Held Fast For England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) by G. A. Henty (reading a book .TXT) 📗

"Don't talk in that way, Teddy. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It seems to me that you are making a great to-do about nothing. Some soldiers have been marched somewhere in Spain, and all this talk is made up about it. They must know, very well, they can't take the Rock. They tried it once, and I should have thought they would not be in a hurry to try it again. I shall believe in it when I see it.

"You need not look so delighted, Bob. If there should be any trouble--and it seems nonsense even to think about such a thing--but if there should be any, we should put you on board the very first vessel sailing for England, and get you off our minds."

Bob laughed.

"I should go down and ship as a powder monkey, on one of the ships of war; or enlist as a drummer, in one of the regiments; and then I should be beyond your authority, altogether."

"I begin to think you are beyond my authority already, Bob.

"Gerald, I am afraid we did a very foolish thing in agreeing to have this boy out here."

"Well, we have got him on our hands now, Carrie; and it is early, yet, for you to find out your mistake.

"Well, if there should be a siege--"

"You know there is no chance of it, Gerald."

"Well, I only say if, and we are cut off from all the world, he will be a companion to you, and keep you alive, while I am in the batteries."

"I won't hear such nonsense talked any more, Gerald; and if Teddy Burke is going to bring us every bit of absurd gossip that may be picked up from the peasants, he can stay away, altogether."

"Except when he comes to instruct his pupil, Mrs. O'Halloran."

"Oh, that is not likely to last long, Dr. Burke!"

"That is to be seen, Mrs. O'Halloran. It is a nice example you are setting him of want of respect for his instructor. I warn you that, before another six months have passed, you will have to confess that it has been just the very best arrangement that could have been made; and will thank your stars that Dr. Edward Burke, M.D., of Dublin, happened to be here, ready to your hand."

When Dr. Burke had left, Bob broke into an Indian war dance, expressive of the deepest satisfaction; and Captain O'Halloran burst into a shout of laughter at the contrast between the boy's vehement delight, and the dissatisfaction expressed in his wife's face.

"I am not at all pleased, Gerald, not at all; and I don't see that it is any laughing matter. I never heard a more ridiculous thing. Uncle intrusted Bob to our care, believing that we should do what was best for him; and here you go and engage the most feather-headed Irishman in the garrison--and that is saying a good deal, Gerald--to look after him."

It was so seldom that Carrie took matters seriously that her husband ceased laughing, at once.

"Well, Carrie, there is no occasion to put yourself out about it. The experiment can be tried for a fortnight; and if, at the end of that time, you are not satisfied, we will get someone else. But I am sure it will work well."

"So am I, Carrie," Bob put in. "I believe Dr. Burke and I will get on splendidly. You see, I have been with two people, both of whom looked as grave as judges, and one of them as cross as a bear; and yet they were both first-rate fellows. It seems to me that Dr. Burke is just the other way. He turns everything into fun; but I expect he will be just as sharp, when he is at lessons, as anyone else. At any rate, you may be sure that I will do my best with him; so as not to get put under some stiff old fellow, instead of him."

"Well, we shall see, Bob. I hope that it will turn out well, I am sure."

"Of course it will turn out well, Carrie. Why, didn't your uncle at first think I was the most harum-scarum fellow he ever saw; and now he sees that I am a downright model husband, with only one fault, and that is that I let you have your own way, altogether."

"It looks like it, on the present occasion, Gerald," his wife laughed. "I will give it, as you say, a fortnight's trial. I only hope that you have made a better choice for Bob's Spanish master."

"I hope so, my dear--that is, if it is possible. The professor, as I call him, has been teaching his language to officers, here, for the last thirty years. He is a queer, wizened-up little old chap, and has got out of the way of bowing and scraping that the senors generally indulge in; but he seems a cheery little old soul, and he has got to understand English ways and, at any rate, there is no fear of his leading Bob into mischief. The Spaniards don't understand that; and if you were to ruffle his dignity, he would throw up teaching him at once; and I have not heard of another man on the Rock who would be likely to suit."

On the following Monday, Bob began work with the professor; who called himself, on his card, Don Diaz Martos. He spoke English very fairly and, after the first half hour, Bob found that the lessons would be much more pleasant than he expected. The professor began by giving him a long sentence to learn by heart, thoroughly; and when Bob had done this, parsed each word with him, so that he perfectly understood its meaning. Then he made the lad say it after him a score of times, correcting his accent and inflection; and when he was satisfied with this, began to construct fresh sentences out of the original one, again making Bob repeat them, and form fresh ones himself.

Thus, by the time the first lesson was finished the lad, to his surprise, found himself able, without difficulty, to frame sentences from the words he had learned. Then the professor wrote down thirty nouns and verbs in common use.

"You will learn them this evening," he said, "and in the morning we shall be able to make up a number of sentences out of them and, by the end of a week, you will see we shall begin to talk to each other. After that, it will be easy. Thirty fresh words, every day, will be ample. In a month you will know seven or eight hundred; and seven or eight hundred are enough for a man to talk with, on common occasions."

"He is first rate," Bob reported to his sister, as they sat down to dinner, at one o'clock. "You would hardly believe that I can say a dozen little sentences, already; and can understand him, when he says them. He says, in a week, we shall be able to get to talk together.

"I wonder they don't teach Latin like that. Why, I shall know in two or three months as much Spanish--and more, ever so much more--than I do Latin, after grinding away at it for the last seven or eight years."

"Well, that is satisfactory. I only hope the other will turn out as well."

As Mrs. O'Halloran sat that evening, with her work in her hand, on the terrace; with her husband, smoking a cigar, beside her. She paused, several times, as she heard a burst of laughter.

"That doesn't sound like master and pupil," she said, sharply, after an unusually loud laugh from below.

"More the pity, Carrie. Why on earth shouldn't a master be capable of a joke? Do you think one does not learn all the faster, when the lecture is pleasant? I know I would, myself. I never could see why a man should look as if he was going to an execution, when he wants to instil knowledge."

"But it is not usual, Gerald," Carrie remonstrated, no other argument occurring to her.

"But that doesn't prove that it's wrong. Why a boy should be driven worse than a donkey, and thrashed until his life is a burden to him, and he hates his lessons and hates his master, beats me entirely. Some day they will go more sensibly to work.

"You see, in the old times, Carrie, men used to beat their wives; and you don't think the women were any the better for it, do you?"

"Of course they weren't," Carrie said, indignantly.

"But it was usual, you know, Carrie, just as you say that it is usual for masters to beat boys--as if they would do nothing, without being thrashed. I can't see any difference between the two things."

"I can see a great deal of difference, sir!"

"Well, what is the difference, Carrie?"

But Carrie disdained to give any answer. Still, as she sat sewing and thinking the matter over, she acknowledged to herself that she really could not see any good and efficient reason why boys should be beaten, any more than women.

"But women don't do bad things, like boys," she said, breaking silence at last.

"Don't they, Carrie? I am not so sure of that. I have heard of women who are always nagging their husbands, and giving them no peace of their lives. I have heard of women who think of nothing but dress, and who go about and leave their homes and children to shift for themselves. I have heard of women who spend all their time spreading scandal. I have heard of--"

"There, that is enough," Carrie broke in hastily. "But you don't mean to say that they would be any the better for beating, Gerald?"

"I don't know, Carrie; I should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank--which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane always going, at school, as they do now.

"But here comes Bob. Well, Bob, is the doctor gone? Didn't you ask him to come up, and have a cigar?"

"Yes; but he said he had got two or three cases at the hospital he must see, and would wait until this evening."

"How have you got on, Bob?"

"Splendidly. I wonder why they don't teach at school, like that."

"It didn't sound much like teaching," Carrie said, severely.

"I don't suppose it did, Carrie; but it was teaching, for all that. Why, I have learned as much, this evening, as I did in a dozen lessons, in school. He explains everything so that you seem to understand it, at once; and he puts things, sometimes, in such a droll way, and brings in such funny comparisons, that you can't help laughing. But you understand it, for all that, and are not likely to forget it.

"Don't you be afraid, Carrie. If Dr. Burke teaches me, for the two years that I am going to be here, I shall know more than I should have done if I had stopped at Tulloch's till I was an old man. I used to learn lessons, there, and get through them, somehow, but I don't think I ever understood why things were so; while Dr. Burke explains everything so that you seem to understand all about it, at once. And he is pretty sharp, too. He takes a tremendous lot of pains, himself; but I can see he will expect me to take a tremendous lot of pains, too."

At the end of a fortnight, Carrie made no allusion to the subject of a change of masters. The laughing downstairs still scandalized her, a little; but she saw that Bob really enjoyed his lessons and, although she herself could not test what progress he was making, his assurances on that head satisfied her.

The Brilliant had sailed on a cruise, the morning after Bob's arrival; but as soon as he heard that she had again dropped anchor in the bay, he took a boat and went out to her; and returned on shore with Jim Sankey, who had obtained leave for the afternoon. The two spent hours in rambling about the Rock, and talking of old times at Tulloch's. Both agreed that the most fortunate thing that ever happened had been the burglary at Admiral Langton's; which had been the means of Jim's getting into the navy, and Bob's coming out to Gibraltar, to his sister.

Jim had lots to tell of his shipmates, and his life on board the Brilliant. He was disposed to pity Bob spending half