“I don’t think he will, father.”
“Don’t you? Then I do. I have had more experience of boys than you have, and I have learned how Nature in her kindness made them. Look here, Poole, I believe for the time that boys feel trouble more keenly than do men, but Nature won’t let it last. The young twig will bend nearly double, and spring up again. The old stick snaps.”
The skipper walked away, leaving his son thinking.
“I don’t believe father’s right,” he said. “Fitz doesn’t seem like most boys that I have met. Poor chap, it does seem hard! I don’t think I ever felt so bad as he must now. I wish I hadn’t had to come away, for it was only an excuse on father’s part. He doesn’t want me. It was only to leave the poor chap alone.”
Acting upon these thoughts, Poole tried to think out some excuse for going down to the cabin again as soon as he could. But as no reasonable excuse offered itself, he waited till the half-hour was expired, and then went down without one, opened the cabin-door gently, and gravely stepped in, to stop short, staring in astonishment at the change which had come over his patient, for he was sitting bent down with his hands upon his knees at the edge of his berth, swinging his legs to and fro, with every trace of suffering gone out of the eyes which looked up sharply.
If Poole Reed was surprised at the midshipman’s appearance, he was far more so at his tones and words.
“Hallo!” he cried. “Thought you’d gone to fetch those fishing-lines.”
“I—I—Oh, yes, I’ll get them directly,” stammered Poole.
“Look sharp, then. The fish are playing about here like fun. I saw one spring right out of the water just now after a shoal. The little ones look like silver, and the big chap was all blue and gold.”
“All right; I won’t be long,” cried Poole, and he hurried out, letting the door bang behind him.