"So you feel as if you'd been unlucky, do you?"
"Yes, sir," rejoined Tad; "everything's gone agen me from the first; I can't think why."
"Shall I tell you?" asked Jeremiah, a kind, pitying look coming into his blue eyes, and making his big broad face almost beautiful; "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Then, seeing that Tad did not understand, he added, "When we set out on a wrong and dangerous road, lad, we can scarce wonder—it seems to me—if we meets with ill luck. S'posin' now, that instead of gettin' out my chart and studyin' my course, careful and sure, I just let the ship drive afore the wind, whose fault would it be, think you, Teddie Poole, if we run slap up agen a rock and come to be a wreck? But judgin' from what you've been tellin' me, that's very like what you done."
Tad was silent. Deep down in his heart, where his conscience was awakening, he felt the truth of what the skipper said.
Jeremiah Jackson went on:
"I know it's been very hard for you, my poor boy. I don't wonder you wanted to run away from home, nor I don't blame you for doin' it—things bein' as they was. But the trick you played on your stepmother was a mean thing, and it's out of this wrong-doin' that all the rest of the bad things has come, makin' of you a thief and a vagabond."
"Yes, sir, that's so, but what am I to do now?"
"Well," said the skipper, "maybe you won't relish what I'm goin' to say, but if I was you I'd ask this here old Jeremiah Jackson to carry me back to England when he sails from Granville in a week's time for Southampton. And then, lad, I'd make the best of my way home again—even if I had to tramp it; and I'd tell the bobbies and my dad too the whole truth, and take brave and patient anything as comes after, whether it be the lock-up or a good hidin'. No, Teddie Poole, don't look at me so! That would be the straight, right, manly thing to do, and what's more, it would be the Christian thing too."
Tad hung his head. Jeremiah Jackson had asked a hard thing, a very hard thing. And yet the good man's words had touched him; he felt the skipper was right. But he shrank from all that he felt sure awaited him at home. The thought of his stepmother's relentless wrath daunted him. He could almost see her frowning, hateful face, and hear his father's stern voice and hard words. All that he must do and suffer if he took the course suggested to him, came to his mind now, and overwhelmed him with dread.
"Think it out, lad, to-night," said Jeremiah, "and ask the good Lord Who ain't far—so the Scripture says—from anyone of us, to help you to do the right, and leave the rest with Him."