I perceived that the larger one was out, but the dinghy was there at my service. This was just what I wished for, as on that particular day I had formed a design to make a very grand excursion in the little boat. My first act, then, was to get inside and bale out the water which had gathered in the bottom of the dinghy. There was a good deal of water in her, and I concluded from this that she must have lain several days without being used, for she was a craft that did not leak very fast. Fortunately, I found an old tin pan, that was kept on purpose to bale out with, and after scooping away for some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, I got the little boat dry enough for my purpose. The oars were kept in a shed behind the cottage of the waterman, which stood only a short distance back upon the beach: and these I fetched, as I had often done before, without the necessity of asking leave from any one.
I now entered the dinghy, and having adjusted the thole pins and placed my oars on the rowlocks, I took my seat and pushed off from the shore. My little skiff yielded freely to my stroke, and shot out into the deep water as smoothly as if she had been a fish; and with a heart as light as ever beat in my breast, I pulled away over the bright blue sea. The sea was not only bright and blue, but as calm as a lake. There was hardly so much as a ripple, and so clear was it underneath, I could see the fishes at play down to a depth of several fathoms.
The bed of the sea in our bay is of pure sand of a silvery whiteness; and the smallest objects, even little crabs not so big as a crown-piece, could be distinctly seen gambolling along the bottom, in playful pursuit of one another, or in search of some creatures still smaller than themselves, of which they designed to make their breakfast. I could see “schools” of small herring fry and broad round plaice, and huge turbots, and beautiful green mackerel, and great conger eels as large as boa-constrictors, all engaged in pursuits of pleasure or prey.
It was one of those mornings when the sea is perfectly still, and such as are very rare upon our coasts. It was just the morning for me, for, as I have already said, I had designed a “grand excursion” for the day, and the weather would enable me to carry my design into execution.
You will ask whither was I going? Listen, and you shall hear.
About three miles from the shore, and just visible from it, lay a small islet. It is not exactly correct to say islet. It was but a shoal of rocks – a small patch, apparently about a square pole in dimensions, and rising only a few inches above the surface of the water. This, too, only when the tide was out, for at all other times it was quite covered with the waves; and then there could only be seen a slender staff sticking up out of the water to the height of a few feet, and at the head of this appeared a sort of knob, or lump. Of course the staff had been placed there to point out the shoal in times of high tide, so that the sloops and other small vessels that traded up the bay might not run upon it by mistake, and so get wrecked.
Only when the tide was low, then, was this little islet to be observed from the shore. Usually, it appeared of a jet black colour; but there were other times when it was as white as if covered a foot deep with snow, and then it showed plainer and more attractive. I knew very well what caused this singular metamorphosis in its colour. I knew that the white mantle that covered it was neither more nor less than a vast flock of beautiful sea-fowl, that had settled upon the rocks, either to rest themselves after so much flying, or to search for such small fish or Crustacea as might be left there by the tide.
Now this little spot had long been to me a place of first-rate interest, partly on account of its remote and isolated situation; but more, I fancy, on account of these very birds, for in no other part of the bay had I seen so many of them together. It seemed also to be a favourite place with them; for at the going out of every tide, I observed them gather from all directions, hover around the staff, and then settle down upon the black rocks around it, until the latter were hidden from the view behind the white bodies of the birds. These birds were gulls; but there appeared to be several kinds of them; large ones and small ones, and at different times I had noticed birds of other kinds, such as the great terns and grebes, preening themselves in the same neighbourhood. Of course, from the shore the view one could have of these creatures was a very distant one, and it was difficult to tell to what species they belonged. The largest of them appeared not much bigger than sparrows, and had they not been on the wing, or so many of them together, they might have moved about unnoticed by any one passing along the shore.
I think it was the presence of these birds that had made this remote spot so interesting to me. At a very early age I was fond of all objects of natural history, but particularly of the creatures that have wings, and I believe there are few boys that are not so. There may be sciences and studies of greater importance to mankind, but there is none more refining to the taste or more fascinating to the youthful fancy than the study of nature. Whether it was to get a good look at the birds, or whether from some curiosity about other things I might see upon this little islet, I often wished that I could get to it. Never did I turn my eyes in that direction – and I did so as often as I came near the beach – without feeling a strong wish to get there and explore it from end to end. I knew in my memory the exact shape of it when the tide was lowest, and could at any time have chalked out its profile without looking at it. It was lower at both ends, and rose with a sort of curve towards the middle, like a huge black whale lying along the surface, and the staff, rising from the highest point, looked like a harpoon that was sticking in his back.
That staff, too, I longed to get my hands upon; to see what it was made out of; how high it really was if one were near it, for it only looked about a yard high from the shore; what sort of a thing the knob was on the top, and how the butt was fastened in the ground. Firmly it must have been set; for I had often seen the waves wash up to it during great storms, and the spray driving so high above it, that neither rock, nor staff, nor knob were at all visible.
Ah! many a time had I sighed to visit that attractive spot; but never yet had the opportunity occurred. It was by far too distant for any excursion I had hitherto dared to make – far too dangerous a flight for me to take in the little dinghy; and no one had offered to go with me. Harry Blew had once promised me he would take me – at the same time, he laughed at the desire I expressed to visit such a place. What was it to him? He had often rowed past it and around it, and no doubt landed upon it, and perhaps tied his boat to the staff, while he shot the sea-birds, or fished in the waters beside it; but it had never been my good fortune to accompany him in one of these pleasant excursions. I had been in expectation, however, of doing so; but now these hopes were gone. I could no more get away except on the Sundays; and on these very days my friend was always engaged in his own occupation – for Sundays, above all other days of the week, was the time for sailing parties.
For a long time, then, I had waited in vain; but I now resolved to wait no longer. I had made a bold determination on that very morning; which was, that I should take the dinghy and visit the reef myself. This, then, was the grand excursion on which I was bound, when I removed the little boat from her fastenings, and shot out upon the bosom of the bright blue sea.
Chapter Six.
The Gulls
I have styled my determination a bold one. True, there was nothing remarkable in the enterprise itself.
I only mean that it was bold for one so young and so little as I was at the time. Three miles rowing would be a good long pull, and that right out into the great deep water almost beyond sight of the shore! I had never been so far before, nor half so far, neither; in fact, never more than a mile from the beach, and in pretty shallow water, too – I mean, while by myself.
With Blew I had been everywhere around the bay; but then, of course, I had nothing to do with the management of the boat; and, trusting to the skill of the young waterman, had no cause to feel afraid.
Alone, the case was different. Everything depended upon myself; and should any accident arise, I should have no one to give me either counsel or assistance.
Indeed, before I had got quite a mile from the shore,
