I.
The sun shone so bright at Portsmouth Harbor that afternoon that everything was gold and green and white except the black hulls of the ships and the great gray forts, out of which the guns sometimes bellowed warnings to Boney across the water. And right out in the golden light lay his Majesty's ship-of-the-line Xantippe, riding statelily at anchor, like a queen of the seas upon her throne, so noble and commanding was she. But all the beauty and glory of sunlit harbor and white-walled town and sky and ships was as black as midnight to Dicky Carew when the dreadful summons came:
"Please, sir, the captain wants to see you in his cabin."
When Dicky stood inside the cabin facing the captain, stern, handsome, and as neat as wax, a sorrier-looking object than Dicky Carew would have been hard to find. His cap, which he held in his hand and twirled dolefully, had a big hole torn in the top, his jacket was white with dust, and right across his nose was a large black smut. Captain Sarsfield examined him carefully from the top of his tousled yellow head down to his unblacked shoes, Dicky blushing furiously all the while.
"A pretty spectacle you are, Mr. Carew, for an officer and a gentleman!" For although Dicky was only fifteen and barely five feet high, he was a middy and a gentleman.
Dicky said nothing, but continued to twirl his cap, while his eyes roamed uneasily around the captain's orderly cabin. And there, sitting on a sofa, with a dolly in her lap, was a little dark-eyed girl dressed in mourning, who was watching Dicky with great interest.
"What have you been doing, sir, to get yourself in such a mess as you are?"
"Catching cockroaches down in the hold, sir, with Barham," answered Dicky, in a quavering voice.
"A nice employment for two young gentlemen. When I was a midshipman, I employed my leisure in studying my profession."
"Yes, sir. That's what all the officers tell us. Barham and I are the only fellows I ever heard of that did anything but study their profession."
Captain Sarsfield looked very hard indeed at Dicky. Was it possible that this dirty and ingenuous youth was poking fun at a post-captain? But could deceit reside in those innocent eyes and that timid, boyish voice? The captain was in doubt.
"At all events," he continued, with an appalling look at the smut on Dicky's sunburned nose, "your appearance, sir, is disgraceful. I believe you are the dirtiest midshipman in his Majesty's service, and you will be docked of leave to go ashore for the next eight days."
The captain was about to deliver Dicky a lecture, when an orderly tapped at the cabin door and saluted.
"The new cutter has come, sir, and is about to be taken aboard."
The captain got up and went out without remembering to send Dicky back into the steerage, where he belonged.
As Dicky continued to stand, cap in hand, he would certainly have boohooed right out if he had not been an officer and a gentleman. Dicky, when he remembered that, gulped down two large sobs that rose in his throat, and winked his eyes to keep the tears back. Was there ever another such unlucky fellow as he, Dicky Carew, he asked himself, dismally. There was Barham, that was just as busy with the cockroaches as he was, and yet Barham's jacket wasn't dirty nor his nose smutted, and if the captain had sent for him he would have turned up as trig as the captain himself. And how many times a week Dicky was mast-headed for untidiness, and how often had he ridden to London and back on the spanker boom for that same fault, only Dicky himself could tell.
While he was pursuing these melancholy reflections the little girl on the sofa had fixed her dark eyes on him.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked.
"I'm dirty," answered Dicky, desperately. "I tub and scrub as much as any of 'em, but the captain can't see what I am underneath, and he thinks because I'm dirty outside I'm dirty all over."
"The captain is my papa," said Miss Bright Eyes.
"I wish he was my papa," remarked Dicky, sadly, "if he'd be any easier on me."
Girls, as a rule, possessed no charm for Dicky; but this was such a very little one—not more than ten years old—that he regarded her as an infant, and rather a pretty one.
"I'm staying in Portsmouth," she continued, nursing her dolly very carefully, "with my governess and my nurse. My mamma is dead. She died only a month ago—before papa's ship got here—and I come on board nearly every day to see my papa. Sometimes, if it rains, I stay all night. I have a funny little bed made up in papa's sleeping cabin, and in the morning I get up and make his tea for him."
That story about her mamma went to Dicky's heart.
"And my mother got to Portsmouth this morning to see me, and she hasn't much money, and can only stay a week, and I can't go ashore to see her because I didn't keep my face clean and mussed my jacket."
"Why didn't you behave yourself, then?" promptly and severely asked his young friend. "Papa always behaved himself when he was a little boy like you."
This last very much incensed Dicky.
"Now look here, young lady," he said, "I'm an officer and a gentleman! Didn't you hear your father call me so just now? And if people in this ship call the officers 'little boys,' they'll get put in irons as likely as not. As for the officers behaving themselves when they were midshipmen, everybody knows they were angels—sea-angels—and the steerage was a little heaven. Oh, they didn't catch cockroaches—not they! And all the time they weren't on duty they were studying or saying their prayers. And as for skylarking, why, they never heard of such a thing! I'll tell you what—eh, what's your name?"
"Polly," answered Bright Eyes.
"Well, Polly, it ain't true that 'whom the gods love die young'; for if it were, there wouldn't be an officer of this ship alive to-day. Barham and I ain't going to die young, though. The gods don't love us, nor the captain neither."
"You oughtn't to talk so about dying," answered Polly, gravely. "You never had your mamma to die. Sometimes, when I've stayed on board all night, I've waked up and seen papa sitting by me, looking so strange and sad, and I know he is thinking about mamma, although he says, 'Go to sleep, my dear, nothing is the matter!' and I can see the tears on his cheek; and my papa is a brave sailor too. He says he knows I ought to go to school, but he can't bear to part with me." This very proudly.
"I dare say," said Dicky, mournfully, "it will break my mother's heart when she has come all this long way to see me, and can't see me. And she will be sure to think I have done something scandalous. I know she will!"
This worked so upon Polly's feelings that she said:
"Come here, and I'll get some pictures and show you."
"I can't," answered Dicky. "I've got to stand here until the captain comes back."
"Then I'll come to you," said Polly.
When the captain got back he found Polly sitting on the floor, with her lap full of pictures, and Dicky on the floor too, explaining them to her. The captain was quite in the cabin before Dicky heard a step. Then he jumped up, stood perfectly rigid, and blushed scarlet. It was bad enough to be caught at boyish tricks on the quarter-deck, which had sometimes happened, but to be found playing on the floor with a little girl was a reflection on his manhood. However, the captain did not seem very angry. He only said, "You may go, sir, and don't let me have to speak to you again about your personal appearance!" and Dicky fancied he saw something like a smile on Captain Sarsfield's face. Dicky said, "Yes, sir," and bowed to the captain, and then to the little girl.
"Good-by, Miss Polly," said he. It had been "Polly" and "Dicky" before the captain came in.
"Ain't you going to give me a kiss?" asked Polly in a surprised voice.
Dicky could get no redder than he was, but his hair almost stood on end, while he darted out and down the ladder, never stopping until he got to his own nook in the steerage.
"Girls are deuced bothersome—damme if they ain't," he remarked to Barham—these young gentlemen, in privacy, swearing quite mannishly, and discussing the feminine sex with a great assumption of knowingness.
Up in the cabin, the captain had said, "Polly!" in a reproving voice, and Polly had climbed up on his knee and kissed him, by way of answer.
"Do you know, papa, Dicky's mother is poor. She is the widow of an officer who was killed by that wicked Boney at the battle of the Nile"—for in those days Boney was supposed to command on sea as well as on land—"and Dicky was only ten years old, and his mother has come to Portsmouth to see him, and she can only stay a week, so Dicky won't be able to see her."
"Ah," said the captain, stroking his little daughter's hair.
"And she is staying in a little gray house, the next but one to the gate leading into the great dock yard. Papa, I would like to go to see Dicky's mother the next time we go ashore, and tell her that Dicky hasn't done anything very bad—because he says she'll think he has been very, very naughty—and tell her it's only because he is so dirty."
"You may go this afternoon," said the captain; "and perhaps I may let Dicky off before the week is out."
The next day, as Dicky was rather disconsolately poring over a book on seamanship, another summons came to the cabin. Dicky was in perfect order, for a wonder, and looked considerably less frowsy and blowzy than he had the day before. When he entered the captain's room the captain was at the table, writing, and Polly, on her knees on the cushioned seat, was peering out of the port-hole; but she turned around when Dick entered.
"Mr. Carew," said the captain, sternly, "I hope I impressed upon you yesterday the necessity for absolute personal neatness in your attire. The punishment I gave you, however, I have concluded to partially remit. After to-day, you may go ashore when you can get leave."
"Thank you, sir," replied Dicky, blushing with pleasure; "and—and—Captain Sarsfield, I'm not—as dirty as I look."
"I am glad to hear it, sir," responded Captain Sarsfield, gravely. "Good afternoon."
Still Dicky lingered. He wanted to say a word to Polly, but he couldn't do it with the captain's grave eyes fixed on him. So he only hung about for a moment, then said, "Good-by, Miss Polly," and vanished.
Dicky's mother was delighted to see him next day, and Dicky gave her such a bear hug, as he sometimes did Barham, that his mother shrieked, while she laughed and covered his face with kisses.
"And Dicky, such a dear little girl, all dressed in black, came here yesterday with her nurse! She was little Polly Sarsfield, the captain's daughter, and she told me why you couldn't come ashore, and that the captain, hearing I was here, had concluded to remit your punishment. I knew my dear boy wasn't punished for insubordination, or swearing, or gambling. If I thought that possible, it would break your mother's heart."
Dicky felt rather uncomfortable at his mother's supreme confidence in him, and was glad she didn't know everything that went on among the young gentlemen in the steerage.
"And Polly is a jolly little thing," remarked Dicky. "Nothing but a baby, though."
"Polly will be a young lady by the time you are a man," answered his mother, who did not take Dicky's assumption of manliness seriously.
"Oh, pshaw!" remarked Dicky, with a blush.