Nancy, however, now and then got up and gave my clothes a turn to dry them faster—a delicate attention which I duly appreciated. Mr Riddle, who was evidently fond of spinning yarns, as most old sailors are, narrated a number of his adventures, which greatly interested me, and made me more than ever wish to go to sea. Mark had already made a trip in a coaster to the north of England, and I was much surprised to hear him say that he had had enough of it.
“It is not all gold that glitters,” he remarked. “I fancied that I was to become a sailor all at once, instead of that I was made to clean out the cabin, attend on the skipper, and wash up the pots and the pans for the cook, and be at everybody’s beck and call, with a rope’s-end for my reward whenever I was not quick enough to please my many masters.”
“That’s what most youngsters have to put up with when they first go to sea,” remarked his father. “You should not have minded it, my lad.”
I found that Mark’s great ambition was to become the owner of a fishing-boat, when he could live at home and be his own master. He was fonder of fishing than anything else, and when he could not get out to sea he passed much of his time with his rod and lines on the banks of the Squire’s ponds, or on those of others in the neighbourhood. He did not consider it poaching, as he asserted he had a perfect right to catch fish wherever he could find them, and I suspect that his father was of the same opinion, for he did not in any way find fault with him. When breakfast was over Mark exhibited with considerable pride a small model of a vessel which he and his father had cut out of a piece of pine, and rigged in a very perfect manner. I was delighted with her appearance, and said I should like to have a similar craft.
“Well, Master Cheveley, I’ll cut one out for you as soon as I can get a piece of wood fit for the purpose,” said the old sailor; “and when Mark and I have rigged her I’ll warrant she’ll sail faster than any other craft of her size which you can find far or near.”
“Thank you,” I answered, “I shall be very pleased to have her; and perhaps we can get up a regatta, and Mark must bring his vessel. I feel sure he or I will carry off the prize.”
As I wanted to get home, dreading the jobation I should get from Aunt Deb for not making my appearance at prayer-time, I begged my friends to let me put on my own clothes. They were tolerably dry by this time, though the shoes were still wet, but that was of no consequence.
“Well, Master Dick, we shall always be glad to see you. Whenever you come this way give us a call,” said the old sailor, as I was preparing to wish him, his wife and daughter good-bye.
I shook hands all round, and Mark accompanied me part of the way home. I parted from him as if he had been an old friend, indeed I was really grateful to him for the way in which he had saved my life, as I believed he had done, when he drove off the enraged swan.