The Little Skipper | Page 6

his left arm round Dot, and looking very savage, as he held up a great rough finger at the offender, and shook his head at him warningly. "Now look-ye here. There was some boys once as stood round chuckin' stones at some frogs in a pond, and----"
"Yes, I know," cried the Skipper hastily, "and the frogs said--"
"Avast!" roared the sailor--"nay, I don't mean they said 'Avast,' that's what I says. Don't you int'rup' older folks, as is talking to you for your good. Mebbe you do know what the frogs said, but it won't hurt you to hear it agen. The frogs said--I mean croaked out--'Avast!'"
"Why! you told us the frogs didn't say 'Avast,'" cried the boy.
"Did I? Ay! so I did. It wasn't 'Avast'; it were 'Belay there! Don't do that,' they says. And then the boys said, just as you did, 'It was only my fun.' And then the frogs says: 'Ha!' they says, 'what's fun to you means stones come aboard and sinkin' us, and sendin' on us to the bottom.'"
"That they didn't!" cried the boy archly.
"Well, I don't say it was them werry words, but what they says meant it, and here you will come bringing your fun, as you calls it, on deck, and hurtin' your pretty little sister; and you calls yourself a man."
"I don't," said the boy. "I said I'd try and act like a man."
"Then why don't yer hack like a man?" cried the sailor. "You're a-gettin' on: some o' these days you'll be skipper of a big craft o' your own, and you promised I should be your bo'sun; and here you goes and hacks like that. Why! big as I am, I wouldn't go an' hurt a little thing like this, for a golden king's crown.--Would I, my pretty?"
"No, 'Jack,'" said Dot seriously; "I'm sure you wouldn't. And it's very cruel of Bob."
"That's right, my dear; so it is; and I just tell him if he don't stick to his word like a young gent should, him and me ain't going to be messmates no more."
The Skipper's conscience was very busy again, but, he wouldn't show his trouble, and, he tried to turn it off by saying rapidly--
"Won't do so any more--won't do so any more," three times.
"Don't sound to me as if you was sorry," growled the man. "I heered what your father says to you, and he knows, and he's the finest gentleman in all Her Majesty's Service. On'y wish I'd got such a father."
"What nonsense, 'Jack'!" cried the Skipper; "why! you're too big, isn't he, Dot?"
"Yes," said the girl, "he does seem to be very big to have a father."
"Well, I ain't a wery little un, am I, my pretty?" said the sailor, chuckling. "But, you allus mind, and do what your father tells you, Master Bob."
"Oh! do go on with the ship," cried the Skipper impatiently. "But, I say, did you always do what your father told you, 'Jack'?"
"Nay, that I didn't, and wery sorry I am," said the big fellow, shaking his head. "That's the wust on it; we gets to be sorry for things when it's too late; and I'm wery much afeard, Master Bob, as this here gun'll make the 'Flash' a bit crank."
"What's crank?" asked the boy.
"What you shore-going folks calls top-heavy; and that either means cutting down her rigging----"
"No, I won't have the rigging touched," cried Bob.
"Well, it would be a mortal shame, seeing how she sails, but you wouldn't like her to capsize."
"No; of course not."
"Then, I tell you what: you must put some little bags o' shot in her hold, to act as ballast, and then she'll be all right."
Then, apparently satisfied with the boy's promise of amendment, "Jack Robinson," otherwise Tom Jeffs, worked away at the model, till the gun was fixed amidships, and the anchor swung to her bows, the cable having been knotted on, and the neatly coiled rings placed inside a little hatch in front.
All this being finished, as a man-of-war's man does such things, the Skipper sprang down from the table. "Now, 'Jack,' come along!" he cried; "let's see how she'll sail." But, just then tea-time was announced, and in spite of a loud "Oh!" full of disappointment, the big sailor had to go into the kitchen and have his tea, the children's evening meal being ready too; and directly after, they were summoned to say good-bye to the coxswain, who had to go back. The Captain and Mrs. Trevor were in the hall when the former nodded shortly to his man, and went into the drawing-room, while the Skipper saw his mother slip something, that looked like a yellow sixpence, into the man's big hand.
"Good-bye, and thank you, Jeffs," she said hurriedly, and her voice sounded broken. "I pray that you may have