Cormorant Crag Part 30

"The smugglers."

"Smugglers? There are no smugglers on the Crag."

"Well, those must be smuggled goods, anyhow," said Mike.

"Can't be."

"What are they, then? I'll be bound to say that those little kegs have all got 'Hollands' or French spirits in them, and the packages are silk and velvet, and the other parcels laces and things--perhaps tobacco."

"But we never heard of smuggling here. Who can it be?"

"Well, that's what they are, for certain," said Mike. "It's just like what one's read about. They must be ever so old--a hundred years, perhaps--and been put here and forgotten."

"Perhaps so," said Vince.

"Then we'll claim them for ours," said Mike decisively. "They can't belong to anybody else now. n.o.body can be alive who brought them a hundred years ago."

"No," said Vince; "but I don't see how we can claim them. I say, though, it shows that boats can get into the cove."

"Or could at one time."

"Place wouldn't alter much in a hundred years. I do wish, though, we had brought the rope. Perhaps as soon as we touch those bales they'll all tumble into dust."

"And all the kegs have gone dry," said Mike.

"And all we can see before us only so much dust and touchwood. I say, Mike, we shan't be very rich from our find. I do wish we had brought the rope. Let's go back and get it."

"Let's go back soon," replied Mike; "but I don't think we'll come again to-day. My head feels all of a whizz."

"Yes, it is exciting," said Vince thoughtfully. "Perhaps you're right: we won't come back to-day." And, contenting themselves with a long, searching inspection from the window-like place they occupied, they soon after returned, and, after placing the grapnel so that it could be jerked out, went down the rope, got the iron hooks loose, and seated themselves to think.

That evening they got home early, each so full of the great discovery that, when they went to bed, it was long before they slept, and then their brains were busy with strange dreams, in which one was fighting for his life against a host of well-armed men, the victor taking a vessel with the treasure of valuable silks and spices, and making his parents rich people to the last.

But an idea was dominant with both when they woke, soon after sunrise.

They must go back to the cavern soon, and probe the mystery to the very end.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

DAYGO DESCRIBES HORRORS.

"Er-her! Going to school! Yer!"

Vince, who had some books under his arm, felt a peculiar twitching in the nerves, as he turned sharply upon the heavy-looking lad who had spoken the above words, with the prologue and epilogue formed of jeering laughs, which sounded something like the combinations placed there to represent them.

The speaker was the son of the Jemmy Carnach who was, as the Doctor said, a martyr to indigestion--a refined way of expressing his intense devotion to lobsters, the red armour of which molluscs could be seen scattered in every direction about his cottage door, and at the foot of the cliff beyond.

As Jemmy Carnach had thought proper to keep up family names in old-fas.h.i.+oned style, he had had his son christened James, like his father, grandfather and great-grandfather--which was as far as Carnach could trace. The result was a little confusing, the Crag island not being big enough for two Jemmy Carnachs. The fishermen, however, got over the difficulty by always calling the father Jemmy and his son Young 'un; but this did not suit Vince and Mike, with whom there had always been a feud, the fisherman's lad having constantly displayed an intense hatred, in his plebeian way, for the young representatives of the patricians on the isle. The manners in which he had shown this, from very early times, were many; and had taken the forms of watching till the companions were below cliffs, and then stealing to the top and dislodging stones, that they might roll down upon their heads; filling his pockets with the thin, sharply ground, flat oyster-sh.e.l.ls to be found among the beach pebbles--a peculiarly cutting kind of weapon--and at every opportunity sending them skimming at one or other of the lads; making holes in their boat, when they had one--being strongly suspected of cutting two adrift, so that they were swept away, and never heard of again; and in divers other ways showing his dislike or hatred-- displaying an animus which had become intensified since Mike had called in Vince's help to put a stop to raids and forays upon the old manor orchard when the apples, pears and plums were getting ripe, the result being a good beating with tough oak saplings.

Not that this stopped the plundering incursions, for Carnach junior told the two lads, and probably believed, as an inhabitant of the island, that he had as good a right to the fruit as they.

Of course the many a.s.saults and insults dealt out by Carnach junior--for he was prolific in unpleasant words and jeers, whenever the companions came within hearing--had results in the shape of reprisals. Vince was not going to see Mike Ladelle's ear bleeding from a cut produced by a forcibly propelled oyster-sh.e.l.l, without making an attack upon the young human catapult; and Mike's wrath naturally boiled over upon seeing a piece of rock pushed off the edge of the cliff, and fall within a foot of where Vince was lying on the sand at the foot. But the engagements which followed seemed to do no good, for Carnach junior was so extremely English that he never seemed to realise that he had been thrashed till he had lain down with his eyes so swollen up that there was hardly room for the tears to squeeze themselves out, and his lips so disfigured that his howls generally escaped through his nose.

"I never saw such a fellow," Vince used to say: "if you only slap his face, it swells up horribly."

"And it's of no use to lick him, it doesn't do any good," added Mike.

"Why, I must have thrashed him a hundred times, and you too."

This was a remark which showed that either Mr Deane's instructions in the art of calculation were faulty, or Mike's mental capacity inadequate for acquiring correctness of application.

Still there must have been some truth in Mike's words, for Vince, who was a great stickler for truthfulness, merely said:

"Ah! we have given it to him pretty often."

Vince and Mike did not take to Young 'un or Youngster, as a sobriquet for Carnach junior, and consequently they invented quite a variety of names, which were chosen, not for the purpose of distinguis.h.i.+ng the fat, flat-faced, rather pig-eyed youth from other people, but it must be owned for annoyance, and by way of retaliation for endless insults.

"You see, we must do something," said Mike.

"Of course," agreed Vince; "and I'm tired of making myself hot and knocking my knuckles about against his stupid head; and besides, it seems so blackguardly, as a doctor's son, to be fighting a chap like that."

"Oh, I don't know," said Mike thoughtfully: "I shall be a Sir some day, I suppose."

"What a game!" chuckled Vince--"Sir Michael Ladelle!"

"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Mike; "but, as I was saying, if we don't lick him every now and then there'll be no bearing it. He'll get worse and worse."

So it was to show their contempt for the young lout that they invented names for him--weakly, perhaps, but very boylike--and for a time he was James the Second, but the lad seemed rather to approve of that; and it was soon changed for Barnacle, which had the opposite effect, and two fights down in a sandy cave resulted, at intervals of a week, one with each of his enemies, after which the Barnacle lay down as usual, and cried into the sand, which acted, Vince said, like blotting paper.

Tar-pot, suggested by a begrimed appearance, lasted for months, and was succeeded by Doughy, and this again by Puffy, consequent upon the lad's head having so peculiar a tendency to what home-made bread makers call "rise," and as there was no baker on Cormorant Crag the term was familiar enough.

A whole string of forgotten names followed, but none of them stuck, for they did not irritate Carnach junior; but the right one in the boys'

eyes was found at last, upon a very hot day, following one upon which Vince and Mike had been prawning with stick and net among the rock pools under the cliffs,--and prawning under difficulties. For as they climbed along over, or waded amongst the fallen rocks detached from the towering heights above, Carnach junior, who had watched them descend, furnished himself with a creel full of heavy pebbles, and, making his way to the top of the cliffs, kept abreast and carefully out of sight, so as to annoy his natural enemies from time to time by dropping a stone into, or as near as he could manage to the little pool they were about to fish.

Words, addressed apparently to s.p.a.ce, though really to the invisible foe, were vain, and the boys fished on; but they did not take home many prawns for Mrs Burnet to have cooked for their tea.

The very next day, though, they had their revenge, for they came upon the lad toiling homeward, shouldering a couple of heavy oars, a boat mast and yard, and the lug-sail rolled round them, and lashed so as to form a big bundle, as much as he could carry; and, consequent upon his scarlet face, Vince saluted him with:

"Hullo, Lobster!"

That name went like an arrow to the mark, and pierced right through the armour of dense stupidity in which the boy was clad. Lobster! That fitted with his father's weakness and the jeering remarks he had often heard made by neighbours; and ever after the name stuck, and irritated him whenever it was used.

It was used on the morning when Vince was thinking deeply of the discovery of the previous day, and going over to Sir Francis Ladelle's for his lessons with Mike. As we have said, he was saluted with coa.r.s.e, jeering laughter, and the contemptuous utterance of the words "Going to school?"

Being excited, Vince turned sharply upon the great hulking lad, and his eyes began to blaze war, but with a laugh he only fell back on the nickname.

"Hullo, Lobster!" he cried: "that you?" and went on.

Carnach junior doubled his fists, and looked as if he were going to attack; but Vince, strong in the consciousness that he could at any time thrash the great lad, walked on with his books, heedless of the fact that he was followed at a distance, for his head was full of kegs and bales neatly done up in canvas, standing in good-sized stacks.