CHAPTER SEVEN.
A SOUTH-EASTERLY GALE.
"Oh, Nell!" cried Bob to his sister the same evening, some time afterdinner, which, through their explorations on the beach, was somewhatlater than usual--"I do wonder what that mysterious `something' is theCaptain keeps promising us for `to-morrow.' Can he be thinking oftaking us for a trip on the sea in his yacht, or what?"
"I wonder," was all Nellie could say in reply to her brother's remark,echoing, so to speak, his own words--"I do wonder--what he is going todo, Bob?"
Their anxious curiosity, however, availed them naught; the old sailorkeeping provokingly silent and being as mute as the Sphinx on thesubject, in spite of their wistful looks and watchfulness.
Throughout the evening the Captain only opened his lips to say to MrsGilmour, with whom he was playing one of those post-prandial games ofcribbage which it had been his wont to indulge in before the advent ofBob and Nellie on the scene to interrupt their regular routine, "Fifteenfour and two for his heels," or "I'll take three for a flush, ma'am," asthe case might be. He only made use of such-like technical phraseologycommon to cribbage players, limiting his conversation to the game alone;without leaving a loophole for either of the impatient listeners in thecomer, who were turning over picture-books and otherwise divertingthemselves, equally silently, till bedtime, to get in a word edgeways.
It was positively exasperating to Bob; especially as, the moment the oldsailor chanced to notice one or other of the children eyeing him moreattentively than usual on his looking up from the cards before him, hewould smile knowingly and nod his head in the most waggish fashion.
"I don't think he means anything in particular at all," said therestless Master Bob a little later on to Nellie again. "See how funnyhe looks! He's only `taking a rise' out of us, as he calls it."
"No, Bob," said Nellie, catching another quizzical look from the Captainjust at that moment, "I don't think that. I'm sure he means somethingfrom that way he winked at us. Besides, Bob, he promised, and you knowthat Captain Dresser never breaks his word!"
Presently the report of the nine o'clock gun rolled through the nightair, its echoes reverberating fainter and fainter until lost in thedistance to seaward.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the Captain, throwing his cards on the table andrising from his seat,--"It's time for me to say good-night, or I shan'tget any beauty sleep!"
"It's not so very late," said Mrs Gilmour, rising and going towards theopen window looking over the Common. "What a lovely night it is!"
"Aye," replied the old sailor, following her, "the sky is bright andclear enough, certainly."
"Yes, what myriads of stars are out! I can see the `milky way' quiteplain, can't you, children?"
"Where, auntie?" asked Nellie behind her, while Bob stepped out on tothe balcony the better to see. "I don't see it."
Mrs Gilmour showed them the forked pathway leading up from the southand east to the zenith, looking as if powdered with the dust of starswhich `Charles's wain,' as country people term the constellation, hadcrushed in its lumbering progress through the heavens.
Away beyond this golden `wake' of starlets the more majestic planetsshone in stately grandeur; while the evening star twinkled in theimmensity of space, still further away to the westwards.
"But the more you look at them, the further away they appear to go," putin Nellie. "Though, strangely enough, they don't seem to get anysmaller."
"Aye, aye," acquiesced the Captain. "It _is_ awful to think of themillions of miles they are separated from our globe, and that yet theirlight reaches us! Why, it is wonderful for us to reflect on this!"
"Hark! I hear a church bell ringing," cried Bob suddenly at this point."It sounds as if it came from the sea out yonder."
"So it does, my boy," answered the Captain; "but not from any church.It is the bell on the Spit buoy that you hear ringing away to thesouthward. It is a bad sign for to-morrow, denoting as it does a changeof wind to a rainy quarter?"
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Bob, in such lugubrious tones that even Nellielaughed, although sharing his feelings about the prospect of a wet day,with the more than probable contingency of their being confined to thehouse. "What shall we do?"
"Cheer up, my lad, it may not be so bad after all," cried the Captainheartily. "But, really, I must be going now; for, it is close on teno'clock and I shall lose all my beauty sleep, as I said before. Whereis young Dick?"
"Down in the kitchen with Sarah," replied Mrs Gilmour to this question,ringing the bell as she spoke. "He'll soon be ready if you insist ontaking him away with you."
"Humph!" ejaculated the other, "as he's going to be my valet or factotumby the agreement we made to-day, I don't think we'll be able to tellwhether we suit each other, ha-ha! if he remains in one house and I inanother, eh?"
"Perhaps not," said Mrs Gilmour, smiling in response with the chucklehe indulged in at the recollection of his old joke on his way home fromthe dockyard; and Dick entering the room at the same moment, with abroad grin on his face as if he knew what they were talking about, sheadded--"Sure, here he is to spake for himself! Are you ready to go homewith the Captain, Dick?"
"Yes, mum," answered the lad promptly. "Sarah told me as how the goodgentleman allers went away sharp at nine o'clock, and so I comes up asthe bell rung."
"That's right, sharp's the word and quick's the motion; so we'd betterbe off," said the old sailor, taking his hat and stick which thehousemaid, Sarah aforesaid, brought in from the hall. "Good-night,ma'am,--good-night, chickabiddies!"
"Good-night!" replied Mrs Gilmour, Nellie echoing her aunt's adieu witha parting injunction of her own. "Pray be sure and bring back Dick to-morrow morning, Captain!"
"Perhaps, too, you'll tell us then what you are going to do if we aregood?" said Bob entreatingly, "though you would not to-night."
"We'll see how the cat jumps!" replied the Captain with his cheerychuckling laugh as he marched out of the hall and down the steps withDick after him; their retreating footsteps gradually dying away untilthey rounded the corner of the parade, the last sound heard being thatof the ferrule of the Captain's malacca cane as it rang on the pavement,keeping time to the rhythm of his tread, and his voice repeating in thedistance his quizzing rejoinder, "we'll see how the cat jumps!"
The `cat' evidently did not `jump' properly the next day, or, if itjumped at all, it executed that movement most decidedly in the wrongdirection; for, when morning broke, much to Bob and Miss Nell's disgust,they found that a stormy south-easterly gale had set in, accompanied bysmart showers of rain, which very unpleasant change in the aspect of theweather put all ideas of their going out entirely out of the question.
During the night, the wind, which had veered more to the eastwardly,rose considerably, drowning the clanging knell of the Spit buoy bell andrattling the windows and doors, like some desperate burglar on thoughtsof plunder bent trying to effect a forcible entry.
Not satisfied with this alone, `Rude Boreas' sent one of his imps downthe chimney to frighten poor Nellie, who lay trembling in bed, byflapping up and down the register of the grate; while another wouldevery now and then boldly rush up and grip hold of the house, shaking itviciously and causing it to rock from roof to basement--the rebuffedrascal then sailing away with a shriek of disappointed spite and rage,moaning and groaning like a creature in pain as it went off to vent itsmalice elsewhere!
Ere long the sea, unable to keep its temper under the bad treatment itreceived from the wind, which blew in its face most insultingly and keptcontinually `pitting and patting it,' baker-man fashion, in a veryaggravating way, began to boil up in anger, lashing itself into apassion and roaring with fury; while the noise Neptune made by and bydeadened the roar of his assailant as he flung himself aloft in hisstruggles to grapple his nimble foe, and, missing his aim, rolled onwardhis boiling waves until they broke on the beach with the shock of anearthquake, amid a hurricane of foam!
The awesome sound of wave and sea combined kept Bob awake nearly
allnight, the same as it did poor Nellie; the noise being so strange totheir London ears, although, in some respects, somewhat similar to thatof the street traffic of the metropolis.
Not only did it keep him awake, but the battle of the elements madeMaster Bob get up much earlier than usual; for he came down to thedrawing-room before Sarah had time to finish dusting the furniture.
Here he was soon afterwards joined by Nellie, who was equally `spry' inher movements; and the pair amused themselves till breakfast was readyin looking out of the windows at the busy scene which the offingpresented, so different to that of the previous evening, when all wasquiet and calm, with Neptune gone to sleep and Boreas speaking but in awhisper!
The whilom glassy surface of the deep was now, however, a mass of shortchoppy waves, the sea king's `white horses' leaping up friskily in everydirection and chasing each other as they rolled in landward, throwingaloft clouds of feathery spray in their sport, as if champing it fromtheir bits. Such was the scene far as the eye could span away to theeastward, where the sky was lit up by a stray gleam or two from thelong-since risen sun, who, though trying to hide himself behind a bankof blue-black clouds, was not quite able to conceal his whereabouts.
Out at sea opposite, facing south and almost on the horizon line, a lotof vessels could be seen scudding down Channel, under short canvas butoutward bound, just coming in sight beyond Saint Helen's to make sure oftheir landfall and then disappearing the next moment behind the Isle ofWight, which shut them out from view; while, to the left, snuglysheltered under the lee of the Ryde hills, several others had run in andanchored off the Motherbank, waiting for a change of wind beforeproceeding on their voyage up, along the coast, to the river--`theriver' of the world, the Thames!
As Bob and Nellie gazed out, taking in all these varied details of thescene by degrees, they could not help being pleased, everything was sonovel; but, they saw something else beyond the prospect which cast `adamper' over their spirits, theoretically as well as practically.
This was the rain, which came in squalls, the smart showers hurtlingdown in pattering intensity, momentarily shutting out the sea and itssurroundings from sight; while the swollen raindrops dashed against thewindow-panes like hail, trying, like the whirling storm-blast, to forcea passage into every nook and cranny that lay open to attack.
"Oh dear!" sighed Bob dismally, his nose pressed like a piece of puttyagainst the glass. "It's awful rain, Nell; I don't think it will everstop!"
"Oh dear!" sighed Nellie, in responsive echo; but, just then their auntbustled into the room, her face the picture of good-humour, in markedcontrast to theirs, and she caught the mournful exclamation--"Oh dear!"
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Mrs Gilmour, in a cheerful tone, ontheir turning round as she entered. "To look at you both, one wouldthink that something dreadful had happened!"
"It's raining," said Bob, in a melancholy tone. "It's raining, auntie!"
"So I can see," retorted Mrs Gilmour. "Haven't I got eyes of my own,sure, me dear?"
"But we shan't be able to go out, auntie," cried Nellie, in the mostbroken-hearted way. "We shan't be able to go out!"
"You need not be so disconsolate about that, dearie," said the othersmiling. "It may not rain all day; and, if so, you'll be able to getout between the breaks when it holds up. But, there's Sarah ringing thebell, so, children, let us go downstairs now to the parlour; perhaps bythe time we have finished breakfast it will have cleared up and be quitefine."
These cheery words, combined possibly with a savoury odour of frizzledbacon and hot coffee that came up appetisingly from below, had theeffect, for a while at least, of banishing Bob and Nellie's gloom, andwithout further ado they accompanied their aunt to the breakfast-roomdownstairs.
Here, stretched on the hearthrug before the grate, in which a brightcosy little fire was blazing and looking uncommonly cheery, although itwas now summer, lay Rover.
Without rising, he lazily greeted them by flopping his heavy tail,albeit he lifted his nose in the air and sniffed, as if in anticipationof sharing the coming meal with the welcome guests who so opportunelyappeared.
"Well, I declare!" cried Mrs Gilmour, "I hope you make yourself athome, sir?"
Rover only flopped his tail the more furiously at this, his appealingbrown eyes saying, as plainly as dog could speak, that he was hungry,and that if she meant to be kind he would prefer actions to words.
After breakfast, as the rain still continued, Bob got grumpy again andNellie mopey from not being able to go out on the beach as both longedto do.
In this emergency, their aunt suggested that the unhappy children shouldoccupy themselves in sorting and arranging in an old album, which shegave them, some of the best bits of seaweed they had collected theprevious afternoon, the good lady advising them first to soak thespecimens in a bowl of fresh-water, so as to get rid of the salt andsand and other impurities, besides enabling the specimens to be laidflatter in the book for subsequent pressing.
By this means, the time passed so pleasantly that Master Bob and MissNell were much surprised when Mrs Gilmour, who had meanwhile beenbusying herself about household matters, came to tell them, anon, thatthey must clear their things off the parlour-table on account of Sarahwanting to lay luncheon.
"Why, auntie," cried Bob, looking up from the basin in which he was busywashing the last lot of seaweed, "we've hardly begun yet!"
"You've been a long time beginning then, sir," replied Mrs Gilmour."Do you know that it is past one o'clock; so that you've been more thanthree hours at your task? See, too, my dears, the rain has cleared off,and it looks as if it were going to be fine for a bit."
"How nice, aunt Polly!" said Nellie, the neat-handed, carefully liftingup the album out of Sarah's way so that she might spread the cloth. "Ideclare I never thought once of looking out of the window to see if itwere still wet. Did you, Bob?"
"No," he answered, "I was too busy helping you, Nell."
"Ah, my dearies," interposed Mrs Gilmour, taking advantage of theopportunity to point a moral, "you see what it is not to be idle andhaving something to do! If you had not both been so engrossed with yourtask, you, Master Bob, would have been `Oh-ing' all over the house andgoing to each window in turn to see if the rain had stopped, lookinglike a bear with a sore head; while you, Miss Nell, would probably haveshed as many tears as would have floated a jolly-boat, as CaptainDresser would say in his sailor language!"
"Oh, auntie!" exclaimed Bob impetuously, "I never say `Oh' like that, doI?"
"Sure you've answered the question yourself!" replied Mrs Gilmour,speaking in her racy brogue. "That's just what I should have had tolisten to all the morning but for my thinking of that album, which I'mglad has amused you both, my dears, so well. Ah, children, children,there's nothing like having something to do. I'll tell you somethingone of the poets, Cowper I think, has written about this in his homelyverse:--
"`An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless as it goes as when it stands!'
"What d'you think of that, me dears, for an illustration of a personwithout occupation for mind or body--does the cap fit anybody here, eh?"
Bob was silent; but Nellie took the lesson to heart.
"Yes, auntie, I know it's true enough," she replied. "I like thoselines; papa taught them to me when I was a tiny little girl. I wonderif he learnt them first from you?"
"No, dearie," said Mrs Gilmour, drawing her towards her with anaffectionate caress. "Our father, your grandpapa that was, taught thatlittle verse to us years ago, when your papa and I were of the same ageas Bob and yourself; and I have never forgotten them, as you see,dearie. But, sit down now and have your luncheon. Bob, come to thetable; Bob! What on earth are you staring so out of the window now for,I wonder? Bob, I say!"
This repetition of his name in a louder key made the delinquent jump;and he turned round in a hurry.
Bob Strong's Holidays Page 7