Octobir 29, I860.]
CROSSBONES’ FATHER.
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whistle, and in a short time the society pretty well
died out.
Then we took to digging caves, but after one fell in upon little Binns, and as nearly smothered him as a toucher, why that didn’t prosper; so we had to fall back upon listening to Crossbones — and some wonderful things he told us. I don’t
know whether it was from what he heard, or out
of his own head, that one of the fellows, who was
very clever that way, drew and coloured a repre-
sentation of Crossbones’ father, whiskered and
moustached, in a green jacket edged with fur, red
tights, big buff boots, and a brass helmet, with a
drawn sword in one hand, and a black banner
with a skull upon it in the other. On a cannon
close by hung a large blue cloak, supposed to be
the means of hiding Crossbones* father’s pro-
fessional dress from the public when he came
ashore to visit Crossbones and the rest of the family.
When this picture was shown to Crossbones he shook his head, as much as to say his father was not unlike it, but more so: so the lights were touched up a bit, and so many daggers and pistols hung about the figure, that you would have wondered there was room for them.
Well, during the midsummer holidays, as most of our set went out of town, none of us hap- pened to see Crossbones; and when we got back to school, we found to our astonishment that he always fought shy of our favourite subject when it was brought up, took no interest in the bed- room stories, and gave up the presidency of the society, thereby settling it altogether. None of us could make out what had come over him (though the idea was started at one time that his father had been caught and hanged), and he lost a good deal of popularity: and I do believe none of us would have cared to see him in the holidays, but that on the last night of the half he redeemed
his character nobly, by volunteering to put eight-
and-seventy cockchafers in old Wiggy’s bed.
Wiggy had quarrelled with Mac, and was leaving;
and when next morning he came stamping with
rage into the schoolroom, and called out to Mac,
“Sare, dey have put eensects een my bed!” we
all felt that Crossbones was indeed still our friend,
and we made it up to meet him the first Thursday
after we got home.
When we met on that day — Crossbones, Calomel, I, and two other fellows — the first question was what we should do? We all voted for going straight down to the river, but Crossbones pro- posed bathing in an old claypit he knew of, where two people had been nearly drowned, and which was supposed to be forty feet deep in places. Of course that was very tempting, but we thought it too cold for bathing; and at last we settled that it was to be the docks, where, however, Cross- bones seemed very unwilling to go. We asked him if his father was at home; but he said, No; he was in the West Indies, or some of those places, or else we might have gone on board his vessel.
On we went, however, and just as we got in
sight of the river, a voice called out, “Well, Ned,