Yule-Tide Yarns

by Unknown

In vain his friends represented to him that the nobles were everywhere being seized, and that for the sake of his wife and girls he ought to cross the frontier into Italy while there was yet time. He only replied, "It shall never be said that a de Vignerolles fled before this canaille. They can murder us, but they cannot make cowards of us." The baroness was a bright and kindly woman, and her daughters charming girls, though with some little of their father's pride of ancestry. The formal service of the house, the strict etiquette, and what the midshipman considered ridiculous pomposity, surprised and amused him as much as did his utter disregard of ceremony, his lively ways, merry and unrestrained laughter, amuse his far-away cousins. The baron, who might have been offended by it, paid no attention to what was going on around him, and his presence acted rather as a damper upon his visitor's high spirits; but when alone with the girls and their mother, he was free to say and do what he liked, and they felt their life, which was now an anxious one, brightened by his visits.

When Peter Vignerolles was appointed to the command of the newly captured schooner, the captain of the Tartar said to him: "As senior midshipman I should in any case have given you the command of the Alert, but I know that you will be specially pleased to be in command of her now. There can be no question that the position of your friends at the château is a most precarious one, and the baron himself must be mad to compel his family to run such a frightful risk. If he likes to throw away his own life, well and good; but he has no right to expose his family to such frightful dangers; and he has not the excuse of ignorance, for scores of noble ladies have been murdered by this bloodthirsty mob. It may be that at the last moment there will be a chance for them to escape, and if you can in any way assist them to do so without running too much risk, I think that you will be justified in acting.

"I do not authorise you to take any action, because I know nothing of the circumstances; but our general instructions always have been to give shelter to French royalists, and to carry them to the nearest port where they can be landed with safety to themselves, and I certainly should not myself hesitate to send a boat ashore to take them off. You know the first time that you paid them a visit after we came out here you brought the baroness and her two daughters to see the frigate, and I feel therefore personally interested in them, and shall be glad to hear that they have made their escape; so that if you get a message saying that they will come down to the shore you will be more than justified in sending a boat for them, and even in running a certain amount of risk. However, I must leave the matter to your discretion."

"Thank you, sir; but I am afraid that the baron will neither take any step for his own safety, nor permit them to leave the château without him; still I shall do anything that I possibly can to look after them."

"I shall send young Harding with you, and the boatswain's mate. If you capture any prizes you had best turn the crews adrift in their own boats with a couple of oars; we don't want to cumber ourselves with prisoners. You had better keep the prizes with you until we come across you again; in that case five men would be enough to man one of them, while if you were to send them down to Gibraltar you would want a petty officer and eight or ten men. Don't cumber yourself with worthless prizes, burn or sink any small craft; but, of course, if you get hold of a ship returning full of goods from one of their colonies, she would be worth convoying there at once."

And so Peter Vignerolles had sailed away in the Alert, the crew being as pleased as he was at the prospect of an expedition on their own account away from the frigate.

"It is disgusting—isn't it, Peter?" Harding, who was two years junior to Vignerolles, said, after he too had taken a look at the château through the glass—"to think that your friends are there, and that the 'reds' from Marseilles may go up there any day and drag them off to prison."

"The brutes!" Peter said savagely. "Look here, Harding; I mean to land to-night and go up and see the ladies. I shall not see the baron. I regard him as half-cracked, and he would be just as likely as not to take it into his head that now the two countries are at war, it would be his duty to hand me over to the authorities. Besides, it is just as well to keep him in the dark about it altogether. I want to let them know that I am in command of this schooner. Of course I am supposed to cruise generally along the French coast; but I intend to keep pretty close here, of course running out to sea and picking up any craft that are making for Marseilles or Cette. The Tartar will be watching Toulon, and although my orders are for general cruising, I know by what the captain said that he will not be put out if I keep a good deal in this neighbourhood, where, indeed, I have a better chance of picking up prizes than I should have if I went farther west. Anyhow, I want to let them know that we are here, and shall be ready to take them off if necessary. If they want to speak to us, I shall tell the girls to hang out a red curtain from their window; if they want to come off, they are to hang out a white one. We can make them out plainly enough with a glass from here. Of course I cannot guarantee that we shall be here when we are most needed, for no doubt the gunboats from Cette and Marseilles will both be patrolling the coast; besides, we may be a hundred miles away in pursuit of a prize. However, it will be a satisfaction for me to know that I have done all that is possible, and it may be some comfort to them to know that if they can find their way down to the shore, and signal from there when they see us, they will have a chance of escape."