Menhardoc | Page 7

been drowned, coming to
life again and calling a boy like you a man. You're wain enough as it is,
and you've no call to be. So come along ashore, and get home and
change them wet clothes."
Will said a word to the chief of the divers about where the lead weights
lay, and then stepped over the side to Josh, who was already in the
lugger's boat, without letting any one know that he was going.
Josh thrust off the boat, let his oar fall with a splash, and Will followed
his example; but they were not a dozen yards from the lighter before
they were missed, and divers and crew rushed to the side and gave a
tremendous cheer.
"Here, come back!" cried the skipper; "come back!"
"Arn't got time," roared Josh, frowning; and then, as the men cheered
again: "Well, of all the gashly fuss as was ever made this is about the
worst! Pull hard, my lad, and let's get out of it. I want to go home."
"And I want to get warm, Josh," said Will laughing. "I'm glad that poor
fellow came round before we left."
"Well, I dunno," said Josh, sourly. "Of course you liked it because he
called you a man. He ought to have knowed better, at his time o' life.
Lor', Will, what a gashly peacock of a chap you would grow if it warn't
for me."

CHAPTER THREE.
PILCHAR' WILL AND THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME.
"Been overboard again? Well, I never did see such a boy in my life;
never!"
"What's the matter, Ruth?"
"Matter enough!" came in the same strident voice, in answer to the
hoarse gruff inquiry. "There, who spoke to you? Just you get back to
your work; and if that pie's burnt again to-day you'll have to leave!"
This last was to a heavy-faced simple-looking girl, who, on hearing her
mistress's angry voice, had hurried into the passage of Nor'-nor'-west
Cottage, Cliftside, and stood in front of the kitchen door, with one end
of her apron in her mouth.
Amanda Trevor, commonly called Betsey, stepped back into the
kitchen, just catching the word "dripping" as she closed the door--a
word that excited her curiosity again, but she dared not try to gratify it;
and if she had tried she would only have been disappointed on finding
that it related to a few drops of water from Will Marion's clothes.
"I said--heave ho, there! what's the matter?" was heard again; and this
time a very red-faced grey-haired man, with the lower part of his
features framed in white bristles, and clad in a blue pea-jacket and buff
waistcoat, ornamented with gilt anchor buttons, stood suddenly in the
doorway on the right, smoking solemnly a long churchwarden clay pipe,
rilling his mouth very full of smoke, and then aggravating the looker-on
by puzzling him as to where the smoke would come from next-- for
sometimes he sent a puff out of one corner of his mouth, sometimes out
of the other. Then it would come from a little hole right in the middle,
out of which he had taken the waxed pipe stem, but only for him
perhaps to press one side of his nose with the pipe, and send the rest out
of the left nostril, saving perhaps a little to drive from the right. The
result of practice, for the old man had smoked a great deal.

"Collision?" said Abram Marion, ex-purser and pensioner of the British
navy.
"No," said Mrs Ruth Marion, his little thin acid wife. "Overboard again,
and he's dripping all over the place. It isn't long since he had those
clothes."
"Six months," said the old purser, sending a couple of jets of tobacco
smoke from his nostrils at once.
"Yes; and what with his growing so horribly, and the common stuff
they sell for cloth now, shrinking so shamefully, he's always wanting
clothes."
"Oh, these will last a long time yet, aunt!" said Will.
"No, they will not last a long time yet, Will!" cried the little lady, with
her face all trouble wrinkles.
"Will," said the old man, stopping to say pup, pup, pup, pup, pup, pup,
as he emitted half a dozen tiny puffs of smoke, waving his pipe stem the
while; "mind what your aunt says and you'll never repent."
"But he don't mind a word I say," cried the little woman, wringing her
hands. "Wringing wet! just look at him!"
"Been fishing, my lass; and they brought home a fair haul," said the
purser, throwing back his head, and shooting smoke at a fly on the
ceiling.
"What's the use of his bringing home fair hauls if he destroys his
clothes as he does; and the holes he makes in his stockings are
shameful."
"Can't help