Chapter One.

The boy who would not go to sea.

“Here you, Syd, pass the port.”

Sydney Belton took hold of the silver decanter-stand and slid it carefully along the polished mahogany table towards where Admiral Belton sat back in his chair.

“Avast!”

The ruddy-faced old gentleman roared out that adjuration in so thunderous a way that the good-looking boy who was passing the decanter started and nearly turned it over.

“What’s the matter, Tom?” came from the other end of the table, where Captain Belton, a sturdy-looking, grey-haired gentleman nearly as ruddy as his brother, was the admiral’s vis-à-vis.

“He’s passing the decanter without filling his own glass!” cried the admiral. “Fill up, you young dog, and drink the King’s health.”

“No, thank you, uncle,” said the boy, quietly, “I’ve had one glass.”

“Well, sir, so have I. Don’t I tell you I’m going to propose the King’s health?”

“I’ll drink it in water, uncle.”

“What, sir? Drink the health of his most gracious Majesty in raw water! Not if I know it.”

“But port wine makes my face burn, uncle, and Doctor Liss says—”

“Confound Doctor Liss, sir! Hang Doctor Liss, sir! By George, sir, if I were in active service again, and your Doctor Liss were in my squadron, I’d have him triced up and give him twelve dozen, sir.”

“No, you wouldn’t, uncle,” said the boy, cracking a walnut, and glancing at his father, who was watching him furtively.

“What, sir? I wouldn’t? Look here, brother Harry, Liss is corrupting this boy’s mind.”

“I don’t know about corrupting, Tom,” said the captain, smiling, “but he certainly does seem to be putting some queer things into his head.”

“So it seems. Teaches him to drink the King’s health in water.”

“No, he didn’t, uncle,” said the boy, cracking another walnut.

“Yes, he did, sir. How dare you contradict me! Confound you, sir, if I had you aboard ship I’d mast-head you.”

“No, you wouldn’t, uncle,” said the boy, dipping a piece of freshly-peeled walnut in the salt and crunching it between his teeth.

“What, sir?”

“I say you would not,” replied the boy.

“And pray why, you young dog?”

“Because you’d know father wouldn’t like it.”

Captain Belton laughed and sipped his port, and the admiral blew out his cheeks.

“Look here, brother Harry,” he cried; “is this my nephew Sydney, or some confounded young son of a sea-lawyer?”

“Oh, it’s Syd, sure enough,” said the captain.

“Then he’s grown into an insolent, pragmatical young cock-a-hoop upstart; and hang it, I should like to spread-eagle him till he came to his senses.”

The boy, who was peeling a scrap of walnut, gave his uncle a sidelong look and laughed.

“Ah, I would, sir, and no mistake,” cried the admiral, fiercely. “Harry, you don’t half preserve discipline in the ship. Here, Syd, it’s time you were off to sea.”

The boy took another walnut and crushed it, conscious of the fact that his father was watching him intently.

“I don’t want to go to sea, uncle,” said the boy at last, as he picked off the scraps of broken shell from his walnut.

“What?” roared the admiral. “Here you, sir, say that again.”

“I don’t want to go to sea, uncle.”

“You—don’t—want—to go—to sea, sir?”

“No, uncle.”

“Well, I am stunned,” said the old gentleman, rapidly pouring out and tossing off a glass of port. “Brother Harry, what have you to say to this?”

“That it is all nonsense. The boy does not know his own mind.”

“Of course not,” cried the admiral, turning sharply upon Sydney, who went on picking the skin from his walnut. “Do you know, sir, that your family have been sailors as far back as the days of Elizabeth.”

“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, coolly. “I’ve often heard you say so.”

“And that it is your duty, as the last representative of the family, to maintain its honour, sir?”

“No, uncle.”

“What, sir?” cried the old man, fiercely.

“I’m not fit to be a sailor,” continued the boy, quietly enough.

“And pray, why not, Sydney?” said Captain Belton, frowning.

“Because I’m such a coward, father.”

“A Belton!” groaned the admiral, “and says he is a coward.”

“A boy to be a sailor ought to be fond of the sea.”

“Of course, sir,” said the captain.

“And I hate it.”

“And pray why?” said the admiral, fiercely.

“Because it’s so salt,” said Syd, busy helping himself to some more of the condiment he had named.

“Salt?” cried the admiral. “Of course it is, and so it ought to be. Nonsense! He’s laughing at us, Harry—a dog.”

“No, I’m not, uncle; I’m not fit to be a sailor.”

“Then, pray, what are you fit for, sir?” cried Captain Belton, angrily.

“I mean to be a doctor!”

“What!” roared the two officers together.

Crack! crack!

“Put that walnut and those crackers down, sir!” said the captain, sternly. “I am glad your uncle started this subject, for it was time we had an explanation. Do you know that with his interest at the Admiralty and mine you could be entered on board a first-rate man-of-war?”

“Yes, and well looked after, sir,” cried the admiral; “so that when you had properly gone through your term, and been master’s mate long enough, your promotion would have been certain.”

“Yes, uncle, father has often said so,” replied Sydney, reaching for another walnut, and taking up the crackers.

“Put that walnut down, sir,” cried his father.

Sydney obeyed, and to keep his hands under control thrust them in his pockets and leaned back in his chair.

“Well, sir,” said his uncle, “does not that make you feel proud?”

“No, uncle.”

“What! Don’t you know that you would have a uniform and wear a sword—I mean a dirk?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Well, sir? Why, at your time of life I was mad to have my uniform.”

“What for?” said the boy.

“What for, sir? What for? Why, to wear, of course.”

“I don’t want to wear a uniform. You couldn’t climb trees, nor go fishing, nor shrimping, nor riding in a uniform.”

“No, sir,” continued the admiral, after winking and frowning at his brother to leave the boy to him, “of course not. You would be an officer and a gentleman then, and wear a cocked hat.”

“Ha! ha! ha!”

The boy burst into a hearty fit of laughter, and his father frowned.

“Sydney—” he began.

“No, no, Harry, leave him to me,” said the admiral; “I’ll talk to him. Now, sir,” he continued, turning to the boy sternly, “pray what did I say to make you start grinning like a confounded young monkey? I—I—I am not accustomed to be laughed at by impertinent boys.”

“I was not laughing at you, uncle,” said the boy, dragging one hand from his pocket and making a lunge at an apple.

“Leave that fruit alone, sir,” said the admiral, “and don’t tell me a confounded lie, sir. You did laugh at me.”

“I did not,” said the boy; “and that’s not a lie.”

“What!” roared the admiral, turning purple. “How dare you, sir! To the mast-head at once, and stop there till—”

A hearty burst of laughter from his brother and nephew quelled the old man’s anger.

“Ah, you may laugh at that,” he said. “Force of habit. But you’ve got to apologise, you young monkey, for what you said.”

“I can’t apologise for what I did not do,” said the boy, stubbornly.

“What, sir?”

“Steady, steady, sir,” said the captain. “He’s a confoundedly impudent young scamp, but he could not tell a lie.”

“But he laughed in my face, Harry?”

“I was laughing at myself, uncle.”

“At yourself, sir?”

“Yes, I was thinking what a popinjay I should look in a cocked hat.”

“Well, really,” said the admiral, “I am beginning to be glad, Harry, that I never married and had a son. I used to be envious about this boy, and wanted a share in him. But a boy who can laugh at a part of his Majesty’s uniform—well! Why, you young whipper-snapper, did I ever look a—a—a popinjay in my cocked hat?”

“Well, you used to look very rum, uncle.”

“Harry, my dear boy,” said the admiral, fiercely; “we are old men, and this young dog represents us. May I take him into the library, and give him a good caning?”

“No, Tom, certainly not.”

“No, of course not, Harry; I beg your pardon. Now, sir—pass that port—and—a—don’t fill your own glass. Port like that, sir, is only fit for gentlemen. And you—you want to be a doctor, eh?”

“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, pushing the decanter along the table.

“And pray what for, sir?”

“To do good to people.”

“What? A doctor do good! Rubbish! Never did me a bit of good.”

“Oh, but they do, uncle.”

“Never, sir. That Liss has pretty well poisoned me over and over again.”

“Oh, uncle, what a—”

“You say that if you dare, sir,” cried the old admiral, bringing his hand down bang upon the table, and making the glasses dance. “It’s the truth. Always made my gout worse. Colchicum—colchicum—colchicum—and the pain awful. Doctors are an absurd new invention, and of no use whatever.”

“Why, you always have a doctor on board ship.”

“Surgeon, you young dog, surgeon. Doctor! Bah! Hang all doctors! A surgeon is of some use in action, cutting, and splicing, and fishing a poor fellow’s limbs; but a doctor—”

At that moment a rubicund butler opened the dining-room door, and stood back for some one to enter.

“Doctor Liss, sir,” he said quietly; and a quick, eager-looking little man in snuff-coloured coat and long, salt-box-pocketed waistcoat entered the room, handing his cocked hat and stick to the butler, and nodding pleasantly from one to the other.

“Who was that shouting for the doctor?” he said cheerily, as he rubbed his hands; then took out a gold snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and handed it to the captain.

“You, wasn’t it, Sir Thomas? Touch of your old enemy?”

“No,” grunted the admiral, “I’m sound as a roach. Bah!”

“Thankye, Liss,” said the captain, taking his pinch, and handing back the box; “sit down. Syd, pass those clean glasses.”

The admiral took a pinch, and then the new-comer took his, loudly snapped-to the box, and drew out a delicate cambric handkerchief to flap off some snuff from his shirt-frill.

As soon as the doctor was comfortably seated the port was passed, and then there was silence, Sydney looking from one to the other, and wondering what was coming next.

The doctor, too, looked from one to the other and formed his own opinion.

“Hullo!” he said. “In disgrace, Sydney? What have you been doing, sir?”

“Eating walnuts,” said the boy, mischievously.

“And defying his father and uncle—a dog!” cried the admiral. “Here, Liss; what do you think he says?”

“Bless me! I don’t know.”

“Why, confound him! says he wants to be a doctor.”

“Does he?” cried the new-comer, turning to look at Sydney. “Well, I’m not surprised.”

“But I am,” cried Captain Belton, angrily.

“And I’m astounded,” said the admiral. “A Belton descend to being an apothecary.”

“Ah!” said the doctor, dryly, as he held his glass up to the light, “terrible descent, certainly. Wants to save life instead of destroying it.”

“Now, look here, Liss,” began the admiral, fiercely.

“No, no, Tom, let me speak,” said Captain Belton. “No quarrelling.”

“No, you had better not quarrel,” said the doctor, good-humouredly. “Make you both ill, and then I shall have you at my mercy.”

“Indeed you will not,” said the admiral, “for I’ll call in old Marchant from Lowerport.”

“Not you,” cried the doctor, laughing; “you dare not. I’m the only man who understands your constitution.”

“There, there, there!” cried the captain, “that’s enough. But really, sir, it’s too bad. As an old friend I did not think you would lead my boy astray.”

“I? Astray? Nonsense!”

“But you have, sir. You’ve taken him out with you on your rounds, and the young dog thinks of nothing else but doctoring.”

“And pill-boxes and gallipots,” said the admiral, fiercely.

“Now, my dear old friends, you are not talking sense,” said the doctor, quietly. “Sydney has been my rounds with me a good deal, and he has certainly displayed so much interest in all my surgical cases, that if he were my boy I should certainly make him a doctor.”

“Impossible!” cried the captain.

“Not to be heard of,” said Sir Thomas. “He’s going to sea.”

Sydney, who had been fidgeting about in his chair, gave a sudden kick out with his right leg, and felt something soft as his uncle uttered a savage yell, and thrust his chair back from the table.

“I—I beg your pardon, uncle, I did not know that—”

“You did, sir,” cried the old man furiously, as he shook his fist at the boy. “You did it maliciously; out of spite, because I want to make a man of you. Bless me, Harry,” he continued, “if you don’t take that young scoundrel out into the hall and thrash him, I’ll never darken your doors again. Dear—dear—dear—dear! Bless my soul! Ah!”

The poor old admiral had risen, and was limping about when Sydney went after him.

“Uncle,” he began.

“Bah!” ejaculated the old man, grasping him by the collar. “Here he is, brother Harry; I’ve got him. Now then, take him out.”

“I’m very sorry, uncle,” said Sydney. “I didn’t know it was your gouty leg there.”

“Then, you did do it on purpose, sir?”

“No, I didn’t, uncle. I wouldn’t have been such a coward.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” said the doctor. “But there, sir, sit down; the pain is gone off now.”

“How do you know?” cried the admiral. “It’s as if ten thousand red-hot irons were searing it. Harry, you’ve spoiled that boy.”

“No, I join issue there,” said Captain Belton. “You’ve indulged him ten times more than ever I have, Tom.”

“It is not true, brother Harry,” said the admiral, limping to his chair.

“Oh yes, it is. Hasn’t your uncle spoiled you, Sydney, far more than I have?”

“No, father,” replied the boy, quietly, as he helped the old admiral to sit down, and placed an ottoman under his injured leg.

“Thankye, boy, thankye. And you’re not so bad as I said; ’tis quite true, it’s your father’s doing.”

“I think you’ve both spoiled me,” said Sydney, quietly; and the doctor helped himself to another glass of port to hide his mirth.

“Won’t do, Liss, you’re laughing. I can see you,” said the admiral. “That’s just what you doctors enjoy, seeing other people suffer, so that you may laugh and grow fat.”

“Oh, I was not laughing at your pain,” said the doctor, quietly, “but at Sydney’s judgment. He is quite right, you do both spoil him.”

“What?”

“He has three times as much money to spend as is right, and I wonder he does not waste it more. Well, Syd, my boy, so they will not let you be a doctor?”

Sydney frowned, and cracked a walnut till the shell and nut were all crushed together.

“And so you are to make up your mind to go to sea?”

“Yes,” said the admiral, emphatically.

“Certainly,” said Captain Belton; and, as soon after the conversation turned into political matters, Sydney quietly left his chair, strolled to the window, and stood gazing out at the estuary upon which the captain’s house looked down.

It was a glorious view. The long stretch of water was dappled with orange and gold; and here and there the great men-of-war were lying at anchor, some waiting their commanders; others, whose sea days were past, waiting patiently for their end, sent along dark shadows behind them. Here and there fishing-boats with tawny sails were putting out to sea for the night’s fishing; and as Sydney’s eyes wandered, a frown settled upon his forehead, and he stepped out through the open window into the garden.

“Bother the old sea!” he said, petulantly. “It’s always sea, sea, sea, from morning till night. I don’t want to go, and I won’t.”

As he spoke he passed under an apple tree, one of whose fruit, missed in the gathering a month before, had dropped, and picking it up, the boy relieved his feelings by throwing it with all his might across the garden.

The effect was as sudden as that produced by his kick; for there was a shout and sound of feet rapidly approaching, and a red-faced boy of about his own age came into sight, hatless and breathless, panting, wild-eyed, and with fists clenched ready for assault.

“Who threw—Oh, it was you, was it, Master Sydney? You coward!”

“Who’s a coward?” cried Sydney, hotly.

“You are. You throwed that apple and hit me, ’cause you knowed I dursen’t hit you again.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did, and you are a coward.”

“No, I’m not a coward.”

“Yes, you are. If I hit you, I know what you’d do—go and tell your father, and get me sent away.”

“There, then! Does that feel like a coward’s blow?—or that?—or that?”

Three sharp cuffs in the chest illustrated Sydney’s words, two of which the boy bore, flinching at each; but rising beyond endurance by the third, he retaliated with one so well planted that Sydney went down in a sitting position, but in so elastic a fashion that he was up again on the instant, and flew at the giver of the blow.

Then for five minutes there was a sharp encounter, with its accompaniments of hard breathing, muttering, dull sounds of blows and scuffling feet, till a broad-shouldered, red-faced man in a serge apron came down upon them at a trot, and securing each by the shoulder held them apart.

“Now then,” he growled, “what’s this here?”

“Pan hit me, and I’m dressing him down,” panted Sydney. “Here, let go, Barney.”

“Master Syd hit me first, father,” panted the red-faced boy.

“Howld your tongue, warmint, will you,” said the man in a deep growl. “Want to have me chucked overboard, and lose my bit o’ pension. You’re allus a-going at your pastors and masters.”

“Hit me first,” remonstrated the boy, as the new-comer gave him a shake.

“Well, what o’ that, you ungrateful young porpuss! Hasn’t the cap’n hit me lots o’ times and chucked things at me? You never see me flyin’ in his face.”

“Chucked a big apple at me first,” cried the boy in an ill-used tone.

“Sarve you right too. Has he hurt you much, Master Sydney?”

“No, Barney; not a bit. There, I was wrong. I didn’t know he was there when I threw the apple. I only did it because I felt vicious.”

“Hear that, you young sarpint?” cried the square-shouldered man.

“Yes, father.”

“Then just you recollect. If the young skipper feels wicious, he’s a right to chuck apples. Why, it’s rank mutiny hitting him again.”

“Hit me first,” grumbled the boy.

“Ay, and I’ll hit you first. Why, if I’d been board ship again, instead of being a pensioner and keeping this here garden in order for the skipper, I should have put my pipe to my mouth, and—What say, Master Syd?”

“Don’t say any more about it. I’d no business to hit Pan, and I’m sorry I did now.”

“Well, sir, I don’t know ’bout not having no business, ’cause you see you’re the skipper’s son, and nothing does a boy so much good as a leathering; but if you’re sorry for it, there’s an end on it. Pan-a-mar, my lad, beg Master Sydney’s pardon.”

“He hit me first,” grumbled the boy.

“Do you want me to give you a good rope’s-ending, my sonny?” growled the man; “’cause if you do, just you say that ’ere agen.”

The red-faced boy uttered a smothered growl, and was silent.

“Too young to understand discipline yet, Master Sydney,” said the man. “And so you felt wicious, did you? What about?”

“They’ve been at me again about going to sea, Barney.”

“And you don’t want to go, my lad?”

“No; and I won’t go.”

“Hear that, Pan, my lad?”

The boy nodded and drew down the corner of his lips, with the effect that Sydney made a threatening gesture.