“I don’t know, sir,” replied old Thomas. “Some smart young fellow dressed as a sailor. I’ve showed him into your room, sir.”
“Go and see who it is, Johnny.”
It was summer-time, and we were at home at Dyke Manor. I went on to the little square room. You have been in it too. Opposite the Squire’s old bureau and underneath the map of Warwickshire on the wall, sat the sailor. He had good blue clothes on and a turned-down white collar, and held a straw hat in his hand. Where had I seen the face? A very red-brown honest face, with a mouth as wide as Molly’s rolling-pin. Wider, now that it was smiling.
He stood up, and turned his straw hat about a little nervously. “You’ve forgotten me, Master Johnny. Mark Ferrar, please, sir.”
Mark Ferrar it was, looking shorter and broader; and I put out my hand to him. I take my likes and dislikes, as you have already heard, and can’t help taking them; and Ferrar was one whom I had always liked.
“Please, sir, I’ve made bold to come over here,” he went on. “Captain Sanker’s left Worcester, they tell me, and I can’t hear where he is to be found: and the Teals, they have left. I’ve brought news to him from his son, Mr. Dan: and father said I had better come over here and tell it, and maybe Squire Todhetley might get it sent to the captain.”
“Have you seen anything of Mr. Dan, then?”
“I’ve been with him nearly all the time, Master Johnny. We served on the same ship: he as middy and I as working apprentice. Not but what the middies are apprenticed just as sure as we are. They don’t do our rough work, the cleaning and that, and they mess apart; but that’s pretty nigh all the difference.”
“And how are you getting on, Mark?”
“First-rate, sir. The captain and officers are satisfied with me, and when I’ve served my four years I shall go up to pass for second mate. I try to improve myself a bit in general learning at odd moments too, sir, seeing I didn’t have much. It may be of use to me if I ever get up a bit in life. Mr. Dan——”