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Updated: June 27, 2025
Rolling up his sleeves, he was looking through the seaward window. The Gang were streaming across the greensward, and round the cottage, pointing, shouting. Behind them came the Gentleman. He was swinging his sword, and chopping at the daisies. Whoever else was disturbed, it was not he. Last the Grenadiers who formed the lugger-guard came toppling over the shingle-bank.
Mists still swathed the waters. Through them the sun peered ghostly, twinkling on the intripping tide beyond the shingle-bank. And there again! far away, poised between sky and sea, that glimmer of pearls. It was some tall ship standing across the bay, the sun making glory on her royals. "Make her out?" "Yes, sir. She's a frigate right enough can't be anything else with that height of canvas."
"I'll be your eyes, sir!" The Parson shook a dubious head. "Oh let me! O do! sir! sir!" He was hopping, trembling at the other's side. The Parson with his slow and chewing mind was digesting the situation. Beneath his calm, he was mad to know what was going on behind the shingle-bank. If he went himself, who would be left in garrison? the old story. Yet if he sent Kit?
In a few minutes the squall was past, and by the light of the moon, now thinly covered by clouds, the black forms of the first to reach the other shore could be seen straggling across the marsh toward the great shingle-bank that lies between the river and the sea. Two boats were moored at the far side, another was just making the jetty, while a fourth was returning toward the quay.
Gripping himself together, every hair alert, he ran. He was nearly across the sward now. Tall grass-blades pricked sparsely through the sand. The shingle-bank, roan against the sparkle of the sea, surged before him, and behind it what? He was living in his eyes. The knoll lay now to his right rear. Behind it, across the creek, rose the Wish; and on the crest a Grenadier gazing seawards.
Stars strewed the heavens. Beyond the shingle-bank the sea glistened like satin. It was very still, very cold, very lonely. Kit set his teeth to prevent them chattering. The night air kissed him coldly, and the moon, white above the inky Downs, glistened on his shoulders.
But while there's the lugger, there's hope." He leaned out of the window. A sentry was now on the shingle-bank; and he could see the tall-plumed bearskins of the Grenadiers busy about the lugger. The boy took up the telescope. The mists were lifting, and the sun shone white upon the water.
The memories swooped back on Kit; Nelson, the despatches, the swim in the dark. In a moment he was at the loop-hole, peering over the old man's shoulder. On these in the sunshine he saw the brown-patched sails of the privateer lifted ladder-like from behind the shingle-bank, and strangely close. Then her bows slid into view, and he realised that she was standing out to sea: The boy's heart soared.
Blob followed at first reluctantly. Then some memory amused him, and he began to brim slow mirth. "Er says 'Dear! dear! and Oi says 'Theer! theer! and plops it in, and plops it in." Still adrift on the sea of his emotions, Kit paid no heed. He was swimming down the shingle-bank, aware of nothing but the tip of his nose and vague bad dreams at the back of his heart.
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