Unhappy those who with dim eye, as it restlessly sweeps the horizon of the future, can see no beacon to a haven of light, no pole-star pointing to a land of eternal rest—
‘No God, no heaven, no earth in the void world—
The wide, gray, lawless, deep, unpeopled world.’
Rose rushed home as rapidly as the cab she hired could carry her. Wentworth was in.
‘What am I to do?’ she said, as she told him the whole story.
‘Better send for the boy,’ he said.
‘Oh no, not yet. He is comfortable where he is, learning to be a sailor. He’s fond of the sea, and it will be a pity to take him from it.’
The fact is, the young waif, as Rose thought him, was placed, at her expense, on board one of the training-ships lying off Greenhithe. They are noble institutions, these training-ships—saving lads who, if left to themselves, might become tempted by circumstances or bad companions into crime, and at the same time supplying us with what we English emphatically require at the present day—English sailors on whom captains can rely on board our merchant ships and men-of-war. There was no difficulty in getting the actress’s protégé there, and there he was rapidly training into a good sailor and a fine fellow, well-built, obedient to his superiors, handy, and hardy, and sturdy, morally and physically, as all sailors should be.
The next thing was to talk to a lawyer. In this wicked world lawyers are necessary evils. Sometimes, however, they do a great deal of good. The lawyer recommended Wentworth to call on the family lawyer of the deceased Baronet. He came back looking unhappy and uncomfortable, as people often do when they have interviews with lawyers who are supposed to be on the other side. He found him in comfortable quarters on a first floor in Bedford Row, Holborn, looking the very image of respectability—bald, and in black, with an appearance partly suggestive of the fine old clergyman of the port-wine school, with a touch of the thorough man of the world; a lawyer, in short, who would give an air of plausibility and rectitude to any cause in which he was embarked.
To him Wentworth apologized for making an intrusion.
‘No apology at all was needed, my dear sir. Happy to make your acquaintance. I have not only read your books—very clever, too, Mr. Wentworth—but I heard of you more than once through Sir Watkin Strahan.’