George Manville Fenn

"The Lost Middy"

Chapter One.

There was a loud rattling noise, as if money was being shaken up in a box. A loud crashing bang, as if someone had banged the box down on a table. A rap, as if a knife had been dropped. Then somebody, in a petulant voice full of vexation and irritability, roared out:

“Bother!”

And that’s exactly how it was, leaving Aleck Donne, who looked about sixteen or seventeen, scratching vigorously at his crisp hair as he sat back, with his elbows resting upon those of the big wooden arm-chair, staring at the money-box before him.

“I call it foolishness,” he said, aloud, talking, of course, to himself, for there was no one else in the comfortable room, the window of which opened out upon the most quaint garden ever seen. “It’s all right to save up your money in a box and keep on dropping it through a slit; but how about getting it out? Here, I’ll go and smash the stupid old thing up directly on the block in the wood-shed.”

But instead of carrying out his threat, he leaned forward, picked up the curved round-ended table-knife he had dashed down, seized the money-box again, shook it with jingling effect, held it upside down above his eyes, and began to operate with the knife-blade through the narrow slit in the centre of the lid.

For a good quarter of an hour by the big old eight-day clock in the corner did the boy work away, shaking the box till some coin or another was over the slit, and then operating with the knife-blade, trying and trying to get the piece of money up on edge so that it would drop through; and again and again, as the reward of his indefatigable perseverance, nearly succeeding, but never quite. For so sure as he pushed it up or tilted it down, the coin made a dash and glided away, making the drops of perspiration start out on the boy’s forehead, and forcing him into a struggle with his temper which resulted in his gaining the victory again, till that thin old half-crown was coaxed well into sight and forced flat against the knife-blade. The boy then began to manipulate the knife with extreme caution as he kept on making a soft purring noise, ah–h–h–h–ha! full of triumphant satisfaction, while a big curled-up tabby tom-cat, which had taken possession of the fellow chair to that occupied by Aleck, twitched one ear, opened one eye, and then seeing that the purring sound was only a feeble imitation, went off to sleep again.

“Got you at last!” muttered the lad. “Half a crown; just buy all I want, and—bother!” he yelled, and, raising the box on high with both hands, he dashed it down upon the slate hearth with all his might.

Temper had won this time. Aleck had suffered a disastrous defeat, and he sat there with his forehead puckered up, staring at the cat, which at the crash and its accompanying yell made one bound that carried it on to the sideboard, where with glowing eyes, flattened ears, arched back, and bottle-brush tail, it stood staring at the disturber of its rest.

“Well, I am a pretty fool,” muttered Aleck, starting out of his chair and listening for a few moments before stealing across the room to open the door cautiously and thrust out his head.

There was no sound to be heard, and the boy re-closed the door and went back to the hearth.

“I wonder uncle didn’t hear,” he muttered, stooping down. “I’ve done it now, and no mistake.”

As he spoke he picked the remains of the broken box from inside the fender.

“Smashed!” he continued. “Good job too. Shan’t have any more of that bother. How much is there? Let’s see!”

There was a small fire burning in the old-fashioned grate, and with a grim look the boy finished the destruction of the money-box by tearing it apart at the dovetailings and placing the pieces on the fire, where they caught at once, blazing up, while the lad hunted out and picked up the coins which lay scattered here and there.

“Three—four—five—and sixpence,” muttered the boy. “I thought there was more than that. Hullo! Where’s that thin old half-crown? Haven’t thrown it on the fire, have I? Oh, there you are!” he cried, ferreting it out of the fleeces of the thick dark-dyed sheepskin hearth-rug at his feet. “Eight shillings,” he continued, transferring his store to his pocket. “Well, I’m not obliged to spend it all. Money-box! Bother! I’m not a child now. Just as if I couldn’t take care of my money in my pocket.”

He gave the place a slap, turned to the window, looked out at the soft fleecy clouds gliding overhead, and once more made for the door, crossed the little hall paved with large black slates, and then bounded up the oak stairs two at a time, to pause on the landing and give a sharp knuckle rap on the door before him; then, without waiting for a “Come in,” he entered, to stand, door in hand, gazing at the top of a big shaggy grey head, whose owner held it close to the sheets of foolscap paper which he was covering with writing in a bold, clear hand.

“Want me, uncle?”

The head was raised, and a pair of fierce-looking eyes glared at the interrupter of the studies from beneath enormously-produced, thick, white eyebrows, and through a great pair of round tortoise-shell spectacles.

“Want you, boy?” was the reply, as the speaker held up a large white swan-quill pen on a level with his sun-browned and reddened nose. “No, Lick. Be off!”

“I’m going to run over to Rockabie, uncle. Back to dinner. Want anything brought back?”

“No, boy; I’ve plenty of ink. No.—Yes. Bring me some more of this paper.”

The voice sounded very gruff and ill-humoured, and the speaker glared angrily, more than looked, at the boy.

“Here,” he continued, “don’t drown yourself.”

“Oh, no, uncle,” said the boy, confidently, “I’ll take care of that.”

“By running into the first danger you come across.”

“Nonsense, uncle. I can sail about now as well as any of the fisher lads.”

“Fisher? Bah!” growled the old man, fiercely. “Scoundrels—rascals, who wear a fisher’s frock to hide the fact that they are smugglers—were wreckers. Nice sink of iniquity this. Look here, Lick. Take care and don’t play that idler’s trick of making fast the sheet.”

“I’ll take care, uncle.”

“How’s the wind, boy?”

“Just a nice soft breeze, uncle. I can run round the point in about an hour—wind right abaft.”

“And dead ahead coming back, eh?”

“Yes; but I can tack, uncle—make good long reaches.”

“To take you out into the race and among the skerries. Do you think I want to have you carried out to sea and brought back days hence to be buried, sir?”

“Of course you don’t, uncle; but I shan’t hurt. Old Dumpus says I can manage a boat as well as he can.”

“He’s a wooden-legged, wooden-headed old fool for saying so. Look here, Aleck; you’d better stop at home to-day.”

“Uncle!” cried the boy, in a voice full of protest.

“The weather’s going to change. I can feel it in my old wound; and it will not be safe for a boy like you alone to try and run that boat home round the point.”

“Oh, uncle, you treat me as if I were a little boy!”

“So you are; and too light-headed.”

“It’s such a beautiful morning for a sail, uncle.”

“Do just as well to watch the sea from the cliffs, and the carrier can bring what you want from Rockabie next time he goes.”

“Uncle! I shall be so disappointed,” pleaded the boy.

“Well! What of that? Do you good, boy. Life’s all disappointments. Prepare you for what you’ll have to endure in the future.”

“Very well, uncle, I won’t go if you don’t wish it.”

“Of course you won’t, sir. There, run round and get one of the Eilygugg lads to help you with the boat.”

“Please, uncle, I’d rather not. I don’t like them, and they don’t like me.”

“Of course you don’t like the young scoundrels, sir; but they can manage a boat.”

“I’d rather not go now, uncle,” said the boy, sadly.

“And I’d rather you did. There, go at once, while the weather’s fine, and make that old man-o’-war’s man help you to come back?”

“Tom Bodger, uncle? But how’s he to get back?”

“I’ll give him some shillings, and he can pay one of the smugglers to give him a lift home.”

“Thank you, uncle,” cried the boy, in an eager way, which showed plainly enough how well satisfied he was with the arrangement.

“Don’t worry me. Be off!” said the old man, bending over his writing again.

Aleck needed no further orders, and hurried out into the well-kept garden, where everything looked healthy and flourishing, sheltered as it was from the fierce winds of all quarters by the fact that it lay in a depression formed by the sinking of some two or three acres of land, possibly from the undermining of the sea in far distant ages, at the end of a narrow rift or chasm in the cliffs which guarded the shores, the result being that, save in one spot nearest the sea, the grounds possessed a natural cliff-like wall some fifty or sixty feet high, full of rift and shelf, the nesting-place of innumerable birds. Here all was wild and beautiful; great curtains of ivy draped the natural walls, oak and sycamore flourished gloriously in the shelter as far as the top of the cliff, and there the trees ceased to grow upward and branched horizontally instead, so that from the level land outside it seemed as if Nature had cut all the tops off level, as indeed she had, by means of the sharp cutting winds.

Aleck followed the garden path without looking back at the vine and creeper-clad house in its shelter, and made for one corner of the garden where the walls overlapped, and, passing round one angle, he was directly after in a zigzag rift, shut in by more lofty, natural walls, but with the path sloping downward, with the consequence that the walls grew higher, till at the end of about three hundred yards from the garden they were fully a couple of hundred feet from base to summit, the base being nearly level with the sea. This latter was hidden till the lad had passed round another angle of cliff, when he obtained a glimpse of the deep blue water, flecked here and there with silvery foam, but hidden again directly as he followed the zigzag rift over a flooring of rough stones which had fallen from the towering perpendicular sides, and which were here only some thirty or forty feet apart, and completely shut out the sunshine and a good deal of the light.

Another angle of the zigzag rift was passed, and then the rugged stony flooring gave place to dark, deep water, beautifully transparent—so clear that the many-tinted fronds of bladder-wrack and other weeds could be seen swaying to and fro under the influence of the tide which rose and fell.

Here, in a natural harbour, sheltered from all dangers, lay the boat the boy sought. It was moored in a nook by a rope attached to a great ring; the staple had been sunk in a crack and sealed fast with molten lead, and no matter what storms raged outside, the boat was safely sheltered, and swung in a natural basin at ordinary tides, while at the very lowest it grounded gently in a bed of white sand.

It was well afloat upon this occasion, and skirting round it along a laboriously chipped-out ledge about a foot wide, the boy entered a crack in the rock face, for it could hardly be called a cavern. But it was big enough for its purpose, which was to shelter from the rain and rock drippings a quantity of boat gear, mast, sails, ropes, and tackle generally, which leaned or hung snugly enough about the rock, in company with a small seine, a trammel-net, a spare grapnel or two, some lobster-pots, and buoys with corks and lines.

Aleck was not long about carrying mast, yard, and sail to the boat and shipping them. Then, in obedience to an idea, he placed a couple of fishing-lines, a gaff-hook, a landing-net, and some spare hooks aboard; then, taking a little bucket, he half filled it with the crystal water of the pool, and after placing it aboard took hold of a thin line, one end of which was secured to a ring-bolt in a block of wreck lumber, while the other ran down into the pool.

A pull at the line brought a large closely-worked, spindle-shaped basket to the surface, when a commotion inside announced that the six-inch-wide square of flat cork, which formed a lid, covered something alive.

So it proved; for upon unfastening the lid an opening was laid bare, and upon the “coorge”—as the fishing folk called the basket—being laid across the bucket and turned sidewise, some ten or a dozen silvery eel-shaped fish glided out into the bucket, and began swimming round and round in search of an outlet.

“More bait than I shall want,” said Aleck, covering and letting the basket go back into the pool. Then, unfastening the mooring-rope, the boy picked up a boat-hook, and by hooking on to the side rocks here and there he piloted the boat along the devious watery lane, with the mighty walls towering high on either side and whispering or echoing back every sound he produced on his way out to the open sea.

It was beautiful—solemn—grand—all in one, that narrow, gloomy, zigzag way between the perpendicular walls; and a naturalist would have spent hours examining the many-tinted sea anemones that opened their rays and awl-shaped tentacles below the water, or lay adhering and quiescent upon the rocks where the tide had fallen, looking some green, some olive, and many more like bosses of gelatinous coagulated blood.

But these were too common objects of the seashore for Aleck Donne to heed; his eyes were for the most part upon the blue and opalescent picture some two hundred yards before him, where the chasm ended, its sharp edges looking black against the sea and sky as he hooked on here, gave a thrust there, and sent the boat along till the rift grew lighter and lighter, and then was left behind, for a final thrust had sent the boat right out into the sunshine, and in full view of three huge skittle-shaped rocks standing up out of the sea, high as the wall-like cliff of which at some time or another they must have been a portion. They were now many yards away and formed the almost secure nesting-places of hundreds upon hundreds of birds, whose necks stood up like so many pegs against the sky, giving the rocks a peculiar bristling appearance. But the sense of security for the young birds was upset by the long flapping wings of a couple of great black-backed gulls which kept on sailing round and round, waiting till the opportunity came to make a hawk-like swoop and carry off some well-fatted, half-feathered young auk. One met its fate, in the midst of a rippling purring cry, just as Aleck laid in his boat-hook and proceeded to step the mast, swaying easily the while with the boat, which was now well afloat on the rising and falling sea.

Chapter Two.

“My word! How she does go!” cried Aleck, a short time later. For he had stepped the mast, hooked on the little rudder, and hoisted the sail, the latter filling at once with the breeze which, coming from the sea, struck the bold perpendicular rock face and glanced off again, to catch the boat right astern. One minute it was racing along almost on an even keel; then, like a young horse, it seemed to take the bit in its teeth as it careened over more and more and made the water foam beneath the bows.

Away to Aleck’s left was the dazzling stretch of ocean, to his right the cliffs with the stack rocks and a glimpse of the whitewashed group of cottages locally known as Eilygugg, from their overlooking the great isolated, skittle-like, inaccessible stack rocks chosen by those rather rare birds the little auks for their nesting-place year after year.

On and on sped the boat past the precipitous cliffs, which, with the promontory-like point ahead, were the destruction of many a brave vessel in the stormy times; and an inexperienced watcher from the shore would often have suffered from that peculiar sensation known as having the heart in the mouth on seeing the boat careen over before some extra strong puff of wind, till it seemed as if the next moment the sail would be flat on the water while the little vessel filled and went down.

But many years of teaching by the fishermen and Tom Bodger, the wooden-legged old man-o’-war’s man of Rockabie, had made Aleck, young though he was, an expert manager of a fore and aft sailing boat, and the boy sat fast, rudder in one hand, sheet in the other, ready at the right moment to ease off the rope and by a dexterous touch at the rudder to lessen the pressure upon the canvas so that the boat rose again and raced onward till the great promontory ahead was passed. In due time the land sheltered the young navigator, and he glided swiftly into the little harbour of the fishing town, whose roughly-formed pier curved round like a crescent moon to protect the little fleet of fishing-boats, whose crews leaned over the cliff rail masticating tobacco and gazing out to sea, as they rested from the past night’s labour, and talked in a low monotonous growl about the wind and the prospects of the night to come.

Rockabie was a prolific place, as far as boys were concerned. There were doubtless girls to balance them, but the girls were busy at home, while the boys swarmed upon the pier, where they led a charmed life; for though one of them was crowded, or scuffled, or pushed off every day into deep water, when quarrelling, playing, or getting into someone’s way when the fish were landed, they seemed as if formed of cork or bladder and wind instead of flesh and blood, for they always came up again, to be pulled out by the rope thrown, or hooked out by a hitcher, if they did not swim round to the rough steps or to the shore. Not one was ever known to be drowned—that was the fate of the full-grown who went out in smack or lugger to sea.

The sight of Aleck Donne’s boat coming round the point caused a rush on the part of the boys down to the pier and drew the attention of the fishermen up on the cliff as well. But these latter did not stir, only growled out something about the cap’n’s boat from the Den. One man only made the comment that the sail wanted “tannin’ agen,” and that was all.

But the boys were interested and busy as they swarmed to the edge of the unprotected pier, along which they sat and stood as closely as the upright puffins in their white waistcoats standing in rows along the ledges that towered up above the point. For everybody knew everybody there for miles round, and every boat as well.

There was a good deal of grinning and chattering going on as the boat neared, especially from one old fisherman who lived inside a huge pair of very stiff trousers, these coming right up to his arm-pits, so that only a very short pair of braces, a scrap of blue shirt, and a woollen night-cap were required to complete his costume.

This gentleman smiled, grunted, placed a fresh bit of black tobacco in his cheek, and took notice of the fact that several of the boys had made a rush to the edge of the water by the harbour and come back loaded with decaying fish—scraps of skate, trimmings, especially the tails, heads, and offal—to take their places again, standing behind their sitting companions.

Someone else saw the action too, and began to descend from the cliff by the long slope whose water end was close to the shore end of the pier.

This personage would have been a tall, broad-shouldered man had he been all there; but he was not, for he had left his legs in the West Indies, off the coast of Martinique, when a big round shot from a French battery came skipping over the water and cut them off, as the ship’s surgeon said, almost as cleanly as he could have done with the knife and saw he used on the poor fellow after the action was over, the fort taken, and the Frenchmen put to flight.

The result was that Thomas Bodger came back after some months to his native village, quite cured, in the best of health, and wearing a pair of the shortest wooden legs ever worn by crippled man—his pegs, as the boys of Rockabie called them, though he dignified them himself by the name of toes. As to his looks, he was a fine-looking man to just below his hips, and there he had been razed, as he called it to Aleck Donne, while the most peculiar thing about him as he toddled along was what at first sight looked like a prop, which extended from just beneath his head nearly to the ground, as if to enable him to stand, tripod-fashion, steadily on a windy day. But it was nothing of the sort, being only his pigtail carefully bound with ribbon, and the thickest and longest pigtail in the “Ryal Navee.”

Tom Bodger, or—as he was generally known by the Rockabie boys—Dumpus, trotted down the slope in a wonderful way, for how he managed to keep his balance over the rough cobbles and on the storm-worn granite stones of the pier was a marvel of equilibrium. But keep upright he did, solely by being always in motion; and he was not long in elbowing his way through the crowd of boys, many of whom overtopped him, and planting himself at the top of the pier steps, where from old experience he knew that Aleck would land.

As soon as he was there he delivered himself of an observation.

“Look here,” he growled, in a deep, angry voice, “I’ve been marking o’ you youngsters with my hye, and I gives you doo warning, the fust one on yer as shies any o’ that orfull at young Master Donne, or inter his little boat, I marks with what isn’t my hye, but this here bit of well-tarred rope’s-end as I’ve got hitched inside my jacket; so look out.”

“Yah!” came in a derisive chorus, as the sailor showed the truthfulness of his assertion by drawing out about eighteen inches of stoutish brown rope, drawing it through his left hand and putting it back.

“Yah!” shouted one of the most daring. “Yer can’t ketch us. Yah!”

“Not ketch ye, you young swab? Not in a starn chase, p’raps, but I’ve got a good mem’ry and I can heave-to till yer comes within reach, and then—well, I’m sorry for you, my lad. I know yer;—Davvy, Davvy.”

The boy looked uncomfortable, and furtively dropped an unpleasant smelling quid which he had picked up as a weapon of offence, and very offensive it was; but another lad appropriated it instantly and sniffed at it, smiling widely afterwards as if approving hugely of the vile odour. Probably familiarity had begotten contempt, for none of his companions moved away.

Meanwhile Aleck had run his boat close in and lowered his sail. Then, as he rose up, boat-hook in hand, he was greeted with a jeering chorus of shouts, for no other reason than that he was a so-called stranger who did not live there and was well dressed, and belonged to a better class.

Aleck was accustomed to the reception, and gave the little crowd a contemptuous look, before turning to the squat figure beginning to descend the steps to where the boy stood ten feet below.

“What cheer, Tom!” he cried.

“What cheer-ho, Master Aleck!” returned the sailor. “Hearty, my lad, hearty.” Then, turning to the boys, he growled out, “Now, then, you heered. So just mind; whether it’s fish fresh or fish foul. The one as shies gets my mark.”

The voices of the boys rose in a curious way, making a highly pitched jeering snarl, while a number of unpleasant missiles that were held ready were fingered and held behind backs, but from a disinclination to become the victim of the sailor’s marking, no lad was venturesome enough to start the shower intended to greet the newcomer. It was held in abeyance for the moment, and then became impossible, for peg, peg, peg, peg, Tom Bodger descended the steps till he was level with the gunwale of Aleck’s boat, upon which one extremity was carefully planted, and careful aim taken at the first thwart. The sailor was about to swing himself in, when Aleck held out his hand—

“Catch hold!” he cried.

“Tchah! I don’t want to ketch hold o’ nothing,” grumbled the man. “Stand aside.”

As he spoke he spun half round as upon a peg, the second wooden leg lightly touched the thwart, and the next moment, when it seemed as if the poor fellow’s wooden appendages must go through the frail bottom of the boat, they came down with a light tip-tap, and he was standing up looking smilingly in the young navigator’s face.

“Come along tidy quick, my lad?” he said.

“Yes, the wind was lovely. Look here, Tom; I’m going shopping—to get some hooks and things. Mind that young rabble does not throw anything aboard.”

“All right, my lad; but I should just like to see one of ’em try.”

“I shouldn’t,” cried Aleck. “But, look here; uncle says as there’ll be a good deal of wind dead ahead, and I shall have to tack back again, you’re to come with me.”

“Course I should,” said the sailor, gruffly. “Wants two a day like this.”

“And he’ll pay you; and you’re to get one of the fishermen to pick you up and bring you back.”

“Tchah! I don’t want no picking up. It’s on’y about six mile across from here to the Den, and I can do that easy enough if yer give me time.”

“Do as you like, but uncle will pay for the ride.”

“And I shall put the money in my pocket and toddle back,” said the sailor, chuckling; “do me more good than riding. You look sharp and get back. I’ll give her a swab out while you’re gone, and we’ll take a good reach out to where the bass are playing off the point, and get a few. I see you’ve brought some sand eels.”

“So we will, Tom. I should like to take home a few bass.”

“So you shall, my lad,” said the sailor, who had stumped forward to the fore-locker to get out a big sponge; and he was rolling up his sleeves over a pair of big, brown, muscular arms ornamented with blue mermaids, initials, a ship in full sail, and a pair of crossed cutlasses surmounted by a crown, as Aleck stepped lightly upon the gunwale, sprang thence on to the steps, and went up, to run the gauntlet of the little crowd of boys, who greeted him with something like a tempest of hoots and jeers.

But the lads fell back as, with a smile full of the contempt he felt, Aleck pressed forward, marched through them with his hands in his pockets, and smiled more broadly as he heard from below a growling shout of warning from the sailor announcing what he would do if the boys didn’t mind, the result being that they followed the well-grown lad at a little distance all along the pier, throwing after him not bad fish and fragments, which would, if well-aimed, have sullied the lad’s clothes, but what an Irishman would have called dirty words, mingled with threats about what they would give him one of these fine days. The feud was high between the Rockabie boys and the bright active young lad from the Den, for no further reason than has already been stated, and the dislike had increased greatly during the past year, though it had never culminated in any encounter worse than the throwing of foul missiles after the boat when it was pushed off for home.

Perhaps it was something in the air which made the Rockabie boys more pugnacious and their threats more dire. Possibly they may have felt more deeply stung by the contempt of Aleck, who strode carelessly along the rough stone pier, whistling softly, with his hands in his pockets, till he reached the slope and began to ascend towards where the fishermen leaned in a row over the rail, just as if after a soaking night they had hung themselves out in the sun to dry.

And now it was that the boys hung back and Aleck felt that he could afford to pay no heed to the young scrubs who followed him, for there were plenty of hearty hails and friendly smiles to greet him from the rough seamen.

“Morn’, Master Aleck.”

“Morn’, sir. How’s the cap’n?” from another.

Then: “Like a flat fish to take back with you, master? I’ve got a nice brill. I’ll put him in your boat.”

And directly after a big broad fellow detached himself from the rail to sidle up with: “Say, Master Aleck, would you mind asking the cap’n to let me have another little bottle o’ them iles he gives me for my showther? It’s getting bad again.”

“You shall have it, Joney,” cried Aleck.

“Thankye, sir. No hurry, sir. Just put the bottle in yer pocket nex’ time you come over, and that’ll do.”

Aleck went on up town, as it was called,—and the men hung themselves a little more over the rail and growled at the boys who were following the visitor, to “be off,” and to “get out of that; now,” with the result that they still followed the lad and watched him, flattening their noses against the panes of the fishing-tackle shop window, and following him again when he came out to visit one or two other places of business, till all the lad’s self-set commissions were executed, and he turned to retrace his steps to the harbour.

So far every movement had been followed by cutting remarks expressive of the contempt in which the visitor was held. There had been threats, too, of how he would be served one of these times. Remarks were made, too, on his personal appearance and the cut of his clothes, but there was nothing more than petty annoyance till the quarry was on his way back to where he would be under the protection of the redoubtable Dumpus, who did not scruple about “letting ’em have it,” to use his own words, it being very unpleasant whatever shape it took. But now the pack began to rouse up and show its rage under the calm, careless, defiant contempt with which it was being treated. Words, epithets, and allusions grew more malicious, caustic, and insulting, and, these producing no effect by the time the top of the slope was reached, bolder tactics were commenced, the boys closing round and starting a kind of horse-play in which one charged another, to give him a thrust so as to drive him—quite willing—against the retiring visitor.

This was delightful; the mirth it excited grew more boisterous, and the covert attacks more general.

But Aleck was on the alert and avoided several, till a more vigorous one was attempted by the biggest lad present, a great, hulking, stupid, hobbledehoy of a fellow, who drove a companion against Aleck’s shoulder, making him stagger for a moment, while the aggressor burst out into a hoarse laugh which was chorussed by the little crowd, and then stopped.

The spring which set Aleck’s machinery in motion had been touched, making him wheel round from the boy who had been driven against him, make a spring at the great, grinning, prime aggressor, and bring his coarse laugh to an end by delivering a stinging blow on the ear which drove him sidewise and made him stand shaking his head and thrusting his finger inside his ear as if to try and get rid of a peculiar buzzing sound which affected him strangely.

There was a roar, and the boy who had been thrust against Aleck sprang at him to inflict condign punishment upon the stranger who had dared to strike his companion.

The attack was vigorous enough, but the attacker was unlucky, for he met Aleck’s bony fist on his way before he could use his own. Then he clapped his open hands to his nose and stood staring in wonder, and seemed to be trying to find out whether his nose had been flattened on his face.

There was an ominous silence then, during which Aleck turned and walked on down the slope in a quiet leisurely way, scorning to run, and even slackening his pace to be on his guard as he reached the bottom of the slope, for by that time the boys had recovered from their astonishment, and were in full pursuit.

In another minute Aleck was surrounded by a roughly-formed crowding-in ring, with the two lads who had tested the force of his blows eager to obtain revenge, incited thereto by a score or two of voices urging them to “give it him,” “pay him,” “let him have it,” and the like.

The two biggest lads of the party then came on at Aleck at once; but, to be just, it was from no cowardly spirit, but from each being urged by a sheer vindictive desire to be first to obtain revenge for his blow. Hence they were mastered by passion and came on recklessly against one who was still perfectly cool and able to avoid the bigger fellow’s assault while he gave the other a back-handed blow which sent him reeling away quite satisfied for the present and leaving the odds, so to speak, more even in the continuation of the encounter.

Aleck was well on the alert, and, feeling that he was utterly out-matched, he aimed at getting as far as the steps, where he would have Tom Bodger for an ally and the attack would come to an end; but he was soon aware of the fact that to retire was impossible, hedged in as he was by an excited ring of boys, and there was nothing for him but to fight his way back slowly and cautiously. So he kept his head, coolly resisting the attack of the big fellow with whom he was engaged, guarding himself from blows to the best of his ability, and paying little heed to the torrent of abuse which accompanied the blows the big fisher lad tried to shower upon him, and always backing away a few yards, as he could, nearer to the way down to his boat.

By this time the word was passed along the top of the cliff that there was a fight on, and the fishermen began slowly to take themselves off the rail and descend the slope to see the fun, as they called it. They did not hurry themselves in the least, so that there was plenty of time for the encounter to progress, with Aleck still calm and cool, warding off the blows struck at him most skilfully, and mastering his desire to retaliate when he could have delivered others with masterly effect.

But a change was coming on.

Enraged by his inability to close with his skilful, active adversary, the big lad made more and more use of his tongue, the torrent of abuse grew more foul, and Aleck more cool and contemptuous, till all at once his adversary yelled out something which was received with acclamations by the excited ring who surrounded the pair, while it went through Aleck like some poisoned barb. He saw fire for the moment, and his teeth gritted together, as caution and the practice and skill he had displayed were no more, for, to use a schoolboy phrase, his monkey was up and he meant fighting—he meant to use his fists to the best effect in trying to knock the vile slanderous words, uttered against the man he loved and venerated, down the utterer’s throat, while his rage against those who crowded around, yelling with delight, took the form of back strokes with his elbow and more than one sharp blow at some intruding head.

But it was against the lout who had spoken that the fire of his rage was principally directed, and the fellow realised at once that all that had gone before on the part of the stranger from the Den was mere sparring and self-defence. Aleck meant fighting now, and he fought, showering down such volleys of blows that, at the end of a couple of minutes, in spite of a brave defence and the planting of nasty cracks about his adversary’s unguarded face, the big lad was being knocked here and there, up, down, and round about, till the shouts and cries about him lowered into a dull, dead hum. The pier stones reeled and rose and sank and seemed to imitate the waves that floated in, and when at last, in utter despair, he locked Aleck in his arms and tried to throw him, he received such a stunning blow between the eyes that he loosened his grasp to shake his head, which the next moment was knocked steady and inert, the big fellow going down all of a heap, and the back of his big bullet skull striking the pier stones with a heavy resounding bump.

Chapter Three.

In his excitement it seemed to Aleck that the real fight was now about to begin, for the little mob of boys uttered an angry yell upon seeing their champion’s downfall, and were crowding in. But he was wrong, for a gruff voice was heard from the fishermen, who had at last bestirred themselves to see more of what they called the fun, and another deep-toned voice, accompanying the pattering of two wooden legs, came from the direction of the steps.

“Here, that’ll do, you dogs!” cried the first voice, and—

“Stand fast, Master Aleck, I’m a-coming,” cried the other.

The effect on the boys was magical, and they gave way in all directions before the big fisherman who had asked for the “iles” for his shoulders, a medicament he did not seem to require, for his joints worked easily as he threw out his arms with a mowing action, right and left, and with a force that would have laid the inimical lads down in swathes if they had not got out of the way.

“Well done, young Aleck Donne,” he cried. “Licked Big Jem, have yer? Hansum too. Do him good. Get up—d’yer hear—before I give yer my boot! I see yer leading the lot on arter the young gent, like a school o’ dogfish. Hullo, Tom, you was nigher. Why didn’t yer come up and help the young gen’leman afore?”

“’Cause I didn’t know what was going on, matey,” cried the sailor. “Why didn’t yer hail me, Master Aleck?”

“Because I didn’t want to be helped,” cried the boy, huskily, his voice quivering with indignation. “A set of cowards!”

“So they are, Master Aleck,” cried the sailor, joining in the lad’s indignation. “On’y wish I’d knowed. I’d ha’ come up with the boat-hook.”

“Never mind; it arn’t wanted,” said the big fisherman. “Young Mr Donne’s given him a pretty good dressing down, and if this here pack arn’t off while their shoes are good we’ll let him give it to a few more.”

“I want to know what their fathers is about,” growled the sailor. “I never see such a set. They’re allus up to some mischief.”

“Ay, ay, that’s a true word,” cried another fisherman.

“That’s so,” growled the sailor, who, as he spoke, kept on brushing Aleck down and using his forearm as a brush to remove the dust and débris from the champion’s jacket.

“Pity he didn’t leather another couple of ’em,” cried the big fisherman.

“Ay,” growled the sailor. “I don’t want to say anything unneighbourly, but it seems a pity that some on ’em don’t get swep’ up by the next press-gang as lands. A few years aboard a man-o’-war’d be the best physic for some o’ them. Look at all this here rubbidge about! I see ’em. Got it ready to fling at the young gent. I know their games.”

“Nay, nay,” said the big fisherman, as a low, angry murmur arose, and ignoring the allusion to the fish débris lying about, “we don’t want no press-gangs meddling here.”

“Yes, you do,” said the sailor, angrily, as he applied a blue cotton neckerchief he had snatched off and shaken out alternately to a cut on Aleck’s forehead and to his swollen nose, which was bleeding freely. “Nice game this, arn’t it? I know what I’m saying. I was pressed myself when I was twenty, and sarved seven year afore I come home with a pension. It made a man o’ me, and never did me no harm.”

There was a hoarse roar of laughter at this, several of the fishermen stamping about in their mirth, making the sailor cease his ministrations and stand staring and beginning to mop his hot forehead with the neckerchief.

“What are yer grinning at?” he said, angrily, with the result that the laughter grew louder.

“Have I smudged my face with this here hankychy, Master Aleck?” said the sailor, turning to the boy, who could not now refrain from smiling in turn.

But Aleck was saved the necessity of replying to the question by the big fisherman, who spoke out in a grimly good-humoured way, as he cast his eyes up and down the dwarfed man-o’-war’s man:

“Lookye here, Tom, mate,” he said, good-humouredly, “I don’t know so much about never doing you no harm, old chap.”

“What d’yer mean?” growled the sailor.

“What about yer legs, mate?” cried another of the men.

The sailor stared round at the group, and then a change came over him and he bent down and gave his hip a sounding slap.

“I’m blest!” he cried, with the angry looks giving place to a broad smile. “I’m blest! I never thought about my legs!”

There was another roar of laughter now, in which Tom Bodger joined.

“But lookye here, messmates, what’s a leg or two? Gone in the sarvice o’ the King and country, I says. Here am I, two-and-thirty, with ninepence a day as long as I live, as good a man as ever I was—good man and true. Who says I arn’t?”

“Nobody here, Tom, old mate,” cried the big fisherman, giving the sailor a hearty slap on the shoulder. “Good mate and true, and as good a neighbour as we’ve got in Rockabie. Eh, lads?”

“Ay, ay!” came in a hearty chorus.

“There, Tom, so say all of us; but none o’ that about no press-gangs, mate,” cried the big fisherman. “The King wants men for his ships, but all on us here has our wives and weans. What was all right for a lad o’ twenty would be all wrong for such as we.”

“Ay, that’s true,” said the sailor, “and I oughtn’t to ha’ said it; but look at Master Aleck here. Them boys—”

“Yes, yes, boys is boys, and allus was and allus will be, as long as there’s land and sea. Some on ’em’ll get a touch o’ rope’s-end after this game, I dessay. Lookye here, Master Aleck Donne, you come up to my place, and the missus’ll find you a tin bowl o’ water, a bit o’ soap, and a clean towel. You won’t hurt after a wash, but be able to go home as proud as a tom rooster. You licked your man, and the captain’ll feel proud of you, for Big Jem was too much of a hard nut for such a chap as you. Come on, my lad.”

“No, no, thank you,” said Aleck, warmly; “I want to get back home now. I don’t want to show Mrs Joney a face like this.”

“Nay, my lad, she won’t mind; and—”

“Tom Bodger’s going to sail my boat home,” put in the boy, hastily, “and I shall hang over the side and bathe my face as I go. I say, all of you, I’m sorry I got into this bit of trouble, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“Course it wasn’t,” said the fisherman. “We all know that, and you’ve give some on ’em a lesson, my lad. Well, if you won’t come, my lad, you won’t.”

“It’s only because I want to get back home,” said Aleck, warmly. “It’s very kind of you all the same.”

A few minutes later the boy was seated in the stern of the boat, while Tom Bodger stood up, looking as if he, too, were sitting, as he thrust the little craft along by means of the boat-hook and the pier walls, while the fishermen walked along level with them to the end, where half a dozen of the boys had gathered.

“Give him a cheer, lads,” said the big fisherman, and a hearty valediction was given and responded to by Aleck, who took off and waved his cap.

But just then a hot-blooded and indignant follower of defeated Big Jem let his zeal outrun his discretion. Waiting till the group of fishermen had turned their backs, he ran to the very end of the pier, uttered a savage “Yah!” and hurled the very-far-gone head of a pollock after the boat.

The next minute he was repenting bitterly, for the big fisherman made four giant strides, caught him by the waistband, and the next moment held him over the edge of the pier and would have dropped him, struggling and yelling for mercy, into the sea, but Aleck sprang up and shouted an appeal to his big friend to let the boy go.

“Very well,” growled his captor; “but it’s lucky for him, Master Aleck, as you spoke. Warmint!” he growled to the boy, lowering him to the rugged stones. “Get home with yer. I’m going on by and by to your father, my lad. Be off.”

The boy yelled as he started and ran off, limping, and with good cause, for the boots the fisherman wore were very loose and hung down gaping to his ankles, as if to show how beautifully they were silver-spangled with fish scales, but the soles were very thick and terribly hard, especially about the toe.

Chapter Four.

“I didn’t get my brill after all, Tom,” said Aleck, as the sail filled out and the boat sped along over the little dancing waves.

“Never mind the flat fish, Master Aleck; we’ll pick up a few bass as we go along through the race, and they’ll be fresher than his brill.”

“No, Tom,” said Aleck, frowning; “no fishing to-day. I want to get back and have a proper wash and change my shirt and collar.”

“Well, you did get a bit knocked about, Master Aleck. You see, he’s a hard sort o’ boy; awfully thick-headed chap.”

“He is, and no mistake,” said Aleck. “Look at my knuckles!”

“Ay, you have got ’em a bit chipped; but it’ll all grow up again. But what was it he said as made you bile over and get a-fighting that how?”

“Oh, never mind,” said the boy, flushing. “It’s all over now.”

“Yes,” said the sailor, knitting his brow, “it’s all over now; but,” he added, thoughtfully, as he let the sheet slip through his fingers and tightened it again, giving and taking as the sail tugged in answer to the puffs of wind, “but it don’t seem like you to get into action like that, Master Aleck. You’re generally such a quiet sort o’ chap, and don’t mind the boys yelping about yer heels any more than as if they was dogs.”

“Of course, and I never for a moment thought that anything they could say would put me in such a passion. Oh, Tom, I felt once as if I could kill him!”

“Monkey must ha’ been up very much indeed, Master Aleck. I’ve been a-wondering what he could ha’ called you to make you clear the decks and go at him like that. You must have hit out and no mistake.”

“Yes, I hit them as hard as ever I could—both of them.”

“Both? Did you have two on ’em at yer at once?”

“Yes, part of the time.”

“Then I am glad you licked ’em. It was just like a smart frigate licking a couple of two-deckers. What did he call yer?”

“Oh, never mind, Tom; nothing.”

“But he must have called yer, as I said afore, something very, very bad indeed. Yer needn’t mind telling me, my lad, for I seem to ha’ been a sort of sea-father to yer. I’ve heered a deal o’ bad language at sea in my time, and I should like to hear what it was that made you fly out like that. Tell us what it was.”

“No, no; don’t ask me, Tom.”

“Not ast yer, my lad? Well, I won’t if yer say as I arn’t to. But it must ha’ been something very bad indeed.”

“It was, Tom, horribly bad; but—but he didn’t call me anything. It was something he said made me so angry. I wouldn’t have fought like that for anything he had called me.”

“Ho!” said the sailor, thoughtfully. “Then it was about somebody else?”

“Yes, Tom,” said the lad, frowning, and with his eyes flashing with the remains of his anger.

“Then it must have been something as he called me,” said the sailor, naïvely. “Yes, I know he’s got his knife into me. So you licked him well for saying what he did, Master Aleck?”

“Yes,” said the lad, thoughtfully, and with the frown deepening upon his face.

“Then I says thankye, Master Aleck, and I won’t forget it, for it was very hansum on yer.”

“What was?” said the lad, starting.

“What was? Why, you licking that big ugly lout, my lad, for calling me names.”

“No, no, no,” cried Aleck, quickly; “it was not for that.”

“Why, you said just now as you did, Master Aleck,” said the sailor, blankly.

“Oh, no; you misunderstood me, Tom. It was not for that.”

“Ho! Then what for was it, my lad?”

“I can’t tell you, Tom,” cried the boy, passionately. “Don’t worry me. Can’t you see I’m all in pain and trouble?”

“All right, sir; I don’t want to worry yer. It don’t matter. I couldn’t help wanting to know why you larruped him; but, as I said afore, it don’t matter. You did larrup him, and give it him well, and it strikes me as his father’ll give him the rope’s-end as well, as soon as he sees him for going back home with such a face as he’s got on his front. My word, you did paint him up. His old man won’t hardly know him.”

“Tom!” cried Aleck, excitedly, as these last words impressed him deeply.

“Ay, ay, sir! Tom it is.”

“Look at my face,” said the lad, looking up sharply from where he had been leaning over the gunwale scooping up the water in his hand and bathing the injuries he had received in his encounter. “Look at me. Is my face much knocked about?”

The sailor shifted the hands which had held rudder and sheet, afterwards raising that which held the latter and rubbing his mahogany brown nose with the rope.

“Well, why don’t you speak, Tom?” said the lad, pettishly.

“’Cause I was ’specting yer like, my lad—smelling yer over like, so as to think out what to say.”

“Go on, then; only say something.”

“So I will, sir, if yer really wants to hear.”

“Why, of course I do. Does my face show much?”

“Well, yes, sir,” said the sailor, gravely, as he went on rubbing one side of his nose with the rope. “You’ve got it pretty tidy.”

“Tell me what you can see.”

The sailor grunted and hesitated.

“Go on,” cried Aleck. “Here, my bottom lip smarts a good deal. It’s cut, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir. Cut it is, but I should say as it’ll soon grow up together again.”

Aleck pressed the kerchief to his lip, and winced with pain.

“Arn’t loosened no teeth, have yer, sir?”

Aleck shook his head.

“Go on,” he said. “What about my nose? It’s swollen, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, sir, it is a bit swelled like. Puffy, as yer might say; but, bless yer ’art, it’s nothing to what Big Jem’s is. I shouldn’t mind about that a bit now, for it have stopped bleeding. There’s nothing like cold sea water for that, though it do make yer tingle a bit. I ’member what a lot o’ good it used to do when we’d been in action and the lads had got chopped about in boarding the enemy. The Frenchies used to be pretty handy with their cutlasses and boarding-pikes. They used axes too.”

“Oh, I don’t want to know about that,” cried Aleck, pettishly. “There’s a scratch or something on my forehead, isn’t there?”

“It’s ’most too big and long to call it a scratch, sir. I should call that a cut.”

“Tut, tut, tut!” ejaculated Aleck.

“That’ll soon be all right, sir,” continued the sailor, cheerfully. “Bit o’ sticking plaster’ll soon set that to rights. What I don’t like is your eyes.”

“My eyes?” cried Aleck. “Yes, they do feel stiff when I wink them. Do they look bad, then?”

The sailor chuckled softly.

“What do you mean by that?” cried the lad, angrily. “Are they swollen too? I’m sure there’s nothing to laugh at in that.”

The sailor tried to look very serious, but failed. The laughing crinkles were smoothed out of his face, but his eyes sparkled and danced with merriment as he said:

“I didn’t mean no harm, Master Aleck, but you wouldn’t say what you did if you could see your eyes. They do look so rum.”

“Why? How?” cried Aleck, excitedly.

“Did yer see Benny Wiggs’s eyes las’ year after he took the bee swarm as got all of a lump in Huggins’s damsel tree?”

“No, of course I didn’t,” cried Aleck, impatiently.

“Ah, that’s a pity, sir, because yourn looks just like his’n did. You see, they don’t look like eyes!”

“Then what do they look like?” cried Aleck.

“Well, sir, I’ll tell yer: they looks just like the tops o’ bread loaves going to the oven.”

“Like what?”

“I mean like the holes the missuses makes in the dough with their fingers. Finishes off by giving a poke in the top with a finger, and that closes up into a crinkly slit with a swelling around.”

“Bah!” growled Aleck.

“Well, you would ask me, sir.”

“Yes, of course. Something like Big Jem’s?”

“Yes, sir; on’y more squeezed in like. Your eyes is allus handsome and bright like, but they arn’t now. But, there, don’t you mind that, sir. They turn nasty colours like for a bit, but, as I says, don’t you mind. Big Jem’s face was a reg’lar picter. I don’t know what his father’ll say when he sees him.”

“And I don’t know what uncle will say when he sees me,” said Aleck, despondently.

“Eh? The captain?” cried the sailor, in a startled tone of voice. “Phe-ew!” he whistled. “I forgot all about him. I say, my lad, he won’t like to see you this how.”

“No,” said Aleck, dismally.

“Arn’t got no aunts or relations as you could go and see for a fortnit, have you?”

“No, Tom; I have no relatives but Uncle Donne.”

“That’s a pity, sir. Well, I dunno what you’d better do.”

“Face uncle, and tell him the whole truth.”

“To be sure, sir. Of course. That’s the way you’d better lay your head—to the wind like. And, look here, sir!”

“I can’t look, Tom; my eyes feel closed up, and I can hardly see a bit.”

“I mean look here with understanding, sir. I used to be with a skipper who was a downright savage if we got beaten off, and threatened to flog us. But if we won, and boarded a ship and took her, he’d laugh at our hurts and come round and shake hands and call us his brave lads.”

“But what has that to do with uncle seeing me in this horrible state?”

“Why, don’t you see, sir?” cried the sailor, eagerly. “He’s a captain, and a fighting man.”

Aleck frowned, but the sailor did not notice it, and went on:

“You ups and tells him that Big Jem and the pack o’ blackguard riff-raff come and ’sulted yer and said what you wouldn’t tell me. The captain wouldn’t want you to put up with that. I know the captain ’most as well as you do. ‘Hullo!’ he says; ‘what ha’ you been doing—how did you get in that condition?’ he says—just like that. Then you ups and tells him you had it out with Big Jem and the rest. ‘What for, sir?’ he says—just like that. ‘For saying,’—you know what, sir—you says, and tells him right out, though you wouldn’t tell me. ‘And you let that big, ugly, blackguardly warmint thrash you like that?’ he says, in his fierce way—just like that. Then your turn comes, and you ups and says, ’most as chuff as he does: ‘No, uncle,’ you says, ‘I give him the orflest leathering he ever had in his life.’ ‘Did you, Aleck?’ he says, rubbing his hands together, joyful like. ‘Well done, my boy,’ he says; ‘I like that. I wish I’d been there to see. Brayvo!—Now go and wash your face and brush your clothes and ’air.’”

“Think he would, Tom?”

“Sure on it, sir. I wouldn’t ha’ answered for him if you’d gone back with your tail between your legs, reg’larly whipped; but seeing how you can go back and cry cock-a-doodle-doo!—”

“Like a dog, Tom?” said Aleck, grimly, with a feeling of amusement at the way in which his companion was mixing up his metaphors.

“Like a dog, sir? Tchah! Dogs can’t crow. You know what I mean. Seeing how you can go back with your colours flying, the captain’ll feel proud on yer, and if he’s the gentleman I take him for he’ll cut yer a bit o’ sticking plaster himself. What you’ve got to do is to go straight to his cabin and speak out like a man.”

“Yes, Tom, I mean to—but, Tom—” continued the lad, in a hesitating way.

“Ay ay, sir; what is it?”

“Did you ever hear any of the fishermen say anything against my uncle?”

“Eh? Oh, I’ve heered them gawsip and talk together when they’ve been leaning theirselves over the rail in the sun, gawsiping like, as you may say; but I never took no notice. Fishermen when they’re ashore chatter together like old women over the wash-tubs, but I never takes no heed to what they says. The captain’s been a good friend to me, and so I shuts my ears when people say nasty things.”

“Then you know that they do say nasty things about him?” said Aleck.

“Oh, yes, sir, and ’bout everyone else too. They lets out about me sometimes, I’ve heered, and about my losing my legs; but I don’t mind. I say, though, Master Aleck, sir! Haw—haw—haw! Think o’ me forgetting all about ’em and saying that being at sea never did me no harm! It was a rum ’un!”

Aleck was silent and thinking about his own troubles, making his companion glance at him uneasily, waiting for the lad to speak; but as he remained silent the sailor turned the state of affairs over in his own mind till he hit upon what he considered to be a very happy thought.

“I say, Master Aleck.”

“Eh? Yes, Tom.”

“I’ve been a-thinking that as a reg’lar thing I’m a bit skeart o’ the captain. He’s such a fierce, cut-you-off-short sort of a gentleman that I’m always glad to get away when I’ve been up to the Den to do anything for yer—pitching the boat’s bottom or mending holes, or overhauling the tackle; but I tell you what—”

“Well, what, Tom?” said Aleck, for the sailor stopped short and crossed his two dwarf wooden legs in the bottom of the boat, and then, as if not satisfied, crossed them the other way on.

“I was thinking, Master Aleck, that you and me’s been messmates like, ever since I come back from sea.”

“Yes, Tom.”

“I mean in a proper way, sir,” cried the man, hurriedly. “I don’t mean shoving myself forrard, because well I know you’re a young gen’leman and I’m on’y a pensioned-off hulk as has never been anything more than a AB.”

“I don’t know what you’re aiming at, Tom,” said Aleck, querulously, as he went on bathing his bruised face again. “Of course we’ve been like messmates many a time out with the boat, but what has that to do with the trouble I’m in?”

“Well, just this here, sir. Messmates is messmates, and ought to help one another when there’s rocks ahead.”

“Of course, Tom.”

“Well, then, as I’ve been thinking, suppose I come ashore with yer and follers yer right up to the captain, and lie close by when he begins to sort o’ keelhaul yer?”

“What good would that do, Tom?”

“Cheer yer up, my lad. I once went ashore with a messmate to help him like when he was going to have a tooth out as had been jigging horrid for two days. He said it did him no end o’ good to have me there. So s’pose I come, sir. It strikes me as the captain won’t say half so much to yer p’raps with me standing by.”

“Oh, no, no, no, Tom,” cried Aleck, quickly.

“It’s very good of you, and I’m much obliged, but I’d rather go straight in and face my uncle quite alone. I’m sure he’d think I brought you because I was too cowardly to come alone.”

“Would he, sir?”

“I feel sure he would, Tom.”

“Well, Master Aleck, I dessay you knows best, but come I will if you’d like me to, sir.”

“Yes, I know that, Tom,” cried the boy, warmly, “but it would be better for me to go in alone.”

“Think so, sir?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, p’raps you’re right, sir. It seems more brave British seaman to face the enemy straightforward like. Not as I mean, sir, as the captain’s a enemy, but on’y just standing for one till the row’s over. D’yer see?”

“Yes, I see, Tom, and I’ve been thinking, too, that it will be enough for me to go in and face uncle at once, and for you not to wait to be paid for this journey.”

“Oh, I don’t want no paying, my lad, for a little job like this. Think of the times when you’ve give me pretty nigh all the fish you’ve caught!”

“But uncle said you were to be paid, Tom.”

“Very well, sir. Let him pay me then nex’ time he sees me. That’ll be all right. You’ll be sending a rock through the boat’s planks afore long, and I shall have to come over and put a bit o’ noo planking in. The captain will pay me then. I say, it’s time we put her about. We can make a good bit this reach. Strikes me that the wind’s more abeam than when we started.”

“Is it?” said Aleck, drearily, and he felt that it would have been far more satisfactory for it to be dead ahead, or to be blowing so fiercely that they would be compelled to put back to Rockabie, and his return home deferred to another day.

As it was, it became more and more favourable, and an easy passage was made round the great promontory, while the current that rushed round the point and raced outward was so calmed down by the tide being just at the turn that the boat glided round and into smooth water, the stack rocks soon after coming into sight, and, with what seemed to the lad like horrible rapidity, they ran in under the rocks and passed the regular rookery of sea-birds, whose cries were deafening when they were close in.

“Say when,” cried the sailor, who had given up the tiller to Aleck and stepped forward ready to lower the sail.

“Now!” cried the lad, dismally, a few minutes later; and down came the sail, while in obedience to the rudder the boat glided in between the two walls of perpendicular rock, running in for some little distance before it became necessary for the sailor to help her along by means of the boat-hook and guide her right into her little haven.

Here Tom Bodger was quite at home, and as active as the boat’s owner, stumping about inside, and then hopping off one of the thwarts on to the rocks, ready to take mast, yard, oars, and boat-hook up into their places, securing the boat’s painter to the big ring-bolt, and then taking one side while Aleck took the other and swinging her right up on to the rocks.

“There we are, then,” said the sailor, a few minutes later; “all ship-shape and snug. Shall I put them baits back in the coorge?”

“No, no, Tom,” said Aleck, dismally; “empty the bucket into the sea, and give them a chance for their lives.”

“Ay, that’s right, Master Aleck, for they begin to look as if they’d been too long in the bucket.”

This latter was emptied, and then the couple began to ascend the gap towards the opening into the sunk garden. Tom stopped after getting over the stones like the rock-hopper penguin.

“I’ll slip off now, Master Aleck, case the captain may be out in the garden,” whispered the sailor.

“Yes, you’d better go now, Tom. Do I look so very bad?”

“Tidy, sir, tidy; but don’t you mind that. Go right at him, and let him know as soon as you can that you beat. You’ll be all right then. Maybe he’ll let out at you at first, but all the time he’ll be beginning to feel that you leathered a big hulking chap as is the worst warmint in Rockabie, and you’ll come out all right. Day, Master Aleck!”

“Good day, Tom, and thank you. I’ll remind uncle about your shillings if he forgets.”

“He won’t forget, sir; the captain’s a gen’leman as never forgets nothing o’ that sort. Now then, sir, ram your little head down and lay yourself aboard him. Nothing like getting it over. Head first and out of your misery, same as when I learned you to swim.”

Tom Bodger shut one eye, gave the lad a frown and a knowing look, and then away he went up a rugged staircase-like pathway to the top of the cliff, looking every moment, while Aleck watched, as if he would slip off, but never slipping once, and finally turning at the top to take off and wave his hat, and then he was gone.

Chapter Five.

“Oh, dear!” groaned Aleck. “How am I to face him?” and he went on till only a few steps divided him from the cultivated garden, where he stopped again. “I wonder where he is. In the study, I suppose—write, write, write, at that great history. Can’t I leave it and get into my room with a bad headache? It’s only true. It aches horribly. I’ll send word by Jane that I’m too poorly to come down. Bah!” muttered the boy. “What nonsense; he’d come up to me directly with something for me to take. I wonder whether he is in his room or out in the garden. He mustn’t see me till I’ve been up into my room and done something to my hair. Perhaps he’s in the summer-house and I can get in and upstairs without his seeing me. Oh, if I only—”

“Hullo! Aleck, lad, what are you doing there? Why are you so late? Dinner has been ready quite an hour.”

The captain had suddenly appeared from behind a great clump of waving tamarisk, and stood looking down at the lad.

“I was coming to see if you were in sight, and—why, what in the name of wonder is the matter with you? Where have you been? Why, by all that’s wonderful, you’ve been fighting!”

“Yes, uncle,” said the lad, with a gasp of relief, for it seemed to him as if, instead of taking the bold plunge, swimming fashion, he had been suddenly dragged in.

“I thought so,” cried the captain, angrily. “Here—no, stop; come up to the house, to my room. We can’t talk here.”

“I don’t see why not,” thought the lad, dismally. “There’s plenty of room, and we could get it over more easily, even if he does get into a furious passion with me.”

But the captain had wheeled round at once and began to stump back along over the shell and crunching spar-gravel path, his chin pressed down upon his chest, and not uttering a word, only coughing slightly now and then, as if to clear his voice for the fierce tirade of angry words that was to come.

He did not glance round nor speak, but strode on, evidently growing more and more out of temper, the lad thought, for as he walked he kept on kicking the loose shelly covering of the path over the flower beds, while the silence kept up seemed to Aleck ominous in the extreme.

“But, never mind,” he thought; “it must soon be over now. What a sight I must look, though! He seemed to be astonished.”

Culprit-like, the lad followed close at his uncle’s heels till the side entrance was reached, where, with what seemed to be another sign of his angry perturbation, the old officer stopped short, rested one hand upon the door-post to steady himself, and began to very carefully do what was not the slightest degree necessary, to wit: he scraped his shoes most carefully over and over again—for there was not even a scrap of dust to remove.

“Stand back a moment, sir,” cried the captain, suddenly. “Jane has heard us, and is carrying in the dinner. Don’t let her see you in that state.”

Aleck shrank to one side, and then as a door was heard to close started forward again in obedience to his uncle’s order.

“Now in, quick—into the study.”

He led the way sharply, and Aleck sprang after him, but the ascent of so many steps gave the maid time to re-open the little dining-room door, from which point of vantage she was able to catch a glimpse of the lad’s face, which looked so startling that she uttered an involuntary “Oh, my!” before letting her jaw drop and pausing, her mouth wide open and a pair of staring eyes.

“Come in!” roared the captain, angrily, as Aleck paused to turn for a moment at the door; and instead of entering, stood shaking his head deprecatingly at the maid, while his lips moved without a sound escaping them as he tried to telegraph to one who took much interest in his appearance: “Not hurt much. I couldn’t help it!”

He started violently then at his uncle’s stern command, uttered like an order to a company of men to step into some deadly breach, and the next moment the door was closed and the old man was scowling at him from the chair into which he had thrown himself, sending it back with the legs, giving forth a sound like a harsh snort as they scraped over the bare oaken floor.

Aleck drew a long deep breath and tried to tighten up his nerves, ready for what he felt was going to be a desperate encounter with the fierce-looking old man whom from long experience he knew to be harsh, stern, and troubled with a terrible temper, which made him morose and strange at times, his fits lasting for days, during which periods he would hardly speak a word to his nephew, leaving him to himself save when he came upon him suddenly to see that he was not wasting time, but going on with one or other of the studies which the old man supervised, or working in the garden.

“I want you, though you lead this lonely life with me, Aleck,” he would say, frowning heavily the while, “to grow up fairly learned in what is necessary for a young man’s education, so that some day, when I am dead and gone out of this weary world, you may take your place as a gentleman—not an ornamental gentleman, whose sole aim is to find out how he can best amuse himself, but a quiet, straightforward, honourable gentleman, one whom, if people do not admire because his ways are not the same as theirs, they will find themselves bound to respect.”

These strange fits of what Aleck, perhaps instigated by Jane, their one servant, called “master’s temper,” would be followed by weeks of mental blue sky, when the black clouds rolled away and the sun of a genial disposition shone out, and the old man seemed as if he could not lavish enough affection upon his nephew. The result of all this was that the boy’s feelings towards the old man, who had always occupied the position of father to him as well as preceptor, were a strange mingling of fear of his harshness, veneration of his learning and power of instructing him in everything he learned, and love. For there were times when Aleck would say, gloomily, to himself, “I’m sure uncle thoroughly hates me and wishes me away,” while there were times when he was as happy as the days were long, and ready to feel certain that the old man loved him as much as if he were his own child.

“He must,” thought the boy, “or he wouldn’t have nursed and coddled me up so when I had that fever and the doctor told Jane that he had done all he could, and that I should die—go out with the tide next day. That’s what I like in uncle,” he mused, “when he isn’t out of temper—he’s so clever. Knew ever so much better than the doctor. What did he say then? ‘Doctors are all very well, Aleck, but there are times when the nurse is the better man—that is, when it’s a cock nurse and not a hen. You had a cock nurse, boy, and I pulled you through.’”

But the love was in abeyance on this particular morning at the Den, as the old man had named his out-of-the-way solitary dwelling, and Aleck felt that the place was rightly named as he stood ready to face the savage-looking denizen of the place, who, after staring him down with a pair of fiercely glowing eyes, suddenly opened upon him with:

“Now, then, sir! So you’ve been fighting?”

“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, meekly.

“Who with?”

“Some of the Rockabie boys, uncle.”

“Hah! And in the face of all that I have said and taught you about your being different by your birth and education from the young ragamuffin rout of Rockabie harbour! Cannot you run over there in your boat and do what business you have to carry out without being mixed up in some broil?”

“No, uncle.”

“Disgraceful, sir! A gentleman’s education should teach him that his weapons are words properly applied, and not tooth and nail, blows and kicks.”

“I never bit or kicked, uncle,” said Aleck, sullenly.

“Of course not, sir; and don’t retort upon me in that insolent way. You know perfectly well that I was speaking metaphorically. Did you for a moment imagine I thought you used your teeth and claws like a savage dog?”

“No, uncle.”

“Then don’t reply to me like that. Of course I would know you would use your fists. Look at your knuckles!” thundered the old man.

Aleck looked at those parts of his person dismally, and they looked bad. For the skin was damaged in three places, and the nail of his left thumb was split in a painful way.

“Disgusting,” said the old man. “I trusted you to go over there, and you come back a disreputable wreck. All my teaching seems to be thrown away upon a pugnacious untrustworthy boy.”

“I’m not pugnacious, uncle, if they’d let me alone.”

“Bah! You ought to be above noticing the scum of the place.”

“I am, uncle, and I don’t notice them,” pleaded the boy; “it’s they who will notice me.”

“How, pray?”

“I can’t go into the place without their mobbing me and calling me names.”

“Contemptible! And pray, sir,” cried the old man, in harsh, sarcastic tones, “what do they call you?”

“All sorts of things,” replied the boy, confusedly. “I can’t recollect now. Yes, I know; sometimes they shout ‘Fox’ or ‘Foxy’ after me.”

“And pray why?”

“Because they say I’ve just come out of the Den.”

“Rubbish.”

“At other times it’s ‘Spider.’”

“Spider?”

“Yes, uncle; because I’ve got such long legs.”

“Worse and worse,” cried the old man. “To fight for that! It is childish.”

“Oh, I didn’t fight for that, uncle!”

“What for, then, pray, sir?”

“Sometimes they lay wait for me and hide behind a smack or the harbour wall, and pelt me with shells and the nasty offal left about by the fishermen.”

“Disgusting! The insolent young dogs! They deserve to be flogged. So that is why you fought this morning?”

“Sometimes they throw pebbles and cobble stones, uncle,” said the boy, evasively. “And they’re so clever with them; they throw so well. I don’t like to be hit and hurt, uncle. I suppose I’ve got a bad temper. I do keep it under so long as they call me names and throw nasty, soft things, but when a stone hits me and hurts, something inside my chest seems to get loose, and I feel hot and burning. I want to hurt whoever threw as much as he hurt me.”

“What!” cried the old man. “Haven’t I taught you, sir, that you must be above resenting the attacks of the vulgar herd?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Of course. I have always had to bear those assaults, boy. And so the young ruffians threw stones at you?”

Aleck hesitated.

“It was heads and bits of fish to-day, uncle.”

“The scum! The insolent scum! And some of the offal hit you?”

“Well, no; nothing hit me, uncle. They followed me about all through the place, and shouted at me every time I came out of a shop.”

“Bah! And because some young ragamuffins were insolent to you, my nephew must lower himself to their level. This is not the first time, sir. You have complained to me before, and you remember what I said to you one day when you came back after engaging in a most degrading scuffle.”

“Yes, uncle.”

“You promised me that should never occur again, after I had pointed out to you what your conduct ought to be, and how that the more you noticed these young rascals’ proceedings the worse it would be.”

“Yes, uncle, but I couldn’t remember it to-day. You can’t tell how bad it was, and how hard to bear.”

“I? Not tell? Not know?” cried the old man, passionately. “I not know what it is to be the butt of a few boys? You talk in your ignorance, sir, like a fool talketh. Why, for long years past I have been the mark for the contumely and insult of civilised England. Don’t make your paltry excuses to me. I say your conduct has been disgraceful. You were trusted to go. I made no objection, sir, save that for your sake and protection you should have an experienced boatman to help manage your boat on the way back, and you come home in this degraded state—hands and face bruised, your lips cut, and your eyes swollen up ready to turn black with horrible bruises. Aleck, it is blackguardly. You make me feel as if I ought to treat you as you deserve—take down that dusty old riding whip and flog you soundly.”

Aleck started violently, and his eyes flashed through the narrow slits of lids.

“But I can’t treat you, an educated, thoughtful lad, in such a degrading way. The lash is only for those whose nature is low and vile—whose education has never placed them upon a level with such as you. It would be the right punishment for the lads who continually annoy and assault you. But as for you—Aleck, I am hurt and disappointed. To come back like this because a few boys pelted you!”

“No, uncle, it was not because of that,” cried the lad, warmly.

“Then, why was it, sir?”

Aleck was silent, and the sailor’s advice suddenly came to mind: “Tell him you won and thrashed your man.”

But the words would not come, and while he remained silent Captain Donne spoke again, very sternly now:

“Do you hear me, sir?”

“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, desperately.

“Then answer my question. You say it was not because you were pelted and called names. Why, then, did you degrade yourself like this and fight?”

“It was because—no, no, uncle,” cried the boy, through his teeth, which were compressed tightly as if he was afraid that the simple truth would escape; “I—I can’t tell you.”

“Then there is something more?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“What is it, then?” cried the old man, whose own temper was rapidly getting the mastery. “Speak out, sir, and let me hear whether you have any decent excuse to offer for your conduct. Do you hear?”

“Yes, uncle,” faltered the lad.

“Then speak, sir.”

“I—I can’t, uncle. Don’t ask me, please.”

“What! I will and do ask you, sir,” cried the old man, furiously: “and what is more, I will be told. I am the proper judge of your conduct. How dare you refuse to speak—how dare you tell me almost to my face that you will not answer my question?”

“I don’t tell you that, uncle,” cried the boy, passionately. “I only say I can’t tell you.”

“You obstinate young scoundrel! How dare you!” roared the old man, now almost beside himself with rage. “Tell me this instant. Why, then, did you engage in this disgraceful encounter?”

Aleck darted an imploring look at the old man, which seemed to be begging him piteously not to press for the answer, but in his furious outbreak the old man could not read it aright—could only set it down to stubbornness—and, completely overcome by the passion bubbling up to his brain, he started to his feet and pointed to the door, but only to dash his hand down upon the table the next moment.

“No,” he cried, “if you forget your duty to me, Aleck, I will not forget mine to you. I’ll not be angry, but quite cool. Now, sir,” he cried, with his face looking congested and his heavy grey brows drawn down over his glowing eyes, while his voice sounded hoarse and strange. “Aleck, tell me at once. I’ll have an answer before you leave this room. Why did you engage in that disgraceful fight?”

“I can’t tell you, uncle,” said the boy, in a hoarse whisper.

“Ha! That means, sir, that you are obstinately determined not to speak?”

“It isn’t obstinacy, uncle.”

“Don’t contradict me, sir. I say it is obstinacy. Now, once more, for the last time, will you answer my question?”

Aleck drew in a long, low, hissing breath and stood fast for a few moments, before saying, in a low tone, his voice quivering the while:

“I can’t tell you, uncle.”

There was a dead silence in the room for a few moments then; so dead was the silence, in fact, that if the proverbial pin had dropped it would have sounded loudly on the polished oaken boards.

Then the old man spoke, in a curiously suppressed tone of voice.

“Very well,” he said, huskily; “it is what was bound to come sooner or later. I see I have made another of the mistakes which have blasted my existence. I must have time to think out what I shall do. One thing is very evident—you have rebelled against my rule, Aleck, and are struggling to get away to think and act, sir, for yourself. I have done my best for you, but in my isolation I have doubtless been blind and narrow. It is the natural result of our solitary life here—the young spirit seeking to soar.”

“Oh, no, uncle—” began the boy.

“Silence, sir!” thundered the old man. “Hear me out. I say it is so, and I know. You resent my holding the tether longer, but you are too young yet to fly unheld. I have my duty to do for your mother’s sake and for yours. I must have time to think out my plans, but in the meantime prepare yourself to go to some school or institution for a year or two before entering upon your profession.”

“But, uncle!”

“That will do, sir,” said the old man, sternly. “You have struck your blow against my authority, and this painful episode in my life must end.”

“If you’d only let me speak, uncle!” cried the boy, passionately.

“I begged of you to speak, sir,” said the old man, coldly. “I ordered you to speak; but in each case you refused. Well, now then, tell me simply—I ask again on principle—why did you fight those boys?”

Aleck set his teeth and hung his head.

“That will do,” said the old man, in deep, husky tones. “Go to your room and get rid of as much of the traces of your encounter as you can before going down to your dinner. You need not interrupt me here again till I send for you. There—go.”

The old man once more raised his hand to point towards the door, and, unable to contain himself longer, Aleck rushed out, made for his room, and shut and bolted himself in.

Chapter Six.

It was some time before the boy could do anything but sit with elbows upon knees, chin upon hands, gazing straight before him into vacancy. His head throbbed so that he could not think consistently. In his struggle on the pier he had been a good deal shaken, and that alone was enough to produce a feverish kind of excitement. Then on the way back his brain had been much troubled, while, worst of all, there had been the scene with his uncle.

It was then no wonder that he could not arrange his thoughts so as to sit in judgment upon his acts, especially that last one, in which he had stubbornly, as it seemed, refused or declined to respond to his uncle’s question.

He tried, and tried hard, with a curious seething desire working in his brain, to decide upon going straight to the old man and speaking out, giving him frankly his reason for refusing to speak. But this always came to the same conclusion: “I can’t—I dare not—I can’t.”

At last, wearied out and confused more and more by his throbbing brain, the boy rose and walked slowly to the looking-glass, where he started in dismay at the image reflected there. For a few moments it seemed to be part and parcel of some confused dream, but its truth gradually forced itself upon him, and finally he burst out into a mocking, half hysterical laugh.

“I don’t wonder at uncle,” he cried; “I don’t wonder at his being in a rage.”

With a weary sigh he went to the washstand and half filled the basin.

“I’d no idea I looked such a sight,” he muttered, as he began to bathe his stiff and swollen features. “The brute!” he said, after a few moments. “I wish I’d told uncle, though, that I beat him well. But, oh, dear! what a muddle it all seems! I wish I’d hit him twice as hard,” he said, with angry vehemence, half aloud. “Yes?”

For there was a gentle tapping at the door.

“Aren’t you coming down to dinner, Master Aleck?”

“No, Jane; not to-day.”

“But it’s all over-done, my dear—been ready more than an hour. Do, do come, or it’ll be spoiled.”

“Go and tell uncle then. I’m not coming down.”

“But I have been, my dear, and he said I was to come and tell you. He isn’t coming down. Do make haste and finish and come down.”

“No, not to-day, Jane. I can’t come.”

“But what is the matter, dear? Is master in a temper because you fell off the cliff and cut your face?”

“I didn’t fall off the cliff and cut my face,” said Aleck.

“Then, whatever is the matter, my dear?”

“Well, if you must know, Jane, I’ve been fighting—like a blackguard, I suppose,” cried the boy, pettishly.

“And is that what made master so cross?”

“Yes.”

“Did it hurt you very much?” came through the door crack in a whisper.

“Yes—no,” replied Aleck.

“I don’t know what you mean, my dear,” sighed Jane.

“Never mind. Go away, please, now. I’m bathing my face.”

“But my dinner’s all being spoiled, my dear. You won’t come, and master won’t come. What am I to do?”

“Go and sit down and eat it,” cried Aleck, in a passion now; “only don’t bother me.”

“Well, I’m sure!” cried the captain’s maid, tartly. “Master’s temper’s bad enough to drive anyone away, and now you’re beginning too. I don’t know what we’re coming to in—” um—um—murmur—murmur—murmur—bang!

At least that is how it sounded to Aleck as he went on with his bathing, the sharp closing of the passage door bringing all to an end and leaving the boy to continue the bathing and drying of his injuries by degrees, after which he sat down by the open window, to rest his aching head upon his hand and let the soft sea air play upon his temples.

He was very miserable, and in a good deal of bodily pain, but the trouble seemed to be the worse part, and it was just occurring to him that he felt very sick and faint and that a draught of water would do him good, when there was a sharp tap at the door after the handle had been tried.

“Uncle!” thought the lad, and the blood flushed painfully to his face.

Then the tap was repeated.

“Master Aleck, Master Aleck!”

“Yes.”

“I’ve brought you up some dinner on a tray.”

“I don’t want any—I couldn’t eat it,” said the boy, bitterly.

“Don’t tell me, my dear. You do want something—you must; and you can eat it if you try. Now, do come and open the door, please, or you’ll be ill.”

Aleck rose with a sigh and crossed the room, and the maid came in with a covered plate of something hot which emitted an appetising odour.

“It’s very good of you, Jane,” began Aleck; “but—”

“My! You are a sight, Master Aleck! Whatever have you been a-doing to yourself?”

“Fighting, I tell you,” said the boy, smiling in the middle-aged maid’s homely face.

“Who with, my dear?”

“Oh, some of the fishermen’s boys over at the town.”

“Then it didn’t ought to be allowed. You are in a state!”

“Yes; I know without your telling me. What’s under that cover?”

“Roast chicken and bacon, my dear.”

“Oh, I couldn’t touch it, Jane!”

“Now, don’t say that, my dear. People must eat and drink even if they are in trouble; because if they don’t they’re ill. I know what I’ve brought you isn’t as nice as it should be, because it’s all dried up, and now it’s half cold. So be a good boy, same as you used to be years ago when I first knew you. There was no quarrelling with your bread and butter then, and you were always hungry. But, there, I must go. I wouldn’t have master catch me here now for all the millions in the Bank of England. Oh, what a temper he is in, to be sure!”

“Have—have you seen him lately?” asked Aleck, excitedly.

“Seen him? No, my dear. He’s shut himself up, like he does sometimes; but I could hear him in the kitchen, walking all over my head, just like a wild beast in a cage, and now and then he began talking to himself quite out loud. It’s all your fault, Master Aleck, for he was as good-tempered as could be this morning when I went in to ask him what I was to get ready for dinner, and what time.”

Jane closed the door after her with these words and left Aleck with the tray.

“Yes,” he said, bitterly, in his pain; “it’s all my fault, I suppose, and I’m to go away from everything I like here.”

He raised the cover over the plate as he spoke, and a pleasant, appetising odour greeted his nostrils; but he lowered the cover again with a gesture of disgust.

“I couldn’t touch it,” he said, with a shudder, “even to do me good. Nothing would do me good now. My face feels so stiff, and my eyes are just as if they’d got something dark over them.”

He went near the window again to look out in the direction of the sea, with some idea of watching the birds, of which so many floated up into sight above the cliffs that shut in the Den. But it was an effort to look skyward, and he sat down by the window to think, in a dull, heavy, dreamy way, about his uncle’s words.

And it seemed to him, knowing how stern and uncompromising the old man was, that it would be a word and a blow. For aught he knew to the contrary letters might have been written by then, making arrangements for him to go to some institution where he would be trained to enter into some pursuit that he might detest. Time back there had been talk about his future, the old man having pleasantly asked him what he would like to be. He had replied. “An officer in the Army,” and then stood startled by the change which came over the old man’s face.

“No,” he had said, scowling, “I could never consent to that, Aleck. I might agree to your going into the Navy, but as a soldier, emphatically no.”

“Why doesn’t he want me to be a soldier?” mused the boy. “He was a soldier himself. I should like to know the whole truth. It can’t be what he said.”

Aleck sat wrinkling up his brow and thinking for some little time. Not for long; it made his head ache too much, and he changed from soldiering to sailoring.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” he said, half drowsily, for a strange sensation of weariness came over him. “I should like to be a sailor. Why not go? Tom Bodger would help me to get a ship; and as uncle is going to send me away, talking as if he had quite done with me, I don’t see why I shouldn’t go.”

The drowsy feeling increased, so that the boy to keep it off began to look over his clothes, thinking deeply the while, but in a way that was rather unnatural, for his hurts had not been without the effect of making him a little feverish. And as he thought he began to mutter about what had taken place that afternoon.

“Uncle can’t like me,” he said. “He has been kind, but he never talked to me like this before. He wants to get rid of me, to send me away somewhere to some place where I shouldn’t like to go. I’ve no father, no mother, to mind my going, so why shouldn’t I? He’ll be glad I’m gone, or he wouldn’t have talked to me like that.”

Aleck rested his throbbing head upon his crossed arms and sank into a feverish kind of sleep, during which, in a short half-hour, he went through what seemed like an age of trouble, before he started up, and in an excited, spasmodic way, hardly realising what he was doing in his half-waking, half-sleeping state, but under the influence of his troubled thoughts, he roughly selected a few of his under-things for a change and made them up into a bundle, after which he counted over the money he had left after the morning’s disbursement, and told himself it would be enough, and that the sooner he was away from the dear old Den the better.

At last all his preparations were made, even to placing his hat and a favourite old stick given him by his uncle ready upon the chair which held his bundle; and then, with his head throbbing worse than ever, producing a feeling of confusion and unreality that was more than painful, he went once more to the glass to look at his strangely-altered features.

“I can’t go like that,” he said, shrinking back in horror. But like an answer to his words came from far back in his brain, and as if in a faint whisper: “You must now. You’ve gone too far. You must go now, unless you’re too great a coward.”

“Yes,” he muttered, confusedly; “I must go now—as soon as it’s dark. Not wanted here—Tom Bodger—he’ll help me—to a ship.”

He had sunk heavily into a chair, right back, with his head nodding forward till his chin rested upon his breast, and the next moment he had sunk into a feverish stupor, in which his head was swimming, and in some unaccountable way he seemed to be once more heavily engaged with Big Jem, whose fists kept up a regular pendulum-like beat upon his head, while in spite of all his efforts he could never get one blow back in return at the malicious, jeering, taunting face, whose lips moved as they kept on saying words which nearly drove him wild with indignation.

And what were the words, repeated quite clearly now?

“Master Aleck, don’t be so silly! Wake up, you’re pretending to be asleep. Oh, my! what a state your face is in! And your head’s as hot as fire.”

Chapter Seven.

“That you, Jane?”

“Why, of course it is. Were you really asleep?”

“Asleep? No—yes. I don’t know, Jane. My head’s all gone queer, I think.”

“And no wonder, fighting like that, and never touching a bit of the dinner I brought you up. Yes, your head’s all in a fever, and your poor swelled-up eyes too. That’s better. Now, then, you must take this.”

“What is it?” said the lad, drowsily.

“What is it? Why, can’t you see?”

“No; my head’s all swimming round and round, and my eyes won’t open.”

“Never mind, poor boy, this’ll do you good. I’ve brought you up a big breakfast-cup of nice, fresh, hot tea, and two rounds of buttered toast. They’ll do your head good.”

“I say, Jane, where’s uncle?”

“In his room. He’s had some too. I didn’t wait to be asked, but took the tea in.”

“What was he doing?” said Aleck.

“Writing.”

“His book?”

“No, letters; and as busy as could be. Come, try and drink your tea.”

“But isn’t it very early for tea—directly after dinner like this?”

“Directly after dinner? Why, bless the boy, it’s past seven!”

“Then I must have been asleep,” said the boy, speaking more collectedly now.

“I should just think you must, and the best thing for you. Hark! There’s master’s study bell; he wants more tea. I must go; but promise me you’ll take yours?”

“Yes, I’m dreadfully thirsty,” said the lad, and as the woman left the room he began to sip the tea and eat pieces of the toast till all was gone, and then, after a weary sigh, he glanced at his bundle and hat upon the chair, reeled towards the bed, held on by the painted post, while he thrust off his boots and then literally rolled upon it, with his face looking scarlet upon the white pillow. The next moment he was breathing heavily in deep, dreamless sleep.

That dreamless sleep lasted till the old eight-day clock on the landing had struck eleven, during which time Jane, who was growing anxious about him, came in three times—the first to take away the tea and dinner things, the other twice to make sure that he was not going into a high fever, as she termed it, and feeling better satisfied each time.

“Nothing like so hot,” she said to herself. “It was that cup o’ tea that did him good. There’s nothing like a hot cup o’ tea and a good sleep for a bad headache.”

So Jane left and went to bed after a final peep, and, as before said, the sound sleep went on till the clock began to strike, and then he began to dream that his uncle came into the room with a chamber candlestick in his hand, set it down where its light shone full upon his stern, severe old features, and seated himself upon the chair by the bed’s head.

Then he began to question him; and it seemed to the boy that in his dream he answered without moving his head or opening his eyes, which appeared strange, for he fancied he could see the old man’s angry face all the time.

“Not undressed, Aleck?” said the old man.

“No, uncle.”

“Shoes here ready—hat, bundle, and stick on the chair! Does that mean waiting till all is quiet, and then running away from home?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Hah! From one who took you to his heart when you were a little orphan child, just when your widowed mother had closed her eyes for ever on this weary world, and swore to treat you as if you were his own!”

“Yes, uncle.”

“And why?”

“Because you are tired of me, uncle, and don’t trust me—and are going to send me away.”

“Hah! You are not going to try and be taken as a soldier?”

“No, uncle.”

“Hah! What then? Going to seek your fortune?”

“No, uncle. I’m going to sea.”

Perhaps that hah! that ejaculation, was louder than the other words—perhaps Aleck Donne had not been dreaming—perhaps it was all real!

At any rate the sleeper had awakened and with his eyes able to open a little more, and through the two narrow slits he was gazing at the stern, sorrowful face, lit up by one candle, seated there within a yard of the pillow.

“Head better, my lad?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Seems clearer, eh?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Feel feverish?”

“No, uncle, I think not. I’m hardly awake yet.”

“I know, my lad. You got a good deal knocked about, then?”

“I don’t quite know, uncle. I suppose so. It all seems very dreamy now.”

“Consequence of injury to the head. Soldiers are in that condition sometimes after a blow from the butt end of a musket.”

“Are they, uncle?” asked Aleck, who was half ready to believe that this was all part of his dream.

The captain nodded, and sat silent for a few moments, before glancing at the bundle, hat, and cane. Then—

“So you’ve been making up your mind to run away?”

“To go away, uncle; not run.”

“Hah! Same thing, my lad.”

“No, uncle.”

“What! Don’t contradict me, sir. Do you want to quarrel again?”

“No, uncle.”

“Humph! You prepared those things for running away?”

“I had some such ideas, uncle, when I tied them up,” said the lad, firmly; “but I should not have done that.”

“Indeed! Then why did you tie them up?”

“To go away, uncle.”

“Well, that’s what I said, sir.”

“That was not quite correct, uncle. If I ran away it would have been without telling you.”

“Of course, and that’s what you meant to do.”

“No, uncle; I feel now that I could not have done that. I should have come to you in the morning to tell you that I felt as if I should be better away, and that I would go to sea at once.”

“Humph! And if you went away, sir, what’s to become of me?”

“I don’t know, uncle, only I feel that you’d be better without such an obstinate, disobedient fellow as I am.”

“Oh, you think so, do you? Well, you shouldn’t be obstinate then.”

“I didn’t mean to be, uncle.”

“Then, why, in the name of all that’s sensible, were you? Why didn’t you tell me why you fought and got in such a state?”

“I felt that I couldn’t tell you, uncle.”

“Why not, sir—why not?”

Aleck was silent once more.

“There you are, you see. As stubborn as a mule.”

“No, I’m not, uncle.”

“Now, look here, Aleck; I couldn’t go to bed without trying to make peace between us. Don’t contradict me, sir. I say you are stubborn. There, I’ll give you one more chance. Now, then, why did you fight those lads?”

“Don’t ask me, uncle, please. I can’t tell you.”

“But I do ask you, and I will know. Now, sir, why was it? For I’m sure there was some blackguardly reason. Now, then, speak out, or—or—or—I vow I’ll never be friends with you again.”

“Don’t ask me, uncle.”

“Once more, I will ask you, sir. Why was it?”

“Because—” began Aleck, and stopped.

“Well, sir—because?” raged out the old man. “Speak, sir. You are my sister’s son. I have behaved to you since she died like a father. I am in the place of your father, and I command you to speak.”

“Well, uncle, it was because they spoke about you,” said the lad, at last, desperately.

“Eh? Ah! Humph!” said the old man, with his florid face growing clay-coloured. “They spoke ill of me, then?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“About my past—past life, eh?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Humph! What did they say?”

“Uncle, pray don’t ask me,” pleaded Aleck.

“Humph! I know. Said I was disgraced and turned out of my regiment, eh? For cowardice?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“And you said it wasn’t true?”

“Of course, uncle.”

“Got yourself knocked into a mummy, then, for defending me?”

“Yes, uncle; but I’m not much hurt.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the old man, frowning, and looking at the lad through his half-closed eyes. “Said it was not true, then?”

“Of course, uncle,” cried the boy, flushing indignantly.

“Humph! Thankye, my boy; but, you see, it was true.”

Aleck’s eyes glittered as he stared blankly at the fierce-looking old man. For the declaration sounded horrible. His uncle had been one of the bravest of soldiers in the boy’s estimation, and time after time he had sat and gloated over the trophy formed by the old officer’s sword and pistols, surmounted by the military cap, hanging in the study. Many a time, too, he had in secret carefully swept away the dust. More than once, too, in his uncle’s absence he had taken down and snapped the pistols at some imaginary foe, and felt a thrill of pleasure as the old flints struck off a tiny shower of brilliant stars from the steel pan cover. At other times, too, he had carefully lifted the sword from its hooks and tugged till the bright blade came slowly out of its leathern scabbard, cut and thrust with it to put enemies to flight, and longed to carry it to the tool-shed to treat it to a good whetting with the rubber the gardener used for his scythe, for the rounded edge held out no promise of cutting off a Frenchman’s head. And now for the old hero of his belief to tell him calmly and without the slightest hesitation that the charge was true was so staggering, so beyond belief, that the blank look of dismay produced by the assertion gradually gave place to a smile of incredulity, and at last the boy exclaimed:

“Oh, uncle! You are joking!”

The old soldier returned the boy’s smile with a cold, stern gaze full of something akin to despair, as he drew a long, deep breath and said, slowly:

“You find it hard to believe, then, Aleck, my boy?”

“Hard to believe, uncle? Of course I do. Nobody could believe such a thing of you.”

“You are wrong, my boy,” said the old man, with a sigh, “for everyone believed it, and the court-martial sentenced me to be disgraced.”

“Uncle! Oh, uncle! But it wasn’t—it couldn’t be true,” cried Aleck, wildly, as he sat up in bed.

“The world said it was true, my boy,” replied the old man, whose voice sounded very low and sad.

“But you, uncle—you denied the charge?”

“Of course, my boy.”

“Then the people on the court-martial must have been mad,” cried the boy, proudly. “I thought the word of an officer and a gentleman was quite sufficient to set aside such a charge.”

“Then you don’t believe it was true, my lad?”

“I?” cried the boy, proudly; “what nonsense, uncle! Of course not.”

“But, knowing now what I have told you, suppose you should hear this charge made against me again, what would you do?”

Aleck’s eyes flashed, and, regardless of the pain it gave him, he clenched his injured fists, set his teeth hard, and said, hoarsely:

“The same as I did to-day, uncle. Nobody shall tell such lies about you while I am there.”

Captain Lawrence caught his young champion to his breast and held him tightly for a few moments, before, in a husky, quivering voice, he said:

“Yes, Aleck, boy, for they are lies. But the mud thrown at me stuck in spite of all my efforts to wash it away, and the stains remained.”

“But, uncle—”

“Don’t talk about it, boy,” cried the old man, hoarsely. “You are bringing up the past, Aleck, with all its maddening horrors. I can’t talk to you and explain. It was at the end of a disastrous day. Our badly led men were put to flight through the mismanagement of our chief—one high in position—and someone had to suffer for his sins, there had to be a scapegoat, and I was the unhappy wretch upon whom the commander-in-chief’s sins were piled up. They said that the beating back of my company caused the panic which led to the headlong flight of our little army. Yes, Aleck, they piled up his sins upon my unlucky shoulders, and I was driven out into the wilderness—hounded out of society, a dishonoured, disgraced coward. Aleck, boy,” he continued, with his voice growing appealing and piteous, “I was engaged to be married to the young and beautiful girl I loved as soon as the war was over, and I was looking forward to happiness on my return. But for me happiness was dead.”

“Oh! but, uncle,” cried the boy, excitedly, catching at the old man’s arm, “the lady—surely she did not believe it of you?”

“I never saw her again, Aleck,” said the old man, slowly. “Six months after my sentence the papers announced her approaching marriage.”

“Oh!” cried the lad, indignantly.

“Wait, my boy. No; she never believed it of me. She was forced by her relatives to accept this man. I have her dear letter—yellow and time-stained now—written a week before the appointed wedding-day which never dawned for her, my boy. She died two days before, full of faith in my honour.”

Aleck’s hands were both resting now upon his uncle’s arm, and his eyes looked dim and misty.

“There, my boy, I said I could not explain to you, and I have uncovered the old wound, laying it quite bare. Now you know what it is that has made me the old cankered, harsh, misanthropic being you know—bitter, soured, evil-tempered, and so harsh; so wanting in love for my kind that even you, my boy, my poor dead sister’s child, can’t bear to live with me any longer.”

“Uncle!” panted Aleck. “I didn’t know—”

“Let’s see,” continued the old man, with a resumption of his former fierce manner; “you said you would not run away, only go. To sea, eh?”

“Uncle,” cried Aleck, “didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Yes, quite plainly,” replied the old man, bitterly; “I heard. I don’t wonder at a lad of spirit resenting my harsh, saturnine ways. What a life for a lad like you! Well, you’ve made up your mind, and I’ll be just to you, my lad. You shall be started well. When would you like to go?”

“When you drive me away, uncle,” cried the boy, passionately. “Oh, uncle, won’t you listen to me—won’t you believe in me? How can you think me such a coward as to leave you, knowing what I do?”

The old man caught him by the shoulders, held him back at arm’s length, and stood gazing fiercely in his eyes for a few moments, and then his own began to soften, and he said, gently:

“Aleck, when I was your age my sister and I were constant companions. You have her voice, boy, and there is a ring in it so like—oh, so like hers! Yes, I heard, and I believe in you. I believe, too, that you will respect my prayers to you that all I have said this night shall be held sacred. I do not wish the world to know our secrets. But, there, there,” he said, in a totally changed voice, “what a day this has been for us both! You have suffered cruelly, my boy, for my sake, and I in my blindness and bitterness treated you ill.”

“Oh, uncle, pray, pray say no more!” cried the boy, piteously.

“I must—just this, Aleck: I have suffered too, my boy. Another black shadow had come across my darkened life, and in my ignorance I turned against you as I did. Aleck, boy, your uncle asks your forgiveness, and—now no more, my boy; it is nearly midnight, and we must try and rest. Can you go to sleep again?”

“Yes, uncle,” cried the boy, eagerly, “I feel as if it will be easy now. Good-night, uncle.”

“Good-night, my boy,” whispered the old man, huskily, and he hurried out, whispering words of thankfulness to himself; but they were words the nephew did not hear.

As the door closed Aleck sprang off the bed on to his feet, his knuckles smarting as he struck an attitude and tightly clenched his fists, seeing in imagination Big Jem the slanderer standing before him once again.

“You cowardly brute!” he muttered; and then his aspect changed in the dim light shed by the candle, for there was a look of joyous pride in his countenance, disfigured though it was, as he said, hurriedly: “I didn’t half tell uncle that I thoroughly whipped him, after all. But old Tom Bodger—he’ll be as pleased as Punch.”

It was rather a distorted smile on Aleck’s lips, as, after undressing, he fell fast asleep, but it was a very happy one all the same, and so thought Captain Lawrence as he stole into the room in the grey dawn to see if his nephew was sleeping free from fever and pain, and then stole out again without making a sound.

Chapter Eight.

The breakfast the next morning was rather late, consequent upon Captain Lawrence and his nephew dropping off each into a deep sleep just when it was about time to rise; but it was a very pleasant meal when they did meet, for the removal of a great weight from Aleck’s mind allowed some other part of his economy to rise rampant with hints that it had missed the previous day’s dinner. There was a pleasant odour, too, pervading the house, suggesting that Jane had been baking bread cakes and then frying fish.

Aleck noticed both scents when he threw open his window to let the perfume of the roses come in from the garden; but the kitchen windows and door were open, and the odour of the roses was regularly ousted by that of the food.

“My word! It does smell good,” said the boy to himself, and his lips parted to be smacked, but gave vent to the interjection “O!” instead, for the movement of the articulations just in front of his ears caused a sharp pain.

“That’s nice!” muttered Aleck. “How’s a fellow to eat with his jaw all stiff like that?”

This reminder of the previous day’s encounter brought with it other memories, which took the lad to the looking-glass, and the reflection he saw there made him grin at himself, and then wince again.

“Oh, my!” he said, softly. “How it hurts! My face feels stiff all over. I do look a sight. Can’t go down to breakfast like this, I know; I’ll stop here, and Jane will bring me some up. One can’t stir out like this.”

Grasping the fact that it was late, the boy dressed hurriedly, casting glances from time to time at the birds which sailed over from the sea, and at old Dunning, the gardener, who was busy digging a deep trench for celery, and treating the soft earth when he drove in the spade in so slow and tender a way that it seemed as if he was afraid of hurting it.

Aleck noted this, and grinned and hurt himself again.

“Poor old ’Nesimus,” he said, feeling wonderfully light-hearted; “he always works as if he thought it must be cruel to kill weeds.”

The boy had a good final look at the old man, who wore more the aspect of a rough fisherman than a gardener. In fact he had pursued the former avocation entirely in the past, in company with the speculative growing of fruit and vegetables in his garden patch—not to sell to his neighbours, the fishing folk of the tiny hamlet of Eilygugg, but to “swap” them, as he termed it, for fish. Then the time came when the Den gardener happened to be enjoying himself at Rockabie with a dozen more men, smoking, discussing shoals of fish, the durability of nets, and the like, when they suddenly discovered the fact that a party of men had landed on the shore from His Majesty’s ship Conqueror, stolen up to the town in the darkness, and, after surrounding the little inn with a network of men, drawn the said net closer and closer, and ended by trammelling the whole set of guests and carrying them off as pressed men to the big frigate.

That was during the last war, and not a man came back to take up his regular avocation. Consequently there was a vacancy for a gardener at the Den, and it was afterwards filled up by Fisherman Onesimus Dunning, the wrinkled-faced man handling the spade and dealing so tenderly with his Mother Earth when Aleck looked out of the window.

“I wonder old Jane hasn’t been up to see how I am,” said Aleck, as he handled his comb as gingerly as the gardener did his spade.

“I wonder how Master Aleck is,” said Jane, just about the same time. “But I won’t disturb him. Nothing like a good long sleep for hurts.”

“I know,” said Aleck to himself; “I can’t call down the stairs, because uncle would hear. I daresay he’s asleep. I’ll tell old Ness to go round to the kitchen door and say she is to come up. No, I won’t; he’d come close up and see my face, and it would make her cross now she’s busy frying fish. How good it smells! I am hungry! Wish she’d bring some up at once. How am I to let her know?”

He had hardly thought this before he started, for there was a sharp rap at the door, the handle rattled, and the old captain came in.

“Getting up, Aleck, boy?” he said. “Ah, that’s right—dressed. Come along down. You must be hungry.”

“I am, uncle,” replied the boy, returning his uncle’s warm and impressive grasp; “but I can’t come down like this,” and the boy made a deprecating gesture towards his battered face.

“Well, you don’t look your best, Aleck, lad,” said the old man, smiling; “but you are no invalid. Never mind your looks; you’ll soon come right.”

Nothing loth, the boy followed his uncle downstairs, Jane hurriedly appearing in the little breakfast-room with a hot dish and plates on hearing the steps, and smiling with satisfaction on seeing Aleck.

“Ah, that’s right, Jane!” said the captain, cheerfully, making the maid beam again on seeing “master” in such an amiable frame of mind.

“Fried fish?”

“Yes, sir; brill.”

“Some of your catching, Aleck?”

“No, sir,” put in the maid, eagerly; “that Tom Bodger was over here with it as soon as it was light. He knocked and woke me up. Said Master Aleck forgot it yes’day.”

“No wonder,” said the captain, smiling at his nephew; “enough to knock anything out of your head, eh, Aleck?”

“Yes, uncle; one of the fishermen said I was to bring it home.”

“That’s right. Shows you have friends as well as foes in Rockabie.”

The breakfast went on, and after the first mouthfuls the boy’s jaws worked more easily, and he was enjoying his meal thoroughly, when his uncle suddenly exclaimed:

“What are you going to do to-day, my boy?”

“Go on with those problems, uncle, unless you want me to do anything else.”

“I do,” said the old man, smiling. “I want you to leave your books to-day—for a few days, I should say, till your face comes round again—I mean less round, boy,” he added, laughing. “Have a rest. Go and ramble along the cliffs. Take the little glass and watch the birds till evening, and then you can fish.”

Aleck jumped at the proposal, for the thought of books and writing had brought on suggestions of headache and weariness; and soon after breakfast he went up to his uncle’s study, to find him sitting looking very thoughtful, and ready to start at the boy’s entry.

“I’ve come for the spy-glass, uncle,” said Aleck.

“To be sure, yes. I forgot,” said the old man, hastily. “Take it down, my boy; and mind what you’re about—recollect you are half blind. Let’s have no walking over the cliff or into one of the gullies.”

“I’ll take care, uncle,” said the boy, smiling. “I’ll be back to dinner at two.”

The captain nodded, and Aleck was moving towards the door, when the old man rose hastily, overtook him, and grasped his hand for a moment or two.

“Just to show you that I have not forgotten yesterday, Aleck, my boy,” he said, gravely, and then he turned away.

“Who could forget yesterday?” thought the boy, as he slipped out by the side door and took the path leading round by the far edge of the cliff wall, the part which was left wild, that is, to its natural growth.

For Aleck’s intent was to avoid being observed by the old gardener, whom he had last seen at work over the celery trench upon the other side of the house.

“He’d only begin asking questions about my face, and grinning at me like one of the great stupid fisher boys,” said Aleck to himself, as he passed the sling strap of the spy-glass over his shoulder and hurried in and out among the bosky shrubs close under the great cliff wall, till, passing suddenly round a great feathery tuft of tamarisk, he came suddenly upon the very man he was trying to avoid, standing in a very peculiar position, his back bowed inward, head thrown backward, and a square black bottle held upside down, the neck to his lips and the bottom pointing to the sky.

Aleck stopped short, vexed and wondering, while the old gardener jerked himself upright, spilling some of the liquid over his chin and neck, and making a movement as if to hide the bottle, but, seeing how impossible it was, standing fast, with an imbecile grin on his countenance.

“Morning, Master Aleck,” he said. “Strange hot morning. Been diggin’; and it makes me that thusty I’m obliged to keep a bottle o’ water here in the shady part o’ the rocks.”

“Oh, are you?” said Aleck, quietly, and he could not forbear giving a sniff.

“Ah! nice, arn’t it, sir? Flowers do smell out here on a morning like this, what with the roses and the errubs and wile thyme and things. It do make the bees busy. But what yer been eating on, sir? Or have yer slipped down among the nattles? Your face is swelled-up a sight. Here, I know—you’ve been bathing!”

“Not this morning, Ness; I did yesterday.”

“That’s it, then, my lad, and you should mind. I know you’ve had one o’ they jelly-fish float up agen yer face, and they sting dreadful sometimes.”

“Yes, I know,” said Aleck, beginning to move onward past the man; “but it wasn’t a jelly-fish that stung my face.”

“Wasn’t it now? Yer don’t mean it was a bee or wops?”

“No, Ness; it was a blackguard’s fist.”

“Why, yer don’t mean to say yer been fighting, do ’ee?”

“Yes, I do, Ness. Going to finish the celery trench?”

“Yes, sir; but the ground’s mighty hard. Hot wuck, that it is. But where be going wi’ the spy-glass?”

“Over yonder along the cliffs to look at the Eilyguggs.”

“Eh?” cried the man, sharply. “’Long yonder, past the houses?”

“Yes.”

“Nay, nay, nay, I wouldn’t go that away. Go east’ard. It’s a deal better and nicer that way, and there’s more buds.”

“I’ll go that way another time,” said the boy, surlily, and he hurried on. “A nasty old cheat,” he muttered; “does he take me for a child? Water, indeed! Strong water, then. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if it was smuggled gin. But, there, I won’t tell tales.”

“Ahoy there!” shouted the gardener. “Master Aleck, there’s a sight more eggs yon other way.”

“Yes, I know,” cried the boy. “Another time.” Then to himself, “Bother his officiousness! Wants to be very civil so that I shan’t notice about his being there with that bottle.”

The man shouted something back, and upon Aleck looking round he saw to his surprise that he was being followed, the gardener shuffling after him at a pretty good rate.

“Now, why does he want me to go the other way?” thought the boy. “I didn’t mind which cliff I went along, but I do now. I’m not going to be dictated to by him. I know, he wants to come with me, just by way of an excuse to leave off digging for an hour or two and chatter and babble and keep on saying things I don’t want to hear, as well as question me about yesterday’s fight; and I’m not going to give him the chance.”

Aleck smiled to himself, and winced again, for the swollen face was stiff and the nerves and muscles about his eyes in no condition for smiles. Then, keeping on for a few yards till he was hidden from his follower by the thick shrubs, he stooped down, ran off to his right, and reached the path on the other side of the depression, well out of the gardener’s sight; and reaching a suitable spot he dropped down upon his knees, having the satisfaction of watching the man hurrying along till he came to where the depression narrowed and the pathway along the chasm began.

From here there was a good view downward, and the man stopped short, sheltered his eyes with his right hand to scan the narrow shelf-like declivity for quite a minute, before he took off his hat and began scratching his head, while he looked round and behind before having another scratch and appearing thoroughly puzzled.

“Wondering how I managed to drop out of sight,” laughed Aleck to himself.

He was quite right, for he saw Dunning turn to right and left, after looking forward, ending by staring straight up in the air, and then backward, before giving his leg a sounding rap, and taking off his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead.

“He doesn’t get so hot as that over his work,” said Aleck to himself, as he crouched lower, laughing heartily; and he had another good laugh when, after one more careful look, the old gardener shook his head disconsolately and turned to walk back.

“Given it up as a bad job,” he said, merrily. “An old stupid! I could have found him. Well, I can go now in peace.”

He waited till the coast was clear, and then, stooping low, set off at a trot, getting well down into the gorge-like rift. Striking off gradually to his right, he attacked the great cliff wall in a perfectly familiar fashion, and climbed from ledge to ledge till he reached the top, glanced back to see that the gardener was not in sight, and then strode away over the short, velvety, slippery turf, with the edge of the cliff some fifty yards or so to his left, and the rough, rocky slope that led up to the scattered cottages of the Eilygugg fishermen to his right.

He soon reached a somewhat similar chasm to that which ended in his own boat harbour; but this was far wider, and upon reaching its edge he could look right down it to the sea, where at its mouth a couple of luggers and about half a dozen rowboats of various sizes were moored.

The cottages lay round and about the head of the creek, and partly natural, partly cut and blasted out of the cliff side, ledge after ledge had been formed, giving an easy way down from the cottages to the boats. But there was not a soul in sight, and nothing to indicate that there were people occupying the whitewashed cots, save some patches of white newly-washed clothes which were kept from being blown away by the playful wind by means of big cobble stones—smooth boulders—three or four of which were laid upon the corners of the washing.

There was not even one fisherman hanging about the front of the cottages, where all looked quiet and sleepy in the extreme, so, passing on, Aleck hurried round the head of the narrow rugged harbour, and was soon after making his way along the piled-up cliffs, keeping well inland so as to avoid the great gashes or splits which ran up into the land and had to be circumvented, where they ended as suddenly as they appeared, in every case being perfectly perpendicular, with the water running right up, looking in some cases black, still, deep and clear, in others floored with foam as the waves rushed in over the black, jagged masses of rock that had in stormy times been torn from the sides.

To a stranger nothing could have appeared more terrible than these zigzag jagged gashes or splits in the stern, rocky coast, for they were turfed to the sharp edge, where an unwary step would have resulted in the visitor plunging downward, to drown in the deep, black water, or be mutilated by the rocks amidst which the waters foamed.

But “familiarity breeds contempt,” says one proverb, “use is second nature” another, and there was nothing that appeared terrible to the boy, who walked quickly along close to the edge, glancing perhaps at its fellow, in some cases only a few yards away, and looking so exactly the counterpart of that on the near side that it seemed as if only another convulsion of nature was needed to compress and join the crack again so that it would be possible to walk where death was now lurking.

But there was nothing horrible there to Aleck who in every case turned inland to skirt the chasm, gazing down with interest the while at the nesting-places of the sea-birds which covered nearly every ledge, each one being alive with screaming, clamouring, hungry young, straining their necks to meet the swift-winged auks and puffins that darted to and fro with newly-captured fish in their bills.

Aleck had left the whitewashed cottages behind, along with the last traces of busy human life in the shape of boat, rope, spar, lobster-pot, and net, to reach one of the most rugged and inaccessible parts of the rocky cliffs—a spot all jagged, piled-up rift with the corresponding hollows—and at last selected a place which looked like the beginning of one of the chasms where Nature had commenced a huge gaping crack a good hundred feet in depth, though its darkened wedge-shaped bottom was still quite a hundred feet above where the waves swayed in and out at the bottom, of the cliff. The sides here were not perpendicular, but with just sufficient slope to allow an experienced, cool-headed cliff-climber to descend from ledge to ledge and rock to rock till a nook could be reached, where, securely perched, one who loved cliff-scanning and the beauties of the ever-changing sea and shore, could sit and enjoy the wild wonders of the place.

The spot was exactly suited to Aleck’s taste; and as old practice and acquaintance with the coast had made giddiness a trouble he never felt, he was not long in lowering himself down to this coign of vantage. Here he perched himself with a sigh of satisfaction, and watched for a time the great white-breasted gulls which floated down to gaze with curious watchful eyes at the intruder upon their wild domain. The puffins kept darting down from the ledges, with beaks pointed, web feet stretched out behind, and short wings fluttering so rapidly that they were almost invisible, while the singular birds looked like so many animated triangles darting down diagonally to the sea, and gliding over it for some distance before touching the water, into which they plunged like arrow-heads, to disappear and continue their flight under water till they emerged far away with some silvery fish in their beaks.

Some little distance below a few sooty-looking cormorants had taken possession of an out-standing rock upon which the sun beat warmly, and here, their morning fishing over, leaving them absolutely gorged, they sat with wings half open and feathers erect, drying themselves, looking the very images of gluttonous content.

Birds were everywhere—black, black and white, black and grey, and grey and white, with here and there a few that looked black in the distance, but when inspected through the glass proved to be of a deep bronzy metallic green.

But while the air and rocks were alive with objects that delighted the watcher’s eye, there was plenty to see beside. Close in where the deep water was nearly still, the jelly-fish floated at every depth, shrinking and expanding like so many opening and shutting bubbles of soap and water, glistening with iridescent hues. Farther out the smooth, vividly-blue water every now and then turned in patches from sapphire to purple, and a patch—a whole acre perhaps in extent—became of the darkest purple or amethyst, all of a fret and work, while silvery flashes played all over it, reflecting the rays of the burning sun. For plenty of shoals of fish were feeding, over which the birds were rising, falling, darting and splashing, as they banqueted upon their silvery prey.

All this was so familiar to Aleck that, though still enjoying it, he satisfied himself with a few glances before, carefully focussing the glass he had brought, he began to sweep the coast wherever he could command it from where he sat.

The opposite side of the rift seemed to take his attention most, and perhaps he was examining some of the deep cavernous hollows seen here and there high up or low down towards the sea; or maybe his attention was riveted upon some quaint puffin, crouching, solemn and big-beaked, watching patiently for the next visit of main or dad; or, again, maybe the lad was looking at a solitary greatly-blotched egg, big at one end, going off to almost nothing at the other, and wanting in the soft curves of ordinary eggs, while he wondered how it was that such an egg should not blow out of its rocky hollow when the wind came, but spin round as upon a pivot instead.

Anyhow, Aleck was watching the other side of the half-made chasm, the great wedge-shaped depression in the coast-line, looking straight across at a spot about a hundred yards distant in the level, though higher up it was too, and going off to nothing at the bottom, where the place looked like the dried-up bed of a river.

All at once he started and nearly dropped the glass, as he wrenched himself right round to gaze back and up, for a gruff voice had suddenly cried:

“Hullo!”

The next moment the boy, was gazing in a fierce pair of very dark eyes belonging to a swarthy, scowling, sea-tanned face, the lower part of which was clothed in a crisp black beard, as black as the short head of hair.

This head of hair of course belonged to a man, but no man was to be seen, nothing but the big round bullet head peering down from the edge of one of the ledges, while on both sides, apparently not heeding the head in the least, dozens of wild fowl sat solemnly together, looking stupid and waiting for the next coming of parent birds.

“Hullo!” cried the head again.

“Hullo!” retorted Aleck, as gruffly as he could, after recovering from his surprise. “That you, Eben Megg?”

“Oh! ay, it’s me right enough, youngster. What are you doing there?”

“Now?” said Aleck, coolly. “Looking up at your black face.”

“Black face, eh, youngster? Perhaps other people ha’ got black faces too. What ha’ you been doing of—tumbling off the rocks? Strikes me you’re trying it on for another tumble.”

Aleck flushed a little at the allusion to his injured face, feeling guilty too, as it struck him that he had brought the allusion upon himself, a Rowland for his Oliver, on the principle that those who play at bowls must expect rubbers.

“No, I haven’t had a tumble, and I’m not going to tumble,” he said, testily. “I daresay I can climb as well as you.”

“P’raps you can, youngster, and p’raps you can’t; but, if you do want to break your neck, stop at home and do it, and don’t come here.”

“What!” cried Aleck, indignantly. “Why not? I’ve as good a right here as you have, so none of your insolence.”

“Oh, no, you haven’t. All along here’s our egging-ground, and we don’t want our birds disturbed.”

“Your egging-ground—your birds!” cried Aleck, indignantly. “Why, I do call that cool. You’ll be telling me next that the fish in the sea are yours, and that I mustn’t whiff or lay a fish-pot or trammel.”

“Ay, unless you want to lose your net or other gear. I hev knowed folk as fished on other people’s ground finding a hole knocked in the bottoms of their boats.”

“What!” cried Aleck. “That’s as good as saying that if I fish along here you’ll sink my boat.”

“Didn’t say I would, but it’s like enough as some ’un might shove a boat-hook through or drop in a good big boulder stone.”

“Then I tell you what it is, Master Eben Megg. If any damage is done to my Seagull you’ll have to answer for it before the magistrate.”

“Oh! that’s your game, is it, my lad? Now, lookye here, don’t you get threatening of me or you’ll get the worst on it. We folk at Eilygugg never interferes with you and the captain and never interferes about your ketching a bit o’ fish or taking a few eggs so long as you are civil; but you’re on’y foreigners and intruders and don’t belong to these parts, and we do.”

“Well, of all the impudence,” cried Aleck, “when my uncle bought the whole of the Den estate right down to the sea! Don’t you know that you’re intruders and trespassers when you come laying your crab-pots under our cliff and shooting your seine on the sandy patch off the little harbour?”

“No, youngster, I don’t; but I do know as you’re getting a deal too sarcy, and that I’m going to stop it, and my mates too.”

“Get out! Who are you?” cried the boy, indignantly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you want to fish off our shore and wants a man to help with your boat you’ve got to ask some of us to help, and not get bringing none o’ your wooden-legged cripples spying and poking about our ground.”

“Spy? What is there to spy?” said Aleck, giving the man a peculiar look.

“Never you mind about that. You be off home, and don’t you come spying about here with none of your glasses.”

Aleck laughed derisively.

“Ah, you may grin, my lad; but I’ve been a-watching of yer this morning,” said the man, fiercely. “You’ve been busy with that glass, prying and peering about, and I caught yer at it.”

Aleck laughed again.

“Oh! that’s what you think, is it?” he said.

“Yes, and it’s what I says; so be off home.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind, Eben,” said the boy, hotly. “I’ve a better right here than you have, and I shall come whenever I please. Spying, eh?”

“Ay, spying, youngster; and I won’t have it.”

“Then it’s all true, eh?” said the boy, mockingly.

“What’s true?” snarled the man.

“You know. What have you got hidden away among the caverns—Hollands gin or French brandy? Perhaps it’s silk or velvet. No, no; I know. But you can’t think that. How do you manage to land the great casks?”

“I dunno what you’re talking about, youngster—do you?”

“Thoroughly. But aren’t the tobacco casks too big and too heavy to haul up the cliffs?”

“Look here, young fellow,” growled the man; “none o’ your nonsense. You’d better be off before you get hurt. That’s your way back.”

“Is it?” said Aleck. “Then I’m not going back till I choose. I say, should you talk like this to one of the Revenue sloop’s men if he came ashore?”

“Oh, we know how to talk to that sort if he comes our way,” said the man, with a chuckling laugh; “and they knows it, too, and don’t come.”

“Nor the press-gang either, eh?” said Aleck, mockingly.

Up to that moment the man’s fierce face had alone been seen, but at the word press-gang he gave a violent start and rose to his knees, upon which he hobbled close up to the edge of the shelf upon which he had perched himself.

“Oh, that’s it, is it, my lad, eh?” he growled, shaking his fist savagely. “Then, look here. If the press-gang—cuss ’em!—ever does come along here we shall know who put ’em up to it, and if they take any of our chaps—mind yer they won’t take all, and them behind’ll know what to do. I’m not going to threaten, but if someone wasn’t sunk in his boat, or had a bit o’ rock come tumbling down on him when he was taking up his net under the cliffs, it would be strange to me. D’yer hear that?”

“Oh, yes, I hear that,” retorted Aleck. “So you won’t threaten, eh? What do you call that?”

“Never you mind what I call it, youngster; and what I says I means. So now you know.”

“Yes,” said Aleck, coolly; “now I know that what people say about you and your gang up at Eilygugg is quite true.”

“What do people say?” shouted the man. “What people?”

“The Rockabie folk.”

“And what do they say?”

“That you’re a set of smugglers, and, worse still, wreckers when you get a chance, and don’t stop at robbery or murder. One of the fishermen—I won’t say his name—said you were a regular gang of pirates.”

“The Rockabie fishermen are a set o’ soft-headed fools,” snarled the man. “But what do I care for all they say? Let ’em prove it; and, look here, if we’re as bad as that you folk up at the Den aren’t safe.”

“Which means that you threaten the captain, my uncle,” cried Aleck, defiantly.

“Are you going to tell him what I said?”

“Perhaps I am,” said Aleck; “perhaps I’m not. I’m going to do just as I please all along this coast, for it’s free to everybody, and my uncle has ten times the rights here that you people at the fishermen’s cottages have. You’ve just been talking insolence to me, so let’s have no more of it. This comes of the captain, my uncle, being kind and charitable to you people time after time when someone has been ill.”

The man growled out something in a muttering way.

“Ah, you know it, Eben Megg! It’s quite true.”

“Who said it warn’t?” growled the man; “but if he’d done ten times as much I’m not going to have you spying and prying about here. What is it you want to know?”

“That’s my business,” said Aleck, defiantly. “I say, you haven’t made a fortune out of smuggling, have you, and bought the estate?”

“You keep your tongue quiet, will yer?” growled the man, fiercely. “What do you know about smuggling?”

“Just as much as you do, Eben Megg,” cried the boy, laughing. “Just as much as everyone else does who lives here. Didn’t our old maid come in scared one night after a holiday and walking across from Rockabie and go into a fit because she had seen, as she said, a whole regiment of ghosts walking over the moor, leading ghostly horses, which came out of the sea fog and crossed the road without making a sound? Jane said they were the spirits of the old soldiers who were killed in the big fight and buried by the four stones on Black Hill, and that as soon as they were across the stony road they were all swallowed up in a mist. She keeps to it till now, and believes it.”

“Well, why shouldn’t she?” growled the man. “She arn’t the first as has seen a ghost. Why shouldn’t she?”

“Because it’s so silly, when it was a party of smugglers leading their horses, with kegs slung across their backs and bales on pack saddles.”

“Bah!” cried the man. “Horses loaded like that would clatter over the rough stones.”

“Yes,” said Aleck, “if their hoofs weren’t covered over with bits of canvas and a few handfuls of hay.”

“What!”

“I found one that a horse had kicked off on the road one morning, Eben,” said the boy. “Ah! I see now.”

“See—see what?” said the rough, fisherman-like fellow, sharply.

“See why Ness Dunning was so anxious that I shouldn’t come along the cliff this side.”

“Ness Dunning?” cried the man, scowling. “What did he say?”

“That I’d better go the other way. Behaved just like a silly plover which wants to prove to you that it has no nest on the moor, and sets you looking for it.”

“Ness Dunning’s an old fool,” cried the man, fiercely.

“Yes, he is a thick-headed old noodle, Eben; I wouldn’t trust him.”

“Then because he did that he made you think there was something hid somewhere and come to hunt for it, did you?” cried the man, angrily.

“No, I didn’t think anything of the kind till just this minute, but I see now. You’re not much wiser than old Ness, Eben, for you’ve been trying to throw me off the scent too, and now I know as well as if I could see it that you people have been running a cargo, and you’ve got it hidden in one of the caves or sunk in one of the holes.”

“What yer talking about?”

“Smuggled goods, Eben. I could find it if I tried now.”

The man stepped down from the shelf on which he had been standing, and made a great show of being exceedingly ferocious, evidently thinking that the boy would turn and run away. But Aleck stood fast, not even stirring when the man was close up, planting his doubled fists upon his hips and thrusting out his lower jaw in a peculiarly animal-like way.

“So you’re going to look and see if you can find something hidden, and when you’ve found it you’re going to send word to the Revenue cutter men to fetch it, are yer?”

“Who says I am?” said Aleck, sharply.

“Who says it? Why, I do, my lad. So that’s what you think you’re going to do, is it?”

“No,” said the lad, coolly enough. “Why should I? It’s no business of mine.”

“Ho!” growled the man, frowning, and raising one hand to rub his short, crisp, black beard. “No,” he said, after a pause, “it arn’t no business of yours, is it?”

“Of course not,” said the boy, coolly. “I don’t want to know where the run cargo’s hidden, and I wasn’t looking for it. I only came to watch the birds and get a few eggs if I saw any that I hadn’t got.”

The man made a sudden quick movement and caught Aleck’s right wrist tightly, leaning forward as if to pierce his eyes with the fierce look he gave.

“Don’t do that—you hurt!” cried Aleck, sharply.

“Yes, I mean to hurt,” growled the man. “Now, then, look at me! Is that true?”

“Do you hear, Eben Megg? You hurt me. Let go, or I shall hit out.”

“You’ll do what?” cried the big fellow, mockingly, as he tightened his grasp to a painful extent, when spank! Aleck’s left fist flew out, striking the man full on the right cheek, not a heavy blow, but as hard as the boy could deliver, hampered as he was, being dragged close to his assailant’s breast.

“Why, you—” roared the man. He did not say what, but flung the arm he had at liberty round the boy’s waist and lifted him, kicking and struggling, from the ground, perfectly helpless, with the great muscular arm acting like a band of iron, to do more than try to deliver some ineffective blows, which his assailant easily avoided.

“Ah! Would you?” he growled, fiercely. “You’re a nice young game cock chick, you are. Hold still!” he roared, taking a step forward, to stand on the very edge of the shelf. “Keep that hand quiet, or I’ll hurl you down among the rocks. You’ll look worse then than you do now.”

“Do, if you dare,” cried the lad, defiantly.

“You tell me what I asked,” growled the man; “is what you said true?”

“I won’t tell you while you grip my wrist.”

“You’d better speak,” cried the man. “D’yer see, you’re like a feather to me. I could pitch you right out so as you’d go to the bottom yonder.”

“You could, but you daren’t?” cried Aleck, grinding his teeth and striving hard to bear the pain he suffered.

“Oh, I dare—I could if I liked! Nobody would see out here. It would kill yer, and nobody would know how it happened; but they’d say when they found you that you’d slipped and fell when you was egging. They would, wouldn’t they? That’s true, arn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” said the boy, huskily.

“And that’s what I’m going to do for hitting me, unless you tell me whether that was true what you said. Now, then, beg me not to hurl yer down.”

“I—shan’t,” ground out the boy through his set teeth, and a grim smile crossed the man’s dark face, making it look for the moment open and manly—a smile caused by something akin to admiration.

“Well, you’re a nice-tempered sort of a young fellow,” growled the man.

“Let go of my wrist.”

“Will yer promise not to hit?”

Aleck nodded.

“Nor yet kick?”

The boy nodded again.

“There,” said the man, loosening the prisoned wrist. “Now, tell me, is it true?”

“Of course it is,” said the boy, haughtily.

“I’ll believe yer,” growled the man. “There,” he continued, dropping the boy to his feet. “Then you won’t look for where the stuff’s stowed?”

Aleck burst into a hoarse laugh.

“Then there is some stowed?”

The man gave himself a wrench, and his face puckered up again with anger.

“Lookye here,” he said, more quietly, “I don’t say there is, and I don’t say there arn’t; but suppose there is, you’re going to swear as you won’t take no notice.”

“No, I’m not,” said Aleck, boldly.

“Then you do want me to chuck you down yonder?”

“You’ve got to catch me first,” cried the boy, making a backward bound which took him ten feet downward before he landed and kept his feet, following up his leap by running along the ledge of stony slate he had reached and then beginning to climb rapidly.

The man had followed him at once, leaping boldly, but without Aleck’s success, for he slipped, through the stones giving way, and went down quite five-and-twenty feet in a rough scramble before he checked himself and took up the pursuit, which he soon found would be useless, for his young adversary was lighter and far more active, and soon showed that he was leaving him behind.

“There, hold hard, Master Aleck,” he growled, looking up at the lad. “I won’t hurt yer now.”

“Thankye,” said the boy, mockingly, as he stopped, holding on by a projecting rock in the stiff slope, and well on his guard to go on climbing if there was the slightest sign of pursuit.

“You made me wild by hitting out at me.”

“Serve you right, you great lumbering coward, to serve me like that!”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Yes, you did—brute! You squeezed my wrist as hard as you could.”

“Well, I didn’t want to hurt you much. But you did make me wild, you know, hitting me like you did.”

“Look here,” cried Aleck, fiercely, as the man took a step to continue climbing to where the boy stood, some thirty feet above him, “you come another step, and I’ll send this big stone down at you—it is loose.”

“I don’t want to ketch you now, only to talk quiet without having to shout.”

“I can hear you plainly enough. Sit down.”

The great muscular fellow dropped at once, seating himself upon the slope and digging his heels into the loose screes to keep from sliding down.

“There y’are,” he growled.

“Now, then,” said Aleck, “what do you want to say?”

“Only about you coming along here to-day. You warn’t trying to spy out nowt, was yer?”

“No,” cried Aleck; “of course I wasn’t. I’ve known for long enough that you people at Eilygugg do a lot of smuggling. I’ve stood with the captain, my uncle, of a night and seen you signal with a lanthorn, and then after a bit seen a light shown out at sea.”

“You’ve seen that, youngster?”

“Lots of times; and the boats going and coming and the lights showing up against the cliff. Of course we know what goes on, but my uncle doesn’t care to interfere, and I’ve never tried to find out where you hide the smuggled goods; but I shouldn’t be long finding out if I tried.”

“Hum!” growled the man, gazing up searchingly. “P’raps you’re right, youngster, p’raps you arn’t; but there is a deal o’ smuggling goes on along this coast.”

“Especially about here,” said Aleck, with a smile.

“Well, what’s the harm, eh? A man must live, and if one didn’t do it another would.”

“Look here; I don’t want to know or hear anything about it,” cried Aleck. “Only I shall come along these cliffs, egging or watching the birds, as often as I like.”

“Well, I don’t know as anyone’ll mind, Master Aleck, if I speaks to ’em and says as you says as a young gentleman that you’ll never take no notice of anything as you sees or hears—”

“What! How can a gentleman promise anything of the kind about people breaking the law?”

“How? Why, by just saying as he won’t.”

“A gentleman can’t, I tell you. There, I won’t promise anything.”

The man gave his rough head a vicious scratch, before saying, sharply:

“Then how’s a man to trust yer?”

“I don’t know,” said Aleck, carelessly, “but I’ll tell you this. If I’d wanted to I could have found out whether you’ve got a place to hide your stuff, as you call it, long enough ago.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” said the man, with a grin.

“Well, then, I could have told the Revenue cutter’s men where they had better look.”

“But you won’t, Master Aleck? We are neighbours, you know.”

“Neighbours!” said Aleck, scornfully. “Pretty neighbours! There, I’m not going to alter my words. I shall make no promises at all.”

“Well, you are a young gentleman, and I’ll trust yer,” said the man; “for I s’pose I must. But I don’t know what some of our lads’ll say.”

“Then I’d better tell my uncle that if anything happens to me he’d better get the Revenue cutter’s men to hunt out the Eilygugg smugglers, because they pushed me off the cliff.”

“Nay, don’t you go and do that,” said the man, anxiously. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Am I to believe that, Eben?” said the boy, sharply.

The man showed his teeth in a laugh, and put his hands round his neck in a peculiar way.

“Look here, Master Aleck,” he said; “man who goes to sea has to take his chance o’ being drownded.”

“Of course.”

“And one who tries to dodge the Revenue sailors has to take his chance of getting a cut from a bit o’ steel or a bullet in him.”

“I suppose so.”

“That’s quite bad enough, arn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Bad enough for me, sir, so I’m not going to do what might mean being—you know what I mean?”

“What—”

“Yes, that’s it. A bit o’ smuggling’s not got much harm in it, but they call it murder when a man kills a man.”

“By pushing him off a cliff, Eben?” said Aleck. “Yes.”

Chapter Nine.

It was about a fortnight later when Aleck Donne went down the garden directly after breakfast with the full intent, after thinking it over a good deal, of charging old Onesimus Dunning, the gardener, with being leagued with the Eilygugg smugglers.

“If I told uncle,” he argued, “he would be sent away at once; but that would be doing the poor fellow a lot of harm and perhaps make him worse. Perhaps, too, it would make him nurse up a feeling of spite against us, and he would set the Eilygugg people against us as well. So I won’t do that, but I’m not going to have the nasty old imposter smiling at me and pretending to be so innocent. I just want him to understand that I’m not such a child as to be ignorant of his tricks. I’ll let him see that I know why he wanted me not to go along yonder by the west cliff.”

Aleck knew exactly where the man was likely to be, for he had been mowing the lawn, sweeping up the fragment result, and wheeling it away.

“He’ll be stacking it round the cucumber frame,” thought Aleck, “to keep in the heat. By the way, I wonder what became of the beautiful cuke that lay, at the back under the big leaves—we didn’t have it indoors! I’m sure he takes some of them away. Uncle never misses anything out of the garden, but I do.”

The lad went round to the kitchen garden, which sloped round towards the south, so beautifully sheltered that it was a perfect hot-bed of itself in the summer, and there, sure enough, was the heaped-up barrow of fresh green mowings, and one armful had been piled up to half hide a part of the rough wooden frame.

But no gardener was visible.

“Not here,” thought Aleck. “Well, perhaps I was wrong about that cuke.”

The next minute he had raised the clumsily-glazed sliding sash, with a hot puff of moist air smelling delicious as it reached his nostrils, while he propped up the glass, reached in, and began turning over the prickly leaves, laying bare the rather curly little specimens of the cool, pleasant fruit; but there was no sign of the big, well-grown vegetable.

“Was I mistaken?” mused the lad. “No, there was one, and there’s the remains of the stalk, showing where the cucumber has been cut. What a shame!” he muttered. “I’ll tell him of that too. Uncle would be angry if he knew.”

Aleck closed the frame again and began to look round.

“What a shame!” he said, again. “Nice sort of a gardener to have—lazy, a smuggler, and little better than a thief. I’ll just give him something to think about when I find him. Oh, there he is!”

For just then the boy looked up, to see the old gardener standing on the highest part of the sheltering cliff, his back to him, and shading his eyes as he looked out to sea.

“Ahoy! What are you doing there?” shouted Aleck.

The man started and looked down.

“Ships—men-o’-war—going behind the point,” shouted the gardener.

Men-of-war going into Rockabie harbour! That news was sufficient to upset all Aleck’s arrangements. He forgot all about the lesson he was going to give the gardener, and rushed indoors, to hurry upstairs and rap sharply at his uncle’s study, and, getting no answer he threw open the door to cross the room and seize the glass from where it hung by its sling. Then, dashing out again, he ran downstairs, crossed the garden, mounted the cliff zigzag path, and was soon after focussing the glass upon the men-of-war, which proved to be only a good-sized sloop followed by a trim-looking white-sailed cutter, both vessels with plenty of canvas spread, and gliding steadily over the smooth sunlit sea.

“Oh, I wish I’d known sooner!” groaned the lad, for he had hardly fixed the leading vessel before her bows began to disappear behind the point, and before ten minutes had elapsed the cutter was out of sight as well.

“I don’t know that I should much care about going to sea,” muttered Aleck, closing the glass, “but the ships do look so beautiful with their sails set, gliding along. What a pity! What a pity! I do wish I had known sooner.”

“What are they going to do there?” thought the boy, as he closed the glass and walked back to the cottage, where upon going upstairs to replace the glass he found his uncle in from his morning walk and about to settle down for a few hours’ work.

“Well, Aleck, boy,” he said; “been scanning the sea?”

“Yes, uncle; two vessels came along into Rockabie, but I only got a glimpse of them.”

“Too late, eh? Well, why not run over in the boat? I want something done in the town.”

“Do you, uncle? Oh!” cried the boy, half wild with excitement, as he turned and rushed to the little mirror over the chimney-piece to glance in.

“Yes,” said the old man, smiling. “There, nothing shows now except that little darkness under your eyes. I’m quite run out of paper, my boy. Go and get me some. But—er—no fighting this time.”

“No, uncle,” cried the lad, flushing up; and then, quickly: “There’s a beautiful soft breeze, dead on to the land, and it will serve going and coming.”

“Off with you, then, while it holds. Paper the same as before. Get back in good time.”

Aleck wanted no further incitement. The “wigging,” as he termed it, that was to be given to Dunning would keep, and he avoided the man as he hurried down into the gorge, stepped the mast and hooked on the rudder, guided the little vessel along the narrow, zigzag, canal-like harbour, and without an eye this time for the birds or beauty of the scene, he was soon after lying back steering and holding the sheet, while the well-filled sail tugged impatiently as if resenting being restrained.

Aleck had fully determined to avoid the boys of Rockabie that morning, and he was half disposed to hug himself with the idea that after the thrashing Big Jem had received they would interfere with him no more. But he was quite wrong, for the port boys were too full of vitality, and always on the look-out for some means of getting rid of the effervescing mischief that bubbled and foamed within them.

The distant sight of the King’s vessels heading for the port was quite enough to attract them to the pier, and there they were in force, well on the look-out for something to annoy so as to give themselves employment till the sloop and cutter came in.

There was the something all ready in the person of Tom Bodger, who was seated upon a ship’s fender, one of those Brobdingnagian netted balls covered with a network of tarred rope, used to keep the edge of the stone pier from crushing and splintering the sides of the vessel.

This formed a capital cushion, albeit rather sticky in hot weather, and was planted close up to a stone mooring-post, which acted as a back to lean against, while, with his wooden legs stretched straight out, the man employed himself busily in netting, his fingers going rapidly and the meshes seeming to run off the ends of his fingers.

Intent upon his work, active with hands and arms, but rather helpless as to his legs, Tom Bodger was a splendid butt for the exercise of the boys’ pertinacious tactics, and with mischief sparkling out of the young rascals’ eyes they made their plans of approach and began to buzz round him like flies, calling names, asking questions, laughing and jeering too, all of which had but little effect upon the man, who was an adept at what he called giving “tongue.” And so the boys found, for they decidedly got the worst of it.

Soon after, growing bolder, some of the most daring began to make approaches to snatch at the net or the ball of water-cord, but they gained nothing by that. For Tom Bodger never went out without his stick, a weapon he used for offence as well as defence, and there was not a boy there in Rockabie who did not know how hard he could hit.

A few little experiences of this sort of thing were quite enough to make the party draw off and take to the hurling of missiles. But they did not confine themselves to heads, tails, and bones of fish, for they were rather scarce, so they took to the stones which were swept up in ridges by the sea right across the harbour.

But even this was dangerous, for the sailor could “field” the stones thrown at him and return them with a correctness of aim and activity that would have driven a skilful cricketer half mad with envy.

Finally, several of the bigger lads held a kind of conference, but not unseen, for though apparently bending intently over his netting, the sailor was watching them with one eye and asking himself what game they—to wit, the boys—were going, as he put it, to start next.

Old discipline on a man-of-war had made Bodger thoroughly alert, and suspecting a rush he took hold of his ball of net twine, unrolled sufficient to make many meshes, and then put it down again, seizing the opportunity to draw the stout oaken cudgel he generally carried well within reach of his hand.

Then, netting away as skilfully as a woman, he indulged in a hearty laugh, chuckling to himself as he thought of the accuracy and force with which he could send it skimming over the ground, spinning round the while and looking like a star.

“That’ll give one on ’em a sore leg for a week if I do have to throw it. On’y wish I could do it with a string tied to it so as to haul it back. Well, why not?” he added, eagerly, and then under cover of his netting he unwound thirty or forty yards of the twine, cut it off, and tied the end to the middle of his cudgel.

“That’ll do it,” he muttered, and chuckled again with satisfaction. For Tom lived in the days when the Australian boomerang was an unknown weapon; otherwise he would have cut and carved till he had contrived one, and given himself no rest till he could hurl it with unerring aim and the skill that would bring it back to his hand.

The sloop-of-war and the Revenue cutter, its companion, had been lying at anchor some hundred yards from the end of the pier, and every now and then the sailor glanced at the trim vessels with their white sails and the sloop’s carefully-squared yards—all “ataunto,” as he termed it—and more than one sigh escaped his lips as he thought that never again would he tread the white deck that he helped to holy-stone, let alone show that he was one of the smartest of the crew to go up aloft.

And as he glanced at the vessels from time to time, he, to use his words, “put that and that together,” and noticed that, contrary to custom, there was not a single hearty-looking young fisherman lounging upon the rail that overhung the head of the harbour.

“Smells a rat,” muttered the old sailor. “Like as not they’ve dropped anchor here to see if there are any likely-looking lads waiting to be picked up after dark. Why, there’s a good dozen that would be worth anything to a skipper, and I could put the press-gang on to their trail as easy as could be; but they’re neighbours, and I can’t do them such a dirty turn. Now, if they’d on’y take a dozen of these young beauties it would be a blessing to the place; but, no, the skipper wouldn’t have them at a gift. But that’s what they’re after. Hullo, here comes a boat!”

“Oh!” he laughed, as he saw the sloop’s cutter lowered down with its crew and a couple of officers in the stern-sheets. “The old game. Coming ashore for fresh meat and vegetables. I know that little game.”

Bodger went on netting away, watching the boat out of the corner of one eye as it was rowed smartly up to the harbour steps, where the oars were turned up; and leaving the youth with him in charge of the boat’s crew, the officer sprang out with one of the men and hurried up the steps, gave a supercilious glance at the crippled sailor, who touched his hat, and then went along towards the town.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the sailor to himself. “Having a look round. There’ll be a gang landed to-night as sure as my name’s Bodger.”

The thinker made a few more meshes and then had a glance down on the boat and her crew, his eyes dwelling longest upon the young officer, who had taken out a small glass, through which he began to examine the town.

“Middy,” said Bodger. “Smart-looking lad too. What’s their game now?” he continued, as the boys drew closer together. “They’ll be up to some game or another directly. Shying old fish at that youngster’s uniform, or some game or another. Strikes me that if they do they’ll find that they’ve caught a tartar. Just what they’d like to do—shy half a dozen old bakes’ tails at his blue and white jacket. I might say a word to him and save it, but if I did I should be saving them young monkeys too, and—look at that now!—if that arn’t Master Aleck’s boat coming round the pynte! They sees it too—bless ’em! Now they’ll be arter him, safe. That’ll save the middy, but it won’t save Master Aleck. Strikes me I’d better put my netting away and clear the decks for action.”

Tom Bodger’s clearing for action consisted in turning himself aside so that he could drag a neatly-folded duck bag off the fender, and stuffing his partly-made net and twine, with stirrup, mesh, and needle, inside before tying up the neck with a piece of yarn.

But his eyes were busy the while, and he watched all that went on, Aleck’s boat running in fast, the boys whispering together, their leader sending off a couple towards the town end of the pier, and eliciting the mental remark from the sailor:

“Going arter Big Jem for twopence. Are we going to have another fight? Well, if we are he arn’t going to tackle two on ’em, for I’m going to see fair with my stick and the crew o’ that cutter to look on to form a ring.”

By the time he had thought out this observation it was time for him to carefully ascend to the top of one of the great mooring-posts, the flattest-topped one by preference. How it was done was a puzzle, and it drew forth the observations of the cutter’s crew, while the midshipman in charge shouted “Bravo!” But somehow or other, by the use of his hands and a peculiar hop, Tom Bodger brought himself up perpendicularly upon the top of the post, steadied himself with his stick, and then held his head aloft.

That was enough. Aleck was near enough in to recognise the figure and comprehend the signal, which in Tom’s code read:

“Right and ready, my lad. Steer for here.”

Chapter Ten.

Aleck ran his boat close in behind the cutter after lowering the sail so close that it touched the midshipman’s dignity.

“Hi, you, sir!” he shouted. “Mind where you’re going with that boat.”

“All right,” replied Aleck, coolly enough. “I won’t sink you.”

“Hang his insolence!” muttered the middy; and as Tom lowered himself from the post and then went, rock-hopper fashion, down the steps and boarded the boat, the young officer gave Aleck a supercilious stare up and down, taking in his rough every-day clothes and swelling himself out a little in his smart blue well-fitting uniform.

Aleck felt nettled, drew himself up, and returned the stare before making a similar inspection of the young naval officer.

“Whose boat’s that, boy?” said the latter, haughtily.

“Mine,” was Aleck’s prompt reply. “What ship’s that, middy—I don’t mean the cutter, of course?”

“Well, of all the insolence—” began the lad. “Do you know, sir, that you mustn’t address one of the King’s officers like that?”

“No, I didn’t know it,” said Aleck, coolly. “I thought you were only a midshipman. Are you the captain?”

“Why, con—”

“Look out!” cried Aleck, giving the speaker a sharp push which nearly sent him backward but saved him from receiving a wet dockfish full on the cheek, the unpleasantly foul object whizzing between the lads’ heads, followed by a roar of laughter from a group of the young ruffians on the pier.

“How dare you lay your hands upon a King’s officer!” cried the midshipman, furiously.

Aleck shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

“Look out!” he cried. “Here come two or three more,” and he dogged aside, while the middy was compelled, metaphorically, to come down from his dignified perch and duck down nearly double to escape the missiles which flew over him.

“Do you see now?” said Aleck, merrily.

“Oh! Ah! Yes! Of course! The insolent young scoundrels! Here, half a dozen of you jump ashore and catch that big boy with the ragged red cap. I’ll have him aboard to be flogged.”

Six of the boat’s crew sprang out on to the steps, but there was no prospect of their catching the principal offender, who uttered a derisive yell and started off to run at a rate which would have soon placed him beyond the reach of the sailors; and he knew it, too, as he turned and made a gesture of contempt, which produced a roar of delight from the other boys who stood looking on.

“After him!” yelled the middy to his men, as he stood stamping one foot in his excitement; and then turning to Aleck: “If the cat don’t scratch his back for this my name’s not Wrighton.”

The communication was made in quite a friendly, confidential way, which brought a response from Aleck:

“He’ll be too quick for them. The young dogs are as quick as congers.”

“You wait and you’ll see. I’ll make an example of him.”

All this passed quickly enough, while the boy in the red cap, feeling quite confident in his powers of flight, turned again to jeer and shout at the sailors, whom he derided with impudent remarks about their fatness of person, weight of leg, and stupidity generally, till he judged it dangerous to wait any longer, when he went off like a clockwork mouse, skimming over the stones, and from the first strides beginning to leave the sailors behind.

“I told you so,” said Aleck. “There he goes. I can run fast, but I couldn’t catch him. Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Tom!” he cried. “Look at that sailor!”

For meanwhile Tom Bodger, stick in hand, had made his way back on to the pier, and just as the boy was going his fastest something followed him faster, in the shape of the wooden-legged sailor’s well-aimed cudgel, which spun over the surface of the pier, thrown with all the power of Tom’s strong arm, and the next instant it seemed to be tangled up with the boy’s legs, when down he went, kicking, yelling, and struggling to get up.

“Hi! Oh, my! Help, help!” he yelled at his comrades; but they only stood staring, while the foremost sailors passed on so as to block the way of escape, and the next instant the offender was hemmed in by a half circle of pursuers, who formed an arc, the chord being the edge of the pier, beneath which was the deep, clear water.

“There,” cried the middy, triumphantly. “Got him!” Then to his men: “Bring the young brute here.”

Meanwhile, as the boy lay yelping and howling in a very dog-like fashion, the laughing sailors began to close in, and then suddenly made a dart to seize their quarry, but only to stand gazing down into the harbour.

For, in pain before from the contact of the stick and his heavy fall, but in agony now from the dread of being caught, the boy kept up the dog-like character of his actions by going on all fours over two or three yards, and then, as hands were outstretched to seize him, he leaped right off the pier edge, to plunge with a tremendous splash ten feet below, the deep water closing instantly over his head.

“He’s gone, sir,” said one of the sailors, turning to his officer.

“Well, can’t I see he has gone, you stupid, cutter-fingered swab?” cried the middy. “Here, back into the boat and round to the other side of the pier. You’ll easily catch him then.”

“Not they,” said Aleck, quietly; “didn’t I tell you he was as quick and slippery as a conger?”

“Look sharp! Be smart, men,” cried the middy, angrily.

“What’s the good of tiring the lads for nothing?” said Aleck, as the men began to scramble into the cutter. “It will take them nearly ten minutes to get round to where he went off.”

“Would it?”

“Of course.”

“But, I say,” said the middy, anxiously, “mightn’t he be drowned?”

“Just about as likely as that dogfish he threw at you. Come and look!”

Aleck led the way up the steps, followed by the young officer, and then as they crossed the pier they came in sight directly of the boy, swimming easily, side stroke, for a group of rocks which formed the starting-point of the pier curve, and beyond which were several places where the boy could land.

“He’ll be ashore before we could get near him,” said Aleck.

“What! Shall I have to let him go?” cried the middy.

“Of course! He got a tremendous crack on the legs from Tom Bodger’s stick—he was nearly frightened to death; and he has had a thorough ducking. Isn’t that enough?”

“Well, it will have to be,” said the middy, in a disappointed tone. “I meant him to be treed up and flogged.”

Aleck looked at him in rather an amused fashion.

“Well, what are you staring at?” said the middy, importantly.

“I was only wondering whether you would be able to order the boy to be flogged.”

“Well—er—that is,” said the midshipman, flushing a little; “I—er—said I should give him—er—report it to the captain, who would give the orders on my statement. It’s the same thing, you know, as if I gave the flogging. ‘I’ll give a man a flogging’ doesn’t, of course, mean that I, as an officer, should give it with my own hands. See?”

“Yes, I see,” said Aleck, quietly.

“Sit fast there,” cried the middy to his men, as he began to descend the steps. “Let the young scoundrel go.”

Just then Aleck glanced round and saw that the officer who had gone ashore was returning, followed by the man who had accompanied him, and he turned to Bodger, who stood waiting for orders, before descending again to the boat.

Chapter Eleven.

“I say, Tom,” said Aleck, “that was cleverly aimed, but you had better mind or you’ll be breaking one of the boys’ legs.”