“He took my mother in his arms, and said, ‘My poor Nancy, what will become of you and these little ones, now they have no father to earn them bread, and keep want from the door; and poor old father, too, that when we had food always had part of it.’ Little William, who was just beginning to go alone, clung around his neck, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
“‘We shall be at home, John, among friends; but you are going among strangers into battle, to be exposed to the dangers of the seas.’
“They now told us we must part, for we had been together two hours, though it seemed to us but a few moments. We had to see and talk with him right amongst a crowd of men: some were swearing, some wrangling, and some laughing and talking, for the sailors seemed to be as merry as could be, and in their rough way tried to cheer us up. Father asked my grandfather to pray with him before they parted; and when my father told some of the sailors what he was going to do, they went among the rest, and it was so still that you might have heard a pin drop. I saw tears in the eyes of many of them when we went away, and they said, ‘God bless you, old father!’ in a real hearty way, to my grandfather, and shook hands with him.”
“Sailors are rough men,” said Ben, “for they live on a rough element, and see rough usage; but there was not a sailor in all that ship’s company would have betrayed his shipmate, as that blood-seller did your father.”
“While we were on board the guard-ship, one of the marines told my father who it was that betrayed him to the press-gang, for he overheard him talking with the captain about it.
“It was bitter parting. We never expected to see him again, and we never did; for it was but a few months after that when he was killed in battle.”
“What did your mother do,” said Ben, “when she heard that your father was dead?”
“At first she took to her bed, and seemed quite heart-broken. After a while she kind of revived up, and said it was her duty to take care of us, for father’s sake. Then she hired men, and went into the shop herself; and the neighbors and our relations helped us cut and whiten the sallies, and pick the fowl, and we made out to pay the rent, and were getting along very well, when there came a new trouble.”
“What was that?”
“Why, this same man, Robert Rankins, that sold my father, began to come into the shop, and make us presents, and help us, and finally asked my mother to marry him; but she spit in his face, and called him a blood-seller, and told him what he had done to my father; but still he would come; when, to be rid of him, she put the children among my father’s folks, and took me and came to the States; and the rest you know,” said the boy, his voice shaking with the feelings which the recital called up.