Paul Gerrard, the Cabin Boy

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Och, if some of those pretty little villagers who are so kind with their cakes would just increase their compassion and help us to get out of the claws of these ugly blackguards, I’d be grateful to them from the bottom of my soul to the end of my days,” said O’Grady to Paul, as they approached a hamlet in a hilly, thickly-wooded part of the country.

It was in the afternoon, and, although they generally marched on much later, to their surprise, the captain of their guard, for some reason best known to himself, called a halt. Instead of being placed in prison, as there was none in the village, they were billeted about in different houses, with one or two guards over each. Paul and O’Grady found themselves, together with Reuben Cole and two other men, in a neat house on the borders of the village. They were the first disposed of, so that where their companions were lodged they could not tell. The people of the house did not appear to regard their guards with friendly eyes, so that they concluded that they were not attached to the present order of things.

“See that you render them up safe to us to-morrow morning,” said the captain to an old gentleman, who appeared to be the master of the house.

“I am not a gaoler, and can be answerable for no one,” was the reply, at which the captain shook his fist and rode off, exclaiming, “Take care, take care!”

Though very unwilling to receive the prisoners, the old gentleman treated them with a courtesy which seemed to arise rather from respect to himself than from any regard he entertained for them. The two midshipmen were shown into one small room, and the seamen, with their guards, into another. In the room occupied by O’Grady and Paul, there was a table and chairs and a sofa, while the view from the window consisted of a well-kept garden and vineyard, a green meadow and wooded hills beyond. As far as accommodation was concerned, they had little of which to complain; but they were very hungry, and O’Grady began to complain that the old Frenchman intended to starve them.

“I’ll go and shout and try to get something,” he cried out, but he found that the door was locked outside.

The window was too high from the ground to allow them to jump out, and as they would probably be caught, and punished for attempting to run away, they agreed to stay where they were. At length the door opened, and a bright-eyed, nicely-dressed girl came in with a tray covered with edibles, and a bottle of wine in her hands. They stood up as she entered, and bowed. She smiled, and expressed her sympathy for their misfortunes. Paul had, hitherto, not let the Frenchmen know that he understood French.

“I think that I may venture to speak to her,” he said to O’Grady. “She would not have said that if she didn’t wish to assist us.”

O’Grady agreed that it would be perfectly safe, and so Paul addressed her in the choicest French he could command, and told her how they had been coming home in a merchantman, and had been captured, and robbed of all they possessed, instead of being, as they had hoped, in a few days in the bosom of their families, with their mothers and brothers and sisters.

“And you both have brothers and sisters, and they long to see you, doubtless,” said the little girl.