Cormorant Crag Part 3

"You said you were beaten."

"Yes, for to-day; but I can't afford to let you knock me about like this. I say, you did hurt."

"Nonsense! I could have hit twice as hard as that. Pull your jersey over your head again, and I'll show you."

"Likely! Never mind, old chap," said Vince, giving himself a shake; "I'll save it up for you. Phew! you have made me hot."

"Do you good," said Mike, imitating his companion by throwing himself down at full length upon the elastic heath, to lie gazing at the brilliant blue sea, stretching far away to where a patch of amethyst here and there on the horizon told of other islands, bathed in the glowing suns.h.i.+ne.

The land ended a hundred yards from where the two lads lay as suddenly as if it had been cut sharply off, and went down perpendicularly some two hundred and fifty feet to where the transparent waves broke softly, with hardly a sound, amongst the weedy rocks, all golden-brown with fucus, or running quietly over the yellow sand, but which, in a storm, came thundering in, like huge banks of water, to smite the face of the cliff, fall back and fret, and churn up the weed into b.a.l.l.s of froth, which flew up, and were carried by the wind right across the island.

"Where's old Deane?" said Vince suddenly.

"Taken a book to go and sit on the rock shelf and read Plutarch. I say, what a lot he does know!"

"No wonder," said Vince, who was parting the heather and peering down beneath: "he's always reading. I wish he was fonder of coming out in a boat and fis.h.i.+ng or sailing."

"So do I," said Mike. "We'd make him do the rowing. Makes us work hard enough."

"I don't see why he shouldn't help us," continued Vince. "Father says a man ought to look after his body as well as his brains, so as always to be healthy and strong."

"Why did he say that?" said Mike sharply.

"Because it was right," said Vince. "My father's always right."

"No, he isn't. He didn't know what was the matter with my dad."

Vince laughed.

"What are you grinning at?"

"What you said. He knew well enough, only he wouldn't say because he did not want to offend your father."

"What do you mean?"

"That he always sat indoors, and didn't take enough exercise."

"Pis.h.!.+ The Doctor did not know," said Mike sharply, and colouring a little; "and I don't believe he wants people to be well."

"Hi! Look here!" cried Vince excitedly. "Lizard!"

A little green reptile, looking like a miniature crocodile, disturbed by the lad's investigating hands, darted out from beneath the heath into the suns.h.i.+ne; and Mike s.n.a.t.c.hed off his cap, and dabbed it over the little fugitive with so true an aim that as he held the cap down about three inches of the wiry tail remained outside.

"Got him!" cried Mike triumphantly.

"Well, don't hurt it."

"Who's going to hurt it!"

"You are. Suppose a Brobdig-what-you-may-call-him banged a great cap down over you--it would hurt, wouldn't it?"

"Not if I lay still; and there wouldn't be a bit of tail sticking out if he did," said Mike laughing.--"I'm not going to hurt you, old chap, but to take you home and put you in the conservatory to catch and eat the flies and blight. Come along."

"Where are you going to put him?"

"In my pocket till I go home. Look here: I'll put my finger on his tail and hold him while you lift my cap; then I can catch him with my other hand."

"Mind he don't bite."

"Go along! He can't bite to hurt. Ready?"

"Yes," said Vince, stretching out his hand. "Better let him go."

"Yes, because you don't want him. I do. Now, no games."

"All right."

"Up with the cap, then."

Vince lifted the cap, and burst out laughing, for it was like some conjuring trick--the lizard was gone.

"Why, you never caught it!" he said.

"Yes, I did: you saw its tail. I've got it under my hand now."

"You've dropped it," cried Vince. "Lift up."

Mike raised his hand, and there, sure enough, was the lizard's tail, writhing like a worm, and apparently as full of life as its late owner, but, not being endowed with feet, unable to escape.

"Poor little wretch!" said Vince; "how horrid! But he has got away."

"Without his tail!"

"Yes; but that will soon grow again."

"Think so?"

"Why, of course it will: just as a crab's or lobster's claw does."

"Hullo, young gentlemen!" said a gruff voice, and a thick-set, elderly man stopped short to look down upon them, his grim, deeply-lined brown face twisted up into a smile as he took off an old sealskin cap and began to softly polish his bald head, which was surrounded by a thick hedge of s.h.a.ggy grey hair, but paused for a moment to give one spot a rub with his great rough, gnarled knuckles. His hands were enormous, and looked as if they had grown into the form most suitable for grasping a pair of oars to tug a boat against a heavy sea.

His dress was exceedingly simple, consisting of a coa.r.s.ely-knitted blue jersey s.h.i.+rt that might have been the great-grandfather of the one Vince wore; and a pair of trousers, of a kind of drab drugget, so thick that they would certainly have stood up by themselves, and so cut that they came nearly up to the man's armpits, and covered his back and chest, while the braces he wore were short in the extreme. To finish the description of an individual who played a very important part in the lives of the two island boys, he had on a heavy pair of fisherman's boots, which might have been drawn up over his knees, but now hung clumsily about his ankles, like those of smugglers in a penny picture, as he stood looking down grimly, and slowly resettled his sealskin cap upon his head.

"What are you two a-doing of?" he asked. "Nothing," said Mike shortly.

"And what brings you round here?"

"I've been taking Jemmy Carnach a bottle of physic; and we came round,"

cried Vince. "Why?"