“After?” answered Drake, “why, probably running down to Penzance.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Harry, who continued to watch the vessel with much interest; “it looks to me as if she were running close in, to anchor.”
“Well, let her anchor if she likes. There’s nothing strange in that, when there’s not wind enough to fly a feather;” and after a few moments more, in which we resumed our way to the house, Drake continued—
“Haven’t our tutors proved splendid fellows? I think the Captain is the finest old chap that I ever came across; and when Mr Clare is a clergyman I should like to go to his church—shouldn’t feel a bit like going to sleep then.”
To which we all gave a cordial assent, and, having reached the house, turned in there with the prospect of having some fun with Clump and Juno before our tutors should return. I stood at the door a few minutes. Sure enough Harry was right. Though it was too dark now to distinguish anything more than a hundred yards away, I heard the running out of a cable and then the lowering of the sails. “An odd place to anchor for the night,” thought I, and so did Ugly, who was beside me, for he gave a low, uneasy howl.
Juno was laying the plates for tea, as I went in. After teasing her for awhile I joined the other boys. Soon Juno came out to the kitchen, and when she commenced to fry the hasty-pudding, we induced Clump to tell us some of his sea adventures, in the middle of which Ugly set up a furious barking, and a moment afterwards there came a heavy rap at the front door. It was the first time there had been a knock at a door of our old house since we had been in it.
Clump, leaving his story unfinished, took a candle, and Drake and I followed him into the dining-room, which he had to cross to get to the front door. But by the time we had entered the dining-room a stranger had walked into the hall, and had also proceeded to open the door opposite us. Ugly, who was greatly incensed, jumped forward and took hold of a leg of the stranger’s trousers.
Our visitor was a small, rough, ugly man, with a terrible squint in his eyes and a voice as unpleasant as his face. He had no collar, only a handkerchief about his neck, and wore a large, shaggy flushing jacket. His first act was to kick Ugly halfway across the room, with the salutation: “Take that, you damned cur, for your manners, damn you!”
Ugly made at him again fiercer than ever, but I caught him in time and held him.
“Wat will you ’ab, sir?” asked Clump in a dignified voice.