Chapter Fourteen.It was quite a minute before Tom Bodger opened his eyes again, to lie staring blankly up at the dazzling blue sky. He looked, for a mahogany and red sun-tanned individual, particularly unwholesome and strange with his fixity of expression, and in his anxiety Aleck forbore to speak to him, but watched for the complete return of his senses, wondering the while that so sturdy a fellow could be affected in a way which he had always understood was peculiar to women.After staring straight upward for some little time the man began to blink, as if the intense light troubled him. Then his eyes began to roll slowly round, taking a wider and wider circle, till at last they included Aleck in their field of view and remained fixed, staring at him wonderingly.Aleck’s lips parted to ask the natural question, “How are you now?” But before he could utter a word Tom frowned and said, severely:“What are you up to, my lad?”“It’s what are you up to, Tom? Here, how are you now?”“Quite well, thankye, Master Aleck. How are you? But, here,” he cried, changing his manner, “what does it all mean? Why, what—when—wh–wh–what—ah, I know now, Master Aleck! I say, don’t tell me the boat’s gone down!”As he spoke he rose quickly into a sitting position and stared down through the opening where the steps began, uttered a sigh of content, and then said:“I was afraid you hadn’t made them knots fast.”“Oh, they’re all right. But has your faintness gone off?”“Yes, sir, that’s gone.”“To think of a big sturdy fellow fainting dead away!”“Ah, ’tis rum, sir, arn’t it? All comes o’ having no legs and feet. I never knew what it was till I lost ’em, as I telled yer.”“Well, you’re better now. But, I say, Tom, how did you manage to get the boat full of water like this?”“Oh, come, Master Aleck,” cried Tom, indignantly. “I like that! How come you to chuck that great lump o’ paper down and make that great hole in her bottom?”“I do what?” cried Aleck. “Here, wait a bit and rest. You haven’t quite come to yet.”“Me, sir? I’m right as a trivet,” cried Tom; and to prove it he turned quickly over on his face propped himself up on his hands, with his elbows well bent, and then gave a sharp downward thrust which threw him up so that he stood well balanced once more upon his stout wooden legs.“That’s right,” said Aleck, after a glance at the half-submerged boat. “Now, then, how did you manage it?”“Me manage it, sir? Oh, that’s how I allus gets up when I’m down.”“No, no, no,” cried Aleck, impatiently. “I mean about the boat. Did some other boat foul her?”“No–o–o!” cried Tom. “You chucked that great lump of paper down and it went through the bottom.”“Paper? What, the paper I went to fetch?”“Ay, sir.”The lad went and picked up a small parcel he had dropped on the pier and held it up in the man’s sight as he gazed wonderingly at him again, and then said, very severely:“Look here, Tom, you are mad, or have you been—you know?”Aleck turned his hand into a drinking vessel and imitated the act of drinking.“No–o–o–o!” cried Tom, indignantly. “Haven’t had a drop of anything but water for a week.”“Then how did you get my boat half full of water?”“I didn’t, sir. You came and chucked that heavy lump of paper down, and it broke the middle thwart, being a weak ’un, because of the hole through for the boat’s mast, and went on down through the bottom.”“What! I did nothing of the sort, sir.”“Oh, Master Aleck! Why, I seed yer shadow come right over me with yer hands up holding the lump o’ paper, and afore I could straighten myself up down it come, and went right through the bottom.”“You don’t mean to tell me that there’s a hole right through the bottom of my beautiful Seagull?” cried Aleck, wildly.“Why, how could she have got full o’ water if you hadn’t chucked that down? I would ha’ come up and fetched it, sir. That comes o’ your being so rannish.”“How dare you!” cried Aleck, passionately. “I tell you I did nothing of the sort.”“What’s the good o’ telling an out-an’-outer about it, Master Aleck, sir, when I see yer quite plain; leastwise, I see yer shadow when yer come to the edge.”“You saw nothing of the sort,” cried Aleck, fiercely. “You scoundrel! You’ve been sailing her about while I’ve been up the town, and run her on a rock. I did trust you, Tom, and now you try to hoodwink me with a miserable story that wouldn’t deceive a child. Tell me the truth at once, sir, or never again do you sail with me.”“I won’t,” growled Tom, sturdily.“What! You won’t tell me the truth?”“I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you the truth, Master Aleck. I mean I won’t say as I took her out and run her on a rock.”“But you did, sir.”“Tell yer I didn’t, Master Aleck; she’ve been tied up ever since you went away, and I’ve given her a thorough clean up.”“And started a plank or two by jumping down upon her with your wooden legs.”“Nay, I wouldn’t be such a fool, sir. Of course if I did I should go through.”“I’d have forgiven you the accident,” said Aleck, sternly, “but I can’t forgive the lie.”Tom stared up at his young employer, and took off his hat to give his head a thorough good scratch, before saying, quietly:“Say, Master Aleck, you says to me just now with a sign like as I’d been having a drop o’ rum. Well, I arn’t; but, you’ll scuse me, sir, have you happened to call and see anyone as has given you some cake and wine as was rather too strong for a hot sunny day like this?”“No!” roared Aleck, in a thorough passion now. “Such insolence! Say again that I threw a weight of paper and broke a hole through her.”“Well, sir, I see your shadder.”“You did not, for I’ve not been back till just now.”“Then it was somebody else’s, sir.”“Somebody else’s, sir!” cried Aleck, scornfully. “Own at once that you had an accident with her.”“Me say that?” cried Tom, waxing angry in turn. “I won’t. I’d do a deal for you, Master Aleck, and if I’d stove in the boat I’d up and say so; but I arn’t a-going to tell an out-an’-out wunner like that to screen you when you’ve had an accident. Why, if I did you’d never trust me again.”“I never will trust you again, sir. But, there, what’s to be done? How am I to get back to the Den? Would a plug of oakum keep the water out?”“Would a plug o’ my grandmother keep the water out?” growled Tom, scornfully. “Why, she couldn’t keep it out if we set her in it. I jest got one peep, and then the water hid it, but there’s a hole pretty nigh big enough for you to go through.”“My poor boat!” cried Aleck, in agony. “But, there, it’s of no use to cry after spilt milk. What’s to be done?”“Well, I’ve thought it out, sir, and seems to me that what’s best to be done is to make her fast between two big boats, run her up on to the beach, get two or three of the fisher lads to turn her over, and then see what I can do with a bit o’ thin plank. Patch her up and pitch up the bit where I claps the plaster on, and I dessay she’ll be watertight enough for you to run home in. I can mend her up proper when we get her back in the creek.”“How long would it take to put on the patch?”“I can’t say till I sees the hole, sir, but I might get it done by to-night.”“By to-night? How am I to get back in the dark?”“Oh, I dessay we could steer clear o’ the rocks, sir.”“We? No, thank you, sir. I don’t want a man with me whom I can’t trust.”Tom took his hat off and had a good rub before looking wistfully up in his young employer’s face.“Say, Master Aleck, arn’t you a bit hard on a man?” he said.“No, not half so hard as you deserve. You told me an abominable lie.”“Nay, sir. I see your shadow just as you were going to throw down that there lump o’ paper.”“You—did—not, sir!” cried Aleck, fiercely.“Well, then, it must ha’ been somebody else’s, sir; that’s all I can say.”“Whose, pray?” cried Aleck. “Who would dare to do such a thing as that? Stop!” he cried, as a sudden idea flashed through his brain. “I saw two lads in a boat sculling away from the pier as hard as they could go.”“You see that, Master Aleck?”“Yes, when I came down from High Street.”“Where was they going, sir?” cried the man, staring hard.“Towards the curing sheds.”“Could you see who they was, sir?”“No; they seemed to be two big lads, just about the same as the rest.”“Where was they going from?” asked Tom, excitedly.“From the pier; there was nowhere else they could be coming from. They wouldn’t have been fishing at this time of day.”“Look here, Master Aleck, you mean it, don’t you? It wasn’t you as pitched something down?”“Look here, Tom, do you want to put me in a passion?”“No, sir, course I don’t.”“Then don’t ask such idiotic questions. Of course I didn’t.”“Then it was one of they chaps, Master Aleck.”“Well, it does look like it now, Tom. But, nonsense! It must have been very heavy to go through the boat.”“It weer, sir.”“But why should anyone do that? You don’t think that a boy would have been guilty of such a bit of mischief as that?”“What, Master Aleck?” cried the sailor, bursting into a loud guffaw. “Why, there arn’t anything they Rockabie boys wouldn’t do. Why, they’re himps, sir—reg’lar himps; and mischief arn’t half bad enough a word for what they’d do.”“Oh, but this is too bad. Why, the—the—”“Stone, I should say it were, sir. Bet a halfpenny as it was a ballast cobble as was hev down.”“But it might have come down on you and killed you.”“Shouldn’t wonder, sir.”“But you have no one with such a spite against you as to make him do that?”“Haven’t I, Master Aleck? Why, bless your innocence, there’s dozens as would! I’d bet another halfpenny as that young beauty as I brought down with my stick this mornin’ felt quite sore enough to come and drop a stone on my head. ’Sides, they’ve got a spite agen you, too, my lad, and like as not Big Jem would try to sarve you out by making a hole through your boat for leathering him as you did a fortnit ago.”“Tom!”“Ah, you may shout ‘Tom!’ till you’re as hoarse as a bull, Master Aleck, but that seems to be about the bearings of it; and now I think more on it, that’s about the course I means to steer. Two on ’em, you says as you saw?”“Yes, two biggish lads.”“Sculling hard?”“Yes, the one who stood up in the boat was working the oar as hard as he could.”“Which means as he was in a hurry, sir.”“It did seem like it, Tom.”“On a hot day like this here, sir. Boys, too, as wouldn’t work a scull if they warn’t obliged. Why, they’d been and done it, and was cutting away as hard as they could.”“It does look likely, Tom.”“That’s it, sir. We’ve got the bearings of it now. It were Big Jem and young Redcap, warn’t it?”“One of the boys had on a red cap, Tom. I remember now.”“Then don’t you wherrit your head no more about it, Master Aleck. It was them two as did it, and I shall put it down to their account.”“But we ought to be sure.”“Sure, sir? Why, we are sure, and they’ll have to take it.”“Takeit? Take what?”“Physic, sir. Never you mind about it any more; you leave it to me. It’s physic as they’ve got to take when the time comes; and all I’ve got to say is as I hopes they’ll like it.”“Well, never mind that now, Tom. What about my boat?”“Oh, I’ll see about her at once. I’ll stop and take care of her while you go up to the houses on the cliff yonder, and you says as you have had an accident with your boat and you wants Joney to come with a couple o’ mates to help. They’ll come fast enough.”“Very well. Let’s have a look first, though.”They stepped to the edge of the pier and looked down into the disabled boat, while the water being still and as clear as crystal, they could see through the broken thwart and the splintered jagged hole through the bottom.Aleck drew a deep breath like a sigh, and Tom nodded his head sagely:“Stone as big a killick, Master Aleck; that’s what did that. Precious big ’un too. Now, then, you be off and get they chaps here while I chews it over a bit about how I’m to manage; but I tell yer this—it’s going to be dark afore I gets that done. What d’yer say about walking over to the Den to tell the captain what’s happened?”“I say no, Tom. I’m going to stay here and help you. You won’t mind sailing over with me in the dark?”“Not me, sir, and you needn’t wherrit about what to do wi’ me. I shall spread a sail over the boat when we’ve got her moored back in the creek, and creep under and sleep like a top. You’ll give me a mug o’ milk and a bit o’ bacon in the morning afore I start back?”“Of course, of course, Tom. There, I’ll run off at once.”“Hold hard a moment, Master Aleck. Mebbe you’ll see them two beauties.”“I shouldn’t wonder, Tom.”“Looking as innercent as a pair o’ babbies, sir,” said Tom, with a knowing wink. “Then what you’ve got to do, sir, is look innercent too. You arn’t going to suspeck them for a minute, cause they wouldn’t do such a thing. We’re a-going to wait till the right time comes.”“And we’re quite sure, Tom?”“That’s it, Master Aleck; and then—physic.”Aleck laughed, in spite of the trouble he was in, for Tom’s face was a study of mysterious humour and conspiracy of the most solemn nature. The next minute the lad was going an easy dog-trot along the pier towards the town.
It was quite a minute before Tom Bodger opened his eyes again, to lie staring blankly up at the dazzling blue sky. He looked, for a mahogany and red sun-tanned individual, particularly unwholesome and strange with his fixity of expression, and in his anxiety Aleck forbore to speak to him, but watched for the complete return of his senses, wondering the while that so sturdy a fellow could be affected in a way which he had always understood was peculiar to women.
After staring straight upward for some little time the man began to blink, as if the intense light troubled him. Then his eyes began to roll slowly round, taking a wider and wider circle, till at last they included Aleck in their field of view and remained fixed, staring at him wonderingly.
Aleck’s lips parted to ask the natural question, “How are you now?” But before he could utter a word Tom frowned and said, severely:
“What are you up to, my lad?”
“It’s what are you up to, Tom? Here, how are you now?”
“Quite well, thankye, Master Aleck. How are you? But, here,” he cried, changing his manner, “what does it all mean? Why, what—when—wh–wh–what—ah, I know now, Master Aleck! I say, don’t tell me the boat’s gone down!”
As he spoke he rose quickly into a sitting position and stared down through the opening where the steps began, uttered a sigh of content, and then said:
“I was afraid you hadn’t made them knots fast.”
“Oh, they’re all right. But has your faintness gone off?”
“Yes, sir, that’s gone.”
“To think of a big sturdy fellow fainting dead away!”
“Ah, ’tis rum, sir, arn’t it? All comes o’ having no legs and feet. I never knew what it was till I lost ’em, as I telled yer.”
“Well, you’re better now. But, I say, Tom, how did you manage to get the boat full of water like this?”
“Oh, come, Master Aleck,” cried Tom, indignantly. “I like that! How come you to chuck that great lump o’ paper down and make that great hole in her bottom?”
“I do what?” cried Aleck. “Here, wait a bit and rest. You haven’t quite come to yet.”
“Me, sir? I’m right as a trivet,” cried Tom; and to prove it he turned quickly over on his face propped himself up on his hands, with his elbows well bent, and then gave a sharp downward thrust which threw him up so that he stood well balanced once more upon his stout wooden legs.
“That’s right,” said Aleck, after a glance at the half-submerged boat. “Now, then, how did you manage it?”
“Me manage it, sir? Oh, that’s how I allus gets up when I’m down.”
“No, no, no,” cried Aleck, impatiently. “I mean about the boat. Did some other boat foul her?”
“No–o–o!” cried Tom. “You chucked that great lump of paper down and it went through the bottom.”
“Paper? What, the paper I went to fetch?”
“Ay, sir.”
The lad went and picked up a small parcel he had dropped on the pier and held it up in the man’s sight as he gazed wonderingly at him again, and then said, very severely:
“Look here, Tom, you are mad, or have you been—you know?”
Aleck turned his hand into a drinking vessel and imitated the act of drinking.
“No–o–o–o!” cried Tom, indignantly. “Haven’t had a drop of anything but water for a week.”
“Then how did you get my boat half full of water?”
“I didn’t, sir. You came and chucked that heavy lump of paper down, and it broke the middle thwart, being a weak ’un, because of the hole through for the boat’s mast, and went on down through the bottom.”
“What! I did nothing of the sort, sir.”
“Oh, Master Aleck! Why, I seed yer shadow come right over me with yer hands up holding the lump o’ paper, and afore I could straighten myself up down it come, and went right through the bottom.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that there’s a hole right through the bottom of my beautiful Seagull?” cried Aleck, wildly.
“Why, how could she have got full o’ water if you hadn’t chucked that down? I would ha’ come up and fetched it, sir. That comes o’ your being so rannish.”
“How dare you!” cried Aleck, passionately. “I tell you I did nothing of the sort.”
“What’s the good o’ telling an out-an’-outer about it, Master Aleck, sir, when I see yer quite plain; leastwise, I see yer shadow when yer come to the edge.”
“You saw nothing of the sort,” cried Aleck, fiercely. “You scoundrel! You’ve been sailing her about while I’ve been up the town, and run her on a rock. I did trust you, Tom, and now you try to hoodwink me with a miserable story that wouldn’t deceive a child. Tell me the truth at once, sir, or never again do you sail with me.”
“I won’t,” growled Tom, sturdily.
“What! You won’t tell me the truth?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you the truth, Master Aleck. I mean I won’t say as I took her out and run her on a rock.”
“But you did, sir.”
“Tell yer I didn’t, Master Aleck; she’ve been tied up ever since you went away, and I’ve given her a thorough clean up.”
“And started a plank or two by jumping down upon her with your wooden legs.”
“Nay, I wouldn’t be such a fool, sir. Of course if I did I should go through.”
“I’d have forgiven you the accident,” said Aleck, sternly, “but I can’t forgive the lie.”
Tom stared up at his young employer, and took off his hat to give his head a thorough good scratch, before saying, quietly:
“Say, Master Aleck, you says to me just now with a sign like as I’d been having a drop o’ rum. Well, I arn’t; but, you’ll scuse me, sir, have you happened to call and see anyone as has given you some cake and wine as was rather too strong for a hot sunny day like this?”
“No!” roared Aleck, in a thorough passion now. “Such insolence! Say again that I threw a weight of paper and broke a hole through her.”
“Well, sir, I see your shadder.”
“You did not, for I’ve not been back till just now.”
“Then it was somebody else’s, sir.”
“Somebody else’s, sir!” cried Aleck, scornfully. “Own at once that you had an accident with her.”
“Me say that?” cried Tom, waxing angry in turn. “I won’t. I’d do a deal for you, Master Aleck, and if I’d stove in the boat I’d up and say so; but I arn’t a-going to tell an out-an’-out wunner like that to screen you when you’ve had an accident. Why, if I did you’d never trust me again.”
“I never will trust you again, sir. But, there, what’s to be done? How am I to get back to the Den? Would a plug of oakum keep the water out?”
“Would a plug o’ my grandmother keep the water out?” growled Tom, scornfully. “Why, she couldn’t keep it out if we set her in it. I jest got one peep, and then the water hid it, but there’s a hole pretty nigh big enough for you to go through.”
“My poor boat!” cried Aleck, in agony. “But, there, it’s of no use to cry after spilt milk. What’s to be done?”
“Well, I’ve thought it out, sir, and seems to me that what’s best to be done is to make her fast between two big boats, run her up on to the beach, get two or three of the fisher lads to turn her over, and then see what I can do with a bit o’ thin plank. Patch her up and pitch up the bit where I claps the plaster on, and I dessay she’ll be watertight enough for you to run home in. I can mend her up proper when we get her back in the creek.”
“How long would it take to put on the patch?”
“I can’t say till I sees the hole, sir, but I might get it done by to-night.”
“By to-night? How am I to get back in the dark?”
“Oh, I dessay we could steer clear o’ the rocks, sir.”
“We? No, thank you, sir. I don’t want a man with me whom I can’t trust.”
Tom took his hat off and had a good rub before looking wistfully up in his young employer’s face.
“Say, Master Aleck, arn’t you a bit hard on a man?” he said.
“No, not half so hard as you deserve. You told me an abominable lie.”
“Nay, sir. I see your shadow just as you were going to throw down that there lump o’ paper.”
“You—did—not, sir!” cried Aleck, fiercely.
“Well, then, it must ha’ been somebody else’s, sir; that’s all I can say.”
“Whose, pray?” cried Aleck. “Who would dare to do such a thing as that? Stop!” he cried, as a sudden idea flashed through his brain. “I saw two lads in a boat sculling away from the pier as hard as they could go.”
“You see that, Master Aleck?”
“Yes, when I came down from High Street.”
“Where was they going, sir?” cried the man, staring hard.
“Towards the curing sheds.”
“Could you see who they was, sir?”
“No; they seemed to be two big lads, just about the same as the rest.”
“Where was they going from?” asked Tom, excitedly.
“From the pier; there was nowhere else they could be coming from. They wouldn’t have been fishing at this time of day.”
“Look here, Master Aleck, you mean it, don’t you? It wasn’t you as pitched something down?”
“Look here, Tom, do you want to put me in a passion?”
“No, sir, course I don’t.”
“Then don’t ask such idiotic questions. Of course I didn’t.”
“Then it was one of they chaps, Master Aleck.”
“Well, it does look like it now, Tom. But, nonsense! It must have been very heavy to go through the boat.”
“It weer, sir.”
“But why should anyone do that? You don’t think that a boy would have been guilty of such a bit of mischief as that?”
“What, Master Aleck?” cried the sailor, bursting into a loud guffaw. “Why, there arn’t anything they Rockabie boys wouldn’t do. Why, they’re himps, sir—reg’lar himps; and mischief arn’t half bad enough a word for what they’d do.”
“Oh, but this is too bad. Why, the—the—”
“Stone, I should say it were, sir. Bet a halfpenny as it was a ballast cobble as was hev down.”
“But it might have come down on you and killed you.”
“Shouldn’t wonder, sir.”
“But you have no one with such a spite against you as to make him do that?”
“Haven’t I, Master Aleck? Why, bless your innocence, there’s dozens as would! I’d bet another halfpenny as that young beauty as I brought down with my stick this mornin’ felt quite sore enough to come and drop a stone on my head. ’Sides, they’ve got a spite agen you, too, my lad, and like as not Big Jem would try to sarve you out by making a hole through your boat for leathering him as you did a fortnit ago.”
“Tom!”
“Ah, you may shout ‘Tom!’ till you’re as hoarse as a bull, Master Aleck, but that seems to be about the bearings of it; and now I think more on it, that’s about the course I means to steer. Two on ’em, you says as you saw?”
“Yes, two biggish lads.”
“Sculling hard?”
“Yes, the one who stood up in the boat was working the oar as hard as he could.”
“Which means as he was in a hurry, sir.”
“It did seem like it, Tom.”
“On a hot day like this here, sir. Boys, too, as wouldn’t work a scull if they warn’t obliged. Why, they’d been and done it, and was cutting away as hard as they could.”
“It does look likely, Tom.”
“That’s it, sir. We’ve got the bearings of it now. It were Big Jem and young Redcap, warn’t it?”
“One of the boys had on a red cap, Tom. I remember now.”
“Then don’t you wherrit your head no more about it, Master Aleck. It was them two as did it, and I shall put it down to their account.”
“But we ought to be sure.”
“Sure, sir? Why, we are sure, and they’ll have to take it.”
“Takeit? Take what?”
“Physic, sir. Never you mind about it any more; you leave it to me. It’s physic as they’ve got to take when the time comes; and all I’ve got to say is as I hopes they’ll like it.”
“Well, never mind that now, Tom. What about my boat?”
“Oh, I’ll see about her at once. I’ll stop and take care of her while you go up to the houses on the cliff yonder, and you says as you have had an accident with your boat and you wants Joney to come with a couple o’ mates to help. They’ll come fast enough.”
“Very well. Let’s have a look first, though.”
They stepped to the edge of the pier and looked down into the disabled boat, while the water being still and as clear as crystal, they could see through the broken thwart and the splintered jagged hole through the bottom.
Aleck drew a deep breath like a sigh, and Tom nodded his head sagely:
“Stone as big a killick, Master Aleck; that’s what did that. Precious big ’un too. Now, then, you be off and get they chaps here while I chews it over a bit about how I’m to manage; but I tell yer this—it’s going to be dark afore I gets that done. What d’yer say about walking over to the Den to tell the captain what’s happened?”
“I say no, Tom. I’m going to stay here and help you. You won’t mind sailing over with me in the dark?”
“Not me, sir, and you needn’t wherrit about what to do wi’ me. I shall spread a sail over the boat when we’ve got her moored back in the creek, and creep under and sleep like a top. You’ll give me a mug o’ milk and a bit o’ bacon in the morning afore I start back?”
“Of course, of course, Tom. There, I’ll run off at once.”
“Hold hard a moment, Master Aleck. Mebbe you’ll see them two beauties.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, Tom.”
“Looking as innercent as a pair o’ babbies, sir,” said Tom, with a knowing wink. “Then what you’ve got to do, sir, is look innercent too. You arn’t going to suspeck them for a minute, cause they wouldn’t do such a thing. We’re a-going to wait till the right time comes.”
“And we’re quite sure, Tom?”
“That’s it, Master Aleck; and then—physic.”
Aleck laughed, in spite of the trouble he was in, for Tom’s face was a study of mysterious humour and conspiracy of the most solemn nature. The next minute the lad was going an easy dog-trot along the pier towards the town.
Chapter Fifteen.“Hole in her bottom?” said the friendly fisherman who had presented the brill, in answer to Aleck’s application, “and want her brought ashore? Sewerly, my lad, sewerly.”His application to the big fisherman who had taken his part over the fight met with a precisely similar reply, when the lad found the men collected with a number of their fellows outside one of the public-houses, where something mysterious in the way of a discussion was going on, and Aleck noted that their conversation ceased as soon as he appeared, several of the men nudging each other and indulging in sundry nods and winks.But the lad was too full of his boat trouble to dwell upon the business that seemed to have attracted the men together, and he led the way down to the harbour with his two fishermen acquaintances, finding that all the rest of the party followed them.Had he wanted fifty helpers instead of three he could have had willing aid at once. As it was, his friends selected four more to help put off their boats, and the rest trudged slowly down the pier to form an audience and look on, while under Tom Bodger’s direction the damaged boat was lashed by its thwarts to the fresh corners, and then set free and thrust off the step.The rest was easy. In a very short time she was rowed ashore, cast loose again, and half a dozen men waded in knee-deep to run her up a few feet at a time, the water escaping through the broken-out hole, till at last she was high and—not dry, but free from water.Then the mast was unstepped and with the other fittings laid aside, while Tom Bodger had procured a basket of tools and the wood necessary for the repairs, and the little crowd of fishermen formed themselves into a smoking party, sitting upon upturned boats, fish boxes and buckets, to discuss the damage and compare it with that sustained by other boats as far back as they could remember. For Tom required no further help then, save such as was given by Aleck, preferring to work his own way, the idea being to make a temporary patchwork sufficient for safety in getting the boat home.To this end he measured and cut off, almost as skilfully as a ship’s carpenter—consequent upon old experience at home with boats and at sea with the mechanic of a man-o’-war—a piece of board to form a fresh thwart, which was soon nailed tightly on the remains of the old.Then the hole in the bottom was covered with this boarding, laid crosswise, the necessary fitting taking a great deal of time, so that the afternoon was spent before help was needed, and plenty of willing hands assisted in turning the boat right over, keel uppermost, ready for the laying on of plenty of well-tarred oakum to cover the fresh inside lining, Tom having a kettle of pitch over a wood fire, and paying his work and the caulking liberally as he went on, whistling and chatting away to Aleck the while, only pausing now and then to have a big sniff and to inhale much of the smoke cloud his friends were making.“I should like to stop and have a pipe mysen, Master Aleck,” said Tom, once.“Well, have one; only don’t be long, Tom.”“Nay, sir; I’ll have it as we sails over, bime by. I won’t stop now. It’s a long job, and it’ll be quite dark afore I’ve done.”He fetched the pitch kettle from the little fire a fisherman had been feeding with chips of wreck-wood and adze cuttings from a lugger on the stacks.“Now then,” he said, after carefully stuffing the damaged hole with oakum, “this ought to keep the inside dry, on’y the worst on it is that the pitch won’t stick well to where the wood’s wet.”“But you’re not going to pour all that in?”“I just am,” said Tom, with a chuckle. “I arn’t going to spyle a ship for the sake of a ha’porth o’ tar. There we are,” he continued, spreading the melted pitch all over the patch with a thin piece of wood till, as it cooled, it formed a fairly level surface ready for the pieces of planking intended to form the outside skin.Tom was a very slow worker, but very sure, and a couple more hours glided by and the sun had long set with the boat still not finished. So slow had the repairing been that at last Aleck expressed his dissatisfaction; but Tom only grinned.“I know what water is, sir, and how it’ll get through holes. I don’t want for us to go to the bottom, no more’n I want us both to be allus baling. Didn’t I say as it would take me till dark?”“You did, Tom, but you needn’t drive in quite so many nails. This is only temporary work.”“Tempry or not tempry, I want it to last till we gets home.”“Of course,” said Aleck, and to calm his impatience he turned to look at the group of fishermen, who sat and stood about, smoking away, and for the first time the lad noticed that the men had ceased to watch Tom Bodger but had their eyes fixed intently upon the sloop-of-war and the cutter, which lay at anchor a couple of miles from the harbour, and were now showing their riding lights.“’Bout done, arn’t yer, Tommy?” said the man who was mending the fire.“Nay, keep the pitch hot, messmet,” said Tom. “I’ll just pay her over inside as soon as we’ve got her turned right again.”“Then that’s going to be now, arn’t it, matey?” said the big fisherman.“Yes,” said Tom, to Aleck’s great satisfaction. “Lend a hand, some on yer.”The words seemed to galvanise the group into action, twice as many men offering to help as were needed, and in another few minutes, to the owner’s delight, the boat was turned over, with the iron-plated keel settling down in the fine shingle and the rough inner workmanship showing in the dim twilight.“Now,” cried Tom, “just that drop o’ pitch. Power it in, messmet. That’s your sort. It’ll soon cool. Now, then, I’ll just stick a bit or two of board acrorst there, Master Aleck, to protect that pitch; and then we’ll say done.”“And time it was done, Tom,” said Aleck, impatiently. “Look, you’ve tired everybody out!”Tom looked round, and laughed softly.“Yes,” he said, as he noted how to a man the fisher folk had begun to saunter away. “I see. They’ve been all on the fidget to go for the last half-hour.”“And no wonder; but they might have waited a bit longer, to launch her.”“She arn’t ready to launch yet, my lad, and she’ll be all the better for waiting till that pitch is well cooled. Besides, in less than an hour the tide’ll be up all round her, and we can shove her off oursens.”“Oh, yes, of course; and as we have to go in the dark I suppose it doesn’t matter to an hour.”“That’s what I’ve been a-thinking of, Master Aleck. But, I say, do you know why they wanted to be off?”“Hungry, I suppose.”“Nay! Not them. They’re suspicious.”“What of?”“Why, didn’t you see how they kep’ one eye on the man-o’-war out yonder?”“Yes, of course.”“Well, what does that mean? They’ve made up their minds as boats’ll come in from the sloop arter dark just to see in a friendly way if they can’t pick up a few likely lads to sarve the King.”“From the smugglers who are hanging about?” said Aleck, eagerly, as he recalled what had passed between him and Eben Megg that afternoon.“Smugglers, or fishermen, or anyone else. All’s fish that comes into a press-gang’s net—’cept us, Master Aleck. They wouldn’t take a young gent like you, and I should be no good to ’em now, sir,” continued the poor fellow, with a ring of sadness in his voice, which gave place to a chuckle as he added, “unless they kep’ me aboard the man-o’-war to poke my pins down the scupper holes to keep ’em from being choked. These here two bits o’ thin board I’ll nail in close together, and then we’ll let the water come up all round and harden the pitch. Just you rake them ashes together, Master Aleck, so as not to let the fire go quite out. I shan’t be above half an hour now, and then I shall want a light for my pipe, and by the time I’ve done that you’ll be back again.”“Back again? I’m not going away.”“Oh, yes, you are, Master Aleck; you’re going up to the little shop yonder to get a noo crusty loaf and a quarter of a pound o’ cheese.”“Oh, I can’t eat now, Tom,” said the lad, impatiently.“Can’t yer, sir?” said Tom, with a grin. “Well, I can—like fun—and if you’ll buy what I says I’ll teach you how.”“Oh, of course, Tom. How thoughtless of me! I’ve been so anxious; but, of course, you must be very hungry! I’ll go and get some bread and cheese. And you’d like a mug of beer, wouldn’t you?”“Well, Master Aleck, I wouldn’t say no to a drop if it was here.”“I’ll go at once, Tom, without you want me to hold the boards while you nail them.”“All right, sir. Nay, nay, don’t make a blaze. Just rake the ashes together; any little ember will do to light my pipe. I say, Master Aleck, we haven’t had a single boy nigh us.”“No, not one. How strange!”“Not it, sir. Just shows as they all know about the boat, and whose game it was.”Aleck hurried off and obtained the simple provisions needed, and returned to find the last nails being driven triumphantly into the boat.“There you are, Master Aleck,” cried Tom, “and I warrant she won’t leak a spoonful. There’s the tide just beginning to lap up round the stern, so we’ll get the rudder on again, step the mast, and put all ship-shape ready for a start, and if it’s all the same to you I’ll just light up my pipe at once, and smoke it as we get the tackle back in its place.”“Go on, then,” said Aleck, and, after filling the bowl of his pipe, the sailor went to the glowing embers of the fire, one of which he picked up with his hardened thumb and finger, lit the tobacco, and began smoking away.His first act was to scoop up a little water in the boat’s baler and extinguish the fire.“Too hot as it is, Master Aleck. We can feel the way to our mouths, and I’m allus mortal feared of sparks blowing about among boats and sheds.”The shipping of the rudder, the stepping of the mast, and fastening of the boat’s grapnel to the ring-bolt followed. Then oars, boat-hook, and ropes were laid in, and the pair seated themselves in the darkness, to begin discussing their much-needed meal, listening the while to the whispering and lapping of the water, Aleck thinking anxiously of how uneasy his uncle would be.“How soon shall we be able to start, Tom?” he said.There was a strange sound which made Aleck start.“What?” he cried. “What’s the matter?”“Beg pardon, Master Aleck; couldn’t say it no better. Mouth was full o’ hard crust.”“How long before we start?”“Good hour, sir. There’s a lot o’ shallow yonder.”“Oh!” cried Aleck, impatiently. “Let’s get some of the fishermen to come and launch us.”“I don’t think you’d find anyone as would come, sir. They’re all lying low somewhere for fear o’ the press-gang.”“Nonsense! Here they come, a lot of them, to get us off.”“Why, so they be,” grumbled Tom, in a disappointed way. “Can’t see no faces, but—Master Aleck,” he whispered, sharply, “it’s them!”“Well, I said so,” began Aleck, impatiently; but he got no farther, the words being checked by a feeling of astonishment. For a voice suddenly exclaimed:“Quick, lads; surround!” and a hand was laid sharply upon the lad’s collar, while two men grappled Tom.“Now, then,” he growled, “what is it?”“Hold your noise, or you’ll have a fist in your mouth,” said a sharp voice. “Who are you?”“Name Bodger. AB, King’s Navee. Pensioner for wounds. See?”It was dark, but the shooting out of Tom’s wooden legs at right angles to his body from where he sat was plain enough to all of the group of well-armed sailors who surrounded the boat.“What are you doing here?”“Eating my supper; been mending our boat.”“Then who is this?” said the same sharp voice.“My young master. We got a hole in the boat’s bottom and had to put in for repairs.”“That’s right enough, sir; here’s the oakum and tools. Been a fire. Here’s the little pitch kettle.”“O’ course it’s right, messmets. What’s yer game—press-gang?”“Hush!” whispered the commanding voice. “You’re an old sailor?”“Nay, not old, your honour,” said Tom. “Thirty-two, all but the legs I lost. They warn’t so old by some years.”“A joker, eh? Well, look here, my lad. We’re on duty, and it’s yours as an ex-Navy man to help. Where are the fishermen? There seem to be none hanging about the cliff.”“I d’know, your honour; up at the publics, p’raps, in the town.”“There’s a party of smugglers here to-night?”“Is there, sir? Running a cargo?”“You know they are.”“That I don’t, your honour. I haven’t seen one.”Just at that moment there was the sound of yelling, and a couple of shots were fired. Then more shouts arose, and a shrill whistle was heard.“Answer that, bo’sun,” cried the officer in command of the party, and a shrill chirping sound seemed to cut the night air. “Now, my lads, forward!”“One minute,” cried Aleck. “We want to get afloat. Tell your men to give my boat a shove off.”“Hang your boat!” cried the officer, angrily. “Keep together, my lads. Yes, all right; we’re coming.”The party went off after their leader at a run, for another sharp whistle rang out at a distance.“Well, he might have been civil,” said Aleck.“Haw! haw! haw! Fancy your asking a luff-tenant on duty that, Master Aleck!” said Tom, laughing, and talking with his mouth full, for he had recommenced his unfinished meal.“It wouldn’t have hurt him,” said Aleck. “Here, leave off eating, Tom, and let’s get away from here. I don’t want to be mixed up with this horrid business.”“’Tis horrid, sir, to you, but I got used to it,” said the man, rolling off the side to begin swaying the boat, Aleck leaping out on the other side.“No good, sir. She’s fast for another half-hour. Tide rises very slowly round here.”“Then we shall have to stop here and listen. Hark, that’s glass breaking. People struggling too. I say, Tom, try again; push hard.”“Hard as you tells me, sir; but it’s no good—her deep keel’s right down in this here fine shingle. We must wait till the tide lifts her.”The sailor stopped short to listen, for the noise which came to them on the still night air increased. Hoarse voices ringing out defiance, savage yells and curses, mingled with the shrieks and appeals of angry women, smote upon the listeners’ ears, and Aleck stamped one foot with impatient rage.“Oh, Tom,” he cried, “I can’t bear it. I never heard anything of this kind before.”“And don’t want to hear it again, sir, o’ course. Well, it arn’t nice. I didn’t like it till I got used to it, and then I didn’t seem to mind.”“How brutal!” said Aleck, angrily. “Hark at that!”“I hear, sir. That’s some o’ the fishermen’s wives letting go.”“Yes; and you speak in that cool way. Aren’t you sorry for them?”“Nay, sir; not me. I’m sorry for the poor sailor boys.”“What!” cried Aleck, angrily. “Tom, I didn’t think you could be so brutal.”“You don’t understand, sir. That’s the women shouting and screaming as they give it to the press-gang. It’s the sailors gets hits and scratches and called all sorts o’ names, and they’re ’bliged to take it all. But, my word, there’s getting to be a shindy to-night and no mistake. Let’s try again to get the boat off!”They tried; but she was immovable, save that they could rock her from side to side.“We’ll do it in another ten minutes, Master Aleck, and then we’d better row till we’re outside the harbour. Hark at ’em now! That’s not the women now; that’s the men. I say, I b’lieve there’s a good dozen o’ the smuggling lot about the town, Master Aleck, but I hadn’t seen one. Did you catch sight o’ any on ’em?”“I saw Eben Megg,” said the lad.“And he’s about the worst on ’em, Master Aleck. Well, it strikes me his games are up for a bit. He’s a wunner to fight, and he’ll stick to his mates; but they won’t beat the press-gang off, for when they want men and it comes to a fight it’s the sailors who win. Well, it’d do young Megg good. He’s too much of a bully and rough ’un for me. Fine-looking chap, but thinks too much of hisself. Make a noo man of him to be aboard a man-o’-war for a few years.”“Pst, Tom! Listen! They’re fighting up at the back there.”“And no mistake, my lad.”For fresh shouts, orders, and another whistle rang out, followed by what was evidently a fierce struggle, accompanied by blows, the sounds as they came out of the darkness being singularly weird and strange.“Let’s get away, Tom,” said Aleck, huskily; “it’s horrible to listen to it.”“Yes, sir. Heave away, both together. Now, then, she moves. No, she’s as fast as ever.”“Oh!” groaned Aleck, striking both hands down with a loud smack upon the boat’s gunwale and then stopping short as if paralysed, for there were quick steps, then a rush, evidently up the nearest narrow way among the sheds.Then all was silence, and a sharp voice cried:“Halt there! Surrender, or I fire.”A rush followed the command, and then a pistol shot rang out, Aleck seeing the flash; but the shot did not stop the man who received the command. As far as Aleck in his excitement could make out he rushed at and closed with him who tried to stop him, when a desperate struggle ensued as of two men wrestling upon the cobble stones, their hoarse panting coming strangely to the listeners’ ears.All thought of launching the boat was swept away by the excitement of listening to the struggle, which grew more painful as the voice that had uttered the command rose again in half-stifled tones:“This way, lads; help!”A dull thud followed, as of a heavy blow being delivered, followed by a fall and the rush of footsteps again, but this time over the loose shingle, and the next minute a dimly-seen figure approached, running straight for the water.But instead of the man running into the harbour, he turned sharp to his left on catching sight of the boat and staggered up to it.“Who’s that?” he said, hoarsely. “You, Tom Bodger—Master Aleck? Here, quick, sir; for the love of heaven save a poor fellow! It’s the press-gang. Got five on us. Help, sir! Shove off with me. I’m too dead beat to swim.”“I can’t help you, Eben. I dare not,” cried Aleck. “What could I do?”“Oh! but, Master Aleck—hark! there’s more coming!”“I tell you I can’t. I dare not. They’re the King’s men, and—”“Where are you, your honour?” came out of the darkness, to be answered by a groan and a feeble attempt at a whistle.“This way, lads,” rang out, and there was the rush of feet and a deeper groan.“Eben, you’ve killed the officer,” whispered Aleck, in his horror.“I was on’y fighting for my liberty, master,” whispered the man, hoarsely. “Master Aleck, you don’t like me, I know. I’m a bad ’un, I s’pose; but there’s my young wife and the little weans yonder waiting for me, and when they know—”The great rough fellow could say no more, but choked.“Run for it, then,” said Aleck; “wrong or right, we’ll try and cover you.”“It’s no good, sir,” whispered the man; “there’s no end of ’em surrounding us, and I’m as weak now as a rat.”He caught Aleck’s hand, as the lad thought, to cling to it imploringly, but the next moment he held it to his forehead, and it was snatched away in horror, for the man had evidently been cut down and was bleeding profusely.“He’s wounded badly, Tom,” whispered Aleck, excitedly. “We must help him now.”“Ay, ay, sir,” said Tom, gruffly.“Ah, the boat! The boat!” panted the smuggler.“In with you then,” said Aleck.“Nay, nay,” whispered Tom. “She arn’t afloat, Eben Megg. Here, lay yer weight on to her if yer can’t shove.”“Hi! hallo there!” cried a voice from the direction where the struggle had taken place.In response there was the sound of the boat’s keel grating on the water-covered shingle, and the smuggler pressed close up to Aleck’s side.“Do you hear there?” came from the same quarter. “In the King’s name, stand!”“Lay yer backs into it,” grunted Tom. “Shove, my lads, shove!”“Come on, my lads! We must have them, whoever they are,” came from apparently close at hand.“Ah, look sharp! There’s a boat.”“Now for it,” whispered Tom, and as he grunted hard the boat began to glide from shingle and water into water alone, while as Aleck thrust with all his might, knee-deep now, he felt the boat give way, and then it seemed to him that the smuggler sank down beside him, making a feeble clutch at his clothes and uttering a low groan.Aleck’s left hand acted as it were upon its own responsibility, closing in the darkness upon Eben’s shirt and holding fast, while the lad’s right hand held up the boat’s gunwale.The next moment he felt himself drawn off his feet and being dragged through the water, in which the boat was jerking and dancing as if to shake itself free.It was too dark to see, but this is what was taking place. As the party of three were trying their best to get the little yawl afloat the shingle clung fast to its keel and very little progress was made, although Tom Bodger thrust and jerked at it with all his might, more like a dwarf than ever, for his wooden legs went down in the wet shingle at every movement, right to the socket stumps; but at last, when their efforts began to appear to be in vain, a little soft swell rolled in, just as a rush was being made by the press-gang, the boat lifted astern, and as the water passed under it, literally leaped up forward, shaking itself free of the clinging sand and stones, and, yielding to the three launchers, glided right away.It was none too soon. Aleck was holding on upon one side nearly amidships, while Tom on the other side let the gunwale glide through his hands till they were close to the bow, and then holding on fast with both hands he made one of his jumps or hops, to add impetus to the boat’s way and get his breast over the bow and scramble in.His bound—if it could be so-called—was very successful, for the next moment he was balanced upon his chest across the gunwale, gripping at the edge of the fore-locker, with his legs sticking out behind, and exulting over the sensation of the boat dancing under him, when he felt himself seized by one of the press-gang party, who had dashed in after the boat and made a grab at the first thing that offered in the dark.The sailor was unlucky in his hold, but no wonder, for the darkness gave him no opportunity of making any choice, and as it happened he gripped one of Tom’s pegs with his right and followed it up by clapping his left hand alongside, trying hard to drag his prisoner out or to stop the boat.As aforesaid he was unlucky, for he was to suffer an entirely new experience. Had he grasped an ordinary human leg in the black darkness he would only have had a jerking kick or two, and most probably he would have held on, but here it was something very different.“Got ’em!” he cried, loudly. “Come on!” and then he was smitten with a strange surprise, and also with something else.For Tom Bodger, as he lay balanced upon the lower part of his chest, half in and half out of the boat, had got his fingers well under the side of the locker and was holding on with all the strength of his horny fingers.“Ah, would yer!” he roared, as he felt himself seized, and, unable to kick for want of yielding joints, he began to work his stumps, to his holder’s horror, like a pair of gigantic shears gone mad. The one that was free struck the sailor a sounding rap on the ear and made him release his hold of the prisoned piece of timber for the moment, and when he splashed after the boat, after recovering from his surprise, and made another grab, the second free peg caught him on the arm like a blow from a constable’s truncheon. The sailor uttered a yell for help, but it was cut short by a blow on each side of his neck as Tom’s legs snapped together, and then he fell forward with a splash and was helped out by a couple of his mates, who stood, waist-deep, gazing into the darkness after the boat.“Where are yer, my lads?” panted Tom, as he progressed over the side like a huge toad.“Help! Help!” came from his right, and with the boat rocking from side to side he felt about along the gunwale till his hand came in contact with Aleck’s fingers, clinging desperately to the edge of the boat.“Got yer,” said Tom, gripping the lad’s wrist and hanging over the side to speak. “Can’t yer hold on while I get an oar out and move her a bit furder away?”“No. Help me in,” said Aleck, huskily.“Right, sir. Here, let me get my hands under yer arms, and I’ll heave yer in. I say, wheer’s Eben Megg?”“Out here. I’ve got hold of him.”Tom Bodger whistled softly in his astonishment.“Hold tight on him, my lad,” he growled; and then putting forth his great strength of arm and back, he raised Aleck right over the boat’s side, and as Eben was drawn close in, loosened the former and got tight hold of the latter.“Can yer shift for yourself now, Master Aleck?” he whispered.“Yes; but have you got Eben?”“Ay, ay! Got him fast. Out o’ my way.”The next minute the smuggler lay perfectly inert at the bottom of the boat and Aleck was passing an oar over the stern and beginning to scull.“Get another oar out, Tom,” he whispered, “or they’ll have us yet.”“Ay, ay!” was growled, softly.But it was too loud, for a voice close at hand shouted:“Now, then, you in the boat, it’s of no use. Surrender, in the King’s name!”The splashing made by the oars ceased, and Tom put his lips close to Aleck’s ear.“You arn’t going to surrender, are yer, Master Aleck?”“No; use your oar as a pole, and get us farther away.”“Do you hear there?” cried another voice. “Heave-to, or I’ll fire.”“All gammon, Master Aleck; I know. Don’t believe they’ve got any pistols.”“There was a shot fired,” said Aleck.“Orficer’s, p’raps, sir. Here, I can’t do no good a-poling; it’s getting deeper here.”“Scull then,” said Aleck; “and be careful. They’ve got boats somewhere.”Just then there was a flapping noise, which gave them a turn.“What’s that?” said Aleck, sharply.“Wind got the sail loose,” said Tom. “There’s a nice breeze coming on. Shall I shake out a reef or two of the sail, sir?”“Yes, if you think we can see to steer?”“Dunno about that, sir. We must go gently, and feel.”The next few minutes were devoted to preparations for spreading a portion of the canvas to the light breeze, as they listened to hail after hail from the shore; and then, as they began to glide softly along, one of the hails from the shore bidding them heave-to was answered from round to their right.“Ay, ay, sir!”“Keep a sharp look out for a boat somewhere off here. Three prisoners in her escaping.”“My hye!” muttered Tom Bodger. “That’s nice. Resisting the law too. Strikes me as we’re going to be in a mess.”
“Hole in her bottom?” said the friendly fisherman who had presented the brill, in answer to Aleck’s application, “and want her brought ashore? Sewerly, my lad, sewerly.”
His application to the big fisherman who had taken his part over the fight met with a precisely similar reply, when the lad found the men collected with a number of their fellows outside one of the public-houses, where something mysterious in the way of a discussion was going on, and Aleck noted that their conversation ceased as soon as he appeared, several of the men nudging each other and indulging in sundry nods and winks.
But the lad was too full of his boat trouble to dwell upon the business that seemed to have attracted the men together, and he led the way down to the harbour with his two fishermen acquaintances, finding that all the rest of the party followed them.
Had he wanted fifty helpers instead of three he could have had willing aid at once. As it was, his friends selected four more to help put off their boats, and the rest trudged slowly down the pier to form an audience and look on, while under Tom Bodger’s direction the damaged boat was lashed by its thwarts to the fresh corners, and then set free and thrust off the step.
The rest was easy. In a very short time she was rowed ashore, cast loose again, and half a dozen men waded in knee-deep to run her up a few feet at a time, the water escaping through the broken-out hole, till at last she was high and—not dry, but free from water.
Then the mast was unstepped and with the other fittings laid aside, while Tom Bodger had procured a basket of tools and the wood necessary for the repairs, and the little crowd of fishermen formed themselves into a smoking party, sitting upon upturned boats, fish boxes and buckets, to discuss the damage and compare it with that sustained by other boats as far back as they could remember. For Tom required no further help then, save such as was given by Aleck, preferring to work his own way, the idea being to make a temporary patchwork sufficient for safety in getting the boat home.
To this end he measured and cut off, almost as skilfully as a ship’s carpenter—consequent upon old experience at home with boats and at sea with the mechanic of a man-o’-war—a piece of board to form a fresh thwart, which was soon nailed tightly on the remains of the old.
Then the hole in the bottom was covered with this boarding, laid crosswise, the necessary fitting taking a great deal of time, so that the afternoon was spent before help was needed, and plenty of willing hands assisted in turning the boat right over, keel uppermost, ready for the laying on of plenty of well-tarred oakum to cover the fresh inside lining, Tom having a kettle of pitch over a wood fire, and paying his work and the caulking liberally as he went on, whistling and chatting away to Aleck the while, only pausing now and then to have a big sniff and to inhale much of the smoke cloud his friends were making.
“I should like to stop and have a pipe mysen, Master Aleck,” said Tom, once.
“Well, have one; only don’t be long, Tom.”
“Nay, sir; I’ll have it as we sails over, bime by. I won’t stop now. It’s a long job, and it’ll be quite dark afore I’ve done.”
He fetched the pitch kettle from the little fire a fisherman had been feeding with chips of wreck-wood and adze cuttings from a lugger on the stacks.
“Now then,” he said, after carefully stuffing the damaged hole with oakum, “this ought to keep the inside dry, on’y the worst on it is that the pitch won’t stick well to where the wood’s wet.”
“But you’re not going to pour all that in?”
“I just am,” said Tom, with a chuckle. “I arn’t going to spyle a ship for the sake of a ha’porth o’ tar. There we are,” he continued, spreading the melted pitch all over the patch with a thin piece of wood till, as it cooled, it formed a fairly level surface ready for the pieces of planking intended to form the outside skin.
Tom was a very slow worker, but very sure, and a couple more hours glided by and the sun had long set with the boat still not finished. So slow had the repairing been that at last Aleck expressed his dissatisfaction; but Tom only grinned.
“I know what water is, sir, and how it’ll get through holes. I don’t want for us to go to the bottom, no more’n I want us both to be allus baling. Didn’t I say as it would take me till dark?”
“You did, Tom, but you needn’t drive in quite so many nails. This is only temporary work.”
“Tempry or not tempry, I want it to last till we gets home.”
“Of course,” said Aleck, and to calm his impatience he turned to look at the group of fishermen, who sat and stood about, smoking away, and for the first time the lad noticed that the men had ceased to watch Tom Bodger but had their eyes fixed intently upon the sloop-of-war and the cutter, which lay at anchor a couple of miles from the harbour, and were now showing their riding lights.
“’Bout done, arn’t yer, Tommy?” said the man who was mending the fire.
“Nay, keep the pitch hot, messmet,” said Tom. “I’ll just pay her over inside as soon as we’ve got her turned right again.”
“Then that’s going to be now, arn’t it, matey?” said the big fisherman.
“Yes,” said Tom, to Aleck’s great satisfaction. “Lend a hand, some on yer.”
The words seemed to galvanise the group into action, twice as many men offering to help as were needed, and in another few minutes, to the owner’s delight, the boat was turned over, with the iron-plated keel settling down in the fine shingle and the rough inner workmanship showing in the dim twilight.
“Now,” cried Tom, “just that drop o’ pitch. Power it in, messmet. That’s your sort. It’ll soon cool. Now, then, I’ll just stick a bit or two of board acrorst there, Master Aleck, to protect that pitch; and then we’ll say done.”
“And time it was done, Tom,” said Aleck, impatiently. “Look, you’ve tired everybody out!”
Tom looked round, and laughed softly.
“Yes,” he said, as he noted how to a man the fisher folk had begun to saunter away. “I see. They’ve been all on the fidget to go for the last half-hour.”
“And no wonder; but they might have waited a bit longer, to launch her.”
“She arn’t ready to launch yet, my lad, and she’ll be all the better for waiting till that pitch is well cooled. Besides, in less than an hour the tide’ll be up all round her, and we can shove her off oursens.”
“Oh, yes, of course; and as we have to go in the dark I suppose it doesn’t matter to an hour.”
“That’s what I’ve been a-thinking of, Master Aleck. But, I say, do you know why they wanted to be off?”
“Hungry, I suppose.”
“Nay! Not them. They’re suspicious.”
“What of?”
“Why, didn’t you see how they kep’ one eye on the man-o’-war out yonder?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, what does that mean? They’ve made up their minds as boats’ll come in from the sloop arter dark just to see in a friendly way if they can’t pick up a few likely lads to sarve the King.”
“From the smugglers who are hanging about?” said Aleck, eagerly, as he recalled what had passed between him and Eben Megg that afternoon.
“Smugglers, or fishermen, or anyone else. All’s fish that comes into a press-gang’s net—’cept us, Master Aleck. They wouldn’t take a young gent like you, and I should be no good to ’em now, sir,” continued the poor fellow, with a ring of sadness in his voice, which gave place to a chuckle as he added, “unless they kep’ me aboard the man-o’-war to poke my pins down the scupper holes to keep ’em from being choked. These here two bits o’ thin board I’ll nail in close together, and then we’ll let the water come up all round and harden the pitch. Just you rake them ashes together, Master Aleck, so as not to let the fire go quite out. I shan’t be above half an hour now, and then I shall want a light for my pipe, and by the time I’ve done that you’ll be back again.”
“Back again? I’m not going away.”
“Oh, yes, you are, Master Aleck; you’re going up to the little shop yonder to get a noo crusty loaf and a quarter of a pound o’ cheese.”
“Oh, I can’t eat now, Tom,” said the lad, impatiently.
“Can’t yer, sir?” said Tom, with a grin. “Well, I can—like fun—and if you’ll buy what I says I’ll teach you how.”
“Oh, of course, Tom. How thoughtless of me! I’ve been so anxious; but, of course, you must be very hungry! I’ll go and get some bread and cheese. And you’d like a mug of beer, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, Master Aleck, I wouldn’t say no to a drop if it was here.”
“I’ll go at once, Tom, without you want me to hold the boards while you nail them.”
“All right, sir. Nay, nay, don’t make a blaze. Just rake the ashes together; any little ember will do to light my pipe. I say, Master Aleck, we haven’t had a single boy nigh us.”
“No, not one. How strange!”
“Not it, sir. Just shows as they all know about the boat, and whose game it was.”
Aleck hurried off and obtained the simple provisions needed, and returned to find the last nails being driven triumphantly into the boat.
“There you are, Master Aleck,” cried Tom, “and I warrant she won’t leak a spoonful. There’s the tide just beginning to lap up round the stern, so we’ll get the rudder on again, step the mast, and put all ship-shape ready for a start, and if it’s all the same to you I’ll just light up my pipe at once, and smoke it as we get the tackle back in its place.”
“Go on, then,” said Aleck, and, after filling the bowl of his pipe, the sailor went to the glowing embers of the fire, one of which he picked up with his hardened thumb and finger, lit the tobacco, and began smoking away.
His first act was to scoop up a little water in the boat’s baler and extinguish the fire.
“Too hot as it is, Master Aleck. We can feel the way to our mouths, and I’m allus mortal feared of sparks blowing about among boats and sheds.”
The shipping of the rudder, the stepping of the mast, and fastening of the boat’s grapnel to the ring-bolt followed. Then oars, boat-hook, and ropes were laid in, and the pair seated themselves in the darkness, to begin discussing their much-needed meal, listening the while to the whispering and lapping of the water, Aleck thinking anxiously of how uneasy his uncle would be.
“How soon shall we be able to start, Tom?” he said.
There was a strange sound which made Aleck start.
“What?” he cried. “What’s the matter?”
“Beg pardon, Master Aleck; couldn’t say it no better. Mouth was full o’ hard crust.”
“How long before we start?”
“Good hour, sir. There’s a lot o’ shallow yonder.”
“Oh!” cried Aleck, impatiently. “Let’s get some of the fishermen to come and launch us.”
“I don’t think you’d find anyone as would come, sir. They’re all lying low somewhere for fear o’ the press-gang.”
“Nonsense! Here they come, a lot of them, to get us off.”
“Why, so they be,” grumbled Tom, in a disappointed way. “Can’t see no faces, but—Master Aleck,” he whispered, sharply, “it’s them!”
“Well, I said so,” began Aleck, impatiently; but he got no farther, the words being checked by a feeling of astonishment. For a voice suddenly exclaimed:
“Quick, lads; surround!” and a hand was laid sharply upon the lad’s collar, while two men grappled Tom.
“Now, then,” he growled, “what is it?”
“Hold your noise, or you’ll have a fist in your mouth,” said a sharp voice. “Who are you?”
“Name Bodger. AB, King’s Navee. Pensioner for wounds. See?”
It was dark, but the shooting out of Tom’s wooden legs at right angles to his body from where he sat was plain enough to all of the group of well-armed sailors who surrounded the boat.
“What are you doing here?”
“Eating my supper; been mending our boat.”
“Then who is this?” said the same sharp voice.
“My young master. We got a hole in the boat’s bottom and had to put in for repairs.”
“That’s right enough, sir; here’s the oakum and tools. Been a fire. Here’s the little pitch kettle.”
“O’ course it’s right, messmets. What’s yer game—press-gang?”
“Hush!” whispered the commanding voice. “You’re an old sailor?”
“Nay, not old, your honour,” said Tom. “Thirty-two, all but the legs I lost. They warn’t so old by some years.”
“A joker, eh? Well, look here, my lad. We’re on duty, and it’s yours as an ex-Navy man to help. Where are the fishermen? There seem to be none hanging about the cliff.”
“I d’know, your honour; up at the publics, p’raps, in the town.”
“There’s a party of smugglers here to-night?”
“Is there, sir? Running a cargo?”
“You know they are.”
“That I don’t, your honour. I haven’t seen one.”
Just at that moment there was the sound of yelling, and a couple of shots were fired. Then more shouts arose, and a shrill whistle was heard.
“Answer that, bo’sun,” cried the officer in command of the party, and a shrill chirping sound seemed to cut the night air. “Now, my lads, forward!”
“One minute,” cried Aleck. “We want to get afloat. Tell your men to give my boat a shove off.”
“Hang your boat!” cried the officer, angrily. “Keep together, my lads. Yes, all right; we’re coming.”
The party went off after their leader at a run, for another sharp whistle rang out at a distance.
“Well, he might have been civil,” said Aleck.
“Haw! haw! haw! Fancy your asking a luff-tenant on duty that, Master Aleck!” said Tom, laughing, and talking with his mouth full, for he had recommenced his unfinished meal.
“It wouldn’t have hurt him,” said Aleck. “Here, leave off eating, Tom, and let’s get away from here. I don’t want to be mixed up with this horrid business.”
“’Tis horrid, sir, to you, but I got used to it,” said the man, rolling off the side to begin swaying the boat, Aleck leaping out on the other side.
“No good, sir. She’s fast for another half-hour. Tide rises very slowly round here.”
“Then we shall have to stop here and listen. Hark, that’s glass breaking. People struggling too. I say, Tom, try again; push hard.”
“Hard as you tells me, sir; but it’s no good—her deep keel’s right down in this here fine shingle. We must wait till the tide lifts her.”
The sailor stopped short to listen, for the noise which came to them on the still night air increased. Hoarse voices ringing out defiance, savage yells and curses, mingled with the shrieks and appeals of angry women, smote upon the listeners’ ears, and Aleck stamped one foot with impatient rage.
“Oh, Tom,” he cried, “I can’t bear it. I never heard anything of this kind before.”
“And don’t want to hear it again, sir, o’ course. Well, it arn’t nice. I didn’t like it till I got used to it, and then I didn’t seem to mind.”
“How brutal!” said Aleck, angrily. “Hark at that!”
“I hear, sir. That’s some o’ the fishermen’s wives letting go.”
“Yes; and you speak in that cool way. Aren’t you sorry for them?”
“Nay, sir; not me. I’m sorry for the poor sailor boys.”
“What!” cried Aleck, angrily. “Tom, I didn’t think you could be so brutal.”
“You don’t understand, sir. That’s the women shouting and screaming as they give it to the press-gang. It’s the sailors gets hits and scratches and called all sorts o’ names, and they’re ’bliged to take it all. But, my word, there’s getting to be a shindy to-night and no mistake. Let’s try again to get the boat off!”
They tried; but she was immovable, save that they could rock her from side to side.
“We’ll do it in another ten minutes, Master Aleck, and then we’d better row till we’re outside the harbour. Hark at ’em now! That’s not the women now; that’s the men. I say, I b’lieve there’s a good dozen o’ the smuggling lot about the town, Master Aleck, but I hadn’t seen one. Did you catch sight o’ any on ’em?”
“I saw Eben Megg,” said the lad.
“And he’s about the worst on ’em, Master Aleck. Well, it strikes me his games are up for a bit. He’s a wunner to fight, and he’ll stick to his mates; but they won’t beat the press-gang off, for when they want men and it comes to a fight it’s the sailors who win. Well, it’d do young Megg good. He’s too much of a bully and rough ’un for me. Fine-looking chap, but thinks too much of hisself. Make a noo man of him to be aboard a man-o’-war for a few years.”
“Pst, Tom! Listen! They’re fighting up at the back there.”
“And no mistake, my lad.”
For fresh shouts, orders, and another whistle rang out, followed by what was evidently a fierce struggle, accompanied by blows, the sounds as they came out of the darkness being singularly weird and strange.
“Let’s get away, Tom,” said Aleck, huskily; “it’s horrible to listen to it.”
“Yes, sir. Heave away, both together. Now, then, she moves. No, she’s as fast as ever.”
“Oh!” groaned Aleck, striking both hands down with a loud smack upon the boat’s gunwale and then stopping short as if paralysed, for there were quick steps, then a rush, evidently up the nearest narrow way among the sheds.
Then all was silence, and a sharp voice cried:
“Halt there! Surrender, or I fire.”
A rush followed the command, and then a pistol shot rang out, Aleck seeing the flash; but the shot did not stop the man who received the command. As far as Aleck in his excitement could make out he rushed at and closed with him who tried to stop him, when a desperate struggle ensued as of two men wrestling upon the cobble stones, their hoarse panting coming strangely to the listeners’ ears.
All thought of launching the boat was swept away by the excitement of listening to the struggle, which grew more painful as the voice that had uttered the command rose again in half-stifled tones:
“This way, lads; help!”
A dull thud followed, as of a heavy blow being delivered, followed by a fall and the rush of footsteps again, but this time over the loose shingle, and the next minute a dimly-seen figure approached, running straight for the water.
But instead of the man running into the harbour, he turned sharp to his left on catching sight of the boat and staggered up to it.
“Who’s that?” he said, hoarsely. “You, Tom Bodger—Master Aleck? Here, quick, sir; for the love of heaven save a poor fellow! It’s the press-gang. Got five on us. Help, sir! Shove off with me. I’m too dead beat to swim.”
“I can’t help you, Eben. I dare not,” cried Aleck. “What could I do?”
“Oh! but, Master Aleck—hark! there’s more coming!”
“I tell you I can’t. I dare not. They’re the King’s men, and—”
“Where are you, your honour?” came out of the darkness, to be answered by a groan and a feeble attempt at a whistle.
“This way, lads,” rang out, and there was the rush of feet and a deeper groan.
“Eben, you’ve killed the officer,” whispered Aleck, in his horror.
“I was on’y fighting for my liberty, master,” whispered the man, hoarsely. “Master Aleck, you don’t like me, I know. I’m a bad ’un, I s’pose; but there’s my young wife and the little weans yonder waiting for me, and when they know—”
The great rough fellow could say no more, but choked.
“Run for it, then,” said Aleck; “wrong or right, we’ll try and cover you.”
“It’s no good, sir,” whispered the man; “there’s no end of ’em surrounding us, and I’m as weak now as a rat.”
He caught Aleck’s hand, as the lad thought, to cling to it imploringly, but the next moment he held it to his forehead, and it was snatched away in horror, for the man had evidently been cut down and was bleeding profusely.
“He’s wounded badly, Tom,” whispered Aleck, excitedly. “We must help him now.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said Tom, gruffly.
“Ah, the boat! The boat!” panted the smuggler.
“In with you then,” said Aleck.
“Nay, nay,” whispered Tom. “She arn’t afloat, Eben Megg. Here, lay yer weight on to her if yer can’t shove.”
“Hi! hallo there!” cried a voice from the direction where the struggle had taken place.
In response there was the sound of the boat’s keel grating on the water-covered shingle, and the smuggler pressed close up to Aleck’s side.
“Do you hear there?” came from the same quarter. “In the King’s name, stand!”
“Lay yer backs into it,” grunted Tom. “Shove, my lads, shove!”
“Come on, my lads! We must have them, whoever they are,” came from apparently close at hand.
“Ah, look sharp! There’s a boat.”
“Now for it,” whispered Tom, and as he grunted hard the boat began to glide from shingle and water into water alone, while as Aleck thrust with all his might, knee-deep now, he felt the boat give way, and then it seemed to him that the smuggler sank down beside him, making a feeble clutch at his clothes and uttering a low groan.
Aleck’s left hand acted as it were upon its own responsibility, closing in the darkness upon Eben’s shirt and holding fast, while the lad’s right hand held up the boat’s gunwale.
The next moment he felt himself drawn off his feet and being dragged through the water, in which the boat was jerking and dancing as if to shake itself free.
It was too dark to see, but this is what was taking place. As the party of three were trying their best to get the little yawl afloat the shingle clung fast to its keel and very little progress was made, although Tom Bodger thrust and jerked at it with all his might, more like a dwarf than ever, for his wooden legs went down in the wet shingle at every movement, right to the socket stumps; but at last, when their efforts began to appear to be in vain, a little soft swell rolled in, just as a rush was being made by the press-gang, the boat lifted astern, and as the water passed under it, literally leaped up forward, shaking itself free of the clinging sand and stones, and, yielding to the three launchers, glided right away.
It was none too soon. Aleck was holding on upon one side nearly amidships, while Tom on the other side let the gunwale glide through his hands till they were close to the bow, and then holding on fast with both hands he made one of his jumps or hops, to add impetus to the boat’s way and get his breast over the bow and scramble in.
His bound—if it could be so-called—was very successful, for the next moment he was balanced upon his chest across the gunwale, gripping at the edge of the fore-locker, with his legs sticking out behind, and exulting over the sensation of the boat dancing under him, when he felt himself seized by one of the press-gang party, who had dashed in after the boat and made a grab at the first thing that offered in the dark.
The sailor was unlucky in his hold, but no wonder, for the darkness gave him no opportunity of making any choice, and as it happened he gripped one of Tom’s pegs with his right and followed it up by clapping his left hand alongside, trying hard to drag his prisoner out or to stop the boat.
As aforesaid he was unlucky, for he was to suffer an entirely new experience. Had he grasped an ordinary human leg in the black darkness he would only have had a jerking kick or two, and most probably he would have held on, but here it was something very different.
“Got ’em!” he cried, loudly. “Come on!” and then he was smitten with a strange surprise, and also with something else.
For Tom Bodger, as he lay balanced upon the lower part of his chest, half in and half out of the boat, had got his fingers well under the side of the locker and was holding on with all the strength of his horny fingers.
“Ah, would yer!” he roared, as he felt himself seized, and, unable to kick for want of yielding joints, he began to work his stumps, to his holder’s horror, like a pair of gigantic shears gone mad. The one that was free struck the sailor a sounding rap on the ear and made him release his hold of the prisoned piece of timber for the moment, and when he splashed after the boat, after recovering from his surprise, and made another grab, the second free peg caught him on the arm like a blow from a constable’s truncheon. The sailor uttered a yell for help, but it was cut short by a blow on each side of his neck as Tom’s legs snapped together, and then he fell forward with a splash and was helped out by a couple of his mates, who stood, waist-deep, gazing into the darkness after the boat.
“Where are yer, my lads?” panted Tom, as he progressed over the side like a huge toad.
“Help! Help!” came from his right, and with the boat rocking from side to side he felt about along the gunwale till his hand came in contact with Aleck’s fingers, clinging desperately to the edge of the boat.
“Got yer,” said Tom, gripping the lad’s wrist and hanging over the side to speak. “Can’t yer hold on while I get an oar out and move her a bit furder away?”
“No. Help me in,” said Aleck, huskily.
“Right, sir. Here, let me get my hands under yer arms, and I’ll heave yer in. I say, wheer’s Eben Megg?”
“Out here. I’ve got hold of him.”
Tom Bodger whistled softly in his astonishment.
“Hold tight on him, my lad,” he growled; and then putting forth his great strength of arm and back, he raised Aleck right over the boat’s side, and as Eben was drawn close in, loosened the former and got tight hold of the latter.
“Can yer shift for yourself now, Master Aleck?” he whispered.
“Yes; but have you got Eben?”
“Ay, ay! Got him fast. Out o’ my way.”
The next minute the smuggler lay perfectly inert at the bottom of the boat and Aleck was passing an oar over the stern and beginning to scull.
“Get another oar out, Tom,” he whispered, “or they’ll have us yet.”
“Ay, ay!” was growled, softly.
But it was too loud, for a voice close at hand shouted:
“Now, then, you in the boat, it’s of no use. Surrender, in the King’s name!”
The splashing made by the oars ceased, and Tom put his lips close to Aleck’s ear.
“You arn’t going to surrender, are yer, Master Aleck?”
“No; use your oar as a pole, and get us farther away.”
“Do you hear there?” cried another voice. “Heave-to, or I’ll fire.”
“All gammon, Master Aleck; I know. Don’t believe they’ve got any pistols.”
“There was a shot fired,” said Aleck.
“Orficer’s, p’raps, sir. Here, I can’t do no good a-poling; it’s getting deeper here.”
“Scull then,” said Aleck; “and be careful. They’ve got boats somewhere.”
Just then there was a flapping noise, which gave them a turn.
“What’s that?” said Aleck, sharply.
“Wind got the sail loose,” said Tom. “There’s a nice breeze coming on. Shall I shake out a reef or two of the sail, sir?”
“Yes, if you think we can see to steer?”
“Dunno about that, sir. We must go gently, and feel.”
The next few minutes were devoted to preparations for spreading a portion of the canvas to the light breeze, as they listened to hail after hail from the shore; and then, as they began to glide softly along, one of the hails from the shore bidding them heave-to was answered from round to their right.
“Ay, ay, sir!”
“Keep a sharp look out for a boat somewhere off here. Three prisoners in her escaping.”
“My hye!” muttered Tom Bodger. “That’s nice. Resisting the law too. Strikes me as we’re going to be in a mess.”
Chapter Sixteen.Aleck, in the midst of his excitement in his novel position, had somewhat similar thoughts to those of his rough sailor companion. For what was he doing, he asked himself—resisting the King’s men performing a duty—for a duty it was, however objectionable it might be—and helping a man they were trying to impress. Worse still, trying to secure the liberty of a well-known smuggler, one of the leading spirits in as determined a gang as existed on the coast.It was that appeal for the sake of the wife and children that had turned the scale in Eben’s favour, and, as Aleck argued now to himself as they glided steadily over the waters of the outer harbour, what was done was done, and to hang back now would mean capture and no mercy, for he would probably find himself bundled aboard the sloop-of-war and no heed paid to his remonstrances.“Say, Master Aleck,” was suddenly whispered to him, “I hope Eben Megg arn’t going to die.”“Die? Oh, Tom, no. I forgot all about his cut head. We must tie it up.”“Tied up it is, sir, wi’ my hankychy, but he’s got a nasty cut on the head. Ah, it’s bad work resisting the law, for lawful it is, I s’pose, to press men.”“Don’t talk so loud. Feel Eben’s head, and find out whether it has stopped bleeding.”“Did just now, sir, and it about hev. But, I say, Master Aleck, I’m all in a squirm about you.”“About me? Why?”“You see, we don’t know hardly which way to turn, and I expects every minute to be running into one o’ the man-o’-war boats.”“Well, if we do we do; but I think we can get right out, and it won’t be so dark then.”“I b’lieve there’s a fog sattling down, sir, and if there is we shall be ketched as sure as eggs is eggs. I’m sorry for you, my lad, and I s’pose I’m sorry for Eben Megg, though we arn’t friends. Bit sorry, too, for myself.”“Oh, they can’t hurt you, Tom.”“Can’t hurt me, sir? Why, they’ll hev me up afore the magistrits, and cut me shorter than I am.”“Nonsense!” said Aleck, with a laugh. “They don’t behead people now, and even if they did they wouldn’t do it for helping a pressed man to escape.”“Tchah! I don’t mean that way, my lad. I mean chop off my pension, and—”“Pst!”Unwittingly they had been slowly sailing right for one of the sloop’s boats, and their whispers had been heard, for from out of the darkness, and apparently a very little way off, came a hail and an order to stop.“Shall us stop, sir?” said Tom.“Stop going that way. Helm down, Tom,” whispered Aleck; and the little sail swung over and filled on the other side, the water rippling gently under their bows. Otherwise it was so silent that they could hear whispers away to their right, followed by a softly given order, which was followed by the dip, dip, dip, dip of oars, and they glided so closely by the rowers that Aleck fancied he could see the man-o’-war’s boat.A couple of minutes later they tacked again, and were sailing on, when all at once Aleck whispered, as he leaned over his companion:“That must be the low line of the fog bank, Tom. Look how black it is!”“Where, sir?”“Over where I’m pointing,” replied Aleck.“By jinks!” growled Tom, excitedly, shifting the rudder and throwing the wind out of the sail, which flapped for a bit and then once more filled on the other tack.“What was it, Tom?”“What was it, my lad? Why, that warn’t no fog bank lying low on the water, but the harbour wall. Why, we should ha’ gone smash on it in another jiffy, stove in, and sunk, for there’s no getting up the place this side.”“Are you sure it was?”“Sartain. We’re all right, though, now, and it’s done us good, for I know where we are, and I think we can get away now unless the boat’s headed us once more.”“Keep her away a little more then. Ah! Hark at Eben! He sounds as if he’s coming to.”The smuggler was very far from being dead, for he muttered a few words, and then all at once they heard the backs of his hands strike the boat sharply, while to their horror he yelled out the word “Cowards!”Tom Bodger was active enough, in spite of his misfortune, as he abundantly proved—perhaps never more so than on this occasion—when again, with almost the action of a toad, he leaped right upon the smuggler, driving him back just as he was trying to rise, and covering his face with a broad chest and smothering his next cries.Then Aleck grew more horrified than ever, for a tremendous struggle began, the smuggler, evidently under the impression that he was in the hands of the press-gang, fighting hard for his liberty, bending himself up and calling to his companions for help. But his voice sounded dull and stifled, and in spite of his strength Tom’s position gave him so great an advantage that he was able to keep him down.“Mind, mind, Tom,” whispered Aleck; “you are smothering him.”“And a precious good thing too, Master Aleck. He’ll say thankye when he knows. Why, if I let him have his own way he’d—lie still, will yer?—want to have the press-gang down upon us. Lookye here, messmet, if you don’t lie quiet I’ll make Master Aleck come and sit on yer too.”“But I’m afraid, Tom.”“So’m I, my lad. Pretty sort o’ onreasonable beggar. Asts us to save him from the King’s men, and when we’ve got him off, kicking up such a fillaloo as this to show ’em where we are. I arn’t got patience with him, that I arn’t.”The man struggled again so violently that he got his hand on one side, making the boat rock and Tom Bodger grunt in his efforts to keep his prisoner down.“It’s no good, Master Aleck,” he whispered, hoarsely; “if I’d got my legs I could twist ’em round him and keep him still; but there’s no grip in a pair of wooden pegs. Come and sit on his knees and help keep him quiet. Lash the helm, sir. She’ll run easy enough then.”But at this the smuggler suddenly ceased his desperate efforts to get free, and lay perfectly still.“He’s turned over a noo leaf, Master Aleck, and p’raps I shall manage him now. I say, wish I hadn’t put them two pieces o’ board over the pitch; he’s got it just under his back, and it would have helped to hold him still.”“Who’s that?” said the smuggler, hoarsely.“It’s me, what there is left on me,” growled Tom. “Great ugly rough ’un. Best thing you can do will be smuggle me a noo blue shirt from Jarsey.”“Tom Bodger?”“Tom Bodger it is.”“Why are you sitting on me? I thought—”“You thought,” growled Tom, scornfully. “What right’s a chap like you to think?”“But I thought the press-gang had got me.”“Well, I was pressing on yer as hard as I could to keep yer from shouting and flying out of the boat. Here’s Master Aleck and me getting oursens into no end o’ trouble to keep you out o’ the press-gang’s hands, and you begins shouting to ’em to come and take you.”“I’m very sorry, mate. I s’pose I was off my head a bit—seemed to wake up out of a bad dream about fighting. Yes, that’s it; I recollect now. Where’s the gang?”“Cruising about trying to find us.”“It’s so dark. Where are we?”“Somewheers out beyond the pier head, and it’s all as black as the inside of a barrel o’ pitch. Keep quiet; don’t talk so loud.”“No, mate,” said the smuggler, petulantly; “but I’m not quite myself. I got a crack on the head from something; I’ve been bleeding a bit. But, tell me, are we safe?”“Dunno yet. Hope so.”“Am I lying in Master Aleck’s boat?”“Yes, on yer back,” growled Tom. “Are yer comfy? I put in a nice noo bit o’ pine board ’sevening for yer to lie on.”“No; of course I’m not comf’table with you sitting on me.”“Course you arn’t. Think I am with that great brass buckle o’ yourn sticking in the bottom o’ my chest?”“Is Master Aleck there?” said the smuggler, after a short pause.“Yes, I’m here, Eben, steering.”“Ah, I can see you now, sir.”“No, yer can’t,” growled Tom, “so none o’ your lies. Just because you want to be civil to the young master.”“I tell you I can see him quite plain. Think I’ve got eyes like a mole?”“Look out then, and tell us where we are.”“How can I look out with my head down here?”“Let him get up, Tom,” said Aleck.“Easy, Master Aleck. Let’s make sure first as he won’t go off his head again.”“I shan’t go off my head again now I’m safe, stoopid,” cried the smuggler, angrily. “Master Aleck, sir, thankye kindly for helping a poor desprit fellow. I can’t say much, but my poor little wife’ll say: ‘Gord bless yer for this for the sake of our weans.’”“There, don’t talk about it, Eben; only let it be a lesson to you not to go smuggling any more. Do you bear?”“Yes, sir, I hear; but this hadn’t nothing to do with running a cargo or two. We was unlucky enough to be in Rockabie, and someone has sold us to the press-gang. Warn’t you, were it, mate?”“Get out!” growled Tom; “is it likely?”“No. Someone did, but I don’t believe it was old Double Dot, Master Aleck.”“And you believe I didn’t, now?”“B’lieve yer? Yes, sir; and I’ll never forget this night.”“Look here,” growled Tom, “hadn’t you and him better be quiet, Master Aleck? You’re both talking very fine about saving and gettin’ free and never forgettin’, and all the time there’s boats out arter us and they may be clost up for all I can say. It’s about the darkest night I was ever out in.”“Let me get up, mate, and have a look round,” said the smuggler.“Think he’s safe, Master Aleck?”“Oh, yes, of course. Let him get up and try if he can make out where we are.”“But I can’t get him down again if he goes off his head, sir, and tries to turn us out of the boat.”The smuggler uttered a low, mocking laugh.“Bit too strong for yer, eh, Tommy?”“Ay; but you wouldn’t be if I was all here. There; get up then.”Tom’s legs rattled on the planks of the boat as he rolled himself off and stood up and listened to the smuggler with a low, deep sigh as he sat up, tried to stand, and sat down again in the bottom of the little craft.“Bit giddy,” he said, apologetically; “things seems to swim round.”He had put his hands up to his head as he spoke. Then suddenly:“Who tied my head up with a hankychy?”“I did,” growled Tom, surlily, “and just you mind as your missus washes it out and irons it flat for you to give it me agen next time you comes to Rockabie.”“I will, mate,” said the smuggler, quietly. “There,” he added, after drawing a long, deep breath, “I’m beginning to come right again. Yes, it is a bit dark to-night,” he added, after staring about him for a minute or two. Then, uttering a sharp ejaculation, “Here, quick, put your helm hard up, Master Aleck. Quick, my lad; can’t you see where you’re going?”“No,” said Aleck, obeying the order quickly, with the result that the sail began to flap, while, as it filled again and the boat careened in the opposite direction, there was a dull, hissing, washing sound, followed by a slap and a hollow thud, as if a quantity of water had been thrown into a rift.“Where are we?” said Aleck, who felt startled.“Running clear now, sir; but in another moment you’d ha’ been right on the East Skerries.”“What!” cried Tom.“Don’t holler, mate,” said the smuggler, drily. “Mebbe there’s one o’ the man-o’-war’s boats.”“Running right on the East Skerries! Right you are, messmet. That was the tide going into the Marmaid’s Kitchen. Here, I feel as if I’d never been to sea and took bearings in my life, Master Aleck!”“Yes; what is it?”“Don’t you never trust me again.”“But do you mean to say that you can’t see those rocks just abeam, Tom Bodger?”“Not a rock on ’em, messmet; but I can hear the bladder-wrack washing in and out.”“But you, Master Aleck?”“I can see it looks a little darker there,” replied the lad, “and a little lighter lower down.”“Well, it’s amazin’, sir. I can see ’em quite plain. I s’pose my eyes must be a little better than yourn through being out so much of a night.”“Smuggling, Eben?” said Aleck, quietly.The man laughed softly, and, standing up now, holding on by one of the stays, he shaded his eyes and looked about him for some time.“There’s the riding lights of the two King’s ships,” he said, half aloud, “but I can’t see the boats. They’d be giving the rocks about here a wide berth, and you pretty well left ’em behind, Master Aleck. Now, sir, what are you going to do?”“Run home, of course,” said Aleck.“Round outside the point, sir?”“Of course.”“You’d save a good two miles by running close to shore and inside the big island and the point.”“But the rocks?”“You could steer clear of them, sir.”“But you mean run through the narrows—through the channel?”“Of course, sir.”“Oh, it couldn’t be done,” said Aleck, excitedly.“Easy enough at high water, sir; and that’s what it’ll be in another hour.”“Have you ever done it, Eben?”“Often, sir, and in a bigger boat than this.”“Could you steer us safe through?”The smuggler laughed.“My father taught me to do it, sir, when I was a little boy.”“It would save an hour?”“Quite, sir.”“What do you say, Tom? Would you go?”“Me, sir? I’d go anywhere as Eben Megg dared to steer.”“But it is so dark,” said Aleck, hesitating.“The breaking water makes it lighter, sir, and the sea brimes to-night out yonder. Look, we’re getting to where it flashes, where it breaks!”“To be sure; it’s beginning, too, where the boat cuts the water. Come and take the helm then. But, stop; what about the wind?”“Westerly, sir, and blowing astern of us all the way through.”“Then we will go, Tom. Why, no man-o’-war boat dare follow us there.”“That they won’t, sir,” said Tom, decidedly. “I say, messmet, what do you say to a couple o’ reefs in the sail?”“Let her be,” said the smuggler, taking his seat by Aleck, who handed him the little tiller. “There, sir, you may say good-bye to the press-gang boats now. I daresay they’ll be hanging about on their way to their ship, but we shall hug the rocks in and out all along.”All talking ceased now, and in his new-found confidence in and admiration of the smuggler’s knowledge of the intricate ways between the huge rocks that had from time to time become detached from the tremendous cliffs, and stood up forming the stacks and towers frequented by the myriads of sea-birds, the lad sat in silence watching the anchor lights of the men-o’-war, which came into sight and then disappeared again and again. Then, as they approached the wall-like cliffs, it seemed to grow lighter low down where the tide rushed and broke in foam, shedding a pale lambent glow, while deep down beneath them tiny points of light were gliding along as if the whole universe of stars had fallen into the sea and were illumining the dark depths below the boat.There was a strange fascination, too, in the ride, as without hesitation the smuggler turned the boat’s head into channels where the tide rushed like a mill-race close up to towering masses, and round and in and out, threading the smaller skittle-like pieces, whose lower parts had been fretting away beneath the action of the sea till the bottom was not a third of the distance through near the top.Tom, too, sat very silent for a long time, chewing a piece of pigtail tobacco, evidently feeling perfectly comfortable about the smuggler’s knowledge of the coast.At last, though, he found his tongue:“I say, messmet, how’s that head o’ yourn?”“Very sore, Tommy.”“Ay, it will be. Dessay you lost a lot o’ blood.”“I believe I did,” said the steersman.“Well, you’re a big, strong fellow, and it’ll do you good. But, I say, mind I has that hankychy back!”“I won’t forget, mate,” said Eben, quietly. Then to himself, “I shan’t forget this night.”“I don’t like Eben Megg, and I don’t like smugglers in general,” Tom Bodger; “but human natur’s human natur’, even with old King’s pensioned men as oughtn’t to; but if Eben comes to me with that there hankychy and slips a big wodge of hard Hamsterdam ’bacco and a square bottle o’ stuff as hasn’t paid dooty into my hands in the dark some night, what am I to do? Say I can’t take it? Well, I oughter, but—well, he arn’t offered the stuff to me yet.”The other occupants of the boat were thinking deeply during the latter part of the sail. Aleck was wondering what his uncle would say, and Eben Megg thinking of his future, and he was startled from his reverie by Aleck, who suddenly said:“What about the press-gang, Eben—do you think they will know you again?”“Hope not, sir; but I’m not very comf’table about it. Someone set ’em on—someone as knows me; and, worse luck, they’ve got some of our chaps.”“But they haven’t caught you.”“Not yet, sir, but there’s chaps as don’t like me, and if they’ve been pressed they’ll be a-saying to-morrow morning as it arn’t fair for them to be took and me to get away. See?”“Yes; but what difference will that make?” The smuggler laughed aloud.“Only that they might put the skipper of the man-o’-war cutter up to where he’d find me.”“But you had nothing to do with the cutter’s men—that officer was from the sloop?”“Ay, sir; but they’re all working together, and the cutter’s skipper has got a black mark against my name.”“Oh!” said Aleck, thoughtfully. “Then I suppose you’ll go into hiding?”“That’s right, sir; but I shan’t feel safe then. Eh, Tom Bodger?”“Right, messmet; they’ll be ferreting all along the coast arter yer. Tell you what I should do if I was you.”“What?” said the man, eagerly.“Have a good wash up in the morning, and then jump in a boat and go and board the sloop like a man.”“What!”“And then, says you, ‘I want to see the skipper,’ you says, and as soon as he comes on deck, ‘Here I am, your honour,’ you says. ‘I warn’t going to let your men take me last night as if I were an enemy or a thief; but if the King wants sailors, here I am, and I’ll sarve him like a man.’”“Well done, Tom!” cried Aleck.“Think so, Master Aleck?” said the smuggler. “Yes, it sounds very nice, I suppose; but it won’t do. I’m the wrong sort. Can’t alter now.”“You know your own affairs best, Eben,” said Aleck, quietly; “but I expect they’ll catch you, and then you’ll be obliged to serve.”“I expecks so too, Master Aleck, but I mean to have a fight for it first. There we are. P’raps you’d better take the tiller now and run your boat into the gap. You know the way better than I do. You, too, Tom Bodger.”The latter went forward, to stand boat-hook in hand, while, after passing the tiller to the lad, Eben laid hold of the rope and loosened it from the pin, ready to lower down the yard as soon as Aleck passed the word.The next minute the boat had been run into the narrow jaws of the great chasm, the sail had been lowered, and after they had glided some distance along, helped by the boat-hook deftly wielded by Tom Bodger, the smuggler suddenly sprang out on to a shelf of rock at the side.“What are you doing?” cried Aleck. “You can’t get up there in the dark.”“Can’t I, sir? You wait, and I’ll hail you from the top before you get up to your mooring-rings.”The smuggler kept his word, a low farewell shout coming from on high, and echoing in whispers right along the gap.“Good-night or good morning!” he cried, and then he was gone.“I couldn’t have got up there even in daylight, Tom,” said Aleck.“Nor me nayther, sir. Might ha’ done it once upon a time, but wooden legs arn’t the best kind o’ gear for rock-climbing, sir, any more than they are for manning the yards aboard ship; and that’s why I was pensioned-off.”“Yes, Tom; but what about you to-night?”“Me, sir? I’m a-going to kiver mysen up with the sail and snooze away in the bottom of the boat.”“Very well; and I’ll bring you something to eat as soon as I get in.”“Thankye, sir; that’s about the right sort for me, as I didn’t make much of a business over that there bread and cheese; and here we are!”“Make her fast, Tom,” cried Aleck, springing out. “I want to go and explain to uncle. I wonder what he’ll say,” the lad continued, to himself, as he hurried up the slope. “He can’t be so very cross when he knows all.”There was a candle burning in the kitchen window, evidently placed there to light the wanderer on his return up the gloomy depression; and, after glancing up at his uncle’s room, to see that all was dark there, the lad made for the kitchen door.This was opened, and in a voluble whisper the housekeeper began:“Oh, Master Aleck, I’ve been in sech a way about you! I made sure you’d been and drownded yourself, and here have I been sitting hours, fully expecting to see your white ghost coming up the dark path from off the sea.”“Don’t be disappointed,” said Aleck, merrily; “but, tell me,” he whispered, “has uncle gone to bed?”“Hours ago, my dear.”“Was he very angry because I hadn’t come back?”“He didn’t say so, Master Aleck.”“But he asked if I’d come home?”“Nay, he didn’t.”“He went down into the boat harbour?”“That he didn’t, Master Aleck.”“Then he went up on the cliff to look out with the glass?”“Nay; he’s been writing his eyes out of his head almost, Master Aleck. Wouldn’t come down to his dinner nor yet to his tea, and I had to take him up something on a tray, or else he wouldn’t ha’ eat a mossle. I shall be glad when he’s writ his book.”“Then he didn’t know I hadn’t come?”“No, I don’t believe he thought about you a bit.”“Hah!” sighed Aleck.“But what have you been a-doing of, Master Aleck? Not fighting again, have you?”“You don’t see any marks, do you?”“Nay, I don’t see no marks; but whatever did make you so late, Master Aleck?”“Someone broke a hole in the boat, and we had to mend it, that’s all. Now cut me some bread and ham for Tom Bodger down at the boat-shelter; he’s nearly starved.”The provender was willingly out and carried down, and soon after Aleck lay dreaming over the adventures of the day.
Aleck, in the midst of his excitement in his novel position, had somewhat similar thoughts to those of his rough sailor companion. For what was he doing, he asked himself—resisting the King’s men performing a duty—for a duty it was, however objectionable it might be—and helping a man they were trying to impress. Worse still, trying to secure the liberty of a well-known smuggler, one of the leading spirits in as determined a gang as existed on the coast.
It was that appeal for the sake of the wife and children that had turned the scale in Eben’s favour, and, as Aleck argued now to himself as they glided steadily over the waters of the outer harbour, what was done was done, and to hang back now would mean capture and no mercy, for he would probably find himself bundled aboard the sloop-of-war and no heed paid to his remonstrances.
“Say, Master Aleck,” was suddenly whispered to him, “I hope Eben Megg arn’t going to die.”
“Die? Oh, Tom, no. I forgot all about his cut head. We must tie it up.”
“Tied up it is, sir, wi’ my hankychy, but he’s got a nasty cut on the head. Ah, it’s bad work resisting the law, for lawful it is, I s’pose, to press men.”
“Don’t talk so loud. Feel Eben’s head, and find out whether it has stopped bleeding.”
“Did just now, sir, and it about hev. But, I say, Master Aleck, I’m all in a squirm about you.”
“About me? Why?”
“You see, we don’t know hardly which way to turn, and I expects every minute to be running into one o’ the man-o’-war boats.”
“Well, if we do we do; but I think we can get right out, and it won’t be so dark then.”
“I b’lieve there’s a fog sattling down, sir, and if there is we shall be ketched as sure as eggs is eggs. I’m sorry for you, my lad, and I s’pose I’m sorry for Eben Megg, though we arn’t friends. Bit sorry, too, for myself.”
“Oh, they can’t hurt you, Tom.”
“Can’t hurt me, sir? Why, they’ll hev me up afore the magistrits, and cut me shorter than I am.”
“Nonsense!” said Aleck, with a laugh. “They don’t behead people now, and even if they did they wouldn’t do it for helping a pressed man to escape.”
“Tchah! I don’t mean that way, my lad. I mean chop off my pension, and—”
“Pst!”
Unwittingly they had been slowly sailing right for one of the sloop’s boats, and their whispers had been heard, for from out of the darkness, and apparently a very little way off, came a hail and an order to stop.
“Shall us stop, sir?” said Tom.
“Stop going that way. Helm down, Tom,” whispered Aleck; and the little sail swung over and filled on the other side, the water rippling gently under their bows. Otherwise it was so silent that they could hear whispers away to their right, followed by a softly given order, which was followed by the dip, dip, dip, dip of oars, and they glided so closely by the rowers that Aleck fancied he could see the man-o’-war’s boat.
A couple of minutes later they tacked again, and were sailing on, when all at once Aleck whispered, as he leaned over his companion:
“That must be the low line of the fog bank, Tom. Look how black it is!”
“Where, sir?”
“Over where I’m pointing,” replied Aleck.
“By jinks!” growled Tom, excitedly, shifting the rudder and throwing the wind out of the sail, which flapped for a bit and then once more filled on the other tack.
“What was it, Tom?”
“What was it, my lad? Why, that warn’t no fog bank lying low on the water, but the harbour wall. Why, we should ha’ gone smash on it in another jiffy, stove in, and sunk, for there’s no getting up the place this side.”
“Are you sure it was?”
“Sartain. We’re all right, though, now, and it’s done us good, for I know where we are, and I think we can get away now unless the boat’s headed us once more.”
“Keep her away a little more then. Ah! Hark at Eben! He sounds as if he’s coming to.”
The smuggler was very far from being dead, for he muttered a few words, and then all at once they heard the backs of his hands strike the boat sharply, while to their horror he yelled out the word “Cowards!”
Tom Bodger was active enough, in spite of his misfortune, as he abundantly proved—perhaps never more so than on this occasion—when again, with almost the action of a toad, he leaped right upon the smuggler, driving him back just as he was trying to rise, and covering his face with a broad chest and smothering his next cries.
Then Aleck grew more horrified than ever, for a tremendous struggle began, the smuggler, evidently under the impression that he was in the hands of the press-gang, fighting hard for his liberty, bending himself up and calling to his companions for help. But his voice sounded dull and stifled, and in spite of his strength Tom’s position gave him so great an advantage that he was able to keep him down.
“Mind, mind, Tom,” whispered Aleck; “you are smothering him.”
“And a precious good thing too, Master Aleck. He’ll say thankye when he knows. Why, if I let him have his own way he’d—lie still, will yer?—want to have the press-gang down upon us. Lookye here, messmet, if you don’t lie quiet I’ll make Master Aleck come and sit on yer too.”
“But I’m afraid, Tom.”
“So’m I, my lad. Pretty sort o’ onreasonable beggar. Asts us to save him from the King’s men, and when we’ve got him off, kicking up such a fillaloo as this to show ’em where we are. I arn’t got patience with him, that I arn’t.”
The man struggled again so violently that he got his hand on one side, making the boat rock and Tom Bodger grunt in his efforts to keep his prisoner down.
“It’s no good, Master Aleck,” he whispered, hoarsely; “if I’d got my legs I could twist ’em round him and keep him still; but there’s no grip in a pair of wooden pegs. Come and sit on his knees and help keep him quiet. Lash the helm, sir. She’ll run easy enough then.”
But at this the smuggler suddenly ceased his desperate efforts to get free, and lay perfectly still.
“He’s turned over a noo leaf, Master Aleck, and p’raps I shall manage him now. I say, wish I hadn’t put them two pieces o’ board over the pitch; he’s got it just under his back, and it would have helped to hold him still.”
“Who’s that?” said the smuggler, hoarsely.
“It’s me, what there is left on me,” growled Tom. “Great ugly rough ’un. Best thing you can do will be smuggle me a noo blue shirt from Jarsey.”
“Tom Bodger?”
“Tom Bodger it is.”
“Why are you sitting on me? I thought—”
“You thought,” growled Tom, scornfully. “What right’s a chap like you to think?”
“But I thought the press-gang had got me.”
“Well, I was pressing on yer as hard as I could to keep yer from shouting and flying out of the boat. Here’s Master Aleck and me getting oursens into no end o’ trouble to keep you out o’ the press-gang’s hands, and you begins shouting to ’em to come and take you.”
“I’m very sorry, mate. I s’pose I was off my head a bit—seemed to wake up out of a bad dream about fighting. Yes, that’s it; I recollect now. Where’s the gang?”
“Cruising about trying to find us.”
“It’s so dark. Where are we?”
“Somewheers out beyond the pier head, and it’s all as black as the inside of a barrel o’ pitch. Keep quiet; don’t talk so loud.”
“No, mate,” said the smuggler, petulantly; “but I’m not quite myself. I got a crack on the head from something; I’ve been bleeding a bit. But, tell me, are we safe?”
“Dunno yet. Hope so.”
“Am I lying in Master Aleck’s boat?”
“Yes, on yer back,” growled Tom. “Are yer comfy? I put in a nice noo bit o’ pine board ’sevening for yer to lie on.”
“No; of course I’m not comf’table with you sitting on me.”
“Course you arn’t. Think I am with that great brass buckle o’ yourn sticking in the bottom o’ my chest?”
“Is Master Aleck there?” said the smuggler, after a short pause.
“Yes, I’m here, Eben, steering.”
“Ah, I can see you now, sir.”
“No, yer can’t,” growled Tom, “so none o’ your lies. Just because you want to be civil to the young master.”
“I tell you I can see him quite plain. Think I’ve got eyes like a mole?”
“Look out then, and tell us where we are.”
“How can I look out with my head down here?”
“Let him get up, Tom,” said Aleck.
“Easy, Master Aleck. Let’s make sure first as he won’t go off his head again.”
“I shan’t go off my head again now I’m safe, stoopid,” cried the smuggler, angrily. “Master Aleck, sir, thankye kindly for helping a poor desprit fellow. I can’t say much, but my poor little wife’ll say: ‘Gord bless yer for this for the sake of our weans.’”
“There, don’t talk about it, Eben; only let it be a lesson to you not to go smuggling any more. Do you bear?”
“Yes, sir, I hear; but this hadn’t nothing to do with running a cargo or two. We was unlucky enough to be in Rockabie, and someone has sold us to the press-gang. Warn’t you, were it, mate?”
“Get out!” growled Tom; “is it likely?”
“No. Someone did, but I don’t believe it was old Double Dot, Master Aleck.”
“And you believe I didn’t, now?”
“B’lieve yer? Yes, sir; and I’ll never forget this night.”
“Look here,” growled Tom, “hadn’t you and him better be quiet, Master Aleck? You’re both talking very fine about saving and gettin’ free and never forgettin’, and all the time there’s boats out arter us and they may be clost up for all I can say. It’s about the darkest night I was ever out in.”
“Let me get up, mate, and have a look round,” said the smuggler.
“Think he’s safe, Master Aleck?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Let him get up and try if he can make out where we are.”
“But I can’t get him down again if he goes off his head, sir, and tries to turn us out of the boat.”
The smuggler uttered a low, mocking laugh.
“Bit too strong for yer, eh, Tommy?”
“Ay; but you wouldn’t be if I was all here. There; get up then.”
Tom’s legs rattled on the planks of the boat as he rolled himself off and stood up and listened to the smuggler with a low, deep sigh as he sat up, tried to stand, and sat down again in the bottom of the little craft.
“Bit giddy,” he said, apologetically; “things seems to swim round.”
He had put his hands up to his head as he spoke. Then suddenly:
“Who tied my head up with a hankychy?”
“I did,” growled Tom, surlily, “and just you mind as your missus washes it out and irons it flat for you to give it me agen next time you comes to Rockabie.”
“I will, mate,” said the smuggler, quietly. “There,” he added, after drawing a long, deep breath, “I’m beginning to come right again. Yes, it is a bit dark to-night,” he added, after staring about him for a minute or two. Then, uttering a sharp ejaculation, “Here, quick, put your helm hard up, Master Aleck. Quick, my lad; can’t you see where you’re going?”
“No,” said Aleck, obeying the order quickly, with the result that the sail began to flap, while, as it filled again and the boat careened in the opposite direction, there was a dull, hissing, washing sound, followed by a slap and a hollow thud, as if a quantity of water had been thrown into a rift.
“Where are we?” said Aleck, who felt startled.
“Running clear now, sir; but in another moment you’d ha’ been right on the East Skerries.”
“What!” cried Tom.
“Don’t holler, mate,” said the smuggler, drily. “Mebbe there’s one o’ the man-o’-war’s boats.”
“Running right on the East Skerries! Right you are, messmet. That was the tide going into the Marmaid’s Kitchen. Here, I feel as if I’d never been to sea and took bearings in my life, Master Aleck!”
“Yes; what is it?”
“Don’t you never trust me again.”
“But do you mean to say that you can’t see those rocks just abeam, Tom Bodger?”
“Not a rock on ’em, messmet; but I can hear the bladder-wrack washing in and out.”
“But you, Master Aleck?”
“I can see it looks a little darker there,” replied the lad, “and a little lighter lower down.”
“Well, it’s amazin’, sir. I can see ’em quite plain. I s’pose my eyes must be a little better than yourn through being out so much of a night.”
“Smuggling, Eben?” said Aleck, quietly.
The man laughed softly, and, standing up now, holding on by one of the stays, he shaded his eyes and looked about him for some time.
“There’s the riding lights of the two King’s ships,” he said, half aloud, “but I can’t see the boats. They’d be giving the rocks about here a wide berth, and you pretty well left ’em behind, Master Aleck. Now, sir, what are you going to do?”
“Run home, of course,” said Aleck.
“Round outside the point, sir?”
“Of course.”
“You’d save a good two miles by running close to shore and inside the big island and the point.”
“But the rocks?”
“You could steer clear of them, sir.”
“But you mean run through the narrows—through the channel?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Oh, it couldn’t be done,” said Aleck, excitedly.
“Easy enough at high water, sir; and that’s what it’ll be in another hour.”
“Have you ever done it, Eben?”
“Often, sir, and in a bigger boat than this.”
“Could you steer us safe through?”
The smuggler laughed.
“My father taught me to do it, sir, when I was a little boy.”
“It would save an hour?”
“Quite, sir.”
“What do you say, Tom? Would you go?”
“Me, sir? I’d go anywhere as Eben Megg dared to steer.”
“But it is so dark,” said Aleck, hesitating.
“The breaking water makes it lighter, sir, and the sea brimes to-night out yonder. Look, we’re getting to where it flashes, where it breaks!”
“To be sure; it’s beginning, too, where the boat cuts the water. Come and take the helm then. But, stop; what about the wind?”
“Westerly, sir, and blowing astern of us all the way through.”
“Then we will go, Tom. Why, no man-o’-war boat dare follow us there.”
“That they won’t, sir,” said Tom, decidedly. “I say, messmet, what do you say to a couple o’ reefs in the sail?”
“Let her be,” said the smuggler, taking his seat by Aleck, who handed him the little tiller. “There, sir, you may say good-bye to the press-gang boats now. I daresay they’ll be hanging about on their way to their ship, but we shall hug the rocks in and out all along.”
All talking ceased now, and in his new-found confidence in and admiration of the smuggler’s knowledge of the intricate ways between the huge rocks that had from time to time become detached from the tremendous cliffs, and stood up forming the stacks and towers frequented by the myriads of sea-birds, the lad sat in silence watching the anchor lights of the men-o’-war, which came into sight and then disappeared again and again. Then, as they approached the wall-like cliffs, it seemed to grow lighter low down where the tide rushed and broke in foam, shedding a pale lambent glow, while deep down beneath them tiny points of light were gliding along as if the whole universe of stars had fallen into the sea and were illumining the dark depths below the boat.
There was a strange fascination, too, in the ride, as without hesitation the smuggler turned the boat’s head into channels where the tide rushed like a mill-race close up to towering masses, and round and in and out, threading the smaller skittle-like pieces, whose lower parts had been fretting away beneath the action of the sea till the bottom was not a third of the distance through near the top.
Tom, too, sat very silent for a long time, chewing a piece of pigtail tobacco, evidently feeling perfectly comfortable about the smuggler’s knowledge of the coast.
At last, though, he found his tongue:
“I say, messmet, how’s that head o’ yourn?”
“Very sore, Tommy.”
“Ay, it will be. Dessay you lost a lot o’ blood.”
“I believe I did,” said the steersman.
“Well, you’re a big, strong fellow, and it’ll do you good. But, I say, mind I has that hankychy back!”
“I won’t forget, mate,” said Eben, quietly. Then to himself, “I shan’t forget this night.”
“I don’t like Eben Megg, and I don’t like smugglers in general,” Tom Bodger; “but human natur’s human natur’, even with old King’s pensioned men as oughtn’t to; but if Eben comes to me with that there hankychy and slips a big wodge of hard Hamsterdam ’bacco and a square bottle o’ stuff as hasn’t paid dooty into my hands in the dark some night, what am I to do? Say I can’t take it? Well, I oughter, but—well, he arn’t offered the stuff to me yet.”
The other occupants of the boat were thinking deeply during the latter part of the sail. Aleck was wondering what his uncle would say, and Eben Megg thinking of his future, and he was startled from his reverie by Aleck, who suddenly said:
“What about the press-gang, Eben—do you think they will know you again?”
“Hope not, sir; but I’m not very comf’table about it. Someone set ’em on—someone as knows me; and, worse luck, they’ve got some of our chaps.”
“But they haven’t caught you.”
“Not yet, sir, but there’s chaps as don’t like me, and if they’ve been pressed they’ll be a-saying to-morrow morning as it arn’t fair for them to be took and me to get away. See?”
“Yes; but what difference will that make?” The smuggler laughed aloud.
“Only that they might put the skipper of the man-o’-war cutter up to where he’d find me.”
“But you had nothing to do with the cutter’s men—that officer was from the sloop?”
“Ay, sir; but they’re all working together, and the cutter’s skipper has got a black mark against my name.”
“Oh!” said Aleck, thoughtfully. “Then I suppose you’ll go into hiding?”
“That’s right, sir; but I shan’t feel safe then. Eh, Tom Bodger?”
“Right, messmet; they’ll be ferreting all along the coast arter yer. Tell you what I should do if I was you.”
“What?” said the man, eagerly.
“Have a good wash up in the morning, and then jump in a boat and go and board the sloop like a man.”
“What!”
“And then, says you, ‘I want to see the skipper,’ you says, and as soon as he comes on deck, ‘Here I am, your honour,’ you says. ‘I warn’t going to let your men take me last night as if I were an enemy or a thief; but if the King wants sailors, here I am, and I’ll sarve him like a man.’”
“Well done, Tom!” cried Aleck.
“Think so, Master Aleck?” said the smuggler. “Yes, it sounds very nice, I suppose; but it won’t do. I’m the wrong sort. Can’t alter now.”
“You know your own affairs best, Eben,” said Aleck, quietly; “but I expect they’ll catch you, and then you’ll be obliged to serve.”
“I expecks so too, Master Aleck, but I mean to have a fight for it first. There we are. P’raps you’d better take the tiller now and run your boat into the gap. You know the way better than I do. You, too, Tom Bodger.”
The latter went forward, to stand boat-hook in hand, while, after passing the tiller to the lad, Eben laid hold of the rope and loosened it from the pin, ready to lower down the yard as soon as Aleck passed the word.
The next minute the boat had been run into the narrow jaws of the great chasm, the sail had been lowered, and after they had glided some distance along, helped by the boat-hook deftly wielded by Tom Bodger, the smuggler suddenly sprang out on to a shelf of rock at the side.
“What are you doing?” cried Aleck. “You can’t get up there in the dark.”
“Can’t I, sir? You wait, and I’ll hail you from the top before you get up to your mooring-rings.”
The smuggler kept his word, a low farewell shout coming from on high, and echoing in whispers right along the gap.
“Good-night or good morning!” he cried, and then he was gone.
“I couldn’t have got up there even in daylight, Tom,” said Aleck.
“Nor me nayther, sir. Might ha’ done it once upon a time, but wooden legs arn’t the best kind o’ gear for rock-climbing, sir, any more than they are for manning the yards aboard ship; and that’s why I was pensioned-off.”
“Yes, Tom; but what about you to-night?”
“Me, sir? I’m a-going to kiver mysen up with the sail and snooze away in the bottom of the boat.”
“Very well; and I’ll bring you something to eat as soon as I get in.”
“Thankye, sir; that’s about the right sort for me, as I didn’t make much of a business over that there bread and cheese; and here we are!”
“Make her fast, Tom,” cried Aleck, springing out. “I want to go and explain to uncle. I wonder what he’ll say,” the lad continued, to himself, as he hurried up the slope. “He can’t be so very cross when he knows all.”
There was a candle burning in the kitchen window, evidently placed there to light the wanderer on his return up the gloomy depression; and, after glancing up at his uncle’s room, to see that all was dark there, the lad made for the kitchen door.
This was opened, and in a voluble whisper the housekeeper began:
“Oh, Master Aleck, I’ve been in sech a way about you! I made sure you’d been and drownded yourself, and here have I been sitting hours, fully expecting to see your white ghost coming up the dark path from off the sea.”
“Don’t be disappointed,” said Aleck, merrily; “but, tell me,” he whispered, “has uncle gone to bed?”
“Hours ago, my dear.”
“Was he very angry because I hadn’t come back?”
“He didn’t say so, Master Aleck.”
“But he asked if I’d come home?”
“Nay, he didn’t.”
“He went down into the boat harbour?”
“That he didn’t, Master Aleck.”
“Then he went up on the cliff to look out with the glass?”
“Nay; he’s been writing his eyes out of his head almost, Master Aleck. Wouldn’t come down to his dinner nor yet to his tea, and I had to take him up something on a tray, or else he wouldn’t ha’ eat a mossle. I shall be glad when he’s writ his book.”
“Then he didn’t know I hadn’t come?”
“No, I don’t believe he thought about you a bit.”
“Hah!” sighed Aleck.
“But what have you been a-doing of, Master Aleck? Not fighting again, have you?”
“You don’t see any marks, do you?”
“Nay, I don’t see no marks; but whatever did make you so late, Master Aleck?”
“Someone broke a hole in the boat, and we had to mend it, that’s all. Now cut me some bread and ham for Tom Bodger down at the boat-shelter; he’s nearly starved.”
The provender was willingly out and carried down, and soon after Aleck lay dreaming over the adventures of the day.