l stained now with the dirty water from the mine, and for
some time we preserved silence.

"What are you thinking about, Sep?" said Bigley at last.

"I was thinking how nicely those belts would go with a uniform," I said.

"Were you? How funny!" said Bigley. "That's just what I was thinking."

"What, about a uniform?"

"Yes."

"Blue?"

"No, scarlet."

I went down to the shore with Bigley, and we had a good ramble, after
which he fetched the glass, and we climbed up to the place on the rocks
where his father used to station himself to look out--for fish, Bigley
said; but my father often said they were very rum fish--and there we
swept the horizon to see if we could make out the lugger, but she was
not in sight, and after a time we grew tired of this and lay down in the
warm sunshine upon the cliff, where Bigley dropped off to sleep.

I did not feel sleepy, though, but full of thought. Above all, I could
not help thinking over my father's behaviour that day. It was evident
that he feared attack by making such preparations, and no doubt I should
soon see him drilling the work-people he had gathered around him, and I
dwelt a good deal, being tolerably observant, upon the fact of his
letting Bigley see all his preparations. I was asking myself why he had
done this, and what reason he had for it, when Bigley woke up and said
that it was time to go and get something to eat.

I did not answer and say it was, but a silent monitor gave me a hint
that he was quite correct, and so we went to the cottage, and Mother
Bonnet gave us quite a feast of bread and butter and fried fish, which
form no bad refreshment for two hungry boys.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

DRILLING OUR MEN.

My father's armoury was a good deal talked about, but when regular
drilling was commenced at the Gap it excited no surprise. The
grey-beards of Ripplemouth talked it over, and said they were glad that
Captain Duncan had woke up and was ready to defend the Gap when the
French came to our part of the coast, and they said they expected great
things of him.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bob Chowne one day, as he came over; "heard the
news?"

"No," I said; "have the French come?"

"No, not yet; but the Ripplemouth people are going to ask your father to
help them make a fort on the cliff over the harbour, and they're going
to get some guns from Bristol."

"What nonsense!" I said. "Here, I'm going over to the Gap; will you
come?"

"No, I don'