"To see if I can get aboard any ship, and work my passage."
"Whew! – oh! – here, wait a bit, my boy; I must ask the Lord to help me. I have been crying and groaning like a baby; that won't do. No, Dick Colley, you mustn't be a coward. Pain! well, what's pain! Toby there would bear it better!"
After a moment's silence the man said —
"Now, heave-to, my boy, and I'll put down the right leg, and make you answer for the left. Ahoy! ahoy!"
The "ahoy" was nearly a groan again, and then there was a muttered oath.
"Did ye hear that, boy? That's the hardest job a man has to do – to cure himself of cursing. It's worse than drinking. I've been hard at it for a twelvemonth now, and I'm blessed if I ain't beaten over and over again. This pain will – Don't you think, boy, I consider it a fine thing to swear, and take the Lord's name in vain. I think it is a shame to do it – and I beg Him to forgive me the next minute. It's just this – that habits, bad or good, stick like a leech. Now then, ahoy!"
This time Dick Colley was fairly on his feet, and by the support of Jack's strong shoulder progress towards the quay was made.
It was slow and difficult, and Toby followed close to his master's side with a dejected air, his stubby tail between his legs, giving every now and then a little whine of sympathy.
"I am hard put to it, lad, to get along. I am feeling faintish and bad; but I can't afford to lose this voyage; it's a long one, and good pay, and I've an old mother and a pack of children to keep."
"Rest a bit," said Jack. "Here's a post will do."
"Ay; I dare say I'm pretty near breaking your shoulder-blade. I shan't forget you, youngster. I say, what's up? mischief, eh?"
"I want to be off to sea just for a bit. Will you take me?"
"Well, I must go aboard first, before I can promise. Now then, on we go."
The quay was reached at last, and it was now broad daylight.
The stately ships were all getting under weigh, and there was no bustle or noise. The cargoes had been shipped overnight, and there was only a silent waiting for the tide.
"Here she is; here's my berth. You help me aboard, and we'll see what can be done."
"Dick Colley, the mate, as sure as I'm alive!" said one of the crew, who was turning a loose cable round and round into a coil of many circles. "Why, old chappie, what's amiss with 'ee?"
"Give us a hand aboard. I've been and sprained my ankle. This youngster helped me along, or I'd never have got here."
"You are just in time, mate; for we are off to the river's mouth in a twinkling. Here, why, look alive! he's awful bad."
With Jack's help they got Dick Colley on board and down below, where the ship's surgeon bandaged the swollen ankle, and Jack stood by with Toby.
In the general hurry of departure, when the captain gave the word, no one noticed Jack, or if they noticed him, concluded that he was aboard the Galatea as a passenger, of which there were a few.
It was not till they were well out to sea that the captain, coming down into the mate's berth, said —
"Hallo, Colley! who's the youngster aboard with the curly hair? What's he about?"
"He wants to work his way out, captain; set him to it. I promised I'd say a word for him. He just helped me across the sand, when I was pretty near dying of the pain. You'll let him stay?"
The captain turned on his heel, somewhat sulkily.
"Do you suppose he's to do the work of your lame foot, eh? Well, he hasn't come here to eat the bread of idleness. I'll soon show him that."
And the captain kept his word.
Long before the sun – which had risen in a cloudless sky that morning – had set behind a bank of clouds, Jack was put to work.
Washing the decks and performing other like offices fell to his share on that first bright day, when to sail over the blue calm sea, with the crisp air blowing from the great German Ocean, was a pleasant sensation in itself.
But night came on, and the stars looked down from their immeasurable depths; and Jack, lying on a bench, with his arms folded, and his face resting on them, had time to think.
He had done it now. Often, when in a storm of passion he had said he would leave his aunt's roof for ever, he had relented, and even at his mother's instigation and entreaty had expressed sorrow for his burst of anger, and asked to be forgiven.
He had done this only a fortnight before, and his aunt had received his apology with a short —
"It's all very well to think by saying you are sorry you make it all right. It's deeds not words, for me."
This ungracious manner of receiving an expression of contrition had often hardened the boy's heart against his aunt. Still more so when, from the other side of the parlour, Mr. Skinner would say, in a nasal, squeaky voice —
"It's a wonder to me how your kind, generous aunt puts up with you for a single hour. Only a good woman like her would give you house room at all."
"What business is it of yours, I should like to know?" had been Jack's retort; and all the real sorrow he had felt, awakened by his mother's gentle words, had vanished.
That Skinner! How he hated him; how instinctively he turned from him with positive dislike and loathing.
Now, as he lay alone and unnoticed beneath the star-strewn sky of the summer night, it was not of Skinner that he thought, not of his aunt, not of anything he had suffered – but of his mother.
And he had left her without a word – without a kiss! Many and many a time had he felt her kiss upon his forehead as he was sinking off into the sound sleep of childhood. Many a time he had heard her whispered prayer as she knelt by his side; and now he had left her desolate!
"Joy will be there," Jack thought – "little Miss Joy, and she will comfort her – dear little Joy!"
And somehow, as all these memories of those he had left behind him came before him, tears rose all unbidden, and chased each other down his cheeks.
Presently a rough kick from a man's boot made him start.
"The mate is singing out for you, youngster," he said; "get along with you and go where you are wanted, for you ain't wanted here."
"Where's the mate?"
"Where, stupid? In his berth, a groaning and sighing. There ain't much the matter with him, that's my belief; only some folks can afford to make a fuss."
Jack drew himself together and walked towards the companion ladder. As he was putting his foot on it with the cautious air of the uninitiated, a rude push from behind, followed by a derisive laugh, sent him down to the bottom with a heavy thud.
"Shame!" cried a voice, "to treat the boy like that."
"Oh, he will be one of Colley's lambs, canting no end, you'll see! For my own part, I'd soon chuck him overboard."
"I know you are spiteful enough for anything," was the reply; "and I pity that boy if he's in your clutches."
Another laugh, and Jack, now on his feet, turned round with a defiant air, and, half-stunned and bewildered, was climbing up the stairs again, to give his adversary a blow with his fist, when a voice called —
"Stop, lad! don't go and give evil for evil."
Colley from his berth had seen Jack fall, and had heard the mocking laugh.
"Come here, lad. I'm a bit easier now, and I want to talk to you. There, sit down on my locker, and we'll spin a yarn. You've run away, haven't you? I was so mad with pain, or I should have talked to you before. Come, you've run away now?"
"Yes," the boy said.
"Then you've been and acted very foolish, let me tell you. I did the same, boy, and I've repented it all my life. I grieved the best of old fathers by my wild career, and then I ran off; and when we put into port after