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Updated: June 27, 2025
"Droll!" groaned the midshipman. "What, being shut up here?" "No, no; our meeting as we did in Rockabie harbour, and what took place with the boys. I never expected to see you again, and now here have I found you out, a prisoner, chained by the leg, and in ever so short a time you and I have grown to be quite friends." "Yes," said the midshipman, drawing a deep breath.
Shows you have friends as well as foes in Rockabie." The breakfast went on, and after the first mouthfuls the boy's jaws worked more easily, and he was enjoying his meal thoroughly, when his uncle suddenly exclaimed: "What are you going to do to-day, my boy?" "Go on with those problems, uncle, unless you want me to do anything else." "I do," said the old man, smiling.
"Why, he ought to have stopped to mend the hole properly. Seen the men-o'-war coming, I suppose, and gone back to Rockabie so as not to be found if the sailors come searching here. But how stupid! What am I to do with this coffee and bacon?"
"And I say," cried Aleck, "that if he does send his men he'll be disappointed, for Eben and the other smugglers will be too foxy to let themselves be surrounded as the men were at Rockabie the other night." "Well, Master Aleck, so much the better for them."
"Yes, uncle; but I really did not seek to be amongst all that business in Rockabie yesterday," pleaded Aleck. "Of course not, my boy, and you need not look so penitent. The law's the law, of course, but I'm afraid if I had been appealed to as you were last night I should have done the same, and given the scoundrel a good talking to as I brought him away.
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.
"Yes, in Rockabie harbour," said the lad, looking at him wonderingly, while his heart began to beat fast as he glanced at the party of sturdy sailors. "Ah, to be sure," said the officer; then to the captain again, "You are aware, I suppose, that we made a descent last night upon your nest of smugglers here." "I have just learned, sir, what took place," said the captain, coldly. "Of course.
I'll show you whether I'm a coward or not. Here, hold out your hand." "What for?" "To shake hands, of course, and show that we mean fair play." "I never stopped for that when I had a fight with the Rockabie boys, but there you are." Hands were grasped, and the midshipman was about to withdraw his, but it was held tightly, and somehow or another his own fingers began to respond in a tight clench.
The captain nodded, while the young lieutenant went on: "And to take messages from here to Rockabie." "No," cried Aleck; but the officer went on, quietly: "Look here, sir, I am credibly informed that it was your boat that rescued one of the most daring of the smugglers on the night of an encounter we had there a man whom I was holding with my own hands till I was savagely struck down.
"It weer, sir." "But why should anyone do that? You don't think that a boy would have been guilty of such a bit of mischief as that?" "What, Master Aleck?" cried the sailor, bursting into a loud guffaw. "Why, there arn't anything they Rockabie boys wouldn't do. Why, they're himps, sir reg'lar himps; and mischief arn't half bad enough a word for what they'd do." "Oh, but this is too bad.
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