Chapter Six.

Chapter Six.Kenneth indulges in Suspicions and Surmises.“Will you walk or ride?” said Kenneth Stuart as he and Gildart issued from Seaside Villa, and sauntered down the avenue that led to the principal gate.“Ride, by all means,” said Gildart, “if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the ‘bursting tide,’ but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he’s not too tough in the mouth, and don’t incline to shy.”Kenneth replied that he had a mount to give him, which, although not quite thoroughbred, was nevertheless a good animal, and not addicted to the bad qualities objected to.As he spoke Daniel Horsey walked up, and, touching his hat, asked if the horses would be required.“Yes, Dan. Is Bucephalus none the worse of last night’s work?”“Niver a taste, sur. He’s like a lark this mornin’.”“Well, saddle him, and also the brown horse. Bring them both over to Captain Bingley’s as soon as you can.”“Yis, sur.” Dan touched his cap, and walked smartly away.“Why to my father’s?” asked Gildart.“Because, after your father and Miss Gordon were exposed to such unwonted fatigue, I wish to inquire for them personally.”“Humph! you’re not satisfied with my assurance that they are well?”“Not quite, my boy,” said Kenneth, with a smile; “I wish to have the assurance from the lips of your sweet cousin.”“Whew! in love!” exclaimed Gildart.“No; not in loveyet,” replied the other; “but, to change the subject, did you observe the manner in which my father received the news of the arrival of the ‘Hawk?’”“Well, it did not require a fellow to have his weather eyeverywide-open to perceive that your father has a decided objection to his son-in-law, and does not seem over anxious to meet with him or his wife or child. What have they been up to, Kennie—eloped, eh?”“No, they did not exactly elope, but they married without my father’s consent, or rather against his wishes, and were discarded in consequence. You must not think my father is an unkind man, but he was deeply disappointed at poor Emma’s choice; for, to say truth, her husband was a wild harum-scarum sort of fellow, fond of steeple-chasing—”“Like you,” interpolated Gildart.“Like me,” assented Kenneth, with a nod, “and also of yachting and boating,like you.”“Like me,” assented the middy.“Nevertheless,” resumed Kenneth, “a good-hearted fellow in the main, who, I am certain, would have acted his part in life well if he had been better trained. But he was spoiled by his father and mother, and I must admit that poor Tom Graham was not over fond of work.”“Ha!” ejaculated Gildart.“Hum!” responded his friend, “do either of us, I wonder, perceive in ourselves any resemblance to him in this latter point? I suppose it would require a third party to answer that question truly. But, to continue—My father gave Emma, (for he would not consent to see Tom), a thousand pounds, and dismissed her from his presence, as he said, ‘for ever,’ but I am convinced that he did not mean what he said, for he paced about his bedroom the whole of the night after his last interview with poor Emma, and I heard him groan frequently, although the partition that separates our rooms is so thick that sounds are seldom heard through it. Do you know, Gildart, I think we sometimes judge men harshly. Knowing my father as I do, I am convinced that he is not the cold, unfeeling man that people give him credit for. He acted, I believe, under a strong conviction that the course he adopted was that of duty; he hoped, no doubt, that it would result in good to his child, and that in the course of time he should be reconciled to her. I cannot conceive it possible that any one would cast off his child deliberately andfor ever. Why, the man who could do so were worse than the beasts that perish.”“I agree with you. But what came of Tom and Emma?” asked Gildart.“They went to Australia. Tom got into business there. I never could make out the exact nature of it, but he undoubtedly succeeded for a time, for Emma’s letters to me were cheerful. Latterly, however, they got into difficulties, and poor Emma’s letters were sad, and came less frequently. For a year past she has scarcely written to me at all. Tom has never written. He was a high-spirited fellow, and turned his back on us all when my father cast him and Emma off.”“Humph!” ejaculated Gildart, “nevertheless his high spirit did not induce him to refuse the thousand pounds, it would seem.”“You wrong him, Gildart; Emma knew him well, and she told me that she had placed the money in a bank in her own name, without telling him of it. Any success that attended him at first was the result of his own unaided energy and application to business. It is many years now since they went away. Some time ago we heard that they, with their only daughter, little Emma, were coming back to England, whether in wealth or in poverty I cannot tell. The vessel in which they were to sail is named the ‘Hawk,’ and that is the ship that my father has heard of as having been seen yesterday.”“How comes it, Kenneth, that you have never opened your lips to me on this subject during our long acquaintance? I did not know even that you had a sister.”“Why, to say truth, the subject was not one on which I felt disposed to be communicative. I don’t like to talk of family squabbles, even to my most intimate friends.”“So we may look for some family breezes and squalls ere long, if not gales,” said Gildart with a laugh.Kenneth shook his head gravely.“I fear much,” said he, “that the ‘Hawk’ was exposed to last night’s gale; she must have been so if she did not succeed in making some harbour before it came on; but I cannot shake off the feeling that she is wrecked, for I know the vessel well, and practical men have told me that she was quite unseaworthy. True, she was examined and passed in the usual way by the inspectors, but every one knows thatthatdoes not insure the seaworthiness of vessels.”“Well, but even suppose theyhavebeen wrecked,” suggested Gildart, “it does not follow that they have been drowned.”“I don’t know,” replied the other in a low voice—“I have a strange, almost a wild suspicion, Gildart.”“What may that be?”“That the little girl who was left so mysteriously at our door last night is my sister’s child,” said Kenneth.“Whew!” whistled the midshipman, as he stopped and gazed at his friend in surprise; “well, thatisa wild idea, so wild that I would advise you seriously to dismiss it, Kennie. But what has put it into your head?—fancied likeness to your sister or Tom, eh?”“No, not so much that, as the fact that she told Niven last night that her name is Emmie.”“That’s not Emma,” said Gildart.“It is what I used to call my sister, however; and besides that there is a seaman named Stephen Gaff, who, I find, has turned up somewhat suddenly and unaccountably last night from Australia. He says he has been wrecked; but he is mysterious and vague in his answers, and do what I will I cannot get rid of the idea that there is some connexion here.”“It is anxiety, my boy, that has made you think in this wild fashion,” said Gildart. “Did I not hear Mrs Niven say that the child gave her name as Emmie Wilson?”“True, I confess that the name goes against my idea; nevertheless I cannot get rid of it, so I mean to canter to-day down to Cove, where Gaff stays, and have a talk with him. We can go together by the road along the top of the cliffs, which is an exceedingly beautiful one. What say you?”“By all means: it matters nothing to me what course you steer, so long as we sail in company. But pray don’t let the fascinating Lizzie detain you too long. Oh! you need not laugh as if you were invulnerable. I’ll engage to say that you’ll not come away under an hour if you go into the house without making me a solemn promise to the contrary.”“Why, Gildart, it strikes me thatyoumust be in love with your fascinating cousin from the way in which you speak.”“Perhaps I am,” said the middy, with a tremendous sigh; “but come, here we are, and the horses at the door before us; they must have been brought round by the other road. Now, then, promise that you’ll not stay longer than half an hour.”Kenneth smiled, and promised.On entering my residence, which had been named, by Mrs Bingley’s orders, “Bingley Hall,” the young men found my pretty niece coming down the staircase in that most fascinating of all dresses, a riding-habit, which displayed her neat and beautifully rounded figure to perfection. Lizzie could not be said to blush as she bowed acknowledgment to Kenneth’s salutation, for a blush, unless it were averydeep one, usually lost itself among the blush roses that at all times bloomed on her cheek; but she smiled with great sweetness upon the stalwart youth, and informed him that, having just been told that John Furby was still suffering from the effects of his recent accident, she had ordered out her pony and was about to ride down to Cove to see him.Kenneth began to remark on the curious coincidence that he too had come out with the intention of riding down to the same place; but the volatile middy burst in with—“Come, Lizz, that’s jolly, we’re bound for the same port, and can set sail in company; whether we keep together or not depends on circumstances, not to mention wind and weather. I rather think that if we take to racing, Bucephalus and Kenneth will be there first.”“Bucephalus is always well behaved in the company of ladies, which is more than I can say of you, Gildart,” retorted his friend, as he opened the door to let Lizzie Gordon pass out.“And we won’t race, good cousin,” said Lizzie, “for my uncle is to ride with me, and you know he is not fond of going very fast.”“How d’ye know that, lass?” said I, coming down-stairs at the moment; “not a few of my friends think that I go much too fast for this century—so fast, indeed, that they seem to wonder that I have not ridden ahead of them into the next! How d’ye do, Kenneth? Gildart was not long of finding you out, I see.”Saying this, I mounted my cob and cantered down the avenue of Bingley Hall, followed by the young people, whose fresh and mettlesome steeds curvetted and pranced incessantly.It may be as well to remark here, good reader, that at the time of which I write I was unacquainted, as a matter of course, with many of the facts which I am now narrating: they were made known to me piecemeal in the course of after years. I feel that this explanation is necessary in order to account for my otherwise unaccountable knowledge of things that were said and done when I was not present.

“Will you walk or ride?” said Kenneth Stuart as he and Gildart issued from Seaside Villa, and sauntered down the avenue that led to the principal gate.

“Ride, by all means,” said Gildart, “if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the ‘bursting tide,’ but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he’s not too tough in the mouth, and don’t incline to shy.”

Kenneth replied that he had a mount to give him, which, although not quite thoroughbred, was nevertheless a good animal, and not addicted to the bad qualities objected to.

As he spoke Daniel Horsey walked up, and, touching his hat, asked if the horses would be required.

“Yes, Dan. Is Bucephalus none the worse of last night’s work?”

“Niver a taste, sur. He’s like a lark this mornin’.”

“Well, saddle him, and also the brown horse. Bring them both over to Captain Bingley’s as soon as you can.”

“Yis, sur.” Dan touched his cap, and walked smartly away.

“Why to my father’s?” asked Gildart.

“Because, after your father and Miss Gordon were exposed to such unwonted fatigue, I wish to inquire for them personally.”

“Humph! you’re not satisfied with my assurance that they are well?”

“Not quite, my boy,” said Kenneth, with a smile; “I wish to have the assurance from the lips of your sweet cousin.”

“Whew! in love!” exclaimed Gildart.

“No; not in loveyet,” replied the other; “but, to change the subject, did you observe the manner in which my father received the news of the arrival of the ‘Hawk?’”

“Well, it did not require a fellow to have his weather eyeverywide-open to perceive that your father has a decided objection to his son-in-law, and does not seem over anxious to meet with him or his wife or child. What have they been up to, Kennie—eloped, eh?”

“No, they did not exactly elope, but they married without my father’s consent, or rather against his wishes, and were discarded in consequence. You must not think my father is an unkind man, but he was deeply disappointed at poor Emma’s choice; for, to say truth, her husband was a wild harum-scarum sort of fellow, fond of steeple-chasing—”

“Like you,” interpolated Gildart.

“Like me,” assented Kenneth, with a nod, “and also of yachting and boating,like you.”

“Like me,” assented the middy.

“Nevertheless,” resumed Kenneth, “a good-hearted fellow in the main, who, I am certain, would have acted his part in life well if he had been better trained. But he was spoiled by his father and mother, and I must admit that poor Tom Graham was not over fond of work.”

“Ha!” ejaculated Gildart.

“Hum!” responded his friend, “do either of us, I wonder, perceive in ourselves any resemblance to him in this latter point? I suppose it would require a third party to answer that question truly. But, to continue—My father gave Emma, (for he would not consent to see Tom), a thousand pounds, and dismissed her from his presence, as he said, ‘for ever,’ but I am convinced that he did not mean what he said, for he paced about his bedroom the whole of the night after his last interview with poor Emma, and I heard him groan frequently, although the partition that separates our rooms is so thick that sounds are seldom heard through it. Do you know, Gildart, I think we sometimes judge men harshly. Knowing my father as I do, I am convinced that he is not the cold, unfeeling man that people give him credit for. He acted, I believe, under a strong conviction that the course he adopted was that of duty; he hoped, no doubt, that it would result in good to his child, and that in the course of time he should be reconciled to her. I cannot conceive it possible that any one would cast off his child deliberately andfor ever. Why, the man who could do so were worse than the beasts that perish.”

“I agree with you. But what came of Tom and Emma?” asked Gildart.

“They went to Australia. Tom got into business there. I never could make out the exact nature of it, but he undoubtedly succeeded for a time, for Emma’s letters to me were cheerful. Latterly, however, they got into difficulties, and poor Emma’s letters were sad, and came less frequently. For a year past she has scarcely written to me at all. Tom has never written. He was a high-spirited fellow, and turned his back on us all when my father cast him and Emma off.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Gildart, “nevertheless his high spirit did not induce him to refuse the thousand pounds, it would seem.”

“You wrong him, Gildart; Emma knew him well, and she told me that she had placed the money in a bank in her own name, without telling him of it. Any success that attended him at first was the result of his own unaided energy and application to business. It is many years now since they went away. Some time ago we heard that they, with their only daughter, little Emma, were coming back to England, whether in wealth or in poverty I cannot tell. The vessel in which they were to sail is named the ‘Hawk,’ and that is the ship that my father has heard of as having been seen yesterday.”

“How comes it, Kenneth, that you have never opened your lips to me on this subject during our long acquaintance? I did not know even that you had a sister.”

“Why, to say truth, the subject was not one on which I felt disposed to be communicative. I don’t like to talk of family squabbles, even to my most intimate friends.”

“So we may look for some family breezes and squalls ere long, if not gales,” said Gildart with a laugh.

Kenneth shook his head gravely.

“I fear much,” said he, “that the ‘Hawk’ was exposed to last night’s gale; she must have been so if she did not succeed in making some harbour before it came on; but I cannot shake off the feeling that she is wrecked, for I know the vessel well, and practical men have told me that she was quite unseaworthy. True, she was examined and passed in the usual way by the inspectors, but every one knows thatthatdoes not insure the seaworthiness of vessels.”

“Well, but even suppose theyhavebeen wrecked,” suggested Gildart, “it does not follow that they have been drowned.”

“I don’t know,” replied the other in a low voice—“I have a strange, almost a wild suspicion, Gildart.”

“What may that be?”

“That the little girl who was left so mysteriously at our door last night is my sister’s child,” said Kenneth.

“Whew!” whistled the midshipman, as he stopped and gazed at his friend in surprise; “well, thatisa wild idea, so wild that I would advise you seriously to dismiss it, Kennie. But what has put it into your head?—fancied likeness to your sister or Tom, eh?”

“No, not so much that, as the fact that she told Niven last night that her name is Emmie.”

“That’s not Emma,” said Gildart.

“It is what I used to call my sister, however; and besides that there is a seaman named Stephen Gaff, who, I find, has turned up somewhat suddenly and unaccountably last night from Australia. He says he has been wrecked; but he is mysterious and vague in his answers, and do what I will I cannot get rid of the idea that there is some connexion here.”

“It is anxiety, my boy, that has made you think in this wild fashion,” said Gildart. “Did I not hear Mrs Niven say that the child gave her name as Emmie Wilson?”

“True, I confess that the name goes against my idea; nevertheless I cannot get rid of it, so I mean to canter to-day down to Cove, where Gaff stays, and have a talk with him. We can go together by the road along the top of the cliffs, which is an exceedingly beautiful one. What say you?”

“By all means: it matters nothing to me what course you steer, so long as we sail in company. But pray don’t let the fascinating Lizzie detain you too long. Oh! you need not laugh as if you were invulnerable. I’ll engage to say that you’ll not come away under an hour if you go into the house without making me a solemn promise to the contrary.”

“Why, Gildart, it strikes me thatyoumust be in love with your fascinating cousin from the way in which you speak.”

“Perhaps I am,” said the middy, with a tremendous sigh; “but come, here we are, and the horses at the door before us; they must have been brought round by the other road. Now, then, promise that you’ll not stay longer than half an hour.”

Kenneth smiled, and promised.

On entering my residence, which had been named, by Mrs Bingley’s orders, “Bingley Hall,” the young men found my pretty niece coming down the staircase in that most fascinating of all dresses, a riding-habit, which displayed her neat and beautifully rounded figure to perfection. Lizzie could not be said to blush as she bowed acknowledgment to Kenneth’s salutation, for a blush, unless it were averydeep one, usually lost itself among the blush roses that at all times bloomed on her cheek; but she smiled with great sweetness upon the stalwart youth, and informed him that, having just been told that John Furby was still suffering from the effects of his recent accident, she had ordered out her pony and was about to ride down to Cove to see him.

Kenneth began to remark on the curious coincidence that he too had come out with the intention of riding down to the same place; but the volatile middy burst in with—

“Come, Lizz, that’s jolly, we’re bound for the same port, and can set sail in company; whether we keep together or not depends on circumstances, not to mention wind and weather. I rather think that if we take to racing, Bucephalus and Kenneth will be there first.”

“Bucephalus is always well behaved in the company of ladies, which is more than I can say of you, Gildart,” retorted his friend, as he opened the door to let Lizzie Gordon pass out.

“And we won’t race, good cousin,” said Lizzie, “for my uncle is to ride with me, and you know he is not fond of going very fast.”

“How d’ye know that, lass?” said I, coming down-stairs at the moment; “not a few of my friends think that I go much too fast for this century—so fast, indeed, that they seem to wonder that I have not ridden ahead of them into the next! How d’ye do, Kenneth? Gildart was not long of finding you out, I see.”

Saying this, I mounted my cob and cantered down the avenue of Bingley Hall, followed by the young people, whose fresh and mettlesome steeds curvetted and pranced incessantly.

It may be as well to remark here, good reader, that at the time of which I write I was unacquainted, as a matter of course, with many of the facts which I am now narrating: they were made known to me piecemeal in the course of after years. I feel that this explanation is necessary in order to account for my otherwise unaccountable knowledge of things that were said and done when I was not present.

Chapter Seven.Lizzie Gordon is run away with, and Gaff is “pumped”.The road to the Cove lay along the top of the cliffs, and was in many parts exceedingly picturesque; now passing, in the form of a mere bridle-path, along the verge of the precipices, where thousands of sea-gulls floated around the giddy heights, or darted down into the waves which fell on shingly beach, or promontory, or bay of yellow sand, far below; anon cutting across the grassy downs on some bold headland, or diverging towards the interior, and descending into a woody dell in order to avoid a creek or some other arm of the sea that had cleft the rocks and intruded on the land.The day was sunny and sufficiently warm to render a slow pace agreeable to my nag, which was a sedate animal, inclined to corpulency like myself. My young companions and their horses were incapable of restraining themselves to my pace, so they dashed on ahead at intervals, and sometimes came back to me at full gallop. At other times they dismounted and stood on the cliffs looking at the view of the sea, which appeared to them, as it has always been to me, enchanting.I think a view from a high cliff of the great blue sea, dotted with the white and brown sails of ships and boats, is one of the grandest as well as the most pleasant prospects under the sun.Kenneth Stuart thought so too, for I heard him make use of that or some similar expression to Lizzie as he stood beside her talking earnestly, in spite of the light and jocular remarks of my son, who stood at Lizzie’s other side commenting on things in general with that easy freedom of speech which is characteristic of middies in the British navy, although not entirely confined to them.The party had dismounted, and Kenneth held Lizzie’s horse by the bridle, while Gildart held his own. Bucephalus was roaming at large. His master had trained him so thoroughly that he was as obedient as a dog. He followed Kenneth about, and would trot up to him when he whistled. I don’t think I ever saw such a magnificent horse, as to size, beauty, and spirit, coupled with docility, either before or since.“Why, uncle, we thought you must have gone to sleep,” said Lizzie, turning towards me with a laugh as I rode up.“Or fallen over the cliffs,” added Gildart.“In either case you would not have taken it much to heart, apparently,” said I; “come, mount and push on.”Lizzie placed her little foot in Kenneth’s hand, and was in the saddle like a flash of thought, and with the lightness of a rose-leaf. Gildart, being a little fellow, and his horse a tall one, got into the saddle, according to his own statement, as a lands-man clambers into the main-top through the “lubber’s hole” in a squall; and I think the idea was not far-fetched, for, during the process of mounting, his steed was plunging like a ship in a heavy sea. Bucephalus came up at once when whistled to.“You seem very fond of your horse,” said Lizzie, as Kenneth vaulted into the saddle.“Ilovehim,” replied the youth enthusiastically.“You love other creatures besides horses,” thought I; but the thought had barely passed through my brain when Lizzie went off like an arrow. Kenneth sprang forward like a thunderbolt, and Gildart followed—if I may so speak—like a zig-zag cracker. Now, it chanced that Lizzie’s horse was in a bad humour that morning, so it ran away, just as the party came to a grassy slope of half a mile in extent. At the end of this slope the road made a sharp turn, and descended abruptly to the beach. Kenneth knew that if the horse came to this turn at a furious gallop, nothing could save Lizzie from destruction. He therefore took the only course open to him, which was to go by a short cut close along the edge of the cliff, and thus overshoot and intercept the runaway. He dashed spurs into Bucephalus, and was off like an arrow from a bow. There was but one point of danger—a place where the bridle-path was crossed by a fence, beyond which the road turned sharp to the left. The risk lay in the difficulty of making the leap and the turn almost at the same instant. To fail in this would result in horse and man going over the cliff and being dashed to pieces. On they went like the wind, while my son and I followed as fast as we could.“Bravo, Kenneth!” shouted Gildart, as Bucephalus took the fence like a deer, and disappeared.Gildart did not know the dangers of the leap: I did, and hastened to the spot with a feeling of intense alarm. On reaching it I saw Kenneth flying far down the slope. He was just in time; a few seconds more, and Lizzie would have been lost. But the bold youth reached the road in time, caught her bridle, reined the horse almost on his haunches, then turned him gradually aside until he galloped with him to a place of safety.This episode induced us to ride the rest of the way in a more leisurely fashion.Arrived at Cove, we each went on our several pieces of business, arranging to meet at the north end of the village in about an hour afterwards.Kenneth found Stephen Gaff at home. Leaving Lizzie to make inquiry as to the health of John Furby, he took the seaman out and walked towards the Downs.“Well, Stephen, you have been wrecked again, I am told?” said Kenneth.“So I have, sir; it’s the sixth time now. It’s quite plain I ain’t born to be drownded. I only hope as how I won’t live to be hanged.”“I hope not, Stephen. What was the name of the ship?”“The ‘Fairy Queen.’”“The ‘Fairy Queen,’” echoed Kenneth, with a slight feeling of disappointment; “from Australia?”“Yes, from Australia.”“Did she go to pieces?”“Ay, not an inch of her left. She was an old rotten tub not fit for sea.”“Indeed! That’s by no means an uncommon state of things,” said Kenneth, with some degree of warmth. “It seems to me that until men in power take the matter up, and get a more rigid system of inspection instituted, hundreds of lives will continue to be sacrificed every year. It is an awful thing to think that more than a thousand lives are lost annually on our shores, and that because of the indifference of those who have the power, to a large extent, to prevent it. But that is not the point on which I want to speak to you to-day. Was the ‘Fairy Queen’ bound for this port?”“No; for the port of London,” said Gaff, with a cautious glance at his questioner.“Then why did she make for Wreckumoft?” inquired Kenneth.“That’s best known to the cap’n, who’s gone to his long home,” said Gaff gravely.“Werealllost except yourself?” pursued Kenneth, regarding his companion’s face narrowly; but the said face exhibited no expression whatever as its owner replied simply—“It’s more thanIcan tell; mayhap some of ’em were carried away on bits o’ wreck and may turn up yet.”“At all events none of them came ashore, to your knowledge?”“I believe that every mother’s son o’ the crew wos lost but me,” replied Gaff evasively.“Were none of the children saved?”“What child’n?” asked the other quickly. “I didn’t say there was child’n aboord, did I?”Kenneth was somewhat confused at having made this slip; and Gaff, suddenly changing his tactics, stopped short and said—“I tell ’ee wot it is, young man—seems to me you’re pumpin’ of me for some ends of yer own as I’m not acquainted with; now, I tell ’ee wot it is, I ain’t used to be pumped. No offence meant, but I ain’t used to be pumped, an’ if you’ve got anything to say, speak it out fair and above board like a man.”“Well, well, Gaff,” said Kenneth, flushing and laughing at the same moment, “to say truth, I am not used to pump, as you may see, nor to be otherwise than fair and aboveboard, as I hope you will believe; but the fact is that a very curious thing has occurred at our house, and I am puzzled as well as suspicious, andveryanxious about it.”Here Kenneth related all that he knew about the little girl having been left at Seaside Villa, and candidly admitted his suspicion that the child was his niece.“But,” said Gaff, whose visage was as devoid of expression as a fiddle figure-head, “your brother-in-law’s name was Graham, you know.”“True, that’s what puzzles me; the child’s Christian name is Emma—the same as that of my niece and sister—but she says her last name is Wilson.”“Well, then, Wilson ain’t Graham, you know, any more nor Gaff ain’t Snooks, d’ye see?”“Yes, I see; but I’m puzzled, for Idosee a family likeness to my sister in this child, and Icannotget rid of the impression, although I confess that it seems unreasonable. And the thought makes me very anxious, because, if I were correct in my suspicion, that would prove that my beloved sister and her husband are drowned.”Kenneth said this with strong feeling, and the seaman looked at him more earnestly than he had yet done.“Your father was hard on your sister and her husband, if I bean’t misinformed,” said Gaff.“He thought it his duty to be so,” answered Kenneth.“And you agreed with him?” pursued Gaff.“No, never!” cried the other indignantly. “I regretted deeply the course my father saw fit to pursue. I sympathised very strongly with my dear sister and poor Tom Graham.”“Did you?” said Gaff.“Most truly I did.”“Hum. You spoke of suspicions—wot was your suspicions?”“To be candid with you, then,” said Kenneth, “when I came to see you I suspected that it wasyouwho left that child at our house, for I heard of your sudden re-appearance in Cove, but I am convinced now that I was wrong, for I know you would not tell me a falsehood, Gaff.”“No more I would, sir,” said Gaff, drawing himself up, “and no more Idid; but let me tell to you, sir, nevertheless, that your suspicions is c’rect.Ileft Emmie Wilson at your house, and Emmie WilsonisEmma Graham!”Kenneth stopped and looked earnestly at his companion.“My sister and brother?” he asked in a low suppressed voice.“Dead, both of ’em,” said Gaff.With a mighty effort Kenneth restrained his feelings, and, after walking in silence for some time, asked why Gaff had concealed this from his family, and how it happened that the child did not know her proper name.“You see, sir,” replied the sailor, “I’ve know’d all along of your father’s ill-will to Mr Graham and his wife, for I went out with them to Australia, and they tuk a fancy to me, d’ye see, an’ so did I to them, so we made it up that we’d jine company, pull in the same boat, so to speak, though itwason the land we was goin’ and not the sea. There’s a proverb, sir, that says, ‘misfortin makes strange bed fellows,’ an’ I ’spose it’s the same proverb as makes strange messmates; anyhow, poor Tom Graham, he an’ me an’ his wife, we become messmates, an’ of course we spun no end o’ yarns about our kith and kin, so I found out how your father had treated of ’em, which to say truth I warn’t s’prised at, for I’ve obsarved for years past that he’s hard as nails, altho’ heisyour father, sir, an’ has let many a good ship go to the bottom for want o’ bein’ properly found—”“You need not criticise my father, Gaff,” said Kenneth, with a slight frown. “Many men’s sins are not so black as they look. Prevailing custom and temptation may have had more to do with his courses of action than hardness of heart.”“I dun knowthat,” said Gaff, “hows’ever, I don’t mean for to krittysise him, though I’m bound to say his sins is uncommon dark grey, if they ain’t black. Well, I wos a-goin’ to say that Mr Graham had some rich relations in Melbourne as he didn’t want for to see. He was a proud man, you know, sir, an’ didn’t want ’em to think he cared a stiver for ’em, so he changed his name to Wilson, an’ let his beard an’ mowstaches grow, so that when he put his cap on there was nothin’ of him visible except his eyes and his nose stickin’ out of his face, an’ when his hair grew long, an’ his face was tanned wi’ the sun, his own mother would have cut him dead if she’d met him in the street.“Well, we worked a year in Melbourne to raise the wind. Tom, (he made me call him Tom, sir), bein’ a clever fellow, got into a store as a clerk, an’ I got work as a porter at the quays; an’ though his work was more gentlemanly than mine, I made very near as much as him, so we lived comfortable, and laid by a little. That winter little Emma was born. She just come to poor Tom and his wife like a great sunbeam. Arter that we went a year to the diggin’s, and then I got to weary to see my old missus, so I left ’em with a promise to return. I com’d home, saw my wife, and then went out again to jine the Grahams for another spell at the diggin’s; then I come home again for another spell wi’ the missus, an’ so I kep’ goin’ and comin’, year by year, till now.“Tom was a lucky digger. He resolved to quit for good and all, and return to settle in England. He turned all he had into gold-dust, and put it in a box, with which he shipped aboard the ‘Fairy Queen,’ of which I was one o’ the crew at the time. The ‘Fairy Queen,’ you must understand, had changed owners just about that time, havin’ bin named the ‘Hawk’ on the voyage out. We sailed together, and got safe to British waters, an’ wos knocked all to bits on British rocks, ’cause the compasses wasn’t worth a button, as no more wos our charts, bein’ old ones, an’ the chain o’ the best bower anchor had bin got cheap, and wasn’t fit to hold a jolly-boat, so that w’en we drove on a lee-shore, and let go the anchor to keep off the reefs, it parted like a bit o’ packthread. I took charge of Emmie, and, by God’s blessin’, got safe to land. All the rest went down.“Now, sir,” continued Gaff, “it came into my head that if I took the little gal to her grandfather, he, bein’ as hard as nails, an’ desp’rit unforgivin’, would swear I wos tellin’ a lie, and refuse to take her in. So I thought I’d just go and put her down in the passage an’ leave her, so that he’d be obleeged to take her in, d’ye see, not bein’ able to see what else to do wi’ her. You know he couldn’t throw her out, and let her die in the street, could he, sir?”“Not exactly,” replied Kenneth, with a sad smile, “nevertheless he would not find it difficult to dispose of her in some other way; in fact, he has already spoken of sending her to the workhouse.”“You don’t say so, sir?”“Indeed I do, but keep your mind easy, Gaff, for, without telling my father who little Emmie is, I will see to it that she is properly cared for.”Kenneth rode back to town that day with a heart so heavy that the bright eyes of Lizzie Gordon failed to rouse him to even the semblance of cheerfulness, and the effervescing small-talk of the volatile Gildart was almost intolerable.

The road to the Cove lay along the top of the cliffs, and was in many parts exceedingly picturesque; now passing, in the form of a mere bridle-path, along the verge of the precipices, where thousands of sea-gulls floated around the giddy heights, or darted down into the waves which fell on shingly beach, or promontory, or bay of yellow sand, far below; anon cutting across the grassy downs on some bold headland, or diverging towards the interior, and descending into a woody dell in order to avoid a creek or some other arm of the sea that had cleft the rocks and intruded on the land.

The day was sunny and sufficiently warm to render a slow pace agreeable to my nag, which was a sedate animal, inclined to corpulency like myself. My young companions and their horses were incapable of restraining themselves to my pace, so they dashed on ahead at intervals, and sometimes came back to me at full gallop. At other times they dismounted and stood on the cliffs looking at the view of the sea, which appeared to them, as it has always been to me, enchanting.

I think a view from a high cliff of the great blue sea, dotted with the white and brown sails of ships and boats, is one of the grandest as well as the most pleasant prospects under the sun.

Kenneth Stuart thought so too, for I heard him make use of that or some similar expression to Lizzie as he stood beside her talking earnestly, in spite of the light and jocular remarks of my son, who stood at Lizzie’s other side commenting on things in general with that easy freedom of speech which is characteristic of middies in the British navy, although not entirely confined to them.

The party had dismounted, and Kenneth held Lizzie’s horse by the bridle, while Gildart held his own. Bucephalus was roaming at large. His master had trained him so thoroughly that he was as obedient as a dog. He followed Kenneth about, and would trot up to him when he whistled. I don’t think I ever saw such a magnificent horse, as to size, beauty, and spirit, coupled with docility, either before or since.

“Why, uncle, we thought you must have gone to sleep,” said Lizzie, turning towards me with a laugh as I rode up.

“Or fallen over the cliffs,” added Gildart.

“In either case you would not have taken it much to heart, apparently,” said I; “come, mount and push on.”

Lizzie placed her little foot in Kenneth’s hand, and was in the saddle like a flash of thought, and with the lightness of a rose-leaf. Gildart, being a little fellow, and his horse a tall one, got into the saddle, according to his own statement, as a lands-man clambers into the main-top through the “lubber’s hole” in a squall; and I think the idea was not far-fetched, for, during the process of mounting, his steed was plunging like a ship in a heavy sea. Bucephalus came up at once when whistled to.

“You seem very fond of your horse,” said Lizzie, as Kenneth vaulted into the saddle.

“Ilovehim,” replied the youth enthusiastically.

“You love other creatures besides horses,” thought I; but the thought had barely passed through my brain when Lizzie went off like an arrow. Kenneth sprang forward like a thunderbolt, and Gildart followed—if I may so speak—like a zig-zag cracker. Now, it chanced that Lizzie’s horse was in a bad humour that morning, so it ran away, just as the party came to a grassy slope of half a mile in extent. At the end of this slope the road made a sharp turn, and descended abruptly to the beach. Kenneth knew that if the horse came to this turn at a furious gallop, nothing could save Lizzie from destruction. He therefore took the only course open to him, which was to go by a short cut close along the edge of the cliff, and thus overshoot and intercept the runaway. He dashed spurs into Bucephalus, and was off like an arrow from a bow. There was but one point of danger—a place where the bridle-path was crossed by a fence, beyond which the road turned sharp to the left. The risk lay in the difficulty of making the leap and the turn almost at the same instant. To fail in this would result in horse and man going over the cliff and being dashed to pieces. On they went like the wind, while my son and I followed as fast as we could.

“Bravo, Kenneth!” shouted Gildart, as Bucephalus took the fence like a deer, and disappeared.

Gildart did not know the dangers of the leap: I did, and hastened to the spot with a feeling of intense alarm. On reaching it I saw Kenneth flying far down the slope. He was just in time; a few seconds more, and Lizzie would have been lost. But the bold youth reached the road in time, caught her bridle, reined the horse almost on his haunches, then turned him gradually aside until he galloped with him to a place of safety.

This episode induced us to ride the rest of the way in a more leisurely fashion.

Arrived at Cove, we each went on our several pieces of business, arranging to meet at the north end of the village in about an hour afterwards.

Kenneth found Stephen Gaff at home. Leaving Lizzie to make inquiry as to the health of John Furby, he took the seaman out and walked towards the Downs.

“Well, Stephen, you have been wrecked again, I am told?” said Kenneth.

“So I have, sir; it’s the sixth time now. It’s quite plain I ain’t born to be drownded. I only hope as how I won’t live to be hanged.”

“I hope not, Stephen. What was the name of the ship?”

“The ‘Fairy Queen.’”

“The ‘Fairy Queen,’” echoed Kenneth, with a slight feeling of disappointment; “from Australia?”

“Yes, from Australia.”

“Did she go to pieces?”

“Ay, not an inch of her left. She was an old rotten tub not fit for sea.”

“Indeed! That’s by no means an uncommon state of things,” said Kenneth, with some degree of warmth. “It seems to me that until men in power take the matter up, and get a more rigid system of inspection instituted, hundreds of lives will continue to be sacrificed every year. It is an awful thing to think that more than a thousand lives are lost annually on our shores, and that because of the indifference of those who have the power, to a large extent, to prevent it. But that is not the point on which I want to speak to you to-day. Was the ‘Fairy Queen’ bound for this port?”

“No; for the port of London,” said Gaff, with a cautious glance at his questioner.

“Then why did she make for Wreckumoft?” inquired Kenneth.

“That’s best known to the cap’n, who’s gone to his long home,” said Gaff gravely.

“Werealllost except yourself?” pursued Kenneth, regarding his companion’s face narrowly; but the said face exhibited no expression whatever as its owner replied simply—

“It’s more thanIcan tell; mayhap some of ’em were carried away on bits o’ wreck and may turn up yet.”

“At all events none of them came ashore, to your knowledge?”

“I believe that every mother’s son o’ the crew wos lost but me,” replied Gaff evasively.

“Were none of the children saved?”

“What child’n?” asked the other quickly. “I didn’t say there was child’n aboord, did I?”

Kenneth was somewhat confused at having made this slip; and Gaff, suddenly changing his tactics, stopped short and said—

“I tell ’ee wot it is, young man—seems to me you’re pumpin’ of me for some ends of yer own as I’m not acquainted with; now, I tell ’ee wot it is, I ain’t used to be pumped. No offence meant, but I ain’t used to be pumped, an’ if you’ve got anything to say, speak it out fair and above board like a man.”

“Well, well, Gaff,” said Kenneth, flushing and laughing at the same moment, “to say truth, I am not used to pump, as you may see, nor to be otherwise than fair and aboveboard, as I hope you will believe; but the fact is that a very curious thing has occurred at our house, and I am puzzled as well as suspicious, andveryanxious about it.”

Here Kenneth related all that he knew about the little girl having been left at Seaside Villa, and candidly admitted his suspicion that the child was his niece.

“But,” said Gaff, whose visage was as devoid of expression as a fiddle figure-head, “your brother-in-law’s name was Graham, you know.”

“True, that’s what puzzles me; the child’s Christian name is Emma—the same as that of my niece and sister—but she says her last name is Wilson.”

“Well, then, Wilson ain’t Graham, you know, any more nor Gaff ain’t Snooks, d’ye see?”

“Yes, I see; but I’m puzzled, for Idosee a family likeness to my sister in this child, and Icannotget rid of the impression, although I confess that it seems unreasonable. And the thought makes me very anxious, because, if I were correct in my suspicion, that would prove that my beloved sister and her husband are drowned.”

Kenneth said this with strong feeling, and the seaman looked at him more earnestly than he had yet done.

“Your father was hard on your sister and her husband, if I bean’t misinformed,” said Gaff.

“He thought it his duty to be so,” answered Kenneth.

“And you agreed with him?” pursued Gaff.

“No, never!” cried the other indignantly. “I regretted deeply the course my father saw fit to pursue. I sympathised very strongly with my dear sister and poor Tom Graham.”

“Did you?” said Gaff.

“Most truly I did.”

“Hum. You spoke of suspicions—wot was your suspicions?”

“To be candid with you, then,” said Kenneth, “when I came to see you I suspected that it wasyouwho left that child at our house, for I heard of your sudden re-appearance in Cove, but I am convinced now that I was wrong, for I know you would not tell me a falsehood, Gaff.”

“No more I would, sir,” said Gaff, drawing himself up, “and no more Idid; but let me tell to you, sir, nevertheless, that your suspicions is c’rect.Ileft Emmie Wilson at your house, and Emmie WilsonisEmma Graham!”

Kenneth stopped and looked earnestly at his companion.

“My sister and brother?” he asked in a low suppressed voice.

“Dead, both of ’em,” said Gaff.

With a mighty effort Kenneth restrained his feelings, and, after walking in silence for some time, asked why Gaff had concealed this from his family, and how it happened that the child did not know her proper name.

“You see, sir,” replied the sailor, “I’ve know’d all along of your father’s ill-will to Mr Graham and his wife, for I went out with them to Australia, and they tuk a fancy to me, d’ye see, an’ so did I to them, so we made it up that we’d jine company, pull in the same boat, so to speak, though itwason the land we was goin’ and not the sea. There’s a proverb, sir, that says, ‘misfortin makes strange bed fellows,’ an’ I ’spose it’s the same proverb as makes strange messmates; anyhow, poor Tom Graham, he an’ me an’ his wife, we become messmates, an’ of course we spun no end o’ yarns about our kith and kin, so I found out how your father had treated of ’em, which to say truth I warn’t s’prised at, for I’ve obsarved for years past that he’s hard as nails, altho’ heisyour father, sir, an’ has let many a good ship go to the bottom for want o’ bein’ properly found—”

“You need not criticise my father, Gaff,” said Kenneth, with a slight frown. “Many men’s sins are not so black as they look. Prevailing custom and temptation may have had more to do with his courses of action than hardness of heart.”

“I dun knowthat,” said Gaff, “hows’ever, I don’t mean for to krittysise him, though I’m bound to say his sins is uncommon dark grey, if they ain’t black. Well, I wos a-goin’ to say that Mr Graham had some rich relations in Melbourne as he didn’t want for to see. He was a proud man, you know, sir, an’ didn’t want ’em to think he cared a stiver for ’em, so he changed his name to Wilson, an’ let his beard an’ mowstaches grow, so that when he put his cap on there was nothin’ of him visible except his eyes and his nose stickin’ out of his face, an’ when his hair grew long, an’ his face was tanned wi’ the sun, his own mother would have cut him dead if she’d met him in the street.

“Well, we worked a year in Melbourne to raise the wind. Tom, (he made me call him Tom, sir), bein’ a clever fellow, got into a store as a clerk, an’ I got work as a porter at the quays; an’ though his work was more gentlemanly than mine, I made very near as much as him, so we lived comfortable, and laid by a little. That winter little Emma was born. She just come to poor Tom and his wife like a great sunbeam. Arter that we went a year to the diggin’s, and then I got to weary to see my old missus, so I left ’em with a promise to return. I com’d home, saw my wife, and then went out again to jine the Grahams for another spell at the diggin’s; then I come home again for another spell wi’ the missus, an’ so I kep’ goin’ and comin’, year by year, till now.

“Tom was a lucky digger. He resolved to quit for good and all, and return to settle in England. He turned all he had into gold-dust, and put it in a box, with which he shipped aboard the ‘Fairy Queen,’ of which I was one o’ the crew at the time. The ‘Fairy Queen,’ you must understand, had changed owners just about that time, havin’ bin named the ‘Hawk’ on the voyage out. We sailed together, and got safe to British waters, an’ wos knocked all to bits on British rocks, ’cause the compasses wasn’t worth a button, as no more wos our charts, bein’ old ones, an’ the chain o’ the best bower anchor had bin got cheap, and wasn’t fit to hold a jolly-boat, so that w’en we drove on a lee-shore, and let go the anchor to keep off the reefs, it parted like a bit o’ packthread. I took charge of Emmie, and, by God’s blessin’, got safe to land. All the rest went down.

“Now, sir,” continued Gaff, “it came into my head that if I took the little gal to her grandfather, he, bein’ as hard as nails, an’ desp’rit unforgivin’, would swear I wos tellin’ a lie, and refuse to take her in. So I thought I’d just go and put her down in the passage an’ leave her, so that he’d be obleeged to take her in, d’ye see, not bein’ able to see what else to do wi’ her. You know he couldn’t throw her out, and let her die in the street, could he, sir?”

“Not exactly,” replied Kenneth, with a sad smile, “nevertheless he would not find it difficult to dispose of her in some other way; in fact, he has already spoken of sending her to the workhouse.”

“You don’t say so, sir?”

“Indeed I do, but keep your mind easy, Gaff, for, without telling my father who little Emmie is, I will see to it that she is properly cared for.”

Kenneth rode back to town that day with a heart so heavy that the bright eyes of Lizzie Gordon failed to rouse him to even the semblance of cheerfulness, and the effervescing small-talk of the volatile Gildart was almost intolerable.

Chapter Eight.Dan Horsey does the Agreeable in the Kitchen.“Captain Bingley,” said Kenneth, entering my study somewhat hastily on the following morning, “I am going to carry off Gildart for the day to have a ride with me, and I looked in on you in passing to tell you that Haco has arrived in his schooner, and that he is going to sail this evening for London and will take your Russians to their consul if you wish it.”“Thank you, lad; many thanks,” said I, “some of them may be able to go, but others, I fear, are too much hurt, and may require to be nursed in the ‘Home’ for some time yet. I will consider it; meanwhile will you carry a note to your father for me?”“With pleasure; at least I will send Dan Horsey with it, if that will do as well.”“Quite as well, if you can spare him; send him into the kitchen while I write the note. Adieu, lad, and see that you don’t break Gildart’s neck. Remember that he is not much accustomed to horses.”“No fear of him,” said Kenneth, looking back with a laugh as he reached the door, “he is well used to riding out hard gales, and that is more arduous work than steeple-chasing.” When Dan Horsey was told to go to the kitchen and await further orders, he received the command with a cheerful smile, and, attaching the bridle of his horse to a post, proceeded to obey it.The kitchen of Bingley Hall was the abode of two females who severally owned a distinct and dissimilar character, both mental and physical. The first female—first in most senses of the word—was Bounder the cook, who was fat, as cooks ought to be in order to prove that their productions agree with them; and self-opinionated, as cooks generally are, in order, no doubt, to prove that they know their business.The second female was Susan Barepoles, a slim, graceful housemaid, apparently modest, (cook did not even pretend to that virtue), and wonderfully sharp-eyed. Both females were good-looking and young, and both were desperately in love with Daniel Horsey. Each knew the fact, and so did Dan. Each was mortally jealous of the other, and Dan was dreadfully perplexed in consequence.Not that he was uncertain as to which of the two he preferred, for Susan’s image was “engruven,” as he expressed it, deeply on his heart, to the exclusion of all other images, but he found that the jealousy of the two interfered somewhat with the course of true love, causing it to run in its proverbially rough channel.“It’s a fine mornin’, my darlints,” said Dan, as he entered the kitchen with a swagger, and laid his hat and riding-whip on the dresser, at the same time seating himself on the edge of a small table that stood near the window. This seat he preferred to a chair, partly because it enabled him to turn his back to the light, and partly because it afforded him an opportunity of swinging his legs gently with an easy motion that was agreeable, and, at the same time, in his opinion, graceful.“None o’ yer imperance,” said cook, stirring the contents of a large pan carefully.Susan tossed her head slightly, but admitted that the morningwasgood.“He’s a-writin’ of a letter to Grumpy,” said Dan, pointing with his thumb towards the ceiling, in order to indicate that the “he” referred to was myself.“Who’s Grumpy?” inquired cook, with a look of interest.“Arrah, now, don’t ye know it’s old Stuart?”Susan laughed, and cook observed that the name seemed to her an extremely disrespectful one.“It’s not bad enough for him, the old pair o’ tongs,” said Dan, taking up his whip with a gentlemanly assumption of ease, and flipping the toe of his boot with it; “av it wasn’t for the love that my master Kenneth bears me, I’d have left ’em long ago. But, you see, the young master is a first-rater, and couldn’t get on without me no how, so I’m willin’ to stop. Besides,” continued Dan, with averysmall sigh, “I have private raisons for not carin’ to leave just now.”He accompanied the latter remark with a sly glance at Susan, who chanced quite accidentally to cast a sly glance at Dan, so that their eyes met, and the result was that Susan blushed and began to rub the silver tea-pot, which she was cleaning, unmercifully, and Dan laughed. Whereupon cook looked round hastily and asked what he was laughing at, to which Dan responded that his own imagination, which happened to be a brilliant one, had just then suggested a train of comical ideas which had tickled his risible muscles so that he couldn’t help it!“I don’t believe it,” said cook, who observed Susan’s confusion of face, and became internally red hot with jealousy, “I b’lieve you was larfin’ at me.”“Och, Miss Bounder!” exclaimed Dan, looking at her with an expression so awfully reproachful that cook instantly repented and laughed.“There’s bin some strange doin’s up at the Villa,” said Susan, by way of changing the subject, while she polished the tea-pot yet more unmercifully.“Ah,” exclaimed cook, “that’s true; what does it all mean, Mr Horsey?”“That’s more nor myself can tell,” said Dan; “the facts o’ the case is clear, so far as they come’d under our obsarvation. But as to the circumstances o’ the case, ’specially those of ’em as hasn’t yet transpired, I don’t rightly know myself wot opinions I ought to entertain.”Susan listened to these remarks with profound admiration, chiefly because she did not understand them; but cook, who was more matter-of-fact in her nature, and somewhat demonstrative in her tendencies, advised Dan not to talk gammon, but to explain what he meant.“Explain what I mean, coolinary sunbeam!” said Dan; “isn’t it explainin’ that I am as plain as the nose on yer face, (an’ a purty wan it is), though I haven’t got the powers of a lawyer, nor yit a praist? Didn’t a drippin’ wet sailor come to our door at the dead o’ night an’ ring the bell as bowld as brass, an’ when Mrs Niven, whose intellect was niver much beyond that of a poplypus—”“What’s a poplypus?” interrupted cook.“Well now,” remonstrated Dan, “I ain’t ’xactly a walkin’ dictionary; but I b’lieve it’s a baist o’ the say what hain’t got nothin’ but a body an’ a stummik, indeed I’m not sure but that it’s all stummik together, with just legs enough to move about with, or may be a fin or two, an’ a hole to let in the wittles; quite in your line, by the way, Miss Bounder.”“Imperance!” ejaculated cook.“No offence,” said Dan; “but ‘to resoom the thread o’ the narrative,’ as the story books say, Mrs Niven she opened the door, and the drippin’ wet sailor he puts a little wet spalpeen in her arms, an’ goes right off without so much as by your lave, an’ that’s all we know about it. An’ Grumpy he goes ragin’ about the house sayin’ he’ll have nothin’ to do wi’ the poor little thing—who’s not so little naither, bein’ a ten-year-old if she’s an hour, an’ a purty sweet face to boot—an’ that he’ll send her to the workus’ or pris’n, or anywhere; but in his house she’s not to stop another day. Well, not havin’ the management o’ the whole of this world’s affairs, (fort’nately, else a scrubbily managed world it would be), Grumpy finds out that when he wants to send little Emmie, (as she calls herself), off, she’s knocked down by a ragin’ fever, an’ the doctor he says it’s as much as her life is worth to move her. So Grumpy has to grin and bear it, and there’s little Emmie lyin’ at this minit in our best bed, (where Mrs Niven put her the moment she was took bad), a-tossin’ her purty arms in the air, an’ makin’ her yellow hair fly over the pillows, and kickin’ off the close like a young angel in a passion, and callin’ on her mama in a voice that would make a stone immage weep, all the while that Miss Penelope is snivellin’ on one side o’ the bed, an’ Mrs Niven is snortin’ on the other.”“Poor dear,” said Susan in a low voice, devoting herself with intensified zeal to the tea-pot, while sympathetic tears moistened her eyes.I interrupted the conversation at this point by entering the kitchen with my note to my friend Stuart. I had to pass through the kitchen to my back garden when I wished to leave my house by the back garden gate. I had coughed and made as much noise as possible in approaching the cook’s domains, but they had been so much engrossed with each other that they did not hear me. Dan sprang hastily off the table, and suddenly assumed a deeply respectful air.“Dan,” said I, “take this note to Mr Stuart as quickly as possible, and bring me an answer without delay. I am going to see Haco Barepoles at—”“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Susan with a start, and looking at me interrogatively.“Oh, I forgot, Susan; your father has just arrived from Aberdeen, and is at this moment in the Sailors’ Home. You may run down to see him, my girl, if you choose.”“Thank you, sir,” said Susan, with a glow of pleasure on her good-looking face, as she pushed the tea-pot from her, and dropt the cloth, in her haste to get away to see her sire.“Stay, Susan,” said I; “you need not hurry back. In fact, you may spend the day with your father, if you choose; and tell him that I will be down to see him in a few minutes. But I shall probably be there before you. You may take Mr Stuart’s answer to the Home,” I added, turning to Dan; “I shall be there when you return with it.”“Yes, sir,” said Dan in a tone so energetic as to cause me to look at him. I observed that he was winking towards the kitchen door. Casting my eyes thither I saw that Susan’s face was much flushed as he disappeared into the passage. I also noted that the cook’s face was fiery red, and that she stirred a large pot, over which she bent, with unnecessary violence—viciously, as it were.Pondering on these things I crossed my garden and proceeded towards the Home, which stood on a conspicuous eminence near the docks, at the east end of the town.

“Captain Bingley,” said Kenneth, entering my study somewhat hastily on the following morning, “I am going to carry off Gildart for the day to have a ride with me, and I looked in on you in passing to tell you that Haco has arrived in his schooner, and that he is going to sail this evening for London and will take your Russians to their consul if you wish it.”

“Thank you, lad; many thanks,” said I, “some of them may be able to go, but others, I fear, are too much hurt, and may require to be nursed in the ‘Home’ for some time yet. I will consider it; meanwhile will you carry a note to your father for me?”

“With pleasure; at least I will send Dan Horsey with it, if that will do as well.”

“Quite as well, if you can spare him; send him into the kitchen while I write the note. Adieu, lad, and see that you don’t break Gildart’s neck. Remember that he is not much accustomed to horses.”

“No fear of him,” said Kenneth, looking back with a laugh as he reached the door, “he is well used to riding out hard gales, and that is more arduous work than steeple-chasing.” When Dan Horsey was told to go to the kitchen and await further orders, he received the command with a cheerful smile, and, attaching the bridle of his horse to a post, proceeded to obey it.

The kitchen of Bingley Hall was the abode of two females who severally owned a distinct and dissimilar character, both mental and physical. The first female—first in most senses of the word—was Bounder the cook, who was fat, as cooks ought to be in order to prove that their productions agree with them; and self-opinionated, as cooks generally are, in order, no doubt, to prove that they know their business.

The second female was Susan Barepoles, a slim, graceful housemaid, apparently modest, (cook did not even pretend to that virtue), and wonderfully sharp-eyed. Both females were good-looking and young, and both were desperately in love with Daniel Horsey. Each knew the fact, and so did Dan. Each was mortally jealous of the other, and Dan was dreadfully perplexed in consequence.

Not that he was uncertain as to which of the two he preferred, for Susan’s image was “engruven,” as he expressed it, deeply on his heart, to the exclusion of all other images, but he found that the jealousy of the two interfered somewhat with the course of true love, causing it to run in its proverbially rough channel.

“It’s a fine mornin’, my darlints,” said Dan, as he entered the kitchen with a swagger, and laid his hat and riding-whip on the dresser, at the same time seating himself on the edge of a small table that stood near the window. This seat he preferred to a chair, partly because it enabled him to turn his back to the light, and partly because it afforded him an opportunity of swinging his legs gently with an easy motion that was agreeable, and, at the same time, in his opinion, graceful.

“None o’ yer imperance,” said cook, stirring the contents of a large pan carefully.

Susan tossed her head slightly, but admitted that the morningwasgood.

“He’s a-writin’ of a letter to Grumpy,” said Dan, pointing with his thumb towards the ceiling, in order to indicate that the “he” referred to was myself.

“Who’s Grumpy?” inquired cook, with a look of interest.

“Arrah, now, don’t ye know it’s old Stuart?”

Susan laughed, and cook observed that the name seemed to her an extremely disrespectful one.

“It’s not bad enough for him, the old pair o’ tongs,” said Dan, taking up his whip with a gentlemanly assumption of ease, and flipping the toe of his boot with it; “av it wasn’t for the love that my master Kenneth bears me, I’d have left ’em long ago. But, you see, the young master is a first-rater, and couldn’t get on without me no how, so I’m willin’ to stop. Besides,” continued Dan, with averysmall sigh, “I have private raisons for not carin’ to leave just now.”

He accompanied the latter remark with a sly glance at Susan, who chanced quite accidentally to cast a sly glance at Dan, so that their eyes met, and the result was that Susan blushed and began to rub the silver tea-pot, which she was cleaning, unmercifully, and Dan laughed. Whereupon cook looked round hastily and asked what he was laughing at, to which Dan responded that his own imagination, which happened to be a brilliant one, had just then suggested a train of comical ideas which had tickled his risible muscles so that he couldn’t help it!

“I don’t believe it,” said cook, who observed Susan’s confusion of face, and became internally red hot with jealousy, “I b’lieve you was larfin’ at me.”

“Och, Miss Bounder!” exclaimed Dan, looking at her with an expression so awfully reproachful that cook instantly repented and laughed.

“There’s bin some strange doin’s up at the Villa,” said Susan, by way of changing the subject, while she polished the tea-pot yet more unmercifully.

“Ah,” exclaimed cook, “that’s true; what does it all mean, Mr Horsey?”

“That’s more nor myself can tell,” said Dan; “the facts o’ the case is clear, so far as they come’d under our obsarvation. But as to the circumstances o’ the case, ’specially those of ’em as hasn’t yet transpired, I don’t rightly know myself wot opinions I ought to entertain.”

Susan listened to these remarks with profound admiration, chiefly because she did not understand them; but cook, who was more matter-of-fact in her nature, and somewhat demonstrative in her tendencies, advised Dan not to talk gammon, but to explain what he meant.

“Explain what I mean, coolinary sunbeam!” said Dan; “isn’t it explainin’ that I am as plain as the nose on yer face, (an’ a purty wan it is), though I haven’t got the powers of a lawyer, nor yit a praist? Didn’t a drippin’ wet sailor come to our door at the dead o’ night an’ ring the bell as bowld as brass, an’ when Mrs Niven, whose intellect was niver much beyond that of a poplypus—”

“What’s a poplypus?” interrupted cook.

“Well now,” remonstrated Dan, “I ain’t ’xactly a walkin’ dictionary; but I b’lieve it’s a baist o’ the say what hain’t got nothin’ but a body an’ a stummik, indeed I’m not sure but that it’s all stummik together, with just legs enough to move about with, or may be a fin or two, an’ a hole to let in the wittles; quite in your line, by the way, Miss Bounder.”

“Imperance!” ejaculated cook.

“No offence,” said Dan; “but ‘to resoom the thread o’ the narrative,’ as the story books say, Mrs Niven she opened the door, and the drippin’ wet sailor he puts a little wet spalpeen in her arms, an’ goes right off without so much as by your lave, an’ that’s all we know about it. An’ Grumpy he goes ragin’ about the house sayin’ he’ll have nothin’ to do wi’ the poor little thing—who’s not so little naither, bein’ a ten-year-old if she’s an hour, an’ a purty sweet face to boot—an’ that he’ll send her to the workus’ or pris’n, or anywhere; but in his house she’s not to stop another day. Well, not havin’ the management o’ the whole of this world’s affairs, (fort’nately, else a scrubbily managed world it would be), Grumpy finds out that when he wants to send little Emmie, (as she calls herself), off, she’s knocked down by a ragin’ fever, an’ the doctor he says it’s as much as her life is worth to move her. So Grumpy has to grin and bear it, and there’s little Emmie lyin’ at this minit in our best bed, (where Mrs Niven put her the moment she was took bad), a-tossin’ her purty arms in the air, an’ makin’ her yellow hair fly over the pillows, and kickin’ off the close like a young angel in a passion, and callin’ on her mama in a voice that would make a stone immage weep, all the while that Miss Penelope is snivellin’ on one side o’ the bed, an’ Mrs Niven is snortin’ on the other.”

“Poor dear,” said Susan in a low voice, devoting herself with intensified zeal to the tea-pot, while sympathetic tears moistened her eyes.

I interrupted the conversation at this point by entering the kitchen with my note to my friend Stuart. I had to pass through the kitchen to my back garden when I wished to leave my house by the back garden gate. I had coughed and made as much noise as possible in approaching the cook’s domains, but they had been so much engrossed with each other that they did not hear me. Dan sprang hastily off the table, and suddenly assumed a deeply respectful air.

“Dan,” said I, “take this note to Mr Stuart as quickly as possible, and bring me an answer without delay. I am going to see Haco Barepoles at—”

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Susan with a start, and looking at me interrogatively.

“Oh, I forgot, Susan; your father has just arrived from Aberdeen, and is at this moment in the Sailors’ Home. You may run down to see him, my girl, if you choose.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Susan, with a glow of pleasure on her good-looking face, as she pushed the tea-pot from her, and dropt the cloth, in her haste to get away to see her sire.

“Stay, Susan,” said I; “you need not hurry back. In fact, you may spend the day with your father, if you choose; and tell him that I will be down to see him in a few minutes. But I shall probably be there before you. You may take Mr Stuart’s answer to the Home,” I added, turning to Dan; “I shall be there when you return with it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Dan in a tone so energetic as to cause me to look at him. I observed that he was winking towards the kitchen door. Casting my eyes thither I saw that Susan’s face was much flushed as he disappeared into the passage. I also noted that the cook’s face was fiery red, and that she stirred a large pot, over which she bent, with unnecessary violence—viciously, as it were.

Pondering on these things I crossed my garden and proceeded towards the Home, which stood on a conspicuous eminence near the docks, at the east end of the town.

Chapter Nine.The Sailors’ Home and the Mad Skipper.The Sailors’ Home in Wreckumoft was a neat, substantial, unpretending edifice, which had been built by a number of charitable people, in order to provide a comfortable residence, with board at moderate terms, for the numerous seamen who frequented our port. It also served as a place of temporary refuge to the unfortunate crews of the numerous wrecks which occurred annually on our shores.Here I found Haco Barepoles, the skipper of a coal sloop, seated on the side of his bed in one of the little berths of the Home, busily engaged in stuffing tobacco into the bowl of a great German pipe with the point of his little finger. Susan, who had outstripped me, was seated beside him with her head on his shoulder.“Oh, father!” I heard Susan say, as I walked along the passage between the rows of sleeping berths that lined each side of the principal dormitory of our Home; “I shall lose you some day, I fear. How was it that you came so near bein’ wrecked?”Before the skipper could reply I stood in the doorway of his berth.“Good-day, Haco,” said I; “glad to see you safe back once more.”“Thankee, Cap’n Bingley—same to you, sir,” said Haco, rising hastily from the bed and seizing my hand, which he shook warmly, and, I must add, painfully; for the skipper was a hearty, impulsive fellow, apt to forget his strength of body in the strength of his feelings, and given to grasp his male friends with a gripe that would, I verily believe, have drawn a roar from Hercules.“I’ve come back to the old bunk, you see,” he continued, while I sat down on a chest which served for a chair. “I likes the Home better an’ better every time I comes to it, and I’ve brought all my crew with me; for you see, sir, the ‘Coffin’s’ a’most fallin’ to pieces, and will have to go into dock for a riglar overhaul.”“The Coffin?” said Susan, interrogatively.“Yes, lass; it’s only a nickname the old tub got in the north, where they call the colliers coal-coffins, ’cause it’s ten to one you’ll go to the bottom in ’em every time ye go to sea.”“Are theyallso bad as to deserve the name?” inquired Susan.“No, not ’xactly all of ’em; but there’s a good lot as are not half so fit for sea as a washin’ tub. You see, they ain’t worth repairin’, and owners sometimes just take their chance o’ makin’ a safe run by keepin’ the pumps goin’ the whole time.”I informed Haco that I had called for the purpose of telling him that I had applied to Mr Stuart, who owned his little coal sloop, to give a few wrecked Russians a passage to London, in order that they might be handed over to the care of their consul; but that I would have to find a passage for them in some other vessel, as the “Coffin” was so unseaworthy.“Don’t be in too great a hurry, sir,” said Haco, with a peculiar smile and twinkle in his eye; “I’m inclined to think that Mr Stuart will send her back to London to be repaired there—”“What!” exclaimed Susan, with a flush of indignation, “an’ risk your life, father?”“As to that, lass, my life has got to be risked anyhow, and it ain’t much worth, to say the truth; so you needn’t trouble yourself on that pint.”“It’s worth a great deal to me,” said Susan, drawing herself closer to the side of her rugged parent.I could not help smiling as I looked at this curious specimen of a British seaman shaking his head gravely and speaking so disparagingly of himself, when I knew, and every one in the town knew, that he was one of the kindest and most useful of men. He was a very giant in size, with a breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an altitude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs—a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to perceive that fact.“Whatever your life may be worth, my friend,” said I, “it is to be hoped that Mr Stuart will not risk it by sending you to sea in the ‘Coffin’ till it is thoroughly overhauled.”“Come in!” shouted the skipper, in answer to a rap at the door.The invitation to enter was not accepted, but the rap was repeated.“Go, Susan,” said I, “see who it is.”Susan obeyed—with unusual alacrity, as I fancied, but did not return with equal quickness. We heard her whispering with some one; then there was a sound as if of a suppressed scream, followed by something that was marvellously like a slap applied to a cheek with an open hand. Next moment Susan re-appeared with a letter and a very flushed face.“A letter, sir,” said Susan, dropping her eyes.“Who brought it?” I inquired.“Mr Horsey, sir.” Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. “He waits an answer, sir.”Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.Intense gravity marked the features of the groom, who stood, hat in hand, tapping the side of his top-boot with a silver-mounted riding-whip. He met Haco’s steady frown with a calm and equally steady gaze of his clear grey eyes; and then, relaxing into a smile, nodded familiarly, and inquired if the weather was fine up there, bekaise, judgin’ from his, (Haco’s), face he would be inclined to think it must be raither cowld!Haco smiled grimly: “Ye was to wait an answer, was ye?”“If I may venture to make so bowld as to say so in the presence of your highness, I was.”“Then wait,” said Haco, smiling a little less grimly.“Thank ye, sir, for yer kind permission,” said Dan in a tone and with an air of assumed meekness.The skipper returned to the bed, which creaked as if taxed to its utmost, when he sat down on it, and drew Susan close to his side.“This is from Mr Stuart, Haco,” said I, running my eye hastily over the note; “he consents to my sending the men in your vessel, but after what you have told me—”“Don’t mind wot I told ye, Captain Bingley. I’ll see Mr Stuart to-day, an’ll call on you in the afternoon. The ‘Coffin’ ain’t quite so bad as she looks. Have ’ee any answer to send back?”“No,” said I, turning to Dan, who still stood at the door tapping his right boot with a jaunty air; “tell your master, with my compliments, that I will see him about this matter in the evening.”“And hark’ee, lad,” cried Haco, again springing up and confronting the groom, “d’ye see this young ’ooman?” (pointing to Susan.)“Sure I do,” replied Dan, with a smile and a nod to Susan, “an’ a purty cratur she is, for the eye of man to rest upon.”“And,” shouted Haco, shaking his enormous fist within an inch of the other’s nose, “d’ye see them there knuckles?”Dan regarded them steadfastly for a moment or two without winking or flinching.“They’re a purty bunch o’ fives,” he said at length, drawing back his head, and placing it a little on one side in order to view the “bunch,” with the air of a connoisseur; “very purty, but raither too fat to do much damage in the ring. I should say, now, that it would get ‘puffy’ at the fifth round, supposin’ that you had wind and pluck left, at your time of life, to survive the fourth.”“Well now, lad,” retorted the skipper, “all I’ve to say is, that you’ve seed it, an’ if you don’t mind yer eye ye’llfeelit. ‘A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.’”Haco plunged the “bunch of fives” into his coat-pocket, and sat down again beside his agitated daughter.“I can speak purfessionally,” said Dan, “in regard to yer last obsarvation consarnin’ blind hosses, and I belave that ye’re c’rect. Itdon’tmuch matter whether ye nod or wink to a blind hoss; though I can’t spake from personal exparience ’caise I niver tried it on, not havin’ nothin’ to do with blind hosses. Ye wouldn’t have a weed, would ye, skipper?” he added, pulling out a neat leather case from which he drew a cigar!“Go away, Dan, directly,” said I with some asperity, for I was nettled at the impudence of the man in my presence, and not a little alarmed lest the angry Haco should kick him down-stairs.Dan at once obeyed, bowing respectfully to me, and, as I observed, winking to Susan as he turned away. He descended the stair in silence, but we heard him open the door of the public room and address the Russians, who were assembled there, warming themselves at the fire, and enjoying their pipes.“Hooray! my hearties,” said Dan; “got yer broken legs rewived I hope, and yer spurrits bandaged up? Hey,—och! I forgot ye can swaller nothin’ but Toorko—cum, squaki lorum ho po, doddie jairum frango whiskie looro—whack?—eh! Arrah! ye don’t need to answer for fear the effort opens up yer wounds afresh. Farewell, lads, or may be it’s wishin’ ye fair-wind would be more nat’ral.”So saying he slammed the door, and we heard him switching his boots as he passed along the street under the windows, whistling the air of “The girls we left behind us,” followed, before he was quite out of earshot, by “Oh my love is like the red red rose, that’s newly sprung in June.”Immediately after Dan’s departure I left Haco and Susan together, and they held the following conversation when left alone. I am enabled to report it faithfully, reader, because Susan told it word for word to her mistress, who has a very reprehensible habit of listening to the gossip of her maid. Of course Mrs B told it to me, because she tells everything to me, sometimes a good deal more than I care to hear. This I think a very reprehensible habit also. I am bound to listen, because when my strong-minded wife begins to talk I might as well try to stop a runaway locomotive as attempt to silence her. And so it comes about that I am now making the thing public!“Susan,” said Haco, earnestly looking at his daughter’s downcast face, on which the tell tale blood was mantling. “Are you fond o’ that—that feller?”“Ye–yes, father,” replied Susan, with some hesitation.“Humph! an’ is he fond o’you?”“Oh, isn’t he, just,” said Susan, with a little confused laugh.“Susan,” continued Haco, with increasing earnestness, “Are ye sure he’s worthy of you?”“Yes, father, I’mquitesure of that.”“Well then, Susan, you’re a sensible girl, and you ought to know best; but I don’t feel easy about ye, ’cause you’re just as like as two peas to your dear mother, what went to the bottom in the last coal-coffin I commanded, an’ you would ha’ gone too, darlin’, if I hadn’t bin spared to swim ashore with ye on my back. It was all I could do. Ah, Susan! it was a black night for you an’ me that. Well, as I was a sayin’, you’re as like yer mother as two peas, and she was as trustful as you are, an’ little knew wot a bad lot she got when she set her heart on me.”“Father, that’s not true.”“Ain’t it, lass? Well, let it pass, but then this feller, this Dan Hursey—”“Horsey, father,” said Susan.“Well, well, it ain’t much better; this Horsey is an Irishman, an’ I don’t like Irishmen.”“Father, you’d get to like ’em if you only knew ’em better,” said Susan earnestly. “What bell’s that?” she added, as a loud ringing echoed through the house.“The dinner bell, lass. Come an’ see wot a comf’rable feed they git. I can tell ’ee that them Sailors’ Homes is the greatest blessin’ that was ever got up for us sea-dogs. We ain’t ’xactly such soft good natur’d ignorant big babies as some o’ your well-meanin’ pheelanthropists would make us out; but weareuncommon hard put to it when we git ashore, for every port is alive with crimps an’ land-sharks to swaller us up when we come off a long voyage; an’ the wust of it is, that we’re in a wild reckless humour for the most part when we git ashore with our pockets full o’ yellow boys, an’ are too often quite willin’ tobeswallered up, so that lots of us are constantly a-goin’ to sticks an’ stivers. An’ then before the Homes was set a-goin’, the fellers as wanted to get quiet lodgin’s didn’t find it easy to know where to look for ’em, an’ was often took in; an’ when they wanted to send cash to their wives or mothers, they didn’t well know how to manage it; but now, wherever there’s a Home you can git cheap board, good victuals, help in the way o’ managin’ yer cash, an’ no end of advice gratis. It’s only a pity there ain’t one or two of ’em in every port in the kingdom.“See here,” continued Haco, warming with his subject as he led Susan past the dormitories where the Russians, who had been maimed during the recent wrecks, were being supplied with dinner in their berths, “see here,—another o’ the best o’ the institootions o’ this land looks arter them poor fellers, an’ pays their shot for ’em as long as they’re here, an’ sends them to their homes free of expense—that’s the Shipwrecked Fishermen’s and Mariners’ Society. You’ve heerd o’ that Society, Susan, haven’t ’ee?”“No father, never.”“What, never heerd o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society with its hundreds o’ honorary agents all round the coast, who have done more to dry the tears o’ orphans an’ comfort widders’ hearts than tongue can tell?—Never heerd o’ it, an’ you a sailor’s daughter?”“I daresay I’m very stupid for being so ignorant, father; but I never heard of it. You know I’ve spent most o’ my life inland with old Auntie Bess, an’ only come here this year.“Mayhap,” continued Haco, shaking his head gravely, “you’ve never heer’d, neither, o’ the Lifeboat Institootion.”“Never,” said Susan meekly. “I’ve seen the lifeboat we have here, you know, but I never heard of the Institootion.”“Well, well, Susan, I needn’t be surprised, for, to say truth, there’s many in this country, who think no small beer o’ theirselves, that know precious little about either the one or the other, although they’re the most valooable Institootions in the country. I’ll tell ’ee about ’em, lass, some other time—how they saves hundreds o’ lives, an’ relieves no end o’ distress annooally. It’s enough just now to say that the two Institootions is what I calls brother an’ sister—the Lifeboat one bein’ the brother; the Shipwrecked Mariners’ one bein’ the sister. The brother, besides savin’ thousands o’ pounds worth o’ goods, saves hundreds o’ lives every year. But when the brother has saved the shipwrecked sailor, his work is done. He hands him over to the sister, who clothes him, feeds him, warms him—as you see bein’ done to them there Roosians—and then sends him home. Every sailor in the country should be a member o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, say I. I’ve been one myself for many years, an’ it only costs me three shillings a year. I’ll tell ’ee some other time what good it does me; but just now you an’ I shall go an’ have some grub.”“Where shall we go to get it, father?”“To the refreshment room below, lass. It won’t do to take ye to the dinin’ hall o’ the Home for three reasons,—first, ’cause ye’re a ’ooman, an’ they ain’t admitted; second, ’cause it wouldn’t be pleasant for ye to dine wi’ forty or fifty Jack-tars; and, thirdly, if ye wanted it ever so much yer old father wouldn’t let ye—so come along, lass, to dinner.”

The Sailors’ Home in Wreckumoft was a neat, substantial, unpretending edifice, which had been built by a number of charitable people, in order to provide a comfortable residence, with board at moderate terms, for the numerous seamen who frequented our port. It also served as a place of temporary refuge to the unfortunate crews of the numerous wrecks which occurred annually on our shores.

Here I found Haco Barepoles, the skipper of a coal sloop, seated on the side of his bed in one of the little berths of the Home, busily engaged in stuffing tobacco into the bowl of a great German pipe with the point of his little finger. Susan, who had outstripped me, was seated beside him with her head on his shoulder.

“Oh, father!” I heard Susan say, as I walked along the passage between the rows of sleeping berths that lined each side of the principal dormitory of our Home; “I shall lose you some day, I fear. How was it that you came so near bein’ wrecked?”

Before the skipper could reply I stood in the doorway of his berth.

“Good-day, Haco,” said I; “glad to see you safe back once more.”

“Thankee, Cap’n Bingley—same to you, sir,” said Haco, rising hastily from the bed and seizing my hand, which he shook warmly, and, I must add, painfully; for the skipper was a hearty, impulsive fellow, apt to forget his strength of body in the strength of his feelings, and given to grasp his male friends with a gripe that would, I verily believe, have drawn a roar from Hercules.

“I’ve come back to the old bunk, you see,” he continued, while I sat down on a chest which served for a chair. “I likes the Home better an’ better every time I comes to it, and I’ve brought all my crew with me; for you see, sir, the ‘Coffin’s’ a’most fallin’ to pieces, and will have to go into dock for a riglar overhaul.”

“The Coffin?” said Susan, interrogatively.

“Yes, lass; it’s only a nickname the old tub got in the north, where they call the colliers coal-coffins, ’cause it’s ten to one you’ll go to the bottom in ’em every time ye go to sea.”

“Are theyallso bad as to deserve the name?” inquired Susan.

“No, not ’xactly all of ’em; but there’s a good lot as are not half so fit for sea as a washin’ tub. You see, they ain’t worth repairin’, and owners sometimes just take their chance o’ makin’ a safe run by keepin’ the pumps goin’ the whole time.”

I informed Haco that I had called for the purpose of telling him that I had applied to Mr Stuart, who owned his little coal sloop, to give a few wrecked Russians a passage to London, in order that they might be handed over to the care of their consul; but that I would have to find a passage for them in some other vessel, as the “Coffin” was so unseaworthy.

“Don’t be in too great a hurry, sir,” said Haco, with a peculiar smile and twinkle in his eye; “I’m inclined to think that Mr Stuart will send her back to London to be repaired there—”

“What!” exclaimed Susan, with a flush of indignation, “an’ risk your life, father?”

“As to that, lass, my life has got to be risked anyhow, and it ain’t much worth, to say the truth; so you needn’t trouble yourself on that pint.”

“It’s worth a great deal to me,” said Susan, drawing herself closer to the side of her rugged parent.

I could not help smiling as I looked at this curious specimen of a British seaman shaking his head gravely and speaking so disparagingly of himself, when I knew, and every one in the town knew, that he was one of the kindest and most useful of men. He was a very giant in size, with a breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an altitude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs—a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to perceive that fact.

“Whatever your life may be worth, my friend,” said I, “it is to be hoped that Mr Stuart will not risk it by sending you to sea in the ‘Coffin’ till it is thoroughly overhauled.”

“Come in!” shouted the skipper, in answer to a rap at the door.

The invitation to enter was not accepted, but the rap was repeated.

“Go, Susan,” said I, “see who it is.”

Susan obeyed—with unusual alacrity, as I fancied, but did not return with equal quickness. We heard her whispering with some one; then there was a sound as if of a suppressed scream, followed by something that was marvellously like a slap applied to a cheek with an open hand. Next moment Susan re-appeared with a letter and a very flushed face.

“A letter, sir,” said Susan, dropping her eyes.

“Who brought it?” I inquired.

“Mr Horsey, sir.” Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. “He waits an answer, sir.”

Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.

Intense gravity marked the features of the groom, who stood, hat in hand, tapping the side of his top-boot with a silver-mounted riding-whip. He met Haco’s steady frown with a calm and equally steady gaze of his clear grey eyes; and then, relaxing into a smile, nodded familiarly, and inquired if the weather was fine up there, bekaise, judgin’ from his, (Haco’s), face he would be inclined to think it must be raither cowld!

Haco smiled grimly: “Ye was to wait an answer, was ye?”

“If I may venture to make so bowld as to say so in the presence of your highness, I was.”

“Then wait,” said Haco, smiling a little less grimly.

“Thank ye, sir, for yer kind permission,” said Dan in a tone and with an air of assumed meekness.

The skipper returned to the bed, which creaked as if taxed to its utmost, when he sat down on it, and drew Susan close to his side.

“This is from Mr Stuart, Haco,” said I, running my eye hastily over the note; “he consents to my sending the men in your vessel, but after what you have told me—”

“Don’t mind wot I told ye, Captain Bingley. I’ll see Mr Stuart to-day, an’ll call on you in the afternoon. The ‘Coffin’ ain’t quite so bad as she looks. Have ’ee any answer to send back?”

“No,” said I, turning to Dan, who still stood at the door tapping his right boot with a jaunty air; “tell your master, with my compliments, that I will see him about this matter in the evening.”

“And hark’ee, lad,” cried Haco, again springing up and confronting the groom, “d’ye see this young ’ooman?” (pointing to Susan.)

“Sure I do,” replied Dan, with a smile and a nod to Susan, “an’ a purty cratur she is, for the eye of man to rest upon.”

“And,” shouted Haco, shaking his enormous fist within an inch of the other’s nose, “d’ye see them there knuckles?”

Dan regarded them steadfastly for a moment or two without winking or flinching.

“They’re a purty bunch o’ fives,” he said at length, drawing back his head, and placing it a little on one side in order to view the “bunch,” with the air of a connoisseur; “very purty, but raither too fat to do much damage in the ring. I should say, now, that it would get ‘puffy’ at the fifth round, supposin’ that you had wind and pluck left, at your time of life, to survive the fourth.”

“Well now, lad,” retorted the skipper, “all I’ve to say is, that you’ve seed it, an’ if you don’t mind yer eye ye’llfeelit. ‘A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse.’”

Haco plunged the “bunch of fives” into his coat-pocket, and sat down again beside his agitated daughter.

“I can speak purfessionally,” said Dan, “in regard to yer last obsarvation consarnin’ blind hosses, and I belave that ye’re c’rect. Itdon’tmuch matter whether ye nod or wink to a blind hoss; though I can’t spake from personal exparience ’caise I niver tried it on, not havin’ nothin’ to do with blind hosses. Ye wouldn’t have a weed, would ye, skipper?” he added, pulling out a neat leather case from which he drew a cigar!

“Go away, Dan, directly,” said I with some asperity, for I was nettled at the impudence of the man in my presence, and not a little alarmed lest the angry Haco should kick him down-stairs.

Dan at once obeyed, bowing respectfully to me, and, as I observed, winking to Susan as he turned away. He descended the stair in silence, but we heard him open the door of the public room and address the Russians, who were assembled there, warming themselves at the fire, and enjoying their pipes.

“Hooray! my hearties,” said Dan; “got yer broken legs rewived I hope, and yer spurrits bandaged up? Hey,—och! I forgot ye can swaller nothin’ but Toorko—cum, squaki lorum ho po, doddie jairum frango whiskie looro—whack?—eh! Arrah! ye don’t need to answer for fear the effort opens up yer wounds afresh. Farewell, lads, or may be it’s wishin’ ye fair-wind would be more nat’ral.”

So saying he slammed the door, and we heard him switching his boots as he passed along the street under the windows, whistling the air of “The girls we left behind us,” followed, before he was quite out of earshot, by “Oh my love is like the red red rose, that’s newly sprung in June.”

Immediately after Dan’s departure I left Haco and Susan together, and they held the following conversation when left alone. I am enabled to report it faithfully, reader, because Susan told it word for word to her mistress, who has a very reprehensible habit of listening to the gossip of her maid. Of course Mrs B told it to me, because she tells everything to me, sometimes a good deal more than I care to hear. This I think a very reprehensible habit also. I am bound to listen, because when my strong-minded wife begins to talk I might as well try to stop a runaway locomotive as attempt to silence her. And so it comes about that I am now making the thing public!

“Susan,” said Haco, earnestly looking at his daughter’s downcast face, on which the tell tale blood was mantling. “Are you fond o’ that—that feller?”

“Ye–yes, father,” replied Susan, with some hesitation.

“Humph! an’ is he fond o’you?”

“Oh, isn’t he, just,” said Susan, with a little confused laugh.

“Susan,” continued Haco, with increasing earnestness, “Are ye sure he’s worthy of you?”

“Yes, father, I’mquitesure of that.”

“Well then, Susan, you’re a sensible girl, and you ought to know best; but I don’t feel easy about ye, ’cause you’re just as like as two peas to your dear mother, what went to the bottom in the last coal-coffin I commanded, an’ you would ha’ gone too, darlin’, if I hadn’t bin spared to swim ashore with ye on my back. It was all I could do. Ah, Susan! it was a black night for you an’ me that. Well, as I was a sayin’, you’re as like yer mother as two peas, and she was as trustful as you are, an’ little knew wot a bad lot she got when she set her heart on me.”

“Father, that’s not true.”

“Ain’t it, lass? Well, let it pass, but then this feller, this Dan Hursey—”

“Horsey, father,” said Susan.

“Well, well, it ain’t much better; this Horsey is an Irishman, an’ I don’t like Irishmen.”

“Father, you’d get to like ’em if you only knew ’em better,” said Susan earnestly. “What bell’s that?” she added, as a loud ringing echoed through the house.

“The dinner bell, lass. Come an’ see wot a comf’rable feed they git. I can tell ’ee that them Sailors’ Homes is the greatest blessin’ that was ever got up for us sea-dogs. We ain’t ’xactly such soft good natur’d ignorant big babies as some o’ your well-meanin’ pheelanthropists would make us out; but weareuncommon hard put to it when we git ashore, for every port is alive with crimps an’ land-sharks to swaller us up when we come off a long voyage; an’ the wust of it is, that we’re in a wild reckless humour for the most part when we git ashore with our pockets full o’ yellow boys, an’ are too often quite willin’ tobeswallered up, so that lots of us are constantly a-goin’ to sticks an’ stivers. An’ then before the Homes was set a-goin’, the fellers as wanted to get quiet lodgin’s didn’t find it easy to know where to look for ’em, an’ was often took in; an’ when they wanted to send cash to their wives or mothers, they didn’t well know how to manage it; but now, wherever there’s a Home you can git cheap board, good victuals, help in the way o’ managin’ yer cash, an’ no end of advice gratis. It’s only a pity there ain’t one or two of ’em in every port in the kingdom.

“See here,” continued Haco, warming with his subject as he led Susan past the dormitories where the Russians, who had been maimed during the recent wrecks, were being supplied with dinner in their berths, “see here,—another o’ the best o’ the institootions o’ this land looks arter them poor fellers, an’ pays their shot for ’em as long as they’re here, an’ sends them to their homes free of expense—that’s the Shipwrecked Fishermen’s and Mariners’ Society. You’ve heerd o’ that Society, Susan, haven’t ’ee?”

“No father, never.”

“What, never heerd o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society with its hundreds o’ honorary agents all round the coast, who have done more to dry the tears o’ orphans an’ comfort widders’ hearts than tongue can tell?—Never heerd o’ it, an’ you a sailor’s daughter?”

“I daresay I’m very stupid for being so ignorant, father; but I never heard of it. You know I’ve spent most o’ my life inland with old Auntie Bess, an’ only come here this year.

“Mayhap,” continued Haco, shaking his head gravely, “you’ve never heer’d, neither, o’ the Lifeboat Institootion.”

“Never,” said Susan meekly. “I’ve seen the lifeboat we have here, you know, but I never heard of the Institootion.”

“Well, well, Susan, I needn’t be surprised, for, to say truth, there’s many in this country, who think no small beer o’ theirselves, that know precious little about either the one or the other, although they’re the most valooable Institootions in the country. I’ll tell ’ee about ’em, lass, some other time—how they saves hundreds o’ lives, an’ relieves no end o’ distress annooally. It’s enough just now to say that the two Institootions is what I calls brother an’ sister—the Lifeboat one bein’ the brother; the Shipwrecked Mariners’ one bein’ the sister. The brother, besides savin’ thousands o’ pounds worth o’ goods, saves hundreds o’ lives every year. But when the brother has saved the shipwrecked sailor, his work is done. He hands him over to the sister, who clothes him, feeds him, warms him—as you see bein’ done to them there Roosians—and then sends him home. Every sailor in the country should be a member o’ the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society, say I. I’ve been one myself for many years, an’ it only costs me three shillings a year. I’ll tell ’ee some other time what good it does me; but just now you an’ I shall go an’ have some grub.”

“Where shall we go to get it, father?”

“To the refreshment room below, lass. It won’t do to take ye to the dinin’ hall o’ the Home for three reasons,—first, ’cause ye’re a ’ooman, an’ they ain’t admitted; second, ’cause it wouldn’t be pleasant for ye to dine wi’ forty or fifty Jack-tars; and, thirdly, if ye wanted it ever so much yer old father wouldn’t let ye—so come along, lass, to dinner.”

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