“Your dear boy,” he said, “has had a terribly rough first experience of a life on the ocean wave, but he has braved it well, and that is more than many boys of his age would have done. But I tell you what it is,” he added, “Harry Milvaine will be a sailor.”
“I fear so,” said his mother, sadly.
“Ah, my dear lady, there is many a worse profession than that of an honest sailor.”
“But the dangers of the deep are so great, Captain Hardy.”
“Dangers of the deep?” repeated this kindly-hearted sailor. “Ay, and there are dangers on the dry land as well. Think of your terrible railway smashes, to say nothing, madam, of the tiles and chimney-pots that go flying about on a stormy day.”
Mrs Milvaine could not keep from smiling.
But our wilful, wayward Harry had it all his own way, and three months after this he was treading the decks of a Royal Navy training ship, a bold and brisk-looking naval cadet.
From the training ship, in good time, after having passed a very creditable examination indeed, he was duly entered into the grand old service.
His first ship—if ship it could be called—was H.M. gunboat, the Bunting.
Harry was going to a part of the world where he was bound soon to get the gilt rubbed off his dirk.