During the holidays he would sometimes go out with them for twenty-four hours in their fishing-boats. His mother made no objection to this, as she thought that the exercise and sea air were good for his health, and that the change did him good. Frank himself was so fond of the sea that he was half disposed to adopt it instead of the army as a profession. But his mother was strongly opposed to the idea, and won him to her way of thinking by pointing out that although a sailor visits many ports he stays long at none of them, and that in the few hours' leave he might occasionally obtain he would be unable to carry out his favorite pursuits.
“Hargate,” Ruthven, who was one of the oldest of the House boys, and was about Frank's age, that is about fifteen years old, said a few days after the match, “the Doctor has given Handcock and Jones and myself leave to take a boat and go out this afternoon. We mean to start soon after dinner, and shall take some lines and bait with us. We have got leave till lockup, so we shall have a long afternoon of it. Will you come with us?”
“Thank you, Ruthven,” Frank said; “I should like it very much, but you know I'm short of pocket money, and I can't pay my share of the boat, so I would rather leave it alone.”
“Oh, nonsense, Hargate!” Ruthven answered; “we know money is not your strong point, but we really want you to go with us. You can manage a boat better than any of us, and you will really oblige us if you will go with us.”
“Oh, if you put it in that way,” Frank said, “I shall be glad to go with you; but I do not think,” he went on, looking at the sky, “that the weather looks very settled. However, if you do not mind the chance of a ducking, I don't.”
“That's agreed then,” Ruthven said; “will you meet us near the pier at three o'clock?”
“All right. I'll be punctual.”
At the appointed hour the four lads met on the beach. Ruthven and his companions wanted to choose a light rowing boat, but Frank strongly urged them to take a much larger and heavier one. “In the first place,” he said, “the wind is blowing off shore, and although it's calm here it will be rougher farther out; and, unless I'm mistaken, the wind is getting up fast. Besides this it will be much more comfortable to fish from a good sized boat.”
His comrades grumbled at the extra labor which the large boat would entail in rowing. However, they finally gave in and the boat was launched.
“Look out, Master Hargate,” the boatman said as they started; “you'd best not go out too far, for the wind is freshening fast, and we shall have, I think, a nasty night.”