By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War, G. A. Henty [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

wealth, and many pictures have been drawn of the slights and indignities to which boys, whose means are inferior to those of their schoolfellows, are subject. I am happy to believe that this is a libel. There are, it is true, toadies and tuft hunters among boys as among men. That odious creature, the parasite of the Greek and Latin plays, exists still, but I do not believe that a boy is one whit the less liked, or is ever taunted with his poverty, provided he is a good fellow. Most of the miseries endured by boys whose pocket money is less abundant than that of their fellows are purely self inflicted. Boys and men who are always on the lookout for slights will, of course, find what they seek. But the lad who is not ashamed of what is no fault of his own, who frankly and manfully says, “I can't afford it,” will not find that he is in any way looked down upon by those of his schoolfellows whose good opinion is in the smallest degree worth having.

Certainly this was so in the case of Frank Hargate. He was never in the slightest degree ashamed of saying, “I can't afford it;” and the fact that he was the son of an officer killed in battle gave him a standing among the best in the school in spite of his want of pocket money.

Frank was friends with many of the fishermen, and these would often bring him strange fish and sea creatures brought up in their nets, instead of throwing them back into the sea.

During the holidays he would sometimes go out with them for twenty-four hours in their fishing-boats. His mother made no objection to this, as she thought that the exercise and sea air were good for his health, and that the change did him good. Frank himself was so fond of the sea that he was half disposed to adopt it instead of the army as a profession. But his mother was strongly opposed to the idea, and won him to her way of thinking by pointing out that although a sailor visits many ports he stays long at none of them, and that in the few hours' leave he might occasionally obtain he would be unable to carry out his favorite pursuits.

“Hargate,” Ruthven, who was one of the oldest of the House boys, and was about Frank's age, that is about fifteen years old, said a few days after the match, “the Doctor has given Handcock and Jones and myself leave to take a boat and go out this afternoon. We mean to start soon after dinner, and shall take some lines and bait with us. We have got leave till lockup, so we shall have a long afternoon of it. Will you come with us?”

“Thank you, Ruthven,” Frank said; “I should like it very much, but you know I'm short of pocket money, and I can't pay my share of the boat, so I would rather leave it alone.”

“Oh, nonsense, Hargate!” Ruthven answered; “we know money is not your strong point, but we really want you to go with us. You can manage a boat better than any of us, and you will really oblige us if you will go with us.”

“Oh, if you put it in that way,” Frank said, “I shall be glad to go with you; but I do not think,” he went on, looking at the sky, “that the weather looks very settled. However, if you do not mind the chance of a ducking, I don't.”

“That's agreed then,” Ruthven said; “will you meet us near the pier at three o'clock?”

“All right. I'll be punctual.”

At the appointed hour the four lads met on the beach. Ruthven and his companions wanted to choose a light rowing boat, but Frank strongly urged them to take a much larger and heavier one. “In the first place,” he said, “the wind is blowing off shore, and although it's calm here it will be rougher farther out; and, unless I'm mistaken, the wind is getting up fast. Besides this it will be much more comfortable to fish from a good sized boat.”

His comrades grumbled at the extra labor which the large boat would entail in rowing. However, they finally gave in and the boat was launched.

“Look out, Master Hargate,” the boatman said as they started; “you'd best not go out too far, for the wind is freshening fast, and we shall have, I think, a nasty night.”

The boys thought little of the warning, for the sky was bright and blue, broken only by a few gauzy white clouds which streaked it here and there. They rowed out about a mile, and then laying in their oars, lowered their grapnel and began to fish. The sport was good. The fish bit freely and were rapidly hauled on board. Even Frank was so absorbed in the pursuit that he paid no attention to the changing aspect of the sky, the increasing roughness of the sea, or the rapidly rising wind.

Suddenly a heavy drop or two of rain fell in the boat. All looked up.

“We are in for a squall,” Frank exclaimed, “and no mistake. I told you you would get a ducking, Ruthven.”

He had scarcely spoken when the squall was upon them. A deluge of rain swept down, driven by a strong squall of wind.

“Sit in the bottom of the boat,” Frank said; “this is a snorter.”

Not a word was said for ten minutes, long before which all were drenched to the skin. With the rain a sudden darkness had fallen, and the land was entirely invisible. Frank looked anxiously towards the shore. The sea was getting up fast, and the boat tugging and straining at the cord of the grapnel. He shook his head. “It looks very bad,” he said to himself. “If this squall does not abate we are going to have a bad time of it.”

A quarter of an hour after it commenced the heavy downpour of rain ceased, or rather changed into a driving sleet. It was still extremely dark, a thick lead colored cloud overspread the sky. Already the white horses showed how fast the sea was rising, and the wind showed no signs of falling with the cessation of the rain storm. The boat was laboring at her head rope and dipping her nose heavily into the waves.

“Look here, you fellows,” Frank shouted, “we must take to the oars. If the rope were a long one we might ride here, but you know it little more than reached the ground when we threw it out. I believe she's dragging already, and even if she isn't she would pull her head under water with so short a rope when the sea gets up. We'd better get out the oars and row to shore, if we can, before the sea gets worse.”

The lads got up and looked round, and their faces grew pale and somewhat anxious as they saw how threatening was the aspect of the sea. They had four oars on board, and these were soon in the water and the grapnel hauled up. A few strokes sufficed to show them that with all four rowing the boat's head could not be kept towards the shore, the wind taking it and turning the boat broadside on.

“This will never do,” Frank said. “I will steer and you row, two oars on one side and one on the other. I will take a spell presently.

“Row steadily, Ruthven,” he shouted; “don't spurt. We have a long row before us and must not knock