"'John, b'y,' a strange voice called, 'is you below?'
"''Tis me brother Timothy,' my customer whispered. 'I must be goin' home.'
"'Come up, b'y. I'm goin' ashore now, an' 'tis time you was in bed.'
"My customer put up the axe, and, with a sign to me to keep silence, went on deck, with me following. He jumped in the punt, as docile as a child, gave us all good-night, and was rowed ashore. We did not see him again; for the wind blew fresh from the nor'west in the morning, and by night we were anchored at Point-o'-Bay. Whether or not the fairies had commanded the poor fellow to kill me at twelve o'clock, I do not know. He did not say so; but I think they had."
_In Which a Pirate's Cave grows Interesting, and Two Young Members of the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club of St. John's, Undertake an Adventure under the Guidance of Billy Topsail_
THERE landed in Ruddy Cove, that summer, two youngsters from St. John's on a vacation--city schoolboys both: not fisher lads. They were pleasant fellows, and were soon fast friends with Billy Topsail and the lads of the place, by whom they were regarded with some awe, but still with great friendliness.
"Hello!" the visitors exclaimed, when they clapped eyes on Billy. "Where you going?"
They went to the grounds; and the day was blue, and the sea was quiet, and Billy Topsail and the schoolboys had a marvellously splendid time; so they were all friends together from that out.
Tom Call and Jack Wither were members of what they called, with no little pride, "The Ethnological and Antiquarian Club of St. John's." The object of this club of lads was, in the beginning, to preserve relics of the exterminated Beothuk tribe; but to the little collections of stone implements and flint-lock guns were soon added collections of mineral specimens, of fossils, of stamps, of fish and shells and sea-weeds, of insects, of old prints and documents--in short, of everything to which an inveterate collector might attach a value.
Wherever they went in the long vacation, whether to the coast or to the interior, not one of them but kept an eye open for additions to the club collections; and, though much of what they brought back had to be rejected, it was not long before they had the gratification of observing an occasional reference to "the collections of the Ethnological and Antiquarian Club" in the city newspapers.