“No, scarlet.”
I went down to the shore with Bigley, and we had a good ramble, after which he fetched the glass, and we climbed up to the place on the rocks where his father used to station himself to look out—for fish, Bigley said; but my father often said they were very rum fish—and there we swept the horizon to see if we could make out the lugger, but she was not in sight, and after a time we grew tired of this and lay down in the warm sunshine upon the cliff, where Bigley dropped off to sleep.
I did not feel sleepy, though, but full of thought. Above all, I could not help thinking over my father’s behaviour that day. It was evident that he feared attack by making such preparations, and no doubt I should soon see him drilling the work-people he had gathered around him, and I dwelt a good deal, being tolerably observant, upon the fact of his letting Bigley see all his preparations. I was asking myself why he had done this, and what reason he had for it, when Bigley woke up and said that it was time to go and get something to eat.
I did not answer and say it was, but a silent monitor gave me a hint that he was quite correct, and so we went to the cottage, and Mother Bonnet gave us quite a feast of bread and butter and fried fish, which form no bad refreshment for two hungry boys.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Drilling our Men.
My father’s armoury was a good deal talked about, but when regular drilling was commenced at the Gap it excited no surprise. The grey-beards of Ripplemouth talked it over, and said they were glad that Captain Duncan had woke up and was ready to defend the Gap when the French came to our part of the coast, and they said they expected great things of him.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Bob Chowne one day, as he came over; “heard the news?”