Held Fast For England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83), G. A. Henty [suggested reading txt] 📗

"But all this is in the future, Bob. I have fought several duels, myself, with those very pistols, and I am happy to say I have never killed my man; and shall be glad to believe, Bob, that they will always be used in the same spirit."

Bob's last two evenings before sailing were more pleasant than he had expected. Mr. Bale seemed to forget that he was still in Philpot Lane, and chatted with him freely and confidentially.

"I hope that I am doing the best for you, Bob. I know this is an experiment, and I can only trust that it will turn out well. I believe you have plenty of sound sense, somewhere in your head; and that this association with a number of young military men will not have any bad effect upon you; but that, after four or five years abroad, you will not be less, but rather more inclined to settle down to business. I regard you as my son, and have indeed no relations whom I care for in any way, except you and your sister. I trust that, when you come back, you will apply yourself to business; without becoming, as I have done, a slave to it.

"I might, if I chose, make you altogether independent of it; but I am sure that would not be for your good. There is nothing more unfortunate for a young man, belonging to the middle classes, than to have no fixed occupation. The heir to large estates is in a different position. He has all sorts of responsibilities. He has the pursuits of a country gentleman, and the duties of a large landowner. But the young man of our class, who does not take to business, is almost certain to go in for reckless dissipation, or gambling. I have seen numbers of young men, sons of old friends of my own, who have been absolutely ruined by being left the fortunes their fathers had made, simply because they had nothing with which to occupy their minds.

"It is for this reason, Bob, that I chiefly wish you to succeed me in my business. It is a very good one. I doubt whether any other merchant imports such large quantities of wines as I do. During the next few years I shall endeavour to give up, as far as I can, what I may call private business, and deal entirely with the trade. I have been doing so for some time, but it is very difficult to give up customers who have dealt with me, and my father before me. However, I shall curtail the business in that direction, as much as I can; and you will then find it much more easily managed. Small orders require just as much trouble in their execution as large ones; and a wholesale business is, in all respects, more satisfactory than one in which private customers are supplied, as well as the trade.

"I am entering into arrangements, now, with several travellers, for the purpose of extending my dealings with the trade in the provinces; so that when it comes into your hands you will find it more compact, and at the same time more extensive, than it is now.

"I am glad that I have had you here, for the past four months. I have had my eye upon you, more closely than you suppose; and I am pleased to see that you have worked well and willingly--far more so than I expected from you. This has much encouraged me in the hope that you will, in time, settle down to business here; and not be contented to lead a purposeless and idle life. The happiest man, in my opinion, is he who has something to do--and yet, not too much; who can, by being free from anxieties regarding it, view his business as an occupation, and a pleasure; and who is its master, and not its slave.

"I am thinking of giving Mr. Medlin a small interest in the business. I mean to make a real effort to break a little loose from it, and I have seen enough of him to know that he will make a very valuable junior. He is a little eccentric, perhaps--a sort of exaggeration of myself--but I shall signify to him that, when he comes into the firm, I consider that it will be to its advantage that he should import a little of what we may call his 'extra-official' manner into it.

"In our business, as I am well aware--although I do not possess it, myself--a certain cheerfulness of disposition, and a generally pleasing manner, are of advantage. Buyers are apt to give larger orders than they otherwise would do, under the influence of pleasant and genial relations; and Mr. Medlin can, if he chooses, make up for my deficiencies in that way.

"But I am taking the step rather in your interest than in my own. It will relieve you of a considerable portion of the burden of the business, and will enable you to relax somewhat, when you are disposed, if you have a partner in whom you can place thorough confidence.

"I do not wish you to mention this matter to him. I would rather open it to him, myself. We will go on another fishing expedition together, and I think we can approach it, then, on a more pleasant footing than we could here. He has modelled himself so thoroughly upon me that the matter could only be approached in so intensely a businesslike way, here, that I feel sure we should not arrive at anything like such a satisfactory arrangement as we might do, elsewhere."

In the course of the week, Captain Lockett of the Antelope had called at the office, and Bob had been introduced to him by Mr. Bale. He was a hearty and energetic looking man, of some five-and-thirty years of age.

"I shall want you to go to Cadiz for me, next trip, Captain Lockett," Mr. Bale said. "I am having an unusually large cargo prepared for me--enough, I fancy, to fill up your brig."

"All the better, sir," the sailor said. "There is nothing like having only one shipper--it saves time and trouble; but I should advise you to insure it for its full value, for the channel swarms with French privateers, at present; and the fellows are building them bigger, and mounting heavier guns than they used to do.

"I am mounting a long eighteen as a swivel gun, this voyage, in addition to those I carried before. But even with that, there are some of these French craft might prove very awkward customers, if they fell in with us. You see, their craft are crowded with men, and generally carry at least twice as many hands as ours. It is just the same with their fishing boats. It takes about three Frenchmen to do the work of an Englishman."

"Well, don't get caught, this time, Captain Lockett. I don't want my nephew to learn to speak French, instead of Spanish, for there is very little trade to be done in that quarter, at present; and what there is is all carried on by what I may call 'irregular' channels."

"I fancy there is a great deal of French wine comes into this country still, sir, in spite of the two nations being at war. It suits both governments to wink at the trade. We want French wine, and they want English money."

"That's so, Captain Lockett; but at any rate, we can't send English buyers out there, and must take what they choose to send."

On Saturday morning Bob said goodbye to his uncle, with an amount of feeling and regret he would have considered impossible, four months previously. Mr. Medlin accompanied him to Southampton, and the journey was a very lively one.

"Goodbye, Bob," the clerk said, as they shook hands on the deck of the Antelope. "You will be a man, when I see you again--that is, if you don't come home, for a bit, before going to the people at Cadiz and Oporto. You will be coming into the firm, then; and will be Mr. Robert, always."

"Not if we go out fishing expeditions together," Bob said, and laughed.

"Ah! Well, perhaps that will be an exception.

"Well, goodbye; a pleasant voyage to you, and don't get into more scrapes than you can help."

"Oh, I am growing out of that, Mr. Medlin!"

"Not you, Bob. They may be different sorts of scrapes, in the future; but scrapes there will be, or I am a Dutchman."

"Well, youngster, are you a good sailor?" the captain asked; as the Antelope, with all sail set, ran down Southampton water.

"I hope I am, captain, but I don't know, yet. I have gone out sailing in boats at Plymouth several times, in rough weather, and have never felt a bit ill; but I don't know how it will be, in a ship like this."

"If you can sail in rough water in a boat, without feeling ill, you ought to be all right here, lad. She is an easy craft, as well as a fast one; and makes good weather of it, in anything short of a gale.

"There is eight bells striking--that means eight o'clock, and breakfast. You had better lay in as good a store as you can. We shall be outside the Needles, if the wind holds, by dinnertime; and you may not feel so ready for it, then."

The second mate breakfasted in the cabin with the captain and Bob, the first mate remaining on deck. The second mate was a young man of three or four and twenty, a cousin of the captain. He was a frank, pleasant-faced young sailor, and Bob felt that he should like him.

"How many days do you expect to be in getting to Gibraltar, captain?"

"About ten, if we have luck; twenty if we haven't. There is never any saying."

"How many men do you carry?"

"Twenty-eight seamen, the cook, the steward, two mates, and myself; and there are three boys. Thirty-six all told."

"I see you have eight guns, besides the pivot gun."

"Yes. We have plenty of hands for working them, if we only have to fight one side at once; but we shouldn't be very strong handed, if we had to work both broadsides. There are four sixteen pounders, four twelves, and the pivot; so that gives three men to a gun, besides officers and idlers. Three men is enough for the twelves, but it makes rather slow work with the sixteens. However, we may hope that we sha'n't have to work both broadsides at once.

"We carry a letter of marque so that, in case of our having the luck to fall in with a French trader, we can bring her in. But that is not our business. We are peaceful traders, and don't want to show our teeth, unless we are interfered with."

To Bob's great satisfaction, he found that he was able to eat his dinner with unimpaired appetite; although the Antelope was clear of the island, and was bowing deeply to a lively sea. The first mate--a powerful looking man of forty, who had lost one eye, and whose face was deeply seamed by an explosion of powder in an engagement with a French privateer--came down to the meal, while the second mate took the duty on deck. Bob found some difficulty in keeping his dish before him, for the Antelope was lying well over, with a northerly wind abeam.

"She is travelling well, Probert," the captain said. "We have got her in capital trim, this time. Last time we were too light, and could not stand up to our sails.

"If this wind holds, we shall make a fast run of it. We will keep her well inshore, until we get down to the Scillys; and then stretch across the bay. The nearer we keep to the coast, the less fear there is of our running against one of those French privateers."

The wind held steady, and Bob enjoyed the voyage immensely, as the brig sailed along the coast. After passing Portland Bill they lost sight of land until, after eight hours' run, a bold headland appeared on the weather beam.

"That is the Start," the captain said. "When I get abeam of it we shall take our bearings, and then shape our course across the bay. If this wind does but hold, we shall make quick work of it."

Presently the tiller was put up and, as the brig's head paid off, the yards were braced square; and she ran rapidly along towards the southwest, with the wind nearly dead aft. The next morning when Bob went on deck he found that the wind had dropped, and the brig was scarcely moving through the water.

"This is a change, Mr. Probert," he said to the first mate, who was in charge of the deck.

"Yes, and not a pleasant one," the officer replied. "I don't like the look of the sky, either. I have just sent down