CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9620, 19 September 1894, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

DICK GROGAN'S LESSON. When I first went to Bayford School, Jack Neville was in the sixth or haad form and I in the third. Our parents were acquainted, but, though I had seen Jack pretty often, 1 could not be said to have really known him before we met at school. He was several years older than I, and it might have been expected that he could hardly make a companion of me. Nevertheless, he did to a very considerable extent, and 1 was not a little grateful to him, as a young boy always is to an older one who is kind to him. One afternoon Jack Neville and I were together in an outhouse at the back of Bayford House, used by the gardener for doing all sorbs of odd jobs in. Jack was making me a boat, shaping the hull out of a beautiful bib of deal wood which the gardener had given us. " I'll have her ready rigged by to-morrow afternoon, and we'll launch her on her trial trip," Jack said. " What shall we call her ?" I asked. " What do you think " I haven't thought about ib yet," I answered, laughing. " Well, think now, then. She's your boat, so you'd better christen her." " Suppose we call her the Firefly. Would that do ?"

" All right." By next day the boat was quite finished. And such a little beauty she looked with her snow-white sails, which had been made days before by one of the school servants, tapering mast and bright red, white and blue pennon. Directly afternoon school was over, Jack and I, accompanied by Sydney Harvey, a great chum of Jack's, set out for the harbour, which we could reach from the school in about a quarter of an hour. Our road skirted the cliffs, with the bush on the land side. On the way we passed a party of three boys lying on the short grass, the biggest of whom was smoking a short black pipe. He was a thick-set, common-locking boy, with a scowling face, unpleasant eyes, and a thick-lipped mouth, twisted to one side.

We all knew him. Ib was Dick Grogan, the son of a fisherman who lived in the neighbourhood. Dick had a very bad reputation. If there were any sort of mischief afoob, he was usually at the bottom of it.

"See how he's watching us," said Jack. • Well, he'd better not try any of his dirty tricks with us, anyway." The place we chose for launching the Firefly was a little inlet in the shore, backed by a low wall or cliff. In this little bay the water was very smooth and clear —a capital sailing ground for a small boat. We launched the Firefly without any mishap. Jack and I stood on the northern shore, while Syd/stationed himself on the southern, ready to receive the Firefly when she had completed her voyage. The little ship sailed splendidly. Syd received her at the end of the trip, and altering her rudder, and retrimming her sails, launched the Firefly again, to see how she would sail in another direction.

The boat now held a course across the inlet and towards the beach. She was obeying her rudder capitally, and had made about half the distance across the bay when a curious thing happened. A large stone dropped close behind the boat, splashing the water up over her stem. We all looked up suddenly in no small surprise, and as we did so a second stone, bigger than the first, came flying from the top of the cliff, cub a swift curve through the air, and fell right on to the Firefly, crushing her ma3ts and sails, and sinking the little ship beneath the water. She disappeared from our sight, and dfd not rise again. The gaze of each of us was now directed to the summit, and there we could distinctly make out tbe figures of three boys crouched among the rocks. "It's Grogan," said Jack in a voice of suppressed passion. " They've followed us, watched their chance from up there, and the success of their beastly trick has been complete. Well, I've long wished to settle accounts with Mr. Grogan, and now I think the time has come. Just leave Grogan to me. If those other fellows interfere, you two can look after them."

Jack hurried towards the cliff, followed closely by Syd and me. When we reached it and were about to ascend the rugged path that led from the beach to the top we were arrested by a loud cry of terror from above. We looked up just in time to bee the body of Grogan roll over the cliff and j fall for about a third of the distance down, where his further progress was arrested by a flat ledge of rock. There he stopped and j lay perfectly motionless. "Quick !" we most do something to try and save him. He's already been punished enough for his mischief. He's perhaps dead!" Jack exclaimed in an excited voice, from which, however, every trace of anger had suddenly disappeared. We hurried up the path, and found Grogan's two companions speechless with alarm. "Now do whab v I bell you," said Jack, in a quiet voice. "Take off your coats, both of you." The boys did so, and Syd and I, ab Jack's bidding, did the same. Jack took off his own coat, and tying the sleeves tightly together, made it into a sort of large sling. The other four coats were knotted together into a rope, and fastened to Jack's coat. Jack then let the whole down over the ledge of the cliff until the coab-eling hung over the ledge on v which Grogan lay. " Not quite long enough, bub a couple of waistcoats will do it," he said. j Syd and I took off our waistcoats, and added them to the coats. The rope—as I must call it for convenience—now reached the ledge. Jack pulled ib up, and pub the sling, composed of his own coat, round his body. "You all hold on to this while I descend," he said. Jack began to descend, clinging as he went to jutting stones and tufts of rough scrubwood. We let him down slowly with the knotted coats just as we felt his body press against the sling. When the rope was all played oub we felb Jack stop, and looking over the cliff saw that he had reached the ledge. Then we saw him with evident difficulty slipping the coat-sling over Grogan's motionless body, until he gob ib round his waisb. Then he felb ib, and pulled ib a little to see if it was secure.

" Now, then, haul up ; and go as cautious as you like," he cried. "I'll follow close behind, and ward him off the rocks. I can climb the cliff myself right enough." We began to raise our burden. It was hard work, for Dick Grogan was heavy, and we were only boys, even Syd Harvey being still far from a man's full strength. Fortunately, the distance we had to raise Grogan was nob great, the cliff nob being lofby, as I have said. Slowly we pulled the rope of coats up, using great care nob to jerk it at all lesb the knots should come apart. Jack climbed up the face of the cliff close behind, keeping Grogan off whenever his body threatened te strike against bhe rugged wall of the cliff. Ib was a climb of very considerable, though nob extreme, difficulty. Ab lasb we raised Grogan to the top, cautiously lifted him over the edge of the cliff, and laid him on the ground. Then we helped Jack up. Grogan lay motionless, his eyes shut, his face a dreadful yellow-white colour. Jack benb down over him and looked at him closely. " He's alive !" he said. "Wo musb get him home." : Grogan lived with his father and mother in a weatherboard cottage about half a mile down the harbour. We carried him as he lay in the coat-sling. When we gob to the door of the cottage Jack said to Grogan's two comrades: We've done all we can now. You must do the rest, and explain to Grogan's people what has happened. And so, handing over our burden to Grogan's two chums, we turned away and returned to Bayford House. "It's a queer enough ending to bhe day's adventures, ian'fc it?" Jack said, with a curious little smile. " About as unexpected as they make ib, any way," said Syd. "Ib was very good of you, though, old fellow. There was a lot of risk scrambling down and up the cliff." " What could one do? Grogan's an awfully shady customer, bub if he had rolled off thab ledge death was certain. The cliffs high enough for thab." | "If there's a grain of common gratitude 1 in Grogan, to-day's business may teach him i a little manners, ab anyrate, for, of course, ! these fellows will tell hun everything."

. Dick Grogan recovered. He had been much .bruised and shaken by his fall, from which even his hardy frame took some time to recover. Many weeks after, and just as the school was on the eve of breaking.u£> for the midwinter vacation, Dalrymple, the gardener, brought a little cutter-rigged yacht to Jack Neville. " Grogan gave it to me, sir; he says it's either for you or one of the other young gentlemen. He didn't know exactly which* himself. He said very little at all, and hurried off before I had gob the boat well into my hands." It was the Firefly beyond all doubt—the Firefly which we had thought was sunk for ever. Grogan had recovered the yacht by some means from the bottom ot the bay, and rigged her entirely anew. And with what skill and cleverness she was rigged, too ! Jack had turned the Firefly out well, bub there was a sort of salt-sea look and general air about her now, which only the touch of one long accustomed to life "alongshore" could have given. — Robert Richardson, in Little Folks.