The Story of the White-Rock Cove
WILLIE AND ALECK AT THE FOOT OF THE WHITE ROCK
CHAPTER I.
LONG AGO AT BRAYCOMBE
The Story of the White-Rock Cove—"to be written down all from the very beginning"—is urgently required by certain youthful petitioners, whose importunity is hard to resist; and the request is sealed by a rosy pair of lips from the little face nestling at my side, in a manner that admits of no denial.
"From the beginning;"—that very beginning carries me back to my own old school-room, in the dear home at Braycombe, when, as a little boy between nine and ten years old, I sat there doing my lessons.
It was on a Thursday morning, and, consequently, I was my mother's pupil. For whereas my tutor, a certain Mr. Glengelly, from our nearest town of Elmworth, used to come over on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the carrying forward of my education; my studies were, on the other days of the week, which I consequently liked much better, conducted under the gentle superintendence of my mother.
On this particular morning I was working with energy at a rule-of-three sum, being engaged in a sort of exciting race with the clock, of which the result was still doubtful. When, however, the little click, which meant, as I well knew, five minutes to twelve, sounded, I had attained my quotient in plain figures; a few moments more, and the process of fours into, twelves into, twenties into, had been accomplished; and just as the clock struck twelve I was able to hand up my slate triumphantly with my task completed.
"A drawn game, mamma!" I exclaimed, "between me and the clock;" and then with eager eyes I followed hers, as she rapidly ran over the figures which had cost me so much trouble, and from time to time relieved my mind by a quiet commentary: "Quite right so far;—No mistakes yet;—You have worked it out well."
Frisk, the intelligent, the affectionate, the well-beloved companion of my sports, and the recipient of many of my confidences, woke up from his nap, stretched himself, came and placed his fore-paws upon my knees, and, looking up in my face, spoke as plainly as if endowed with the capacity of expressing himself in human language, to this effect:—"I'm very glad you have finished your lessons; and glad, too, that I was able to sleep on a mat in the window, where the warm sunshine has made me extremely comfortable. But now your lessons are done, I hope you'll lose no time, but come out to play at once. I'm ready when you are."
And Frisk's tail wagged faster and faster when my mother's inspection of my sum was concluded, so that I could not help thinking he must have understood her when she said,—"There are no mistakes, Willie; you have been a good, industrious little boy this morning; you may go out to play with a light heart."
I did not need twice telling, but very soon put away all my books and maps, and the slate, with its right side carefully turned down, that it might not get rubbed, wiped the pens, placed my copy-book in the drawer, and presented myself for that final kiss with which my mother was wont to terminate our proceedings, and which was on this occasion accompanied by the remonstrance that I was getting quite too big a boy for such nonsense.
Then at a bound I disappeared through the window, which opened on the lawn, and let off my pent-up steam in the circumnavigation of the garden, with Frisk barking at my heels; clearing the geranium-bed with a flying leap, and taking the low wire-fence by the shrubbery twice over, to the humiliation of my canine companion, who had to dip under where I went over.
The conclusion of these performances brought me once again in front of the school-room window, where my mother stood beckoning to me. She had my straw hat with its sailor's blue ribbons in one hand, and a slice of seed-cake in the other.
"Here, Willie," she said, "put on your hat, for the sun is hot although there is a fresh breeze; and—but perhaps I may have been mistaken—I thought perhaps some people of my acquaintance were fond of seed-cake for luncheon."
"No indeed, dear mamma," I made answer speedily, "you are not at all mistaken: some people—that is, Frisk and I—do like it very much; don't we Frisk, old fellow?"
"And now," continued my mother,—who must certainly have forgotten at the moment her opinion expressed just five minutes before as to the propriety of kisses, for, smoothing back my hair, she stooped down to press her lips upon my forehead before putting my hat on,—"and now you are to take your troublesome self off for a long hour, indeed, almost an hour and a half: away with you to your play."
"May I take my troublesome self to old George's, mamma?" I petitioned.
"If you like," she answered; "only be careful in going down the Zig-zag; I don't want to find you a little heap of broken bones at the bottom of the cliff."
I confess myself to being entirely incapable of conveying on paper to my young readers the charms, the manifold delights, of that Zig-zag walk, which was our shortest way down to the lodge.
You started from the garden, then through the shrubbery, and from the shrubbery by a little wire gate you entered the natural wood which clothed the upper part of our hill-side. The path descended rapidly from this point, being very steep in parts, and emerging every here and there so as to command an uninterrupted view of the beautiful Braycombe Bay, which on this bright summer morning was all dancing and sparkling in the sunshine. Lower down, the wood gave place to rock and turf, until you reached the top of the shingle which the path skirted for a little distance; and, finally, crossing an undulating meadow, you gained the lodge, the abode of my friend old George, mentioned above.
It was not its picturesque beauty alone which endeared the Zig-zag walk to me, although, child that I was, I feel sure the loveliness of the outer world had the effect, unconsciously to myself, of brightening my little inner world; but over and above all this must be ranked my keen enjoyment of a scramble, and of the sense of difficulty and danger attendant upon certain steep parts of the descent. It was one of my great amusements to be trusted occasionally to guide my parents' visitors down by this path, for the sake of the view, whilst their carriages would be sent the long way by the drive to meet them at the lodge. There were precipitous places, where even grave and stately grown-up people would give up walking and take to running; and then again little perilous points, where ladies especially would utter faint cries of fright, and would require gentle persuasion to induce them to step down from stone to stone; whilst I, fearless from long practice, would triumphantly perform the feat two or three times, to show that I was not in the least afraid, devising, moreover, short cuts for myself even steeper than those of the recognized path.
I question whether the birth-day which conferred on me the privilege of going alone up and down the Zig-zag was the greatest boon to myself or to my nurse; the exertion involved in scaling the hill-side being to the full as wearisome to her as it was enchanting to myself. The emancipation, however, came early in my career, since my friend, old George, by my father's consent, assumed a sort of out-of-door charge of me at a period when most little boys are exclusively under nursery discipline. For my father reposed the utmost confidence in the old man's principles, and did not hesitate to let me be for hours under his care, saying, often in my hearing, that he would rather have me out on the water learning from him how to manage the boats, or climbing the rocks and exploring the caves under his safe guardianship, than learning from a woman only how to keep off the rocks and avoid tumbling into the water. He was an old seaman, united by strong ties of friendship and gratitude to our family. In earlier years he had served on board the same ship in which my father had been a young midshipman; and on one occasion, when my father fell overboard, at a time when the vessel was at full speed, had thrown himself into the water, and held my father's head up when he was too exhausted to swim, until the boat put out for the rescue had time to come up and save both lives, which the delay had placed in great peril. When, some years later, on my grandfather's death, my father came to live at Braycombe, he insisted upon Groves, who was just about to be pensioned off through some failure in health, coming to settle with his wife at the lodge, promising him the charge of our boats, so that he might have a taste of his old occupation. His daughter-in-law, widow of his only son, who had been drowned, obtained the situation of schoolmistress, and lived near to the old couple with Ralph, her only son, a lad some few years my senior, who was employed about the place under his grandfather's supervision, and