Read Ebook: Square Pegs: A Rhymed Fantasy For Two Girls by Bax Clifford

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Ebook has 955 lines and 56288 words, and 20 pages

He pointed to Tom and smiled, while the ensign, turning upon our hero, surveyed him with amazement, and with some amount of superciliousness if the truth be told.

"Pardon, sir," he said, "I don't understand."

"Of course not," came the smiling answer; "nor does he. Come here, Tom."

Our hero, as may be imagined, was just as dumbfounded as the ensign; for though Mr. Riley had been wonderfully kind to him from the beginning, his manner had suddenly changed. He addressed him as if he were an equal, not as if he were one of the crew.

"I'll explain," he smiled, seeing the bewilderment expressed by both young fellows. "While the action was passing between us and the man-of-war our lookouts reported a sail in the offing. She has come up to us since, and turns out to be a smaller frigate than ourselves. But the point is this--she left the Thames after us, and has carried a brisk breeze with her all the way. She asked at once for information concerning a young fellow brought aboard just before we weighed, who had been impressed by a gang having quarters near London Bridge. That, sir, is the young fellow."

He pointed at Tom, whom the ensign still regarded in amazement.

"The whole thing has been cleared up, of course," said Mr. Riley. "There is no longer any doubt that this gentleman is the son of Mr. Septimus John Clifford, wine merchant, of London Bridge."

"Eh?" suddenly interjected the ensign, staring hard at Tom. "Clifford, of London Bridge. Well, I'm bothered! Why, Tom, don't you know me?"

It must be confessed that our hero was somewhat taken aback. In this young officer so much above himself, clad in the handsome uniform of the 60th Rifles, he had not recognized an old friend. Indeed his attention had been centred on his own officer. But now, when Jack Barwood lifted his cap, Tom recognized him at once, and gave vent to a shout of delight.

"Why, it's you!" he cried, gripping the hand extended. "Haven't seen you since--now when did we meet last?"

"Time you licked that cub of a grocer's boy," laughed Jack, who seemed to be just such another as our hero, and who was evidently a jovial fellow. "He passed when we were with your cousin, and grinned and sauced you. You were at him in a jiffy."

Mr. Riley laughed loudly when he heard what was passing. "Why, he's been at one of our men aboard the frigate," he cried. "Hammered him badly just before we fell in with the Frenchman. He's a tiger."

"He's a demon to fight, is Tom, sir," laughed Jack. "Ask him how we became acquainted."

"Eh? How?" asked the officer curiously, and then pressed the question when he saw that Tom had gone a crimson colour and was looking sheepish. "Eh?" he repeated.

"He's pretending to have forgotten," shouted Jack, enjoying the situation. "I'll tell the tale. It was at school one day. Tom was chewing toffee, mine had disappeared from a pocket. I tackled him with the theft, and we went hammer and tongs for one another. It was a busy time for us for some ten minutes."

"Ah!" smiled Mr. Riley. "Who won?"

"Drawn battle," exclaimed Tom, somewhat sulkily.

"I had a licking," laughed Jack. "It was a certainty for him from the beginning."

"Not surprised," came from the officer. "And the toffee?"

"Eh?" asked Jack.

"The toffee you accused him of stealing?" asked Mr. Riley. "You found it later?"

"In another pocket--yes," admitted Jack, with a delightful grin. "I deserved that hiding; it made us fast friends. So Tom's been impressed."

That caused Tom to lift his head and come nearer. He had wondered time and again how that impressment had been brought about, whether by accident or design, and had never been able to bring himself to believe that Jos? was responsible. Mr. Riley's words made him open his ears.

"You are sure, sir?" he asked.

"The commander has letters from your father with positive proof. However, things seemed to have happened fortunately. You are to be taken to Oporto after all, and here you meet with an old friend. Things couldn't have been better. Now I shall leave you both aboard while I go to get together a crew. We'll set a course for Oporto when I return, and ought to reach the place inside the week. Tom, you'll no longer be a sailor before the mast. I have the commander's orders to take you as a passenger, or, if you wish it, to appoint you an officer for the time being. How's that?"

It was all delightful hearing; and when at length the sloop turned her bows for Oporto, leaving the frigate to sail away with her prize, and incidentally to carry Tom's letter to his father in England, the party aboard the little vessel could not have been merrier.

"You'll have to turn soldier yet," declared Jack to our hero, standing so that the latter could inspect his uniform, and indeed the young fellow cut such a neat figure that Tom was even more tempted than formerly. For Jack was slimmer and shorter than he, while the few months of training he had experienced had taught him to hold himself erect. A jollier and more careless ensign never existed. It can be said with truth that, had the fortunes of the troops in the Peninsula depended on Jack's wisdom and military knowledge, disaster would promptly have overtaken our arms. He was just one of those jolly, inconsequential sort of fellows, always skylarking, always gay and laughing, who go through the world as if serious subjects were not in existence.

"Hooray for the life of a soldier!" he shouted, knowing Tom's ardent wishes that way, and anxious to fill him with envy. "Who'd ever sit on a stool and sweat over books in an office?"

"I'll lick you if you don't stop short," growled Tom sourly, and yet laughing for all that; for who could take Jack seriously? "Who knows, I may be a leader of troops before you have cut your wisdom teeth? Who knows?"

Who could guess the future indeed? Not Tom. Not the jovial, thoughtless Jack. Not even the wise Mr. Riley, with all his experience of the sea and of the men who go upon it. It seemed that Oporto would receive them in the course of a few days, and that Jack and Tom would there part. But within twenty-four hours of that conversation the scene was changed. Two vessels raised their peaks from the offing, and, sailing nearer, declared themselves as French. They overhauled the little sloop, in spite of a spread of canvas that threatened to press her beneath the water. And that evening Tom and his companions were prisoners.

"My uncle! What awful luck!" groaned Jack, in the depths of despair, as is often the case with high-mettled people when reverses come along. "No soldiering, Tom; no office for you. I'd prefer that to a prison."

"It's the fortune of war," exclaimed Mr. Riley with resignation. "For me it makes no great difference. The wound I received aboard the frigate has not improved, and, even if I become a prisoner, I shall receive proper treatment, which is impossible aboard this sloop. I'm sorry for you two young fellows."

"Pooh, sir," smiled Tom, "we'll give 'em the slip! Seems to me I'm not meant for Oporto yet awhile. We'll give 'em the slip, and then I'll take on as a soldier."

"Slip? How?" asked Jack, somewhat staggered, for the idea had not occurred to him.

"Depends; couldn't say now how we'll bring it about. But we'll manage it some way. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and a little French. If with those advantages we can't manage the business, well, we're only fit for a prison."

"Hooray!" shouted the excited Jack; whereat one of the French officers accosted them angrily. But Tom quickly appeased him.

"Ah, you speak our tongue! That is good," came the more pleasant answer. "But where you land I cannot say; you will be sent with troops to the north of Spain, and so to a prison."

It was not very cheering news, but Tom made the best of it.

"I don't put my nose into a French prison if I can help it!" he declared, in that particular tone of voice to which Jack had grown accustomed when they were chums at school.

"And he won't!" declared the latter. "I know Tom well--a pig-headed, stubborn beggar from his cradle. Tom'll give 'em the slip, and we with him. One thing seems all right in the meanwhile--there's grub and drink in plenty. I never could stand starvation; I'd rather go to prison."

But whatever thoughts they may have had as regards escaping were set aside when they landed. Putting in at an obscure port, Tom and his friends found a squadron of horsemen waiting to receive them, for the ship had flown signals. The three friends, together with the two men belonging to Jack's regiment, were given horses, while a trooper took their reins, two other men riding close to each one of them. And then they set off across a barren country, which, however fair it may have been in other days, was burned black, stripped of all eatables, while those villages which had not been swallowed by the flames were wrecked and useless.

"You will be careful not to attempt an escape," said the officer in command of the squadron, speaking to Tom, the only one of the prisoners who could understand him. "I have given orders for the troopers to shoot at the first attempt. We ride now to join our main army, and through a country inhabited by people who would flay us alive if they could catch us. Let that alone warn you not to attempt escape. The Portuguese peasants are more dangerous than my soldiers."

He shouted to the head of the column, set his own horse in motion, and led the way at a pace that threatened to be trying. It was obvious, in fact, that he was anxious to reach the summit of the hills near at hand, and not to be found in the open when night fell. As for Tom and his friends, the outlook seemed hopeless; an attempt at escape meant a bullet from their guard. And, even were they successful, they were in a country where bands of peasants scoured the valleys murdering all who were too weak to oppose them. It looked indeed as if a French prison would shortly shelter them, and as if there Jack's military career would come to a halt before it had actually begun, while Tom's ambitions in that direction would be cut in twain and end only in bitter disappointment.

Prisoners

If ever a band of prisoners could be described as jovial it was the little band with whom Tom Clifford was travelling. For the confinement at sea made a trip ashore most enchanting; then the quick and unaccustomed movement, the efforts more than one of them were forced to make continually to keep in their saddles, provoked an amount of amusement which even infected their escort.

"I was as near off as anything that time," shouted the irrepressible Jack, when his horse had shied at a rock and nearly thrown him. "Wish one of these fellows would rope me to the saddle instead of leading me as if I were a child."

"What does he say, monsieur?" asked the trooper riding near our hero, and at once Tom explained.

"That would not be good for him," laughed the man. "If we have to gallop at any time, and the horse fell, he would be left to be butchered. I tell you, monsieur, these peasants are terrible. I do not say that they are not justified, for our men have behaved cruelly to them. But the peasants care nothing whether it be horse soldiers or foot. If a man of ours falls into their hands he is butchered; that would be your fate also if you were to lag behind."

Every now and again, as the small party made for the hills, groups of men were seen hovering in the distance. And once, when the squadron was riding through a narrow defile, rocks descended from above.

"Gallop!" commanded the officer, and striking their heels into the flanks of the horses the soldiers soon passed through. When the dusk of evening began to fall, shots rang out in the distance, and one of the troopers was wounded.

"I see men gathering in front of us," suddenly exclaimed one of the sergeants. "They fill the gap through which we must pass to gain the road for the hill."

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