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Updated: June 14, 2025
Aleck was well on the alert, and, feeling that he was utterly out-matched, he aimed at getting as far as the steps, where he would have Tom Bodger for an ally, and the attack would come to an end; but he was soon aware of the fact that to retire was impossible, hedged in as he was by an excited ring of boys, and there was nothing for him but to fight his way back slowly and cautiously.
Tom Bodger shut one eye, gave the lad a frown and a knowing look, and then away he went up a rugged staircase-like pathway to the top of the cliff, looking every moment, while Aleck watched, as if he would slip off, but never slipping once, and finally turning at the top to take off and wave his hat, and then he was gone. "Oh, dear!" groaned Aleck.
Tom Bodger was standing bolt upright as he uttered these last words, fully realising what had happened as he stared down at a rugged hole in the frail planking of the bottom of the boat, up through which the water was rising like a thick, squat, dumpy fountain. "What game d'yer call this, Master Aleck? Eh, not there? I seed his shadder. He must ha' let it fall.
"Why, let them, my lad. You were doing no harm, and they can do you none. Now let's finish our breakfast." "Shall I stay in, uncle?" said Aleck. "Tom Bodger slept down in the boat last night, and I wanted to take him some breakfast." "Go and take it then, of course." "And then stay in?" "No, no; nonsense. Now don't bother me any more."
Here, I feel as if I'd never been to sea and took bearings in my life, Master Aleck!" "Yes; what is it?" "Don't you never trust me again." "But do you mean to say that you can't see those rocks just abeam, Tom Bodger?" "Not a rock on 'em, messmet; but I can hear the bladder-wrack washing in and out." "But you, Master Aleck?"
"Yes, that's it," said the sailor to himself. "Having a look round. There'll be a gang landed to-night as sure as my name's Bodger." The thinker made a few more meshes and then had a glance down on the boat and her crew, his eyes dwelling longest upon the young officer, who had taken out a small glass, through which he began to examine the town. "Middy," said Bodger. "Smart-looking lad too.
But many years of teaching by the fishermen and Tom Bodger, the wooden-legged old man-o'-war's man of Rockabie, had made Aleck, young though he was, an expert manager of a fore and aft sailing boat, and the boy sat fast, rudder in one hand, sheet in the other, ready at the right moment to ease off the rope and by a dexterous touch at the rudder to lessen the pressure upon the canvas so that the boat rose again and raced onward till the great promontory ahead was passed.
"Of course," said Aleck, and to calm his impatience he turned to look at the group of fishermen, who sat and stood about, smoking away, and for the first time the lad noticed that the men had ceased to watch Tom Bodger but had their eyes fixed intently upon the sloop-of-war and the cutter, which lay at anchor a couple of miles from the harbour, and were now showing their riding lights.
You ask Tom Bodger if they arn't." "Yes, they're the regular irons," said the midshipman, huskily; and Aleck, who still held his hand, felt that he was all of a tremble. "So, you see, Master Aleck, it's on'y fair. Tit for tat, you know." "That will do, sir," cried the lad, sharply. "Don't be a coward as well as cruel to this gentleman.
"You, Tom Bodger Master Aleck? Here, quick, sir; for the love of heaven save a poor fellow! It's the press-gang. Got five on us. Help, sir! Shove off with me. I'm too dead beat to swim." "I can't help you, Eben. I dare not," cried Aleck. "What could I do?" "Oh! but, Master Aleck hark! there's more coming!" "I tell you I can't. I dare not. They're the King's men, and "
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