"Heigh-Ho-Ha-Hum! Oh dear me!"
"What's matter, sir?"
"Matter, Dirty Dick? Nothing; only, heigh-ho-ha! Oh dear me, how
sleepy I am!"
"Well, sir, I wouldn't open my mouth like that 'ere, 'fore the sun's
up."
"Why not?"
"No knowing what you might swallow off this here nasty, cold, foggy,
stony coast."
"There you go again, Dick; not so good as Lincolnshire coast, I
suppose?"
"As good, sir? Why, how can it be?" said the broad, sturdy sailor
addressed. "Nothin' but great high stony rocks, full o' beds of great
flat periwinkles and whelks; nowhere to land, nothin' to see. I am
surprised at you, sir. Why, there arn't a morsel o' sand."
"For not praising your nasty old flat sandy shore, with its marsh
beyond, and its ague and bogs and fens."
"Wish I was 'mong 'em now, sir. Wild ducks there, as is fit to eat, not
iley fishy things like these here."
"Oh, bother! Wish I could have had another hour or two's sleep. I say,
Dirty Dick, are you sure the watch wasn't called too soon?"
"Nay, sir, not a bit; and, beggin' your pardon, sir, if you wouldn't
mind easin' off the Dirty--Dick's much easier to say."
"Oh, very well, Dick. Don't be so thin-skinned about a nickname."
"That's it, sir. I arn't a bit thin-skinned. Why, my skin's as thick
as one of our beasts. I can't help it lookin' brown. Washes myself
deal more than some o' my mates as calls me dirty. Strange and curious
how a name o' that kind sticks."
"Oh, I say, don't talk so," said the lad by the rough sailor's side; and
after another yawn he began to stride up and down the deck of His
Majesty's cutter _White Hawk_, lying about a mile from the Freestone
coast of Wessex.
It was soon after daybreak, the sea was perfectly calm and a thick grey
mist hung around, making the deck and cordage wet and the air chilly,
while the coast, with its vast walls of perpendicular rocks, looked
weird and distant where a peep could be obtained amongst the wreaths of
vapour.
"Don't know when I felt so hungry," muttered the lad, as he thrust his
hands into his breeches pockets, and stopped near the sailor, who smiled
in the lad's frank-looking, handsome face.
"Ah, you always were a one to yeat, sir, ever since you first came
aboard."
"You're a noodle, Dick. Who wouldn't be hungry, fetched out of his cot
at this time of the morning to take the watch. Hang the watch! Bother
the watch! Go and get me a biscuit, Dick, there's a good fellow."
The sailor showed his white teeth, and took out a brass box.
"Can't get no biscuit yet, sir. Have a bit o' this. Keeps off the
gnawin's wonderful."
"Yah! Who's going to chew tobacco!" cried the lad with a look of
disgust, as he buttoned up his uniform jacket. "Oh, hang it all, I wish
the sun would come out!"
"Won't be long, sir; and then all this sea-haar will go."
"Why don't you say mist?" cried the lad contemptuously.
"'Acause it's sea-haar, and you can't make nowt else on it, sir!"
"They haven't seen anything of them in the night, I suppose?"
"No, sir; nowt. It scars me sometimes, the way they dodges us, and gets
away. Don't think theer's anything queer about 'em, do you?"
"Queer? Yes, of course. They're smugglers, and as artful as can be."
"Nay, sir, bad, I mean--you know, sir."
"No, I don't, Dick," cried the young officer pettishly. "How can I
know? Speak out."
"Nay, I wean't say a word, sir; I don't want to get more scarred than I
am sometimes now."
"Get out! What do you mean? That old Bogey helps them to run their
cargoes?"
"Nay, sir, I wean't say a word. It's all werry well for you to laugh,
now it's daylight, and the sun coming out. It's when it's all black as
pitch, as it takes howd on you worst."
"You're a great baby, Dick," cried the midshipman, as he went to the
side of the cutter and looked over the low bulwark toward the east.
"Hah! Here comes the sun."
His eyes brightened as he welcomed the coming of the bright orb,
invisible yet from where he stood; but the cold grey mist that hung
around was becoming here and there, in patches, shot with a soft
delicious rosy hue, which made the grey around turn opalescent rapidly,
beginning to flash out pale yellow, which, as the middy watched,
deepened into orange and gold.
"Lovely!" he said aloud, as he forgot in the glory of the scene the
discomfort he had felt.
"Tidy, sir, pooty tidy," said the sailor, who had come slowly up to
where he stood. "And you should see the morning come over our coast,
sir. Call this lovely? Why, if you'd sin the sun rise there, it would
mak' you stand on your head."
"Rather see this on my feet, Dick," cried the lad. "Look at that!
Hurrah! Up she comes!"
Up "she"--otherwise the sun--did come, rolling slowly above the
mist-covered sea, red, swollen, huge, and sending blood-tinted rays
through and through the haze to glorify the hull, sails, and rigging of
the smart cutter, and make the faces of the man at the helm and the
other watchers glow as with new health.
The effect was magical. Just before all was cold and grey, and the
clinging mist sent a shiver through those on deck; now, their eyes
brightened with pleasure, as the very sight of the glowing orb seemed to
have a warming--as it certainly had an enlivening--effect.
The great wreaths of mist yielded rapidly as the sun rose higher, the
rays shooting through and through, making clear roads which flashed with
light, and, as the clouds rolled away like the grey smoke of the sun's
fire, the distant cliffs, which towered up steep and straight, like some
titanic wall, came peering out now in patches bright with green and
golden grey.
Archibald Raystoke--midshipman aboard His Majesty the king's cutter,
stationed off the Freestone coast, to put a stop to the doings of a
smuggler whose career the Government had thought it high time to
notice--drew in a long breath, and forgot all about hunger and cold in
the promise of a glorious day.
It was impossible to think of such trifling things in the full burst of
so much beauty, for, as the sun rose higher, the sea, which had been
blood-red and golden, began to turn of a vivid blue deeper than the
clear sky overhead; the mist wreaths grew thinner and more transparent,
and the pearly glistening foam, which followed the breaking of each wave
at the foot of the mighty cliffs, added fresh beauty to the glorious
scene.
"Look here, Dirty Dick," began the middy, who burst out into a hearty
fit of laughter as he saw the broad-shouldered sailor give his face a
rub with the back of his hands, and look at them one after the other.
"Does it come off, Dick?" he said.
"Nay, sir; nothin' comes off," said the man dolefully. "'Tis my natur
too, but it seems werry hard to be called dirty, when you arn't."
"There, I beg pardon, Dick, and I will not call you so any more."
"Thankye, sir; I s'pose you mean it, but you'll let it out again soon as
you forget."
"No, I will not, Dick. But, I say, look here: you are a cheat, though,
are you not?"
"Me, sir? No!" cried the man excitedly.
"I mean about the Lincolnshire coast. Confess it isn't half so
beautiful as this."
"Oh, yes it is, sir. It's so much flatter. Why, you can't hardly find
a place to land here, without getting your boat stove in."
"If all's true, the smugglers know how to land things," said Archibald,
as he gazed thoughtfully at the cliffs.
"Oh, them! O' course, sir, they can go up the cliffs, and over 'em like
flies in sugar basins. They get a spar over the edge, with a reg'lar
pulley, and lets down over the boats, and then up the kegs and bales
comes."
"Ah, well, we must catch them at it some day, Dick, and then there'll be
lots o' prize-money for you all."
"And for you too, sir; officers comes first. But we arn't got the prize
yet, and it's my belief as we shan't get it."
"Why?"
"Because it seems to me as there's something not all right about these
here craft."
"Of course there is, they are smugglers."
"Yes, sir, and worse too. If they was all right, we shouldn't ha' been
cruising 'bout here seven weeks, and never got a sight o' one of 'em,
when we know they've been here all the time."
"I don't understand you, Dick," said the middy, as he watched the going
and coming of the rock pigeons which flew straight for the cliff, seemed
to pass right in, and then dashed out.
"Well, sir, I can't explain it. Them there's things as you can't
explain, nor nobody else can't."
He wrinkled up his face and shook his head, as if there were a great
deal more behind.
"Now, what are you talking about, Dick?" cried the lad. "You don't mean
that the smuggler's a sort of ghost, and his lugger's all fancy?"
"Well, not exactly, sir, because if they was, they couldn't carry real
cargoes, which wouldn't be like the smuggler and his lugger, sir, and,
of course, then the kegs and lace wouldn't be no good. But there's a
bit something wrong about these here people, and all the men thinks so
too."
"More shame for them!" said the middy quickly. "Hi! Look there, Dick;
what's that?"
He seized the sailor by the shoulder, and pointed where, some five
hundred yards away, close under the cliff, but on the rise of the line
of breakers, there was something swimming slowly along.
Dick shaded his eyes, for no reason whatever, the sun being at his back,
and gazed at the object in the water.
"'Tarnt a porpus," he said thoughtfully.
"As if I didn't know that," cried the lad; and, running aft, he
descended into the cabin, and returned with a glass, which he focussed
and gazed through at the object rising steadily and falling with the
heave of the sea.
"See her, sir?"
"Yes," answered the middy, with his glass at his eye. "It's a bullock
or a cow."
"Werry like, sir. There is sea-cows, I've heared."
"Oh, but this isn't one of them. I believe it's a real cow, Dick."
"Not she, sir. Real cows lives in Lincolnshire, and feeds on grass. I
never see 'em go in the sea, only halfway up their legs in ponds, and
stand a-waggin' their tails to keep off the flies. This here's a
sea-cow, sir, sartin."
"It's a cow, Dick; and it has tumbled off the cliff, and is swimming for
its life," said the lad, closing the glass.
The sailor chuckled.
"What are you laughing at?"
"At you, sir, beggin' your pardon. But you don't think as how a cow
would be such a fool as to tumble off a cliff. Humans might, but cows
is too cunning."
"I don't believe you would be," cried the lad smartly. "Put you up
there in such a fog as we've had, and where would you be?"
"Fast asleep in the first snug corner I could find," said the sailor, as
the midshipman ran aft, and descended into the cabin, to go to the end
and tap on a door.
There was no answer, and he tapped again.
"Hullo!"
"Beg pardon, sir," began the midshipman.
"Granted! Be off, and don't bother me again."
There was a rustling sound, and a deep-toned breathing, that some rude
people would have called a snore. The midshipman looked puzzled,
hesitated, and then knocked again.
There came a smothered roar, like that of an angry beast.
"Beg pardon, sir."
"Who's that?"
"Raystoke, sir."
"What do you want? Am I never to have a night's rest again?"
All this in smothered tones, as if the speaker was shut up in a cupboard
with a blanket over his head.
"Wouldn't have troubled you, sir, but--"
"Smugglers in sight?"
"No, sir; it's a cow."
"A what?"
"Cow, sir, overboard."
"Quite right. Milk and water," came in muffled tones.
"Beg pardon, sir, what shall I do?"
"Go and milk her, and don't bother me."
"But she's swimming under the cliff, sir."
"Go and ask her on board, then. Be off!"
Archy Raystoke knew his commanding officer's ways, and after waiting a
few moments, he said softly, after giving a tap or two on the panel--
"Shall I take the boat and get her aboard?"
There was a loud rustle; a bang as if some one had struck the bulkhead
with his elbow, and then a voice roared--
"Look here, sir, if you don't be off and let me finish my sleep, I'll
let go at you through the door. You're in charge of the deck. Go and
do what's right, and don't bother me."
_Bang_!
Another blow on the bulkhead, and rustling noise, and, as well as if he
had seen it all, Archy knew that his officer had snuggled down under the
clothes, and gone to sleep.
But he had the permission, and calling to a couple of the crew, he soon
had the small boat in the water, with Dick and another man pulling
towards where the cow was slowly swimming here and there, with its wet
nose and two horns a very short distance above the surface.
"Now, then, Dick, is it a sea-cow?" cried Archy, as they drew nearer.
"Well, sir, what else can it be?"
"Ah, you obstinate!" cried the lad. "Now, then, what are we going to
do? We can't land her," he continued, looking up at the towering cliff,
"and, of course, we can't take her in the boat."
"I'll soon manage that," said Dick, leaving his rowing to take up a coil
of rope he had thrown into the boat, and make a running noose.
"Yes, but--"
"It's all right, sir. Get this over her horns, and we can tow her
alongside, and hyste her on deck in no time."
The cow proved that she was accustomed to man, for, as the boat
approached, she swam slowly to meet it, raising her nose a little to
utter a loud bellow, as if glad to welcome the help. So quiet and
gentle was the poor creature, that there was no difficulty in passing
the noose over her horns, making the line fast to a ring-bolt, so as to
keep her head well above the surface, and then Dick resumed his oar; and
after a glance round to make sure that there was no place where the poor
beast could be landed, Archie gave the order for them to row back to
where the cutter lay in the bright sunshine, five hundred yards from the
shore.
He looked in vain, for at the lowest part the green edge of the cliff
was a couple of hundred feet above the level of the sea, and right and
left of him the mighty walls of rock rose up, four, five, and even six
hundred feet, and for the most part with a sheer descent to the water
which washed their feet.
The cow took to her journey very kindly, helping the progress by
swimming till they were alongside the cutter, where the men on deck were
looking over the low side, and grinning with amusement.
"Pull her horns off, sir!" said Dick, in answer to a question, as he
proceeded to pass the rope through a block, "not it."
"But hadn't we better have a line round her?"
"If you want to cut her 'most in two, sir. We'll soon have her on
board."
Dick was as good as his word, for the task was easy with a vessel so low
in the water as the cutter; and in a few minutes the unfortunate cow was
standing dripping on deck.