“I beg your pardon, Captain Llewellyn,” he said, hanging down his head: “but you used not to be quite so proud. You used to like five shillings even.”
“That is neither here nor there,” I answered very loftily, and increasing his confusion: “five shillings honourably earned no man need be ashamed of. But what you have offered me is a bribe, for the low purpose of cheating your good uncle and dear mother. You ought to sink into the sand, sir.”
He seemed pretty nearly fit to do so, for I put a stern face on, though all the time I could hardly keep from laughing most good-naturedly; when a little hand went into his, and a little face defied me. Poor sick Bardie had watched every word, and though unable to understand, she took hot sides with the weaker one.
“ ’E san’t sink into ’e sand, I tell ’a, ’e yicked bad old Davy. ’Hot’s a done to be ’colded so? I’s very angy with ’a indeed, to go on so to a gentleyum.”
By what instinct could she tell that this was a young gentleman? By the same, I suppose, by which he knew that she was a young lady. And each of them ready to stand up for the other immediately! It made me laugh: and yet it is a sad thing to go into.
“Now, my boy,” I began for fear of losing the upper hand of them; “you are old enough to understand good sense when put before you. It is true enough that if you mean to walk the planks like a sailor, you can hardly begin too soon at the time of life you are come to. I was afloat at half your age, so far as I can remember. But I am bound to lay before you two very serious questions. You will have to meet, and never escape from, every kind of dirt, and hardship, narrowness, and half-starving—not an atom of comfort left, such as you are accustomed to. Danger I will not speak of, because it would only lead you on to it. But the other thing is this: By going to sea, you will forever grieve and drive out of your prospects not only your good uncle, but perhaps almost your mother.”
I thought I had made a most excellent speech, and Bardie looked up with admiration, to know when I meant to finish. But to my surprise, young Rodney took very little heed of it.
“That shows how much you know, old Davy! Why I was come on purpose to tell you that they are tired out at last: and that I may go to sea, if only you will appoint me a place on board of your ship Alcestis. Now do, Captain Llewellyn, do, and I will never forget it to you, if ever I become a great man.”
“My dear boy, I would do it this minute if I had the power. But though they call me ‘Captain’ here, I am only Captain of a gun, and Instructor of Artillery. And even our Captain himself could not do it. He could only take you as a volunteer, and now there is no call for them. You must get your appointment as midshipman in the regular way from London. And the chances are fifty to one against your joining the Alcestis. That is to say, of course, unless you have some special interest.”
His countenance fell to the lowest ebb, and great tears stood in his bold blue eyes; but presently the hopeful spirit of youth and brave lineage returned.
“I will write to my brother in London,” he said; “he has never done me a good turn yet; perhaps he will begin this time.”
Not to be too long about it, either by that or some other influence, he obtained his heart’s desire, and was appointed midshipman, with orders to join the Alcestis, upon her next appearance off our coast. You should have seen the fuss he made, and his mother too, about his outfit; and even Colonel Lougher could not help being much excited. As for me, I was forced to go to and fro betwixt Newton and Candleston Court every day, and twice a-day, for the purpose of delivering judgment upon every box that came. But when Master Rodney made me toss his spelling-books and grammar at his breast, to practise parrying with his little dirk, I begged him to let me take them home, as soon as he was tired. I have them now with his little stabs in them, and they make me almost independent of the schoolmaster in writing.
Not only was I treated so that I need not have bought any food at all—except for Bardie and Bunny—but also employed at a pleasant price to deliver lessons every morning as to the names of sails and ropes and the proper style of handling them. We used to walk down to the hard seashore, with a couple of sharp sticks, whenever the tide allowed fair drawing-room. And the two little children enjoyed it almost as much as the rising hero did. The difficulty was to keep the village children, who paid nothing, from taking the benefit of my lecture as much as Midshipman Bluett did. And they might have done so, if they cared to do it, for I like a good large audience; but they always went into playing hopscotch, in among my ropes and yards, when all done beautifully in fine sand, and ready to begin almost—for the proper way is to have a ship spread naked first, and then hoist sail, if you want to show its meaning. I could not bear to be hard upon these young ones—and some of them good Mother Jones’s own—all in a mess of activity; and I tried to think that it was all right, because money was earning anyhow. But I could not reconcile it with my
