Harry had grown into a fine manly boy, and the more I looked at him the more convinced I felt that he was of gentle birth; he called Susan mother, and me father, though he knew that we were not his parents. He had good manners, and, considering his age, a fair amount of learning, for he used to go up every day to the captain’s to receive instruction from the children’s governess. At last the captain considered that he ought to be sent to school, and arranged that he should go with his own son, Master Reginald, who was about his age, though Harry was the strongest, and, I may say, the most manly of the two.
While I was at home I taught Harry as much as he could learn of what I may call the first principles of seamanship,—to knot and splice, and box the compass. I also built and rigged a model ship, of which he was very fond.
“You will not forget all I have taught you, my boy,” I said, when I was going off to sea.
“No, indeed I will not, father,” he answered; “and when you come back I hope I shall have learnt more, for I will do my best to pick up information from everybody who will teach me. The captain, I know, will, when I come home for the holidays, and there is old Dick Wright, who has been at sea all his life, settled near us, and he will tell me anything I ask him; though there is no one teaches me so well as you do, father.”
In those piping times of peace the ships were not kept so long in commission as they were during the war, so after serving three years as boatswain of the Huzzar frigate, on the West India and North American station, I once more returned home. I found Harry more determined than ever to go to sea, and he told me that Reginald Leslie had made up his mind to go also.
“Does his father wish it?” I asked.
“Oh yes, he has no objection to his going; and do you know, father, the captain says that he will get him and me appointed to the same ship with you, provided she is sent to a healthy station,” was the answer.
“Well, Harry, I shall be very glad to have charge of you both, and I am pleased that the captain thinks so well of you; though, to be sure, he has always shown that,” said I.
Susan was much cast down at the thoughts of losing Harry, but she could not help acknowledging that it was time he should go to sea, if he was going at all.
“But a ship’s boy has a hard life of it, as you have often told me, Ben,” she said, “and he has been gently nurtured, and brought up, I may say, like a young gentleman.”