On Board the Esmeralda Part 12

"Who?"

"Why, the son of my good old commander, Lieutenant Leigh, of the _Swallow_, him as I've spun you so many yarns about! Why, Jane, my woman, I found the poor little laddie a desarted young orphan on the Hoe just now. He's friendless, with never a home to go to; and so I asked him to come along o' me, saying as how you'd welcome him to 'Old Calabar' the same as I."

"And so I will, too, Sam," replied the other, coming up to me and speaking; "I'm main glad to see you here, young gentleman, for I've often heard Sam talk of your father, saying how good and kind he was to him. You're heartily welcome to our little home. My gracious, Sam!"

she added, turning aside and using her ap.r.o.n again; "he's as like my Ted as two peas! I can't help it!" and so saying, she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me.

The action somewhat confused me; for, it was the first motherly caress I had ever experienced in my life. Aunt Matilda, you may be sure, never once thought of so greeting me!

"Avast there, Jane," laughed out Sam, much pleased at the way in which his sister had received me. "What d'ye mean by boarding my prize in that fashion? But I'm glad you think he's like Teddy--it will make it more like old times and home-like for us to have the laddie with us."

"Aye, and he can have Ted's room," answered the other--all eagerness now to see to my being completely arranged for--"I think the poor boy's clothes will fit him too."

"So they will, and just in time, too, for he wants a new rig," said her brother, casting a critical eye over my wardrobe, which had not been improved by my stay on board the coal brig.

We then proceeded to enter a nice roomy old-fashioned kitchen, with a cleanly-scoured floor like the deck of a man-of-war, and all resplendent with rows of plates and burnished pewter pots and dish-covers, where we had, what I considered both then and now to be, the best dinner I had ever eaten in my life, winding up with an apple tart that had Devonshire cream spread over it like powdered sugar--a most unparalleled prodigality of luxury to my unaccustomed eyes and palate!

Afterwards, I was shown a little room at the back, looking out into the garden, which had been formerly occupied by Teddy. Of this I was now put in formal possession, along with a good stock of clothes which the bereaved mother had carefully preserved in the chest-of-drawers in one corner, just as if her boy had been still living, all ready for use.

These, she now told me, with tears in her eyes, I was heartily welcome to, if I were not too proud to accept them, as, in wearing them, she said, I should make her think that she yet had poor Ted to comfort her, and I would take his vacant place in her heart. The good woman, however, with housewifely care, brought up to the room a large tub with a plentiful supply of hot water and soap, so that I might have "a thorough wash," as she called it, before putting on the clean clothes.

Thus, through the kind hospitality of brother and sister alike, before the day was out, I was as thoroughly at home in the household as if-- having stepped into the lost Teddy's shoes metaphorically as well as practically--I had lived there for years!

It would take a volume for me to tell of all the kindness I received from these people, the brother and sister vying with each other in their endeavours to make me feel comfortable and at ease with them in my new home.

Sam Pengelly, thinking it the right thing to do, wrote to Uncle George, informing him where I now was; and saying, that, if my relatives had no objection, he should like to be allowed to look after my future as if I were his own son.

To this a reply soon came, to the effect that, as I had of my own will thrown away all the advantages that had been secured for me in putting me to a good school and holding out the offer of a situation afterwards in a merchant's office, my uncle "washed his hands of me" on account of my ungrateful and abandoned behaviour; and that, henceforth, he did not care what became of me, nor would he be answerable for my support!

"That's a good 'un," said Sam Pengelly, as he read this. "That cranky Aunt Matilda, you told me about, laddie, must ha' had a hand in this, sartin; for, perhaps you don't know that I've diskivered as your uncle drawed what they calls a 'compa.s.sionate allowance' from My Lords of th'

Admiralty for your keep all them years they starved you under their roof and pretended you was livin' on their charity!"

Sam Pengelly looked quite fierce and indignant as he made this, to me, new revelation.

"Really?" I asked him, eagerly.

"Yes, laddie, it's true enough, for I've taken the pains to find it out for a fact from a friend o' mine at head-quarters. Th' Admiralty allers give an annual 'lowance for the support of the childer o' them officers as is killed in action, that is when their folks are left badly off; and some one must ha' put up your uncle to this, for he took precious good care to draw it every year you was along o' him."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" I exclaimed, joyfully. "I only wish, though, I had known it before, so that I could have thrown it back in Aunt Matilda's teeth when she used to tell me that I was robbing her children of their bread every meal I took in the house, taunting me with being only a pauper!"

"Never mind that now," said Sam Pengelly--quite his composed, calm, genial self again, after the little ebullition he had given way to on my behalf. "Better let byegones be byegones. It is a good sailin'

direction to go upon in this world; for your cross old aunt will be sartin to get paid out some time or other for her treatment o' you, I'll wager! Howsomedevers, I'm glad we've got that letter from your uncle, though. You see, laddie, it cuts them adrift altogether from any claim on you; and now, if you be so minded, you can chuck in your lot with old Sam and his sister--that is, unless you want to sheer off and part company, and desart us?"

"Oh no, I'll never do that if I can help it," I replied, earnestly.

"Why, I did not know what it was to be happy and cared for till I met you, and you brought me here to your home. I shall never willingly, now, leave you here--that is, except you want me to."

"Then, that'll be never," said he, with an emphasis and a kindly smile that showed his were no empty words.

Nor did they prove to be as time rolled on.

For many months after that casual meeting of ours on the Hoe, which I little thought was going to lead to such happy consequences, the little cottage at Stoke was my home in winter and summer alike; when Nature was gay in her spring dress, and when dreary autumn came; although, it was never dreary to me, no matter what the season might be.

In the summer months I used generally to accompany Sam in the short trading trips he made in a little foretopsail schooner--of which he was the registered owner, and generally took the command--when we would fetch a compa.s.s for Falmouth or Torquay, and other small western ports; between which places and Plymouth the schooner went to and fro when wind and weather permitted.

Sometimes, tempted by the inducement that early potatoes and green peas were plentiful and cheap at Saint Mary's, Sam would venture out as far as the Scilly Isles; and once, a most memorable voyage, we made a round trip in the little craft to the Bristol Channel and back--facing all the perils of the "twenty-two fathom sandbank" off Cape Cornwall, with its heavy tumbling sea.

This was not time wasted on my part; for I had not forgotten my ambition of being a sailor, and now, under Sam Pengelly's able tuition I was thoroughly initiated into all the practical details of seamanship, albeit I had not yet essayed life on board ship in an ocean-going vessel.

Sam Pengelly said, that, at fourteen, I was too young to be apprenticed regularly to the sea, and that it would be much better for me to wait until I should be able to be of use in a ship, and get on more quickly in navigation. Going to sea before would only be lost time, for I could gain quite as much experience of what it was necessary for me to know in the schooner along with him, until it was time for me to go afloat in real earnest.

This was what my old friend advised; and, although he declared himself willing to forward my wishes should they go counter to his own views, I valued his opinion too highly to disagree with it, judging that his forty years' experience of the sea must have taught him enough to know better than I about what was best in the matter.

My life, therefore, for the two intervening years, after I had run away from school and before I went actually to sea, was a very even and pleasant one--cut off completely, as it was, from all the painful past, and the a.s.sociations of Aunt Matilda and Dr h.e.l.lyer's. I had heard once from Tom, my whilom chum, it is true, telling me that his mother had persuaded him to go back to the Doctor's establishment, and that I should not have any further communication from him in consequence--which I didn't; and there was the one letter from Uncle George to Sam Pengelly, "washing his hands of me," which I have already alluded to.

With these, however, all connection with my former existence ceased; and I can't say I regretted it, cherished as I now was in the great loving Cornish hearts of Sam and Jane Pengelly.

Sam would not let my education be neglected, however.

"No, no, laddie, we must keep a clear look-out on that," he often said to me. "If I had only had eddication when I was in the sarvice, I'd ha'

been a warrant officer with a long pension now, instead o' having a short one, and bein' 'bliged to trust to my own hands to lengthen it out. If you wants to be a good navigator, you must study now when you're young; for arterwards it will be no use, and you may be as smart a sailor as ever handled a ship, and yet be unable to steer her across the ocean and take advantage of all the short cuts and currents, and so on, that only experienced seamen and those well up in book knowledge can know about."

Acting on this reasoning, he got the master of a neighbouring school to give me after-time lessons in mathematics and geography; and, in the course of a few months, I was able to be inducted into the mysteries of great circle sailing and the art of taking lunars, much to the admiration of Sam, whom I'm afraid I often took a delight in puzzling with trigonometrical phrases that sounded full of portentous difficulty, albeit harmlessly easy.

As time went on, although I was happy enough at the cottage, I was continually asking Sam if he had found me a ship yet, he having promised to "keep his eye open" and let me know as soon as he saw a good opportunity of placing me with some captain with whom I was likely to learn my nautical calling well and have a chance of getting on up the ladder; but, as regularly as I asked him the question, the old salt would give me the same stereotyped answer--"No, laddie, our ship's not got into port yet. We must still wait for an offing!"

But at last, after many days, this anxiously awaited "offing" was, much to my satisfaction, apparently thought within reach by my old friend.

One morning I did not accompany him as usual into Plymouth after breakfast, where the old fellow regularly proceeded every morning--never feeling happy for the day unless he saw the sea before dinner. I was busily engaged tr.i.m.m.i.n.g up a large asparagus bed in the garden, wherein my adopted mother took considerable interest.

I recollect the morning well.

It was just at the beginning of summer, and the trees were all clothed in that delicately-tinged foliage of feathery green, which they lose later on in the season, while the ground below was covered with fruit blossoms like snowflakes, a stray blue flag or daffodil just springing up from the peaty soil, gleaming out amidst the vegetable wealth around, and the air perfumed with a delicious scent, of the wallflowers that were scattered about the garden in every stray nook and corner.

Sam was late on his return.

"Eight bells," his regular hour, had struck without his well-known voice being heard hailing us from the porch; and it was quite half-past twelve before the customary shout in the porch of the cottage told of his arrival, for I was keeping strict watch over the time, having been rendered extra hungry by my exertions in the garden--our dinner being postponed till the missing mariner came.

However, "better late than never," says the old proverb; and here he was now--although as soon as I saw him I noticed from his face that something unusual and out-of-the-way had happened, his expression always disclosing if anything was on or in his mind, and being a sad tell-tale.

He did not wait to let me ask, though.

"Hullo!" he cried, as soon as he came into the kitchen-parlour, where the princ.i.p.al meal of the day was invariably partaken of, "I've got some news for you."

"A ship?" I said, questioningly.

"Yes--an A1 too, my hearty."

"Hurrah!" I exclaimed--"Going a long voyage?"

"To Callao and back again, on a round trip."

"Better and better still," I said, in high glee, in which Sam Pengelly shared with a kindred feeling, while his sister put up her ap.r.o.n to her eyes, and began to cry at the idea of my going to sea. "Is she a large vessel?"