Mrs. Murchison and Mildred G.o.dstone also shook hands with Jack. The former added her thanks to Mrs. G.o.dstone's.

Jack coloured up hotly and said, "It is my uncle you have to thank, ma'am. It was his bawley, and he and Tom sailed it, and I had nothing to do with it one way or the other."

"Except when you swam out for the line," Mrs. G.o.dstone said smiling.

"I had one tied round me, and was all right," Jack protested.

"My husband does not think it was nothing, as you seem to consider,"

Mrs. Murchison said; "and as he has been a sailor all his life he ought to know. He says that it was a very gallant action in such a sea as that, and, you see, we are bound to believe him."

The ladies had now taken seats. Mrs. G.o.dstone felt a little at a loss.

Had Jack's home and Jack's mother been what they had expected to find them the matter would have been simple enough, but she felt at once that any talk of reward for the service Jack had rendered them would be at present impossible.

"What a pretty room you have got, Mrs. Robson, and what charming pictures!"

"They are my husband's painting," Mrs. Robson said quietly. "He was an artist."

"Oh! I know the name," Mrs. G.o.dstone said. "I have four of Mr. Robson's pictures in my drawing-room. I am very fond of marine subjects."

This served as an introduction, and for half an hour the conversation proceeded briskly. Then Mrs. G.o.dstone rose.

"My husband's leg is very painful this morning," she said, "and I fear that he will have to keep his bed for the next two or three days. When he is well enough to lie down on the sofa I will come down and fetch your son, for Mr. G.o.dstone is of course anxious to see him, and I am afraid that if I do not come round myself we shall not get Jack to the inn."

"Well, that was not so very bad, was it, Jack?" Mrs. Robson asked after her visitors had left.

"No, mother, it wasn't. You see, it was ever so much better their coming here than it would have been if I had gone to the inn, because there was you for them to talk to, so that really there was not much said to me.

If it had been at the inn there would have been nothing to talk about at all, except about the wreck. Well, now that is over I will go down and see how the bawley is; but I had best change my things first. Uncle was going to get her up as high as he could at the top of the tide, so as to be able to look at her keel."

Jack found that his uncle and Tom had turned out at three o'clock in the morning, and had got the _Bessy_ as high up as possible on the sloping sh.o.r.e, just beyond the houses. They were standing beside her now, while Benting, the local boat-builder, was examining her bottom.

"Well, Jack, you have taken it out in sleep this morning," his uncle said.

"That I have, uncle. I never woke until eight o'clock, so I had just twelve hours' sleep."

"Nothing like a good sleep, Jack, when you have had a hard day's work; and yesterday was enough to take it out of anyone."

"Is she damaged at all?" Jack asked.

"Yes, her forefoot is sprung just where it joins the keel; she came down just on the joint."

"That will be a rather nasty job to get right, won't it?"

"Yes, Jack, Benting says she must have a new stem altogether. He does not think the keel is damaged, but the stem is cracked right through."

"That will cost a lot, won't it?" Jack said.

"Yes, it is a nasty job, Jack; because, of course, she will want a lot of fresh planks in her. In fact, she will want pretty well rebuilding forward of the mast."

"It will cost about twenty pounds to make a good job of it," Benting said as he joined them. "I shouldn't like to take the job for less, not on contract. If I did day-work it might come to a little less or a little more, I cannot say."

Jack looked anxiously up into his uncle's face, for he knew that twenty pounds was a serious matter.

"It won't be at my expense, Jack," Ben replied to his look. "Captain Murchison came down at seven o'clock this morning and had a look at her with me. I told him yesterday that I was afraid she had damaged herself on the sand, as she had made a lot of water on her way up. He said that I was to have her examined at once and get an estimate for repairing her thoroughly, and that he would undertake it should be paid. He asked what her age was. Of course I told him she was only four years old, and that I had only finished paying off the money I borrowed when I had her built, last year. He said that as she was only four years old she was worth spending the money on; but if she had been an old boat, it would not have been worth while throwing money away on her. But Benting says he can make her as good as new again."

"Every bit," the carpenter said. "She will be just as strong as she was on the day she was turned out."

"How long will you be about it?"

"I would get her done in three weeks. I will go over to Southend by the twelve o'clock train and order the timber, and you can arrange this evening whether you will have her done by contract or day-work."

Captain Murchison that evening when he returned from town, where he had gone up to report to Lloyd's the loss of the ship, had a talk with Benting, and being a.s.sured by him that the _Bessy_ would after the execution of the repairs be in all respects as stout a craft as before, arranged with him to do it for the sum he named, and to set to work immediately.

Three days later Mr. G.o.dstone was able to be brought out on to the sofa in the sitting-room. Captain and Mrs. Murchison had gone home two days before, but the former came down again to Leigh on the morning Mr.

G.o.dstone got up. After a talk together Captain Murchison went out and fetched Ben Tripper in, and Mr. G.o.dstone presented him with a cheque for a hundred pounds for himself and fifty for Tom Hoskins.

"We owe you our lives," he said, "and we shall never forget the service you have rendered us. Captain Murchison tells me that your boat will be as good as before after she is repaired; but if she should not be so, sell her at once for what you can get for her and order a new one, I will pay the difference. In any case I consider I owe you a boat.

Whether it is five years hence or ten or fifteen, if I am alive and you want another boat I give you authority to order one of the best that can be built, and to tell them to send the bill in to me. I have not given you anything for your nephew, for I have been talking to my wife, and maybe we can serve him better in some other way."

Mrs. G.o.dstone had indeed been in for a chat each day with Jack's mother, and had told her husband that she felt sure neither Mrs. Robson nor Jack would like an offer of money.

"The lad is very intelligent," she said, "and he and his mother are of quite a different cla.s.s to the fisher people here. His father was a gentleman, and she has the manners of a lady. I should like for us to do the boy some permanent good, William."

"Well, we will see about it, my dear," her husband had said. "As soon as I am well enough to talk to him I will find out what his own wishes in the matter are."

Jack was therefore sent for after his uncle had left the inn.

"Well, my lad," Mr. G.o.dstone said as he entered, "I am glad to see you at last and to thank you for what you did for us the other day. My wife tells me that you do not like being thanked, and as deeds are better than words we won't say much more about it. So I hear you have only been living here about two years?"

"That is all, sir; we lived at Dulwich before."

"So I hear. And your father was an artist? Have you any taste that way?"

Jack shook his head. "No, sir; I never thought of being an artist. I always wanted to go to sea."

"To go to sea--eh?" Mr. G.o.dstone repeated, "Well, then, you have got your wish."

"Oh, I do not call this going to sea," Jack said contemptuously. "I mean, I wanted to be a sailor--not a fisherman."

"And why didn't you go then, lad?"

"Well, sir, in the first place mother did not know anyone who had to do with ships; and then her friends were all here, and she knew the place and its ways, and she thought that by buying a bawley, as she has done, in time I should come to sail her and earn my living as my uncle does.

And then I don't think she would ever have agreed to my going to sea right away from her; but I do not know about that."

"Well, lad, you see the case is changed now. I have to do with ships, and Captain Murchison here commands one. At least he doesn't at the present moment, but he will do so as soon as I can buy another to supply the place of the _Petrel_. And as he saw one yesterday that he thinks highly of, I shall probably buy her as soon as she has been surveyed. So you see that difficulty is at an end. As to your mother, no doubt she would have objected to your going as a ship's-boy, but perhaps she wouldn't if you were going as an apprentice. We call them midshipmen on board our ships; I like the name better than apprentice, though the thing is about the same. Captain Murchison will, I am sure, be glad to have you with him, and will do his best to make a good sailor of you.

And you may be sure that I shall push you on if you deserve it as fast as possible; and it may be that in another ten years you will be in command of one of my ships. Well, what do you say to that?"

"Oh! thank you, sir," Jack exclaimed. "I should like that better than anything in the world, if mother will let me."