George Henty - Out with Garibaldi - A story of the liberation of Italy

Frank leapt to his feet. “You will let me go in my father’s place, mother, will you not? Many of those who will follow Garibaldi will be no older than myself, and probably not half so strong; none can hate the tyranny of Naples more than I do. It is the cause for which my father and grandfather fought; and we now have greater wrongs than they had to avenge.”

“That is what I thought you would say, Frank,” his mother said sadly. “‘Tis hard indeed to part with a son after having lost father and husband; but my father was an Italian patriot, my husband fought for Italy; in giving you up I give up my all; yet I will not say you nay. So fierce is the indignation in England at the horrors of the tyrants’ prisons that I doubt not many English will, when they hear of Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily, go out to join him; and if they are ready in the cause only of humanity to risk their lives, surely we cannot grudge you in the cause not only of humanity, but of the land of our birth.”

“I feel sure that father would have taken me, had he been here,” Frank said earnestly.

“I believe he would, Frank. I know that he shared to the full my father’s hatred of the despots who grind Italy under their heel; and besides the feeling that animated him, one cannot but cherish the hope that my father may still be found alive in one of those ghastly prisons. Of course my mother and I have talked the matter over. We both lament that your studies should be interrupted; but it can be for a few months only, and probably you will be able to return to Harrow when the school meets again after the long holiday – so that, in fact, you will only lose three months or so.”

“That makes no odds one way or another, mother. In any case, I am not likely to be a shining light in the way of learning.”

“No – I suppose not, Frank; and with a fine estate awaiting you, there is no occasion that you should be, though of course you will go through Oxford or Cambridge. However, we need not think of that now.”

“And will you be sending him any money, mother?”

“Certainly. Your father put by a certain sum every year in order that he might assist Garibaldi when the latter again raised the flag of freedom in Italy – a cause which was sacred in his eyes. At the time he left England, this fund amounted to £10,000; and as he never knew when the summons from Garibaldi might arrive, he transferred it to my name, so that he need not come back to England, should a rising occur before his return. So you will not go empty-handed.”

“That will be a splendid gift, mother. I suppose I shall not go back to school before I start?”

“No, Frank. Since you are to go on this expedition, the sooner you start the better. I shall write to your headmaster, and tell him that I am most reluctantly obliged to take you away from school for a few months; but that it is a matter of the greatest importance, and that I hope he will retain your name on the books and permit you to return when you come back to England.”

“If he won’t, mother, it will not matter very much. Of course I should like to go back again; but if they won’t let me, I shall only have to go to a coach for a year or two.”

“That is of little consequence,” his mother agreed; “and perhaps, after going through such an exciting time, you will not yourself care about returning to school again. You must not look upon this matter as a mere adventure, Frank; it is a very, very perilous enterprise, in which your life will be risked daily. Were we differently situated, I should not have dreamt of allowing you to go out; but we have identified ourselves with the cause of freedom in Italy. Your grandfather lost everything – his home, his country, and maybe his life; and your father, living as he did in Rome, and married to the daughter of an Italian, felt as burning a hatred for the oppression he saw everywhere round him as did the Italians themselves; perhaps more so, for being accustomed to the freedom Englishmen enjoy, these things appeared to him a good deal more monstrous than they did to those who had been used to them all their lives. He risked death a score of times in the defence of Rome; and he finally lost his life while endeavouring to discover whether my father was a prisoner in one of the tyrants’ dungeons. Thus, although in all other respects an English boy – or Italian only through your grandfather – you have been constantly hearing of Italy and its wrongs, and on that point feel as keenly and strongly as the son of an Italian patriot would do. I consider that it is a holy war in which you are about to take part – a war that, if successful, will open the doors of dungeons in which thousands, among whom may be my father, are lingering out their lives for no other cause than that they dared to think, and will free a noble people who have for centuries been under the yoke of foreigners. Therefore, as, if this country were in danger, I should not baulk your desire to enter the army, so now I say to you, join Garibaldi; and even should you be taken from me, I shall at least have the consolation of feeling that it was in a noble cause you fell, and that I sent you, knowing that my happiness as well as your life hung upon the issue. I want you to view the matter then, my boy, not in the light of an exciting adventure, but in the spirit in which the Crusaders went out to free the Holy Sepulchre, in which the Huguenots of France fought and died for their religion.”

“I will try to do so, mother,” Frank said gravely; “at any rate, if the cause was good enough for my father and grandfather to risk their lives for, it is good enough for me. But you know, mother,” he went on, in a changed voice, “you can’t put an old head on to young shoulders; and though I shall try to regard it as you say, I am afraid that I shan’t be able to help enjoying it as a splendid adventure.”

His mother smiled faintly. “I suppose that is boy nature. At any rate, I am sure that you will do your duty, and there is certainly no occasion for your doing it with a sad face; and bear in mind always, Frank, that you are going out not so much to fight, as to search every prison and fortress that may be captured, to question every prisoner whether he has heard or known any one answering the description of your grandfather, or – or – ” and her lip quivered, and her voice broke.

“Or, mother?” – and he stood surprised as Mrs. Percival burst suddenly into tears, and the signora, rising from her seat, went hastily to her, and put her arm round her neck. It was a minute or two before Mrs. Percival took her hands from her face, and went on, —

“I was going to say, Frank, or of your father.”

Frank started, as if he had been suddenly struck. “My father,” he repeated, in a low tone. “Do you think, mother – do you think it possible? I thought there was no doubt as to how he was killed.”

“I have never let myself doubt,” Mrs. Percival went on. “Whenever the thought has come into my mind during the past two years I have resolutely put it aside. It would have been an agony more than I could bear to think it possible that he could be alive and lingering in a dungeon beyond human aid. Never have I spoken on the subject, except to my mother, when she first suggested the possibility; but now that there is a chance of the prison doors being opened, I may let myself not hope – it can hardly be that – but pray that in God’s mercy I may yet see him again.” And as she again broke down altogether, Frank, with a sudden cry, threw himself on his knees beside her, and buried his face in his arms on her lap, his whole figure shaken by deep sobs.

Mrs. Percival was the first to recover her composure, and gently stroked his hair, saying: “You must not permit yourself to hope, my boy; you must shut that out from your mind as I have done, thinking of it only as a vague, a very vague and distant possibility.”