His uncle, he told me, had a foreign agency here; and the old gentleman having written home to his mother offering Tom a situation, he had at once been sent out at his own wish, preferring such a life greatly to that of going to the university and afterwards having to take holy orders, that being the only opening held out to him in England.
Tom also related that the Doctor had become a bankrupt, and the school broken up; but I was unable to hear anything further about the scene of my past misdeeds and experiences of “pandying” and “way of his own” of my former master, for while we were yet chatting together, Captain Giles came up, saying he was going off to the Jackmal at once, and would like Jorrocks and myself to come on board with him, as he intended sailing that afternoon.
So, wishing Tom good-bye, before many hours were over I was again floating on the deep.
From Valparaiso, we sailed to Sydney; then, taking a cargo of all sorts of “notions,” as the Yankees say, we went on to Singapore; going thence to Bombay, in ballast. From India we proceeded back again to Australia, going to Melbourne this time; finally coming home to England, round the Cape of Good Hope—a good two years after I joined my new ship; for it was in October that I landed in Liverpool, while I had started away from Cardiff in the Esmeralda two years and five months previously exactly.
I was, however, all the better for my absence; for I had saved up over a hundred and fifty pounds, and I had grown a big strapping chap, with whiskers and beard in a small way, of which I was very proud.
Need it be asked where I first bent my steps on leaving my ship at Liverpool?
Why, to Plymouth, of course!
I got there early in the morning; and, being acquainted with Sam Pengelly’s every-day practice, I knew exactly where to come across him, that is, unless he should happen to be ill; for every morning—except Sunday, when he always went to church, unless he chanced to be on board his little foretopsail schooner, which was not likely at this time of the year—he was invariably to be found on the Hoe, seated on one of the benches in front of Esplanade Terrace, looking over at the vessels out in the Sound, below and beyond.
Here I sought him; and here I found him, sure enough!
He did not see me coming; so, going behind the seat on which he was sitting, I clapped him suddenly on the back, exclaiming at the same time, in slight paraphrase of his old address to me that memorable December day when I first heard his friendly voice—