Chapter 9

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_ 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." _

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