Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Cormorant Crag; A Tale of the Smuggling Days > This page
Cormorant Crag; A Tale of the Smuggling Days, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 14. Daygo Describes Horrors |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER FOURTEEN. DAYGO DESCRIBES HORRORS "Er-her! Going to school! Yer!" Vince, who had some books under his arm, felt a peculiar twitching in the nerves, as he turned sharply upon the heavy-looking lad who had spoken the above words, with the prologue and epilogue formed of jeering laughs, which sounded something like the combinations placed there to represent them. The speaker was the son of the Jemmy Carnach who was, as the Doctor said, a martyr to indigestion--a refined way of expressing his intense devotion to lobsters, the red armour of which molluscs could be seen scattered in every direction about his cottage door, and at the foot of the cliff beyond. As Jemmy Carnach had thought proper to keep up family names in old-fashioned style, he had had his son christened James, like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather--which was as far as Carnach could trace. The result was a little confusing, the Crag island not being big enough for two Jemmy Carnachs. The fishermen, however, got over the difficulty by always calling the father Jemmy and his son Young 'un; but this did not suit Vince and Mike, with whom there had always been a feud, the fisherman's lad having constantly displayed an intense hatred, in his plebeian way, for the young representatives of the patricians on the isle. The manners in which he had shown this, from very early times, were many; and had taken the forms of watching till the companions were below cliffs, and then stealing to the top and dislodging stones, that they might roll down upon their heads; filling his pockets with the thin, sharply ground, flat oyster-shells to be found among the beach pebbles--a peculiarly cutting kind of weapon--and at every opportunity sending them skimming at one or other of the lads; making holes in their boat, when they had one--being strongly suspected of cutting two adrift, so that they were swept away, and never heard of again; and in divers other ways showing his dislike or hatred-- displaying an animus which had become intensified since Mike had called in Vince's help to put a stop to raids and forays upon the old manor orchard when the apples, pears and plums were getting ripe, the result being a good beating with tough oak saplings. Not that this stopped the plundering incursions, for Carnach junior told the two lads, and probably believed, as an inhabitant of the island, that he had as good a right to the fruit as they. Of course the many assaults and insults dealt out by Carnach junior--for he was prolific in unpleasant words and jeers, whenever the companions came within hearing--had results in the shape of reprisals. Vince was not going to see Mike Ladelle's ear bleeding from a cut produced by a forcibly propelled oyster-shell, without making an attack upon the young human catapult; and Mike's wrath naturally boiled over upon seeing a piece of rock pushed off the edge of the cliff, and fall within a foot of where Vince was lying on the sand at the foot. But the engagements which followed seemed to do no good, for Carnach junior was so extremely English that he never seemed to realise that he had been thrashed till he had lain down with his eyes so swollen up that there was hardly room for the tears to squeeze themselves out, and his lips so disfigured that his howls generally escaped through his nose. "I never saw such a fellow," Vince used to say: "if you only slap his face, it swells up horribly." "And it's of no use to lick him, it doesn't do any good," added Mike. "Why, I must have thrashed him a hundred times, and you too." This was a remark which showed that either Mr Deane's instructions in the art of calculation were faulty, or Mike's mental capacity inadequate for acquiring correctness of application. Still there must have been some truth in Mike's words, for Vince, who was a great stickler for truthfulness, merely said: "Ah! we have given it to him pretty often." Vince and Mike did not take to Young 'un or Youngster, as a sobriquet for Carnach junior, and consequently they invented quite a variety of names, which were chosen, not for the purpose of distinguishing the fat, flat-faced, rather pig-eyed youth from other people, but it must be owned for annoyance, and by way of retaliation for endless insults. "You see, we must do something," said Mike. "Of course," agreed Vince; "and I'm tired of making myself hot and knocking my knuckles about against his stupid head; and besides, it seems so blackguardly, as a doctor's son, to be fighting a chap like that." "Oh, I don't know," said Mike thoughtfully: "I shall be a Sir some day, I suppose." "What a game!" chuckled Vince--"Sir Michael Ladelle!" "I don't see anything to laugh at," said Mike; "but, as I was saying, if we don't lick him every now and then there'll be no bearing it. He'll get worse and worse." So it was to show their contempt for the young lout that they invented names for him--weakly, perhaps, but very boylike--and for a time he was James the Second, but the lad seemed rather to approve of that; and it was soon changed for Barnacle, which had the opposite effect, and two fights down in a sandy cave resulted, at intervals of a week, one with each of his enemies, after which the Barnacle lay down as usual, and cried into the sand, which acted, Vince said, like blotting paper. Tar-pot, suggested by a begrimed appearance, lasted for months, and was succeeded by Doughy, and this again by Puffy, consequent upon the lad's head having so peculiar a tendency to what home-made bread makers call "rise," and as there was no baker on Cormorant Crag the term was familiar enough. A whole string of forgotten names followed, but none of them stuck, for they did not irritate Carnach junior; but the right one in the boys' eyes was found at last, upon a very hot day, following one upon which Vince and Mike had been prawning with stick and net among the rock pools under the cliffs,--and prawning under difficulties. For as they climbed along over, or waded amongst the fallen rocks detached from the towering heights above, Carnach junior, who had watched them descend, furnished himself with a creel full of heavy pebbles, and, making his way to the top of the cliffs, kept abreast and carefully out of sight, so as to annoy his natural enemies from time to time by dropping a stone into, or as near as he could manage to the little pool they were about to fish. Words, addressed apparently to space, though really to the invisible foe, were vain, and the boys fished on; but they did not take home many prawns for Mrs Burnet to have cooked for their tea. The very next day, though, they had their revenge, for they came upon the lad toiling homeward, shouldering a couple of heavy oars, a boat mast and yard, and the lug-sail rolled round them, and lashed so as to form a big bundle, as much as he could carry; and, consequent upon his scarlet face, Vince saluted him with: "Hullo, Lobster!" That name went like an arrow to the mark, and pierced right through the armour of dense stupidity in which the boy was clad. Lobster! That fitted with his father's weakness and the jeering remarks he had often heard made by neighbours; and ever after the name stuck, and irritated him whenever it was used. It was used on the morning when Vince was thinking deeply of the discovery of the previous day, and going over to Sir Francis Ladelle's for his lessons with Mike. As we have said, he was saluted with coarse, jeering laughter, and the contemptuous utterance of the words "Going to school?" Being excited, Vince turned sharply upon the great hulking lad, and his eyes began to blaze war, but with a laugh he only fell back on the nickname. "Hullo, Lobster!" he cried: "that you?" and went on. Carnach junior doubled his fists, and looked as if he were going to attack; but Vince, strong in the consciousness that he could at any time thrash the great lad, walked on with his books, heedless of the fact that he was followed at a distance, for his head was full of kegs and bales neatly done up in canvas, standing in good-sized stacks. "I wonder how many years it has been there," he kept on saying to himself; and he was still wondering when he reached the old manor gates, went into the study, and there found Mike and their tutor waiting. Both lads tried very hard to keep their discovery out of their minds that morning, but tried in vain. There it was constantly, and translated itself into Latin, conjugated and declined itself, and then became compound algebraic equations, with both. Mr Deane bore all very patiently, though, and a reproachful word or two about inattention and condensation of thought upon study was all that escaped him. At last, to Vince's horror, things came to a kind of climax, for Mike suddenly looked across the table at the tutor, and said quickly:-- "I say, Mr Deane!" The tutor looked up at once. "I want to ask you a question in--in--something--" "Mathematics?" suggested the tutor. "N-no," said Mike: "I think it must be in law or social economy. I don't know, though, what you would call it." "Well: let me hear." "Suppose anybody discovered a great store of smuggled goods, hidden in a--some place. Whom would it belong to?" "To the people who put it there, of course." Vince's eyes almost blazed as he turned them upon the questioner. "Yes," continued Mike; "but suppose there were no people left who put it there, and they had all died, perhaps a hundred years ago?" "Oh, then," said the tutor thoughtfully, "I should think it would belong to the people upon whose ground it was discovered,--or no: I fancy it would be what is called 'treasure trove,' and go to the crown." "Crown--crown? What, to a public-house?" "No, no, my dear boy: to the king." "Oh, I see," said Mike thoughtfully. "Is that all?" "Yes, sir; that's all." "Well, then, wasn't it rather a foolish question to ask, just in the middle of our morning's work? There, pray go on: we are losing a great deal of time." The boys tried to get on; but they did not, for Mike was conscious of being kicked twice, and Vince was making up a tremendous verbal attack upon his fellow-student for letting out the discovery they had made. It came to words as soon as the lessons were over, and Mike took his cap to accompany Vince part of the way home, and make their plans for the afternoon. "I couldn't help it--'pon my word I couldn't," cried Mike. "I felt like that classic chap, who was obliged to whisper secrets to the water, and that I must speak about that stuff there to somebody." "And now he'll go and talk to your father about it, and our secret place will be at an end. Why, we might have kept it all quiet for years!" "So we can now. I put it so that old Deane shouldn't understand. I say, if he's right we can't claim all that stuff: it'll belong to the king." "I suppose so," said Vince. "Never mind: we'll keep it till he wants it. Hullo! what's old Lobster doing there?" Vince turned in the direction pointed out; and, sure enough, there was Carnach junior sunning himself on a block of granite, which just peeped up through the grass. "Got nothing to do, I suppose," said Vince. "I saw him when I was coming. But never mind him. And I say, don't, pray don't be so stupid again." "All right. I'll try not to be, if it was stupid," said Mike. "Well, how about this afternoon?" "I'll come and meet you at the old place, about half-past two." This was agreed to; and, full of anticipations about the examination of the farther cave, they parted, leaving Carnach junior apparently fast asleep upon the grey stone. Just as Vince reached home he came upon Daygo, who gave him a nod; and the lad flushed as he thought triumphantly of the discoveries they had made, in the face of the old fisherman's superstitious warnings of terrible dangers. "Morn'--or art'noon, young gen'leman," said Daygo, by way of salutation. "Lookye here: I'm going out 'sart'noon to take up my pots and nets, and if you and young squire likes to come, I'll take you for a sail." "Where will you take us?" said Vince eagerly. "Oh, round and about, and in and out among the rocks." "Will you sail right away round by the Black Scraw?" "No, I just won't," growled the old man fiercely. "What do you want to go round about the Scraw for?" "To see what it's like, and find some of the terrible currents and things you talked about, Joe." "Lookye here, my lad," growled the old fellow, "as I told you boys afore, I want to live as long as I can, and not come to no end, with the boat bottom uppards and me sucked down by things in the horrid whirlypools out there. Why, what would your mars and pars say to me if I took you into dangers 'orrible and full o' woe? Nay, nay, I arn't a young harem-scarem-brained chap, and I shan't do it: my boat's too good. So look here, if you two likes to come for a bit o' fishing, I'll take the big scrarping spoon with me, and go to a bank I know after we've done, and try and fish you up a basket o' oysters. If you comes you comes, but if you arn't wi' me soon arter dinner, why, I hystes my sail and goes by myself. So what do you say?" "I can't say anything without seeing Mike Ladelle first. Look here: I'm going to him this afternoon, and if he'll come, we'll run over to the little dock where your boat is." "Very good, young gen'leman; on'y mind this: if you arn't there punctooal, as folks call it, I'm off without you, and you'll be sorry, for there's a powerful lot o' fish about these last few days." "Don't wait if we're not there directly after dinner," said Vince. Old Daygo chuckled. "You needn't be afraid of that, my lad," he said; "and mind this,--if you're late and I've started, I'm not coming back, so mind that. D'reckly you've had your bit o' dinner, or I'm gone." "All right, Joe," cried Vince; and he hurried in, feeling pulled both ways, for he could not help nursing the idea that, once out a short distance at sea, he might be able to coax the old fisherman into taking them as close as he could safely get to the ridge of rocks which hid the little rounded cove from passers-by. _ |
||