Taking off his hat and shoving his hands through his hair until he raised it up on the top of his head in a high ridge, he looked at his tormentors appealingly; although, the merry twinkle in his bird-like eyes took off somewhat from his contrition.
"Do forgive me!" implored he in accents that had a very suspicious chuckle about them. "I confess my sins!"
"You must clear yourself completely, sir, before you can hope to obtain absolution for your sins of omission," insisted Mrs Gilmour, pretending to be very stern indeed. "Now, prisoner at the bar, answer truly, have you or have you not got a yacht?"
"I have," he replied solemnly, entering into her humour. "By Jove, I have, ma"am!"
"Well, I"m glad to hear that at all events," retorted his questioner in rather an injudicial way. "Sure, I didn"t think you had one at all, not having seen it after all your talking about it. What sort of a yacht is it, now?"
"Only a half-decked little cutter of about two or three tons," answered the Captain abjectly, trying to minimise his offence. "A very little one, ma"am, I a.s.sure you."
Mrs Gilmour burst into a fit of laughter, in which they all joined heartily; the barrister"s jovial roar being heard above the music of the band.
"Ah, no wonder you didn"t like my seeing it!" she cried with pleasant irony, which, however, made the old sailor wince, this "yacht" of his being a subject on which he was wont to enlarge amongst his friends.
"Why, from what you said, I thought she was a big schooner like the one that took the cup at Cowes last year when we all went over with those horrid Tomkinses to see the regatta! Call that a yacht, a boat of such a size? I call it a c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l!"
This nettled the Captain very considerably, it must be confessed.
"Well, ma"am, you may call it what you please," he replied shortly, with some little heat, putting on his hat again and jamming it down on his head firmly, using a good deal of force as if expending in that way his latent caloric. "But, c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l or no c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l, she"s big enough for me!"
"But, Captain dear, isn"t there room enough for me, too?" asked Nell coaxingly, seeing that he was vexed, and sliding her little hand into his, as if to show that she at all events was not joining in the fun against him. "Won"t you take Bob and me?"
Her touch somehow or, other banished his pettishness, enabling him to see that Mrs Gilmour was only joking, and that he had but played into her hands, as he said to himself, by losing his temper over it.
"I tell you what," he now exclaimed, without a single trace of ill- humour. "You shall see that I"m not ashamed of my little craft, for I"ll have the _Zephyr_ brought over from Gosport to-morrow. What is more, too, the whole lot of you shall go out for a sail in her--by Jove!"
The Captain was as good as his word, the yacht being towed across the following afternoon from Haslar Creek, where she had been lying, ever since the last yachting season, on the mud flats that there exist.
The little craft, which was a dapper cutter with an oyster-knife sort of bow and a clean run aft, as if she could race well when heeling over and show a good deal of her copper sheathing, did not exceed the tonnage mentioned by the Captain.
But, in spite of her smallness of size, she appeared to have the making of a good sea boat in her, and gained many admirers amongst the Southsea watermen as they surveyed her at her new moorings; the little craft being anch.o.r.ed off the coastguard-station and placed now under the charge of h.e.l.lyer, when the Captain was not immediately looking after her himself.
Mrs Gilmour, however, remained obdurate; for, though satisfied now that the "yacht" really was an actual fact instead of merely a creation of her old friend"s fancy, being somewhat averse to adventuring her life on the deep save in large vessels, and even of these she confessed feeling rather shy since the wreck of the _Bembridge Belle_, she, very aggravatingly, declined going out in the cutter--a want of taste on her part shared by her sister-in-law, whose weak nerves supplied a more reasonable pretext for not accepting the Captain"s usual invitation to make the little vessel"s better acquaintance.
Bob"s father, however, exhibited no such reluctance; and, as for Bob himself, he and Nellie and d.i.c.k were all in the seventh heaven of delight when, a morning or two afterwards, there being a nice nor"- westerly breeze blowing, which was good both for working out to sea and running home again, the Captain took them for a sail, managing single- handed the smart cutter as only a sailor, such as he was, could.
Thenceforward, Bob"s holidays were all halcyon days.
He had certainly enjoyed himself before; in his rambles on the beach, in his daily dip and new experiences of the delights of swimming; in the various little trips he and Nellie had taken; aye, and in the pleasurable occupation of collecting all those strange wonders of the sh.o.r.e, with which they had been so recently made familiar.
But, never had he enjoyed himself to the extent he did now!
There was nothing, on his once having tasted the joy of sailing, that could compare with it for a moment in his mind; and, if his own tastes had been consulted, he would have been content to have spent morning, noon, and night on board the _Zephyr_.
It was the same with d.i.c.k; and, under the Captain"s able tuition, both the boys soon acquired sufficient knowledge of tacking and wearing, sailing close-hauled and going free with the helm amidships, besides other nice points of seamanship, as to be able almost to handle the cutter as well as their instructor.
Nellie, naturally, could not enter so fully into these details as Bob and d.i.c.k; but, still, she took quite as much pleasure as they did in skimming over the undulating surface of the water and hearing the gurgling ripple made by the boat"s keel.
She felt a little alarm sometimes, perhaps, when, with her mainsail sharply braced up, the _Zephyr_ would heel over to leeward, burying her gunwale in the foam ploughed up by her keen-edged bow, as it raced past, boiling and eddying, astern.
On one occasion the Captain took them out trawling between the Nab and Warner light-ships; where a bank of sand stretches out to sea, forming the favourite fishing-ground of the Portsmouth watermen hailing from Point and the Camber at the mouth of the harbour.
"What is trawling?" asked Master Bob, of course, when the matter was mooted by the owner of the cutter.
"What is trawling, eh?" repeated the old sailor, humming and cogitating for a minute or so. "Let me see; ah, yes, you let down a trawl and catch your fish in it, instead of using a line or drag-net."
"Sure, Captain," cried Mrs Gilmour, laughing at this, "that"s as good as your definition of steam the other day! You"ll have Bob asking you now what is a trawl, the same as I"ve got to do; please tell us, won"t you?"
"Sure and I will," returned he, imitating her accent and making her brother and herself laugh, Mrs Strong only smiling faintly, as she had a marked dislike to any allusion to the Irish brogue. "The trawl, ma"am, is a very simple contrivance when it is understood; and, by your leave, I"ll try and make it plain to you. It consists of an ordinary net, like a seine, which you"ve seen, of course?"
"Yes," replied his questioner, "I have seen them dragging the seine, as it is called, down on the beach often."
"Oh, auntie, Nell and I saw them, too, the day after that storm we had when we first came," said Bob eagerly. "I know, because I asked the men what they were doing, and they told me."
"There"s nothing like asking for information," observed the Captain approvingly. "It"s lucky, though, those men told you at once, or you"d have worried their lives out!"
"Sure and you may well say that," put in Mrs Gilmour. "You have to suffer frequently from some little people"s thirst for knowledge."
"I don"t mind," chuckled the Captain, beaming with good-humour. "But, to go on with my description of the trawl. You must imagine, as I have said, an ordinary seine net, which must be a small one, and that looped up at the corners, too, somewhat in the shape of a funnel, or rather in the form of a cone sliced in two. The mouth of this apparatus is kept open on its flat side by means of a pole some ten or twelve feet long, termed the "trawl-beam," which floats uppermost when the net is down; while the lower side is weighted with a thick heavy piece of hawser styled the "ground-rope," around which the meshes of the net are woven.
A bridle or "martingale" unites the two ends of the trawl-beam."
"Yes, I see," said Bob, who was all attention, and taking the greatest interest in the Captain"s explanation. "I see."
"Well," continued the old sailor, "to this bridle there is attached a double-sheaved block, through which runs a hundred-and-fifty fathom rope, capable of bearing a heavy strain. But, in hauling this in, great nicety must be observed, for, the slightest hitch or deflection will cause the beam to turn the wrong way; when, if the net "gets on her back," as the fisher-folk say, all your catch is simply turned out into "the vasty deep," and your toil results in a case of "Love"s labour lost!""
"But, what do you do with the net and beam, when it"s all ready?" asked Bob. "You haven"t told us that, yet."
"Why, drop it over the side as soon as you get out to the fishing- ground," replied the Captain laconically; "and now, I hope, you understand all about it?"
"Oh yes," responded his listeners with alacrity; all, that is, but Mrs Gilmour, who a.s.sented somewhat dubiously, as if she could not quite grasp the idea, requiring the whole thing to be explained to her over again, when she declared herself still "all in a fog!"
Her brother, however, the barrister, comprehended it at once.
"I should think it was great fun," he observed; "so I would like to come with you."
"Do," said the Captain, with much heartiness. "You"ll be amply repaid for the trouble. It is intensely exciting waiting and watching for what the trawl will bring up. It"s just like dipping your hands in the "lucky bag," Miss Nellie, at Christmas-time."
"Do you ever find any very curious things, Captain?" she inquired on being thus appealed to. "I mean really curious things!"
"Oh yes, my dear," replied the old sailor. "I was once out trawling with a fisherman off Saint Helens, when we dragged up a donkey-cart!"
"O-oh!" exclaimed Nellie, opening her blue eyes wide with wonder. "Did you catch the donkey as well?"
"Well, no," answered the Captain, smiling at her amazement, her eyes being so big and her face such a study. "The poor man"s donkey, missy, had been eaten by the crabs, but the cart was there, shafts, wheels, and all; and, a nice mess the lot made of the trawl-net, tearing it all to pieces!"
"That clenches it then. I"ll come with you by all means!" cried Mr Dugald Strong, a pleased smile creeping over his face as he rubbed his hands with expectant glee. "If you find such strange fish as that, it must be worth going out."
"All right, I shall be glad of your company," replied the Captain; "only, mind, you"ll have to work your pa.s.sage, and help hauling in the trawl."