My father was first up next morning, and had been out for an hour before
I went down the garden to join him, and found him walking the
quarter-deck.
You must not think by these words that he was on board a ship. Nothing
of the kind. He called by that name a flat place at the bottom of the
garden just at the edge of the cliff, where there was a low stone wall
built to keep anyone from falling over a couple of hundred feet
perpendicular to the rocks and beach below.
This was my father's favourite place, where he used to spend hours with
his spy-glass, and along the edge of the wall, all carefully mounted,
were six small brass cannon, which came out of a sloop that was wrecked
below in the bay, and which my father bought for the price of old metal
when the ship was broken up and sold.
I used to think sometimes that he ought to have called the place the
battery, but he settled on the quarter-deck, and the quarter-deck it
remained.
Always once a year on his birthday he would load and fire all the
cannons, and it was quite a sight; for he used to call himself the crew
and load them and prime them, and then send me in for the poker, which
had all the time been getting red-hot in the kitchen.
Then he used to take the poker from me, and I used to stop my ears. But
as soon as I stopped my ears, he used to frown and say, "Take out the
tompions, you young swab!"
So I used to take out the tompions--I mean my fingers--and screw up my
face and look on while with quite a grand air my father, who was a fine
handsome man, with a fresh colour and curly grey hair, used to stand up
very erect, give the poker a flourish through the air, and bring the end
down upon a touch-hole.
Then _bang_! There would be a tremendous roar, and the rocks would echo
as the white smoke floated upwards.
A quarter of a minute more and _bang_ would go another gun, and so on
for the whole six, every one of them kicking hard and leaping back some
distance on to the shingle.
When all were fired, my father used to push them on their little
carriages all back into their places; then he used to "bend," as he
called it, the white ensign on to the halyards, and run it up to the
head of a rigged mast which stood at the corner, and close to the edge
of the cliff, and after this shake hands with himself, left hand with
right, and wish himself many happy returns of the day.
It was not his birthday that one on which I ran down the garden to join
him; but there he was by his guns, busy with his spy-glass sweeping, as
he called it, the Bristol Channel and talking to himself about the
different craft.
"Hallo, Sep, my boy!" he said; "here's a morning for a holiday
landsman--or boy. Well, I didn't see much of you yesterday."
"No, father," I said; "I was out all day with Doctor Chowne's boy and
young Uggleston."
"Rather a queer companion for you, my boy, eh? Uggleston is a sad
smuggler, they say; but let's see, his boy goes to your school?"
"Yes, father, and he's such a good fellow. We went to his house down in
the Gap, and had dinner, and Mr Uggleston was very civil to me, all
but--"
"Well, speak out, Sep. All but what?"
"He spoke once, father, as if he did not like your having bought the
Gap."
"Hah! Very likely; but then you see, Sep, I did not consider myself
bound to ask everybody's permission when I was at the sale, much more
Mr Jonas Uggleston's, so there's an end of that."
"He seemed to think he would have to turn out and go, father," I said,
looking at him rather wistfully, for it appeared to me as if it would be
a great pity if old Uggleston and Bigley did have to turn out, because
we were such friends.
"If Mr Jonas Uggleston will behave, himself like a Christian, and pay
his rent," said my father, "he'll go on just the same as he did under
old Squire Allworth, so he has nothing to complain about whatever."
"May I go and tell him that, father!" I said eagerly.
"No: certainly not."
"I mean after breakfast, father."
"So do I, my boy," he replied. "Don't you meddle with such matters as
that. So you had a good look round the place, eh?"
"Yes, father."
"See many rabbits?"
"Yes, father, plenty."
"That's right. I want to keep that place for a bit of shooting, and I'm
thinking of buying a bigger boat, Sep, and I shall keep her there."
"Oh!" I cried, "a bigger sailing boat?"
"Yes, a much bigger one, my boy--big enough to take quite a cruise. You
must make haste and get finished at school, my lad, and then I can take
you afloat, and make a sailor of you, the same as your grandfather and
great-grandfather used to be."
"Yes, I should like to be a sailor, father," I said.
"Ah, well, we shall see," he replied; "but that is not the business to
see to now. The first thing is to take in rations, so come along and
have breakfast."
I was quite willing, and in a few minutes we were seated in the snug
cottage parlour with the window open, and the scent of the roses brought
in by the breeze off the sea.
"Why, Sep," said my father, after I had been disposing of bacon and eggs
and milk for some time, "how quiet you are! Isn't the breakfast so good
as you get at school?"
"Heaps better, father;" for schools were very different places in those
days to what they are now.
"Then what makes you so quiet?"
"I was thinking how nice it would be if it was always holidays."
"With the sun shining warmly like it is now, and the sky blue, and the
sea quite calm, eh?"
"Yes, father."
"You young goose--I mean gander," he said laughing. "Pleasure that has
not been earned by hard work of some kind is poor tasteless stuff, of
which everybody would soon tire; and as to its being always hot and
sunshiny, why, my dear boy, I've been out in the tropics when the sky
has been for weeks without a cloud, the seams oozing pitch, and the
rails and bolts and bell all so hot you could not touch them, and we
would have given anything for a thick mist or a heavy rain, or a good
puff of cool wind. No, no, my dear boy, England and its climate are
best as they are. In all my travels I never found a better or more
healthy place; and as to the holidays--bah! Life was not made for play.
Kittens are the most playful things I know, but they soon give it up,
and take to work."
"Yes, father," I said with a sigh, "but school exercises are so hard."
"The better lad you when you've mastered them. It's hard work to learn
to be a sailor, but the more credit to the young man who masters
navigation, and gets to know how to thoroughly handle a ship; better
still how to manage his men, for a crew is a very mixed-up set of
fellows, Sep."
"Yes, father, I suppose so. But I am trying very hard at school."
"I know you are, Sep. Have another egg--and that bit of brown. You've
got room, I know. Make muscle."
He helped me to what I was by no means unwilling to take, and then
continued:
"Of course you are trying hard, and I know it. Otherwise I shouldn't
have been so glad to see you home for the holidays you've earned, and be
ready to say to you, `Never mind about holiday lessons, I don't approve
of them, my lad; put them aside and I'll make excuses for you to the
doctor. Work as hard as you can when you are at school, and now you are
at home, play as hard as you can.' We must have a bit of fishing. I've
got some new lines, and a trammel net to set, and we'll do a good deal
of boating. You sha'n't stand still for want of something to do.
What's that?"
"Only a stone, father," I replied, for in pulling out my handkerchief,
the piece that I had put in my pocket on the previous day flew out, and
fell with a crash in the fireplace.
"What do you want with stones in your pocket?" he said rather crossly,
as he rose and picked up the piece to throw it out of the window; but,
as soon as he had it in his hand, its appearance took his attention. He
turned it over, weighed it in his hand, and then held it more to the
light.
I went on eating my breakfast and watching him closely, for I did not
want to lose that piece of stone, and I was afraid that he would ask me
more questions about it, sooner than bear which I was ready to see him
throw the piece of rock out of the window, when, if he threw it far
enough, the chances were that it would go over the cliff and fall upon
the beach.
Just as I feared, the questions came as he put on his glasses and
examined the fragment more closely.
"Where did you get this, Sep?" he said--"on the beach?"
"No, father, up on this side of the Gap."
"Whereabouts?"
"About three hundred yards from Uggleston's cottage, and half-way up the
slope, where the rocks stand up so big on the top."
"Hah! Yes, I know the place. It was lying on the slope, I suppose?"
"Well, ye-es, father."
"Humph, strange!" he muttered. "There can't be any metals there.
Somebody must have dropped it."
I hesitated. I wanted to speak out, but I was afraid, for I did not
know what he would say if he heard that we had blown up one of the rocks
with gunpowder, and sent all those stones hurtling down the side of the
cliff.
"Yes," continued my father, "somebody must have dropped it. A good
specimen--a very good specimen indeed."
Just then he raised his eyes, and caught me gazing at him wistfully.
"Hallo!" he said, "what does that mean? Why are you looking so serious
and strange?"
"Was I, father?"
"Yes, sir: of course you were. No nonsense. Speak out like a man, and
a gentleman. Not quite the same thing, Sep, for a gentleman is not
always a thorough man; but a thorough man is always a gentleman. Now,
what is it?"