There was one heavy drawback to the pride which the young Lieutenant Fairburn naturally felt at having had a humble share in the great victory. At the muster of the survivors of his regiment Blackett was missing. Half the night did George search for him, and was at last rewarded by finding the young fellow lying wounded and helpless on the boggy ground. It was an intense relief when the surgeon gave good hopes of Matthew's ultimate recovery.
"I'm done for this campaign, old friend," Blackett said with a feeble smile to George, "and must be sent home for a while. But I hope to turn up among you another year."
If to follow up a great victory promptly, vigorously, and fully, be one of the distinguishing marks of a great commander, then the Duke of Marlborough was certainly one of the greatest generals of whom history tells. Hardly anything more striking than his long and rapid series of successes in the weeks after Ramillies can be credited to a military leader, not even excepting Wellington and Napoleon. Louvain, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, all fell into his hands. Menin, Ostend, Dendermonde, and a few other strongholds gave pore trouble, and the brave Marshal Vendôme was sent to their assistance. It was useless; Vendôme turned tail and fled, his men refusing to face the terrible English Duke. "Every one here is ready to doff his hat, if one even mentions the name of Marlborough," Vendôme wrote to his master Louis. The remaining towns capitulated, and the Netherlands were lost to the Spanish. Of the more important fortresses only Mons remained.
But Marlborough's were by no means the only successes that fell to the Allies that wonderful year. Prince Eugene and the Duke of Savoy, the former after a rapid march, appeared before Turin, and on the 7th of September that notable place fell into the hands of the Prince, after brilliant efforts on both sides. The result was of the utmost importance; the French were demoralized; Savoy was permanently gained for the Grand Alliance; while Piedmont was lost to the French, who were thus cut off from the kingdom of Naples.
George had often wondered what had become of his old friend Fieldsend, whom he had not seen since the capture of Landau. But in the autumn of this year, 1706, while Fairburn was quartered at Antwerp, he received a letter from the lieutenant. It appeared that at his own request Fieldsend had been allowed to return to Spain, and he had served ever since under Lord Peterborough. The writer's account of the victories gained by Peterborough and the Earl of Galway in Spain that year read more like a fairy tale than real sober history. The sum and substance of it was that Peterborough had compelled the forces of Louis to raise the siege of Barcelona, and that Galway had actually entered Madrid in triumph. Had the Archduke Charles had the wit and the courage to enter his capital too, his cause might have had a very different issue from that which it was now fated to have.
Just before Christmastide George received permission to return to England on leave for a few weeks. He had never visited his old home all those years, and it was with delight he took his passage in a schooner bound for Hull. Hardly had he landed at that port when he ran across the old skipper of the Ouseburn Lassie. The worthy fellow did not at first recognize the schoolboy he had known in the sturdy handsome young fellow wearing a cavalry lieutenant's uniform, and he was taken aback when George accosted him with a hearty "How goes it, old friend? How goes it with you?" The skipper saluted in some trepidation, and it was not till George had given him a handshake that gripped like a vice that he knew his man again. Soon the two were deep in the work of exchanging histories. The crew of the captured collier brig, it appeared, had been kept at Dunkirk till the autumn of 1704, when they had been exchanged for certain French prisoners in ward at Dover. The Fairburn colliery had prospered wonderfully, and the owner now employed no fewer than four vessels of his own, one of which ran to Hull regularly. In fact, the skipper was just going on board to return to the Tyne.
Within an hour, therefore, Lieutenant Fairburn was afloat once more, to his great joy. On the voyage he learnt many things from the old captain. Squire Blackett was in very bad odour with the men of the district. For years his business had been falling off, and he had been dismissing hands. Now his health was failing; he was unable or unwilling to give vigorous attention to his trade, and he talked of closing his pit altogether. The colliers of the neighbourhood were desperately irritated, and to a man declared that, with anything like energy in the management, the Blackett pit had a fortune in it for any owner.
The well-known wharf was reached, a wharf vastly enlarged and improved, however, and George sprang ashore impatiently. Leaving all his belongings for the moment, he strode off at a great rate for home, rather wondering how it was that he did not see a single soul either about the river or on the road. He rubbed his eyes as he caught a sight of his boyhood's home. Like the wharf, the house had been added to and improved until he scarcely recognized the spot at all. "Father must be a prosperous man," was his thought. Opening the door without ceremony, he entered. A figure in the hall turned, and in a moment the boy had his mother in his arms, while he capered about the hall with her in pure delight.
The good woman gave a cry, but she was not of the fainting kind, and soon she was weeping and laughing by turns, kissing her handsome lad again and again. Presently, as if forgetting herself, she cried, "Ah, my boy, there's a parlous deed going on up at the Towers! You should be going to help." And George learned to his astonishment that the Squire's house was being at that moment attacked by a formidable and desperate gang. Fairburn had gone off to render what assistance he could. It was reported that the few defenders were holding the house against the besiegers, but that they could hold out little longer. The Fairburn pitmen had declined to be mixed up in the quarrel, as they called it.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed George, "what a state of things!"