness, was handed by him into the carriage, and drove off; leaving Seymour to return to the library, and find himself--the very position he had wished to avoid--alone with Emily.

Emily Rainscourt was, at this period, little more than sixteen years old; but it is well known that, in some families, as in some countries, the advance to maturity is much more rapid than in others. Such was the case with our heroine, who, from her appearance, was generally supposed to be at least two years older than she really was, and in her mind she was even more advanced than in her person.

Seymour returned to the library, where he found Emily upon the sofa.

Her bonnet had been thrown off; and the tears that were coursing down her cheeks were hastily brushed away at his entrance. He perceived it, and felt his case to be still more embarra.s.sing.

"When do you go, William?" said Emily, first breaking silence.

"To-morrow morning. I have called to return my thanks to your mother, and to you, for your kindness to me;--I shall ever remember it with grat.i.tude."

Emily made no answer, but a deep sigh escaped.

"I shall," continued Seymour, "be away perhaps for years, and it is doubtful if ever we meet again. Our tracks in life are widely different. I am an orphan, without name or connection--or even home, except through the kindness of my friends: they were right when, in my childhood, they christened me the 'King's Own,' for I belong to n.o.body else. You, Miss Rainscourt," (Emily started, for it was the first time that he had ever called her so, after the first week of their acquaintance), "with every advantage which this world can afford, will soon be called into society, in which I never can have any pretence to enter. You will, in all probability, form a splendid connection before (if ever) we meet again. You have my prayers, and shall have them when seas divide us, for your happiness."

Seymour was so choked by his feelings, that he could say no more--and Emily burst into tears.

"Farewell, Emily! G.o.d in Heaven bless you," said Seymour, recovering his self-possession.

Emily, who could not speak, offered her hand. Seymour could not control himself; he pressed her lips with fervour, and darted out of the room.

Emily watched him, until he disappeared at the winding of the avenue, and then sat down and wept bitterly. She thought that he was unkind, when he ought to have been most fond--on the eve of a protracted absence. He might have stayed a little longer. He had never behaved so before; and she retired to her room, with her heart panting with anguish and disappointment. She felt how much she loved him, and the acknowledgment was embittered by the idea that this feeling was not reciprocal.

The next morning, when the hour had pa.s.sed at which Seymour had stated that he was to leave the spot, Emily bent her steps to the cottage, that she might, by conversation with her friend Mrs McElvina, obtain, if possible, some clue to the motives which had induced our hero to behave as we have narrated.

Susan was equally anxious to know in what manner Seymour had conducted himself, and soon obtained from Emily the information which she required. She then pointed out to her, as her husband had done to Seymour, the improbability, if not impossibility, of any happy result to their intimacy, and explained the honourable motives by which Seymour had been actuated,--the more commendable, as his feelings on the subject were even more acute than her own. The weeping girl felt the truth of her remarks, as far as the justification of Seymour was attempted.

Satisfied with the knowledge that he loved her, she paid little attention to the more prudent part of the advice, and made a resolution in his favour, which, as well as her attachment (unlike most others formed during the freshness of the heart), through time and circ.u.mstance, absence on his part, temptations on hers, continued stedfast and immovable to the last.

CHAPTER FORTY TWO.

First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard.

MILTON.

Once more the _Aspasia_ flew upon the wings of the northern gale to secure her country's dominion over far-distant seas; and many an anxious eye, that dwelt upon the receding sh.o.r.e, and many an aching heart, that felt itself severed from home and its endearments, did she carry away in her rapid flight. Some there were to whom the painful reflection presented itself--"Shall I e'er behold those cherished sh.o.r.es again?"

This, however, was but a transitory feeling, soon chased away by Hope, who delights to throw her sunny beams on the distance, while she leaves the foreground to the dark reality of life. All felt deeply, but there was none whose mental sufferings could be compared with those of Seymour.

Captain M--- opened his sealed orders, and found that he was directed to proceed forthwith to the East Indies. He had been prepared for this, by indirect hints given to him by the First Lord of the Admiralty. There is nothing so tedious as making a pa.s.sage, and, of all others, that to the East Indies is the most disagreeable, especially at the time of which we are writing, when Sir H. Popham had not added the Cape of Good Hope to the colonial grandeur of the country,--so that, in fact, there was no resting-place for the wanderer, tired with the unvarying monotony of sky and water. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with stating, that at the end of three months His Majesty's ship _Aspasia_ dropped her anchor in Kedgeree Roads, and the captain of the same pilot schooner, who had taken charge of her off the Sand-heads, was put in requisition to convey Captain M--- and his despatches up to Calcutta. Courtenay, Macallan, and Seymour, were invited to be of the party; and the next morning they shifted on board the pilot schooner, and commenced the ascent of the magnificent and rapid Hoogly.

The pilot captain, who, like all those who ply in this dangerous and intricate navigation, had been brought up to it from his youth, was a tall gaunt personage, of about fifty years of age, and familiar in his manner. Whether he had found some difficulty in keeping in check the pa.s.sengers from the Indiamen, whom he had been in the habit of taking up to Calcutta (whose spirits were, in all probability, rather buoyant upon their first release from the confinement of a tedious pa.s.sage), or whether from a disposition naturally afraid of encroachment, he was incessantly informing you that "he was captain of his own ship."

Although in all other parts he was polite, yet upon this he paid no respect to persons, as the governor-general and his staff, much to their amus.e.m.e.nt, and occasionally to their annoyance, found to be the case, when they ascended the river under his charge.

"Happy to see you on board, Captain M---. Hope you will make yourself comfortable, and call for everything you want. Boy, take this trunk down into the state cabin. Happy to see you, gentlemen, and beg you will consider yourselves quite at home--at the same time beg to observe that I'm '_Captain of my own ship_.'"

"So you ought to be," replied Captain M---, smiling, "if your ship was no larger than a nutsh.e.l.l. I'm captain of _my_ own ship, I can a.s.sure you."

"Very glad we agree upon that point, Captain M---. Young gentleman,"

continued he, addressing himself to Courtenay, "you'll oblige me by not coming to an anchor on my hen-coops. If you wish to sit down, you can call for a chair."

"Rather annoying," muttered Courtenay, who did not much like being called "young gentleman."

"A chair for the young gentleman," continued the captain of the schooner. "Starboard a little, Mr Jones,--there is rather too much cable out, till the tide makes stronger. I presume you are not used to _kedging_, captain. It's a very pretty thing, as you will acknowledge.

Starboard yet. Give her the helm quick, Mr Thompson. Why, sir, do you know that I was once very nearly on sh.o.r.e on the tail of this very bank, because a young lady, who was going up to Calcutta, would take the helm?

The mate could not prevent her--she refused to let it go; and, when I commanded her, told me, with a laugh, that she could steer as well as I could. I was obliged to prove to her, in rather an unpleasant manner, that I was captain of my own ship."

"Why, you did not flog her, did you, captain?"

"Why, no, not exactly that; but I was obliged to jerk the wheel round so quick, that I sprained both her wrists before she had time to let it go.

It very near produced a mutiny. The girl fainted, or pretended to do so, and all the gentlemen pa.s.sengers were in high wrath--little thinking, the fools, that I had saved their lives by what they called my barbarity. However, I told them, as soon as the danger was over, that I was captain of my own ship. Sweet pretty girl too, she was. We were within an inch of the bank, the tide running like a sluice, and should have turned the turtle the moment that we had struck. Such a thing as carrying politeness too far. If I had not twisted the wheel out of her hands as I did, in two minutes more the alligators would have divided her pretty carcase, and all the rest of us to boot. No occasion for that, Captain M---. There's plenty of black fellows for them floating up and down all day long, as you will see."

"They throw all their dead into the river, do they not?"

"All, sir. This is a continuation of the sacred river, the Ganges, and they believe that it insures their going to heaven. Have you never been in India before?"

"Never."

"Nor these three gentlemen?"

"Neither of them."

"Oh, then," cried the captain, his face brightening up at the intelligence, as it gave him an opportunity of amusing his pa.s.sengers; "then, perhaps, you would not object to my explaining things to you as we go along?"

"On the contrary, we shall feel much indebted to you."

"Observe," said the captain, looking round as if to find an object to decide him where to begin--"do you see that body floating down the river with the crow perched upon it, and that black thing flush with the water's edge which nears it so fast--that's the head of an alligator; he is in chase of it."

The party directed their attention to the object; the alligator, which had the appearance of a piece of black wood floating down the stream, closed with the body: his upper jaw rose clear out of the water, and descended upon his prey, with which he immediately disappeared under the muddy water.

"By the Lord, Mr Crow, but you'd a narrow chance then," observed the captain; "you may thank your stars that you did not lose your life as well as your breakfast. Don't you think so, young gentleman?" continued the captain, addressing Courtenay.

"I think," observed Courtenay, "that Mr Crow was not exactly captain of his own ship."

"Very true, sir. That point of land which we are just shutting in, Captain M---, is the end of Saugor Island, famous for Bengal tigers, and more famous once for the sacrifice of children. You have heard of it?"