There was a loud rattling noise, as if money was being shaken up in a
box. A loud crashing bang, as if someone had banged the box down on a
table. A rap, as if a knife had been dropped. Then somebody, in a
petulant voice full of vexation and irritability, roared out:
"Bother!"
And that's exactly how it was, leaving Aleck Donne, who looked about
sixteen or seventeen, scratching vigorously at his crisp hair as he sat
back, with his elbows resting upon those of the big wooden arm-chair,
staring at the money-box before him.
"I call it foolishness," he said, aloud, talking, of course, to himself,
for there was no one else in the comfortable room, the window of which
opened out upon the most quaint garden ever seen. "It's all right to
save up your money in a box and keep on dropping it through a slit; but
how about getting it out? Here, I'll go and smash the stupid old thing
up directly on the block in the wood-shed."
But instead of carrying out his threat, he leaned forward, picked up the
curved round-ended table-knife he had dashed down, seized the money-box
again, shook it with jingling effect, held it upside down above his
eyes, and began to operate with the knife-blade through the narrow slit
in the centre of the lid.
For a good quarter of an hour by the big old eight-day clock in the
corner did the boy work away, shaking the box till some coin or another
was over the slit, and then operating with the knife-blade, trying and
trying to get the piece of money up on edge so that it would drop
through; and again and again, as the reward of his indefatigable
perseverance, nearly succeeding, but never quite. For so sure as he
pushed it up or tilted it down, the coin made a dash and glided away,
making the drops of perspiration start out on the boy's forehead, and
forcing him into a struggle with his temper which resulted in his
gaining the victory again, till that thin old half-crown was coaxed well
into sight and forced flat against the knife-blade. The boy then began
to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft
purring noise, _ah-h-h-h-ha_! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a
big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow
chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and
then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went off
to sleep again.
"Got you at last!" muttered the lad. "Half a crown; just buy all I
want, and--bother!" he yelled, and, raising the box on high with both
hands, he dashed it down upon the slate hearth with all his might.
Temper had won this time. Aleck had suffered a disastrous defeat, and
he sat there with his forehead puckered up, staring at the cat, which at
the crash and its accompanying yell made one bound that carried it on to
the sideboard, where with glowing eyes, flattened ears, arched back, and
bottle-brush tail, it stood staring at the disturber of its rest.
"Well, I am a pretty fool," muttered Aleck, starting out of his chair
and listening for a few moments before stealing across the room to open
the door cautiously and thrust out his head.
There was no sound to be heard, and the boy re-closed the door and went
back to the hearth.
"I wonder uncle didn't hear," he muttered, stooping down. "I've done it
now, and no mistake."
As he spoke he picked the remains of the broken box from inside the
fender.
"Smashed!" he continued. "Good job too. Shan't have any more of that
bother. How much is there? Let's see!"
There was a small fire burning in the old-fashioned grate, and with a
grim look the boy finished the destruction of the money-box by tearing
it apart at the dovetailings and placing the pieces on the fire, where
they caught at once, blazing up, while the lad hunted out and picked up
the coins which lay scattered here and there.
"Three--four--five--and sixpence," muttered the boy. "I thought there
was more than that. Hullo! Where's that thin old half-crown? Haven't
thrown it on the fire, have I? Oh, there you are!" he cried, ferreting
it out of the fleeces of the thick dark-dyed sheepskin hearth-rug at his
feet. "Eight shillings," he continued, transferring his store to his
pocket. "Well, I'm not obliged to spend it all. Money-box! Bother!
I'm not a child now. Just as if I couldn't take care of my money in my
pocket."
He gave the place a slap, turned to the window, looked out at the soft
fleecy clouds gliding overhead, and once more made for the door, crossed
the little hall paved with large black slates, and then bounded up the
oak stairs two at a time, to pause on the landing and give a sharp
knuckle rap on the door before him; then, without waiting for a "Come
in," he entered, to stand, door in hand, gazing at the top of a big
shaggy grey head, whose owner held it close to the sheets of foolscap
paper which he was covering with writing in a bold, clear hand.
"Want me, uncle?"
The head was raised, and a pair of fierce-looking eyes glared at the
interrupter of the studies from beneath enormously-produced, thick,
white eyebrows, and through a great pair of round tortoise-shell
spectacles.
"Want you, boy?" was the reply, as the speaker held up a large white
swan-quill pen on a level with his sun-browned and reddened nose. "No,
Lick. Be off!"
"I'm going to run over to Rockabie, uncle. Back to dinner. Want
anything brought back?"
"No, boy; I've plenty of ink. No.--Yes. Bring me some more of this
paper."
The voice sounded very gruff and ill-humoured, and the speaker glared
angrily, more than looked, at the boy.
"Here," he continued, "don't drown yourself."
"Oh, no, uncle," said the boy, confidently, "I'll take care of that."
"By running into the first danger you come across."
"Nonsense, uncle. I can sail about now as well as any of the fisher
lads."
"Fisher? Bah!" growled the old man, fiercely. "Scoundrels--rascals,
who wear a fisher's frock to hide the fact that they are smugglers--were
wreckers. Nice sink of iniquity this. Look here, Lick. Take care and
don't play that idler's trick of making fast the sheet."
"I'll take care, uncle."
"How's the wind, boy?"
"Just a nice soft breeze, uncle. I can run round the point in about an
hour--wind right abaft."
"And dead ahead coming back, eh?"
"Yes; but I can tack, uncle--make good long reaches."
"To take you out into the race and among the skerries. Do you think I
want to have you carried out to sea and brought back days hence to be
buried, sir?"
"Of course you don't, uncle; but I shan't hurt. Old Dumpus says I can
manage a boat as well as he can."
"He's a wooden-legged, wooden-headed old fool for saying so. Look here,
Aleck; you'd better stop at home to-day."
"Uncle!" cried the boy, in a voice full of protest.
"The weather's going to change. I can feel it in my old wound; and it
will not be safe for a boy like you alone to try and run that boat home
round the point."
"Oh, uncle, you treat me as if I were a little boy!"
"So you are; and too light-headed."
"It's such a beautiful morning for a sail, uncle."
"Do just as well to watch the sea from the cliffs, and the carrier can
bring what you want from Rockabie next time he goes."
"Uncle! I shall be so disappointed," pleaded the boy.
"Well! What of that? Do you good, boy. Life's all disappointments.
Prepare you for what you'll have to endure in the future."
"Very well, uncle, I won't go if you don't wish it."
"Of course you won't, sir. There, run round and get one of the Eilygugg
lads to help you with the boat."
"Please, uncle, I'd rather not. I don't like them, and they don't like
me."
"Of course you don't like the young scoundrels, sir; but they can manage
a boat."
"I'd rather not go now, uncle," said the boy, sadly.
"And I'd rather you did. There, go at once, while the weather's fine,
and make that old man-o'-war's man help you to come back?"
"Tom Bodger, uncle? But how's he to get back?"
"I'll give him some shillings, and he can pay one of the smugglers to
give him a lift home."
"Thank you, uncle," cried the boy, in an eager way, which showed plainly
enough how well satisfied he was with the arrangement.
"Don't worry me. Be off!" said the old man, bending over his writing
again.
Aleck needed no further orders, and hurried out into the well-kept
garden, where everything looked healthy and flourishing, sheltered as it
was from the fierce winds of all quarters by the fact that it lay in a
depression formed by the sinking of some two or three acres of land,
possibly from the undermining of the sea in far distant ages, at the end
of a narrow rift or chasm in the cliffs which guarded the shores, the
result being that, save in one spot nearest the sea, the grounds
possessed a natural cliff-like wall some fifty or sixty feet high, full
of rift and shelf, the nesting-place of innumerable birds. Here all was
wild and beautiful; great curtains of ivy draped the natural walls, oak
and sycamore flourished gloriously in the shelter as far as the top of
the cliff, and there the trees ceased to grow upward and branched
horizontally instead, so that from the level land outside it seemed as
if Nature had cut all the tops off level, as indeed she had, by means of
the sharp cutting winds.
Aleck followed the garden path without looking back at the vine and
creeper-clad house in its shelter, and made for one corner of the garden
where the walls overlapped, and, passing round one angle, he was
directly after in a zigzag rift, shut in by more lofty, natural walls,
but with the path sloping downward, with the consequence that the walls
grew higher, till at the end of about three hundred yards from the
garden they were fully a couple of hundred feet from base to summit, the
base being nearly level with the sea. This latter was hidden till the
lad had passed round another angle of cliff, when he obtained a glimpse
of the deep blue water, flecked here and there with silvery foam, but
hidden again directly as he followed the zigzag rift over a flooring of
rough stones which had fallen from the towering perpendicular sides, and
which were here only some thirty or forty feet apart, and completely
shut out the sunshine and a good deal of the light.
Another angle of the zigzag rift was passed, and then the rugged stony
flooring gave place to dark, deep water, beautifully transparent--so
clear that the many-tinted fronds of bladder-wrack and other weeds could
be seen swaying to and fro under the influence of the tide which rose
and fell.
Here, in a natural harbour, sheltered from all dangers, lay the boat the
boy sought. It was moored in a nook by a rope attached to a great ring;
the staple had been sunk in a crack and sealed fast with molten lead,
and no matter what storms raged outside, the boat was safely sheltered,
and swung in a natural basin at ordinary tides, while at the very lowest
it grounded gently in a bed of white sand.
It was well afloat upon this occasion, and skirting round it along a
laboriously chipped-out ledge about a foot wide, the boy entered a crack
in the rock face, for it could hardly be called a cavern. But it was
big enough for its purpose, which was to shelter from the rain and rock
drippings a quantity of boat gear, mast, sails, ropes, and tackle
generally, which leaned or hung snugly enough about the rock, in company
with a small seine, a trammel-net, a spare grapnel or two, some
lobster-pots, and buoys with corks and lines.
Aleck was not long about carrying mast, yard, and sail to the boat and
shipping them. Then, in obedience to an idea, he placed a couple of
fishing-lines, a gaff-hook, a landing-net, and some spare hooks aboard;
then, taking a little bucket, he half filled it with the crystal water
of the pool, and after placing it aboard took hold of a thin line, one
end of which was secured to a ring-bolt in a block of wreck lumber,
while the other ran down into the pool.
A pull at the line brought a large closely-worked, spindle-shaped basket
to the surface, when a commotion inside announced that the six-inch-wide
square of flat cork, which formed a lid, covered something alive.
So it proved; for upon unfastening the lid an opening was laid bare, and
upon the "coorge"--as the fishing folk called the basket--being laid
across the bucket and turned sidewise, some ten or a dozen silvery
eel-shaped fish glided out into the bucket, and began swimming round and
round in search of an outlet.
"More bait than I shall want," said Aleck, covering and letting the
basket go back into the pool. Then, unfastening the mooring-rope, the
boy picked up a boat-hook, and by hooking on to the side rocks here and
there he piloted the boat along the devious watery lane, with the mighty
walls towering high on either side and whispering or echoing back every
sound he produced on his way out to the open sea.
It was beautiful--solemn--grand--all in one, that narrow, gloomy, zigzag
way between the perpendicular walls; and a naturalist would have spent
hours examining the many-tinted sea anemones that opened their rays and
awl-shaped tentacles below the water, or lay adhering and quiescent upon
the rocks where the tide had fallen, looking some green, some olive, and
many more like bosses of gelatinous coagulated blood.
But these were too common objects of the seashore for Aleck Donne to
heed; his eyes were for the most part upon the blue and opalescent
picture some two hundred yards before him, where the chasm ended, its
sharp edges looking black against the sea and sky as he hooked on here,
gave a thrust there, and sent the boat along till the rift grew lighter
and lighter, and then was left behind, for a final thrust had sent the
boat right out into the sunshine, and in full view of three huge
skittle-shaped rocks standing up out of the sea, high as the wall-like
cliff of which at some time or another they must have been a portion.
They were now many yards away and formed the almost secure
nesting-places of hundreds upon hundreds of birds, whose necks stood up
like so many pegs against the sky, giving the rocks a peculiar bristling
appearance. But the sense of security for the young birds was upset by
the long flapping wings of a couple of great black-backed gulls which
kept on sailing round and round, waiting till the opportunity came to
make a hawk-like swoop and carry off some well-fatted, half-feathered
young auk. One met its fate, in the midst of a rippling purring cry,
just as Aleck laid in his boat-hook and proceeded to step the mast,
swaying easily the while with the boat, which was now well afloat on the
rising and falling sea.