'You see, Margaret, how from the very first he disliked Captain
Reid. He was second lieutenant in the ship--the Orion--in which
Frederick sailed the very first time. Poor little fellow, how
well he looked in his midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his
hand, cutting open all the newspapers with it as if it were a
paper-knife! But this Mr. Reid, as he was then, seemed to take a
dislike to Frederick from the very beginning. And then--stay!
these are the letters he wrote on board the Russell. When he was
appointed to her, and found his old enemy Captain Reid in
command, he did mean to bear all his tyranny patiently. Look!
this is the letter. Just read it, Margaret. Where is it he
says--Stop--'my father may rely upon me, that I will bear with
all proper patience everything that one officer and gentleman can
take from another. But from my former knowledge of my present
captain, I confess I look forward with apprehension to a long
course of tyranny on board the Russell.' You see, he promises to
bear patiently, and I am sure he did, for he was the
sweetest-tempered boy, when he was not vexed, that could possibly
be. Is that the letter in which he speaks of Captain Reid's
impatience with the men, for not going through the ship's
manoeuvres as quickly as the Avenger? You see, he says that they
had many new hands on board the Russell, while the Avenger had
been nearly three years on the station, with nothing to do but to
keep slavers off, and work her men, till they ran up and down the
rigging like rats or monkeys.' Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible through the
fading of the ink. It might be--it probably was--a statement of
Captain Reid's imperiousness in trifles, very much exaggerated by
the narrator, who had written it while fresh and warm from the
scene of altercation. Some sailors being aloft in the
main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down,
threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine-tails. He who was
the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of passing
his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of the
flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope
considerably lower, failed, and fell senseless on deck. He only
survived for a few hours afterwards, and the indignation of the
ship's crew was at boiling point when young Hale wrote.
'But we did not receive this letter till long, long after we
heard of the mutiny. Poor Fred! I dare say it was a comfort to
him to write it even though he could not have known how to send
it, poor fellow! And then we saw a report in the papers--that's
to say, long before Fred's letter reached us--of an atrocious
mutiny having broken out on board the Russell, and that the
mutineers had remained in possession of the ship, which had gone
off, it was supposed, to be a pirate; and that Captain Reid was
sent adrift in a boat with some men--officers or something--whose
names were all given, for they were picked up by a West-Indian
steamer. Oh, Margaret! how your father and I turned sick over
that list, when there was no name of Frederick Hale. We thought
it must be some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine fellow,
only perhaps rather too passionate; and we hoped that the name of
Carr, which was in the list, was a misprint for that of
Hale--newspapers are so careless. And towards post-time the next
day, papa set off to walk to Southampton to get the papers; and I
could not stop at home, so I went to meet him. He was very
late--much later than I thought he would have been; and I sat
down under the hedge to wait for him. He came at last, his arms
hanging loose down, his head sunk, and walking heavily along, as
if every step was a labour and a trouble. Margaret, I see him
now.' 'Don't go on, mamma. I can understand it all,' said Margaret,
leaning up caressingly against her mother's side, and kissing her
hand.