Harry Tryon in his new home had the sea constantly before his eyes. Sometimes he saw it blue and laughing, and dotted over with the white canvas of numerous vessels glistening in the sunshine. At other times the stout ships were tossed by tempests, or doing battle with the foaming waves. Often the boy longed for the life of a sailor, to go forth over that broad unknown ocean in search of adventure; but the old lady would not hear of it. It was the only wish in which she thwarted him: she usually spoiled him, and gave him everything he asked for, especially if he cried loud enough for it. But he was now getting too old to cry for what he wanted, and he must take some other means to obtain his wishes. Poor Harry! his nursery life had been a checkered one; sometimes shut up by himself in a dark room, sometimes almost starved and frightened to death; at others pampered, stuffed with rich food, exhibited in the drawing-room as a prodigy, his vanity excited, and allowed to do exactly as he listed. Perhaps one style of treatment checked the bad effects of the other.
Lynderton stood on the bank of a small river. Harry had no difficulty in obtaining a boat, in which he learned to row. Lady Tryon did not know how he was employed, or she would probably have sent for him, and kept him driving about in her musk-smelling carriage, which Harry hated. As he grew older he managed to get trips in fishing vessels, on board small traders which ran between the neighbouring ports, and sometimes he got a trip on board a revenue cruiser—the old “Rose,” well known on the coast. There were not many yachts in those days; but two or three of the people residing at Lynderton had small vessels, and Harry was always a welcome guest on board them. His love for the sea was thus partially gratified and fostered, and he became a first-rate hand in a boat or yacht. Still he yearned for something else.
One day he was standing on the quay at the foot of the town, when a stout sailor lad stopped near him, and putting out his hand exclaimed: “Well, Master Harry! I did not know you at first: you are grown so. You’re looking out for a sail down the river, I’ll warrant?”
“You are right, Jacob,” answered Harry, shaking the proffered hand. “I have not had a sniff of salt water for the last week. But where have you been all this time?”
“I have been to sea, Master Harry—to foreign lands—and if you are so minded I will help you to take a trip there, too.”
“You have not been away long enough to go to any foreign lands that I know of, except perhaps the coast of France or to Holland,” observed Harry.
“That’s just where I have been, Master Harry, and if you like to come down along the quay I will show you the craft I went in. She’s not one a seaman need be ashamed of, let me tell you.”
Harry accompanied his friend. Jacob Tuttle had been one of Harry’s first companions in a boat, and he indeed taught him to row. As he was six or eight years older than Harry, the latter looked at him with great respect, and considered him an accomplished seaman. He was, indeed, a good specimen of the British sailor of those days, brave, open-hearted, and generous, but with the smallest possible amount of judgment or discretion. Harry accompanied him along the bank of the river for some distance.
“There! what do you think of her?” asked Jacob, pointing to a wonderfully long, narrow lugger which lay alongside the wooden quay or jetty. “She measures 120 feet from the tip of her bowsprit to the end of her outrigger, and she sails like the wind. We pull forty oars, and there is no revenue cutter can come near us, blow high or blow low.” The vessel at which Harry and his companion were looking was indeed a beautiful craft. She had fore and aft cuddies for sleeping berths, and was open amid-ships “for the stowage of 2,000 kegs of spirits,” Jacob whispered in Harry’s ear. “Would you not like to take a trip in her, Master Harry?”
Harry confessed that he should like it very much.