Chapter Nineteen.
A Friend in Need.
I suppose it was an uneasy movement made by Bob Chowne that awoke me, and as I started away, and looked round at the darkness, and felt the motion of the boat, I trembled, and could not for the time make out where I was, or what all this peculiar sensation of cramped stiffness meant.
The stars were shining, and twinkling reflections flashed from the water; the boat rocked to and fro, and the cold was horrible. This feeling of bitter cold or else the stupefied sensation brought on by exhaustion seemed to keep me from thinking, and it was a long time before I quite realised the truth.
Then I wanted to wake up Bigley and Bob Chowne, to get them to start rowing again, for the sea had gone down, there was hardly a breath of wind; and, though I could see nothing, I felt that the land could not be very far away.
I raised my hand to shake Bigley; but I did not, for the inclination was stronger to creep close up to him, and try to warm myself; and this I did, clinging closely to him and Bob Chowne; and then, as I crouched shivering and cramped in the bottom of the boat, I felt as if all the cold and darkness had suddenly sunk away and I was in oblivion.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I remember starting up again and wondering why the boat was moving so curiously, and then I found that I was being shaken, and a hoarse voice said:
“Sep! Sep! Wake up.”
“What’s matter?” I said drowsily.
“It’s dark and cold, and we’d better begin to row again. The sea has gone down.”
“Has it?” I said sleepily. “Never mind. It don’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Wake up. I want to talk to you.”
“No, no. Let me go—sleep,” I said.
“I sha’n’t. Wake up. Let you and me row for a bit, and then we’ll make Bob. Come along.”
Bigley half pushed me over the thwart to that in front, and placed the oar in my hands; then, taking the other, he thrust it in the rowlocks, and asked me if I was ready.
“Ready? No,” I said angrily. “I want to lie down and sleep. I’m so cold. Let me lie down.”
“But you can’t,” he said. “Now, then, let’s row. It will warm you.”
“But where are we to row?” I said dolefully, and with a curious sense of not caring what happened now.
“I’ll show you. Look!” he cried, “you can see the north star.”
“Bother the north star!” I grumbled. “I don’t want to see the north star.”
“But if we keep staring straight up at that as we go, we are sure to reach our shore—somewhere.”
I yawned and shivered.
“Must we row, Bigley, old fellow?” I said dolefully.
“Yes. Now, then. Both together.”
I let my oar fall in the water with a splash, and then began to pull, feeling dreadfully stiff and cold, and aching so that I could hardly use my arms.
“Pull away!” cried Bigley; and I did pull away, making an angry snatch at the water each time, for I was in pain and misery; but in a short time the stiffness wore off, the aching was not so bad, and, to my great delight, a curious sensation of glow began to run through me, and I was beginning to feel comfortable, when Bigley exclaimed:
“In oars! I’m going to wake up Bob.”
He leaned forward and shook Bob, who resented it by kicking, and then throwing out a fist which struck the side of the boat a sharp rap.
“Bob! Bob Chowne! Wake up!” cried Bigley taking him by both shoulders and shaking him.
Bob hit out again, striking Bigley this time viciously in the chest, and the result was another sharp shake, for Bigley seemed disposed to take up his father’s tone again.
“What is it?” whimpered Bob. “I am so precious cold. Let me alone, will you?”
“Just you get on that thwart and row, will you?” cried Bigley in a deep fierce growl; and Bob slowly, and with many a groan and sigh, took his place, and began to row straight away into the darkness.
It was a wise thing to do, for it made us warmer, tired as we grew, and so we kept on change and change about for quite an hour, when I saw something which made me shout.
“We’re close home; there’s the light.”
Bigley looked out in the direction I pointed, and watched for a minute before he spoke.
“No,” he said; “it’s moving. It’s a light on board a ship.” It was out of our course, but it seemed the wisest thing to do; and with visions of dry warm blankets, and something hot to drink, we tugged away at our oars, but never seemed to get a bit nearer to the light, which kept disappearing and then coming into sight again, looking if anything smaller than before.
How long the time seemed, and how bitterly cold it was! By degrees our clothes seemed to be not quite so heavy and wet; but, though I could get my arms and hands warmed, my legs and feet seemed to have lost all their feeling, no matter what I did to bring it back.
It was still dark all around, though overhead the sky now sparkled with points of light, one of which that we kept seeing in the distance might very well have been on the shore, only that we felt sure that we saw it move.
And so hour after hour we tugged away at the oars, changing about, and the one who was off lying down to go to sleep directly in spite of the wet and cold, for sheer exhaustion was stronger than either.
At last the whole affair seemed to grow misty and dreamlike, and I was only in a half-conscious state, when all at once I noted that the sky looked pale and grey behind us, and this showed that we were rowing to the west.
But for a long time there was nothing but that pale grey look in the sky to indicate that morning was coming; indeed, once, or twice as it became cloudy, it seemed to be darker.
By degrees, though, out of the dull drowsy, weary confusion of that bitter night the day did begin to dawn; and in a hopeless way we tried to make out how far we were from the shore. But for a long time we could distinguish nothing but what seemed to be high hills, having long missed the stars now on account of the clouds.
Then we thought these must be clouds too, for it seemed impossible that it could be land, and both Bigley and I said so to Bob.
But he was sulky and dejected, and would not take any notice of us, treating us both as if it was all our fault that we had been driven out to sea, though we were quite as miserable as he; and at any moment I felt ready to throw myself down in the bottom of the boat and give up.
At last, though, as there comes an end to all dismal nights, this also had its finish, and we made out, as we lay on the cold grey sea of that fine winter morning, that we were about five miles from the Welsh coast, and home lay as near as we could tell right beyond the range of our vision, far away to the south-east.
“What’s to be done?” Bob said dolefully. “Hadn’t we better row ashore here, and ask for something to eat?”
Big said No, decidedly, for he had caught sight of a good-sized vessel some miles away to the south-east.
“If we get ashore here we shall be farther away from home,” he argued; “and I’ve heard my father say there’s sharp currents about this coast, which would be too much for us, and besides, father is sure to come out to look for us this morning, so let’s try and get back.”
“And some ship is sure to see us, and give us something to eat,” I said hopefully. “Come, Bob, rouse up. We shall get across all right.”
Setting the boat’s head as nearly as we could guess toward the opposite shore, we began to row; and, though it was winter time, we were not long before we were pretty warm, and Bob Chowne unwillingly took his turn.
But we made poor progress. Miles take a great deal of getting over with a small boat in the open sea at the best of times. So rowed as ours was by three weary hungry boys, as may be supposed, we did not make the best of way.
We saw several vessels and tried to signal them, but no one took any notice of us till about midday, when a very large lugger that was beating across from the Devon shore began to bear down upon us, and before long, to our great joy, we were able to make out the figures looking over her bulwarks, one of whom waved something in answer to our frantic tossing up of our caps and holding a jacket on the blade of an oar.
Then we set to work and rowed as hard as we could, making very little progress though, for wind and tide were against us. But the big lugger came rushing on, and we could see now that there were dark foreign-looking men on her deck.
It did not matter to us, though, what they were, so long as they would take us on board, for we were starving and faint, and had long ago come to the conclusion that we should not be able to row across before dark, half the day being gone, and the night would come down very early seeing the time of year.
Bigley and I were in ecstasies, and even Bob began to look a little more cheerful as the lugger came closer, and then rounded up with her head to the wind, and lay with her dark red sails flapping.
We rowed up to her side, and a man threw us a rope.
Chapter Twenty.
The Captain of the Lugger.
“Eh ben!” he shouted. “Eh ben! Eh ben!” while half a dozen yellow-faced little fellows with rings in their ears looked down upon us and grinned.
All at once they made way for a quick dark-looking body, with tiny half grey corkscrew ringlets hanging round under his fur cap, not only at the sides but all over his forehead. It was a man evidently, but he looked like an elderly sharp-eyed wrinkled-faced woman, as he pushed a big lad aside, and putting his arms on the bulwark, stared down at us.
“Vell, lad, vot you vant?” he said.
“Hungry, sir. Blown off the shore, sir,” I cried. “We can’t row back. Can you understand? No parly vous.”
“Bah, stupe, thick, headblock, who ask you parlez-vous? I am England much, and speak him abondomment. How you do thank you, quite vell?”
“No, sir; we’re starving, and cold and—and—and—tell him Big, I can’t.”
I was done for. I could not keep it back, though I had said to myself Bob Chowne was a weak coward, and, dropping on the thwart, I let my face go down in my hands, and tried to keep back my emotion.
“Ah, you bigs boys, you speak me,” I heard the French skipper say. “How you come from? Come, call yourself.”
“Uggleston, of the Gap,” said Bigley, as boldly as he could. “Blown off shore, sir, in the squall.”
“Aha! Hey, hey? Ugglees-tone. Ma foi, you Monsieur Jonas Ugglees-tone?”
“No, sir; I am his son,” said Bigley.
“What say, sare, you Monsieur Jonas Ugglees-tone, you b’long?”
“Yes, sir; I belong to him. Will you give us something to eat?”
“Aha! You Engleesh boys, big garçon, always hungries. Vais; come aboard my sheeps. Not like your papa—oh, no. I know him mosh, very mosh. Know you papa, votr’ père, mon garçon. Come-you-up-you-come.”
He said it all as if it were one word, so curiously that it seemed to help me to get rid of my weakness, and I was about to stand up in the boat when the French skipper said to Bigley:
“Look you! Aha. Boy ahoy you. What sheep you fader?”
“Do you mean what’s the name of my father’s lugger, sir?”
“Yes; you fater luggair—chasse marée. I say so. Vat you call. Heece nem?”
“The Saucy Lass, sir.”
He leaned over and looked at the stern of the boat and nodded his head.
“Yais, him’s olright. Ze Saucilass. Come you up—you come, boys. All you. Faites.”
This last was to one of the men, who, as we climbed over the side of the French lugger, descended into our boat, and made her fast by the painter to the stern.
The skipper shook hands with us all, and smiled at us and patted our shoulders.
“Pauvres garçons!” he said. “You been much blow away ce mornings, eh?”
“No, sir, last night,” said Bigley.
“How you say? You lass night dites, mon garçon.”
“We were fishing, sir, and the squall came, and we’ve been out all night.”
“Brrrr!” ejaculated the French skipper, shrugging his shoulders and making a face, then seizing me he dragged me to a hole away in the stern deck, and pushed me down into quite a snug little cabin with a glowing stove.
“Come—venez. All you come,” he cried, and he thrust the others down and followed quickly.
“Pauvres garçons! Warm you my fire. Chauffez vous. Good you eat bread? Good you drink bran-dee vis vater? Not good for boy sometime, mais good now.”
He kept on chattering to us, half in English, half in French; and as he spoke he cut for us great pieces of bread and Devon butter, evidently freshly taken on board that day. Next he took a large brown bottle from a locker, and mixed in a heavy, clumsy glass a stiff jorum of brandy with water from a kettle on the stove. Into this glass he put plenty of Bristol brown sugar, and made us all drink heartily in turn, so as to empty the glass, when he filled it again.
“It is—c’est bon—good phee-seek—make you no enrhumée—you no have colds. No. Eat, boys. Aha! You warm yourselves. Hey?”
We thanked him, for the glowing stove, the sheltered cabin, the hot brandy and water, and the soft new bread and butter, seemed to give us all new life. The warm blood ran through our veins, and our clothes soon ceased to steam. The French skipper, who had, as we rowed to the side of the lugger, looked about as unpleasant and villainous a being as it was possible to meet, now seemed quite a good genius, and whatever his failings or the nature of his business, he certainly appeared to be deriving real pleasure from his task of restoring the three half-perished lads who had appealed to him for help, and the more we ate, the more he rubbed his hands together and laughed.
“How zey feroce like ze volf, eh? How zey are very mosh hunger. Eat you, my young vrens. Eat you, my young son of ze Jonas Ugglee-stone. I know you fader. He is mon ami. Aha! I drink your helse all of you varey.”
He poured himself out a little dram of the spirit and tossed it off.
For a good half hour he devoted himself to us, making us eat, stoking the little stove, and giving us blankets and rough coats to wear to get us warm again. After that he turned to Bigley and laid his arms upon his shoulders, drooping his hands behind, and throwing back his head as he looked him in the face.
“You like me make my sheep to you hous, yais?”
“Take us home, sir. Oh, if you please,” cried Bigley.
“Good—c’est bon—my frien. I make my sheep take you. Lay off, you say, and you land in your leettle boats. My faith, yes! And you tell you fader the Capitaine Apollo Gualtière—he pronounced his surname as if it was Goo-awl-tee-yairrrre—make him present of hees sone, and hees young friens. Brave boys. Ha, ha!”
He nodded to us all in turn, and smiled as he gave us each a friendly rap on the chest with the back of his hand.
“Now you warm mosh more my stove, and I go on le pont to make my sheep.”
“But do you know the Gap, sir?” said Bigley eagerly.
“Do I know ze Gahp? Aha! Ho, ho! Do I not know ze Gahp vis him eye shut? Peep! Eh? Aha! And every ozer place chez ze cote. Do I evaire make my sheep off ze Gahp to de leettl business—des affaires vis monsieur votre père? Aha! Oh, no, nod-a-dalls.”
He gave his nose a great many little taps with his right forefinger as he spoke, and ended by winking both his eyes a great many times, with the effect that the gold rings in his ears danced, and then he went up the little ladder through the hatchway, to stand half out for a few minutes giving orders, while we had a good look at the lower part of his person, which was clothed in what would have been a stiff canvas petticoat, had it not been sewn up between his legs, so as to turn it into the fashion of a pair of trousers, worn over a pair of heavy fishermen’s boots.
Then he went up the rest of the way, and let in more light and air, while the motion of the vessel plainly told us that her course had been altered.
“Well,” said Bob Chowne, speaking now for the first time, “he’s the rummest looking beggar I ever saw. Looks as if you might cut him up and make monkeys out of the stuff.”
“Well, of all the ungrateful—”
I began a sentence, but Bob cut me short.
“I’m not ungrateful,” he said sharply; “and I’m getting nice and warm now; but what does a man want to wear ear-rings for like a girl, and curl up his hair in little greasy ringlets, that look as if they’d been twisted round pipes, and—I say, boys, did you see his breeches?”
I nodded rather grimly.
“And his boots, old Big; did you see his boots?”
“Yes, they looked good water-tighters,” said Bigley quietly, and he seemed now to have settled down into his regular old fashion, while Bob Chowne was getting saucy.
“And then his hands! Did you see his hands?” continued Bob. “I thought at first I could not eat the bread and butter he had touched. I don’t believe he ever washes them.”
“Why, he had quite small brown hands,” said Bigley. “Mine are ever so much larger.”
“Yes, but how dirty they were!”
“It was only tar,” said Bigley. “He has been hauling new ropes. Look, some came off on my hand when he had hold of it.”
“I don’t care, I say it was dirt,” said Bob obstinately. “He’s a Frenchman, and Frenchmen are all alike—nasty, dirty-looking beggars.”
“Well, I thought as he brought us down in the cabin here, and gave us that warm drink and the bread and butter, what a pity it was that French and English should ever fight and kill one another.”
“Yah! Hark at him, Sep Duncan,” cried Bob. “There’s a sentimental, unnatural chap. What do you say?”
“Oh, I only say what a difference there is between Bob Chowne now and Bob Chowne when he lay down in the bottom of the boat last night, and howled when old Big made him get up and row.”
“You want me to hit you, Sep Duncan?”
“No,” I said.
“Because I shall if you talk to me like that. Old Big didn’t make me. I was cold and—”
“Frightened,” I said.
“No, I wasn’t frightened, sneak.”
“Well, I was, horribly,” I said. “I thought we should never get to shore again. Weren’t you frightened, Big?”
“Never felt so frightened before since I got wedged in the rocks,” said Bigley coolly.
“Then you are a pair of cowards,” cried Bob sharply. “I was so cold and wet and stiff I could hardly move, but I never felt frightened in the least.”
I looked at Bigley, and found that he was looking at me; and then he laid his head against the bulkhead, and shut his eyes and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and I laughed too, as the picture of ourselves in the open boat came before me again, with Bigley ordering Bob to get up and row, and him shivering and sobbing and protesting like a child.
“What are you laughing at?” he cried. “You’ve got out of your trouble now and you want to quarrel, I suppose. But I sha’n’t; I don’t want to fight. Only wait till we get across, you won’t laugh when old Jony Uggleston comes down on you both for taking the boat. I shall say I didn’t want you to, but you would. And then you’ve got my father and your father to talk to you after that.”
But in spite of these unpleasant visions of trouble, which he conjured up, Bigley and I still laughed, for, boy-like, the danger passed, its memory did not trouble us much. We had escaped: we were safe; Bob was making himself ridiculously comic by his hectoring brag, and all we wanted to do was to laugh.
In the midst of our mirth, and while Bob Chowne was growing more and more absurd by putting on indignant airs, the hatchway was darkened again by the French skipper’s petticoats and boots, and directly after he stood before us smiling and rubbing his hands.
“Aha, you!” he said. “You better well, mosh better. I make you jolly boys, eh?”
“Yes, sir, we are much better now,” I exclaimed, holding out my hand. “We are so much obliged to you for helping us as you have.”
“Mon garçon, mon ami,” he exclaimed; and instead of shaking hands, he folded me in his arms and kissed me on both cheeks. I stepped back as soon as I was free, and stood watching as he served Bigley the same, and then took hold of Bob, whose face wore such an absurdly comical aspect of horror and disgust, that I stood holding my breath, and not daring to look at Bigley for fear I should roar with laughter.
“Dat is well,” exclaimed the skipper. “It is done, my braves. Good—good—good. You tink I speak Engleish magnificentment, is it not?”
He looked round at us all, and nodded a great many times. “Now you are warm dry, come on ze pont and see my sheep. Ze belle chasse marée. She sail like de bird. Is it not? Now come see.”
We went on deck, and found as he took us about amongst the crew of seven men, all wearing petticoat canvas trousers, that the big lugger was very dirty and untidy, wanting in paint, and with the deck, or pont as the skipper called it, one litter of baskets, packages, and uncoiled ropes. On the other hand she seemed to be very long and well shaped, and her masts, which were thick and short, had large yards and tremendous sails, which in a favourable wind sent her through the water at a very rapid rate.
“Aha! You lofe my sheep,” said the skipper, as he watched our faces. “You tink she run herselfs very fas, eh?”
We expressed our pleasure, which was the greater that we could see now that the two bold masses which formed the entrance to the Gap were right before us; but even now, as far as we could judge, six or seven miles away.
We took a good deal of notice of this, for it showed us how far we had been driven out by the fierce little gale of the previous night; and as I looked over the stern at where our boat was being towed along in the foam, and was thinking that we must have had a narrow escape, the French skipper clapped me on the shoulder, laughed, and said:
“You wonder you not go to feed ze fishes at ze bottom? Yes, much; et moi aussi. Ah, mon brave, you nearly go, and—no boat—no boy—no noting. Hah!”
I shivered as I realised the truth of what he said, and was musing over what was to come, when Bigley came to me, for the skipper had gone to his men.
“Don’t tease Bob,” he said. “Don’t say anything to him about being queer last night, nor about me bullying him. He couldn’t help it.”
“Oh, I sha’n’t say anything,” I said.
“He couldn’t help it,” whispered Bigley again. “No more could I.”
We all grew very serious then, for as we neared the shore, there was the question to think over about meeting our fathers, and what they would say. Would they be exceedingly angry with us, or talk quietly about our narrow escape?
I found that my companions were thinking as I was, for Bigley said quietly:
“I’m afraid my father will be very cross.”
“So am I,” was my reply, when Bob came to where we were gazing over the bulwark shoreward, and said sulkily:
“I say, I don’t want to be bad friends with you two. My father’s sure to give me a big wigging for letting you persuade me to go. Well, I don’t mean that,” he added with a droll twinkle of the eye, as he saw us stare, “what I mean is, hadn’t we all better stick together, and share the blame?”
“Yes, of course, Bob,” I said; and I felt quite pleased with his frankness, when if he didn’t go and spoil it all again by saying:
“I thought it would be best, because it would be nicer for you.”
Our conversation was stopped by Captain Gualtière coming up, and pointing westward.
“Look you!” he exclaimed, “see, mes amis, la Saucy Lass.”
“So it is,” cried Bigley eagerly, as he shaded his eyes, and gazed at the lugger in full sail about a couple of miles away, and making for the same point as we—“so it is: it’s father’s lugger.”
“Oui, my young frien,” said the French skipper; “and he has been to sweep ze sea to try and find you boys.”
Chapter Twenty One.
The Knife Bob Wanted.
In half an hour the luggers were close together off the Gap with their sails flapping, and the French skipper jumped into the boat with us, and rowed to the Saucy Lass, on board of which we had long before descried my father and the doctor along with old Jonas Uggleston.
We leaped up the side eagerly, and yet with fear and trembling, not knowing what our reception might be, and a few words explained all.
“Humph!” said old Jonas, “nice chase we’ve had after you. Well, I suppose I mustn’t after all.”
He picked up a capstan-bar, and balanced it in his hands before throwing it down under the little bulwark with a loud clatter.
“Mustn’t what, father?” said Bigley.
“Knock you down with that, as you’ve had such a rough time of it. I was in hopes that you were all three drowned.”
“And he went himself to see and find ze bodies, and sheat ze sharks!” cried the French skipper laughing, and clapping us on the shoulders.
“Perhaps Captain Duncan, my landlord, would like to use that bar on his boy!” growled old Jonas sourly.
“No!” said my father bluffly, “I can preserve discipline, Mr Uggleston, without treating my boy like a dog. Come, Sep, my lad, let’s get ashore.”
“The doctor, then?” said old Jonas, with his eyes twinkling maliciously.
“What, to knock my boy down, Uggleston? No, thank you, sir. I’ve little things at home that will put him to bed for a fortnight and keep him quiet without giving myself a job to mend his broken bones.”
He looked at Bob, and I saw my school-fellow turn yellow and shudder as if he were about to take a dose of some horribly nauseous medicine. Just then Bob caught my eye, and I suppose he saw that I was amused, for he doubled his fist, and showed his teeth in a snarl just like a disagreeable dog who had been threatened by a stranger with a stick.
“My faith, gentlemen,” said the French skipper, “ze boys is brave boys and make fine sailor. Zey fight zis bad storm. Zey vin ze storm, and behold me here ve are!”
“Captain Gualtière,” said my father, holding out his hand, “as an old sailor, sir, to one of the same noble profession, I thank you for your kindness to my son.”
“Mon capitaine, I you embrace with my heart whole!” cried the French skipper. “It is vell, Capitaine Ugglees-stone. Ve vill land ourselves. Mon vieux brave—to your home, and trink von ’tit verre of ze bon spee-reete vis ze friens. Come.” Jonas Uggleston nodded his head and exchanged a peculiar look with the Frenchman.
“Let’s get ashore,” he said. “You, Bill, I’ll come out again by and by. Get her fast to the buoy.”
Binnacle Bill growled and crept behind us boys to watch his opportunity, and give us each a nod, a wink, and a furtive shake of the hand.
Then the boat was hauled alongside, we descended, and Bigley pulled us ashore, where, almost in silence, and evidently a very uncomfortable party, we walked up to the cottage where Mother Bonnet was in waiting, and her first act was to rush at Bigley, hug him, kiss him soundly on both cheeks, and burst into tears.
I was afraid it was coming my way, and drew back; but it was of no use, for the old woman seized me, and I had to be kissed in the same way, while Bob Chowne submitted to the same operation with a worse grace than mine.
“Not a wink of sleep—not a wink of sleep—not a wink of sleep all night!” the old woman kept on sobbing over and over again. “Master Bigley—Master Bigley, I was afraid I should never see you any more!”
“Brave vomans? Ha, ha! Brave vomans!” cried the Frenchman.
“Look here, Duncan!” said the doctor. “I don’t think we’ll trouble Mr Uggleston any more. We want to get back home.”
“Yes,” said my father; “but—”
He made a movement with his head towards the French skipper.
“Oh, come along, Captain Duncan,” growled old Jonas surlily. “You must drink a glass with him. I won’t poison you this time.”
“Thanks, Uggleston,” said my father quietly; and, intimate as I was with Bigley, school-fellows and companions as we were, I could not help noticing the difference, and how thoroughly my father was the gentleman and Jonas Uggleston the commonplace seafaring man.
“Here, Mother Bonnet!” cried old Jonas, “the boys want something. You see to them.”
The old woman took us into her kitchen, as she called it, and attended to our wants; but I could hear what went on in the other room, and the French skipper’s words as they all partook of something together.
Ten minutes after, my father called me by name, and I found him waiting with the doctor outside, the Frenchman beaming on all in turn.
“Ve are ze old amis, le vieux—ze old Jonas and myselfs. Sare, I am been glad I receive ze boys on my sheep.”
“And I thank you, captain,” replied my father. “You have saved my boy’s life. Will you accept this in remembrance? It is old but good.”
My father drew out his plain gold watch, and I saw the Frenchman’s eyes glisten as he stretched out a not very clean hand.
But he snatched it back directly.
“Mais non—but no!” he exclaimed. “I not have hims. We are sailors all. Some day I am in open boat, and you take me in your sheep, and say ‘Ma foi! Pauvre fellow, you cold—you hoongrai—you starve youselfs.’ And you give me hot grogs, and varm fires, and someting to eats. I no give you ze gold vatch. Mais non—mais non—mais non. Voilà. I take zat hankshife, blue as ze skies of France, and I wear him roun’ my necks. Give me hims.”
My father smiled and then unknotted the bright blue silk neckerchief he wore, and accompanied it with a hearty shake of the hand.
“Thank you, captain,” he said warmly.
“And you—merci. We go to war some day. Who know I may be prisonaire. I may come to fight against you, and then. Eh bien, ve fight, but you take me prisonaire, ma foi. I am vis ze shentleman, and it is good.”
“And now it’s my turn,” said the doctor. “Will you keep this, captain, from me?”
“Ma foi. Yais, oui,” cried the French skipper, whose eyes sparkled with pleasure as the doctor handed him a very bright peculiarly-formed knife. “I keep hims. Vat is ze mattaire vis ze young shipwrecked open boatman?”
“Nothing—nothing at all,” said Bob Chowne hastily; but he had certainly uttered a groan.
“As for you, Uggleston,” cried the doctor, “I sha’n’t offer you a present, for you’ll want me some day to mend your head, or cut off a leg or a wing. Only, recollect I’m in your debt.”
“As for me, Mr Uggleston,” said my father.
“There—there, that will do,” cried old Jonas surlily. “We ar’n’t such very bad friends, are we?”
“I hope not,” said my father, and we took our leave, being embraced by the French skipper, who said that we should meet again, shaking hands with old Jonas, and giving Binnacle Bill a crown piece, which my father slipped into my hand for him, making the old red-faced fellow’s eyes twinkle as he exclaimed:
“Ba–c–co!”
Then we started homeward in the lowest of spirits, we two boys expecting the most severe of lectures; but to our intense surprise and delight we were allowed to drop behind, for our elders were deep in conversation about the mine.
Then it was that, after hanging more and more behind, Bob Chowne relieved his feelings.
“It was a shame—it was too bad!” he kept on grumbling.
“What was too bad—what was a shame?” I cried.
“Why, for father to give old Parley Vous that knife!”
“Why?” I said wonderingly.
“Why? Because it was such a good un. I’ve tried to coax him out of it lots o’ times. It was as sharp as sharp, and he used to use it to cut off fingers and toes, and that sort of thing. He never would give it to me, because he said it was good for operating, and now that old Frenchee Frenchee will use it for toasting frogs over his nasty little stove.”
“Here, you boys, come up here,” said the doctor just then.
We crept up very unwillingly, for the lecture was evidently going to begin.
“I thought we’d tell you,” said the doctor in his grimmest fashion, “we’re going to find out a school where there are no holidays, and send you there.”
But they did not, for in due time we went back to Barnstaple, and I had the last of my education there.
Chapter Twenty Two.
“How you have growed, lads; how you have growed!”
It seems a long time to look forward to, but when it has gone how everyone finds out what a scrap of our lives three years appear to be.
I am going to jump over three years now, and come to an exciting time when we lads were leaving school at midsummer for good.
Those were exciting times, and we all were as much infected as the rest of English folk, for we were at war with France, and there was drumming, and fifing, and enlisting, and men marching off to join their regiments, and we boys were fully determined to arrange with our respected fathers as soon as we got home to get us all commissions in cavalry regiments, and failing commissions, we meant to petition for leave to enlist to fight for our country.
Bob Chowne and I of course knew better, but in spite of this knowledge we were constantly feeling that there was something wrong with our companion Bigley.
He was just the same easy-going fellow as of old; ready to submit to any amount of bullying and impertinence from us, except in times of emergency, when he would quietly step to the front in the place Bob and I shirked, and do what there was to be done, and as soon as it was over go back patiently into the second rank, leaving us in the front.
But as I say, though we knew better, it always seemed to us as if something particular had taken place in Bigley, he who used to tower above us, a big fellow with whiskers, a deep voice, and broad shoulders, had now shrunk, so that he was no longer like a man and we both like small boys, for he seemed to have come down so that he was only a trifle taller than we were, and very little broader across the chest. It was the whiskers and the thick down upon his chin which made nearly all the difference.
We used to laugh about it together, and Bigley would say that it was rum, and only because he had started two years sooner than we did—that was all.
Of course the fact was that Bigley had not shrunk in the least. He had not come down, but Bob Chowne and I had levelled matters by growing up, so that at seventeen we were as big as Devon lads of that age know how to be.
While we had changed, old Teggley Grey had not. He always seemed to have been the same ever since we could remember, and his horse too, but he shook his head at us.
“Mortal hard work for a horse to carry such big chaps as you. How you have growed, lads; how you have growed!”
I looked at him as he spoke, and it seemed to me that it was he who had changed. But it did not matter; we were full of plans for the future. Big as we were, we could take plenty of interest in fishing and such other sport as came in our way, and we were talking eagerly about what was to be done first, and how we were to contrive it without having some mishap, when old Teggley summoned us to get down and walk.
“Wouldn’t be acting like a Christian to ask a horse to drag you three big lads up a hill like this. I did think,” he grumbled, “that with all this talk about making good roads, something would have been done to level ourn. Mortal bad they be for a horse sewerly.”
“Why, what could you do to the roads?” I said, as I stood on the step looking at the quaint old fellow. “Do, lad? Why, there’s plenty of stuff ar’n’t there? Cutoff all the tops of the hills, and lay in the bottoms, and there you are, level road all the way.”
We seemed to have only been away a few days, as, after parting from Bigley, Bob and I reached the cottage, where, just as of old, were my father and the doctor.
I remember thinking that they both looked a little older and greyer, but that was all. But that was soon forgotten in the interest and excitement of what was going on around me, for I had, I found, gradually been growing older, and ready to take an interest in matters more important than hunting prawns and groping for crabs down on the rocky shore.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Old Sam is Unhappy.
Seventeen, and grown as big as Bigley, with the consequence that I could not help thinking a good deal of what people said to me when I went in to Ripplemouth or down to the Gap.
The salute I generally met was:
“Why, Master Sep Duncan, you are growing quite a man.”
I suppose I was in appearance, but, thank goodness, I was still only a boy at heart.
Plenty to see, plenty to hear.
The fishermen and people at the tiny port were always looking out to sea, and shutting their eyes and shaking their heads.
“Ay, and we need look out, master,” they would say. “Strange doings now. Who knows how soon they Frenchies will come down upon us and try to take the town. But we’re going to fight ’em to a man.”
I remember even then laughing to myself as I went home one morning after being disappointed in finding Bob Chowne, who had gone on a round with his father, for I asked myself what the French, whom the Ripplemouth people saw in every passing vessel, would gain by making a descent upon our rock-strewn shore.
But when I ventured to hint at their being more likely to attack Plymouth or Portsmouth, old Teggley Grey, who was down on the pier loading up with coal that had come over in a sloop from Monmouth, shook his head.
“Ay, it be well for you, lad, with all they big cannon guns in front o’ your house ready to sink the Frenchy ships; but we ar’n’t no guns here, on’y the one in the look-out, and she be rusted through.”
Oddly enough, when I reached home there was no one in the house. My father had gone down to the mine, and I was thinking about going after him, but being hot with my walk, I strolled down first into the garden on the cliff, but only to stop short, for there was a curious hissing sound in the air.
“What, a snake!” I said to myself. And then, “No, it’s too loud.”
I stood listening, and I learned directly what caused the hissing, which gave place directly to a peculiar humming, and then after more hissing a familiar raspy voice roared out, its owner imagining he was singing:
“For we be sturdy English lads,
And this here be our land;
And ne’er a furren furreneer
Shall ever in it stand.”
Then came a great deal of hissing before the strain was taken up again, and accompanied by a good deal of scuffling on the beach-strewn path.
“They say they’ll have the English soil,
These overbearing French;
So if they come they’ll find it here
In six-foot two o’ trench.”
“Why, Sam,” I said, “what are you doing?”
“Ah, Mas’ Sep: can’t you see? Washing out the bull-dogs’ throats to make ’em bite the Peccavis when they come.”
I laughed as I looked at the old man, who was busy at work with a mop and pail cleaning out the old cannons on my father’s sham fort.
“Why, Sam, what’s the good of that?”
“Good, my lad?” he cried, ramming the wet mop down one of the guns and making the water spurt out of the touch-hole like a little fountain, “Good! Why, we’ll blow the Frenchy ships out of the water if they come anigh us.”
“Why, there’s no powder,” I said.
“Powder! Eh, but there is: lots, my lad.”
“But there are no cannon-balls.”
Old Sam stopped short with the mop right in the gun, and loosening one hand, he tilted his old sou’-wester hat that he wore summer and winter with no difference, only that he kept cabbage-leaves in it in summer, and stood scratching his head.
“No cannon-balls!” he said. “No cannon-balls!”
“Not one,” I said; “only the big one indoors we use for a door-weight, and that would not go in.”
“Well, now, that be a rum un, Master Sep, that be a rum un. I never thought o’ that. Never mind, it don’t matter. They Frenchies ’ll hear the guns go off and see the smoke, and that’s enough for them. They’ll go back again.”
“Go back again,” I said laughing. “Why, they’ll never come.”
“Get out, lad! You’re too young to understand they things. You wait a bit, and you’ll see that they will come and find us ready for them too.”
“With six-foot two of trench, eh, Sam?” I said.
“Eh? What? What do you mean?”
“Why, weren’t you singing something about burying them all. Here, sing us the rest.”
“Nay, nay, nay, my lad; I can’t sing.”
“Why, I heard you, Sam.”
“Ay, but that’s all I know; and I must get on with my job afore they come.”
“Before they come, Sam! Why, they’ll never come. Go and hoe up your cabbages and potatoes and you’ll be doing some good.”
“Nay, lad, this be no time for hoeing up cabbage and ’tater. Why, what for?—ready for the French?”
“French!” I said with a laugh as I leaned over the low wall and looked down the perpendicular cliff at the piled-up masses of fallen fragments. “No French will ever trouble us.”
For it looked ridiculous to imagine that a foreign enemy would ever attempt to make a landing anywhere beneath the grand wall of piled-up rock that protected our coast from a far more dangerous enemy than any French fleet, for the sea was ready to attack and sweep away even the land, and this a foreign fleet could never do.
I sat on the edge looking down at the ivy, and toad-flax, and saxifrage, and ferns that climbed and clustered all over the steep cliff-face; and as I sat looking and enjoying the sea-breeze and the rest from all school labours, old Sam went on cleaning out the guns and expressing in his way the feelings of nearly everybody round the coast.
“Is my father over at the mine?” I said.
“Ay, my lad; he’s always there. Going over?”
“Yes, Sam, when I’m rested. They’re very busy now, I suppose.”
“Wonderful, Master Sep, wonderful. Who’d ha’ thought it?” he exclaimed, sticking the mop handle on the path and resting his bare brown arms upon the wet woollen rags that formed the top.
“Who’d have thought what, Sam?”
“Why, as there’d be lead and silver under they slates down at the Gap. Always looked to be nothin’ but clatter, and old massy rock and no soil.”
“Ah, it was a discovery, Sam,” I said.
“Discovery, my lad! Why, when they said as the Captain had bought the old place I went into my tool-shed and sat down on a ’tater heap and ’most cried.”
“’Most cried, Sam—you?”
“Ay, my lad, for I thought the Captain had gone off his head and everything would be in rack and ruin.”
“Instead of which my father is making quite a fortune out of it, Sam.”
“Ay, I s’pose so, my lad, but fortuns aren’t everything. It makes him look worried, it do, and he’ve give up his garden, as is a bad sign. I don’t like to see a man give up his garden. It means weeds.”
“Well, then, why don’t you hoe them up, Sam?” I said sharply.
“Hoe ’em up, lad? I can’t put a hoe in his mind, can I? That’s where the weeds grows, my dear lad. Why, he never takes no interest in his guns now, and if I hadn’t set to this morning to scour ’em out and give ’em a regular good cleaning, where would they have been when the French come?”
Chapter Twenty Four.
Down the Silver Mine.
I left Sam picking out the touch-holes with a piece of wire, walked across the high ground of the wind-swept moor and descended into the Gap, a well-beaten track now marking the way.
It was too rough for wheels, but filled with the heavy hoof-marks of donkeys, which were used largely for carrying wood, charcoal, and sea-coal to the mine; and as I stood up by the spot where years before Bob Chowne, Bigley, and I had blown up the big stone and set it rolling down into the valley, it was wonderful what a change had taken place.
Where we had swept the side of the ravine clear with an avalanche of rock, there had now sprung up quite a tiny village built of the rough stones dug from the mine. There was a large water-wheel slowly turning and sending down the water led to it from above, in company with that which it pumped out of the mine, all thick and discoloured, in quite a torrent to the beautiful little stream below, which now ran turbid and in which the trout were all dead.
There was a row of stoutly-built sheds, and a big place with a high chimney where the ore was smelted. Then there were offices, and a building where the purified metal was passed through another furnace, and in addition a place where the metal was kept.
There seemed a total alteration in the place till I directed my eyes towards the sea, where all appeared to be unchanged. There were the two cottages—Binnacle Bill’s, with some newly washed white garments hanging over the rocks; and Jonas Uggleston’s, with its stone sheds and outbuildings bristling with spars and wreck-wood that had been thrown up, and with nets and sails spread out to dry.
Beyond lay his lugger; and the boat drawn up on the beach, suggesting to my mind the horrors of that night when we were blown off the shore.
I stood looking at the scene, with the bare sea beyond and the vast cliff towering up a thousand feet on my left, and then began to descend the rugged slope, making straight for the building which my father used as his counting-house and office.
“Well, Sep,” he said, smiling, “I’m glad to see you.”
I noticed that he looked care-worn and anxious, and his aspect reproached me, for I felt as if it was too bad of me to be making holiday while he was working so hard.
“Can I help you, father?” I said.
“Help me! Yes, my boy, I hope so—a good deal; but I don’t want to be too hard upon you. Take a good look round for a few days, so as to rest a little while, and then you shall come and help me here; for, Sep, an affair like this is not without plenty of anxiety.”
“Oh, father!” I said, “I shall have plenty of time for amusement; let’s see if I can’t help you now.”
He looked more and more pleased as he heard my words.
“No,” he said, “not yet. You shall have a look round first for a few days, and perhaps you may be able quietly to pick up the cause of something that is troubling me a great deal.”
“Troubling you, father!” I said.
“Yes, my lad, troubling me, for things are not going as I could wish. ’Tis just as if, as fast as I get a few steps forward, someone pulls me back.”
“But I thought the mine was very prosperous, father?” I said.
“So it is, my boy, and I am getting it better and better; but there is always mischief being done, or else some accident occurs, and I can’t tell how.”
“Do you suspect anybody?”
“Well, er—no!” he said emphatically. “But, there—never mind now. I’m busy with some calculations; go and have a look round.”
I left his office and had “a look round,” the place seeming to have far more interest for me than it had before. Men were busy wheeling broken ore and taking it from one heap to another; the great pump was hard at work sucking out water; and the wheel was winding up buckets of produce from out of the deep shaft.
I went and had a look there and shrank back, it seemed so repulsive and dark; but as I did so I saw one of the men smiling, and this made me turn red.
“Look here,” I said sharply, “can I go down there?”
“Oh, yes, if you like, master,” he replied, staring at me wonderingly now.
“Then I will,” I said. “I’ll have a look at the furnace first, and then I’ll go down.”
“Ay, do,” he said; “and you’re just in time. They’re going to run off the metal in a few minutes.”
I recalled our experiment at home with the little built-up furnace, when the ore was first tried, as I walked to the stone-built house, where from out of the centre came a low dull roar; from cracks and chinks and crannies blindingly bright rays of light shot out and seemed to cut the darkness, which, after the sunshine of out of doors, seemed to be black and terrible. Now and then there came a peculiar crackling, as if something were snapping and flying to pieces under the great heat, and it was some time before I could see anything but the brilliant pencils of light that cut the gloom.
By degrees, though, I made out that a couple of men were moving here and there, and that each of them carried a long black rod of iron.
The flames seemed to flutter and burn and to be rushing upward with tremendous force, while I could fancy that I heard the metal bubbling in its bed, where it was seething and throwing off wonderful flames, as I could judge by the gleams I saw.
“Stand back, young master,” said one of the men roughly—“there, right up in the corner here. You won’t hurt now. Just going to run her off.”
I backed into the corner he pressed me to, where there was a broad shutter or screen, and I was getting so accustomed to the darkness now that I could see just below, and in front of a place where golden tears seemed to be dropping from a chink at the bottom of the furnace, several long square trenches in the black charcoal floor, and the next minute I made out that these trenches were all connected together by a little channel.
“The moulds,” I thought to myself, and I looked eagerly now at one of the men, who shouted something by way of warning to his fellow-worker; and then, as the man stepped behind a similar screen of wood-work to that which sheltered me, the one who uttered his words of warning thrust and hammered with his long iron rod at the foot of the furnace.
I did not quite see what he did afterwards, but he seemed to dart out of the way, and then a stream of what looked like liquid gold came gushing out, sputtering, snapping, and sending into the air myriads of glorious firework-like sparks of blue and orange and scarlet and gold, and so brilliant that they lit up the whole building and made my eyes ache and my cheeks tingle. Where a minute before there were so many black trenches were now so many dazzling ingots, over which played and fluttered many-tinted flames that kept on waving and undulating as if they were liquid, and swayed from side to side, giving forth with the molten metal a glow that scorched my face.
For the first few seconds the molten metal had run off quickly and filled the moulds; now what came was sluggish and not half so brilliant; and I noticed that by a quick movement of a long iron rake one of the men drew some of the earth and charcoal which formed the floor on one side, so as to alter the course of the running molten contents of the furnace, and instead of its passing into moulds it seemed to settle down in a patch.
This, too, was most brilliant to the eye; and from it endless dazzling coruscations darted up and played about, but for a much shorter period; and in place of the ruddy glow of the metal, which rapidly cooled down to look like silver, this last melting grew sombre and stony, ending by looking of a blackish-grey.
I was still watching the fading away of the brilliant display, when there was a familiar voice at the door of the building, and my father stepped in to make inquiries about the running off of the molten ore, and as he examined the result, he expressed his satisfaction.
“Mind!” he cried to me, as I was about to touch one of the ingots of lead with my toes. “My good boy, these will not be cool enough to touch yet. They retain the heat for a long while.”
He stopped talking to me for some time, and explained how the men were closing the bottom of the furnace again with fire-clay, and that they would now go on pouring in at the top barrows full of charcoal and broken-up ore. How that dark grey stuff was the molten stones and refuse which remained after the metal had been cleared, and then he laughed at what he called my innocence, as I asked him if the ingots, as he called the square masses which now looked quite white, were silver.
“No, my boy,” he said; “we are not so rich as that. If those pieces of coarse metal, when melted down again, and submitted to a fresh process, give us three pounds’ weight of silver out of every hundred pounds of lead we shall do well. Now then, would you like to go down the mine?”
He spoke as if he expected to hear me decline; but I had made up my mind to go, and he looked quite pleased when he heard me say that I was ready.
“Well,” he said, as we reached the top of the shaft, “I’ll go down first, and you can follow. We can get candles at the bottom.”
If I had had any ideas of a silver mine being a cavern full of beautiful sights, I was very soon deceived, for as I stood there at the top, I saw my father step on to the top rounds of a rough-looking ladder, and begin to descend slowly till he reached a platform, when he called to me to follow.
“Hold tight,” he said. “But there, I needn’t tell you after your cliff climbing.”
I was just about to descend when a voice behind me made me turn.
“Going down, Sep?”
I turned to confront Bigley Uggleston, who looked at me imploringly.
“Ask him if I may come down too?”
“Who’s that?” said my father sharply. “Oh, I see. Yes, he can come.”
Bigley flushed up with pleasure, and I let him go down next, and then followed, to find that a gallery went off on a level with the platform; but my father had already descended to the next platform below, and when we followed him there, it was to find he had reached another.
To get to this we passed another gallery, and then stood by where my father was lighting a couple of candles, as he rested upon some wood-work, beneath which we could hear the trickle and splash of falling water, while away from our right, down a long passage propped here and there with pieces of timber, came the dull echoing sound of blows.
“Well, my lads, what do you think of the enchanted cave?”
I looked about me by the light of the dim candles and saw that the shaft was divided by a wood partition, one side being reserved for the ladders, the other for the pump to work and the stout rope to go up and down and draw the buckets, there being openings in the wood-work opposite each of the galleries.
“Well, you don’t say anything,” said my father.
“It’s very dark, sir,” replied Bigley.
“Yes,” said my father; “and it’s darker still farther in. What do you say, will you go on?”
“If Sep does.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I shall go;” not that I wanted to go any farther, but I felt that I could not draw back; though I would very gladly have been up in the bright sunshine instead of in the damp gloomy hole, shut in by ladders and wood-work, and with, the falling water seeming as if it was gathering force, and ready to rise as it does in a well.
But there was no time for thinking. My father was leading the way along the large square-shaped gallery, the candles casting curious shadows which glided along the walls, as if our company had been joined by some of the spirits of the mine.
As we went on, my father stopped from time to time to hold his light against the wall, for us to see where the lead ore glistened, and promised to be thick when he was disposed to work in another direction.
We could hear the water trickling still along a channel which had been cut on one side of the gallery, and every here and there great drops gathered on the wood-work that propped the roof, and fell with a plash making Bigley whisper to me:
“Suppose the sea was to break in.”
He spoke as I say in a whisper, but it was heard by my father, who answered quietly:
“We should have to go down much lower before we were on a level with the sea at high-water mark, my lads. If anything were likely to do us any harm, it would be the brook.”
He stopped soon after, for we had reached the end of the gallery, giving way while a workman wheeled by us a barrowful of ore, similar to a heap which two others were hewing and picking out of the wall.
“Well, my lads, what’s it like?” said my father.
“Cleaner and richer and better, I should say, master,” said one of the men. “It’s a wonder, but I’m thinking you’ll have to put more power on there to pump. Farther we goes, the worse the water gets.”
“I’ve been thinking so myself,” said my father quietly. “It sha’n’t stop you, my lads, I’ll see to that.”
My father picked up a specimen of the ore, and placed it in his pocket; the men resumed their picking and hewing, and we two lads inspected the lode and the walls of the mine, and then, after looking at it up, down, and in every direction, to try and find something more interesting than the square passage with its dripping walls and patches of black mineral that glistened in a dull manner when the light was moved, we ended by staring at my father.
“Well,” he said smiling; “had enough?”
“Is there no more to see than this?” I said in a disappointed tone.
“There is another gallery below here, and two above, but they are just the same. Shall we go and see them?”
“If Bigley likes,” I said rather gruffly.
“No, I don’t think I want to see any more,” he replied.
My father laughed, and went on in front with one candle while I followed with the other, till we reached the foot of the shaft.
“Silver mine sounds better than it looks, eh, my lads!” he said.
We neither of us answered, for it seemed like damping his enterprise. But he did not heed our silence, for he began to climb slowly up the ladders, and as he reached the first platform, we followed, and then on and on with the water splashing and the pump going, and now and then the creaking sound of the windlass coming down to us as the men over the bucket shaft wound up each heavy load of ore.
“There, I’m going back into my office,” said my father. “You, lads, have had enough mining for to-day. I shall not want you, Sep.”
“Don’t the open air look clear and fresh?” I said as soon as we were alone, and I gazed round at the patches of green upon the hills, and the bright sea out at the end of the Gap.
“Yes,” said Bigley, with a shiver. “I shouldn’t like to work in a mine. I say, I suppose your father’s getting very rich now, isn’t he?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“That’s what the people say. Binnacle Bill says he has got heaps of silver locked up in the strong place below the office under iron doors. Have you seen it?”
“No,” I said; “and I shouldn’t think it’s true. Hallo! Look yonder. Why, there’s Bob Chowne!”
Bob it was, and the mine, the coming of the French, and everything else was forgotten, as we went down to the beach, ready enough for a ramble beneath the rocks, after six months’ absence from home.