"I have certain business to attend to that will take me the best part of the day and you will have to look after yourself. You'd better go out and see the town, but mind where you go, and don't get lost. I'll be back by supper-time."
"All right, sir," responded Seth cheerily, much pleased at the idea of being left to his own devices. "I'll take good care of myself."
After the Major, attired in his best uniform, had set out, Seth inquired the way to the waterside, for he was first of all anxious to see the shipping.
He found the wharves crowded with shipping, and was immensely interested in the bustle and noise as the sailors, with many a shout and song, toiled away at loading or unloading the cargoes. It was all new to him, and he did not hesitate to ask many questions of the weather-beaten men, some of whom answered him civilly enough, while others were decidedly gruff, and others still, rightly judging that he was a country lad, tried to run rigs on him.
But Seth was too shrewd to be fooled very far. He understood pretty well when he was being answered correctly, and he picked up a good deal of information as he strolled about in an apparently aimless way.
One of the largest ships which hailed from England was discharging a cargo of general goods bewildering in variety, and as Seth talked with one of the sailors he was thinking to himself:
"How I'd like to go across the ocean to England and see everything there! It must be a wonderful place. I wonder will I ever have the chance."
The possibility of his realizing his desire seemed remote enough, but that fact did not trouble him, and he made a mental resolution to get over to the Mother Land some day, however distant it might be.
His pleasant meditations were at this point interrupted by cries of pain and terror, coming from a boy who was evidently being cruelly treated, and instinctively he hastened to see what was the matter.
On the other side of a great pile of casks he found a hulking fellow of the wharf-rat genus ill-using a small boy who was vainly endeavoring to escape from his clutches.