“So, you wish to come and have your bones broken?” cried Nelson, roughly, looking with much disfavour at the fine clothes which had cost my uncle and Mr. Brummel such a debate.  “You will have to change that grand coat for a tarry jacket if you serve under me, sir.”

I was so embarrassed by the abruptness of his manner that I could but stammer out that I hoped I should do my duty, on which his stern mouth relaxed into a good-humoured smile, and he laid his little brown hand for an instant upon my shoulder.

“I dare say that you will do very well,” said he.  “I can see that you have the stuff in you.  But do not imagine that it is a light service which you undertake, young gentleman, when you enter His Majesty’s Navy.  It is a hard profession.  You hear of the few who succeed, but what do you know of the hundreds who never find their way?  Look at my own luck!  Out of 200 who were with me in the San Juan expedition, 145 died in a single night.  I have been in 180 engagements, and I have, as you see, lost my eye and my arm, and been sorely wounded besides.  It chanced that I came through, and here I am flying my admiral’s flag; but I remember many a man as good as me who did not come through.  Yes,” he added, as her ladyship broke in with a voluble protest, “many and many as good a man who has gone to the sharks or the land-crabs.  But it is a useless sailor who does not risk himself every day, and the lives of all of us are in the hands of Him who best knows when to claim them.”

For an instant, in his earnest gaze and reverent manner, we seemed to catch a glimpse of the deeper, truer Nelson, the man of the Eastern counties, steeped in the virile Puritanism which sent from that district the Ironsides to fashion England within, and the Pilgrim Fathers to spread it without.  Here was the Nelson who declared that he saw the hand of God pressing upon the French, and who waited on his knees in the cabin of his flag-ship while she bore down upon the enemy’s line.  There was a human tenderness, too, in his way of speaking of his dead comrades, which made me understand why it was that he was so beloved by all who served with him, for, iron-hard as he was as seaman and fighter, there ran through his complex nature a sweet and un-English power of affectionate emotion, showing itself in tears if he were moved, and in such tender impulses as led him afterwards to ask his flag-captain to kiss him as he lay dying in the cockpit of the Victory.

My father had risen to depart, but the admiral, with that kindliness which he ever showed to the young, and which had been momentarily chilled by the unfortunate splendour of my clothes, still paced up and down in front of us, shooting out crisp little sentences of exhortation and advice.

“It is ardour that we need in the Service, young gentleman,” said he.  “We need red-hot men who will never rest satisfied.  We had them in the Mediterranean, and we shall have them again.  There was a band of brothers!  When I was asked to recommend one for special service, I told the Admiralty they might take the names as they came, for the same spirit animated them all.  Had we taken nineteen vessels, we should never have said it was well done while the twentieth sailed the seas.  You know how it was with us, Stone.  You are too old a Mediterranean man for me to tell you anything.”