“Can’t we go to our own rooms now, papa?” asked Lulu, when their English friends had bidden good-night and gone.
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand and leading the way, Max following not at all unwillingly.
“I suppose you want to finish your letter now, Lulu?” the captain said, as they entered his bedroom, which they made their sitting-room also when desirous of being quite to themselves.
“No, sir, I don’t. I’d rather let it wait till Monday, if I may sit on your knee a little while and have you talk to me.”
“Have me talk to you? or let you talk to me?” he asked with playful look and tone, as he sat down and drew her to the coveted place.
“Both, you dear papa,” she answered, putting her arms around his neck and giving him an ardent kiss.
“And am I to do nothing but listen?” asked Max, pulling forward a chair and seating himself close beside them.
“Just as you please, young man,” laughed his father; “but I doubt if you can refrain from putting in a word now and then.”
“He’s been talking ever so fast almost all the evening,” said Lulu; “only letting me have a word now and then.”
“Ah, indeed! I hope it has been good-humored and sensible talk?”
“Very sensible (I was quite proud of my brother)” replied Lulu, giving Max a laughing glance, “but I’m not so sure about the good-humor. I shouldn’t wonder if Albert Austin had made up his mind by this time that Max and I are not very partial to the English.”
“I hope you haven’t been rude to Albert, my children?” the captain said, with sudden gravity.
“I hope not, papa; I don’t think we were, though we stated a few historical facts—perhaps a little strongly,” replied Lulu.
“What were they?” he asked, “you may tell me about it if you like.”
They then repeated the substance of their conversation with Albert, their father listening with evident interest.
At the conclusion of the story, he said, “I think from your account that Albert showed much good temper and moderation in the way he bore your strictures on his country and countrymen. You can not be too patriotic to please me, my dears, but I want you to be careful of the feelings of others, never wounding them unnecessarily. Albert and his father may be considered, to some extent, our guests, as strangers visiting our country, so that we should be doubly careful to be kind and considerate toward them.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind, papa,” said Max, “standing up for my own country always but not abusing his—when I can help it. Just as we were separating to-night he said to me in a low tone, ‘We must have some more talks on the subject we were on to-night. I haven’t any books at hand to consult, but I must inform myself by questioning papa, and then I’ll be better prepared to stand up for old England.’”
“Did he look cross when he said it?” asked Lulu.
“No,” replied Max; “he’s quite a gentleman, I think.”
“As his father is,” remarked the captain. “‘Like father, like son,’ is an old saying, so remember, my children, that people will judge of me by your behavior.”
“Yes, sir,” said Max, “I think I shall be the more careful to behave well on that account.”
“I too,” chimed in Lulu. “It would be a dreadful thing if we should disgrace our father. Wouldn’t it, Max?”
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the lad earnestly. “I have often felt, oh, so thankful that I had a father I could respect and reverence and honor; for I’ve known boys whose fathers were drunken, wicked, men, that they couldn’t help being ashamed of.”
“Give all the glory and thanks to God, who has kept your father from drunkenness and crime, my boy,” the captain said, laying his hand affectionately on his son’s shoulder, and giving him a look full of fatherly affection. “But for His restraining grace I might have been the worst of criminals.”
Then taking up the Bible and opening it, “Now, we will have our reading and prayer,” he said, “and then go to our beds.”
“I just know Gracie is longing for this, if she’s awake,” said Lulu, as her father took her in his arms, after prayers, to give her a goodnight kiss.
“I trust she is asleep ere this, the dear pet!” he replied. “I seem to see the dear little face lying on my pillow with the sweet blue eyes closed in sleep and almost a smile on her lips; the babies asleep in the nursery, with the door open between, and Mamma Vi seated somewhere near, writing a letter to her absent husband. Ah, I should be homesick to-night if I hadn’t these two of my loved flock with me.”
“And I’d be dreadfully homesick if I wasn’t with my dear father,” she responded, clinging lovingly to him. “You are a good deal more than half of home to me, papa; and, oh, but you were good and kind to bring me with you!”
“And me, too,” added Max. “Papa, I am sure this trip to the far West will be something to remember all my life.”
“I hope so, my boy,” his father said. “It has been my desire to make it so enjoyable to you both that it will be to you a pleasant memory all your days.
“To-morrow we will attend morning and evening service at the mission church—Sunday school also—and in the afternoon have our usual home exercises, going on with our regular Bible and catechism lessons exactly as if we were at Woodburn.
“On Monday I expect to take you to see the cattle ranch Mr. Short pointed out in the distance, this afternoon.”
Both thanked him, expressing themselves pleased with the plans he had mapped out for the two days.
“Papa, shall I dress for church when I get up in the morning?” asked Lulu.
“Yes,” he answered. “Wear one of your plainer dresses. I think we should not dishonor God’s house by being shabby or slovenly in our attire, nor should we dress in a way to attract attention and divert the thoughts of others from the service.”
“Yes, sir, I know that’s what you have told me at home, and that you never let me wear my gayest things to church. And I suppose it would make even more difference here, where most of the congregation must be quite poor and ignorant?”
“I think so,” he said; “and also that you will be less likely to be taken up with thoughts of yourself and your own appearance if you are not gayly dressed.”
Captain Raymond’s arrangements for spending the holy hours of the Lord’s Day were duly carried out. The hour for morning service in the church he had provided for Minersville, found him and his son and daughter seated among the worshippers. The Austins were there also; and it was the same again in the evening.
They all visited the Sunday school, too, and took part in its exercises. The two gentlemen had not been acquainted many hours before discovering that they were followers of the same Saviour, and each felt it to be a closer bond of union than would have been that of the same nativity without it.
The Austins joined the Raymonds by invitation, in Monday’s excursion, and indeed in almost every other one taken while they all remained in Minersville, which was for several weeks.
Captain Raymond took his children with him almost everywhere that he went; to Lulu’s extreme satisfaction her days were spent principally in walks and rides, the latter becoming more enjoyable as she made better acquaintance with her pony and grew confident of her ability to guide and control it. Her father, however, always rode by her side, and kept constant watch over her safety.
Their evenings were apt to be spent on the porch, as the weather was such as to make that the most enjoyable spot at that time. Often one or more of the McAlpine family would be there—perhaps at the farther end of the porch, so as not to seem to intrude upon the Raymonds and their guests, for Mr. Austin and Albert were apt to be with them; Mr. Short, too, not unfrequently.
But occasionally the young people were there without their elders, the captain, perhaps, busied with some writing in his own room.
The lads, Albert and Max, were very good friends, in spite of an occasional tilt over the respective claims of the two countries to preeminence in one thing or another, usually in regard to the bravery and competence of her soldiers and sailors.
One evening Albert began lauding Nelson as the greatest naval hero the world had ever seen, winding up his eulogy with a challenge to Max to mention any one to compare to him in seamanship, fighting qualities, or bravery.
“Well, I don’t know of any other Englishman to compare to him,” replied Max coolly, “but we’ve had a number of officers in our navy that I think were quite equal to him.”
“Which, pray?” sneered Albert.
“There was Commodore McDonough, who whipped the British in the battle of Lake Champlain. It was so terrible a fight that one of the British sailors engaged in it, and who had been with Nelson at Trafalgar, said that battle was a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
“But in the action at Trafalgar Lord Nelson defeated the combined navies of France and Spain.”
“Yes, the British whipped them, and the Americans whipped the British,” said Max. “You ought to think it a greater feat to whip the British than to conquer in fight with Frenchmen and Spaniards,” he added laughingly.
“But the odds against Nelson were very much greater. Our force in the battle of Lake Champlain was only slightly superior.”
“I am not so sure about that,” replied Max, “I know at least one historian says it was decidedly superior. But McDonough was a Christian, and before going into the fight he called his officers about him, and kneeling on the quarter deck, asked help of God in the coming battle.”
“Then, if his prayer was granted, he had better help than all the navies of the world could have given him.”
“That’s so,” said Max. “And he gave the glory of the victory where it belonged; in his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy he said God had granted it.
“He was gallant and generous as a conqueror; when the British officers tendered him their swords after the surrender, he put them back, saying, ‘Gentlemen, your gallant conduct makes you worthy to wear your weapons. Return them to their scabbards.’
“Commodore Perry was another of our naval heroes. He won the victory in the battle of Lake Erie in the war of 1812, and wrote that famous dispatch, 'We have met the enemy, and they are ours, two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.’
“Then there were the great naval commanders of our civil war,” Max went on. “I don’t believe a greater one than Farragut ever lived, or as great a one, unless it might be Porter, who had a large share in the taking of New Orleans; helping ever so much with his mortar boats.
“Why, the undertaking was so difficult, that a number of English and French naval officers who visited Farragut while he was in the lower Mississippi completing his preparations for passing on up to take the city, told him they had carefully examined the defences of the Confederates, and that it would be sheer madness for him to attack the forts with wooden ships such as his; he’d be sure to be defeated.
“But he was not to be discouraged—the brave old man! He said, ‘You may be right, but I was sent here to make the attempt. I came here to reduce or pass the forts, and to take New Orleans, and I shall try it on.’ And so he did try it on, and succeeded.”
“I admire such grit,” said Albert. “I’ve read quite a good deal about that war—a tremendous one it was—and I think there were some very plucky things done on both sides.”
“Yes,” returned Max; “I’m proud of the bravery shown by both the ‘Yanks’ and the ‘Johnnies,’ as they called each other.”
Here Lulu, who had thus far contented herself with listening, put in a word:
“I don’t believe there ever was or could be a braver or more wonderful feat than Lieutenant Cushing performed when he blew up the rebel ram Albemarle. He dashed up along side of it, in his little vessel, through a perfect shower of bullets, then, finding that the ram was behind a wall of logs, he sheered off and dashed over that, he standing up in the stern of his boat, with the tiller ropes in one hand and the lanyard of a torpedo in the other, never flinching, though a big gun was trained right on him; but he got his torpedo just where he wanted it under the ram, gave his lanyard a jerk, and fired the thing off, so that it blew up the ram at the same instant that their great gun sent a hundred pound shot right through the bottom of his boat. Oh, such a roar as the two—the torpedo and the gun—must have made, going off together in that way!”
“It was a wonderfully brave deed!” exclaimed Albert with enthusiasm. “Did Cushing himself, or any of his crew, escape alive? I have forgotten, if ever I knew about it.”
“Yes,” replied Lulu; “he escaped to the Union fleet, after almost incredible hardships and dangers, the only one of thirteen who had set out on the expedition two days before.”
“And the ram was destroyed?”
“Yes, she was a total wreck. Cushing wasn’t sure of it till, while he was lying in hiding in a swamp and half covered with water, two Confederate officers passing along near him, said to each other that the Albemarle was a total wreck.”
“They didn’t see him, but he heard what they said, and it was such good news that it gave him fresh courage to bear his sufferings and exert himself to get back to the Federal fleet.”
“Your father was on the Union side, I suppose?” Albert said inquiringly.
“Yes, indeed!” replied Max and Lulu, both speaking at once; then Max went on, “but he was only a boy, younger than I am now, when the war began.”
“And what was it all about?” asked Albert. “I’m not sure I ever clearly understood that?”
“The Confederates were trying to break up the Union, and the Federals fought to save it,” replied Max. “Papa has made it very clear to me that the Revolutionary War was fought to win freedom from Great Britain’s galling yoke, and make ourselves a nation; the War of 1812 to convince the British that we were free and independent, and not to be maltreated with impunity. Those two wars did that for us;—made the dear old Union; and the Civil War saved it from being destroyed by those who ought to have been ready to defend and preserve it at the risk of their lives. I do believe they would now,” he added; “or rather the new generation, who have taken their places, would. I believe, if England or France or any other nation should attack us, the people of the Southern states would fight for the Union quite as bravely and with as much fury and determination as any men of any other part of our great big country.”
“Is that so?” said Albert. “Well, I trust there will be no more wars between England and the United States.”
“I am sure I can echo that wish,” returned Max. “It seems a dreadful thing for two Christian nations to go to war with each other.”
“Very true,” said Albert; “it would certainly look strangely inconsistent to the heathen peoples we are both trying to convert.”
“It couldn’t fail to do so,” assented Max. “War is a dreadful thing; reading descriptions of the awful scenes of bloodshed and carnage on board of vessels, and in land battles, too, I’ve sometimes thought Satan must take great and fiendish delight in it.”
“Yes,” said Lulu, again joining in the talk; “I’ve heard papa make a remark like that, but he said at the same time that there were worse things than war, when it was waged to secure liberty, not only for ourselves, but for others; that war could never be right on both sides, but it often was on one. On the side of America in her two wars with England, for instance.”
“My father surprised me by saying the same thing when I questioned him on the subject after that talk we had about it before,” said Albert. “He added that, of course, England being his native land, he loved her better than any other, and always should, but for all that he couldn’t shut his eyes to the fact that she had not always been in the right.
“The colonies were oppressed, and had a right to be free if they desired separation from the mother country; and that after they had been acknowledged free and independent states, they were no more under English rule than any other foreign nation, and as, according to international law, the public and private vessels of every nation are subject, on the high seas, to the jurisdiction of the State they belong to, and to no other, and no nation has the right of visitation and search of the vessels of another nation, Americans were justly indignant over the insistance upon, and the carrying out, of the so-called right of search by British men-of-war; especially, as native-born Americans had no security against being impressed as Englishmen, and indeed very often were. It must have been awfully hard on them, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” returned Max, “and your father must be an honorable and just man to acknowledge it.”
“Just my opinion,” Albert said, with a frank, good-humored smile; “but if it’s noble to acknowledge one’s own individual faults, why not to own that your country may have sometimes been in the wrong?”
“Certainly,” said Max, “and I’ve heard papa say he thought we were the aggressors in the war with Mexico, and that our government had done grievous wrong to the poor Indians.”
“It’s very true that a good many Americans were impressed,” remarked Lulu; “thousands of them; even while we were fighting France and so helping England, she kept on impressing our sailors and seizing our ships whenever she could find the smallest excuse for doing so; they didn’t respect even the ships belonging to our government when they—the British, I mean—were enough stronger to put resistance out of the question on the part of the Americans.
“And they even impressed three of our sailors after the War of 1812 had begun. I read about it not long ago, and remember very well how shamefully they were treated.
“They refused to serve against their country, and for that were punished with five dozen lashes, well laid on. Still they refused, and two days later got four dozen more, and two days after that two dozen more.
“But all the beating the British could give them wouldn’t make them fight against their country; so they put them in irons for three months, till the ship reached London.
“There they heard of the glorious victory of the Constitution over the Guerriere and were so rejoiced that they made a flag by tearing up some of their clothes into strips and sewing them together, then hung it on a gun and cheered for the Stars and Stripes. Of course, they got another flogging for that.
“But there were twenty thousand American seamen in the British navy, five times as many as we had in our own navy, and quite too many to beat into subjection, so they imprisoned thousands of them in old hulks, where they froze in winter and sweltered in summer and suffocated all the time—so crowded together they were hardly able to get a breath of fresh air; eaten up by vermin also, and only half-fed; on very poor food, too.
“Of course they grew sick, and altogether had a dreadful, dreadful life; all because they wouldn’t fight against their country.”
“It was awfully hard on them,” admitted Albert, “but please, Miss Lulu, don’t hold Englishmen of the present day responsible for what was done so many years ago.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said with a smile; “certainly I shall not hold you responsible, for I feel quite sure you would never be so unjust and cruel.”
“Thanks,” he returned with a gratified look, and she went on.
“I know there were Englishmen, even in that day, who wouldn’t have had one poor sailor so treated if they could have helped it. Captain Dacres, of the Guerriere, for one.
“He had an American captain prisoner on his vessel at the time of his battle with the Constitution, and before the fight began politely told him, as he supposed he didn’t want to fight against his country, he might go below, if he chose; and he gave the same privilege to ten American sailors who had been impressed on to his ship.”
“Yes,” said Max, “He was a fine fellow; and if all his countrymen had been like him, I don’t believe there would have been any war between England and America.”
“I admire his conduct,” Albert said, “and hope I should have acted as he did, had I been in his place.”
“I dare say you would,” said Max.