Paul Gerrard, the Cabin Boy

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Ah! the cruel fighting,” she added; “our rulers take away those we love best, and care not what becomes of them, or of the hearts they break, and bring with sorrow to the grave.”

Rosalie soon recovered herself, and, wiping her eyes, told the midshipmen that she would come back again when they had eaten their supper, and would in the meantime try and devise some means to enable them to make their escape while they were travelling.

“She’s a sweet, pretty little girl,” observed O’Grady, after Rosalie had gone. “She’ll help us if she can, and do you know I think that she is a Protestant, for I don’t see any pictures of saints and such-like figures stuck about the walls as we do in most other French houses?”

“It is possible; but what difference can that make to you?” asked Paul.

“Why, you see, Gerrard, I have fallen in love with her, and I’m thinking that if she helps us to make our escape, when the war is over, I’ll come back and ask her to marry me.”

Paul laughed at his friend’s resolve. It was not at all an uncommon one for midshipmen in those days to entertain, whatever may be the case at present. They enjoyed their meal, and agreed that they had not eaten anything half so good as the dishes they were discussing for many a long day. Rosalie came back in about an hour. She said that she had been thinking over the matter ever since, and talking it over with an old aunt—a very wise woman, fertile in resources of all sorts. She advised that the young Englishmen should pretend to be sick, and that if the captain consented to leave them behind, so much the better; but if not, and, as was most probable, he insisted on their walking on as before, they should lag behind, and limp on till they came to a certain spot which she described. They would rise for some time, till the road led along the side of a wooded height, with cliffs on one side, and a steep, sloping, brushwood—covered bank on the other, with a stream far down in the valley below. There was a peculiar white stone at the side of the road, on which they were to sit to pretend to rest themselves. If they could manage to slip behind the stone for an instant, they might roll and scramble down the bank to a considerable distance before they were discovered. They were then to make their way through the brushwood and to cross the stream, which was fordable, when they would find another road, invisible from the one above. They were to run along it to the right, till they came to an old hollow tree, in which they were to hide themselves, unless they were overtaken by a covered cart, driven by a man in white. He would slacken his speed, and they were to jump in immediately without a word, and be covered up, while the cart would drive on. They would be conveyed to the house of some friends to the English, with whom they would remain till the search for them had ceased, when they would be able to make their escape to the coast in disguise. After that, they must manage as best they could to get across the Channel.

“The first part is easy enough, if Miss Rosalie would give us the loan of a little white paint or chalk,” observed O’Grady; “but, faith, the rest of the business is rather ticklish, though there’s nothing like trying, and we shall have some fun for our money at all events.”

“I wish that Reuben Cole could manage to run with us. He’d go fast enough if Miss Rosalie’s friends would take care of him,” remarked Paul.

“You can but ask her,” said O’Grady. “Tell her that he’s been with you ever since you came to sea, and that you can’t be separated from him.”

Rosalie heard all Paul had to say, and promised that she would try to arrange matters as he wished. Paul then described Reuben, and gave Rosalie a slip of paper, on which he wrote: “Follow the bearer, and come to us.” Though Reuben was no great scholar, he hoped that he might be able to read this.