As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I rushed below, and, taking the things I wanted out of my bag, I tumbled into Jerry’s wherry.
The old man pulled as fast as he and his boy could lay their backs to the oars.
“Stop, stop, my lad! wait for me!” he exclaimed as I jumped ashore and was preparing to run to Southsea. “You’ll frighten your wife and send her into ‘high strikes’ if you pounce down upon her as you seem inclined to do. Wait till I go ahead and tell her to be looking out for you. You won’t lose much time, and prevent a great deal of mischief, though I can’t move along quite at the rate of ten knots an hour, as you seem inclined to do.”
I at once saw the wisdom of Jerry’s advice, and waited, though somewhat impatiently, until he and his boy had secured the boat.
“Come along, Will, my lad,” he said at length, stepping ashore; “I’ll show you what my old legs can do,” and off he set.
We soon crossed the High Street, and made our way through the gate leading out of the town on to Southsea Common.
The village of Southsea was but a small, insignificant place in those days. We had not gone far when we caught sight of a person with a wooden leg stumping along at a good rate some way ahead. Although his back was towards us, I at once felt sure that he was Uncle Kelson.
“All right!” cried Jerry, “that’s Mr Kelson. He always carries a press of sail. It couldn’t have been better. I’ll go on and make him heave-to, and just tell him to guess who’s come back; but I don’t think there’s much fear of his getting the ‘high strikes’ even though he was to set eyes on you all of a sudden.”
I brought up for a moment so as to let Jerry get ahead of me.
“Heave-to, cap’en! heave-to! I ain’t a thundering big enemy from whom you’ve any cause to run,” I heard him shouting out. “Just look round, and maybe you’ll see somebody you won’t be sorry to see, I’ve a notion.”