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not like men. I have seen them on board ship. One day they are

laughing and fidgeting about like wild things, the next day they are

poor, woebegone creatures. If she gets no better in a few days, I

will see when my old friend, Jim Carroll, is starting in his brig for

Yarmouth, and will run down with her myself--and of course with you,

wife, if you will go--and stay there a few days while he is unloading

and filling up again. The sea-air will set her up again, I warrant."

"Not at this time of year," Dame Dowsett said firmly. "With these

bitter winds it is no time for a lass to go a-sailing; and they say

that Yarmouth is a great deal colder than we are here, being exposed

to the east winds."

"Well, well, Dame, then we will content ourselves with a run in the

hoy down to Margate. If we choose well the wind and tide we can start

from here in the morning and maybe reach there late in the evening,

or, if not, the next morning to breakfast. Or if you think that too

far we will stop at Sheerness, where we can get in two tides easily

enough if the wind be fair."

"That would be better, David; but it were best to see how she goes

on. It may be, as you say, that she will shortly gain her strength

and spirits again."

It was evident, when Nellie entered the room at breakfast-time the

next morning, that her mother's reports had not been exaggerated. She

looked, indeed, as if recovering from a severe illness, and when she

said good-morning to her father her voice trembled and her eyes

filled with tears.

"Tut, tut, lass! This will never do. I shall soon hardly own you for

my Nellie. We shall have to feed you up on capons and wine, child, or

send you down to one of the baths for a course of strengthening

waters."

She smiled faintly, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyril. As she

did so, a slight flush of colour came into her cheeks.

"I am heartily glad to see you down again, Mistress Nellie," he said,

"and wish you a fair and speedy recovery."

"I shall be better presently," she replied, with an effort.

"Good-morning, John."

"Good-morning, Mistress Nellie. Right glad are we to see you down

again, for it makes but a dull table without your merry laugh to give

an edge to our appetites."

She sat down now, and the others, seeing that it was best to let her

alone for a while, chatted gaily together.

"There is no talk in the City but of the war, Cyril," the Captain

said presently. "They say that the Dutch make sure of eating us up,

but they won't find it as easy a job as they fancy. The Duke of York

is to command the Fleet. They say that Prince Rupert will be second.

To my mind they ought to have entrusted the whole matter to him. He

proved himself as brave a captain at sea as he was on land, and I

will warrant he would lead his ships into action as gallantly as he

rode at the head of his Cavaliers on many a stricken field. The ships

are fitting out in all haste, and they are gathering men at every

sea-port. I should say they will have no lack of hands, for there are

many ships laid up, that at other times trade with Holland, and

Dantzic, and Dunkirk, and many a bold young sailor who will be glad

to try whether he can fight as stoutly against the Dutch under York

and Rupert as his father did under Blake."

"For my part," Cyril said, "I cannot understand it; for it seems to

me that the English and Dutch have been fighting for the last year. I

have been too busy to read the Journal, and have not been in the way

of hearing the talk of the coffeehouses and taverns; but, beyond that

it is some dispute about the colonies, I know little of the matter."

"I am not greatly versed in it myself, lad. Nellie here reads the

Journal, and goes abroad more than any of us, and should be able to

tell us something about it. Now, girl, can't you do something to set

us right in this matter, for I like not to be behind my neighbours,

though I am such a stay-at-home, having, as I thank the Lord, much

happiness here, and no occasion to go out to seek it."

"There was much discourse about it, father, the evening I went to

Dame King's. There were several gentlemen there who had trade with

the East, and one of them held shares in the English Company trading

thither. After supper was over, they discoursed more fully on the

matter than was altogether pleasing to some of us, who would much

rather that, as we had hoped, we might have dancing or singing. I

could see that Dame King herself was somewhat put out that her

husband should have, without her knowing of his intention, brought in

these gentlemen. Still, the matter of their conversation was new to

us, and we became at last so mightily interested in it that we

listened to the discourse without bemoaning ourselves that we had

lost the amusement we looked for. I know I wished at the time that

you had been there. I say not that I can repeat all that I heard, but

as I had before read some of the matters spoken of in the Journal, I

could follow what the gentlemen said more closely. Soon after the

coming of the King to the throne the friendship between us and the

Spaniards, that had been weakened during the mastership of Cromwell,

was renewed, and they gave our ships many advantages at their ports,

while, on the other hand, they took away the privileges the Dutch had

enjoyed there, and thus our commerce with Spain increased, while that

of the Dutch diminished."

"That is certainly true, Nellie," her father said. "We have three

ships sailing through the Mediterranean now to one that sailed there

ten years ago, and doubtless the Dutch must have suffered by the

increase in our trade."

"Then he said that, as we had obtained the Island of Bombay in the

East Indies and the City of Tangier in Africa as the dowry of the

Queen, and had received the Island of Poleron for our East India

Company by the treaty with Holland, our commerce everywhere

increased, and raised their jealousy higher and higher. There was

nothing in this of which complaint could be made by the Dutch

Government, but nevertheless they gave encouragement to their East

and West India Companies to raise trouble. Their East India Company

refused to hand over the Island, and laid great limitations as to the

places at which our merchants might trade in India. The other Company

acted in the same manner, and lawlessly took possession of Cape Coast

Castle, belonging to our English Company.

"The Duke of York, who was patron and governor of our African

Company, sent Sir Robert Holmes with four frigates to Guinea to make

reprisals. He captured a place from the Dutch and named it James's

Fort, and then, proceeding to the river Gambia, he turned out the

Dutch traders there and built a fort. A year ago, as the Dutch still

held Cape Coast Castle, Sir Robert was sent out again with orders to

take it by force, and on the way he overhauled a Dutch ship and found

she carried a letter of secret instructions from the Dutch Government

to the West India Company to take the English Fort at Cormantin.

Seeing that the Hollanders, although professing friendship, were thus

treacherously inclined, he judged himself justified in exceeding the

commission he had received, and on his way south he touched at Cape

Verde. There he first captured two Dutch ships and then attacked

their forts on the Island of Gorse and captured them, together with a

ship lying under their guns.

"In the fort he found a great quantity of goods ready to be shipped.

He loaded his own vessels, and those that he had captured, with the

merchandise, and carried it to Sierra Leone. Then he attacked the

Dutch fort of St. George del Mena, the strongest on the coast, but

failed there; but he soon afterwards captured Cape Coast Castle,

though, as the gentlemen said, a mightily strong place. Then he

sailed across to America, and, as you know, captured the Dutch

Settlements of New Netherlands, and changed the name into that of New

York. He did this not so much out of reprisal for the misconduct of

the Dutch in Africa, but because the land was ours by right, having

been discovered by the Cabots and taken possession of in the name of

King Henry VII., and our title always maintained until the Dutch

seized it thirty years ago.

"Then the Dutch sent orders to De Ruyter, who commanded the fleet

which was in the Mediterranean, to sail away privately and to make

reprisals on the Coast of Guinea and elsewhere. He first captured

several of our trading forts, among them that of Cormantin, taking

great quantities of goods belonging to our Company; he then sailed to

Barbadoes, where he was beaten off by the forts. Then he captured

twenty of our ships off Newfoundland, and so returned to Holland,

altogether doing damage, as the House of Commons told His Majesty, to

the extent of eight hundred thousand pounds. All this time the Dutch

had been secretly preparing for war, which they declared in January,

which has forced us to do the same, although we delayed a month in

hopes that some accommodation might be arrived at. I think, father,

that is all that he told us, though there were many details that I do

not remember."

"And very well told, lass, truly. I wonder that your giddy head

should have taken in so much matter. Of course, now you tell them

over, I have heard these things before--the wrong that the Dutch did

our Company by seizing their post at Cape Coast, and the reprisals

that Sir Robert Holmes took upon them with our Company's ships--but

they made no great mark on my memory, for I was just taking over my

father's work when the first expedition took place. At any rate, none

can say that we have gone into this war unjustly, seeing that the

Dutch began it, altogether without cause, by first attacking our

trading posts."

"It seems to me, Captain Dave," John Wilkes said, "that it has been

mighty like the war that our English buccaneers waged against the

Spaniards in the West Indies, while the two nations were at peace at

home."

"It is curious," Cyril said, "that the trouble begun in Africa should

have shifted to the other side of the Atlantic."

"Ay, lad; just as that first trouble was at last fought out in the

English Channel, off the coast of France, so this is likely to be

decided in well-nigh the same waters."

"The gentlemen, the other night, were all of opinion," Nellie said,

"that the matter would never have come to such a head had it not been

that De Witt, who is now the chief man in Holland, belongs to the

French party there, and has been urged on by King Louis, for his own

interest, to make war with us."

"That may well be, Nellie. In all our English wars France has ever

had a part either openly or by intrigues. France never seems to be

content with attending to her own business, but is ever meddling with

her neighbours', and, if not fighting herself, trying to set them by

the ears against each other. If I were a bit younger, and had not

lost my left flipper, I would myself volunteer for the service. As

for Master Cyril here, I know he is burning to lay aside the pen and

take to the sword."

"That is so, Captain Dave. As you know, I only took up the pen to

keep me until I was old enough to use a sword. I have been two years

at it now, and I suppose it will be as much longer before I can think

of entering the service of one of the Protestant princes; but as soon

as I am fit to do so, I shall get an introduction and be off; but I

would tenfold rather fight for my own country, and would gladly sail

in the Fleet, though I went but as a ship's boy."

"That is the right spirit, Master Cyril," John Wilkes exclaimed. "I

would go myself if the Captain could spare me and they would take

such a battered old hulk."

"I couldn't spare you, John," Captain Dave said. "I have been mighty

near making a mess of it, even with you as chief mate, and I might as

well shut up shop altogether if you were to leave me. I should miss

you, too, Cyril," he went on, stretching his arm across the table to

shake hands with the lad. "You have proved a real friend and a true;

but were there a chance of your going as an officer, I would not balk

you, even if I could do so. It is but natural that a lad of spirit

should speak and think as you do; besides, the war may not last for

long, and when you come back, and the ships are paid off, you would

soon wipe off the arrears of work, and get the books into ship-shape

order. But, work or no work, that room of yours will always stand

ready for you while I live, and there will always be a plate for you

on this table."

"Thank you, Captain Dave. You always overrate my services, and forget

that they are but the consequence of the kindness that you have shown

to me. But I have no intention of going. It was but a passing

thought. I have but one friend who could procure me a berth as a

volunteer, and as it is to him I must look for an introduction to

some foreign prince, I would not go to him twice for a favour,

especially as I have no sort of claim on his kindness. To go as a

cabin boy would be to go with men under my own condition, and

although I do not shirk hard work and rough usage, I should not care

for them in such fashion. Moreover, I am doing work which, even

without your hospitality, would suffice to keep me comfortably, and

if I went away, though but for a month, I might find that those for

whom I work had engaged other assistance. Spending naught, I am

laying by money for the time when I shall have to travel at my own

expense and to provide myself necessaries, and, maybe, to keep myself

for a while until I can procure employment. I have the prospect that,

by the end of another two years, I shall have gathered a sufficient

store for all my needs, and I should be wrong to throw myself out of

employment merely to embark on an adventure, and so to make a break,