“‘My God! then the press-gang have got him!’
“As he uttered these awful words, my mother screamed out, ‘The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me,’ and fell senseless on the hearth. We children thought she was dead.”
“Poor soul,” cried Sally, “how she must have suffered! Your cousin ought to have broke it to her more gently. But what did you do then?”
“He put her on the bed, and called some women that lived over the way, and they brought her to. All her folks and friends came to see her, and tried to comfort her, and told her that perhaps he had gone on some unexpected business, and would return; and that even if he was pressed, he might be discharged when the war was over.”
“How long before you found out what become of him?”
“In about ten days my mother had a letter from him. It was all blotted over with tears. He said he was on board the hulk at Sheerness, and that if we came quick we could see him, as he might be ordered away at any time.”
“What is a hulk?” said Fred.
“It is an old man-of-war, not fit for service, and made a prison-ship of, to keep the men in till they want them in the ships they are going in. My grandfather went with us to the ship; there we found him with two thousand more men.”
“O, my!” said Sally; “were all these poor men pressed?”
“No; my father said most of them were sailors who had shipped of their own accord. He was so pale and heart-broken I should have hardly known him. He wanted to be cheerful, and comfort us, but he couldn’t. The tears ran down his cheeks in spite of him.