Part 19 (2/2)

Oysters growing on a tree indeed! Yet I could not repress a smile, and I dare say Mrs Coates noticed she was victorious.

”Oysters growing on trees? Yes, years and years ago.” I often noticed that peculiarity about Peter: he used to speak as if he were indeed a very old man. And, mind you, one's peculiarities should always be respected, even if they convey to your mind the idea that the owner is affected with pride. Because every one has peculiarities, and they are often faults; but all have faults.

I think in the present instance Peter would have been pleased if Jill or I had contradicted him, but we did not. Jill merely said:

”Wouldn't I like to have trees like these growing in my garden.”

Then Captain Coates explained that Peter referred to the mangrove trees, with huge bare root-tops, that grew by the seash.o.r.e in Africa, and graciously permitted the succulent bivalves to cling to them.

I have heard it said, reader, that there was not much romance about the merchant service; that, like the glory of war, it all clung to the Royal Navy. This is not quite true, and were I but to describe one half the adventures--none _very_ wild, perhaps--and half the fun we had for the next four years of our life at sea, giving an account at the same time of the storms and dangers we encountered, and a pen-and-ink picture graphically told of the lovely lands and seas we made the acquaintance of, it would be one of the most readable books ever printed. But I have that to tell of poor Jill and myself which I believe will be far more absorbing than the every-day events in the life of a sailor.

Our voyage, then, to Bombay was all that could be desired. Now that Jill and I really felt ourselves to be seafarers in the strict sense of the word, we settled down to our life, and began to enjoy it.

This is a feeling that comes sooner or later to all who make going to sea their profession, and it is born of the fact that your s.h.i.+p becomes your home; so that on sh.o.r.e you always feel out for the day or the week, as the case may be, but as soon as your foot is on deck you feel back and settled down. It is this feeling I doubt not which makes every true sailor love his s.h.i.+p.

From Bombay we went to China, and thence to Sydney, and it was there the great grief found us, a grief which made Jill and I feel we had left our boyhood behind us and grown suddenly old.

We had lost our father!

He had died, as heroes die, fighting at the head of his regiment, sword and revolver in hand, against fearful odds.

I shall not dwell on this sorrow; it had better be imagined. It was Mrs Coates who broke the news to us, after taking us below to our cabin. She let us weep as young orphan brothers would, in each other's arms, unrestrained for a long time, before she broke gently in with the remark:

”Dear boys, G.o.d is good to you; you still have your mother.”

Oh yes, we still had our mother, and when the first wild transports of our grief were past, our thoughts sorrowfully reverted to her, and her lonely life in auntie's cottage by the sea.

I think the first comfort we really had was in our manly resolves to do everything that was right, and to be everything that was brave and good, for the sake of this widowed mother of ours, and out of respect to the memory of our hero father.

But as I have said, the grief made us old, and mind you, age goes not with years; the poor miserable children that beg in the streets of London, half naked and in rags, whose parents are more unnatural than the wildest beasts, they, I say, are as old in spirit and heart, and often in wisdom, as happy young men and women of over twenty-one.

It was strange, too, that, children though we were, we could not help feeling that henceforward we would be our mother's protectors.

Ah, I have to confess, though, that, so hard was the blow to bear, so intense was the grief we experienced for father's death, we saw no silver lining to the cloud for many a day, and, at night, neither Jill nor I could get our hearts quite round those beautiful words in G.o.d's own prayer, ”Thy will be done.”

And so months and years flew by, and Jill and I grew big and strong, and at the age of sixteen we brothers took the position of second and third mates on the _Salamander_. There really was no such rating as third mate, but the captain and everyone else who had anything to do with the s.h.i.+p, knew well we would not be parted if possible.

In all these years we had only been twice home, for our s.h.i.+p had what might be called a roving commission. Captain Coates was part owner of her and the rest of the owners knew well he would do all for the best, so that when abroad he invariably took whatever turned uppermost in the shape of trade. When unlading at one port, he seldom knew where he would be sailing to next. Sometimes we would take several trips back and fore between the same two ports. In a word, Captain Coates despised no trade or trip either by which he saw his way to make an honest penny.

On our last return home, we found that mamma was much more cheerful and resigned, that Auntie Serapheema had not yet got married. It was not even rumoured that she had refused many offers. She seemed wholly bound up in mamma.

Mummy Gray, Sarah, and Robert, were just as we had left them, Robert and Trots the pony being both stiffening a trifle with age.

Mattie was grown almost out of ”kenning,” as the Scotch say. She had slipped up, but she was none the less wonderfully beautiful.

<script>