Roving Jack, The Pirate Hunter — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

q ee ge + ROVING JACK, THE PIRATE HUNTER. a will be sailing back to his desolate home? I should like to have a turn with him ; might as well knotch the brace. I’l]l see if I can clamber up to the eyrie.” *‘So much for your fine promises! Oh, Jack! Jack! come away, do.” And Hal took his com- rade’s arm, and drew him, laughing, from the spot. “But tell me, now,” said Hal, as they walked along, “how on earth you escaped breaking your neck when you rolled down the cliff; I made sure of finding you in a state of smash.” ‘Why, ye see, my chum, the cliff is not so stiff .but that I eould manage to make an occasional grab at the stones and rock weeds as I and my fluttering foe rolled downwards together, so as to break my fall, and when I bounced over yon big boulder, where I suppose you lost sight of me, I dropped flop on that high mound of soft sand. The eagle had got her talons fixed in my jacket—you see how it’s torn—and was doing her best to strike my eyes out with her beak; she could not release herself, and I caught her by the leg with one hand, and with the other I drove in my knife, right under her wing ; she walloped over on her side, as dead as a pickled herring. But let me tell ye, Hal, that rough tumble gave me an awful shaking, and the whacking I shall get will be quite superfluous, for I’m bruised already from head to foot like Pat just home from Donnybrook Fair.” “And where away now, Jack?” “To meet our Violet, and the girls, her com- panions, and some of our school-mates, on the green before the signal house.” “‘ By the bye, Jack, did your mother ever find out who were Violet’s parents ?” “Never ; as you know, Hal, she was saved from the wreck of the Indiaman that struck on the Black Rock.”’ “The ‘ Oriana,’ wasn’t that her name ?’’ “Aye; little Violet was the only soul saved. Except her, all hands perished; old Clem Cleats, the fisherman, found her lashed to a drifting spar, and he brought her ashore in his boat, which was nearly swamped in the breakers, I’ve heard him tell the tale many a time.” “And why did your mother call her Violet?” “The name was worked in hair within a little gold locket found about the child’s neck.” The boys proceeded for some time in silence, Jack seemed lost in thought. ‘“‘ What a curse it is to be so poor,” he exclaimed suddenly ; “there is so much to be done, and pro- motion comes so slowly. Oh, that my father had lived !” “ What was your father, Jack? much about his history.” “And Ican tell you but little,” returned Jack, with asigh. ‘ My father was Captain Warbold, of his Majesty’s navy, the youngest son of a gentleman of noble family. He gave great offence to his high and mighty sire by marrying my mother.” ‘f Why, Jack, she must have been a very beautiful itp be ‘She is still beautiful ; my dear mother was poor and humbly born, the daughter of a channel pilot of Truro, in Cornwall, The starchy old nob, my grandfather, was so enraged with my father for giving his hand to one in her position of life that he would never countenance the pair, Soon after I was born poor father fell ina hot action with the Dutch, -and grandfather sent mother down here into Devon to the ‘ Owlet’s Roost,’ a ruined old tower belonging to the family, and he allows her a small annuity,” ‘*‘ Have you ever seen him, Jack ?” ‘Never, and have no wish to see him,” returned our hero, fiercely ; ‘he has treated my parents with I never knew cruel harshness ; if I saw him I should tell him my mind, in spite of his star, and epaulettes, and gold scraper.” asin “ He’s a port admiral, and immensely rich, is he not?” “Yes,so I have heard,’ returned Jack, carelessly - ‘‘not from mother, though; she never mentions his name, and, I am sure, would not accept a penny of his bounty but for my graceless sake.” “My father rents his farm of old Admiral War- bold,” said Hal, ‘‘Have you any uncles, aunts, or cousins alive ?” “None,” replied Jack; “they are all dead and all died childless.” : “ By all that’s lucky, Jack ! why you must be heir to all the old curmudgeon’s wealth !” “T don’t want the dirty trash!” cried Jack, fiercely ; ‘I would rather inherit one tenth part of my father’s noble qualities than the whole of this caste-proud tyrant’s possessions.”’ “Tl wager, Jack, that you’ll come in for both,” ‘Stopper all, my chum; don’t dress me in borrowed robes ; I look for nothing but what I can win by my own hard labour, Enough of this, let’s talk of something else.” Thus discoursing, the boys sauntered along the silvery shining sands, from time to time glancing across the green and blue arc of the ocean, with its foamy margin creeping close upon their steps, and its hazy sky-line flecked here and there with distant sails glinting red in the slant rays of the declining sun. Jack paused in his walk, and looked to wind- ward. “We shall have a squall,” he said. “See, Hal, those streaks of sulphury cloud driving up from the sou’-west, and the wind comes in cat’s-paws, and veers all round the compass, and there’sa sullen red glow in the west; the fondling murmur of these smooth waves is but treachery ; they’ll be barking like hungry wolves before midnight.” As he spoke he leaped upon a rugged, green, and slimy rock, round which the rising tide dashed in a surf as white and frothy as seething yeast. Let us avail ourselves of this favourable oppor- tunity to sketch the portrait of our noble Boy Hero, He stands erect and motionless as a statue, his dark, glossy, clustering curls lifted by the chill and fitful flaw, the eagle feathers fixed in the blood- stained ’kerchief, which binds his scarred but dauntless brow, fiercely fluttering, his fine hazel eyes glowing with a brave but gentle light, his thin nostrils distended, a grave but happy smile playing lightly on his fresh curling lip, The huge dead bird of prey dangles from his careless hand, and his torn jacket, hanging loosely from his shoulder, flows idly flapping in the freshen- ing breeze, which, blowing aside his loosened shirt, displays his marble-white but firm, square chest ; his lower limbs are beautifully moulded, and his at‘stude is a perfect study of unconscious grace. “Do you like the sea, Jack?” asked Hal, with a quiet smile, ‘The sea?” cried our hero, with a low, musical laugh. “ What boy, what trwe boy, breathing, does not love the mighty, changeful, free, and glorious ocean? Here one’s soul has elbow room. Indeed, I mean to be a sailor, Hal! I mean to roam the pathless wastes of the wide, wide main, from the frozen zones to the burning tropics. I mean to be a2 genuine hero! No paltry, base, gilt-bedizened Jand-lubber highwayman ; no mutineer nor bucea- neer, but an honest rover! It shall be mine to rescue the castaway, chase the slaver, do battle with the bloody pirate, to spend my life in one bold