“Dick Cheveley!” he cried out, looking at me still harder; “Dick Cheveley on board this ship! And yet it must be; and are you really Dick Cheveley?”
“I don’t believe I’m anybody else, though I have sometimes fancied I must be.”
“Yes, yes, I see you’re Master Cheveley,” cried Mark, “though I can’t say I feel much happier to see you for your own sake, though I’m right glad for mine to have you with me,” taking my hand and grasping it. “Oh, Master Cheveley, what did bring you aboard?”
I briefly told him while I was discussing the food he brought me.
“It’s a bad business for you, Master Dick,” he said; “but the only thing now to be done is to make the best of it. They’re a precious bad lot, and the captain and officers are no better. I’ve made up my mind to run as soon as I can, and I’d advise you to do the same.”
“That I certainly will when I have somewhere to run to, but at present it seems we should have to run overboard,” I answered.
“We must wait until we get into harbour. We shall have to touch at a good many places, and if we keep our wits about us we shall manage it one way or another.”
“We’ll talk about that by-and-by, but tell me how you happened to be here. I heard that you had been sent on board a man-of-war,” I said.
“So I was, and I wish I had remained aboard her, too; but as I had been sent against my will, I cut and run on the first chance I got. She was the ‘Beagle’ sloop of war. We were ordered to cruise on the Irish coast. We were not far off the town of Belfast, when a boat’s crew to which I belonged pulled ashore under charge of a mid-shipmite. While he went into a house to deliver a message, I ran off as fast as my legs could carry me. I at last reached a cottage in which there was a whiteheaded old fellow, a girl, and two young men. I told them that I had been pressed and ill-treated, and was trying to make my escape from the cruelty of the English. The young men said at once that they would protect me, and would answer that I should not be retaken. The old man warned them that they were playing a dangerous game, and said that he would have nothing to do with the business, advising them to take me back to the boat. The girl, however, pleaded for me, and observed that now I had run, my punishment would be ten times greater, and that it would be cruel and inhospitable to refuse me shelter. She prevailed on her old grandfather. That evening the young men took me down aboard a little ‘hooker,’ which they said was just going to sail for Liverpool, and that if I liked I could go in her. Her cargo, they said, was timber and fruit, but turned out to be faggots and potatoes. I knew that at Liverpool there was no chance of being discovered, and I at once agreed. We reached the Mersey in a couple of days. As ill-luck would have it, I landed close to where the ‘Emu’ was getting ready for sea. Knowing that I could not venture to return home, I went on board and asked if a boy was wanted. The first mate at once said yes, as one of the apprentices had cut and run and could not be found. I thought I was in good luck, but we hadn’t been to sea many days before I found that I had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire. The other apprentice, poor Jack Drage, told me that he had been kicked and cuffed from the first moment that he had stepped on board, and that if he had had any friends on shore, he’d have taken French leave as the other had done. Things had grown worse instead of better, and he was already weary of his life. I advised him not to give in; that in time things must mend; but he was a poor-hearted fellow and only wrung his hands and cried, declaring that he was utterly miserable. I did my best to keep up his spirits, but it was all of no use. One night during a gale we had soon after sailing, he disappeared. Whether he had thrown himself overboard into the sea, or been knocked overboard no one could tell. Of course it was entered in the log that he had been knocked overboard. In my opinion he sacrificed his life rather than endure his miseries. I told the first mate so, and he knocked me down. The next time he called me a sulky rascal, but I answered that I was not going to do away with myself like Jack Drage, and that I would make a complaint of him to the British Consul whenever we touched at a port. On this he knocked me down again. I know that I was taken with the sulks, and for days afterwards didn’t speak to him or any one else; but as I had no wish to be killed, I did what I was ordered to do, and got on somewhat better. Ever since that not a day passes that I don’t get a kick or have a marline-spike hove at my head by either the officers or men forward. They’re all very much alike for that matter, except Tom Trivett, and he’s as good a fellow as ever lived. He has a hard life of it, for the men are always playing him tricks; and the officers spite him, and are constantly making him do dirty jobs which no able seaman should be called on to perform. But, I say, I mustn’t stand talking here any longer, or I shall be suspected of being your friend. Don’t let any one find out that we know each other, and we shall get on all the better. I’ll tell Tom Trivett, and he’ll bring you the coffee if I can’t manage it; meanwhile you stay quiet in the bunk, even if you feel well enough to get up.”
“There is no chance of my being able to do that for some days,” I answered, “for I don’t think I could stand if I were to try.”