Cutlass and Cudgel
Fenn George Manville
English
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Below is a summary of Cutlass and Cudgel
Cutlass and Cudgel, by George Manville Fenn.
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In some ways this book is reminiscent of "The Lost Middy", by the same
author, but I suppose that with a similar theme, a nosey midshipman
taken prisoner by a gang of smugglers, there are bound to be other
points of similarity. Anyway, it is a good fast-moving story, with
lots of well-drawn human interest.
It starts off with a comic scene, where the Excise patrol vessel is
cruising near an area suspected of being heavily involved with
smuggling. Suddenly a large object is seen swimming in the water, and it
turns out to be a cow. Then there's all the business of milking the cow
on the deck of a sailing-vessel. Pretty soon, however it gets serious,
and we meet various characters living nearby. Soon the inquisitive
midshipman is taken prisoner, and it falls to another teenager, the son
of one of the chief rogues, to bring him food. Both boys become
friendly with each other, but the midshipman can only express it by
appearing to hate the farm-fisher boy, whom he considers to be socially
far beneath him. The farm-boy tries so hard to be kind to the
midshipman, who is so rude in return.
Eventually the midshipman escapes, the smugglers are caught, and the
farm-boy becomes a seaman on the Excise vessel.
NH
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CUTLASS AND CUDGEL, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
"Heigh-Ho-Ha-Hum! Oh dear me!"
"What's matter, sir?"
"Matter, Dirty Dick? Nothing; only, heigh-ho-ha! Oh dear me, how
sleepy I am!"
"Well, sir, I wouldn't open my mouth like that 'ere, 'fore the sun's
up."
"Why not?"
"No knowing what you might swallow off this here nasty, cold, foggy,
stony coast."
"There you go again, Dick; not so good as Lincolnshire coast, I
suppose?"
"As good, sir? Why, how can it be?" said the broad, sturdy sailor
addressed. "Nothin' but great high stony rocks, full o' beds of great
flat periwinkles and whelks; nowhere to land, nothin' to see. I am
surprised at you, sir. Why, there arn't a morsel o' sand."
"For not praising your nasty old flat sandy shore, with its marsh
beyond, and its ague and bogs and fens."
"Wish I was 'mong 'em now, sir. Wild ducks there, as is fit to eat, not
iley fishy things like these here."
"Oh, bother! Wish I could have had another hour or two's sleep. I say,
Dirty Dick, are you sure the watch wasn't called too soon?"
"Nay, sir, not a bit; and, beggin' your pardon, sir, if you wouldn't
mind easin' off the Dirty--Dick's much easier to say."
"Oh, very well, Dick. Don't be so thin-skinned about a nickname."
"That's it, sir. I arn't a bit thin-skinned. Why, my skin's as thick
as one of our beasts. I can't help it lookin' brown. Washes myself
deal more than some o' my mates as calls me dirty. Strange and curious
how a name o' that kind sticks."
"Oh, I say, don't talk so," said the lad by the rough sailor's side; and
after another yawn he began to stride up and down the deck of His
Majesty's cutter _White Hawk_, lying about a mile from the Freestone
coast of Wessex.
It was soon after daybreak, the sea was perfectly calm and a thick grey
mist hung around, making the deck and cordage wet and the air chilly,
while the coast, with its vast walls of perpendicular rocks, looked
weird and distant where a peep could be obtained amongst the wreaths of
vapour.
"Don't know when I felt so hungry," muttered the lad, as he thrust his
hands into his breeches pockets, and stopped near the sailor, who smiled
in the lad's frank-looking, handsome face.
"Ah, you always were a one to yeat, sir, ever since you first came
aboard."
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