But one day, I must tell you, a large hawk played the lad a very mischievous trick. Ransey was high up near the top of a tall, stone-pine-tree, and had hold of a sturdy branch above, being just about to swing himself in through the needled foliage, when, lo! the stump on which one foot was resting gave way, leaving him suspended betwixt heaven and earth, like Mohammed’s coffin—and kicking too, because he could not for some time swing himself into the tree.
Now that hawk needn’t have been so precious nasty about it. But he saw his chance, and went for Ransey straight; and the more the boy shouted at the hawk, and cried “Hoosh-oo!” at him, the more that hawk wouldn’t leave off. He tore the boy’s shirt and back, and cut his suspender right through, so that with the kicking and struggling his poor little pants came off and fluttered down to the ground.
Ransey Tansey was only second best that day, and when—a sadder and a wiser boy—he reached the foot of the tree, he found that Bob had been engaged in funeral rites—obsequies—for some time. In fact, he had scraped a hole beneath a furze bush and buried Ransey’s pants.
Whether Bob had thought this was all that remained of his master or not, I cannot say. I only state facts.
But to hark back: after Ransey Tansey had seen all the nests he wanted to see, he and his two companions rushed off to a portion of the wood where, near the bank of the stream, he kept his toy ship under a moss-covered boulder.
He had built this ship, fashioning her out of a pine-log with his knife, and rigged her all complete as well as his somewhat limited nautical knowledge permitted him to do. In Ransey’s eyes she was a beauty—without paint.
Before he launched her to-day he looked down at Bob and across at the Admiral, who was quite as tall as the boy.
“We’re going on a long and dangerous voyage, Bob,” he said. “There’s no sayin’ wot may happen. We may run among rocks and get smashed; we may get caught-aback-like and flounder,”—he meant founder—“or go down wi’ all han’s in the Bay o’ Biscay—O.”
Bob tried to appear as solemn and sad as the occasion demanded, and let his fag-end drop groundwards.
But the crane only said “Tok,” which on this occasion meant “All humbug!” for he knew well enough that Ransey Tansey was seldom to be taken seriously.