"My word! How she does go!" cried Aleck, a short time later. For he
had stepped the mast, hooked on the little rudder, and hoisted the sail,
the latter filling at once with the breeze which, coming from the sea,
struck the bold perpendicular rock face and glanced off again, to catch
the boat right astern. One minute it was racing along almost on an even
keel; then, like a young horse, it seemed to take the bit in its teeth
as it careened over more and more and made the water foam beneath the
bows.
Away to Aleck's left was the dazzling stretch of ocean, to his right the
cliffs with the stack rocks and a glimpse of the whitewashed group of
cottages locally known as Eilygugg, from their overlooking the great
isolated, skittle-like, inaccessible stack rocks chosen by those rather
rare birds the little auks for their nesting-place year after year.
On and on sped the boat past the precipitous cliffs, which, with the
promontory-like point ahead, were the destruction of many a brave vessel
in the stormy times; and an inexperienced watcher from the shore would
often have suffered from that peculiar sensation known as having the
heart in the mouth on seeing the boat careen over before some extra
strong puff of wind, till it seemed as if the next moment the sail would
be flat on the water while the little vessel filled and went down.
But many years of teaching by the fishermen and Tom Bodger, the
wooden-legged old man-o'-war's man of Rockabie, had made Aleck, young
though he was, an expert manager of a fore and aft sailing boat, and the
boy sat fast, rudder in one hand, sheet in the other, ready at the right
moment to ease off the rope and by a dexterous touch at the rudder to
lessen the pressure upon the canvas so that the boat rose again and
raced onward till the great promontory ahead was passed. In due time
the land sheltered the young navigator, and he glided swiftly into the
little harbour of the fishing town, whose roughly-formed pier curved
round like a crescent moon to protect the little fleet of fishing-boats,
whose crews leaned over the cliff rail masticating tobacco and gazing
out to sea, as they rested from the past night's labour, and talked in a
low monotonous growl about the wind and the prospects of the night to
come.
Rockabie was a prolific place, as far as boys were concerned. There
were doubtless girls to balance them, but the girls were busy at home,
while the boys swarmed upon the pier, where they led a charmed life; for
though one of them was crowded, or scuffled, or pushed off every day
into deep water, when quarrelling, playing, or getting into someone's
way when the fish were landed, they seemed as if formed of cork or
bladder and wind instead of flesh and blood, for they always came up
again, to be pulled out by the rope thrown, or hooked out by a hitcher,
if they did not swim round to the rough steps or to the shore. Not one
was ever known to be drowned--that was the fate of the full-grown who
went out in smack or lugger to sea.
The sight of Aleck Donne's boat coming round the point caused a rush on
the part of the boys down to the pier and drew the attention of the
fishermen up on the cliff as well. But these latter did not stir, only
growled out something about the cap'n's boat from the Den. One man only
made the comment that the sail wanted "tannin' agen," and that was all.
But the boys were interested and busy as they swarmed to the edge of the
unprotected pier, along which they sat and stood as closely as the
upright puffins in their white waistcoats standing in rows along the
ledges that towered up above the point. For everybody knew everybody
there for miles round, and every boat as well.
There was a good deal of grinning and chattering going on as the boat
neared, especially from one old fisherman who lived inside a huge pair
of very stiff trousers, these coming right up to his arm-pits, so that
only a very short pair of braces, a scrap of blue shirt, and a woollen
night-cap were required to complete his costume.
This gentleman smiled, grunted, placed a fresh bit of black tobacco in
his cheek, and took notice of the fact that several of the boys had made
a rush to the edge of the water by the harbour and come back loaded with
decaying fish--scraps of skate, trimmings, especially the tails, heads,
and offal--to take their places again, standing behind their sitting
companions.
Someone else saw the action too, and began to descend from the cliff by
the long slope whose water end was close to the shore end of the pier.
This personage would have been a tall, broad-shouldered man had he been
all there; but he was not, for he had left his legs in the West Indies,
off the coast of Martinique, when a big round shot from a French battery
came skipping over the water and cut them off, as the ship's surgeon
said, almost as cleanly as he could have done with the knife and saw he
used on the poor fellow after the action was over, the fort taken, and
the Frenchmen put to flight.
The result was that Thomas Bodger came back after some months to his
native village, quite cured, in the best of health, and wearing a pair
of the shortest wooden legs ever worn by crippled man--his pegs, as the
boys of Rockabie called them, though he dignified them himself by the
name of toes. As to his looks, he was a fine-looking man to just below
his hips, and there he had been razed, as he called it to Aleck Donne,
while the most peculiar thing about him as he toddled along was what at
first sight looked like a prop, which extended from just beneath his
head nearly to the ground, as if to enable him to stand, tripod-fashion,
steadily on a windy day. But it was nothing of the sort, being only his
pigtail carefully bound with ribbon, and the thickest and longest
pigtail in the "Ryal Navee."
Tom Bodger, or--as he was generally known by the Rockabie boys--Dumpus,
trotted down the slope in a wonderful way, for how he managed to keep
his balance over the rough cobbles and on the storm-worn granite stones
of the pier was a marvel of equilibrium. But keep upright he did,
solely by being always in motion; and he was not long in elbowing his
way through the crowd of boys, many of whom overtopped him, and planting
himself at the top of the pier steps, where from old experience he knew
that Aleck would land.
As soon as he was there he delivered himself of an observation.
"Look here," he growled, in a deep, angry voice, "I've been marking o'
you youngsters with my hye, and I gives you doo warning, the fust one on
yer as shies any o' that orfull at young Master Donne, or inter his
little boat, I marks with what isn't my hye, but this here bit of
well-tarred rope's-end as I've got hitched inside my jacket; so look
out."
"Yah!" came in a derisive chorus, as the sailor showed the truthfulness
of his assertion by drawing out about eighteen inches of stoutish brown
rope, drawing it through his left hand and putting it back.
"Yah!" shouted one of the most daring. "Yer can't ketch us. Yah!"
"Not ketch ye, you young swab? Not in a starn chase, p'raps, but I've
got a good mem'ry and I can heave-to till yer comes within reach, and
then--well, I'm sorry for you, my lad. I know yer;--Davvy, Davvy."
The boy looked uncomfortable, and furtively dropped an unpleasant
smelling quid which he had picked up as a weapon of offence, and very
offensive it was; but another lad appropriated it instantly and sniffed
at it, smiling widely afterwards as if approving hugely of the vile
odour. Probably familiarity had begotten contempt, for none of his
companions moved away.
Meanwhile Aleck had run his boat close in and lowered his sail. Then,
as he rose up, boat-hook in hand, he was greeted with a jeering chorus
of shouts, for no other reason than that he was a so-called stranger who
did not live there and was well dressed, and belonged to a better class.
Aleck was accustomed to the reception, and gave the little crowd a
contemptuous look, before turning to the squat figure beginning to
descend the steps, to where the boy stood ten feet below.
"What cheer, Tom!" he cried.
"What cheer-ho, Master Aleck!" returned the sailor. "Hearty, my lad,
hearty." Then, turning to the boys, he growled out, "Now, then, you
heered. So just mind; whether it's fish fresh or fish foul. The one as
shies gets my mark."
The voices of the boys rose in a curious way, making a highly pitched
jeering snarl, while a number of unpleasant missiles that were held
ready were fingered and held behind backs, but from a disinclination to
become the victim of the sailor's marking, no lad was venturesome enough
to start the shower intended to greet the newcomer. It was held in
abeyance for the moment, and then became impossible, for peg, peg, peg,
peg, Tom Bodger descended the steps till he was level with the gunwale
of Aleck's boat, upon which one extremity was carefully planted, and
careful aim taken at the first thwart. The sailor was about to swing
himself in, when Aleck held out his hand--
"Catch hold!" he cried.
"Tchah! I don't want to ketch hold o' nothing," grumbled the man.
"Stand aside."
As he spoke he spun half round as upon a peg, the second wooden leg
lightly touched the thwart, and the next moment, when it seemed as if
the poor fellow's wooden appendages must go through the frail bottom of
the boat, they came down with a light _tip-tap_, and he was standing up
looking smilingly in the young navigator's face.
"Come along tidy quick, my lad?" he said.
"Yes, the wind was lovely. Look here, Tom; I'm going shopping--to get
some hooks and things. Mind that young rabble does not throw anything
aboard."
"All right, my lad; but I should just like to see one of 'em try."
"I shouldn't," cried Aleck. "But, look here; uncle says as there'll be
a good deal of wind dead ahead, and I shall have to tack back again,
you're to come with me."
"Course I should," said the sailor, gruffly. "Wants two a day like
this."
"And he'll pay you; and you're to get one of the fishermen to pick you
up and bring you back."
"Tchah! I don't want no picking up. It's on'y about six mile across
from here to the Den, and I can do that easy enough if yer give me
time."
"Do as you like, but uncle will pay for the ride."
"And I shall put the money in my pocket and toddle back," said the
sailor, chuckling; "do me more good than riding. You look sharp and get
back. I'll give her a swab out while you're gone, and we'll take a good
reach out to where the bass are playing off the point, and get a few. I
see you've brought some sand eels."
"So we will, Tom. I should like to take home a few bass."
"So you shall, my lad," said the sailor, who had stumped forward to the
fore-locker to get out a big sponge; and he was rolling up his sleeves
over a pair of big, brown, muscular arms ornamented with blue mermaids,
initials, a ship in full sail, and a pair of crossed cutlasses
surmounted by a crown, as Aleck stepped lightly upon the gunwale, sprang
thence on to the steps, and went up, to run the gauntlet of the little
crowd of boys, who greeted him with something like a tempest of hoots
and jeers.
But the lads fell back as, with a smile full of the contempt he felt,
Aleck pressed forward, marched through them with his hands in his
pockets, and smiled more broadly as he heard from below a growling shout
of warning from the sailor announcing what he would do if the boys
didn't mind, the result being that they followed the well-grown lad at a
little distance all along the pier, throwing after him not bad fish and
fragments, which would, if well-aimed, have sullied the lad's clothes,
but what an Irishman would have called dirty words, mingled with threats
about what they would give him one of these fine days. The feud was
high between the Rockabie boys and the bright active young lad from the
Den, for no further reason than has already been stated, and the dislike
had increased greatly during the past year, though it had never
culminated in any encounter worse than the throwing of foul missiles
after the boat when it was pushed off for home.
Perhaps it was something in the air which made the Rockabie boys more
pugnacious and their threats more dire. Possibly they may have felt
more deeply stung by the contempt of Aleck, who strode carelessly along
the rough stone pier, whistling softly, with his hands in his pockets,
till he reached the slope and began to ascend towards where the
fishermen leaned in a row over the rail, just as if after a soaking
night they had hung themselves out in the sun to dry.
And now it was that the boys hung back and Aleck felt that he could
afford to pay no heed to the young scrubs who followed him, for there
were plenty of hearty hails and friendly smiles to greet him from the
rough seamen.
"Morn', Master Aleck."
"Morn', sir. How's the cap'n?" from another.
Then: "Like a flat fish to take back with you, master? I've got a nice
brill. I'll put him in your boat."
And directly after a big broad fellow detached himself from the rail to
sidle up with: "Say, Master Aleck, would you mind asking the cap'n to
let me have another little bottle o' them iles he gives me for my
showther? It's getting bad again."
"You shall have it, Joney," cried Aleck.
"Thankye, sir. No hurry, sir. Just put the bottle in yer pocket nex'
time you come over, and that'll do."
Aleck went on up town, as it was called,--and the men hung themselves a
little more over the rail and growled at the boys who were following the
visitor, to "be off," and to "get out of that; now," with the result
that they still followed the lad and watched him, flattening their noses
against the panes of the fishing-tackle shop window, and following him
again when he came out to visit one or two other places of business,
till all the lad's self-set commissions were executed, and he turned to
retrace his steps to the harbour.
So far every movement had been followed by cutting remarks expressive of
the contempt in which the visitor was held. There had been threats,
too, of how he would be served one of these times. Remarks were made,
too, on his personal appearance and the cut of his clothes, but there
was nothing more than petty annoyance till the quarry was on his way
back to where he would be under the protection of the redoubtable
Dumpus, who did not scruple about "letting 'em have it," to use his own
words, it being very unpleasant whatever shape it took. But now the
pack began to rouse up and show its rage under the calm, careless,
defiant contempt with which it was being treated. Words, epithets, and
allusions grew more malicious, caustic, and insulting, and, these
producing no effect by the time the top of the slope was reached, bolder
tactics were commenced, the boys closing round and starting a kind of
horse-play in which one charged another, to give him a thrust so as to
drive him--quite willing--against the retiring visitor.
This was delightful; the mirth it excited grew more boisterous, and the
covert attacks more general.
But Aleck was on the alert and avoided several, till a more vigorous one
was attempted by the biggest lad present, a great, hulking, stupid,
hobbledehoy of a fellow, who drove a companion against Aleck's shoulder,
making him stagger for a moment, while the aggressor burst out into a
hoarse laugh which was chorussed by the little crowd, and then stopped.
The spring which set Aleck's machinery in motion had been touched,
making him wheel round from the boy who had been driven against him,
make a spring at the great, grinning, prime aggressor, and bring his
coarse laugh to an end by delivering a stinging blow on the ear which
drove him sidewise, and made him stand shaking his head and thrusting
his finger inside his ear, as if to try and get rid of a peculiar
buzzing sound which affected him strangely.
There was a roar, and the boy who had been thrust against Aleck sprang
at him to inflict condign punishment upon the stranger who had dared to
strike his companion.
The attack was vigorous enough, but the attacker was unlucky, for he met
Aleck's bony fist on his way before he could use his own. Then he
clapped his open hands to his nose and stood staring in wonder, and
seemed to be trying to find out whether his nose had been flattened on
his face.
There was an ominous silence then, during which Aleck turned and walked
on down the slope in a quiet leisurely way, scorning to run, and even
slackening his pace to be on his guard as he reached the bottom of the
slope, for by that time the boys had recovered from their astonishment,
and were in full pursuit.
In another minute Aleck was surrounded by a roughly-formed crowding-in
ring, with the two lads who had tested the force of his blows eager to
obtain revenge, incited thereto by a score or two of voices urging them
to "give it him," "pay him," "let him have it," and the like.
The two biggest lads of the party then came on at Aleck at once; but, to
be just, it was from no cowardly spirit, but from each being urged by a
sheer vindictive desire to be first to obtain revenge for his blow.
Hence they were mastered by passion and came on recklessly against one
who was still perfectly cool and able to avoid the bigger fellow's
assault while he gave the other a back-handed blow which sent him
reeling away quite satisfied for the present and leaving the odds, so to
speak, more even in the continuation of the encounter.
Aleck was well on the alert, and, feeling that he was utterly
out-matched, he aimed at getting as far as the steps, where he would
have Tom Bodger for an ally, and the attack would come to an end; but he
was soon aware of the fact that to retire was impossible, hedged in as
he was by an excited ring of boys, and there was nothing for him but to
fight his way back slowly and cautiously. So he kept his head, coolly
resisting the attack of the big fellow with whom he was engaged,
guarding himself from blows to the best of his ability, and paying
little heed to the torrent of abuse which accompanied the blows the big
fisher lad tried to shower upon him, and always backing away a few
yards, as he could, nearer to the way down to his boat.
By this time the word was passed along the top of the cliff that there
was a fight on, and the fishermen began slowly to take themselves off
the rail and descend the slope to see the fun, as they called it. They
did not hurry themselves in the least, so that there was plenty of time
for the encounter to progress, with Aleck still calm and cool, warding
off the blows struck at him most skilfully, and mastering his desire to
retaliate when he could have delivered others with masterly effect.
But a change was coming on.
Enraged by his inability to close with his skilful, active adversary,
the big lad made more and more use of his tongue, the torrent of abuse
grew more foul, and Aleck more cool and contemptuous, till all at once
his adversary yelled out something which was received with acclamations
by the excited ring who surrounded the pair, while it went through Aleck
like some poisoned barb. He saw fire for the moment, and his teeth
gritted together, as caution and the practice and skill he had displayed
were no more, for, to use a schoolboy phrase, his monkey was up and he
meant fighting--he meant to use his fists to the best effect in trying
to knock the vile slanderous words, uttered against the man he loved and
venerated, down the utterer's throat, while his rage against those who
crowded around, yelling with delight, took the form of back strokes with
his elbow and more than one sharp blow at some intruding head.
But it was against the lout who had spoken that the fire of his rage was
principally directed, and the fellow realised at once that all that had
gone before, on the part of the stranger from the Den, was mere sparring
and self-defence. Aleck meant fighting now, and he fought, showering
down such volleys of blows that, at the end of a couple of minutes, in
spite of a brave defence and the planting of nasty cracks about his
adversary's unguarded face, the big lad was being knocked here and
there, up, down, and round about, till the shouts and cries about him
lowered into a dull, dead hum. The pier stones reeled and rose and sank
and seemed to imitate the waves that floated in, and when at last, in
utter despair, he locked Aleck in his arms and tried to throw him, he
received such a stunning blow between the eyes that he loosened his
grasp to shake his head, which the next moment was knocked steady and
inert, the big fellow going down all of a heap, and the back of his big
bullet skull striking the pier stones with a heavy resounding bump.