“Go along, softy!” cried the crowd, and I went. But as I went I heard the stentorian voice of Dr. Mansell proclaim—
“Five hundred guineas reward for the recovery of those two young women, dead or alive!”
In a few hours handbills to this effect were posted all over the place, and, as soon as practicable, in every town in the kingdom; by which the names of Frances Martin and Eleanor Martin must have become well known. Whenever I saw one of these placards it seemed to me as if I had had something to do with a great crime, and that part of the five hundred guineas would perhaps be given for my body some day—dead or alive.
I walked down to the shore to a little port on the outside of the town, the very place to which I had been on the previous Sunday with Nell. I remembered, with another qualm, the interest which she had taken in the shipping, and how she had even begged me to ask some questions of the sailors, who, as usual, lounged about where they could smell tar. She said it was awkward for a girl to talk to these rough fellows, but that it was a pleasant variety for a young man. So, of course, I asked all the questions she desired about incoming sloops. I, thinking these questions referred to some sailor sweetheart, took no account of the matter at all. As we looked and talked we perceived a sloop in the offing coming in. The men said she would be in shortly, and that she was bringing culm for the use of Lord Cawdor’s household.
Nellie seemed very pleased and happy as she watched the sloop coming rapidly nearer, a brisk breeze from the south filling her sails and urging her onwards. The only boat actually in the harbour was Lord Cawdor’s yacht.
His lordship’s yacht was now nowhere to be seen; the sloop was still there, for owing to the breeze and the sailors’ hurry to get ashore on Sunday, they had run her aground, and there she was hard and fast, but not in the same state as on Sunday. A hundred Frenchmen had made their escape, creeping through their tunnel and jumping out at the other end like so many jack-in-the-boxes. Some of the fugitives made at once for the yacht, some for the sloop, which, to their great disappointment, they found aground. They boarded it, lashed the sailors’ hands and feet (these men now recounted the story, each man to a listening crowd, which we must hope was a slight solace for their sufferings)—they took compass, water casks, and every scrap of food and clothing they could find; then conveyed them aboard the yacht which they launched, and off they were. The tied-up sailors had seen nothing of any women, but between darkness and surprise it was a wonder they had noted as much as they had.
This was all that we could gather at the time; it was only enough to make us very uncomfortable about the fate of the two rash girls. My position was not made more comfortable by the constant reproaches of my two old aunts, who seemed to think me in some way responsible for Nell’s escapade. Altogether I was not sorry that it was decided to send me back at once to St. David’s; school was better than scorn. But the very night before I left Pembroke, my uncomfortable feelings were doomed to be deepened. The stern of the yacht was washed ashore with other timbers, on one of which his lordship’s name was inscribed. There could be little doubt of the fate of those on board. The weather had been rough and foggy, and these French soldiers were probably little skilled in navigation. So I departed to St. David’s with a heavy heart.
Some weeks passed in the usual course of classics and mathematics rammed in by main force, when one day there came a letter to me in Aunt Jane’s handwriting. I was surprised, for my aunts were not given to composition; but on opening the envelope I found Aunt Jane had written—nothing. She had merely enclosed, oh, greater surprise, a foreign letter. I had never had, and never expected to have, a foreign correspondent. What language would he write in—a quick hope flashed through me that it might not be Latin, any other I would give up quietly.
I opened the letter and perceived it was in English. It ran as follows:—
“Dear Mastr Danl,—I hope as this finds you well as it leaves me at present. You was main good to we, so I pens this line to say as I am no longer Eleanor Martin but Madam Roux. [Oh joy! I didn’t care what her name was as long as she wasn’t drowned.] Yes, me and Jack have married, only he likes it writ Jacques which is a mort of trouble. Howsomever we gets along lovely so likewise do Frances and her young man Peter which were a commisser and she is now Madam Lebrun. We did a main lot for they lads—which they was grateful. Praps you’d like to hear that after we got safe away in his ludship’s yat, after you’d kindly helpd we to burrow out o jail, we come in for three days fog. Short commons there was till we overtook a brig, gave out as we was shiprackt and was took aboord, Fan and me dressed as lads. That night we was too many for the crew of the brig, as nocked under and us made them steer for France, so here we be. The brig had corn aboord, so we wasnt clemmed. We let the yat go. Hoping to see you soon, I remains,
“Your humbel servant to command,
“Nellie.”