Menhardoc Part 59

This last was a sort of seal to finish the welcome; and then the old man went back to his garden to stand in the rockery, which served as a look-out, and scan the horizon with his gla.s.s.

Mr Temple was delighted with the change, for, in spite of the quiet respectability of the Cornish fishermen and their bluff, pleasant ways, a fis.h.i.+ng port inn, even in a west-country village, is not always perfect as a place for a sojourn; while Uncle Abram's home was a pattern of neatness, and Aunt Ruth seemed very amiably disposed towards her guests.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

A TERRIBLE TIME AT SEA.

"Isn't it glorious, Taff?" cried d.i.c.k as he stood with his brother in their little low-roofed bed-room, whose window overlooked the sea.

"Can't say that I like it," said Arthur languidly. "The place smells horribly of fish."

"Pooh! That isn't fish. It's the sea-weed. It turns limp, and smells because the weather's moist and stormy. There, come on. Father must be ready now, and I want to go down and see the sea."

Uncle Abram came in just as they were about to start, and insisted upon lending a couple of suits of oilskins, which he brought out of a room in the roof, where he kept his stores, as he called them.

"Was Will's," he explained. "He growed out of 'em. Not much to look at, sir," he added apologetically to Mr Temple, "but they'll keep out the water. We like the sea, but we like to keep dry."

Arthur looked horribly disgusted, for his father gladly accepted the hospitable offer, and he had to submit to being b.u.t.toned up in the stiff garb that Will had cast off years before, even to the high boots.

d.i.c.k scuffled into his with delight, and tied the sou'-wester under his chin, turning the next minute to see his brother, and stamp on the floor with delight.

"Oh! look at Taff, father; he does look such a Guy Fawkes."

Arthur turned upon him fiercely, and it suddenly occurred to d.i.c.k that he was in precisely the same costume; but he only laughed the more as, well equipped to meet the storm, they started for the beach.

"It's ridiculous," said Arthur, in tones of disgust, as they walked down towards the harbour under the lee of the houses. "There was no need to put on these wretched stiff things."

Almost as the words left his lips they pa.s.sed the last house, and--

_Bang_!--_boom_!--_swirl_!

A large wave struck the sh.o.r.e on a boulder slope and sent a deluge of water across the road, to strike the rock on the other side, and run back like a stream.

Arthur, was sent staggering, and would have fallen but for his father's hand; and all three, but for their s.h.i.+ny garb, would have been soaked from head to foot.

"Oh, here's a game!" cried d.i.c.k. "I say, Taff--run--run--here comes another."

They escaped part of the wave, but d.i.c.k had his weather ear full, and the sea-water and foam streamed down their backs as they stood in the shelter of a bit of cliff.

"Well, Arthur, what do you say to your oilskins now?" said Mr Temple.

"They're dreadfully stiff, father, and the boots are too large," said Arthur ungraciously. "Hadn't we better get back?"

Poor Arthur repented his words most bitterly as soon as he had spoken them, for there was a hard light going on in the boy's mind. Naturally very conceited, he had had the misfortune to be made the head of a little set at his school--a little set, for they were rather small boys, who looked up to him,--and dressed at him as far as they could, the effect being to make him more conceited still, and think his brother rough and common in his ways.

All this had been pointed out to Mr Temple, who, however, had seen it for himself, and he only said, smiling:

"It will all settle itself. These little spines will get knocked off by contact with the world. Besides which I hope that he will find out for himself the way to grow into a manly man."

Mr Temple was quite right, and Arthur was beginning to discover that, where his brother was met with a genial smile by all whom he encountered, he, who was particular and precise and, as he considered it, gentlemanly in his ways, was either not noticed, or met with merely the coldest reception.

He was learning too that a man--especially an Englishman, whether gentle or simple--born in the lap of luxury, as people call it, or in the humblest cot, must be one who will always keep up the credit of the nation at large by being thoroughly English; and this brings one to the question--while the storm is raging on the Cornish coast, and Arthur Temple is in his glistening oilskins walking stiffly and awkwardly, and wincing beneath his father's look, which said as plainly as look could speak, "If you are afraid you can go back;"--this brings one to the task of stating what one means by being thoroughly English, so let us set down here, something approaching one's ideas of what an English lad should be.

Courageous of course, full of that st.u.r.dy determination not to be beaten, and when beaten, so far from being disheartened that he is ready to try again, whether in a fight, a battle with a difficulty, or in any failure.

Honest in his striving for what he knows to be right, and ready to maintain it against all odds, especially of such enemies as banter or ridicule, self-indulgence or selfishness.

That is enough: for so many wonderful little veins will start from those two trunks, that, given a boy who is courageous and honest, or who makes himself so, it would be almost an impossibility for him to turn out a bad, mean, and cowardly man.

And pray don't imagine, you who read this, that by a cowardly man or boy I mean one who is afraid to take off his jacket and roll up his sleeves and fight with his fists. I mean quite a different kind of coward--the one who is afraid of himself and lets self rule him, giving up to every indulgence because it goes a little against the grain, and Arthur Temple is walking uncomfortably in his oilskins because they don't look nice.

The storm is raging, and he is still smarting under the belief that his father thinks him contemptible and cowardly, physically cowardly. And all the time, though the tears are rising in his eyes, and the wind is deafening him, and the spray beating in his face so that his tears are not seen, he is proving that, under his varnish, he is made of the right stuff. For even as he battled with self in the boat when conger-fis.h.i.+ng, he is fighting the good fight again, has set his teeth, and has made a sort of vow that no one shall say he has not as much pluck as his brother d.i.c.k.

There is little work done at a fis.h.i.+ng village when a storm comes down.

Going to sea is impossible, and men don't care to be mending or making nets when at any moment they may have to be helping to haul up a boat into a safer place, or to drag in a spar, or plank, or timber, that has been washed ash.o.r.e.

Then, too, there is the look-out kept for s.h.i.+ps or boats in distress-- perhaps to lend a helping hand; if not, to look on with sympathetic eyes and a thankful prayer at heart that they are in safety, as they think of home, and wife, and child.

Mr Temple was not a violent angry man. His punishments to his boys were conveyed in looks, and one look sufficed. When that look had been given there was an end to the matter; and on this occasion, after Arthur had been made to wince, his petulant display of fear was put back in the past.

"Boys," he cried, "I would not like to have missed this scene. How awful and how grand!"

They were standing in the shelter of a pilchard house, one of the long buildings where these silvery, oily relatives of the herring are salted before being pressed in barrels and sent away to the Mediterranean ports by hundreds of tons every year. The building took the brunt of the roaring wind and spray torn from the huge billows that thundered in and raced up the beach, and pounded the rocks, so that the spectators could gaze at the wild chaos of tossing waves, and watch the heaped-up waters as they dashed in like some savage army, whose aim was to tear down the rocky barriers of our isle and sweep all away.

In the harbour lay the luggers, and a good-sized brig, and a steam-tug that had brought it in after missing Corn town; and as the great waves came with a spang upon the stone pier, and leaped over the lanterns, and poured down tons of spray upon their decks, they rocked and groaned as they rubbed together, and in spite of mooring ropes a sharp crack now and then told of damages to be repaired.

The cliff glistened with oilskin-clad men, many of whom bore long, clumsy telescopes, while others in great high boots, and with their sou'-westers tied beneath their chins, walked amongst the foam, a coil of strong rope upon their shoulders, and a boat-hook in hand, ready for anything in the way of flotsam and jetsam that might come ash.o.r.e.

Already they had drawn up the mast of a lugger with its ropes and blocks, telling tales of some misfortune at sea.

A barrel or two had come ash.o.r.e; and as d.i.c.k watched, he saw one man run out after a wave, catch at something, miss it, and then get hold of a rope, with which he ran ash.o.r.e.

Directly after they saw another figure leave a companion and run in after a retiring wave, the foam knee-deep, and catch at something else which came slowly.

"Mind, mind!" cried d.i.c.k excitedly; "the wave! the wave!"

Arthur gave a gasp and ran right out towards where the figure, fully a hundred yards away, was clinging to something that looked brown against the white foam, and apparently heedless of the fact that a tremendous wave was racing in.

His comrade saw it though and ran to his help, catching hold of the great brown tangle, and then turning with the other to escape.

They hardly did it, for the huge wave curled over just behind them with a boom like thunder, and swept them up towards the sh.o.r.e amidst the foam.

They would have been carried back, but a dozen hands were outstretched and they and their prize were run up out of danger, where, for the next ten minutes, the little party were busy hauling in what proved to be an immense length of pilchard drift-net, with its corks, and buoys, and ropes, which formed a goodly heap when they had done.

Out seaward there was nothing visible but the tossing waves, and it was with a sense of relief that the boys saw that there was no prospect of any wreck beyond that of the fis.h.i.+ng-boat that had been dashed to pieces upon some rock.

"Here! hi!" cried d.i.c.k, excitedly. "Why, it's Will! Was it you who ran in after that net?" he continued, as the lad came up.