The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

The remaining fortnight of the month of September passed away, with a / general decline from the summer's excitements. The royal family left the / watering-place the first week in October, the German Legion with their / artillery about the same time. The dragoons still remained at the / barracks just out of the town, and John Loveday brought to Anne every / newspaper that he could lay hands on, especially such as contained any / fragment of shipping news. This threw them much together; and at these / times John was often awkward and confused, on account of the unwonted / stress of concealing his great love for her.

Her interests had grandly developed from the limits of Overcombe and the / town life hard by, to an extensiveness truly European. During the whole / month of October, however, not a single grain of information reached her, / or anybody else, concerning Nelson and his blockading squadron off Cadiz. / There were the customary bad jokes about Buonaparte, especially when it / was found that the whole French army had turned its back upon Boulogne / and set out for the Rhine. Then came accounts of his march through / Germany and into Austria; but not a word about the Victory.

At the beginning of autumn John brought news which fearfully depressed / her. The Austrian General Mack had capitulated with his whole army. Then / were revived the old misgivings as to invasion. 'Instead of having to / cope with him weary with waiting, we shall have to encounter This Man / fresh from the fields of victory,' ran the newspaper article.

But the week which had led off with such a dreary piping was to end in / another key. On the very day when Mack's army was piling arms at the / feet of its conqueror, a blow had been struck by Bob Loveday and his / comrades which eternally shattered the enemy's force by sea. Four days / after the receipt of the Austrian news Corporal Tullidge ran into the / miller's house to inform him that on the previous Monday, at eleven in / the morning, the Pickle schooner, Lieutenant Lapenotiere, had arrived at / Falmouth with despatches from the fleet; that the stage-coaches on the / highway through Wessex to London were chalked with the words 'Great / Victory! ' 'Glorious Triumph! ' and so on; and that all the country people / were wild to know particulars.

On Friday afternoon John arrived with authentic news of the battle off / Cape Trafalgar, and the death of Nelson. Captain Hardy was alive, though / his escape had been narrow enough, his shoe-buckle having been carried / away by a shot. It was feared that the Victory had been the scene of the / heaviest slaughter among all the ships engaged, but as yet no returns of / killed and wounded had been issued, beyond a rough list of the numbers in / some of the ships.

The suspense of the little household in Overcombe Mill was great in the / extreme. John came thither daily for more than a week; but no further / particulars reached England till the end of that time, and then only the / meagre intelligence that there had been a gale immediately after the / battle, and that many of the prizes had been lost. Anne said little to / all these things, and preserved a superstratum of calmness on her / countenance; but some inner voice seemed to whisper to her that Bob was / no more. Miller Loveday drove to Pos'ham several times to learn if the / Captain's sisters had received any more definite tidings than these / flying reports; but that family had heard nothing which could in any way / relieve the miller's anxiety. When at last, at the end of November, / there appeared a final and revised list of killed and wounded as issued / by Admiral Collingwood, it was a useless sheet to the Lovedays. To their / great pain it contained no names but those of officers, the friends of / ordinary seamen and marines being in those good old days left to discover / their losses as best they might.

Anne's conviction of her loss increased with the darkening of the early / winter time. Bob was not a cautious man who would avoid needless / exposure, and a hundred and fifty of the Victory's crew had been disabled / or slain. Anybody who had looked into her room at this time would have / seen that her favourite reading was the office for the Burial of the Dead / at Sea, beginning 'We therefore commit his body to the deep. ' In these / first days of December several of the victorious fleet came into port; / but not the Victory. Many supposed that that noble ship, disabled by the / battle, had gone to the bottom in the subsequent tempestuous weather; and / the belief was persevered in till it was told in the town and port that / she had been seen passing up the Channel. Two days later the Victory / arrived at Portsmouth.

Then letters from survivors began to appear in the public prints which / John so regularly brought to Anne; but though he watched the mails with / unceasing vigilance there was never a letter from Bob. It sometimes / crossed John's mind that his brother might still be alive and well, and / that in his wish to abide by his expressed intention of giving up Anne / and home life he was deliberately lax in writing. If so, Bob was / carrying out the idea too thoughtlessly by half, as could be seen by / watching the effects of suspense upon the fair face of the victim, and / the anxiety of the rest of the family.

It was a clear day in December. The first slight snow of the season had / been sifted over the earth, and one side of the apple-tree branches in / the miller's garden was touched with white, though a few leaves were / still lingering on the tops of the younger trees. A short sailor of the / Royal Navy, who was not Bob, nor anything like him, crossed the mill / court and came to the door. The miller hastened out and brought him into / the room, where John, Mrs. Loveday, and Anne Garland were all present.

'I'm from aboard the Victory,' said the sailor. 'My name's Jim Cornick. / And your lad is alive and well.'