Chapter One.

How Mark Strong wanted to go.

“Go with me, Mark? What for? To live hard, work hard, and run the risk every day of having to die hard. Get out! You’re as bad as your mother.”

“Not very bad, is it, James, to wish to share my husband’s life and cares?”

Captain Strong put down his pipe, got up from his easy-chair, crossed to the other side of the fire, and laid his hand upon Mrs Strong’s shoulder, while she turned her pleasant sweet womanly face upward and smiled in that of the fine, manly, handsome merchant captain, tanned and reddened by many a fight with the sea.

“No, my dear,” he said softly; “but it’s a man’s duty to face danger, a woman’s to keep the nest snug for him and the bairns. Why, Mary, you don’t know what the perils of the sea are.”

Mrs Strong shook her head slowly, and that shake, as interpreted by her eyes, meant a great deal.

“Ah! you may look,” the captain said, “but you do not; and as for this cub—come here, you great, strong, impudent young ruffian!” he added; and as his son rose from his chair he took him by the shoulders, gave him a hearty shake, followed it up with a back-handed blow in the chest, and ended by gripping his right hand in a firm, manly clasp, his voice turning slightly husky as he continued:

“Mark, my lad, Heaven knows how often, when I’m far away at sea, I feel as if I’d give anything for a sight of your mother’s face, ay, and a good look at yours, you ugly young imitation! How dare you try and grow up like me!”

Mrs Strong smiled.

“But it won’t do, my lad. I’m earning the pennies in my ship, and you must go on with your studies, take care of your mother, and when I come back after my next voyage we’ll have a talk about what you’re to be. Let’s see; how old are you?”

“Sixteen, father.”

“Sixteen, and discontented! Why, Mark, do you know that you possess what hundreds of thousands of men most envy?”

“I do, father?”

“To be sure, sir; health, strength, all your faculties, and all the world before you.”

“But I never see any of the world like you do,” said Mark dolefully.

“Ha—ha—ha—ha!”

It was a broad, honest, hearty laugh, such as a sturdy Englishman who is in the habit of using his lungs indulges in; and as Mark Strong’s brow wrinkled, and he felt irritated at being laughed at, his father thrust him back into his chair.

“I’m not laughing at you, my boy,” he said; “but at your notion—the common one, that a sailor who goes all round the world is always seeing wonderful sights.”

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Strong, taking her son’s part, “you know you have seen strange things.”

As she spoke her eyes ran over the decorations of their handsomely-furnished room in the old-fashioned house in old-fashioned Hackney, where there were traces of the captain’s wanderings in the shape of stuffed birds of gorgeous plumage, shells of iridescent tints, masses of well-bleached corals, spears and carven clubs from New Zealand, feather ornaments from Polynesia, boomerangs and nulla-nullas from Australia, ostrich eggs from the Cape, ivory carvings from China, a hideous suit of black iron armour from Japan, and carpets and rugs from India and Persia to make snug the floor.

“Strange things, wife! Well, of course I have a few. A man can’t be at sea thirty years without seeing something; but, generally speaking, a sailor’s life is one of terrible monotony. He is a seaman, and he sees the sea day after day—day after day; rough seas and smooth seas, stormy seas and sunny seas; and enough to do to keep his ship afloat and away from rocks and lee shores. Here, what are you opening your eyes and mouth for in that way, Mark? Do you expect I’m going to tell you about the sea-serpent?”

“No, father,” said the lad laughing. “It was because what you said was so interesting.”

“Interesting! Nonsense! A sailor’s is a wearisome life, full of dangers.”

“But you see strange countries, father, and all their wonders.”

“No, I do not, boy,” said the captain half angrily, “A sailor sees nothing but his ship, and she’s all anxiety to him from the time he goes aboard till he comes back. We see strange ports, and precious little in them. Why, Mark, if you were in some places on the other side of the world, you’d find everything so English that you would hardly believe you had left home. No, no, my lad. You be content to get on well with your studies, and some day we’ll make a doctor or a lawyer of you. Soldier, if you like, but not a sailor.”

“It’s my turn to speak now,” said Mrs Strong, smiling lovingly at her frank, manly-looking son. “No soldiering.”

“I don’t want to be a soldier, mother,” said Mark gloomily. “I want to travel; and as I have kept to my books as father wished during his last two voyages, and won my certificates, he might give me the prize I worked for.”

“Why, you ungrateful young dog,” cried the captain, “haven’t I given you a first-class watch?”

“Yes, father; but that isn’t the prize I want. I say: do take me with you.”

“Take you with me!” cried the captain with an impatient snort such as a sea-horse might give. “Here, mother, what have you been doing with this boy?”

“Doing everything I could to set him against the sea, my dear,” said Mrs Strong sadly.

“And a nice mess you have made of it,” growled the captain. “Pass my tobacco. Well, Mark, my lad; I want my spell ashore to be happy and restful, and when there’s a rock ahead I must steer clear of it at once; so here goes, my lad, I may as well say it and have done with it. I know so much of the sea that I shall never consent to your being a sailor. Your mother is with me there. Eh, my dear?”

“Yes, James, thoroughly,” said Mrs Strong.

“Now, my lad, you’ve got to make the best of it.”

“But if you would take me for one voyage only, father, I wouldn’t ask you to take me again.”

“Won’t trust you,” said the captain. “Hallo, Bruff!” he continued, patting the rough head of a great retriever dog which had just come slouching into the room, carrying the said rough head hanging down as if it were too heavy for its body, an idea endorsed by its act of laying it upon the captain’s knee. “Is it you who teaches your young master to be so obstinate?”

The dog uttered a low growl as if of protest.

“Perhaps you’d like me to take you for a voyage, old chap,” continued the captain, pausing in his smoking to wipe the corners of the dog’s eyes with its ears. “You’d look well sea-sick in a corner of the deck, or swung in a hammock.”

Bruff showed the whites of his expressive eyes and uttered a dismal howl.

“Don’t be afraid, old fellow,” said the captain. “I sha’n’t take you, nor your master neither, so you may both make the best of it.”

“Don’t say that, father,” said Mark earnestly. “Take me this once. I do so want to see China!”

“Here, mother,” said the captain laughing; “take Mark up stairs and show him your best tea-service, the one I brought home last year. Like to see Japan, too, my lad?”

Mark frowned and bent his head over his book, while Mrs Strong shook her head at her husband.

The captain rose once more, and laid his hand upon his son’s shoulder.

“Come, come, my lad, don’t fret over it,” he said; “you have done well, and I should like to give you a treat, but I can’t take you to Hong-Kong for many reasons. Your mother would not like it, I shouldn’t like it, and it would do you no good.”

“But, father—” began Mark.

“Hear me out, my lad,” said the captain gravely. “I say I want to give you a treat, so I tell you what I will do. You and your mother shall come aboard as we’re warping out of the dock, or at Gravesend if you like, and I’ll take you down Channel with me. I’ve got to put in at Plymouth, and I’ll drop you there, or at Penzance, whichever you like, and then you can come back to London by rail. Hallo, who’s that?”

There was a ring at the old iron gate, and Mark rose and walked to the window.

“A sailor, father.”

“Sailor!” said the captain, rising. “Oh, it’s Billy Widgeon! Tell the girl to show him in.”

Mark went out to speak to the servant, and the next minute the big front door-mat was having a hard time as the sailor stood rubbing away at his perfectly clean boots, and breathing hard with the exertion, staring furtively at Mark Strong the while.

Chapter Two.

How Billy Widgeon brought a Letter.

The man who was working so hard at the mat was a sailor of apparently about five-and-thirty, carefully dressed in his shore-going suit of navy blue, and carrying a very tightly-done-up dandified umbrella, which looked as out of place in his hands as a parasol would daintily poised by a grenadier guard.

He was a strong squarely-built fellow, with crisp black hair and close beard, and if he had gone under a standard the height he would have reached would probably have been five feet, the result of this being that he had to look up at Mark Strong, who was about five feet six, and at the maid, who was only a couple of inches less.

“Want to see my father?” said Mark, as the man continued to stare and wipe his shoes.

“Ware sharks! Heave off, you ugly lubber! I say: will he bite?”

This was consequent upon a pattering of toe-nails upon the oil-cloth and the appearance of Bruff, the dog, who began to walk round the visitor and smell him.

“No, he won’t bite friends,” said Mark.

“Tip us your fin, then, messm’t,” said the sailor, holding out his hand.

“Give him your paw, Bruff,” cried Mark; but the dog paid no heed, only continued to smell the visitor.

“Wheer’s the skipper?” said the sailor then, hoarsely. “You his boy?”

“Yes,” said Mark, gazing enviously at a man who was probably one of those about to sail with Captain Strong on his voyage to Singapore and China. “I say, don’t wear out the door-mat.”

“Eh? No, m’lad, I won’t wear out the mat. You see we don’t have no mats afloat. I say! my!”

The man bent down, as if seized with a cramping internal pain, and gave his right leg a slap with his horny paw, whose back was as hairy as that of a monkey.

“What’s the matter?” said Mark.

“Matter! I was only larfin. My! you are like the skipper! Wheer is he?”

“This way,” said Mark, leading him to the comfortable room, where, as soon as he entered and saw Mrs Strong, the man began ducking his head and kicking out one leg.

Mrs Strong nodded and smiled at the man, feeling a kindly leaning toward one of those who would be under her husband’s orders for the next six months, and perhaps his guardians in some storm.

“I’ll leave you now, dear,” she said.

“Oh, you need not go!” said the captain; but Mrs Strong left the room.

“Shall I go, father?” asked Mark.

“No, my boy, no. Sit down. Well, Billy, what news?”

“None at all, sir, only we shall soon be full up; they’ve bent on a new mains’l and fores’l; we’ve been a-painting of her streak to-day, and she do look lovely, and no mistake. But here’s a letter I was to give you, sir.”

The man evidently had a letter somewhere, from the confident way in which he began to search for it, looking in his cap, then feeling about in his loose blue jumper, and ending with his trousers’ pockets.

“Well,” said Captain Strong sharply, “where’s the letter?”

“Ah! wheer is it?” muttered the man, stroking himself down the sleeves, the chest, and the back. “I had that theer letter somewheres, but it seems to be gone.”

“Did you leave it aboard?”

“No, sir, I didn’t leave it aboard; I’m sure of that. It’s somewheres about me.”

“Hang it, man! have you felt in all your pockets?”

“Ain’t got but two, sir, and I feeled in both o’ them. Think o’ that, now, arter Mr Gregory saying as I was to be werry careful o’ that letter!”

“So careful that you’ve lost it,” cried Captain Strong. “Bill Widgeon, you’re about the biggest blockhead in the crew.”

“Well, I dunno about that, sir; I may be a blockhead, but I arn’t lost the letter.”

“Where is it, then?” cried the captain angrily.

“That’s just what I want to know, sir.”

“Bah! it’s lost.”

“No, sir, it arn’t lost; I were too careful for that, and—theer, I telled you so. I remember now. Mr Gregory says, says he, ‘you, Billy Widgeon,’ he says, ‘you’ve got to take great care of that letter,’ he says; and ‘all right, sir,’ I says, ‘I just will,’ and I put it wheer I thought it would be safest, and here it is.”

As he spoke, grinning broadly the while, he slipped off one of his shoes, stooped and picked it up, and drew out the letter all warm and crinkled up with the pressure.

“It’s all right, sir,” he said, smoothing and patting the letter, and handing it to his captain, before balancing himself on one leg to replace his shoe.

“Why didn’t you carry it in your pocket, man?” said the captain angrily, and he tore open the letter and began to read.

“I say, youngster,” whispered the sailor, whom the dog was still slowly going round and smelling suspiciously, “will that there chap bite?”

“Bite! No,” replied Mark. “Here, lie down, Bruff!”

The dog obeyed, laying his head upon his forepaws and blinking at the visitor, whom he watched intently as if he were in doubt about his character.

“Looks a nipper, he do, squire,” said the sailor. “He could take hold pretty tight, eh?”

“Take hold and keep hold,” said Mark, who could not help a feeling of envy creeping into his breast—envy of the easy-looking, active little man who was to be his father’s companion over the seas to wonderland.

“He looks as if he would,” said the sailor after a few moments’ pause. “I say, youngster, I’d rayther be ins with him than outs.”

“What! rather be friends than enemies?”

“That’s it, youngster. I say, what are you going to be—first-mate, and skipper arter?”

“No,” said Mark, speaking in the same low tone as his questioner; “I’m not going to be a sailor.”

“Lor!”

“It is not decided what I’m to be yet.”

“Arn’t it now? Why, if you’d come to sea along o’ us what a lot I could ha’ taught you surety. Why, I could ha’ most made a man of you.”

“Here, Widgeon,” said the captain sharply, “take that back to Mr Gregory, and tell him I shall be aboard to-morrow.”

“Right, sir,” said the sailor, giving his head a duck and his right leg another kick out—courtesies called forth by the well-furnished room and the soft carpet, for on the bare deck of the ship he put off his manners with his shore-going clothes. “Day, sir. Day, youngster. Day, shipmet.”

This last was intended for the dog; but, a few moments before, Bruff had slowly risen, crossed the room, and drawn the door open by inserting one paw in the crack, and then passed through.

“Why, he arn’t there!” said Billy Widgeon after a glance round. “My sarvice to him all the same,” he added, and went out.

The door had hardly closed when there was the sound of a rush, a roar, the fall of a chair, a crash of china, and a stentorian “Ahoy!”

“I shall have to kill that dog,” cried the captain, as he and Mark rushed into the hall, where Bruff was barking and growling savagely.

“Down, Bruff!” shouted Mark, seizing the dog by the collar and enforcing his order by pressing his head down upon the oil-cloth, and setting one knee upon his side. “Why, where’s—”

Mark did not finish, but burst into a roar of laughter, in which his father joined, as they both gazed up at the little sailor.

Explanation of the state of affairs was not needed, for matters spoke for themselves.

It was evident that Bruff had, for some reason, made a rush at Billy Widgeon, who had leaped upon a hall chair, from thence upon the table, upsetting the chair in his spring. From the table he had leaped to the top of a great cabinet, knocking down a handsome Indian jar, which was shattered to fragments on the oil-cloth; and from the cabinet springing to the balusters of the first-floor landing of the staircase.

There he hung, swinging by first one hand, then by the other, so as to get a good look down at his assailant, who was barking at him furiously as Mark rushed out; but Bruff had not the brains to see that if he rushed up stairs he could renew his attack.

“Got him safe?” said Billy Widgeon, as he swung by one hand as easily as would a monkey, and unconsciously imitating one of these active little creatures in the pose of his head.

“Yes; he sha’n’t hurt you now,” cried Mark.

“’Cause dogs’ bites don’t come in one’s pay, eh, cap’n?”

“The dog’s all right now, Widgeon,” said the captain. “Here, Mark, shut him in the parlour.”

“All right, father! but he won’t stir now.”

“Come down, my lad,” said the captain. “You can climb over the balustrade.”

“Bee-low!” cried the sailor in a gruff, sing-song tone, and loosening his hold he dropped lightly on to the oil-cloth within a couple of yards of the dog.

Bruff’s head was pressed close down to the floor, but he showed his teeth and uttered a growl like a lilliputian peal of thunder.

“Quiet!” cried Mark, as Billy Widgeon struck an attitude with his fists doubled, ready for attack or defence.

“Lor’, if you was aboard our ship, wouldn’t I heave you overboard fust chance!” cried the sailor.

“What did you do to the dog?” said the captain angrily.

“I never did nothing at all, sir. I only wanted my umbrella as I stood up in the corner. Soon as I went to take it he come at me, and if I hadn’t done Jacko and nipped up there he’d have had a piece out of my leg.”

As he spoke he went to take the umbrella from the corner, when, looking upon the movement as an attempt to carry out a robbery, Bruff uttered another savage growl aid struggled to get free.

“All, would yer!” cried Billy Widgeon, snatching up his umbrella and holding it by the toe in cudgel-fashion. “Now, then, youngster, lot him go. Come on, you ugly big-headed lubber. I’m ready for you now.”

As he spoke Billy Widgeon did Jacko, as he termed it, again, hopping about, flourishing his weapon, and giving it a bang down upon the floor after the fashion of a wild Irishman with his shillelagh.

It was a risky proceeding, for it infuriated the dog, who began to struggle fiercely, while Mark laughed so heartily that he could hardly retain his hold.

“That will do, Widgeon,” said the captain, wiping his eyes. “Here, Mark, make that dog friends with him.”

“Here, give me the umbrella,” said the lad.

“Nay, if I do you’ll let him go at me,” said the sailor doubtingly.

“Nonsense, man! Give him the umbrella,” cried the captain.

The sailor obeyed; and as Mark took it he held it down before the dog, and then returned it to its owner.

Bruff did not say “All right!” but he gave three pats on the oil-cloth with his long bushy tail, a sign that he accepted the position, and then he was allowed to get up.

“Who’s afeard!” cried Billy Widgeon, looking from one to the other. “I say, I was too many for him, sir.”

“Yes,” said the captain; “and what about my Indian jar?”

“Ah! that was the dog’s fault, cap’n,” said the man earnestly.

“Dog’s fault!” said Captain Strong. “You knocked it down and broke it, and I shall stop the cost out of your pay.”

Billy Widgeon stood for a moment looking solemn. Then, as if he had suddenly been engaged as a dentist’s specimen, he bared all his fine white teeth in the broadest of broad grins.

“Nay, skipper,” he said, “you wouldn’t do that. Me and my shipmets wouldn’t want to make another v’yge with you if you was that sort o’ capt’n. I’ll buy you another one when we gets to Chany. Here’s off!”