“You shall hear from me, captain, and I’ll expect you to see my mother as often as you can, for you know her home is not a cheerful one, and she has only old Peggy.”
“Yes, and more pluck than any man I know of, to dwell in that old Spook Hall.”
Then Mark bade good-by to the captain and his boys, sprang into the boat he had rowed out, and rested on his oars while the crew got up anchor and hoisted sail.
He waved his hat as they went down the Severn, Captain Crane dipping his colors to the farewell of the youth.
For a long while the young sailor watched the retreating vessel, then rowed ashore, and returned the boat to where he had gotten it.
He sighed as he cast another lingering glance after the little Venture, returning to the weird old home and scenes he had loved so well, and murmured to himself:
“There goes the last link to bind me with my life of the past few years. Now my career is to be so different! The struggle begins—my hard fight for fame. But I will win. I cannot afford not to do so, for Scott Clemmons shall never rejoice over my failure.”
“Ah, Merrill, all broken up, I see, at parting with your fisher friends—strange that you did not stick to the low life that suited you so well.”
It was Scott Clemmons, and Mark felt as though he would like to have struck him to the earth.
But instead he said, calmly: