United States or Dominica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Bob Chowne, who was shortly going up to London to study at one of the hospitals, came over one evening, and we all three, as in the old days, had tea at the smuggler's cottage, Mother Bonnet beaming upon us, and never looking so pleased as when we wanted more of one of her home-made loaves.
Then it was once more dark, and then I was sitting in a boat half blind, shivering, and helpless, with the boat rocking about tremendously, and Bob Chowne over the side holding on to the gunwale with one hand, to my wrist with the other.
As he spoke he held out the bullet he had extracted at the end of a long narrow pair of forceps; and, as Bigley looked at it with failing eyes, he turned away with a shudder and whispered to me, as I supported his head upon my arm: "I'm glad Bob Chowne isn't here to see what a miserable coward I am, Sep. Don't tell him there's a good chap!"
Somebody said to me once that Bob Chowne and I behaved in a very heroic manner, standing by our school-fellow as we did; but I don't think there was much heroism in it. We couldn't go and leave him to drown. I wanted to run away, and Bob Chowne afterwards said that he longed to go, but, as he put it, poor fellow, it seemed so mean to leave him to drown all alone.
Bob Chowne stuck out, as he always would when he knew he was wrong, that it was in 1755, and when I asked him why he put it then, he held up his left hand with his fingers and thumb spread out, which was always his way, and then pointing with the first finger of his right, he said: "It was in 1755, because that was the year when the French war broke out."
And there before me were those two, one walking and the other riding, with their heads close together, talking in a low eager tone, while I was thinking about how hard it was for Bob Chowne that he should be sent away, and began to wish that I had not found that piece of stone.
Our mishap was soon forgotten, and we determined to have another prawning trip, for, as Bob Chowne said, there was no risk over it, if we didn't go and stick ourselves between two stones ready for the tide to come in and drown us. "But it was an accident," said Bigley gravely.
My father opened the corner cupboard and took out the pieces of rock, and Doctor Chowne put on his glasses and examined them carefully, frowning severely all the time and without a word. "Do you think it is tin?" said my father at last. "No, sir, I don't," said Doctor Chowne, throwing down one of the pieces in an ill-humoured way. "I'll take my oath it isn't."
He had not come down, but Bob Chowne and I had levelled matters by growing up, so that at seventeen we were as big as Devon lads of that age know how to be. While we had changed, old Teggley Grey had not. He always seemed to have been the same ever since we could remember, and his horse too, but he shook his head at us. "Mortal hard work for a horse to carry such big chaps as you.
Bob Chowne and I of course knew better, but in spite of this knowledge we were constantly feeling that there was something wrong with our companion Bigley.
Word Of The Day