“But I have engaged to sail with Captain Hawk, and he seems a fair-spoken man,” I urged.
“If you choose to trust to his fair speeches more than to my blunt warnings, I cannot help it,” he answered. “I have done my best to open your eyes for you to his true character. If you persist in following your own counsel, you will soon have to open them yourself very wide, when it is too late.”
I liked the tone of the master’s voice, as well as the expression of his countenance; and I therefore felt inclined to believe him. At the same time I did not like to be moved, as it were, from my purpose by every breath of wind.
“I promised to sail with Captain Hawk, or whatever may be his name; and though I cannot doubt but that you have good reason for what you say, sir, yet I don’t like to desert him, without some proof that he is the character you describe him,” I replied.
“Did he tell you what trade he was in?” asked the captain.
“No, sir,” I replied; “he said nothing about it.”
“Then be guided by me, youngster, and don’t ship with him,” he said, speaking most earnestly. “You may make every inquiry about my brig—the Susannah, Captain Samuel Searle. You will find all is clear and above-board with me. I want hands, I own, and I should be glad to have you, but that does not influence me in what I say.”
The shopkeeper corroborated all Captain Searle had told me, and added so many other stories of the character of Captain Hawk and his schooner, that I felt truly glad there was yet time to escape from him. Bad as he might be, there was something in his manner which made me wish not to desert him altogether, without offering him some excuse for my conduct. I accordingly, leaving my bundle in the shop, went back to the quay, where I found him lounging as before. He at first did not know me in my change of dress when I accosted him.
“You are a likely lad for a sailor,” he remarked, as he ran his eye over me approvingly.
“I am glad you think so,” I answered; and I then told him I had met the master of a vessel whom I had known in Liverpool, and that I wished to sail with him.