“There, Nic,” he cried triumphantly; “what did I say? Jack Lawrence was always ready to show the way when we were on our beam-ends. Jack, my dear old messmate,” he cried heartily, as he stretched out his hand—“your fist.”
Chapter Seven.
The Captain will “wherrit.”
Captain Lawrence spent the day at the Point, thoroughly enjoying a long gossip, and, after an early dinner, proposed a walk around the grounds and a look at the river and the pool.
“What a lovely spot it is!” he said, as he wandered about the side of the combe. “I must have such a place as this when I give up the sea.”
“There isn’t such a place, Jack,” said Captain Revel proudly. “But I want you to look round the pool.—I don’t think I’ll climb down, Nic. It’s rather hot; and I’ll sit down on the stone for a few minutes while you two plan where you could ambush the men.”
“Right,” said Captain Lawrence; and he actively followed Nic, pausing here and there, till they had descended to where the fall just splashed gently down into the clear pool, whose bigger stones about the bottom were now half-bare.
“Lovely place this, Nic, my boy. I could sit down here and doze away the rest of my days. But what a pity it is that your father worries himself so about these poaching scoundrels! Can’t you wean him from it? Tell him, or I will, that it isn’t worth the trouble. Plenty more fish will come, and there must be a little grit in every one’s wheel.”