Percy F. Westerman – The Complete Collection

Chapter 1

Percy F. Westerman – The Complete Collection

A Lad Of Grit

A Lively Bit of the Front

Billy Barcroft, R. N. A. S

Rounding Up the Raider

The Airship Golden Hind

The Dispatch-Riders

The Rival Submarines

The Submarine Hunters

The Winning of the Golden Spurs

The Wireless Officer

Wilmshurt of he Frontier Force

A Lad Of Grit

A Lad of Grit

A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times

by

PERCY F. WESTERMAN

ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD S. HODGSON

BLACKIE & SON LIMITED LONDON AND GLASGOW 1909

By Percy F. Westerman

Captain Fosdyke's Gold. In Defiance of the Ban. Captain Sang. The Senior Cadet.The Amir's Ruby.The Secret of the Plateau. Leslie Dexter, Cadet. All Hands to the Boats.A Mystery of the Broads.Rivals of the Reef.A Shanghai Adventure.Pat Stobart in the "Golden Dawn".The Junior Cadet. Captain Starlight. The Sea-Girt Fortress.On the Wings of the Wind.Captured at Tripoli.Captain Blundell's Treasure.The Third Officer.Unconquered Wings.The Riddle of the Air.Chums of the "Golden Vanity".Clipped Wings.The Luck of the "Golden Dawn".The Salving of the "Fusi Yama".Winning his Wings.A Lively Bit of the Front.A Cadet of the Mercantile Marine.The Good Ship "Golden Effort". East In the "Golden Gain". The Quest of the "Golden Hope". Sea Scouts Abroad. Sea Scouts Up-Channel.The Wireless Officer.A Lad of Grit.The Submarine Hunters. Sea Scouts All. The Thick of the Fray.A Sub and a Submarine.Under the White Ensign.The Fight for Constantinople.With Beatty off Jutland.The Dispatch Riders.

Printed in Great Britain by Blackie & Son, Ltd., Glasgow

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

--How the Tidings of the Restoration Came to Rake

CHAPTER II

--Of the Arrest and Escape of Increase Joyce

CHAPTER III

--Concerning my Journey to Portsmouth

CHAPTER IV

--How Judgment was Passed on the Dorset Smugglers

CHAPTER V

--Of my First Ship, the Gannet

CHAPTER VI

--Of the Finding of Pedro Alvarez, and of the Strange Tale that he Told

CHAPTER VII

--Concerning the Treasure Island

CHAPTER VIII

--Of an Encounter with an Algerine Corsair

CHAPTER IX

--I lose the Little Gannet

CHAPTER X

--How I Defended the Foretop

CHAPTER XI

--Of the Manner of my Homecoming

CHAPTER XII

--The Smugglers' Cave

CHAPTER XIII

--The Escape

CHAPTER XIV

--I Set Out to Fight the Dutch

CHAPTER XV

--Of the Famous Sea Fight of Four Days

CHAPTER XVI

--I Meet an Old Enemy

CHAPTER XVII

--Showing that there are Two Means of Leaving a Prison

CHAPTER XVIII

--The Veil is Partly Drawn

CHAPTER XIX

--How Three Horsemen set out for the North

CHAPTER XX

--What we Heard and Saw at Holwick.

CHAPTER XXI

--Our Search for the Treasure

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Illustrations

Inch by inch they were driven back . . . . . . Frontispiece I ran at my father's murderer and rained blow after blow upon his head and body They clambered up our sides with the greatest intrepidity The chest is hoisted to the surface

CHAPTER I

--How the Tidings of the Restoration Came to Rake

The sun was slowly sinking behind the tree-clad Hampshire Downs. Already the long shadows of Rake Hill lay athwart the misty coombe, and the glimmer of the innumerable forges in the valley beneath began to hold its own against the rapidly fading daylight. The cold east wind, for it was but the beginning of March, in the year of grace 1660, whistled through the clump of gaunt pine trees that marked the summit of the hill, and, despite the fact that each of us wore a thick doublet, the chilly blast cut us like a knife.

I remember that evening well; its stirring incidents are graven on my memory as if they had happened but yesterday, though nigh on twoscore and ten winters and summers have passed over my head since the eventful year of which I write.

My father and I were returning homewards from the great fair at Petersfield. For an old man, he being well over sixty years of age, my father was the marvel of our village. Tall but sparely built, his frame betokened a strength of body that harmonized with the determination of character that made itself known by the glance of his steel-coloured eyes. Report says that when he came to Rake to settle down, some twelve or thirteen years back--I being but an infant in arms,--he did gain a lasting reputation by outmatching one Caleb James, a notorious bully, at his own game, breaking his pate with his own staff on the roadside hard by Milland Church.

Moreover, as proof of his hardiness, is there not the testimony of the worthy Master Hugh Salesbury, the chirurgeon of Lyss--the same whose son fell in Torrington's action off Beachy Head,--to the effect that though practice was slack around Lyss, yet he perforce would have to give up if none were better patients than honest Owen Wentworth.

Despite the fact that he was on the losing side, my father was not backward in declaring his attachment to His Gracious Majesty King Charles II; and although our neighbours, even the Roundheads, were favourably disposed to him, making allowance for his fiery temper, yet with strangers who passed along the great highway betwixt London Town and Portsmouth, honest Owen's outspoken declarations oft led to wordy strife, and on occasions ended in blows.

In defiance of the Puritan regulations against anything tending towards the lost cause, my father, though ruined by confiscations and sequestration, endeavoured to maintain the appearance of a careless and social demeanour, ever cherishing a hope that each day seemed nearer fulfilment.

He still retained his flowing lovelocks, while the lower part of his weather-worn face was adorned by a greyish beard of Van Dyck cut, which failed to hide a portion of a long, whitish scar that extended from his left eyebrow to his cheek bone--the legacy of a pike-thrust in the sanguinary encounter of Cropredy Bridge. He was dressed in a dark-blue suit, relieved by a deep collar of Mechlin lace, while, on account of the severity of the weather, he was further attired in a long cloak that barely concealed the end of a short hanger--a necessary weapon in these troublous times. I also knew that he carried two long dags, or Scottish pistols, yet of these there was no outward sign.

As we neared the foot of the hill, instead of turning to the right towards our home, my father broke the silence by saying:

"I will call in at the 'Flying Bull'. Possibly the chapman from Godalming is there. If so, I can replenish my stock of gun flints."

As we entered the doorway of the "Flying Bull"--an old hostelry that has sheltered all sorts and conditions of men, from kings and queens even to the arch-traitor Old Noll himself, and the sign of which, painted by a limner who had learned his art in the time of the last crusade, had swung in the breeze for nigh on four hundred years--we were greeted with a chorus of welcome from the score or so of persons assembled in the large stone-flagged common room.

"How goes the price of malt and barley at Petersfield?" questioned one man in a voice that was like to the bellowing of a bull.

"Man," retorted another, "doth thy reasoning not rise above the price of petty huckstering, Obadiah Blow-the-trumpet-in-Zion? Heed him not, good Master Wentworth. Hast news of honest George Monk and his army?"

"None, though rumour hath it that the fleet at Portsmouth hath sided with Monk, and that John Tippets, the mayor, hath called out the train bands and manned the ordnance on the Platform and the Square Tower. Moreover, a trusty messenger hath reached Sir Giles Seaward with orders to raise the countryside and to assemble in Petersfield marketplace to-morrow at noon. God forfend that this land be not again drenched in blood!"

"Ay," rejoined another, "but, as man to man, Master Wentworth, what think ye? How blows the wind in London?" he added darkly.

"My friend, mark ye well, the wind blows straight from the Low Country."

"No," thundered a voice from a seat in the chimney corner; "the blast of the Lord, that destroyed Sennacherib and his host, will utterly consume the malignants, including Charles Stuart, the son of the enemy of the people of England!" My father sprang to his feet, white with fury. All eyes were centred on the speaker. He was a short, thick-set man of about forty years of age, with a bull-neck, huge ears, small ferrety eyes, close-cropped hair, and a clean-shaven face deeply pitted with smallpox. He wore a buff-coloured jerkin, opened at the neck for comfort's sake, and frayed and soiled from the wearing of armour, his breast- and back-plates of dull steel having been removed. These, together with a steel helmet with metal guards, and a heavy broadsword, lay on the settle within arm's length, while a petronel and a well-weighted bandolier hung across the back of a chair on which the man's feet, encased in long Spanish boots, rested.

On my father striding across the room, the stranger leisurely rose from his seat and extended his hand in an attitude of contemptuous reproof.

"Tut, man, 'tis time thy grey hairs taught thee wisdom! Wouldst threaten me, Increase Joyce, trooper of Parliamentary Horse?"

"Draw, knave, draw!" shouted my father, whipping out his hanger. "Either unsay those words or else swallow them!"

Instantly all was confusion. Some of the more timid made towards the door, tables were overturned, tankards clattered on the floor, excited men shouted in unintelligible voices. For my own part, I remained by my father's side, unable to take my eyes off his antagonist, and, at the same time, knowing that my father in his choler would brook no interference from me.

"I fight not with old men," retorted Joyce. "But this I know: 'The axe is laid unto the root of the trees', an' if that arch-profligate, Charles Stuart, were to set foot in England----"

He was interrupted by a violent knocking at the door, which, being thrown wide open, showed a man fully armed and holding the reins of a steaming and apparently exhausted horse.

"Host!" he shouted. "Where or which is the host?"

Old Giles Perrin, the innkeeper, came forward and awaited his commands.

"Now, sirrah, on thy life, hasten! Provender for my beast; a cup of spiced ale for myself. With all dispatch, man, for I am on the service of the State!"

The stranger strode into the room, stooped and replaced one of the overturned stools, seated himself thereon, and, removing a cloth that encircled his neck, wiped his heated brow vigorously. Then he stared haughtily around at the assembled company, seized the cup that old Giles brought, and drained it at one gulp.

I remarked that he spoke with an accent totally different from the Southern dialect of our part of Hampshire and Sussex, but my doubts were soon set at rest.

"How far down yon road is't to Petersfield? And is one like to meet aught of footpads, drawlatches, or vagrants of that condition?"

It was my father who answered him, yet barely had he opened his mouth when the stranger clapped him on the shoulder:

"By all the powers of darkness! You, S----"

"Hold, man!" replied my father in a tone that implied no denial. Then, in an undertone, I heard him say: "I am now but Owen Wentworth, gentleman yeoman, at your service."

"I am still Ralph Slingsby, though, thanks to my General Monk, cornet of horse no longer, but captain in his favourite regiment. Let me think. 'Tis but thrice that I have seen thee since we parted at Holwick, you to join the king at Nottingham, I to enrol under my Lord Essex. First, at Edgehill, when I, a mere stripling, lay under the hoofs of Rupert's horse. Secondly, at Cropredy Bridge, when I did turn aside the pike that would have let your soul out of the keeping of your body. Lastly, when at the trial of----"

"Ssh! I would have you remember that the rising generation hath long ears."

My father spoke truly, for though the stranger had uttered his lengthy speech but in an undertone, yet I, with the curiosity of youth, did not fail to hear, much to my mystification. Knowing also that the remark about "the rising generation" was applied to me, I must needs raise my hands to my ears to feel if they were long, much to Ralph Slingsby's amusement.

"So this is your son, Master Wentworth? A fitting chip of the old block! What wouldst thou be, lad; a fighting man, like thy sire?"

"Ay," I replied. "But I would love to go to sea, and become famous like Admiral Blake, e'en though he were a Roundhead!"