"Is it too late to patch it up? Can't we charter a hack and overhaul Stanley P. and tell him the prodigal is ashamed of the error of his ways?"
"He is not that kind," said David. "He will never speak to me again. I jolted his pride and he is done with me for good. Oh, but I did try to do what was right. And I've done wrong to my best and dearest friends."
"I begin to think you were born to trouble as the sparks fly upward," was Mr. Becket's dreary comment.
CHAPTER V MID FOG AND ICE
A year had passed since David Downes lay grieving in the hospital over the great chance he had let slip to help mend the fortunes of Captain Bracewell and Margaret. The cadet no longer dreamed of giving up his life's work on the sea. He had sailed twelve voyages in the Roanoke, which every month ploughed her stately way across the Atlantic and return, through six thousand miles of hazards. Cadets had come and gone. Few of them who sought to make their careers in this way had the grit and patience to endure the machine-like routine in which advancement lay years and years ahead. But David had begun to understand the meaning of this slow process by which his mind was being taught to act with sure judgment, and he saw how very much there was to learn and suffer before a man could win the mastery of the sea.
Because he was strong, quick, and obedient, the navigating officers took a genuine interest in his welfare. They had begun to teach him the uses of their instruments and books. He knew the language of the fluttering signal flags by day and the sputtering Coston lights and winking lamps by night. The taffrail log and the Thompson sounding machine were no longer blind mysteries, and much of his leisure was spent in the chart room. The bos'n taught him what few tricks of old-fashioned seamanship were left to learn in a vessel whose spars were no more than cargo derricks. The cadet had begun to know the liner, the vast and intricate organization, whose ever-throbbing life extended through eight stories that were like so many hotels, machine shops, and factories. And he realized what it must mean to be that calm and ever-ready man in the captain's cabin, whose mind was in touch with every one of these myriad activities by night and day.
Meanwhile David had become more and more fond of and intimate with his sea waifs of the Pilgrim. Every time the Roanoke wove her way back to New York, like a giant shuttle plying over a vast blue carpet, the cadet was with Margaret and her grandfather as often as he was allowed ashore. Captain Bracewell had not found the ship for which he yearned, but his former owners had given him a berth as stevedore on their wharf, and in faithful drudgery he earned a living and a home for Margaret.