“I can’t think what ever could have made you want to come out here,” said Archie, as they continued to follow up the still distant hunters.
“What was it made yourself want to come out, lad?” asked the sailor.
“It wasn’t me that wanted to come. It was father, you know, an’ of course I had to follow,” said the boy in a tone which induced his friend to say hastily, and in a tone of sympathy—
“Ah, poor lad, I forgot you was a orphing. Well, you see, I think it must ha’ bin a love o’ change or a love o’ discontent, or suthin’ o’ that sort, as brought me cruising in these here waters, for I can’t say what else it was. You see I was born a sort o’ ro–oh—”
“Look out! a badger-hole!” shouted the boy.
His warning would have been too late, but the chestnut fortunately leaped over the danger instead of stumbling into it, and its rider was only partially shaken out of his seat.
“It’s well,” he said, when fairly settled down again to an easy gallop, “that the tiller-ropes are stout else I’d ha’ bin over the starn this time instead of out on the bowsprit. Let me see, what was I sayin’ of?”
“Somethin’ about your bein’ born a sort of ‘ro–oh—,’ though what that may be I haven’t a notion.”
“Ah! jist so—I was born a sort o’ rover (when this long-legged brute took the badger-hole), an’ I’ve bin to every quarter o’ the globe a’most, but if I’d lived to the age o’ Methooslum I’d never ha’ thought o’ comin’ here,—for the good reason that I knowed nothin’ o’ its existence,—if I hadn’t by chance in a furrin port fallen in wi’ André Morel, an’ took an uncommon fancy to him. You see, at the time, I was—well, I was no better nor I should be; p’raps a deal wuss, an’ Morel he meets me, an’ says—‘Hallo, my lad,’ says he, ‘where away?’
“I looked at him gruff-like a moment or two, for it seemed to me he was raither too familiar for a stranger, but he’s got such a pleasant, hearty look with him—as you know—that I couldn’t feel riled with ’im, so ‘I’m goin’ on the spree,’ says I.