id="pgepubid00009">JETHOU;

OR,

Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles.

CHAPTER I.

MY BIRTH AND HOME—MY PRETTY COUSIN—ACCIDENT TO THE "KITTYWICH"—JOURNEY TO GUERNSEY—PLEADING TO BECOME A CRUSOE—MY WISH GRANTED—OUTFIT SECURED—SAIL TO JETHOU.

That Crusoe of Crusoes, Alexander Selkirk, as I am aware, commences his entertaining history with his birth and parentage, and as I am also a Crusoe, although a very minor adventurer, I may as well follow the precedent and declare my nativity.

I was born at the little village of Barton in Norfolk, at the time the guns at Balaclava were mowing down our red coats and tars, where my father had a small house facing the Broad. It was a comfortable old two-storied building, with a thatched roof, through which a couple of dormer windows peered out, like two eyes, over the beautiful green lawn which sloped to the reed-fringed water. My father was in very comfortable circumstances, as he was owner of six large fishing vessels hailing from the port of Great Yarmouth, some ten or twelve miles distant as the crow flies.

THE OLD HOME AT BARTON.

Being born, as it were, on the water (for a distance of a hundred yards matters but little), I was naturally from my birth a young water dog, although they tell me that for some months after I made my bow to the world, milk also played a prominent part in my career.

As I grew into boyhood, of course I had my rowing punt and my rod, and thus gained my first taste for a solitary life, as it frequently happened that I would be away from sunrise to sunset on some little expedition to one or other of the neighbouring Broads. By and bye came the time when I arrived at that rare age for enjoyment, fourteen years. This birthday, the fourteenth, was a red-letter day in my life, as I received two presents, which were in my eyes very valuable ones; my uncle presented me with a beautiful little light gun, and my father handed me over his small sailing boat. Now I was a man! I felt it, and I knew it, and so did my schoolmates, for there was not one of them, who at some time or other, had not felt the effects of my prowess in a striking manner. Still, the drubbings I gave were not always to my credit, for I was a very big and strong lad for my age, and my self-imposed tasks of long rowing trips and other athletic exercises, naturally made me powerful in the arms and chest. Of my brain power I shall say little, as my mind was ever bent on sporting topics when it should have been diving into English history or vulgar fractions. Some new device in fishing gear was always of more consequence to me than any inquiry as to the name of the executioner who gave Charles the I. "chops for breakfast," as we youngsters used to say, when we irreverently spoke of the decollation of his Majesty.

Still, somehow I stumbled through my schooling till I was sixteen, when I was sent off to my father's office on the Quay at Yarmouth to take charge of the books, which were an everlasting humdrum record of herrings and the various trawl fish which came in so frequently in our vessels.

Between whiles I had plenty of spare time, and whenever a few hours were allowed me, I could not keep out of my boat, so that if the sea happened to be fairly calm, I was sure to be found bobbing about on it, and was as well known by the fishermen along the coast ten miles north and south of Yarmouth, as I was by the folks in my own village. When the sea was rough I turned my attention to Breydon Water, or the Bure, or other of the rivers flowing into it, so that at an early age I could command my little boat as easily as one manages a horse in driving. On Saturdays, when the wind and weather were at all favourable, I used frequently to hurry away from business as early as possible, and sail home along the Bure and Ant, a distance of about twenty miles, rather more than less, and became so accustomed to the route that I knew every tree and post, aye, and almost every reed and bulrush on the river's bank on my homeward way.

Sometimes night would close in rather quickly upon me, but as I only had two turnings to look out for, Thurne Mouth and Ant Mouth, I seldom made a mistake, however dark it might be, especially when the venerable old ruined gateway of St. Benet's Abbey was once passed.

Almost always these trips were solitary ones, if I except the companionship of my retriever "Begum," who was a present from my cousin on his return from India. Begum, he informed me, was a ruler in India, but whether male or female I never discovered.

My dog was a gentleman, but to this day it has remained a matter of conjecture with me, as to whether we inadvertantly gave him a lady's name, or no. Anyway, "Begum" sounded well; he was a ruler, and being black coincided with our school rulers, which were always black with ink. Unfortunately, everyone persisted (possibly to annoy me if they could), in calling him By Gum! strongly accentuating the second word, and till the poor old dog died, the name stuck to him like a postage stamp to a letter.

In my holiday trips I had a companion, my cousin Priscilla, who was, if the term be permissible; as great a water dog as myself. I am not going to attempt a description of her, but I must let the reader know that she was bigger, stronger, and a vast deal prettier than any girl within a radius of many miles of our village; not that I wish to disparage the looks or figures of our Norfolk girls, for they can hold their own with the rest of England, as Bad King Harry knew when he wooed and won Norfolk's Queen, Mistress Anne Boleyn of Blickling.

'Cilla, as I called my cousin for brevity, could row, sail a boat, skate, and shoot; yes, she was a very fair shot, and never a winter passed but she gave a good account of duck, teal, mallard, pewit, and geese, as the result of her prowess.

But I will say no more of pretty cousin 'Cilla at present, as this narrative is to be a record of what more nearly concerns myself, so I must not "mardle," as we say in Norfolk, but proceed with my story.

I was twenty-one and some months more, for the rejoicings consequent upon the event had become matter of past history, when my father one day received intelligence of one of his fishing vessels having been towed in a disabled state into the harbour of St. Peter Port, Guernsey. She was so badly damaged that his presence was imperative, to decide as to her ultimate fate.

She had been to a Spanish port for cork and hemp, as the fishing season was not a very good one, and on her return voyage had run upon an island called Jethou, during a dense fog, luckily in a calm sea, or she would never have come off whole again. Nothing ever does when it once plays at ramming these granite islands. Like the Syrens, who lured or tried to lure Ulysses, these islands are very fair to behold; but woe to the ship that comes into contact with them, for they rarely escape from their deadly embrace.

The very next day (my father having allowed me to accompany him) we started for Plymouth, a long journey, via London, at which city, being my first visit to the metropolis, I could fain have broken our journey, but our business being urgent we steamed away to Plymouth by the night train. After a substantial meal next morning we sallied out to find the first vessel sailing to Guernsey, and were lucky in discovering one called the "Fawn," which was preparing to sail the same