Kitabı oku: «Rewards and Fairies», sayfa 6

‘When I brought the flocks to the shearing, my Mother the Priestess asked me, “What is the new thing which you have seen and I see in your face?” I said, “It is a sorrow to me"; and she answered, “All new things are sorrow. Sit in my place, and eat sorrow.” I sat down in her place by the fire, where she talks to the ghosts in winter, and two voices spoke in my heart. One voice said, “Ask the Children of the Night for the Magic Knife. It is not fit that The Beast should master man.” I listened to that voice.

‘One voice said, “If you go among the Trees, the Children of the Night will change your spirit. Eat and sleep here.” The other voice said, “Ask for the Knife.” I listened to that voice.

‘I said to my Mother in the morning, “I go away to find a thing for the people, but I do not know whether I shall return in my own shape.” She answered, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your Mother."’

‘True,’ said Puck. ‘The Old Ones themselves cannot change men’s mothers even if they would.’

‘Let us thank the Old Ones! I spoke to my Maiden, the Priestess who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. She promised fine things too.’ The man laughed. ‘I went away to that place where I had seen the magician with the knife. I lay out two days on the short grass before I ventured among the Trees. I felt my way before me with a stick. I was afraid of the terrible talking Trees. I was afraid of the ghosts in the branches; of the soft ground underfoot; of the red and black waters. I was afraid, above all, of the Change. It came!’

They saw him wipe his forehead once again, and his strong back-muscles quivered till he laid his hand on the knife-hilt.

‘A fire without a flame burned in my head; an evil taste grew in my mouth; my eyelids shut hot over my eyes; my breath was hot between my teeth, and my hands were like the hands of a stranger. I was made to sing songs and to mock the Trees, though I was afraid of them. At the same time I saw myself laughing, and I was very sad for this fine young man, who was myself. Ah! The Children of the Night know magic.’

‘I think that is done by the Spirits of the Mist. They change a man if he sleeps among them,’ said Puck. ‘Had you slept in any mists?’

‘Yes – but I know it was the Children of the Night. After three days I saw a red light behind the Trees, and I heard a heavy noise. I saw the Children of the Night dig red stones from a hole, and lay them in fires. The stones melted like tallow, and the men beat the soft stuff with hammers. I wished to speak to these men, but the words were changed in my mouth, and all I could say was, “Do not make that noise. It hurts my head.” By this I knew that I was bewitched, and I clung to the Trees, and prayed the Children of the Night to take off their spells. They were cruel. They asked me many questions which they would never allow me to answer. They changed my words between my teeth till I wept. Then they led me into a hut and covered the floor with hot stones and dashed water on the stones, and sang charms till the sweat poured off me like water. I slept. When I waked, my own spirit – not the strange, shouting thing – was back in my body, and I was like a cool bright stone on the shingle between the sea and the sunshine. The magicians came to hear me – women and men – each wearing a Magic Knife. Their Priestess was their Ears and their Mouth.

‘I spoke. I spoke many words that went smoothly along like sheep in order when their shepherd, standing on a mound, can count those coming, and those far off getting ready to come. I asked for Magic Knives for my people. I said that my people would bring meat, and milk, and wool, and lay them in the short grass outside the Trees, if the Children of the Night would leave Magic Knives for our people to take away. They were pleased. Their Priestess said, “For whose sake have you come?” I answered, “The sheep are the people. If The Beast kills our sheep, our people die. So I come for a Magic Knife to kill The Beast.”

‘She said, “We do not know if our God will let us trade with the people of the Naked Chalk. Wait till we have asked.”

‘When they came back from the Question place (their Gods are our Gods), their Priestess said, “The God needs a proof that your words are true." I said, “What is the proof?” She said, “The God says that if you have come for the sake of your people you will give him your right eye to be put out; but if you have come for any other reason you will not give it. This proof is between you and the God. We ourselves are sorry.”

‘I said, “This is a hard proof. Is there no other road?”

‘She said, “Yes. You can go back to your people with your two eyes in your head if you choose. But then you will not get any Magic Knives for your people.”

‘I said, “It would be easier if I knew that I were to be killed.”

‘She said, “Perhaps the God knew this too. See! I have made my knife hot.”

‘I said, “Be quick, then!” With her knife heated in the flame she put out my right eye. She herself did it. I am the son of a Priestess. She was a Priestess. It was not work for any common man.’

‘True! Most true,’ said Puck. ‘No common man’s work, that. And, afterwards?’

‘Afterwards I did not see out of that eye any more. I found also that a one eye does not tell you truly where things are. Try it!’

At this Dan put his hand over one eye, and reached for the flint arrow-head on the grass. He missed it by inches. ‘It’s true,’ he whispered to Una. ‘You can’t judge distances a bit with only one eye.’

Puck was evidently making the same experiment, for the man laughed at him.

‘I know it is so,’ said he. ‘Even now I am not always sure of my blow. I stayed with the Children of the Night till my eye healed. They said I was the son of Tyr, the God who put his right hand in a Beast’s mouth. They showed me how they melted their red stone and made the Magic Knives of it. They told me the charms they sang over the fires and at the beatings. I can sing many charms.’ Then he began to laugh like a boy.

‘I was thinking of my journey home,’ he said, ‘and of the surprised Beast. He had come back to the Chalk. I saw him – I smelt his lairs as soon as ever I left the Trees. He did not know I had the Magic Knife – I hid it under my cloak – the Knife that the Priestess gave me. Ho! Ho! That happy day was too short! See! A Beast would wind me. “Wow!” he would say, “here is my Flint-worker!” He would come leaping, tail in air; he would roll; he would lay his head between his paws out of merriness of heart at his warm, waiting meal. He would leap – and, oh, his eye in mid-leap when he saw – when he saw the knife held ready for him! It pierced his hide as a rush pierces curdled milk. Often he had no time to howl. I did not trouble to flay any beasts I killed. Sometimes I missed my blow. Then I took my little flint hammer and beat out his brains as he cowered. He made no fight. He knew the knife! But The Beast is very cunning. Before evening all The Beasts had smelt the blood on my knife, and were running from me like hares. They knew! Then I walked as a man should – the Master of The Beast!

‘So came I back to my Mother’s house. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and I told her all my tale. She said, “This is the work of a God.” I kissed her and laughed. I went to my Maiden who waited for me at the Dew-ponds. There was a lamb to be killed. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told her all my tale. She said, “It is the work of a God.” I laughed, but she pushed me away, and being on my blind side, ran off before I could kiss her. I went to the Men of the Sheepguard at watering-time. There was a sheep to be killed for their meat. I cut it in two halves with my knife, and told them all my tale. They said, “It is the work of a God.” I said, “We talk too much about Gods. Let us eat and be happy, and to-morrow I will take you to the Children of the Night, and each man will find a Magic Knife.”

‘I was glad to smell our sheep again; to see the broad sky from edge to edge, and to hear the sea. I slept beneath the stars in my cloak. The men talked among themselves.

‘I led them, the next day, to the Trees, taking with me meat, wool, and curdled milk, as I had promised. We found the Magic Knives laid out on the grass, as the Children of the Night had promised. They watched us from among the Trees. Their Priestess called to me and said, “How is it with your people?” I said, “Their hearts are changed. I cannot see their hearts as I used to.” She said, “That is because you have only one eye. Come to me and I will be both your eyes.” But I said, “I must show my people how to use their knives against The Beast, as you showed me how to use my knife.” I said this because the Magic Knife does not balance like the flint. She said, “What you have done, you have done for the sake of a woman, and not for the sake of your people.” I asked of her, “Then why did the God accept my right eye, and why are you so angry?” She answered, “Because any man can lie to a God, but no man can lie to a woman. And I am not angry with you. I am only very sorrowful for you. Wait a little, and you will see out of your one eye why I am sorry.” So she hid herself.

‘I went back with my people, each one carrying his knife, and making it sing in the air —tssee-sssse. The Flint never sings. It mutters —ump-ump. The Beast heard. The Beast saw. He knew! Everywhere he ran away from us. We all laughed. As we walked over the grass my Mother’s brother – the Chief on the Man’s Side – he took off his Chief’s necklace of yellow sea-stones.’

‘How? Eh? Oh, I remember! Amber,’ said Puck.

‘And would have put them on my neck. I said, “No, I am content. What does my one eye matter if my other eye sees fat sheep and fat children running about safely?” My Mother’s brother said to them, “I told you he would never take such things." Then they began to sing a song in the Old Tongue —The Song of Tyr. I sang with them, but my Mother’s brother said, “This is your song, oh, Buyer of the Knife. Let us sing it, Tyr.”

‘Even then I did not understand, till I saw that – that no man stepped on my shadow; and I knew that they thought me to be a God, like the God Tyr, who gave his right hand to conquer a Great Beast.’

‘By the Fire in the Belly of the Flint, was that so?’ Puck rapped out.

‘By my Knife and the Naked Chalk, so it was! They made way for my shadow as though it had been a Priestess walking to the Barrows of the Dead. I was afraid. I said to myself, “My Mother and my Maiden will know I am not Tyr.” But still I was afraid with the fear of a man who falls into a steep flint-pit while he runs, and feels that it will be hard to climb out.

‘When we came to the Dew-ponds all our people were there. The men showed their knives and told their tale. The sheepguards also had seen The Beast flying from us. The Beast went west across the river in packs – howling! He knew the Knife had come to the Naked Chalk at last – at last! He knew! So my work was done. I looked for my Maiden among the Priestesses. She looked at me, but she did not smile. She made the sign to me that our Priestesses must make when they sacrifice to the Old Dead in the Barrows. I would have spoken, but my Mother’s brother made himself my Mouth, as though I had been one of the Old Dead in the Barrows for whom our Priests speak to the people on Midsummer mornings.’

‘I remember. Well I remember those Midsummer mornings!’ said Puck.

‘Then I went away angrily to my Mother’s house. She would have knelt before me. Then I was more angry, but she said, “Only a God would have spoken to me thus, a Priestess. A man would have feared the punishment of the Gods.” I looked at her and I laughed. I could not stop my unhappy laughing. They called me from the door by the name of Tyr himself. A young man with whom I had watched my first flocks, and chipped my first arrow, and fought my first Beast, called me by that name in the Old Tongue. He asked my leave to take my Maiden. His eyes were lowered, his hands were on his forehead. He was full of the fear of a God, but of me, a man, he had no fear when he asked. I did not kill him. I said, "Call the maiden.” She came also without fear – this very one that had waited for me, that had talked with me by our Dew-ponds. Being a Priestess, she lifted her eyes to me. As I look on a hill or a cloud, so she looked at me. She spoke in the Old Tongue which Priestesses use when they make prayers to the Old Dead in the Barrows. She asked leave that she might light the fire in my companion’s house – and that I should bless their children. I did not kill her. I heard my own voice, little and cold, say, “Let it be as you desire,” and they went away hand in hand. My heart grew little and cold, a wind shouted in my ears; my eye darkened. I said to my Mother, “Can a God die?” I heard her say, “What is it? What is it, my son?” and I fell into darkness full of hammer-noises. I was not.’

‘Oh, poor – poor God!’ said Puck. ‘And your wise Mother?’

‘She knew. As soon as I dropped she knew. When my spirit came back I heard her whisper on my ear, “Whether you live or die, or are made different, I am your Mother.” That was good – better even than the water she gave me and the going away of the sickness. Though I was ashamed to have fallen down, yet I was very glad. She was glad too. Neither of us wished to lose the other. There is only the one Mother for the one son. I heaped the fire for her, and barred the doors, and sat at her feet as before I went away, and she combed my hair, and sang.

‘I said at last, “What is to be done to the people who say that I am Tyr?”

‘She said, “He who has done a God-like thing must bear himself like a God. I see no way out of it. The people are now your sheep till you die. You cannot drive them off.”

‘I said, “This is a heavier sheep than I can lift.” She said, “In time it will grow easy. In time perhaps you will not lay it down for any maiden anywhere. Be wise – be very wise, my son, for nothing is left you except the words, and the songs, and the worship of a God."’

‘Oh, poor God!’ said Puck. ‘But those are not altogether bad things.’

‘I know they are not; but I would sell them all – all – all for one small child of my own, smearing himself with the ashes of our own house-fire.’

He wrenched his knife from the turf, thrust it into his belt and stood up.

‘And yet, what else could I have done?’ he said. ‘The sheep are the people.’

‘It is a very old tale,’ Puck answered. ‘I have heard the like of it not only on the Naked Chalk, but also among the Trees – under Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.’

The afternoon shadows filled all the quiet emptiness of Norton’s Pit. The children heard the sheep bells and Young Jim’s busy bark above them, and they scrambled up the slope to the level.

‘We let you have your sleep out,’ said Mr. Dudeney, as the flock scattered before them. ‘It’s making for tea-time now.’

‘Look what I’ve found,’ said Dan, and held up a little blue flint arrow-head as fresh as though it had been chipped that very day.

‘Oh,’ said Mr. Dudeney, ‘the closeter you be to the turf the more you’re apt to see things. I’ve found ’em often. Some says the fairies made ’em, but I says they was made by folks like ourselves – only a goodish time back. They’re lucky to keep. Now, you couldn’t ever have slept – not to any profit – among your father’s trees same as you’ve laid out on Naked Chalk – could you?’

‘One doesn’t want to sleep in the woods,’ said Una.

‘Then what’s the good of ’em?’ said Mr. Dudeney. ‘Might as well set in the barn all day. Fetch ’em ‘long, Jim boy!’

The Downs, that looked so bare and hot when they came, were full of delicious little shadow-dimples; the smell of the thyme and the salt mixed together on the south-west drift from the still sea; their eyes dazzled with the low sun, and the long grass under it looked golden. The sheep knew where their fold was, so Young Jim came back to his master, and they all four strolled home, the scabious-heads swishing about their ankles, and their shadows streaking behind them like the shadows of giants.

SONG OF THE MEN’S SIDE

 
Once we feared The Beast – when he followed us we ran,
Ran very fast though we knew
It was not right that The Beast should master Man;
But what could we Flint-workers do?
The Beast only grinned at our spears round his ears —
Grinned at the hammers that we made;
But now we will hunt him for the life with the Knife —
And this is the Buyer of the Blade!
 
 
Room for his shadow on the grass – let it pass!
To left and right – stand clear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade – be afraid!
This is the great god Tyr!
 
 
Tyr thought hard till he hammered out a plan,
For he knew it was not right
(And it is not right) that The Beast should master Man;
So he went to the Children of the Night.
He begged a Magic Knife of their make for our sake.
When he begged for the Knife they said:
‘The price of the Knife you would buy is an eye!’
And that was the price he paid.
 
 
Tell it to the Barrows of the Dead – run ahead!
Shout it so the Women’s Side can hear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade – be afraid!
This is the great god Tyr!
 
 
Our women and our little ones may walk on the Chalk,
As far as we can see them and beyond.
We shall not be anxious for our sheep when we keep
Tally at the shearing-pond.
We can eat with both our elbows on our knees, if we please,
We can sleep after meals in the sun;
For Shepherd of the Twilight is dismayed at the Blade,
Feet-in-the-Night have run!
Dog-without-a-Master goes away (Hai, Tyr aie!),
Devil-in-the-Dusk has run!
 
 
Then:
Room for his shadow on the grass – let it pass!
To left and right – stand clear!
This is the Buyer of the Blade – be afraid!
This is the great god Tyr!
 

Brother Square-Toes

PHILADELPHIA

 
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You mustn’t take my stories for a guide.
There’s little left indeed of the city you will read of
And all the folk I write about have died.
Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand,
Or remember what his cunning and his skill did.
And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf,
Nor the Church in Philadelphia he builded.
 
 
It is gone, gone, gone with lost Atlantis
(Never say I didn’t give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-three ’twas there for all to see,
But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
 
 
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You mustn’t go by everything I’ve said.
Bob Bicknell’s Southern Stages have been laid aside for ages,
But the Limited will take you there instead.
Toby Hirte can’t be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen,
North Second Street – no matter when you call;
And I fear you’ll search in vain for the wash-house down the lane
Where Pharaoh played the fiddle at the ball.
 
 
It is gone, gone, gone with Thebes the Golden
(Never say I didn’t give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-four ’twas a famous dancing-floor —
But it’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
 
 
If you’re off to Philadelphia in the morning,
You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.
You needn’t try your luck at Epply’s or the ‘Buck,’
Though the Father of his Country liked them well.
It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,
Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed – so
You must treat as out of date the story I relate,
Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.
 
 
He is gone, gone, gone with Martin Luther,
(Never say I didn’t give you warning).
In Seventeen Ninety-five he was (rest his soul!) alive.
But he’s not in Philadelphia this morning.
 
 
If you’re off to Philadelphia this morning,
And wish to prove the truth of what I say,
I pledge my word you’ll find the pleasant land behind
Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.
Still the pine-woods scent the noon; still the catbird sings his tune;
Still autumn sets the maple-forest blazing.
Still the grape-vine through the dusk flings her soul-compelling musk;
Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing.
 
 
They are there, there, there with Earth immortal
(Citizens, I give you friendly warning).
The things that truly last when men and times have passed
They are all in Pennsylvania this morning!
 

Brother Square-Toes

It was almost the end of their visit to the seaside. They had turned themselves out of doors while their trunks were being packed, and strolled over the Downs towards the dull evening sea. The tide was dead low under the chalk cliffs, and the little wrinkled waves grieved along the sands up the coast to Newhaven and down the coast to long, grey Brighton, whose smoke trailed out across the Channel.

They walked to The Gap where the cliff is only a few feet high. A windlass for hoisting shingle from the beach below stands at the edge of it. The Coastguard cottages are a little farther on, and an old ship’s figure-head of a Turk in a turban stared at them over the wall.

‘This time to-morrow we shall be at home, thank goodness,’ said Una. ‘I hate the sea!’

‘I believe it’s all right in the middle,’ said Dan. ‘The edges are the sorrowful parts.’

Cordery, the coastguard, came out of the cottage, levelled his telescope at some fishing-boats, shut it with a click and walked away. He grew smaller and smaller along the edge of the cliff, where neat piles of white chalk every few yards show the path even on the darkest night.

‘Where’s Cordery going?’ said Una.

‘Half-way to Newhaven,’ said Dan. ‘Then he’ll meet the Newhaven coastguard and turn back. He says if coastguards were done away with, smuggling would start up at once.’

A voice on the beach under the cliff began to sing:

 
‘The moon she shined on Telscombe Tye —
On Telscombe Tye at night it was —
She saw the smugglers riding by,
A very pretty sight it was!’
 

Feet scrabbled on the flinty path. A dark, thin-faced man in very neat brown clothes and broad-toed shoes came up, followed by Puck.

 
‘Three Dunkirk boats was standin’ in!’
 

the man went on.

‘Hssh!’ said Puck. ‘You’ll shock these nice young people.’

‘Oh! Shall I? Mille pardons!’ He shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears – spread his hands abroad, and jabbered in French. ‘No comprenny?’ he said. ‘I’ll give it you in Low German.’ And he went off in another language, changing his voice and manner so completely that they hardly knew him for the same person. But his dark beady-brown eyes still twinkled merrily in his lean face, and the children felt that they did not suit the straight, plain, snuffy-brown coat, brown knee-breeches, and broad-brimmed hat. His hair was tied in a short pig-tail which danced wickedly when he turned his head.

‘Ha’ done!’ said Puck, laughing. ‘Be one thing or t’other, Pharaoh – French or English or German – no great odds which.’

‘Oh, but it is, though,’ said Una quickly. ‘We haven’t begun German yet, and – and we’re going back to our French next week.’

‘Aren’t you English?’ said Dan. ‘We heard you singing just now.’

‘Aha! That was the Sussex side o’ me. Dad he married a French girl out o’ Boulogne, and French she stayed till her dyin’ day. She was an Aurette, of course. We Lees mostly marry Aurettes. Haven’t you ever come across the saying:

 
‘Aurettes and Lees,
Like as two peas.
What they can’t smuggle,
They’ll run over seas?’
 

‘Then, are you a smuggler?’ Una cried; and, ‘Have you smuggled much?’ said Dan.

Mr. Lee nodded solemnly.

‘Mind you,’ said he, ‘I don’t uphold smuggling for the generality o’ mankind – mostly they can’t make a do of it – but I was brought up to the trade, d’ye see, in a lawful line o’ descent on’ – he waved across the Channel – ‘on both sides the water. ‘Twas all in the families, same as fiddling. The Aurettes used mostly to run the stuff across from Boulogne, and we Lees landed it here and ran it up to London town, by the safest road.’

‘Then where did you live?’ said Una.

‘You mustn’t ever live too close to your business in our trade. We kept our little fishing smack at Shoreham, but otherwise we Lees was all honest cottager folk – at Warminghurst under Washington – Bramber way – on the old Penn estate.’

‘Ah!’ said Puck, squatted by the windlass. ‘I remember a piece about the Lees at Warminghurst, I do:

 
‘There was never a Lee to Warminghurst
That wasn’t a gipsy last and first.
 

I reckon that’s truth, Pharaoh.’

Pharaoh laughed. ‘Admettin’ that’s true,’ he said, ‘my gipsy blood must be wore pretty thin, for I’ve made and kept a worldly fortune.’

‘By smuggling?’ Dan asked.

‘No, in the tobacco trade.’

‘You don’t mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and be a tobacconist!’ Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh.

‘I’m sorry; but there’s all sorts of tobacconists,’ Pharaoh replied. ‘How far out, now, would you call that smack with the patch on her foresail?’ He pointed to the fishing-boats.

‘A scant mile,’ said Puck after a quick look.

‘Just about. It’s seven fathom under her – clean sand. That was where Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from Boulogne, and we fished ’em up and rowed ’em into The Gap here for the ponies to run inland. One thickish night in January of ‘93, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came over from Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the L’Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New Year’s presents from mother’s folk in Boulogne. I remember Aunt Cecile she’d sent me a fine new red knitted cap, which I put on then and there, for the French was having their Revolution in those days, and red caps was all the fashion. Uncle Aurette tells us that they had cut off their King Louis’ head, and, moreover, the Brest forts had fired on an English man-o’-war. The news wasn’t a week old.

‘“That means war again, when we was only just getting used to the peace,” says Dad. “Why can’t King George’s men and King Louis’ men do on their uniforms and fight it out over our heads?”

‘“Me too, I wish that,” says Uncle Aurette. “But they’ll be pressing better men than themselves to fight for ’em. The press-gangs are out already on our side: you look out for yours.”

‘“I’ll have to bide ashore and grow cabbages for a while, after I’ve run this cargo; but I do wish" – Dad says, going over the lugger’s side with our New Year presents under his arm and young L’Estrange holding the lantern – "I just do wish that those folk which make war so easy had to run one cargo a month all this winter. It ’ud show ’em what honest work means.”

‘“Well, I’ve warned ye,” says Uncle Aurette. “I’ll be slipping off now before your Revenue cutter comes. Give my love to sister and take care o’ the kegs. It’s thicking to southward.”

‘I remember him waving to us and young Stephen L’Estrange blowing out the lantern. By the time we’d fished up the kegs the fog came down so thick Dad judged it risky for me to row ’em ashore, even though we could hear the ponies stamping on the beach. So he and Uncle Lot took the dinghy and left me in the smack playing on my fiddle to guide ’em back.

‘Presently I heard guns. Two of ’em sounded mighty like Uncle Aurette’s three-pounders. He didn’t go naked about the seas after dark. Then come more, which I reckoned was Captain Giddens in the Revenue cutter. He was open-handed with his compliments, but he would lay his guns himself. I stopped fiddling to listen, and I heard a whole skyful o’ French up in the fog – and a high bow come down on top o’ the smack. I hadn’t time to call or think. I remember the smack heeling over, and me standing on the gunwale pushing against the ship’s side as if I hoped to bear her off. Then the square of an open port, with a lantern in it, slid by in front of my nose. I kicked back on our gunwale as it went under and slipped through that port into the French ship – me and my fiddle.’

‘Gracious!’ said Una. ‘What an adventure!’

‘Didn’t anybody see you come in?’ said Dan.

‘There wasn’t any one there. I’d made use of an orlop-deck port – that’s the next deck below the gun-deck, which by rights should not have been open at all. The crew was standing by their guns up above. I rolled on to a pile of dunnage in the dark and I went to sleep. When I woke, men was talking all round me, telling each other their names and sorrows just like Dad told me pressed men used to talk in the last war. Pretty soon I made out they’d all been hove aboard together by the press-gangs, and left to sort ’emselves. The ship she was the Embuscade, a thirty-six gun Republican frigate, Captain Jean Baptiste Bompard, two days out of Le Havre, going to the United States with a Republican French Ambassador of the name of Genêt. They had been up all night clearing for action on account of hearing guns in the fog. Uncle Aurette and Captain Giddens must have been passing the time o’ day with each other off Newhaven, and the frigate had drifted past ’em. She never knew she’d run down our smack. Seeing so many aboard was total strangers to each other, I thought one more mightn’t be noticed; so I put Aunt Cecile’s red cap on the back of my head, and my hands in my pockets like the rest, and, as we French say, I circulated till I found the galley.

‘“What! Here’s one of ’em that isn’t sick!” says a cook. “Take his breakfast to Citizen Bompard.”

‘I carried the tray to the cabin, but I didn’t call this Bompard "Citizen.” Oh no! “Mon Capitaine” was my little word, same as Uncle Aurette used to answer in King Louis’ Navy. Bompard, he liked it; he took me on for cabin servant, and after that no one asked questions; and thus I got good victuals and light work all the way across to America. He talked a heap of politics, and so did his officers, and when this Ambassador Genêt got rid of his land-stomach and laid down the law after dinner, a rook’s parliament was nothing compared to their cabin. I learned to know most of the men which had worked the French Revolution, through waiting at table and hearing talk about ’em. One of our forecas’le six-pounders was called Danton and t’other Marat. I used to play the fiddle between ’em, sitting on the capstan. Day in and day out Bompard and Monsieur Genêt talked o’ what France had done, and how the United States was going to join her to finish off the English in this war. Monsieur Genêt said he’d justabout make the United States fight for France. He was a rude common man. But I liked listening. I always helped drink any healths that was proposed – specially Citizen Danton’s who’d cut off King Louis’ head. An all-Englishman might have been shocked – that’s where my French blood saved me.