Rodney Stone

had been settled. All England waved her gladness by day and twinkled it by night. Even in little Friar's Oak we had our flags flying bravely, and a candle in every window, with a big G.

which were welcome also for the same reason; but our debt had gone on rising and our consols sinking, until even Pitt stood aghast. Still, if we had known that there never could be peace between Napoleon and ourselves, and that this was only the end of a round and not of the battle

hich deepened if he were in any way perturbed, so that I have seen him turn on the instant from a youngish man to an elderly. His eyes especially were meshed round with wrinkles, as is natural for one who had puckered them all his life in facing foul wind and bitter weather. These eyes were

cent. With the same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, when the last tricolour had come down, they hove up the sheet anchor and fell dead asleep upon the top of each other under the capstan bars. Then, as a second lieutenant, he was in one of those grim three-deckers with powder-blackened hulls and

t is clearer to me than the doings of last week, for the memory of an old man is like

idy. With every rumble of wheels, too, her eyes would glance towards the door, and her hands steal up to smooth her pretty black hair. She had embroidered a white "Welcome" upon a blue ground, with an anchor in red upon each side, and a border of

our cottage. The sun had shone out in the evening, and I had come down with my fishing-rod (for I had promised Boy Jim to go with him to the mill-stream), when what should I see but a post-chaise with two smoking horses at the gate, and there in the open door of it were my mother's black skirt

struggling down on to the ground again

the kindly, light-blue

we met; but I suppose we must put you on a different rating now. I'm r

ere were the skirt and the two

" said my mother, blushing. "Won'

cheery face he had never moved more than his arms, and th

, Anson!"

it broke in the Bay, but the surgeon has fished it and spliced it, though it's a bit crank yet. Why, bless

e for five years. When the post-boy and I had carried up the sea-chest and the two canvas bags, there he was sitting in his armchair by the window in his old weather-stain

t had me jammed against the mast. Well, well," he added, looking round at the walls of the room, "here are all my old curios, the same as ever: the narwhal's horn from the Arctic, and the blowfish from the Moluccas, and the

es he would touch one of us with his hand, and sometimes the other, and so he sat, with his soul too satiated for words, whilst the shadows gathered in the little room and the lights of the inn windows glimmered through the gloom. And then, after my mother had lit our own lamp, she slipped suddenly down upon her knees, and he got one knee to the ground also, so that, hand-in-hand, they joined their tha

ing a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the r

hild as well as without a

ow that peace has come. But I've never tried what all this schooling has done for you, Rodney. You have ha

said I, with

the line were at the

ely when he found that

that we had seven 74's, seven 64's, and two 50-gun ships in the action. There's a pic

confess that he

history yet," he cried, looking in triumph

, though with less co

it from Port Mah

nly shake

your starboard quarter, what wou

had to g

ry," said he. "You'd never get your certificate at this rate. Can you

s he spoke, and she laid down her knitting

d me about that

on. I have heard you say that it is the Atlantic

en the prize-courts have done with them. When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and

nd eighty poun

ortune!" cried my moth

out of Barcelona with twenty thousand Spanish dollars aboard, which make four thousa

dred p

worked up to the Azores, where we fell in with the La Sabina from the Mauritius with sugar and spices. Twelve hundred poun

w that she was so suddenly eased of it she fell sobbing upon his neck. It was a l

sound we'll bear down for a spell to Brighton, and if there is a smarter frock than yours upon the Steyne, may I never t

as the same upon sea or land, but

your mother wit will teach you. There never was one of our breed who did not take to salt water l

know it from my father; for, although he had seen as much rough work as the wildest could wish for, he was always the same patient, good-humoured man, with a smile and a jolly word for all the village. He could suit himself to his company, too, for on the one hand he could take his wine with the vicar, or with Sir James Ovington, the squi

I can only once remember that there was the slightest disagreement between him and my mother. It chanced that I was the cause of it, and as great events sprang out of

chestnut trees. One evening we were all seated together over a dish of tea when we heard

st beautiful writing to Mrs. Mary Stone, of Friar's Oak, and there was a red seal

hat it is from, A

her. "It is time the boy had his commission. But if it be f

ill ask my pardon for that speech, sir, for it is from no

re in connection with something brilliant and extraordinary. Once we heard that he was at Windsor with the King. Often he was at Brighton with the Prince. Sometimes it was as a sportsman that his reputation reached us, as when his Meteor beat the Duke of Queensberry's Egham, at Newmarket, or when he brought

want?" asked he, in

growing a man now, thinking, since he had no wife or

"He sheered off from us when the weather was foul, a

les; but his own life moves so smoothly that he cannot understand that others may have trouble. During

had to stoop to it, Mary

st think o

r his sea-chest and k

He could make Rodney known to all the great people. Su

" said my father; and this was t

Street, S

15th,

r Siste

for which I can assure you that I have been reproached by many des plus charmantes of your charming sex. At the present moment I lie abed (having stayed late in order to pay a compliment to the Marchioness of Dover at her ball last night), and this is writ to my dictation by Ambrose,

, my dear

r br

es Tre

?" cried my mother in triu

etter of a fop," sai

u know him. But he says that he will be here next week, and this is T

in upon his hands, and I remained lost in wonder at the thought of this g