Finally, when he found that abuse had no effect upon the stout boatswain, he drew back, and made a desperate plunge at his heavy opponent. Peaks caught him by the shoulders, and lifted him off his feet like a baby. Taking him in his arms, with one hand over his mouth, to smother his cries, he bore him to the waist, where his yells could not be heard by his mother.
“Be quiet, little one,” said Peaks, as he seated himself on the main-hatch, and twined his long legs around those of the prisoner, so that he was held as fast as though he had been in the folds of an anaconda. “Hold still, now, and I’ll spin you a sea-yarn. Once on a time there was a little boy that wanted to go to sea—”
“Let me go, or I’ll kill you!” sputtered Clyde; but the boatswain covered his mouth again, and silenced him.
“Kill me! That would be wicked. But I’m not a mosquito, to be cracked in the fingers of such a dear little boy as you are. But you snapped off my yarn; and if you don’t hold still, I can’t spin it ship-shape.”
Clyde had well nigh exhausted his breath in his fruitless struggle, and before his sister went far enough forward to see him, he was tolerably calm, because he had no more strength to resist. Then the boatswain told his story of a boy that wanted to go to sea, but found that he could not have his own way on board the ship.
In the cabin, Mrs. Blacklock told a pitiful story of the wilfulness of her son; that she was obliged to do just as he said, and if he wanted anything, however absurd it might be, she was obliged to give it to him, or he made the house too “hot” for her. Her husband had died when the children were small, and the whole care of them had devolved on her. Clyde had made her miserable for several years. She had sent him to several celebrated schools; but he had got into trouble immediately, and she had been compelled to take him away, to prevent him from killing himself and her, as she expressed it. Her husband had left her a handsome property, but she was afraid her son would spend it all, or compel her to do so, before he became of age.
Mr. Lowington repeated only what most of her friends had told her before—that her weak indulgence would be the ruin of the boy; that he needed a strong arm. He was willing to take him into the Academy ship, but he must obey all the rules and follow all the regulations. The perplexed mother realized the truth of all he said.
“You will take him as an officer—won’t you, sir?” she asked, when she had in a measure reconciled herself to the discipline proposed.
“Certainly not, madam,” replied the principal. “If he ever becomes an officer, he must work himself up to that position, as the other students do.”
“But you could let him have one of the rooms in the cabin. I am willing to pay extra for his tuition.”