"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."

"Well-aimed, sir? Oh, that was nothing tickler. An easy shot that, sir. No fear o' my breaking no legs. I can tell exactly how much powder to fire with. I give it 'em just strong enough to hurt; that's all."

Just then the officer came back, spoke to the young middy, and went off again with the six men who had been unsuccessful in their chase of the red-capped boy, while Aleck and his companion exchanged glances.

"There, Tom, take away the boat," said Aleck; "I must go and get my uncle's paper."

"Your uncle's paper, sir?"

"Yes, I've run over to get some for him."

"Why, you got some on'y t'other week, sir. Did he have an axdent and burn it?"

"No," said Aleck, laughing. "It's all used up for writing."

"Wond'ful—wond'ful!" muttered the man. "Here's me can't write a word, and him allus going at it. Well, I suppose he was born that way. I'll take care o' your boat all the same, sir."

"What do you mean with your all the same?" asked Aleck, looking puzzled at the man's words.

"All the same, sir, though I can't write a word."

Aleck went off, being saluted by a nod from the middy, who lay back in the stern-sheets of the cutter. It was a nod that might have meant anything—condescension, friendliness, or a hint to keep his distance; but it did not trouble the lad, who trudged along the pier to fulfil his mission, and was soon after in the rugged, ill-paved main street, where he in sight of the naval group from the sloop, evidently busy buying and loading up with fresh provisions from the little shops.

He passed on, and was nearing the place where, in company with toys, grocery, and sweetmeats, the shopkeeper kept up a small supply of paper, for which the captain was his main customer, when a dark-bearded fisherman-like man suddenly turned out of a public-house, caught him by the arm, and hurried him sharply down a narrow alley which ran by the side of the little inn.

The man's sudden action, coupled with the fact that he was the last person in the county he would have expected to see, took away the lad's breath for a moment or two while he gazed up in the fierce searching eyes that seemed to be reading his thoughts.

"You, Eben?" he said at last.

"Me it is, youngster. What game do you call this?"

"I don't call it a game at all. What are you doing here?"

"Never you mind what I'm a-doing here. P'raps I'm watching you. I want to know what your game is."

"I'm playing at no game," cried the boy, speaking rather indignantly. "Let go of my arm."

"When you've told me what you're a-doing of with them sailor chaps."

"I? I'm doing nothing with them. I've come over in my own boat. I'm not along with them."

"I know. I've had my eye on yer, my lad. But let's have the truth. You come over to meet these chaps from the boats lying off there."

"Not I. If you must know, I've come over to fetch some paper for my uncle."

"And what else, my lad?"

"Nothing else," cried Aleck; "but I don't know what right you have to question me."

"You soon will, my lad. You say you're not with these folk. Why, I saw you talking for ever so long to the chaps in the boat that come ashore to lie there by the harbour wall, and afore it had been there long you come into port and run your boat close alongside."

"Of course I did, to get up to the steps and land. Look here; what are you thinking about?"

"Well," said the man, fiercely, "if you want to know over again what you knew before, I'm just going to tell you, so as to let you see that I'm not such a fool as you take me for, and also to let you know that I can see right through you, clever as you think yourself."

"Go on," said Aleck. "Let's have it all then."

"Well, here you are, my lad. I s'pose you know that's a man-o'-war sloop?"

"Yes, I know that, Eben."

"Yes, I s'pose so, my lad, and you know what she's hanging about this coast for?"

"I don't for certain," replied Aleck, "but I shouldn't be a bit surprised if the captain wanted to press a few likely lads, if he could get hold of them."

"Oh, you wouldn't, wouldn't you? I s'pose not," said the man, in a sneering tone.

"Why, anybody would guess that."

"P'raps they would and p'raps they wouldn't, my lad; but, of course, you don't know that there's the little Revenue cutter that's looking out for any little bit of smuggling going on?"

"Why, what nonsense you're talking, Eben! Of course I knew."

"Yes, of course you did, my lad; and you've got a spy-glass, haven't you!"

"No; but I use my uncle's."

"That's right; and when them two vessels come into sight 'smorning you got the glass out to see what they were?"

"Yes; directly."

"And then you went down to your boat-hole and ran over here as fast as you could?"

"Yes; but it wasn't fast, for the wind kept dropping. But how did you know this?"

"Never you mind how I knowed. You knowed that me and four mates came over here last night."

"That I didn't," cried Aleck. "What for—to run a cargo?"

"Never you mind what for, my lad. You knowed we'd come."

"That I didn't. I hadn't the least idea you had. But how did you know I got out the glass to have a look at the vessels? Bah! You couldn't know if you were over here. No one saw me but old Dunning. It's impossible."

"Is it?" said the man, with a sneer. "Then we arn't got a glass at Eilygugg, of course, eh, and nobody left behind to look out for squalls and run across to tell us to look out when they see the wind changing? So, you see, clever as you think yourself, you're found out, my lad. Now do you see?"

"I see that you're on the wrong tack, Eben," said the lad, scornfully, "and let me tell you that you've been talking a lot of nonsense. I don't see why I should tell you. It's absurd to accuse me of being a spy and informer. Do you suppose we up at the Den want to be on bad terms with all the fishermen and—and people about?"

"You mean to say you haven't put the boat's crew yonder up to taking me and my mates?"

"Of course I do. Why, I haven't even spoken to the officer, only to the midshipman."

"Well, it looks very bad," growled the man, gazing at the lad, searchingly.

"If you think a press-gang is likely to come ashore to get hold of you and your mates, why don't you slip off into the hills for a bit?"

The man stared, and his features relaxed a little and a little more, and he caught Aleck by the sleeve.

"Look here, Master Aleck," he said; "the captain yonder's a gentleman, though we arn't very good friends, but he never did anything to get any of us took."

"Of course he didn't."

"Wouldn't like you to, p'raps."

"Why, of course he wouldn't. If the fleet want men they'll get them somehow, and the Revenue cutter will hunt out the smugglers sooner or later; but for you to think that I'm on the look-out always to do you a bad turn—why, it's downright foolishness, Eben."

"Well, I'm beginning to think it is, my lad," said the man, smiling; "but that's just what they thought at home, and my young brother Bill ran across to give us the warning. I put that and that together, and I felt as sure as sure that you'd come over to inform agen us."

"But you don't believe it now?"

"No, my lad, I don't believe it now," said Eben, "and I'm glad on it, because it would be a pity for a smart young chap like you to be in for it."

"In for what?" said Aleck.

"For what? Ah, you'd soon know if you did blow upon us, my lad. But, there, I don't believe it a bit now, and I got some'at else to do but stand talking to you, so I'm off. Only, you know, my lad, as it's the best thing for a chap like you as wants to live peaceable like with his neighbours to keep his mouth shut—mum—plop."

The two last words were sounds made by slapping the mouth closely shut and half open with the open hand, after doing which Eben Megg stepped down the narrow turning and mysteriously disappeared.

"Bother him and his bullyings and threats," cried Aleck. "Such insolence! But, there, I must see about my paper and get back."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

Left alone in the boat, Tom Bodger sat down on one of the thwarts with his wooden pegs stuck straight out before him. Then he brought them close together with a sharp rap and began to rub one over the other gently; but these movements had nothing to do with the thinking, though he more than once told himself that he thought better when he was rubbing his legs together.

As he sat there he naturally enough began to watch the man-o'-war boat with her smart young officer and neat, trim-looking crew, while, continuing his inspection, he ran his eyes over the boat and admired its beautiful lines.

This brought up memories of the time when career and body had both been cut short by that unlucky cannon ball, leaving him a cripple and a pensioner.

"But I dunno," he said to himself, in a way he had of making the best of things, "if I hadn't been hit I might ha' lived on and been drowned, and then there'd ha' been no pension to enj'y as I enj'ys mine; and I don't never have to buy no boots nor shoes, so there arn't much to grumble about, arter all."

So Tom sat rubbing his wooden legs together, watching the sailors in the boat, thinking of how he'd been coxswain of just such a boat as that, and then beginning to feel an intense longing to compare notes with the men left with the middy in charge; but the young officer kept his men in order, and twice over had them busily at work stowing away the vegetables, fresh meat, bacon, and butter that were brought down from time to time and packed well out of the way fore and aft.

Consequently there was no opportunity allowed for him to get up a gossip, the young officer looking fiercely important, and the men making no advance.

"Beautifully clean and smart," said Tom. "Wonder how long Master Aleck'll be."

Then he swept the edge of the pier ten feet above his head in search of inimical boys, letting one hand down by his side to finger his cudgel, and indulging in a chuckle at the skilful way in which he had brought down the young offender a short time before.

"Pretty well scared him away," said Tom to himself; "he won't show himself here again to-day."

But as it happened Tom was wrong, for the boy, after landing in safety, with the water streaming down inside his ragged breeches and escaping at the bottom of the legs when it did not slip out of the holes it encountered on its way, had made his way up the steep cliff and round to the back of the town so as to get up on the moorland, where the sun came down hotly, when he began to drip and dry rapidly.

He could sweep the pier and harbour now easily, looking over the fishing-boats and watching those belonging to the man-o'-war and Aleck Donne, with Tom Bodger sitting with his legs sticking straight out.

And then he called Tom Bodger a very seaside salt and wicked name, in addition to making a vow of what he would do to "sarve him out."

The boy gave another glance round as if in search of coadjutors, but all his comrades had disappeared; so he stood thinking and drying as he turned his thoughts inland, with the result that he had a happy thought, under whose inspiration he set off at a trot round by the back of the little town till he came within view of a group of patches of sandy land roughly fenced in and divided by posts of wreck-wood and rails covered with pitch—rough fragments that had once been boat planks.

He ran a little faster now, and externally did not seem wet, for his hair was cropped so short that no water could find a lodgment, and his worn-old, knitted blue shirt and cloth breeches had ceased to show the moisture they had soaked up.

Once within hearing of the rough fenced-in gardens he put both hands to his mouth and uttered a frightful yell, with the result that a head suddenly shot up from behind one of the fences, and its owner was seen down to the waist, looking as if he were leaning upon an old musket.

But this was only the handle of a hoe, and the holder proved to be Big Jem, occupied in his father's garden, where he had been hoeing and earthing up potatoes in lazy-boy fashion with a chip-chop and a long think, supplemented by a rest at the end of each row to chew tobacco.

A minute later and the boys were lying down side by side, resting upon their elbows and kicking up their heels over their backs, what time the newcomer related what had passed down on the pier, and also what he should like to do.

The narrative seemed to afford Big Jem intense satisfaction, for he uttered a hoarse crowing laugh from time to time and blinked his eyes, squeezing the lids very close and then opening them wide, when sundry signs of black, green and blue bruises became visible.

When the newcomer had finished his narration, Big Jem crowed more hoarsely than ever, and indulged in what looked like an imitation of an expiring fish, for he stretched himself out flat and threw himself over from his face on to his back, beat the ground with his closed legs, and then flopped back again, over and over again, putting ten times the vigour and exertion into his acts that he had bestowed upon the hoeing, and ending by springing up, stooping to secure his hoe, and then tossing it right away to fall and lie hidden in one of the newly-hoed furrows between the potatoes.

"Do, won't it?" cried the new arrival.

"Yes," cried Big Jem, hoarsely. "Sarve 'em both out. Come on!"

No time was lost, the two boys going off at a trot round by the back of the town and aiming for the shore, where by descending a very steep bit of ivy-draped and ragwort-dotted cliff they could get down to a row of black sheds used for fish-drying and the storage of nets, which lay snugly upon a shelf of the cliff.

The place was quite deserted as the boys let themselves slide down a water-formed gully, peered about a bit, and then made for one of several boats moored some fifty yards from the sandy shore.

More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the water reached their chests, and then began to swim for the outermost boat, into which Big Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the next moment his comrade had followed and leaned over, dripping away, to cast loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jem put an oar out over the stern and began to scull.