Part 29 (1/2)

”But you'll tell me. I won't say a word to a soul,” I said.

”Well, I don't know. I'm not sure, but--”

Bigley paused, and looked round again before putting his lips close to my ear and whispering softly:

”I think he is.”

”I'm sure of it,” I whispered back; ”and I know he goes out in his lugger to meet French boats and Dutch boats, and makes no end of money by smuggling.”

”Who told you that?” whispered Bigley fiercely.

”n.o.body. It's what everybody says of him. They all say that he'll be caught and hanged some day for it--hung in chains; but of course I hope he won't, Big, because of you.”

”It's all nonsense. It isn't true,” said Bigley indignantly, ”and those who talk that way are far more likely to be hung themselves. But I wish your father hadn't bought the Gap.”

”I don't,” I said. ”He had a right to buy it if he liked, and I don't see what business it is of your father. Why don't he attend to his fis.h.i.+ng?”

Bigley looked up at me sharply, to see if I had any hidden meaning.

”He does attend to his fis.h.i.+ng,” he said angrily; ”and if he hadn't been attending to his fis.h.i.+ng he wouldn't have been out in his boat that day, and saved you from being drowned.”

I never liked Bigley half so well before as when he spoke up like that in defence of his father; but I was in a sour disappointed mood that day, because the holidays were over and I was going back to school, so I said something that was thoroughly ungenerous, and which I felt sorry for as I spoke.

”Yes, he saved us all from being drowned, I suppose,” I said; ”but he hadn't been fis.h.i.+ng, for there were no fish in the boat.”

”Just as if anybody could be sure of catching fish every time he went out,” cried Bigley angrily. ”There, you want to quarrel because you are miserable at having to go back to school, but I sha'n't. I hate it. Go and fall out with old Bob Chowne.”

This made me feel angry and I drew away from him, for it was trying to make out that I was as quarrelsome as Bob Chowne delighted to be. But I felt so horribly in fault directly after that I went back to my place and sat by him in silence.

After a time the old carrier turned to us with a request that we would get out and give the horse a rest up the hill.

We all obeyed, two of us jumping out over the tail-board, the other by the front, and leaping off the shaft.

It was plain enough that the holidays were over, and that the joyous hearty spirit of the homeward-bound was there no more, for Bob Chowne took one side of the road in front of the horse, and the old carrier the other, while Bigley and I hung back behind and walked slowly after them on opposite sides after the fas.h.i.+on of those in front.

Then came the stopping of the cart, and mounting again and descending a couple more times, before we reached Barnstaple, dull, low-spirited, and ready to find about a score of boys just back, and looking as doleful as we did ourselves.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

OUR SILVER MINE.

School life has been so often narrated, that I am going to skip over mine, and make one stride from our return after Midsummer to Christmas, when we all went back home in a very different frame of mind.

The country looked very different to when we saw it last, but it was a mild balmy winter, with primroses and cuckoo-pints pus.h.i.+ng in the valleys, and here and there a celandine pretending that spring had come.

The roads were dirty, but we thought little about them, for we knew that the sea-sh.o.r.e was always the same, and, if anything, more interesting in winter than in summer.

I was all eagerness to get home and see what had been done in the Gap, for my father in his rare letters had said very little about it.