"That will cost a lot, won't it?" Jack said.
"Yes, it is a nasty job, Jack; because, of course, she will want a lot of fresh planks in her. In fact, she will want pretty well rebuilding forward of the mast."
"It will cost about twenty pounds to make a good job of it," Benting said as he joined them. "I shouldn't like to take the job for less, not on contract. If I did day-work it might come to a little less or a little more, I cannot say."
Jack looked anxiously up into his uncle's face, for he knew that twenty pounds was a serious matter.
"It won't be at my expense, Jack," Ben replied to his look. "Captain Murchison came down at seven o'clock this morning and had a look at her with me. I told him yesterday that I was afraid she had damaged herself on the sand, as she had made a lot of water on her way up. He said that I was to have her examined at once and get an estimate for repairing her thoroughly, and that he would undertake it should be paid. He asked what her age was. Of course I told him she was only four years old, and that I had only finished paying off the money I borrowed when I had her built, last year. He said that as she was only four years old she was worth spending the money on; but if she had been an old boat, it would not have been worth while throwing money away on her. But Benting says he can make her as good as new again."
"Every bit," the carpenter said. "She will be just as strong as she was on the day she was turned out."
"How long will you be about it?"
"I would get her done in three weeks. I will go over to Southend by the twelve o'clock train and order the timber, and you can arrange this evening whether you will have her done by contract or day-work."
Captain Murchison that evening when he returned from town, where he had gone up to report to Lloyd's the loss of the ship, had a talk with Benting, and being assured by him that the Bessy would after the execution of the repairs be in all respects as stout a craft as before, arranged with him to do it for the sum he named, and to set to work immediately.
Three days later Mr. Godstone was able to be brought out on to the sofa in the sitting-room. Captain and Mrs. Murchison had gone home two days before, but the former came down again to Leigh on the morning Mr. Godstone got up. After a talk together Captain Murchison went out and fetched Ben Tripper in, and Mr. Godstone presented him with a cheque for a hundred pounds for himself and fifty for Tom Hoskins.
"We owe you our lives," he said, "and we shall never forget the service you have rendered us. Captain Murchison tells me that your boat will be as good as before after she is repaired; but if she should not be so, sell her at once for what you can get for her and order a new one, I will pay the difference. In any case I consider I owe you a boat. Whether it is five years hence or ten or fifteen, if I am alive and you want another boat I give you authority to order one of the best that can be built, and to tell them to send the bill in to me. I have not given you anything for your nephew, for I have been talking to my wife, and maybe we can serve him better in some other way."
Mrs. Godstone had indeed been in for a chat each day with Jack's mother, and had told her husband that she felt sure neither Mrs. Robson nor Jack would like an offer of money.
"The lad is very intelligent," she said, "and he and his mother are of quite a different class to the fisher people here. His father was a gentleman, and she has the manners of a lady. I should like for us to do the boy some permanent good, William."
"Well, we will see about it, my dear," her husband had said. "As soon as I am well enough to talk to him I will find out what his own wishes in the matter are."
Jack was therefore sent for after his uncle had left the inn.
"Well, my lad," Mr. Godstone said as he entered, "I am glad to see you at last and to thank you for what you did for us the other day. My wife tells me that you do not like being thanked, and as deeds are better than words we won't say much more about it. So I hear you have only been living here about two years?"
"That is all, sir; we lived at Dulwich before."
"So I hear. And your father was an artist? Have you any taste that way?"
Jack shook his head. "No, sir; I never thought of being an artist. I always wanted to go to sea."
"To go to sea—eh?" Mr. Godstone repeated, "Well, then, you have got your wish."
"Oh, I do not call this going to sea," Jack said contemptuously. "I mean, I wanted to be a sailor—not a fisherman."
"And why didn't you go then, lad?"
"Well, sir, in the first place mother did not know anyone who had to do with ships; and then her friends were all here, and she knew the place and its ways, and she thought that by buying a bawley, as she has done, in time I should come to sail her and earn my living as my uncle does. And then I don't think she would ever have agreed to my going to sea right away from her; but I do not know about that."
"Well, lad, you see the case is changed now. I have to do with ships, and Captain Murchison here commands one. At least he doesn't at the present moment, but he will do so as soon as I can buy another to supply the place of the Petrel. And as he saw one yesterday that he thinks highly of, I shall probably buy her as soon as she has been surveyed. So you see that difficulty is at an end. As to your mother, no doubt she would have objected to your going as a ship's-boy, but perhaps she wouldn't if you were going as an apprentice. We call them midshipmen on board our ships; I like the name better than apprentice, though the thing is about the same. Captain Murchison will, I am sure, be glad to have you with him, and will do his best to make a good sailor of you. And you may be sure that I shall push you on if you deserve it as fast as possible; and it may be that in another ten years you will be in command of one of my ships. Well, what do you say to that?"
"Oh! thank you, sir," Jack exclaimed. "I should like that better than anything in the world, if mother will let me."
"I don't think that your mother will stand in the way of your good," Mr. Godstone said. "And she must see that the prospect is a far better one than any you can have here; for after all, the profits of a bawley are not large, and the life is an infinitely harder one than that of a sailor. You had better not say anything to your mother about it until my wife has had a chat with her."
Chapter VII.
On Board The "Wild Wave."
Mrs. Godstone found no difficulty whatever in persuading Jack's mother to allow him to take advantage of her husband's offer. Mrs. Robson had at her husband's death decided at once that, with the small sum of money at her disposal, the only method she could see of making ends meet was to go down to Leigh and invest it in a bawley. She had never told Jack that she had even thought of allowing him to carry out his wish to go to sea; but she had thought it over, and had only decided on making a fisherman of him after much deliberation. The desire to keep him with her had of course weighed with her, but this was a secondary consideration. She had so decided, because it was evident that had he gone to sea it must have been as a ship's-boy. In such a rough life he would have had no time whatever to continue his studies, and would speedily have forgotten most that he had learned, and he might have remained many years before the mast before he could pass as a third mate. She thought therefore that he would do better by remaining at Leigh and becoming in time master of a bawley.
In the two years that had passed she had come to have doubts as to whether she had decided wisely. The profits of fishing were exceedingly small, and the prospects were but poor. She knew well that her husband had hoped that his son would follow some line that would maintain him in his own rank of life, and she fretted at the thought that Jack would settle down for life as a Leigh fisherman, and that Lily would probably in time become a fisherman's wife. When therefore Mrs. Godstone told her that her husband was ready to place Jack on board one of