"But my mother does not need my help, and so I don't see why I should give up everything I want, if you do."
"Your mother may not want your help, but she wants you. You are her only son, and—and shall I tell you?—I have heard of such things happening, you know—she may break her heart if you run away to sea. You would not do that, Stewart."
"Break her heart! Kill my mother! Chandos, you know me better than that!"
"Yes, I do, Stewart, and that is why I have spoken in time; but I have heard of boys going to sea and coming home expecting to find everything as they left it, and finding mother and father both dead—killed by grief for the runaway."
"Oh, that's all twaddle, you know, Chandos; nobody ever really died of a broken heart," I said.
"Then you mean to try the experiment on your mother? Very well, Stewart; if you will, you will, I know; only beware of the consequences, for if the twaddle should prove truth it would cause you lifelong unhappiness afterwards."
This ended his lecture, and I made up my mind to forget it as soon as I could; but somehow it mixes itself up with everything, and try as I will I cannot forget it. Of course, I don't want to run away, if I can persuade mamma to let me go to sea properly; but if she won't, what am I to do? I can't and won't go to be perched up at an office desk all day, and so there will be nothing else I can do but cut and run some fine morning. Of course, I shall write to mamma just before I sail, and tell her I'm all right and jolly, and when she knows that she'll soon be all right. Tom and I have talked over the plan dozens of times, for he was to come with me, only somehow I don't want him so much now, though his watch might be handy to sell if we were short of money on the road, for I suppose we should have to go to Liverpool, or Plymouth, or Southampton, or some of those places. Bother Chandos, making me feel uncomfortable about it. But there, I'm not going to run away to-day, and so I'll forget the whole bother.
January 26th.—At last we are going to have some fun. It has been freezing splendidly these two days, and if the governor hadn't been a duffer he would have let us go out on the ice to-day, for there is a first-rate pond—two or three, in fact—close by, and I know the ice will bear; but he has promised we shall go to-morrow, and everybody has been looking up skates in readiness. I hope it will not thaw to-night, for we are all looking forward to the fun we shall have to-morrow—all but Chandos, and he has taken it into his head that his brother ought to stay at home, as he has a cold. But Chandos junior has a will of his own, I can see, and I mean to help him to stand out against his brother's coddling, and give Miss Chandos a fright into the bargain, if I can. It will be good fun to coax the youngster to go to another pond, especially if one happens to be labelled "Dangerous." I fancy I can see his brother now running about like a hen after her brood of ducklings, for he does fuss after this youngster, as though he was different from other boys, and I'll stop it if I can.
February 4th.—I wonder whether I can put down in my log all that has happened. I shall try, for I am very dull to-day sitting up here alone while the others are in school.
It did not thaw, as everybody feared it would, and we started for the ponds in good time, Swain and the other master with us, for the governor would not trust us alone, which made some of the fellows pretty wild, and they vowed Swain should not come for nothing. Just before we started Tom came tearing across the playground to me and said, "You've split on Chandos junior!"