“And you, Hawse, are a carpenter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you seems likely, and I’ll keep you a day or two. Come along with me,” and opening a door he went into a long room, at one end of which was a sort of stage, where a man was roaring out a song to the accompaniment of an old fiddler, and which was full of sailors drinking and smoking and eating.
In one corner of this room was a narrow staircase, up which our conductor took us, and after passing through rooms full of beds, up other flights of stairs, and along passages, we came at last to a small den or cupboard, whose sloping ceiling told us it was close under the roof. Here the man with the red waistcoat told us we could sleep, and giving us a blanket to wrap ourselves in, shut and locked the door, leaving us in the dark.
Bill and I were too frightened to say much, so we rolled ourselves up in the blanket as best we might, and tried to sleep.
Next day we feared we had been forgotten, for we heard all sorts of noises below us, but no one came near us, and we began to think we had done a very foolish thing in running away, as in the workhouse, though the food was not always to our taste, still there was enough, and it came at regular hours.
We tried to attract attention by hammering at the door and shouting, and when that was of no avail we tried to find some means of getting out; but we could not find any, for the whole of the place was carefully boarded.
At last we heard voices and footsteps outside, and the man with the red waistcoat opened the door and said to some one who accompanied him: “There, you can lie hid there till she’s sailed; it’s the snuggest stow in the place. Why,” said he in astonishment, “there’s them two kids. Blow my eyes, I’d forgotten them. D’ye think your old man would give anything for them?”
The newcomer, who was a sailor of a somewhat forbidding aspect, said, “I shouldn’t wonder; boys is useful. He might give a sov. or two for the pair, and what with kit and advances, as he calls it, make ’em work the v’yge for nought.”
“That’ll do; when d’ye say the Golden Fleece sails?”