18 MUTTON BIRDS 



CHAPTER III. 

 FIRST CAMP ON ISLAND. 



I HERE is no more inspiring prospect 

 than the anticipation of new open-air 

 experiences. I confess I longed to 

 sleep in that whare over the pebble 

 beach and to wake in the morning with 

 ocean all around, perhaps happily for a few 

 glimmering moments even to believe myself in 

 very truth marooned, at the very least to feel 

 the recollections thronging back of boys' books 

 with their lore of the seas, their bold buccaneers, 

 and pirates bearded and bronzed. They may 

 have had their weaknesses, these brave men ; 

 they could not have been wholly bad; for they 

 lived under the wide skies and knew all weather 

 signs, the play of the tides, the portents of the 

 flights of birds. Their habits were quite 

 unconventional; their crimes have delighted 

 generations of boys, and were committed wholly 

 in the open.* 



*In spite of an allusion to certain ' playing fields ' that might 

 make it seem otherwise, I believe Captain Hook to have been an 

 O.K. There is no such name as Hook in the School lists of his time. 

 It was for this reason that the Captain endured the rather heartless 

 allusion to his iron hand. It was in keeping with his character. 

 The whole tenour of his life showed him to have been a man almost 

 painfully anxious to do the right thing. To have taken another 

 fellow's name would have been simply rotten form, and Hook knew 

 it. Except when engaged in business the Captain was of a 

 quiet and taciturn disposition, and authors, like other people, can 

 make mistakes. Mr. Barrie may have taken him up wrong or 

 heard him imperfectly perhaps in a general conversation. 



