Held Fast For England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83)

by G. A. Henty

It was some consolation to Bob to receive, next morning, a letter from his sister, saying she was delighted to hear how he had distinguished himself in the capture of the burglars.

"Of course, it was very wrong of you to get out at night; but Gerald says that boys are always up to tricks of that sort, and so I suppose that it wasn't so bad as it seems to me. Uncle John pretends to be in a terrible rage about it, but I don't think he is really as angry as he makes himself out to be. He blew me up, and said that I had always encouraged you--which of course I haven't--and when Gerald tried to say a good word for you, he turned upon him, and said something about fellow-feeling making men wondrous kind. Gerald only laughed, and said he was glad my uncle had such a good opinion of him, and that he should have liked to have been there, to lend a hand in the fight; and then uncle said something disagreeable, and we came away.

"But I feel almost sure that Uncle John is not really so angry as he seems; and I believe that, if Gerald and I had taken the other side, and had said that your conduct had been very wicked, he would have defended you. It was stupid of us not to think of it, for you know uncle always likes to disagree with other people--there is nothing he hates more than their agreeing with him. His bark is much worse than his bite, and you must not forget how good and kind he has been to us all.

"You know how angry he was with my marriage, and he said I had better have drowned myself, than have married a soldier; and I had better have hung myself, than have married an Irishman--specially when he had intended, all along, that I should marry the son of an old friend of his, a most excellent and well-conducted young man, with admirable prospects. But he came round in a month or two, and the first notice of it was a letter from his lawyer, saying that, in accordance with the instruction of his client, Mr. John Bale, he had drawn up and now enclosed a post-nuptial settlement, settling on me the sum of 5000 pounds consols; and that his client wished him to say that, had I married the person he had intended for me, that sum would have been doubled.

"The idea, when I never even saw the man! And when I wrote, thanking him, he made no allusion to what he had said before; but wrote that he should be glad, at all times, to see my husband and myself, whenever we came to town; but that, as I knew, his hours were regular, and the door always locked at ten o'clock--just as if Gerald was in the habit of coming in, drunk, in the middle of the night! Fortunately nothing puts Gerald out, and he screamed over it; and we went and stopped a week with uncle, a month afterwards, and he and Gerald got on capitally together, considering. Gerald said it was like a bear and a monkey in one cage, but it was really very funny.

"So I have no doubt he will come round, with you. Do try and not vex him more than you can help, Bob. You know how much we all owe him."

This was true. Bob's father had died when he was only three years old--he being a lawyer, with a good business, at Plymouth--but he had made no provision for his early death, and had left his wife and two children almost penniless. Mr. Bale had at once taken charge of them, and had made his sister an allowance that enabled her to live very comfortably. She had remained in Plymouth, as she had many friends there.

Her daughter Carrie--who was six years older than Bob--had, four years before, married Gerald O'Halloran, who was then a lieutenant in the 58th Regiment, which was in garrison there. He had a small income, derived from an estate in Ireland, besides his pay; but the young couple would have been obliged to live very economically, had it not been for the addition of the money settled on her by her uncle.

Her mother had died, a few months after the marriage; and Mr. Bale had at once placed Bob at the school, at Putney; and had announced his intention of taking him, in due time, into his business. The boy always spent one half of his holidays with his uncle, the other with his sister. The former had been a trial, both to him and to Mr. Bale. They saw but little of each other; for Mr. Bale, who, like most business men of the time, lived over his offices, went downstairs directly he had finished his breakfast, and did not come up again until his work was over when, at five o'clock, he dined. The meal over, he sometimes went out to the houses of friends, or to the halls of one or other of the city companies to which he belonged.

While Bob was with him, he told off one of the foremen in his business to go about with the boy. The days, therefore, passed pleasantly, as they generally went on excursions by water up or down the river or, sometimes, when it was not otherwise required, in a light cart used in the business, to Epping or Hainault Forest. Bob was expected to be back to dinner and, thanks to the foreman--who knew that his employer would not tolerate the smallest unpunctuality--he always succeeded in getting back in time to wash and change his clothes for dinner.