To their intense relief it seemed to be heard, as the ship tacked round, and bearing down upon them, very soon came up alongside.
"Well, of all sights as ever I clapped eyes on! Four bairns adrift in an open craft! I thought summat was up when I see'd your flag, and then you hollered.--Easy there, Jim. Take the little 'un on first. Mind that lad! He'll be overboard!--Whisht, honey! don't take on so. You'll soon be safe back with your ma.--Now, missy, give me your hand. Ay, you've been up to some fine games here, I'll wager, as you never did ought. But there! Bairns will be bairns, and I should know, for I've reared seven."
"Mr. Binks!" cried Isobel, to whom the ruddy cheeks, the bushy eyebrows, and the good-natured conversational voice of her friend of the railway train were quite unmistakable.
"Why, it's little missy as were comin' to Silversands!" responded the old man. "To think as I should 'a met you again like this! I felt as if somethin' sent me out this mornin' over and above callin' at Ferndale for a load of coals, which would 'a done to-morrow just as well. It's the workin's of Providence as we come on this tack, or you might 'a been right out to sea, and, ten to one, upset in that narrer bit of a boat."
It certainly felt far safer in Mr. Binks's broad-bottomed fishing-smack, though they had to sit amongst the coals and submit to be rather searchingly and embarrassingly catechised as to how they came to be in such a perilous situation. Their plight had been noticed at last from the harbour, where the owner of the boat, missing his craft, had raised a hue-and-cry, and there was quite a little crowd gathered to meet them on the jetty when they landed, a crowd which expressed its satisfaction at their timely rescue, or its disapproval of their escapade, according to individual temperament.
"Praise the saints ye're not drownded entoirely!" cried Biddy, giving Charlie a smacking kiss, much to his disgust. "And it's ould Biddy Mulligan as saw the peril ye was in, and asked St. Pathrick and the Blessed Virgin to keep an eye on yez. Holy St. Bridget! but ye're a broth of a boy, afther all."
"I'm main set to give you a jolly good hidin'," growled the owner of the boat, greeting Charlie with a somewhat different reception, and fingering a piece of rope-end as if he were much tempted to put his threat into execution. "Don't you never let me catch you on this quay again, meddlin' with other folk's property, if you want to keep your skin on you."