Chapter XXII: Compton Rennel

When I awoke, the pleasant rustle of the green foliage above me and the bright gleams of sunlight that flashed through the waving branches, with the songs of the birds that twittered from hedge to tree, excited a momentary astonishment; but the booming of the adjacent sea, as it rolled on the shelving beach, recalled all the adventures of the last night, and the complete desolation of my position. I clambered up a sloping bank, and for a time lay there under the shady chesnut-trees, gazing on the sunlit sea, and idly listening to the long rolling billows that broke in white foam and in endless succession on the sandy shore, abandoning myself "to the supreme happiness of doing nothing;" but soon came bitter reflections, and with them the necessity for action.

Seaward I saw a long white line of foam. That was the _Sandridge_; a few black stumps appeared above its snowy line. These were the piles whereon the beacon had stood. I shuddered and turned away, resolving to be wary of whom I trusted now, for already I had been (as they say in Australia) twice bound and free within a week--bound by the aggression of others, and free by my own energy.

As I proceeded and quitted the coppice for a highway that lay between thick green hedgerows, the influence of the beautiful morning and the fertility of the scenery raised my spirit. I was in a strange place, true--and without a penny; yet, boylike, the joyous novelty of perfect freedom--the memory of dangers dared and escaped (_for I might have been left_ to perish amid the flames of the beacon), made me thankful and lighthearted, as I walked towards the red-brick English town, on the old grey Norman church tower of which the morning sun shone merrily.

Passing one or two manor-houses of quaint aspect, with oriel windows and clustered chimnies, that stood in lawns as flat and green as a billiard table; and by the wayside, a few rustic cottages, buried under arbours of honeysuckle and woodbine, a road that was so thickly arched over by oak, chesnut and plum trees in full foliage, as to resemble a leafy tunnel, brought me to the town, among the red-brick and square modern houses of which were many gable-ended, galleried and quaint old mansions of the Elizabethan age.

I paused at the head of the principal street, for I felt myself without friends, and what was still worse, without money. The morning seemed early, for few persons were yet abroad, and the almost grassy vista of the street, which was paved with little round pebbles, was silent and empty. Close by me were the parish stocks, and thereon I sat for a time to reflect on my loneliness. A man passed me, a bumpkin going afield. He had a pitchfork on his shoulder, and his face expressed that well-fed air of content which is as peculiar to England as his little round hat, his canvass frock, and hobnailed shoes.

"Good morning, measter," said he, passing thoughtlessly on.

"What town is this?" I asked.

"Where be you come from, not to ha' heerd o' Compton Rennel afore, eh? The best market town in any o' the Ridings o' Yorkshire," he replied, and passed on, singing merrily.

"Yorkshire!" I reiterated, while the name of the town caused an emotion of alarm. I remembered the press-gang, of which Mother Snatchblock and Dick Knuckleduster had spoken. I was afraid of being questioned as a stranger, and of being in some way implicated in the destruction of the lighthouse; or, by my involuntary residence therein, being deemed a comrade of those whose conversation and dealings proved them to be murderers and wreckers.

While these and many other unpleasant thoughts occurred to me, a large placard, surmounted by the royal arms and running somewhat in the following terms, caught my eye:--

"ALL GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS!

"That are willing to serve His Gracious Majesty King George III., in the Royal Scots Fusiliers, now commanded by Major-General the Honourable James Murray, of Elibank, lately Governor of Quebec, may apply to Sergeant Drumbirrel, at the Chequers, or the 'Maid and the Magpie,' in Compton Rennel, as twenty brave fellows are wanted to complete the strength of the battalion, which is about to sail for the West Indies, to fight the rascally French, Dutch, and Spaniards, and lick them right out of the world.

"Every gentleman enlisting shall receive pay at once, with two guineas to drink the very good healths of His Gracious Majesty and the noble General Murray, of Elibank,--not forgetting the Earl of Kildonan, Lieutenant-Colonel of the said regiment.

"God save the King! Hurrah!
"DUNCAN DRUMBIRREL, Sergt., R.S.F."

My heart beat lightly as I read this rather grandiloquent document. The Fusiliers were my father's old regiment--"_the_ regiment," _par excellence_, of Lotty and me, and an emotion of joy came over me. Then, as if to supplement this invitation to glory, pipeclay, and gunpowder, I heard the sound of drums and fifes in the town. Anon a crowd of hobnailed rustics and other people appeared debouching into the main street, and amid them I saw the tall black bearskin caps and white feathers, the long streaming ribbons, the drawn swords and red coats of the recruiting party.

_Then_ I felt that I was not without friends in Compton Kennel, and pressing forward, I joined the gaping crowd. I was weary, hungry, and harassed; but the stirring sound of the sharply-braced drums and the notes of the shrill fife filled my heart with a new glow of joy and energy. I elbowed a passage to the sergeant, who, with his pike on his shoulder, erect and stiff as its shaft, marched at the head of his party, which consisted only of an Irish corporal, a private, two drums and fifes, and eight or ten cockaded recruits, straight to the "Maid and the Magpie," in front of which, after beating the _Point of War_, all took off their caps and gave three cheers for the king and the gallant General Murray.

Wistfully I gazed at the seven soldiers in their red coats, faced with blue,--once so familiar to my boyish eyes; but they seemed "new hands;" at least, I failed to recognize them. Amid the hubbub about the inn door, I seized the arm of the halberdier, and inquired,--

"Are you Sergeant Drumbirrel?"

"Yes, my lad. What do you want with me?"

"To volunteer," said I.

"For the Twenty-first Foot?"

"Yes."

"All right, boy. What age are you?"

"Seventeen years."

"We don't reckon our time in the army by years, but by the enjoyments we have," replied Drumbirrel, who was quite master of the noble art of trepanning. "In his Majesty's name," he added, slipping the mystical coin into my hand; "and now, come into the bar for our morning glass, and to pass you under the standard."

And thus it was that I became a Royal Fusilier!