On reaching the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, he went to the hole in the bank by Deeside, where he had left his week-day clothes, and found them all right. But before going home, instead of going down Deeside, he turned up by Scraphards to look at a laverock’s nest, which was still there. Then he went past Ferryhill House, by Dee village, and struck the water-side by the path now known as Affleck Street, and got home at breakfast time, after an absence of a week.
His mother was in. “Where ha’e ye been now, ye vagaboon?” “At my uncle’s.” “Where?” “At the Kettle.” “And ha’e ye been a’ the way to Fife, ye vagrant?” Tom then told his story; his mother following it up with a long and serious lecture. She reproached him for the dishonesty which he had committed, in taking the sixpence out of the box when he went away. “Weel, mother,” said he, “here’s the sixpence for the one I took.” He had saved the sixpence out of the eighteenpence his uncle had given him when he left Kettle. “No,” she replied, “the crime is the same after all, and you are sure to be punished for it yet.”
Then she urged him to go back to his trade, for he was far better at work than stravaigin[20] about the country like an evil-doer. Edward asked if his father would not consent now to his going to sea. She did not think he would; she thought that to go back to his work was the best thing of all. She herself would not hear a word more about his going to sea.
CHAPTER V.
RESUMES WORK.
Instead of going directly back to his work, Edward went down to the harbour to ascertain whether any of the captains would accept of his services as a sailor. He went from ship to ship for three days. Some captains were willing to take him with an indenture, which would have to be signed by his father. Others were willing to take him without his father’s consent; but in that case they required two sureties to sign the indenture. These were serious obstacles—too serious to be got over,—and on the third afternoon he left the harbour with a sorrowful heart. There were several skippers of coasting vessels, and of lime and coal hulks, who would have taken him for four years; but these were not the kind of ships that he wished to sail in.
Being thus forced, though very reluctantly, to give up all thoughts of going to sea, he now considered whether it might not be possible to learn some other trade less hateful to him than that of a shoemaker. But his parents would not hear of any change. They told him that his former master was willing to take him back, and to give him a shilling a week more during the ensuing year, and two shillings more during his last, or fifth year. But Edward strongly objected to return to the master who had so cruelly used him.
RESUMES SHOEMAKING.
Not wishing, however, to withstand his parents’ advice any longer, he at last consented to go on with his trade. But, instead of serving out his time with his former master, he found a pupil-master in Shoe Lane, who was willing to employ him, and to improve him in his business. Edward agreed to give the master, for his trouble, a percentage of his earnings, besides his pupil-money, and a share of the fire and light.