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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Is it?" said Aleck, drearily, and he felt that it would have been far more satisfactory for it to be dead ahead, or to be blowing so fiercely that they would be compelled to put back to Rockabie, and his return home deferred to another day.
"They can't have come right in," thought Aleck, and after a time he made for the cliff again to get near the edge and look down, in time to see that both boats were being rowed back to their respective vessels. An hour after they were slowly gliding away in the direction of Rockabie, their examination having been of the most perfunctory kind.
Rockabie arn't amiss, and things has to be as they is. Here, let's get all ship-shape afore Master Aleck comes. Wish I'd got a bit o' sand here to give them ring-bolts a rub or two. I like to see his boat look a bit smart. "Wonder what them two's come in for they arn't lying off here for nothing!
"I did," growled Tom, surlily, "and just you mind as your missus washes it out and irons it flat for you to give it me agen next time you comes to Rockabie." "I will, mate," said the smuggler, quietly. "There," he added, after drawing a long, deep breath, "I'm beginning to come right again. Yes, it is a bit dark to-night," he added, after staring about him for a minute or two.
More or less salt water was nothing to the Rockabie boys, and after a glance along the shore, followed by a sweeping of the pier, which ran out between them and the harbour, they waded a little way out till the water reached their chests, and then began to swim for the outermost boat, into which Big Jem climbed, to hold out a hand, and the next moment his comrade had followed and leaned over, dripping away, to cast loose the rope attached to the buoy, while Big Jem put an oar out over the stern and began to scull.
"I'm going to run over to Rockabie, uncle. Back to dinner. Want anything brought back?" "No, boy; I've plenty of ink. No. Yes. Bring me some more of this paper." The voice sounded very gruff and ill-humoured, and the speaker glared angrily, more than looked, at the boy. "Here," he continued, "don't drown yourself." "Oh, no, uncle," said the boy, confidently, "I'll take care of that."
"Good mate and true, and as good a neighbour as we've got in Rockabie. Eh, lads?" "Ay, ay!" came in a hearty chorus. "There, Tom, so say all of us; but none o' that about no press-gangs, mate," cried the big fisherman. "The King wants men for his ships, but all on us here has our wives and weans. What was all right for a lad o' twenty would be all wrong for such as we."
Didn't our old maid come in scared one night after a holiday and walking across from Rockabie and go into a fit because she had seen, as she said, a whole regiment of ghosts walking over the moor, leading ghostly horses, which came out of the sea fog and crossed the road without making a sound?
Then the time came when the Den gardener happened to be enjoying himself at Rockabie with a dozen more men, smoking, discussing shoals of fish, the durability of nets, and the like, when they suddenly discovered the fact that a party of men had landed on the shore from His Majesty's ship Conqueror, stolen up to the town in the darkness, and, after surrounding the little inn with a network of men, drawn the said net closer and closer, and ended by trammelling the whole set of guests and carrying them off as pressed men to the big frigate.
Enquiries at Rockabie proved that the sloop and cutter had both sailed, so a letter had to convey some of the information "a despatch," the young officer called it; and after it was sent he constituted himself guardian of the smugglers' treasure and headed a little expedition, composed of Aleck and Tom Bodger, to examine the land way down into the cave, which they approached by a rope provided by Tom, who said he didn't "keer" about jumping down from that there shelf, because his legs were so stiff.
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