The Story of the Rock, R. M. Ballantyne [fiction novels to read .TXT] 📗

mother’s relations, so that I speak your language, but I am more French than Irish.”

“Humph! more’s the pity,” said Teddy. “If there was but wan drop o’ me blood Irish an’ all the rest o’ me French, I’d claim to be an Irishman. If I’d known what ye was I’d have let ye sink, I would. Go along: I don’t think much of yez.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the gendarme, twirling his long moustache with a good-humoured smile; “nevertheless I think a good deal of you, my fine fellow. Farewell, I shall see you again.”

“Ye needn’t trouble yerself,” replied Teddy, flinging off, testily.

It was quite evident that the unfortunate Irishman found it hard to get reconciled to his fate. He could scarcely be civil to his mates in misfortune, and felt a strong disposition to wrench the sword from his captor’s hand, cut off his moustached head, and then, in the language of desperate heroes of romance, “sell his life dearly.” He refrained, however, and was soon after marched along with his mates to the stronghold of the port, at the door of which the French commander handed them over to the jailor, wishing Teddy all health and happiness, with a broad grin, as he bid him farewell.

Our unfortunates crossed a stone court with walls that appeared to rise into the clouds; then they traversed a dark stone passage, at the end of which stood an open door with a small stone cell beyond. Into this they were desired to walk, and as several bayonet points glittered in the passage behind them, they felt constrained to obey. Then locks were turned, and bars were drawn, and bolts were shot. The heavy heels of the jailer and guard were heard retiring. More locks and bars and bolts were turned and drawn and shot at the farther end of the stone passage, after which all remained still as the grave.

“Och hone!” groaned Teddy, looking round at his companions, as he sat on a stone seat, the picture of despair: “To be kilt is a trifle; to fight is a pleasure; to be hanged is only a little trying to the narves. But to be shut up in a stone box in a furrin land—”

Words failed him here, but another groan told eloquently of the bitterness of the spirit within.

“We must just try to be as cheery as we can, mates,” said John Potter. “The Lord can deliver us out o’ worse trouble than this if He sees fit.”

“Oh, it’s all very well for you to talk like that,” growled Isaac Dorkin, “but I don’t believe the Almighty is goin’ to pull down stone walls and iron gates to set us free, an’ you know that we haven’t a friend in all France to help us.”

“I don’t know that, Isaac. It certainly seems very unlikely that any one should start up to befriend us here, but with God all things are possible. At the worst, I know that if we are to remain here, it’s His will that we should.”

“Humph! I wish ye much comfort o’ the thought: it doesn’t give much to me,” remarked Stobbs.

Here, Mr Franks, who had hitherto sat in sad silence, brightened up, and said, “Well, well, lads, don’t let us make things worse by disputing. Surely each man is entitled to draw comfort from any source he chooses. For my part, I agree with John Potter, in this at all events,—that we should try to be as cheery as we can, and make the best of it.”

“Hear, hear!” exclaimed the others. Acting on this advice, they soon began to feel a little less miserable. They had straw to sleep on, and were allowed very poor fare; but there was a sufficiency of it. The first night passed, and the second day; after which another fit of despair seized some of the party. Then John Potter managed to cheer them up a bit, and as he never went about without a small Testament in his pocket, he was able to lighten the time by reading portions of it aloud. After that they took to relating their “lives and adventures” to each other, and then the inventive spirits among them took to “spinning long-winded yarns.” Thus a couple of weeks passed away, during which these unfortunate prisoners of war went through every stage of feeling between hope and despair over and over again.

During one of his despairing moods, Teddy Maroon declared that he had now given up all hope, and that the first chance he got, he would kill himself, for he was quite certain that nobody would ever be able to find out where they were, much less “get them out of that fig.”

But Teddy was wrong, as the sequel will show.

Let us leap now, good reader, to the Tuileries,—into the apartments of Louis XIV. From a prison to a palace is an unusual leap, no doubt, though the reverse is by no means uncommon! The old King is pacing his chamber in earnest thought, addressing an occasional remark to his private Secretary. The subject that occupies him is the war, and the name of England is frequently on his lips. The Secretary begs leave to bring a particular letter under the notice of the King. The Secretary speaks in French, of course, but there is a peculiarly rich tone and emphasis in his voice which a son of the Green Isle would unhesitatingly pronounce to be “the brogue.”

“Read it,” says the King hurriedly: “but first tell me, who writes?”

“A gendarme, sire: a poor relation of mine.”

“Ha: an Irishman?”

“No, sire: but his mother was Irish.”

“Well, read,” says the King.

The Secretary reads: “Dear Terrence, will you do me the favour to bring a matter before the King? The commander of a French privateer has done an act worthy of a buccaneer: he has attacked the men who were re-building the famous Eddystone lighthouse, and carried them prisoners of war into this port. I would not trouble you or the King about this, did I not know his Majesty too well to believe him capable of countenancing such a deed.”

“What!” exclaims the King, turning abruptly, with a flush of anger on his countenance, “the Eddystone lighthouse, which so stands as to be of equal service to all nations having occasion to navigate the channel?”

“The same, sire; and the officer who has done this expects to be rewarded.”

“Ha: he shall not be disappointed; he shall have his reward,” exclaims the King. “Let him be placed in the prison where the English men now lie, to remain there during our pleasure; and set the builders of the Eddystone free. Let them have gifts, and all honourable treatment, to repay them for their temporary distress, and send them home, without delay, in the same vessel which brought them hither. We are indeed at war with England, but not with mankind!”

The commands of kings are, as a rule, promptly obeyed. Even although there were neither railways nor telegraphs in those days, many hours had not elapsed before the tall gendarme stood in the prison-cell where John Potter and his friends were confined. There was a peculiar twinkle in his eye, as he ordered a band of soldiers to act as a guard of honour in conducting the Englishmen to the best hotel in the town, where a sumptuous collation awaited them. Arrived there, the circumstances of their case were explained to them by the chief magistrate, who was in waiting to receive them and present them with certain gifts, by order of Louis XIV.

The fortunate men looked on at all that was done, ate their feast, and received their gifts in speechless amazement, until at length the gendarme (who acted as interpreter, and seemed to experience intense enjoyment at the whole affair) asked if they were ready to embark for England? To which Teddy Maroon replied, by turning to John Potter and saying, “I say, John, just give me a dig in the ribs, will ’ee: a good sharp one. It’s of no use at all goin’ on draimin’ like this. It’ll only make it the worse the longer I am o’ wakin’ up.”

John Potter smiled and shook his head; but when he and his friends were conducted by their guard of honour on board of the schooner which had brought them there, and when they saw the moustached commander brought out of his cabin and led ashore in irons, and heard the click of the capstan as the vessel was warped out of harbour, and beheld the tall gendarme take off his cocked hat and wish them “bon voyage” as they passed the head of the pier, they at length became convinced that “it was all true;” and Teddy declared with enthusiastic emphasis, that “the mounseers were not such bad fellows after all!”

“Oh, John, John!” exclaimed Mrs Potter, about thirty hours after that, as she stood gazing in wild delight at a magnificent cashmere shawl which hung on her husband’s arm, while Tommy was lost in admiration at the sight of a splendid inlaid ivory work-box, “where ever got ’ee such a helegant shawl?”

“From King Louis, of France, lass,” said John, with a peculiar smile.

“Never!” said Mrs Potter, emphatically; and then she gave it forth as one of her settled convictions, that, “Kings wasn’t such fools as to go makin’ presents like that to poor working men.”

However, John Potter, who had only just then presented himself before the eyes of his astonished spouse, stoutly asserted that it was true; and said that if she would set about getting something to eat, for he was uncommonly hungry, and if Tommy would leave off opening his mouth and eyes to such an unnecessary extent, he would tell them all about it. So Mrs Potter was convinced, and, for once, had her “settled convictions” unsettled; and the men returned to their work on the Eddystone; and a man-of-war was sent to cruise in the neighbourhood to guard them from misfortune in the future; and, finally, the Rudyerd lighthouse was completed.

Its total height, from the lowest side to the top of the ball on the lantern, was ninety-two feet, and its greatest diameter twenty-three feet four inches. It took about three years to build, having been commenced in 1706, the first light was put up in 1708, and the whole was completed in 1709.

Teddy Maroon was one of the first keepers, but he soon left to take charge of a lighthouse on the Irish coast. Thereupon John Potter made application for the post. He was successful over many competitors, and at last obtained the darling wish of his heart: he became principal keeper; his surly comrade, Isaac Dorkin, strange to say, obtaining the post of second keeper. Mrs Potter didn’t like the change at first, as a matter of course.

“But you’ll come to like it, Martha,” John would say when they referred to the subject, “‘Absence,’ you know, ‘makes the heart grow fonder.’ We’ll think all the more of each other when we meet during my spells ashore, at the end of every two months.”

Tommy also objected very much at first, but he could not alter his father’s intentions; so John Potter went off to the Eddystone rock, and for a long time took charge of the light that cast its friendly beams over the sea every night thereafter, through storm and calm, for upwards of six-and-forty years.

That John’s life in the lighthouse was not all that he had hoped for will become apparent in the next chapter.