by the author of "A Skeleton in Every House," [William Russell].
Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.3 #2 (Jan 1861).
Cruise of the Blue Jacket.
First, a few intermediary sentences: then, leaving the fortunate lady for a while, I make sail in the track of the audaciously lucky Letter of Marque, Blue Jacket.
The great principle of the Earl Dundonald's scheme, before spoken of, for employing (and wearing out) the French armies in France, presupposed the mastery of the seas by the British, and a rigorous blockade of the French war-ports. Those indispensable conditions had been attained when, perhaps, the greatest of naval commanders after Nelson—(longo intervallo, the Earl would himself have cheerfully admitted)—propounded his plan. He proposed that, say thirty thousand, well-disciplined British soldiers should be embarked in fleet transports—the more numerous the expeditions, if skilfully combined, the merrier; which soldiers should be thrown upon naked parts, in a military sense, of the French coast, which nakedness comprises nineteen-twentieths of any coast in Europe. The troops so landed, and secure of unmolested reimbarkation, at pleasure, were to march rapidly inland, to a safe distance, burning, destroying, as they marched. Uproar, of course, amongst the French troops, as the news spreads, the fires of blazing crops at night their speediest signals. They assemble in hot haste, and march without rest to exterminate the invader. But the invader is gone long before they arrive in sufficient numbers within sight of the rascally red-coats; nay, at the very moment they have reached, panting and blowing, what should have been the scene of a well-merited vengeance, and their general is meditating a flaming despatch announcing that the infamous Leopards have been driven into the sea—those Leoline Leopards—(we are certainly not obliged to accept, without qualification, Napoleon's zoological depreciation of the British Standard)—at that very moment those Leoline Leopards, sailing with the wind, might be playing the same unpleasant trick some thirty or forty miles off! Sacre-r-r-r-re nom, de nom de Dieu!! The historic swearing of our army in Flanders would, I suspect, read like reverential supplications by the side of the maledictions which a few months of such a game would call forth from the hot and thirsty throats of the grand army, however hors d' haleine, out of breath, the brave, indignant, worn-off-their-legs veterans might be. Seriously, no one can doubt the feasibility of Lord Dundonald's plan—granted the indispensable postulate of mastery at sea. With steam-transports, it could of course be much more easily carried out than when his lordship proposed its adoption, and with vastly more terrible effect.
The predatory cruise of the Blue Jacket was planned upon the same theory, Skipper Smith's miniature means obliging him of course to immensely modify it in practice. His seventy rascals would only be able to venture a very few miles inland, generally at night, and their aim would be not to harass the enemy, but to fill their own pockets. To facilitate the carrying out of that object, Skipper Smith had diligently cultivated the acquaintance of a number of French emigrants, natives of the North of France, domiciled at Newcastle, and by that means made himself well acquainted with the places along the coast where he could most profitably employ his Blue Jackets, and with least risk of interruption by any considerable force, even of Gendarmes or National Guards. He and his fellows were well-suited to the work in hand, and their success gave proof of the soundness of the Danton maxim, that L'Audace, et encore l'Audace is the true secret of triumph in such enterprises.
Towards evening of the morrow of the day on which the Blue Jacket sailed from the Tyne, that vessel was standing, off and on, and as close in as was prudent, to the coast of France, about a league more or less north of Calais. The weather was clear, and Skipper Smith intently perusing, so to speak, the country within view of his telescope. Close by him stood a man with whom he talked in a quiet undertone; now and then handing him the glass. This man was a French mariner who, originally hailed from Boulogne, had, some years previously, left France in a hurry—for peu de chose, he averred—perhaps some trifling matter of theft, burglary, homicide—what not,—and for whom Patrie and Poche, Country and Cash, were convertible terms. On board the Blue Jacket he was known only as Philippe; though it may be hardly doubted that he once had a surname it would not have been an insult or a danger to pronounce. This man Skipper Smith made excellent use of, and appears to have trusted as far as a pistol of short range could throw a bullet with unerring effect.
"I could feel my way blindfolded to the convent of our Lady of Grace, and old Misére's Chateau," remarked Philippe, "but the distance is full three leagues, and it is time your boule-dogs should begin to make ready. It will be absolutely dark for about an hour only, before the moon rises, and your singular French Light Infantry must not, sacred Blue! be seen disembarking from a ship. Dam! that would ruin all at starting! Once landed, the game will go on gaily—march of itself."
Skipper Smith agreed, and ordered fifty previously selected boule-dogs to don French-soldier uniforms, and arm themselves with musket, bayonet, and sabre.
That was soon done, and to a near observer, very droll boule-dogs, amazing French Infanterie Légère, they must, so rigged, have looked. Still, seen by a faint moonlight—the Queen of Night had not nearly filled her horns—it would scarcely occur to the French peasant or proprietor mind, that in that guise a gang of English canaille were audaciously violating the inviolable, sacred, soil of France, were passing in insolent proximity before their very huts—houses—eyes! A great risk, no question, for all that; but—L'Audace, et encore l'Audacé. Skipper Smith was as thoroughly impressed with the wisdom of that war-axiom as the Hero of the Nile himself. The reader will good-naturedly excuse my mentioning. in the same sentence Horatio Nelson and Skipper Smith—star-fire,—street mud! Still, I again say that Smith, alias Tracy, was as insensible to personal fear, and had as clear, intuitive a perception of the secret of sea-fight success, as he whose pale face and immortal signal will never fade from the memories of Englishmen—or not, at all events, till the overwhelming catastrophe shall have occurred, a sequence of which is to be that preposterous New Zealander complacently sketching the ruins of St. Paul's from a broken arch of Waterloo Bridge, for the delectation of the artistic dilettanti of Auckland.
This by the way. I may be permitted to add, that my estimation of the courage and resource of Skipper Smith will be readily endorsed by every naval man—and there must be not a few still living, who recognize him under that name, and are cognizant of exploits, a few of which the scope of this narrative allows me, and that but briefly, to touch upon.
* * * * *
The boule-dog, sea-dog Infanterie Légère, were togged off in full fig; the main-brace had as usual been handsomely spliced; and dark, moonless night having fallen, Skipper Smith's Light Infantry tumbled into the boats alongside, and were swiftly, silently, rowed ashore. The landing was quietly effected, and the sailor-soldiers marched, after sea boule-dogs' manner of marching, boldly inland. In a few minutes the faint gleam of bayonets vanished in the thick night, the swinging sailor-tread ceased to be audible to the men in the boats, who, pursuant to order, pulled back to the Blue Jacket, much doubting that they should ever see the blue-light signal which was to announce the return of their mates. Mad mates, they must have secretly thought; yet whilst so thinking would, I have not the slightest doubt, have, every mother's son of them, forfeited a week's tobacco and grog to have been of the party—and that, it will be admitted, would have been a large price to pay for such a privilege!
This extraordinary raid, of which confused, conflicting reports were published in the local papers, was in the main successful; but it was a very touch-and-go business. The Château D'Ivry, the residence of Sieur Dulong, was pillaged of a large quantity of gold and silver plate, for amassing which it appears Dulong had a sort of mania—a circumstance well known to Maître Philippe. Monsieur Misère, by the way, was a nick-name given to Dulong on account of his penurious habits. The convent chapel was also plundered of the silver vessels used in the celebration of divine service. The booty was pitched into one of Dulong's carts, and but for an unfortunate temptation that came in the way of Smith's Infanterie Légère all would have ended happily for the exultant scamps. A number of them found their way into Dulong's cellar, tasted his excellent champagne-brandy—he was not penurious in regard to self-gratification—and liked it so much that Skipper Smith's menaces, commands, entreaties, warnings, to leave the celestial liquor, were as unavailing as Caliban's to Stephano. The liquor was not earthly, and they cared nothing for frog-eating Frenchmen—not they! There was plenty of time; and so on. Smith was terribly enraged, but did not in his passion forget to send off the plate-laden cart, under the escort of the soberest of his squad. Unwilling to abandon his men, since to do so would be to abandon, at all events to indefinitely postpone, his enterprise, Smith—Philippe aiding—continued to urgently remonstrate with the reeling, hiccupping fools, till the gallop of numerous horse upon the hard road caught his anxious ear. A servant had contrived to escape from the place in which he was confined, who at about a league distant from the château met with some twenty mounted gendarmes, to whom he, of course, immediately unfolded his wondrous tale, the truth of which the astonished Frenchmen determined to test without the delay of a moment.
Smith's Infanterie Légère were not so drunk as to be incapable of appreciating the gravity of the situation; and, seizing their muskets, out of the cellar they scampered pell-mell, gaining the road a minute or so before the gendarmes rode furiously up, not drawing bridle till within less than twenty paces of them. The Brigadier in command loudly requested a parley; but parleying was not Skipper Smith's game, and his reply was an order to his men to fire. They obeyed, after a fashion—the bullets that did not strike the ground in front of the gendarmes flying over their heads. It is probable that not half a dozen of Smith's fellows could have reloaded their pieces. That, however, the French horsemen could not know; and finding themselves so much outnumbered, they wheeled, and rode off for help, first discharging their pistols at the brigands, which pistol-volley caused two of the said brigands to bite the dust. There was not a moment to lose: the dead bodies were left where they fell, and away, helter-skelter, went, half-sobered, half-frightened, Smith and Co. They were lucky enough to reach the boats in safety: the plate and other valuable plunder had been already embarked.
Skipper Smith's first essay in arms suggested two important reflections; one, that dressing his sailors in soldier-uniform was not the very clever ruse he had supposed it to be. Their unsilenceable tongues were sure to betray them, and muskets were the least efficient weapons they could be armed with. Dash, rapidity of movement, were the main elements of success in such warfare; and his rascals, in loose sailor-togs, armed only with pistols and light cutlasses, would get over the ground at a much faster rate, and be far more formidable foes than when soldier-strapped, equipped, and armed. He was quite convinced upon that point, and jotted down a mental memorandum, only to use the uniforms under such peculiar circumstances as he foresaw might occasionally occur. The next most pressing consideration was, how to prevent his fellows from getting into a cellar stocked with champagne-brandy, or, when there, getting them out again in good time, with heads and legs equal to the situation. How nearly had the impossibility of doing so brought them all to grief that very night! Finally, to be done with this halting-stage of the story, he resolved, after consultation with Philippe, to propose that those who should refuse to leave any house or place when ordered to do so, should forfeit their share of plunder—or, as it was more delicately phrased, prize-money; a stipulation agreed to by the Blue Jackets, with the proviso, that as many casks as possible of champagne-brandy or other choice liquor that fell in their way should be brought off, and served out on board as extra grog.
Whilst this important matter was under discussion, the Blue Jacket was slipping southward with a five-knot breeze. The concordat settled, Skipper Smith had leisure for the more pleasing task of counting his gains. The booty secured could not, roughly reckoned, be worth less than two thousand pounds—thirteen hundred, say, for himself, seven divisible amongst the crew—and obtained at the inconsiderable expenditure of two men, who, in fact, were guilty of their own deaths. A very promising beginning: he should thrive: Profit and Patriotism would join hands; Lucre and Love of country embrace each other. Hip! hip! Hurrah!
What an immense chasm, it struck me, when I first glanced through the blurred and blotted memoranda upon which this story is based, must at this time have already yawned between Arthur Tracy, the accomplished Eton student, and Skipper Smith, the vulgar, greedy, freebooter! And, alas! that chasm will widen, deepen, as the years flit by.
* * * * *
It would require several thick volumes to minutely narrate the exploits of Skipper Smith whilst in command of the Blue Jacket. In these pages I can but glance at—catalogue them. THis second, law-of-nations-sanctioned burglary, was effected near Saint Valéry, Department of the Somme;—amount of plunder unsatisfactory. The next, at about a league from Dieppe, with better fortune. Two or three nights afterwards a raid was attempted near Breteuil, Calvados, upon which occasion the Blue Jackets, having ascertained that a dragoon regiment, on its march from Caen to Cherbourg, happened to be in dangerous proximity to their sacred selves, retreated with undignified precipitation and scant booty. Rounding Cape La Hogue, as they call the northern horn of St. Michael's Bay, the Blue Jackets made a descent upon Bricquêtre, levied more or less of black mail, and, as in all other instances, got clear off before the sweating soldiers could arrive to the rescue. Five men were expended,—drink-delivered into the power of the Philistines,—during those four little enterprises, and of course never turned up again. How should they?
The log of the Blue Jacket contains little or nothing of sufficient importance to transcribe (merely dittoes repeated of sudden small descents Upon unguarded parts of the coast, and swift scamperings back to the boats, with more or less of plunder) till after the lapse of about six months—October 9th, 1806-+-upon which day—night, I mean—Skipper Smith and his fellows, again transformed into French Light Infantry, had the inconceivable audacity to land under cover of darkness at a point of the Mediterranean coast about midway between Marseilles and Toulon, but nearer the Phocoean city than the war-port over which first rose the Star of Bonaparte; both ports being at the time strictly blockaded by Collingwood.
About a league inland from the spot at which Skipper Smith landed stood then—I suppose now stands—a convent church dedicated to Saint Agnes; at whose shrine, sanctified by holiest relics, the votaries of the Saint, maidens, chiefly, as I understand, had for centuries offered costly gifts.
A goodly share of those rich gifts Skipper Smith by his audacious raid seized, and got clear off with. And, in that convent church dedicated to Saint Agnes, John Smith, alias Arthur Tracy, met his fate,—in the very unalarming shape of a handsome English girl, Constance Gower, born at Clifton, Bristol, some nineteen years agone.
Most readers are aware, that at the rupture of the truce of Amiens, Napoleon, in the plenitude of his absolutism, issued orders to seize every British man, woman, and child, in France, and detain them till peace should be restored between the two countries. The individuals thus seized were called detenus, and were relegated to—that is, compelled to reside in such parts of France as authority dictated. Amongst the detenus were Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, and their orphan niece, Constance Gower. This family were relegated to Marseilles and its vicinage. They were Catholics; and the thought occurred to the uncle and aunt to place Constance in the Convent of Saint Agnes—for her soul's health, they pretended, but chiefly because the aunt-in-law—a vain, imperious woman, much younger than her husband, to whom she had not been very long married—had conceived a vehement dislike, hatred indeed, of poor Constance, already looking upon her as a future and formidable competitor for the favour and fortune of Mr. Arnold, with the boy or girl of her own that would, she hoped, be happily ushered into the world after the lapse of a few months.
Constance Gower—impulsive as Love; gentle, sensitive as Sorrow; of child-like Faith—submitted, without remonstrance, to the cruel decree which was to close the story of her young joyous life in conventual gloom and seclusion. The impressionable maiden seems, indeed, to have rejoiced for a time in her change of abode and companionship. The nuns were kind: the music, the flowers, the incense, processions, excited her imagination; and in due time, passively acquiescent, Constance Gower was professed, vowed, by a hollow form of words—expressive of anything but the true, natural yearnings of a young girl's heart or intellect—to celibacy; to be shut out for ever from a world which God had gifted her to grace and adorn. The reaction came, in her case, with more than ordinary swing and violence. Her very faith wavered, grew faint, beneath the oppressive formalism of such a life. I pause a moment to say, that I have no wish to decry conventual institutions: I know little or nothing of the general working of such systems; but it is necessary, if Constance Gower is to command the generous sympathy of my readers, that the exact truth in her case should be told.
Such was the state of the impulsive maiden's mind when Smith and his men forced their way into the isolated convent church, and sacrilegiously sacked its treasures. The nuns, with the exception of Constance Gower, fled, shrieking. She, instantly recognizing that they were Englishmen—heretics of course—addressed their commander with passionate, piteous insistence; entreating, adjuring him, by every sentiment of manly sympathy and compassion, to rescue her from the living death to which she was condemned, and afford her means of reaching her relatives in England. Touched with the beauty and distress of his young and charming countrywoman, Smith at once acceded to her request; and an hour afterwards the fugitive nun was safe on board the Blue Jacket, which before day dawned was out of sight of land, steering for Malta.
The Coup de Pirate, as the nocturnal pillage of the sacred shrine of Saint Agnes, and the alleged forcible abduction of a nun by a band of disguised ruffians, was designated by the French papers, excited the wildest rage; and in the end, though indirectly, put an extinguisher upon Skipper Smith's Letter of Marque career. As soon as the facts had been officially verified by the nuns, and the confession of one of the crew of the Blue Jacket—who, groping about the passages of the convent, in quest of liquor probably, had fallen down a flight of stone steps, at the bottom of which he remained stunned, motionless, till long after his comrades—not missing him in the hurry and confusion—had departed, and he himself was kicked into consciousness by furious peasants, whom the alarm-bell had roused from their slumbers, and who, that confession made, was summarily shot;—those facts, I repeat, officially verified, a vessel, bearing a flag of truce, left Marseilles to communicate with the commander of the blockading squadron and protest against the permission of such outrages. Neither the nationality of the nun, nor the execution of the sailor, appears to have been mentioned. The French officer was courteously received, and dismissed with the assurance, that if anything had been done not warranted by Letter of Marque licence—(and the forcible carrying off of a nun was unquestionably an atrocious excess of such licence)—the Captain of the Privateer should be visited with condign punishment.
Five or six days afterwards, directly it was known that the Blue Jacket was at Malta, an officer, bearing the Admiral's directions in the matter, sailed in a sloop-of-war for that port.
The case against Skipper Smith broke down at the outset. Unquestionably he had a legal warranty for distressing the enemy by seizing his property wherever he could lay hands upon it; and though the "Service" did not condescend to what the French—of all the birds in the air and fishes in the sea—they who had annexed Holland, stolen Switzerland, pillaged Italy—loftily denounced as piratical warfare, it was well known that this sort of work was precisely that which Captains of Letters of Marque who knew their business were expected to perform. Moreover, the conventional scruple of the Service was, closely examined, seen to be mere fudge. No casuist, however skilled in the art of splitting hairs, could possibly establish any real moral distinction between seizing the private property of French men or women upon land, or capturing it upon the sea.
As to the forcible carrying off of the nun, that was proved, not only by verbal testimony of the young lady herself, to be a mere flam, but by her marriage with the gallant rescuer of his imprisoned young country-woman—Constance Gower having become Mrs. Smith three days before the investigating officer's arrival at Malta. The Captain of the Blue Jacket was not only acquitted of all blame with reference to that incident in his bold enterprise, but highly commended for acting as he did. "You would richly have deserved to have been shot, Mr. Smith," said the officer, "had you not, under such circumstances, brought off an English lady—old or young, ugly or beautiful!"—a judgment which Collingwood emphatically approved.
* * * * *
I here turn over a brief page of Skipper Smith's history, which, if I read it aright, and I am pretty sure I do, proves that every trace of gentlemanly feeling, all sense, not only of honour, but of common honesty, had gone out of him.
The deadly hazard of the game, which up to that time he had played successfully, was by that time clearly understood and appreciated by him. His marriage with the beauteous, most loveable Constance Gower, whom he doted upon with all the fervour of his ardent sensuous nature, deepened by its future-illumining brightness the darkness of that peril—and his charming wife loved him! To her he was the preux chevalier, the gallant knight by whom she had been rescued from living death, and raised to affluence. For her he had engaged the most sumptuous lodgings to be found in Malta, and was heaping upon her costliest luxuries. There was the rub, though she knew it not. How to best support an expenditure which so delighted his young, just unconvented wife, was the question. The state of affairs was precisely this. The earnings of the Blue Jacket, during her half-year's cruise, might be estimated at about ten thousand pounds, of which not one shilling had been paid over to the crew, who were becoming clamorous for payment, Master Philippe urging them on. A pestilent knave, that. The crew's share would amount to between three and four thousand pounds—a vast, immense sum. Now, he (Smith) had lately obtained reliable statistics of a fabulously profitable trade for which the Blue Jacket was admirably adapted; and all the hands required would be about twenty, half of whom might be cheap, coloured fellows, half-breeds. An immense saving; omitting the between three and four thousand pounds—a startling sum, not to be easily replaced.
I hear those mutterings of the man quite plainly, as I read this portion of his journal; and they, to my mind, give plainest significance to his sudden intimacy with Captain Somers of the Thetis frigate, refitting at Malta for service in the distant East, and sadly short-handed!
That with respect to which there can be no possible misapprehension is, that the Blue Jacket put to sea about an hour before the Thetis frigate, by which she was quickly overhauled and ordered to lie to. A numerous party, armed to the teeth, then boarded the Blue Jacket, and impressed into the King's service fifty of the pick of her crew; hurried them nolens-volens on board the frigate, which immediately filled, and proceeded on her voyage to the Pacific.
The Blue Jacket returned to Malta, shipped stores, took on board Mrs. Smith, and sailed forthwith, shaping her course for the Brazils.
Nemesis.
Thus had prematurely come to an end Skipper Smith's audacious application, in Europe, of the good old rule, the simple plan, that they shall take who have the power, and they shall keep who can. Once only had he, bringing into play his Spanish uniforms, attempted a shy at the Dons, at some point on the coast of Granada about twenty leagues or there-away eastward of Gibraltar, at which place he had remained several weeks, selling his plate, &c., of course to some of the numerous Jews who infest the fortress. The enterprise not only completely failed, but went nervously near to bring the Blue Jackets engaged, suddenly up with a round turn, hemp necklace fashion, sus. per col., or as a military favour, an attainment of the same unpleasant result by a curt order—"Quo los fusillas: Yo, El Rey," (Let them be shot: I, the King)—from Madrid; which would have been a quite legitimate decision, Spain having de facto repudiated alliance with the foes of Great Britain, which de facto repudiation Skipper Smith was, perhaps, unaware of. Be that as it may, his Anglo-Spaniards had hardly landed when light-signals, called attention to by swiftly-successive cannon-shots, flared at the mast-heads of the Blue Jacket. The look-outs had discerned with their night-glasses nine or ten heavily-armed guarda-costas, sweeping silently within shadow of the land towards the spot where Smith had disembarked. Almost at the same moment, the Captain of the Blue Jacket ascertained, from a scout sent on in advance, that a considerable military force was lying in ambush not a quarter of a mile ahead. A precipitate retreat to the boats was the only chance; a chance which turned up in their favour. The boats were gained before the guarda-costas were near enough to assail them, except with cannon balls, which balls either fell short, went over ahead or astern of them, amidst the derisive shouts of the British sea-scamps. The Blue Jacket was reached, and the pursuit of that water-witch by the lagging lubber-handled guarda-costas would have been simply ridiculous. The character of the Blue Jacket, and the secret of the expedition, had no doubt been revealed to the Spanish authorities by one or more of the swarming Iberian spies at Gibraltar, where Smith blushed to remember he had asked questions, touching certain localities, of his Israelitish friends, which would enable a dull fool to make a shrewd guess as to about where the English freebooter would attempt his next descent.
This was one of the warnings which determined Smith to woo the changeful goddess, Fortune, under conditions and in an hemisphere where her darkest frown would not, at all events, necessarily or probably prove a sentence of death.
An exquisitely blissful, luxurious Future, which it would be sheer fatuity to needlessly imperil by rash adventure, was, since he paid his devoirs at St. Agnes' shrine, fast painting itself in brilliant colours upon the retina of his imagination—a wealthy, splendid home, namely, in the sunny clime of the Brazils, irradiated, graced, by the presence of beauteous, trustful, loving Constance, and gradually peopling with rose-lipped reproductions of her sweet self. A few years of active enterprise in the new line of business he had traced for himself would realize the entrancing dream; and the remainder of their days which two so young, so full of buoyant life, might reasonably expect to be very many, would be passed in tranquil happiness and honour. With such fond illusions lightening in his busy brain did Arthur Tracy—as he had better again be for us, though not for years to come will that name knell in the ear of Constance Gower—speed joyously with favouring gales to the port of Bahia in the Brazils, near which, either from caprice or information he had obtained of the superior eligibility for his purposes of that locality, he intended to permanently set up his household gods—chief amongst whom, but of that he did not dream, will be the domestic Até, wearing the triple mask of conjugal and parental Love and sensuous Pleasure!
* * * * *
The vocation which Tracy had so joyfully embraced was neither more nor less than the trade in Negro slaves. Literally an exhaustless mine of wealth, worked with unbounded facility and without the least risk, in the palmy days when there had not loomed upon even the apprehensions of the man-stealers the terrible spectra of a British Preventive Squadron.
Well, the Blue Jacket, Letter of Marque, arrived safely at Bahia, where quietly repudiating Letter of Marque, nationality, and name, she, after having been thoroughly fitted for her new duties, and named the Constancia, sailed under the Brazilian flag for the African coast. I have forgotten to mention in the proper place, that Monsieur Philippe had been cunningly left behind at Malta, his fair share of booty—according to his own mode of computing it—not having been handed over to him. A small matter in itself apparently; but a real or fancied injustice, how trifling soever weighed in avoirdupois, material scales, has often potent propulsion in the whirligig of Time, which brings round its revenges.
Some time before the Constancia, built in the Tyne, sailed out of Bahia, Constance—breathing, beauteous Constance, framed by Nature in one of Nature's happiest inspirations, but, through carelessness or fate, of fragile materials—speaking of sap, not fibre—had been domiciled by her doting husband in a luxurious abode, and amply provided with all appliances of elegant affluence. Ay, and he was her chivalrous knight, sans peur et sans reproche, when she smilingly blessed his enterprise—that, namely, of kidnapping men and women of unrecognized colour, and selling them at an immense profit into irredeemable bondage.
I am not about to follow the Constangia in her many slave-trips, extending over a period of eight years. Enough to say, that Tracy, following out with skill, energy, and unfailing good luck, the fundamental principle of commercial success—buying in the cheapest, selling in the dearest market—realized during those eight years what would even in this country and at the present day be esteemed a very large fortune. He himself, insanely greedy of gold as he was, appeared content with his winnings, and yielding readily to the persuasion of his idolized wife, sold his famous craft, and resigned himself with seeming gladness to a life of luxurious ease and social distinction—coloured—illumined—in the end blasted, consumed—by the purple, arrowy lights of ardent, poignant love for Constance and his children!
It would be unfair not to state, that during those eight fortune-chasing years Arthur Tracy gave new and striking proofs of high and generous qualities, especially of a calm judgment, which, in fearfullest straits took counsel only of his courage, and who more than once risked his own life under appalling circumstances in the monster-teeming jungles and rivers of Africa, to save that of another. It was a common saying with the old salts of the Constancia, that the Skipper would be a match single-handed for Old Nick himself! Of such mingled yarn are the best and worst of us made up!
I especially remark upon the fearless, dare-devil temperament of Arthur Tracy, forasmuch that only by such a man, and he practised in frightfulest peril, would a terrible incident in his life, to be presently related, though its exact literal verity has been established by the clearest evidence, appear to be of possible achievement.
Leaving for a while Mr. and Mrs. Smith in their sensuous Paradise, not yet Lost, we wing our mind-flight to England, alighting first at Stone Hall, Norfolk, next paying a brief visit, "pour prendre congé," for a long while, to Clifton, Bristol.
Our old acquaintance, Mrs. Arthur Tracy, ci-devant Mrs. Lydia Warner, and for a long time since, by royal grace, Mrs. Charlton, is we find fascinating, handsome, as ever. You would hardly believe she is more than two or three years older than when she sailed from Guernsey to Plymouth, but for the evidence of her daughter Emmeline, the fair girl seated by her upon an ottoman, and commonly known as Miss Charlton, who cannot be much less than fifteen years of age. In the same room, busied with fishing-tackle, is a youth, James Charlton, so called,—who, though really some years the young lady's junior, appears from his precocious height and vigorous, well-knit frame, to be if anything older than his half-sister. A fine youngster, no one could deny; but no one knows, save Mrs. Charlton, that the latent devil which, suddenly aroused, flashes through his fine dark eyes, and curls his finely-cut, firmly-set lips, are his father's. Of that father she seldom spoke,—seldom thought, except when that father seemed, when James Charlton was in certain moods of mind, to visibly confront her in the person of his son: a high-minded youth withal, passionately attached to his mother and sister,—his mother before all, for whom he would at any moment have flung down his life as freely as a pin.
They were about to leave Stone Hall in a few days for Clifton. Mr. Sherwood, immediately after his return from Madras, had purchased for a song the carcases of several villas at Clifton. These formed part of the property devised by him in trust to Mrs. Charlton, by whom they had been completed. One of them she had lately furnished for her own use, and proposed to herself occupy it for the future—a permanent change of air having been recommended for Emmeline, who did not enjoy very robust health, and the air of Clifton being pronounced to be all that could be desired. Mrs. Charlton and family accordingly took up their abode at Avon Villa, Clifton, at about the same time that Arthur Tracy relinquished the slave trade, and surrendered himself to domestic quietude and perpetual exile in the Brazils. How widely, continuously divergent, never to tangle again, seemed to run off the threads of those two lives. Ay,—seemed!
The reader would have been sure, had I omitted to tell him, that Mrs. Charlton might, had she pleased to do so, have again changed her name, selecting which she chose from a dozen or more, belonging to quite eligible parties. Happily for her, parental, maternal love was not an avenging Até, but a guardian Angel, by whose pure influence she was saved from bitterest humiliation, from scathing shame—moral ruin! She would live in the lives of her children,—refuse to be bound by another tie!
* * * * *
The gilded current of a brilliant unclouded Time, upon which floated the gay life-bark, containing, closely clasped in blissful embrace, our Brazils acquaintance, flowed smoothly, brightly on, for some years after Tracy's abandonment of business pursuits. True, they had lost their first-born child—Constance; but that occurred during infancy, and the void made, though keenly felt at the time, had been since abundantly filled up by gracious God-gifts of five charming children—Arthur (the husband disliked his own name of John), Clara, Edward, John—the wife would insist he should be named John, and in her turn consented—though she had a superstitious objection to give another the name inscribed at the head of a little green grave, still often watered by her tears—that the last should be baptized Constance.
Beauteous buds of promise were they all; beauteous buds, not one of which, it soon came to be feared, would blossom into healthy human flowers. By a mysterious fatality they passed away in unbroken sequence as soon as they had attained their sixth or seventh year; not stricken down by any known, tangible disease, but gradually sinking, fainting out of life till there were five tiny green graves close by each other in the cemetery. Constance, the youngest, alone survived, for a brief period it was believed, and black despair fell like a pall over the not long since joyous, sunny lives of the bereaved father and mother.
Those terrible blows, striking where they were most keenly sensitive, fell with crushing weight upon both, but with far greatest severity upon the wife, who would not be comforted. A feeling of superstitious terror grew and fastened upon her mind. Her husband, brave, generous, incapable of grave offence towards God or man, had not drawn down upon them that terrible visitation. No, no; it was she, the perjured nun, who had solemnly vowed herself to live and die the spouse of Christ, that had caused Him who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," to pour forth upon them the vials of His dreadful wrath. Almost vainly did Tracy reason with his beloved wife, urge over and over again the example of Luther, a name revered by many millions of enlightened pious Christians, who had married Catherine de Bora, a professed nun, and gloried in having done so—in having superseded, as it were, an unnatural vow by the natural, holy one, pronounced at the marriage altar. This last argument made some impression upon her. "True, true," she would murmur—some beams of their former radiance flashing faintly from her dimmed eyes,—"True, true: the vow binding me to you, dear husband, you to me, is in itself a holy one; and may, as your Church says, have lawfully superseded vows which I was coerced—yes, that is true—I clasp, hug, its truth to my heart—may have lawfully superseded, as your Church says—vows I was morally coerced to take. Yes, yes; that is a blessed truth. I should like to speak with a Protestant clergyman, but there is not one to be found in this glaring, hot, life-stifling country."
"Shall we go for a few years to Europe, Constance—to England, if you will? I have lately thought, that a bracing northern clime might have saved our lost ones, might now save our last hope."
The mother caught with wild, almost frantic joy, at the proposition. Yes, yes; to England without delay. To Clifton, of which the health-breathing air, bringing with it odours of her youth, often, in dreams, fanned her check, and played with her hair. To England! Clifton! and Constance might yet be saved—her own bruised spirit healed! Tracy hesitated for a moment—only for a moment. What, after ell, had he to fear by sojourning for awhile at Clifton? He had been known at Bristol only by a few persons, and that slightly, except by Beadon, who he knew was long since dead; and was himself so changed in person that those amongst the few persons who knew him best would not recognize him. They would live, his wife would insist upon living, in strictest seclusion; and as to legal liability, he might laugh at that. The payment, with compound interest, of the two thousand pounds odd to the Assignees of the Tracy estate—nothing more. Tut! He had often thought of doing so anonymously, and upon arriving in England might confidentially arrange the bagatelle through a solicitor. Yes, they would go to England—to Clifton, since his wife had set her heart upon it; and without delay, too; for Constance, in her sixth year, though pretty healthy, was fast nearing the fatal boundary line.
On the evening of the day this resolution was taken, Tracy came suddenly upon a man lurking near his house, who, seeing him, after one parting scowl of deadliest hate, hurried off. The man was "Philippe," left behind at Malta; and, as he alleged, defrauded of his rightful dues. Having discovered the whereabout of his former patron, Master Philippe made his appearance in the Brazils, and urged his claim with savage vehemence upon Tracy. Whether it was that Tracy's fiery temper resented the manner of the application, or that he really believed the man to have no rightful claim upon his purse, he sternly refused compliance. A violent altercation ensued, which ended by Philippe springing, knife in hand, upon Tracy. He was foiled: Tracy leapt aside from the blow, and without availing himself of the "bowie," as it is now called, which almost every man habitually carried about him, seized Philippe's arm, mastered him, dragged him away, and gave him into custody. He was tried for the murderous assault, found guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. That imprisonment, Tracy remembered, must have expired a few days previously. This incident—meeting Philippe so near his house—did not dwell upon Tracy's mind. The enmity, open or concealed, of twenty Philippes, would not have caused him a moment's uneasiness.
* * * * *
The preparations for departure were hurried on; in a few days they would embark at Bahia for London. There was no time to be lost, he was advised, for the mother's sake, even more than for the child's, though the little Constance showed symptoms of drooping health. His wife's nervous system was so shattered that nothing but a change of scene, the sea-voyage, her native air, and the strong belief that in the climate of England her last remaining little one might be saved, afforded her a chance of rallying. The slightest additional shock might prove instantly fatal.
In the meanwhile, almost constant exercise in the open air was advised for the child; and one favourite mode with pretty gentle Constance herself was taking air and exercise in a small coracle, or punt, under the care of a devoted, careful negro-slave—her father, who had lately seldom lost sight of her, watching from the abrupt shore which overlooked the deep, calmly-blue, waters.
He was thus occupied one bright, warm evening, and was about to shout to the negro, who had moved some trifling distance farther off than usual, to return ashore, when his keen glance detected what seemed to be the head of a man—of a strong swimmer, rising for a moment to breathe at the surface, and again disappearing. A few moments, and his suspicion became certainty. The head again rose to the surface—the face was Philippe's—rose to the surface close to the tiny coracle, which, the next moment, turns over, and child and negro are precipitated into the sea! There is happily no fear of the little one being drowned. The black, who swims like a duck, grasps, holds up the child clear of the water with one hand, and shouting triumphantly, strikes boldly for the shore. The negro's shout is echoed by a few persons who witnessed the accident, the cause of which they could not conjecture; not by Tracy, who hurriedly flings off his coat and shoes, places his bright bowie between his fiercely-clasped teeth, whilst his fiery eyes, through which flash all the roused devil of his nature, search the surface of the water for the re-appearance of that detested head.
A cry of horror from the lookers-on! The fins of a shark, darting with an arrow's swiftness towards the negro and child, glance in the evening light. They are lost—their horrible fate is inevitable! Not so! That instinctive cry of sympathetic horror had scarcely escaped their lips, when Tracy is seen to leap off the bluff, and strike the waters, between the terrible monster and his child. The splash arrests the motion of the shark, which the next moment darts at his new prey—misses it! Tracy dives at the instant beneath the creature, seizes it underneath—it was a male—with one iron hand—with the other stabs, rips up the sea-devil. The fight, struggle rather, is furious but brief; and two minutes have not passed when the shark turns up its white belly in the bloody water—dead!
A burst of triumph from the spectators hails the father's astounding victory! The child and negro are safe on land—Tracy himself is also safe; but why is he swimming with such fierce vigour to a distant part of the shore, his knife, now dripping red, between his teeth? Ah! he sees what they do not—the head of the man-shark, Philippe, re-appearing every alternate minute or so above the surface of the sea. Tracy comes up with him hand over hand; again dives—again the bowie-knife does its dreadful work; and the water thereabout is also dyed with blood. Quickly afterwards Tracy has landed, and is hastening to where his child, the negro, and the excited lookers-on, await him. He gives rapid, earnest directions, that no one shall inform his wife of what has happened, then hurries with the child to the nearest medical officer, who promptly administers an anodyne; and all for the time has ended happily.
Embarked at last for England in the stout ship "Medora," with a fair wind, and canopied by a summer sky, Hope tremblingly revived in the yearning mother's heart. Fragile little Constance, as soon as the transient effect of but a slight attack of maladie de mer had passed away, rapidly radiated into more robust life; a healthy colour dawned upon her delicate cheeks; a livelier brightness gleamed in her sweet eyes. "The mercy of God is infinite," murmured the wife, bending over the child, and tenderly watching the gradual coming on of a placid, evenly-breathing slumber, which she knew to be the best assurance that the failing springs of life were gathering tone and strength. "The mercy of God is infinite! Our darling will be saved—saved for her father's sake, not mine—oh, not for mine! The Lord hath given—the Lord hath taken away. Not all!—not all! He leaves me, even me, this precious one. Blessed be His holy Name!"
* * * * *
The voyage was safely accomplished. The "Medora," brought up in the King's Roads, Bristol, on a fine, clear, fresh autumn morning: all well; Mrs. Smith and her daughter surprisingly so.
At about noon on the morrow the family were out upon the Clifton Downs in quest of a suitable residence. The delight of Mrs. Smith, at finding herself once more amid the well-remembered haunts of her childhood, was girlish in its joyousness. The untimely winter of her life had passed away; the time of the singing of birds had come again; of the sweet bird especially carolling in bul-bul snatches by her side; partaker, by sympathy, of her mother's joyousness. Alas! alas!
* * * * *
They quickly made choice of a charming villa, applications to rent which, a printed bill informed them, were to be made to a solicitor, whose address was subjoined. The woman in charge of the house said it belonged to a wealthy lady of the name of Charlton. Passing by one of the villas, Mrs. Smith observed the words, "Mrs. Tregothick," engraved on the door-plate.
"Mrs. Tregothick!" she impulsively exclaimed: "an old, sterling friend and relative of mine, John, though somewhat stern and formal: at least she used to be. We will call upon her." And Mrs. Smith hurriedly knocked at the door—regretting instantly that she had done so. Mrs. Tregothick was a strict Roman Cetholic, rigid to ascetism in her religious observances.
"John," said the wife, "it may be as well that you do not see Mrs. Tregothick till I—till I, have explained."
John agreed—said he would go into an opposite hotel, whence he would forthwith despatch a note to Mrs. Charlton's solicitor. So saying, he went quickly off. Would he had stayed but two minutes longer!
They must have been observed from the window, for he door opened suddenly—savagely, so to speak. Mrs. Smith, with the child in her hand, made one or two steps within the passage. No further! The gaunt figure—the stone-white, stern face—the scorn-flashing eyes—the repudiating, waving-back gesture of Mrs. Tregothick, arrested, transfixed her, into a scarcely-breathing statue, as might have done the sight of a new Gorgon.
"Approach not! Come not near me!" exclaimed the excited bigot. "Profane not this threshold, Constance Gower—purjured nun; who, as I hear from your Uncle Arnold, have been joined together in Satanic nuptials with a murderous ruffian—a sacrilegious pirate! I thought I knew all, God forsaken, God-doomed wretch; but now see," continued the fanatical virago, "that a child of shame—of the devil—has been born of the accursed union, Out of my house! I say, children of perdition—both of you!" And the infuriated wretch pushed the morally-paralyzed wife—pushed her, and her child, out of the house, with such violence that they stumbled, and fell prone upon the steps. When aid came, it was found that blood—not much—had surged through the wife's pale lips, and that the child's skull had been injured by striking against the edge of one of the steps.
* * * * *
They were something better the next day: the child, who continued partially insensible, not much. And the mother, when her husband left the room, would continue to murmur, as she passed her own cold, damp hand over her child's brow, and through her again lank, drooping hair.—"God's judgment—God's judgment! The sins of the mother visited upon the children, Kyrie Eleison."
* * * * *
Mr. James Charlton, who was spending vacation at Clifton, undertook at his mother's request—her solicitor being absent from Bristol—to see a Mr. Smith, who was desirous of immediately renting a house she had to let; and James Charlton forthwith proceeded to the hotel where Mr. Smith was staying, for that purpose. He returned in a very excited state.
"Describe again, mamma,"' he said, "the ruby ring, and its peculiar setting, which once belonged to your father—and was in the casket carried away by—by him who was drowned?"
Mrs. Charlton did so, minutely.
"By heavens,, Mother, that ring is, at this moment, upon this Mr. John Smith's finger. I will swear it is—there can be no mistake about it."
"Smith! John Smith!" said Mrs. Charlton. "The name is certainly a very common one—but it is as certainly, I now recall to mind, that of the only passenger who escaped drowning when the Ariadne was wrecked."
"True! I will go this instant and insist upon knowing how Mr. John Smith obtained it."
"I will go with you," said Mrs. Charlton; "you are hot, hasty, and may be mistaken."
When they reached the hotel, Tracy was in the bed-chamber, tenderly ministering to his wife and child. They were still in a very weak, precarious state. The physician had directed that they should be kept in the strictest seclusion and quiet. Their lives, he said, hung upon a thread, which, however, by proper treatment might be happily and lastingly strengthened.
"Mr. Charlton must see me upon important business, if only for a minute," said Tracy, repeating the message brought him by a servant. "Very well; I will be with him immediately. I shall scarcely be gone a minute, loves," he added, kissing his wife and child.
Fatal minute, in which a world crumbled into ruin at his feet; life, and all which it inherits, vanished for ever. Arthur Tracy and his wife Lydia confront each other—she, paralysed with astonishment; he, dumb—his brain whirling with wordless terror and dismay.
The lady first recovered the use of speech, and a storm of passionate execration was hurled at him by both mother and son—his son—he answering not a word. He could not have done so to save her life—the life of Constance, hearkening in the adjoining chamber—miserable man!—to all that was passing!
One of the folding doors opens, and in totters Constance in her nightdress, herself whiter than it. He mechanically springs towards Constance with outstretched arms, into which she falls with a bubbling, inarticulate cry—her last on earth!
A sadder, more impressive scene than that which early the next morning startled the awe-struck woman-servant who first entered the death-chamber, never crossed mortal sight. Constance and her child lay in calm death-slumber, embraced in each other's arms. By the bed-side knelt, the husband, his hands clasped in his wife's. He replied not to the woman's low-toned question—had not been disturbed by her hushed foot-fall. She approached nearer to him, spoke louder, louder—touched, shook him—strove to unclasp his hands; then peered into his bowed face, and knew by the blind, stony stare of the fixed eyes, that he, too, was dead!
Yes, dead! It was whispered afterwards, and believed, by his own act; but that fact was not legally established at the inquest.
The play is over: Let us depart!