Chapter Four.
Ramillies—commonly known by his father’s men as Ram—Shackle trotted up over the hill, stopping once to flop down on the grass to gaze at the cutter, lying a mile out now from the shore, and thinking how different she was with her trim rigging and white sails to the rough lugger of his father, and the dirty three-masted vessels that ran to and fro across the Channel, and upon which he had more than once taken a trip.
He rose with a sigh, and continued his journey down into the hollow, and along a regular trough among the hills, to the low, white-washed stone building, roofed with thin pieces of the same material, and gaily dotted and splashed with lichen and moss.
He was met by a comfortable-looking, ruddy-faced woman, who shouted,—“What is it, Ram?” when he was fifty yards away.
The boy stated his errand.
“Father says you were to take all that?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s a cargo coming ashore to-night, Ram.”