"Been overboard again? Well, I never did see such a boy in my life;
never!"
"What's the matter, Ruth?"
"Matter enough!" came in the same strident voice, in answer to the
hoarse gruff inquiry. "There, who spoke to you? Just you get back to
your work; and if that pie's burnt again to-day you'll have to leave!"
This last was to a heavy-faced simple-looking girl, who, on hearing her
mistress's angry voice, had hurried into the passage of Nor'-nor'-west
Cottage, Cliftside, and stood in front of the kitchen door, with one end
of her apron in her mouth.
Amanda Trevor, commonly called Betsey, stepped back into the kitchen,
just catching the word "dripping" as she closed the door--a word that
excited her curiosity again, but she dared not try to gratify it; and if
she had tried she would only have been disappointed on finding that it
related to a few drops of water from Will Marion's clothes.
"I said--heave ho, there! what's the matter?" was heard again; and this
time a very red-faced grey-haired man, with the lower part of his
features framed in white bristles, and clad in a blue pea-jacket and
buff waistcoat, ornamented with gilt anchor buttons, stood suddenly in
the doorway on the right, smoking solemnly a long churchwarden clay
pipe, rilling his mouth very full of smoke, and then aggravating the
looker-on by puzzling him as to where the smoke would come from next--
for sometimes he sent a puff out of one corner of his mouth, sometimes
out of the other. Then it would come from a little hole right in the
middle, out of which he had taken the waxed pipe stem, but only for him
perhaps to press one side of his nose with the pipe, and send the rest
out of the left nostril, saving perhaps a little to drive from the
right. The result of practice, for the old man had smoked a great deal.
"Collision?" said Abram Marion, ex-purser and pensioner of the British
navy.
"No," said Mrs Ruth Marion, his little thin acid wife. "Overboard
again, and he's dripping all over the place. It isn't long since he had
those clothes."
"Six months," said the old purser, sending a couple of jets of tobacco
smoke from his nostrils at once.
"Yes; and what with his growing so horribly, and the common stuff they
sell for cloth now, shrinking so shamefully, he's always wanting
clothes."
"Oh, these will last a long time yet, aunt!" said Will.
"No, they will not last a long time yet, Will!" cried the little lady,
with her face all trouble wrinkles.
"Will," said the old man, stopping to say _pup, pup, pup, pup, pup,
pup_, as he emitted half a dozen tiny puffs of smoke, waving his pipe
stem the while; "mind what your aunt says and you'll never repent."
"But he don't mind a word I say," cried the little woman, wringing her
hands. "Wringing wet! just look at him!"
"Been fishing, my lass; and they brought home a fair haul," said the
purser, throwing back his head, and shooting smoke at a fly on the
ceiling.
"What's the use of his bringing home fair hauls if he destroys his
clothes as he does; and the holes he makes in his stockings are
shameful."
"Can't help getting wet at sea," said the ex-purser, solemnly spreading
a good mouthful of smoke in a semicircle. "Water's wet, specially
salt-water. Here, you, sir! how dare you make holes in your stockings
for your aunt to mend? I don't believe your father ever dared to do
such a thing in his life."
"It don't matter, Abram," said the old lady in a lachrymose whine; "it's
my fate to toil, and I'm not long for this world, so it don't matter.
It was my fate to be a toiler; and those clothes of his will be too
small for him to wear when they're dry. I don't know what I'm to do."
"Stretch 'em," said the old gentleman, sending a cloud into his
waistcoat.
"But they won't stretch," cried the old lady peevishly.
"Put 'em away and save 'em," said the old man. "I may adopt another
nevvy--smaller size,"--and here there was a veil spread over his face by
his projecting his lower lip and sending the smoke up into his eyes.
"If you ever did such a thing again, I'd have a divorce," cried the old
lady sharply. "You go and change your things, sir, and then get a book
till dinner's ready."
The old lady stepped into the parlour, and the old purser was in the act
of winking solemnly at his nephew when Mrs Marion reappeared.
"Ah, I saw!" she cried. "You are encouraging this boy, Abram. Here;
Betsey, bring your flannel and wipe up this mess. And you, go in
directly and change your things."
The old lady disappeared again, and the wrinkles stood all over the old
purser's face as he growled softly between fancy puffs of smoke.
"Woman's words in house, Will, is like cap'en's orders 'board ship, with
the articles over at the back. Must be minded, or it's rank mutiny, and
a disrate. _Puff_. Go and get a dry rig."
"Yes, uncle," said Will quietly.
"And--_puff_--you--_puff_--must be more careful of your clothes--_puff_,
boy. _Puff, puff, puff_. We all sail through life--_puff_--under
orders. _Puff_.--Few of us is cap'ens--_puff_. Very few of us is
admirals--_puff_; and what with admiralty and the gov'ment--_puff,
puff_, and the people's opinion--_puff_, and the queen--_puff_; they
can't do so much as they like, as a regular tar. _Puff, puff_."
The way in which the ex-purser distributed his tobacco smoke during this
oracular lecture to his brother's orphan son was something astounding;
and he had smoked so heavily that it seemed at last as if he were trying
to veil himself from the lad's gaze lest he should see the weakness
exhibited with regard to Mrs Marion's rule; while he kept glancing
uneasily at the lad, as if feeling that he was read by heart.
"All right, uncle, I understand," said Will, turning to go.
"That's right--_puff_, Will. Good lad. Your aunt means well, and if
she pitches into us both--rams us, as you may say, Will, why, we know,
eh?"
"Oh yes, uncle, we know."
"It don't hurt us, lad. She says lots about what you cost for food, and
what an expense you've been to her, and she calls you lazy."
"Yes, uncle," said Will, sadly.
"But what do it amount to, eh? Only tongue, and tongue's only tongue
after all."
"No, uncle."
The last puff of smoke had been sucked out of the pipe, and the old
gentleman kept on gesticulating with it as he spoke.
"Only tongue, lad. Your aunt's one o' the finest and best and truest
women under the sun. See how clean she's always kept you ever since you
first come to us."
"No, uncle, since you came and fetched me from that miserable school,
and said, `don't cry, my man; you're my own brother's boy, and as long
as I live I'll be a father to you.'"
"Did I say them words, Will? Was they the very words?"
"Yes, uncle," cried the lad, flushing; "the very words;" and he laid his
hand affectionately on the old man's shoulder.
"Ah! well, and very proper words too, I suppose," said the old man; "and
I did mean to be, lad; but you see I never had no experience of being a
father, and I'm afraid I've made a mess of it."
"You've always been like the kindest of fathers to me, uncle," said Will
warmly.
"And she's always been the kindest of mothers, like, my lad. Lor' bless
you, Will, my boy, it's only tongue. Splendid craft your aunt is, only
she's overweighted with engine, and her bilers is a bit too big.
Tongue's safety-valve, Will, and I never sit on it, my lad. Make things
worse. Burst."
"Yes, uncle, I see," said Will, with a sad smile.
"You're all right, my lad. I didn't care to send you in the Ryle Navee,
so I did the next best thing, made a sailor of you in a lugger. She's
mine now with all her craft of nets--leastwise she's aunt's, for she
keeps the accounts; but some day when I'm sewn up and dropped overboard
out of the world, the lugger'll all be yours; only if I go first, Will,"
he whispered, drawing the lad closer to him, "never mind the bit of a
safety-valve as fizzles and whistles and snorts; be kind, lad, to your
aunt."
"I don't want the lugger," cried Will, laying his hands on the old man's
shoulders. "I want my dear old uncle to stop, and see him enjoy his
pipe, and I won't take a hit of notice--"
"Of the safety-valve, Will?"
"No, uncle; but I want to get on," cried the lad excitedly. "I'm tired
of being a burden to you, uncle, and--"
"Hasn't that boy changed his things yet?"
"Right, Ruth, my dear," cried the old purser loudly, assuming his old
sea lingo. "Here, you, sir, how much longer are you going to stand
jawing there. Heave ahead and get into a fresh rig with you."
Here he winked and frowned tremendously at Will, giving one of his hands
a tremendous squeeze, and the lad ran upstairs.
The lugger was not to put out again till evening, when the soft breeze
would be blowing, and the last rays of the sun be ready to glorify sea,
sky, and the sails and cordage of the fishing-boats as they stole softly
out to the fishing-ground for the night, so that as Mrs Marion had gone
up to lie down after dinner, according to custom, and the old purser was
in the little summer-house having his after-dinner pipe, as he called
it, one which he invariably enjoyed without lighting the tobacco and
with a handkerchief over his head, Will was at liberty to go out
unquestioned. Accordingly he hurried down to the harbour, where the
tide was out, the gulls were squealing and wailing, and apparently
playing a miniature game of King of the Castle upon a little bit of
black rock which appeared above the sea a couple of hundred yards out.
In the harbour the water was so low that the _Pretty Ruth_, Abram
Marion's lugger--named, for some reason that no one could see, after the
old man's wife--was lying over nearly on her beam-ends, so that, as Josh
Helston, who was on board, went to and fro along the deck with a swab in
his hands it was impossible to help thinking that if nature had made his
legs like his arms, one very much shorter than the other, he would have
found locomotion far easier.
As it was, he had to walk with one knee very much, bent, so greatly was
the deck inclined; but it did not trouble him, his feet being bare and
his toes spreading out widely and sticking to the clean narrow planks as
if they were, like the cuttle-fish, provided with suckers.
Josh was swabbing away at the clinging fish-scales and singing in a
sweet musical voice an old west-country ditty in which a lady was
upbraiding someone for trying "to persuade a maiden to forsake the
jacket blue," of course the blue jacket containing some smart young
sailor.
"Hi, Josh!"
"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Josh, rubbing his nose with the mop handle.
"No, I'm busy. I sha'n't come."
"Yes, do come, Josh," said Will, crossing three or four luggers and
sitting on the rail of the _Pretty Ruth_.
"What's the good, lad?"
"Good, Josh? Why, I've told you before. I can't bear this life."
"Fisherman's a good honest life," said Josh sententiously.
"Not when a lad feels that he's a dependant and a burden on his
friends," cried Will excitedly. "I want to get on, Josh. I want to
succeed, and--there, I knew you'd come."
For Josh had thrown away the mop with an angry movement, and then
dragging on a pair of great blue stockings he put on shoes and followed
Will without a word.
Out along the beach and away from the village, and in and out among the
rocks for quite two miles, till they were where the cliff went sheer up
like a vast wall of rugged granite, at a part of which, where a mass of
broken stone had either fallen or been thrown down, Will stopped and
looked round to see if they were observed. As they were alone with no
other watchers than a swarthy-looking cormorant sitting on a sunny lodge
drying his wings, and a shag or two perched with outstretched neck,
narrowly observing them, Will climbed up, followed by Josh, till they
were upon a broad shelf a hundred and fifty feet above the sea--a wild
solitary place, where the heap of debris, lichened and wave-beaten, was
explained, for mining operations had once gone on hero, and a great
square hole yawned black and awful at their feet.
They had evidently been there before, for Will stepped close to a spot
where the rock overhung, and reaching in, drew out some pieces of
granite, and then from where it was hidden a large coil of stout rope,
and threw it on the broken fragments around.
"It's your doing, mind, you know," said Josh. "I don't like the gashly
job at all."
"Yes, it's my doing," said Will.
"And you mean to go down?"
"I do, Josh, for certain."
"It be a gashly unked hole, and you'd best give it up. Look here."
As he spoke he stooped and picked up a piece of rock weighing quite a
hundredweight, poised it in his hands for a moment or two, and then,
with a wonderful display of strength, tossed it from him right over the
middle of the disused mine-shaft. The mica flashed in the sun for a
moment, and then the great piece plunged down into the darkness, Josh
and Will involuntarily darting to the side and craning over the awesome
place to try and follow it with their eyes and catch the reverberations
when it struck the sides and finally plunged into the black collected
waters far enough below.