"Nonsense! I've nothing to do, and I count myself very fortunate in having been able to render you this small assistance. The breeze is freshening, and it won't take us any time to get back. Where do you live?"
"To the left there! That house standing back upon the cliff. I don't know how to express my gratitude."
"Just keep that till I ask you for it; and now, as we've got a twenty minutes' sail before us, the best thing for you to do would be to slip into a spare suit of my things. They'll keep you warm, and you can return them to my hotel when you get ashore."
I sang out to the boy to come aft and take the tiller, while I escorted my guest below into the little box of a cabin, and gave him a rig out. Considering I am six feet two, and he was only five feet eight, the things were a trifle large for him; but when he was dressed I couldn't help thinking what a handsome, well-built, aristocratic-looking young fellow he was. The work of fitting him out accomplished, we returned to the deck. The breeze was freshening, and the little hooker was ploughing her way through it, nose down, as if she knew that under the circumstances her best was expected of her.
"Are you a stranger in Bournemouth?" my companion asked, as I took the tiller again.
"Almost," I answered. "I've only been in England three weeks. I'm home from Australia."
"Australia! Really! Oh, I should so much like to go out there."
His voice was very soft and low, more like a girl's than a boy's, and I noticed that he had none of the mannerisms of a man—at least, not of one who has seen much of the world.
"Yes, Australia's as good a place as any other for the man who goes out there to work," I said. "But somehow you don't look to me like a chap that is used to what is called roughing it. Pardon my bluntness."
"Well, you see, I've never had much chance. My father is considered by many a very peculiar man. He has strange ideas about me, and so you see I've never been allowed to mix with other people. But I'm stronger than you'd think, and I shall be twenty in October next."