Barfleur

“ We started out to visit G.’s Bar, the Bar Fysher, the Rat Mort, Palmyr’s Bar, the Grelot, the Rabelais, in fact the whole list of restaurants and show-places where on occasion she might be expected to be seen. On the way Barfleur recounted bits of her interesting history, her marriages, divorces, vices, drug-habits, a strange category of tendencies that sometimes affect the most vigorous and eager of human temperaments. ”

“ As Barfleur explained it, we went due south from Paris to Marseilles and then east along the coast of the Mediterranean until we came to the first stopping-place he had selected, Agay, where we would spend a few days in peace and quiet, far from the hurry and flare of the café life we had just left, and then journey on the hour or two more which it takes to reach Monte Carlo. ”

“ Barfleur inquired, and Wilkins inquired, and as was natural, the lady was located. She turned out to be the wife of a tennis, golf, and aeroplane expert or champion, a man who held records for fast automobiling and the like, and who was independently settled in the matter of means. Mrs. Barton Churchill was her name as I recall. It also turned out most unfortunately that Barfleur did not know her, and could not place any one who did. ”

“ The wind which thwarted the designs of his foes was equally unfavourable to him; it was not till July 7 that he himself embarked at Barfleur, and even then the peril of crossing seemed so great that the sailors were inclined to put back. Henry raised his eyes to heaven: “If I seek the peace of my realm—if the heavenly King wills that my return should restore its peace—He will bring me safe into port. If He has turned away His Face from me and determined to scourge my realm, may I never reach its shores!” ”

“ Two men, both about the same age, twenty-five, were seated in a private room at an inn, known as the Hôtel Bellevue, at Le Vocq, a dreary fishing town with a good though small harbour, a dozen miles west of Havre. On a fine day the bay that runs in from Barfleur to Fécamp is gay and bright, but it presented a melancholy appearance on this occasion, as the two young men gazed out at it across the rain-soaked plots of grass that formed the lawn of the "Bellevue." ”

“ That Henry should have been able to land an invading army at Barfleur, advance without opposition to an unprotected village, and there delay at will in all security, is a striking proof of the defenceless condition of the duchy. The duke’s sole reliance was in his strongholds. There is no evidence that he had any force assembled to oppose the invader in the open.
King Henry had no need to hurry. While he delayed at Carentan, his supporters in Normandy rallied around him, and his forces gained greatly in strength. ”

“ That huge vessel, the pride of the French navy, towering over all far and near, attracted the ambition of Captain Cornwallis, of the Canada, the brother of Lord Cornwallis, to whose surrender De Grasse had so largely contributed. Captain Cornwallis, as if determined on a noble revenge, attacked the Ville de Paris with fury, hugely as it towered above him, and so well did he ply his guns that he soon reduced the monster almost to a wreck. De Grasse fought desperately, but Hood coming up in the Barfleur, about sunset, to the assistance of Cornwallis, De Grasse was compelled to strike his flag. ”

“ They looked to me like individuals born to a condition and a point of view; and I think they are. In America any clerk may subsequently be anything he chooses (ability guaranteed) , but I’m not so sure that this is true in England. Anyhow, the American clerk always looks his possibilities—his problematic future; the English clerk looks as if he were to be one indefinitely.
We were through with this round by one o’clock, and Barfleur explained that we would go to a certain very well-known hotel grill. ”

“ Large bodies of ships commonly will move less rapidly than small. By 2.30 P.M. of the day of starting, Rodney's look-outs had sighted the French fleet; and before sundown it could be seen from the mastheads of the main body. At 6 next morning, April 9th, the enemy, both fleet and convoy, was visible from the deck of the Barfleur, the flagship of Hood's division, then in the British van. The French bore north-east, distant four to twelve miles, extending from abreast of the centre of Dominica northwards towards Guadeloupe. ”

“ To make signal for a general chase was beyond the competence of a junior admiral; but Hood did what he could, by repeated signals to individual ships of his own division to make more sail, by setting all he could on the Barfleur, and by getting out his boats to tow her head round. Sir Gilbert Blane unintentionally gives a similar impression of laxity.
"After cutting the French line, the action during the rest of the day was partial and desultory, the enemy never being able to form, and several of the [our] ships being obliged to lie by and repair their damages. ”

“ Now and then a shot sounded far away, but clear and sharp, from where the guests of my lord of Barfield were killing time in the warren.
A labouring man, smock-frocked, billy-cocked, gaitered, and hob-nailed, was clamping down the frozen lane, the earth ringing like iron under iron as he walked. By his side was a fair-haired lad of nine or ten years of age, a boy of frank and engaging countenance, carefully and even daintily dressed, and holding up his head as if he were a lord of the soil and knew it. ”

“ Mr. Betterlee, watching from the bank, recalled forgotten lore of water-sprites and nereids. The boy circled at the end of the pool and came back, straight into the reflected orb, and for the moment a confusion of senses made it seem to the watcher that the slim, gleaming body was suspended in air, afloat in moonlit heavens. Then the illusion was dispelled, for the swimmer bobbed a dripping head from the ripples, and laughed softly in the stillness.
"Say, why don't you come in, Mister? Honest, the water's great!"
Beneath Mr. Betterlee's immaculate shirt-front a pagan impulse stirred. ”

“ The labourer’s voice only reached the listener in the meadow. He spoke with the Barfield drawl, and his features, which were stiffened by the frozen wind, were twisted into a look of habitual waggery.
‘Well,’ said he, in answer to his young companion, ‘maybe, Master Richard, it might be wicked, but it’s main like natur.’
‘I shan’t hate Joe Mountain when I’m a man,’ said the boy. ”

“ Page followed page, cigarette followed cigarette. The sun dropped toward the west and the shadows lengthened across the smooth lawn. Up the river came a white steamboat, dotted with passengers, and the strains from the band on the afterdeck floated up to the porch in a little burst of pleasantly subdued melody. Roger’s eyes left the sheet and for an instant he gazed unseeingly at the passing craft. Then they dropped again, and once more his pen went slowly across the white surface, leaving behind it a trail of small, neat characters. ”

“ He came to his own chair and sat down, his form silhouetted vividly black on the gravel, his gaze fixed upon the avenue beyond, a fairy lane of intense white radiance and somber shadow.
In the act of relighting his cigarette, he paused, dropped the match from his hand and slowly drew himself from the chair. Halfway up the avenue, slowly moving from shadow to light and from light to shadow, coming and going to his sight, was a white-gowned figure—tall, feminine, ethereal. Even as he looked the darkness swallowed it. ”

“ At last:
“Flowers, sir,” he said, with a fine judicial air, “his vegetation. Vegetation his something has grows to be hadmired. Hon the hother ’and, sir, vegetables hare made to heat. Hin my humble opinion, Mr. Gale, a flower his not a vegetable, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Roger, gravely. “My idea to a dot. That is all, Alfred. Or, no, you might send Denis here.” ”

“ Perhaps if I look out into the garden some moonlight night I shall see you here counting your roses, as a miser counts his gold.”
She smiled at the picture he drew. Then, tossing some loose petals from her hand with a gesture of surrender,—
“Very well,” she said, “you shall have your one rose a day while you’re here. I reckon it won’t impoverish me, for no one never stays in Belle [102] Harbour very long at a time—unless one lives here.” ”

“ Larry swung on the top step and looked at me curiously.
“I say, sis, seems to me you're mightily interested in that chap.”
“I am? What about you? You've only known him an hour or so, and now you're going over to see him after dinner.”
“Well, I'm a man and it's different,” he grumbled. “Harrington—Reed—whatever his name is—is a fine chap, all right, but you can take it from me, old girl, that he'll never be anywhere except just where he is, flat on his back. And you don't want to go and get flossy about him. It won't do.”
“Larry, you just mind your own affairs,” I cried angrily. ”

“ Here, therefore, we see one more explanation of the plentifulness of our ‘Barbers,’ ‘Barbours,’ ‘Barbors,’ and more uncouth-seeming ‘Barbars.’ The old records give us an equal or even greater variety in such registrations as ‘John le Barber,’ ‘Richard le Barbour,’ ‘Nicholas le Barbur,’ ‘Thomas le Barbitonsor,’ or ‘Ralph Tonsor;’ [393] while feminine skill in operating upon the chins of our forefathers is commemorated in such an entry as ‘Matilda la Barbaresse.’ It is just possible, however, that she kept an apprentice, although such things are still to be seen, I believe, as women-shavers. ”

“ And as he spoke a smile hovered about his mouth and in and out of his eyes, and the farmer, who had made his first reply with the hostile suspicion of the New Englander accosted by a stranger, relaxed mentally and physically. He raised a thumb in the direction of his shoulder. “About a mile or so back,” he answered.
“Then, perhaps you can help me. You see”—the traveler seemed then to take the other into his confidence with a glance and a smile—“I am looking for a house.”
“A house?” The farmer digested it slowly. At last, “To live in?” he asked.
“And die in,” responded the traveler gaily. ”

“ He went toward her over the springy turf until the few yards that separated them were out of his life and hers. Their hands flew together. He was looking into the shadowy depths of her eyes. The moonlight enhanced the velvety softness of her face and threw deep shadows under the billow of her shining hair. ”

“ The rock in question was not easy to scale, as it offered no secure foothold, but its summit was a full twenty feet above the level of the ocean, and before long the captain of the Sea-Lark was perched precariously on the top.
“Hooray!” he cried, shouting down to his chum, and pointing away to the north-west. “We’re all right, George. I can see the coast plainly. And there are two ships in sight—schooners, [245] I think. That must be Bristow harbor over there.”
“We’re all right, George. I can see the coast plainly”
In his excitement he descended from his lofty perch a little too rapidly. ”

“ What made you think of that?”
“I don’t know,” answered Dan, puzzled.
“I do,” said Tom. “You’d just told the man you got him at Barrington; see? Barry—Barrington.”
“I guess that was it. Mr. Barry, of Barrington. Well, that isn’t such a bad name.”
“It’s easy to say,” responded Bob. “Here, Barry.”
But the terrier only wagged his tail in a friendly way.
“He’ll learn his name quick enough,” said Dan. “I wonder, though, what his real name is.”
“Let’s see if we can find out,” suggested Bob. “We’ll call him all the names we can think of and see if he answers to any of them.” ”

“ Yes, yes; Barf is as happy as a boy now, but I remember when he was back-set and fore-set with trouble. In life every thing goes round like a cart-wheel. Eh? What?"
In a short time they reached the outer wall of the farm. They were eight hundred feet above the valley; and looking backwards upon the woods from their airy shelf, the tops of the trees appeared like a solid green road, on which they might drop down and walk. Stone steps in the stone wall admitted them into the enclosure, and then they saw the low gray house spreading itself in the shadow of the noble sycamores—
... ”

“ Indeed, many a time [165] he had paddled about in one of the Grace and Ella’s dories, and despite Mr. Barker’s enmity, the lad had received more than one invitation from Captain Jordan to make a trip in the schooner to the fishing-grounds, though he had declined to do so, at the desire of his father.
“You say the tug ain’t coming straight out o’ Greenport?” the skipper asked.
“No telling when she will be here,” replied Jack. “I don’t think she can be long, though.”
“Well, I’ll have to drop my anchor soon as the tide turns again,” replied the fisherman, “unless you like to give us a tow. ”

“ Now, stillness reigns on that momentous anniversary at the Barbican; no crackers spurt, no pyre burns, for the police are there in force on the evening to prevent a repetition of such an event as that which took place on the occasion we are about to record.
The broad quay, the proximity of the waters and the coal barges, the good open space before the houses, had impressed the youth for many generations that no place was fitter for the fiery celebration than the Barbican. There were bits of old timber to be had for the asking or for the taking. ”

“ There isn’t a spar standing!”
Another five-minutes’ manœuvering brought the Sea-Lark within hail of the distressed vessel, and soon she was under her lee.
“Ahoy, Captain Jordan!” Jack called. “The tug is coming off for you.”
“Hello, youngster! Where is she?”
“Don’t know. They telephoned up to Rockmore for her. She’d gone up there with a tow.”
“Well, if she ain’t quick she won’t be a powerful lot o’ use to us,” replied Captain Jordan. “We could drift home in another month [164] or two, with this wind. What are you doing out here? This ain’t your beat with the ferry.” ”