"And you spoke of Erlesmere; are you a son of old Dr. Rodney, the rector?"
"Do you know my father, then?" I exclaimed.
"Can't say exactly that I have the honor of being known to him; but I know of him, right well. Why, Master Rodney, I have sailed your uncle's ships many a time, and know his gloomy old office in the city, as well as the buoy at the Nore; so you are as safe and as welcome aboard the Eugenie as if in the old Rectory-house at home."
This was pleasant intelligence, at all events; but my earnest desire was to return—a design which was not fated to be speedily gratified.
"The pain which is first felt when the infant branch is first torn from the parent tree," says Southey, in a passage of great beauty, "is one of the most poignant we have to endure through life; there are other griefs which wound more deeply, which leave behind them scars never to be effaced, which bruise the spirit and sometimes break the heart,—but never, never do we feel so much the want of love, and the keen necessity of being loved, as when we are first launched from the haven of our boyhood, into the wide and stormy sea of life!"
I felt the wrench of this separation in all its intensity for a time, and longed for the means of returning home; but for several days we passed only outward bound vessels, or others which were at such a distance that the task of signalling and speaking with them would have delayed the Eugenie longer than Captain Weston could risk. Two that passed near us, when we showed our ensign, replied by displaying the tricolor of France or the red and yellow bars of Spain; so there was nothing for me now but to remain contentedly on board the Eugenie, which was bound for Matanzas with a solid cargo of steam machinery and coal.
The master had no doubt of getting a return freight direct for London; thus six or eight months might elapse before I could return to Ellesmere.
My wardrobe was now in the most deplorable condition; but Weston and Hislop, the first mate, kindly supplied me with all that was requisite—"clothes and shirts for running rigging," as the latter said, "with twenty sovereigns for mainstays, which were sure to be well kept, as we were on board ship."
I gradually became reconciled to the novelty of my situation; I looked forward hopefully to the time when the sorrow of those I had left behind would be alleviated, and began to enjoy to the utmost the prospect of a voyage in a spanking brig to the shores of Cuba.