I must go home and look at the quicksilver before I know what is
best to do. You had better come with me, Scudamore."
Admiral Darling was quite right in this. Everything depended upon the
weather; and although the rough autumn was not come yet, the prime of
the hopeful year was past. The summer had not been a grand one, such
as we get about once in a decade, but of loose and uncertain character,
such as an Englishman has to make the best of. It might be taking up for
a golden autumn, ripening corn, and fruit, and tree, or it might break
up into shower and tempest, sodden earth, and weltering sky.
"Your captain refers to me for orders," said Admiral Darling to
Scudamore, while they were hastening to the Hall, "as Commander of the
Coast Defence, because he has been brought too far inshore, and one of
the Frenchmen is stranded. The frigate you boarded and carried is the
Ville d'Anvers, of forty guns. The corvette that took the ground, so
luckily for you, when half of your hands were aboard the prize, is the
Blonde, teak-built, and only launched last year. We must try to have
her, whatever happens. She won't hurt where she is, unless it comes
on to blow. Our sands hold fast without nipping, as you know, like a
well-bred sheep-dog, and the White Pig is the toughest of all of them.
She may stay there till the equinox, without much mischief, if the
present light airs continue. But the worst job will be with the
prisoners; they are the plague of all these affairs, and we can't
imitate Boney by poisoning them.
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