Chapter Seventeen.
It had been arranged that True Blue should visit Paul Pringle and his other friends at Emsworth before returning to his ship. The day for his leaving London was fixed. He had seen all the sights and been several times to the play; and though he thought it all very amusing, he was, in truth, beginning to get somewhat tired of the sort of life. As to Lady Elmore and her daughters, he thought them, as he said, next door to angels, and would have gone through fire and water to serve them.
One morning he awoke just as the footman walked in with a jug of hot water, and, leaving it on the washhand stand, retired without saying a word. Sir Henry had directed that he should be waited on exactly as he was himself. True Blue jumped out of bed; but when he came to put on his clothes, they had disappeared. In their stead there was a midshipman’s uniform suit, dirk, and hat, and cockade complete, while a chest stood open, containing shirts, and socks, and shoes, and a quadrant, and books—indeed, a most perfect outfit.
“There’s a mistake,” he said to himself. “They have been and brought Sir Henry’s traps in here, and John has carried off my clothes, and forgot to bring them back. I never do like ringing the bell, it seems so fine-gentleman-like. Still, if he doesn’t come, it will be the only way to get to him.” While waiting, he was looking about, when his eye fell on a paper on the dressing-table. His own name was on it. It was a document from the Admiralty, directing Mr Billy True Blue Freeborn, midshipman of H.M. frigate Ruby, to go down and join her in a week’s time. He rubbed his eyes—he read the paper over and over again; he shook himself, for he thought that he must be still in bed and asleep, and then he very nearly burst into tears.
“No, no!” he exclaimed passionately; “it’s what I don’t want to be. I can’t be and won’t be. I’ll not go and be above Paul, and Abel, and Peter, and Tom, which I should be if I was on the quarterdeck: I shouldn’t be one of them any longer. I couldn’t mess with them and talk with them, as I have always done. I know my place; I like Sir Henry and many of the other young gentlemen very much, and even Mr Nott, though he does play curious pranks now and then; but I never wished to be one of them, and what’s more, I won’t, and so my mind is made up.”
Just then he saw another document on the table. It was a letter addressed to him. He opened it and found that it came from Paul Pringle. It began:
“Dear Godson,—That you must always be to me. Who should come to see me first, as I left the hospital, but our Captain—bless him! He tells me there is talk of putting you on the quarterdeck. Now, that’s what I never wished for you, any more than your own father did. His last words were, ‘Let him be brought up as a true British seaman.’
“That’s what your other godfathers and I have done for you—as you’ll allow, Billy. Well, as to the quarterdeck idea, we all met and had a talk about it. The long and the short of what we came to is, that you must do as you wish. A man may, we allow, be on the quarterdeck, and yet be a true British sailor all over. Many of our officers are such, no doubt of it, every inch of them; but whether a man is the happier or the better for being an officer, without being in the way born to it—that’s the question. We wouldn’t stand in your way, Billy, only we feel that we shouldn’t be to each other what we were. We don’t say that it ought to make a great difference, but it would. That’s the conclusion we’ve come to. Bless you heartily, boy, we all say, whatever course you steer.—Your loving godfather, Paul Pringle.”
True Blue read the epistle over several times. Though signed by Pringle, it had partly been written by Abel Bush, and partly by Peter Ogle. It contained a postscript, inviting him to come down to Emsworth, whatever the determination he might come to, as his many friends there were anxious to see him.
The mention of his old friends roused up thoughts and feelings in which, for some time past, he had not indulged. Both Peter Ogle and Abel Bush were married men, with large families. With them he felt how perfectly at home and happy he should be. One of them, too, Mary Ogle, though rather younger than himself, had always been his counsellor and friend, and had also materially assisted in giving him the amount of knowledge he possessed in reading and writing. Had it not been for her, he confessed that he would have remained a sad dunce.