Captain Weathereye hoisted Babs and called her a beautiful little rogue. Then all sat down on the side of the hill to talk, Babs being perfectly content, for the time being, to sit on the captain’s knee and play with his watch and chain.
“And now, my lad,” said bold Weathereye, “stand up and let us have a look at you. Attention! That’s right. So, what would you like to be? Because the lady here has a heart just brimful of goodness, and if you were made of the right stuff she would help you to get on. A sailor? That’s right. The sea would make a man of you, lad. And if you were in a heavy sea-way, with your masts gone by the board, bothered if old Jack Weathereye wouldn’t pay out a hawser and give you a helping hand himself. For I like the looks of you. Glad you paid the postman out. Just what I’d have done myself. Ahem!”
Ransey felt rather shy, though, to be thus displayed as it were. It was all owing to the new clothes, I think, and especially to the shoes.
“Now, would you like to go to school?”
“What! and leave Babs? No, capting, no. I’d hate school anyhow; I’d fight the small boys, and bite the big uns, and they’d soon turn me adrift.”
“Bravo, boy! I never could endure school myself.—What I say is this, Miss Scragley, teach a youngster to read and write, with a trifle of ’rithmetick, and as he gets older he’ll choose all the knowledge himself, and tackle on to it too, that’s needed to guide his barque across the great ocean of life. There’s no good in schools, Miss Scragley, that I know of, except that the flogging hardens them.—Well, lad, you won’t go to school? There! And if you’ll get your father to allow you to come up to the Grange, just close by the village and rectory, I’ll give you a lesson myself, three times a week.”
“Oh, thank you, sir! I’m sure father’ll be pleased to let me come when I’m at home and not at sea.”
“Eh? at sea? Oh, yes, I know; you mean on the barge, ha, ha, ha! Well, you’ll live to face stormier seas yet.”
“An’ father’s comin’ to-morrow, sir, and then we’re goin’ on.”
“Going on?”