'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.




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