Chapter 21

Captain Samuel Vincent gave me a reception warm indeed, but not in the way of kindness. After making me repeat my name, he asked me under what captain I had served as a midshipman, and when I said that I had never been a midshipman, and was proceeding to explain the manner of my appointment he cut me short.

"Not a midshipman!" he cried, running together all three syllables of the word. "You bin to school, I s'pose?"

"Yes, indeed," I said, "at Shrewsbury."

"Now hark to me," he cries, again interrupting me. "I never went to no school, and I hain't got no philosophies nor any other useless cargoes in my hold, nor Mr. Benbow neither; and if ever you say a word against Mr. Benbow you'll wish you wasn't Humphrey, nor Bold, 'cos you'll wish as how you'd never bin born. I bid you good mornin'."

I left him, in a fine heat of resentment, thinking that a few years at Shrewsbury school might have improved both his language and his manners. But when I came to know him better, and to understand the motive of his rough address to me, I forgave the bluff seaman heartily. He was a keen partisan in the feud that then divided the navy, the one faction being for Benbow, the other against him; and being ignorant of my antecedents, he supposed from my not having been a midshipman that I was one of the fine gentlemen who were foisted on the King's service by their high connections and despised plain seamen of the Benbow school. I might have undeceived him very soon had I so pleased, but I thought it best to win his approval by the manner in which I performed my duties, leaving the other matter to time. As it happened, my fidelity to Mr. Benbow was shown very clearly before long.

'Twould be a dull story to relate the trivial incidents of my first year of service in the navy. I spent five months at sea, and seven on shore, and Captain Vincent being a martinet. I had to work hard for my pay of four shillings a day (on shore it was cut down to two shillings). My diligence in studying navigation pleased him; and when a little affair in which I had been concerned came to his ears, he took me, in a sense, to his heart.

I had gone one day with Lieutenant Venables, of our ship, into a coffee house in Portsmouth, whither the officers of the fleet much resorted. The first man I set eyes on was Dick Cludde, who was, as I learned afterwards, a lieutenant of the Defiance, which had lately come into port. With him was his captain ('twas the Captain Kirkby I had seen in the inn at Harley), also Captain Cooper Wade, of the Greenwich, Captain Hudson of the Pendennis, and a number of junior officers.

Cludde greeted me with a puzzled stare; 'twas clear he had not heard of the change in my fortunes, and maybe believed me to be still scouring the cook's slush pans aboard the Dolphin privateer. I saw him turn to Lieutenant Simpson, of the Pendennis, who knew me, and guessed by the quick glance Simpson gave me that Cludde had asked him concerning my appearance there.

Venables and I sat down to our coffee, and 'twas not long before we knew, by the loud voices of the others, that they had laced theirs with rum, or maybe were pretty well filled with wine to begin with. And, as it always happened when officers of the fleet met together, they were soon hot upon the subject of Mr. Benbow, his rough manners, his rustic speech, and his outrageous lack of respect for his betters. After a little of this talk Venables says to me:

"Come, Bold, we are better away from this."

"You are right," says I, and we both rose and put on our hats.

Cludde saw the action, and, taking courage I suppose from the presence of his boon fellows, he said, in a tone loud enough to reach my ears:

"That's one of his doings. Simpson tells me that that fellow is a lieutenant on the Falmouth, through Benbow's interest; he comes from my town Shrewsbury, and a year or two ago was a charity brat, with scarce a coat to his back."

At this I swung round and took a pace or two towards the table where Cludde was seated. Though I had much ado to curb my anger, I said quietly:

"If that is true, Cludde, you know who is the cause of it."

"I did not speak to you, sirrah," says he.

"But I speak to you," I said. "You may say what you please about me; I will settle my account with you in good time; but I advise you not to say too much about Mr. Benbow, who is not here to answer for himself."

"Oho, you sneak out of it that way, do you?" says he. "I'll say what I please about Mr. Benbow without asking leave of you or any man. Benbow is a low-born scut--can you deny it? Wasn't his father a tanner, and don't his sister keep a coffee shop?"

"And what then?"

"What then? Why, this: that he ain't fit to be in the company of gentlemen," and then he told a foul story of Benbow which angered me past all endurance.

I strode up to him, and before I could be prevented I planted my fist in his face with such force that he toppled backwards over his chair and came to the floor.

"Now you can swallow that lie," I cried, standing with clenched fists over him.

I was now in the midst of a great hubbub; the officers had started from their chairs, shouting and cursing, some of them helping Cludde to his feet.

"You will answer for this, sir," says Captain Kirkby.

"With all my heart," I said. "Mr. Venables will meet Mr. Cludde's man and make the arrangements."

And with that I went from the house.

I ever regarded dueling as a barbarous and foolish way of settling a quarrel. If men must fight, let them use their fists, and so be quit of it for a bloody nose and a few bruises. But I could not avoid the duel with Cludde without suffering the imputation of cowardice, and when Venables came after me and said that he had arranged with Simpson that we should meet next morning at daybreak on the Southsea Common and settle the matter with rapiers, I was quite content. 'Tis true that ere the day was over I regretted in cool blood that things had come to this pass; but I could not think I was in the wrong, and believing myself more than a match for Cludde in swordsmanship I resolved to disarm him quickly, when his friends would no doubt declare him satisfied.

In the chill of dawn we met within sound of the surf, and having stripped to our shirts, faced each other with the length of our two swords between. Cludde was three or four inches shorter than I, but well made and muscular, and in mere strength I daresay there was little to choose between us. But after a pass or two I knew (and the knowledge surprised me not a little), that I had no mean swordsman to deal with. His riposte came quick upon my lunge; he had a very agile wrist; 'twas clear he had had much practice in a good school; and being determined not to do him a serious injury I put myself at some disadvantage and had much ado to avoid his point. He was beset by no such scruples, I could see, and would willingly have taken my life, which made my task all the harder.

Finding him thus proficient in all the ordinary tricks of sword play, I saw myself in a difficulty. I had no doubt that I could bring things to a speedy end by employing the special botte which Captain Galsworthy had taught me; and if we had been fencing for sport I should already have used it to disarm my adversary. But fighting as we were (at least, as he was) in deadly earnest, I could not be sure that my botte would not be too successful, and that, instead of merely striking his sword from his hand, I should not run him through. The caution I displayed was mistaken by him (and by his friends also, I suspect) for weakness, and gaining courage therefrom, he pressed me so hard that, unless I had gone instantly to the extremity I wished to avoid, I could not have parried the thrust which pinked me in the shoulder.

"He is hit!" cried Venables, running between us.

"You are now satisfied, Mr. Cludde?"

"If Mr. Bold will apologize," says Simpson, after a glance at his principal.

"I am ready when Mr. Cludde is," I said bluntly.

Certainly I would not apologize; besides, I was annoyed to think that, through my own forbearance, the fellow had drawn blood (though 'twas but a scratch). And so we set-to again.

This time I no longer pursued the same purely defensive tactics, and before many passes had been exchanged I saw an opening for my botte, took instant advantage of it, and sent his sword spinning from his hand. Cludde was too good a swordsman to be ignorant that I had purposely spared him, and I saw by the look in his eyes that he knew it and would fight no more.

"Mr. Cludde is now satisfied, I presume?" said Venables, at a look from me.

The contest was of course over. At that moment I own I felt tempted to take Cludde's crown piece from the string whereon it hung about my neck, and return it to him; but as a second thought showed me that to do so would be in a manner to heap humiliation on a beaten enemy, I forbore, conscious at the same time of an inward assurance that I should yet find a fitting time for that act of restoration.

The duel was much talked of among the officers of the fleet, and when Captain Vincent heard of it he, as I have said, took me to his heart. By it I was sealed of the tribe of Benbow, and became, in my worthy captain's eyes, one of the elect.

In October of the year 1698 we were stirred to excitement by the news that Mr. Benbow had been ordered to take a squadron to the West Indies, and there was much eager speculation among us as to the vessels which would have the good fortune to sail with him. I hoped with all my heart that the Falmouth would be one of them, for I was weary of the humdrum life of idling on shore or aimless sailing up and down the channel. The admiral's was a peaceful mission, and no fighting was expected, but I felt a great curiosity to behold new scenes. To my vast delight, when the admiral came down from London, Captain Vincent told me that the Falmouth was to be one of a squadron of four, the others being the Gloucester, the Dunkirk (both fourth rates of forty-eight guns), and a small French prize called the Germoon.

We set sail on the 29th of November, touched at Madeira to take in wine and other stores in which that bounteous isle is prolific, and after a tranquil voyage reached Barbados on the 27th of February. We proceeded to Mevis and the Leeward Islands, and steering our course thence to the continent, made the highland of St. Martha, and so to Cartagena, where we obliged the governor to deliver up two or three English merchant ships which they had seized at the time of the hapless Scotch settlement at Darien. Thence we stood away for Jamaica.

Joe Punchard (who was on board the Gloucester, having returned to his old vocation of body servant to Mr. Benbow) had prepared me, in a measure, before we left Portsmouth, for the wondrous beauty of these western isles, but I might say, as the Queen of Sheba said of the glory and grandeur of King Solomon, that "the half had not been told." I was struck dumb with admiration as we threaded our way through a narrow channel between irregular reefs lying off the harbor of Port Royal. The spacious harbor itself was a noble sight, but the background was even more picturesque--the light, two-storied houses with their piazzas painted green and white, the varying hues of the gardens, filled with palms and cocoanut trees, and the lofty minarets of the Blue Mountains, towering to a great height behind. Such scenes were a new thing to my untraveled eyes, they were in very truth the revelation of a new world to me.

Our arrival was the occasion of great festivity; all the inhabitants of Spanish Town, the capital, from the governor downward, were lavish in their hospitality; and for some days it was one round of balls and banquets, to which we came with unjaded appetites and vigor after our long voyage. And I warrant you that the officers of Collingwood's regiment then in garrison were soon mighty jealous, for the ladies of the place, English and Creole alike, preferred us naval men to them as partners. I confess I nearly lost my heart a dozen times, and the thirteenth might have been fatal, only it chanced that her name being Lucetta reminded me of a certain Mistress Lucy at home in England, whom the others had, so to speak, elbowed out of my recollection. My wandering fancy being thus recalled to her, I remembered that her estates were in Jamaica, and she had lived here during all her childhood, and then I was for seeking out the house, and assuring myself that her interests were being well guarded.

But I learned that her estates lay on the north side of the island, two good days' journey distant. They were being managed by a careful Scotchman named McTavish, who sent large and regular consignments of sugar and tobacco to the port for shipment to England. I would have gone a thousand miles to see Mistress Lucy, but had no interest in the excellent McTavish, and so I remained in Spanish Town.

After a week or two of high revelry, the admiral, yielding to the entreaties of the governor and merchants, sailed to Puerto Bello to demand satisfaction of the Spaniards for several depredations which they had committed on their ships, goods, and men. We had but a rough answer from the admiral of the Barlovento fleet, he alleging that whatever the Spaniards had done had merely been in reprisal for similar doings of the Scotch settlers on Darien, and he could not be persuaded that the Scotch and English were two separate nations, and as often (in those times) enemies as friends. But after several messages he assured us at length that if we would retire from before the fort, our demands should be satisfied. This was an instance of the notorious perfidy of the Spaniards, for after our departure, notwithstanding their solemn promises, nothing was effected.

We returned to Port Royal the 15th of May, where, having intelligence that the insolent pirate Captain Kidd was hovering on the coast, Mr. Benbow went in quest of him, unluckily without success. After that we spent several months in cruising among the West Indian islands, and receiving then orders to return home, Mr. Benbow, leaving the Germoon for the service of the governor of Jamaica, set sail for New England, our squadron being increased by three other king's ships which happened to be then in Port Royal harbor. When we had made Havana, the admiral, thinking the Falmouth too weak to be trusted in the dangerous seas about the New England coast, ordered Captain Vincent to return in her to England, and we sailed into Portsmouth harbor towards the end of August, two years, all but three months, since our departure.

I stayed there but long enough to replenish my wardrobe and to draw my prize money, which, added to what I had left of my pay, amounted to the respectable sum of four hundred pounds, and then, having leave from my captain, I set off once more for Shrewsbury.

As before, I broke my journey at the Hall, to see my good friends the Allardyces, and especially to give to Mistress Lucy some kind messages entrusted to me by old friends of hers in Jamaica.

They were rejoiced to see me; Mistress Lucy was greatly interested to learn that I had but lately come from scenes she knew so well, and we talked for a long time about friends and acquaintances of hers whom I had met. And when I was alone with Mr. Allardyce I did not fail to inquire how things stood in the matter of her guardianship. He told me that no more had been seen of Vetch, and indeed the espionage upon the house had ceased, Sir Richard being resolved apparently to abide the issue of the action at law. The bill in chancery had been filed; answers had been put in by Mr. Moggridge on behalf of Sir Richard; and Mr. Allardyce hoped that the proceedings might drag along for a couple of years, when Mistress Lucy would be of age and her own mistress. And so 'twas with a light heart that I went on to Shrewsbury, to tickle the ears of my old friends there with the tale of my wanderings.