To this letter a reply soon came, announcing the immediate departure of the ship, and containing a specific offer to receive Bob on board in the capacity of apprentice on her next voyage.
The idea of taking to the sea as a profession was so thoroughly novel to Bob that he had at first some little difficulty in realising all that it meant. Hitherto he had had no other intention or ambition than to potter about in a fishing smack with old Bill, living a hard life, earning a precarious subsistence, and possibly, if exceptionally fortunate, at some period in the far-distant future, attaining to the ownership of a smack himself. But a month or two later on, when all had been saved that it was possible to save from the wreck, and when nothing remained of the once fine ship but a few shattered timbers embedded in the sand, and showing at low water like the fragment of a skeleton of some leviathan; when Bob found time to fully discuss the matter with old Bill Maskell and his mates, these worthies painted the advantages of a regular seaman’s life over those of the mere fisherman in such glowing colours, and dwelt so enthusiastically upon the prospects which would surely open out before our hero under the patronage of a man like Captain Staunton, that Bob soon made up his mind to accept the captain’s offer and join him on his return to England.
Having once come to this decision the lad was all impatience for the time to arrive when he might embark upon his career. As it is with most lads, so it was with him, the prospect of a complete change in his mode of life was full of pleasurable excitement; and perhaps it was only natural that, now he had decided to forsake it, the monotonous humdrum fisher’s life became almost unbearably irksome to him. Old Bill Maskell was not slow to observe this, and with the unselfishness which was so eminently characteristic of him, though he loved the lad as his own soul, he decided to shorten for him as far as possible the weary time of waiting, and send him away at once.
Accordingly, on the first opportunity that presented itself, he remarked to Bob—
“I say, boy, I’ve been turnin’ matters over in my mind a bit, and it seems to me as a v’yage or two in a coaster ’d do you a power o’ good afore you ships aboard a ‘South-Spainer.’ You’re as handy a lad as a man need wish to be shipmates with, aboard a fore-and-aft-rigged craft; but you ought to know some’at about square-rigged vessels too afore you sails foreign. Now, what d’ye say to a trip or two in a collier brig, just to larn the ropes like, eh?”
Note: “South-Spainer”—A term frequently employed by seamen to designate a foreign-going ship, especially one sailing to southern waters.—H.C.
Life on board a collier is not, as a rule, a condition of unalloyed felicity; but Bob was happily, or unhappily, ignorant of this; the suggestion conveyed to his mind only the idea of change, and his face lighted joyfully up at his benefactor’s proposition, to which he at once eagerly assented.
Bob’s slender wardrobe was accordingly at once overhauled and put into a condition of thorough repair; Bill, meantime, employing himself laboriously in an effort to ascertain, through the medium of a voluminous correspondence, the whereabouts of an old friend of his—last heard of by the said Bill as in command of a collier brig—with a view to the securing for Bob a berth as “ordinary seaman” under a “skipper” of whom Bill knew something, and who could be trusted to treat the lad well.
Old Bill’s labours were at length rewarded with success, “Captain”—as he loved to be styled—Turnbull’s address in London being definitely ascertained, together with the gratifying intelligence that he still retained the command of the Betsy Jane.
Matters having progressed thus far satisfactorily, old Bill’s next business was to write to “Captain” Turnbull, asking him if he could receive Bob on board; and in about a month’s time a favourable answer was received, naming a day upon which Bob was to run up to London and sign articles.