CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
OLD SAM IS UNHAPPY.
Seventeen, and grown as big as Bigley, with the consequence that I could not help thinking a good deal of what people said to me when I went in to Ripplemouth or down to the Gap.
The salute I generally met was: "Why, Master Sep Duncan, you are growing quite a man." I suppose I was in appearance, but, thank goodness, I was still only a boy at heart.
Plenty to see, plenty to hear.
The fishermen and people at the tiny port were always looking out to sea, and shutting their eyes and shaking their heads.
"Ay, and we need look out, master," they would say.

"Strange doings now.

Who knows how soon they Frenchies will come down upon us and try to take the town.

But we're going to fight 'em to a man." I remember even then laughing to myself as I went home one morning after being disappointed in finding Bob Chowne, who had gone on a round with his father, for I asked myself what the French, whom the Ripplemouth people saw in every passing vessel, would gain by making a descent upon our rock-strewn shore.
But when I ventured to hint at their being more likely to attack Plymouth or Portsmouth, old Teggley Grey, who was down on the pier loading up with coal that had come over in a sloop from Monmouth, shook his head.
"Ay, it be well for you, lad, with all they big cannon guns in front o' your house ready to sink the Frenchy ships; but we ar'n't no guns here, on'y the one in the look-out, and she be rusted through." Oddly enough, when I reached home there was no one in the house.

My father had gone down to the mine, and I was thinking about going after him, but being hot with my walk, I strolled down first into the garden on the cliff, but only to stop short, for there was a curious hissing sound in the air.
"What, a snake!" I said to myself.