"So as he's not up to tricks, I shall do very well with him, I don't doubt," the skipper said; "but boys are an awful trouble, the first voyage or two. However, I will do my best for him.

"Are you ready to begin work at once, young 'un? What is your name?"

"William Gale, and I am quite ready."

"Very well, Bill, chuck off your jacket, then, and pa.s.s those bags along from the wharf."

The boy was soon hard at work. He was a little disappointed at finding that the skipper was, in dress and manner, in no way superior to the rest of the crew. The Kitty was a yawl of forty-five tons, deep in the water and broad in the beam. Her deck was dirty and, at present, in disorder; and she did not come up to the perfection of neatness and cleanliness which William Gale had read of, in the pages of his favorite author. However--as he told himself--there must, of course, be a good deal of difference between a man of war, where the crew have little to do but to keep things neat and bright, and a fishing smack.

The work upon which he was, at present, engaged was the transferring of the provisions for the voyage from the quay to the hold. These consisted princ.i.p.ally of barrels of salt meat, and bags of biscuits; but there were a large tin of tea, a keg of sugar, a small barrel of mola.s.ses--or treacle--two or three sacks of potatoes, pepper and salt. Then there was a barrel of oil for the lamps, coils of spare rope of different sizes, and a number of articles of whose use William Gale had not the most remote idea.

After two hours' work, the skipper looked at his watch.

"Time to knock off work," he said, "and we've got pretty near everything on board. Now, be sure you are all here by six in the morning. Tide will begin to run out at eight, and I don't want to lose any of it.

"Bill, you are to come home with me, for the night."

It was but a hundred yards to the sailor's cottage, which stood on the edge of the sharp rise, a short distance back from the river.

"Here, wife," he said as he entered, "I've got a new apprentice, and I expect he's pretty hungry; I am, I can tell you, and I hope tea's ready. His name's Bill, and he's going to stop here, tonight."

"Tea is quite ready, John, and there's plenty of mackerel. I thought you would not be getting them again, for a spell.

"Do you like fish?" she asked the boy.

"I don't know, ma'am--I never tasted them."

"Bless me!" the woman cried, in astonishment; "never tasted fish!

To think, now!"

"I've been brought up in a workhouse," William said, coloring a little as he spoke, for he knew the prejudice against the House.

"Ah!" she said, "we have had a good many of that sort; and I can't say as I likes 'em, for the most part. But you haven't got the look about you. You don't seem that sort."

"I hope I shall turn out none the worse for it," the boy said; "at any rate, I'll do my best."

"And none can't do more," the good woman said, briskly. "I like your looks, Bill, and you've a nice way of talking. Well, we shall see."

In a few minutes tea was upon the table, and Will sat down with the skipper, his wife, and two daughters--girls of ten and twelve. The lad enjoyed his meal immensely, and did full justice to the fish.

"You will have plenty of them, before you eat your next tea on sh.o.r.e. We pretty nigh live on them, when we are on the fishing grounds."

"The same kind of fish as this?"

"No, mackerel are caught in small boats, with a different sort of gear, altogether. We get them, sometimes, in the trawl--not shoals of 'em, but single fish, which we call horse mackerel."

After tea, the skipper lit his pipe; and his wife, after clearing up, took some knitting, and sat down and began to question the new apprentice.

"It's lucky, for you, you found such a good friend," she said, when he had finished his story. "That's how it is you are so different from other boys who have been apprenticed from the House. I should never have thought you had come from there.

"And she gave you good advice as to how you should go on, I'll be bound."

"Yes, ma'am," Will said, "and I hope I shall act up to it."

"I hope so, Bill; but you'll find it hard work to keep yourself as you should do, among them boys. They are an awful lot, them smack boys."

"Not worse nor other boys," her husband said.

"Not worse than might be looked for, John, but they are most of 'em pretty bad. The language they use make my blood run cold, often.

They seems to take a delight in it. The hands are bad enough, but the boys are dreadful.

"I suppose you don't swear, Will. They look too sharp after you, in the House; but if you take my advice, boy, don't you ever get into the way of bad language. If you once begin, it will grow on you.

There ain't no use in it, and it's awful to hear it."

"I will try not to do so," Will said firmly. "Mother--I always call her mother--told me how bad it was, and I said I'd try."

"That's right, Will, you stick to that, and make up your mind to keep from liquor, and you'll do."

"What's the use of talking that way?" the skipper said. "The boy's sure to do it. They all do."

"Not all, John. There's some teetotalers in the fleet."

"I won't say I'll never touch it," Will said, "for I don't know, yet, how I may want it--they say when you are cold and wet through, at sea, it is really good--but I have made up my mind I'll never drink for the sake of drinking. Half the men--ay, nineteen out of twenty in the House--would never have been there, I've heard mother say, if it hadn't been for drink; and I told her she need never fear I'd take to that."

"If you can do without it on sh.o.r.e, you can do without it at sea,"

the skipper said. "I take it when I'm on sh.o.r.e, but there's not a drop goes out on the Kitty. Some boats carries spirits, some don't.

We don't. The old man puts chocolate on board instead and, of a wet night, a drink of hot chocolate's worth all the rum in the world.

"As for giving it up altogether, I see no call for it. There are men who can't touch liquor, but they must go on till they get drunk. That sort ought to swear off, and never touch it at all.

It's worse than poison, to some. But for a man who is content with his pint of beer with his dinner, and a gla.s.s of grog of an evening, I see no harm in it."

"Except that the money might be better spent, John."

"It might be, or it might not. In my case, the saving would be of no account. The beer costs three pence, and the rum as much more.

That's six pence a day. I'm only at home ten days, once every two months; so it come to thirty shillings a year, and I enjoy my dinner, and my evening pipe, all the better for them."

"The thing is this, Will: you don't know, when you begin, whether you are going to be one of the men who--like my John--is content with his pint of beer, and his gla.s.s of grog; or whether you will be one of them as can't touch liquor without wanting to make beasts of themselves. Therefore the safest plan is, don't touch it at all--leastways, till you've served your time. The others may laugh at you, at first; but they won't like you any the worse for it."

"Thank you, ma'am. I will make up my mind to that--not to touch liquor till I am out of my apprenticeship. After that, I can see for myself."

"That's right, lad. When you come back from your first trip, you can join the lodge, if you like. I and my girls are members."

"Thank you, ma'am," Will said; "but I won't take any pledge. I have said I will not do it, and I don't see any use in taking an oath about it. If I am so weak as to break my word, I should break my oath. I don't know why I shouldn't be able to trust myself to do as I am willed, in that way as in any other. If I'd a craving after it, it might be different; but I never have tasted it, and don't want to taste it, so I don't see why I can't trust myself."

"Yes, I think as how you can trust yourself, Will," the woman said, looking at him; "and I've noticed often that it isn't them who say most, as do most.

"Now, I daresay you are sleepy. There's my boy's bed for you. He is fourth hand in one of the smacks at sea."

The next morning Will was out of bed the instant he was called, excited at the thought that he was going really to sea. The skipper's wife had tea made, and the table laid.