Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

Immersed in his own thoughts, he did not observe the latter leave his cabin, walk from sheer habit to the binnacle in order to satisfy himself the brigantine was lying her course, and glance over the side to measure her speed through the water, and he started when the Captain placed his hand familiarly on his shoulder, and jeered him good-humouredly for his preoccupation. These men, whose acquaintance had commenced with important benefits conferred and received on both sides, were now thrown together by circumstances which brought out the finer qualities of both. They had learned thoroughly to depend on each other, and had become fast friends. Perhaps their strongest link was the dissimilarity of their characters. To Beaudésir’s romantic and impressionable temperament there had been, from the first, something very imposing in the vigorous and manly nature of Captain George, and the influence of the latter became stronger day by day, when he proved himself as calm, courageous, and capable on the deck of a privateer as he had appeared in his quarters at Paris, commanding a company of the Royal Guards.

For George, again, with his frank, soldier-like manner and somewhat abrupt address, which seemed impatient of anything like delicacy or over-refinement, there was, nevertheless, an unspeakable charm in his friend’s half-languid, half-fiery, and wholly romantic disposition, redeemed by a courage no danger could shake, and an address with his weapons few men could withstand. The Captain was not demonstrative, far from it, and would have been ashamed to confess how much he valued the society of that pale, studious, effeminate youth, in looks, in manner, in simplicity of thought so much younger than his actual years; who was so often lost in vague day-dreams, and loved to follow up such wild and speculative trains of thought; but who could point the brigantine’s bow-chasers more accurately than the gunner himself; who had learned how to hand, reef, and steer before he had been six weeks on board.

Their alliance was the natural consequence of companionship between two natures of the same material, so to speak, but of different fabric. Their respective intellects represented the masculine and feminine types. Each supplying that which the other wanted, they amalgamated accordingly. Beaudésir looked up to the Musketeer as his ideal of perfection in manhood; Captain George loved Eugène as a brother, and trusted him without reserve.

It was pleasant after the turmoil and excitement of the last few weeks to walk the deck in that balmy region under a serene and moonlit sky, letting their thoughts wander freely to scenes so different on far-distant shores, while they talked of France, and Paris, and Versailles, and a thousand topics all connected with dry land. But Eugène, though he listened with interest, and never seemed tired of confidences relating to his companion’s own family and previous life, frankly and freely imparted, refrained from such confessions in return, and George was still as ignorant of his friend’s antecedents as on that memorable day when the pale, dark youth accompanied Bras-de-Fer to their Captain’s quarters, to be entered on the roll of the Grey Musketeers, after running poor Flanconnade through the body. That they had once belonged to this famous corps d’élite neither of them seemed likely to forget. Its merits and its services formed the one staple subject of discourse when all else failed. As in his quarters at Paris he had kept the model of a similar brigantine for his own private solace, so now, in the cabin of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ the skipper treasured up with the greatest care, in a stout sea-chest, a handsome full-dress uniform, covered with velvet and embroidery, flaunting with grey ribbons, and having a coating of thin paper over its silver lace.

There was one topic of conversation, however, on which these young men had never yet embarked, and this is the more surprising, considering their age and the habits of those warriors amongst whom they were so proud to have been numbered. This forbidden subject was the charm of the other sex, and it was perhaps because each felt himself so constituted as to be keenly alive to its power that neither ventured an allusion to the great influence by which, during the first half of life, men’s fortunes, characters, happiness, and eventual destiny, are more or less affected. It required a fair breeze, a summer sea, and a moonlight night in the tropics to elicit their opinions on such matters, and the manly, rough-spoken skipper was the first to broach a theme that had been already well-nigh exhausted by the watch on deck—gathered on the forecastle in tranquil enjoyment of a cool, serene air and a welcome interval of repose.

Old Turenne’s system of tactics had been declared exploded; the Duke of Marlborough’s character criticised; Cavalli’s last opera canvassed and condemned. Captain George took two turns of the deck in silence, stopped short at the taffrail, and looked thoughtfully over the stern—

“What is to be the end of it?” he asked abruptly. “More fighting, of course! More prizes, more doubloons, and then? After all, I believe there are things to make a man’s life happier than even such a brigantine as this.”

“There is heaven on earth, and there is heaven above,” answered the other, in his dreamy, half-earnest, half-speculative way; “and some men, not always the hardest-hearted nor the most vicious, are to be shut out of both. Calvin is a disheartening casuist, but I believe Calvin is right!”

“Steady there!” replied George. “Nothing shall make me believe but that a brave man can sail what course he will, provided his charts are trustworthy and he steers by them. Nothing is impossible, Eugène. If I had thought that I should have lost heart long ago.”