CHAPTER XX.
NELSON AND THE NILE.
"With one of his precious limbs shot away, Bold Nelson knowed well how to trick 'em; So, as for the French, 'tis as much as to say, We can tie up one hand, and then lick 'em." DIBDIN.
Things in England began to look up. Those who preached revolution wereforced to hide their heads with shame after the great battle ofCamperdown. For this fight had completely restored confidence in ourcountry's powers, and for the time being the fears of invasion had fledfar away.
In many a lordly hall over all the land the feast was laid, on many alofty hill the bonfires blazed; it was indeed a season of greatrejoicing.
In one of the window recesses of Mr. Keane's somewhat lonesome anddreary suburban mansion, as the shadows of evening fell on the almostleafless elms around the house, sat Gerty. She was looking out into thegathering night, looking out at the slowly-falling leaves; for though abook lay in her lap, it was almost too dark to read. By her side sat abeautiful deer-hound, with his muzzle leaning on her knee, and gazing upinto her face with his brown earnest eyes, as if he knew there wassorrow at her heart.
He--Jack--had given her that dog as a puppy, and no power on earth couldmake her part with him. As she turned her eyes from the window, shenoted his speaking look, and as she bent to caress him, a tear fell onhis rough gray neck.
Presently there was a knock at the door, and in rushed Mary the maid.
Mary seemed about half daft. She was waving aloft a copy of the _Times_,and scarce could speak for excitement. But she managed to point to acertain column.
"What is it, Mary? I cannot see."
"Which it's our boy Jack as is mentioned for conspeakyewous bravery.Aren't you glad and proud?"
"Glad and proud? O Mary! silly child. And I am to be the bride ofanother. Nay, father insists that I shall give Sir Digby his answerto-night at the ball."
"An' I should do it, missus; that I should. I'd put it in fine politeEnglish, but I'd put it straight, all the same. When he knelt beforeme,--'Jump up, old Granger,' I should say. 'Right about face. Shoulderhip. Quick march. I loves another, and I cannot marry thee.'"
"O Mary," said Gerty, smiling in spite of herself, "how you talk! Hush,child; not another word. I'm bound to make my father happy, and--Iwill."
* * * * *
The ball to which Gerty and her father were going that evening was SirDigby's. This gentleman possessed both a town and a country house; butif the truth must be told, he was at present absolutely living on hisfuture prospects.
"Well," he told one of his chief cronies that evening before the arrivalof the guests, "when my brother dies--and he is a terribly old buffer--Ishall drop into a nice thing. But it is just like my confounded luckthat he should linger so long. And to tell you the truth, D'Orsay, I'm abit pinched, and some of the Jews are pressing."
"Why don't you marry?"
"Well, I'm going to. Ah! she's a sweet young thing, Miss Keane; andthough the father is a skinflint, he's wealthy, and I'll make him settlea bit before I give my ancient name away. Wager on that."
"Hold hard, Digby; I wouldn't be your friend if I didn't tell you."
"Didn't tell me what?"
"Why, man, haven't you heard? The firm of Griffin, Keane, and Co. isruined. 'Pon honour. South Sea biz, or something. Had it from a friend,who had it from one of the firm. It's a secret, mind. But it is true."
"Good heavens, D'Orsay, you do not tell me so? Then I too am ruined!"
"What! you haven't proposed--you're not tied?"
"Nay, nay; all but. That is nothing, D'Orsay--nothing; but on thestrength of this marriage I have borrowed thousands. Fleet prison is myfate if what you say is true."
"Look here, Digby," said D'Orsay, after a pause, "you are a man of theworld, like myself. Now if I were you, I should transfer my affections.See?"
"In which quarter?"
"Why, there is Miss Gordon; a trifle old, to be sure, but positivelyrolling in wealth, and rolling her eyes whenever she sees you."
Sir Digby muttered something about a bag of broken bottles, but D'Orsaywent on,--
"I'd marry _her_; 'pon honour I should."
"Think of life with that old hag."
"Think of life in the Fleet, my friend."
Sir Digby winced, and for a time made no reply.
"D'Orsay," he said at last, "I am a man, and, I trust, a gentleman. I'dprefer to marry Gerty even--even--"
"If she were a beggar. Bravo, Digby!" And D'Orsay laughed in the way menof the world do laugh.
"I didn't say that. I--I--'pon my soul, D'Orsay, I do not know what todo."
* * * * *
Miss Gordon was the belle of that ball, as far at least as dress andjewellery were concerned. She came of a noble family, too, and gaveherself all the airs common in those days to ladies of title--hauteur,dignity, and condescension by turns. But towards Sir Digby she was assoft and sweet as a three-month-old kitten.
If Sir Digby Auld had meant to propose to sweet Gerty Keane that night,he never had a chance, for neither she nor her father appeared. It wasreported that he had had a fit. But this was not so. After he wasdressed, however, and the carriage waiting, he received a letter. He nosooner read it than it dropped from his hands on the floor, and heleaned back in his chair with his face to his hands.
Gerty was by his side in a moment.
"O father, are you ill?" she cried. "Shall I summon assistance?"
He recovered himself at once. "Nay, nay," he said; "only grief for thedeath of an old friend." He smoothed her hair as he replied. "Gerty, wewill not go out to-night."
But the letter he picked off the floor and carefully put away in hispocket-book.
* * * * *
A whole half-year passed away without any events transpiring that muchconcern our narrative. Jack Mackenzie was still on the war-path, playinghavoc with the commerce of France and Spain. Indeed he had constitutedhimself a kind of terror of the seas. His adventures were not only mostdaring, but carried out with a coolness that proved they were guided bya master mind. Indeed Jack Mackenzie and all his officers knew now to avery nicety what might be done with the swift _Tonneraire_, and whatcould not. Her bold young captain did not mean to be either captured orsunk, and he was wise enough to run away whenever he found himselfovermatched. But this was not very often.
One surprise, during this time, Jack and his officers had received, andit was a very happy one. While lying at anchor with Lord St. Vincent'sships, one day a boat pulled off from the flagship, and there leapedtherefrom and came swiftly up the ladder--who but young Murray himself.He saluted the quarter-deck, and he saluted Jack as he reported himself,smiling all over like the happy boy he was.
"I've come on board to join, sir. Isn't it jolly, just? And I'm promotedto a lieutenancy."
M'Hearty, Simmons, and every soul in the mess were most pleased to seehim, and that evening Murray was the hero of the hour; and a very longand strange story he had to tell of his imprisonment, his harshtreatment, and his making love to the prison-governor's daughter,through whose cleverness he at last managed to escape, dressed as a_grisette_.
He kept his messmates laughing till long after seven bells in the firstwatch; and it must be said that not this night only, but every othernight, Murray infused into the mess a joy and jollity to which it hadbeen all winter a stranger.
* * * * *
Meanwhile a greater hero than Jack Mackenzie must hold the stage for abrief spell--namely, Nelson himself. Napoleon Bonaparte, after lyingawake for a night or two, gave birth to a grand idea. Hyder Ali, in thesouth of India, hated the British as one hates a viper, and gladly wouldhave crushed our power under his heel. But he needed help. It occurredto Bonaparte to aid him, and so oust us from our Indian Empire, whichwas then being quickly built up. It was a pretty idea, and well carriedout at the commencemen
t; for Bonny, as our sailors called him, managedto sail from France with thirty thousand veteran, well-tried troops; andhaving the good luck to elude our fleet, he called at Malta, which hequickly brought to terms, then made straight for Egypt. Here he landedfrom his fleet, which I believe had orders to return, but did not.
With such men as those old troops of Napoleon's the conquest of Egyptand the Mamelukes was but a picnic, and all very pleasant for Bonny andhis merry men, though sad enough for the country on which these humanlocusts had alighted. Cairo fell, and the great warrior now set himselfto rebuild the constitution of the country and create a native army.
Lord St. Vincent sent the brave one-eyed, one-armed Nelson with a fleetto destroy the French expedition. That he quickly would have done. Hespeedily would have cooked his hare, but he had to catch it first. Whereever was the French fleet? No one could tell him, and his adventures insearch of it would fill a goodly volume. It reads like one longentrancing romance.
Jack Mackenzie, in his _Tonneraire_--the real name of the ship I ambound not to mention--joined this fleet, and thus was present at thegreat battle of the Nile.
Poor Nelson was almost worn out with anxiety and watching; but when hearrived at Aboukir Bay and found the foe, all his courage and all hiscalmness returned, and although the sun was slowly sinking in the west,our Nelson resolved not to wait an hour even, but attack the enemy thereand then.