When London Burned Part 18

"She says it is only a bad headache--that all she wants is to be left alone."

"Yes, yes; that is all very well, but if she does not get better soon she must be seen to. They say that there were several cases last week of that plague that has been doing so much harm in foreign parts, and if that is so it behoves us to be very careful, and see that any illness is attended to without delay."

"I don't think that there is any cause for alarm," his wife said quietly. "The child has got a headache and is a little feverish, but there is no occasion whatever for thinking that it is anything more.

There is nothing unusual in a girl having a headache, but Nellie has had such good health that if she had a p.r.i.c.k in the finger you would think it was serious."

"By the way, John," Captain Dave said suddenly, "did you hear any noise in the lane last night? Your room is at the back of the house, and you were more likely to have heard it than I was. I have just seen one of the watch, and he tells me that there was a fray there last night, for there is a patch of blood and marks of a scuffle. It was up at the other end. There is some mystery about it, he thinks, for he says that one of his mates last night saw a sedan chair escorted by three men turn into the lane from Fenchurch Street just before ten o'clock, and one of the neighbours says that just after that hour he heard a disturbance and a clashing of swords there. On looking out, he saw something dark that might have been a chair standing there, and several men engaged in a scuffle. It seemed soon over, and directly afterwards three people came down the lane this way. Then he fancied that someone got into the chair, which was afterwards carried out into Fenchurch Street."

"I did hear something that sounded like a quarrel or a fray," John Wilkes said, "but there is nothing unusual about that. As everything was soon quiet again, I gave no further thought to it."

"Well, it seems a curious affair, John. However, it is the business of the City watch and not mine, so we need not bother ourselves about it. I am glad to see you have got Matthew at work again this morning.

He tells me that he thinks he has fairly got over that sprain in his back."

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAPTAIN'S YARN

Mindful of the fact that this affair had added a new enemy to those he had acquired by the break-up of the Black Gang, Cyril thought it as well to go round and give notice to the two traders whose books he attended to in the evening, that unless they could arrange for him to do them in the daytime he must give up the work altogether. Both preferred the former alternative, for they recognised the advantage they had derived from his work, and that at a rate of pay for which they could not have obtained the services of any scrivener in the City.

It was three or four days before Nellie Dowsett made her appearance at the general table.

"I can't make out what ails the girl," her mother said, on the previous evening. "The fever speedily left her, as I told you, but she is weak and languid, and seems indisposed to talk."

"She will soon get over that, my dear," Captain Dave said. "Girls are not like men. I have seen them on board ship. One day they are laughing and fidgeting about like wild things, the next day they are poor, woebegone creatures. If she gets no better in a few days, I will see when my old friend, Jim Carroll, is starting in his brig for Yarmouth, and will run down with her myself--and of course with you, wife, if you will go--and stay there a few days while he is unloading and filling up again. The sea-air will set her up again, I warrant."

"Not at this time of year," Dame Dowsett said firmly. "With these bitter winds it is no time for a la.s.s to go a-sailing; and they say that Yarmouth is a great deal colder than we are here, being exposed to the east winds."

"Well, well, Dame, then we will content ourselves with a run in the hoy down to Margate. If we choose well the wind and tide we can start from here in the morning and maybe reach there late in the evening, or, if not, the next morning to breakfast. Or if you think that too far we will stop at Sheerness, where we can get in two tides easily enough if the wind be fair."

"That would be better, David; but it were best to see how she goes on. It may be, as you say, that she will shortly gain her strength and spirits again."

It was evident, when Nellie entered the room at breakfast-time the next morning, that her mother's reports had not been exaggerated. She looked, indeed, as if recovering from a severe illness, and when she said good-morning to her father her voice trembled and her eyes filled with tears.

"Tut, tut, la.s.s! This will never do. I shall soon hardly own you for my Nellie. We shall have to feed you up on capons and wine, child, or send you down to one of the baths for a course of strengthening waters."

She smiled faintly, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyril. As she did so, a slight flush of colour came into her cheeks.

"I am heartily glad to see you down again, Mistress Nellie," he said, "and wish you a fair and speedy recovery."

"I shall be better presently," she replied, with an effort.

"Good-morning, John."

"Good-morning, Mistress Nellie. Right glad are we to see you down again, for it makes but a dull table without your merry laugh to give an edge to our appet.i.tes."

She sat down now, and the others, seeing that it was best to let her alone for a while, chatted gaily together.

"There is no talk in the City but of the war, Cyril," the Captain said presently. "They say that the Dutch make sure of eating us up, but they won't find it as easy a job as they fancy. The Duke of York is to command the Fleet. They say that Prince Rupert will be second.

To my mind they ought to have entrusted the whole matter to him. He proved himself as brave a captain at sea as he was on land, and I will warrant he would lead his ships into action as gallantly as he rode at the head of his Cavaliers on many a stricken field. The ships are fitting out in all haste, and they are gathering men at every sea-port. I should say they will have no lack of hands, for there are many ships laid up, that at other times trade with Holland, and Dantzic, and Dunkirk, and many a bold young sailor who will be glad to try whether he can fight as stoutly against the Dutch under York and Rupert as his father did under Blake."

"For my part," Cyril said, "I cannot understand it; for it seems to me that the English and Dutch have been fighting for the last year. I have been too busy to read the Journal, and have not been in the way of hearing the talk of the coffeehouses and taverns; but, beyond that it is some dispute about the colonies, I know little of the matter."

"I am not greatly versed in it myself, lad. Nellie here reads the Journal, and goes abroad more than any of us, and should be able to tell us something about it. Now, girl, can't you do something to set us right in this matter, for I like not to be behind my neighbours, though I am such a stay-at-home, having, as I thank the Lord, much happiness here, and no occasion to go out to seek it."

"There was much discourse about it, father, the evening I went to Dame King's. There were several gentlemen there who had trade with the East, and one of them held shares in the English Company trading thither. After supper was over, they discoursed more fully on the matter than was altogether pleasing to some of us, who would much rather that, as we had hoped, we might have dancing or singing. I could see that Dame King herself was somewhat put out that her husband should have, without her knowing of his intention, brought in these gentlemen. Still, the matter of their conversation was new to us, and we became at last so mightily interested in it that we listened to the discourse without bemoaning ourselves that we had lost the amus.e.m.e.nt we looked for. I know I wished at the time that you had been there. I say not that I can repeat all that I heard, but as I had before read some of the matters spoken of in the Journal, I could follow what the gentlemen said more closely. Soon after the coming of the King to the throne the friendship between us and the Spaniards, that had been weakened during the mastership of Cromwell, was renewed, and they gave our ships many advantages at their ports, while, on the other hand, they took away the privileges the Dutch had enjoyed there, and thus our commerce with Spain increased, while that of the Dutch diminished."

"That is certainly true, Nellie," her father said. "We have three ships sailing through the Mediterranean now to one that sailed there ten years ago, and doubtless the Dutch must have suffered by the increase in our trade."

"Then he said that, as we had obtained the Island of Bombay in the East Indies and the City of Tangier in Africa as the dowry of the Queen, and had received the Island of Poleron for our East India Company by the treaty with Holland, our commerce everywhere increased, and raised their jealousy higher and higher. There was nothing in this of which complaint could be made by the Dutch Government, but nevertheless they gave encouragement to their East and West India Companies to raise trouble. Their East India Company refused to hand over the Island, and laid great limitations as to the places at which our merchants might trade in India. The other Company acted in the same manner, and lawlessly took possession of Cape Coast Castle, belonging to our English Company.

"The Duke of York, who was patron and governor of our African Company, sent Sir Robert Holmes with four frigates to Guinea to make reprisals. He captured a place from the Dutch and named it James's Fort, and then, proceeding to the river Gambia, he turned out the Dutch traders there and built a fort. A year ago, as the Dutch still held Cape Coast Castle, Sir Robert was sent out again with orders to take it by force, and on the way he overhauled a Dutch ship and found she carried a letter of secret instructions from the Dutch Government to the West India Company to take the English Fort at Cormantin.

Seeing that the Hollanders, although professing friendship, were thus treacherously inclined, he judged himself justified in exceeding the commission he had received, and on his way south he touched at Cape Verde. There he first captured two Dutch ships and then attacked their forts on the Island of Gorse and captured them, together with a ship lying under their guns.

"In the fort he found a great quant.i.ty of goods ready to be shipped.

He loaded his own vessels, and those that he had captured, with the merchandise, and carried it to Sierra Leone. Then he attacked the Dutch fort of St. George del Mena, the strongest on the coast, but failed there; but he soon afterwards captured Cape Coast Castle, though, as the gentlemen said, a mightily strong place. Then he sailed across to America, and, as you know, captured the Dutch Settlements of New Netherlands, and changed the name into that of New York. He did this not so much out of reprisal for the misconduct of the Dutch in Africa, but because the land was ours by right, having been discovered by the Cabots and taken possession of in the name of King Henry VII., and our t.i.tle always maintained until the Dutch seized it thirty years ago.

"Then the Dutch sent orders to De Ruyter, who commanded the fleet which was in the Mediterranean, to sail away privately and to make reprisals on the Coast of Guinea and elsewhere. He first captured several of our trading forts, among them that of Cormantin, taking great quant.i.ties of goods belonging to our Company; he then sailed to Barbadoes, where he was beaten off by the forts. Then he captured twenty of our ships off Newfoundland, and so returned to Holland, altogether doing damage, as the House of Commons told His Majesty, to the extent of eight hundred thousand pounds. All this time the Dutch had been secretly preparing for war, which they declared in January, which has forced us to do the same, although we delayed a month in hopes that some accommodation might be arrived at. I think, father, that is all that he told us, though there were many details that I do not remember."

"And very well told, la.s.s, truly. I wonder that your giddy head should have taken in so much matter. Of course, now you tell them over, I have heard these things before--the wrong that the Dutch did our Company by seizing their post at Cape Coast, and the reprisals that Sir Robert Holmes took upon them with our Company's ships--but they made no great mark on my memory, for I was just taking over my father's work when the first expedition took place. At any rate, none can say that we have gone into this war unjustly, seeing that the Dutch began it, altogether without cause, by first attacking our trading posts."

"It seems to me, Captain Dave," John Wilkes said, "that it has been mighty like the war that our English buccaneers waged against the Spaniards in the West Indies, while the two nations were at peace at home."

"It is curious," Cyril said, "that the trouble begun in Africa should have shifted to the other side of the Atlantic."

"Ay, lad; just as that first trouble was at last fought out in the English Channel, off the coast of France, so this is likely to be decided in well-nigh the same waters."

"The gentlemen, the other night, were all of opinion," Nellie said, "that the matter would never have come to such a head had it not been that De Witt, who is now the chief man in Holland, belongs to the French party there, and has been urged on by King Louis, for his own interest, to make war with us."

"That may well be, Nellie. In all our English wars France has ever had a part either openly or by intrigues. France never seems to be content with attending to her own business, but is ever meddling with her neighbours', and, if not fighting herself, trying to set them by the ears against each other. If I were a bit younger, and had not lost my left flipper, I would myself volunteer for the service. As for Master Cyril here, I know he is burning to lay aside the pen and take to the sword."

"That is so, Captain Dave. As you know, I only took up the pen to keep me until I was old enough to use a sword. I have been two years at it now, and I suppose it will be as much longer before I can think of entering the service of one of the Protestant princes; but as soon as I am fit to do so, I shall get an introduction and be off; but I would tenfold rather fight for my own country, and would gladly sail in the Fleet, though I went but as a ship's boy."

"That is the right spirit, Master Cyril," John Wilkes exclaimed. "I would go myself if the Captain could spare me and they would take such a battered old hulk."

"I couldn't spare you, John," Captain Dave said. "I have been mighty near making a mess of it, even with you as chief mate, and I might as well shut up shop altogether if you were to leave me. I should miss you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true; but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would soon wipe off the arrears of work, and get the books into ship-shape order. But, work or no work, that room of yours will always stand ready for you while I live, and there will always be a plate for you on this table."

"Thank you, Captain Dave. You always overrate my services, and forget that they are but the consequence of the kindness that you have shown to me. But I have no intention of going. It was but a pa.s.sing thought. I have but one friend who could procure me a berth as a volunteer, and as it is to him I must look for an introduction to some foreign prince, I would not go to him twice for a favour, especially as I have no sort of claim on his kindness. To go as a cabin boy would be to go with men under my own condition, and although I do not shirk hard work and rough usage, I should not care for them in such fashion. Moreover, I am doing work which, even without your hospitality, would suffice to keep me comfortably, and if I went away, though but for a month, I might find that those for whom I work had engaged other a.s.sistance. Spending naught, I am laying by money for the time when I shall have to travel at my own expense and to provide myself necessaries, and, maybe, to keep myself for a while until I can procure employment. I have the prospect that, by the end of another two years, I shall have gathered a sufficient store for all my needs, and I should be wrong to throw myself out of employment merely to embark on an adventure, and so to make a break, perhaps a long one, in my plans."

"Don't you worry yourself on that score," Captain Dave said warmly, and then checked himself. "It will be time to talk about that when the time comes. But you are right, lad. I like a man who steadfastly holds on the way he has chosen, and will not turn to the right or left. There is not much that a man cannot achieve if he keeps his aim steadily in view. Why, Cyril, if you said you had made up your mind to be Lord Mayor of London, I would wager that you would some day be elected."

Cyril laughed.

"I shall never set my eyes in that direction, nor do I think the thing I have set myself to do will ever be in my power--that is, to buy back my father's estate; but so long as I live I shall keep that in view."

"More unlikely things have happened, lad. You have got first to rise to be a General; then, what with your pay and your share in the sack of a city or two, and in other ways, you may come home with a purse full enough even for that. But it is time for us to be going down below. Matthew will think that we have forgotten him altogether."