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Updated: June 10, 2025
As I said, Jonas Uggleston never came back, but one day a bronzed white-headed old sailor was seated at the door of the smuggler's cottage when I went to call on Bigley, and this old fellow rose with quite a broad grin on his face. I stared for a moment, he was so foreign-looking with his clipped beard and quaintly cut garb.
And truly Bigley Uggleston did do his duty by my father and by me, for year by year we grew closer friends, the more so that Bob Chowne drifted away after his course of training in London, and finally became a ship's surgeon.
I walked down to the end of the Gap, past the cottage, and was just going to ask if Bigley had come back, when I saw old Jonas and Binnacle Bill, with another man, putting off in the lugger, which was lying by a buoy about a quarter of a mile from the shore.
We crouched down together, not to diminish the power of the wind, but in that way to afford each other a little shelter from the drenching rain. "It can't last long," shouted Bigley, for he was obliged to cry aloud to make himself heard above the shrieking of the storm. But it did last long and kept increasing in violence.
The wind and the hissing and beating of the sea made a great deal of noise, but that loud washing splash sounded louder to us, and so did the rattle of a tin pot which Bigley seized, and lifted the board from over the bit of a well and began to bale. For one of the waves had struck the bows, risen up, and poured three or four gallons of water into the boat.
Bigley Uggleston always said that it was in 1753, because he vowed that was the hot year when we had gone home for the midsummer holidays from Barnstaple Grammar-school.
"What's the good of saying that?" said Bob laughing. "He couldn't get in." "Oh, couldn't I?" cried Bigley. "You'll see. Mind that eel don't slip out. Now you'll see." He rolled up his sleeves nearly to the shoulder, and picking out the widest spot began to crawl in, dragging himself slowly through, and at last drawing his legs in after him, and standing in a bent position right under the rock.
"Here, come out, my poor little man, and let me go in. I'll soon fetch out my gentleman, you see if I don't. Here, come out." Bob Chowne never meant to go in. His face said as much as he looked round at me; but his words had the effect he intended, for Bigley grunted and went back as far as the narrow crack in the grotto would allow, and boldly thrust in his hand.
I never used to think anything about Bigley Uggleston in these days, only that he was overgrown and good-tempered, and never ready to quarrel; and it did not seem to strike either of us that he was about the most unselfish, self-denying slave that ever lived.
"Yes," he replied, in a curious tone of voice; "but, I'm glad it's the French, and that no one else has done it." My father had come down to where we were seated, and made us follow him to the shelter of the rocks. "They may catch sight of you, my lads," he said, "and turn you into marks." "Are you going to stop them now, captain?" said Bigley, following. "What are you going to do?"
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