The ticket-collector appeared puzzled for the moment, especially on
noticing a poor, ragged fellow like Dick travelling in a first-class
compartment "in company with gentlefolks," as he thought to himself;
but, at the instant this reflection passed through his mind, he
recognised the Captain as an old and regular passenger on the line,
besides being one from whom he had received many a `tip,' so he at once
touched his cap, responding with a grin of sympathy to the Captain's
cheery laugh, as if he thoroughly entered into the joke.
"Oh, haven't he, sir?" said he, the ungrammatical phrase dropping more
naturally from his rustic tongue; "then he'll have to get 'un sharp, or
pay the fare, sir."
"Never mind about that, my man, I'll pay for his ticket, for he's
travelling with me," replied the old sailor as he fumbled in his
pockets, shoving his hand first in one and then in the other; producing,
at last, a number of gold and silver coins, mixed up with coppers, a
bunch of keys, a clasp-knife, and his snuff-box, which somehow or other
he had put back in the wrong place. "How much is it?"
"Where from, sir?" inquired the man, reaching out his hand for Bob and
Nellie's tickets. "Far up the line, sir?"
"No, only from Guildford," replied the Captain. "That's only half-way
from London; but there's half-a-sovereign, and you may keep the change
for yourself."
"Thank you, sir," said the collector, touching his cap again and taking
the coin. He still lingered, however, as if wanting something more but
hesitated to ask for it.
"Well?" ejaculated the Captain impatiently. "What is it, my man?"
"Your ticket, sir," said the man deferentially. "You forgot to give it
me, sir."
"Zounds!" cried the other, blinking away furiously and moving his
eyebrows up and down as he searched vainly in all his pockets, finally
discovering that he held the missing ticket in his fist all the while!
"I declare I forgot all about it. You see I was ready for you, though,
eh?"
"All right, sir, good-day," said the man, receiving the ticket and
shutting the carriage-door gently, with a bow and a smile and another
touch of his cap; and, the next moment, with another sharp unearthly
shriek of the steam-whistle similar to that which had heralded its
entrance into Havant station, the train, giving a joggle and a jerk as
it got under way, was speeding along again, across the rattling bridges
that spanned the moats of the fortifications and through the Portsea
lines, to the terminus beyond at Landport.
"Here we are, children," exclaimed the Captain, on its pulling up at the
journey's end. "Here we are at last!"
"And is this Portsmouth?" inquired Nellie. But, she need not have asked
the question; for, as she looked down the platform she cried out
excitedly in the same breath--"Why, there's aunt Polly! There's aunt
Polly!"
"Let me look, let me look," said Bob, trying to squeeze in between
Nellie and the Captain, who was fumbling at the handle of the door,
endeavouring to open it. "I can't see her, Nell! Where is she?"
"Hold on, can't you!" grumbled the old sailor, angry with the door for
not yielding at once to his efforts. "If you wait a moment you'll be
able to see your `aunt Polly' and everybody else to your heart's
content; that is, as soon as we can get out on to the platform. Bother
take the door, how it sticks!" With this exclamation, muttered in a
hoarse, stifled voice, by reason of his half-stooping position, the
Captain put his knee against the obnoxious door; and this, giving way to
his shove, unexpectedly, nearly precipitated him into the arms of Mrs
Gilmour, the aunt of our hero and heroine, who had recognised little
Nellie's face at the window and advanced to the side of the carriage,
without his perceiving her approach.
"Dear me, Captain Dresser!" she cried with a laugh, just catching him
from falling on his face. "I've no doubt you are very glad to say me
again, but you needn't be quite so demonstrative in public."
The Captain rose up, looking very red and confused. "I'm sure I beg
your pardon, ma'am," said he, bowing and laughing, too, as he recovered
himself; "but those porters slam and jam the doors so, that they never
will open properly when you want to get out quickly!"
His further excuses, however, were cut short by Nellie springing out of
the carriage before he could utter another word.
"Oh, aunt Polly!" she exclaimed, hugging the smiling lady, who was a
plump merry-looking little body, with dark wavy hair and large,
lustrous, almond-shaped eyes, which, strange to say, were of an intense
violet blue, presenting a curious contrast. "You dear auntie Polly!
How glad I am to see you again!"
"So am I, me dearie, to say you," replied the other, with the slightest
wee bit of a brogue, aunt Polly having been born in the North of
Ireland, where blue eyes with black hair and brogues are common; "an'
Bob, too, the darlint! How are you, me boy!"
"All right, auntie, right as a jiffy," said he brightly, greeting her
with like effusion to his sister. "Really, I don't know when I was so
glad as I am to come down here to the sea and see you. Hullo, though,
I'm forgetting about Rover!"
With these words, Master Bob darted down the platform to the guard's van
at the end of the train, with Miss Nellie cantering after him; both
leaving their newly-met aunt as unceremoniously as the Captain had
tumbled against her on emerging from the carriage the moment before!
However, Mrs Gilmour did not appear to mind this, only exchanging a
smile with the old sailor, who of course remained beside her; while
Dick, as if anxious to make some return for the kindness shown him, had
started taking the children's traps out of the train without waiting for
any one's orders.
As for the Captain, he had no luggage beyond the queer-looking malacca
walking-stick called a `Penang lawyer' which he held in his hand, never
troubling himself with `stray dunnage,' as he said, when travelling by
railway.
Bob and Nellie were presently seen in the distance, in close colloquy
with the guard, who, after a bit, lugged out from his van, with much
deliberation of movement and `gingerliness' of manner, a huge black
retriever, who apparently did not wish just then to issue forth from his
retreat.
No sooner, however, had the imprisoned animal once more touched the firm
ground of the platform with his four paws, than, carried away with
delight at being able to stand again on something that wasn't moving, he
suddenly wrenched himself free from the guard and began plunging about
in a mad gambol around.
"Come here, Rover!" cried Bob. "Come here, Rover!" echoed Nellie, alike
in vain; for, although Rover approached and jumped up on each in turn in
expression of his pleasure at seeing them, he would dart away the next
instant out of reach, evidently afraid lest the chain should be taken
hold of, and he be boxed up again in purgatory. He would not attend to
any, "Come here, sir!"
"He's too artful to be caught, sir," said the guard, laughing at the
dog's antics. "He's too knowing by half."
"Oh, he'll come along fast enough after me," answered Bob with some
reserve of manner, thinking it rather beneath his dignity, as well as
unjust to Rover, to bandy words about the latter's disobedience of
orders; and so, he walked on up the platform, whistling as he went and
followed by Nellie, towards where aunt Polly and the Captain were
chatting, the old sailor explaining to Mrs Gilmour how Dick's
acquaintance had been made, she having been much impressed by his civil
and attentive demeanour, if not by his appearance.
"Come on!" shouted Bob between his whistles, as he got nearer; Nellie,
close behind him, likewise whistling and repeating his cry, "Come on,
Rover!"
Rover came on; but, not altogether in the way his young master and
mistress wished.
Galloping now in front, now in rear of the two, and then prancing
towards them sideways, but always out of reach, he whirled his heavy
chain about like a lasso, to the danger of everybody around; many of the
passengers being still on the platform looking after their belongings or
waiting for cabs, most of the vehicles that had been drawn up on the
cab-rank having already driven off loaded.
"Do catch hold of him, Bob!" cried poor Nellie in accents of alarm.
"He'll trip up somebody."
Rover seemed to hear and understand what she said; and, as if anxious to
oblige her, at once twirled his clattering chain round the legs of a fat
old lady, who, with her arms full of a number of parcels, was waiting
for one of the porters to extract yet more from the carriage in which
she had come down.
"Look out, ma'am!" said the Captain, seeing what was coming. "Keep
clear of the dog, ma'am, or he'll foul your hawse!"
But, he was too late for the warning to be of any use; for, at the same
instant, the old lady was whirled violently round and round like a
teetotum and fell to the ground, uttering the while a series of wild
shrieks, coupled with the smothered exclamation--"My good gracious!"
"I thought so!" ejaculated the old sailor as he hastened up to her
rescue, and, with the aid of the porter, succeeded in placing her on her
feet again; while Nellie and Bob set to work collecting her parcels
which were scattered in every direction. "I hope you are not hurt,
madam," Captain Dresser added when the lady was, as he expressed it,
`all a-taunto' once more. "I hope you are not hurt!"
However, she did not pay any attention to the polite inquiry, displaying
more solicitude for her portable property than her person.
"Who's to pay for my eggs, I'd like to know?" was all she said. "I
s'pose they be all bruck to pieces!"
She evidently alluded to the largest of her parcels, which still lay
close to her on the platform, neither Bob nor Nellie having yet reached
this to pick it up; for, a thick yellow fluid was oozing out from the
wrappings, plainly betokening the nature of its fragile contents and
their fate.
"Oh, never mind your eggs, ma'am," cried the Captain impatiently.
"We'll reimburse you for their loss, as the dog has caused the mischief.
I was thinking of your bones!"
"Drat my bones and the dog, too!" said the old lady with equal heat.
"One doesn't get noo laid eggs every day, I'd 'ave yer to know, sir, and
I was a-taking these a puppose for my darter, which I brought all the
way now from Gi'ford only to 'ave 'em bruck at last!"
"Never mind, never mind," replied the Captain soothingly; and on Mrs
Gilmour at the same time telling her that she kept fowls and would send
her some more fresh eggs the very next morning, to replace those broken,
if she would give her address, the old lady was finally pacified.
She went off presently, with all her remaining parcels, in a cab, which
the Captain insisted on paying for; the good dame beaming with
satisfaction and looking as if she thought she had made rather a good
thing than not by the mishap!
Meanwhile, Bob and Nellie had to interrupt their task of parcel-
collecting to go after the truant Rover, who, not satisfied with the
damage he had already done, was in active pursuit of the traffic
manager's favourite cat, right through the station.
The roving delinquent ultimately `treed' his prey in one of the waiting-
rooms, where poor pussy sought refuge on the mantelpiece, knocking down
a glass water-bottle and tumbler in jumping thither out of the reach of
the frantic Rover, who scared half to death the occupants of the room as
he dashed in, all in full cry!
Then a most delightful concerted duet ensued.
"Mia-ow, phoo, phit, phiz!" screamed pussy with all the varied
expression of which the cat language is capable, running up the gamut
into the treble and dying off in a wailing demi-semi-quaver. "Mia-o-w!"
"Bow, wow, wuff!" chanted Rover, singing his portion of the refrain in
deep bass notes that produced a hollow echo through the waiting-room,
making the noise seem to proceed from twenty dogs instead of one.
"Wough!"
Nor was Rover long content merely to take part in a musical performance
only.
Bent on more active hostilities, he jumped up at the angry cat in her
retreat on the mantelpiece--standing up on his hind legs for the
purpose; and then, being only able to sniff near enough for puss to slap
his face energetically with her paws right and left with a sharp `smick
smack,' Rover uttering an agonised howl that came in at the end of the
chorus and must have been heard all over the station.
A catastrophe was avoided, just in time, by Bob and Nellie appearing on
the scene of action; when, catching hold of the end of Rover's chain,
they bore him away captive again to where their aunt and the Captain
were waiting and wondering at their long delay.
Nemesis followed behind the trio in the shape of one of the railway
police.
He came in the ostensible interests of the hunted cat and damaged
property belonging to the waiting-room; but the elders of the party
regarded him to be more intent on obtaining `hush-money,' wherewith to
blot out Rover's misdeeds and line his own pockets at the same time.
"Here's a pretty to-do, children," cried the Captain, taking this view
of the matter and slipping a shilling into the man's hand to avoid any
unnecessary explanations. "That dog of yours is like a wild elephant in
an Indian jungle!"
"He's a fine dorg," observed the railway policeman parenthetically,
pacified by the coin he had received and willing on the strength of it
to forget alike the onslaught on pussy and the broken glass. "Finest
dorg I ever seed for a retriever, sir."
"Ah, handsome is as handsome does!" replied the Captain sententiously.
"Dogs, like children, ought to be taught to behave themselves."
Nellie, however, did not like this sort of slur on Rover's character.
"Oh! Captain Dresser," she exclaimed. "It was only his playfulness on
getting out of confinement."
"Humph!" ejaculated the old sailor--"playfulness, eh? A playful dog
like that once bit me playfully in the calf of the leg, stopping all my
play for a fortnight!"
"Oh, Rover wouldn't do that," said Bob--"No, not he!"
"Wouldn't he? I'd be sorry to give him the chance," answered the other
with a laugh, as he assisted Mrs Gilmour into an open fly, into which
the children's luggage had been already put by the attentive Dick.
"There'd be precious little of me left, I'm afraid, if he once tackled
me!"
Nellie and Bob then got into the fly, the Captain following them on
their aunt's pressing invitation to escort them all down to her house on
the south parade; while Dick, after having, with the help of the cabman,
lifted Rover, who behaved like a lamb during the operation, on to the
box-seat, where he was wedged in securely between the trunks and the
driver's legs, climbed up himself and away they all started--`packed as
tightly as herrings in a barrel,' to use the Captain's expression.
In the evening, after dinner, the whole party went down to the shore,
where Bob and Nellie made their first acquaintance with the sea; a
distant view of which they had a glimpse of previously from the balcony
of their aunt's house on the parade.
Both were in ecstasies of delight as they gazed out on the undulating
expanse of blue water, with the tiny little wavelets rippling up to
their feet caressingly, as if inviting them to wade in over the
glittering pebbles of the beach that glistened like jewels where wetted
by the tide.
"Jolly, isn't it?" cried Bob enthusiastically. "Don't it make a noise
though!"
"Not a noise," said Nellie, shocked at his unromantic description. "The
waves seem to say `Hush!' and speak to me, as softly as if they wanted
to send me to sleep!"
"Bravo, young lady!" put in the Captain, overhearing her remark.
"`Rocked in the cradle of the deep,' as the old song runs, eh? Though
I've almost forgotten all my Greek knocking about the world, or rather
had it knocked out of me in a midshipmen's mess, if I recollect aright,
old Homer describes the noise of the waves nearly in your own words, my
dear. His term for it is _polyploisboio thalasses_--the `murmuring of
the many-voiced sea!' Grand, isn't it; grand, eh? But, let us walk
round the castle, and then you will see and hear it better."
They accompanied him, accordingly, around the sloping rampart; Mrs
Gilmour walking by the side of the old sailor, while Bob and Nellie
lingered behind with Dick.
On their way round the castle, Master Bob occasionally pitched in a
piece of stick for Rover to fetch out of the sea, which the energetic
dog did with the utmost gusto; barking with glee as he dashed into the
water and coming out sedately with his coat all dripping, to deposit the
stick at his master's feet, with a shake that sent a shower of drops
like rain all over them, making them laugh in glee as great as his.
The stragglers presently came up with the seniors of the party who had
seated themselves on a little ledge of the wall on the highest point of
the glacis at the back of the old fortification, from whence away to the
west the sun could be seen setting in a glory of crimson and gold behind
the dockyard, with the masts of the ships standing out in red relief, as
if on fire.
In front were the purple hills of the Isle of Wight, with the white-
terraced Ryde lying in between, its houses lit up likewise by the rays
of the sunset, and their windows all aflame; and, under their feet,
stretching away to where it met the hills opposite and to the harbour's
mouth and Haslar breakwater on the right, with the now twinkling Nab
light on the extreme left, was the dancing, murmuring, restless sea, its
hue varying every instant, from the rich crimson and gold it reflected
from the western horizon to the darker shades of evening that came
creeping up steadily from the eastward, blotting out by degrees its
previous bright tones.
Two or three merchant ships were anchored at Spithead; but there was not
a single sail moving in sight.
All was still; and, as if in harmony with the scene, the Captain and
Mrs Gilmour sat in silent contemplation of the sight before them,
neither uttering a word.
The children, however, were not quiet long.
"Hi, Rover, fetch it, good dog!" cried out Bob presently, pitching the
stick into the water that laved the base of the sloping rampart. "Fetch
it out, sir; fetch it."
Rover raced, slipping and sliding, down the slope, plunging in with an
impetus that sent him souse in head and ears under the surface; but, he
soon re-appeared to view and, swimming out to where the stick floated,
gripped it valiantly and made his way back to the shore, holding it in
his mouth crosswise.
Now, however, poor Rover experienced more trouble in climbing out than
he had probably anticipated; for, it being deep water at the foot of the
ramparts and the stones being slippery, as the animal got his fore-paws
on the stonework and tried to raise his hind legs, back he would slip
again into the sea.
"Poor fellow!" said Bob. "Why, he can't get up. I will go and help
him."
So saying, he began to clamber down the slope.
"Stop, boy, stop!" cried the Captain excitedly. "You will fall in!"
"Come back, Bob, come back!" screamed Nellie and her aunt together.
"Come back!"
But, hardly able to keep his footing, it was out of Bob's power either
to arrest his rapid descent of the downward slope or to retrace his
steps.
The very cries of warning, indeed, of those above brought about the
result they sought to prevent; for, looking up and waving his hand to
reassure them, Bob all at once lost his footing, rolling over and
plunging into the water right on top of Rover, his yell of dismay being
echoed by a howl of pain from the dog.