Captain Mugford Part 2

"Well, try ten yards nearer; there, halt. Now try."

We all strained our eyes. I thought it read, _Wave_.

"No, Robert, it is not _Wave_.--Come, boys, sharpen your eyes on the sides of your noses, and try again."

"I can read it," shouted Harry Higginson, throwing up his hat.

"_Youth_! _Youth_!--that's it."

"Yes, that's it. Hurrah for you, Master Harry! I promote you on the spot captain of the maintop."

We hurried down to a white sand-beach on which lay a punt. In that the Captain pulled us, three at a time, out to the _Youth_. When well under sail and standing out for more open water, our good skipper at the tiller, having filled his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and tautened the sheet a bit, said--

"Boys, this craft is yours, but I am Commodore until each and all of you have learned to sail her as well as I can. May you prove quick to learn, and I quick to teach. But as I'm an old seadog, my pipe is out already. Give us a light, s.h.i.+pmate?"--I was trying with flint and steel to strike a few sparks into our old tinder-box--"there!--puff--puff-- puff--that will do. I must talk less and smoke more."

As the jolly Captain got up a storm of smoke, slapped me a stinger on the knee, and winked at the pennant, Mr Clare jumped up, and swinging his hat, cried--

"Boys, let's give cheers, three rousing cheers, for our brave boat, the _Youth_, and her good master, Captain Mugford!"

And didn't we give them!!!

CHAPTER FIVE.

BATH BAY LESSON--THE MIDNIGHT COUNCIL.

June came before we had made acquaintance with all the corners of our little new world. Every day it grew in interest to us, and, with the increasing fine weather, was the most beautiful spot on earth in our eyes. Once a week one of us was allowed to go over to the town with Clump, in his rowboat, and get letters from the post-office. That opportunity was always improved to purchase stores of groceries and other requisites. Each one's turn to be commissary only came once in five weeks.

Clump enjoyed those trips as much as we did. He would have meat or other things to get for the table, but would always reach the boat first in returning, and when he saw his "young master?"--as he called each of us boys--coming down the wharf loaded with a week's supply of various things, the old darky would commence to grin and slap his sharp knees, the slaps growing quicker and the grin breaking into "yha! yha! yhi!" as we drew near enough to show him our different purchases.

There was always a new pipe or a paper of tobacco for Clump, which he would lay on the seat beside him, and then put out the oars and pull with long, slow sweeps for our neck, each swing accompanied by a grunt, which, however, did not break the conversation he carried on, chiefly telling us stories of my father when he came as a boy, which often lasted till we reached our destination. Many a frolic and adventure would he thus relate with great gusto, and he had generally, too, some remembrance of my grandfather to repeat.

About the twentieth of June, the water was warm enough to allow us to bathe, and then began that exercise, the most useful and most wholesome, and perhaps among the most manly that a boy can practise.

Walter and both the Higginsons could swim. Drake and I were beginners.

Captain Mugford was our teacher. He chose a little bay within, as it were, the large bay on the neck end of our cape. Bath Bay, as we named it, was about two hundred and fifty yards long, and sixty to seventy yards wide. Its sh.o.r.es were rocks, except at its bow end, where a soft beach sloped gradually for forty feet from the sh.o.r.e. About fifteen feet beyond our depth the Captain had anch.o.r.ed a stationary staging, which was merely an old flatboat caulked and floored over. It had steps and ropes from its sides, and was intended as the first object to reach and rest on when we had learned to swim a dozen or more strokes.

Farther on, halfway the length of Bath Bay, was a large flat rock, which stood at high-tide two feet above water. Its sides were almost perpendicular, and were made accessible in the same way as "Youngster's Wharf." By that name those who could already swim called our staging near the beach. Leander's Rock, for we had a name for everything, had a depth of nearly thirty feet, and a finer place for diving cannot be imagined. Bath Bay was shut in by its wall-like sides and a bluff behind the sand-beach from all the severe winds, but after a storm out at sea we would get an even swell that was very pleasant to float on.

Our time for bathing was between the close of school at half-after one and our dinner-hour, three. All through the season, until early in October, we never lost a bath unless rain was falling heavily, so greatly did we enjoy it under the Captain's care. He would not have bathing-houses for us, as he said that the sun-bath after a swim was almost as good as the salt water itself. The Captain was always near the swimmers, in his punt, that in case of accident his a.s.sistance might be immediate.

Boys, if you have ever read Benjamin Franklin's directions to those learning to swim, you will understand the methods our Captain pursued to teach us. In his boat he was always dressed in bathing-clothes, and would often jump out to show us by example how to swim under water, how to float, how to dive, etcetera. I can a.s.sure you we enjoyed that sport as much as any we had, and before many weeks had pa.s.sed we could all swim a few strokes. By the close of the season, I, the youngest pupil, could swim out to Leander's Rock, dive from it twenty feet deep, and swim ash.o.r.e again easily. But more about Bath Bay, and our adventures there, hereafter.

After our baths and Juno's nice dinners we usually went to sail, and in a few weeks the Captain let some of us take the helm, he sitting by to instruct us, and to remedy, if need be, any mistake of the young sailor who happened to be our skipper at the time. Sometimes, instead of sailing, we would row in an excellent boat which we had for that purpose, and, four of us being at the oars, try how quick time we could make from point to point of the sh.o.r.e. With such practice, we made rapid improvements and by the middle of July could row a mile in twelve minutes; a month before we could only do that in twenty minutes.

Sometimes Mr Clare and the captain took oars in our boat; at other times they rowed against us in the Captain's punt. That was glorious fun, and how we fellows did strive to beat our tutors, and often came very near it too--so near that we determined, if there was any merit in TRY, to do it yet.

One night--it was about the 2nd of June, if my memory serves me--when we had gone up to our rooms for bed, and got undressed, Walter, who had been very quiet ever since our row in the afternoon when our tutors contended with and beat us as usual, called us to order, that we might organise, he said, as a regular boat club. We answered, "Good!"

"Good!" and each boy, putting a pillow on his footboard, took a senatorial seat--each boy arrayed in the flowing cotton nightgown. When silence ensued, Walter addressed us in his energetic, determined way, but lowered his voice that not a whisper of our deliberations might reach the ears of Mr Clare, who was only separated from us by a part.i.tion.

"Fellows, we _must_ beat our tutes--we _must_ beat them, that is what I say. Let's get our boat in good order immediately--let's call her the _Pupil_--let's row every day, but not alongside of our adversary--no, no!--but where we can't be seen, and for two hard hours each day. And I move we have a c.o.xswain, and that Bob be the boy--he is small, quick, and cool. Let's challenge our tutes to-morrow for a race."

"Agreed--agreed! hurrah!" we all shouted.

"For a race, I say, on, let me see, the anniversary of the glorious battle of Waterloo."

"Grand! splendid! hurrah!" were our interruptions again, and Drake expressed his delight by taking the pillow from beneath him, and slinging it with tremendous speed at Alf Higginson's head, who in consequence fell off his perch like a dead squirrel from a pine-tree.

Alf fell heavily on his side, and we roared with laughter; but he was up in a moment, and rushed at Drake with a bolster. Walter, our dignified chairman, swooped down from his perch in a second, and catching the incensed Alfred by the extremity of his flying robe, slung him under a bed.

"Order! Order, boys!" he cried. "Pretty fellows you are to hold a meeting. You, Drake! pitch any more pillows, and we'll slide you out of the window. There, stop your racket! Mr Clare is up. Before he comes hurry up and say, all together, 'We will beat.'"

"We will beat," was responded as fiercely as if life was at stake, and, as Mr Clare opened the door to ascertain what was the disturbance, five innocent boys were under blankets and apparently sleeping the deepest slumber. Drake had even reached a regular ba.s.s snore. The moonlight streaming in the room, and which showed us a smile breaking irresistibly on Mr Clare's face, was not more placid than we. The door had hardly closed behind Mr Clare before Harry Higginson had sprung from his bed, and, almost on the s.p.a.ce our tutor had stood a half second before, was enacting a ridiculous and vigorous pantomime of kicking our "fresh tute"

from the room. As quickly the door opened again, and before Harry could get a single limb in order, Mr Clare had him by the arm. But the whole affair was too humorous for even Mr Clare's dignity. He could only say "So you are the noisy one, Henry Higginson. You can get in bed now as quickly as you got out of it, and to-morrow, when the afternoon's study is done, recite to me fifty lines of Virgil--from the twentieth to the seventieth line of the first book."

With that, Mr Clare went from the room, and Harry, with a low, long, whistled "phew," sought his bed disconsolately.

The next day after lessons I, as c.o.xswain, by Walter's order, handed copies of the following note to Captain Mugford and Mr Clare:--

"Cape ---, June 3, 1816.

"Messrs. Mugford and Clare,

"The oarsmen of the galley _Pupil_ would hereby challenge the gentlemen of the boat _Tutor_ to a race on the eighteenth of June, in Bath Bay waters. The course to be from Youngster's Wharf around Leander's Rock, and return. Stakes to be--the champions.h.i.+p of Bath Bay. The oarsmen of the _Pupil_ would respectfully propose three p.m.

as the hour for the race, and the firing of a gun the signal for the start. The oldest inhabitant, Clump, offers his services as umpire, referee, judge, and signalman.

"All which is submitted for the acceptance and concurrence of the gentlemen of the _Tutor_.

"(Signed) Walter Tregellin, Henry C. Higginson, Drake Quincy Tregellin, Alfred Higginson, _Oarsmen_,

"Robert Tregellin, _c.o.xswain_."

Mr Clare, when he read it, smiled and said he would see about it, and then turned to Henry and asked him if he had learned those fifty lines yet.

Captain Mugford was presented with his copy as he entered the house for dinner. "Hu-um!" he said, as he took the note in the hand with his hat, and wiped his red, wet forehead with an immense silk handkerchief printed with the maritime flags of all nations. "A note! Who writes me notes? Some of your nonsense, boys, eh?" So he hitched up his trousers and sat down on the doorstep, placing the red handkerchief in his hat beside him. "Let's see!"

"Good! good! that's very good. The middies have got their courage up.

The idea of such a stiff old seadog racing with you youngsters!"

"But you will though, won't you, Captain, and make Mr Clare, too?" said Harry.

"Perhaps, boys, if Mr Clare will join, and then we will make you smart.

And I tell you what, young gentlemen, if you beat I'll give you a splendid Malay race-boat that I have had stored in my s.h.i.+p-loft these three years."

"Hurrah! Captain, we shall win the boat!" we all cried.

"Ha! ha! what boys for warm weather! You talk as brave as a west wind.

But I smell Juno's cooking; let's go in and talk it over with Mr Clare and a warm dish of stew."

It was all settled to our satisfaction before dinner was over. Mr Clare enjoyed the thing as much as the Captain, and declared they would have to practise together once a week. As for us, we never missed our two hours' pull every afternoon, rain or s.h.i.+ne, blow high or blow low, until the all-important day proposed for the race.