"TO-MORROW COME NEVER!"
"I really beg your pardon, Aunt Polly, for my inattention!" cried Bob,
in a state of great excitement. "It's the Captain!"
"Sure, you don't mean that, my dear," said Mrs Gilmour, equally
flurried, rising at once from the seat she had just taken at the head of
the table. "Is it him, really?"
"Oh, yes, auntie," replied Bob, returning to his post of observation in
the corner of the window. "There he is coming along the terrace, with
Dick at his heels."
"Indeed, now?" said Mrs Gilmour, who had come up to Bob's side. "Let
me look for meself. Sure and you're right. It's him and none other,
and he's coming along at a grand pace, too!"
"Hurrah!" shouted Bob. "Isn't it jolly, auntie?"
"Very jolly," agreed Mrs Gilmour, more sedately, laughing at Bob's
ecstasies, the boy, like most youngsters, being all extremes. "I call
it very nice of him, Nell, don't you?"
"Delightful!" chimed in Nellie, catching hold of Rover's fore-paws and
making him dance round the room with her in high glee, Rover barking to
express his sympathy with her excitement. "How good he is--I mean
Captain Dresser; not you, Master Doggy!"
"It is well we know what you do mean," said her aunt smiling, as Nell
and Bob, with Rover dashing madly after their heels rushed into the hall
to open the door. "Ah, the young flibberty-gibbets!"
In company with the Captain and Dick, as it still continued fine, all
presently sallied down to the sea, where the young holiday-makers were
much surprised at the size of the waves, which seemed much bigger on
nearer view than they had appeared from the drawing-room windows in the
morning.
Now they were so close to the waves that the spray splashed over the
little party; and, it being high-water, the incoming tide, aided by the
stiff south-easterly wind, which was still blowing half a gale, rolled
the billows in upon the shore, dashing them against the sea-wall and
rampart at the back of the castle with a mighty din, and breaking them
into sheets of foam that flew over the moats and fortifications,
reaching to the Common beyond--the spent water, driven back by the rocky
embankment, sullenly retiring, a seething sea of soapsuds, as if Davy
Jones were having a grand "washing-day."
Much as this sight pleased them, strange and wonderful to their
unaccustomed eyes, they were not allowed long to enjoy it; for, the
Captain declaring that another squall was coming, presently made them
hurry back to the house, laden, however, with sea-wrack and spindrift.
It was the same on the following day and the day after, the gale lasting
until the close of the third; when it completed its course and died away
as suddenly as it began, winding up with a grand thunderstorm, in which
the lightning flashed and the thunder pealed through the heavens in a
manner whose like, the Captain affirmed, he had never seen on that coast
before.
"No, never, ma'am," cried he, emphasising the assertion with a thump of
his malacca cane that almost made a hole in Mrs Gilmour's best drawing-
room carpet. "Not since I first joined the service at Portsmouth here,
forty years ago, or more!"
Satisfied apparently with the `blow' it thus had, the weather
subsequently was all that could be desired; setting in bright and fine,
while it was warm enough to be almost tropical.
Thenceforth, therefore, there was no more confinement to the house for
the young people.
Bob started off early every morning across the common to the beach,
where, under the superintendence of the Captain, he and Dick were taught
how to swim, the boys, it may be mentioned, learning the art all the
more quickly from the fact of the old sailor's telling them that "until
they were able to keep afloat," to use his own words, "he'd think twice
before he would take 'em afloat!"
So, as both were anxious to go out rowing and sailing, this threat acted
as a spur to their efforts.
Nellie, too, had a bathe each day; and, much she liked bobbing up and
down in the usual girl-fashion from the end of the rope of the machine.
By and by, also, when she had gained a little courage, she learnt to
swim like Bob, whose boastings on the point had put her on her mettle;
and the bathing-woman informed Mrs Gilmour one fine morning, when she
accompanied Nellie to the beach and entered into conversation with her
teacher, that she was "the smartest young leddy to learn as ever was."
This fact Miss Nell at once proved by swimming there and then some forty
yards, more than double the distance Master Bob could accomplish, in
spite of all his `tall talk,' after a similar period of tuition.
"You ladies can always beat us if you only try," said the Captain
gallantly, when he heard this. "I believe a woman can do anything she
likes."
"You're too complimentary, I'm afraid," remarked Mrs Gilmour. "You
don't mean all you say."
"Don't I, by Jove!" replied he. "Lucky for us men you do not set your
mind to it; for, if you did, no poor fellow would ever have a chance of
commanding his own ship!"
"That's a base slander," cried Mrs Gilmour, laughing. "I thought you
were paying us rather a doubtful compliment."
The old sailor chuckled.
"I had you there, ma'am, I think, eh?" said he, blinking away with much
delight. "By Jove, I had!"
"But, when are you going to take us on the water?" asked Bob at this
point, before his aunt could give the Captain `a Roland for his Oliver'
in reply to his aspersion on her sex. "You said you would, you know,
when I and Dick knew how to swim."
"And I know how to, as well," put in Nellie. "Don't I, auntie?"
"Don't bother me, children," growled the Captain, pretending to get in a
rage. "I must be off now. I have an appointment in the Dockyard this
afternoon."
"You shan't go! you shan't go!" cried the two together, hanging on to
him on either side. "You promised to take us somewhere or do something
if we were good, and that was to be to-morrow."
"To-morrow comes never!" ejaculated the old sailor, chuckling and
blinking away. "`Hodie mihi, cras tibi.' What is that, Master Bob?"
"Eh, sir?" said Bob, making a wry face. "Why, it's Latin."
"Thank you for nothing, you young shaver!" retorted the Captain drily.
"What I want to know is, what does it mean?"
Bob hesitated a bit, as if puzzled to translate the phrase; but in a
moment memory came to his aid.
"Ah yes, I recollect now," he said in an assured voice. "It means, I
think, `to-day it is my turn; to-morrow it will be yours.'"
"Very good, my boy," said the Captain with a chuckle. "That's my answer
to your question just now."
"But you promised us, Captain," cried Nellie, taking up the cudgels now
that poor Bob was routed so ignominiously. "You know you did, sir--
didn't he, auntie? And the `to-morrow' you meant was a long time back,
before the storm and everything!"
"Then I'm afraid, Miss Nellie," he replied, making for the door, so as
to secure his retreat, "it must be a very stale one; a sort of `to-
morrow' I wouldn't have, if I were you, at any price!"
Nellie was not to be beaten so easily, so she followed him out into the
hall as he was leaving the house.
"Do tell me, dear Captain," she pleaded earnestly. "Do tell me what
this wonderful something is that you have in store for us."
"I will, my dear," replied the old sailor, succeeding by a dexterous
twist in releasing the lapel of his coat from her restraining hand. "I
will, my dear. I'll whisper it to you--I will tell you to-morrow!"
With this he skipped down the steps as nimbly as a two-year-old,
slamming the gate behind him to secure his retreat; and Nellie could
hear his hearty "Ho-ho!" as he went along the parade towards Portsmouth.
"What a tiresome man the Captain is!" she exclaimed petulantly, on
returning to the drawing-room, where Mrs Gilmour had remained with Bob.
"It is always `to-morrow,' and `to-morrow,' and `to-morrow'; and when
the `to-morrow' comes, he never tells us anything!"
"Fie, Nellie, you must not be impatient, my dear," said her aunt, on
hearing this outburst. "Recollect how kind and good-natured Captain
Dresser has always shown himself, who ever since you two came down here
for your holiday, putting himself out in every way to suit your
convenience, and never regarding anything as a trouble which could
conduce to your pleasure. I confess I am surprised at my little niece
Nell speaking in such a way of so good a man. If the Captain keeps you
in suspense, depend upon it his purpose is to make you enjoy the treat
he has in his mind ten times more than if you knew all about it
beforehand."
"But I hate being kept in suspense, auntie!" cried Miss Nellie rather
naughtily, tossing her head indignantly, and throwing back her golden
curls as if she were metaphorically pitching them at the offending old
sailor. "I like to know the best or worst at once. I say, Dick, has
the Captain told you anything about the treat he has for us?"
Poor Dick, who had been thoughtfully left behind by the old sailor, on
account of Mrs Gilmour having expressed her intention of going down to
the beach with the young people in the afternoon, hardly knew how to
answer the question.
He did not like to tell an untruth by saying that he had no knowledge of
the Captain's plans, nor did he wish to disoblige Miss Nell, so his
answer was of the non-committal order--a sort of `I don't recollect' in
its way.
"I can't tell, miss," was all he said, but, fortunately enough for him,
it sufficed to throw Nellie off the scent and prevent her trying any
further to worm the secret out of him; although, there is no doubt, she
would have succeeded had she persevered, and Dick was on thorns until
she went upstairs to get ready for going out, the little lady having an
insinuating manner of her own that was well-nigh irresistible.
By the time she came below again, equipped for walking, Nellie's passing
fit of ill-temper had disappeared, and she was not only her bright
cheerful little self once more, but full of a project for adding to her
collection a specimen of the `sea cucumber,' which the Captain had told
her she might find if she only hunted diligently enough.
These strange marine animals belong to a species of `Triple Alliance' of
their own, being connected in a greater or less degree with the
anemones, the ringworms, and the `sea urchins'; albeit, the sea
cucumbers possess one very great advantage over these cousins of theirs,
in being able, when they so please, to turn themselves inside out and
dispense with their stomachs, as well as what would be considered other
equally necessary portions of their corporate frames.
When in this transformed, or `turn-coat' stage of his existence, the
animal consists only of an empty bag, or pocket, that has at the
broadest end an apparently useless mouth, but which he still continues
to make use of for feeding purposes; and, by and by, when my gentleman
feels disposed to return to his original state, seemingly by the mere
effort of will, his tentacles sprout out one by one, the mouth-end of
his bag becomes surmounted by a sort of mushroom head, his interior
person gets filled up, and the sea cucumber is himself again, "all a-
taunto!"
The Captain had advised Nellie to search amongst the old wooden piles of
the pier, as a likely situation to find these animals, and others he
named quite as curious, such as the `beroe' and the `balanus,' which
while looking as if inanimate yet are `all alive,' and, if not
`kicking,' certainly may be seen fishing, either with natural lines of
their own or with a sort of trawl-net, very similar to which we human
bipeds use.
But, although Miss Nellie, with Dick acting under her directions and
Bob, too, assisting in a desultory way when the superior attractions of
crab-hunting on his own account did not beguile him from the pursuit,
all hunted everywhere, finding every variety of young whelks, cockles,
and other shell-fish ova on the pier-piles, which they were able to
examine at their pleasure, it being low tide, no sea cucumbers to be
seen anywhere.
Nellie was in despair at her failure and felt almost inclined to cry;
but, Dick at the last moment, when the search was just about to be given
up, raked out a perfect specimen from a hole in the rock-work beneath
one of the buttresses that was nearly awash with the water--a darksome
dungeon, isolated from the vulgar herd of barnacles, and common but
kindred anemones with which the stuck-up sea cucumber was too proud to
associate.
Naturally enough, Miss Nellie was delighted with her capture, and, she
tenderly bore him home in triumph to be added to her extensive marine
collection, which had now increased so considerably, that her aunt
declared laughingly that she would have to build a room especially to
contain it presently, her house not being big enough for the purpose.
"Rubbish!" the Captain had called her first attempt at collecting, but,
since then, she had learnt something under the instruction of the old
sailor and displayed greater discrimination in the objects of her zeal;
although still, perhaps, inclined to err in the matter of quantity over
quality, leaning fondly, as most enthusiasts do, to common things.
Not only was the album which her aunt had given her pasted as full as it
could hold of different sorts of seaweed, known and unknown alike to Bob
and herself; but she had a pile of shells big enough to build a rockery.
In addition to these, her accumulation of pet specialities included a
seven-fingered starfish, which is supposed by the ignorant to be
peculiarly inimical to the adventurous cat that swalloweth it; and a
ring-horned pandalus or `Aesop prawn,' which queer creature Master Bob
appropriately christened `The Prawnee Chief,' much to the annoyance of
Miss Nell, who had become quite grand now in her language, becoming
`puffed up,' as Bob said, with her newly-acquired `knowledge'--a
`little' of which, as the proverb tells us, is "a dangerous thing."
The Aesop prawn, by the way, gained the prefix to his name from having a
hump on his back like the Phrygian slave, the fabulist. He is, also,
distinguished by the most exquisite little rings or bands of scarlet,
which seem to encircle his body; but the picturesque effect is really
produced by his antennae, which the pandalus has the happy knack of
arranging round his little person in the most graceful fashion.
Beyond these rarities, precious above price, Nellie had gathered a
quantity of cuttle-fish `bone,' as it is erroneously called, sufficient
to have supplied Bob and herself for a lifetime with ink-erasers--a
purpose for which it is generally employed.
The substance, however, is not really `bone,' but is composed of thin
layers of the purest white chalk, which, when the cuttle-fish is living,
is embedded in the body of the animal, running through its entire
length.
The cuttle-fish in which this so-called bone is generally met with, is
the same species from whence the well-known colour sepia used in
painting is usually obtained.
To make a long story short, the rest of Miss Nellie's collection
consisted of most of the various members of the crustacean family found
along the south coast, which she, with the help of Bob and Dick, had
picked up promiscuously.
"A good deal of rubbish still, my dear," was the Captain's comment when
he came round in the evening and Nellie showed him the latest additions
to her store; "but, you've got one or two good things. I'll tell you
what you want, though."
"What?" she asked excitedly. "What do we want, Captain? Hush, Bob!"
"An aquarium," said he. "You see, my dear--"
"Why, we've got one. We've got one already, Captain!" she cried out
triumphantly, clapping her hands as she interrupted him. "Aunt Polly
bought one this very morning for us."
"That was very good of her, more than you young torments deserve," said
the Captain, with his customary chuckle. "However, now you've got an
aquarium, you must have something to put in it. Something living, I
mean. These dead and gone dried-up old chaps here are of no use;
although I wouldn't be surprised if that starfish there could still tell
the number of his mess if placed in water. I'm sure he's yet alive, my
dear."
"Why!" exclaimed Nellie, astonished at this, "we've had him hanging up
like that for a week!"
"Never mind that," replied the Captain. "Those funny, fat, seven-
fingered gentlemen have a nasty habit of `shamming Abraham,' or
pretending to have `kicked the bucket' when they are all alive and
hearty!"
"How funny!" said Nellie, laughing. "But, what shall we get to put into
the aquarium besides, Captain dear, crabs and little fish, like those we
see swimming about in the sea below the castle?"
"Crabs and little grandmothers!" ejaculated the Captain in great
disgust. "A nice aquarium you would make of it, missy, if you hadn't
some one to look after you! Why, the crabs would eat your little fish
before a week was out and then turn round and eat you!"
"Dear me, that would be dreadful!" cried Nellie laughing still more, the
Captain did look so comical. "But, what may we have for our aquarium,
if we must not have these?"
"Get? Well, let me see," said he, blinking away furiously and moving
his bushy eyebrows up and down for a moment, as if deliberating. "We'll
have some sea-anemones, to commence with. No proper aquarium is
complete without them; and, when you once see them expand, showing their
red and purple hues, and watch their wonderful way of moving about, you
will soon be convinced that they are really animals and not vegetables,
which, as I believe I told you before, many wise people for a long time
supposed them to be! You just wait, missy, and you will find this out
for yourself and learn more about them, too, than I can tell you."
"Oh, yes," interposed Bob. "I saw one this morning when I was swimming,
and it looked just like a big dahlia."
"Lucky for you it wasn't a jelly-fish, or you'd have felt it as well as
seen it!" rejoined the Captain grimly--"Avast there, though, we were
talking about sea-anemones and other similar fry; and I was thinking
that the best place for us to go to get them would be--why, by Jove,
it's the very thing!"
"What's the matter now?" said Mrs Gilmour, who had been reading a
letter she had just received by the post, looking up at his sudden
exclamation. "Dear me, Captain, is anything wrong?"
"Nothing, ma'am, nothing," he replied, turning round to her--"only I've
this moment thought of a way of `killing two birds with one stone.' I
promised these youngsters, you know, if they were good--"
"I know, I know what's coming now," cried Miss Nell, again interrupting
him. Really she was a very rude little lady sometimes. "You're going
to tell us at last!"
"What, missy?" said the Captain chuckling, as she and Bob executed a
triumphal dance round him, while Dick stood grinning in the background,
his face, which had filled out considerably in the last week or two,
making him look very different to the lantern-jawed lad they had
encountered in the train, all one smile. "What, missy?"
"You're going to take us out somewhere," Bob and Nellie cried in
concert. "You promised, you know you did!"
"But, that was if you were good," he answered, enjoying their antics.
"That was the proviso, young people."
"We _are_ good," they shouted together. "Auntie says so."
The Captain put his hands to his ears to shut out their voices.
"Are they good?" he asked Mrs Gilmour. "Eh, ma'am?"
"Well, yes, I think so," said she, smiling. "Good enough as far as such
children can be, I suppose! I suppose I must not tell tales out of
school, sure, about what a little girl said the other day when somebody,
whom I won't name, went away?"
"What, what?" inquired the old sailor, looking from one to the other.
"Tell me what she said!"
Nellie put her hand over Mrs Gilmour's mouth.
"Hush auntie," she cried appealingly. "You mustn't say anything; I
didn't mean it!"
"I dare say you called me a sour old curmudgeon?" hinted the Captain,
pretending to be very much grieved. "Didn't you?"
"No, I didn't," said Nellie, jumping up and throwing her arms round his
neck to kiss him. "I think you are the dearest and kindest old Captain
that ever was!"
"Humph!" he ejaculated in a smothered voice, addressing her aunt.
"There's no doubt, ma'am, where she gets the `blarney' from. It runs in
the family!"
"Sure an' small blame to her either," retorted the other defiantly.
"It's fortunate for us women that we have something wherewith to get the
better of you hard men sometimes."
"Sometimes, eh? always, I think," growled the Captain, looking very
knowing and laughing the while. "But, I won't argue the point with you,
ma'am--sure to get the worst of it if I do. Tell you what I'll do, that
is if it is agreeable to you. What say you to all of us crossing over
to-morrow to the Island, eh?"
"Oh, auntie, how nice!" cried Nellie, hugging her and the Captain
alternately.