The time passed by rapidly enough—too rapidly, granny thought, when the day came for her to say good-bye to Teddy; but he was nothing loth to go, longing to be on board the Greenock as one belonging to her of right, and feel himself really at sea.
Granny wanted him to have another little dog in place of Puck; however, he couldn’t make up his mind to a substitute to supersede the former animal’s hold on his affections. Besides this, Uncle Jack said the captain did not allow anybody to have dogs on board, and that was a clincher to the argument at once.
Monday morning came, and with it another railway journey. It really seemed to Teddy as if he were “on the line,” like Jupp!
The Greenock, having taken in all her cargo, had been warped out of dock and then towed down the river to Gravesend, where she was now lying moored in the stream off the Lobster.
“There she is!” cried Uncle Jack when they got down to the beach.
“Where?” asked Teddy, not recognising the dirty untidy hulk he had seen in the docks, as she first appeared to him before he was taken on board and noticed the elegance of her cabins, in the thing of beauty he saw now before him; with every spar in its place and snow-white canvas extended in peaceful folds from the yards, as the vessel lay at anchor with her topsails dropped and her courses half clewed up, ready to spread her wings like an ocean bird.
What a change there was in her!
“Look, right in front there, laddie,” said Uncle Jack. “Can’t you see? She’s just about making-sail, so we’d better get on board as soon as possible. Hi, boatman, seen any one belonging to the Greenock ashore?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered the man addressed, “her boat’s just over there by the p’int, just agoin’ to shove off.”
“Thank you, my hearty,” said Uncle Jack, giving him a trifle for the information; and in another minute or so Teddy found himself in the Greenock’s jolly-boat in company with a lot of the new hands, like himself, going off to join the ship. Here on his arrival on board, he was introduced to Captain Lennard, the monarch of all he surveyed as far as the deck of the Greenock was concerned, and his future commander.