I once more pressed my lips to my poor mother’s, and she resigned me to the coxswain, at the same time taking some silver off the table and putting it into his hand.
“Thanky, marm; that’s kinder still, to think of another when you’re in distress yourself; I shan’t forget it. I’ll look after the lad a bit for you, as sure as my name’s Bob Cross.”
My mother sank down on the sofa, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
Bob Cross caught up the bundle, and led me away. I was very melancholy, for I loved my mother, and could not bear to see her so distressed, and for some time we walked on without speaking.
The coxswain first broke the silence:— “What’s your name, my little Trojan?” said he.
“Percival Keene.”
“Well I’m blessed if I didn’t think that you were one of the Delmar breed, by the cut of your jib; howsomever, it’s a wise child that knows its own father.”
“Father’s dead,” replied I.
“Dead! Well, fathers do die sometimes; you must get on how you can without one. I don’t think fathers are of much use, for, you see, mothers take care of you till you’re old enough to go to sea. My father did nothing for me, except to help mother to lick me, when I was obstropolous.”
The reader, from what he has already been informed about Ben, the marine, may easily conceive that I was very much of Bob Cross’s opinion.