A Great Emergency and Other Tales

ck on Thursday morning, and scrambled through a hedge into our "coastguard" corner on the wharf

I felt intensely happy. There lay the barge, the sun shining on the clean deck, and from the dewy e

d this time!" I cried, tu

of the pie,

e had left behind him; and had explained that we took it instead of the breakfast we should otherwise have eaten. We fel

, of course, nor among the cargo, where something extra thrown in at the last moment might smother us if it did not lead to our discovery, but in the fore part of the boat, in a sort of well or hold, where odd things belonging to the barge itself were stowed away, and made sheltered n

nt tadpole," I w

d Fred. "My pockets a

writing-paper, the handbook, and a more useful hammer than the one in my tool-box filled another pocket. Some gooseberries and a piece of cake were in my trousers, and I carried the tool-box in my hands

our we had as many hairbreadth escapes of discovery as the captain himself could have had in the circumstances. At last somebody threw the barge-master a bag of something (fortunately soft) which he was leaving behind

essel, smoking and minding his rudder. The driver was walking on the towing-path by the old grey horse. The motion of the boat was so smooth that we seemed to be lying still

nd though the towers of S. Philip and S. James appeared again and again in lessening size as we looked back, th

reaking little corners from the crust with an absent air more than once.) Thinking of the first subdivisi

your meals exactly, as you could never tell what might turn up. The captain always said, "Take good luck

food with a bullet, like Admir

iven an extra relish to the beefsteak and hard-b

d, I do not know; but when we were encumbered with open clasp-knives, and full mouths, we saw him bearing down up

sharply crushed against the match-box, which was by this time well warmed, the matches exploded in a body, and whilst I was puttin

re overboard, and Mr. Rowe was squeezing the smouldering fire out of my pocket, rather more deliberately than most men brush their hats. Then, after civilly holding the jacket for me to put it on ag

letely at his mercy. We appealed to it, and told him our plans. We offered him a share of the pie too, which he accepted with conscious condescension. When the dish was empty h

assing before our eyes, or the barge-furniture at our feet. The cord-compressed balls were shore-fenders, said Mr.

is pretty enough, but there's a lake the other way-a mile or two beyond your father's, Master Fred-where there's white water-lilies. They're pretty, if you like! It's a rum thing in spring," continued Mr. Rowe, between puffs of hi

tched as we went by, nor for the shells we got out of the mud; but his eye for a

ion, or even go so far as poached eggs and yet more excellent bacon, if our resources allowed of it. We were not sorry to go ashore. There was absolutely no shelter on the deck of the barge from the sunshine, which was glaringly reflect

ote a letter to my mother, Fred.

er from his pocket, saying, "That's the lett

he is older; and he was very bad at spelling. Othe

r Mo

weve seen the wurld were cumming back we took the pi wich I hope you wont mind as we had no brekfust and I'll

arted at the sight of me, which caused him to drop a very large blot of ink from the very sharp point of the pen on to his paper. I left him wiping it up with his handkerchief. But it never struck me t

nson. Ho

Wood on the London and Lancingford Canal were they come aboard quite unknown to me and blowed theirselves up with lucifers the fust go off and you've no need to trubble yourself sir

uel

ed said to me, "I'll tell you what, Charlie, I know old Rowe well, and he's up to any trick, and sure to want t

kept a pirate in good humour for a much longer voyage by affability and rum. We had no means of clouding Mr. Rowe's particularly sharp wits with gr