Chapter Thirteen.A Picnic under Difficulties.They need not have been alarmed.Indeed, had she but given herself time for reflection, Nellie must have known this without any further assurance than the faithful Rover’s bark, which would have been of quite a different tone had any stranger or suspicious person invaded the spot he was left to guard.In such case, the good dog would have growled in the most unmistakable manner, besides giving warning of there being danger ahead by a different intonation of his expressive voice.He did not growl now, however, although he who had invaded the sacred picnic ground where their provender was so lavishly displayed was, in one sense, a stranger, being not one of the original members of the festive party who had set out from “The Moorings.”The reason for this was that the new-comer, really, was not a real “stranger” in the sense of the word. The intruder was, in fact, Hellyer, the coastguardsman, whom Rover had seen only so recently as that very morning, when of course master doggie had accompanied Bob to the beach for his bathe; and so, naturally, there was every reason for his receiving Hellyer in a friendly manner. Hence, his bark, alarming though it might have sounded at the first go off to Nell and her aunt, was found now to have been a bark of recognition and joy and not one of warning.Mrs Gilmour felt such a sensation of relief at the sight of Hellyer that her feelings prevented her from speaking. As she told Nell afterwards, she “couldn’t have uttered a word to save her life”; and there she remained, “staring at the poor man,” to use her own expression, and one that savoured thoroughly of her country, “as if he were a stuck pig!”Hellyer, however, did not remain dumb.“Beg pardon, mum,” said he respectfully, doffing his sailor hat and touching his forehead with his forefinger in nautical salute; “but, ’ave you seen the Cap’en anywheres about here, mum?”“You mean Captain Dresser, I suppose?” replied Mrs Gilmour, recovering her loss of speech at the sound of his voice, at least so it seemed; the good lady answering the coastguardsman’s question in her usual way, by asking him another!—“Eh, what, my man?”“Yes, mum. I’ve a message for him from our commander, mum; and they told me at the house as how he were over at Seaview, so, mum, I comes across by the next boat.”“Well, he isn’t very far-off, Hellyer,” said Mrs Gilmour smiling; “I didn’t recognise you at first, sure, I was in such a terrible fright on hearing the dog bark, least somebody was making off with our luncheon. I’m really glad it’s only you.”“And I’m glad, too, mum.”“So glad you’re glad I’m glad!” whispered Nellie to her aunt, quoting something she had seen in an old volume ofPunch, and going into fits of laughter. “Eh, auntie?”“Hush, my dear,” said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly, but obliged to laugh too in spite of herself, although she tried to hide it for fear Hellyer would think they were making fun of him; and she turned to him to say, “We expect the Captain, Hellyer, every minute. Why, here he is!”There he was, most decidedly; and he soon made his presence known.“Hullo, you good people!” he shouted, while yet some little distance off, as he made his way down the slope followed by Bob and Dick, “I hope you’ve got something for us to eat, for we’re all as hungry as hunters.”“Come on,” answered Mrs Gilmour, “everything is ready, and Nell and I are only waiting for you loiterers to begin.”“Loiterers, indeed!” retorted the Captain good-humouredly, as he hobbled along with some difficulty by the aid of his stick down the uneven path, “you would loiter too if you had my poor legs to walk with! Never mind, though, here we are at last; and, I tell you what, ma’am, that table-cloth there and the good things you’ve got on it is the prettiest sight I’ve seen to-day.”“What!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour. “Prettier than the Roman villa?”“Hang the Roman villa! I beg your pardon, ma’am, but the word slipped out unawares.”After this apology for his somewhat strong expression, the old sailor was proceeding to give the reason for his condemnation of the archaeological remains he and the boys had been to see, when he noticed Hellyer standing by in an attitude of attention.“Why, man,” he cried, “what brings you here?”“I’ve got a letter for you, sir,” replied Hellyer, handing an envelope over to him, and saluting him in the same way as he had done Mrs Gilmour just before. “Here it is, sir!”“Humph!” ejaculated Captain. Dresser, opening the missive and running his eyes over the contents. “Here’s some good news for you, Master Bob.”“Oh?” said the latter expectantly. “Good news, Captain?”“Yes,” went on the old sailor, “my friend, Commander Sponson, of the Coastguard, writes to me to say that one of the new ironclads is going out of harbour next week on her trial trip; and, if you like, you shall have a chance of seeing what sort of vessel a modern ship of war is.”“Oh thank you, Captain Dresser, that will be jolly!” said Bob, his face colouring up with pleasure. “But, will she fire her guns and all?”“Certainly,” answered the other, “big guns, little guns, torpedo-tubes, and the whole of her armoury! Besides, my boy, you’ll be able to see her machinery at work, as she will try her speed on the measured mile; and then you can ask one of the engineers all those puzzling questions you bothered my old brains with when we were on board the steamer this morning.”“That will be jolly,” repeated Bob; “and—”“There, there,” cried the Captain, interrupting him, “I won’t say another word now, I’m much too famished to talk. Mrs Gilmour, what have you got for a poor hungry creature to eat, eh, ma’am?”“Anything you like,” she responded with a smile. “Pray sit down and begin.”“I will,” said he, seating himself with alacrity; and turning to the coastguardsman, he added— “I suppose, Hellyer, you could pick a bit too, eh?”“Yes, sir, saving your presence. But, only after you and the ladies, sir,” was Hellyer’s respectful reply; and then, with all the training of an experienced servant, knowledge he had gained in the exercise of his manifold duties during several years’ service as the Captain’s coxswain, he proceeded to assist Dick in waiting, with an “If you’ll allow me, sir.”“Some bread, please,” called out the Captain presently. “Any your side, Hellyer?”Hellyer and Dick both looked about the table, seeking in vain for the required article.“I can’t see none, sit,” said the ex-coxswain deprecatingly, giving up the quest after a bit in despair. He seemed, from the way in which he spoke, as if he thought it was his fault that the bread was missing. “There ain’t any this side, sir.”Dick’s search too was equally fruitless.“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, all anxiety. “Look in the hamper again. Sure, we must have forgotten to take it out.”But there also, alas! no bread was to be found.The Captain could not help laughing at Mrs Gilmour’s face of dismay; while Nellie clapped her hands in high glee.“Oh, auntie,” she cried, “I thought you said just now when we were spreading the cloth that nothing had been forgotten, and how good Sarah was to think of everything. Oh, auntie!”“Oh, auntie!” chorussed Bob, joining in the general laugh. “Fancy forgetting the bread!”“Aye, to leave out the staff of life, of all things!” put in the Captain, having his say. “I hope ‘the good Sarah’ has not remimbered to forgit anything more importint, sure!”“I won’t have you mimicking me,” expostulated Mrs Gilmour, although she took their joking in very good part. “Sure, mistakes will happen sometimes, and there are biscuits if you can’t have bread.”“All right, all right,” said the Captain soothingly, “I dare say we’ll get along very well as we are. Don’t worry any more about the matter, ma’am. We’ve got your excellent piecrust, at any rate, and that’s quite good enough for me.”He chuckled still, though, for some time; and he chuckled more presently, when something else, quite as important as the bread, was discovered also to be missing.The discovery came about in this wise. Before sitting down with the others, Bob had rigged up in gipsy fashion, on three forked sticks, a little brass kettle, which he had specially asked his aunt to have put with the other picnic things, in order to carry out thoroughly the idea of “camping out” as he had read about it in books; and, besides slinging the kettle artistically in the way described, he also filled it with water from a stone jar which they had brought with them, as a precaution in the event of their not being able to get any of drinkable quality where they intended making a halt, Mrs Gilmour expressing some little repugnance to his taking any out of the brook, although they had been glad enough previously to use it for washing their scratched faces. She said it had too many dead leaves and live creatures in it for her taste.Under the filled kettle, too, Bob had lit a fire, for which Nell and Dick collected the sticks; and, long before luncheon was done, this was blazing up quite briskly, and the kettle singing away at a fine rate.By and by, when the Captain declared he couldn’t eat another morsel, and Bob and Nellie also had had enough, Mrs Gilmour heaped up a couple of plates with the remains of the veal-and-ham pie for Hellyer and Dick, who had all this time been busily employed ministering to their various wants, and now retired some little distance off to enjoy their well-earned meal.Then came Bob’s turn for action.“The kettle is boiling, auntie,” he cried out, poking fresh sticks in the fire, which crackled and spitted out as the sap in pieces of the greener wood caught the heat, the smoke ascending in a column of spiral wreaths, and making Bob’s eyes smart on his getting to leeward of the blazing pile. “Shall we have tea now?”“Yes, my dear boy,” said she in a very pathetic voice. “Do, please, make it as quick as you can, I feel quite faint for want of some, as it is long past the time for my usual afternoon cup.”“All right, auntie,” replied Bob, bustling about with great zeal, “I will get it ready in a jiffy. But, where’s the tea?”“It’s in the teapot, I suppose, my dear; and you’ll find that in the hamper with the teacups. Nellie and I thought we wouldn’t unpack them until they were wanted.”Nell, who had been sitting between her aunt and the Captain, on hearing her name introduced, at once got up to help Bob; but in spite of every search, neither of them could find the tea.As in the case of the bread, the “good Sarah” had forgotten it; for, neither in teapot, teacups or elsewhere could the tea be seen!“Well, ma’am!” exclaimed the Captain on hearing the painful news. “That bates Banagher, as one of your countrymen would say.”“I’m sure nobody could be more sorry than I am,” pleaded poor Mrs Gilmour, whom this second mishap completely overwhelmed, “I did so long for a cup of tea!”“Well, well,” said the Captain when he was able to speak, after a series of chuckles that made him almost choke, “the next time that a picnic’s in the wind I’d take care, if I were you, to overhaul your hamper before starting, to see that nothing is forgotten.”“It’s all ‘that good Sarah,’ auntie,” cried Bob slily; and, then, they all had another laugh, the misfortunes of the day being provocative, somehow or other, of the greatest fun. “Oh that ‘good Sarah’!”It appeared as if Mrs Gilmour would be the only sufferer in having to go without her tea: but, at this critical point, Hellyer came to the rescue.“Beg pardon, mum,” said he, stepping up to her with a deferential touch of his forelock; “but I knows the woman in the keeper’s lodge where you comed in, and I thinks as how I could borrow a bit o’ tea from her, if you likes.”“Thank you very much, if it’s no trouble,” replied Mrs Gilmour, hailing the offer with joy, “I certainly would like it.”Hardly waiting to hear the termination of her reply, the thoughtful follow darted off along the winding path through the shrubbery by which they had gained the pleasant little dell; returning before they thought he could have reached the keeper’s lodge with a little packet of tea. This Miss Nell took from Hellyer and at once emptied into the teapot, while Bob attended to the kettle and poured the boiling water in; so that Mrs Gilmour was soon provided with the wished-for cup of her favourite beverage.The good lady’s equanimity being now restored, she proceeded to question the Captain about the Roman villa at Brading.“But, what did you see after all?” she asked; “you haven’t told us a word yet.”“Oh, don’t speak about it, ma’am,” he replied grumpily. “It’s a regular swindle.”“But, what did you see?” she repeated, knowing his manner, and that he was not put out with her, at all events. “I want to know.”“See?” echoed the Captain, snorting out the word somehow with suppressed indignation. “Well, ma’am, to tell you the truth, we saw nothing but some fragments of old pottery—”“Just like broken pieces of flower-pots, auntie,” interrupted Master Bob in his eagerness. “The same as you have at the bottom of the garden.”“Yes,” continued the old sailor, “that’s exactly what these much exaggerated ‘remains’ resembled more than anything else, I assure you, ma’am. Of course, all these bits of earthenware were arranged in order and labelled and all that; but I couldn’t make head or tail of them.”“Perhaps you do not understand archaeology?” suggested Mrs Gilmour, smiling at his description. “That’s the rayson they didn’t interest you, sure!”“P’r’aps not, ma’am,” he replied with the utmost good temper. “I fancy I know something of seamanship and a little about natural history, but of most of the other ’ologies I confess my ignorance; and, for the life of me, I can’t see how some people can find anything to enjoy in the old pots and pans of our great-great-grandfathers!”“You forget the light which these relics throw on the manners and customs of the ancients,” argued the other. “There’s a good deal of information to be gleaned from their mute testimony sure, me dear Captain.”“Information?” growled the Captain. “Fiddlesticks! And as for the manners and customs of our ancestors; why, if all I have read be true, they were uncommonly similar to the account given by a middy of the natives of the Andaman Isles, as jotted down in his diary, ‘manners, none—customs, beastly!’”“That’s shocking,” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, laughing. “But the criticism will not apply to the Romans, who were almost as civilised and refined as ourselves.”“And that’s not saying much!” said the Captain with one of his sly chuckles. “Faith we haven’t any to boast of!”“Speak for yourself,” she retorted, “sure that’s a very poor compliment you’re paying me.”“Present company always excepted,” he replied, with an old-fashioned bow like that of a courtier. “You know I didn’t allude to you.”“I accept your apology, sir,” said she with equally elaborate politeness. “I would make you a curtsy if I were standing up, but you wouldn’t wish me to rise for the purpose. Did you not see, though, anything at all like the ruins of a Roman villa or house at Brading?”The Captain took a pinch of snuff, as if to digest the matter before answering her question.“Well, ma’am,” he began, after a long pause of cogitation, “we were shown some bits of brickwork, marked out in divisions like the foundations of a house: and a place with a hole in the floor which, they said, was a bath-room. We also saw a piece or two of tesselated pavement, with a lot of other gimcracks; but I certainly had to exercise a good deal of fancy to imagine a villa out of all these scattered details, like the Marchioness in Dickens’Old Curiosity Shop, which I was reading the other day, ‘made believe’ about her orange-peel wine!”“Then we didn’t lose much by not accompanying you?” she remarked. “I was rather sorry afterwards I was unable to go.”“Lose anything?” he repeated with emphasis, “I should think not, indeed! If my poor legs could speak, they would tell you that you’ve gained ‘pretty considerably,’ as a Yankee would say, by remaining comfortably here. Hullo, missy, what a splendid posy you’ve got there!”“Yes, are they not nice?” replied Nellie, on the Captain thus turning the conversation to her collection of wild-flowers, some of which she had arranged tastefully in a big bunch and placed them in her tin bucket filled with water to keep them fresh. “Aunt Polly helped me to gather them.”“I dare say she told you their names and all about them at the same time, my dear.”“Oh yes, Captain Dresser,” said Nellie. “She told me lots.”“Ah!” ejaculated the Captain, heaving a deep sigh of regret. “If I only knew as much as your auntie does of botany, missy, what a clever old chap I should be!”“Don’t you believe him, Nell!” cried Mrs Gilmour deprecating the compliment. “Captain Dresser knows quite as much as I do about plants and flowers, and a good deal more, too. I only wish he had been here to tell you the story of the ‘Devil’s bit,’ for he would have narrated it in a much better fashion than I did, I’m sure.”“The divvle a bit of it, ma’am!” exclaimed the old sailor, bursting into a jovial laugh at his joke, wherein even the staid Hellyer joined. “But, a truce to your blarney, ma’am; or, you’ll make me blush. Allow me to inform you that time is getting on; and, unless we make a start for the pier soon, we’ll never catch the steamer and reach home to-night!”
They need not have been alarmed.
Indeed, had she but given herself time for reflection, Nellie must have known this without any further assurance than the faithful Rover’s bark, which would have been of quite a different tone had any stranger or suspicious person invaded the spot he was left to guard.
In such case, the good dog would have growled in the most unmistakable manner, besides giving warning of there being danger ahead by a different intonation of his expressive voice.
He did not growl now, however, although he who had invaded the sacred picnic ground where their provender was so lavishly displayed was, in one sense, a stranger, being not one of the original members of the festive party who had set out from “The Moorings.”
The reason for this was that the new-comer, really, was not a real “stranger” in the sense of the word. The intruder was, in fact, Hellyer, the coastguardsman, whom Rover had seen only so recently as that very morning, when of course master doggie had accompanied Bob to the beach for his bathe; and so, naturally, there was every reason for his receiving Hellyer in a friendly manner. Hence, his bark, alarming though it might have sounded at the first go off to Nell and her aunt, was found now to have been a bark of recognition and joy and not one of warning.
Mrs Gilmour felt such a sensation of relief at the sight of Hellyer that her feelings prevented her from speaking. As she told Nell afterwards, she “couldn’t have uttered a word to save her life”; and there she remained, “staring at the poor man,” to use her own expression, and one that savoured thoroughly of her country, “as if he were a stuck pig!”
Hellyer, however, did not remain dumb.
“Beg pardon, mum,” said he respectfully, doffing his sailor hat and touching his forehead with his forefinger in nautical salute; “but, ’ave you seen the Cap’en anywheres about here, mum?”
“You mean Captain Dresser, I suppose?” replied Mrs Gilmour, recovering her loss of speech at the sound of his voice, at least so it seemed; the good lady answering the coastguardsman’s question in her usual way, by asking him another!—“Eh, what, my man?”
“Yes, mum. I’ve a message for him from our commander, mum; and they told me at the house as how he were over at Seaview, so, mum, I comes across by the next boat.”
“Well, he isn’t very far-off, Hellyer,” said Mrs Gilmour smiling; “I didn’t recognise you at first, sure, I was in such a terrible fright on hearing the dog bark, least somebody was making off with our luncheon. I’m really glad it’s only you.”
“And I’m glad, too, mum.”
“So glad you’re glad I’m glad!” whispered Nellie to her aunt, quoting something she had seen in an old volume ofPunch, and going into fits of laughter. “Eh, auntie?”
“Hush, my dear,” said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly, but obliged to laugh too in spite of herself, although she tried to hide it for fear Hellyer would think they were making fun of him; and she turned to him to say, “We expect the Captain, Hellyer, every minute. Why, here he is!”
There he was, most decidedly; and he soon made his presence known.
“Hullo, you good people!” he shouted, while yet some little distance off, as he made his way down the slope followed by Bob and Dick, “I hope you’ve got something for us to eat, for we’re all as hungry as hunters.”
“Come on,” answered Mrs Gilmour, “everything is ready, and Nell and I are only waiting for you loiterers to begin.”
“Loiterers, indeed!” retorted the Captain good-humouredly, as he hobbled along with some difficulty by the aid of his stick down the uneven path, “you would loiter too if you had my poor legs to walk with! Never mind, though, here we are at last; and, I tell you what, ma’am, that table-cloth there and the good things you’ve got on it is the prettiest sight I’ve seen to-day.”
“What!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour. “Prettier than the Roman villa?”
“Hang the Roman villa! I beg your pardon, ma’am, but the word slipped out unawares.”
After this apology for his somewhat strong expression, the old sailor was proceeding to give the reason for his condemnation of the archaeological remains he and the boys had been to see, when he noticed Hellyer standing by in an attitude of attention.
“Why, man,” he cried, “what brings you here?”
“I’ve got a letter for you, sir,” replied Hellyer, handing an envelope over to him, and saluting him in the same way as he had done Mrs Gilmour just before. “Here it is, sir!”
“Humph!” ejaculated Captain. Dresser, opening the missive and running his eyes over the contents. “Here’s some good news for you, Master Bob.”
“Oh?” said the latter expectantly. “Good news, Captain?”
“Yes,” went on the old sailor, “my friend, Commander Sponson, of the Coastguard, writes to me to say that one of the new ironclads is going out of harbour next week on her trial trip; and, if you like, you shall have a chance of seeing what sort of vessel a modern ship of war is.”
“Oh thank you, Captain Dresser, that will be jolly!” said Bob, his face colouring up with pleasure. “But, will she fire her guns and all?”
“Certainly,” answered the other, “big guns, little guns, torpedo-tubes, and the whole of her armoury! Besides, my boy, you’ll be able to see her machinery at work, as she will try her speed on the measured mile; and then you can ask one of the engineers all those puzzling questions you bothered my old brains with when we were on board the steamer this morning.”
“That will be jolly,” repeated Bob; “and—”
“There, there,” cried the Captain, interrupting him, “I won’t say another word now, I’m much too famished to talk. Mrs Gilmour, what have you got for a poor hungry creature to eat, eh, ma’am?”
“Anything you like,” she responded with a smile. “Pray sit down and begin.”
“I will,” said he, seating himself with alacrity; and turning to the coastguardsman, he added— “I suppose, Hellyer, you could pick a bit too, eh?”
“Yes, sir, saving your presence. But, only after you and the ladies, sir,” was Hellyer’s respectful reply; and then, with all the training of an experienced servant, knowledge he had gained in the exercise of his manifold duties during several years’ service as the Captain’s coxswain, he proceeded to assist Dick in waiting, with an “If you’ll allow me, sir.”
“Some bread, please,” called out the Captain presently. “Any your side, Hellyer?”
Hellyer and Dick both looked about the table, seeking in vain for the required article.
“I can’t see none, sit,” said the ex-coxswain deprecatingly, giving up the quest after a bit in despair. He seemed, from the way in which he spoke, as if he thought it was his fault that the bread was missing. “There ain’t any this side, sir.”
Dick’s search too was equally fruitless.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, all anxiety. “Look in the hamper again. Sure, we must have forgotten to take it out.”
But there also, alas! no bread was to be found.
The Captain could not help laughing at Mrs Gilmour’s face of dismay; while Nellie clapped her hands in high glee.
“Oh, auntie,” she cried, “I thought you said just now when we were spreading the cloth that nothing had been forgotten, and how good Sarah was to think of everything. Oh, auntie!”
“Oh, auntie!” chorussed Bob, joining in the general laugh. “Fancy forgetting the bread!”
“Aye, to leave out the staff of life, of all things!” put in the Captain, having his say. “I hope ‘the good Sarah’ has not remimbered to forgit anything more importint, sure!”
“I won’t have you mimicking me,” expostulated Mrs Gilmour, although she took their joking in very good part. “Sure, mistakes will happen sometimes, and there are biscuits if you can’t have bread.”
“All right, all right,” said the Captain soothingly, “I dare say we’ll get along very well as we are. Don’t worry any more about the matter, ma’am. We’ve got your excellent piecrust, at any rate, and that’s quite good enough for me.”
He chuckled still, though, for some time; and he chuckled more presently, when something else, quite as important as the bread, was discovered also to be missing.
The discovery came about in this wise. Before sitting down with the others, Bob had rigged up in gipsy fashion, on three forked sticks, a little brass kettle, which he had specially asked his aunt to have put with the other picnic things, in order to carry out thoroughly the idea of “camping out” as he had read about it in books; and, besides slinging the kettle artistically in the way described, he also filled it with water from a stone jar which they had brought with them, as a precaution in the event of their not being able to get any of drinkable quality where they intended making a halt, Mrs Gilmour expressing some little repugnance to his taking any out of the brook, although they had been glad enough previously to use it for washing their scratched faces. She said it had too many dead leaves and live creatures in it for her taste.
Under the filled kettle, too, Bob had lit a fire, for which Nell and Dick collected the sticks; and, long before luncheon was done, this was blazing up quite briskly, and the kettle singing away at a fine rate.
By and by, when the Captain declared he couldn’t eat another morsel, and Bob and Nellie also had had enough, Mrs Gilmour heaped up a couple of plates with the remains of the veal-and-ham pie for Hellyer and Dick, who had all this time been busily employed ministering to their various wants, and now retired some little distance off to enjoy their well-earned meal.
Then came Bob’s turn for action.
“The kettle is boiling, auntie,” he cried out, poking fresh sticks in the fire, which crackled and spitted out as the sap in pieces of the greener wood caught the heat, the smoke ascending in a column of spiral wreaths, and making Bob’s eyes smart on his getting to leeward of the blazing pile. “Shall we have tea now?”
“Yes, my dear boy,” said she in a very pathetic voice. “Do, please, make it as quick as you can, I feel quite faint for want of some, as it is long past the time for my usual afternoon cup.”
“All right, auntie,” replied Bob, bustling about with great zeal, “I will get it ready in a jiffy. But, where’s the tea?”
“It’s in the teapot, I suppose, my dear; and you’ll find that in the hamper with the teacups. Nellie and I thought we wouldn’t unpack them until they were wanted.”
Nell, who had been sitting between her aunt and the Captain, on hearing her name introduced, at once got up to help Bob; but in spite of every search, neither of them could find the tea.
As in the case of the bread, the “good Sarah” had forgotten it; for, neither in teapot, teacups or elsewhere could the tea be seen!
“Well, ma’am!” exclaimed the Captain on hearing the painful news. “That bates Banagher, as one of your countrymen would say.”
“I’m sure nobody could be more sorry than I am,” pleaded poor Mrs Gilmour, whom this second mishap completely overwhelmed, “I did so long for a cup of tea!”
“Well, well,” said the Captain when he was able to speak, after a series of chuckles that made him almost choke, “the next time that a picnic’s in the wind I’d take care, if I were you, to overhaul your hamper before starting, to see that nothing is forgotten.”
“It’s all ‘that good Sarah,’ auntie,” cried Bob slily; and, then, they all had another laugh, the misfortunes of the day being provocative, somehow or other, of the greatest fun. “Oh that ‘good Sarah’!”
It appeared as if Mrs Gilmour would be the only sufferer in having to go without her tea: but, at this critical point, Hellyer came to the rescue.
“Beg pardon, mum,” said he, stepping up to her with a deferential touch of his forelock; “but I knows the woman in the keeper’s lodge where you comed in, and I thinks as how I could borrow a bit o’ tea from her, if you likes.”
“Thank you very much, if it’s no trouble,” replied Mrs Gilmour, hailing the offer with joy, “I certainly would like it.”
Hardly waiting to hear the termination of her reply, the thoughtful follow darted off along the winding path through the shrubbery by which they had gained the pleasant little dell; returning before they thought he could have reached the keeper’s lodge with a little packet of tea. This Miss Nell took from Hellyer and at once emptied into the teapot, while Bob attended to the kettle and poured the boiling water in; so that Mrs Gilmour was soon provided with the wished-for cup of her favourite beverage.
The good lady’s equanimity being now restored, she proceeded to question the Captain about the Roman villa at Brading.
“But, what did you see after all?” she asked; “you haven’t told us a word yet.”
“Oh, don’t speak about it, ma’am,” he replied grumpily. “It’s a regular swindle.”
“But, what did you see?” she repeated, knowing his manner, and that he was not put out with her, at all events. “I want to know.”
“See?” echoed the Captain, snorting out the word somehow with suppressed indignation. “Well, ma’am, to tell you the truth, we saw nothing but some fragments of old pottery—”
“Just like broken pieces of flower-pots, auntie,” interrupted Master Bob in his eagerness. “The same as you have at the bottom of the garden.”
“Yes,” continued the old sailor, “that’s exactly what these much exaggerated ‘remains’ resembled more than anything else, I assure you, ma’am. Of course, all these bits of earthenware were arranged in order and labelled and all that; but I couldn’t make head or tail of them.”
“Perhaps you do not understand archaeology?” suggested Mrs Gilmour, smiling at his description. “That’s the rayson they didn’t interest you, sure!”
“P’r’aps not, ma’am,” he replied with the utmost good temper. “I fancy I know something of seamanship and a little about natural history, but of most of the other ’ologies I confess my ignorance; and, for the life of me, I can’t see how some people can find anything to enjoy in the old pots and pans of our great-great-grandfathers!”
“You forget the light which these relics throw on the manners and customs of the ancients,” argued the other. “There’s a good deal of information to be gleaned from their mute testimony sure, me dear Captain.”
“Information?” growled the Captain. “Fiddlesticks! And as for the manners and customs of our ancestors; why, if all I have read be true, they were uncommonly similar to the account given by a middy of the natives of the Andaman Isles, as jotted down in his diary, ‘manners, none—customs, beastly!’”
“That’s shocking,” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, laughing. “But the criticism will not apply to the Romans, who were almost as civilised and refined as ourselves.”
“And that’s not saying much!” said the Captain with one of his sly chuckles. “Faith we haven’t any to boast of!”
“Speak for yourself,” she retorted, “sure that’s a very poor compliment you’re paying me.”
“Present company always excepted,” he replied, with an old-fashioned bow like that of a courtier. “You know I didn’t allude to you.”
“I accept your apology, sir,” said she with equally elaborate politeness. “I would make you a curtsy if I were standing up, but you wouldn’t wish me to rise for the purpose. Did you not see, though, anything at all like the ruins of a Roman villa or house at Brading?”
The Captain took a pinch of snuff, as if to digest the matter before answering her question.
“Well, ma’am,” he began, after a long pause of cogitation, “we were shown some bits of brickwork, marked out in divisions like the foundations of a house: and a place with a hole in the floor which, they said, was a bath-room. We also saw a piece or two of tesselated pavement, with a lot of other gimcracks; but I certainly had to exercise a good deal of fancy to imagine a villa out of all these scattered details, like the Marchioness in Dickens’Old Curiosity Shop, which I was reading the other day, ‘made believe’ about her orange-peel wine!”
“Then we didn’t lose much by not accompanying you?” she remarked. “I was rather sorry afterwards I was unable to go.”
“Lose anything?” he repeated with emphasis, “I should think not, indeed! If my poor legs could speak, they would tell you that you’ve gained ‘pretty considerably,’ as a Yankee would say, by remaining comfortably here. Hullo, missy, what a splendid posy you’ve got there!”
“Yes, are they not nice?” replied Nellie, on the Captain thus turning the conversation to her collection of wild-flowers, some of which she had arranged tastefully in a big bunch and placed them in her tin bucket filled with water to keep them fresh. “Aunt Polly helped me to gather them.”
“I dare say she told you their names and all about them at the same time, my dear.”
“Oh yes, Captain Dresser,” said Nellie. “She told me lots.”
“Ah!” ejaculated the Captain, heaving a deep sigh of regret. “If I only knew as much as your auntie does of botany, missy, what a clever old chap I should be!”
“Don’t you believe him, Nell!” cried Mrs Gilmour deprecating the compliment. “Captain Dresser knows quite as much as I do about plants and flowers, and a good deal more, too. I only wish he had been here to tell you the story of the ‘Devil’s bit,’ for he would have narrated it in a much better fashion than I did, I’m sure.”
“The divvle a bit of it, ma’am!” exclaimed the old sailor, bursting into a jovial laugh at his joke, wherein even the staid Hellyer joined. “But, a truce to your blarney, ma’am; or, you’ll make me blush. Allow me to inform you that time is getting on; and, unless we make a start for the pier soon, we’ll never catch the steamer and reach home to-night!”
Chapter Fourteen.Wrecked.“How’s that, sure?” asked Mrs Gilmour. “It’s early yet, for the sun’s still overhead.”“You forget, ma’am, our old friend up there is rather a late bird at this time of year,” replied the Captain. “He hasn’t crossed the line yet, you know.”“Well, then,” argued the good lady, who was sitting at her ease on a pile of shawls and wraps, enjoying a second cup of tea which Nell had just poured out for her, “where’s the hurry?”“Oh, pray take your time, ma’am, I wouldn’t like to hasten your movements for worlds, you look so comfortable!” said the old sailor satirically. “Perhaps you’d allow me to mention, however, just in a friendly way, that it is now half-past five o’clock, and the steamer starts at six!”This made Mrs Gilmour jump up so suddenly that she spilt her tea, which made them laugh; and all set to work in a merry mood to collect their traps for the return journey, the good lady saying she would “never forgive the Captain” for not telling her the time before.The coastguardsman had to shoulder the hamper when packed, as well as carry the empty water-jar; for, both Bob and Dick, whose respective burdens these had previously been, had rushed off soon after luncheon and when all interest in making a fire and boiling the kettle had ceased, down to the shore, where presently the truants were discovered.They were wading in the sea, without their shoes and stockings, in high glee, and hunting amongst the rocks for anemones and corallines for the aquarium, having already nearly filled with specimens Nellie’s useful little tin bucket, from which her poor nosegay had been ruthlessly removed.“Hullo, you boys!” sang out the Captain on catching sight of them, after consulting his watch; “you’ll have to come out of that at once. Time’s up, for the steamer will be due in another five minutes. Look sharp!”“Do stop a moment,” answered Bob, just then busy at the base of a rock close by the pier, which was nearly awash with the incoming tide, “I’ve found such a jolly sea-anemone here. Come and see it, please, Captain.”“Are you sure it’s not a weed?” called back the old sailor a trifle impatiently. “We can’t waste any time on rubbish!”“Of course not; I should think I ought to know an anemone by now, sir!” cried Bob, rather indignant at being supposed capable of making such a mistake, albeit his knowledge on the subject, it must be confessed, was but slight and only lately acquired. “It is coloured beautifully, and looks like a purple chrysanthemum.”“By Jove!” exclaimed the Captain, forgetting the steamer and his fatigue alike as he hurried towards the spot where Bob was paddling in the water and Dick standing close by, bucket in hand. “Why, it’s the very thing I’ve been hunting for, missy, to set off your aquarium.”“Mind you don’t get your feet wet!” called out Mrs Gilmour, in great solicitude, as he went off in keen ardour to assist the boys in securing the prize, the good lady adding, as Nellie scampered after him, she contenting herself with remaining higher up on the shore: “Take care, my dearie! I don’t want to have you laid up, with your father and mother coming down in a few days, when I want you to look your best.”“Never fear, I’ll take care of her and myself too!” sang out the Captain, who by this time, hopping from rock to rock, in which operation he was closely followed and imitated by the giggling Nellie behind him, had reached the boulder where Bob was. “Keep close to me, missy.”“Don’t touch it for a little while, my boy, I want your sister to see it expanded, and it will close up if you go poking it about. Look, Miss Nell!” he continued, pointing it out to her with the end of his malacca cane, “The sun is just shining on it through the water, and you can sea its colours of pink, purple, and orange. This is one of the actinea, or ‘anthozoa,’ so-called from two Greek words meaning ‘living flowers.’ A pretty name, missy, isn’t it?”“Yes,” said Nellie. “It reminds me of a fairy tale aunt Polly told me of the different flowers in the garden having a party and talking together.”“Precisely, my dear; only the anthozoa can’t talk!”“But, oh, how pretty this sea-anemone is!” cried she in ecstasies, not noticing his little bit of satire. “It is wonderful!”“It is, my dear,” replied the Captain; “although it’s one of the commonest forms of the actinea family. As Bob said just now, it is very like a chrysanthemum; and, if anything, more beautiful, which you can see for yourself before we try to shift its lodging. It is called by a fearfully long scientific name, which to my mind does a positive injury to the poor beast. What do you think of such a jaw-breaker as ‘mesembryanthemum,’ eh?”“Oh!” ejaculated Nell, “what an awful word! I’m sure I shall never be able to remember it.”“You must, missy, if you want to describe properly the inmates of your aquarium, where this gentleman is now going to make a move for. Now, Bob,” went on the Captain, turning round to the boys, who were anxiously waiting, all eagerness to commence proceedings, “put that knife of yours, that you have been brandishing all this time, carefully under the base of the poor beggar, and try to peel him off, as I see the rock is too smooth for us to break away. Mind you don’t touch the animal with the sharp point, though; for the slightest scratch will kill him.”Nellie watched Bob with eager attention from the top of the boulder; while Dick held the little tin bucket below the sea-anemone, so as to catch it as soon as it had been separated from the rock. At the first touch of Bob’s knife, the anemone shrunk in, showing nothing but a row of blue turquoise-like beads around its top or mouth; the rest of the animal appearing to be but a dull lump of jelly, all its vivid colours and iridescent hues having vanished on the instant of its being assailed by Bob with that formidable weapon of his.“It’s wounded!” cried Nellie impulsively. “Don’t hurt it, Bob, poor thing!”“It’s all right, missy,” said the Captain, consolingly. “It always shrinks like that when any one interferes with it. But, look sharp, Bob, there’s your aunt waving her handkerchief like mad from the pier-head to say that the steamer’s coming in; and, by Jove, there she is, rounding the point!”They did look sharp; the boys, after the anemone was secured, scampering ashore in extra high spirits on account of the old sailor telling them that they had no time to put their shoes and stockings on, and would have to go on board theBembridge Bellewithout them, like a pair of mudlarks.The Captain hurried, too, jumping from rock to rock and boulder to boulder, a precaution now even more necessary than before, from the tide having risen considerably even during their short delay and being now nearly at the flood.Sure-footed himself as an old sailor, though holding Nellie’s hand to prevent her slipping, he found time, in spite of his hurry, to point out to her, growing on the beach under the low cliff, beyond where the keeper’s lodge stood, a solitary specimen of the “sea cabbage,” whose bright yellow flowers and fleshy green leaves, he suggested, would be an addition to the general effect of her bouquet, which, by the way, Mrs Gilmour had taken charge of while she went anemone-gathering, after this had been discarded from the bucket.“It isn’t bad eating, either, when on a pinch for green stuff,” added the old sailor; “and I’ve seen boys hawking the plant about for sale at Dover. But, let us push ahead, missy—run, boys, run, the steamer’s alongside!”With their shoes and stockings slung over their shoulders, Bob and Dick pattered along the shaky suspension bridge to the pier in advance, making good way in their bare feet; but, old as he was, the Captain was not far behind, going at a jog-trot that made Miss Nell step out to keep pace with him.However, they were not sorry when they reached the pier-head, for, all the while they were running, the steam-whistle of theBembridge Bellewas screeching away, as if telling them they would be too late, and threatening to start off without them if they did not hurry.“Just did it!” gasped the Captain, setting foot on the gangway and jumping on board, dragging poor Nellie almost in as breathless a state after him, Bob and Dick having already preceded them. “By Jove, it was a near squeak, though!”“Sure, it’s your own fault you’re not cool and comfortable like mesilf,” said Mrs Gilmour, whom Hellyer had escorted to the pier. He had, likewise, secured a good seat for her in the stern-sheets of the boat, as the Captain had previously done; and here she was now snugly ensconced when the late-comers arrived— “How hot you do look, to be sure!”“Humph!” growled the Captain, not making any further reply to her rather exasperating remark until he had finished mopping his flushed face with a bright bandana handkerchief of the same red hue; when he added grimly, as if somewhat out of temper, “If I’m hot, ma’am, you’recool, that’s all I can say!”Mrs Gilmour, however, was used to his ways and knew how to humour him.“Now, don’t you go pretending you’re angry,” she said, laughing merrily. “You needn’t, sure, for I know better!”“As you please, ma’am, as you please, ma’am,” he replied, adding with his usual chuckle— “I know you are bound to have your own way, ma’am, whether I like it or not!”They both laughed at this, these little tiffs between them being of frequent occurrence, especially of an evening over the cribbage-board; and, matters being again on a comfortable footing, they turned to the children, who were looking out, as before, over the side at the various objects that presented themselves as theBembridge Belleploughed her way back to Southsea.The steamer passed quite close to one of the harbour forts in the sea, guarding the approaches to Spithead; and, of course, Bob, who with Dick had now again donned his shoes and stockings, wanted to know all about the imposing structure with its frowning guns, by the side of which the boat they were in seemed a veritable cockleshell, although a fairly good-size; vessel.Equally, of course, the Captain had to tell him what he knew—how the fort was built of solid masonry, sixteen feet thick, with two feet of armour-plating outside that; and how the little fortress, as it undoubtedly was, had a well dug deep down into the sands below the sea, to supply its garrison with fresh-water in the event of communication being cut off with the mainland. To provide against which contingency it was also provisioned and furnished with every requisite to stand a siege.He was explaining all this, when a large screw-steamer, high in the bows and low in the stern, crossed theBembridge Bellemaking for Portsmouth.“Hullo, ma’am!” cried the Captain, glad to have the opportunity of a sly dig at Mrs Gilmour in remembrance of her previous amusement at his expense, “there’s your pig-boat!”“What!” said she innocently. “I don’t understand you.”“The Irish pig-boat, ma’am,” he repeated, his beady black eyes twinkling and his bushy eyebrows moving up and down, as they always did when he said anything funny. “It brings your fellow-countrymen over here twice a week.”“You’re very complimentary, sir,” said she. “Very complimentary, I declare!”“Not a bit of it, ma’am,” he replied, delighted at the idea of her taking his remark seriously. “Don’t you, in your ‘swate little island’ call poor piggy ‘the jintleman who pays the rint,’ eh?”“Sure,” she retorted with a smile, taking up the cudgels on behalf of her country, “there are more pigs in England than what come over from Ireland!”“I cry a truce!” exclaimed the old sailor laughing heartily, Bob and Nell, too, as well as Dick, appreciating the joke hugely; “you had me there, ma’am, you had me there!”TheBembridge Bellewas now well across the waterway, rapidly nearing the pier from which they had originally started in the morning, and Mrs Gilmour was just saying what a very enjoyable day they had passed, in spite of all mishaps, while Nellie was priding herself on the grand collection of wild-flowers she had made with her aunt’s help, and Bob and Dick busy over the bucket, showing Hellyer the various treasures they had picked up amongst the rocks on the shore; when, all at once, the bows of the steamer struck against something in the channel, with a concussion that threw nearly everybody off their feet—the shock being succeeded by a harsh grating sound as if her hull was gradually being ripped open.“Good gracious me!” cried out Mrs Gilmour, “what on earth is that?”Nobody, however, for the moment, attended to her: nobody, indeed, even heard the question; for the scene of quiet enjoyment which the deck had presented the moment before was changed to one of utter confusion, the shrieks of frightened women and hoarse cries of some of the men mingling with the screams of children and the noise of escaping steam, roaring up the funnel.Captain Dresser had hastened forwards to the forecastle of the ill-fated vessel to see with his own eyes what had happened as soon as the steamer struck, being immediately followed by Dick and Bob, who left Nellie clinging to her aunt in great consternation.As for the skipper of the poor steamer, he seemed to have lost his head completely, for he was shouting out orders one moment from the bridge and contradicting them the next: while the crew were rushing about the decks aimlessly, one going here and another there, without apparent end or purpose, every one looking bewildered from the want of proper leadership.“Keep calm, ladies!” the skipper sang out at intervals between his orders to the seamen and firemen, whom the incessant sounding of the engine-room gong had brought up from below. “Keep cool; there’s no danger, I tell you!”He himself, however, appeared so perturbed, that his assurances increased, instead of lessened, the panic amongst the passengers, who huddled together in groups like startled sheep; and Nell clasped her aunt’s hand tightly, the two awaiting in great anxiety Captain Dresser’s return from his inspection of the vessel forwards.They were not long kept in suspense.After a brief interview, which seemed an eternity, the old sailor re-appeared aft.His face looked very grave.“I’m sorry for the oldBembridge Belle” he said in a low tone to Mrs Gilmour, so as not to be overheard by the other passengers standing near. “The poor thing has a large hole knocked through her fore compartment, and is filling with water fast!”
“How’s that, sure?” asked Mrs Gilmour. “It’s early yet, for the sun’s still overhead.”
“You forget, ma’am, our old friend up there is rather a late bird at this time of year,” replied the Captain. “He hasn’t crossed the line yet, you know.”
“Well, then,” argued the good lady, who was sitting at her ease on a pile of shawls and wraps, enjoying a second cup of tea which Nell had just poured out for her, “where’s the hurry?”
“Oh, pray take your time, ma’am, I wouldn’t like to hasten your movements for worlds, you look so comfortable!” said the old sailor satirically. “Perhaps you’d allow me to mention, however, just in a friendly way, that it is now half-past five o’clock, and the steamer starts at six!”
This made Mrs Gilmour jump up so suddenly that she spilt her tea, which made them laugh; and all set to work in a merry mood to collect their traps for the return journey, the good lady saying she would “never forgive the Captain” for not telling her the time before.
The coastguardsman had to shoulder the hamper when packed, as well as carry the empty water-jar; for, both Bob and Dick, whose respective burdens these had previously been, had rushed off soon after luncheon and when all interest in making a fire and boiling the kettle had ceased, down to the shore, where presently the truants were discovered.
They were wading in the sea, without their shoes and stockings, in high glee, and hunting amongst the rocks for anemones and corallines for the aquarium, having already nearly filled with specimens Nellie’s useful little tin bucket, from which her poor nosegay had been ruthlessly removed.
“Hullo, you boys!” sang out the Captain on catching sight of them, after consulting his watch; “you’ll have to come out of that at once. Time’s up, for the steamer will be due in another five minutes. Look sharp!”
“Do stop a moment,” answered Bob, just then busy at the base of a rock close by the pier, which was nearly awash with the incoming tide, “I’ve found such a jolly sea-anemone here. Come and see it, please, Captain.”
“Are you sure it’s not a weed?” called back the old sailor a trifle impatiently. “We can’t waste any time on rubbish!”
“Of course not; I should think I ought to know an anemone by now, sir!” cried Bob, rather indignant at being supposed capable of making such a mistake, albeit his knowledge on the subject, it must be confessed, was but slight and only lately acquired. “It is coloured beautifully, and looks like a purple chrysanthemum.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed the Captain, forgetting the steamer and his fatigue alike as he hurried towards the spot where Bob was paddling in the water and Dick standing close by, bucket in hand. “Why, it’s the very thing I’ve been hunting for, missy, to set off your aquarium.”
“Mind you don’t get your feet wet!” called out Mrs Gilmour, in great solicitude, as he went off in keen ardour to assist the boys in securing the prize, the good lady adding, as Nellie scampered after him, she contenting herself with remaining higher up on the shore: “Take care, my dearie! I don’t want to have you laid up, with your father and mother coming down in a few days, when I want you to look your best.”
“Never fear, I’ll take care of her and myself too!” sang out the Captain, who by this time, hopping from rock to rock, in which operation he was closely followed and imitated by the giggling Nellie behind him, had reached the boulder where Bob was. “Keep close to me, missy.”
“Don’t touch it for a little while, my boy, I want your sister to see it expanded, and it will close up if you go poking it about. Look, Miss Nell!” he continued, pointing it out to her with the end of his malacca cane, “The sun is just shining on it through the water, and you can sea its colours of pink, purple, and orange. This is one of the actinea, or ‘anthozoa,’ so-called from two Greek words meaning ‘living flowers.’ A pretty name, missy, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Nellie. “It reminds me of a fairy tale aunt Polly told me of the different flowers in the garden having a party and talking together.”
“Precisely, my dear; only the anthozoa can’t talk!”
“But, oh, how pretty this sea-anemone is!” cried she in ecstasies, not noticing his little bit of satire. “It is wonderful!”
“It is, my dear,” replied the Captain; “although it’s one of the commonest forms of the actinea family. As Bob said just now, it is very like a chrysanthemum; and, if anything, more beautiful, which you can see for yourself before we try to shift its lodging. It is called by a fearfully long scientific name, which to my mind does a positive injury to the poor beast. What do you think of such a jaw-breaker as ‘mesembryanthemum,’ eh?”
“Oh!” ejaculated Nell, “what an awful word! I’m sure I shall never be able to remember it.”
“You must, missy, if you want to describe properly the inmates of your aquarium, where this gentleman is now going to make a move for. Now, Bob,” went on the Captain, turning round to the boys, who were anxiously waiting, all eagerness to commence proceedings, “put that knife of yours, that you have been brandishing all this time, carefully under the base of the poor beggar, and try to peel him off, as I see the rock is too smooth for us to break away. Mind you don’t touch the animal with the sharp point, though; for the slightest scratch will kill him.”
Nellie watched Bob with eager attention from the top of the boulder; while Dick held the little tin bucket below the sea-anemone, so as to catch it as soon as it had been separated from the rock. At the first touch of Bob’s knife, the anemone shrunk in, showing nothing but a row of blue turquoise-like beads around its top or mouth; the rest of the animal appearing to be but a dull lump of jelly, all its vivid colours and iridescent hues having vanished on the instant of its being assailed by Bob with that formidable weapon of his.
“It’s wounded!” cried Nellie impulsively. “Don’t hurt it, Bob, poor thing!”
“It’s all right, missy,” said the Captain, consolingly. “It always shrinks like that when any one interferes with it. But, look sharp, Bob, there’s your aunt waving her handkerchief like mad from the pier-head to say that the steamer’s coming in; and, by Jove, there she is, rounding the point!”
They did look sharp; the boys, after the anemone was secured, scampering ashore in extra high spirits on account of the old sailor telling them that they had no time to put their shoes and stockings on, and would have to go on board theBembridge Bellewithout them, like a pair of mudlarks.
The Captain hurried, too, jumping from rock to rock and boulder to boulder, a precaution now even more necessary than before, from the tide having risen considerably even during their short delay and being now nearly at the flood.
Sure-footed himself as an old sailor, though holding Nellie’s hand to prevent her slipping, he found time, in spite of his hurry, to point out to her, growing on the beach under the low cliff, beyond where the keeper’s lodge stood, a solitary specimen of the “sea cabbage,” whose bright yellow flowers and fleshy green leaves, he suggested, would be an addition to the general effect of her bouquet, which, by the way, Mrs Gilmour had taken charge of while she went anemone-gathering, after this had been discarded from the bucket.
“It isn’t bad eating, either, when on a pinch for green stuff,” added the old sailor; “and I’ve seen boys hawking the plant about for sale at Dover. But, let us push ahead, missy—run, boys, run, the steamer’s alongside!”
With their shoes and stockings slung over their shoulders, Bob and Dick pattered along the shaky suspension bridge to the pier in advance, making good way in their bare feet; but, old as he was, the Captain was not far behind, going at a jog-trot that made Miss Nell step out to keep pace with him.
However, they were not sorry when they reached the pier-head, for, all the while they were running, the steam-whistle of theBembridge Bellewas screeching away, as if telling them they would be too late, and threatening to start off without them if they did not hurry.
“Just did it!” gasped the Captain, setting foot on the gangway and jumping on board, dragging poor Nellie almost in as breathless a state after him, Bob and Dick having already preceded them. “By Jove, it was a near squeak, though!”
“Sure, it’s your own fault you’re not cool and comfortable like mesilf,” said Mrs Gilmour, whom Hellyer had escorted to the pier. He had, likewise, secured a good seat for her in the stern-sheets of the boat, as the Captain had previously done; and here she was now snugly ensconced when the late-comers arrived— “How hot you do look, to be sure!”
“Humph!” growled the Captain, not making any further reply to her rather exasperating remark until he had finished mopping his flushed face with a bright bandana handkerchief of the same red hue; when he added grimly, as if somewhat out of temper, “If I’m hot, ma’am, you’recool, that’s all I can say!”
Mrs Gilmour, however, was used to his ways and knew how to humour him.
“Now, don’t you go pretending you’re angry,” she said, laughing merrily. “You needn’t, sure, for I know better!”
“As you please, ma’am, as you please, ma’am,” he replied, adding with his usual chuckle— “I know you are bound to have your own way, ma’am, whether I like it or not!”
They both laughed at this, these little tiffs between them being of frequent occurrence, especially of an evening over the cribbage-board; and, matters being again on a comfortable footing, they turned to the children, who were looking out, as before, over the side at the various objects that presented themselves as theBembridge Belleploughed her way back to Southsea.
The steamer passed quite close to one of the harbour forts in the sea, guarding the approaches to Spithead; and, of course, Bob, who with Dick had now again donned his shoes and stockings, wanted to know all about the imposing structure with its frowning guns, by the side of which the boat they were in seemed a veritable cockleshell, although a fairly good-size; vessel.
Equally, of course, the Captain had to tell him what he knew—how the fort was built of solid masonry, sixteen feet thick, with two feet of armour-plating outside that; and how the little fortress, as it undoubtedly was, had a well dug deep down into the sands below the sea, to supply its garrison with fresh-water in the event of communication being cut off with the mainland. To provide against which contingency it was also provisioned and furnished with every requisite to stand a siege.
He was explaining all this, when a large screw-steamer, high in the bows and low in the stern, crossed theBembridge Bellemaking for Portsmouth.
“Hullo, ma’am!” cried the Captain, glad to have the opportunity of a sly dig at Mrs Gilmour in remembrance of her previous amusement at his expense, “there’s your pig-boat!”
“What!” said she innocently. “I don’t understand you.”
“The Irish pig-boat, ma’am,” he repeated, his beady black eyes twinkling and his bushy eyebrows moving up and down, as they always did when he said anything funny. “It brings your fellow-countrymen over here twice a week.”
“You’re very complimentary, sir,” said she. “Very complimentary, I declare!”
“Not a bit of it, ma’am,” he replied, delighted at the idea of her taking his remark seriously. “Don’t you, in your ‘swate little island’ call poor piggy ‘the jintleman who pays the rint,’ eh?”
“Sure,” she retorted with a smile, taking up the cudgels on behalf of her country, “there are more pigs in England than what come over from Ireland!”
“I cry a truce!” exclaimed the old sailor laughing heartily, Bob and Nell, too, as well as Dick, appreciating the joke hugely; “you had me there, ma’am, you had me there!”
TheBembridge Bellewas now well across the waterway, rapidly nearing the pier from which they had originally started in the morning, and Mrs Gilmour was just saying what a very enjoyable day they had passed, in spite of all mishaps, while Nellie was priding herself on the grand collection of wild-flowers she had made with her aunt’s help, and Bob and Dick busy over the bucket, showing Hellyer the various treasures they had picked up amongst the rocks on the shore; when, all at once, the bows of the steamer struck against something in the channel, with a concussion that threw nearly everybody off their feet—the shock being succeeded by a harsh grating sound as if her hull was gradually being ripped open.
“Good gracious me!” cried out Mrs Gilmour, “what on earth is that?”
Nobody, however, for the moment, attended to her: nobody, indeed, even heard the question; for the scene of quiet enjoyment which the deck had presented the moment before was changed to one of utter confusion, the shrieks of frightened women and hoarse cries of some of the men mingling with the screams of children and the noise of escaping steam, roaring up the funnel.
Captain Dresser had hastened forwards to the forecastle of the ill-fated vessel to see with his own eyes what had happened as soon as the steamer struck, being immediately followed by Dick and Bob, who left Nellie clinging to her aunt in great consternation.
As for the skipper of the poor steamer, he seemed to have lost his head completely, for he was shouting out orders one moment from the bridge and contradicting them the next: while the crew were rushing about the decks aimlessly, one going here and another there, without apparent end or purpose, every one looking bewildered from the want of proper leadership.
“Keep calm, ladies!” the skipper sang out at intervals between his orders to the seamen and firemen, whom the incessant sounding of the engine-room gong had brought up from below. “Keep cool; there’s no danger, I tell you!”
He himself, however, appeared so perturbed, that his assurances increased, instead of lessened, the panic amongst the passengers, who huddled together in groups like startled sheep; and Nell clasped her aunt’s hand tightly, the two awaiting in great anxiety Captain Dresser’s return from his inspection of the vessel forwards.
They were not long kept in suspense.
After a brief interview, which seemed an eternity, the old sailor re-appeared aft.
His face looked very grave.
“I’m sorry for the oldBembridge Belle” he said in a low tone to Mrs Gilmour, so as not to be overheard by the other passengers standing near. “The poor thing has a large hole knocked through her fore compartment, and is filling with water fast!”
Chapter Fifteen.The “Good Sarah’s” Forget-me-nots.“Tell me, is there any danger?” asked Mrs Gilmour, speaking quite calmly, in spite of her fears; for, although of a somewhat hasty disposition and apt to be put out at trifles, she was possessed of a strong, natural courage, which, as is the case with most of the so-called “tender sex,” only displayed itself in great emergencies. “You may disclose the worst. I can bear it!”“Pooh!” grunted the Captain off-hand, rather impolitely. “There’s no ‘worst’ to tell, ma’am. All on board are quite safe, and will be put ashore securely as soon as the boats come off. My fears are for the unfortunate vessel, the loss of which will be a sad blow to her skipper, poor fellow, as he has staked his all in her!”“But, Captain,” she rejoined, “why do you look so serious?”“Serious?” he repeated after her, the hard lines in his face at once relaxing—“so would you, too, look serious, ma’am, if you thought of the matter in the same light. You see, I can’t help looking upon a ship as a sort of living creature; and to think of a fine boat like this coming to grief in such a lubberly fashion is enough almost to make one cry!”His eyes blinked furiously as he said this, the bushy eyebrows above moving up and down; and, taking out his bright bandana handkerchief, he blew his nose with vigour, as if to give vent to his emotion,Nellie, whose pale face had gained a little more colour since the Captain’s reassuring words to her aunt, now sidled up to him, catching hold of his hand affectionately.“But will the poor steamer really be lost?” she inquired timidly; “wrecked, as sailors call it?”“Yes, I’m afraid so with the pack of nincompoops we’ve got on board,” he growled. “They’re talking of beaching her; and if so, with the wind chopping round to the eastwards, as those porpoises you saw this morning told us it will do by and by, for they’re unfailing weather prophets always, why, the unfortunate craft will lay her bones on the shingle. She will, at all events, if any sort of a sea get up, or call me no sailor!”Bob, who on his return from the fore-part of the vessel in company with Captain Dresser had stationed himself again by the engine-room hatchway, here gave a shout.“They’re moving,” he cried; “I see the piston going up and down, and the shaft turning round!”The rapid beat of the paddle-wheels on the water alongside gave testimony to the truth of Bob’s statement; but to Nell’s surprise, no churned-up foam came drifting by astern as before, and she couldn’t make it out.The paradox, however, was made plain to her by Hellyer, who did not seem to trouble himself much about the mishap, remaining seated on the hamper, which he had placed by the after sponsing of the starboard paddle-box. The coastguardsman, indeed, appeared as unconcerned throughout all the fuss as if he were safe ashore in his own little cabin on the beach; while Rover kept close beside him, as he had done since Hellyer took charge of the hamper which he had brought on board—the dog evidently considering himself still responsible for all the picnic goods and chattels that his young mistress had told him to watch.“The paddles is backin’ astern,” replied Hellyer; “and so, miss, their wake drifts for’ard instead of aft. That’s the reason, miss, you sees nothing washing by.”But this movement did not long continue, two strokes of the gong in the engine-room being heard as the captain of the steamer moved the brass handle of the mechanical telegraph on the bridge; whereupon, the machinery was suddenly stopped.Then the gong sounded twice again, the signal being followed by the quick “splash—splash—splash!” of the paddles once more in the water; when Nellie was delighted by seeing the creamy foam tossing up alongside where she and her aunt were now standing again, they having vacated their seats on the first alarm, like others of the passengers.“By Jove!” muttered the Captain, half aloud. “The fool of a fellow is actually going ahead again!”“What!” cried Mrs Gilmour— “any new danger?”“Oh, nothing,” he snapped out, evidently very grumpy at things not being done in the way he thought best. “I was only uttering my thoughts aloud, ma’am. If you must know, I think it very risky of our friend the skipper trying to drive the boat ahead when she’s down by the bows. Poor chap, I’m afraid he has lost his head, the same as the vessel has hers! Never mind, though, she cannot go very far in this shoal water, or I’m a Dutchman!”Nor did she.In less than a minute there was another heavy bump that shook the deck fore and aft, making all the passengers tumble about like ninepins. Bob nearly took a dive through the hatchway of the engine-room, into which he was still peering, and Nellie fell on poor Rover, causing him to utter a plaintive howl; while, as for Mrs Gilmour, she lurched against the Captain as if she were going to embrace him with open arms, treading at the same time on his worst foot, whereon flourished a pet corn that gave the old sailor infinite trouble, which he ever guarded as the apple of his eye.“O-o-o-o-oh!” he groaned, hopping about the deck on one leg and holding up the injured foot with both his hands, “I knew some further mischief would come from what that idiot of a skipper was doing!”Meanwhile, the steamboat people on the pier, off which they had grounded only some three or four hundred yards away, seeing the predicament of the vessel, set to work sending off boats to land the passengers.The first of these reached the little vessel just as she struck the sandbank she had run foul of for the second time; then coming to a dead stop as if she meant now to remain there for good and all.“Are we to go ashore in one of those?” asked Bob, pointing out the fleet of small boats making for the steamer, besides the two that had already come up to her; some being launched by the watermen on the beach in addition to those sent off from the pier. “What fun to have a boat all to ourselves, as I suppose we shall!”“Yes, I suppose so, if we are to get to land at all,” replied the Captain, who had become a little more amiable, his natural good-humour asserting itself as the pain in his foot somewhat subsided; “I don’t see how we can otherwise, unless we swim for it; the vessel is now stuck quite fast with no chance of her moving until she is lightened of her cargo of passengers.”“That will be jolly!” cried Bob. “Why it’s just like a regular shipwreck!”“Ah, my boy,” said the old sailor, shaking his head, “if you ever experienced the realities of one, you would not speak so lightly. A shipwreck, let me tell you, is no laughing matter.”“I didn’t mean that,” explained Bob, “I was only thinking how jolly it would be for us all to have a row, instead of landing at the pier quietly, as we would have done if nothing had happened.”“Sure, and I don’t see where your ‘jollity’ comes in, Master Bob!” observed his aunt, not by any means relishing the prospect. “It may be all very well for you; but I can’t say I like the idea of scrambling down the side of the vessel into one of these cockleshells and running the risk of getting drowned.”“Oh, no, you won’t, ma’am,” rejoined the Captain chuckling again, her comical consternation soothing the last acerbities of his temper. “You shan’t drown yourself if I can prevent you, ma’am!”There was no necessity, however, for the Captain to exert himself especially on her behalf; for, the boats being hauled up in turn alongside and only a proper number being allowed to get into each, no casualty occurred such as Mrs Gilmour dreaded. Thus, in a very short space of time, all the passengers were safely transferred from the stranded steamer to the shore, where a large crowd of sympathising bystanders had now assembled.“There!” exclaimed the Captain, as he jumped out of the wherry in which their little party had taken passage, “catch me going in one of those excursion craft again! Of all the clumsy lubbers I have ever had the misfortune to be shipmate with, that skipper is about the biggest and most lubberly. You can take the word of an old sailor for that!”“Why, sure, what could the poor man have done, when the steamer was sinking?” said Mrs Gilmour, as he assisted her also carefully to land. “It’s none of his fault that I can see.”“What could he have done, eh?” retorted the Captain warmly. “Why, anything else but what he did do. When he saw his fore compartment was full of water, he should have backed the vessel; and then he could have taken her stern-end foremost up to the pier, and landed us comfortably without any bother half an hour ago. Instead of that, what does he do but go backing and filling, first with his engines full speed ahead, and then ditto astern, ending by sticking hard and fast at the same spot where he first struck. While now, to clench the matter, he’s going to run the steamer ashore and beach her, he tells me, as soon as the tide floats her; the upshot of which will be that she’ll break her back and probably become a total wreck.”“Why didn’t you advise him?” she asked. “Eh, my old friend?”“The foolish fellow! I pitied him at first, but I can’t say I do so any longer. He wouldn’t listen to me. He’s just like the intelligent Isle of Wight farmer I’ve heard of, one of whose calves having got its head entangled in a wooden fence, in lieu of cutting the palings, thought the only way to release the calf was by cutting its head off!”“Sure, nobody could have been so stupid!” cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. “What, cut off the poor thing’s head in order to extricate it?”“Sure an’ they did, ma’am,” said he, mimicking her; “and, I’m sorry to say, our friend the skipper is one of the same kidney!”While the two were thus talking, Bob and Nell remained down on the beach, awaiting the arrival of Dick and Hellyer, who through want of room in their wherry had to come ashore in another boat.Rover, such was his strict sense of duty, strange to say, instead of accompanying his young master and mistress, was still intent on keeping in sight of the hamper.Accordingly, he stopped on board the steamer till Hellyer, the hamper’s custodian, left her; when after seeing him and Dick embarked along with the hamper, the retriever jumped over the side of the stranded vessel and swam ashore in company with the boat containing his friends, apparently mistrusting the frail craft, and preferring to rely upon his own powers in the water.Nor was he far behind, getting to land almost at the same moment that the wherry’s keel grated on the beach; when, after shaking himself decorously as he had been taught, so as to avoid wetting his friends by his excessive moisture, Rover barked and pranced round Hellyer and the hamper, and then round Bob and Nellie, as if to say in his dog language— “There, my dear young master and mistress, I have discharged my trust faithfully,” scurrying off then to the higher part of the shore, where Mrs Gilmour and the Captain were standing, to tell them the same tale, with a loud “Bow wow!”“Come now,” cried Mrs Gilmour, on the little party being reunited again, “we must be off home at once; for, it is getting late, and Sarah will be wondering where we all are.”“Well, we mustn’t keep ‘the good Sarah’ waiting,” said the Captain slily, with a wink to Nellie that set her off laughing so that she dropped the bunch of wild-flowers which her aunt was just handing her at the moment, and was obliged to stop to pick them up. “By Jove! though, ma’am, she may have forgottenusas she did the other things.”“You’re too bad entirely!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour a little pettishly. “I suppose I shall never hear the last about that, nor poor Sarah either. Come on now, dearie; we must hasten home whether or no.”So saying, she made the Captain wheel round from taking a last lingering look at theBembridge Belle, whose skipper, now that she was a bit lightened aft by all the people having cleared out of her, had backed again into deep water; and then putting on full steam ahead, was trying to run her up high and dry ashore.After this parting glance at the poor vessel, our party proceeded on their way across the common back to The Moorings, Miss Nell, as aforesaid, carrying the bouquet of wild-flowers, and Bob the tin bucket of sea-anemones, their “spoil” of the day, in sporting parlance; while Hellyer and Dick brought up the rear of the procession with the hamper and empty water-jar, representing the relics of their picnic feast.Rover on this occasion, it may be added, acted anon as pioneer of the column when he caracoled for awhile in front of them all; anon as baggage-guard, when he followed at the heels of Hellyer, sniffing the empty hamper.Poor Sarah, “that good Sarah” whom Mrs Gilmour had so unhappily praised, her penance was yet to come!Bob was the first to assail her as she opened the door on their arrival home.“Who forgot the bread?” he shouted out, so loudly that, starting back with fright, she almost tumbled. “Who forgot the bread?”“Who forgot the tea?” cried Nellie, immediately behind him, following up her brother’s attack and making Sarah jump afresh. “Who forgot the tea?”“And who forgot her head?” said the Captain from the rear, pressing the charge home; whereupon, they all, Mrs Gilmour included, halted on the doorstep and roared with laughter. “Aye, who forgot her head?”This was too much for the girl.“Oh my, me!” she exclaimed, staring at them in hopeless stupefaction. “Oh my, me!”“Dear me!” observed Mrs Gilmour, her laugh subsiding into a broad smile. “Why, you are quite a poet, Sarah.”“Me, mum?” ejaculated the other, more astonished than ever. “Whatever have I gone and done now?”“Yes,” continued her mistress, “you’ve just supplied ‘the missing link’ in our rhyme; and people who make poetry, of course, are poets.”“Oh, auntie, I see, I see!” called out Nellie excitedly, in great glee. “I see it—don’t you, Bob?”“No, what is it?” asked that young gentleman. “See what?”“Oh dear! and you began it, too,” cried Nell. “You really are a very stupid boy. Why, it’s a regular verse of poetry—“Who forgot the bread?Who forgot the tea?And who forgot her head?Oh, my—me!“Don’t you see it now?”“Oh, yes,” replied Bob, adding his usual expression when praising anything—“it’s jolly!”“I confess I did not see it either at first; so, I suppose, you’ll call me a stupid too, Miss Nellie, eh?” chuckled Captain Dresser. “However, now you’ve made it all clear to us, I will, if you like, christen your short but sweet poem for you. What say you to ‘Sarah’s forget-me-nots’? Do you think that will do, eh?”“Splendidly!” said Nell; an opinion which they all seemed to share, excepting poor Sarah, into whose ears the verselet was dinned so incessantly, both by Bob and Nellie, and even by the pert Dick, too, that its repetition, or any specific allusion to any one of the articles she had omitted in making up the historic hamper, would invariably make the unfortunate damsel wince; while if the simple name of the innocent flower which the Captain had adopted were but mentioned, even without any malice prepense, the poor girl would leave the room at once.“Where are the forget-me-nots?” said Mrs Gilmour incautiously, for instance, to Nellie, while arranging the wild-flowers in vases shortly before going to bed. “I can’t see them at all anywhere. Can you, Sarah?”There was no answer from her, however.Sarah was off like a shot!
“Tell me, is there any danger?” asked Mrs Gilmour, speaking quite calmly, in spite of her fears; for, although of a somewhat hasty disposition and apt to be put out at trifles, she was possessed of a strong, natural courage, which, as is the case with most of the so-called “tender sex,” only displayed itself in great emergencies. “You may disclose the worst. I can bear it!”
“Pooh!” grunted the Captain off-hand, rather impolitely. “There’s no ‘worst’ to tell, ma’am. All on board are quite safe, and will be put ashore securely as soon as the boats come off. My fears are for the unfortunate vessel, the loss of which will be a sad blow to her skipper, poor fellow, as he has staked his all in her!”
“But, Captain,” she rejoined, “why do you look so serious?”
“Serious?” he repeated after her, the hard lines in his face at once relaxing—“so would you, too, look serious, ma’am, if you thought of the matter in the same light. You see, I can’t help looking upon a ship as a sort of living creature; and to think of a fine boat like this coming to grief in such a lubberly fashion is enough almost to make one cry!”
His eyes blinked furiously as he said this, the bushy eyebrows above moving up and down; and, taking out his bright bandana handkerchief, he blew his nose with vigour, as if to give vent to his emotion,
Nellie, whose pale face had gained a little more colour since the Captain’s reassuring words to her aunt, now sidled up to him, catching hold of his hand affectionately.
“But will the poor steamer really be lost?” she inquired timidly; “wrecked, as sailors call it?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so with the pack of nincompoops we’ve got on board,” he growled. “They’re talking of beaching her; and if so, with the wind chopping round to the eastwards, as those porpoises you saw this morning told us it will do by and by, for they’re unfailing weather prophets always, why, the unfortunate craft will lay her bones on the shingle. She will, at all events, if any sort of a sea get up, or call me no sailor!”
Bob, who on his return from the fore-part of the vessel in company with Captain Dresser had stationed himself again by the engine-room hatchway, here gave a shout.
“They’re moving,” he cried; “I see the piston going up and down, and the shaft turning round!”
The rapid beat of the paddle-wheels on the water alongside gave testimony to the truth of Bob’s statement; but to Nell’s surprise, no churned-up foam came drifting by astern as before, and she couldn’t make it out.
The paradox, however, was made plain to her by Hellyer, who did not seem to trouble himself much about the mishap, remaining seated on the hamper, which he had placed by the after sponsing of the starboard paddle-box. The coastguardsman, indeed, appeared as unconcerned throughout all the fuss as if he were safe ashore in his own little cabin on the beach; while Rover kept close beside him, as he had done since Hellyer took charge of the hamper which he had brought on board—the dog evidently considering himself still responsible for all the picnic goods and chattels that his young mistress had told him to watch.
“The paddles is backin’ astern,” replied Hellyer; “and so, miss, their wake drifts for’ard instead of aft. That’s the reason, miss, you sees nothing washing by.”
But this movement did not long continue, two strokes of the gong in the engine-room being heard as the captain of the steamer moved the brass handle of the mechanical telegraph on the bridge; whereupon, the machinery was suddenly stopped.
Then the gong sounded twice again, the signal being followed by the quick “splash—splash—splash!” of the paddles once more in the water; when Nellie was delighted by seeing the creamy foam tossing up alongside where she and her aunt were now standing again, they having vacated their seats on the first alarm, like others of the passengers.
“By Jove!” muttered the Captain, half aloud. “The fool of a fellow is actually going ahead again!”
“What!” cried Mrs Gilmour— “any new danger?”
“Oh, nothing,” he snapped out, evidently very grumpy at things not being done in the way he thought best. “I was only uttering my thoughts aloud, ma’am. If you must know, I think it very risky of our friend the skipper trying to drive the boat ahead when she’s down by the bows. Poor chap, I’m afraid he has lost his head, the same as the vessel has hers! Never mind, though, she cannot go very far in this shoal water, or I’m a Dutchman!”
Nor did she.
In less than a minute there was another heavy bump that shook the deck fore and aft, making all the passengers tumble about like ninepins. Bob nearly took a dive through the hatchway of the engine-room, into which he was still peering, and Nellie fell on poor Rover, causing him to utter a plaintive howl; while, as for Mrs Gilmour, she lurched against the Captain as if she were going to embrace him with open arms, treading at the same time on his worst foot, whereon flourished a pet corn that gave the old sailor infinite trouble, which he ever guarded as the apple of his eye.
“O-o-o-o-oh!” he groaned, hopping about the deck on one leg and holding up the injured foot with both his hands, “I knew some further mischief would come from what that idiot of a skipper was doing!”
Meanwhile, the steamboat people on the pier, off which they had grounded only some three or four hundred yards away, seeing the predicament of the vessel, set to work sending off boats to land the passengers.
The first of these reached the little vessel just as she struck the sandbank she had run foul of for the second time; then coming to a dead stop as if she meant now to remain there for good and all.
“Are we to go ashore in one of those?” asked Bob, pointing out the fleet of small boats making for the steamer, besides the two that had already come up to her; some being launched by the watermen on the beach in addition to those sent off from the pier. “What fun to have a boat all to ourselves, as I suppose we shall!”
“Yes, I suppose so, if we are to get to land at all,” replied the Captain, who had become a little more amiable, his natural good-humour asserting itself as the pain in his foot somewhat subsided; “I don’t see how we can otherwise, unless we swim for it; the vessel is now stuck quite fast with no chance of her moving until she is lightened of her cargo of passengers.”
“That will be jolly!” cried Bob. “Why it’s just like a regular shipwreck!”
“Ah, my boy,” said the old sailor, shaking his head, “if you ever experienced the realities of one, you would not speak so lightly. A shipwreck, let me tell you, is no laughing matter.”
“I didn’t mean that,” explained Bob, “I was only thinking how jolly it would be for us all to have a row, instead of landing at the pier quietly, as we would have done if nothing had happened.”
“Sure, and I don’t see where your ‘jollity’ comes in, Master Bob!” observed his aunt, not by any means relishing the prospect. “It may be all very well for you; but I can’t say I like the idea of scrambling down the side of the vessel into one of these cockleshells and running the risk of getting drowned.”
“Oh, no, you won’t, ma’am,” rejoined the Captain chuckling again, her comical consternation soothing the last acerbities of his temper. “You shan’t drown yourself if I can prevent you, ma’am!”
There was no necessity, however, for the Captain to exert himself especially on her behalf; for, the boats being hauled up in turn alongside and only a proper number being allowed to get into each, no casualty occurred such as Mrs Gilmour dreaded. Thus, in a very short space of time, all the passengers were safely transferred from the stranded steamer to the shore, where a large crowd of sympathising bystanders had now assembled.
“There!” exclaimed the Captain, as he jumped out of the wherry in which their little party had taken passage, “catch me going in one of those excursion craft again! Of all the clumsy lubbers I have ever had the misfortune to be shipmate with, that skipper is about the biggest and most lubberly. You can take the word of an old sailor for that!”
“Why, sure, what could the poor man have done, when the steamer was sinking?” said Mrs Gilmour, as he assisted her also carefully to land. “It’s none of his fault that I can see.”
“What could he have done, eh?” retorted the Captain warmly. “Why, anything else but what he did do. When he saw his fore compartment was full of water, he should have backed the vessel; and then he could have taken her stern-end foremost up to the pier, and landed us comfortably without any bother half an hour ago. Instead of that, what does he do but go backing and filling, first with his engines full speed ahead, and then ditto astern, ending by sticking hard and fast at the same spot where he first struck. While now, to clench the matter, he’s going to run the steamer ashore and beach her, he tells me, as soon as the tide floats her; the upshot of which will be that she’ll break her back and probably become a total wreck.”
“Why didn’t you advise him?” she asked. “Eh, my old friend?”
“The foolish fellow! I pitied him at first, but I can’t say I do so any longer. He wouldn’t listen to me. He’s just like the intelligent Isle of Wight farmer I’ve heard of, one of whose calves having got its head entangled in a wooden fence, in lieu of cutting the palings, thought the only way to release the calf was by cutting its head off!”
“Sure, nobody could have been so stupid!” cried Mrs Gilmour laughing. “What, cut off the poor thing’s head in order to extricate it?”
“Sure an’ they did, ma’am,” said he, mimicking her; “and, I’m sorry to say, our friend the skipper is one of the same kidney!”
While the two were thus talking, Bob and Nell remained down on the beach, awaiting the arrival of Dick and Hellyer, who through want of room in their wherry had to come ashore in another boat.
Rover, such was his strict sense of duty, strange to say, instead of accompanying his young master and mistress, was still intent on keeping in sight of the hamper.
Accordingly, he stopped on board the steamer till Hellyer, the hamper’s custodian, left her; when after seeing him and Dick embarked along with the hamper, the retriever jumped over the side of the stranded vessel and swam ashore in company with the boat containing his friends, apparently mistrusting the frail craft, and preferring to rely upon his own powers in the water.
Nor was he far behind, getting to land almost at the same moment that the wherry’s keel grated on the beach; when, after shaking himself decorously as he had been taught, so as to avoid wetting his friends by his excessive moisture, Rover barked and pranced round Hellyer and the hamper, and then round Bob and Nellie, as if to say in his dog language— “There, my dear young master and mistress, I have discharged my trust faithfully,” scurrying off then to the higher part of the shore, where Mrs Gilmour and the Captain were standing, to tell them the same tale, with a loud “Bow wow!”
“Come now,” cried Mrs Gilmour, on the little party being reunited again, “we must be off home at once; for, it is getting late, and Sarah will be wondering where we all are.”
“Well, we mustn’t keep ‘the good Sarah’ waiting,” said the Captain slily, with a wink to Nellie that set her off laughing so that she dropped the bunch of wild-flowers which her aunt was just handing her at the moment, and was obliged to stop to pick them up. “By Jove! though, ma’am, she may have forgottenusas she did the other things.”
“You’re too bad entirely!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour a little pettishly. “I suppose I shall never hear the last about that, nor poor Sarah either. Come on now, dearie; we must hasten home whether or no.”
So saying, she made the Captain wheel round from taking a last lingering look at theBembridge Belle, whose skipper, now that she was a bit lightened aft by all the people having cleared out of her, had backed again into deep water; and then putting on full steam ahead, was trying to run her up high and dry ashore.
After this parting glance at the poor vessel, our party proceeded on their way across the common back to The Moorings, Miss Nell, as aforesaid, carrying the bouquet of wild-flowers, and Bob the tin bucket of sea-anemones, their “spoil” of the day, in sporting parlance; while Hellyer and Dick brought up the rear of the procession with the hamper and empty water-jar, representing the relics of their picnic feast.
Rover on this occasion, it may be added, acted anon as pioneer of the column when he caracoled for awhile in front of them all; anon as baggage-guard, when he followed at the heels of Hellyer, sniffing the empty hamper.
Poor Sarah, “that good Sarah” whom Mrs Gilmour had so unhappily praised, her penance was yet to come!
Bob was the first to assail her as she opened the door on their arrival home.
“Who forgot the bread?” he shouted out, so loudly that, starting back with fright, she almost tumbled. “Who forgot the bread?”
“Who forgot the tea?” cried Nellie, immediately behind him, following up her brother’s attack and making Sarah jump afresh. “Who forgot the tea?”
“And who forgot her head?” said the Captain from the rear, pressing the charge home; whereupon, they all, Mrs Gilmour included, halted on the doorstep and roared with laughter. “Aye, who forgot her head?”
This was too much for the girl.
“Oh my, me!” she exclaimed, staring at them in hopeless stupefaction. “Oh my, me!”
“Dear me!” observed Mrs Gilmour, her laugh subsiding into a broad smile. “Why, you are quite a poet, Sarah.”
“Me, mum?” ejaculated the other, more astonished than ever. “Whatever have I gone and done now?”
“Yes,” continued her mistress, “you’ve just supplied ‘the missing link’ in our rhyme; and people who make poetry, of course, are poets.”
“Oh, auntie, I see, I see!” called out Nellie excitedly, in great glee. “I see it—don’t you, Bob?”
“No, what is it?” asked that young gentleman. “See what?”
“Oh dear! and you began it, too,” cried Nell. “You really are a very stupid boy. Why, it’s a regular verse of poetry—
“Who forgot the bread?Who forgot the tea?And who forgot her head?Oh, my—me!
“Who forgot the bread?Who forgot the tea?And who forgot her head?Oh, my—me!
“Don’t you see it now?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Bob, adding his usual expression when praising anything—“it’s jolly!”
“I confess I did not see it either at first; so, I suppose, you’ll call me a stupid too, Miss Nellie, eh?” chuckled Captain Dresser. “However, now you’ve made it all clear to us, I will, if you like, christen your short but sweet poem for you. What say you to ‘Sarah’s forget-me-nots’? Do you think that will do, eh?”
“Splendidly!” said Nell; an opinion which they all seemed to share, excepting poor Sarah, into whose ears the verselet was dinned so incessantly, both by Bob and Nellie, and even by the pert Dick, too, that its repetition, or any specific allusion to any one of the articles she had omitted in making up the historic hamper, would invariably make the unfortunate damsel wince; while if the simple name of the innocent flower which the Captain had adopted were but mentioned, even without any malice prepense, the poor girl would leave the room at once.
“Where are the forget-me-nots?” said Mrs Gilmour incautiously, for instance, to Nellie, while arranging the wild-flowers in vases shortly before going to bed. “I can’t see them at all anywhere. Can you, Sarah?”
There was no answer from her, however.
Sarah was off like a shot!
Chapter Sixteen.“Broken Up!”Early next morning, after their usual matutinal swim, Bob and Dick accompanied the Captain for a stroll along the beach to the coastguard-station on the eastern side of the Castle, near to which the ill-fatedBembridge Bellehad been run ashore.Of course, Rover formed one of the party; carrying, equally as a matter of course, his young master’s towels in his mouth and wagging his fine bushy tail with even more energy than he generally evinced when performing that function, in order to express his proud exultation at the trust reposed in him.At the coastguard-station they found Hellyer standing by the flagstaff, with his telescope under his left arm and evidently on duty.“Not much damage done to her hull yet, sir,” said he, touching his hat, as he thus anticipated the Captain’s inquiry. “She were all awash, though, sir, at high-water this morning!”“Indeed!” cried Captain Dresser. “Then, that forward bulkhead must have started when the fore compartment got full.”“No doubt o’ that, sir,” agreed Hellyer. “Why, the tide covered her after-deck at Six Bells; and the cushions of the settees and a lot o’ dunnage were floating about in the saloon below and washing through the ports astern.”“Her fo’c’s’le, however, keeps high and dry.”“Aye, now it do, sir,” replied Hellyer. “But, not for long!”“You’re right, my man,” said the Captain, after having a good squint at the object of their commiseration. “She has been working already on the shingle, and her frame has been a good deal knocked about since last night.”The coastguardsman gave a shrug to his shoulders.“I expect a tide or two’ll settle her hash, sir,” he observed, after thus relieving his pent-up feelings. “With the water making a clean sweep through her fore and aft every time it rises, the poor thing can’t last long, sir!”“Aye,” said the Captain. “She’s bound to go to pieces, now, fast enough.”“So I’ve reported to the commander, sir, this very morning,” continued Hellyer; “and, he’s sent down word as I’m to keep men stationed along the shore so as to pick up any wreckage that mebbe washed out on her.”“Quite right,” was the Captain’s comment on this. “There are a lot of light-fingered gentry about here, whom it is just as well to be on guard against. When will it be flood-tide to-night, Hellyer, eh?”“Nigh upon nine o’clock, sir,” answered he. “Just afore the moon rises.”“Humph!” muttered Captain Dresser, as if cogitating the matter and speaking his thoughts aloud. “I think I’ll come down then. The sea seems inclined to get up a bit?”He raised his voice when uttering the last words, as if asking a question; so, the coastguardsman answered it at once.“That it do, sir,” he said with decision; “and, if the wind freshen more, as is more’n likely, considerin’ it’s been backin’ all the mornin’, I ’spects it’ll be pretty rough by night-time!”“Ah, well, so I think, too, Hellyer. Good-day to you, my man; I will come down again this evening when the tide makes. I fancy she’ll break up then. Come on, boys!” sang out the old sailor in a higher key to Bob and Dick, who had been amusing themselves by trying to walk round the hull of the stranded steamer, now nearly high and dry on the beach; although the venturesome fellows had to clamber over all sorts of obstacles in the way of chain-cables and hawsers and other gear, besides wading through various pools of water to seaward, before they could congratulate themselves on effecting their object. “Come on now, my boys! There’s nothing more to see at present; and I’ve promised Miss Nell to help her put those actinea we got yesterday at Seaview into her new aquarium.”“But, you will come down again with us to see the wreck, won’t you?” eagerly asked Bob, running after the Captain, who on giving this explanation of his desire of not wasting any more time on the beach just then, had started off already on his way back to the south parade, and was hobbling off at a fine rate across the common. “I do so want to see the poor vessel once more before they take her away, Captain!”“Humph!” grunted out the old sailor as he puffed and panted onward like a steam-engine, turning the services of his trusty old malacca cane to good account. “I don’t think, my boy, you need have any fear on that score. The only shape in which she’s likely to be taken away from her present berth will be—in pieces!”“By Jove, ma’am!” he exclaimed later on, when Mrs Gilmour and Nell met him at the gate of “the Moorings,” “I might just as well board with you at once. Dined with you on Monday, to lunch Tuesday; at breakfast yesterday, and again this morning. Why, I’ll eat you out of house and home!”“Never fear, Captain,” said Mrs Gilmour smiling. “Sure, I’ll take the risk of that.”“But your servants, ma’am,” he argued, as Nell took away his hat and cane. “I’m afraid I give them a lot of trouble, and they’ll be springing a mutiny on you.”“I don’t know what poor Sarah’ll do, sure; you’ve taised her so!” replied Mrs Gilmour jokingly. “But, Molly the cook’s your friend, I know. She says you’re the only one in the house that properly appreciates her curries.”“Faith and she turns them out well, ma’am; and you can tell her so, with my compliments,” said the old sailor with much heartiness as he winked to Nellie. “As for ‘that good Sarah,’ ma’am, I shall have to make my peace with her by and by, with your permission.”After breakfast, the Captain and Nellie, with the assistance of Bob and Dick, even “the good Sarah,” too, being pressed into the service, set about preparing the sea-anemones and other specimens they had collected the previous day for their new home in the aquarium which Mrs Gilmour had bought for the purpose shortly before.This aquarium was in appearance somewhat like an inverted dish-cover of glass—one of the best shapes to be had. This sort being free from those leaky joints that are the invariable accompaniment of all-square cisterns; while globular ones have not got sufficient space at the bottom for rock-work, or those little hiding-places that delight the hearts of the denizens of the deep when they are free agents and in their own waters.Presently, under the active superintendence of the old sailor, the whilom empty glass receptacle began to assume a more picturesque aspect.To commence with, a groundwork was constructed of fine white sand and shells, each of the latter being washed in repeated baths of clear and fresh sea-water, which had been brought up from the beach in the morning, before being introduced into the aquarium; where, if success be desired, cleanliness is as essential to the well-being of its little tenants as it is deemed to be amongst human beings.The Captain said something to this effect while making Nellie wash the different shells, which he then arranged along the sandy bottom, which was made to slope from the back of the structure down to the centre, forming a sort of hollow there; and then rising again in front.“So far, so good,” said the Captain, placing some bits of rock in the background, which, leaning against each other, formed so many small caverns. “These will do for those crabs, which Master Bob insists on having, to retreat to when some of the other fry pay them too much attention.”On the right and left of the aquarium the old sailor dexterously built up larger pieces of rock-work, intermixed with bits of red seaweed that grows in the form of a feathery plume, called by naturalists the “bryopsis plumosa,” than which no more graceful marine plant can be found.Close to this and serving as a contrast, the Captain placed the green laver he had made Nell pick up at the last moment when they were leaving Seaview and running to catch the steamer.“This chap, styled the ‘ulva latissima’ by the scientific gentlemen who manufacture such titles, is a capital thermometer,” said the Captain on putting in the laver. “You’ll find he’ll always rise to the surface when the weather is bright and sunny; while he sinks back to the bottom, as I’ve put him now, on its being damp and overcast.”In the more immediate foreground, a number of little starfish squatted about on the miniature strand that shelved down from the rocks, arranged with much care to the general spectacular effect by Nellie, who was most painstaking in the matter.To be introduced into this very select marine retreat, the anemones had to go through similar ablutions to the sand and the shells, as well as other things, all of them being at the outset cleansed with the greatest care. When, however, this was done and the actinea put into their future home, the aquarium blossomed out into a garden of live flowers, whose tentacles of various colours resembled so many chrysanthemums, dahlias, and daisies, of the most gorgeous hues ever seen on Nature’s palette!Of course, the actinea did not make themselves at home in their new lodgings and disclose their beauties all at once; but, in a few days, none of them having been hurt by Bob’s knife, they seemed to have become acclimatised, putting out the petals of their flower-like bodies as freely as when in their native pools at Seaview. So, too, did a beautiful rose and white dianthus, which Dick had picked up adhering to an ugly old oyster-shell; and, the even rarer anthea, whose long hanging filaments were never altogether withdrawn into its body when disturbed, as was the case with the other sea-anemones, and which were thus a constant source of alarm to Bob’s little crabs; for, it was ever listlessly waving perilously near these nervous creatures, making them hurry out of their way in such frantic haste as their lateral conformation permitted.It was a long job arranging the aquarium, engrossing the attention of all engaged and taking up the entire morning; aye, and all midday, too!“Good gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, coming into the room when they had just completed the task. “What a long time you’ve been at it, to be sure! I believe I could have made an aquarium by now, let alone fit it up.”“Ah, ma’am, ‘more haste, worse speed,’” retorted the old sailor. “‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ you know.”“I thought you had enough of the Romans yesterday,” said Mrs Gilmour, giving him this little cut in return for his brace of proverbs. “But, come, Sarah, you must see about getting luncheon now. I want it ready as soon as possible. You’ll stop, Captain Dresser, I suppose?”“Oh yes, ma’am, if you’ll allow me,” he replied with a chuckle. “I know when I’m well off. You recollect, ma’am, you said just now the cook was my friend.”“Do you know why I wanted to have lunch especially early to-day?” she asked him anon, when they were seated at the table. “Can you guess?”“No, by Jove, I can’t!” he snorted out indignantly. “I’m not a clairvoyant, or whatever else you call those people who pretend to read other people’s thoughts.”“Sure, then, I’ll tell you,” she said, laughing at his quaint manner, “I’m going to see Mrs Craddock.”“I’m just as much in the dark as ever,” he retorted. “Who the dickens is the woman, eh?”Nell saved her aunt the trouble of answering.“Why, don’t you remember the old lady at the station whom Rover tumbled down and broke her eggs?” she cried out eagerly. “You must recollect, for you sent her some port wine for her poor daughter, which auntie and I took the second time we went to see her.—You must remember her!”“Ah, yes, I remember now,” said the Captain, scratching his head reflectively. “So that’s her name, eh—Craddock, Craddock. Where have I heard it before? By Jove, I’ve got it now! Why, ma’am, there was a Craddock who was boatswain of the oldBucephaluson the West Coast.”“What!” cried Mrs Gilmour. “My poor dear Ted’s ship?”“The same, ma’am,” he answered. “I recollect the man very well now. He was a tall, spare, intellectual-looking chap, more like a longshore man than a sailor. He was delicate, too, suffering from a weak chest; and, Ted told me, now I come to think of it, that he volunteered for a second term of service on the African station in order to be in a warm climate. It didn’t do him much good, though, for he died on the commission.”“How strange!” said Mrs Gilmour pensively. “I don’t remember poor Ted writing me anything about it, but I’ve no doubt the man was our Mrs Craddock’s husband, and, if so, that will make me take an additional interest in her. Run upstairs, Nell, and get ready at once, my dear. As soon as you come down we’ll start, for I have only got to put on my bonnet.”“Do you want me to come, too?” faltered the Captain, who, unless visiting a sick-bed on an errand of mercy, dreaded going to see any one whom he had been kind to, the old sailor doing all his good deeds, and they were many, by stealth. Indeed, the very idea of being thanked made him always inclined to run away, a thing he had never done from an enemy.“Well, if you’d rather not, or if you’ve somewhere else to go, I won’t insist.”“Why, I did promise to go down to the Club,” he replied, still speaking in a half-hesitating way. “I—I—I—”“I know,” said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him, and looking very knowing—“you don’t want to go to Mrs Craddock’s, because you sent her poor daughter some port wine, and are afraid of being thanked for it—that’s the reason, I know.” The Captain blushed.“I assure you, ma’am,” he began timidly to remonstrate against her conclusion, when suddenly some little recollection gave him renewed courage. “By Jove, I declare I nearly forgot all about it! I’ve got to meet Sponson at the Club to see when that ship is going out for her trials; I mean the one which I’m going to take Bob on board of.”“Well, be off with you to your Club,” she rejoined laughing, giving him a little push in joke. “Away with you at once!”“You see, she turns me out,” he said humorously to Bob, in a sort of stage aside. “That’s what you might call Irish hospitality.”He hurried out after his insulting remark, but popped in his head again at the door to make a parting request.“May I come back to dinner, please?” he asked, with his hands clasped in mute entreaty also. “I have breakfasted and lunched with you, so I may just as well make a day of it, and come to dinner.”“Yes, if you’re good,” she replied. “But why so particularly this evening? I’m afraid it’s a Banian day, and Molly will not have anything nice for you.”“Never mind that, ma’am. I want to take you all down to see the wreck at high-water,” said he. “It will probably be the last of the old ship.”“Hurrah!” exclaimed Bob, pitching his hat in the air, and catching it dexterously again. “Won’t that be jolly?”On Nell now coming downstairs, they proceeded on their respective ways; the Captain into Portsmouth, and Mrs Gilmour, with Bob and Nellie, accompanied by Dick carrying a basket, to Mrs Craddock’s old-fashioned cottage, at Fratton—almost in the opposite direction.Here Mrs Gilmour, after one or two inquiries, discovered, much to her satisfaction, that the widow and her daughter were the wife and child of her husband’s boatswain, whence ensued much talk between herself and the old lady, who declared the invalid to be “the very image of poor dear Craddock!”While their elders were conversing, Nellie was also having a chat with the bedridden girl, who, she was glad to see, looked decidedly better than at the time of her last visit; an improvement doubtless due to the Captain’s old port; and other nourishing things Mrs Gilmour had taken her.Bob meanwhile had been overhauling the various curios in the little parlour, where the invalid was lying, this being the first time he had been there.“Oh, auntie,” he called out presently, “do look at this Chinese idol here! It’s just like one I saw at the South Kensington Museum, only it has such funny wooden shoes on.”Mrs Gilmour came across the room to look at the monster figure squatting down in the corner; but, on Bob’s showing her the shoes, she laughed.“Those are not Chinese, my boy,” she exclaimed, “they are a pair of wooden sabots from France, such as are worn by the peasants of Brittany and Normandy.”“You’re quite right, my lady,” said the widow Craddock, approaching them. “My son, who was a sailor like his father, found them on board a French vessel he helped that was in distress in the Channel; so, he brought them home and stuck them on that there h’image in fun. Lawk, mum, if them wooden shoes could talk, it’s a queer tale they’d tell ye, fur they was the means, or leastways it wer’ through his boarding the vessel where he found ’em, that my son Jim, which was his name, my lady, come to give up the sea; although, mind you, he’s summat to do with it still, being a fisherman fur that matter. However, the end of it was that he marries the French gal as took his fancy when he comed across them shoes, and went to live at Saint Mailer, as they calls it.”“Saint Malo, I suppose,” corrected Mrs Gilmour. “Eh?”“Yes, my lady, I sed Saint Mailer, didn’t I?” replied the old dame, not perceiving where the delicate distinction lay; and then she went on to relate in a very roundabout fashion all the incidents connected with her son’s marriage—as well as talking of everything else under the sun, so it seemed to Bob, who thought it an interminably long story, and was heartily glad when old Mrs Craddock got to the end of it.But, little did he think in how short a space of time he would be brought in contact with that son of hers, Jim Craddock, in the very strangest manner, and under circumstances that would never have entered his wildest dreams!However, he did not know this; and, while the old dame was spinning her yarn, Bob employed the time by looking at the model of a ship over the mantelpiece, which brought back to his mind all about theBembridge Belle, making him feel on tenter-hooks lest they should be late for dinner, and so be unable to go down afterwards and see the wreck, as the Captain had arranged.He need not have been so fidgety, though.Everything comes to an end in time, as did the old lady’s talk; and then, they were able to start home again, Rover coming in for much praise from his waiting so patiently for such a lengthy period outside Mrs Craddock’s cottage, without bark or whine betraying his presence there.The dinner was not late, much to Bob’s joy; and, the Captain being also punctuality itself, they set out for the beach, just when the dim shadows of the fading twilight were mingling with those of night.There was a stiff breeze blowing from the southward and eastward, almost half a gale, as a sailor would express it, the wind causing the incoming tide to break on the shore with a low, dull roar, as if the spirit of the deep felt half inclined to be angry, and yet had not quite made up his mind!It was almost dark by the time the little party from “the Moorings” reached the wreck, and things were beginning to get indistinct a little distance off; but, soon after their arrival on the spot, the silvery moon rising at the full, passing through occasional strata of dark cloud that veiled her light at intervals, illumined the sky with her weird beams, making it bright as day, but with a ghostly radiance that lent a mystic spectral effect to all the surroundings.What a difference the vessel presented to her appearance of the morning!Then she was high and dry on the shingle, with the retreating tide going out to sea to flood coasts elsewhere, only indicating that it had not quite gone yet by a faint splash and ripple on the shore; and, deserted by the element that should have supported her and did when she moved and had her being, gliding through the waters “like a thing of life,” the wretched steamer stood up so gaunt and grim that she seemed more than twice her natural size.That was in the morning, barely twelve hours ago! But, now, where was she? The tell-tale light of the moon explained all, without a word being wanted.At first no doubt, the breakers!—how aptly named!—had begun their attack against the poor crippled thing’s hull by degrees, little billows leading the assault that could only leap half-way up the side of the stranded steamer, falling back with impotent mutterings in a passion of spray; then, as the tide rose, these were succeeded by bigger waves rolling in from the eastwards, which, swollen with pride and brimming with destruction, beat and blustered all about the vessel from cutwater to sternpost, seeking ingress through the timbers that they might fall upon her and devour her.Through it all the poorBembridge Bellebattled bravely, holding her own as long as she could keep her head above the boisterous billows; but, when the tide rose yet higher, and the waters flowed through her fore and aft, her upper deck became submerged, the sea made a clean breach over her, the waves took her in their rough hands and shook her so that she trembled, her hull working to and fro in the shingle, the blustering billows dashed against her, and she began to break up. The loose upper or hurricane-deck parted. Then the contents of the main saloon below, of which this deck formed the roof, commenced washing adrift, the broken water round the deck pitching and tossing about cushions and chairs, flaps of tables, and all sorts of pieces of furniture, some of which were cast up ashore near by, and others carried out by the tide to goodness knows where!The Captain and Mrs Gilmour, with Bob and Nell, and Dick and Rover, too, watched this sad ending of the steamer’s career with almost as heavy hearts as if they were her owners. Rover, indeed, took such a very deep interest in her that he assisted Hellyer and the other coastguardsmen on duty at the spot by helping them bravely in dragging out of the clutches of the waves everything that floated near enough inshore for him to jump at and seize.“We’d better go home now,” said the Captain, when the vessel separated amidships, her funnel and masts falling over into the water. “There’s nothing more to see now, poor old ship!”He spoke quite sadly, as if he had lost a friend; and the others, too, seemed equally affected by the scene, even Bob turning his back on the beach without a murmur at their going indoors so early, as he would otherwise have done; this being the young gentleman’s usual plaint. But, if depressed for the moment, on reaching “the Moorings” the thermometer of their spirits jumped suddenly to fever-heat.Sarah, “the good Sarah,” opened the door, as she usually did; but she appeared to perform the task on the present occasion with even more than her usual alacrity, while her face wore a pleased expression that had not visited it since the composition of that celebrated poem in honour of her memory! She actually beamed with delight and looked “bursting, aye, bursting with good news!” as the Captain said afterwards.“Why, whatever is the matter, Sarah?” asked Mrs Gilmour. “Speak, my good girl!”She paid no attention, however, to her mistress.“Oh, Master Bob—oh, Miss Nell!” she exclaimed. “Who do you think have come, and is now in the house?”
Early next morning, after their usual matutinal swim, Bob and Dick accompanied the Captain for a stroll along the beach to the coastguard-station on the eastern side of the Castle, near to which the ill-fatedBembridge Bellehad been run ashore.
Of course, Rover formed one of the party; carrying, equally as a matter of course, his young master’s towels in his mouth and wagging his fine bushy tail with even more energy than he generally evinced when performing that function, in order to express his proud exultation at the trust reposed in him.
At the coastguard-station they found Hellyer standing by the flagstaff, with his telescope under his left arm and evidently on duty.
“Not much damage done to her hull yet, sir,” said he, touching his hat, as he thus anticipated the Captain’s inquiry. “She were all awash, though, sir, at high-water this morning!”
“Indeed!” cried Captain Dresser. “Then, that forward bulkhead must have started when the fore compartment got full.”
“No doubt o’ that, sir,” agreed Hellyer. “Why, the tide covered her after-deck at Six Bells; and the cushions of the settees and a lot o’ dunnage were floating about in the saloon below and washing through the ports astern.”
“Her fo’c’s’le, however, keeps high and dry.”
“Aye, now it do, sir,” replied Hellyer. “But, not for long!”
“You’re right, my man,” said the Captain, after having a good squint at the object of their commiseration. “She has been working already on the shingle, and her frame has been a good deal knocked about since last night.”
The coastguardsman gave a shrug to his shoulders.
“I expect a tide or two’ll settle her hash, sir,” he observed, after thus relieving his pent-up feelings. “With the water making a clean sweep through her fore and aft every time it rises, the poor thing can’t last long, sir!”
“Aye,” said the Captain. “She’s bound to go to pieces, now, fast enough.”
“So I’ve reported to the commander, sir, this very morning,” continued Hellyer; “and, he’s sent down word as I’m to keep men stationed along the shore so as to pick up any wreckage that mebbe washed out on her.”
“Quite right,” was the Captain’s comment on this. “There are a lot of light-fingered gentry about here, whom it is just as well to be on guard against. When will it be flood-tide to-night, Hellyer, eh?”
“Nigh upon nine o’clock, sir,” answered he. “Just afore the moon rises.”
“Humph!” muttered Captain Dresser, as if cogitating the matter and speaking his thoughts aloud. “I think I’ll come down then. The sea seems inclined to get up a bit?”
He raised his voice when uttering the last words, as if asking a question; so, the coastguardsman answered it at once.
“That it do, sir,” he said with decision; “and, if the wind freshen more, as is more’n likely, considerin’ it’s been backin’ all the mornin’, I ’spects it’ll be pretty rough by night-time!”
“Ah, well, so I think, too, Hellyer. Good-day to you, my man; I will come down again this evening when the tide makes. I fancy she’ll break up then. Come on, boys!” sang out the old sailor in a higher key to Bob and Dick, who had been amusing themselves by trying to walk round the hull of the stranded steamer, now nearly high and dry on the beach; although the venturesome fellows had to clamber over all sorts of obstacles in the way of chain-cables and hawsers and other gear, besides wading through various pools of water to seaward, before they could congratulate themselves on effecting their object. “Come on now, my boys! There’s nothing more to see at present; and I’ve promised Miss Nell to help her put those actinea we got yesterday at Seaview into her new aquarium.”
“But, you will come down again with us to see the wreck, won’t you?” eagerly asked Bob, running after the Captain, who on giving this explanation of his desire of not wasting any more time on the beach just then, had started off already on his way back to the south parade, and was hobbling off at a fine rate across the common. “I do so want to see the poor vessel once more before they take her away, Captain!”
“Humph!” grunted out the old sailor as he puffed and panted onward like a steam-engine, turning the services of his trusty old malacca cane to good account. “I don’t think, my boy, you need have any fear on that score. The only shape in which she’s likely to be taken away from her present berth will be—in pieces!”
“By Jove, ma’am!” he exclaimed later on, when Mrs Gilmour and Nell met him at the gate of “the Moorings,” “I might just as well board with you at once. Dined with you on Monday, to lunch Tuesday; at breakfast yesterday, and again this morning. Why, I’ll eat you out of house and home!”
“Never fear, Captain,” said Mrs Gilmour smiling. “Sure, I’ll take the risk of that.”
“But your servants, ma’am,” he argued, as Nell took away his hat and cane. “I’m afraid I give them a lot of trouble, and they’ll be springing a mutiny on you.”
“I don’t know what poor Sarah’ll do, sure; you’ve taised her so!” replied Mrs Gilmour jokingly. “But, Molly the cook’s your friend, I know. She says you’re the only one in the house that properly appreciates her curries.”
“Faith and she turns them out well, ma’am; and you can tell her so, with my compliments,” said the old sailor with much heartiness as he winked to Nellie. “As for ‘that good Sarah,’ ma’am, I shall have to make my peace with her by and by, with your permission.”
After breakfast, the Captain and Nellie, with the assistance of Bob and Dick, even “the good Sarah,” too, being pressed into the service, set about preparing the sea-anemones and other specimens they had collected the previous day for their new home in the aquarium which Mrs Gilmour had bought for the purpose shortly before.
This aquarium was in appearance somewhat like an inverted dish-cover of glass—one of the best shapes to be had. This sort being free from those leaky joints that are the invariable accompaniment of all-square cisterns; while globular ones have not got sufficient space at the bottom for rock-work, or those little hiding-places that delight the hearts of the denizens of the deep when they are free agents and in their own waters.
Presently, under the active superintendence of the old sailor, the whilom empty glass receptacle began to assume a more picturesque aspect.
To commence with, a groundwork was constructed of fine white sand and shells, each of the latter being washed in repeated baths of clear and fresh sea-water, which had been brought up from the beach in the morning, before being introduced into the aquarium; where, if success be desired, cleanliness is as essential to the well-being of its little tenants as it is deemed to be amongst human beings.
The Captain said something to this effect while making Nellie wash the different shells, which he then arranged along the sandy bottom, which was made to slope from the back of the structure down to the centre, forming a sort of hollow there; and then rising again in front.
“So far, so good,” said the Captain, placing some bits of rock in the background, which, leaning against each other, formed so many small caverns. “These will do for those crabs, which Master Bob insists on having, to retreat to when some of the other fry pay them too much attention.”
On the right and left of the aquarium the old sailor dexterously built up larger pieces of rock-work, intermixed with bits of red seaweed that grows in the form of a feathery plume, called by naturalists the “bryopsis plumosa,” than which no more graceful marine plant can be found.
Close to this and serving as a contrast, the Captain placed the green laver he had made Nell pick up at the last moment when they were leaving Seaview and running to catch the steamer.
“This chap, styled the ‘ulva latissima’ by the scientific gentlemen who manufacture such titles, is a capital thermometer,” said the Captain on putting in the laver. “You’ll find he’ll always rise to the surface when the weather is bright and sunny; while he sinks back to the bottom, as I’ve put him now, on its being damp and overcast.”
In the more immediate foreground, a number of little starfish squatted about on the miniature strand that shelved down from the rocks, arranged with much care to the general spectacular effect by Nellie, who was most painstaking in the matter.
To be introduced into this very select marine retreat, the anemones had to go through similar ablutions to the sand and the shells, as well as other things, all of them being at the outset cleansed with the greatest care. When, however, this was done and the actinea put into their future home, the aquarium blossomed out into a garden of live flowers, whose tentacles of various colours resembled so many chrysanthemums, dahlias, and daisies, of the most gorgeous hues ever seen on Nature’s palette!
Of course, the actinea did not make themselves at home in their new lodgings and disclose their beauties all at once; but, in a few days, none of them having been hurt by Bob’s knife, they seemed to have become acclimatised, putting out the petals of their flower-like bodies as freely as when in their native pools at Seaview. So, too, did a beautiful rose and white dianthus, which Dick had picked up adhering to an ugly old oyster-shell; and, the even rarer anthea, whose long hanging filaments were never altogether withdrawn into its body when disturbed, as was the case with the other sea-anemones, and which were thus a constant source of alarm to Bob’s little crabs; for, it was ever listlessly waving perilously near these nervous creatures, making them hurry out of their way in such frantic haste as their lateral conformation permitted.
It was a long job arranging the aquarium, engrossing the attention of all engaged and taking up the entire morning; aye, and all midday, too!
“Good gracious me!” exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, coming into the room when they had just completed the task. “What a long time you’ve been at it, to be sure! I believe I could have made an aquarium by now, let alone fit it up.”
“Ah, ma’am, ‘more haste, worse speed,’” retorted the old sailor. “‘Rome wasn’t built in a day,’ you know.”
“I thought you had enough of the Romans yesterday,” said Mrs Gilmour, giving him this little cut in return for his brace of proverbs. “But, come, Sarah, you must see about getting luncheon now. I want it ready as soon as possible. You’ll stop, Captain Dresser, I suppose?”
“Oh yes, ma’am, if you’ll allow me,” he replied with a chuckle. “I know when I’m well off. You recollect, ma’am, you said just now the cook was my friend.”
“Do you know why I wanted to have lunch especially early to-day?” she asked him anon, when they were seated at the table. “Can you guess?”
“No, by Jove, I can’t!” he snorted out indignantly. “I’m not a clairvoyant, or whatever else you call those people who pretend to read other people’s thoughts.”
“Sure, then, I’ll tell you,” she said, laughing at his quaint manner, “I’m going to see Mrs Craddock.”
“I’m just as much in the dark as ever,” he retorted. “Who the dickens is the woman, eh?”
Nell saved her aunt the trouble of answering.
“Why, don’t you remember the old lady at the station whom Rover tumbled down and broke her eggs?” she cried out eagerly. “You must recollect, for you sent her some port wine for her poor daughter, which auntie and I took the second time we went to see her.—You must remember her!”
“Ah, yes, I remember now,” said the Captain, scratching his head reflectively. “So that’s her name, eh—Craddock, Craddock. Where have I heard it before? By Jove, I’ve got it now! Why, ma’am, there was a Craddock who was boatswain of the oldBucephaluson the West Coast.”
“What!” cried Mrs Gilmour. “My poor dear Ted’s ship?”
“The same, ma’am,” he answered. “I recollect the man very well now. He was a tall, spare, intellectual-looking chap, more like a longshore man than a sailor. He was delicate, too, suffering from a weak chest; and, Ted told me, now I come to think of it, that he volunteered for a second term of service on the African station in order to be in a warm climate. It didn’t do him much good, though, for he died on the commission.”
“How strange!” said Mrs Gilmour pensively. “I don’t remember poor Ted writing me anything about it, but I’ve no doubt the man was our Mrs Craddock’s husband, and, if so, that will make me take an additional interest in her. Run upstairs, Nell, and get ready at once, my dear. As soon as you come down we’ll start, for I have only got to put on my bonnet.”
“Do you want me to come, too?” faltered the Captain, who, unless visiting a sick-bed on an errand of mercy, dreaded going to see any one whom he had been kind to, the old sailor doing all his good deeds, and they were many, by stealth. Indeed, the very idea of being thanked made him always inclined to run away, a thing he had never done from an enemy.
“Well, if you’d rather not, or if you’ve somewhere else to go, I won’t insist.”
“Why, I did promise to go down to the Club,” he replied, still speaking in a half-hesitating way. “I—I—I—”
“I know,” said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him, and looking very knowing—“you don’t want to go to Mrs Craddock’s, because you sent her poor daughter some port wine, and are afraid of being thanked for it—that’s the reason, I know.” The Captain blushed.
“I assure you, ma’am,” he began timidly to remonstrate against her conclusion, when suddenly some little recollection gave him renewed courage. “By Jove, I declare I nearly forgot all about it! I’ve got to meet Sponson at the Club to see when that ship is going out for her trials; I mean the one which I’m going to take Bob on board of.”
“Well, be off with you to your Club,” she rejoined laughing, giving him a little push in joke. “Away with you at once!”
“You see, she turns me out,” he said humorously to Bob, in a sort of stage aside. “That’s what you might call Irish hospitality.”
He hurried out after his insulting remark, but popped in his head again at the door to make a parting request.
“May I come back to dinner, please?” he asked, with his hands clasped in mute entreaty also. “I have breakfasted and lunched with you, so I may just as well make a day of it, and come to dinner.”
“Yes, if you’re good,” she replied. “But why so particularly this evening? I’m afraid it’s a Banian day, and Molly will not have anything nice for you.”
“Never mind that, ma’am. I want to take you all down to see the wreck at high-water,” said he. “It will probably be the last of the old ship.”
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Bob, pitching his hat in the air, and catching it dexterously again. “Won’t that be jolly?”
On Nell now coming downstairs, they proceeded on their respective ways; the Captain into Portsmouth, and Mrs Gilmour, with Bob and Nellie, accompanied by Dick carrying a basket, to Mrs Craddock’s old-fashioned cottage, at Fratton—almost in the opposite direction.
Here Mrs Gilmour, after one or two inquiries, discovered, much to her satisfaction, that the widow and her daughter were the wife and child of her husband’s boatswain, whence ensued much talk between herself and the old lady, who declared the invalid to be “the very image of poor dear Craddock!”
While their elders were conversing, Nellie was also having a chat with the bedridden girl, who, she was glad to see, looked decidedly better than at the time of her last visit; an improvement doubtless due to the Captain’s old port; and other nourishing things Mrs Gilmour had taken her.
Bob meanwhile had been overhauling the various curios in the little parlour, where the invalid was lying, this being the first time he had been there.
“Oh, auntie,” he called out presently, “do look at this Chinese idol here! It’s just like one I saw at the South Kensington Museum, only it has such funny wooden shoes on.”
Mrs Gilmour came across the room to look at the monster figure squatting down in the corner; but, on Bob’s showing her the shoes, she laughed.
“Those are not Chinese, my boy,” she exclaimed, “they are a pair of wooden sabots from France, such as are worn by the peasants of Brittany and Normandy.”
“You’re quite right, my lady,” said the widow Craddock, approaching them. “My son, who was a sailor like his father, found them on board a French vessel he helped that was in distress in the Channel; so, he brought them home and stuck them on that there h’image in fun. Lawk, mum, if them wooden shoes could talk, it’s a queer tale they’d tell ye, fur they was the means, or leastways it wer’ through his boarding the vessel where he found ’em, that my son Jim, which was his name, my lady, come to give up the sea; although, mind you, he’s summat to do with it still, being a fisherman fur that matter. However, the end of it was that he marries the French gal as took his fancy when he comed across them shoes, and went to live at Saint Mailer, as they calls it.”
“Saint Malo, I suppose,” corrected Mrs Gilmour. “Eh?”
“Yes, my lady, I sed Saint Mailer, didn’t I?” replied the old dame, not perceiving where the delicate distinction lay; and then she went on to relate in a very roundabout fashion all the incidents connected with her son’s marriage—as well as talking of everything else under the sun, so it seemed to Bob, who thought it an interminably long story, and was heartily glad when old Mrs Craddock got to the end of it.
But, little did he think in how short a space of time he would be brought in contact with that son of hers, Jim Craddock, in the very strangest manner, and under circumstances that would never have entered his wildest dreams!
However, he did not know this; and, while the old dame was spinning her yarn, Bob employed the time by looking at the model of a ship over the mantelpiece, which brought back to his mind all about theBembridge Belle, making him feel on tenter-hooks lest they should be late for dinner, and so be unable to go down afterwards and see the wreck, as the Captain had arranged.
He need not have been so fidgety, though.
Everything comes to an end in time, as did the old lady’s talk; and then, they were able to start home again, Rover coming in for much praise from his waiting so patiently for such a lengthy period outside Mrs Craddock’s cottage, without bark or whine betraying his presence there.
The dinner was not late, much to Bob’s joy; and, the Captain being also punctuality itself, they set out for the beach, just when the dim shadows of the fading twilight were mingling with those of night.
There was a stiff breeze blowing from the southward and eastward, almost half a gale, as a sailor would express it, the wind causing the incoming tide to break on the shore with a low, dull roar, as if the spirit of the deep felt half inclined to be angry, and yet had not quite made up his mind!
It was almost dark by the time the little party from “the Moorings” reached the wreck, and things were beginning to get indistinct a little distance off; but, soon after their arrival on the spot, the silvery moon rising at the full, passing through occasional strata of dark cloud that veiled her light at intervals, illumined the sky with her weird beams, making it bright as day, but with a ghostly radiance that lent a mystic spectral effect to all the surroundings.
What a difference the vessel presented to her appearance of the morning!
Then she was high and dry on the shingle, with the retreating tide going out to sea to flood coasts elsewhere, only indicating that it had not quite gone yet by a faint splash and ripple on the shore; and, deserted by the element that should have supported her and did when she moved and had her being, gliding through the waters “like a thing of life,” the wretched steamer stood up so gaunt and grim that she seemed more than twice her natural size.
That was in the morning, barely twelve hours ago! But, now, where was she? The tell-tale light of the moon explained all, without a word being wanted.
At first no doubt, the breakers!—how aptly named!—had begun their attack against the poor crippled thing’s hull by degrees, little billows leading the assault that could only leap half-way up the side of the stranded steamer, falling back with impotent mutterings in a passion of spray; then, as the tide rose, these were succeeded by bigger waves rolling in from the eastwards, which, swollen with pride and brimming with destruction, beat and blustered all about the vessel from cutwater to sternpost, seeking ingress through the timbers that they might fall upon her and devour her.
Through it all the poorBembridge Bellebattled bravely, holding her own as long as she could keep her head above the boisterous billows; but, when the tide rose yet higher, and the waters flowed through her fore and aft, her upper deck became submerged, the sea made a clean breach over her, the waves took her in their rough hands and shook her so that she trembled, her hull working to and fro in the shingle, the blustering billows dashed against her, and she began to break up. The loose upper or hurricane-deck parted. Then the contents of the main saloon below, of which this deck formed the roof, commenced washing adrift, the broken water round the deck pitching and tossing about cushions and chairs, flaps of tables, and all sorts of pieces of furniture, some of which were cast up ashore near by, and others carried out by the tide to goodness knows where!
The Captain and Mrs Gilmour, with Bob and Nell, and Dick and Rover, too, watched this sad ending of the steamer’s career with almost as heavy hearts as if they were her owners. Rover, indeed, took such a very deep interest in her that he assisted Hellyer and the other coastguardsmen on duty at the spot by helping them bravely in dragging out of the clutches of the waves everything that floated near enough inshore for him to jump at and seize.
“We’d better go home now,” said the Captain, when the vessel separated amidships, her funnel and masts falling over into the water. “There’s nothing more to see now, poor old ship!”
He spoke quite sadly, as if he had lost a friend; and the others, too, seemed equally affected by the scene, even Bob turning his back on the beach without a murmur at their going indoors so early, as he would otherwise have done; this being the young gentleman’s usual plaint. But, if depressed for the moment, on reaching “the Moorings” the thermometer of their spirits jumped suddenly to fever-heat.
Sarah, “the good Sarah,” opened the door, as she usually did; but she appeared to perform the task on the present occasion with even more than her usual alacrity, while her face wore a pleased expression that had not visited it since the composition of that celebrated poem in honour of her memory! She actually beamed with delight and looked “bursting, aye, bursting with good news!” as the Captain said afterwards.
“Why, whatever is the matter, Sarah?” asked Mrs Gilmour. “Speak, my good girl!”
She paid no attention, however, to her mistress.
“Oh, Master Bob—oh, Miss Nell!” she exclaimed. “Who do you think have come, and is now in the house?”