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We three boys had ridden home together the day before, sitting on our boxes in Teggley Grey's cart, for he was the carrier from Ripplemouth to Barnstaple.
But somehow that narrow escape of ours seemed to act like a damper upon the rest of our holidays, and I spent a good deal of my time with Bigley, watching the preparations made by the masons at the works in the Gap. We all declared that we were not sorry when one morning old Teggley Grey's cart stopped at our gate to take up my box.
Of course we jumped down and walked up the hill, and as it was nearly all hill from Barnstaple to our homes we were always jumping down, and walked quite half of the twenty miles. Old Teggley must begin about it too, as he sat with his chin nearly down upon his knees, whisking the flies away from his horse's ears with his whip.
But when I ventured to hint at their being more likely to attack Plymouth or Portsmouth, old Teggley Grey, who was down on the pier loading up with coal that had come over in a sloop from Monmouth, shook his head.
Father made you take some physic?" "Yes, pills. Verbum nasticusis, and bully draught after." "What! Has he been scolding you?" "Scolding me! He never does anything else. I sha'n't stand it much longer. I shall run off to sea and be a cabin-boy." "Hi, hi, hi!" "What are you laughing at?" snapped Bob, turning sharply upon old Teggley. "At you, Mars Bob Chowne, going for a cabin-boy." Whop!
You want to fall out, but I sha'n't. I hate a fellow who always wants to get up a fight. I came here to-day to see if we couldn't have a bit of fun, so I sha'n't quarrel. Oh, I say, what a while he is! He's just like old Teggley Grey's horse, only he ain't so quick." Poor old Bigley wasn't quick, certainly, for it was hot, and hard climbing to where we were perched.
Then Bob and I were alone and jogging down the zigzag road, traversing another five hundred yards before we reached our gate, where my father and the doctor were waiting for us. "Brought the lads home quite safe, captain," said old Teggley Grey. "Shall I take Mars Robert's box on to the town, doctor?"
That last was a severe crack given to admonish the big bony horse old Teggley drove; but he was a merciful man to his beast, and always hit on the pad, the collar, or the shafts. "S'pose I like to go for a cabin-boy, 'tain't no business of yours, is it?" cried Bob snappishly. "Not a bit, my lad, not a bit. I'll take your sea-chest over to Barnstaple for you when you go."
"Look here, old Teggley Grey!" cried Bigley firing up; "if you say another word about my being so large, I'll pitch you out of the back of the cart, and drive into Barnstaple without you." "Do, Bigley, do," cried Bob in ecstasy. "Here, I'll hold the reins. Chuck him out." "Don't talk that way, Mars Bob Chowne," whined the old man. "You wouldn't like me to be hurt."
"What do you mean by being worse?" I said. Bigley shook his head. "I don't know; I can't say," he whispered. "I mean I don't want father to be very cross." "I say, Big," I whispered. "Your father really is a smuggler, isn't he?" Bigley looked sharply round to gaze at old Teggley Grey and Bob Chowne, creeping as he did so nearer to the tail-board of the cart, and I followed him.
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