"It's so hard," he said; "here have I been longing for an engagement, and the first one that turns up I am away from my ship, and cannot even see the fun."

I saw my father, who was wincing with pain, smile at the lieutenant's idea of fun.

"Why, you are safer here," he said.

"Safer!" exclaimed the lieutenant contemptuously. "Now, Captain Duncan, would you have liked it when you were on active service?"

"That I certainly should not, sir."

"Ah, well," said the lieutenant, "I suppose I must be contented with our little prize here. This Gualtiere has long been wanted. A most successful smuggler, sir."

The conversation was ceasing to interest me, so I went on deck, when the middy came up to me directly from where he was standing listening to the firing.

I looked at him with the eyes of admiration, for his uniform, dirk, and pistols gave him a warlike aspect, and besides he was in temporary command of the st.u.r.dy Jacks who were overawing the smuggler's men.

"Won't you sit down?" he said, turning up a little keg.

I sank upon the seat with a sigh, for I felt weak.

"Ah! You are a lucky fellow," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Why? To be in a fight last night and get wounded."

"Oh!" I exclaimed laughing.

"Ah, you may laugh!" he said. "I call it first rate. You're only a landsman, and get all that luck. It's of no use to you. Why, if it had been me, of course I am too young for promotion, but it would have been remembered by and by. I say, tell us all about it."

I told him, and to my surprise I found before long that all the sailors were listening intently.

"Ah!" exclaimed the middy as I finished; "don't I wish we had all been there."

"And don't I wish you had all been there!" I said dolefully; "our place is regularly wrecked."

"Never mind," cried the middy, shaking my hand. "They ar'n't getting much by it. Hark! How our old girl is pounding away at 'em. I'll be bound to say that the spars and planks are flying, and--oh, don't I wish I were there!"

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

BIGLEY FEELS HIS POSITION.

During the day, after leaving an adequate guard over the prisoners in the lugger, the lieutenant came up the Gap twice, and worked hard with his men to get our poor work-people in a more comfortable state, though now plenty of the Ripplemouth folk had been over, and help and necessaries were freely lent, so that the night was made fairly comfortable for the wounded and their families. We slept in the ruins of the counting-house, whose roof was open to the sky, for my father had not the heart to go home and rest there; and when he sent Bigley over, and I felt that I should like to go and keep the poor fellow company, I, too, had not the heart to go and leave my father alone.

The next morning the lieutenant came to fetch us to breakfast on board the lugger; but we made a very poor meal, our injuries being more painful, and I felt weak and ill; but there was so much to see and hear that I kept forgetting my sufferings in the interest of the time.

There were our men to go and see, and sit and talk to where they were too poorly to get up. There was Mother Bonnet to speak to when she started for the Bay to attend on Bigley; and I had her to see again when she came back, all ruffled and indignant, after a verbal engagement with our Kicksey, who would not let the old woman interfere, because she wanted to nurse Bigley herself.

Then towards afternoon, when the lieutenant had nearly gone mad with suspense about the frigate and at being bound to stop there with the lugger, according to his orders, news came by a fishing boat, that there had been a desperate engagement, and the frigate had been sunk.

But on the top of that came news by a man who was riding over from Stinchcombe, that it was the French vessel that had been sunk.

This stopped the lieutenant just as he was putting off in the lugger, and soon after a fresh news-bearer came in the shape of another fisherman, who announced that the Frenchman was taken.

There was a regular cheer at this, and I saw Captain Gualtiere's brow knit; but he pa.s.sed it off, and sat with the officer straining his eyes to the west in search of the prize to our flag.

It was no wonder that he looked as triumphant as our people seemed chap-fallen when towards evening the frigate appeared alone, with every st.i.tch of canvas that she could show spread to the western breeze, but the spy-gla.s.ses showed that she was in anything but good trim, for her main-mast was gone by the board, only a short stump rising above the deck, and as she came nearer, her shattered bulwarks told of a desperate fight.

There was a signal of recall flying; and at this the lieutenant shook hands warmly, and with the middy bade us good-bye, setting sail directly after with the prisoners in their own vessel, and towing the frigate's boat behind.

We learned afterwards that there had been a most desperate engagement, far away to the west, and that the Frenchman was becoming hopelessly beaten with half her guns silenced, and that she was on the point of striking her colours, when a lucky shot from one of her big guns cut through the frigate's main-mast, and it toppled over into the sea, whereupon the French sloop made her escape, sinking the cutter which bravely tried to check her, and carrying off her crew as prisoners.

We only obtained this information in driblets; but one thing was certain, the French sloop had got right away, and my father frowned as he thought of his lost silver.

He bore up famously for a few days, working hard, in spite of Doctor Chowne's orders, in trying to make his wounded work-people comfortable, and then when by the doctor's orders I was lying at home on a sofa in the same room as Bigley, my poor father broke down and took to his bed.

"I'm not surprised," Doctor Chowne said to me shaking his head. "You're all a set of the most obstinate mules that ever kicked. I should have had you all well by now, only young Bigley there would walk on his crippled leg and irritate it; you would keep rolling and dancing about and keeping your ribs from mending; and your father has gone on walking about just as if nothing was the matter, when all the time he ought to have been in bed."

"But a little rest will soon set him right, will it not, doctor?" I said anxiously.

"A little rest? He'll be obliged to take a great deal now, and I'm glad of it. Hang him: I'll bring him in a bill by and by!"

The doctor was quite right; we had all been very disobedient, and suffered for it; but in spite of the pain, and fever, and weakness, that was a very pleasant time. How we used to lie there listening to the birds! Sometimes it was the blackbirds piping softly in the garden.

Then from high up over the hill we could faintly hear the skylark singing away, and then perhaps mingling with it would come the wild querulous _pee-ew_! _pee-ew_! Of the grey and white gulls, as in imagination we saw them gliding here and there about the cliffs.

But there was war in our cottage at the Bay--desperate war. Mother Bonnet coming every morning with fish and cream and chickens and fruit for her boy, as she called Bigley; and our Kicksey snorting and indignant at the intrusion, and telling old Sam that it was just as if master was too poor to pay for things.

Then by degrees my father grew well enough to sit out in the little battery by his guns, and breathe the soft sea-breezes that came in from the west; and here he used to receive our foreman, who came over every morning to report how much lead had been smelted and cast, and how the mine was growing more productive.

For as fast as the men grew well enough, they returned to their duties.

The cottages were restored as quickly as was possible, and every day the traces of the French attack grew less visible; but still my father did not get quite well.

Bob Chowne was over with us a great deal, and I believe he did both Bigley and me a vast deal of good from being so cantankerous. He would do anything for us; fetch, carry, or turn himself into a crutch for Bigley to lean upon, as he hopped down the garden to a chair; but he must be allowed to snarl and find fault, and snarl he did horribly.

One day when I was beginning to feel quite strong again, and I was able to take a long breath once more without feeling sharp p.r.i.c.king sensations, and afterwards a long dull aching pain, I went down the garden to find Bigley standing before my father with his head bent and listening patiently to what seemed to be a scolding.

"I've told you before, my lad. Ah, Sep, you there?"

"Yes, father," I said. "I beg your pardon. I did not know."

"There, stop," cried my father. "It is nothing that you may not hear.

Bigley Uggleston is talking again about going, and I am bullying him for it."

"I can't help it, Captain Duncan," cried poor Bigley pa.s.sionately. "I want to be frank and honest; and it always seems dreadful to me that, after what has taken place and your terrible losses, I should be staying here and receiving favours at your hands."

"Now, my good lad, listen to me," said my father. "Do you think that I am so wanting in gentlemanly feeling that I should wish to visit the sin of another upon your head?"