CHAPTER TEN.
AFLOAT--AND ASHORE.
"Sure, I'm almost dead entirely, with all that hurrying and scurrying!"exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, when she was at length got safely on board thelittle steamer and comfortably placed on a cosy seat aft, near thewheel, to which Captain Dresser had gallantly escorted her. "Really,now, I couldn't have run another yard, if it had been to save me life!"
She panted out the words with such a racy admixture of her Irish"brogue," which always became more "pronounced" with her when she was atall excited in any way, that the Captain, even while showing everysympathy for her distressed condition, could not help chuckling as heimitated her tone of voice and accent--much to the amusement of MasterBob and Miss Nellie, you may be sure!
"Sure, an' there's no knowin' what ye can do, now, till ye thry, ma'am!"said he. "Is there, me darlint?"
"None of your nonsense," she replied laughing; "I won't have you makingfun of my country like that. I'm sure you're just as much an Irishmanas I am!"
This slip delighted the Captain.
"There, ma'am," he exclaimed exultingly, "you've been and gone and putyour foot in it now in all conscience."
"Oh, auntie!" cried Nellie, "an _Irishman_!"
This made Mrs Gilmour see her blunder, and she cheerfully joined in thelaugh against herself.
Bob, meanwhile, had stationed himself by the engine-room hatchway, andwas contemplating with rapt attention the almost human-like movements ofthe machinery below.
How wonderful it all was, he thought--the up and down stroke of thepiston in and out of the cylinder, which oscillated from side to sideguided by the eccentric; with the steady systematic revolution of theshaft, borne round by the crank attached to the piston-head, all workingso smoothly, and yet with such resistless force!
The whole was a marvel to him, as indeed it is to many of us to whom amarine engine is no novelty.
"Well, my young philosopher," said the Captain, tapping him on theshoulder and making him take off his gaze for a moment from the sight,"do you think you understand the engines by this time, eh?"
Bob only needed the hint to speak; and out he came with a whole volleyof questions.
"What is that thing there?" he asked, "the thing that goes round, Imean."
"The paddle-shaft," replied the Captain; "it turns the wheels."
"And that other thing that goes up and down?"
"The piston-rod," said the old sailor. "It is this which turns theshaft."
"Then, I want to know how the piston makes the shaft turn round, when itonly goes up and down itself?"
"The `eccentric' manages to do that, although it was a puzzle for a longtime to engineers to solve the problem--not until, I believe, Fultonthought of this plan," said the Captain; and, he then went on to explainhow, in the old beam-engine of Watt, as well as in the earliercontrivances for utilising steam-power, a fly-wheel was the meansadopted for changing the perpendicular action of the piston into acircular motion. "Of course, though," he added, "this fly-wheel wasonly available in stationary engines for pumping and so on; but, whenthe principle of the eccentric was discovered later in the day, thepreviously uneducated young giant, `Steam,' was then broken to harness,so to speak, being thenceforth made serviceable for dragging railway-carriages on our iron roads, and propelling ships without the aid ofsails, and against the wind even, if need be!"
"But what is steam?" was Bob's next query. "That's what I want toknow."
This fairly bothered the Captain.
"Steam?" he repeated, "steam, eh? humph! steam is, well let me see,steam is--steam!"
Bob exploded at this, his merriment being shared by Nellie and MrsGilmour, the latter not sorry for the old sailor's "putting his foot init" by a very similar blunder to that for which he had laughed at hershortly before; while, as for Dick, the struggles he made to hide thebroad grin which would show on his face were quite comical and evenpainful to witness.
The Captain pretended to get into a great rage; although his twinklingeyes and suppressed chuckle testified that it was only pretence all thetime, though his passion was well simulated.
"I don't see anything to laugh at, you young rascal," he said to Bob."I'm sure I've given you quite as good a definition as you would find inany of those `catechisms of common things'--catechisms of conundrums, Icall them--which boys and girls are made to learn by rote, like parrots,without really acquiring any sensible knowledge of the subjects they aresupposed to teach! I might tell you, as these works do, that `steam wasan elastic fluid generated by water when in a boiling state'; but, wouldyou be any the wiser for that piece of information, eh?"
"No, Captain," answered Bob, still giggling, "I don't understand."
"Or, I might tell you `steam: is only a synonym for heat, the cause ofall motion'--do you understand that?"
Bob still shook his head, trying vainly to keep from laughing.
"Of course not," cried the Captain triumphantly, "nor would I, either,unless I knew something more about it; and to tell you that would takeme all the day nearly."
"Oh spare us," said Mrs Gilmour plaintively. "Pray spare us that!"
"I will, ma'am," he replied. "I assure you I wasn't going to do it.Some time or other, though, this young shaver shall come along with mewhen one of the new ships goes out from the dockyard for her steamtrials; and then, perhaps, he will be able to have everything explainedto him properly, without boring you or bothering me."
"How jolly!" ejaculated Bob. "I should like that."
"You mustn't count your chickens before they're hatched," growled theother, turning round on him abruptly; "and, if ever I catch yousniggering again when I'm talking I'll--I'll--"
What the Captain's terrible threat was must ever remain a mystery; for,just at that moment, Nell, who had been looking over the side of thesteamer, watching the creamy foam churned-up by her paddles and rollingwith heavy undulations into the long white wake astern marking herprogress through the water, suddenly uttered an exclamation.
"Look, look, aunt Polly!" she cried excitedly. "Oh, look!"
"What, dearie?" inquired Mrs Gilmour, bending towards her, thinking shehad dropped her glove or something into the sea. "What is it?"
"There, there!" said Nellie, pointing out some dark objects that couldbe seen tumbling about in the tideway some distance off the starboardquarter. "See those big fishes, auntie! Are they whales?"
It was the Captain's turn to laugh now.
"Whales, eh? By Jove, you'll be the death of me, missy, by Jove, youwill, ho-ho-ho!" he chuckled, leaning on his stick for support. "Whatdoes Shakespeare say, eh? `very like a whale,' eh? Ho-ho-ho!"
Miss Nell did not like this at all, though she did not object tolaughing at others.
"Well, what are they?" she asked indignantly. "What are they?"
"Pigs;" replied the Captain with a grave face, but there was a slytwinkle of his left eye approaching to a wink. "Those are pigs, missy."
"I don't believe it," cried the young lady in a pet, putting up hershoulders in high disdain. "You're only making fun of me!"
"Hush, dearie, you mustn't be rude," said Mrs Gilmour reprovingly; "butsure, Captain, you shouldn't make game of the child."
"I assure you, I'm not doing so, ma'am," he protested, chuckling thoughstill with much enjoyment. "I've only told her the simple truth. They_are_ pigs, sea-pigs if you like, commonly called porpoises. But,whales, by Jove, that's a good joke, ho-ho-ho!"
This time Nellie laughed too, the old sailor seemed to enjoy her mistakewith such gusto; and, harmony being thus restored, they all turned towatch the graceful motions of the animals that had caused thediscussion, which, swimming abreast of the vessel, were ever and anondarting across her bows and playing round her, describing the mostbeautiful curves as they dived under each other, apparently indulging ina game of leap-frog.
The _Bembridge Belle_ was now just about midway between Southsea andSeaview, and close upon the buoy marking the spot where the old _MarieRose_, the f
irst big ship of our embryo navy, sank in the reign of bluffKing Hal, in an action she had with a French squadron that attemptedentering the Solent with the idea of capturing the Isle of Wight. The`mounseers,' as the Captain explained to Bob, were beaten off in thebattle and most of their vessels captured, a result owing largely to thepart played by the gallant _Marie Rose_; though, sad be it to relate,while resisting all the efforts made by the enemy to carry her by theboard, being somewhat top-heavy, "she `turned the turtle' at the verymoment when her guns were brought to bear a-starboard, to give a finalbroadside to the French admiral and settle the action, the poor thingthen incontinently sinking to the bottom, where her bones yet lie."
"Not far-off either," continued the Captain, "the _Royal George_ alsofoundered in the last century, with over nine hundred hands, there beinga lot of shore folk in the ship beside her crew. Her Admiral,Kempenfeldt, was also on board, and--"
"Yes," said Mrs Gilmour, interrupting him; "and, sure, there's a prettylittle poem my favourite Cowper wrote about it which I recollect Ilearnt by heart when I was a little girl, much smaller than you, Nell.The lines began thus-- `Toll for the brave, the brave that are nomore,'--don't you remember them; I'm sure you must, Captain?"
"Can't say I do, ma'am," he replied--"poetry isn't in my line. But, asI was saying, the _Royal George_ heeled over pretty nearly in the sameway as the other one did that I just now told you about; and, I rememberwhen I was studying at the Naval College in the Dockyard ever so manyyears ago, when I was a youngster not much older than you, Master Bob,being out at Spithead when the wreck of the vessel was blown up, toclear the fairway for navigation. I've got a ruler and a paper-knifenow at home that were carved out of pieces of her timber which I pickedup at the time."
"How nice!" observed Mrs Gilmour. "A charming recollection, I callit!"
"Well, I don't know about that," replied the Captain, who seemed alittle bit grumpy, and was fumbling in his pockets without apparentlybeing able to find the object of which he was in search--"myrecollection is not so good as I would like it!"
On Mrs Gilmour looking at him inquiringly, noticing the tone in whichhe spoke, the truth came out.
"The fact is, ma'am, I've lost my snuff-box," he said apologetically toexcuse his snappy answers. "I must have left it in my other coat athome."
He did not give up the quest, however, but continued to dive his handson the right and left alternately into pocket after pocket; until,suddenly, the cross expression vanished from his face, being succeededby a beaming smile, followed by his customary good-humoured chuckle.
"I've found it!" he exclaimed triumphantly, producing the missing boxfrom the usual pocket in which he kept it, where it had lain all thetime; and, taking a pinch, the Captain was himself again. "By Jove, Ithought my memory was gone!"
The porpoises all this while continued their gambols about the steamer,now ahead, now astern, now swimming abreast, one after the other,rolling, diving, and jumping out of the water sometimes in their sport.
They seemed to be having a regular holiday of it; and, tired of leap-frog, had taken to "follow my leader" or some other game. At any rate,they did not think much of the _Bembridge Belle_, passing and repassingand going round her at intervals, as if to show their contempt of aspeed they could so readily eclipse.
"Do you often see them here playing like this?" asked Nellie of theCaptain, who was also looking over the side. "Is that the way theyalways swim?"
"No, missy," said he, with all his old geniality, "not often, thoughthey pay us a visit now and then in summer when so inclined. Theircoming now through Spithead is a sign that there's going to be a changeof wind."
"Oh!" cried Nell wonderingly. "How strange!"
"Yes, my dear," went on the old sailor, smiling as he looked down in herpuzzled face upturned to his, "I'm not joking, missy, as you think.Those fellows are regular barometers in their way; and, if you note thedirection towards which they are seen swimming when they pass a ship atsea, from that very point wind, frequently a gale, may be shortlyexpected."
"I hope we're not going to have another storm," said Nellie, thinking oftheir late experience. "I don't like those gales."
"No, no, not so bad as that now, I think," he replied, chuckling away."There probably will be only a slight shift of wind from the westernquarter, whence it is now blowing, to the eastward, whither theporpoises are now making off for, as you can see for yourself."
So it subsequently turned out.
The "sea-pigs," as the Captain had at first jocularly termed them, badegood-bye to the steamer and its passengers when they had got a littleway beyond No Man's fort, and were approaching shoal water, with animpudent flick of their flukey tails in the air as they went off,shaping a straight course out towards the Nab light-ship, as if bound upChannel.
They had all been so occupied watching the porpoises that they had notnoticed the rapid progress the steamer had been making towards her firstport of call on the other side of the Solent; and so, almost at the samemoment that the Captain called Nellie's attention to the last movementsof the queer fish as they vanished in the distance, she shut off hersteam and sidled up to Seaview pier.
"Who's for the shore?" cried out the skipper from his post on thepaddle-box, as soon as the vessel had made fast, and the "brow," organgway, was shoved ashore for the passengers to land, without anyunnecessary delay. "Any ladies or gents for Seaview?"
The majority of those on board at once quitted the steamer, amongst thembeing our quintet.
As they were stepping on to the pier, however, a slight difficulty arosein connection with one of their number.
It was about Rover.
"Is that your dog?" asked the collector of tickets of the
Captain, as the retriever darted ahead in a great hurry. "That yourdog, sir?"
"No," replied the old sailor, "not exactly--why?"
"Because, if he is, he'll have to have a ticket the same as the rest,"said the man. "Dogs is half-price, like children."
"Oh, I didn't know," cried the Captain apologetically, as he put hishand in his pocket and paid Rover's fare, adding in a low voice to MrsGilmour, while they were ascending the steps from the landing-stage tothe pier above, "I do believe that rascal thought I meant to cheat himand smuggle the dog through without paying, the fellow looked at me sosuspiciously."
"Perhaps he did," replied she laughing. "You know you are a verysuspicious-looking gentleman."
"Humph!" he chuckled. "I think Rover intended to do him, though. Hesqueezed himself past my legs very artfully!"
"He did, the naughty dog," said Nellie, who, with Bob, had been muchamused by the little incident. "He's always doing it in London at therailway-stations whenever we go by the underground line; and papa sayshe wants to cheat the company. He comes after us sometimes, and jumpsinto the railway-carriage where we are, when we think him miles away andsafe at home! Did you ever hear of such a thing, aunt Polly?"
"No, dearie," she answered as they all stepped out briskly along therather shaky suspension bridge connecting the pier with the shore, whichoscillated under their feet in a way that made Mrs Gilmour anxious toget off it as quickly as she could to firm ground. "Rover is a cleverfellow, sure!"
"He's a very artful dog!" observed the Captain, whereat Rover wagged histail, as if he understood what he said and appreciated thecompliment--"a very artful dog!"
Arrived on shore, presently, the children were in ecstasies at all theysaw; for, by only crossing the roadway opposite the land end of theshaky bridge, they at once found themselves within the outlyingshrubbery and brushwood of Priory Park, which the kindly proprietorfreely threw open for years to the public, without post or palinginterfering with their enjoyment, until the vandalism and vulgarity ofsome cockney excursionists, who wrought untold destruction to theproperty, led to the rescinding of this privilege!
Although touching the sea, the waters of which lapped its turf at hightide, when once within the park, it seemed to Bob and Nellie as if th
eywere miles away already in the heart of the country; so that, accustomedas they had been only to town life, it may be imagined how great thechange was to them in every way.
As for runaway Dick from Guildford, who had been familiarised to rusticscenes from his earliest infancy, he could see no beauty in the variousobjects that each instant delighted the little Londoners' eyes and ears;for, like the hero of Wordsworth's verse, "the primrose by the river'sbrim" was but a primrose and nothing more to him!
To Bob and Nellie, however, the scene around, with its salient features,disclosed a new world.
There were great, nodding, ox-eyed daisies that popped up pertly oneither side, staring at them from amidst wastes of wild hyacinths andforget-me-nots that were bluer than Nellie's witching eyes.
Pink and white convolvulus hung in festoons across the bracken-borderedlittle winding pathways that led here and there through mazes ofshrubbery and undergrowth, under the arched wilderness of greeneryabove.
Rippling rivulets trickling down from nowhere and wandering whithertheir erratic wills directed, their soft, murmuring voices chiming inwith the gayer carols of the birds.
Amongst these could be distinguished the harmonious notes of some notaltogether unknown to them, the trill of the lark on high, the whistleof the blackbird in the hidden covert, the "pretty Dick" of the thrush,and the "chink, chink!" of the robin and coo of the dove, mingled withthe sweet but subdued song of the yellow-hammer and sharp staccatoaccompaniment of the untiring chaffinch; while, all the time, a colonyof asthmatic old rooks in the taller trees of the park cawed their partin the concert in a deep bass key at regular intervals, "Caw, caw, caw!"
Bob and Nellie were so delighted and unsparing of their admiration ofeverything they saw and heard, that Dick fell to wondering at thepleasure they took in things which he held of little account.
If unappreciative, however, Dick was of some service in telling Nelliethe names of the principal wild-flowers; while he rose high in Bob'sestimation by his lore in the matter of birds' nests, of which the ex-runaway from the country, naturally, could speak as an expert.
Touching the feathered tribe generally, he was able to tell them off ata glance, with the habits and characteristics of each, as readily as Bobcould repeat the Multiplication Table--more so, indeed, if the stricttruth be insisted on, without stretching a point!
"That be a throosh," he would say; and, "t'other, over there's, achaffy. He ain't up to much now; but wait till he be moulted and he'llcoom out foine! I've heard tell folks in furrin' parts vallies 'emgreatly, though we in Guildford think nowt of they. I'd rayther a larkmysen, Master Bob."
"Ah!" exclaimed Nellie, who had previously been shocked by Dick's lackof sentiment, much pleased now at this expression of a bettertaste--"you do like their singing then!"
"Lawks no, miss," replied the unprincipled boy. "Larks is foineroasted!"
Nellie was horrified.
"You don't mean to say, Dick," she cried, "that--that you actually eatthem?"
"Aye, miss," he replied, without an atom of shame, "we doos. They berare tasty birds!"
She gave him up after this, going along by herself in silence.
"This is jolly!" exclaimed Bob presently, when, after getting a littleway within the park and ascending the rise leading up from the shore toan open plateau above, he saw a sort of fairy dell below, at the foot ofa grassy slope, the green surface of which was speckled over withdaisies and buttercups. "Come along, Nell!"
Down the tempting incline he at once raced, with Nellie and Rover at hisheels; and, diving beneath a jungle of blackberry-bushes at the bottom,matted together with ropes of ivy that had fallen from a withered oak,whose dry and sapless gnarled old trunk still stood proudly erect in themidst of the mass of luxuriant vegetation with which it was surrounded,Nellie heard him after a bit call out from the leafy enclosure in whichhe had quickly found himself--"Oh, I say, I see such a pretty fern!"
There was silence then for a moment or so, as if Bob was trying tosecure the object that had taken his fancy, the quietude being broken byhis giving vent to a prolonged "O-o-oh!"
"What's the matter?" cried Nellie, who had stopped without the briarytangle into which her brother had plunged, noticing that his accents ofdelight suddenly changed to those of pain. "Are you hurt?"
"I've scratched my face," he said ruefully, emerging from theblackberry-brake with streaks of blood across his forehead and his noselooking as if it had been in the wars. "Some beastly thorns did it."
"Oh!" ejaculated Nellie, in sympathy and surprise; "I'm so sorry!"
"It is `oh,' and it hurts too!" retorted he, dabbing his face tenderlywith his pocket-handkerchief. "However, I shall get that fern I wasafter, though, in spite of all the prickles and thorns in the world!"
So saying, in he dashed again, stooping under the thorny network, andcame out ere long with a beautiful specimen of the shuttlecock fern,which elicited as expressive an "Oh" from Nellie as the sight of hisscratched face had just previously done--an "Oh" of admiration anddelight. But, as with Bob, her joyful exclamation was quickly followedby an expression of woe.
As she stepped forward to inspect the fern more closely, she put herfoot on a rotten branch of the oak-tree, which had become broken offfrom its parent stem and lay stretched across the dell, forming a sortof frail bridge over the prickly chasm below up to the higher ground onwhich she stood.
Alas! the decayed wood gave way under her weight, slight as that was,and Nellie, uttering a wild shriek of terror, disappeared from Bob'sastonished gaze.