The Peril Finders

The speaker, a sturdy-looking, sun-tanned man, seated upon a home-made stool at a rough home-made table in a home-made house of rugged, coarsely-sawn boards, with an open roof covered in with what one of the boys had called wooden slates, had looked up from his writing, and as he spoke carefully wiped his pen--for pens were scarce--and corked the little stone bottle of ink so that it should not evaporate in the super-heated atmosphere, before it was wanted again for the writing of one of the rare letters dispatched to England, these being few, the writer preferring to wait till the much-talked-of better days came--the days for which they had been patiently waiting five years.

The boys looked sharply one at the other, their eyes seeming to say, "You tell him!" But neither of them spoke, and the penman said sharply--

"Hallo! Been in some mischief?"

The boys spoke out together then, and muddled or blurred their reply, for one said, "No, fa," being his shortening of father, and the other cried, "No, sir," both looking indignant at the suggestion. "What have you been doing, then?"

"Fishing, sir."

"Good lads!" cried the first speaker, leaning back on his seat, and starting up and grasping the rough edge of the table to save himself from falling, while the boys burst out laughing.

"Yes, you may laugh, my fine fellows," said the first speaker rather pettishly, "but it wouldn't have been pleasant for me if I had gone down."

"No, fa," said his son, colouring and speaking quickly. "I beg your pardon! I am sorry."

"I know, Chris. You didn't think. I suppose it looked droll."

"Yes, sir," said the other boy, hastily. "I beg your pardon too. You thought you were in an arm-chair, didn't you?"

"I did, my boy," was the reply, given in company with a weary sigh. "But granted, granted, and thank you. I'm glad to find that though we are leading this half savage life, you young fellows don't forget that you are gentlemen."

"Gentlemen's sons, sir," said the second boy modestly.

"Same thing, Ned Bourne. Well, so we're to have a treat: fish for dinner, eh? Where are they?"

The boys exchanged glances again, their eyes twinkling with mirth, and then they burst out laughing merrily once more.

"A big basketful, boys?" And the speaker rubbed his hands.

"No, fa," cried the first boy. "We haven't caught one."

"What! Why, where did you go?"

"To the upper pool, sir," said the second boy, "and there wasn't a fish."

"Then why didn't you try the river?"

"There is no river now, fa."

"No river?"

"No, fa; it was all turned into pools when we were there a fortnight ago, and now there's only a muddy spot here and there; all the rest have dried-up."

"Tut, tut, tut! What a place it is!"

"Oh, it will be better soon, sir," said the second boy cheerfully. "There'll be a heavy rain, the river will fill again, and the fish begin running up from the sea. It's such a lovely morning out, and the flowers are glorious."

"Yes, Ned, lovely and glorious," said the penman sadly. "It is, as I have often said, a perfect paradise--a beautiful garden. I don't wonder that the old mission fathers called it the Valley of the Angels. But though we can drink in the beauty of the place it does not quench one's thirst, and not being herbivorous people, we can't feed on flowers. Oh dear! Then there are no fish?"

"Not till the rains come, fa."

"And when they do come the wet will find it easy to get to your skin, Chris--and to yours too, Ned Bourne. What a pair of ragamuffins you look!"

The two frank, good-looking lads coloured through their bronzed skins, and each involuntarily clapped his hand to a guilty spot--that is to say, one covered a triangular hole in his knickerbockers and the other pressed together the sides of a long slit in his Norfolk jacket, and they spoke together again.

"I got hung up in the agaves, father, and the thorns catch like hooks."

"A nail ran into my knicks, sir, when I was on the roof mending the shingles."

"A very meritorious proceeding, my dear Ned, but there are needles and thread in the chest: why didn't you mend your knicks, as you call them? Don't let's degenerate into scarecrows because we are obliged to live this Robinson Crusoe-like life. It's many years since I read that book, Chris, but if I recollect right he used not only to mend his own clothes, but make new ones out of goat-skins. `A stitch in time saves nine,' boys, so mend your ways--I mean the open ways where the wind and rain get in. See anything of your father, Ned?"

"Yes, sir; he's working away with Mr Wilton up in the far orange-grove."

"Far orange-grove," repeated Christopher Lee's father bitterly; "a grove without oranges. Is the blight--the scale, I mean--any better up there?"

"No, sir. Father said it was a hundred times worse."

"But that was exaggeration, Ned," cried Chris eagerly. "It's very bad, but not a hundred times worse than it was last time we were there."