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Mrs Gaff was not wont to give way to the melting mood, but she could not restrain a few tears of joy. Tottie, observing this, cried from sympathy; and the Bu'ster, not to be outdone, willed, began, and carried into execution, a series of true British cheers, that could not have been surpassed, perhaps could not have been equalled, by any boy of his age in or out of the Royal Navy.
Billy had said this in joke, for he had never conceived of such a thing as a spring of hot water, but he found that his jest might have been said in earnest, for the spring was almost "bilin'," and caused the Bu'ster to pull his hand out again with a roar of surprise and pain. Just beyond the hot spring they found a small cavern in the face of a cliff, which appeared to them to be quite dry.
The Bu'ster stood by with the blot-sheet, looking eager, as if he rather wished for blots, and was prepared to swab them up without delay. "Are ye ready, Tot?" asked Gaff. "Yes, quite," answered the child. "Then," said Gaff; with the air of a general officer who gives the word for the commencement of a great fight, "begin, an' fire away." "But what am I to say, daddy?"
While this change was being made the volatile Bu'ster, indignant at being bolted out, kicked the door with his heel until he became convinced that no good or evil could result from the process. Then his active mind reverted to the forbidden loaf, and he forthwith drew a chair below the shelf on which it lay.
Mrs Gaff uttered a suppressed cry, and ran into the wet man's arms. Tottie and the Bu'ster each ran at a leg, and hugging it violently, squeezed a cataract of salt water into their respective bosoms. "Stephen, lad, is't you?" said the wife, raising her head for a moment and looking up in the man's face. "Ay, dear lass, wrecked again; but safe home, thank God."
The Bu'ster, who had suddenly willed to have a shy at the household cat with a small crab which he had captured, and which was just then endeavouring vainly to ascend the leg of a chair, for a wonder did not carry out his will, but went at once to his sire. "Whether would ye like to go play on the beach, lad, or stop here and hold the blottin'-paper while we write a letter?"
"Your mother would be astonished to see us now, lad." "She'll hear all about it some day," said Billy. "You've no notion what a splendid story I'll make out of all this when we get back to Cove!" It was evident that the Bu'ster inherited much of his mother's sanguine disposition. "P'raps we'll never git back to Cove," said Gaff sadly; "hows'ever, we've no reason to complain.
So anxious did the good woman become in her desire to make the most of the new bed, that she once or twice contemplated the propriety of Stephen and herself, and the Bu'ster and Tottie, spending the first night, "after their return," all together in it, but on mature consideration she dismissed the idea as untenable.
"My heart is set upon pork to-day, daddy," said the Bu'ster with a knowing smile. "We've had none for three weeks, and I'm gettin' tired o' yams and cocoa-nuts and crabs. I shall go huntin' again." "You've tried it pretty often of late, without much luck." "So I have, but I've tried it often before now with pretty fair luck, an' what has happened once may happen again, so I'll try.
The Bu'ster came down on it like lightning with the blot-sheet, and squashed it into an irregular mass bigger than half-a-crown. For this he received another open-hander on the ear, and was summarily dismissed to the sea-beach. By this time the family tea-hour had arrived, so Mrs Gaff proposed an adjournment until after tea.
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