“Cheer, boys, cheer.” The last rays of the setting sun were lighting up the Cornish cliffs, on which so few in that good ship would ever again set eyes, when those around the forecastle-head took up the song.
“Cheer, boys, cheer.” Listen! Those on the quarterdeck join in the chorus, sinking in song all difference of class and rank. And they join, too, in that rattling “Three times three” that bids farewell to England.
Then the crimson clouds high up in the west change to purple and brown, the sea grows grey, and the distant shore becomes slaty blue. Soon the stars peep out, and the passengers cease to tramp about, and find their way below to the cosily-lighted saloon.
Archie is sitting on a sofa quite apart from all the others. The song is still ringing in his head, and, if the whole truth must be told, he feels just a trifle down-hearted. He cannot quite account for this, though he tries to, and his thoughts are upon the whole somewhat rambling. They would no doubt be quite connected if it were not for the distracting novelty of all his present surroundings, which are as utterly different from anything he has hitherto become acquainted with as if he had suddenly been transported to another planet.
No, he cannot account for being dull. Perhaps the motion of the ship has something to do with it, though this is not a very romantic way of putting it. Archie has plenty of moral courage; and as the ship encountered head winds, and made a long and most difficult passage down through the Irish Sea, he braced himself to get over his morsel of mal de mer, and has succeeded.
He is quite cross with himself for permitting his mind to be tinged with melancholy. That song ought to have set him up.
“Why should we weep to sail in search of fortune?”
Oh, Archie is not weeping; catch him doing anything so girlish and peevish! He would not cry in his cabin where he could do so without being seen, and it is not likely he would permit moisture to appear in his eyes in the saloon here. Yet his home never did seem to him so delightful, so cosy, so happy, as the thoughts of it do now. Why had he not loved it even more than he did when it was yet all around him? The dear little green parlour, his gentle lady mother that used to knit so quietly by the fire in the winter’s evenings, listening with pleasure to his father’s daring schemes and hopeful plans. His bonnie sister, Elsie, so proud of him—Archie; Rupert, with his pale, classical face and gentle smile; matter-of-fact Walton; jolly old Uncle Ramsay. They all rose up before his mind’s eye as they had been; nay but as they might be even at that very moment. And the room in the tower, the evenings spent there in summer when daylight was fading over the hills and woods, and the rooks flying wearily home to their nests in the swaying elm trees; or in winter when the fire burned brightly on the hearth, and weird old Kate sat in her high-backed chair, telling her strange old-world stories, with Branson, wide-eyed, fiddle in hand, on a seat near her, and Bounder—poor Bounder—on the bear’s skin. Then the big kitchen, or servants’ hall—the servants that all loved “master Archie” so dearly, and laughed and enjoyed every prank he used to play.
Dear old Burley! should he ever see it again? A week has not passed since he left it, and yet it seems and feels a lifetime.
He was young a week ago; now he is old, very old—nearly a man. Nearly? Well, nearly, in years; in thoughts, and feelings, and circumstances even—quite a man. But then he should not feel down-hearted for this simple reason; he had left home under such bright auspices. Many boys run away to sea. The difference between their lot and his is indeed a wide one. Yes, that must be very sad. No home life to look back upon, no friends to think of or love, no pleasant present, no hopeful future.