Edward Damerell, then—for that was his name—was, at the date of our introduction to him, within a month of reaching his nineteenth year; and he had hoped to spend his birthday at home with his father and sister, the only relatives he possessed on earth, but circumstances had ordered it otherwise. He stood just five feet seven inches in his stockings; was as stout-built and shapely a youth as one need wish to see, though it was evident that he had not yet attained his full growth; his frank, handsome, albeit sunburnt face was lighted up by a pair of keen, honest grey eyes and crowned by a close-cut crop of crisp, curly, flaxen hair—a good-tempered, pleasant-looking fellow enough, true as steel, brave as true, and, having been already three years at sea, as smart a seaman as ever trod a plank.
His father was his exact counterpart, with the comparatively trifling difference that he was not quite so tall as Ned; was broader in the beam, and, as of course might be expected, much older-looking, though the appearance of age was due principally to the grey with which his hair and bushy whiskers (which latter appendages, by the by, Ned was still without) was thickly dashed; the old gentleman’s eye being as keen and bright as his son’s, and his step almost as springy.
Edward Damerell, senior, it may be as well to mention, was a naval lieutenant, retired upon half-pay. He had seen a great deal of service in his youth, principally on the West Coast of Africa and in the China seas, and had been fairly fortunate in the matter of acquiring prize-money—to which circumstance he was indebted for the exceedingly comfortable little cottage on the hill overlooking Newton’s Cove, which he had inhabited for some twenty-five years, having purchased and settled down in it upon his marriage and retirement from the service.
His daughter Eva was a beautiful girl, as good as she was beautiful, and the very apple of her father’s eye—which is all that need be said of her, as she plays no part in the events which it is the purpose of this narrative to chronicle.
Young Edward Damerell, born and brought up within sight and sound of the sea, early manifested a natural desire to tread in his father’s footsteps by following the same profession. To this the old gentleman made no very serious objection, but he would not hear of his son entering the navy. The service, he insisted, had been ruined by the introduction of steam and armour-plates. Moreover, he had discovered, to his cost, that without money and influence, and plenty of both, a man stood but little chance, in these piping times of peace, of making any great amount of headway up the ratlins of promotion. “So,” said he, “if Ned chooses to go to sea, he will have to enter the merchant service, where good seamen are still, and always will be, required.”
And this Ned did under the most advantageous circumstances, as “midshipman-apprentice” on board an Australian clipper belonging to the “Bruce” line, in which employ he was duly serving his time—very creditably, indeed, to himself and to the officers who had the training of him, if the report of the skipper, Captain Blyth, was to be believed. And he was now, on this particular morning, leaving home once more, after a month’s leave, to join a brand-new steel-built clipper called the Flying Cloud, the latest addition to the “Bruce” fleet, of which ship Captain Blyth had been given the command.
As the lad arrived opposite King Street, the point where he would have to turn off and leave the esplanade and the “front,” as the inhabitants term it, he paused a moment, looked longingly to right and left of him at the long terraces of neat houses facing the sea, at the “Nothe” on the opposite side of the harbour, at the sands, the bay, and the long stretch of bold coast to the northward and eastward, and sighed regretfully at the thought that he was about to leave the place once more for so long a time. He was enthusiastically attached to his profession—as every lad must be if he would make his way in the world—but he was also attached to the place of his birth, and infinitely more was he attached to his father and sister; and though he was too manly to express sorrow at his departure, the feeling was there and would not be altogether ignored. It was, therefore, with but an indifferently successful assumption of cheerfulness that he exclaimed:
“Well, good-bye, old town! Who knows how many weary leagues I shall have to travel, and through what hardships and perils I may have to pass, before I tread your streets again!”
And, linking his arms in those of his father and sister, he crossed the road and passed down the street to the railway-station.
Poor Ned! when he spoke so lightly he little knew that the words had so prophetic a meaning.