Chapter Three.
The shipwrecked stranger had taken his departure; he had paid the doctor, and sent a present to the coast-guard men who had assisted to carry him to the house; but he had not offered to remunerate the lieutenant or Tom for the service they had rendered him, though he feelingly expressed his gratitude to them. Perhaps he considered, and he was not wrong in so doing, that they not only did not require a reward for performing an act of humanity, but would have felt hurt had it been offered them.
The next morning the lieutenant and Ned started on a walk along the cliffs to inquire at Longview station about the coast-guard man who had nearly been killed on the night of the wreck. The sky was clear, the blue ocean slumbered below their feet, the gentle ripples which played over it sparkling in the bright rays of the sun. A large vessel, with a wide spread of canvas, was gliding majestically by on her way down channel. Ned gazed at her with a wistful eye.
“I wish that I were on board that fine craft,” he said at length. “I am very happy at home, and I don’t want to leave you and Aunt Sally and Mary, but I feel that I ought to be doing something for myself. You and my father went to sea before you were as old as I am. I don’t like to be idle and a burden to you. If you did not disapprove of it, I would go before the mast and work my way up—many have done so who are now masters in the merchant service; though, as you know, I would rather go into the navy, but from what you tell me that is out of the question. The owners of your old ship would, I dare say, take me as an apprentice; I’ll try and do my duty, and learn to be a sailor so as to become an officer as soon as possible.”
“You look far ahead; but it is all right, my boy, and I am very sure of one thing, that you will do your duty and reap the reward, whatever happens. I’ll write to Clew, Earring and Grummet, and ask them if they have a vacancy for you. Jack Clew, who was once in the navy, was a messmate of mine on board the old ‘Thunderer’ when I lost my leg at ‘Navarin’,” (so the lieutenant always pronounced Navarino, the action fought by the British fleet under Sir Edward Codrington with that of the Turks and Egyptians). “Jack used to profess a willingness to serve me, but, Ned, we must not trust too much to old friends. Times alter, and he may find he has applicants nearer at hand whose relatives have longer purses than I have. Don’t fear, however, my boy, something may turn up, as it always does, if we seek diligently to get it and wait with patience.”
Ned did not then press the matter further; his spirits were buoyant, and although his uncle’s remarks were not calculated to raise them, he was not disheartened.
Edward Garth, the lieutenant’s nephew, was the son of a younger sister, who had married a friend and messmate, a lieutenant in the same noble service in which he had spent his best days. They had served together in several ships up to the time that Garth was stricken down with fever up an African river, their ship then forming one of the blockading squadron on the west coast, when he committed his infant boy to his brother-in-law’s care. “I am sure that you will look after him for our poor Fanny’s sake; but she is delicate, and I know not what effect my death will have on her. At all events, he will be fatherless, and she, poor girl, will find it a hard matter to manage a spirited lad.”
“Do not let that thought trouble you, Ned,” answered Lieutenant Pack; “Fanny’s child shall ever be as if he were my own son. I promised to keep house with Sally, and Fanny shall come and live with us. A better soul than Sally does not exist, though I, who am her brother, say so.”