I heard all about it afterwards; how they had hauled up quickly as I did
not rise to the surface, in the belief that I might be clinging still to
the basket; but though the last chest was there, that was all.
Bigley seized the handles and went down, staying so long that everybody
grew cold with horror, and when they hauled up he was helpless, and with
one hand holding fast to the side of the basket.
It was our foreman who went down next, and managed to get his arm round
me, where I was entangled in a tremendous growth of sea-weed, and with
one of my legs hooked, as it were, between and round a piece of rock.
By great good fortune he was able to drag me out, and rise with me to
the surface, but so overcome that he could hardly take a stroke; and as
for me, Doctor Chowne had a long battle before he could bring me back as
it were to life.
I have little more to tell of my early life there on the North Devon
coast, for after that time rolled on very peacefully. We had no more
visits from the French, not even from Captain Gualtiere, and we saw no
more of old Jonas Uggleston. He had settled in Dunquerque, he told his
son in his letters, and these always contained the advice that he was on
no account to leave the service of Captain Duncan, but to do his duty by
him as an honest man.
And truly Bigley Uggleston did do his duty by my father and by me, for
year by year we grew closer friends, the more so that Bob Chowne drifted
away after his course of training in London, and finally became a ship's
surgeon.
As for us, we led a very uneventful life, going steadily on with the
management of the mine, which never was productive enough to make a huge
fortune, but quite sufficient to keep my father fairly wealthy, and give
employment and bread to quite a little village which grew up in the Gap.
For the recovery of the silver was the turning-point in my father's
mining career. After that all went well.
As I said, Jonas Uggleston never came back, but one day a bronzed
white-headed old sailor was seated at the door of the smuggler's cottage
when I went to call on Bigley, and this old fellow rose with quite a
broad grin on his face.
I stared for a moment, he was so foreign-looking with his clipped beard
and quaintly cut garb. Then I realised who it was: Binnacle Bill come
back to his old wife, Mother Bonnet.
"Couldn't leave the master before," he said. "But now I've come, and
you'll give me a job now and then, and Master Bigley, I should like
never to go away no more."
Binnacle Bill did not go away any more, for he was at once installed
boatman, and bound to have boat, tackle, and baits ready every time
Bigley and I felt disposed to have an hour or two's fishing in the
evening.
If Bob Chowne came down his work grew harder, for Bob was as fond of
fishing as ever. He used to come to see his father sometimes, for he
was devotedly attached to him, and the old doctor's place was full of
the presents his son sent him from abroad.
But Bob always came over to the Bay, grumbling and saying that he was
sick of Ripplemouth; and then he grumbled at old Sam and Kicksey about
the dinner, or the fruit, or the weather, and then he used to grumble at
his two old school-fellows as we walked along the cliff path, or went
out with him in the boat.
"Ah, you two always were lucky fellows," he said to us one day, when I
told him that I was going to spend my winter evenings setting down my
old recollections with Bigley Uggleston's help. "Nothing to do but
enjoy yourselves, and idle, and write. But what's the good of doing
that? Nobody will ever care to read about what such chaps as we've
been, did in such an out-of-the-way place as this."
"Never mind," I said, "I mean to set it all down just as I can
recollect; and as to anybody reading it--well, we shall see."
"Ah, well," said Bob, "just as you like; but if I was a grumbling sort
of fellow, and given to finding fault, I should say it's just waste of
time."
This was too much for Bigley, who burst into a hearty fit of laughter,
in which I joined.
Bob stared at us both rather sulkily for a moment, and then uttered his
favourite ejaculation, which was "Yah!"