will follow her!” I cried out madly. “If she has gone to the end of the world I will go after her, and all the devils in hell shall not hold me back!”
And leaving the man there, staring at me as if he thought I was crazed, I ran out of the house, and so stumbled right into the arms of a pressgang come ashore off a king’s ship which had that morning dropped anchor in Yarmouth Roads.
CHAPTER V
ON BOARD THE KING’S SHIP
The license of these pressgangs was so well known, and had been made familiar to me by so many tales, that I had little hope from the first of escaping their clutches. It is true they were only authorised to impress seamen and fishermen, and that after proving their commission before justices of the peace. But if report did not belie them, they looked not too closely into a man’s seamanship; but, if they found a likely fellow, regarded all as fish which came into their net.
There was a lieutenant set above the fellows into whose hands I had fallen, a tall, lantern-jawed, middle-aged man, with a most abominable squint, and to him I addressed myself:
“Sir, I am not in a condition to be pressed by you, I am not a mariner by calling; and, moreover, I am but just risen from a bed of sickness.”
He glanced over my dress before he answered, with something of a smile. And, indeed, for a landsman, my costume was something out of the way, for during the time since I had signed articles to Captain Sims I had done my best to equip myself in true sea-dog fashion.
“You surprise me, young sir,” the lieutenant said presently, when he had surveyed me. “Your dress tallies but ill with your professions. If you wore but a cutlass, and had a pistol to your belt, I could have sworn you to be a smuggler at the least.”
I hung my head at this, for it was my own vanity that had led me into the mess. I could only fall back on my second excuse.
“Nevertheless, you are mistaken, sir,” I said. “But however that may be, be pleased to believe me when I tell you that I am scarce yet recovered from several severe wounds.”
“Indeed! I thought I had seen you coming out of yonder tavern at a marvellous nimble gait. But my eyes are indifferent bad. Here, Master Veale, what say you, does this young man look too sick for our purpose? He says he is not recovered of his wounds.”
The man he applied to, who was master of the ship’s cutter, answered him in the same jesting manner.
“I see nothing the matter with un, your honour. But perhaps we had best carry un aboard and let the ship’s doctor feel his pulse.”
“I protest against this treatment,” I said angrily. “In the name of his Majesty, I say, unhandle me.”
“Nay,” quoth the lieutenant, “my hearing is as indifferent as my eyesight, and I follow you not. Master Veale, if this youngster uses any blasphemy or indecency let him be gagged till we come aboard again.”
This threat was enough to silence me, if I had not been otherwise afraid to make a stir. For though I might have got some of the passers-by to succour me, it being broad daylight, and these impressments most unpopular among seafaring men, yet I foresaw that it would quickly come to a question of who I was, and if my name once became bruited abroad there were friends of my father’s in the town who would have made short work of sending me back to him. And sooner than face the disgrace of this, as I considered it, I was willing to try my luck with King George.
I therefore walked along with the pressgang, by the side of Master Veale, who used me civilly enough when he found I had given up the thoughts of resisting.
I was not a little amazed and delighted when we came out upon the shore, and I caught sight of the Talisman, as she was called, riding at her anchor. For she was a great line-of-battle ship, such as I had never yet seen, carrying seventy-four guns upon her three decks, which rose above the water like a huge wall, with the muzzles of the cannon plainly visible through the opening of her portholes. This majestic mass lay like a floating fortress upon the waves, and overhead her three masts towered up into the very clouds, with their yards set in order, and the ropes crossing from one to the other as intricate as a spider’s web. Last of all, from a flagstaff on the stern, brandished the ensign of Great Britain, in defiance of her enemies. And my heart swelled as I gazed upon it, and remembered how that banner had struck terror into the Frenchmen, and Dutch, and Spaniards, in so many great and memorable fights. Perhaps in that moment I had a foretaste of those glorious triumphs of the British arms in which I was hereafter to take a part.
As soon as we were brought on board this fine vessel – and by this time we had pressed two or three others of the Yarmouth men – we were presented to the captain for his inspection.
The captain, it was easy to perceive, was a man of great quality, being, as I learned before long, a nephew of Lord Saxmundham, in Suffolk, who at that time sat upon the Board of Admiralty. He had the most elegant hands and feet of any man I ever saw, and was dressed with great care, having long ruffles of the finest lace to his neck and wrists, and a gold-hilted small-sword by his side. Even my cousin Rupert beside him would have looked but a country boor.
He spoke to the lieutenant who had headed our party, drawling out his words in a fashion absurd in a London fop, but disgusting in the commander of a man-o’-war.
“Well, Mr. Griffiths, what sort of scum have you got hold of this time? Faugh!” he continued, taking out a pocket napkin to wipe his nose, “I declare the fellows all stink of herrings!”
This last was a downright lie, for I had never so much as stepped into a fishing smack. And besides, the herring fishery was not yet begun.
“Sir, that is a fault which can soon be amended,” returned the lieutenant, biting his lip at the other’s insolence. “For the rest, they looked to me to be sturdy rascals enough, and, I doubt, will make good seamen.”
“Yes, looked to you, my good sir; but then, you know, your sight is none of the best,” sneered the captain, between whom and his officer there appeared to be some jealousy.
Mr. Griffiths, though he had jested at his infirmity in speaking to me, writhed under this allusion to it from another. He gave his answer with spirit.
“Captain Wilding, I have done what you ordered me in impressing these men. If you don’t think them serviceable I shall be happy to set them ashore again.”
The other waved his napkin between them as if he would have brushed away a fly.
“There, there, my worthy man, that is quite enough! I have seen the tarry scoundrels, and as long as they have not the smallpox, I am content. Bestow them as you please.”
Thereupon we were led into the fore part of the ship, to be rated according to our several abilities. And it fell out luckily for me, for the lieutenant, when he discovered that I had had some education, and could cast accounts – a business of which he plainly knew nothing – informed me that he believed the purser stood in need of an assistant, and offered to recommend me to him. This kindness on his part I gladly closed with, not that I liked the duty better than the common service of a ship, but because I guessed that I should thereby be delivered from the molestations of the crew, there being no greater pleasure to the vulgar of every profession than to rough-handle and abuse those who come newly amongst them. And herein, as it turned out, I had judged rightly, and for so long as I remained upon that ship I suffered no ill-usage, except at the hands of my superiors.
But before this was settled I had a favour to ask of the worthy lieutenant.
“One thing I must bargain for, with your leave, Lieutenant Griffiths,” I said to him, speaking boldly, as I discerned him to be favourable to me, “and that is, that if we should come to fighting with the enemy I am to take part with the rest.”
Mr. Griffiths laughed when he heard this demand.
“Why, there now,” he cried, slapping his thigh, “if I couldn’t have sworn that you were one of the sort we wanted directly I clapped eyes on you! Never fear, lad, you shall have your fill of fighting before we go into dock again; for – I will tell you so much – we are under orders to