"Walter, now you were frightened, too. Own now!" continued Harry.
"No, I was not, really!" answered Walter. "Somehow I never feel afraid
on the water; and I think it must be because I was born at sea, you
know, when our father and mother were returning from the West Indies.
Now if I had been behind a pair of runaway horses, instead of aboard a
good boat, I might have got shaky, I daresay."
"Well, my opinion is," said I, "that just the best time of all was
finding the smugglers' cave; but I am afraid that, after we are gone,
they may come down hard on Clump and Juno, and when we have--"
Walter interrupted me with "Nonsense, those fellows will know enough to
keep hid or give the cape a wide berth after this. But talking about
the good times we have had, I have enjoyed our shooting best of all, and
so has Ugly, I'll bet--haven't you, Ugly?"
To which our bright little dog answered as well as he could by barking
an assent, and jumping before us to wag his tail energetically.
"Hallo!" Harry exclaimed, stopping, as he spoke, to look off to sea;
"there's a rakish-looking lugger--don't you see?--just there, to the
south-east, near Bass Rocks. I wonder what she is after."
"After?" answered Drake, "why, probably running down to Penzance."
"I don't know about that," said Harry, who continued to watch the vessel
with much interest; "it looks to me as if she were running close in, to
anchor."
"Well, let her anchor if she likes. There's nothing strange in that,
when there's not wind enough to fly a feather;" and after a few moments
more, in which we resumed our way to the house, Drake continued--
"Haven't our tutors proved splendid fellows? I think the Captain is the
finest old chap that I ever came across; and when Mr Clare is a
clergyman I should like to go to his church--shouldn't feel a bit like
going to sleep then."
To which we all gave a cordial assent, and, having reached the house,
turned in there with the prospect of having some fun with Clump and Juno
before our tutors should return. I stood at the door a few minutes.
Sure enough Harry was right. Though it was too dark now to distinguish
anything more than a hundred yards away, I heard the running out of a
cable and then the lowering of the sails. "An odd place to anchor for
the night," thought I, and so did Ugly, who was beside me, for he gave a
low, uneasy howl.
Juno was laying the plates for tea, as I went in. After teasing her for
awhile I joined the other boys. Soon Juno came out to the kitchen, and
when she commenced to fry the hasty-pudding, we induced Clump to tell us
some of his sea adventures, in the middle of which Ugly set up a furious
barking, and a moment afterwards there came a heavy rap at the front
door. It was the first time there had been a knock at a door of our old
house since we had been in it.
Clump, leaving his story unfinished, took a candle, and Drake and I
followed him into the dining-room, which he had to cross to get to the
front door. But by the time we had entered the dining-room a stranger
had walked into the hall, and had also proceeded to open the door
opposite us. Ugly, who was greatly incensed, jumped forward and took
hold of a leg of the stranger's trousers.
Our visitor was a small, rough, ugly man, with a terrible squint in his
eyes and a voice as unpleasant as his face. He had no collar, only a
handkerchief about his neck, and wore a large, shaggy flushing jacket.
His first act was to kick Ugly halfway across the room, with the
salutation: "Take that, you damned cur, for your manners, damn you!"
Ugly made at him again fiercer than ever, but I caught him in time and
held him.
"Wat will you 'ab, sir?" asked Clump in a dignified voice.
"What will I have, ay? I'll have that cur's life if he comes at me
agin, and I want to know, old nigger, if,"--here the rough customer spit
some tobacco-juice on the floor--"I want to know if you kin 'commodate
four or five gents for the night, ay?"