"She is a pretty example of the French form," said Captain Acton. "I think I told you she was built at Bordeaux, from which port some elegant structures are sent afloat. But the French cannot approach the Americans as shipbuilders. Take that schooner of mine, the Aurora—by the way, she is due here shortly. I wish she may not have been taken by the enemy."
"I admire your venture," said the Admiral. "I believe if I could muster two or three thousand pounds I should be disposed to purchase a prize or two from the French, Spanish, or Yankees and follow your lead. Good interest on money is hard to get. Your ships do well for you, sir."
"I am quite satisfied," exclaimed Captain Acton complacently; "but, as you know, I was mainly actuated by the desire to promote the trade of this decaying place. The inheritance of this property," said he, sending his gaze over the wide grounds agreeably wooded afar by orchards whose boughs in a season's yield supplied cider enough to keep a parish merry through several generations, "brought with it urgent obligations. I could not view Old Harbour going to pieces without a resolution to do something that might serve to keep it together."
"You will add to your ships?" said Sir William.
"I think not. The prospect must brighten before I increase my fleet. The war risks are stupendous. I never see one of my vessels quit her berth, but that I say to myself, 'When I next hear of you, you'll be at Cadiz or Dunkirk, or at the bottom of the sea.'"
Sir William Lawrence halted in the quarterdeck walk the two were taking upon that bright green oval lawn, and looked at the ocean which ran in a white line, pale and faint as ice at the horizon, betwixt the two points of the ravine crowned on the right by the lighthouse and on the left by a windmill; but the waters of the Channel broadened down from their pearl-like margin into a delicate blue, which changed into dark green and brown as the sea shoaled into the land. The Admiral seemed to find something to delight him in the prospect, and Captain Acton standing at his side viewed a scene, very familiar indeed to him, with pleasure, which increased with the attention he gave it.
Indeed no piece of English landscape could have looked fairer on this fine April morning than Old Harbour Town and its Harbour, and little forefinger of pier; the windmill and the lighthouse resembled carvings, so delicately were their outlines traced against the silver blueness of the spring sky. In the Harbour against the wharves were visible the mounting masts and yards of several craft with sails hanging loose to dry, and the water of the Harbour was dotted with a few squab shapes of smacks and the figure of a moored brig-of-war.
The picture was tender and mellow with colour: the springing lights of the early growths of the young year, the venerable face of the cliff as it swept from the slope of down where the windmill was to the beach, the slow motion of violet shadows over green distances; and the impression of placid provincial life was heightened by the calm in the air which was scarcely vexed by the remote silver ringing of a chapel bell in High Street, Old Harbour Town.
"I often wish I was at sea again!" exclaimed Sir William, as the two started afresh on their quarterdeck walk. "What a noble, open, hearty, soul-stirring life it is! What good fellows one meets, what brave ships, what splendid crews! It is my hourly regret that my son should be out of it. Though I am his father, I say that this young man had in him—nay, he has in him—all the makings of a fine, dashing, even a great officer. But that devil drink—not that the vice is immoderate with him: but he takes too much; and when the fiend is in him, all that is weak in his nature appears, and he falls: drink—but not so as to justify the word drunkard—drink and gaming—these undid him. He was a favourite with all he sailed with, and yet, through his own accursed folly, he is forced to quit the Navy under circumstances which would bring the moisture into my eyes if half a century of hard weather had not dried all the dampness out of them."
Captain Acton looked at his companion in silence, but with an expression of gentle concern.