The G.A. Henty MEGAPACK ®. G.a. Henty Henty
would be capital, father. I hope that Muller’s account of the work of the last three years has been satisfactory?”
“Perfectly so. We have done much better than I could have expected under the circumstances; and indeed the profits of the last three years have been nearly as large as those of the years before the French landed.”
Four days later the order arrived for the ship to pay off, and Edgar at once posted up to town, for the number of officers wanting to go up was so large that it was impossible to secure a place by a coach to London for a week to come. The next day he called upon Sir Sidney Smith and stated to him the plans he had formed.
“They could not get a better man for the place,” the admiral said warmly, for he had now been promoted to that rank. “If you will bring me your formal application for the post of vice-consul at Alexandria, I will myself take it to the proper quarter. Put your qualification as a resident merchant and as a linguist as strongly as you like. I will urge your naval record, and myself testify to your abilities as a linguist and to the services which you have rendered.”
A week later Edgar received his formal appointment as His Majesty’s vice-consul at the port of Alexandria, and was given a fortnight’s leave before starting to take up his work. Wilkinson, who had also been ordered home and placed upon half-pay, stayed with Mr. Blagrove during the time Edgar was at home, and was much more communicative as to the work his comrade had done than the latter had himself been.
“I can tell you,” he said, “that for a midshipman to be promoted after only two years and a half service is an almost unknown thing in the navy, and shows what was thought by Lord Keith and Sir Sidney of his work.”
Mr. Blagrove returned to Alexandria with his son, having before he started freighted a ship with timber, principally oak, of the kinds and sizes that would most frequently be in demand for the execution of repairs, together with an apparatus for steaming and bending them. He had already, directly after receiving Edgar’s letter from Gibraltar, sent out directions to Mr. Muller to take over the yard and premises of the French firm. The old name had not been replaced at the entrance of the offices, but now read Blagrove, Son, & Muller, while over the door of the premises recently acquired was now placed the words, “British Vice-consulate,” and an office here was set apart for consular business, an Italian clerk, who spoke English well, being established there. As there were still some thousands of British soldiers in Alexandria, among whom were many officers who had been personally acquainted with Edgar while he had served on the staff of the general, his position was a very pleasant one. The Egyptian governor of the city, a Turkish general, who had been with the army of the Capitan Pasha, and to whom Edgar had frequently carried communications, also received him warmly.
“I am glad, indeed, to have a British vice-consul here,” he said, “who speaks our language so perfectly, and who is a British officer. So often these posts are given to small traders, who, instead of endeavouring to smooth over difficulties, seem to delight in causing them. Whenever you have any complaint to make, sir, I hope that you will come direct to me, and I will see that right is done.”
After spending a month at Alexandria, Mr. Blagrove returned to England, perfectly satisfied that matters would go on well, with his steady-going partner controlling the commercial part of the business, and Edgar taking the management of the shipping side. The business indeed flourished greatly, and when, some time afterwards, the Turks were forced to join in the European coalition against England, the firm was enabled to continue their business without molestation, as the Capitan Pasha himself took him under his special protection. Four years after his appointment Edgar returned to England on a short visit, and was present at the marriage of one of his sisters with Wilkinson, who had returned home wounded after the battle of Trafalgar; though only a month at home, he persuaded a friend of his sisters to return as his wife to Alexandria.
Ten years later Mr. Muller died. Mr. Blagrove, who was now getting on in years, wished to have Edgar at home with him; and as moreover the climate was telling upon the latter’s wife, the business was wound up and the premises and good-will disposed of for a considerable sum of money to another firm doing business there. Scarce a week had passed during Edgar’s stay in Alexandria without either the sheik or Sidi riding into Alexandria to see him. He on his part purchased a large tent from a Turkish general who had been recalled to Constantinople. This was large and commodious, divided by hangings into two or three compartments. It was set up in the Beni Ouafy’s oasis, and there he and his wife sometimes went out with their two children and spent a few days. It was with the deepest regret that he and his Arab friends bade farewell to each other when he finally left for England.
Before sailing he made an advantageous arrangement with the firm that had purchased the business, that his father should act as their agent in London, and by the influence of Sir Sidney Smith he himself obtained an appointment in the Admiralty. As his father’s savings during many years, and his own share of the property during the time that he had been partner amounted to a considerable sum, he cared less for the increase of his income by going on full pay again than for the employment that it afforded him. His father and mother died within a few months of each other in 1825. His second sister had been married some fifteen years before to a London merchant.
At the general reduction of the navy after the great war, Wilkinson was retired with the rank of commander, and he and his wife settled down in a pretty house within a few hundred yards of that of Edgar at Hampstead, and the two friends often talked over their experience at Acre, and of the cruise in search of pirates among the islands of the Archipelago.
AT AGINCOURT (Part 1)
PREFACE
The long and bloody feud between the houses of Orleans and Burgundy—which for many years devastated France, caused a prodigious destruction of life and property, and was not even relaxed in the presence of a common enemy—is very fully recorded in the pages of Monstrellet and other contemporary historians. I have here only attempted to relate the events of the early portion of the struggle—from its commencement up to the astonishing victory of Agincourt, won by a handful of Englishmen over the chivalry of France. Here the two factions, with the exception of the Duke of Burgundy himself, laid aside their differences for the moment, only to renew them while France still lay prostrate at the feet of the English conqueror.
At this distance of time, even with all the records at one’s disposal, it is difficult to say which party was most to blame in this disastrous civil war, a war which did more to cripple the power of France than was ever accomplished by English arms. Unquestionably Burgundy was the first to enter upon the struggle, but the terrible vengeance taken by the Armagnacs,—as the Orleanists came to be called,—for the murders committed by the mob of Paris in alliance with him, was of almost unexampled atrocity in civil war, and was mainly responsible for the terrible acts of cruelty afterwards perpetrated upon each other by both parties. I hope some day to devote another volume to the story of this desperate and unnatural struggle.
—G. A. HENTY.
CHAPTER I
A FEUDAL CASTLE
“And is it true that our lord and lady sail next week for their estate in France?”
“Ay, it is true enough, and more is the pity; it was a sad day for us all when the king gave the hand of his ward, our lady, to this baron of Artois.”
“They say she was willing enough, Peter.”
“Ay, ay, all say she loved him, and, being a favourite with the queen, she got her to ask the king to accede to the knight’s suit; and no wonder, he is as proper a man as eyes can want to look on—tall and stately, and they say brave. His father and grandfather both were Edward’s men, and held their castle for us; his father was a great friend of the Black Prince, and he, too, took a wife from England. Since then things have not gone well with us in France, and they say that our lord has had difficulty in keeping clear of the quarrels that are always going on out there between the great French lords; and, seeing that we have but little power in Artois, he has to hold himself discreetly, and to keep aloof as far as he can from the strife there, and bide his time until the king sends an army to win back his own again. But I doubt not that, although our lady’s