Captain Mugford Part 1

Captain Mugford.

by W.H.G. Kingston.

CHAPTER ONE.

INTRODUCTORY.

We belong to a Cornish family of the greatest respectability and high antiquity--so say the county records, in which we have every reason to place the most unbounded confidence. The Tregellins have possessed the same estate for I do not know exactly how long; only I suppose it must have been some time after Noah disembarked from the ark, and, at all events, for a very long time. The estate of which I speak was in a wild part of the country, and not at that time very productive; but I believe that my father would not have parted with it for ten times its market value. It contained between four and five hundred acres of hill and dale, and rock and copse, and wood; its chief feature a lofty cape, which ran out for a considerable distance into the sea. On one side it was exposed to the almost unbroken sweep of the Atlantic Ocean; on the other it was washed by the tranquil waters of a deep bay, which formed a safe and picturesque harbour for numerous small craft which frequently took shelter there from press of weather when running up channel.

That headland, where the happiest half-year of all my boyhood's days was pa.s.sed, is now dotted with several pleasant summer residences; its acres are marked off by fences and walls, and variegated with the diverse crops of well-tilled fields, and on its bay-side are occasional small wharves for pleasure-boats. Fifty years ago it was very different, and, (though, perhaps, I may be an old fogey and have that grey-hair fas.h.i.+on of thinking, with an expressive shrug, "Ah, things are not as they were when I was a boy!") I must say, far more beautiful to my eyes than it is now. You have seen a bold, handsome-bearded, athletic sailor-fellow, with a manner combining the sunniness of calms, the dash of storms, and the romance of many strange lands about him. Now, if our admired hero should abandon his adventurous profession, and settle down quietly into the civilised career of an innkeeper, or village constable, or shopman, or sedate church clerk, and we chanced to meet him years after his "life on the ocean wave," it would probably be to find a sober-faced gentleman, with forehead a little bald, with somewhat of a paunch, with st.u.r.dy legs and gaiters, perhaps with a stiff stock and dignified white collar--altogether a very respectable, useful citizen. But the eye and the heart could not find in our excellent acquaintance the fascination which so charmed us in our _friend_ the brave sailor. So with our cape: fifty years ago, in all its natural wildness; in the beauty of its lonely beaches strewn with pieces of s.h.i.+vered waterlogged spars and great rusty remnants of s.h.i.+p-knees and keels; in the melancholy of those strips of short brown heath on the seaside, disappearing in the white sand; in the frowning outlines of the determined rocks that like fortresses defied their enemy the ocean; in the roll of crisp pasturage that in unbroken swells covered the long backbone of the cape; in the few giant old trees, and, more than all, in its character of freedom, loneliness, and isolation, there was a savage charm and dignity that the thrift and cultivation, the usefulness and comfort of civilisation's beauty can never equal.

My first sight of the old cape was when I was about nine years of age.

My father took me with him in a chaise from Bristol--two days' journey in those times; and I do not think now that my year's tour of Europe, fifteen years after, was half as full of incident and delight as that my first expedition of a few hours. I can recall how the man at the toll-gate hobbled to us on his crutch; how my father chatted with him for a few moments; how, as we drove off, the man straightened himself on his crutch and touched the brim of his hat with the back of his hand.

How well I remember the amazement with which I then heard my father say, "Robert, that man lost his leg while fighting under the great Duke in the Peninsula." I thrust my head far out of the chaise to look well at my first live hero. That sight was romance enough for an hour. Then the first glimpse of the top of the high cape, and my father's telling me that where I saw the haze beyond was the ocean, were sources of further reverie and mystery, dispelled, however, very suddenly when directly afterwards a wheel came off the chaise and pitched me into the road, with my father's small valise on my stomach. I remember the walk to the nearest house, which happened to be an inn, and how my father took off a large tumbler of ale, and gave me some biscuits and a gla.s.s of water. It occurred to me, I recollect, whether, when I became a man, I should be able to drink a full gla.s.s of ale and not be a drunkard, and whether my son would take biscuits and water and I not be conscious that he wanted to taste the ale. A thousand things more I remember--mere trifles in reality, but abounding in great interest to me on my first journey, which really then seemed of as much importance as Captain Cook's voyage around the world or Mungo Park's travels in Africa. It was a delightful day, the most interesting chapter in my life up to that time--brimful of novelty, thought, and excitement--but I shall not write its events in detail. What I have already mentioned will do as a sample. Late in the afternoon--it was the afternoon of a September day, the first fine one after a three days' storm--we reached the cape, just as the short sombre twilight of an autumn day settled down on land and sea. As the horse trudged laboriously along through the heavy piece of sand connecting the cape and the mainland, I was almost terrified by the great sound of waves, whose spray tossed up in vast spouts from every rocky head before us. The rush of waters, the rumbling of great stones receding with the current, the booming as of s.h.i.+ps' broadsides--all these united to awe a little boy making his first acquaintance with the ocean.

When we drove up to the house, which was the only habitation on the point, not a light was to be seen, and the dark stone walls were blacker than the night that had settled down so quickly on the land. My father said there was no use to knock, for that old Juno lived in the back part of the house and was too deaf to hear us. So he led the horse round, and we went to the back windows. Through them we saw our old black castellan nodding, pipe in mouth, over the fireplace. She had not heard the noise of our wheels, and it required a vigorous pounding on the heavy back-door before old Juno, in much trembling, opened it to us.

"Oh my, Ma.s.sa Tregellins, is dat you dis dark night! And Clump, de ole n.i.g.g.e.r, gone to willage. Lor, ma.s.sa, how you did frighten me--and, oh my! thar's young Ma.s.sa Bob!"

Juno had often come up to Bristol to see us, and felt an engrossing interest in all of the family. She now led me into the house, and went as briskly to work as her rheumatic old limbs would allow, to make a good fire--piling on logs, blowing with the bellows, and talking all the while with the volubility of a kind old soul of fully sixty years of age. My father had gone to tie up the horse under the shed until Clump should return and take care of him. Clump was Juno's husband, and her senior by many years. The exact age of negroes is always of unreliable tradition. The two had charge of the house, and were, indeed, rulers of the entire cape. Clump cultivated vegetables sufficient for his wife and himself, and was also a skilful fisherman. His duties were to look after the copses and fences and gates, and to tend the numerous sheep that found a living on the cape; in which tasks Juno helped him, besides keeping the old house free from ghosts and desolation--indeed, a model of neatness and coziness.

I must now pause for a minute and describe how it happened that the two old negroes were living on that out-of-the-way farm in Cornwall. My father had been a West Indian proprietor, and had resided out in the West Indies for many years. It was in the days when Wilberforce and true and n.o.ble philanthropists who fought the battle of emanc.i.p.ation with him first began to promulgate their doctrines. My father, like most other proprietors, was at first very indignant at hearing of proceedings which were considered to interfere with their rights and privileges, and he was their strenuous opponent. To enable himself still more effectually to oppose the emancipists, he sent for all the works which appeared on the subject of emanc.i.p.ation, that he might refute them, as he believed himself fully able to do. He read and read on, and got more and more puzzled how to contradict the statements which he saw put forth, till at length, his mind being an honest and clear one, he came completely round to the opinion of the emancipists. He now conscientiously asked himself how, with his new opinions, he could remain a slaveholder. The property was only partly his, and he acted as manager for the rest of the proprietors. They, not seeing matters in the light in which he had been brought to view them, would not consent to free the slaves and, as they believed, not unnaturally, ruin the property as he desired. Then he proposed having the negroes educated and prepared for that state of freedom which, he a.s.sured his partners, he was certain they would some day ere long obtain. They replied that slaves were unfit for education, that the attempt would only set them up to think something of themselves, and certainly spoil them, and therefore neither to this proposition would they agree. They were resolved that as the slaves were theirs by right of law--whatever G.o.d might have to say in the matter--slaves they should remain. At length my father determined, after praying earnestly for guidance, to have nothing personally to do with the unclean thing. Had he been able to improve the condition of the slaves, the case would have been different; but all the attempts he made were counteracted by his partners and by the surrounding proprietors, who looked upon him in the light of a dangerous lunatic. He therefore offered to give up his share in the property, provided he might be allowed to emanc.i.p.ate some of the slaves.

To this even they would not consent, as they were afraid he might select the most able-bodied, and thus deprive the ground of some of its best cultivators. He did his best for the poor blacks, but the law was on the side of his partners, and, to do them justice, they, blinded by their interests and the contempt in which they held the negro race, considered they were right, and that he was wrong. All they would do was to allow him to select ten negroes from among a certain number whom they pointed out, and they agreed to pay him over a sum of money for his share of the land. To this proposal he was compelled to agree, and as West India property was at that time considered of great value, he received a very handsome sum, yet it must be owned not half what he might properly have claimed. With this he returned to England, and, as he was a man who could not bear to be idle, he commenced business as a general merchant at Bristol. Shortly after that he married, and my brothers and sisters and I in due course came into the world. Among the negroes he set free were Clump and his sable partner Juno, and so attached were they to him that they entreated that he would take them with him to England. Clump was, properly speaking, a free man; for having in his younger days, after he had married Juno, gone a short trip to sea, he was wrecked, and after meeting many adventures, finally pressed on board a man-of-war. He saw a good deal of service, (about which he was very fond of talking, by the by), and at last obtaining his discharge, or rather taking it, I suspect, with French leave--ever mindful of his beloved Juno, he returned voluntarily to a state of slavery, that he might enjoy life with her. The navy in those days was not what it now is, and he had not been in the enjoyment of any large amount of freedom. He had, indeed, being a good-natured, simple-hearted fellow, been sadly put upon both in the merchant service and navy. It was always, he used to say, "Clump, you don't want to go on sh.o.r.e, you stay and take care of the s.h.i.+p;" or, "Clump, you stay in the boat while we just take a run along the quay for five minutes;" or, "Clump, leave is no use to you, just let me have it instead of you;" or, "Clump, rum is a bad thing for n.i.g.g.e.rs. I'll drink your grog to-day, and if you just tip me a wink I'll take half of it to-morrow, and let you have the rest, or Bill Noakes'll have the whole of it, and you'll get none."

Clump and Juno being intelligent, trustworthy people, my father, as I have said, put them in charge of the farm on the cape, which they in a short time learned to manage with great judgment. Two other negroes he took into his service at Bristol. One of them became his butler, and it would have been difficult to find his equal in that capacity.

Now a lesson may be learned from this history. My father did what he considered right, and prospered; his partners, neglecting to enlighten themselves as they might have done, persisted in holding their black fellow-creatures in abject slavery, refusing one of the great rights of man--a sound education. Emanc.i.p.ation was carried, and they received a large compensation, and rejoiced, spending their money extravagantly; but the half-savage negroes whom they had neglected to educate refused to work. Their estates were left uncultivated for want of labourers, and they were ruined. My father, managing his mercantile affairs wisely, was a prosperous man.

His business on this visit was to see an adjoining property which had once belonged to the family, and which, being in the market, he hoped to repurchase.

The house had been built as long back as 1540-1550. It was of stone-- the rough stone, as it had been taken from the beaches and cliffs, of different shades and kinds. Above the ground floor was only an attic storey; and the main part of the ground floor consisted of four large low rooms, panelled in wood, and with ceiling of dark, heavy beams.

Adjoining the rear of these, my grandfather had built a comparatively modern kitchen; but every fireplace in the old house preserved the generous cheerful style of ample spread and fire-dogs. From the great door of the main floor a narrow stairway, like cabin steps, led up, with quaintly carved banisters, to five real old-fas.h.i.+oned bedrooms, rising above to the ridge of the steep-sloping roof and its uncovered but whitewashed rafters. The windows were at least five feet above the floor, and had the many small panes we sometimes yet see in very old houses. No doubt it was a house of pretension in its day. When I was a boy it remained a precious ark of family legends and a.s.sociations. How splendid it is to possess a house nearly three hundred years old.

To-day nothing could induce me to exchange the walls of that dear old house for the handsomest residence in Belgravia. A house can be built in a few months; but to make a home--that is beyond the craft and quickness of masons, carpenters, and architects.

Alone on that bold, sea-beaten cape, so st.u.r.dy, dark, and time-worn, it looked out always with shrewd, steady little window-eyes on the great troubled ocean, across which it had watched the Pilgrim Fathers sailing away towards the new home they sought in the Western world, and many a rich argosy in days of yore go forth, never to return. It might have seen, too, the proud Spanish Armada gliding up channel for the purpose of establis.h.i.+ng Popery and the Inquisition in Protestant England, to meet from the hands of a merciful Providence utter discomfiture and destruction. With satisfaction and becoming dignity, too, it seemed on fresh sunny mornings to gaze at the hundreds of sails dotting the sea, and bound for all parts of the globe, recalling, perhaps with some mournfulness, the days of its youth and the many other varied scenes of interest which it had witnessed on those same tossing billows from its lofty height.

All through our supper, which was laid in the largest of the first floor rooms, did Juno stand by, repeating the refrain--

"Oh dat n.i.g.g.e.r, dat Clump,--why he no come? And here's Ma.s.sa er waitten and er waitten; but Clump, ole mon, he get berry slow--berry, berry slow. Now Ma.s.sa Bob, vy you laff at ole Juno so?--hi! hi!"

However, Clump came at last; and when he beheld us, great and comical was his surprise. He dropped his basket to the floor, and, with battered hat in hand and both hands on his knees, stood for a moment and stared at us, and then his mouth stretched wide with joy and his sides shook with delight, while the tears trickled down from the wrinkled eyes to the laughing ivory.

"Tank de Lord! tank de Lord! Clump lib to see his ole Ma.s.sa agin; and dat young gemmen,--vy, lem'me see! vy, sure as I'm dat n.i.g.g.e.r Clump, ef dat ain't--Ma.s.sa Drake?--no,--Ma.s.sa Walter?--no,--vy Juno, ole woman!

dat are Ma.s.sa Bob!" He took my hands and shook and squeezed them, saying over and over again, "Ma.s.sa Bob am c.u.m ter see de ole cradle.

Oh! hi hi!"

CHAPTER TWO.

THE DREAM CONFIRMED BY REALITY.

Three years elapsed before I saw the cape again. Indeed the remembrance of that visit there, of a few days only, began to a.s.sume indistinctness as a dream, and sometimes as I thought of it, recalling the events of the journey there and back in the chaise, the wild scenery and the strange sound of the surf, the old dark house and the devoted black servants--sometimes, I say, as I thought of all these, as I loved to do when I settled myself in bed for the night, or when in summer I lay on my back in the gra.s.s looking up at the flying clouds, I would have to stop and fix my attention sharp, to be sure whether it ever had been a reality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I think my father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys--afraid its charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract our attention from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, we always went to the country with our parents for a month or six weeks, and enjoyed it exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, and badger stories to last us through the winter. But there was no other country, we imagined, like the cape; and as our father and mother never lived there, and rarely spent even a single night on the whole property, they thought it best, I suppose, that we should not run wild there and get a relish for what all boys seem to have, in some degree, by nature.

I mean the spirit of adventure, and love of the sea.

However, the good time came at last, or a reliable promise of it first, just fifty years ago this very February. We older boys--Walter, sixteen years of age, Drake, fourteen, and I, Robert, twelve--were attending school at Bristol, and were, as usual too in the winter evenings, at work over our lessons at the library table, when, on one never-to-be-forgotten evening, our father, who was sitting in an easy chair by the fire, suddenly asked, "Boys, how would you like to pa.s.s next summer on the cape?" Ah! didn't we three give a terrific chorus of a.s.sent? "Jolly! magnificent! splendid!" we cried, while Walter just quietly vaulted over half a dozen chairs, two or three at a time, backwards and forwards, till he had expended some of the animal vivacity stored up in abundance within him. Drake, as usual when extremely pleased, tried to accomplish the rubbing of his stomach and the patting of his head both at the same time; and I climbed into the chair with my father, and patted his cheeks and thanked him with a fierce shake of the hands.

"Bob, boy, you are the only one of my youngsters who has been at the old place, and you must have painted it as a wonderful corner of the earth, that Walter and Drake should testify their pleasure in such eccentric ways.--And look here, Walter: when you wish to turn acrobat again, let it not be in this library or over those chairs; choose some piece of green gra.s.s out of doors.--Well, boys, _perhaps_ you can pa.s.s the summer at the cape. I do not promise it, but shall try to arrange it so if your mother is willing; but under the unfailing condition that you make good progress in your studies until that time."

"Shall we all be there together, father, and for the whole summer, and without any school? How delightful!"

"Not too fast, Drake. Without school? What an idea! Why, in six months you would be as wild and ignorant as the sheep there. No; you shall have a strict tutor, who will keep you in harness, and help Walter to prepare for going up next year to Cambridge. But only you three will be there. I have some business in London, and I shall take your mother and Aggie and Charley with me."

During those February evenings there were many more conversations on the same subject, full of interest to us boys, and finally it was fully decided by our father and mother that we should go in May, and stay there until autumn; that a certain Mr Clare should be our tutor, and that Clump and Juno should be our housekeepers and victuallers.

Never did a springtime appear longer and more wearisome. We counted every day, and were disgusted with March for having thirty-one of them.

What greatly increased our impatience and the splendour of our antic.i.p.ation was that, some time in March, our father told us that a brig had been cast away in a curious manner on the sh.o.r.e of the cape, and that he had purchased the wreck as it lay, well preserved and firmly held in the rocks above ordinary high-tide. He proposed, at some future time, to make use of it as a sort of storehouse, or perhaps dwelling for labourers. A s.h.i.+pwreck! a real wreck! and on our cape! stranded on the very sh.o.r.e of our Robinson Crusoe-like paradise! Just imagine our excitement.

The particulars of the wreck were as follows:--A brig of 300 tons burden, on a voyage from South America to the Thames, having lost her reckoning in consequence of several days' heavy gale and thick weather, suddenly made the light on the Lizard, and as quickly lost it again in the fog which surrounded her. The captain, mistaking the light he had seen for some other well-known beacon, set his course accordingly. That was near nine o'clock in the evening. The wind and tide helped him on the course steered, and a little after midnight the misguided brig struck on a rock three-quarters of a mile south-west of our point of land. The wind had then increased to a gale, and was gathering new strength with every moment. In less than an hour the thumping and grating of the vessel's keel ceased, and then the captain knew that the rising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig was leaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her--whither the captain knew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suction of the sh.o.r.e current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection of our cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she pa.s.sed through them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by the fierce waves. The next day, when the storm had abated, the body was found far above where the brig lay fastened immovably in the vice-like fissure of enormous rocks. Twenty sovereigns, which perhaps the poor fellow had saved to bring home to his old mother, were found in a belt around his waist.

The damaged cargo was removed, and the wreck sold at auction, my father being the purchaser.

There was an old church situated on the summit of a neighbouring point of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, das.h.i.+ng and foaming on the stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied long, long histories of what might have been that sailor's life; and I wondered sadly if the poor mother knew where her son's grave was, and whether she would ever come to look at it. On the stone was written:--

HARRY BREESE LIES HERE, NEAR WHERE A CRUEL s.h.i.+PWRECK CAST HIM, MARCH 23RD, 1814: AGED 24 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 17 DAYS.

REST IN PEACE, POOR BODY; THY s.h.i.+PMATE, SOUL, HAS GONE ALOFT, WHERE THY DEAR CAPTAIN, JESUS, IS.

By the 7th May everything was prepared for our departure. On the next morning early we were to start in the stage-coach, and, what had lately added to our brilliant antic.i.p.ations, Harry and Alfred Higginson, two of our most intimate friends, were to go with us--to be with us all the summer, join our studies and our fun. But we were to separate from our father and mother, and from our dear sister Aggie and the little Charley--from all those dear ones from whom we had never been parted for a day and night before. We were to leave for half a year. All this, covered at first by the hopes and fancies we had built, and by the noise and activity of preparation, appeared then, when everything was packed, and we, the evening before the journey, drew our chairs about the tea-table. The prospect of such a magnificent time as we expected to have on the cape lost some of its brilliancy. Indeed, I positively regretted that we were to go. We boys were as hushed as frightened mice.

After tea, Drake and I got very close to our mother on the sofa, but Walter lounged nervously about, trying to appear, I think, as if such an affair--a parting for six months--were nothing to such a big fellow as he. Aggie came and held my hand. When our father had taken his usual seat, he and our mother commenced to give us careful instructions how we were to regulate our time and conduct during our separation from them; we were directed about our lessons, clothes, language, and play; to be kind and patient with Clump and Juno; and very particular were our orders about the new tutor, Mr Clare, to whom we had been formally introduced a few days before, and we were required to promise solemnly that we would obey him implicitly in every respect. Besides which our father delighted us very much by the information that he had engaged an old seaman, Mugford by name, once boatswain of an Indiaman, who had taken up his abode at the fis.h.i.+ng town across the bay from our cape, to be with us often through the summer in our out-of-school hours; that he would be, as it were, our skipper--perhaps reside with us--and that he was to have full command in all our water amus.e.m.e.nts; he would teach us to swim, to row, and to sail. That last subject cheered us up a bit, and when I saw Walter, who was still walking up and down the room, going through a pantomimic swim, striking out his arms in big circles, right and left, I commenced to smile, and Drake to laugh outright. So our conference ended in good spirits. And then we all kneeled in family prayer, and that evening before the parting, as we kneeled and heard my father's earnest words, I realised fully, perhaps for the first time, how, more than parents or friends, G.o.d was our Father; how, though we were going away from home and its securities, yet G.o.d was to be with us, stronger and kinder than any on earth, to guard and care for us.

During the few days we had known Mr Clare, he had been with us constantly, but we had not decided whether to like him or not. He seemed pleasant, and was easy enough, both in his manners and conversation, but yet he had a calm and decided way that was rather provoking; as if to say, "I have read you through and through, boys, and can govern you as easily as possible." Now we had no idea of resisting him; we intended to behave well, and therefore his manner rather nettled us. However, there was not much to object to. His appearance was certainly all right--a large, bright, manly face and hearty smile, and a strong, agile figure. We five boys had talked him over, and at the last balloting our votes were a tie, for Walter declined to express an opinion yet whether Mr Clare was a "screw" or a "good fellow." Harry Higginson and Drake voted "screw," whilst Alfred and I said "good fellow."

We must pa.s.s over the "goodbyes" of the next morning. Let us imagine there were no wet eyes and sinking hearts. However it may have been, the big rumbling old stage-coach containing Mr Clare and five boys, and loaded well with trunks and boxes, rattled from our house in --- Street at about six o'clock on that eighth morning in May, fifty years ago.

Our hearts cheered up with the growth of the sun. By ten o'clock we were very talkative; by one, very hungry. The contents of a basket, well-stored by our mother, and put in just as we were starting, settled that complaint. The afternoon was tedious, and we were not sorry when the coach dropped us at the quiet little country inn where we were to sleep. I need not describe the journey of the next day. We were too eager to get to its termination to care much for the beautiful scenery through which we pa.s.sed. As the evening drew on the weather became chilly. Ah! we were approaching the sea. By nine at night innumerable stars were twinkling over a dusky point of land which seemed to have waded out as far as possible into the indefinable expanse mirroring unsteadily a host of lights. A strong, damp, briny breath came up to us, and a vast murmur as if thousands of unseen, mysterious, deep-voiced spirits were chanting some wonderful religious service. "Whoa!" with a heavy lurch the yellow post-chaise, in which we had performed the second day's journey, came to a stand. We had arrived before the old stone ark that was to be our home for half a year.

CHAPTER THREE.

INTRODUCTION TO OUR SALT TUTOR AND THE WRECK.

It was on Wednesday night that we became the guests of Clump and Juno, and commenced our cape life. The next morning at breakfast--and what a breakfast! eggs and bacon, lard cakes, clotted cream, honey preserves, and as much fresh milk as we wanted--Mr Clare told us that we need not commence our studies until the next week; that we could have the remainder of this week as holidays in which to make a thorough acquaintance with our new world.

Our first wishes were to see the wreck and old Mr Mugford, whom we agreed to dub Captain Mugford; and so, immediately after breakfast, we started out with Mr Clare to find those items of princ.i.p.al interest.

When we had got beyond a hillock and an immense boulder of pudding-stone, which stood up to shut out the beach view from the west side of the house, we saw the wreck, only about half a mile off, and hurried down to it. Mr Clare joined in the race and beat us, although Walter pushed him pretty hard.

The brig sat high up on the rocky cliff, where only the fullest tides reached it. The deck careened at a small angle, and the stern projected several feet beyond the rocks hanging over the sea. The bow pointed toward the house. The brig's foremast only was standing, to the head of which old Mugford used to hoist, on all grand occasions, or on such as he chose to consider grand, a Union Jack or a red ensign, which had been saved from the wreck. The bowsprit was but little injured, and the cordage of that and of the foremast was there, and the shrouds--all of which had been replaced by old Mugford, who, having made the wreck his residence by my father's wishes, restored to it some of the grace and order the good brig possessed before misfortune overtook her, and now it looked fit for either a sailor or a landsman--a curious mongrel, half s.h.i.+p, half house. By the stump of the mainmast there stood a stove-pipe projecting from the deck.