New Treasure Seekers; Or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune
"We want to talk to you awfully," said Alice, "if you don't mind?"
"Talk away," said he.
And then, as so often happens, no one could think of anything to say.
Suddenly Noel said, "_I_ think you look nice too, but I think you look
as though you had a secret history. Have you?"
"Not me," replied the Viking-looking stranger. "I ain't got no history,
nor jog-graphy neither. They didn't give us that much schooling when I
was a lad."
"Oh!" replied Noel; "but what I really meant was, were you ever a pirate
or anything?"
"Never in all my born," replied the stranger, now thoroughly roused;
"I'd scorn the haction. I was in the navy, I was, till I lost the sight
of my eye, looking too close at gunpowder. Pirates is snakes, and they
ought to be killed as such."
We felt rather sorry, for though of course it is very wrong to be a
pirate, it is very interesting too. Things are often like this. That is
one of the reasons why it is so hard to be truly good.
Dora was the only one who was pleased. She said--
"Yes, pirates _are_ very wrong. And so are highwaymen and smugglers."
"I don't know about highwaymen," the old man replied; "they went out
afore my time, worse luck; but my father's great-uncle by the mother's
side, he see one hanged once. A fine upstanding fellow he was, and made
a speech while they was a-fitting of the rope. All the women was
snivelling and sniffing and throwing bokays at him."
"Did any of the bouquets reach him?" asked the interested Alice.
"Not likely," said the old man. "Women can't never shy straight. But I
shouldn't wonder but what them posies heartened the chap up a bit. An
afterwards they was all a-fightin' to get a bit of the rope he was hung
with, for luck."
"Do tell us some more about him," said all of us but Dora.
"I don't know no more about him. He was just hung--that's all. They was
precious fond o' hangin' in them old far-away times."
"Did you ever know a smuggler?" asked H.O.--"to speak to, I mean?"
"Ah, that's tellings," said the old man, and he winked at us all.
So then we instantly knew that the coastguards had been mistaken when
they said there were no more smugglers now, and that this brave old man
would not betray his comrades, even to friendly strangers like us. But
of course he could not know exactly how friendly we were. So we told
him.
Oswald said--
"We _love_ smugglers. We wouldn't even tell a word about it if you would
only tell us."
"There used to be lots of smuggling on these here coasts when my father
was a boy," he said; "my own father's cousin, his father took to the
smuggling, and he was a doin' so well at it, that what does he do, but
goes and gets married, and the Preventives they goes and nabs him on his
wedding-day, and walks him straight off from the church door, and claps
him in Dover Jail."
"Oh, his poor wife," said Alice, "whatever did she do?"
"_She_ didn't do nothing," said the old man. "It's a woman's place not
to do nothing till she's told to. He'd done so well at the smuggling,
he'd saved enough by his honest toil to take a little public. So she
sets there awaitin' and attendin' to customers--for well she knowed him,
as he wasn't the chap to let a bit of a jail stand in the way of his
station in life. Well, it was three weeks to a day after the wedding,
there comes a dusty chap to the 'Peal of Bells' door. That was the sign
over the public, you understand."
We said we did, and breathlessly added, "Go on!"
"A dusty chap he was; got a beard and a patch over one eye, and he come
of a afternoon when there was no one about the place but her.
"'Hullo, missis,' says he; 'got a room for a quiet chap?'
"'I don't take in no men-folks,' says she; 'can't be bothered with 'em.'
"'You'll be bothered with _me_, if I'm not mistaken,' says he.
"'Bothered if I will,' says she.
"'Bothered if you won't,' says he, and with that he ups with his hand
and off comes the black patch, and he pulls off the beard and gives her
a kiss and a smack on the shoulder. She always said she nearly died when
she see it was her new-made bridegroom under the beard.
"So she took her own man in as a lodger, and he went to work up at
Upton's Farm with his beard on, and of nights he kept up the smuggling
business. And for a year or more no one knowd as it was him. But they
got him at last."
"What became of him?" We all asked it.
"He's dead," said the old man. "But, Lord love you, so's everybody as
lived in them far-off old ancient days--all dead--Preventives too--and
smugglers and gentry: all gone under the daisies."
We felt quite sad. Oswald hastily asked if there wasn't any smuggling
now.
"Not hereabouts," the old man answered, rather quickly for him. "Don't
you go for to think it. But I did know a young chap--quite young he is
with blue eyes--up Sunderland way it was. He'd got a goodish bit o'
baccy and stuff done up in a ole shirt. And as he was a-goin' up off of
the beach a coastguard jumps out at him, and he says to himself, 'All u.
p. this time,' says he. But out loud he says, 'Hullo, Jack, that you? I
thought you was a tramp,' says he.
"'What you got in that bundle?' says the coastguard.
"'My washing,' says he, 'and a couple pairs of old boots.'
"Then the coastguard he says, 'Shall I give you a lift with it?'
thinking in himself the other chap wouldn't part if it was anything it
oughtn't to be. But that young chap was too sharp. He says to himself,
'If I don't he'll nail me, and if I do--well, there's just a chance.'
"So he hands over the bundle, and the coastguard he thinks it must be
all right, and he carries it all the way up to his mother's for him,
feeling sorry for the mean suspicions he'd had about the poor old chap.
But that didn't happen near here. No, no."
I think Dora was going to say, "_Old_ chap--but I thought he was young
with blue eyes?" but just at that minute a coastguard came along and
ordered us quite harshly not to lean on the boat. He was quite
disagreeable about it--how different from our own coastguards! He was
from a different station to theirs. The old man got off very slowly.
And all the time he was arranging his long legs so as to stand on them,
the coastguard went on being disagreeable as hard as he could, in a loud
voice.
When our old man had told the coastguard that no one ever lost anything
by keeping a civil tongue in his head, we all went away feeling very
angry.
Alice took the old man's hand as we went back to the village, and asked
him why the coastguard was so horrid.
"They gets notions into their heads," replied the old man; "the most
innocentest people they comes to think things about. It's along of there
being no smuggling in these ere parts now. The coastguards ain't got
nothing to do except think things about honest people."
We parted from the old man very warmly, all shaking hands. He lives at a
cottage not quite in the village, and keeps pigs. We did not say goodbye
till we had seen all the pigs.
I daresay we should not have gone on disliking that disagreeable
coastguard so much if he had not come along one day when we were talking
to our own coastguards, and asked why they allowed a pack of young
shavers in the boat-house. We went away in silent dignity, but we did
not forget, and when we were in bed that night Oswald said--
"Don't you think it would be a good thing if the coastguards had
something to do?"
Dicky yawned and said he didn't know.
"I should like to be a smuggler," said Oswald. "Oh, yes, go to sleep if
you like; but I've got an idea, and if you'd rather be out of it I'll
have Alice instead."
"Fire away!" said Dicky, now full of attention, and leaning on his
elbow.
"Well, then," said Oswald, "I think we _might_ be smugglers."
"We've played all those things so jolly often," said Dicky.
"But I don't mean play," said Oswald. "I mean the real thing. Of course
we should have to begin in quite a small way. But we should get on in
time. And we might make quite a lot for poor Miss Sandal."
"Things that you smuggle are expensive," said Dicky.
"Well, we've got the chink the Indian uncle sent us on Saturday. I'm
certain we could do it. We'd get some one to take us out at night in one
of the fishing-boats--just tear across to France and buy a keg or a bale
or something, and rush back."
"Yes, and get nabbed and put in prison. Not me," said Dicky. "Besides,
who'd take us?"
"That old Viking man would," said Oswald; "but of course, if you funk
it!"
"I don't funk anything," said Dicky, "bar making an ape of myself. Keep
your hair on, Oswald. Look here. Suppose we get a keg with nothing in
it--or just water. We should have all the fun, and if we _were_ collared
we should have the laugh of that coastguard brute."
Oswald agreed, but he made it a condition that we should call it the keg
of brandy, whatever was in it, and Dicky consented.
Smuggling is a manly sport, and girls are not fitted for it by nature.
At least Dora is not; and if we had told Alice she would have insisted
on dressing as a boy and going too, and we knew Father would not like
this. And we thought Noel and H.O. were too young to be smugglers with
any hope of success. So Dicky and I kept the idea to ourselves.
We went to see the Viking man the next day. It took us some time to make
him understand what we wanted, but when he did understand he slapped his
leg many times, and very hard, and declared that we were chips of the
old block.
"But I can't go for to let you," he said; "if you was nailed it's the
stone jug, bless your hearts."
So then we explained about the keg really having only water in, and he
slapped his leg again harder than ever, so that it would really have
been painful to any but the hardened leg of an old sea-dog. But the
water made his refusals weaker, and at last he said--
"Well, see here, Benenden, him as owns the _Mary Sarah_, he's often took
out a youngster or two for the night's fishing, when their pa's and ma's
hadn't no objection. You write your pa, and ask if you mayn't go for
the night's fishing, or you get Mr. Charteris to write. He knows it's
all right, and often done by visitors' kids, if boys. And if your pa
says yes, I'll make it all right with Benenden. But mind, it's just a
night's fishing. No need to name no kegs. That's just betwixt
ourselves."
So we did exactly as he said. Mr. Charteris is the clergyman. He was
quite nice about it, and wrote for us, and Father said "Yes, but be very
careful, and don't take the girls or the little ones."
We showed the girls the letter, and that removed the trifling
ill-feeling that had grown up through Dick and me having so much secret
talk about kegs and not telling the others what was up.
Of course we never breathed a word about kegs in public, and only to
each other in bated breaths.
What Father said about not taking the girls or the little ones of course
settled any wild ideas Alice might have had of going as a cabin-girl.
The old Viking man, now completely interested in our scheme, laid all
the plans in the deepest-laid way you can think. He chose a very dark
night--fortunately there was one just coming on. He chose the right time
of the tide for starting, and just in the greyness of the evening when
the sun is gone down, and the sea somehow looks wetter than at any other
time, we put on our thick undershirts, and then our thickest suits and
football jerseys over everything, because we had been told it would be
very cold. Then we said goodbye to our sisters and the little ones, and
it was exactly like a picture of the "Tar's Farewell," because we had
bundles, with things to eat tied up in blue checked handkerchiefs, and
we said goodbye to them at the gate, and they would kiss us.