Crown and Anchor.
by John Conroy Hutcheson.
CHAPTER ONE.
AN OLD SEA-LION.
"Hullo, Dad!" I cried out, stopping abruptly in front of the red granite coloured Reform Club, down the marble steps of which a queer-looking old gentleman was slowly descending. "Who is that funny old fellow there? He"s just like that "old clo"" man we saw at the corner of the street this morning, only that he hasn"t got three hats on, one on top of another, the same as the other chap had!"
We were walking along Pall Mall on our way from Piccadilly to Whitehall, where my father intended calling in at the Admiralty to put in a sort of official appearance on his return to England after a long period of foreign service; and Dad was taking advantage of the opportunity to show me a few of the sights of London that came within our ken, everything being strange to me, for I had never set foot in the metropolis before the previous evening, when mother and I had come up by a late train from the little Hampshire village where we lived, to meet father on his arrival and welcome him home.
Under these circ.u.mstances, therefore, as might reasonably have been expected, our halts had been already frequent and oft to satisfy the cravings of my wondering fancy; and Dad must have been tired of answering my innumerable questions and inquiries ere half our journey had been accomplished.
He was very good-tempered and obliging, however, and bore with me patiently, giving me all the information in his power concerning the various persons and objects that attracted my attention, and never "turning nasty" at my insatiable curiosity.
So now, as heretofore, obedient to my bidding, he turned to look in the direction to which I pointed.
"Where"s your friend, the funny old fellow you spoke of, my boy?" he said kindly, though half-quizzingly. "I don"t see him, Jack."
"Why, there he is, right opposite to us, Dad!" I exclaimed. "He"s coming down the steps from that doorway there, and is quite close to us now!"
"Oh! that"s your friend, Jack, eh?" said father, glancing in his turn at the old gentleman who had caught my eye. "Let me see if I can make him out for you."
The old fellow was not one whom an ordinary observer would style a grand personage, or think worthy of notice in any way, very probably; and yet, there was something about him which irresistibly attracted my attention making me wonder who he was and want to know all about him. Boy though I was, and new to London and London life, I was certain, I"m sure I can"t tell why, that he must be "somebody."
A short broad-shouldered man was he, with iron-grey hair, and a very prominent nose that was too strongly curved to be called aquiline, and which, with his angular face, equally tanned to a brick-dust hue from exposure to wind and weather, gave him a sort of eagle-like look, an impression that was supported by his erect bearing and air of command; albeit, sixty odd years or more must have rolled over his head, and his great width of chest, as he moved downwards throwing out his long arms, made his thick-set figure seem stumpier than it actually was, though, like most sailors of the old school, there was no denying the fact, as Dad said subsequently, that he was "broad in the beam and Dutch built over all!"
Nature had, undoubtedly, done much for the old gentleman, but art little, so far as his personal appearance was concerned; for nothing could have been more quaint and out of keeping with Pall Mall and its fashionable surroundings than his eccentric costume.
The upper part of his person was habited in a rough shooting-jacket, considerably the worse for wear, such as a farmer or gamekeeper might have donned in the country, away from the busy haunts of men, when out in the coverts or engaged thinning the preserves; while his lower extremities rejoiced in a yet shabbier pair of trousers, whose shortness for their wearer did not tend to enhance their artistic effect.
To complete the picture, his bushy head of iron-grey hair was surmounted by an old beaver hat that had once been white, but which inexorable Time had mellowed in tone, and whose nap, having been brushed up the wrong way, against the grain, frizzed out around its circ.u.mference like a furze bush, making it resemble the "fretful porcupine" spoken of by the immortal Shakespeare.
His whole appearance was altogether unique for a West-end thoroughfare in the height of the season; and, the more especially, too, at that time of day, when dandies of the first water were sauntering listlessly along the shady side of the pavement ogling the gorgeously-attired ladies who rolled by in their stately barouches drawn by prancing horses that must have cost fortunes, and on whose boxes sat stately coachmen and immaculate footmen clad in liveries beyond price, "Solomon in all his glory" not approaching their radiant magnificence!
Emerging as he did, however, from the Reform Club, the old gentleman"s unconventional "rig-out" bore testimony to the incontrovertible fact that, no matter how "advanced" his principles may have become from the teachings of Cobden, and the example of Peel, he had not allowed his political convictions to revolutionise his original ideas on the subject of dress.
Nor was this the only peculiarity noticeable about the queer-looking old fellow.
He was coming down the steps of the club-house, while Dad and I looked at him, so slowly that his dilatory rate of progression conveyed the impression that he was either a martyr to corns or suffering from a recent attack of the gout; feeling his way carefully with one foot first before bringing along its fellow, prior to adventuring the next step, just as my baby sister, a little toddlekin of six, used to go up and downstairs.
This, of course, was not so remarkable in itself, but as he descended thus, crab-fashion, to the level of the pavement where Dad and I stood observing him, my eyes grew wide with wonder at the enormous handfuls of snuff he took--not pinches, such as I had seen snuff-takers sniff up from the backs of their hands many a time before, without bestowing a thought on the action.
Oh, no, nothing of the sort!
They were actual handfuls that he extracted from his waistcoat pocket, as I could not help noticing, on account of his roomy shooting-jacket being wide open and thrown back; the old prodigal scooping up the fragrant dust in his palm, and then doubling his fist and shoving it up his nostrils with a violent snort of inhalement, after which he proceeded to blow his red nose with another loud report, like that of a blunderbuss going off. This was accompanied by the flourish of a brightly coloured pocket-handkerchief, whose vivid hue approximated closely to the general tint of his cheeks and eagle-like beak, and which he held loosely, ready for action, in his disengaged left hand; for, his right was ever at work oscillating between the magazine of snuff in his deep waistcoat pocket and the nasal promontory that consumed it with almost rhythmical regularity, sniff and snort and resonant trumpet blast of satisfaction succeeding each other in systematic sequence, as the veteran came down the stairway leisurely, step by step.
It all appeared to me very comical; but, I did not laugh at the old man as another youngster might very pardonably have done, without any thought of mocking or making fun of him.
To tell the truth, he seemed to me to be so out of place there that I was actually pained on his account, believing, in my innocent ignorance, that he had unhappily made a mistake in going up to the members"
entrance of the grand-looking club-house; and that the fat hall-porter in scarlet, who now stood without the swinging gla.s.s doors of the portal, had warned him thence, ordering him, so it struck my fancy, to go down below by way of the area steps, to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the establishment, where his business would probably rather lie with the lower menials of the mansion than with such an august personage as he, one who acted solely as the janitor to the great ones of the earth possessing the pa.s.sword of the club!
Yes, this was the thought uppermost in my mind; and, as the queer-looking old gentleman continued to hobble downwards I began to wonder whether the scullions in the kitchen, whom I could dimly discern beneath the street level and behind a screen of iron railings, would not, likewise, turn up their noses at the sight of such a seedy individual, telling him they had no rags or bones or bottles for him to-day.
"Poor old fellow!" I said to Dad, uttering my reflections aloud. "What could have made him act so foolishly as to go up there only to be turned away by that b.u.mptious porter? How very shabby he is, Dad; and with such a n.o.ble face, too! May I give him that shilling you made me a present of this morning to buy himself some more snuff? He must have exhausted all he had in his waistcoat pocket by now; he does use it so extravagantly!"
"Hush, Jack, he may hear you!" whispered my father, dropping his voice to a lower key than mine, while the amused expression on his face changed to one of pleased recognition. "Why, it"s the old Admiral! I see he"s as great a snuff-taker as ever, and he seems to be even less careful than he used to be about his clothes; though, I must say, he never was a dandy at the best of times!"
At the moment Dad spoke, the old gentleman set his right foot gingerly on the pavement in front of us, his left following a second later, when the veteran signalised his reaching a sound anchorage with a final blast from his nasal trumpet and a fine flourish of his bandana, which nearly knocked out my nearest eye and set me sneezing from the loose particles of snuff disseminated into the surrounding air.
This gave my father the opportunity he wanted.
"How do you do, Admiral?" said he, drawing himself up and raising his hat in salute, while still holding me by the hand. "I don"t know if you remember me, sir, but I cannot forget you and your kindness to me of old, especially in getting me my last appointment. I"m glad to see you looking so well, sir!"
The old fellow stared at Dad with his gimlet grey eyes, looking him through and through, knitting his brows, and sniffing and snorting at a fine rate.
"Eh--what, who the deuce are you?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in short, jerky accents after a pause, evidently puzzled for the nonce, and, in his agitation, another fistful of snuff got arrested half-way between his waistcoat pocket and expectant nose, the consequence of which was that more than half was spilt on the front of his shirt, and already snuff-stained coat collar. "Eh, what? I think I know your face, but I"m hanged if I can recollect your name, sir!"
Dad smiled, and, whether this supplied a missing link to memory"s aid or no, the next instant a gleam of intelligence flashed across the veteran"s weatherbeaten face making him look so animated that he seemed a different person.
Shoving out his h.o.r.n.y fist, forgetful of the balance of snuff contained therein, and thus causing me to sneeze again, as well as nearly blinding me for a second time, the rough old sailor caught hold of my father"s disengaged hand with a grip of iron, shouting a welcome in his hearty, loud voice which could have been heard across Pall Mall; for it was as breezy as the sea, echoing in ringing accents whose cordial tones I can almost fancy I now hear, like the surf of breakers breaking in the distance on some rock-bound sh.o.r.e.
"Bless my soul, Vernon! Is that you, my lad, hey?" he roared out, making a dandified exquisite, who was just then lounging past us, jump into the gutter and soil his polished patent leathers in nervous alarm.
"Glad to see me, you said? Stuff and nonsense, you rascal--you"re not half so pleased as I am to clap my eyes on you again! Gad, you young scamp, why, it seems only the other day when I sent you to the mast-head, you remember, when you were a middy with me in the _Neptune_?
It was for cutting off the tail of my dog Ponto, and you said--though that was all moonshine, of course--you did it to cure him of fits! By George! what a terrible young scapegrace you were, to be sure, Vernon, always in mischief from sunrise to gunfire, and always at loggerheads with my first lieutenant and the master, poor old Cosine!"
CHAPTER TWO.
THE ADMIRAL SPEAKS HIS MIND.
I had been fidgeting all the time the old gentleman was speaking squeezing Dad"s hand in order to attract his attention and make him tell me who his old friend was; but, for the moment, he was too much taken up with the veteran"s hearty greeting to give ear to me.
At last, however, in response to another squeeze of my hand, he bent down towards me, expecting, no doubt, some such inquiry.
"Who is it, Dad?" I whispered, dying with curiosity. "Who is it?"
"Admiral Sir Charles Napier, Jack," he replied, under his breath, "late commander-in-chief of the Baltic Fleet."
I doffed my cap at once, for I had often heard my father mention the name of the gallant old sailor before, though I hardly expected to see him in such a guise.
"Hullo, who"ve we got here?" cried the Admiral, noticing my action and patting my head in recognition of the salute with his snuffy palm.
"Your son, Vernon, eh?"
"Yes, Admiral," said Dad, "this is my boy, Jack."
"Ha! humph! He"s a smart-looking youngster, Vernon, and the very image of what you were at his age! How old is he?"