Chapter One.

A Home at Sea.

“Here, you, Vince!” cried Doctor Burnet, pausing in his surgery with a bottle in each hand—one large and the other small, the latter about to be filled for the benefit of a patient who believed himself to be very ill and felt aggrieved when his medical adviser told him that he would be quite well if he did not eat so much.

“Yes, father.”

The boy walked up to the surgery door at the end of the long, low granite house.

“Upon my word!” cried the Doctor; “it’s lucky we have nobody here to see you. No one would ever take you for a gentleman’s son.”

“Why not, father?”

“Why not, sir! Look at your trousers and your boots.”

Vincent Burnet looked down, and then up in his father’s face.

“Trousers a bit tight across the knee,” he said deprecatingly. “The cloth gave way.”

“And were your boots too tight at the toes, sir? Look at them.”

“They always wear out there,” said Vincent; and he once more looked down, beyond the great tear across the right knee of his trousers, to his boots, whose toes seemed each to have developed a wide mouth, within which appeared something which looked like a great grey tongue.

“I don’t think this pair were very good leather, father,” he said apologetically.

“Good leather, sir! You’d wear them out it they were cast iron.—Ah, my dear!”

A pleasant, soft face appeared at the door, and looked anxiously from father to son.

“Is anything the matter, Robert?”

“Matter? Look at this fellow’s clothes and boots!”

“Oh, Vince, my dear, how you have torn your trousers again!”

“Torn them again!—the boy’s a regular scarecrow!” cried the Doctor. “I will not pay for good things for him to go cliff-climbing and wading and burrowing in caves.—Here: what are you going to do?”

“Take him indoors to sew up that slit.”

“No!” cried the Doctor, filling up the bottle; and then, making a small cork squeak as he screwed it in, “Take your scissors and cut the legs off four inches above the knees.”

“Robert!” cried Mrs Burnet, in a tone of protest.

“And look here, Vince: you can give up wearing shoes and stockings; they are for civilised beings, not for young savages.”

“My dear Robert, you are not in earnest?”

“Ah, but I am. Let him chip and tear his skin: that will grow up again: clothes will not.”

“All right, father; I shan’t mind,” said the boy, smiling. “Save taking shoes and stockings off for wading.”

“Vincent, my dear!” cried his mother, “how absurd! You would look nice the next time Michael Ladelle came for you.”

“He’d do the same, mother. He always imitates me.”

“Yes; you’re a nice pair,” said the Doctor. “I never saw such young savages.”

“You’re too hard upon them, Robert,” said Mrs Burnet, laying her arm on her son’s shoulder. “It does not matter out in this wild place, where there is no one to see him but the fishing people; and see what a healthy, natural life it is for them.”

“Healthy! natural!” cried the Doctor sharply. “So you want to see him grow up into a sort of Peter the Wild Boy, madam?”

“No,” said Mrs Burnet, exchanging an affectionate glance with her sun-tanned son. “Peter the Wild Boy did not have a college tutor to teach him the classics, did he, Vince?”

“No, mother; he must have been a lucky fellow,” said the boy, laughing.

“For shame, Vincent!” cried Mrs Burnet, shaking her head at the boy reprovingly. “You do not mean that.”

“I believe he does,” said the Doctor angrily. “I won’t have any more of it. He neglects his studies shamefully.”

“No, no, indeed, dear,” cried Mrs Burnet. “You don’t know how hard he works.”

“Oh yes, I do: at egging, climbing, fishing, and swimming. I’ll have no more of it; he shall go over to some big school in Germany, where they’ll bring him to his senses.”

“I do everything Mr Deane sets me to do, father,” said the boy; “and I do try hard.”

“Yes—to break your neck or drown yourself. Look here, sir, when are you going to pay me my bill?”

“Your bill, father? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Surgical attendance in mending your broken leg. That’s been owing two years.”

“When my ship comes in, father,” cried Vince, laughing.

“But, I say, don’t send me to a big school, father. I like being here so much.”

“Yes: to waste the golden moments of boyhood, sir.”

“But I don’t, father,” cried Vince. “I really do work hard at everything Mr Deane sets me, and get it all done before I go out. He never finds fault.”

“Bah! You’re getting too big to think of going out to play with Mike Ladelle.”

“But you said, father, that you liked to see a fellow work hard at play as well as study, and that ‘all work and no play made Jack a dull boy.’”

“Jack!” cried the Doctor, with his face wrinkling up, as he tried to look very severe. “Yes Jack. But you’re not Jack: he was some common fisherman’s or miner’s boy, not the son of a medical man—a gentleman. There, go and dress that wound in his trousers, my dear.”

“And you won’t send me off to school, father? I do like private study at home so much better!”

“Humph! I don’t know whether you’re aware of it, sir, but you’ve got a very foolish, indulgent father, who is spoiling you.”

“No, he did not know that,” said Mrs Burnet, smiling, as she looked from one to the other proudly. “And it is not true, is it, Vince?”

“No, mother, not a bit of it,” cried the boy.

“And I feel sure that father will not send you away if you try hard to master all your lessons with Mr Deane.”

“Well, it isn’t your father who is spoiling you now, Vince,” said the Doctor. “There: I’ll give you another six months’ trial; and, here—which way are you going?”

“Round by the south cliff to look for Mike Ladelle.”

“Ah, I daresay he’s shut up in his father’s study hard at work!”

“No, father; I’ve been up to the house, and they said he had gone out.”

“There, go and get mended; and you may as well leave this medicine for me at James Carnach’s. It will be ready for you by the time your mother has done.”

“Yes, father—I’ll come,” cried the boy; and he hurried out of the surgery.

“Ah!” said the Doctor, “you undo all my work by your foolish indulgence.”

Mrs Burnet smiled.

“I should be very miserable,” she said, “if I could feel that all you say is true.”

“But see what a reckless young rascal he grows.”

“No, I cannot see that, dear,” replied Mrs Burnet. “He is a thorough, natural boy, and I am glad to find him so fond of outdoor life.”

“And not of his studies?”

“He works very hard at them, dear; and I’m sure you want to see him grow up manly.”

“Of course.”

“And not a weak, effeminate lad, always reading books over the fire.”

“No, but—”

“Let him go on as he is, dear,” said Mrs Burnet gently; “and show him that you take an interest in his sports.”

“Spoil him more still?”

“No: encourage him in his love of natural history.”

“And making the place untidy with his messing about. I say: by the way, have you been at that bottle of acid?”

“I? No, dear.”

“Then he has, for some of his sham experiments.”

“Mother!”

“Coming, my dear,” cried Mrs Burnet, in answer to the call; and she hurried into the house, leaving the Doctor to write out the directions upon a label, so that Jemmy Carnach—fisherman when the sea was calm, and farmer when it was rough—might not make a mistake when he received his bottle of medicine, and take it all at once, though it would not have hurt him if he had.

“Nice boy!” muttered the Doctor, as he made a noose in a piece of twine and carefully tied the label to the bottle; “but I wish the young plague had been a girl.”

At that moment Vince was standing with one foot upon a stool, so that the knee of his trousers was within easy reach of his mother’s busy fingers, while the bright needle flashed in and out, and the long slit was gradually being reduced in extent.

“Mind, mother! don’t sew it to the skin,” he said laughingly; and then, bending down, he waited his opportunity, and softly kissed the glossy hair close to his lips.

“I say, mother,” he whispered, “don’t have me sent away. Father doesn’t mean it, does he?”

“I don’t think so, my dear; but he wants to see you try hard to grow into a manly, sensible lad.”

“Well, that’s what I am trying to do.”

Mrs Burnet took hold of her son’s none too clean hand, turned it over, and held up the knuckles, which seemed to have been cracked across, but were nearly healed.

“Well, I couldn’t help that, mother,” protested the boy. “You wouldn’t have had me stand still and let young Carnach knock Mike Ladelle about without helping him?”

“I don’t like fighting, Vince,” said Mrs Burnet, with a sigh; “it seems to me brutal.”

“Well, so it is, mother, when it’s a big, strong fellow ill-using a small one. But it can’t be brutal for a little one to stick up for himself and thrash the big coward, can it?”

“That is a question upon which I cannot pretend to decide, Vince. You had better ask your father.”

“Oh, no! I shan’t say anything about it,” replied the boy, giving his short shock-brown hair a rub. “I don’t like talking about it. Nearly done?”

“Yes, I am fastening off the thread.”

There was a snip given directly after by a pair of scissors; Vince gave his leg a shake to send the trouser down in its place, and then stooped and kissed the sweet, placid face so close to his.

“There,” he cried; “don’t you tell me I didn’t pay you for mending the tear.”

“Ready, Vince?” said the Doctor, entering with the bottle neatly done up in white paper.

“Yes, father.”

“Mind, sir! don’t break it.”

“No, father: all right.”

The next minute Vince was trotting sharply down the road towards the rough moorland, which he had to partly traverse before turning down a narrow track to the cliff edge, where, in a gap, half a dozen fishermen’s cottages were built, sheltered from the strong south-west wind.

“You will not send him away, Robert?” said Mrs Burnet.

“Humph! Well, no,” said the Doctor, wrinkling up his brow; “it would seem so dull if he were gone.”

Chapter Two.

“Two for a Pair.”

“Hullo, Cinder!”

“Hullo, Spoon!”

“Who are you calling Cinder?”

“Who are you calling Spoon?”

“You. Well, Ladle then, if you don’t like Spoon.”

“And you have it Scorcher if you like, old Burnet.”

“Burnet’s a better name than Ladelle.”

“Oh, is it! I don’t know so much about that, Vincey. And it isn’t pronounced as if it was going into a soup tureen. You know that well enough. It’s a fine old French name.”

“Of course I know your finicking way of calling it Lah Delle; but, if you’re English, it’s Ladle. Ha, ha, ha! Ladle for frog soup, Frenchy.”

“You won’t be happy till I’ve punched your head, Vince Burnet.”

“Shan’t I? All right, then: make me happy,” said Vince to another sun-browned lad whom he had just encountered among the furze and heather—all gold and purple in the sunny islet where they dwelt—and in the most matter-of-fact way he took off his jacket; and then began a more difficult task, which made him appear like some peculiar animal struggling out of its skin: for he proceeded to drag off the tight blue worsted jersey shirt he wore, and, as it was very elastic, it clung to his back and shoulders as he pulled it over his head, and, of course, rendered him for the moment helpless—a fact of which his companion was quite ready to take advantage.

“Want to fight, do you?” he cried: “you shall have it then,” and, grinning with delight, he sprang upon the other’s back, nipping him with his knees, and beginning to slap and pummel him heartily.

Vince Burnet made a desperate effort to get free, but the combination of his assailant’s knees and the jersey effectively imprisoned him, and, though he heaved and tossed and jerked himself, he could not dislodge the lad, who clung to him like Sinbad’s old man of the sea, till he fell half exhausted in a thick bed of heather, where he was kept down to suffer a kind of roulade of thumps, delivered very heartily upon his back as if it were a drum.

“Murder! murder!” cried Vince, in smothered tones, with the jersey over his head.

“Yes, I’ll give you murder! I’ll give you physic! How do you like that, and that, and that, Doctor?”

Each question was followed by a peculiar double knock on back or ribs.

“Don’t like it at all, Mike. Oh, I say, do leave off!”

“Shan’t. Don’t get such a chance every day. I’ll roast your ribs for you, my lad.”

“No, no: I give in. I’m done.”

“Ah! that sounds as if you didn’t feel sure. As your father says to me when I’m sick, I must give you another dose.”

“No, no, don’t, please,” cried Vince: “you hurt.”

“Of course I do. I mean it. How many times have you hurt me?”

“But it’s cowardly to give it to a fellow smothered up like I am.”

“’Tisn’t cowardly: it’s the true art of war. Get your enemy up in a corner where he can’t help himself, and then pound him like that, and that.”

“Oh!—oh!”

“Yes, it is ‘Oh!’ I never felt any one with such hard, bony ribs before; Jemmy Carnach is soft compared to you.”

“I say, you’re killing me!”

“Am I? Like to be killed?”

“No. Oh! I say, Mike, don’t, there’s a good fellow! Let me get up.”

“Are you licked?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Will you hit me if I let you get up?”

“No, you coward.”

Bang, bang.

“Oh! I say, don’t!”

“Am I a coward, then?”

“Yes.—Oh!”

“Now am I a coward?”

“No, no. You’re the bravest, best fellow that ever lived.”

“Then you own you’re beaten?”

“Oh yes, thoroughly. I say, Mike, I can hardly breathe. Honour bright!”

“Say, you own you’re licked, then.”

“Yes. Own I’m licked, and— Ah–h–ah!”

Vince gave a final heave, and with such good effect that his assailant was thrown, and by the time he had recovered himself Vince’s red face was reappearing from the blue jersey, which the boy had tugged down into its normal position.

“Oh! won’t I serve you out for this some day, Mikey!” he cried, as the other stood on his guard, laughing at him.

“You said you were beaten.”

“Yes, for to-day; but I can’t afford to let you knock me about like this. I say, you did hurt.”

“Nonsense! I could have hit twice as hard as that. Pull your jersey over your head again, and I’ll show you.”

“Likely! Never mind, old chap,” said Vince, giving himself a shake; “I’ll save it up for you. Phew! you have made me hot.”

“Do you good,” said Mike, imitating his companion by throwing himself down at full length upon the elastic heath, to lie gazing at the brilliant blue sea, stretching far away to where a patch of amethyst here and there on the horizon told of other islands, bathed in the glowing sunshine.

The land ended a hundred yards from where the two lads lay as suddenly as if it had been cut sharply off, and went down perpendicularly some two hundred and fifty feet to where the transparent waves broke softly, with hardly a sound, amongst the weedy rocks, all golden-brown with fucus, or running quietly over the yellow sand, but which, in a storm, came thundering in, like huge banks of water, to smite the face of the cliff, fall back and fret, and churn up the weed into balls of froth, which flew up, and were carried by the wind right across the island.

“Where’s old Deane?” said Vince suddenly.

“Taken a book to go and sit on the rock shelf and read Plutarch. I say, what a lot he does know!”

“No wonder,” said Vince, who was parting the heather and peering down beneath: “he’s always reading. I wish he was fonder of coming out in a boat and fishing or sailing.”

“So do I,” said Mike. “We’d make him do the rowing. Makes us work hard enough.”

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t help us,” continued Vince. “Father says a man ought to look after his body as well as his brains, so as always to be healthy and strong.”

“Why did he say that?” said Mike sharply.

“Because it was right,” said Vince. “My father’s always right.”

“No, he isn’t. He didn’t know what was the matter with my dad.”

Vince laughed.

“What are you grinning at?”

“What you said. He knew well enough, only he wouldn’t say because he did not want to offend your father.”

“What do you mean?”

“That he always sat indoors, and didn’t take enough exercise.”

“Pish! The Doctor did not know,” said Mike sharply, and colouring a little; “and I don’t believe he wants people to be well.”

“Hi! Look here!” cried Vince excitedly. “Lizard!”

A little green reptile, looking like a miniature crocodile, disturbed by the lad’s investigating hands, darted out from beneath the heath into the sunshine; and Mike snatched off his cap, and dabbed it over the little fugitive with so true an aim that as he held the cap down about three inches of the wiry tail remained outside.

“Got him!” cried Mike triumphantly.

“Well, don’t hurt it.”

“Who’s going to hurt it!”

“You are. Suppose a Brobdig-what-you-may-call-him banged a great cap down over you—it would hurt, wouldn’t it?”

“Not if I lay still; and there wouldn’t be a bit of tail sticking out if he did,” said Mike laughing.—“I’m not going to hurt you, old chap, but to take you home and put you in the conservatory to catch and eat the flies and blight. Come along.”

“Where are you going to put him?”

“In my pocket till I go home. Look here: I’ll put my finger on his tail and hold him while you lift my cap; then I can catch him with my other hand.”

“Mind he don’t bite.”

“Go along! He can’t bite to hurt. Ready?”

“Yes,” said Vince, stretching out his hand. “Better let him go.”

“Yes, because you don’t want him. I do. Now, no games.”

“All right.”

“Up with the cap, then.”

Vince lifted the cap, and burst out laughing, for it was like some conjuring trick—the lizard was gone.

“Why, you never caught it!” he said.

“Yes, I did: you saw its tail. I’ve got it under my hand now.”

“You’ve dropped it,” cried Vince. “Lift up.”

Mike raised his hand, and there, sure enough, was the lizard’s tail, writhing like a worm, and apparently as full of life as its late owner, but, not being endowed with feet, unable to escape.

“Poor little wretch!” said Vince; “how horrid! But he has got away.”

“Without his tail!”

“Yes; but that will soon grow again.”

“Think so?”

“Why, of course it will: just as a crab’s or lobster’s claw does.”

“Hullo, young gentlemen!” said a gruff voice, and a thick-set, elderly man stopped short to look down upon them, his grim, deeply-lined brown face twisted up into a smile as he took off an old sealskin cap and began to softly polish his bald head, which was surrounded by a thick hedge of shaggy grey hair, but paused for a moment to give one spot a rub with his great rough, gnarled knuckles. His hands were enormous, and looked as if they had grown into the form most suitable for grasping a pair of oars to tug a boat against a heavy sea.