There were several other boys on board the frigate, among whom, naturally, True Blue took the lead. He was good-natured to all of them. If they quarrelled with him, as some would, and would insist on having it out with him in a fight with fists, he generally managed to make them very cautious about trying the same experiment again.
There was one big fellow, Gregory Gipples by name, who set himself up as a sort of leader among the other boys as soon as he came on board, though he had never before been at sea. He was a big hulking fellow; and as he had a certain amount of cleverness about him, he tried to make it appear that he knew a great deal more about things than he really did. True Blue instinctively discovered that he was a braggart and inclined to be a bully.
Another boy was of a totally different character. At first sight, so delicate did he look that it seemed surprising that little Harry Hartland had been allowed to come to sea at all. But boys were wanted, and the officers who had to pass them were not very particular; besides, on further examination, Harry was stronger than he looked, and the bright expression of his countenance showed that he would probably make up by intelligence what he lacked in physical power. He had also been carefully and religiously educated, and his habits were very refined compared with those of most of the other boys. They soon learned to call him “Gentleman Harry,” though he did not seem pleased with the appellation. He was very silent as to his own early history. He said that his mother was a widow, and that he did not remember his father. He knew that she would not have the means of supporting him, so he wished to come to sea, and with the help of a friend of his own he had, after much exertion, accomplished his object.
“You couldn’t have done better—that you couldn’t, Harry!” exclaimed True Blue, to whom he had confided thus much of his early history. “I wouldn’t have to go and live in smoky cities, or to ride along dirty roads, or to have to look only at sheep, or cows, or horses, not to be the greatest lord in the land. I have never been much on shore, and maybe haven’t seen the most beautiful parts of it; but I was heartily glad to get afloat again. There you are on shore stuck in the same place day after day. What does it matter whether it’s a calm or a gale, it doesn’t make you go faster or slower. And if you want to go away, then you have to get on the outside of a coach, and be covered from truck to kelson with dust, and a precious good chance of a capsize and getting your neck broke. Now, when I was living ashore with Paul Pringle’s mother and people, there sprung up one night a gale of wind which blew down the church steeple, I don’t know how many big tall trees, and sent a large part of the thatched roof off the cottage, besides scattering the tiles of the houses right and left, and toppling down numbers of chimney-pots. There were half a dozen people killed, I heard, that night, and ever so many hurt.”
Harry smiled.
“It is lucky that you think so, and I am quite ready to agree that a sailor’s life is one of the best to choose, seeing that we shall have to spend the best part of ours afloat,” he answered. “But what I hold is, that we shouldn’t think meanly of those who have to live always on shore.”
“I don’t know as to that, Harry,” said Billy quickly. “We shouldn’t think ill of them, I’ll allow; but who can help pitying them? That’s all I say.”
The conversation of the two boys was interrupted by an order which True Blue received to go aloft and take a lookout round the horizon. This was a post of honour to which he had been especially appointed, on account of the sharpness of his vision, and the accuracy with which he noted and could describe the various sail which might be in sight. Paul Pringle watched him with pride. Up—up—up he went. The topmast shrouds were reached—topgallant masthead; the royal mast was swarmed up, and then he stood on the main truck, holding on by the staff of the vane, no longer the little child, the pet of the ship’s company, but a thorough, fearless young seaman—not the less, however, the darling of the crew.