“Your honour,” said Lewis, “just round that corner, in a little break of the rocks, there is one of the finest springs in Glamorgan, ‘Ffynnon Wen’ we call it, the water does be sparkling so.”
The groom, having no cup to fetch the water, stood by the horse in the little pant or combe; while old Sir Philip went down to the shore, to drink as our first forefather drank, and Gideon’s men in the Bible. Whether he lapped or dipped, I know not (probably the latter, at his time of life), anyhow he assuaged his thirst—which rum of my quality could not have caused in a really sound constitution, after taking no more than a thimbleful—and then for a moment he sat on a rock, soothed by the purling water, to rest and to look around him. The place has no great beauty, as of a seaside spring in Devonshire, but more of cheer and life about it than their ferny grottoes. The bright water breaks from an elbow of rock, in many veins all uniting, and without any cliff above them; and then, after rushing a very few yards through set stone and loose shingle, loses its self-will upon the soft sand, and spreads a way over a hundred yards of vague wetness and shallow shining.
The mild sun of April was glancing on this, and the tide just advancing to see to it, when the shadow of a slim figure fell on the stones before Sir Philip. So quietly had she slipped along, and appeared from the rocks so suddenly, that neither old man nor young maiden thought of the other until their eyes met.
“What, why, who?” cried the General, with something as much like a start as good conscience and long service had left in him: “who are you? Who are you, my dear?”
For his eyes were fixed on a fair young damsel of some fifteen summers, standing upright, with a pad on her head, and on the pad a red pitcher. Over her shoulders, and down to her waist, fell dark-brown curls abundantly, full of gleaming gold where the sun stole through the rocks to dwell in them. Her dress was nothing but blue Welsh flannel, gathered at the waist and tucked in front, and her beautifully tinted legs and azure-veined feet shone under it.
“Who are you, my pretty creature?” Sir Philip Bampfylde asked again, while she opened her grey eyes wide at him.
“Y Ferch o’r Scer, Syr,” she answered shyly, and with the strong guttural tone which she knew was unpleasant to English ears. For it was her sensitive point that she could not tell anyone who she was; and her pride (which was manifold) always led her to draw back from questions.
On the other hand the old man’s gaze of strong surprise and deep interest faded into mere admiration at the sound of our fine language.
“Fair young Cambrian, I have asked you rudely, and you are displeased with me. Lift your curls, my little dear, and let me see your face a while. I remember one just like it. There, you are put out again! So it was with the one I mean when anything happened hastily.”
The beautiful girl flung back her hair, and knelt to stoop her pitcher in the gurgling runnel; and then she looked at his silver locks, and was sorry for her impatience.
“Sir, I beg you to forgive me, if I have been rude to you. I am the maid from the old house yonder. I am often sent for this water, because it sparkles much more than our own does. If you please, I must go home, sir.”
She filled the red pitcher, and tucked the blue skirt, as girls alone can manage it; and Sir Philip Bampfylde sighed at thinking of his age and loneliness, while with an old-fashioned gentleman’s grace he lifted the pitcher and asked no more upon whose head he laid it.
LVIII
More Haste, Less Speed
To do what is thoroughly becoming and graceful is my main desire. That any man should praise himself, and insist upon his own exploits and services to his native land, or even should let people guess at his valour, by any manner of side-wind—such a course would simply deprive me of the only thing a poor battered sailor has left to support him against his pension; I mean of course humble, but nevertheless well-grounded, self-respect.
This delicacy alone forbids me even to allude to that urgent and universal call for my very humble services which launched me on the briny waves once more, and in time for a share in the glorious battle fought off Cape St. Vincent. Upon that great St. Valentine’s Day of 1797 I was Master of the Excellent, under Captain Collingwood; and every boy in the parish knows how we captured the Saint Isidore, and really took the Saint Nicholas, though other people got the credit, and nearly took a four-decked ship of 130 guns, whose name was the Saint Miss Trinder, and who managed to sneak away, when by all rights we had got her.
However, let us be content with things beyond contradiction; the foremost of which is, that no ship ever was carried into action in a more masterly style than the Excellent upon that occasion. And the weight of this falls on the Master, far more than the Captain, I do assure you. So highly were my skill and coolness commended in the despatches, that if I could have borne to be reduced below inferior men, I might have died a real Captain in the British Navy. For (as happened to the now Captain Bowen, when Master of the Queen Charlotte) I was offered a lieutenant’s commission, and doubted about accepting it. Had I been twenty years younger, of course, I must have jumped at the offer; but at my time of life, and with all
