“Yes, laddie, it’s true enough, for I’ve taken the pains to find it out for a fact from a friend o’ mine at head-quarters. Th’ Admiralty allers give an annual ’lowance for the support of the childer o’ them officers as is killed in action, that is when their folks are left badly off; and some one must ha’ put up your uncle to this, for he took precious good care to draw it every year you was along o’ him.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” I exclaimed, joyfully. “I only wish, though, I had known it before, so that I could have thrown it back in Aunt Matilda’s teeth when she used to tell me that I was robbing her children of their bread every meal I took in the house, taunting me with being only a pauper!”
“Never mind that now,” said Sam Pengelly—quite his composed, calm, genial self again, after the little ebullition he had given way to on my behalf. “Better let byegones be byegones. It is a good sailin’ direction to go upon in this world; for your cross old aunt will be sartin to get paid out some time or other for her treatment o’ you, I’ll wager! Howsomedevers, I’m glad we’ve got that letter from your uncle, though. You see, laddie, it cuts them adrift altogether from any claim on you; and now, if you be so minded, you can chuck in your lot with old Sam and his sister—that is, unless you want to sheer off and part company, and desart us?”
“Oh no, I’ll never do that if I can help it,” I replied, earnestly. “Why, I did not know what it was to be happy and cared for till I met you, and you brought me here to your home. I shall never willingly, now, leave you here—that is, except you want me to.”
“Then, that’ll be never,” said he, with an emphasis and a kindly smile that showed his were no empty words.
Nor did they prove to be as time rolled on.
For many months after that casual meeting of ours on the Hoe, which I little thought was going to lead to such happy consequences, the little cottage at Stoke was my home in winter and summer alike; when Nature was gay in her spring dress, and when dreary autumn came; although, it was never dreary to me, no matter what the season might be.
In the summer months I used generally to accompany Sam in the short trading trips he made in a little foretopsail schooner—of which he was the registered owner, and generally took the command—when we would fetch a compass for Falmouth or Torquay, and other small western ports; between which places and Plymouth the schooner went to and fro when wind and weather permitted.
Sometimes, tempted by the inducement that early potatoes and green peas were plentiful and cheap at Saint Mary’s, Sam would venture out as far as the Scilly Isles; and once, a most memorable voyage, we made a round trip in the little craft to the Bristol Channel and back—facing all the perils of the “twenty-two fathom sandbank” off Cape Cornwall, with its heavy tumbling sea.
This was not time wasted on my part; for I had not forgotten my ambition of being a sailor, and now, under Sam Pengelly’s able tuition I was thoroughly initiated into all the practical details of seamanship, albeit I had not yet essayed life on board ship in an ocean-going vessel.