Cormorant Crag Part 5

Daygo's big boots crushed something beside the heather and little tufts of fine golden gorse; for as they went along a slope the sweet aromatic scent of wild thyme floated to the boys' nostrils; and the bees, startled from their quest for honey, darted to right and left, with a low, humming noise, which was the treble, in Nature's music, to the soft, low ba.s.s which came in a deep whisper from over the cliff to the right. And as the boys drew in long, deep draughts of the pure, fresh air which bathed their island home, their eyes were full of that happy light which spoke volumes of how they were in the full tide of true enjoyment of life in their brightest days.

They could not have expressed what they felt--perhaps they were unconscious of the fact: that knowledge was only to come later on, in the lookings-back of maturity; but they knew that the moor about them seemed beautiful, and there was a keen enjoyment of everything upon which their eyes rested, whether it was the purple and golden-green slope, or the wondrous lights upon the ever-changing sea.

"Hi! look! There goes a mag," cried Mike, as one of the brilliantly plumed birds rose suddenly from among some grey crags, and went off in its peculiar flight, the white of its breast of the purest, and the sun glancing from the purple, gold and green upon its wings and lengthy tail.

"Hooray!--another--and another--and another!" cried Vince, who the next moment pa.s.sed from the enjoyment of the beautiful in nature to the grotesque; for he covered his lips with one hand to smother a laugh, and pointed with the other to a huge square patch of drugget laboriously st.i.tched upon the back of the solid-looking trousers to strengthen them for sitting upon the thwart of a boat, a rock, or a bush of furze, which, when so guarded against, makes a pleasantly elastic seat.

But Vince's companion did not find it so easy to control his mirth; for, as he gazed at the gigantic trousers in motion along the slope, their appearance seemed so comic, in conjunction with Vince's mirthful face, that he burst into a hearty laugh.

Vince gave him a heavy punch in the ribs, which was intended to mean: "Now you've done it: he won't let us come!"

But old Daygo did not look round; he only shook his head and shouted:

"Won't do, young Ladle--_Ladelle_: you're thinking about the tar water, but you can't be so funny as he."

The boys exchanged glances, but did not try to explain; neither speaking till, to their surprise, the man turned suddenly to his right, and made for a huge b.u.t.tress which ran out some fifty feet from the rugged edge of the cliff and ended in a soft patch of sheep-nibbled, velvet gra.s.s, upon which lay, partly buried, a couple of long iron guns, while the remains of a breastwork of stone guarded the edge of the cliff.

"I say! where are you going?" cried Vince.

"Eh? Here," said the man, sitting down astride of one of the old cannon. "Think I was going to pitch you off?"

"No," said Vince coolly, as he went close to the edge and looked down at the deeply-coloured purple, almost black, water at the foot of the cliff, where there was not an inch of strand. "Wouldn't much matter if you did: it's awfully deep there, and no rocks. I could swim."

"Swim? Wheer?" said the man sharply. "No man could swim far there.

T'reble currents and deep holes, where the tide runs into and sucks you down if it don't take you out to sea. n.o.body's safe there."

"Might go all right in a boat," said Vince, still gazing down, attracted by the place, where he had often watched before, and noted how the cormorants, s.h.a.gs, and rock-doves flew in and out, disappearing beneath his feet--for the great b.u.t.tress overhung the sea, and its face could only be seen by those who sailed by.

"Nay, nay; no one goes in a boat along here, boy. There, I'm going to fill my pipe and light it, and then we'll go. Which o' you's got a sun-gla.s.s?"

"I have," said Vince quickly.

"Let's have it, then: save me nicking about with my flint and steel."

The rough black pipe was filled, and the convex lens held so that the sun's rays were brought to a focus on the tobacco, which dried rapidly, crisped up, and soon began to smoke, when a few draws ignited the whole surface, and the man began to puff slowly and regularly as he handed back the gla.s.s.

"It's nothing a boy could do," he said, with one of his fierce, grim looks, "so don't you two get a-glowering at a pipe like that."

"Get out!" said Vince quickly. "I wasn't thinking about that. I was wondering who first found out that you could get fire from the sun."

"Some chap as had a spy-gla.s.s," said the old fellow, "and unscrewed the bottom same as I do when I wants a light. Might ha' fired one o' these here with a gla.s.s if you put a bit o' tinder in the touch-hole."

"Yes," said Vince, "if the French had come."

"Tchah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man contemptuously: "all fools who put the guns about the island! No Frenchies couldn't ha' come and landed here.

Wants some one as knows every rock to sail a small boat, let alone a ship o' war. All gone to pieces on the rocks if they'd tried."

"Same as the old Spaniards did with the Armada," said Vince.

"Spannles! Did they come?"

"To be sure they did, and got wrecked and beaten and sunk, and all sorts."

"Sarve 'em right for being such fools as to come without a man aboard as knowed the rocks and currents and tides. Dessay I could ha' showed 'em; on'y there's nowhere for 'em to harbour."

"You'd better not try, if ever they want to come again," cried Vince, with animation. "Father says you are a Spaniard."

"Me?" cried the man, starting. "Not me. I'm English, flesh and bone."

"No: father says Spanish."

"Your father knows something about salts and senny," growled the old fellow, "but I know more about Joe Daygo o' the Crag than any man going.

English right down to my boots."

"No: Spanish descent, father says," persisted Vince. "He says he goes by your face and your name."

"What does he mean?" said the man fiercely. "Good a face as his'n!"

"And princ.i.p.ally by your nose. He says it's a regular Spanish one."

"He don't know what he's talking about," growled the old man, rubbing the feature in question. "How can it be Spanish when all the rest of me's English?"

"It's the shape," continued Vince; while Mike lay on his back, listened, and stared up at the grey gulls which went sailing round between him and the vividly blue sky. "He says there isn't another nose in the island a bit like it."

"Tell him he'd better leave my nose alone. But he is right there: there arn't a nose like it--they're all round or stunted, or turn t'other way up."

"Then he says your name Daygo's only a corruption of Diego, which is Spanish for James."

"Yah! It's Daygo--Joe Daygo--and not James at all. He's thinking about Jemmy Carnach."

"And he says he feels sure your people came over with the Spanish Armada, and you're descended from some sailor, named Diego, who was wrecked."

"You tell your father to mix his physic," grumbled the man sourly.--"Here, are you two going to stop here talking all day?"

"No," cried Mike, springing up, his example being followed by Vince, who was riding on the breech of the other gun.

"Then come on," growled the man, who made off now at a tremendous rate.

Away over furze, and up and down over sunny slopes, where the fallow-chats rose, showing their white tail coverts; in and out among bare patches of granite, which rose above the great clumps of gorse; and still on, till all before them was sea. Then he began to rapidly descend a gully, where everything that was green was left behind, and they were between two vast walls of rock, almost shut-in by a natural breakwater stretching across, half covered by the sea and sand. Below them, in a natural pool, lay a boat which might have been built and launched to sail upon the tiny dock of stone; for there was apparently no communication with the sea, so well was it shut off from where, as the bare and worn ma.s.ses of grey rock showed, the waves must come thundering in when the west wind blew.

Old Daygo went clumping down in his heavy boots, and the boys followed, soon to reach where stones as big as cheeses lay in a long slope, whither they had been hurled by the storms, and were rolled over till they were smooth and roughly round as the pebbles in a stream. Next they had to mount a great barrier, which now hid the boat, and then descended to its side, where it lay in the pool, only about twice as big as itself, but which proved now to be the widening out of a huge crack in the granite rocks, and zigzagged along to the sea, full of clear water at all times, and forming a sheltered ca.n.a.l to the tiny dock.

"Some on 'em 'd like to have that bit o' harbour," said the man, with a grin which showed his great white teeth; "but it's mine, and always will be. Jump in."

The boys obeyed, and the man fetched a boat-hook with a very sharp, keen point, from where it hung, in company with some well-tarred ropes, nets, and other fishing-gear, in a sheltered nook amongst the rocks, and then joined them, and began to push the boat along the narrow waterway.

At the first wave sent rippling outward by the movement of the boat, there was a rush and splash a dozen yards in front, as a shoal of good-sized fish darted seaward, some in their hurry leaping right out of the water, to fall in again with a plunge, which scared the rest in their flight.

The boys sprang up excitedly, and Daygo nodded.