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Devon Boys: A Tale of the North Shore, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 20. The Captain Of The Lugger |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY. THE CAPTAIN OF THE LUGGER "Eh ben!" he shouted. "Eh ben! Eh ben!" while half a dozen yellow-faced little fellows with rings in their ears looked down upon us and grinned. All at once they made way for a quick dark-looking body, with tiny half grey corkscrew ringlets hanging round under his fur cap, not only at the sides but all over his forehead. It was a man evidently, but he looked like an elderly sharp-eyed wrinkled-faced woman, as he pushed a big lad aside, and putting his arms on the bulwark, stared down at us. "Vell, lad, vot you vant?" he said. "Hungry, sir. Blown off the shore, sir," I cried. "We can't row back. Can you understand? No parly vous." "Bah, stupe, thick, headblock, who ask you parlez-vous? I am England much, and speak him abondomment. How you do thank you, quite vell?" "No, sir; we're starving, and cold and--and--and--tell him Big, I can't." I was done for. I could not keep it back, though I had said to myself Bob Chowne was a weak coward, and, dropping on the thwart, I let my face go down in my hands, and tried to keep back my emotion. "Ah, you bigs boys, you speak me," I heard the French skipper say. "How you come from? Come, call yourself." "Uggleston, of the Gap," said Bigley, as boldly as he could. "Blown off shore, sir, in the squall." "Aha! Hey, hey? Ugglees-tone. Ma foi, you Monsieur Jonas Ugglees-tone?" "No, sir; I am his son," said Bigley. "What say, sare, you Monsieur Jonas Ugglees-tone, you b'long?" "Yes, sir; I belong to him. Will you give us something to eat?" "Aha! You Engleesh boys, big garcon, always hungries. Vais; come aboard my sheeps. Not like your papa--oh, no. I know him mosh, very mosh. Know you papa, votr' pere, mon garcon. Come-you-up-you-come." He said it all as if it were one word, so curiously that it seemed to help me to get rid of my weakness, and I was about to stand up in the boat when the French skipper said to Bigley: "Look you! Aha. Boy ahoy you. What sheep you fader?" "Do you mean what's the name of my father's lugger, sir?" "Yes; you fater luggair--chasse maree. I say so. Vat you call. Heece nem?" "The _Saucy Lass_, sir." He leaned over and looked at the stern of the boat and nodded his head. "Yais, him's olright. Ze _Saucilass_. Come you up--you come, boys. All you. Faites." This last was to one of the men, who, as we climbed over the side of the French lugger, descended into our boat, and made her fast by the painter to the stern. The skipper shook hands with us all, and smiled at us and patted our shoulders. "Pauvres garcons!" he said. "You been much blow away ce mornings, eh?" "No, sir, last night," said Bigley. "How you say? You lass night dites, mon garcon." "We were fishing, sir, and the squall came, and we've been out all night." "Brrrr!" ejaculated the French skipper, shrugging his shoulders and making a face, then seizing me he dragged me to a hole away in the stern deck, and pushed me down into quite a snug little cabin with a glowing stove. "Come--venez. All you come," he cried, and he thrust the others down and followed quickly. "Pauvres garcons! Warm you my fire. Chauffez vous. Good you eat bread? Good you drink bran-dee vis vater? Not good for boy sometime, mais good now." He kept on chattering to us, half in English, half in French; and as he spoke he cut for us great pieces of bread and Devon butter, evidently freshly taken on board that day. Next he took a large brown bottle from a locker, and mixed in a heavy, clumsy glass a stiff jorum of brandy with water from a kettle on the stove. Into this glass he put plenty of Bristol brown sugar, and made us all drink heartily in turn, so as to empty the glass, when he filled it again. "It is--c'est bon--good phee-seek--make you no enrhumee--you no have colds. No. Eat, boys. Aha! You warm yourselves. Hey?" We thanked him, for the glowing stove, the sheltered cabin, the hot brandy and water, and the soft new bread and butter, seemed to give us all new life. The warm blood ran through our veins, and our clothes soon ceased to steam. The French skipper, who had, as we rowed to the side of the lugger, looked about as unpleasant and villainous a being as it was possible to meet, now seemed quite a good genius, and whatever his failings or the nature of his business, he certainly appeared to be deriving real pleasure from his task of restoring the three half-perished lads who had appealed to him for help, and the more we ate, the more he rubbed his hands together and laughed. "How zey feroce like ze volf, eh? How zey are very mosh hunger. Eat you, my young vrens. Eat you, my young son of ze Jonas Ugglee-stone. I know you fader. He is mon ami. Aha! I drink your helse all of you varey." He poured himself out a little dram of the spirit and tossed it off. For a good half hour he devoted himself to us, making us eat, stoking the little stove, and giving us blankets and rough coats to wear to get us warm again. After that he turned to Bigley and laid his arms upon his shoulders, drooping his hands behind, and throwing back his head as he looked him in the face. "You like me make my sheep to you hous, yais?" "Take us home, sir. Oh, if you please," cried Bigley. "Good--c'est bon--my frien. I make my sheep take you. Lay off, you say, and you land in your leettle boats. My faith, yes! And you tell you fader the Capitaine Apollo Gualtiere--he pronounced his surname as if it was Goo-awl-tee-yairrrre--make him present of hees sone, and hees young friens. Brave boys. Ha, ha!" He nodded to us all in turn, and smiled as he gave us each a friendly rap on the chest with the back of his hand. "Now you warm mosh more my stove, and I go on le pont to make my sheep." "But do you know the Gap, sir?" said Bigley eagerly. "Do I know ze Gahp? Aha! Ho, ho! Do I not know ze Gahp vis him eye shut? Peep! Eh? Aha! And every ozer place chez ze cote. Do I evaire make my sheep off ze Gahp to de leettl business--des affaires vis monsieur votre pere? Aha! Oh, no, nod-a-dalls." He gave his nose a great many little taps with his right forefinger as he spoke, and ended by winking both his eyes a great many times, with the effect that the gold rings in his ears danced, and then he went up the little ladder through the hatchway, to stand half out for a few minutes giving orders, while we had a good look at the lower part of his person, which was clothed in what would have been a stiff canvas petticoat, had it not been sewn up between his legs, so as to turn it into the fashion of a pair of trousers, worn over a pair of heavy fishermen's boots. Then he went up the rest of the way, and let in more light and air, while the motion of the vessel plainly told us that her course had been altered. "Well," said Bob Chowne, speaking now for the first time, "he's the rummest looking beggar I ever saw. Looks as if you might cut him up and make monkeys out of the stuff." "Well, of all the ungrateful--" I began a sentence, but Bob cut me short. "I'm not ungrateful," he said sharply; "and I'm getting nice and warm now; but what does a man want to wear ear-rings for like a girl, and curl up his hair in little greasy ringlets, that look as if they'd been twisted round pipes, and--I say, boys, did you see his breeches?" I nodded rather grimly. "And his boots, old Big; did you see his boots?" "Yes, they looked good water-tighters," said Bigley quietly, and he seemed now to have settled down into his regular old fashion, while Bob Chowne was getting saucy. "And then his hands! Did you see his hands?" continued Bob. "I thought at first I could not eat the bread and butter he had touched. I don't believe he ever washes them." "Why, he had quite small brown hands," said Bigley. "Mine are ever so much larger." "Yes, but how dirty they were!" "It was only tar," said Bigley. "He has been hauling new ropes. Look, some came off on my hand when he had hold of it." "I don't care, I say it was dirt," said Bob obstinately. "He's a Frenchman, and Frenchmen are all alike--nasty, dirty-looking beggars." "Well, I thought as he brought us down in the cabin here, and gave us that warm drink and the bread and butter, what a pity it was that French and English should ever fight and kill one another." "Yah! Hark at him, Sep Duncan," cried Bob. "There's a sentimental, unnatural chap. What do you say?" "Oh, I only say what a difference there is between Bob Chowne now and Bob Chowne when he lay down in the bottom of the boat last night, and howled when old Big made him get up and row." "You want me to hit you, Sep Duncan?" "No," I said. "Because I shall if you talk to me like that. Old Big didn't make me. I was cold and--" "Frightened," I said. "No, I wasn't frightened, sneak." "Well, I was, horribly," I said. "I thought we should never get to shore again. Weren't you frightened, Big?" "Never felt so frightened before since I got wedged in the rocks," said Bigley coolly. "Then you are a pair of cowards," cried Bob sharply. "I was so cold and wet and stiff I could hardly move, but I never felt frightened in the least." I looked at Bigley, and found that he was looking at me; and then he laid his head against the bulkhead, and shut his eyes and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and I laughed too, as the picture of ourselves in the open boat came before me again, with Bigley ordering Bob to get up and row, and him shivering and sobbing and protesting like a child. "What are you laughing at?" he cried. "You've got out of your trouble now and you want to quarrel, I suppose. But I sha'n't; I don't want to fight. Only wait till we get across, you won't laugh when old Jony Uggleston comes down on you both for taking the boat. I shall say I didn't want you to, but you would. And then you've got my father and your father to talk to you after that." But in spite of these unpleasant visions of trouble, which he conjured up, Bigley and I still laughed, for, boy-like, the danger passed, its memory did not trouble us much. We had escaped: we were safe; Bob was making himself ridiculously comic by his hectoring brag, and all we wanted to do was to laugh. In the midst of our mirth, and while Bob Chowne was growing more and more absurd by putting on indignant airs, the hatchway was darkened again by the French skipper's petticoats and boots, and directly after he stood before us smiling and rubbing his hands. "Aha, you!" he said. "You better well, mosh better. I make you jolly boys, eh?" "Yes, sir, we are much better now," I exclaimed, holding out my hand. "We are so much obliged to you for helping us as you have." "Mon garcon, mon ami," he exclaimed; and instead of shaking hands, he folded me in his arms and kissed me on both cheeks. I stepped back as soon as I was free, and stood watching as he served Bigley the same, and then took hold of Bob, whose face wore such an absurdly comical aspect of horror and disgust, that I stood holding my breath, and not daring to look at Bigley for fear I should roar with laughter. "Dat is well," exclaimed the skipper. "It is done, my braves. Good-- good--good. You tink I speak Engleish magnificentment, is it not?" He looked round at us all, and nodded a great many times. "Now you are warm dry, come on ze pont and see my sheep. Ze belle chasse maree. She sail like de bird. Is it not? Now come see." We went on deck, and found as he took us about amongst the crew of seven men, all wearing petticoat canvas trousers, that the big lugger was very dirty and untidy, wanting in paint, and with the deck, or pont as the skipper called it, one litter of baskets, packages, and uncoiled ropes. On the other hand she seemed to be very long and well shaped, and her masts, which were thick and short, had large yards and tremendous sails, which in a favourable wind sent her through the water at a very rapid rate. "Aha! You lofe my sheep," said the skipper, as he watched our faces. "You tink she run herselfs very fas, eh?" We expressed our pleasure, which was the greater that we could see now that the two bold masses which formed the entrance to the Gap were right before us; but even now, as far as we could judge, six or seven miles away. We took a good deal of notice of this, for it showed us how far we had been driven out by the fierce little gale of the previous night; and as I looked over the stern at where our boat was being towed along in the foam, and was thinking that we must have had a narrow escape, the French skipper clapped me on the shoulder, laughed, and said: "You wonder you not go to feed ze fishes at ze bottom? Yes, much; et moi aussi. Ah, mon brave, you nearly go, and--no boat--no boy--no noting. Hah!" I shivered as I realised the truth of what he said, and was musing over what was to come, when Bigley came to me, for the skipper had gone to his men. "Don't tease Bob," he said. "Don't say anything to him about being queer last night, nor about me bullying him. He couldn't help it." "Oh, I sha'n't say anything," I said. "He couldn't help it," whispered Bigley again. "No more could I." We all grew very serious then, for as we neared the shore, there was the question to think over about meeting our fathers, and what they would say. Would they be exceedingly angry with us, or talk quietly about our narrow escape? I found that my companions were thinking as I was, for Bigley said quietly: "I'm afraid my father will be very cross." "So am I," was my reply, when Bob came to where we were gazing over the bulwark shoreward, and said sulkily: "I say, I don't want to be bad friends with you two. My father's sure to give me a big wigging for letting you persuade me to go. Well, I don't mean that," he added with a droll twinkle of the eye, as he saw us stare, "what I mean is, hadn't we all better stick together, and share the blame?" "Yes, of course, Bob," I said; and I felt quite pleased with his frankness, when if he didn't go and spoil it all again by saying: "I thought it would be best, because it would be nicer for you." Our conversation was stopped by Captain Gualtiere coming up, and pointing westward. "Look you!" he exclaimed, "see, mes amis, la _Saucy Lass_." "So it is," cried Bigley eagerly, as he shaded his eyes, and gazed at the lugger in full sail about a couple of miles away, and making for the same point as we--"so it is: it's father's lugger." "Oui, my young frien," said the French skipper; "and he has been to sweep ze sea to try and find you boys." _ |
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