cause of duty; the gold embroidery had taken leave of absence in
some places, and in others showed more fray of silk than gleam of yellow
glory; and the four stars fastened on the left breast wanted a little
plate-powder sadly. But Nelson was quite contented with them, and like
a child--for he always kept in his heart the childhood's freshness--he
gazed at the star he was proudest of, the Star of the Bath, and through
a fond smile sighed. Through the rays of that star his death was coming,
ere a quarter of a day should be added to his life.

With less pretension and air of greatness than the captain of a penny
steamer now displays, Nelson went from deck to deck, and visited every
man at quarters, as if the battle hung on every one. There was scarcely
a man whom he did not know, as well as a farmer knows his winter hands;
and loud cheers rang from gun to gun when his order had been answered.
His order was, "Reserve your fire until you are sure of every shot."
Then he took his stand upon the quarter-deck, assured of victory, and
assured that his last bequest to the British nation would be honoured
sacredly--about which the less we say the better.

In this great battle, which crushed the naval power of France, and saved
our land from further threat of inroad, Blyth Scudamore was not engaged,
being still attached to the Channel fleet; but young Dan Tugwell bore
a share, and no small share by his own account and that of his native
village, which received him proudly when he came home. Placed at a gun
on the upper deck, on the starboard side near the mizzen-mast, he fought
like a Briton, though dazed at first by the roar, and the smoke, and the
crash of timber. Lord Nelson had noticed him more than once, as one of
the smartest of his crew, and had said to him that very morning, "For
the honour of Springhaven, Dan, behave well in your first action." And
the youth had never forgotten that, when the sulphurous fog enveloped
him, and the rush of death lifted his curly hair, and his feet were
sodden and his stockings hot with the blood of shattered messmates.

In the wildest of the wild pell-mell, as the Victory lay like a pelted
log, rolling to the storm of shot, with three ships at close quarters
hurling all their metal at her, and a fourth alongside clutched so close
that muzzle was tompion for muzzle, while the cannon-balls so thickly
flew that many sailors with good eyes saw them meet in the air and
shatter one another, an