Part 77 (2/2)
”If you could only persuade my Lord to listen to you, and tell him the story as you told it to me, he 'd be more than a Secretary of State if he could stand it.”
”I have no great desire to be laughed at, Skeffy.”
”Not if it got you out of a serious sc.r.a.pe,--a sc.r.a.pe that may cost you your appointment?”
”Not even at that price.”
”I can't understand that; it is quite beyond me. They might put _me_ into 'Joe Miller' to-morrow, if they 'd only gazette me Secretary of Emba.s.sy the day after. But here's the hotel; a good sleep will set you all right; and let me see you at breakfast as jolly as you used to be.”
CHAPTER XLVII. ADRIFT
The dawn was scarcely breaking as Tony Butler awoke and set off to visit the s.h.i.+ps in the port whose flags proclaimed them English. There were full thirty, of various sizes and rigs; but though many were deficient in hands, no skipper seemed disposed to accept a young fellow who, if he was stalwart and well grown, so palpably pertained to a cla.s.s to which hard work and coa.r.s.e usage were strangers.
”You ain't anything of a cook, are you?” asked one of the very few who did not reject his demand at once.
”No,” said he, smiling.
”Them hands of yours might do something in the caboose, but they ain't much like reefing and clewing topsails. Won't suit _me_.” And, thus discouraged, he went on from one craft to the other, surprised and mortified to discover that one of the resources he had often pictured to his mind in the hours of despondency was just as remote, just as much above him, as any of the various callings his friends had set before him.
”Not able to be even a sailor! Not fit to serve before the mast! Well, perhaps I can carry a musket; but for _that_ I must return to England.”
He fell to thinking of this new scheme, but without any of that hope that had so often colored his projects. He owed the service a grudge.
His father had not been fairly treated in it So, at least, from his very childhood, had his mother taught him to believe, and, in consequence, vehemently opposed all his plans to obtain a commission. Hard necessity, however, left no room for mere scruples; something he must do, and that something was narrowed to the one single career of a soldier.
He was practical enough in a certain sense, and he soon resolved on his line of action; he would reserve just so much as would carry him back to England, and remit the remainder of what he had to his mother.
This would amount to nigh eighty pounds,--a very considerable sum to one whose life was as inexpensive as hers. The real difficulty was how to reconcile her to the thought of his fallen condition, and the hards.h.i.+ps she would inevitably a.s.sociate in her mind with his future life. ”Ain't I lucky,” cried he in his bitterness, and trying to make it seem like a consolation,--”ain't I lucky, that, except my poor dear mother, I have not one other in the whole world to care what comes to me,--none other to console, none other before whom I need plead or excuse myself! My failure or my disgrace are not to spread a widecast sorrow. They will only darken one fireside, and one figure in the corner of it.”
His heart was full of Alice all the while, but he was too proud to utter her name even to himself. To have made a resolve, however, seemed to rally his courage again; and when the boatman asked him where he should go next, he was so far away in his thoughts that he had some difficulty to remember what he had been actually engaged in.
”Whereto?”
”Well, I can't well tell you,” said he, laughing. ”Isn't that schooner English,--that one getting underway yonder? Shove me aboard of her.”
”She's outward bound, sir.”
”No matter, if they 'll agree to take me,” muttered he to himself.
The craft was ”hauling short” on the anchor as Tony came alongside and learned that she was about to sail for Leghorn, having failed in obtaining a freight at Naples; and as by an accident one of the crew had been left on sh.o.r.e, the skipper was too willing to take Tony so far, though looking, as he remarked, far more like a swell landsman than an ordinary seaman.
Once outside the bay, and bowling along with a smart breeze and a calm sea, the rus.h.i.+ng water making pleasant music at the bow, while the helm left a long white track some feet down beneath the surface, Tony felt, what so many others have felt, the glorious elation of being at sea. How many a care ”blue water” can a.s.suage, how many a sorrow is made bearable by the fresh breeze that strains the cordage, and the laughing waves we cleave through so fast!
A few very eventful days, in which Tony's life pa.s.sed less like reality than a mere dream, brought them to Leghorn; and the skipper, who had taken a sort of rough liking to the ”Swell,” as he still called him, offered to take him on to Liverpool, if he were willing to enter himself regularly on the s.h.i.+p's books as one of the crew.
”I am quite ready,” said Tony, who thought by the time the brief voyage was completed he should have picked up enough of the practice and the look of a sailor to obtain another employment easily.
Accompanied by the skipper, he soon found himself in the consul's office, crowded with sailors and other maritime folk, busily engaged in preferring complaints or making excuses, or as eagerly asking for relief against this or that exaction on the part of the foreign government.
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