Cutlass and Cudgel | Page 2

bit o' this. Keeps off the gnawin's
wonderful."
"Yah! Who's going to chew tobacco!" cried the lad with a look of
disgust, as he buttoned up his uniform jacket. "Oh, hang it all, I wish
the sun would come out!"
"Won't be long, sir; and then all this sea-haar will go."
"Why don't you say mist?" cried the lad contemptuously.
"'Acause it's sea-haar, and you can't make nowt else on it, sir!"
"They haven't seen anything of them in the night, I suppose?"
"No, sir; nowt. It scars me sometimes, the way they dodges us, and gets
away. Don't think theer's anything queer about 'em, do you?"
"Queer? Yes, of course. They're smugglers, and as artful as can be."
"Nay, sir, bad, I mean--you know, sir."

"No, I don't, Dick," cried the young officer pettishly. "How can I know?
Speak out."
"Nay, I wean't say a word, sir; I don't want to get more scarred than I
am sometimes now."
"Get out! What do you mean? That old Bogey helps them to run their
cargoes?"
"Nay, sir, I wean't say a word. It's all werry well for you to laugh, now
it's daylight, and the sun coming out. It's when it's all black as pitch, as
it takes howd on you worst."
"You're a great baby, Dick," cried the midshipman, as he went to the
side of the cutter and looked over the low bulwark toward the east.
"Hah! Here comes the sun."
His eyes brightened as he welcomed the coming of the bright orb,
invisible yet from where he stood; but the cold grey mist that hung
around was becoming here and there, in patches, shot with a soft
delicious rosy hue, which made the grey around turn opalescent
rapidly, beginning to flash out pale yellow, which, as the middy
watched, deepened into orange and gold.
"Lovely!" he said aloud, as he forgot in the glory of the scene the
discomfort he had felt.
"Tidy, sir, pooty tidy," said the sailor, who had come slowly up to
where he stood. "And you should see the morning come over our coast,
sir. Call this lovely? Why, if you'd sin the sun rise there, it would mak'
you stand on your head."
"Rather see this on my feet, Dick," cried the lad. "Look at that! Hurrah!
Up she comes!"
Up "she"--otherwise the sun--did come, rolling slowly above the
mist-covered sea, red, swollen, huge, and sending blood-tinted rays
through and through the haze to glorify the hull, sails, and rigging of

the smart cutter, and make the faces of the man at the helm and the
other watchers glow as with new health.
The effect was magical. Just before all was cold and grey, and the
clinging mist sent a shiver through those on deck; now, their eyes
brightened with pleasure, as the very sight of the glowing orb seemed
to have a warming--as it certainly had an enlivening--effect.
The great wreaths of mist yielded rapidly as the sun rose higher, the
rays shooting through and through, making clear roads which flashed
with light, and, as the clouds rolled away like the grey smoke of the
sun's fire, the distant cliffs, which towered up steep and straight, like
some titanic wall, came peering out now in patches bright with green
and golden grey.
Archibald Raystoke--midshipman aboard His Majesty the king's cutter,
stationed off the Freestone coast, to put a stop to the doings of a
smuggler whose career the Government had thought it high time to
notice--drew in a long breath, and forgot all about hunger and cold in
the promise of a glorious day.
It was impossible to think of such trifling things in the full burst of so
much beauty, for, as the sun rose higher, the sea, which had been
blood-red and golden, began to turn of a vivid blue deeper than the
clear sky overhead; the mist wreaths grew thinner and more
transparent, and the pearly glistening foam, which followed the
breaking of each wave at the foot of the mighty cliffs, added fresh
beauty to the glorious scene.
"Look here, Dirty Dick," began the middy, who burst out into a hearty
fit of laughter as he saw the broad-shouldered sailor give his face a rub
with the back of his hands, and look at them one after the other.
"Does it come off, Dick?" he said.
"Nay, sir; nothin' comes off," said the man dolefully. "'Tis my natur too,
but it seems werry hard to be called dirty, when you arn't."

"There, I beg pardon, Dick, and I will not call you so any more."
"Thankye, sir; I s'pose you mean it, but you'll let it out again soon as
you forget."
"No, I will not, Dick. But, I say, look here: you are a cheat, though, are
you not?"