It would be a gallant tale to write the incidents of that long cruise with its seemingly unsuccessful ending. Yet not unsuccessful, for it prepared and paved the way for the struggle of giants to follow, and the English people knew it and hailed him as the conqueror he was when he returned for his brief three weeks’ respite to England before the last and greatest struggle of Trafalgar.
Portsmouth, London, surged about him. What did Lady Hamilton or anything matter where their hero, their darling, was concerned?
“I met Nelson in a mob at Piccadilly!” said Minto, “and got hold of his arm, so that I was mobbed too. It is really quite affecting to see the wonder and admiration and love and respect of the whole world. It is beyond anything represented in a play or in a poem of fame.”
Beyond everything. The instinct was true, was right. Because he had not the evil skill to hide that one fall in his great life as a wickeder man would have done with easy hypocrisy, was he—their Nelson—to be scorned? God forbid, they thought and said. But, oh—but, oh, that it had been for a worthier woman! The inadequacy of the divinity to the sacrifice is what breaks the heart in this story. Yet be she what she might, one is glad to remember that those three weeks at Merton were happy. His old father had gone to his reward, but the rest of the family clustered about him, his little Horatia there and Emma radiating sunshine. Even Minto, who could not abide her, owns that. “She is a clever being after all; the passion is as hot as ever.” Yes, and a driving force that neither Minto nor any other could estimate—a passion to be justified before earth and Heaven.
He knew that any moment might part them—he savoured every instant as its sweetness touched his lips. And yet, almost before it seemed possible, the call came. Could he, the beloved and trusted of the whole nation, hesitate, when it was known that the French Fleet had been seen off Cadiz? Not he. Emma was swooning and weeping all over the dinner table, according to Minto. Nelson’s passion was burning in a clear white flame that admitted of no outward expression of emotion. His farewell to her no human eye saw, but by the little Horatia’s bed he knelt and prayed while she slept. She it was who sanctified that bond to him—God’s blessing made visible in a little child.
Death was approaching and he knew it, and in the solemn twilight of that great presence all his feelings took on a majesty far removed from the tumult of days not long gone by. He wrote in his intimate journal:
“At 10.30 drove from dear, dear Merton where I left all which I hold dear in this world to go and serve my King and country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the Throne of His Mercy. If it is His good Providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that Pie will protect those so dear to me that I may leave behind. His will be done.” He closed with a triple Amen.
So Emma, leaning from the window, choked with sobs, saw the night enfold him in its darkness. He was but forty-seven—so much before him yet! So much to hope and to do. In that moment surely nothing was left of her but what was purely womanly, though her easy tears dried soon.
He joined the Victory elate but calm. The Admiralty, realizing the battle of the giants to be, had invited him to name his own officers. What! And cast a slur on those he might not choose? That would not be Nelson? He replied:
“Choose yourselves, my Lords. The same spirit actuates the whole profession. You cannot choose wrong.” Nor could they. He and the nation alike owned it. The Fleet owned it. They knew who led them, and when the signal flew from masthead to masthead from the watchful inshore frigates to Nelson fifty miles at sea off Spartel, “The enemy are coming out of port,” there was not a heart but beat steadily with a calm confidence in the man set over them not only by the Admiralty but by the Almighty.