Captain Mugford | Page 5

BY REALITY.
Three years elapsed before I saw the cape again. Indeed the
remembrance of that visit there, of a few days only, began to assume
indistinctness as a dream, and sometimes as I thought of it, recalling the
events of the journey there and back in the chaise, the wild scenery and
the strange sound of the surf, the old dark house and the devoted black
servants--sometimes, I say, as I thought of all these, as I loved to do
when I settled myself in bed for the night, or when in summer I lay on
my back in the grass looking up at the flying clouds, I would have to
stop and fix my attention sharp, to be sure whether it ever had been a
reality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I think my
father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys--afraid its
charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract our attention
from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, we always went to
the country with our parents for a month or six weeks, and enjoyed it
exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, and badger stories to
last us through the winter. But there was no other country, we imagined,
like the cape; and as our father and mother never lived there, and rarely
spent even a single night on the whole property, they thought it best, I
suppose, that we should not run wild there and get a relish for what all
boys seem to have, in some degree, by nature. I mean the spirit of

adventure, and love of the sea.
However, the good time came at last, or a reliable promise of it first,
just fifty years ago this very February. We older boys--Walter, sixteen
years of age, Drake, fourteen, and I, Robert, twelve--were attending
school at Bristol, and were, as usual too in the winter evenings, at work
over our lessons at the library table, when, on one never-to-be-forgotten
evening, our father, who was sitting in an easy chair by the fire,
suddenly asked, "Boys, how would you like to pass next summer on the
cape?" Ah! didn't we three give a terrific chorus of assent? "Jolly!
magnificent! splendid!" we cried, while Walter just quietly vaulted over
half a dozen chairs, two or three at a time, backwards and forwards, till
he had expended some of the animal vivacity stored up in abundance
within him. Drake, as usual when extremely pleased, tried to
accomplish the rubbing of his stomach and the patting of his head both
at the same time; and I climbed into the chair with my father, and
patted his cheeks and thanked him with a fierce shake of the hands.
"Bob, boy, you are the only one of my youngsters who has been at the
old place, and you must have painted it as a wonderful corner of the
earth, that Walter and Drake should testify their pleasure in such
eccentric ways.--And look here, Walter: when you wish to turn acrobat
again, let it not be in this library or over those chairs; choose some
piece of green grass out of doors.--Well, boys, perhaps you can pass
the summer at the cape. I do not promise it, but shall try to arrange it so
if your mother is willing; but under the unfailing condition that you
make good progress in your studies until that time."
"Shall we all be there together, father, and for the whole summer, and
without any school? How delightful!"
"Not too fast, Drake. Without school? What an idea! Why, in six
months you would be as wild and ignorant as the sheep there. No; you
shall have a strict tutor, who will keep you in harness, and help Walter
to prepare for going up next year to Cambridge. But only you three will
be there. I have some business in London, and I shall take your mother
and Aggie and Charley with me."

During those February evenings there were many more conversations
on the same subject, full of interest to us boys, and finally it was fully
decided by our father and mother that we should go in May, and stay
there until autumn; that a certain Mr Clare should be our tutor, and that
Clump and Juno should be our housekeepers and victuallers.
Never did a springtime appear longer and more wearisome. We counted
every day, and were disgusted with March for having thirty-one of
them. What greatly increased our impatience and the splendour of our
anticipation was that, some time in March, our father told us that a brig
had been cast away in a curious manner on the shore of the cape, and
that he had purchased