Excerpt
Captain Revel is Cross.
“Late again, Nic,” said Captain Revel.
“Very sorry, father.”
“Yes, you always are ‘very sorry,’ sir. I never saw such a fellow to sleep. Why, when I was a lad of your age—let’s see, you’re just eighteen.”
“Yes, father, and very hungry,” said the young man, with a laugh and a glance at the breakfast-table.
“Always are very hungry. Why, when I was a lad of your age I didn’t lead such an easy-going life as you do. You’re spoiled, Nic, by an indulgent father.—Here, help me to some of that ham.—Had to keep my watch and turn up on deck at all hours; glad to eat weavilly biscuit.—Give me that brown bit.—Ah, I ought to have sent you to sea. Made a man of you. Heard the thunder, of course?”
“No, father. Was there a storm?”
“Storm—yes. Lightning as we used to have it in the East Indies, and the rain came down like a waterspout.”
“I didn’t hear anything of it, father.”
“No; you’d sleep through an earthquake, or a shipwreck, or— Why, I say, Nic, you’ll soon have a beard.”
“Oh, nonsense, father! Shall I cut you some bread?”
“But you will,” said the Captain, chuckling. “My word, how time goes! Only the other day you were an ugly little pup of a fellow, and I used to wipe your nose; and now you’re as big as I am—I mean as tall.”
“Yes; I’m not so stout, father,” said Nic, laughing.
“None of your impudence, sir,” said the heavy old sea-captain, frowning. “If you had been as much knocked about as I have, you might have been as stout.”
Nic Revel could not see the common-sense of the remark, but he said nothing, and went on with his breakfast, glancing from time to time through the window at the glittering sea beyond the flagstaff, planted on the cliff which ran down perpendicularly to the little river that washed its base while flowing on towards the sea a mile lower down.
“Couldn’t sleep a bit,” said Captain Revel. “But I felt it coming all yesterday afternoon. Was I—er—a bit irritable?”
“Um—er—well, just a little, father,” said Nic dryly.
“Humph! and that means I was like a bear—eh, sir?”
“I did not say so, father.”
“No, sir; but you meant it. Well, enough to make me,” cried the Captain, flushing. “I will not have it. I’ll have half-a-dozen more watchers, and put a stop to their tricks. The land’s mine, and the river’s mine, and the salmon are mine; and if any more of those idle rascals come over from the town on to my grounds, after my fish, I’ll shoot ’em, or run ’em through, or catch ’em and have ’em tied up and flogged.”
“It is hard, father.”
“‘Hard’ isn’t hard enough, Nic, my boy,” cried the Captain angrily. “The river’s open to them below, and it’s free to them up on the moors, and they may go and catch them in the sea if they want more room.”
“If they can, father,” said Nic, laughing.
“Well, yes—if they can, boy. Of course it’s if they can with any one who goes fishing. But I will not have them come disturbing me....