Cormorant Crag | Page 7

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 there isn't another nose in the island a bit like it."
"Tell him he'd better leave my nose alone. But he is right there: there arn't a nose like it--they're all round or stunted, or turn t'other way up."
"Then he says your name Daygo's only a corruption of Diego, which is Spanish for James."
"Yah! It's Daygo--Joe Daygo--and not James at all. He's thinking about Jemmy Carnach."
"And he says he feels sure your people came over with the Spanish Armada, and you're descended from some sailor, named Diego, who was wrecked."
"You tell your father to mix his physic," grumbled the man sourly.--"Here, are you two going to stop here talking all day?"
"No," cried Mike, springing up, his example being followed by Vince, who was riding on the breech of the other gun.
"Then come on," growled the man, who made off now at a tremendous rate. Away over furze, and up and down over sunny slopes, where the fallow-chats rose, showing their white tail coverts; in and out among bare patches of granite, which rose above the great clumps of gorse; and still on, till all before them was sea. Then he began to rapidly descend a gully, where everything that was green was left behind, and they were between two vast walls of rock, almost shut-in by a natural breakwater stretching across, half covered by the sea and sand. Below them, in a natural pool, lay a boat which might have been built and launched to sail upon the tiny dock of stone; for there was apparently no communication with the sea,