Chapter Nine.
A Rival Collector.
Nothing could have been better than the appearances of wind and weather next morning—that long-wished-for “to-morrow,” which had at last come, in spite of the Captain’s perpetual procrastination.
The bright sun was glowing in a clear blue sky overhead, that was unflecked by a single cloud, while a fresh breeze blowing from the westwards to prevent the air from becoming stagnant; and the barometer, at “set Fair,” made all prophets of evil, if such there were about, keep their lips tightly closed and say nothing to damp the spirits of the expectant voyagers.
“Hullo, Nell!” shouted Bob, drumming on the balustrade of the staircase outside his bedroom to attract her attention and rouse her up. “Are you awake yet?”
Nellie’s answer to this question was a “staggerer” to Master Bob, as he termed it in his choice phraseology.
She appeared in the passage that passed her door fully dressed.
“I got up when Sarah rose, and have been ready to go downstairs for the last hour,” she said calmly, with a conscious pride. “You’d better look sharp with your dressing, Bob, for it is past six o’clock. Unless you start off soon to the beach, too, for your bathe, you’ll never be back in time for breakfast, which is going to be earlier this morning so that we may catch the steamer comfortably.”
“My good gracious!” exclaimed Bob, jamming his right foot into his left boot in his hurry and wasting a minute or more in wriggling it out again. “I thought I was ever so early, and up before any one!”
“Ah, me dear,” cried out Mrs Gilmour from below; “you’ll have to catch a weasel asleep, sure, before you can hope, sir, to get ahead of us in this house. I called Sarah long ere either of you were stirring!”
This was a climax; and so, without making any reply to aunt Polly’s pertinent statement of fact, save a stifled laugh at the expense of Miss Nell, who had prided herself on having, as she thought, got the start of them all, Bob expediting his dressing in the most summary fashion, hurried off as speedily as possible across the common for his matutinal dip.
He was accompanied, as a matter of course, by Rover, who was ready and waiting for him on the terrace outside, barking and bounding about like a demented dog who had parted company with his usual stock of common-sense.
“Down, Rover!” cried Bob, when the faithful fellow, in the exuberance of his joy on seeing his young master come out of the house, leaped up and licked his face, preventing him from closing the door properly as he was about to do. “Behave yourself, sir!”
Rover, however, thought there were different ways of “behaving himself,” the chief in his estimation being to show his affection to those who were kind to him, whom he loved with all the intensity of his great canine heart; and so, ranking obedience to orders as only second to this potent law of his life, he frisked and jumped and playfully tousled Bob until he finally made him start at a swinging trot for the beach, the frolicsome retriever galloping in advance one moment, the next stopping in his mad career onward to give out a loud bark and wag his tail in encouragement to his master to try and catch him up, if he could!
Bob bent his steps towards the coastguard-station on the eastern side of the sea-wall, near the new pier, which was the regular meeting-place for him and Dick every morning for their bathe; and here, punctually at “six Bells,” or seven o’clock, he found on the present occasion his fellow-swimmer along with the Captain.
The latter, he could hear as he approached, was having an animated discussion with Hellyer, the chief boatman, on the subject of torpedoes, which Hellyer believed in, but which the Captain utterly pooh-poohed, saying that in his opinion they were of little, if any, use in naval warfare.
He was laying down the law with great unction when Bob came up to them.
“Don’t tell me,” he cried, “of your ‘whitehead’ going twenty knots an hour and exploding its charge of gun-cotton under a ship’s bottom; for, where and what would those on board the ship be doing all the time—standing still, I suppose, to be shot at and doing nothing in their own defence?”
“Aye, that’s true, sir,” said Hellyer; “but—”
“Remember, too,” continued the Captain, “the torpedo, even of the most improved type, can only keep up this speed of twenty knots for a distance of five hundred yards, within which range the boat discharging it would have to approach before sending it off at the vessel attacked, which of course would be fool enough to let it come to such close quarters without riddling it? Oh, yes, you tell that to the marines!” Hellyer laughed.
“You carry too many guns for me, sir,” said he good-humouredly. “I can’t stand up against you, Captain, once you tackle me fairly!”
“Too strong, eh?” rejoined the Captain, triumphant at getting the better of his opponent. “Of course I am! Your argument, Hellyer, won’t hold water. Besides, should one of those spiteful little inventions succeed in getting near an ironclad without being seen and sunk, the torpedo nets of the ship would prevent the infernal machine, as these new-fashioned fallals were called in the old days, from exploding against her hull. I, for my part, would be quite content to stand the brunt of a torpedo attack on board a ship fitted with protecting nets and quick-firing guns. By Jove, I’d guarantee that Jack Dresser wouldn’t be the one that was licked!”
“I’d bet that same, sir,” agreed Hellyer heartily, but seeing Bob he added, “Ah, here’s the young ge’man I fished out of the sea t’other night. He doesn’t look any the worse for being nigh drownded. He warn’ hurt, sir, much, were he?”
“Not he,” said the Captain. “He’s learnt to swim, though, since then, and the other boy, too; so, if they choose to tumble in again off the ramparts and get into deep water, there won’t be so much bother in hauling them out; eh, Bob?”
“No, Captain,” replied Bob, who was busy undressing; and, within a few moments he had plunged into the sea, and was swimming out with a brave firm stroke in a way that fully justified the Captain’s praise of his natatory powers, shouting out at intervals his customary war-cry—“Jolly!”
Nor was Dick far behind, although perhaps not quite so plucky in venturing beyond his depth, now that he had no especial motive as on that memorable evening already alluded to by Hellyer the coastguardsman, for running the risk; while, as for Rover, he fairly revelled in the water, paddling round and round Bob and Dick, thereby executing a series of concentric circles never dreamt of by the Egyptian mathematician whose problems have been the torment of the boys of all ages.
The sea was so warm and pleasant that they stopped in such an unconscionable time as to necessitate the Captain’s hailing them three times to come out before they obeyed the order, and even then did so lothfully, making the old sailor sing out to them the more imperatively—
“Come out, come out of that, you young rascals!” he cried, shaking his stick menacingly. “If you are not out and dressed in five minutes, by Jove I’ll start without you; for, I can’t keep the ladies waiting. By Jove, I will!”
This threat had the desired result of quickening the boys’ movements; Dick, if the slowest in the water, being the sharper of the two in getting into his clothes. Rover was even speedier still, having only to give himself one good shake, administering in the action a shower-bath of drops to the Captain, when, there he was all ready, with a smart new curly black coat, glistening from his dip, as if he had just been to the hairdresser’s and had a brush up for the occasion!
On the way back to Mrs Gilmour’s house to breakfast, the Captain and Dick being specially invited this morning, so that they might leave together immediately afterwards for the steamer without losing any time, the boys had great fun with Rover and the towels.
These the retriever was always in the habit of carrying home, though Bob would not let him have them at once, right out, to take in his mouth as he left the beach.
He would first show them to Rover, with a “Look here, good dog!”
Then Bob would put the bundle of towels in a hole in the shingle, or under some big boulder, which did not improve them, by the way; Rover observing everything his young master did with the keenest attention, barking the while, and with every hair of his mane bristling with excitement.
After thus hiding the towels, if it could be called hiding where every detail of the operation was watched by the dog, Bob would, as he did on the present occasion, set out on his return across the common; Master Rover prancing in front of him, and anxiously keeping his speaking brown eyes fixed on his face, awaiting the order which he knew to be impending for him to go back and fetch the bundle left behind.
It was always a struggle for Bob to keep his countenance steady, the slightest suspicion of a smile being interpreted by Rover as an intimation that he was at liberty to “go and fetch,” without a word being uttered; and, this morning, the struggle was intensified by the presence of the Captain, who was in a joking mood, and tried all he could to draw off Rover’s attention from Bob.
However, in spite of these difficulties, the latter succeeded in repressing any signs of emotion in his face until they got to the landmark in the middle of the common, when, opening his mouth at last, Bob said, almost in a whisper, the magic words, “Go and fetch!”
Low as was the tone in which the command was given, Rover heard it; and then, in an instant, off he flew, like an arrow from the bow, with his bushy tail stretched out straight behind, bottle-brush fashion, making him resemble a dark-coloured fox in the distance, with the hounds in full cry after him.
The last they saw of him was the end of his tufted tail disappearing over the sea-wall at the place where Bob had secreted the towels, so on they went in the expectation of Rover presently overtaking the party with the towels, which he seldom failed to do before the roadway skirting the other side of the common was reached, the retriever being generally very rapid in his movements.
On this occasion, however, the Captain with the boys not only got as, far as the terrace, but arrived at the gate of Mrs Gilmour’s house, without there being any appearance of Rover’s return.
He and the towels were alike “conspicuous by their absence.”
What could have happened?
Listening attentively, they could hear presently the sound of a dog barking in the direction of the sea, and to Bob’s mind, at least, there was no doubt that the bark was the bark of Rover.
“He cannot get the towels from under the stone,” cried Bob, turning back. “It is either that, or somebody has stolen them, or something. I must go and see what’s the matter.”
“We’ll all come,” said the Captain. “I should like to see the affair out.”
So saying, he wheeled round too, and with Dick started off in pursuit of Bob, who, going at the run, was already some distance ahead, on his return journey to the beach.
The Captain stepped out well, however, and he and Dick got up just in time to settle a little dispute, in which Bob, Rover, and an ugly-looking man, very like a gipsy and evidently a tramp, were the parties interested.
The man had one end of the bundle of towels grasped in both his hands, while Rover was holding on like grim death to the other; the dog growling, and tugging away so violently between each growl, that the tramp had hard work to keep hold of his prize.
Bob, on his part, had caught up a piece of broken timber, and was advancing to the faithful dog’s aid.
But a boy like Bob, even with the help of such a valiant protector as the retriever, could do little or nothing against a burly, ruffianly giant, six feet high, and broad in proportion.
The arrival of the Captain on the scene with Dick, however, altered the aspect of affairs considerably.
The gipsy tramp, who had sworn to Bob, and at him too, that the bundle was his own, and that he was walking quietly along the shore in search of work, when he was assailed by “that savage dog o’ yourn there,” now said, on the Captain’s telling him curtly to drop the towels, or he would have him locked up, that he had “only picked ’em up on the beach, and didn’t mean no harm by it to nobody, that he didn’t.”
“Then the sooner you are off out of this, the better for you, my friend,” said the Captain, on the man’s letting go the bundle of towels, which Rover at once carried off in triumph and laid at Bob’s feet. “Be off with you, you rascal, at once!” The man took his advice, and slouched away round the castle, soon disappearing from their sight; when, much excited by the unexpected little incident that they now would have to detail to Mrs Gilmour and Nellie, besides being full of Rover’s bravery and sagacity, they took their way home again, for the second time, across the common, the clock of old Saint Thomas’s church in the distance striking as they turned their faces homeward—“One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—Nine!”
“Look sharp, lads, or we’ll be late for the steamer!” cried the old sailor, as they hurried along, setting the example by hastening onwards as fast as his little legs, aided by his ever-present malacca cane, could carry him. “I’m told that the Bembridge Belle will leave the pier at ten o’clock without fail, wind and weather permitting, and it has just struck nine—all through your loitering and skylarking in the water, Master Bob and you Dick, and that long palaver we had afterwards with your friend the towel-thief.”
On reaching the house, where breakfast was all ready awaiting their arrival, the old Captain, while hurrying through the meal, found time to chaff Nellie about this “rival collector,” as he called the prowling tramp when narrating all about the adventure that had detained them; telling her she would have to look to her laurels, and gather up all the odds and ends she could find, on the beach, or else this gentleman, who had displayed such zeal that morning in trying to add to his collection, would certainly outvie hers.
“Now, children,” said Mrs Gilmour, when breakfast and chaff had both come to an end, repeating the Captain’s favourite word of command, “Look sharp!”
Her preparations had all been made beforehand; and without losing another moment, she and the Captain, with Bob and Nellie behind them, started off, Dick, who had been taken care of meanwhile by Sarah in the kitchen, bringing up the rear with a substantial-looking hamper on his shoulder.
Almost breathless, alike from excitement and their rapid pace, they made their way seawards, to where the Bembridge Belle was blowing off her steam alongside the pier, sounding her whistle to tell belated passengers like themselves that they had better put their best foot foremost if they wished to reach her in time.
“All aboard?” inquired the captain of the steamer from his post on the port paddle-box, hailing the porter of the pier ashore, when they, the very last of the late-comers, had scrambled across the gangway; and the porter having signified that no one now was in sight, the blue-capped gentleman standing on the paddle-box touched the engine-room telegraph, and gave the signal to “Go ahead!”
In another minute, the fore and aft hawsers that had previously made her fast to the pier were cast-off, and her paddles began to revolve with a heavy splashing sound, like that of flails in a farmyard threshing out the grain.
“Starboard!” sang out her skipper, now mounting from the paddle-box to the bridge above. “Hard over, my man!”
“Starboard it is, sir,” replied the helmsman, rapidly twirling the spokes of the wheel as he spoke. “It’s right over, sir.”
“Steady!” now sang out the skipper, meaning that the vessel’s head had been sufficiently turned in the direction he desired. “Steady; keep her so.”
“Steady it is, sir,” repeated the man at the wheel like a parrot, to show that the order had been understood and acted upon. “Steady it is.”
“Port a trifle now.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” returned the helmsman, reversing the wheel. “Port it is, sir; two points over.”
“Steady.”
“Steady it is.”
Whereupon, a straight course being now laid for the little port to which they were bound on the Isle of Wight opposite, the Bembridge Belle steamed ahead, splashing and dashing through the water, that rippled over with laughter in the bright sunshine, lightening up its translucent depths, and leaving a broad silvery wake of dancing eddies behind her.