Syd Belton Part 9

"Don't see it, Barney. Wouldn't do me any good, only make me wild."

"But you don't think he's cut and run, do you, lad?"

"I dare say he has, but he'll soon come back."

"Only let me get hold of him then."

"If you touch him when he does, I'll tell my father and Sir Thomas you ill-use him."

"What a shame! Master Syd, you shouldn't. But you do think he'll come back, sir?"

"Why, of course."

"That's right. I want him to go along o' you."

"Along with me?"

"Of course. I heared the skipper was going to take you up to town to-morrow to see your new captain."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Syd; and he turned sharp round and ran into the house, where he was soon after seated at table with his uncle and father, feeling that the servants were watching him, and expecting every moment to hear some allusion to the next day's journey.

But though no word of the kind was said, Syd cracked no walnuts that night, but sat gloomily over the dessert till his uncle filled his gla.s.s, called upon him to pa.s.s the port to his father, and then in a loud voice said--

"Here's health and success to Sydney Belton--middy, master's mate, lieutenant, commander, post--captain, admiral."

"Hear! hear!" cried Captain Belton; and Sydney sat feeling more guilty than ever he had felt in his life.

For his brain was full of thoughts that he dared not have laid bare, and his inclination was trying to drag down the balance in which he felt that he hung.

As he sat there holding on tightly by the nut-crackers that he had not used, he felt as if he should have to answer all manner of questions directly, and be put through a terrible ordeal; but to his intense relief, the conversation turned upon an expedition to Portobello, and the way in which certain ships had been handled, the unfortunate officers in command not having done their duty to the satisfaction of the admiral. And as this argument seemed to grow more exciting the boy softly slipped from his chair and went out again to his place of meditation--the garden.

"Shall I--shan't I?" he said to himself. Should he make a bold dash, and go off like heroes he had read of before, seeking his fortune anywhere?

He was quite ready to do this, but in a misty way it seemed to him that there would be no fortune to be found; and in addition, it would be going in direct opposition to his father's and uncle's wishes, and they would never forgive him.

"No," he said, as he walked up and down the broad walk nearest the road, "I must give up and go to sea."

But even as he said this softly, he felt so much on the balance, that he knew that a very little would send him away.

That very little came unexpectedly, for as he walked on down the garden in the darkness, where the short st.u.r.dy oak-trees sent their branches over the path on one side, and overhung the road on the other, a voice whispered his name--

"Master Syd!"

"Yes. What is it?"

"Hush! Don't make such a row, or they'll hear you."

"Who is it--Pan?"

"Yes, Master Syd."

"Where are you?"

"Sittin' straddlin' on this here big bough."

"You've come back then, sir. Your father thought you had run away,"

said Syd sternly.

"So I have; and I arn't come back, on'y to see you, Master Syd."

"Come down, then. What are you doing up that tree?"

"On'y waiting to talk to you."

"But your father says he is going to rope's-end you for running away."

"No, he isn't going to, because I shan't come back."

"But you are back."

"Oh no, I arn't, Master Syd. I'm not going to be knocked about with rake-handles, and then sent off to sea. How would you like it?"

"I'm not knocked about, Pan; but I'm going to be sent off to sea."

"Then don't go, Master Syd."

There was no answer for the moment; then the latter looked up in among the dark branches, where the dying leaves still clung.

"You said you had come back to see me, Pan."

"Yes, Master Syd."

"What for? Because you repented?"

"No; it was to ask you--"

"What for? Some money, Pan?"

"No, Master Syd," replied the boy in a hesitating way. "Hist! Listen!

Some one coming?"

"No; I can't hear any one. Why did you come back?"

"You don't want to go to sea, Master Syd, do you?"

"No."

"More don't I, and I won't go."