Lord Montagu's Page: An Historical Romance

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER I.

  It was a dark and stormy night,--a very dark night indeed. No dog'smouth, whether terrier, mastiff, or Newfoundland, was ever so dark asthat night. The hatches had been battened down, and every aperture butone, by which any of the great, curly-pated, leaping waves could jumpinto the vessel, had been closed.

  What vessel? the reader may perhaps inquire. Well, that being a piece ofreasonable curiosity,--although I do wish, as a general thing, thatreaders would not be so impatient,--I will gratify it, and answer theinquirer's question; and, indeed, would have told him all about it infive minutes if he would but have given me time.

  What vessel? asks the reader. Why, a little, heavy-looking,fore-and-aft, one-masted ship, somewhat tubbish in form, which hadbattled with a not very favorable gale during a long stormy day, andhad, as the sun went down, approached the coast of France, it might besomewhat too close for safety. The atmosphere in the cabin below was hotand oppressive. How indeed could it be otherwise, when not one breath ofair, notwithstanding all the bullying and roaring of Boreas, had beenable to get in during the whole day? But such being the case, andrespiration in the little den being difficult, the only altogetherterrestrial animal--sailors are, of course, amphibious--which thatvessel contained had forced his way up to the deck through the onlynarrow outlet which had been left open.

  The amphibia have always a considerable dislike and some degree ofcontempt for all land-animals, and the five sailors, with their skipper,who formed all the crew so small a craft required, would probably havedriven below the intruder upon their labors, had they had time, leisure,or light to notice him at all. But for near two hours he stood at thestern on the weather side of the ship, holding on by the bulwarks, wetto the skin, with his hat blown off and probably swimming back towardOld England, and his hands numbed with cold and with hard grasping.

  There is something in the very act of holding on tight which increasesthe natural tenacity of purpose that exists in some minds, and, if I mayuse a very vulgar figure, thickens the glue. At the end of the twohours, one of the sailors, who had something to do at the stern in agreat hurry, ran up to the spot where the only passenger was clingingand nearly tumbled over him. Then, of course, he cursed him, as men in ahurry are wont to, and exclaimed, "Get down below! What the devil areyou doing up here, where you are in everybody's way? Get down, I say!"

  "I will not," was the reply, in a quiet, and even sweet, but veryresolute, voice.

  "Then I'll knock you overboard, by ----!" said the seaman, adding an oathwhich did not much strengthen the threat in the ears to which it wasaddressed.

  "You cannot, and you dare not try," answered the other. But then thevoice of the skipper, who had been working hard at the tiller, was heardexclaiming, "Let him alone, Tom;" and he beneficently called downcondemnation not only upon the eyes but upon all the members of hissubordinate. "Mind your own work, and let him alone."

  Now, it may be worth while to ask what sort of a personage was this,whom the somewhat irascible Master Tom threatened to knock overboard,and who replied with so little reverence for the threat. He could not bea very formidable person, at least in appearance,--a very necessaryqualification of the assertion; for I have known very formidable snakesthe most pitiful-looking reptiles I ever beheld; and some of the mostdangerous men ever seen, either on the same stage of life where we areplaying our parts with them, or on the wider boards of history, havebeen the least impressive in person, and the meanest-looking ofcreatures. But, as I was saying,--for it is too late to finish thatsentence now,--the single passenger could not be very formidable inappearance; for Tom was probably too wise and too experienced to engagein what he considered even an equal struggle on so dark a night, whilethe wind was blowing a gale, and the little craft heeling gunwale to.Yet he could not be one without some powers, internally if notexternally, which rendered him fully as careless of consequences as theother. Well, he was only a lad of some five feet eight or nine inheight, slight-looking in form, and dressed in a common sailor's jacket.But in a leathern belt round his waist was a large caseknife, on thehandle or hilt of which, while he continued to hold on to the rail ofthe bulwark with his left hand, he clasped the fingers of his right in avery resolute and uncompromising manner. We all know that bowie-knives,in one land at least, are very useful companions, and in all lands veryformidable weapons. Now, the knife in the lad's black leather belt wasnot at all unlike a bowie-knife, and not in the least less formidable.There was the slight insinuating curve, the heavy haft, the tremendouslylong blade, the razor-like edge, and the sharp, unfailing point; so thatit is not improbable that the youth's confidence was mightilystrengthened by the companionship of such a serviceable friend, althoughhe was not half the size of his adversary and not above a third of hisweight. Boys, however, are always daring; and he could not at the utmosthave passed much more than seventeen years on the surface of this coldearth.

  Now, all this account would have been spared the beloved reader had nota trait of character at the outset of the career of any personage, in apoem, novel, romance, or tale, been worth half a volume of descriptionafterward. It would have been spared, indeed, simply because the littleincident ended just where we have left it. Tom, the sailor, though areckless, ill-conditioned fellow, was obedient to the voice of hiscommander, and, after having boused the boom a little to the one side orthe other of the vessel,--which side I neither know nor care,--hereturned to the bow, muttering a few objurgations of the youth, implyingthat if it had not been for him they would never have come upon thatd----d voyage at all, and that probably they all would go to the bottomfor having such a Jonah on board.

  The truth is, Tom had left his sweetheart at Plymouth.

  As soon as he was gone, the skipper called the lad a little nearer andsaid, "Tom says true enough, Master Ned. You were better below on everyaccount. I don't see what you want to come up for on such a night asthis."

  "Because I do not want to be smothered, Captain Tinly," replied MasterNed. "I had rather be frozen than stewed; rather be melted by the waterlike a piece of salt or sugar than baked like a pasty. Besides, whatharm do I do here? I am in no one's way, and that sea-dog could do hiswork as well with me here as without me. But I'll tell you what,captain, we are getting into smoother water. Some land is giving us alee. We ought soon to see a light."

  "Why, were you ever here before, youngster?" asked the master.

  "Ay, twice," said the boy; "and I know that when the sea smooths down asit is now doing, we cannot be far from the island; and you will soon seethe lantern."

  "Well, keep a sharp look-out, then," was the reply: "you can see betterwhere you stand than I can, and it's so dark those fellows forward maymiss it. A minute or two to-night may save or sink us."

  "It matters not much which," answered the young man. A strange thoughtfor one at the age when life is brightest! but there are cases when thedisappointment of all early hopes--when the first grasp of misfortune'siron hand has been so hard that it seems to have crushed the butterflyof the heart even unto death,--when it is not alone the gay colors havebeen brushed off, the soft down swept away, but when Hope's own lifeseems extinguished.

  Happily, it is but for a time. There is immortality in Hope. She cannotdie; The fabled Phoenix of the ancients was but an emblem, like everyother myth; and, if the painting of Cupid burning a butterfly over aflame was the image of love tormenting the soul, the Phoenix risingfrom her ashes was surely a figure of the constant resurrection of Hope.Ay, from her very ashes does she rise to brighter and still brighterexistence, till, soaring over the cold Lethe of the grave, she spreadsher wings afar to the Elysian fields beyond!

  It is an old axiom, never to say "die;" and though there be those whosay it, ay, and in a momentary madness give the word the form of action,did they but wait, they themselves would find that, though circumstancesremained unchanged, the prospect as rugged or the night as dark, thesunshine of Hope would break forth again to cheer, or her star twinklethrough the gloom to guide.

&nbs
p; The boy felt what he said at the time, but it was only for the time; andthere were years before him in which he never felt so again.

  "Captain, there is a light surely toward the southwest," said the lad:"that must be the light at St. Martin's-on-Re. It seems very far off. Wemust be hugging the main shore too close."

  "I don't see it," answered the skipper; "but there is one due east, orhalf a point north. What the devil is that?"

  The boy ran across the deck nearly at the risk of his life; for thoughthe sea and wind had both fallen, the little craft still pitched andheeled so much that he lost his footing and had wellnigh gone overboard.He held on, however, was up in a moment, and exclaimed, "Marans! Thelight in Maran's church! You'll be on the sands in ten minutes! Putabout, put about, if you would save the ship!"

  A great deal of hurry and confusion succeeded; and there was muchunnecessary noise, and still more unnecessary swearing. The youth whohad discovered the danger was the most silent of the party; but he wasnot inactive, aiding the captain with more strength than he seemed topossess, to bring the ship's head as near to the wind as possible. Andthe manoeuvre was just in time; for the lead at one time showed thatthey were just up the very verge of the sands at the moment when,answering the helm better than she did at first, she made way toward thewest, and the danger was past. In half an hour--for their progress wasslow--the light upon the Isle de Re could be distinctly seen, and one byone other lights and landmarks appeared, rendering the rest of thevoyage comparatively safe.

  Still the lad kept his place upon the deck, addressing hardly a word toany one, but watching with a keen eye the eastern line of shore, whichwas every now and then visible notwithstanding the darkness. The moon,too, began to give some light, though she could not be seen; for theclouds were still thick, and their rapid race across the sky told that,though the sea under the lea of the Isle de Re had lost all itsfierceness, the gale was blowing with unabated fury.

  The lad quitted his hold of the bulwarks and walked slowly to thecaptain's side, as if to speak to him; but the skipper spoke first. Hisprofessional vanity was somewhat mortified, or perhaps he was afraidthat his professional reputation might suffer by the lad's report in theears of those whose approbation was valuable to him; and consequently hewas inclined to put a little bit of defensive armor on a spot where hefancied himself vulnerable.

  "We had a narrow squeak of it just now, Master Ned," he said. "However,it was no fault of mine. I could not help it. It is twenty years since Iwas last at this d--d place, and the chart they gave me is a mighty badone. Besides, those beastly gales we have had ever since Ushant mightpuzzle the devil,--and this dark night, too!"

  "You've saved the ship, captain," answered the lad: "that is all we haveto do with;" and then, perhaps thinking he might as well add somethingto help the good skipper's palliatives for wellnigh running the shipashore, he added, "Besides, there is a strong current running,--whatbetween the sands of Oleron and the point of Re, and the Pertuisd'Antioche--I do not know very well how it is; but I was so told by oneof the men last time I was here."

  "Ay, 'tis so, I dare say," answered the captain. "Indeed, it must beso; for we could never have got so far to the eastward without one ofthose currents. I wish to heaven some one would put them all down, forone can't keep them all in one's head, anyhow. You tell the duke, whenyou see him again, about the currents, Master Ned."

  "What is the use of telling him any thing at all but that we got safe toRochelle?" asked the lad. "If we get there--as there is now no doubt--hewill ask no questions how; and if we don't, anybody may blame us wholikes: it will make little difference to you or me."

  The skipper was about to answer; but just at that moment a light brokesuddenly out upon that longish point of land which a boat that keepsunder the western shore of France has to double--as the reader very wellrecollects--before it can make the port of La Rochelle; and the boy assuddenly laid his hand on the captain's arm, saying, "Make for thatlight as near as you can, captain; keep the lead going; drop your anchoras close as you can, and send me ashore in a boat."

  "Why, Master Ned, I was told to land you at Rochelle," replied theother.

  "You were told to do as I bade you," answered the lad, as stoutly as ifhe had been a captain of horse,--adding the saving clause, "in everything except the navigation of your vessel. I must be put ashore whereyou see that light. So send down for my bags, have the boat all ready,and when I am landed go on to Rochelle and wait till you hear more."

  The captain of the vessel did not hesitate to obey. The ship ranspeedily for the shore and approached perhaps nearer than was altogethersafe; the boat was lowered to the water, and the lad sprang in withoutbidding adieu to any one. There was a heavy sea running upon the coast,and it required no slight skill and strength on the part of the twostout rowers to land him in safety; but he showed neither fear norhesitation, though probably he knew the extent of the danger and theservice better than any one; for, when he sprang out into the shallowwater where the boat grounded, he gave each of the men a gold-piece, andthen watched them with somewhat anxious eyes till they had got theirboat through the surf into the open sea.