CHAPTER XIV

A HORRIBLE SUGGESTION


"Can you guess what has brought me down here in this hurry?" Lord
Nelson asked Admiral Darling, having jumped like a boy from his yellow
post-chaise, and shaken his old friend's broad right hand with his
slender but strenuous left one, even as a big bell is swung by a thin
rope. "I have no time to spare--not a day, not an hour; but I made up my
mind to see you before I start. I cannot expect to come home alive, and,
except for one reason, I should not wish it."

"Nonsense!" said the Admiral, who was sauntering near his upper gate,
and enjoying the world this fine spring morning; "you are always in
such a confounded hurry! When you come to my time of life, you will know
better. What is it this time? The Channel fleet again?"

"No, no; Billy Blue keeps that, thank God! I hate looking after a school
of herring-boats. The Mediterranean for me, my friend. I received the
order yesterday, and shall be at sea by the twentieth."

"I am very glad to hear it, for your sake. If ever there was a restless
fellow--in the good old times we were not like that. Come up to the
house and talk about it; at least they must take the horses out. They
are not like you; they can't work forever."

"And they don't get knocked about like me; though one of them has lost