Cormorant Crag Part 36

Well, I shan't say any more about it if you are going to laugh, but there's the treasure in the cave: we found it; and half's yours and half's mine. Now then, what did the Doctor say?"

"That he never heard of any smugglers ever being here."

"There!" cried Mike triumphantly.

"He said there was no one here to buy smuggled goods, and nothing here to smuggle."

"Of course not: the other's the idea, and I vote we go down and properly examine our treasure after dinner."

"That is curious," said Vince, "about the tradition of the pirate s.h.i.+p disappearing, because it proves that there is a channel big enough for a small s.h.i.+p."

"Oh you're beginning to believe, then, now?"

"No, I'm not; for I feel sure those are smuggled goods. But, Mike, we must get old Joe to lend us his boat, and sail along there ourselves."

"He wouldn't lend it to us."

"Then I know what we'll do--"

"Now, gentlemen, I'm waiting," said a familiar voice.

"All right, Mr Deane; we're coming," cried Mike. "Now, Cinder, what shall we do?"

"Go and ask the old chap to lend us his boat, and if he won't we'll come back disappointed."

"And what's the good of that?"

"Slip round another way and borrow her. You and I could manage her, couldn't we?"

"Why, I could manage her myself."

"Of course you could. We shouldn't hurt the boat; and we could feel our way in, and see from outside whether it has been a smugglers' place or no."

"That's it," said Mike; and five minutes after they were working hard with the tutor, as if they had nothing on their minds.

That afternoon, with the sun brighter and the sea and sky looking bluer than ever, the two boys were off for their afternoon expedition, making their way along a rough lane that was very beautiful and very bad. It was bad from the point of view that the fisher-farmers of the island looked upon it as a sort of "no man's land," and never favoured it by spreading donkey-cart loads of pebbles or broken granite to fill up the holes trodden in by cows in wet weather, or the tracks made by carts laden with vraick, the sea-weed they collected for manuring their potato and parsnep fields. Consequently, in bad seasons Vince said it was "squishy," and Mike that it was "squashy." But in fine summer weather it was beautiful indeed, for Nature seemed to have made up her mind that it was nonsense for a roadway to be made there to act like a scar on the landscape, just to accommodate a few people who wanted to bring up sea-weed, sand and fish from the sh.o.r.e, and harness donkeys to rough carts to do the work when they might more easily have done it themselves by making a rough windla.s.s, such as they had over their wells, and dragging all they wanted directly up the cliff face to the top--a plan which would have done in fifty yards what the donkeys had to go round nearly half a mile to achieve. As to the road being kept up solely because old Joe Daygo had a cottage down in a notch in the granite walls overlooking the sea, that seemed to be absurd.

Consequently, Nature went to work regularly every year to do away with that road, and she set all her children to help. The gorse bushes hung from the sides, thrusting out their p.r.i.c.kly sprays covered with orange and yellow blossom and encroached all they could; the heather sprouted and slowly crept here and there, in company with a lovely fine gra.s.s that would have made a lover of smooth lawns frantic with envy. Over the heath, ling, and furze the dodder wreathed and wove its delicate tangle, and the thrift raised its lavender heads to nod with satisfaction at the way in which all the plants and wild shrubs were doing their work.

But there were two things which left all the rest behind, and did by far the most to bring the crooked lane back to beauty. They laughed at the two brionies, black and white; for though they made a glorious show, with their convolvulus and deeply cut leaves, and sent forth strands of wonderfully rapid growth to run over the st.u.r.dy blackthorn, which produced such splendid sloes, and then hung down festoons of glossy leaves into the lane that quite put the more slow-growing ivy to the blush, still these lovely trailing festoons died back in the winter, while their rival growths kept on. These rivals were the brambles and the wild clematis, which grew and grew in friendly emulation, and ended, in spite of many rebuffs from trampling feet, by shaking hands across the road; the clematis, not content with that, going farther and embracing and tangling themselves up till rudely broken apart by the pa.s.sers-by--notably by old Joe Daygo, when he went that way home to his solitary cot, instead of walking, out of sheer awkwardness, across somebody's field or patch.

"I wish father would buy old Joe's cottage," said Vince, as the two lads trudged down the lane that afternoon. "We could make it such a lovely place."

"Yours is right enough," said Mike, pausing in whistling an old French air a good deal affected by the people.

"Oh yes, and I shouldn't like to leave it; but I always like this bit down here; the lane is so jolly. Look."

"What at?"

"Two swallow-tail b.u.t.terflies. Let's have them."

"Shan't. I'm not going to make myself red-hot running after them if we're going out in the boat. Besides, we haven't got any of your father's pill boxes to put 'em in. I say, how the things do grow down here! Look at that fern and the bracken."

"Yes, and the old foxgloves. They are a height!"

"It's so warm and sheltered. What's that?"

They stopped, for there was a quick, rus.h.i.+ng sound amongst the herbage.

"Snake," said Vince, after a pause; "and we've no sticks to hunt him out."

"Down his hole by this time. Come along. What a fellow you are! You always want to be off after something. Why can't you keep to one purpose at a time, as Mr Deane says, so as to master it?"

"Hark at old Ladle beginning to lay down the law," cried Vince merrily.

"You're just as bad. I say, shall we stop about here this afternoon?

Look at that gull--how it seems to watch us."

Vince threw back his head to gaze up at the beautiful, white-breasted bird, which was keeping them company, and sailing about here and there some twenty feet overhead, watching them all the time.

"Bother the gull!" said Mike. "Let's go on and speak to old Joe about the boat."

"Oh, very well," said Vince; "but what's the hurry? I hate racing along when there's so much to see. Here, Ladle: look--look! My! what a chance for a seine!"

They had just reached a turn in the lane where they could look down at an embayed portion of the deep blue sea, in which a wide patch was sparkling and flas.h.i.+ng in the most dazzling way, and literally seeming to boil as if some large volcanic fire were at work below.

"Mackerel," said Vince.

"Pilchards," said Mike.

"'Taint: it's too soon. It's mackerel. What a chance!"

"Have it your own way," said Mike; "but a nice chance! Ha! ha! Why, if they surrounded them they'd get their nets all torn to pieces. There's sand all round, but the middle there is full of the worst rocks off the coast."

"Yes I s'pose it would be rocky," said Vince thoughtfully. "Well, do come on."

Mike turned upon him to resent the order, feeling that it was nice to be accused of delaying their progress; but the mirthful look on Vince's face disarmed him, and after a skirmish and spar to get rid of a little of their effervescing vitality, consequent upon the stimulating effects of the glorious air, they broke into a trot and went past a large patch where a man was busy hoeing away at a grand crop of carrots, destined for winter food for his soft-eyed cow, tethered close at hand; and soon after came in sight of a ma.s.sive, rough chimney-stack of granite, apparently level with the road. But this latter made a sudden dip down into a steep hollow, and there stood the comfortable-looking cottage inhabited by the old fisherman, with its goodly garden, cow-shed, and many little additions which betokened prosperity.

The door was open, and, quite at home, the boys walked into the half parlour, half kitchen-like place, with its walls decorated with fis.h.i.+ng-gear and dried fish, with various sh.e.l.ls, spars, and minerals, which the old man called his "koorosseties," some native, but many obtained from men who had made long voyages in ocean-going s.h.i.+ps.

"Hi, Joe! where are you?" cried Vince, hammering on the open door. But there was not a sound to be heard; and they came out, climbed up the rocks at the back till they were above the chimneys, and looked round, expecting to find that he had gone off to the granite-hedged field where he tethered his cows.

But the two sleek creatures were browsing away, and no one was in sight but the man, some hundred yards or so distant, hoeing the weeds from his carrots.

"How tiresome!" said Mike.

"All right: he'll know," cried Vince; and they trotted to where the man was very slowly freeing his vegetables from intruders.

"Hi, Jemmy Carnach!" shouted the lad, "seen Joe Daygo?"