Devon Boys

The Devon Boys
a Tale of the North Shore
by George Manville Fenn.
CHAPTER ONE.
SELF AND FRIENDS.
Bigley Uggleston always said that it was in 1753, because he vowed
that was the hot year when we had gone home for the midsummer
holidays from Barnstaple Grammar-school.
Bob Chowne stuck out, as he always would when he knew he was
wrong, that it was in 1755, and when I asked him why he put it then, he
held up his left hand with his fingers and thumb spread out, which was
always his way, and then pointing with the first finger of his right, he
said:
"It was in 1755, because that was the year when the French war broke
out."
Then he pushed down his thumb, and went on:
"And because that was the year we had a bonfire in June, because
Doctor Stacey was married for the third time, and we burned all the
birches."
Then he pushed down his first finger.
"And because that was the year we had an extra week's holiday."
Down went his second finger.
"And because that was the year the Spanish galleon was wrecked on

Jagger Rock."
Down went the third finger.
"And because that was the year your father bought the whole of Slatey
Gap."
Down went the fourth finger, so that his open hand had become a
clenched fist held up, and then in his regular old pugnacious way he
looked round the room as if he wanted to hit somebody as he snarled
out:
"Now, who says I'm wrong?"
I could have said so, but what's the use of quarrelling with a fellow who
can't help being obstinate. It was in his nature, and no end of times I've
known that when my old school-fellow was snaggy and nasty and
quarrelsome with me, he'd have fought like a Trojan on my side against
half the school.
But that fourth finger of Bob Chowne's settled it as to the time, for it
was not in 1755 but in 1752, for there's the date on the old parchment,
which sets forth how the whole of the Gap from the foreshore right up
the little river for five hundred yards inland, and the whole of the steep
cliff slope and precipice, each side, to the very top, was conveyed to
my father, Arthur John Duncan, of Oak Cottage, Wistabay, lieutenant
and commander in the Royal Navy of His Most Gracious Majesty King
George the Second.
It doesn't matter in the least when it was, only I may as well say when,
any more than it does that everybody who knew my father, including
Doctor Chowne of Ripplemouth, said he must be mad to go and buy, at
the sale of Squire Allworth's estate, a wild chasm of a place, all slaty
rock and limestone crag and rift and hollow, with a patch of scraggy
oak-trees here, some furze and heath there, and barely enough grass to
feed half a dozen sheep, and that, even if it was cheap, because no one
else would buy it, he was throwing good money away.

But I didn't think so that hot midsummer afternoon when I was back
home, and had set out to explore the place as I had never explored it
before.
That was not saying much, for I pretty well knew the spot by heart, but
it was my father's now--"ours."
We three boys had ridden home together the day before, sitting on our
boxes in Teggley Grey's cart, for he was the carrier from Ripplemouth
to Barnstaple.
I say we rode, though it wasn't much of a ride, for every now and then
the red-faced old boy used to draw the corner of his lips nearly out to
his ears, and show us how many yellow stumps of teeth he had left, as
he stopped his great bony horse, to say:
"I'm sure you young chaps don't want my poor old horse to pull you up
a hill like this."
Of course we jumped down and walked up the hill, and as it was nearly
all hill from Barnstaple to our homes we were always jumping down,
and walked quite half of the twenty miles.
Old Teggley must begin about it too, as he sat with his chin nearly
down upon his knees, whisking the flies away from his horse's ears
with his whip.
"We'm bit puzzled, Mas' Sep Duncan, what your father bought that
place for?"
"It's all for bounce," said Bob Chowne, "so as to be Bigley Uggleston's
landlord. Look out, Big, or Sep 'll send you and your father packing,
and you'll have to take the lugger somewhere else."
"I don't care," said Bigley. "It don't matter to me."
All in good time we got to the Gap Valley, where there