Cormorant Crag | Page 7

hearty laugh.
Vince gave him a heavy punch in the ribs, which was intended to mean:
"Now you've done it: he won't let us come!"
But old Daygo did not look round; he only shook his head and shouted:
"Won't do, young Ladle--Ladelle: you're thinking about the tar water,
but you can't be so funny as he."
The boys exchanged glances, but did not try to explain; neither
speaking till, to their surprise, the man turned suddenly to his right, and
made for a huge buttress which ran out some fifty feet from the rugged
edge of the cliff and ended in a soft patch of sheep-nibbled, velvet grass,
upon which lay, partly buried, a couple of long iron guns, while the
remains of a breastwork of stone guarded the edge of the cliff.
"I say! where are you going?" cried Vince.
"Eh? Here," said the man, sitting down astride of one of the old cannon.
"Think I was going to pitch you off?"
"No," said Vince coolly, as he went close to the edge and looked down
at the deeply-coloured purple, almost black, water at the foot of the
cliff, where there was not an inch of strand. "Wouldn't much matter if
you did: it's awfully deep there, and no rocks. I could swim."
"Swim? Wheer?" said the man sharply. "No man could swim far there.

T'reble currents and deep holes, where the tide runs into and sucks you
down if it don't take you out to sea. Nobody's safe there."
"Might go all right in a boat," said Vince, still gazing down, attracted
by the place, where he had often watched before, and noted how the
cormorants, shags, and rock-doves flew in and out, disappearing
beneath his feet--for the great buttress overhung the sea, and its face
could only be seen by those who sailed by.
"Nay, nay; no one goes in a boat along here, boy. There, I'm going to
fill my pipe and light it, and then we'll go. Which o' you's got a
sun-glass?"
"I have," said Vince quickly.
"Let's have it, then: save me nicking about with my flint and steel."
The rough black pipe was filled, and the convex lens held so that the
sun's rays were brought to a focus on the tobacco, which dried rapidly,
crisped up, and soon began to smoke, when a few draws ignited the
whole surface, and the man began to puff slowly and regularly as he
handed back the glass.
"It's nothing a boy could do," he said, with one of his fierce, grim looks,
"so don't you two get a-glowering at a pipe like that."
"Get out!" said Vince quickly. "I wasn't thinking about that. I was
wondering who first found out that you could get fire from the sun."
"Some chap as had a spy-glass," said the old fellow, "and unscrewed
the bottom same as I do when I wants a light. Might ha' fired one o'
these here with a glass if you put a bit o' tinder in the touch-hole."
"Yes," said Vince, "if the French had come."
"Tchah!" ejaculated the man contemptuously: "all fools who put the
guns about the island! No Frenchies couldn't ha' come and landed here.
Wants some one as knows every rock to sail a small boat, let alone a

ship o' war. All gone to pieces on the rocks if they'd tried."
"Same as the old Spaniards did with the Armada," said Vince.
"Spannles! Did they come?"
"To be sure they did, and got wrecked and beaten and sunk, and all
sorts."
"Sarve 'em right for being such fools as to come without a man aboard
as knowed the rocks and currents and tides. Dessay I could ha' showed
'em; on'y there's nowhere for 'em to harbour."
"You'd better not try, if ever they want to come again," cried Vince,
with animation. "Father says you are a Spaniard."
"Me?" cried the man, starting. "Not me. I'm English, flesh and bone."
"No: father says Spanish."
"Your father knows something about salts and senny," growled the old
fellow, "but I know more about Joe Daygo o' the Crag than any man
going. English right down to my boots."
"No: Spanish descent, father says," persisted Vince. "He says he goes
by your face and your name."
"What does he mean?" said the man fiercely. "Good a face as his'n!"
"And principally by your nose. He says it's a regular Spanish one."
"He don't know what he's talking about," growled the old man, rubbing
the feature in question. "How can it be Spanish when all the rest of me's
English?"
"It's the shape," continued Vince; while Mike lay on his back, listened,
and stared up at the grey gulls which went sailing round between him
and the vividly blue sky. "He says