SCENE VII
KING GEORGE’S WATERING-PLACE, SOUTH WESSEX
[The interior of the “Old Rooms” Inn. Boatmen and burghers are
sitting on settles round the fire, smoking and drinking.
FIRST BURGHER
So they’ve brought him home at last, hey? And he’s to be solemnized
with a roaring funeral?
FIRST BOATMAN
Yes, thank God.... ’Tis better to lie dry than wet, if canst do it
without stinking on the road gravewards. And they took care that he
shouldn’t.
SECOND BOATMAN
’Tis to be at Paul’s; so they say that know. And the crew of the
“Victory” have to walk in front, and Captain Hardy is to carry his
stars and garters on a great velvet pincushion.
FIRST BURGHER
Where’s the Captain now?
SECOND BOATMAN [nodding in the direction of Captain Hardy’s house]
Down at home here biding with his own folk a bit. I zid en walking
with them on the Esplanade yesterday. He looks ten years older than
he did when he went. Ay—he brought the galliant hero home!
SECOND BURGHER
Now how did they bring him home so that he could lie in state
afterwards to the naked eye!
FIRST BOATMAN
Well, as they always do,—in a cask of sperrits.
SECOND BURGHER
Really, now!
FIRST BOATMAN [lowering his voice]
But what happened was this. They were a long time coming, owing to
contrary winds, and the “Victory” being little more than a wreck.
And grog ran short, because they’d used near all they had to peckle
his body in. So—they broached the Adm’l!
SECOND BURGHER
How?
FIRST BOATMAN
Well; the plain calendar of it is, that when he came to be unhooped,
it was found that the crew had drunk him dry. What was the men to
do? Broke down by the battle, and hardly able to keep afloat, ’twas
a most defendable thing, and it fairly saved their lives. So he was
their salvation after death as he had been in the fight. If he
could have knowed it, ’twould have pleased him down to the ground!
How ’a would have laughed through the spigot-hole: “Draw on, my
hearties! Better I shrivel that you famish.” Ha-ha!
SECOND BURGHER
It may be defendable afloat; but it seems queer ashore.
FIRST BOATMAN
Well, that’s as I had it from one that knows—Bob Loveday of
Overcombe—one of the “Victory” men that’s going to walk in the
funeral. However, let’s touch a livelier string. Peter Green,
strike up that new ballet that they’ve lately had prented here,
and were hawking about town last market-day.
SONG
THE NIGHT OF TRAFALGAR
I
In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,
And the Back-sea[12] met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked
with sand,
And we heard the drub of Dead-man’s Bay, where bones of thousands are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar.
[All] Had done,
Had done,
For us at Trafalgar!
II
“Pull hard, and make the Nothe, or down we go!” one says, says he.
We pulled; and bedtime brought the storm; but snug at home slept we.
Yet all the while our gallants after fighting through the day,
Were beating up and down the dark, sou’-west of Cadiz Bay.
The dark,
The dark,
Sou’-west of Cadiz Bay!
III
The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar!
The deep,
The deep,
That night at Trafalgar!
[The Cloud-curtain draws.]
CHORUS OF THE YEARS
Meanwhile the month moves on to counter-deeds
Vast as the vainest needs,
And fiercely the predestined plot proceeds.