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Updated: June 14, 2025
There were a good many sailing about overhead, Aleck noted, and they were more noisy than usual, and this, judging from old lore which he had picked up from Tom Bodger and the fishermen, he attributed to a coming change in the weather, wind perhaps, when the sea, instead of being soft blue and calm, might be lashed by a storm to send the waves thundering in upon the rocks, to break up into cataracts of broken water and send the glittering foam whirling aloft in clouds.
"That's right, sir; but I shan't feel safe then. Eh, Tom Bodger?" "Right, messmet; they'll be ferreting all along the coast arter yer. Tell you what I should do if I was you." "What?" said the man, eagerly. "Have a good wash up in the morning, and then jump in a boat and go and board the sloop like a man." "What!"
To go back to the Salvation Army with the knowledge that even the Salvationists themselves are not saved yet; that poverty is not blessed, but a most damnable sin; and that when General Booth chose Blood and Fire for the emblem of Salvation instead of the Cross, he was perhaps better inspired than he knew: such knowledge, for the daughter of Andrew Undershaft, will clearly lead to something hopefuller than distributing bread and treacle at the expense of Bodger.
As the party of three were trying their best to get the little yawl afloat the shingle clung fast to its keel and very little progress was made, although Tom Bodger thrust and jerked at it with all his might, more like a dwarf than ever, for his wooden legs went down in the wet shingle at every movement, right to the socket stumps; but at last, when their efforts began to appear to be in vain, a little soft swell rolled in, just as a rush was being made by the press-gang, the boat lifted astern, and as the water passed under it, literally leaped up forward, shaking itself free of the clinging sand and stones, and, yielding to the three launchers, glided right away.
"Here, we'll go for a run to Rockabie and back, Eben; come and take the helm and show Mr Wrighton how the smugglers could run a boat close in among the rocks. You know; the same as you did that night." "Ay, ay, sir. Come along, Tom. Shall we go round to the Den gully and fetch her, sir? We could run in up the channel below here, and pick you up? Bodger says the channel's quite clear."
"Keep a sharp look out for a boat somewhere off here. Three prisoners in her escaping." "My hye!" muttered Tom Bodger. "That's nice. Resisting the law too. Strikes me as we're going to be in a mess." Aleck, in the midst of his excitement in his novel position, had somewhat similar thoughts to those of his rough sailor companion.
"And the orficer there from the Revenoo cutter, he says: `You find the body o' young Mr Wrighton of the man-o'-war sloop, and there'll be the same reward for that." "Humph! I should have thought I was worth more than that," said the midshipman. "Ay, ay, sir!" cried Tom Bodger, who was squeezing his shirt and breeches as he talked.
I waylaid old Bodger Colonel Bodger, on the committee of the club, you know and suggested over a whisky-and-soda that the management of Brown's would be behaving like sportsmen if they bumped my salary up a bit, and the old boy nearly strangled himself trying to suck down Scotch and laugh at the same time. I give you my word, he nearly expired on the smoking-room floor.
There was the something all ready in the person of Tom Bodger, who was seated upon a ship's fender, one of those Brobdingnagian netted balls covered with a network of tarred rope, used to keep the edge of the stone pier from crushing and splintering the sides of the vessel.
"Disappointing, Tom?" "Yes, Master Aleck. Yer see, your uncle says: `You find the poor lad's remains, Bodger, remains, that's what he called it `and I'll give yer a ten-pound Bank o' Hengland note, he says." "Oh!" cried Aleck, passionately.
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