Chapter Eleven.
Thinking better of it.
Don stood looking at Jem Wimble for some few minutes in silence, as if the sight of some one else in trouble did him good. Then he sat down on the stock of an old anchor, to begin picking at the red rust scales as he too stared at the ships moored here and there.
The tall masts and rigging had a certain fascination for Don, and each vessel seemed to offer a way out of his difficulties. For once on board a ship with the sails spread, and the open sea before him, he might cross right away to one of those beautiful lands of which Mike had spoken, and then—
The thought of Mike altered the case directly, and he sat staring straight before him at the ships.
Jem was the next to break the silence.
“Thinking you’d like to go right away, Master Don?”
“Yes, Jem.”
“So was I, sir. Only think how nice it would be somewhere abroad, where there was no Sally.”
“And no Uncle Josiah, Jem.”