'If I'm aboard the right ship, and you've cleared off from a good home, then you are a fool, a precious big 'un, too,' he cried. 'And there ain't a doubt as you're treatin' some one badly; mostlike it's your mother. P'raps it's your father. Anyways, let's drop anchor hereabouts and put on a smoke. I can yarn when I'm smokin', and since it's dark now, there's no need for more hurry.'
He led the way to a gate, sat himself on the top rail, and having produced a cake of tobacco, a knife and a pipe, shredded some of the weed into the latter.
'Well,' he began again, when he had got the weed burning, and huge billows of smoke issuing from his lips. 'You've had a few seconds to think it over. Andus ain't a fool, mind you, youngster, and he ain't tryin' to give lessons to one as has heaps more eddication. But I've seed one as was sorry for running away from home. That's me. I know one as has never ceased to feel that he did wrong, and has suffered in consequence. That's me again, all the time. And I ain't a goin' to fall in alongside of another and keep me mouth shut when I know as he's headin' straight up for the same rocks and shoals, and is in danger of breakin' hisself to pieces. There you are. Take that from one who knows what he's talking about.'
He lapsed into silence for a while, puffing smoke from his lips, and occasionally looking down at David, who stood within a few feet of him. As for the latter, the more the sailor talked, the more he liked the man. There was an honest ring about his breezy tones, a direct manner about the words he used that captivated our hero. Not for one moment was he fearful that he himself would change his plans, whatever was said. No, David had now considered his movements very thoroughly. He told himself that it was not he who had behaved badly. It was his stepmother and her husband. But, in case of error, he would put the facts before this open-minded sailor.
'Supposin' you was to stop here to-night, and then ride back to-morrow,' suggested Andus, cooly, as if he were saying the most commonplace thing. 'This home of yours ain't far, and you'd be there by breakfast time. They'd be so glad to see you that the row would be forgotten. You'd start in fresh again, with new paint above and below, and everything ship-shape. What do you say to that, youngster?'
'That your intention is a good one, and your advice the same under usual conditions,' declared David, warmly. 'But this isn't an ordinary running away. I'll tell you how I came to leave home.'
He sat down on the rail of the gate and told Andus quietly how his parents had treated him, and how he was sure that the two were conspiring to oust him out of property meant for him by his dead father. 'In any case,' he ended, 'I was not wanted. I was to leave the house and go into an office, though it was well known that I hoped to go to an engineering college. I refused the office, and was told to clear out. Now, tell me frankly what you think.'
The sailor dug the blade of his knife deep into the bowl of his pipe, and stirred the contents thoroughly before he ventured to reply. There was a deep line across his forehead, while his eyes were half closed. David could tell that easily, for the moon was up now, and the night was unusually bright. Then Andus struck flint and steel, and sucked flames into his pipe till our hero thought he would never cease.
'Tell me about this solicitor,' he suddenly demanded. 'He was a friend of your father's?'
'And of mine,' answered David. 'I like him. I am sure that he tried to warn me against the man who married my stepmother.'