CHAPTER VI.
“RUN, RUN!” CRIED TOM; “THE MAN MUST NOT DIE YET!”
IT is not often that the lines of young sailor-lads fall in such pleasant places as did those of Tom Talisker on first going to sea. To begin with, he had no extra rough work to do, as is too often the case with apprentices, and even midshipmen, on first going afloat—scrubbing and scraping all day long, their hands in a bucket of tar one minute, and in a bucket of “slush” the next.
“Make a man of my lad,” had been about the last words of Uncle Robert to his friend Captain Herbert; and that honest old tar had proceeded to do so forthwith, not on the old plan of first breaking a boy’s heart, and then making a bully of him if he survived it. No, the captain put Tom into the second mate’s watch, with a request that he should do the best he could for the lad; and as Holborn himself, as this officer was called, was an excellent sailor, and a kindly-hearted though somewhat rough and uncouth individual, he set about putting Tom up to the ropes without loss of time.
Captain Herbert himself superintended the lad’s book-studies, so on the whole he was well off; and it is no wonder, therefore, that before he had been to sea for three years he was able to reef, steer, and do his duty both on deck and below almost as well as Holborn could.
But all this time the Caledonia had never once been back to England.
For Captain Herbert was quite a wandering Jew of a sailor, and the reasons for this are not far to seek. First and foremost, he had never yet given up hopes that he would one day find his lost son, and he certainly left no stone unturned to bring about so wished-for an event. Secondly, he was his own master, the barque he sailed being his own property. And thirdly, it paid him to keep going from country to country, as long as there was no real necessity for docking the ship. Not that he valued riches for his own sake, but for the sake of ’Theena and the son he ne’er again might look upon.
If Tom had felt a man before leaving England, he now almost looked one. Indeed, in size and strength he was a man quite; for whatever some may say, the ocean certainly never stunts a youth’s growth.
He was a good sailor, too, taking the adjective “good” in every sense of the word. Neither his mother’s advice, the second mate’s care, nor Captain Herbert’s kindness had been thrown away on the boy; and on many a dark and stormy night he proved that he was just as good as brave.
Another year of voyaging here and there across the face of the great waters passed away. The Caledonia was lying at San Francisco, and the captain intimated to the officers his intention of bearing up for home. They would double the Horn for the last time; then hurrah for merry England!