The Red Rover Part 58

"Ay, ay, Madam," returned the worthy Bignall, whose feelings had been not a little disturbed by the previous scene; "it is near half a century since the Parson and I were boys together, and we have been rubbing up old recollections on the cruise. Happy am I that a lady of so commendable qualities has come to make one of our party."

"In this lady you see the daughter of the late Captain----, and the relict of the son of our ancient Commander, Rear-Admiral de Lacey," hastily resumed the divine, as though he knew the well-meaning honesty of his friend was more to be trusted than his discretion.

"I knew them both; and brave men and thorough seamen were the pair! The lady was welcome as your friend, Merton; but she is doubly so, as the widow and child of the gentlemen you name."

"De Lacey!" murmured an agitated voice in the ear of the governess.

"The law gives me a t.i.tle to bear that name," returned she whom we shall still continue to call by her a.s.sumed appellation, folding her weeping pupil long and affectionately to her bosom. "The veil is unexpectedly withdrawn, my love, nor shall concealment be longer affected. My father was the Captain of the flag-ship. Necessity compelled him to leave me more in the society of your young relative than he would have done, could he have foreseen the consequences. But I knew both his pride and his poverty too well, to dare to make him arbiter of my fate, after the alternative became, to my inexperienced imagination worse than even his anger. We were privately united by this gentleman, and neither of our parents knew of the connexion. Death"--

The voice of the widow became choaked, and she made a sign to the chaplain, as if she would have him continue the tale.

"Mr de Lacey and his father-in-law fell in the same battle, within a short month of the ceremony," add ed the subdued voice of Merton. "Even you, dearest Madam, never knew the melancholy particulars of their end. I was a solitary witness of their deaths for to me were they both consigned, amid the confusion of the battle. Their blood was mingled; and your parent, in blessing the young hero, unconsciously blessed his son."

"Oh! I deceived his n.o.ble nature, and dearly have I paid the penalty!"

exclaimed the self-abased widow. "Tell me, Merton, did he ever know of my marriage?"

"He did not. Mr de Lacey died first, and upon his bosom, for he loved him ever as a child; but other thoughts than useless explanations were then uppermost in their minds."

"Gertrude," said the governess, in hollow, repentant tones, "there is no peace for our feeble s.e.x but in submission; no happiness but in obedience."

"It is over now," whispered the weeping girl; "all over, and forgotten. I am your child--your own Gertrude--the creature of your formation."

"Harry Ark!" exclaimed Bignall, clearing his throat with a hem so vigorous as to carry the sound to the outer deck, seizing the arm of his entranced lieutenant, and dragging him from the scene while he spoke. "What the devil besets the boy! You forget that, all this time, I am as ignorant of your own adventures as is his Majesty's prime minister of navigation Why do I see you, here, a visitor from a royal cruiser, when I thought you were playing the mock pirate? and how came that harum-scarum twig of n.o.bility in possession of so goodly a company, as well as of so brave a ship?"

Wilder drew a long and deep breath, like one that awakes from a pleasing dream, reluctantly suffering himself to be forced from a spot where he fondly felt that he could have continued, without weariness, for ever.

Chapter XXIX.

"Let them achieve me, and then sell my bones."--_Henry V._

The Commander of the "Dart," and his bewildered lieutenant, had gained the quarter-deck before either spoke again. The direction first taken by the eyes of the latter was in quest of the neighbouring ship; nor was the look entirely without that unsettled and vague expression which seems to announce a momentary aberration of the faculties. But the vessel of the Rover was in view, in all the palpable and beautiful proportions of her admirable construction Instead of lying in a state of rest, as when he left her, her head-yards had been swung, and, as the sails filled with the breeze, the stately fabric had he gun to Marve gracefully, though with no great velocity along the water. There was not the slightest appearance however, of any attempt at escape in the evolution. On the contrary, the loftier and lighter sails had all been furled, and men were at the moment actively employed in sending to the deck those smaller spars which were absolutely requisite in spreading the canvas that would be needed in facilitating her flight. Wilder turned from the sight with a sickening apprehension; for he well knew that these were the preparations that skillful mariners are wont to make, when bent on desperate combat.

"Ay, yonder goes your St. James's seaman, with his three topsails full, and his mizzen out, as if he had already forgotten he is to dine with me, and that his name is to be found at one end of the list of Commanders and mine at the other," grumbled the displeased Bignall. "But we shall have him coming round all in good time, I suppose, when his appet.i.te tells him the dinner hour. He might wear his colours in presence of a senior, too, and no disgrace to his n.o.bility. By the Lord, Harry Ark, he handles those yards beautifully! I warrant you, now, some honest man's son is sent aboard his ship for a dry nurse, in the shape of a first lieutenant, and we shall have him vapouring, all dinner time, about 'how my ship does this,' and 'I never suffer that.' Ha! is it not so, sir? He has a thorough seaman for his First?"

"Few men understand the profession better than does the Captain of yonder vessel himself," returned Wilder.

"The devil he does! You have been talking with him, Mr Ark, about these matters, and he has got some of the fashions of the 'Dart.' I see into a mystery as quick as another!"

"I do a.s.sure you, Captain Bignall, there is no safety in confiding in the ignorance of yonder extra ordinary man."

"Ay, ay, I begin to overhaul his character. The young dog is a quiz, and has been amusing himself with a sailor of what he calls the old school. Am I right, sir? He has seen salt water before this cruise?"

"He is almost a native of the seas; for more than thirty years has he pa.s.sed his time on them."

"There, Harry Ark, he has done you handsomely. Now, I have his own a.s.sertion for it, that he will not be three-and-twenty until to-morrow."

"On my word, he has deceived you, sir."

"I don't know, Mr Ark; that is a task much easier attempted than performed. Threescore and four years add as much weight to a man's head as to his heels! I may have undervalued the skill of the younker but, as to his years, there can be no great mistake. But where the devil is the fellow steering to? Has he need of a pinafore from his lady mother to come on board of a man-of-war for his dinner?"

"See! he is indeed standing from us!" exclaimed Wilder, with a rapidity and delight that would have excited the suspicions of one more observant than his Commander.

"If I know the stern from the bows of a ship, what you say is truth,"

returned the other, with some austerity. "Hark ye, Mr Ark, I've a mind to furnish the c.o.xcomb a lesson in respect for his superiors and give him a row to whet his appet.i.te. By the Lord, I will; and he may write home an account of this manoeuvre, too, in his next despatches. Fill away the after-yards, sir; fill away. Since this _honourable_ youth is disposed to amuse himself with a sailing-match, he can take no offence that others are in the same humour."

The lieutenant of the watch, to whom the order was addressed, complied; and, in another minute, the "Dart" was also beginning to move a-head, though in a direction directly opposite to that taken by the "Dolphin."

The old man highly enjoyed his own decision, manifesting his self-satisfaction by the infinite glee and deep chuckling of his manner.

He was too much occupied with the step he had just taken, to revert immediately to the subject that had so recently been uppermost in his mind; nor did the thought of pursuing the discourse occur to him, until the two ships had left a broad field of water between them, as each moved, with ease and steadiness, on its proper course.

"Let him note that in his log-book, Mr Ark," the irritable old seaman then resumed, returning to the spot which Wilder had not left during the intervening time. "Though my cook has no great relish for a frog, they who would taste of his skill must seek him. By the Lord, boy, he will have a pull of it, if he undertake to come-to on that tack.--But how happens it that you got into his ship? All that part of the cruise remains untold."

"I have been wrecked, sir, since you received my last letter."

"What! has Davy Jones got possession of the red gentleman at last?"

"The misfortune occurred in a ship from Bristol, aboard which I was placed as a sort of prize-master.--He certainly continues to stand slowly to the northward!"

"Let the young c.o.xcomb go! he will have all the better appet.i.te for his supper. And so you were picked up by his Majesty's ship the 'Antelope.'

Ay, I see into the whole affair. You have only to give an old sea-dog his course and compa.s.s, and he will find his way to port in the darkest night.

But how happened it that this Mr Howard affected to be ignorant of your name, sir, when he saw it on the list of my officers?"

"Ignorant! Did he seem ignorant? perhaps"--

"Say no more, my brave fellow, say no more," interrupted Wilder's considerate but choleric Commander. "I nave met with such rebuffs myself; but we are above them, sir, far above them and their impertinences together. No man need be ashamed of having earned his commission, as you and I have done, in fair weather and in foul. Zounds, boy, I have fed one of the upstarts for a week, and then had him stare at a church across the way, when I have fallen in with him in the streets of London, in a fashion that might make a simple man believe the puppy knew for what it had been built. Think no more of it, Harry; worse things have happened to myself, I do a.s.sure you."

"I went by my a.s.sumed name while in yonder ship," Wilder forced himself to add. "Even the ladies who were the companions of my wreck, know me by no other."

"Ah! that was prudent; and, after all, the young sprig was not pretending genteel ignorance. How now, master Fid; you are welcome back to the Dart.'"

"I've taken the liberty to say as much already to myself, your Honour,"

resumed the topman, who was busying himself, near his two officers, in a manner that seemed to invite their attention. "A wholesome craft is yonder, and boldly is she commanded, and stoutly is she manned; but, for my part, having a character to lose, it is more to my taste to sail in a ship that can shew her commission, when properly called on for the same."

The colour on Wilder's cheeks went and came like the flushings of the evening sky, and his eyes were turned in every direction but that which would have encountered the astonished gaze of his veteran friend.

"I am not quite sure that I understand the meaning of the lad, Mr Ark.

Every officer, from the Captain to the boatswain, in the King's fleet, that is, every man of common discretion, carries his authority to act as such with him to sea, or he might find himself in a situation as awkward as that of a pirate."

"That is just what I said, sir; but schooling and long use have given your Honour a better outfit in words. Guinea and I have often talked the matter over together, and serious thoughts has it given to us both, more than once, Captain Bignall. 'Suppose,' says I to the black, 'suppose one of his Majesty's boats should happen to fall in with this here craft, and we should come to loggerheads and matches,' says I, 'what would the like of us two do in such a G.o.d-send?'--'Why,' says the black, 'we would stand to our guns on the side of master Harry,' says he; nor did I gainsay the same; but, saving his presence and your Honour's, I just took the liberty to add, that, in my poor opinion, it would be much more comfortable to be killed in an honest ship than on the deck of a buccaneer."

"A buccaneer!" exclaimed his Commander, with eyes distended, and an open mouth.

"Captain Bignall," said Wilder, "I may have offended past forgiveness, in remaining so long silent; but, when you hear my tale, there may be found some pa.s.sages that shall plead my apology. The vessel in sight is the ship of the renowned Red Rover--nay listen, I conjure you by all that kindness you have so long shewn me, and then censure as you will."