A Chapter of Adventures

by G. A. Henty

The next morning the gale was still blowing fiercely, although with less strength than on the previous day. Jack had heard from his mother of his appointment to go to the "Ship" with much discontent, and had at first positively refused to go.

"I hate going up to see strange people, mother, anyhow; and I am sure that I do not want to be thanked. I am glad enough to have had a share in saving all their lives, but of course it was all Uncle Ben and Tom's handling the boat that did it; I had nothing to do with it whatever, except that little swim with the rope tied safely round me. Why, it was nothing to that affair that I had with Bill and Joe Corbett."

"But you must go, Jack; the ladies naturally wish to thank you for what you did for them, and whether you like it or not you must go. It would be very rude and uncivil not to do so. They would be sure to send round here if you did not come, and what should I say except that you were so unmannerly that you would not go."

Jack twisted himself on his chair uncomfortably.

"I don't see why they shouldn't thank Uncle Ben for the lot and have done with it," he grumbled. "It is his boat and he was the skipper, and he did it all; besides, I expect the Bessy will have to be overhauled before she goes out again. She came down with a tremendous crash on her forefoot, and the water was just coming up through the boards in the fo'castle when we came in. Of course it may have come in from above, but I expect she sprang a leak somewhere forward. I thought she was very low in the water when she came in, and I expect that she must have been half full aft, for she was very much down by the stern.

"We had the pump going all the time, and it was always clear water. I did not think of it at the time. We had had such a lot of water over us it was likely it might have got in through the hatches; but I feel sure now that it was a leak. Well, I suppose if I must go, I must, mother; but I hate it for all that."

However, just before Jack was about to start there was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Robson opening it saw two ladies and a girl. Immediately on their arrival the evening before, Mrs. Godstone had telegraphed home for a servant to come down in the morning by the first train, with clothes for herself and daughter, and she had arrived with them an hour before. Mrs. Godstone had therefore been enabled to resume her usual attire, and to lend an outfit to Mrs. Murchison. Jack did not in the least recognize in the three ladies the soaked and draggled women, of whose faces he had caught but a slight glimpse on the previous day.

"We have come round, Mrs. Robson," Mrs. Godstone began, "to thank your son for his share in saving our lives yesterday. We thought that it would be more pleasant to him than coming round to us at the inn."

"Thank you, madam," Mrs. Robson replied. "It was kind of you to think of it. I have had a good deal of trouble in persuading Jack to go round. He was just starting; but it was very much against the grain, I can assure you. Come in, please."

Mrs. Godstone was surprised at the tone in which this fisher lad's mother spoke, for during her thirteen years of married life Bessy Robson had lost the Essex dialect, and acquired the manners of her husband's friends. She was still more surprised at the pretty furniture of the room, which was tastefully decorated, and the walls hung with pictures of marine subjects, for Bessy had brought down bodily her belongings from Dulwich. Mrs. Godstone at once walked up to Jack with outstretched hand.