HOW WE CAME UPON A WHITED SEPULCHRE AND FELL INTO THE FIRE
We wandered a great way down that lonely coast before a fishing village hove in sight. At regular intervals we came upon watchmen on the look-out for invaders or smugglers, and to all such we gave wide berth, by a circuit in the country or by dodging them on their beats. It was only towns we feared, and of those there were fortunately not many. In the villages we had no difficulty in buying food, and to all who questioned we were on our way to the Nore to join a King's ship and fight the Frenchmen. To cover Le Marchant's lack of speech, we muffled his face in flannel and gave him a toothache which rendered him bearish and disinclined for talk. And so we came slowly down the coast, with eyes and ears alert for chance of crossing, and wondered at the lack of enterprise on the part of the dwellers there which rendered the chances so few.
Many recollections crowd my mind of that long tramp along the edge of the sea. But greater matters press, and I may not linger on these. We had many a close shave from officious village busybodies, whose patriotism flew no higher than thought of the reward which hung to an escaped prisoner of war or to any likely subject for the pressgang.
One such is burnt in on my mind, because thought of him has done more to make me suspicious of my fellows, especially of such as make parade of their piety, than any man I ever met.
He was a kindly-looking old man with white hair and a cheerful brown face, and his clothes were white with flour dust which had a homely, honest flavour about it. He was in a small shop, where I went for food one evening, engaged in talk with the woman who kept it, and he began to question me as soon as I opened my mouth.
I told him our usual story, and he seemed much interested in it.
"And you're going to the fleet! Well, well! A dreadful thing is war, but if it has to be it's better on sea than on the land here, and the fleet must have sailors, I suppose. But every night I pray for wars to cease and the good times of universal peace to come."
"Yes," I said, "peace is very much the best for everyone. It is those who have seen war who know it best."
"Surely! Yet one hears enough to know how terrible it is. You have seen service then?"
"In the West Indies, both battle and shipwreck," I said, having no wish to come nearer home.
"A wonderful land, I'm told, and very different from this country."
"Very different."
"Where do you rest to-night?" he asked, in the kindest way possible.
"We are pushing on to lose no time. The fleet wants men."
"Brave men are always wanted, and should be well treated. A few hours will not hurt the fleet. You shall sup and sleep with me, and to-morrow I will put you on your way in my gig. It is but a step to the mill."
He seemed so gentle and straightforward, and the prospects of a bed and an ample meal were so attractive, that we went with him without a thought of ill.
The mill stood on rising ground just off the village street. I have never passed under the gaunt arms of a mill since without a feeling of discomfort.
The miller's house, however, was not in the mill itself, but just alongside, under its great bony wings. There was a light in the window, and a sweet wholesome smell all about.
He introduced us to his wife, a very quiet woman, and much less cheerful and hospitable than himself, and bade her hasten the supper and prepare a bed, and we sat and talked while they were getting ready. He showed great concern, too, on Le Marchant's account, and insisted on his wife applying a boiling lotion of herbs, which very soon made his face look as bad as anyone could have wished; and, in consequence of some hasty words the sufferer dropped during this infliction, I found it necessary to explain that we were from the Channel Islands, but good Englishmen, although our native speech was more akin to French. The old miller was very much interested, and asked many questions about the Islands and the land and crops there.
We had an excellent hot supper, with home-brewed ale to drink, and then the old man read a chapter out of the Bible, and prayed at length—for us, and for peace and prosperity, and much more besides.
Then we had a smoke, and he showed us to the most comfortable bed I had seen since I left home.
Le Marchant was not in the best of humours. He chose to regard the old man's hospitality with suspicion, and even went the length of casting doubts upon his piety. But I put it down to the heat of the herb lotion, which had made his face like a full-blown red rose, and had doubtless got into his blood.
I was very sound asleep when a violent shaking of the arm woke me, and Le Marchant's whisper in my ear—"Carré, there's something wrong. Don't speak! Listen!"—brought me all to myself in a moment, and I heard what he heard,—the hushed movement of people in the outer room off which our bedroom opened, the soft creak of a loose board in the flooring.
"Outside the window a minute ago," he murmured in my ear.
Then a sound reached us that there was no mistaking, the tiny click of the strap-ring of a musket against the barrel, and a peaceful miller has no need of muskets.
We had but a moment for thought. I feared greatly that we were trapped, and felt the blame to myself. There would be men outside the window, but more in the room, for they looked to catch us sleeping. I had no doubt, in my own mind, that it was a pressgang, in which case their object was to take us, not to kill us. And, thinking it over since, I have thought it possible that the treacherous old miller may have signalled them by a light in the top of the mill, which would be seen a very long way.
I peeped out of the window. Three men with muskets and cutlasses stood there watching it. We were trapped of a surety. Carette and Sercq seemed to swing away out of sight, and visions of the routine and brutality of the King's service loomed up very close in front.
We had no weapons except my sailor's knife, which would be little use against muskets and cutlasses. But there was a stout oak chair by the bedside, and at a pinch its legs might serve.
We could do nothing but wait to see what their move would be, and that waiting, with the gloomiest of prospects in front, was as long and dismal a time as any I have known.
It was just beginning to get light when a tap came on the door, and the voice of the villainous old miller—
"Your breakfast is ready. We should start in half an hour."
"Hel-lo?" I asked, in as sleepy a fashion as I could make it.
He repeated his message, and Le Marchant, with his ear against the door, nodded confirmation of our fears. The breakfast we were invited to consisted of muskets and cutlasses and hard blows.
It was Le Marchant's very reasonable anger at this treacherous usage that saved us in a way we had not looked for. But possibly there was in him some dim idea of chances of escape in what might follow. Chance there was none if we walked into the next room or tried the window.
Our comfortable bed consisted of sweet soft hay inside the usual covering. He suddenly ripped this open, tore out the hay in handfuls and flung it under the bedstead, then pulled out his flint and steel and set it ablaze. The room was full of smoke in a moment, and we heard startled cries from the outer room. Taking the stout oak chair by opposite legs we pulled till they parted, and we were armed.
The door burst open and the miller went down headlong under Le Marchant's savage blow.
"Next!" he cried, swinging his club athwart the doorway. But, though there were many voices, no head was offered for his blow.
The flames burned fiercely behind us. With a crack of my chair leg I broke both windows, and the smoke poured out and relieved us somewhat, and the fire blazed up more fiercely still. The flooring was all on fire and the dry old walls behind the bed, and we stood waiting for the next man to appear.
"Better give in, boys," cried someone in the outer room. "You'll only make things worse for yourselves." But we answered never a word, and stood the more cautiously on our guard.
Then they began throwing buckets of water in at the door, and we heard it splashing also on the outer walls, but none came near the fire, since the bed was not opposite the door.
We were scorched and half smothered, but the draught through the door and out at the window still gave us chance to breathe.
The bedstead fell in a blazing heap, the flames crept round the walls. We could not stand it much longer. We would have to lay down our chair legs and surrender.
Then a very strange thing happened.
Le Marchant saw it first and grabbed my arm.
The portion of the blazing bedstead nearest the wall sank down through the floor and disappeared, and at a glance we saw our way, though how far it might lead us we could not tell.
"Allons!" said Le Marchant, and without a moment's hesitation leaped down into the smoke that came rolling up out of the hole, and I followed.
We landed on barrels and kegs covered with blazing embers. Le Marchant gave a laugh at sight of their familiar faces, and, by way of further payment to the miller, dashed his heel through the head of a keg and sped on, while the flames roared out afresh behind us.
For a short way we had the light of the blaze, but soon we were past it and groping in darkness down a narrow tunnel way. It seemed endless, but fresh blowing air came puffing up to us at last, and of a sudden we crept out into the night through a clump of gorse on the side of a cliff. Below us was the sea, and on the shingle lay a six-oared galley such as the preventive men use.
"Devil's luck!" laughed Le Marchant, and we slipped and rolled down the cliff to the shore, with never a doubt as to our next move. We set our shoulders to the black galley, ran it gaily down the shingle, and took to the oars. As we got out from under the land we saw the house blazing fiercely on the cliff. There was a keg in the boat and a mast with a leg-of-mutton sail. We stepped the mast and set the sail and drew swiftly out to sea.
I do not think either of us ever found a voyage so much to our liking as this. Our craft was but a Customs' galley, twenty feet long and four feet in beam, it is true, and we were heading straight out into the North Sea. We had not a scrap of food, but we had fared well the night before, and the keg in the bows suggested hopes. But we were homeward bound, and we had just come through dire peril by the sheer mercy of Providence.
"The old one is well punished for his roguery," said Le Marchant with a relish. "And after his prayers too! Diable, but he stinks!"
"He gave us a good supper, however."
"So that we might breakfast en route for a King's ship! Non, merci! No more mealy mouths for me." And to me also it was a lesson I have never forgotten.
Our first idea had been to run due east till we struck the coast of Holland, which we knew must be something less than one hundred and fifty miles away. But Le Marchant, who knew the smuggling ports better than I, presently suggested that we should run boldly south by east for Dunkerque or Boulogne, and he affirmed that it was little if any farther away than the Dutch coast, and even if it was, we should land among friends and save time and trouble in the end. So, as the weather and wind seemed like to hold, we turned to the south, and kept as straight a course as we could, and met with no interference. The setting sun trued our reckoning and we ran on by the stars.
The keg in the bows contained good Dutch rum, and we drank sparingly at times for lack of other food. Once during the night we heard guns, and our course carried us close enough to see the flashes, but we were content therewith, and went on about our business, glad to be of small account and unseen.
When the sun rose, there stole out of the shadows on our right white cliffs and a smiling green land, which Le Marchant said was the coast of Kent, so we ran east by south and presently raised a great stretch of sandy dunes, along which we coasted till the ramparts and spires of Dunkerque rose slowly before us.
Le Marchant knew his way here, and took us gaily over the bar into the harbour, where many vessels of all shapes and sizes were lying, and he told me what I had heard spoken of on the Joséphine, that Bonaparte was said to be gathering a great fleet for the invasion of England.
We landed in a quiet corner without attracting observation, and Le Marchant led the way to a quarter of the town which he said was given up entirely to the smuggling community, and where we should meet with a warm welcome. But we found, on arriving there, that the free-traders had been moved in a body down the coast to Gravelines, half-way to Calais, all but a stray family or two of the better behaved class. These, however, treated us well on hearing our story, and we rested there that day, and left again as soon as it was dark with all the provisions we could carry. We crept quietly out of the harbour and coasted along past the lights of Gravelines, and Calais, and weathered with some difficulty the great gray head of Gris Nez, and were off the sands of Boulogne soon after sunrise.
We kept well out, having no desire for forced service, but only to get home and attend to our own affairs. But even at that distance, and to our inexperienced eyes, the sight we saw was an extraordinary one. The heights behind the town were white with tents as though a snowstorm had come down in the night, and for miles each way the level sand-flats flashed and twinkled with the arms of vast bodies of men, marching to and fro at their drill, we supposed.
We dropped our sail to avoid notice and rowed slowly past, but time and again found ourselves floating idly, as we gazed at that great spectacle and wondered what the upshot would be.
Then we were evidently sighted by some sharp look-out on one of the round towers, for presently a white sail came heading for us, and we hastily ran up our own and turned and sped out to sea, believing that they would not dare to follow us far. They chased us till the coast sank out of our sight, and could have caught us if they had kept on, but they doubtless feared a trap and so were satisfied to have got rid of us. When they gave it up we turned and ran south for Dieppe, and sighted the coast a little to the north of that small fishing port just before sunset.
Here Le Marchant was among friends, having visited the place many times in the way of business, and we were welcomed and made much of. We were anxious to get on, but the wind blew up so strongly from the south-west that we could have made no headway without ratching all the time to windward, and the sea was over high for our small boat. So we lay there three days, much against our will, though doubtless to the benefit of our bodies. And I have wondered at times, in thinking back over all these things, whether matters might not have worked out otherwise if the wind had been in a different quarter. Work out to their fully appointed end I knew they had to do, of course. But that three days' delay at Dieppe brought us straight into the direst peril conceivable, and an hour either way—ay, or ten minutes for that matter—might have avoided it. But, as my grandfather used to say, and as I know he fervently believed, a man's times and courses are ordered by a wisdom higher than his own, and the proper thing for him to do is to take things as they come, and make the best of them.
After three days the wind shifted to the north-west, and we said good-bye to our hosts and loosed for Cherbourg, well-provisioned and in the best of spirits, for Cherbourg was but round the corner from home.
We made a comfortable, though not very quick, passage, the wind falling slack and fitful at times, so that it was the evening of the next day before we slipped in under the eastern end of the great digue they were building for the protection of the shipping in the harbour. It was at that time but a few feet above water level, and its immense length gave it a very curious appearance, like a huge water-snake lying flat on the surface of the sea.
We pulled in under an island which held a fort, and keeping along that side of the roadstead, ran quietly ashore, drew our boat up, and went up into the town.