Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Mary Meehan and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was made using scans of public domain works in
the International Children's Digital Library.)
THE STORY OF THE WHITE-ROCK COVE.
With Illustrations.
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1871.
[Illustration: WILLIE AND ALECK AT THE FOOT OF THE WHITE ROCK.]
CONTENTS
I. LONG AGO AT BRAYCOMBE
II. ALECK'S WELCOME
III. A WHOLE HOLIDAY
IV. THE RIDE TO STAVEMOOR
V. SHIP-BUILDING
VI. THE SCHOONER-YACHT
VII. THE MISSING SHIP
VIII. ANOTHER SEARCH
IX. SORROWFUL DAYS
X. SUNDAY EVENING
XI. THE WHITE-ROCK COVE AGAIN
THE STORY OF THE WHITE-ROCK COVE.
CHAPTER I.
LONG AGO AT BRAYCOMBE.
The Story of the White-Rock Cove--"_to be written down all from the very
beginning_"--is urgently required by certain youthful petitioners, whose
importunity is hard to resist; and the request is sealed by a rosy pair
of lips from the little face nestling at my side, in a manner that
admits of no denial.
* * * * *
"_From the beginning_;"--that very beginning carries me back to my own
old school-room, in the dear home at Braycombe, when, as a little boy
between nine and ten years old, I sat there doing my lessons.
It was on a Thursday morning, and, consequently, I was my mother's
pupil. For whereas my tutor, a certain Mr. Glengelly, from our nearest
town of Elmworth, used to come over on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
for the carrying forward of my education; my studies were, on the other
days of the week, which I consequently liked much better, conducted
under the gentle superintendence of my mother.
On this particular morning I was working with energy at a rule-of-three
sum, being engaged in a sort of exciting race with the clock, of which
the result was still doubtful. When, however, the little click, which
meant, as I well knew, five minutes to twelve, sounded, I had attained
my quotient in plain figures; a few moments more, and the process of
_fours into, twelves into, twenties into_, had been accomplished;
and just as the clock struck twelve I was able to hand up my slate
triumphantly with my task completed.
"A drawn game, mamma!" I exclaimed, "between me and the clock;" and
then with eager eyes I followed hers, as she rapidly ran over the
figures which had cost me so much trouble, and from time to time
relieved my mind by a quiet commentary: "Quite right so far;--No
mistakes yet;--You have worked it out well."
Frisk, the intelligent, the affectionate, the well-beloved companion of
my sports, and the recipient of many of my confidences, woke up from his
nap, stretched himself, came and placed his fore-paws upon my knees,
and, looking up in my face, spoke as plainly as if endowed with the
capacity of expressing himself in human language, to this effect:--"I'm
very glad you have finished your lessons; and glad, too, that I was able
to sleep on a mat in the window, where the warm sunshine has made me
extremely comfortable. But now your lessons are done, I hope you'll lose
no time, but come out to play at once. I'm ready when you are."
And Frisk's tail wagged faster and faster when my mother's inspection of
my sum was concluded, so that I could not help thinking he must have
understood her when she said,--"There are no mistakes, Willie; you have
been a good, industrious little boy this morning; you may go out to play
with a light heart."
I did not need twice telling, but very soon put away all my books and
maps, and the slate, with its right side carefully turned down, that it
might not get rubbed, wiped the pens, placed my copy-book in the drawer,
and presented myself for that final kiss with which my mother was wont
to terminate our proceedings, and which was on this occasion accompanied
by the remonstrance that I was getting quite too big a boy for such
nonsense.
Then at a bound I disappeared through the window, which opened on the
lawn, and let off my pent-up steam in the circumnavigation of the
garden, with Frisk barking at my heels; clearing the geranium-bed with a
flying leap, and taking the low wire-fence by the shrubbery twice over,
to the humiliation of my canine companion, who had to dip under where I
went over.
The conclusion of these performances brought me once again in front of
the school-room window, where my mother stood beckoning to me. She had
my straw hat with its sailor's blue ribbons in one hand, and a slice of
seed-cake in the other.
"Here, Willie," she said, "put on your hat, for the sun is hot although
there is a fresh breeze; and--but perhaps I may have been mistaken--I
thought perhaps some people of my acquaintance were fond of seed-cake
for luncheon."
"No indeed, dear mamma," I made answer speedily, "you are not at all
mistaken: some people--that is, Frisk and I--do like it very much; don't
we Frisk, old fellow?"
"And now," continued my mother,--who must certainly have forgotten at
the moment her opinion expressed just five minutes before as to the
propriety of kisses, for, smoothing back my hair, she stooped down to
press her lips upon my forehead before putting my hat on,--"and now you
are to take your troublesome self off for a long hour, indeed, almost an
hour and a half: away with you to your play."
"May I take my troublesome self to old George's, mamma?" I petitioned.
"If you like," she answered; "only be careful in going down the
Zig-zag; I don't want to find you a little heap of broken bones at the
bottom of the cliff."
I confess myself to being entirely incapable of conveying on paper to my
young readers the charms, the manifold delights, of that Zig-zag walk,
which was our shortest way down to the lodge.
You started from the garden, then through the shrubbery, and from the
shrubbery by a little wire gate you entered the natural wood which
clothed the upper part of our hill-side. The path descended rapidly from
this point, being very steep in parts, and emerging every here and there
so as to command an uninterrupted view of the beautiful Braycombe Bay,
which on this bright summer morning was all dancing and sparkling in the
sunshine. Lower down, the wood gave place to rock and turf, until you
reached the top of the shingle which the path skirted for a little
distance; and, finally, crossing an undulating meadow, you gained the
lodge, the abode of my friend old George, mentioned above.
It was not its picturesque beauty alone which endeared the Zig-zag walk
to me, although, child that I was, I feel sure the loveliness of the
outer world had the effect, unconsciously to myself, of brightening my
little inner world; but over and above all this must be ranked my keen
enjoyment of a scramble, and of the sense of difficulty and danger
attendant upon certain steep parts of the descent. It was one of my
great amusements to be trusted occasionally to guide my parents'
visitors down by this path, for the sake of the view, whilst their
carriages would be sent the long way by the drive to meet them at the
lodge. There were precipitous places, where even grave and stately
grown-up people would give up walking and take to running; and then
again little perilous points, where ladies especially would utter faint
cries of fright, and would require gentle persuasion to induce them to
step down from stone to stone; whilst I, fearless from long practice,
would triumphantly perform the feat two or three times, to show that I
was not in the least afraid, devising, moreover, short cuts for myself
even steeper than those of the recognized path.
I question whether the birth-day which conferred on me the privilege of
going alone up and down the Zig-zag was the greatest boon to myself or
to my nurse; the exertion involved in scaling the hill-side being to the
full as wearisome to her as it was enchanting to myself. The
emancipation, however, came early in my career, since my friend, old
George, by my father's consent, assumed a sort of out-of-door charge of
me at a period when most little boys are exclusively under nursery
discipline. For my father reposed the utmost confidence in the old man's
principles, and did not hesitate to let me be for hours under his care,
saying, often in my hearing, that he would rather have me out on the
water learning from him how to manage the boats, or climbing the rocks
and exploring the caves under his safe guardianship, than learning from
a woman only how to keep _off_ the rocks and avoid tumbling into the
water. He was an old seaman, united by strong ties of friendship and
gratitude to our family. In earlier years he had served on board the
same ship in which my father had been a young midshipman; and on one
occasion, when my father fell overboard, at a time when the vessel was
at full speed, had thrown himself into the water, and held my father's
head up when he was too exhausted to swim, until the boat put out for
the rescue had time to come up and save both lives, which the delay had
placed in great peril. When, some years later, on my grandfather's
death, my father came to live at Braycombe, he insisted upon Groves, who
was just about to be pensioned off through some failure in health,
coming to settle with his wife at the lodge, promising him the charge of
our boats, so that he might have a taste of his old occupation. His
daughter-in-law, widow of his only son, who had been drowned, obtained
the situation of schoolmistress, and lived near to the old couple with
Ralph, _her_ only son, a lad some few years my senior, who was employed
about the place under his grandfather's supervision, and helped in
rowing when we went out upon the water.
A friendship firm and tender had grown up between myself and the old
seaman, I accepting him as a grown-up play-fellow, and revealing to him
in detail all the many plans continually suggesting themselves to my
fertile imagination, and finding in him an ever ready sympathy, and,
when possible, active co-operation in my schemes.
From which digression, explanatory of the relationship subsisting
between old George--as he had taught me from infancy to call him, _Mr.
Groves_, as he was more properly designated by the neighbourhood--and
myself, I must return to the bright June morning upon which, after my
usual fashion, I descended the Zig-zag, running, scrambling, sliding,
with Frisk scampering and capering at my side, making wild snaps at
pieces of cake which I broke off for him from time to time, and held up
as high as I could reach, that he might have to jump for them.
We were not long in gaining the lodge, which, by the carriage drive, was
nearly three-quarters of a mile from the house. I produced a series of
knocks upon the door, like those of a London postman, though, as old
George was wont to remark,--
"What's the use, Master Willie, of knocking like that; you never stop to
hear me say 'Come in,' but just burst open the door and drive in like a
gust of wind promiscuous." But, in self-defence, I must explain that my
defective manners in this particular were entirely due to my old friend
himself, who, from earliest infancy, had trained me in all manner of
impertinent familiarities. It was traditional that I cried to go to him
whilst I was still in arms; that I made attacks of an aggravated
character upon his brass buttons before I could walk alone; and I could
just remember experiments upon his white beard, as trying doubtless to
him as they were interesting to myself, conducted with philosophical
determination on my part, in order to ascertain whether it came off by
pulling or not! In all of which proceedings my friend greatly encouraged
me, so that the blame of my failure in the laws of etiquette lay at his
door.
Only Mrs. Groves was in the cottage when I rushed in eagerly upon the
morning in question. She was busy in culinary mysteries, but assured me
her master would be soon in, and, in the meantime, I was to make myself
at home; which I did at once.
"And your dear ma, how's she?" inquired the good lady presently,
settling a cover on a saucepan in a decisive manner, and sitting down
during a pause in her operations. "I saw her drive by yesterday; and
Susan told me she'd been at the school. A blessed time children have of
it these days, going to school; it's very different to what it was in my
time."
"Then you didn't go to school?" I asked, being privately of opinion that
she was rather fortunate as a child.
"Oh yes, sir, I went to school, but not like the schooling children has
now-a-days, with a high-born lady like your ma going herself to see
them;--our old dame, she teached us all she knew--to read, and mark, and
learn,--"
"And inwardly digest?" I suggested, as Mrs. Groves hesitated in her
enumeration of accomplishments.
But there was not time to satisfy me concerning this branch of her
education, for old George appearing at the moment, I flew to meet him,
and we strolled down to the water's edge together.
"I've been longing to see you," I exclaimed. "It's about Aleck, my
cousin Aleck, I wanted to tell you. He's coming, and uncle and aunt
Gordon, on Thursday week; that's only just a fortnight, you know."
Aleck was my only boy cousin, and ever since there had been a notion of
his coming to Braycombe, I had been thinking and dreaming of him
incessantly. My aunt Gordon had been in very delicate health, and the
doctors ordered foreign air and constant change for the summer months,
and a winter in some warm climate. There had been some hesitation as to
how my cousin, their only child, should be disposed of. He was not very
strong, and school life, it was feared, might be too great an ordeal for
another year; so my parents had written, offering that he should spend
that time at Braycombe, and share my tutor's instructions. The decisive
answer from my uncle had only just arrived, and I was in a tumult of joy
and excitement that it was in favour of my cousin's coming to stay with
us, and that the actual day of our visitors' arrival had been fixed.
George listened with every appearance of interest to my communication.
"I'm glad your cousin's coming, Master Willie, as you're pleased," he
said.
"But aren't you glad, too, for your own sake?" I asked. "It will be so
nice having him to play with us."
"Oh, I'll be pleased to see him, never fear for that," responded George.
"I knew his father when he was but a little fellow like yourself."
"Mamma calls me her _big_ boy," I threw in, disapprovingly. "But what do
you think Aleck will be like?"
"Well, sir, I should expect very much such another young craft as
yourself; or, now I come to think of it, perhaps a year older or so."
"Not a year," I replied; "ten months and a half. I asked mamma his
birth-day. Do you think he'll be as tall as me? because papa and mamma
say I'm tall for my age."
"His father stood six feet one the day he came of age. I daresay his son
will take after him," said George.
"And be as tall as that?" I inquired, feeling rather anxious, until
reassured, at the transformation of my cousin in prospect into a young
giant.
I suppose that few children had ever seen less of other children than I
had up to this time. There were but three gentlemen's houses in our
neighbourhood: the Rectory, where lived the elderly clergyman and his
wife, who had never had a family; the Elms, a country seat, where Sir
John and Lady Cosington and two grown-up daughters resided; and
Willowbank, another country place, occupied by a young married couple,
with one little baby. Elmworth, our nearest town, was seven miles off;
and this distance almost entirely precluded intercourse with any of the
families there.
In consequence of this, I had been completely without companions of my
own age up to this time. In books I had read much of children's
amusements with their companions; and although the perfect happiness of
my own home left nothing really to be wished for, if ever a wish _did_
occur to me for anything I had not, it was for a play-fellow and
companion somewhere about my own age; and now, when this wish of mine
was really on the eve of being realized, I was filled with vague dreams
and anticipations of all the delight which it was to bring to me. When
George and I had mutually agreed that my cousin Aleck--allowing for the
difference of age--might be reasonably expected to be somewhat taller
than myself, we sat down on the beach, and began to discuss certain
plans of mine for giving him a suitable welcome.
Dim ideas, the result of "Illustrated London News'" pictures, were
floating in my mind--bouquets, triumphal arches, addresses, and so
forth--even although I wound up by saying--
"Of course, not like that exactly; only something--something rather
grand."
[Illustration: OLD GEORGE AND WILLIE.]
Old George, however, kindly and wisely pulled my schemes down, and laid
them affectionately in the dust:--
"You see, Master Willie, anything written, even in your best hand,
wouldn't come up to what you will say in the first five minutes by word
of mouth; and then the school banners, though very suitable for a
feast--and I'm sure my Susan would be right pleased to look them up for
you--would be no ways suitable. '_A merry Christmas and happy New
Year_,' or, '_Braycombe Schools, founded 1830_,' would look odd-like
flying in the avenue at this time of year. And though I'd be glad to do
anything to give you pleasure, I'd rather be opening the gate to your
uncle and aunt and cousin, as they drive up, than firing off a gun,
which might disturb their nerves, not to say frighten the horses."
All of which was perfectly unanswerable. But as old George put on his
spectacles in conclusion, I knew he meant to consider the subject with
attention; and I therefore remained quietly at his side, sending flat
stones skimming along the water, or throwing in a stick for Frisk to
fetch out again, until, as I expected, he signified to me that he had
thought of what would do.
He said that the light arch which supported the central lamp over the
gate might be very easily decked with evergreens for the occasion, and
the word _welcome_, traced in flowers, put up so as to appear very
pretty with the green background; whilst the flag-staff at the top of
the hill, just by the shrubbery, should display all the flags that our
establishment could boast of.
Groves' scheme, though not quite so extensive as those which had floated
through my childish imagination, was sufficiently attractive to be very
welcome; and I eagerly insisted upon our immediately returning to the
lodge, where George took certain measurements of the arch which
impressed me wonderfully with a sense of his superiority, and wisdom.
By which time Mrs. Groves looked out to say that her husband's dinner
would be spoiled by waiting, or eaten by the dog, "which there was no
driving off." And I, thus reminded of the time, settled the difficulty
about Frisk by taking him up bodily in my arms, and, hurrying off,
reached home only just in time to get ready for dinner before the gong
sounded.