G. A. Henty

“ Very delighted was George as in his best suit—for he and Bill had two suits each now—he stepped out of the train at Croydon and walked to the workhouse. His mother had told him that she would meet him at the gate at half-past two, and punctually at the time he was there. A few minutes later Mrs. Andrews came out, not dressed as he had seen her at Christmas, in the infirmary garb, but in her own clothes. George gave a cry of delight as he ran forward to meet her.
"My darling mother! and you are looking quite yourself again." ”

“ Andrews said: "but, my dear George, the rent of this house and the hire of the furniture will surely be more than we can afford to pay. I know what a good manager you are, my boy, but I have such a horror of getting into debt that it almost frightens me."
"The rent of the house is seven and sixpence a week, mother, with rates and taxes, and we can afford that out of Bill's earnings and mine, even if you did not do any work at all; and as to the furniture, it is every bit paid for out of our savings since we went to work." ”

“ Harry steered direct to the steps on the sea face and mounted to the interior of the fort, where, on saying that he brought a message from the captain, he was at once conducted to the commandant.
"I am come, sir," Harry said, "from the captain to beg of you to surrender at once. Your guns have been nobly fought, but two more ships are coming down to engage with you, and the captain would fain save further effusion of life. You have done all that brave men could do, but the fight everywhere goes against you, and further resistance is vain. ”

“ As you say, Harry, a man may do his duty anywhere; still, for all that, it is part of his duty, if he be a sailor, to help his majesty, for a time at least, against his enemies. Look at me. Why, I served man and boy for nigh fifty years, and was in action one way and another over a hundred times, and here I am now with a snug little pension, and as comfortable as his gracious majesty himself. ”

“ Andrews, never was such a happy evening spent in the world.
I do not think that in all London there was a household that enjoyed that winter more than did the inmates of No. 8 Laburnum Villas. Their total earnings were about thirty-five shillings a week, much less than that of many a mechanic, but ample for them not only to live, but to live in comfort and even refinement. No stranger, who had looked into the pretty drawing room in the evening, would have dreamed that the lady at the piano worked as a milliner for her living, or that the lads were boys in a manufactory. ”

“ George laughed. "I am sure Bill is a stone heavier than when he came here."
"Well, young chap, it does you a lot of credit," Bob Grimstone said. "It isn't every boy, by a long way, would stint himself as you must have done for the last five months to make a comfortable home for his mother, for I know lots of men who are earning their two quid a week and has their old people in the workhouse. Well, all I can say is that if I or the missis here can be of any use to you in taking a house we shall be right down glad." ”

“ If I had lost it I would gladly have paid a reward to get it back."
"Thank you, sir," George said quietly; "but all the same I would rather not be paid for a little thing like that."
"You are a strange fellow," the gentleman said again. "One does not expect to find a boy in the market here refusing money when he has earned it."
"I should not refuse it if I had earned it," George said; "but I don't call getting back a locket for a young lady who has lost it earning money."
"How do you live, lad? You don't speak like a boy who has been brought up in the market here." ”

“ Jabez shouted; "we are close to the end of the island; we may miss it yet. Hoist the mainsail a bit."
I leapt up with another to seize the halyards, when a great wave struck us; she gave a roll, and the next moment I was in the water.
After the first wild efforts I felt calm like. I knew the shore was but half a mile ahead, and that the wind would set me dead upon it. I loosened my tarpaulin coat and shook it off, and I found that with mother's belt I could keep easily enough afloat, though I was half drowned with the waves as they swept in from behind me. ”

“ We had a strong crew, and a good many were sorry that the skipper did not hide his teeth and let the Frenchman come close before he opened fire. We should like to have towed him up the river with our flag over the tricolor."
"There, you see, Harry," the old sailor said, "you were just as ready to fight as if you had been on a man-of-war; and while in a sailing ship you only get a chance if one of these privateers happens to see you, in a king's ship you go looking about for an enemy, and when you see one the chances are he is bigger, instead of smaller, than yourself." ”

“ And now about the future, George. I owe you a great debt, infinitely greater than I can ever repay; but what I can do I will. In the future I shall regard you as my son, and I hope that you will look to me as to a father. I have been talking to your mother, and she says that she thinks your tastes lie altogether in the direction of engineering. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir. I have often thought I would rather be an engineer than anything else, but I don't like——"
"Never mind what you like and what you don't like," Mr. Penrose said quietly. ”

“ Both ahead and astern of them were a line of barges, which had, like the Sarah and Jane, anchored when the fog was thickest, and were, like her, making their way to Sheerness. The wind was blowing briskly now, and the barge made her way through the water at a rate which surprised the boys.
"I had no idea that barges sailed so fast," George said.
"There are not many craft can beat them," Atkins replied. "With a breeze so strong that they can only just carry their topsails, they will hold their own with pretty nigh anything afloat. ”

“ When you see a chap so very earnest for a thing you can't help being earnest yourself; besides, you know, mother," he went on a little shyly, for George had not been accustomed to talk much of these matters with his mother—"you see when one's down in the world and hard up, and not quite sure about the next meal, and without any friend, one seems to think more of these things than one does when one is jolly at school with other fellows." ”

“ Everyone wants to throw their duty upon everyone else. They all hanker after the higher wages and loafing life on board a merchantman, and hate to keep themselves smart and clean as they must do in a king's ship. If I had my way, every tar should serve at least five years of his life on board a man-of-war. It is above all things essential, Harry, that you should do your duty. ”

“ The clouds were rising fast behind the island, the waves were breaking with a short, sharp sound upon the beach, white heads were beginning to show themselves out at sea, the fishing craft were running in towards Portsmouth under reefed sails, the men-of-war at Spithead could be seen sending down their topmasts, and everything betokened that it would be a nasty night. ”

“ George said with a smile. "Don't you fret yourself, Bill; one can get on well enough without a foot, and it didn't hurt me a bit coming off. No, nor the squeeze either, not regular hurting; it was just a sort of scrunch, and then I didn't feel anything more. Why, I have often hurt myself ten times as much at play and thought nothing of it. ”

“ Harry said with a smile.
"If the king himself were going to touch the money," the old sailor said sturdily, "I would lend a hand to see that he got it, but there's no saying where this money would have gone. Besides, if the spirits hadn't been run, they would not have been [Pg 171] brought over here at all, so after all the revenue is none the worse for the smuggling."
The boy laughed. "You can cheat yourself, dad, when you like, but you know as well as I do that smuggling's dishonest, and that those who smuggle cheat the revenue." ”

“ It may be, boy, that as a skipper you may fall in love with some taut craft sailing in your convoy. I've seen such things before now, and then the fact that you might be, for aught you know, the son of a marquis instead of being that of a boatswain, might score in your favor. Women have curious notions, and though, for my part, I can't see that it makes much difference where the keel of a craft was laid as long as it's sound and well-built, there are those who thinks different. ”

“ You've grown, Harry, and are getting on fast. In another couple of years you'll be fit to join a king's ship. I suppose you've got over your silly idea about sticking to the merchant service. It's all very well to learn your business there as a boy, and I grant that in some things a merchantman is a better school than a king's ship. They have fewer hands, and each man has to do more and to learn to think for himself. ”

“ You see I shall be safe enough, and though I have never grumbled, you know, mother—have I?—I think I would rather do anything than be a grocer's boy. I would rather, when I grow up, be a bricklayer's laborer, or a plowman, or do any what I call man's work, than be pottering about behind a counter, with a white apron on, weighing out sugar and currants."
"I can't blame you, George," Mrs. Andrews said with a sigh. "It's natural, my boy. ”

“ Have you been accustomed to any work? Perhaps I could help you."
"I have been a year as an errand-boy," George [Pg 43] answered; "but I didn't like it, and I thought I would rather get some sort of work that I could work at when I got to be a man instead of sticking in a shop."
"Did you run away from home, then?" the gentleman asked.
"No, sir. My mother was ill and went into an infirmary, and so as I was alone I thought I would come to London and try to get the sort of work I liked; but I have tried almost all over London." ”

“ After all, what is a workhouse infirmary but a hospital, and it would not seem so very dreadful to you my going into a hospital; the difference is only in name; both are, after all, charities, but the one is kept up out of subscriptions, the other from the rates."
His mother's words conveyed but little comfort to George Andrews. He had just come in from his work, and had heard what the parish doctor had told his mother.
"I can do nothing for you here, Mrs. Andrews. You must have rest and quiet for your eyes, and not only that, but you must have strengthening food. ”

“ Long before morning the coast of England was out of sight, and the lugger was struggling down Channel bravely holding her way in the sou'westerly gale.
"Will she be zere true to her time?" the Frenchman asked the smuggler.
"Aye, she will do it," Black Jack said, "if the wind holds as at present. Two o'clock in the morning is the time named, and if your people are as punctual as I shall be, the five hundred pounds will be gained. There's one thing—in such a gale as is blowing to-day none of our cruisers who may be off the coast are likely to trouble themselves about a boat like ours. ”

“ This is only a sort of little trial to see how we behave, as it were, and if we do the best we can, even though that best is very little, then you see we get a tremendous reward. For instance, you would not think a man was unkind who kept you five minutes holding his horse on a cold day, if he were going to give you enough to get you clothes and good lodging for the rest of your life."
"No, I should think not," Bill said fervently; "so it's like that, is it?"
George nodded. "Like that, only more."
"My eye!" Bill murmured to himself, lost in astonishment at this new view of things. ”

“ Captain Ball said; "but there are many men who may live to a good age and will have done less for their country than this lad in the short time he was at sea. First, he prevented the dispatch, which would have warned the enemy of what was coming, from reaching them; and, in the second place, his sharpness and readiness saved no small portion of Admiral Nelson's fleet, and converted what threatened to be a defeat into a victory. You must be proud of your son, old salt."
"Has not the boy told you, sir, that he's not my son?" ”

“ Along the whole line the British fleet was engaged, and the boom of the heavy guns of the ships, forts, and batteries, and the rattle of musketry from the tops of the ships, kept up a deep roar like that of incessant thunder.
"The water is very shallow, sir," the first lieutenant reported to the captain. "There are but two fathoms under her foot. The wind, too, is dropping so much that we have scarcely steerage-way, and the current is sweeping us along fast."
"Prepare to anchor, Mr. Francis," the captain said. ”

“ This fort mounted many guns, much superior to those of the Cæsar in weight, but the crew were in high spirits at the prospect of a fight, little as they understood the cause for which they were engaged. Stripping to the waist, they clustered round the guns, each officer at his post, Harry, with two other midshipmen, being upon the quarter-deck near the captain to carry orders from him as might be required to different parts of the ship. As the Cæsar passed along the line of ships to take up her position she was saluted by a storm of fire from the Danish vessels, to which she made no reply. ”

“ Two minutes later the foreman came out, and George handed him the card. He read what Mr. Penrose had written upon it and said:
"Very well, you can come in on Monday; pay, eight shillings a week; seven o'clock; there, that will do. Oh, what are your names?" taking out a pocket-book. "George Andrews and William Smith;" and then, with a nod, he went back into his room, while the boys, almost bewildered at the rapidity with which the business had been arranged, went out into the street again.
"There we are, Bill, employed," George said in delight. ”