CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
ON BOARD THE OLD "VICTORY."
Bob and Nellie both stared at Sarah in surprise.
They thought, for the moment, the poor girl had lost her wits!
An inkling of the truth, however, flashed across their minds the nextinstant; and, pushing past the almost incoherent Sarah, who saidsomething which neither of them caught the sense of, the two rushed intothe lighted hall in a flurry of excitement.
Here the sight of several corded trunks and other luggage, which had notbeen there when they went out of the house earlier in the evening, atonce confirmed their joyous anticipations.
"Hurrah!" cried Bob, giving vent to his feelings first. "Dad and motherare here at last!"
Nell, though, got ahead of him in greeting the new-comers.
"Oh, mamma!" she said, dashing towards the door of the dining-room whichopened into the hall and meeting half-way a stately lady who wasadvancing with open arms. "My own dear mamma!"
The Captain and Mrs Gilmour had now come into the hall, following moresedately the harum-scarum youngsters; and while the former hung back,waiting to be introduced as soon as the first greetings were over, thegood lady of the house advanced eagerly to welcome a tall and beardedgentleman, with a right good pair of broad shoulders of his own, whocame forward to meet her, with Bob clinging to one of his arms while theother was round his neck.
"Why, me dear Dugald, it's never you!" exclaimed Mrs Gilmour as herbrother let go Bob and caught both her outstretched hands in his, givingthem a fraternal grip. "Sure, is it yoursilf, or somebody ilse?"
"Mesilf, Polly, sure enough," replied he in a deep baritone voice, thatresembled Bob's, but had a very slight suspicion of the Irish brogue init like her own. "Right glad am I to say ye again, too, mavourneen!Ye're a sight good for sore eyes, sure!"
He laughed as he said this, a racy, genial laugh in keeping with hislooks; and the Captain instantly took a liking to him for his own sake,apart from his likeness to his sister, Mrs Gilmour, who now introducedhim, having already prepossessed the old sailor in his favour.
"Me brother--Captain Dresser," she said smiling. "I'm sure you ought toknow each other by this time, if you don't already!"
"Glad to meet you, sir, glad to meet you," cried the Captain in hisbluff hearty way. "I've often heard of you, especially since Master Bobhere has been down at Southsea."
"Ah! I have to thank you for the kind way in which you've made theirstay here pleasant for him and my little girl," rejoined the otherwarmly as the two shook hands. "But, there was little need, CaptainDresser, for my sister to introduce you. She's told me so much aboutyou, that I seem to have known you already for years!"
"Oh, yes," said the Captain; "your sister is one of my oldest friends."
"What's that you're saying about my being an old friend?" exclaimed MrsGilmour, pretending to be indignant. "You speak as if I were an agedperson; but, I'd have you to know, that, although I'm not quite achicken, sure, I'm not as old as old Methuselah yet!"
"No, no, I didn't mean that," chuckled the Captain; and turning to herbrother he remarked on the likeness between him and Mrs Gilmour. "Itis absolutely striking, by Jove!"
"We're almost twins," replied he innocently; "only, I'm ten yearsolder!"
The Captain burst into a regular roar of laughter at this; his sidesshaking and his face getting so red that it seemed as if he were goingto have a fit of apoplexy.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "you ought to be twins!"
It was only then that the other perceived the slip he had made, as didhis sister, and the two joined in the Captain's mirth; while Master Bobalso lent his help, although witless of what the general merriment wasabout, the deep ho-ho-ho! of his father being even more contagious thanthe catching laugh of his old friend the Captain.
"Sure, Dugald, you're the same careless fellow still," cried MrsGilmour, as soon as she was able to get out a word. "As me poor dearTed used to say, you're an Irishman to the backbone. Sure you neveropen your mouth but you put your foot in it!"
"That is what I'm always telling him, too," said her sister-in-law, whomthe laughter in the hall, renewed with such force when Mrs Gilmour, intrying to set matters straight, made another Irish bull as big as herbrother's, had brought out of the parlour, accompanied by Nellie."Dugald is really incorrigible!"
"That's just what Mrs Gilmour says I am," observed the Captain, bowingbetween his chuckles. "You must let me introduce myself. I don't needanybody to introduce you, ma'am; for I'm sure from your sweet soft voicealone that you are little missy's mother. She and I, you know, aresworn friends!"
Mrs Strong smiled; and, if the Captain had called her voice a sweetone, he could find no words in which to describe the light that stoleinto her eyes, irradiating the face now.
"I see you can pay compliments, Captain Dresser, although you are not anIrishman," she said pleasantly, caressing Nell, who in the joy of seeingher mother again had never left her side. "I suppose that's the reasonthis young lady has lost her heart to you?"
"You'd better be wary of him, Edith," interposed Mrs Gilmour jokingly."He's a terrible old flirt with all the ladies, young and old alike!But, wouldn't you like to go upstairs and take your things off?"
"No, thanks, not till it's time for bed; and, it must be very near thatnow."
"Oh, the day's yet young!" cried her hospitable hostess, leading the wayback into the parlour. "We didn't expect you before to-morrow, or nextday at the earliest; and Nell, indeed, stopped in all the morning tofinish her letter in time, so that you could get it to-night in London,as she thought. Still, my dear, I dare say we'll be able to find yousomething to eat, and your rooms shall be got ready for you as soon aspossible."
"Please, mum," said Sarah, who was still waiting in the hall, at handfor whatever the guests might need, "they are quite ready, mum!"
"Ready!" repeated Mrs Gilmour surprised. "The spare rooms?"
"Yes, mum," replied Sarah, dropping a curtsey, with the proudconsciousness of having done well in her mistress's sight. "Me andMolly went up to the rooms and did what you told me I'd have to do to-morrow, as soon as ever Mr and Mrs Strong came, mum; so now they'requite ready. Molly, too, went back afterwards to her kitchen, and iswarming up the curry, in case you should like it hot for supper."
"You've done quite right, Sarah, and just as I would have directed ifI'd been at home. Tell Molly from me, that there is nothing my brotheris fonder of than curry; and that she may send up supper as soon asshe's got it ready."
Sarah hurried off to quicken the preparations of her fellow-servantbelow, her movements somewhat accelerated by Bob shouting out the cruelrefrain of the "forget-me-not poem!"
"Ah, but," put in the Captain, "the `good Sarah' did not forget her headthis time, at any rate! You'll have to alter your poem, Master Bob!"
Then, of course, ensued a lot of explanations, which led up to anaccount of the picnic, the elaborate description of which Nellie hadtaken such pains to write in her letter home to her mother.
All of which pains, alas! were thrown away; for here was her mother byher side, while her graphic letter was lying uselessly in the box at thepost-office!
A series of questions and answers then followed rapidly in reference toBob and Miss Nell's doings since they had been down by the sea;interspersed with sundry inquiries after Blinkie, the old dissipatedjackdaw left behind at home, and Snuffles, the black cat, who was amartyr to chronic influenza, whence his very appropriate name!
Rover, who was wild with delight on seeing his old master and mistresswhen he came in damp and dripping from his experiences of the wreck, wasnot altogether forgotten, you may be sure, just because London friendswere thought of! On the contrary, he received many pats and caressesbesides getting an unexpected supper; a thing not generally in Rover'sline, but which, none the less, did not seem to come amiss to him on thepresent occasion.
By this time, it was very late, the "tattoo" having sounded long since,summoning all truant so
ldiers into barracks; so, the Captain, declaringthat his landlady would "haul him over the coals" for stopping out solate, stumped away chuckling down the parade with his malacca cane.
The exhausted household at "the Moorings" then went to bed in peace,tired out with their day's doings--tired even of talk--Bob and Nellcomposing in their dreams a fresh version, as the old sailor hadhumorously suggested, of Sarah's celebrated picnic poem; in which,instead of their original quatrain, "bed" now rhymed with "head," inlieu of the unfortunately forgotten "bread," and "curry" with "hurry!"
The next day, both Mr and Mrs Dugald Strong said that they were toofatigued to do anything else save lie in the sun and bask on the beach;but the following morning, the Captain, insisting on their seeing thesights of the place, took them all down to the harbour, when they wenton board the _Victory_, Nelson's old flagship, which Mrs Gilmour saidshe had been over "at laste a hundred times before," although sheaccompanied them now "for company's sake, sure!"
If a hackneyed theme to her, this visit to the historic vessel was,however, replete with interest to the others; being full of floatingmemories of the past, in which the grand figure of the hero of Trafalgarstood out in relief with that wonderfully blood-stirring last signal ofhis, like a laurel wreath encircling his brows-- "England expects everyman this day to do his duty!"
To Bob and Nellie it was especially delightful to see the real ship inwhich Nelson had fought so gallantly that battle of which they had read,knowing, by heart almost, the principal incidents of the glorious day,when the British fleet "crumpled up the combined squadrons of France andSpain"; and, with the able assistance of the Captain, who made anadmirable cicerone, they could, standing there on board the _Victory_,imagine themselves in the thick of the celebrated sea-fight. Aye,boarding the _Santissima Trinidada_, with the guns banging about themand the sulphurous gunpowder-smoke filling the air around, hidingeverything beyond the ponderous hulls of the enemy's three-deckersbetween which, yard-arm to yard-arm, the old _Victory_ lay!
"Here it was," said the Captain, pointing out the spot on the quarter-deck below the poop, close to a hatchway, and marked by a copper platelet into the planking, bearing a short inscription commemorating thefact, "that Nelson was standing when that villainous marksman in the_Redoutable's_ mizzen-top hit him, catching sight of the medals on hisbreast; for, he would stick 'em on, in spite of the advice of Hardy, whowas his flag-captain, you know."
"That was very foolish of him," interposed Mrs Gilmour. "I suppose hedid it to show off, like most of you men; for you're a consayted lot!The same as you punish your malacca cane, Captain!"
"Not a bit of it!" retorted the old sailor indignantly, up in arms atonce at the slightest aspersion on his hero's fame. "He wore his medalsbecause, ma'am, in the first place, he wasn't a bit ashamed of them;and, secondly, to encourage his men--there, ma'am!"
"That's a settler for you, Polly!" said her brother quizzingly; but, hedidn't laugh, the Captain appeared so very much in earnest in speakingof Nelson, whom he regarded with the deepest veneration. "I don'tthink, my dear, though, it's a subject for joking!"
"I'm very sorry I spoke, sure," pleaded she in extenuation of heroffence, "I didn't mean any harm!"
"Well, well, let it pass," replied the Captain, dismissing the painfulpoint in dispute with a wave of his arm and continuing his descriptionof the tragic end of the conqueror of Trafalgar, which Mrs Gilmour'sinterruption had somewhat confused in his mind. "We were just where hewas shot, eh?"
"Yes," replied Bob, who had been hanging on his words and was allattention and had not lost a word of the narrative. "The Frenchmarksman saw his medals."
"Humph!" ejaculated the old sailor, "making sail again with a fairwind," as he expressed it in his nautical way. "Well, then, the fellowwho shot him was potted immediately afterwards, you'll be glad to hear,by one of our `jollies'--marines, you know--on the poop, who saw thechap aiming at Nelson, but fired too late to prevent the fatal leadenmessenger doing its deadly work! The poor Admiral sank down here, justby that hatchway, and there used to be the stain of his blood, as theysaid, on the old timbers of the deck; but those have been removed, and,indeed, they've restored the ship so often that there's hardly one ofher old planks left in her save this with the memorial plate here."
"But, what was done after Nelson was wounded?" inquired Nellie, who hadbeen listening as intently as Bob. "Didn't they do anything to helphim?"
"Why, they took him down to the cock-pit, as they called themidshipmen's berth on the lower deck, where we're going now," repliedthe Captain, leading the way down the companion and an interminableseries of other ladders afterwards, as if they were descending to thekelson, the space getting all the narrower and darker as they went down."They took him below--to die!"
Here, in a small, confined apartment, which Bob's father said looked"like the condemned cell at Newgate," and whose sole apparent advantage,as the Captain explained, was in its being below the water-line, andtherefore the only safe place in a ship before the days of torpedoes andsubmarine warfare, he went on to tell the children, the hero breathedhis last; his dying moments eased by the knowledge that he had done hisduty to his country and cheered by the news that the foe was vanquished,Hardy making him smile by saying how many ships of the line had strucktheir colours already or been destroyed. Nell shivered.
"Let us go upstairs," she said, in a very depressed tone, in keepingwith the melancholy associations of the place. "Let us go upstairs!"
The Captain laughed out at this.
"You'd make a sailor faint, if he heard you ever use that expression!"he cried. "The idea of speaking about `upstairs' on board a ship, andyour uncle a sailor, too, missy!"
"What should I say?" she asked, looking into his face as well as the dimlight would permit. "What should I say instead?"
"Why, `on deck,' of course," he replied. "We've got no stairs on boardship. They're either `companion-ways' or `ladders,' up one of whichwe'll go now, if you like!"
So saying, he led the way on deck as he had down below, taking them allinto the ward-room under the poop, where they now saw various relics ofthe hero, besides letters and orders in his writing, which were framedand hung round the cabin like pictures.
Bob, whose calligraphy was none of the clearest or most legible, had thebenefit of a little moral lesson here from his father, who seemed totake a mean advantage of the fact of Nelson writing so well with hisleft hand after he lost his right; but Master Bob evaded the issue verywell by saying that "when he was similarly circumstanced," he would tryand write as well, too!
"Bravo!" cried the Captain, as they left the ship, going down the"accommodation-ladder," which, as he was careful to tell Nellie, was nota staircase either, although outside the ship. Then, turning to herfather he added, chuckling-- "That boy of yours, Strong, is a regularchip of the old block, and a credit to your country!"
They had a laugh at this, of course; and, then, on Mrs Gilmoursuggesting their taking advantage of the high tide to visit PorchesterCastle, as the harbour looked its best, the watermen in charge of theirwherry were directed to row up stream towards the creek on the northernside, where the old fortress, embowered in trees, nestled under theshelter of the Portsdown hills, a monolith of past grandeur and presentdecay!
Bob Strong's Holidays Page 17
