There came a time when Peggy needed no more to look out for the sail. Her husband went stolidly down to the boat one evening, and her three sons followed with their weighty tread. The father was a big, rugged man with a dark face; the lads were yellow-haired, taking after their mother. Some of the fishermen did not like the look of the evening sky, but Peggy's husband never much heeded the weather.
Next day the wind came away very strong, and the cobles had to cower southward under a bare strip of mainsail. The men ashore did not like to be asked whether they thought the weather would get worse; and the women stood anxiously at their doors. A little later and they gathered all together on the rock-edge. One coble, finely handled, was working steadily up to the bend where the boats ran in for the smooth water, and Peggy followed every yard that the little craft gained. All the world for her depended on the chance of weathering that perilous turn. The sail was hardly to be seen for the drift that was plucked off the crests of the waves. Too soon Peggy saw a great roller double over and fold itself heavily into the boat. Then there was the long wallowing lurch, and the rudder came up, while the mast and the sodden sail went under. It was bad enough for a woman to read in some cold official list about the death of her father, her husband, her son; but very much worse it is for the woman who sees her dearest drowning—standing safe ashore to watch every hopeless struggle for life. One of the fishers said to Peggy, "Come thy ways in, my woman; and we'll away and seek them." But Peggy walked fast across the sand and down to the place where she knew the set of the tide would carry the dead lads in. The father came first ashore. She wiped the froth from his lips and closed his eyes, and then hastened further northward where her eldest son was flung on the beach. Peggy saw in an instant that his face was bruised, and moaned at the sight of the bruises; his father looked as though he were sleeping. The other lads did not come ashore till next day, and Peggy would not go home all the night through. In the dark she got away from the kind fellows who stayed by her; and when they sought her she was kneeling in the hollow of a sand-hill where another of her boys lay—her face pressed against the grass.
These bold fellows were laid in the ground, and next day Peggy started silently to work. The grandfather—that is, her husband's father, an old man, quite broken by the loss of his son—was brought home to his son's fireside, where the two may be seen to-day: their thoughts divided between their dead and the business of getting bread for to-morrow.
THE VETERAN.
In the mornings a chair used to be placed on the cliff-side facing the sea, and towards ten o'clock a very old man would walk slowly down the village street and take his seat. A little shelf held his pipe and tobacco-jar, and he would sit and smoke contentedly until the afternoon. The children used to play around him with perfect confidence, although he seldom spoke to them. His face looked as if it were roughly carved out of stone, and his complexion was of a deep rich brown. On his watch-chain he wore several trinkets, and he was specially proud of one thin disk: this was the Nile medal; for the old man had been in the fight at Aboukir. He seldom spoke about his experience of life on board a man-of-war; he was far more interested in bestowing appreciative criticism on the little coasters that flitted past northward and southward, and in saying severe things about the large screw colliers. But although he had little to tell about his fighting experiences, he was a hero none the less. He lived in a little white cottage at the high end of the Green, and a woman came every morning to attend to his simple wants; for his old wife had died long ago. He was lonely, and not much noticed outside the village; yet he had done, in his time, one of the finest things known in the history of bravery.
The Veteran lived happily in his way. He had made some money in a small sloop with which he used to run round to the Firth; good things were sent to him from the Hall; and the head gardener had orders to let him have whatever fruit and vegetables he wanted. He had no wish to see populous places: his uneventful life was varied enough for his desires. If he were properly coaxed, he was willing to tell many things about Nelson; but, strange to say, he was not fond of the great Admiral. Collingwood was his man, and he always spoke with reverence about the north-country sailor. He cared very little for glory; and he estimated men on the simple principle that one kind man is worth twenty clever ones and a hundred plucky ones. The story of his acquaintance with Collingwood and Nelson was strange. In 1797 the Veteran was just nineteen years old; but he had already got command of a little sloop that plied up the Firth, and he was accounted one of the best sailors on the coast. His father was a hearty man of eight-and-forty, and had retired from the sea.
Now it happened that the wealthiest shipowner of the little port had a very wild and unsteady son, who was a ship captain and sailed one of his father's vessels. The shipowner was anxious to see some steady man sail with his lad; so he asked the Veteran's father to go as mate of a barque which the son was going to take out to Genoa. The terms offered were so very tempting that the old man decided to take another short spell of the sea; and when the Veteran next brought his little sloop on to the Hard, he found his father had run round to Hull in the barque. The young captain, of whom the old man had taken charge, behaved very badly during the southerly trip, and in the end had delirium tremens. During the whole of the night the madman divided his time between giving contradictory orders and crying out with fear of the dreadful things which he said were chasing him. On the night after the vessel brought up at Hull he staggered aboard, and stumbled into the cabin. Sitting down at the table, he set himself deliberately to insult his mate, who had been quietly reading. He called the old man a pig, and asked him why he had not gone to his sty. Finding that all his insults were received with good humour, he grew bolder, and at last went round the table and hit out heavily. A white mark appeared on the mate's cheek where the blow landed, and in return he delivered a tremendous right-hander full in the captain's face. The bully was lifted off his feet and fell against the cabin-door, crashing one of the panels out. He rose, wiped the blood from his mouth, and went ashore.
The lieutenant of a frigate which was lying in the harbour was ashore with a press-gang. The drunkard went and declared that the Veteran's father had been insubordinate, and showed a bruised face in evidence. So in the grey of the morning the naval officer and half-a-dozen seamen came under the barque's quarter and climbed aboard. The old man was walking the deck, being very much perturbed about the last night's affray, and he grasped the whole situation at once. He picked up a handspike and got ready to defend himself; but the seamen made a rush, and a blow with the flat of a heavy cutlass knocked the old sailor senseless. When he came to himself he found that he was on board the guardship.