Cormorant Crag | Page 3

for a little one to stick up for himself and
thrash the big coward, can it?"
"That is a question upon which I cannot pretend to decide, Vince. You
had better ask your father."
"Oh, no! I shan't say anything about it," replied the boy, giving his
short shock-brown hair a rub. "I don't like talking about it. Nearly
done?"
"Yes, I am fastening off the thread."
There was a snip given directly after by a pair of scissors; Vince gave
his leg a shake to send the trouser down in its place, and then stooped
and kissed the sweet, placid face so close to his.

"There," he cried; "don't you tell me I didn't pay you for mending the
tear."
"Ready, Vince?" said the Doctor, entering with the bottle neatly done
up in white paper.
"Yes, father."
"Mind, sir! don't break it."
"No, father: all right."
The next minute Vince was trotting sharply down the road towards the
rough moorland, which he had to partly traverse before turning down a
narrow track to the cliff edge, where, in a gap, half a dozen fishermen's
cottages were built, sheltered from the strong south-west wind.
"You will not send him away, Robert?" said Mrs Burnet.
"Humph! Well, no," said the Doctor, wrinkling up his brow; "it would
seem so dull if he were gone."
CHAPTER TWO.
"TWO FOR A PAIR."
"Hullo, Cinder!"
"Hullo, Spoon!"
"Who are you calling Cinder?"
"Who are you calling Spoon?"
"You. Well, Ladle then, if you don't like Spoon."
"And you have it Scorcher if you like, old Burnet."
"Burnet's a better name than Ladelle."

"Oh, is it! I don't know so much about that, Vincey. And it isn't
pronounced as if it was going into a soup tureen. You know that well
enough. It's a fine old French name."
"Of course I know your finicking way of calling it Lah Delle; but, if
you're English, it's Ladle. Ha, ha, ha! Ladle for frog soup, Frenchy."
"You won't be happy till I've punched your head, Vince Burnet."
"Shan't I? All right, then: make me happy," said Vince to another
sun-browned lad whom he had just encountered among the furze and
heather--all gold and purple in the sunny islet where they dwelt--and in
the most matter-of-fact way he took off his jacket; and then began a
more difficult task, which made him appear like some peculiar animal
struggling out of its skin: for he proceeded to drag off the tight blue
worsted jersey shirt he wore, and, as it was very elastic, it clung to his
back and shoulders as he pulled it over his head, and, of course,
rendered him for the moment helpless--a fact of which his companion
was quite ready to take advantage.
"Want to fight, do you?" he cried: "you shall have it then," and,
grinning with delight, he sprang upon the other's back, nipping him
with his knees, and beginning to slap and pummel him heartily.
Vince Burnet made a desperate effort to get free, but the combination
of his assailant's knees and the jersey effectively imprisoned him, and,
though he heaved and tossed and jerked himself, he could not dislodge
the lad, who clung to him like Sinbad's old man of the sea, till he fell
half exhausted in a thick bed of heather, where he was kept down to
suffer a kind of roulade of thumps, delivered very heartily upon his
back as if it were a drum.
"Murder! murder!" cried Vince, in smothered tones, with the jersey
over his head.
"Yes, I'll give you murder! I'll give you physic! How do you like that,
and that, and that, Doctor?"

Each question was followed by a peculiar double knock on back or ribs.
"Don't like it at all, Mike. Oh, I say, do leave off!"
"Shan't. Don't get such a chance every day. I'll roast your ribs for you,
my lad."
"No, no: I give in. I'm done."
"Ah! that sounds as if you didn't feel sure. As your father says to me
when I'm sick, I must give you another dose."
"No, no, don't, please," cried Vince: "you hurt."
"Of course I do. I mean it. How many times have you hurt me?"
"But it's cowardly to give it to a fellow smothered up like I am."
"'Tisn't cowardly: it's the true art of war. Get your enemy up in a corner
where he can't help himself, and then pound him like that, and that."
"Oh!--oh!"
"Yes, it is `Oh!' I never felt any one with such hard, bony ribs before;
Jemmy Carnach is soft compared to you."
"I say, you're killing me!"
"Am I? Like to be killed?"
"No. Oh! I say, Mike, don't, there's a good fellow! Let me get up."
"Are you licked?"
"Yes, quite."
"Will you hit me if