"Sure, I'm almost dead entirely, with all that hurrying and scurrying!"
exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, when she was at length got safely on board the
little steamer and comfortably placed on a cosy seat aft, near the
wheel, to which Captain Dresser had gallantly escorted her. "Really,
now, I couldn't have run another yard, if it had been to save me life!"
She panted out the words with such a racy admixture of her Irish
"brogue," which always became more "pronounced" with her when she was at
all excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing every
sympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as he
imitated her tone of voice and accent--much to the amusement of Master
Bob and Miss Nellie, you may be sure!
"Sure, an' there's no knowin' what ye can do, now, till ye thry, ma'am!"
said he. "Is there, me darlint?"
"None of your nonsense," she replied laughing; "I won't have you making
fun of my country like that. I'm sure you're just as much an Irishman
as I am!"
This slip delighted the Captain.
"There, ma'am," he exclaimed exultingly, "you've been and gone and put
your foot in it now in all conscience."
"Oh, auntie!" cried Nellie, "an _Irishman_!"
This made Mrs Gilmour see her blunder, and she cheerfully joined in the
laugh against herself.
Bob, meanwhile, had stationed himself by the engine-room hatchway, and
was contemplating with rapt attention the almost human-like movements of
the machinery below.
How wonderful it all was, he thought--the up and down stroke of the
piston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to side
guided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of the
shaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all working
so smoothly, and yet with such resistless force!
The whole was a marvel to him, as indeed it is to many of us to whom a
marine engine is no novelty.
"Well, my young philosopher," said the Captain, tapping him on the
shoulder and making him take off his gaze for a moment from the sight,
"do you think you understand the engines by this time, eh?"
Bob only needed the hint to speak; and out he came with a whole volley
of questions.
"What is that thing there?" he asked, "the thing that goes round, I
mean."
"The paddle-shaft," replied the Captain; "it turns the wheels."
"And that other thing that goes up and down?"
"The piston-rod," said the old sailor. "It is this which turns the
shaft."
"Then, I want to know how the piston makes the shaft turn round, when it
only goes up and down itself?"
"The `eccentric' manages to do that, although it was a puzzle for a long
time to engineers to solve the problem--not until, I believe, Fulton
thought of this plan," said the Captain; and, he then went on to explain
how, in the old beam-engine of Watt, as well as in the earlier
contrivances for utilising steam-power, a fly-wheel was the means
adopted for changing the perpendicular action of the piston into a
circular motion. "Of course, though," he added, "this fly-wheel was
only available in stationary engines for pumping and so on; but, when
the principle of the eccentric was discovered later in the day, the
previously uneducated young giant, `Steam,' was then broken to harness,
so to speak, being thenceforth made serviceable for dragging railway-
carriages on our iron roads, and propelling ships without the aid of
sails, and against the wind even, if need be!"
"But what is steam?" was Bob's next query. "That's what I want to
know."
This fairly bothered the Captain.
"Steam?" he repeated, "steam, eh? humph! steam is, well let me see,
steam is--steam!"
Bob exploded at this, his merriment being shared by Nellie and Mrs
Gilmour, the latter not sorry for the old sailor's "putting his foot in
it" by a very similar blunder to that for which he had laughed at her
shortly before; while, as for Dick, the struggles he made to hide the
broad grin which would show on his face were quite comical and even
painful to witness.
The Captain pretended to get into a great rage; although his twinkling
eyes and suppressed chuckle testified that it was only pretence all the
time, though his passion was well simulated.
"I don't see anything to laugh at, you young rascal," he said to Bob.
"I'm sure I've given you quite as good a definition as you would find in
any of those `catechisms of common things'--catechisms of conundrums, I
call them--which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots,
without really acquiring any sensible knowledge of the subjects they are
supposed to teach! I might tell you, as these works do, that `steam was
an elastic fluid generated by water when in a boiling state'; but, would
you be any the wiser for that piece of information, eh?"
"No, Captain," answered Bob, still giggling, "I don't understand."
"Or, I might tell you `steam: is only a synonym for heat, the cause of
all motion'--do you understand that?"
Bob still shook his head, trying vainly to keep from laughing.
"Of course not," cried the Captain triumphantly, "nor would I, either,
unless I knew something more about it; and to tell you that would take
me all the day nearly."
"Oh spare us," said Mrs Gilmour plaintively. "Pray spare us that!"
"I will, ma'am," he replied. "I assure you I wasn't going to do it.
Some time or other, though, this young shaver shall come along with me
when one of the new ships goes out from the dockyard for her steam
trials; and then, perhaps, he will be able to have everything explained
to him properly, without boring you or bothering me."
"How jolly!" ejaculated Bob. "I should like that."
"You mustn't count your chickens before they're hatched," growled the
other, turning round on him abruptly; "and, if ever I catch you
sniggering again when I'm talking I'll--I'll--"
What the Captain's terrible threat was must ever remain a mystery; for,
just at that moment, Nell, who had been looking over the side of the
steamer, watching the creamy foam churned-up by her paddles and rolling
with heavy undulations into the long white wake astern marking her
progress through the water, suddenly uttered an exclamation.
"Look, look, aunt Polly!" she cried excitedly. "Oh, look!"
"What, dearie?" inquired Mrs Gilmour, bending towards her, thinking she
had dropped her glove or something into the sea. "What is it?"
"There, there!" said Nellie, pointing out some dark objects that could
be seen tumbling about in the tideway some distance off the starboard
quarter. "See those big fishes, auntie! Are they whales?"
It was the Captain's turn to laugh now.
"Whales, eh? By Jove, you'll be the death of me, missy, by Jove, you
will, ho-ho-ho!" he chuckled, leaning on his stick for support. "What
does Shakespeare say, eh? `very like a whale,' eh? Ho-ho-ho!"
Miss Nell did not like this at all, though she did not object to
laughing at others.
"Well, what are they?" she asked indignantly. "What are they?"
"Pigs;" replied the Captain with a grave face, but there was a sly
twinkle of his left eye approaching to a wink. "Those are pigs, missy."
"I don't believe it," cried the young lady in a pet, putting up her
shoulders in high disdain. "You're only making fun of me!"
"Hush, dearie, you mustn't be rude," said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly; "but
sure, Captain, you shouldn't make game of the child."
"I assure you, I'm not doing so, ma'am," he protested, chuckling though
still with much enjoyment. "I've only told her the simple truth. They
_are_ pigs, sea-pigs if you like, commonly called porpoises. But,
whales, by Jove, that's a good joke, ho-ho-ho!"
This time Nellie laughed too, the old sailor seemed to enjoy her mistake
with such gusto; and, harmony being thus restored, they all turned to
watch the graceful motions of the animals that had caused the
discussion, which, swimming abreast of the vessel, were ever and anon
darting across her bows and playing round her, describing the most
beautiful curves as they dived under each other, apparently indulging in
a game of leap-frog.
The _Bembridge Belle_ was now just about midway between Southsea and
Seaview, and close upon the buoy marking the spot where the old _Marie
Rose_, the first big ship of our embryo navy, sank in the reign of bluff
King Hal, in an action she had with a French squadron that attempted
entering the Solent with the idea of capturing the Isle of Wight. The
`mounseers,' as the Captain explained to Bob, were beaten off in the
battle and most of their vessels captured, a result owing largely to the
part played by the gallant _Marie Rose_; though, sad be it to relate,
while resisting all the efforts made by the enemy to carry her by the
board, being somewhat top-heavy, "she `turned the turtle' at the very
moment when her guns were brought to bear a-starboard, to give a final
broadside to the French admiral and settle the action, the poor thing
then incontinently sinking to the bottom, where her bones yet lie."
"Not far-off either," continued the Captain, "the _Royal George_ also
foundered in the last century, with over nine hundred hands, there being
a lot of shore folk in the ship beside her crew. Her Admiral,
Kempenfeldt, was also on board, and--"
"Yes," said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him; "and, sure, there's a pretty
little poem my favourite Cowper wrote about it which I recollect I
learnt by heart when I was a little girl, much smaller than you, Nell.
The lines began thus-- `Toll for the brave, the brave that are no
more,'--don't you remember them; I'm sure you must, Captain?"
"Can't say I do, ma'am," he replied--"poetry isn't in my line. But, as
I was saying, the _Royal George_ heeled over pretty nearly in the same
way as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I remember
when I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so many
years ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob,
being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, to
clear the fairway for navigation. I've got a ruler and a paper-knife
now at home that were carved out of pieces of her timber which I picked
up at the time."
"How nice!" observed Mrs Gilmour. "A charming recollection, I call
it!"
"Well, I don't know about that," replied the Captain, who seemed a
little bit grumpy, and was fumbling in his pockets without apparently
being able to find the object of which he was in search--"my
recollection is not so good as I would like it!"
On Mrs Gilmour looking at him inquiringly, noticing the tone in which
he spoke, the truth came out.
"The fact is, ma'am, I've lost my snuff-box," he said apologetically to
excuse his snappy answers. "I must have left it in my other coat at
home."
He did not give up the quest, however, but continued to dive his hands
on the right and left alternately into pocket after pocket; until,
suddenly, the cross expression vanished from his face, being succeeded
by a beaming smile, followed by his customary good-humoured chuckle.
"I've found it!" he exclaimed triumphantly, producing the missing box
from the usual pocket in which he kept it, where it had lain all the
time; and, taking a pinch, the Captain was himself again. "By Jove, I
thought my memory was gone!"
The porpoises all this while continued their gambols about the steamer,
now ahead, now astern, now swimming abreast, one after the other,
rolling, diving, and jumping out of the water sometimes in their sport.
They seemed to be having a regular holiday of it; and, tired of leap-
frog, had taken to "follow my leader" or some other game. At any rate,
they did not think much of the _Bembridge Belle_, passing and repassing
and going round her at intervals, as if to show their contempt of a
speed they could so readily eclipse.
"Do you often see them here playing like this?" asked Nellie of the
Captain, who was also looking over the side. "Is that the way they
always swim?"
"No, missy," said he, with all his old geniality, "not often, though
they pay us a visit now and then in summer when so inclined. Their
coming now through Spithead is a sign that there's going to be a change
of wind."
"Oh!" cried Nell wonderingly. "How strange!"
"Yes, my dear," went on the old sailor, smiling as he looked down in her
puzzled face upturned to his, "I'm not joking, missy, as you think.
Those fellows are regular barometers in their way; and, if you note the
direction towards which they are seen swimming when they pass a ship at
sea, from that very point wind, frequently a gale, may be shortly
expected."
"I hope we're not going to have another storm," said Nellie, thinking of
their late experience. "I don't like those gales."
"No, no, not so bad as that now, I think," he replied, chuckling away.
"There probably will be only a slight shift of wind from the western
quarter, whence it is now blowing, to the eastward, whither the
porpoises are now making off for, as you can see for yourself."
So it subsequently turned out.
The "sea-pigs," as the Captain had at first jocularly termed them, bade
good-bye to the steamer and its passengers when they had got a little
way beyond No Man's fort, and were approaching shoal water, with an
impudent flick of their flukey tails in the air as they went off,
shaping a straight course out towards the Nab light-ship, as if bound up
Channel.
They had all been so occupied watching the porpoises that they had not
noticed the rapid progress the steamer had been making towards her first
port of call on the other side of the Solent; and so, almost at the same
moment that the Captain called Nellie's attention to the last movements
of the queer fish as they vanished in the distance, she shut off her
steam and sidled up to Seaview pier.
"Who's for the shore?" cried out the skipper from his post on the
paddle-box, as soon as the vessel had made fast, and the "brow," or
gangway, was shoved ashore for the passengers to land, without any
unnecessary delay. "Any ladies or gents for Seaview?"
The majority of those on board at once quitted the steamer, amongst them
being our quintet.
As they were stepping on to the pier, however, a slight difficulty arose
in connection with one of their number.
It was about Rover.
"Is that your dog?" asked the collector of tickets of the
Captain, as the retriever darted ahead in a great hurry. "That your
dog, sir?"
"No," replied the old sailor, "not exactly--why?"
"Because, if he is, he'll have to have a ticket the same as the rest,"
said the man. "Dogs is half-price, like children."
"Oh, I didn't know," cried the Captain apologetically, as he put his
hand in his pocket and paid Rover's fare, adding in a low voice to Mrs
Gilmour, while they were ascending the steps from the landing-stage to
the pier above, "I do believe that rascal thought I meant to cheat him
and smuggle the dog through without paying, the fellow looked at me so
suspiciously."
"Perhaps he did," replied she laughing. "You know you are a very
suspicious-looking gentleman."
"Humph!" he chuckled. "I think Rover intended to do him, though. He
squeezed himself past my legs very artfully!"
"He did, the naughty dog," said Nellie, who, with Bob, had been much
amused by the little incident. "He's always doing it in London at the
railway-stations whenever we go by the underground line; and papa says
he wants to cheat the company. He comes after us sometimes, and jumps
into the railway-carriage where we are, when we think him miles away and
safe at home! Did you ever hear of such a thing, aunt Polly?"
"No, dearie," she answered as they all stepped out briskly along the
rather shaky suspension bridge connecting the pier with the shore, which
oscillated under their feet in a way that made Mrs Gilmour anxious to
get off it as quickly as she could to firm ground. "Rover is a clever
fellow, sure!"
"He's a very artful dog!" observed the Captain, whereat Rover wagged his
tail, as if he understood what he said and appreciated the
compliment--"a very artful dog!"
Arrived on shore, presently, the children were in ecstasies at all they
saw; for, by only crossing the roadway opposite the land end of the
shaky bridge, they at once found themselves within the outlying
shrubbery and brushwood of Priory Park, which the kindly proprietor
freely threw open for years to the public, without post or paling
interfering with their enjoyment, until the vandalism and vulgarity of
some cockney excursionists, who wrought untold destruction to the
property, led to the rescinding of this privilege!
Although touching the sea, the waters of which lapped its turf at high
tide, when once within the park, it seemed to Bob and Nellie as if they
were miles away already in the heart of the country; so that, accustomed
as they had been only to town life, it may be imagined how great the
change was to them in every way.
As for runaway Dick from Guildford, who had been familiarised to rustic
scenes from his earliest infancy, he could see no beauty in the various
objects that each instant delighted the little Londoners' eyes and ears;
for, like the hero of Wordsworth's verse, "the primrose by the river's
brim" was but a primrose and nothing more to him!
To Bob and Nellie, however, the scene around, with its salient features,
disclosed a new world.
There were great, nodding, ox-eyed daisies that popped up pertly on
either side, staring at them from amidst wastes of wild hyacinths and
forget-me-nots that were bluer than Nellie's witching eyes.
Pink and white convolvulus hung in festoons across the bracken-bordered
little winding pathways that led here and there through mazes of
shrubbery and undergrowth, under the arched wilderness of greenery
above.
Rippling rivulets trickling down from nowhere and wandering whither
their erratic wills directed, their soft, murmuring voices chiming in
with the gayer carols of the birds.
Amongst these could be distinguished the harmonious notes of some not
altogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistle
of the blackbird in the hidden covert, the "pretty Dick" of the thrush,
and the "chink, chink!" of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled with
the sweet but subdued song of the yellow-hammer and sharp staccato
accompaniment of the untiring chaffinch; while, all the time, a colony
of asthmatic old rooks in the taller trees of the park cawed their part
in the concert in a deep bass key at regular intervals, "Caw, caw, caw!"
Bob and Nellie were so delighted and unsparing of their admiration of
everything they saw and heard, that Dick fell to wondering at the
pleasure they took in things which he held of little account.
If unappreciative, however, Dick was of some service in telling Nellie
the names of the principal wild-flowers; while he rose high in Bob's
estimation by his lore in the matter of birds' nests, of which the ex-
runaway from the country, naturally, could speak as an expert.
Touching the feathered tribe generally, he was able to tell them off at
a glance, with the habits and characteristics of each, as readily as Bob
could repeat the Multiplication Table--more so, indeed, if the strict
truth be insisted on, without stretching a point!
"That be a throosh," he would say; and, "t'other, over there's, a
chaffy. He ain't up to much now; but wait till he be moulted and he'll
coom out foine! I've heard tell folks in furrin' parts vallies 'em
greatly, though we in Guildford think nowt of they. I'd rayther a lark
mysen, Master Bob."
"Ah!" exclaimed Nellie, who had previously been shocked by Dick's lack
of sentiment, much pleased now at this expression of a better
taste--"you do like their singing then!"
"Lawks no, miss," replied the unprincipled boy. "Larks is foine
roasted!"
Nellie was horrified.
"You don't mean to say, Dick," she cried, "that--that you actually eat
them?"
"Aye, miss," he replied, without an atom of shame, "we doos. They be
rare tasty birds!"
She gave him up after this, going along by herself in silence.
"This is jolly!" exclaimed Bob presently, when, after getting a little
way within the park and ascending the rise leading up from the shore to
an open plateau above, he saw a sort of fairy dell below, at the foot of
a grassy slope, the green surface of which was speckled over with
daisies and buttercups. "Come along, Nell!"
Down the tempting incline he at once raced, with Nellie and Rover at his
heels; and, diving beneath a jungle of blackberry-bushes at the bottom,
matted together with ropes of ivy that had fallen from a withered oak,
whose dry and sapless gnarled old trunk still stood proudly erect in the
midst of the mass of luxuriant vegetation with which it was surrounded,
Nellie heard him after a bit call out from the leafy enclosure in which
he had quickly found himself--"Oh, I say, I see such a pretty fern!"
There was silence then for a moment or so, as if Bob was trying to
secure the object that had taken his fancy, the quietude being broken by
his giving vent to a prolonged "O-o-oh!"
"What's the matter?" cried Nellie, who had stopped without the briary
tangle into which her brother had plunged, noticing that his accents of
delight suddenly changed to those of pain. "Are you hurt?"
"I've scratched my face," he said ruefully, emerging from the
blackberry-brake with streaks of blood across his forehead and his nose
looking as if it had been in the wars. "Some beastly thorns did it."
"Oh!" ejaculated Nellie, in sympathy and surprise; "I'm so sorry!"
"It is `oh,' and it hurts too!" retorted he, dabbing his face tenderly
with his pocket-handkerchief. "However, I shall get that fern I was
after, though, in spite of all the prickles and thorns in the world!"
So saying, in he dashed again, stooping under the thorny network, and
came out ere long with a beautiful specimen of the shuttlecock fern,
which elicited as expressive an "Oh" from Nellie as the sight of his
scratched face had just previously done--an "Oh" of admiration and
delight. But, as with Bob, her joyful exclamation was quickly followed
by an expression of woe.
As she stepped forward to inspect the fern more closely, she put her
foot on a rotten branch of the oak-tree, which had become broken off
from its parent stem and lay stretched across the dell, forming a sort
of frail bridge over the prickly chasm below up to the higher ground on
which she stood.
Alas! the decayed wood gave way under her weight, slight as that was,
and Nellie, uttering a wild shriek of terror, disappeared from Bob's
astonished gaze.