At seventeen one's ideas are very different to what they are at
fourteen, and matters that seemed of no account in the earlier period
looked important at the more mature. For it used to seem to us quite a
matter of course that Bigley's father should have a lugger, and if the
people said he went over to France or the Low Countries with the men who
came over from Dodcombe, and engaged in smuggling, why, he did. It was
nothing to us.
We never troubled about it, for Bigley was our school-fellow, and old
Jonas was very civil, though he never would let us have the boat again.
But now that we were getting of an age to think and take notice of what
was said about us, Bob Chowne began to suggest that he and I ought to
make a change.
"You see it don't seem respectable for me, the son of the doctor, and
you of the captain, who is our mine owner, to be such friends with one
whose father is a regular smuggler."
"How do you know he is?" I said.
"How do I know? Oh, everybody says so. Let's drop him."
"I sha'n't," I said, "unless father tells me to Bigley can't help it."
"Then you'll have to drop--I mean I shall drop you," said Bob haughtily.
"Very well," I said, feeling very much amused at the pompous tone in
which he spoke. Not that I wanted to be bad friends with Bob Chowne;
but I knew that he was only in one of his "stickly" fits, as we used to
call them, and that it would soon be over.
"Very well, eh?" exclaimed Bob. "Oh, if you choose to prefer his
society to mine, Good morning."
He walked off with his nose in the air, and, half annoyed, half amused,
I went over the hill to the mine, where my father was busily examining
some specimens of the lead that had been cut off the corners of some
newly-cast ingots.
"Well, Sep," he said. "Coming to help?"
I replied that I was, somewhat unwillingly, for I had caught sight of
Bigley coming up the valley, and I wanted to join him, and try and show
that I did not intend to give up an old school friend because his
father's name was often on people's lips.
"Who's that you are looking for?" said my father.
"Only young Uggleston, father," I said.
I looked at him intently and felt troubled, for he frowned a little,
and, before I knew what I was saying, the words slipped:
"You don't mind Bigley Uggleston coming here, do you, father?"
"Yes--no," he said, sitting up up very stiffly. "I don't like your
giving up old companions, Sep, or seeming to be proud; but there are
beginning to be reasons why you should not be quite so intimate with
young Uggleston."
"Oh, father!" I exclaimed dolefully. "Why, I thought that you and old
Uggleston were good friends now."
"Oh, yes; the best of friends," said my father sarcastically. "He pays
his rent regularly, and we always speak civilly to each other when we
meet."
As he spoke there was a look in his face which seemed to say, "We don't
like each other all the same."
"Look here, Sep," continued my father. "You are getting a big fellow
now, and I am going to speak very plainly to you; of course, you
understand that this is in confidence; it is quite private."
"Yes, father," I said sadly.
"Then you must understand that, though Jonas Uggleston is my tenant
here, he is not a very satisfactory one, for there can be no doubt that
he carries on rather a risky trade; but, so long as the authorities do
not interfere with him, and he behaves himself, I am not going to take
upon myself the task of being his judge."
"No, father."
"At the same time I cannot be intimate with him. I don't like him, and
I don't like the companions who come over from Stinchcombe to man his
lugger, and I'll tell you why. Do you know that, now this little mine
is developing itself, I very often have blocks of silver here to a
considerable amount."
"I have often thought you must have, father."
"You were quite right, and they are stored below this floor in a strong
cellar cut and blasted out of the solid rock. I have good doors and
keys, and take every precaution; but at the same time I often feel that
it is very unsafe, and of course I send it into town as often as I can."
"But you don't think, father--"
"That Jonas Uggleston would steal it? I hope not, my boy; but at the
same time I feel as if I ought not to expose myself to risks, and I
prefer to keep Jonas Uggleston at the same distance as he has before
stood. We can be civil."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Sorry?"
"Yes, father," I replied, "because I like Bigley Uggleston."
"So do I, my boy. I like his quiet modesty under ordinary
circumstances, and the sterling manner in which you have told me that he
has come to the front in emergencies. But stop: I don't ask you to
break with him, for he may be useful to us after all. There, let me
finish these figures I am setting down, and I'll talk to you again."
I sat down and watched him, and then looked round the bare office, with
its high up window close to the ceiling, and ladder leading to the two
rooms above. Spread over the floor was a large foreign rug that my
father had brought from the Mediterranean many years before, and this
rug was stretched over the middle of the large office as if it had been
brought from the cottage to make the place more homelike and
comfortable. But it struck me all at once that the rug had been placed
there to hide a trap-door. Then, as I sat looking about, I noticed that
the door was very thick and strong, and that there were bars at the
window in which the glass was set.
I might have noticed all this before, but it did not seem of any
consequence till my father talked of the bars of silver and their value,
and as I sat thinking, the place began to look quite romantic, and I
thought what a strange affair it would be, and how exciting if robbers
or smugglers were to come and attack it, and my father, and Sam, and the
men from the mine to have to defend it, and there were to be a regular
fight.
Once started thinking in that vein my mind grew busy, and I felt that if
I were at the head of affairs I should arrange to have plenty of swords
and pistols, and that made me think of old Sam and the cannon down the
cliff garden.
I laughed at that, though, as being absurd, and began to think directly
after that my father's sword and pistols that always used to hang over
the chimney-piece in the little parlour were not there now.
"Why, I daresay he has brought them down here," I said to myself; and I
looked round, half expecting to see them, but they were not visible, and
I came to the conclusion that they must be in the cupboard in the
corner.
My heart began to beat, and a curious feeling of excitement took
possession of me, as my imagination had a big flight. I began to see
myself armed with a sword helping my father, who, being a captain, would
be a splendid leader.
"But we ought to have plenty of swords and guns," I thought, and I
determined when my father began to speak to me again, to propose that he
should have a little armoury in the cupboard.
Then I began to think about old Jonas, and the possibility of his
getting a lot of men and coming and making an attack. There had been a
rumour that he and his people had once, many years ago, had a fight with
the king's men; but when Bob Chowne and I talked to him about it, Bigley
fired up and said it was all nonsense. But it occurred before he was
born.
It had never occurred to me before that this was a strange declaration.
For how could it be all nonsense and yet have occurred before he was
born?
It seemed now as if it was not all nonsense.
One thought brought up another, and I found myself thinking that, if I
was helping my father defend the treasure of silver here in the store,
and fighting bravely, as I felt sure I should, Bigley would be helping
his father to make the attack, and I saw myself having a terrific
cutlass combat with him somewhere out on the slope. Then I should have
had a great deal of training from my father, who was an accomplished
swordsman, and I should disarm old Big and take him prisoner, and then
when night came, for the sake of old school-days, I should unfasten his
hands and let him escape.
My thoughts ran very freely, and I was fully determined to grind the
sword that I had not seen, and which perhaps had not yet been made, as
sharp as a razor. It would be very easy, I thought, when I got it, to
make old Sam turn the grindstone at home, while I put on a tremendous
edge and tried it on the thin branches of some of the trees.
"What an exciting time it would be!" I thought, and I could not help
wishing that I should have to wear some kind of uniform, for a bit of
gold lace would go so well with a sword. Then I stopped short, for in
all my planning there was no place for Bob Chowne, who was regularly
left out of the business.
"Oh, how stupid!" I thought directly after. "He would be the
surgeon's--his father's--assistant, and bind up everybody's wounds."
I'm afraid I was, like a great many more boys, ready to have my
imagination take fire at the idea of a fight, and never for a moment
realising what the horrors of bloodshed really were.
"Poor Bob!" I thought to myself. "He wouldn't like that, having to do
nothing but tie and sew up wounds." He was so fond of a fight that he
would want to be in it; and I concluded that we would let him fight
while the fight was going on, and have a sword and pistols, and
afterwards I could help him bandage the wounds.
Then I came back to Bigley, and began to think that, after all, it would
be very queer for him to be fighting on one side and me on the other,
and it did not seem natural, for we two had never had a serious quarrel,
though I had had many a set-to with other lads, and had twice over given
Bob Chowne black eyes, the last time when he gave me that terrible punch
on the nose, when it bled so long that we all grew frightened, and
determined to go to the doctor's, and it suddenly stopped.
I don't know how much more nonsense I should have thought if my father
had not made a movement as if to get up, and that changed the current of
my thoughts.
But he went on writing again, and this time I began watching a large
chest that stood in one corner of the room, bound with clamps of iron,
and it looked so heavy and strong that I concluded that it must be full
of ingots of silver ready to send away.
I grew tired of looking at that box, and as my fancy did not seem
disposed to run again upon fighting and defence, I sat listening to the
scratching of my father's pen and the ticking of the clock, and then to
the dull roar of the furnace, while mingled with it came the clattering
of hammers, the creaking of the great windlass, and the rushing and
plashing of falling water.
Just then there was a tap as of some one's knuckles at the door, and in
obedience to a look from my father I got up and opened it, to turn quite
red in the face, for there stood my old school-fellow about whom so much
had been said--Bigley Uggleston.