was the turning-point in my father's
mining career. After that all went well.

As I said, Jonas Uggleston never came back, but one day a bronzed
white-headed old sailor was seated at the door of the smuggler's cottage
when I went to call on Bigley, and this old fellow rose with quite a
broad grin on his face.

I stared for a moment, he was so foreign-looking with his clipped beard
and quaintly cut garb. Then I realised who it was: Binnacle Bill come
back to his old wife, Mother Bonnet.

"Couldn't leave the master before," he said. "But now I've come, and
you'll give me a job now and then, and Master Bigley, I should like
never to go away no more."

Binnacle Bill did not go away any more, for he was at once installed
boatman, and bound to have boat, tackle, and baits ready every time
Bigley and I felt disposed to have an hour or two's fishing in the
evening.

If Bob Chowne came down his work grew harder, for Bob was as fond of
fishing as ever. He used to come to see his father sometimes, for he
was devotedly attached to him, and the old doctor's place was full of
the presents his son sent him from abroad.

But Bob always came over to the Bay, grumbling and saying that he was
sick of Ripplemouth; and then he grumbled at old Sam and Kicksey about
the dinner, or the fruit, or the weather, and then he used to grumble at
his two old school-fellows as we walked along the cliff path, or went
out with him in the boat.

"Ah, you two always were lucky fellows," he said to us one day, when I
told him that I was going to spend my winter evenings setting down my
old recollections with Bigley Uggleston's help. "Nothing to do but
enjoy yourselves, and idle, and write. But what's the good of doing
that? Nobody will ever care to read about what such chaps as we've
been, did in such an out-of-the-way place as this."

"Never mind," I said, "I mean to set it all down just as I can
recollect; and as to anybody reading it--well, we shall see."

"Ah, well," said Bob, "just as you like; but if I was a grumbling sort
of fellow, and given to finding fault, I should say it's just waste of
time."

This was too much for Bigley, who burst into a hearty fit of laughter,
in which I joined.

Bob stared at us both rather sulkily for a moment, and then uttered his
favourite ejaculation, which was "Yah!"

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Devon Boys, by George Manville Fenn

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBE