He glanced along the north shore to the little fishing hamlet of Arbigland where he lived. He saw that the tide had come in rapidly while he slept, and that the path to the shore was now covered. He stood up and stretched his bare arms, brown with sunburn, high over his head. Then he started to climb down from the ledge by the jutting points of rock.
He was as sure-footed as any mountaineer. His clothes were old, so neither rock nor sea could do them much harm; his feet were bare. He was short but very broad, and his muscles were strong and supple. When he came to the foot of the rock he stood a moment, hunting for the deepest pool at its base, then, loosing his hold, he dove into the water.
In a few seconds he was up again, floating on his back; and a little later he struck out, swimming hand over hand, toward a sandy beach to the south.
A young man, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant in the British navy, stood on the beach, watching the boy swim. When the latter had landed and shaken the water from him much as a dog would, the man approached him. “Where on earth did you come from, John Paul?� he asked with a laugh. “The first thing I knew I saw you swimming in from sea.�
“I was out on the rock asleep,� said the boy. “The tide came up and cut me off. And oh, Lieutenant Pearson, I had the strangest dream! I dreamt I was in the middle of a great sea fight. I was captain of a ship, and her yard-arms were on fire, and we were pouring broadsides into the enemy, afraid any minute that we’d sink. How we did fight that ship.�
The young officer’s eyes glowed. “And I hope you may some day, John!� he exclaimed.
“But the strangest part was that our ship didn’t fly the English flag,� said the boy. “At the masthead was a flag I’d never seen, red and white with a blue field filled with stars in the corner. What country’s flag is that?�
Pearson thought for a moment. “There’s no such flag,� he said finally. “I know them all, and there’s none like that. The rest of your dream may come true, but not that about the flag. Come, let’s be walking back to Arbigland.�
Although John Paul’s father came of peaceful farmer and fisher folk who lived about Solway Firth, his mother had been a “Highland lassie,� descended from one of the fighting clans in the Grampian Hills. The boy had much of the Highlander’s love of wild adventure, and found it hard to live the simple life of the fishing village. The sea appealed to him, and he much preferred it to the small Scotch parish school. His family were poor, and as soon as he was able he was set to steering fishing yawls and hauling lines. At twelve he was as sturdy and capable as most boys at twenty.
Many men in Arbigland had heard John Paul beg his father to let him cross the Solway to the port of Whitehaven and ship on some vessel bound for America, where his older brother William had found a new home. But his father saw no opening for his younger son in such a life. All the way back to town that afternoon the boy told Lieutenant Pearson of his great desire, and the young officer said he would try to help him.