Somers

“ Somers descended into his boat, the towline was made fast, and, with the ketch’s sails set to catch the faint breeze, soon the “infernal” was making fast through the dark water. The Siren and Argus, having got up their anchors, followed the ketch at a distance, under short canvas.
The boats and the “infernal” were fast leaving the brigs astern in the murky night, when Somers, who was sitting in the stern sheets, felt something moving close by him, and, glancing down, he recognized in the uncertain light Pickle Israel’s laughing eyes peering up mischievously at him. ”

“ He now sat up straight in the boat, and his eyes were shining so that Somers could see them even in the gloom. “I know that we have only a few chances for our lives; but—but—we have a great many chances for immortality; and, Captain Somers, although I am only a midshipman, and you are a captain, I am as willing, even as eager, to risk my life for our country and for our shipmates in prison as you are.” ”

“ At dinner, as they sat opposite each other in the cabin, with a hanging lamp between, Decatur, who was overflowing with spirits, noticed that Somers was more than usually grave.
“What ails you, man?” cried Decatur. “Those lantern jaws of yours have not opened with a smile since we left the flagship. Are you disappointed about anything?”
“Yes,” answered Somers, continuing his dinner with a very rueful countenance. “You will be the one to go upon the Philadelphia expedition. The rest of us will have to hang on to our anchors, while you are doing the thing we all want to do.” ”

“ After losing you, I did not dare to send another officer upon such a perilous errand. But, Captain Somers, you are all used up,” added the general, with a glance filled with sympathy—a look which Somers regarded as an adequate reward for all he had suffered; for to have that man feel an interest in him was better in his estimation than the plaudits of the multitude. ”

“ As they advanced, Somers smiling, said to them:
“There is bound to be some disappointment among you. Each one of you has come privately to ask that he may be the one to apply the match; but that honor, my fine fellows, I have reserved for myself.”
Somers and Decatur then went down the ladder, followed by the four seamen; and at the same moment, as if by magic, the yards of the Nautilus were manned and three cheers rang over the quiet water.
The boat pulled first to the Constitution, where the second boat was waiting. Commodore Preble was standing on the quarter-deck. ”

“ Somers, whom Faith found there, the only addition to the family party; while the doctor stood complacently on the rug, in silence surveying everybody, like a man who has gained his point.
"Well Julius," said Mrs. Somers, "how's Mr. Linden to-night? did you see him?"
"Yes ma'am—I saw him."
"Well how is he?" repeated Mrs. Somers.
"He is—very happily situated," said the doctor. "I should like to be in his place."
"What do you go there twice a day for? Do you think him worse? You began with going once," said Mrs. Somers.
"Always begin gently," said Dr. Harrison. "You get on faster." ”

“ Tom Somers had been absent from home nearly a year; and much as his heart was in the work of putting down the rebellion, he was delighted with the thought of visiting, even for a brief period, the loved ones who thought of and prayed for him in the little cottage in Pinchbrook. I am not quite sure that the well-merited promotion he had just received did not have some influence upon him, for it would not have been unnatural for a young man of eighteen, who had won his shoulder-straps by hard fighting on a bloody field, to feel some pride in the laurels he had earned. ”

“ In despair, Somers thought he would go to America. He had passports, he was Rejected. They had no use for him, and he had no use for them. So he posted his passports to the Foreign Office, for the military permit to depart.
It was January, and there was a thin film of half-melted snow, like silver, on the fields and the path. A white, static, arrested morning, away there in the west of Cornwall, with the moors looking primeval, and the huge granite boulders bulging out of the earth like presences. So easy to realise men worshipping stones. It is not the stone. ”

“ The family of Somers emigrated from England to America in the early part of the eighteenth century, establishing itself at Great Egg Harbor, Gloucester county, New Jersey. Here the emigrant became the proprietor of a considerable landed property, most of which still remains in the hands of his descendants, the place bearing the name of Somers’ Point. ”

“ Sir George Somers and his tempest-tossed comrades, however, hailed them with rapture, as if they had been a terrestrial paradise. Every sail was spread, and every exertion made to urge the foundering ship to land. ”

“ It was a desperate one, and as Somers lucidly explained it, Decatur felt a strange sinking of the heart. Somers, on the contrary, seemed to feel a restrained enthusiasm, as if he had just attained a great opportunity, for which he had long hoped and wished.
“You see,” said Somers, leaning over the table and fixing a pair of smiling dark eyes upon Decatur, “it is an enterprise that means liberty to four hundred of our countrymen and messmates. ”

“ He had the reputation of ‘a man of good skill in all passages’ (Neill, Virginia Company, i. 53) . At the same date a fleet of nine vessels was formed under Somers's command to convey a body of settlers to the colony. His companions included Sir Thomas Gates [q. v.] , lieutenant-general; Thomas West, third lord De la Warr, captain-general; and Captain Christopher Newport [q. v.] The expedition sailed from Plymouth on 2 June, Somers embarking with Gates and Newport in the Sea Venture. ”

“ Somers now became the most prominent member of the Junto, the small council which comprised the chief members of the Whig party. When William left in May 1695 to take command of the army in the Netherlands, Somers was made one of the seven lords-justices to whom the administration of the kingdom during his absence was entrusted; and he was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between William and the princess Anne. ”

“ I like her very well, but we don’t talk of anything but those socks.”
“I say, Somers, when you are a brigadier, and have made your fortune, you will want a coat of arms. Let me suggest one.”
“A coat of arms!” laughed Somers.
“Certainly; you will want one. All great men have one.”
“And you would put a pair of socks on it?”
“Certainly; that’s the idea. But where are we going, Somers?”
“To the Hasbrouk mansion; and we are nearly there,” replied the sick man.
Somers had chosen this place on account of its retired situation, and because he could think of no other suitable house to be sick in. ”

“ Spring came—and one morning the news that Asquith was out of the government, that Lloyd George was in. And this was another of Somers’ crises. He felt he must go away from the house, away from everywhere. And as he walked, clear as a voice out of the moors, came a voice saying: “It is the end of England. It is the end{254} of the old England. It is finished. England will never be England any more.”
Cornwall is a country that makes a man psyche. The longer he stayed, the more intensely it had that effect on Somers. ”

“ Had the stones set forth the lives of those who rest beneath, we might learn much of such a man as Sir George Somers, whose strange experiences on the Sea-Venture and his adventures on the Bermudas make me want to know more of him. ”

“ In this busy and happy scene, the friendship of Lord Shrewsbury with young Somers took root. Often occasional visiters swelled the number of the inmates; for the old dormitories of the nuns were used by the hospitable father of Lord Somers to supply the deficiency of inns and taverns. Nor is it of slight importance to trace those circumstances which mark the early portion of a great man’s life. ”

“ For a month I heard nothing more of Somers, nor was any further disappearance chronicled in the newspapers. That last message must have alarmed the gang or whatever it was that had perpetrated the preceding outrage; and, moreover, Scotland Yard and the Italian and United States equivalents were all busied now and hard at work ransacking the old city. Rome just then enjoyed an unenviable reputation, and the average tourist was avoiding it. After Easter a German disappeared, and Somers sent me a brief note. But for the affair of this unfortunate German he would have given it up, he wrote. ”

“ When the king, on the occasion of the Disbanding Bill, expressed his determination to leave the country, Somers boldly remonstrated, while he clearly expressed in a speech in the Lords the danger of the course that was being taken. Hitherto Somers's character had kept him free from attack at the hands of political opponents; but his connexion in 1699 with the notorious Captain William Kidd, to the cost of whose expedition Somers had given £1000, afforded an opportunity ”

“ This Somers found out the instant he stepped upon the Boston’s deck at New York. The Essex was at New York also, and the two friends had traveled from Philadelphia together. Out in the stream lay the President, flying a commodore’s broad pennant.
“And although, ‘being grand first luffs,’ we can’t be shipmates, yet we’ll both be in the same squadron, Dick!” cried Decatur.
“True,” answered Somers, “and a Mediterranean cruise! Think of the oldsters that would like to go to Europe, instead of us youngsters!” ”

“ Somers shook his head and smiled but his eyes shone with pleasure at the readiness of his brave crew.
“Ah,” he cried, “I might have known! My men, I can only take four of you. I shall take the four that are most able-bodied, and who have no wife or family.—You, Moriarity,” he said to the quartermaster, “I know, are alone in the world. I want you.”
“Thankee, sorr,” answered Moriarity, stepping out of the line with a grin.
“And you—and you—and you,” said Somers, walking along the line, as he picked out three more men; and every man smiled, and said, “Thankee, sir.” ”

“ The oddity in this country of giving a boy a female baptismal name had been no doubt jestingly remarked upon by those who were aware of it, but with the sailors the lad passed as Ally Somers. The father was approaching fifty, the son could not have been more than seventeen years of age. The elder Somers, who had attained to the rating of a boatswain, was a stern, hard, silent man, with a look as cold and clear as polished steel, and a cast-iron mouth, indicative of inflexible, indomitable firmness of will and resolution. ”

“ While it was still a hundred yards off Decatur recognized the figure of Somers running down the ladder, and in a few minutes Decatur literally jumped into Somers’s arms. Their affectionate way of meeting amused their shipmates very much, and even Danny Dixon, who was Decatur’s coxswain, grinned slyly at the men in the boat, and whispered, as the two young captains went up the ladder together, their arms entwined like schoolboys:
“They’re lovyers, them two be. They keeps locks o’ each other’s hair, and picters in their bosoms!” ”

“ Scarcely were the words out of Somers’s mouth before a wild yell was heard from below. The next moment the unlucky Sicilian dashed out of the cabin, hotly pursued by Commodore Preble himself. The commodore was six feet high, and usually of a grave and saturnine countenance. But there was nothing grave or saturnine about him then. He had been in the act of shaving when the surgeon’s mate with the two epaulets appeared, and he had not taken time to wipe the lather off his face or to take off his dressing-gown, nor was he conscious that he was flourishing a razor in his hand. ”

“ Tom Somers floated with the tide of humanity that was setting away from the scene of disaster and defeat. The panic that prevailed was even more fearful than the battle, for wounded and dying men were mercilessly trodden down by the feet of the horses, and run over by the wheels of the cannon and the baggage wagons. Though the battle was ended, the rebels still poured storms of shot and shell into the retreating, panic-stricken host. ”

“ The Yanks won’t tech ’em, and we can’t tech ’em, Somers. It stands to reason, Somers, sech folks ought to be hated.”
Somers decided not to discuss this question, and he had dropped a few paces behind his companion to avoid his slang, when Skinley exhibited a disposition to be sociable, and insisted that the road was wide enough for them to ride abreast. The young officer did not want to quarrel with the ruffian, and he complied with his request.
“Thar’s a pooty gal over to Callicot’s, Somers,” added he, with a coarse grin. “P’rhaps you’ll think more of that than yer do of the whiskey.” ”

“ Somers, as worthy a man as ever lived, his wife, Francis and Fanny, their children, Miss Fitzallan and her brother, who were visitors, and who I found were shortly to be more closely connected by the union of Eliza with Francis Somers. Never was there presented a more perfect picture of domestic felicity than afforded by this amiable family. The [Pg 21] father was a man of good understanding and agreeable manners, industrious, sober, and assiduous in implanting principles of rectitude in the minds of his children, whose dispositions were truly amiable. ”

“ Raynes; and, in behalf of the great Southern Confederacy, I thank you for the zeal and loyalty which you have displayed,” replied Somers boldly; for it was plain that nothing but the most brazen impudence could save him.
“You are a bold youth, and it is plain that you have brilliant talents; I hope they have not been abused.” ”