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Syd Belton: The Boy Who Would Not Go to Sea

by George Manville Fenn · English · Gutenberg #21373 · 576,535 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Syd Belton: The Boy Who Would Not Go to Sea

Author: George Manville Fenn

Illustrator: Gordon Browne


        
Release date: May 8, 2007 [eBook #21373]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21373

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYD BELTON: THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT GO TO SEA ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Syd Belton; or, The Boy who would not go to Sea, by George Manville
Fenn.

________________________________________________________________________

The book opens with a domestic scene with the boy Sydney having just
finished dinner with his father, a Captain in the navy, and his uncle,
an Admiral.  They are discussing Syd's career, which the two old
gentlemen hope will be as a naval officer.  Syd, however has other
ideas: he has been on his rounds with the local doctor, and thinks that
he might like to be a doctor, too.  The time of the story is in the
middle of the eighteenth century, but the only real evidence of this is
the fact of people wearing cocked hats.  Other than that the story might
fit a hundred years later, though there is a point late in the story
where the French are the enemy.

There is an episode in which Syd runs away from home, in company with
the son of his father's gardener, the latter having been his boatswain
in his naval days.  On his return he realises that he does really want
to be a naval officer, too.  His father tries to get him an appointment
as a midshipman with a captain he formerly served with, but was
rebuffed.  He realises that the present First Sea Lord, the title of the
Admiral in command of the whole navy, is someone he used to serve with
in former days, so they go to see this eminent officer.  The outcome is
that Syd's father is appointed to command the Sirius, and is invited to
take Syd with him as a midshipman.

From here on we have an excellent and well-told narrative, describing
Syd's early days in the Navy, and then an episode when he finds himself
in command of a naval party holding a rock in the Caribbean.

You'll enjoy this story, especially if you make an audiobook of it.

________________________________________________________________________

SYD BELTON; OR, THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT GO TO SEA, BY GEORGE MANVILLE
FENN.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT GO TO SEA.

"Here you, Syd, pass the port."

Sydney Belton took hold of the silver decanter-stand and slid it
carefully along the polished mahogany table towards where Admiral Belton
sat back in his chair.

"Avast!"

The ruddy-faced old gentleman roared out that adjuration in so
thunderous a way that the good-looking boy who was passing the decanter
started and nearly turned it over.

"What's the matter, Tom?" came from the other end of the table, where
Captain Belton, a sturdy-looking, grey-haired gentleman nearly as ruddy
as his brother, was the admiral's _vis-a-vis_.

"He's passing the decanter without filling his own glass!" cried the
admiral.  "Fill up, you young dog, and drink the King's health."

"No, thank you, uncle," said the boy, quietly, "I've had one glass."

"Well, sir, so have I.  Don't I tell you I'm going to propose the King's
health?"

"I'll drink it in water, uncle."

"What, sir?  Drink the health of his most gracious Majesty in raw water!
Not if I know it."

"But port wine makes my face burn, uncle, and Doctor Liss says--"

"Confound Doctor Liss, sir!  Hang Doctor Liss, sir!  By George, sir, if
I were in active service again, and your Doctor Liss were in my
squadron, I'd have him triced up and give him twelve dozen, sir."

"No, you wouldn't, uncle," said the boy, cracking a walnut, and glancing
at his father, who was watching him furtively.

"What, sir?  I wouldn't?  Look here, brother Harry, Liss is corrupting
this boy's mind."

"I don't know about corrupting, Tom," said the captain, smiling, "but he
certainly does seem to be putting some queer things into his head."

"So it seems.  Teaches him to drink the King's health in water."

"No, he didn't, uncle," said the boy, cracking another walnut.

"Yes, he did, sir.  How dare you contradict me!  Confound you, sir, if I
had you aboard ship I'd mast-head you."

"No, you wouldn't, uncle," said the boy, dipping a piece of
freshly-peeled walnut in the salt and crunching it between his teeth.

"What, sir?"

"I say you would not," replied the boy.

"And pray why, you young dog?"

"Because you'd know father wouldn't like it."

Captain Belton laughed and sipped his port, and the admiral blew out his
cheeks.

"Look here, brother Harry," he cried; "is this my nephew Sydney, or some
confounded young son of a sea-lawyer?"

"Oh, it's Syd, sure enough," said the captain.

"Then he's grown into an insolent, pragmatical young cock-a-hoop
upstart; and hang it, I should like to spread-eagle him till he came to
his senses."

The boy, who was peeling a scrap of walnut, gave his uncle a sidelong
look and laughed.

"Ah, I would, sir, and no mistake," cried the admiral, fiercely.
"Harry, you don't half preserve discipline in the ship.  Here, Syd, it's
time you were off to sea."

The boy took another walnut and crushed it, conscious of the fact that
his father was watching him intently.

"I don't want to go to sea, uncle," said the boy at last, as he picked
off the scraps of broken shell from his walnut.

"What?" roared the admiral.  "Here you, sir, say that again."

"I don't want to go to sea, uncle."

"You--don't--want--to go--to sea, sir?"

"No, uncle."

"Well, I am stunned," said the old gentleman, rapidly pouring out and
tossing off a glass of port.  "Brother Harry, what have you to say to
this?"

"That it is all nonsense.  The boy does not know his own mind."

"Of course not," cried the admiral, turning sharply upon Sydney, who
went on picking the skin from his walnut.  "Do you know, sir, that your
family have been sailors as far back as the days of Elizabeth."

"Yes, uncle," said the boy, coolly.  "I've often heard you say so."

"And that it is your duty, as the last representative of the family, to
maintain its honour, sir?"

"No, uncle."

"What, sir?" cried the old man, fiercely.

"I'm not fit to be a sailor," continued the boy, quietly enough.

"And pray, why not, Sydney?" said Captain Belton, frowning.

"Because I'm such a coward, father."

"A Belton!" groaned the admiral, "and says he is a coward."

"A boy to be a sailor ought to be fond of the sea."

"Of course, sir," said the captain.

"And I hate it."

"And pray why?" said the admiral, fiercely.

"Because it's so salt," said Syd, busy helping himself to some more of
the condiment he had named.

"Salt?" cried the admiral.  "Of course it is, and so it ought to be.
Nonsense!  He's laughing at us, Harry--a dog."

"No, I'm not, uncle; I'm not fit to be a sailor."

"Then, pray, what are you fit for, sir?" cried Captain Belton, angrily.

"I mean to be a doctor!"

"What!" roared the two officers together.

_Crack! crack_!

"Put that walnut and those crackers down, sir!" said the captain,
sternly.  "I am glad your uncle started this subject, for it was time we
had an explanation.  Do you know that with his interest at the Admiralty
and mine you could be entered on board a first-rate man-of-war?"

"Yes, and well looked after, sir," cried the admiral; "so that when you
had properly gone through your term, and been master's mate long enough,
your promotion would have been certain."

"Yes, uncle, father has often said so," replied Sydney, reaching for
another walnut, and taking up the crackers.

"Put that walnut down, sir," cried his father.

Sydney obeyed, and to keep his hands under control thrust them in his
pockets and leaned back in his chair.

"Well, sir," said his uncle, "does not that make you feel proud?"

"No, uncle."

"What!  Don't you know that you would have a uniform and wear a sword--I
mean a dirk?"

"Yes, uncle."

"Well, sir?  Why, at your time of life I was mad to have my uniform."

"What for?" said the boy.

"What for, sir?  What for?  Why, to wear, of course."

"I don't want to wear a uniform.  You couldn't climb trees, nor go
fishing, nor shrimping, nor riding in a uniform."

"No, sir," continued the admiral, after winking and frowning at his
brother to leave the boy to him, "of course not.  You would be an
officer and a gentleman then, and wear a cocked hat."

"Ha! ha! ha!"

The boy burst into a hearty fit of laughter, and his father frowned.

"Sydney--" he began.

"No, no, Harry, leave him to me," said the admiral; "I'll talk to him.
Now, sir," he continued, turning to the boy sternly, "pray what did I
say to make you start grinning like a confounded young monkey?  I--I--I
am not accustomed to be laughed at by impertinent boys."

"I was not laughing at you, uncle," said the boy, dragging one hand from
his pocket and making a lunge at an apple.

"Leave that fruit alone, sir," said the admiral, "and don't tell me a
confounded lie, sir.  You did laugh at me."

"I did not," said the boy; "and that's not a lie."

"What!" roared the admiral, turning purple.  "How dare you, sir!  To the
mast-head at once, and stop there till--"

A hearty burst of laughter from his brother and nephew quelled the old
man's anger.

"Ah, you may laugh at that," he said.  "Force of habit.  But you've got
to apologise, you young monkey, for what you said."

"I can't apologise for what I did not do," said the boy, stubbornly.

"What, sir?"

"Steady, steady, sir," said the captain.  "He's a confoundedly impudent
young scamp, but he could not tell a lie."

"But he laughed in my face, Harry?"

"I was laughing at myself, uncle."

"At yourself, sir?"

"Yes, I was thinking what a popinjay I should look in a cocked hat."

"Well, really," said the admiral, "I am beginning to be glad, Harry,
that I never married and had a son.  I used to be envious about this
boy, and wanted a share in him.  But a boy who can laugh at a part of
his Majesty's uniform--well!  Why, you young whipper-snapper, did I ever
look a--a--a popinjay in my cocked hat?"

"Well, you used to look very rum, uncle."

"Harry, my dear boy," said the admiral, fiercely; "we are old men, and
this young dog represents us.  May I take him into the library, and give
him a good caning?"

"No, Tom, certainly not."

"No, of course not, Harry; I beg your pardon.  Now, sir--pass that
port--and--a--don't fill your own glass.  Port like that, sir, is only
fit for gentlemen.  And you--you want to be a doctor, eh?"

"Yes, uncle," said the boy, pushing the decanter along the table.

"And pray what for, sir?"

"To do good to people."

"What?  A doctor do good!  Rubbish!  Never did me a bit of good."

"Oh, but they do, uncle."

"Never, sir.  That Liss has pretty well poisoned me over and over
again."

"Oh, uncle, what a--"

"You say that if you dare, sir," cried the old admiral, bringing his
hand down bang upon the table, and making the glasses dance.  "It's the
truth.  Always made my gout worse.  Colchicum--colchicum--colchicum--and
the pain awful.  Doctors are an absurd new invention, and of no use
whatever."

"Why, you always have a doctor on board ship."

"Surgeon, you young dog, surgeon.  Doctor!  Bah!  Hang all doctors!  A
surgeon is of some use in action, cutting, and splicing, and fishing a
poor fellow's limbs; but a doctor--"

At that moment a rubicund butler opened the dining-room door, and stood
back for some one to enter.

"Doctor Liss, sir," he said quietly; and a quick, eager-looking little
man in snuff-coloured coat and long, salt-box-pocketed waistcoat entered
the room, handing his cocked hat and stick to the butler, and nodding
pleasantly from one to the other.

"Who was that shouting for the doctor?" he said cheerily, as he rubbed
his hands; then took out a gold snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and
handed it to the captain.

"You, wasn't it, Sir Thomas?  Touch of your old enemy?"

"No," grunted the admiral, "I'm sound as a roach.  Bah!"

"Thankye, Liss," said the captain, taking his pinch, and handing back
the box; "sit down.  Syd, pass those clean glasses."

The admiral took a pinch, and then the new-comer took his, loudly
snapped-to the box, and drew out a delicate cambric handkerchief to flap
off some snuff from his shirt-frill.

As soon as the doctor was comfortably seated the port was passed, and
then there was silence, Sydney looking from one to the other, and
wondering what was coming next.

The doctor, too, looked from one to the other and formed his own
opinion.

"Hullo!" he said.  "In disgrace, Sydney?  What have you been doing,
sir?"

"Eating walnuts," said the boy, mischievously.

"And defying his father and uncle--a dog!" cried the admiral.  "Here,
Liss; what do you think he says?"

"Bless me!  I don't know."

"Why, confound him! says he wants to be a doctor."

"Does he?" cried the new-comer, turning to look at Sydney.  "Well, I'm
not surprised."

"But I am," cried Captain Belton, angrily.

"And I'm astounded," said the admiral.  "A Belton descend to being an
apothecary."

"Ah!" said the doctor, dryly, as he held his glass up to the light,
"terrible descent, certainly.  Wants to save life instead of destroying
it."

"Now, look here, Liss," began the admiral, fiercely.

"No, no, Tom, let me speak," said Captain Belton.  "No quarrelling."

"No, you had better not quarrel," said the doctor, good-humouredly.
"Make you both ill, and then I shall have you at my mercy."

"Indeed you will not," said the admiral, "for I'll call in old Marchant
from Lowerport."

"Not you," cried the doctor, laughing; "you dare not.  I'm the only man
who understands your constitution."

"There, there, there!" cried the captain, "that's enough.  But really,
sir, it's too bad.  As an old friend I did not think you would lead my
boy astray."

"I?  Astray?  Nonsense!"

"But you have, sir.  You've taken him out with you on your rounds, and
the young dog thinks of nothing else but doctoring."

"And pill-boxes and gallipots," said the admiral, fiercely.

"Now, my dear old friends, you are not talking sense," said the doctor,
quietly.  "Sydney has been my rounds with me a good deal, and he has
certainly displayed so much interest in all my surgical cases, that if
he were my boy I should certainly make him a doctor."

"Impossible!" cried the captain.

"Not to be heard of," said Sir Thomas.  "He's going to sea."

Sydney, who had been fidgeting about in his chair, gave a sudden kick
out with his right leg, and felt something soft as his uncle uttered a
savage yell, and thrust his chair back from the table.

"I--I beg your pardon, uncle, I did not know that--"

"You did, sir," cried the old man furiously, as he shook his fist at the
boy.  "You did it maliciously; out of spite, because I want to make a
man of you.  Bless me, Harry," he continued, "if you don't take that
young scoundrel out into the hall and thrash him, I'll never darken your
doors again.  Dear--dear--dear--dear!  Bless my soul!  Ah!"

The poor old admiral had risen, and was limping about when Sydney went
after him.

"Uncle," he began.

"Bah!" ejaculated the old man, grasping him by the collar.  "Here he is,
brother Harry; I've got him.  Now then, take him out."

"I'm very sorry, uncle," said Sydney.  "I didn't know it was your gouty
leg there."

"Then, you did do it on purpose, sir?"

"No, I didn't, uncle.  I wouldn't have been such a coward."

"Of course he wouldn't," said the doctor.  "But there, sir, sit down;
the pain is gone off now."

"How do you know?" cried the admiral.  "It's as if ten thousand red-hot
irons were searing it.  Harry, you've spoiled that boy."

"No, I join issue there," said Captain Belton.  "You've indulged him ten
times more than ever I have, Tom."

"It is not true, brother Harry," said the admiral, limping to his chair.

"Oh yes, it is.  Hasn't your uncle spoiled you, Sydney, far more than I
have?"

"No, father," replied the boy, quietly, as he helped the old admiral to
sit down, and placed an ottoman under his injured leg.

"Thankye, boy, thankye.  And you're not so bad as I said; 'tis quite
true, it's your father's doing."

"I think you've both spoiled me," said Sydney, quietly; and the doctor
helped himself to another glass of port to hide his mirth.

"Won't do, Liss, you're laughing.  I can see you," said the admiral.
"That's just what you doctors enjoy, seeing other people suffer, so that
you may laugh and grow fat."

"Oh, I was not laughing at your pain," said the doctor, quietly, "but at
Sydney's judgment.  He is quite right, you do both spoil him."

"What?"

"He has three times as much money to spend as is right, and I wonder he
does not waste it more.  Well, Syd, my boy, so they will not let you be
a doctor?"

Sydney frowned, and cracked a walnut till the shell and nut were all
crushed together.

"And so you are to make up your mind to go to sea?"

"Yes," said the admiral, emphatically.

"Certainly," said Captain Belton; and, as soon after the conversation
turned into political matters, Sydney quietly left his chair, strolled
to the window, and stood gazing out at the estuary upon which the
captain's house looked down.

It was a glorious view.  The long stretch of water was dappled with
orange and gold; and here and there the great men-of-war were lying at
anchor, some waiting their commanders; others, whose sea days were past,
waiting patiently for their end, sent along dark shadows behind them.
Here and there fishing-boats with tawny sails were putting out to sea
for the night's fishing; and as Sydney's eyes wandered, a frown settled
upon his forehead, and he stepped out through the open window into the
garden.

"Bother the old sea!" he said, petulantly.  "It's always sea, sea, sea,
from morning till night.  I don't want to go, and I won't."

As he spoke he passed under an apple tree, one of whose fruit, missed in
the gathering a month before, had dropped, and picking it up, the boy
relieved his feelings by throwing it with all his might across the
garden.

The effect was as sudden as that produced by his kick; for there was a
shout and sound of feet rapidly approaching, and a red-faced boy of
about his own age came into sight, hatless and breathless, panting,
wild-eyed, and with fists clenched ready for assault.

"Who threw--Oh, it was you, was it, Master Sydney?  You coward!"

"Who's a coward?" cried Sydney, hotly.

"You are.  You throwed that apple and hit me, 'cause you knowed I
dursen't hit you again."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did, and you are a coward."

"No, I'm not a coward."

"Yes, you are.  If I hit you, I know what you'd do--go and tell your
father, and get me sent away."

"There, then!  Does that feel like a coward's blow?--or that?--or that?"

Three sharp cuffs in the chest illustrated Sydney's words, two of which
the boy bore, flinching at each; but rising beyond endurance by the
third, he retaliated with one so well planted that Sydney went down in a
sitting position, but in so elastic a fashion that he was up again on
the instant, and flew at the giver of the blow.

Then for five minutes there was a sharp encounter, with its
accompaniments of hard breathing, muttering, dull sounds of blows and
scuffling feet, till a broad-shouldered, red-faced man in a serge apron
came down upon them at a trot, and securing each by the shoulder held
them apart.

"Now then," he growled, "what's this here?"

"Pan hit me, and I'm dressing him down," panted Sydney.  "Here, let go,
Barney."

"Master Syd hit me first, father," panted the red-faced boy.

"Howld your tongue, warmint, will you," said the man in a deep growl.
"Want to have me chucked overboard, and lose my bit o' pension.  You're
allus a-going at your pastors and masters."

"Hit me first," remonstrated the boy, as the new-comer gave him a shake.

"Well, what o' that, you ungrateful young porpuss!  Hasn't the cap'n hit
me lots o' times and chucked things at me?  You never see me flyin' in
his face."

"Chucked a big apple at me first," cried the boy in an ill-used tone.

"Sarve you right too.  Has he hurt you much, Master Sydney?"

"No, Barney; not a bit.  There, I was wrong.  I didn't know he was there
when I threw the apple.  I only did it because I felt vicious."

"Hear that, you young sarpint?" cried the square-shouldered man.

"Yes, father."

"Then just you recollect.  If the young skipper feels wicious, he's a
right to chuck apples.  Why, it's rank mutiny hitting him again."

"Hit me first," grumbled the boy.

"Ay, and I'll hit you first.  Why, if I'd been board ship again, instead
of being a pensioner and keeping this here garden in order for the
skipper, I should have put my pipe to my mouth, and--What say, Master
Syd?"

"Don't say any more about it.  I'd no business to hit Pan, and I'm sorry
I did now."

"Well, sir, I don't know 'bout not having no business, 'cause you see
you're the skipper's son, and nothing does a boy so much good as a
leathering; but if you're sorry for it, there's an end on it.
Pan-a-mar, my lad, beg Master Sydney's pardon."

"He hit me first," grumbled the boy.

"Do you want me to give you a good rope's-ending, my sonny?" growled the
man; "'cause if you do, just you say that 'ere agen."

The red-faced boy uttered a smothered growl, and was silent.

"Too young to understand discipline yet, Master Sydney," said the man.
"And so you felt wicious, did you?  What about?"

"They've been at me again about going to sea, Barney."

"And you don't want to go, my lad?"

"No; and I won't go."

"Hear that, Pan, my lad?"

The boy nodded and drew down the corner of his lips, with the effect
that Sydney made a threatening gesture.

"No, I'm not afraid, Pan," he cried fiercely; "but I don't want to go,
and I won't."

The broad-shouldered man shook his head mournfully, and taking out a
steel tobacco-box he opened it and cut off a piece of black, pressed
weed, to transfer to his cheek, as he again shook his head sadly.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Master Sydney," he said.

"Why?"

"'Cause it's agen nature.  I'm sixty-two now, and from the time I was a
little shaver right up to now I never heerd a well-grown, strong,
good-looking young chap say he didn't want to go to sea."

"Ah, well, Barney, you've heard one now."

"Ay, ay! and mighty sorry too, sir.  Why, there have been times when
I've said to myself, `Maybe when the young master gets his promotion and
a ship of his own, he'll come and say to me, Now then, Barney, now's
your time to get rid o' the rust; I'll get you painted and scraped, and
you shall come to sea with me.'"

"You, Barney?  You are too old now.  What would you be then?"

"Old!  Old!  Get out!  I don't call myself old by a long way, Master
Syd; and if it hadn't been for the captain laying up I should ha' been
at sea now.  But you'll think better on it, sir; you'll go."

"What, to sea, Barney?"

"Ay, sir."

"No; I mean to be a doctor."

"Then I says it again as I said it afore, Master Syd, there's something
the matter with you."

"Matter?  Nonsense!  What do you mean?"

"Why, what you say sounds so gal-ish and soft, it makes me think as you
must have ketched something going out with the doctor."

"What rubbish, Barney!"

"But you going to be a doctor!" cried the old sailor, rubbing his nose
with a great gnarled finger.  "You, who might be an admiral and command
a squadron: no, sir, it won't do."

"It will have to do, Barney."

"Well, sir, it mought and it moughtn't; but it strikes me as you've got
something coming on, sir, as is a weakening your head--measles, or
fever, or such-like--or you wouldn't talk as you do about the Ryle
Navee."

"I talk about it as I do because I don't want to go to sea."

"But it's a flying in the face of the skipper and the admiral.  Bobstays
and chocks!  I wish I was your age and got the chance o' going instead
o' being always ashore here plarntin' the cabbages and pulling up the
weeds."

"Then you don't like being a gardener, Barney?"

"I 'ates it, sir."

"And so do I hate being a sailor.  There!"

"But it's so onnat'ral, sir.  Here's your father been a sailor, same as
I've been a sailor, and I've drilled up Pan-a-mar o' purpose to be
useful to you in the same ship.  Why, it's like wasting a season in the
garden.  I meant him to be your Jack factotum, as the skipper used to
call it, and you never heard him say he didn't want to go to sea."

"You said you'd rope's-end me if I did," grumbled the red-faced boy.

"And so I will, you young swab," roared the gardener.  "Why, you
onnat'ral young galley-dabber, are you going to turn up your ugly pig's
nose at your father's purfession?"

"Pan doesn't like the sea any more than I do," cried Sydney; "and I say
it's a shame to force boys to be what they don't like."

"Well, this beats all," cried the gardener, helping himself to a fresh
piece of tobacco.  "What the world's coming to next, I dunnow.  Why, if
the King, bless him! know'd o' this, it would break his heart."

"Syd!  Ahoy there!" came from the dining-room window.

"Aho--"

Sydney was about to reply with a hearty sea-going _Ahoy_! but he altered
his mind and cried--

"Yes, father; I'm coming."

This was followed by a savage slap on the leg given by the ex-boatswain,
who had settled down with his master the captain at The Heronry,
Southbayton.

"Just like a loblolly boy," he growled.  "You, Pan, if you was to answer
a hail like that I'd--Stop; come here."

"Yes, father, I'm coming," said the red-faced boy, with a grin; and then
he dodged while the old boatswain made a blow at his head with open
hand.

"Here, I'll speak to the skipper at once about you, youngster.  Doing
the knives and boots and helping over the weeds is spyling your morals."

"Speak--what about, father?"

"Speak?  What about?  Why, you swab, do you think I had you chrissen
Pan-a-mar, arter a glorious naval victory, o' purpose to have you grow
up into a 'long-shore lubber?  There, get indoors.  'Fore you're many
hours older I'll have you afloat."

Pan went slowly up to the house, followed by his father, who walked
along the gravel path with his legs wide apart, as if he expected the
ground to heave up; while Sydney went round to the front of the house,
and entered by the dining-room window, where his father, uncle, and the
doctor were still seated at the table.

"Why, Syd, lad, we did not see you go," said his father; "come and sit
down."

The boy obeyed, looking furtively from one to the other, as if he knew
instinctively that something particular was coming.

"Ahem!"  The admiral gave vent to a tremendous forced cough.

"No, Tom, I'll tell him," said Captain Belton.  "Look here, Syd, my boy,
at your time of life lads do not know what is best for them, so it is
the duty of their fathers to decide."

"Is it, father?"

"Of course it is, sir," growled the admiral, and Doctor Liss wrinkled up
his forehead and looked attentively on.

"Now look here, sir.  Your uncle has just heard an old friend of his,
Captain Dashleigh--"

"Known him from a boy," said the admiral.

"Has been appointed to the _Juno_, one of our finest three-deckers, and
he is going to ask him to take you as one of his midshipmen."

"Uncle Tom always said that a boy should commence life either in a sloop
of war or a smart frigate," said Syd, sharply.

"If there's one handy," growled the admiral.  "_Juno's_ a ship to be
proud of."

"So, thank your uncle for his promise to exert his interest, and let's
have no more nonsense."

"But I want to be a doctor, father," said Syd, looking hard at the
visitor.

_Crash_!

The glasses danced as the admiral brought his hand down heavily.

"No, no, Tom," cried the captain, testily; "I can manage the helm."

"But, Doctor Liss!" said the boy, appealingly.

"Don't appeal to me, my boy," said the doctor, gravely.  "You know your
father's and your uncle's wish.  It is your duty to obey."

"Oh!" ejaculated Sydney, in a tone of voice which seemed to say, "I did
think you would side with me."

The doctor took a pinch of snuff.

"You see, Syd," continued the captain, "your uncle has no son, and I
have only one to keep up the honour of our family.  You will join your
ship with the best of prospects, and I hope you will be a credit to us
both."

Sydney said nothing, but took another walnut, and cracked it viciously,
as if it was the head of a savage enemy.

That night he lay tumbling and unable to sleep, his brow knit and his
teeth set, feeling as obstinate as a boy can feel who has not been
allowed to have his own way.



CHAPTER TWO.

The next morning Sydney Belton rose in excellent time, but not from a
desire to keep good hours.  He could not sleep well, so he dressed and
went out, to find it was only on the stroke of six.

As he reached the garden, there was his self-constituted enemy
stretching out before him, far as eye could reach, and sparkling
gloriously in the morning sunshine.

"Bother the sea!" muttered the boy, scowling.  "Wish it was all dry
land."

"What cheer, lad!  Mornin', mornin'.  Don't she look lovely, eh?"

"Morning, Barney," said the boy, turning to see that the old boatswain
had come to work with a scythe over his shoulder.  "What looks lovely
this morning?"

"Eh?  Why, the sea, of course.  Wish I was afloat, 'stead of having to
shave this lawn, like a wholesale barber.  Got any noos?"

"Yes, Barney," said the boy, bitterly; "I'm to go to sea."

"Hurray!" cried the old boatswain, rubbing his scythe-blade with the
stone rubber, and bringing forth a musical sound.

"You're glad of it, then?"

"Course I am, my lad.  Be the making on you.  Wish I was coming too."

"Bah!" ejaculated Sydney, and he left the old boatswain to commence the
toilet of the dewy lawn, while in a desultory way, for the sake of doing
something to fill up the time till breakfast, he strolled round to the
back, where a loud whistling attracted his attention.

The sound came from an outhouse, toward which the boy directed his
steps.

"Cleaning the knives, I suppose," said Sydney to himself, and going to
the door he looked in.

The tray of knives was there waiting to be cleaned, and the board and
bath-brick were on a bench, but the red-faced boy was otherwise engaged.

He was kneeling down with a rough, curly-haired retriever dog sitting up
before him, with paws drooped and nose rigid, while Pan was carefully
balancing a knife across the pointed nose aforesaid.

Pan was so busily employed that he did not hear the step, and the first
notification he had of another's presence was given by the dog, who
raised his muzzle suddenly and uttered a loud and piteous whine directed
at Sydney--the dog's cry seeming to say, "Do make him leave off."

The glance the boatswain's son gave made him spring at the board, snatch
up a couple of the implements, and begin to rub them to and fro
furiously, while the dog, in high glee at being freed from an arduous
task, began to leap about, barking loudly, and making dashes at his
young master's legs.

"Poor old Don--there!" cried Sydney, patting the dog's ears.  "He don't
like discipline, then.  Well, Pan, when are you going to sea?"

"Not never," said the boy, shortly.

"Yes, you are.  Your father said he should send you."

"If he does I shall run away, so there," cried the boy.

Sydney turned away, and walked through the garden, his head bent, his
brow wrinkled, and his mind so busily occupied, that he hardly heeded
which way he went.

"If his father sends him he shall run away."

Those words kept on repeating themselves in Sydney's brain like some
jingle, and he found himself thinking of them more and more as he passed
through the gate, and went along the road that late autumn morning,
kicking up the dead leaves which lay clustering beneath the trees.

"If his father sends him to sea he shall run away," said Sydney to
himself; and then he thought of how Pan Strake would be free, and have
no more boots and shoes or knives to clean, and not have to go into the
garden to weed the paths.

Then by a natural course he found himself thinking that if he, Sydney
Belton, were to leave home, he would escape being sent to sea--at all
events back to school--and he too would be free.

With a boy's wilful obstinacy, he carefully drew a veil over all the
good, and dragged out into the mental light all that he looked upon as
bad in his every-day life, satisfied himself that he was ill-used, and
wished that he had had a mother living to, as he called it, take his
part.

"I wonder what running away would be like?" he thought.  "There would be
no Uncle Tom to come and bully and bother me, and father wouldn't be
there to take his side against me.  I wonder what one could do if one
ran away?"

"Morning!"

Sydney started, for he had been so intent upon his thoughts that he had
not heard the regular trot, trot of a plump cob, nor the grinding of
wheels, and he looked up to see that it was Doctor Liss who had suddenly
drawn rein in the road.

"Going for a walk, Syd?"

"Yes; but--I--Where are you going, doctor?"

"Into the town.  Just been called up.  Poor fellow injured in the docks
last night."

"Take me with you."

"What?" cried the doctor, smiling down in the eager face before him.
"Didn't I get scolded enough last night, you young dog, for leading you
astray?"

"Oh, but father didn't mean it.  Do take me.  Is he much hurt?"

"Broken leg, I hear.  No, no.  Go home to breakfast.  Ck!  Sally.  Good
morning."

The doctor touched the cob as he nodded to Sydney, and the wheels of the
chaise began to turn, but with a bound the boy was out in the road, and
hanging on to the back.

"No, no, Doctor Liss, don't leave me behind.  I do so want to go, and
there's plenty of time for me to get back to breakfast."

"But Sir Thomas will declare I am leading you into the evil paths of
medicine and surgery."

"Uncle won't know.  Do pull up; let me come."

"Well," said the doctor, smiling grimly, "I don't see that it can do you
any harm, Syd.  Here, jump in."

There was no need for a second consent.  Almost before the horse could
be stopped the boy had leaped lightly in, and with his face bright and
eager once more, and the dark misty notions upon which he had been
brooding gone clean away, he began chatting merrily to his old friend,
whose rounds he had often gone.

"Yes, yes, Syd, that's all very well," said the doctor, making his
whip-lash whistle through the air, "but you don't know what a doctor's
life is.  All very well driving here on a bright autumn morning to get
an appetite for breakfast, but look at the long dark dismal rides I have
at all times in the winter."

"Well, they can't be half so bad as keeping a watch in a storm right out
at sea.  Why, I've heard both father and Uncle Tom say that it's awful
sometimes."

"Only sometimes, Syd."

"Well, I can't help it.  I hate it, and I won't go."

"Must, my boy, must.  Take it like a dose of my very particular.  You
know, Syd," said the doctor, nudging the boy with his elbow; "that rich
thick morning draught I gave you after a fever."

"Oh, I say, don't," cried Sydney, with a wry face and a shudder; "it's
horrid.  I declare, when I'm a doctor, I'll never give any one such
stuff."

"No, Syd, you'll be a captain, and the physic for your patients will be
cat-o'-nine-tails."

Sydney frowned, and as they neared the busy town, with its little forest
of masts rising beyond the houses, Doctor Liss glanced sideways at the
boy's gloomy and thoughtful countenance.

"Why, Syd," he said at last merrily, "you look as gloomy as if you had
been pressed.  Come, my lad, take your medicine, and then you can have
that sweet afterwards that we call duty."

Sydney made no reply, but his face did not brighten, for duty seemed to
him then a nauseous bitter.

"Doctor Liss," he said, just as they reached the docks, down one of
whose side lanes the patient lay, "if I make up my mind to be a
doctor--"

"You can't, Syd.  You are too young to have one yet.  A man's mind is as
strong as if it had bone and muscle.  Yours is only like jelly."

Syd was silent again for a minute.  Then he began once more--

"If I determined to be a doctor, and wouldn't be anything else, would
you teach me?"

"No, certainly not."

"Then I'd teach myself," cried Syd, fiercely.

"Oh, indeed!  Humph!  I retract my words about your young mind being
jelly.  I see there is some substance in it growing already.  But no,
Syd, you are not going to be a doctor; and here we are."

He drew up at a cottage door, where a couple of rough-looking men were
waiting about, one of whom held the horse while the doctor descended,
and Syd followed into the room, where a poor fellow lay in great agony
with a badly fractured leg.

This was reduced, Syd looking on, and handing the doctor splints and
bandages as they were required.  After this the pair re-entered the gig,
and drove back toward the Heronry.

"Just a quarter to nine, Syd.  You'll be back in time for breakfast."

"I think I could set a broken leg now," said Syd, whose thoughts were
still at the cottage.

"Bless the boy!" exclaimed the doctor.  "Take one off, I suppose, if it
were wanted?"

"No," said Syd, gravely, "I shouldn't feel enough confidence to do
that."

"I should think not, indeed," muttered the doctor, as he gave a sidelong
look at his companion.  "Why, you morbid young rascal, you ought to be
thinking of games and outdoor sports instead of such things as this.
Here we are.  Ready for your breakfast?"

"Yes, I am getting hungry," said Syd.  "How long will those bones be
growing together again?"

"Confound you--young dog!  Go and pick grilled chicken bones.  I'll
never take you out with me again.  Jump out.  Good-bye, sailor."

The doctor nodded and drove off, while Syd walked slowly up to the
house, and entered the dining-room just as his father and uncle came
down, punctual to the moment.

"Ah, Syd," said his father; "you are first."

"Morning, boy, morning," cried his uncle.  "Been for a walk on deck?"

"No, uncle; I've been for a drive."

"Drive!  Drive!" said his father.  "Who with?"

"Doctor Liss, father."

_Bang_!

Sir Thomas's hand made the coffee-cups rattle this time, as he said
sharply--

"Harry, my lad, if I were you I should take this spark up to town and
see Dashleigh at once.  I'll go with you."

"Very well.  And he can be measured for his kit at the same time, eh?"

"Of course.  Mind the tailor makes his clothes big enough, for as soon
as he gets to sea he'll grow like a twig."

Syd sat stirring his coffee, and taking great bites out of his bread and
butter, as the words of Pan came back to him--"If he does I shall run
away, so there!"



CHAPTER THREE.

There was something tempting about that idea of being measured for a
uniform, though Syd declared to himself he hated it.  All the same,
though, he went down the garden to where Barney was digging that
morning, and after a little beating about the bush, asked him a question
he could have answered himself, from familiarity with his father's and
uncle's garb.

"I say, Barney, what's a captain's uniform like?"

"Uniform, my lad?" said the old boatswain, seizing the opportunity to
rest his foot on his spade, and began rubbing the small of his back, or
rather what is so called, for Barney had no small to his back, being
square-shaped like a short log.  "Well, it's bloo coat, and white
weskutt and breeches, and gold lace and cocked hat, and two gold swabs
on the shoulders."

"And what's a lieutenant's like?"

"Oh, pooty much the same, lad, only he's on'y got one swab on 'stead o'
two.  But what's the good o' your asking?--you've seen 'em often enough
in Southbayton."

"Oh, but I never took any notice.  What's a midshipman's like?"

"Bloo, my lad, and a bit o' white on the collar."

"And a cocked hat?"

"Oh yes, a cocked hat--a small one, you know."

"And a sword, Barney?"

"Well, as to a sword, lad," said the old sailor, wiping a brown corner
of his mouth; "it arn't right to call such a tooth-pick of a thing a
sword.  Sort of a young sword as you may say, on'y it never grows no
bigger, and him as wears it does.  Dirks, they calls 'em, middies'
dirks."

"A uniform and a sword," said Sydney to himself.  "A blue uniform with
white on the collar, and a cocked hat and a sword!"

It was very tempting, and the boy went on down by the side of the lake,
beyond which were the great trees, with the ragged nests of the tall
birds which gave the name to the captain's residence, where he had
settled to end his days well in view of the sea.

Here where the water was smooth as glass Sydney stood leaning over,
holding on by a bough, and gazing at his foreshortened image, as in
imagination he dressed himself in the blue uniform, buckled on his dirk,
and put on his cocked hat.

It was very tempting, but disinclination mastered vanity, and he turned
away to go back toward the house.

"I wonder whether Pan means it," he said to himself.  "Suppose we went
together to seek our fortunes; he could be my servant, and father and
Uncle Tom would forgive me if I came back rich."

But somehow in a misty way as he walked up to the back of the house,
half thinking that he would sound the boy, it hardly seemed to be the
way to seek a fortune to start off with a servant.

He had nearly reached the yard when a door was thrown open, and the
object of his search rushed out, followed by a shower of words and
shoes, which latter came pattering out into the yard as a shrill voice
cried--

"A nasty, lazy, good-for-nothing young scamp--always playing with that
dog instead of doing your work.  Not half clean--not fit to be seen."

Syd drew back, thinking to himself that Pan could not be much happier
than he was himself with the red-faced cook, who ruled over all the
servants, to play tyrant to the boy as well.

"Now what could two lads do if they went right away?" mused Syd.  "We
couldn't go abroad without going to sea.  I don't think I want to be a
soldier, and we're not big enough if I did.  I know--we'd go to London.
People seek their fortunes there."

He seated himself beneath the walnut tree to think it out, but somehow
the idea of running away did not seem bright.  It was less than a
hundred miles to London by the coach-road, and if they walked all the
way it did not seem likely that they would have any adventures.

Syd felt in despair, for life seemed as if it must be a terribly dull
place without adventures.

He thought he would not run away for two reasons.  One that it would
look cowardly; the other that it did not look tempting.

"There does not seem any chance of meeting with adventures unless you go
to sea," he said to himself.  "I wish there was no sea in the world."

A loud voice from the other end of the garden, followed by another, took
his attention.

"Poor old Pan catching it again," mused Syd.  "Everybody seems to scold
him."

The dull sound of a blow, a howl, and then a rushing noise explained by
the appearance of Panama Strake, who was dashing helter-skelter across
the garden, as regardless of flower-bed and tree as a young colt that
had broken through a hedge.

"Hi!  Pan, where are you going?" cried Syd.

The boy glanced once in his direction, but did not stop running on as
hard as he could go for the front entrance, and directly after the gate
was heard to bang.

"Some one must have hit him," thought Syd.  "Poor old Pan, he's always
in trouble.  Why, I kicked him last week," he added remorsefully.

"Seen my boy Pan, Master Syd?" said a hoarse voice.

"Yes; he came running by here like a wild bull.  Have you been hitting
him?"

"Hitting of him?" growled the ex-boatswain; "on'y just wish I'd had a
rope's-end 'stead o' this here," and he held up the handle of the rake
he had been using.  "On'y time to give him one tap and he was gone."

"Enough to make him go.  What was the matter, Barney?"

"Heverythink, Master Syd.  That there boy's gettin' worse than you."

"Oh! is he?"

"Growlin' and grumblin' at any mortal thing.  Won't do his work, and
says he won't go to sea, just the same as you do; and now he's been
sarcing the cook."

"For saying the boots and shoes were not clean."

"How do you know, Master Syd?"

"I saw her throwing them at him.  You'd no business to hit him with that
rake shaft."

"What!  No business to hit him?  Why, he's my own boy, arn't he?  All
right then, Master Syd; there's an old wagon rope in the shed, I'll lay
up a bit o' that--hard; and on'y just wait till he comes back, that's
all.  Won't be a sailor, won't he!  I'll let him see.  If he won't be
able to write AB at the end of his name 'fore he's one-and-twenty my
name arn't Barnaby Strake."

The old boatswain went off growling; and in the lowest of low spirits,
Syd went indoors, to make his way to the library, shut himself in, and
begin taking down the books from the dusty shelves, seeking for one
which dealt with adventures.

There was no lack of them, but somehow or another all seemed to have the
smack of the salt sea.  Now and then he came upon some land adventures,
but it was always preceded by a voyage to the place; and at last he
threw a book down peevishly.

"Any one would think the world was all sea," he grumbled; "that's the
worst of being born on an island."

He started from his seat, for the handle of the door rattled, and his
father and uncle entered the library.

"Oh, you're here, sir!" cried Captain Belton.  "That's right.  Your
uncle and I have been talking about you."

"Laying down your lines, Syd, so as to turn you out a smart craft."

"Yes," said Captain Belton, merrily.  "We've settled about your hull,
Syd; and to-morrow morning we're going to take you up to town, and if
all turns out right--"

"Oh, that's all right," said Sir Thomas.  "Dashleigh would do anything
for me."

"If his complement is not made up."

"And if it is.  Hang it, Harry; you can always squeeze another boy into
a seventy-gun ship."

"Well, I suppose it will be all right," said the captain; "and if it is
we'll get you rigged."

"Yes, and if you'll be a good lad, and try and learn your profession,
I'll make you a present of your outfit, Syd.  The best that can be had,"
said Sir Thomas.

"And I'd give you a gold watch," said the captain, "only you'd lose it,
or get it stolen or broken before you had been to sea a month.  There,
my boy, no objections.  It's all settled for you, and we want to see you
a post-captain before we go into the locker."

"Yes, and bring in a few good Spanish prizes, sir.  It'll be all right,
brother Harry.  He thinks he don't like the sea, but he does.  Now then,
you dog, why don't you come and shake hands?"

"Because I don't want to go, uncle."

"What, you dog!  Yah!  Get out.  I don't believe it."

"Go and shake hands with your uncle, Syd," said the captain, sternly.

The boy walked across to where the admiral was seated on the arm of one
of the great easy-chairs, and held out his hand.

"Here, what's this?" cried the bluff, choleric old sailor.  "Not a boy's
hand, is it.  Feels like the tail of a codfish.  Shake hands like a man,
you dog.  Ah, that's better.  There, cheer up; you'll soon get used to
the sea and love it.  You won't be happy ashore after your first
voyage."

"Want any money, Syd?" said the captain.

"No, thankye, father," said the boy, gloomily.

"What!" roared the admiral, laboriously thrusting his hand into his
breeches pocket and dragging it out again.  "Don't believe it.  A boy
who don't want money is a monster, not fit to be trusted with it.  Here
you are, boy.  Five guineas.  Don't fool it away, but buy anything with
it you like."--A strange contradiction, by the way, though the old
admiral did not notice it.--"Put it in your pocket, and--Pst!  Syd," he
whispered, "whenever you want any more, write to me.  Don't bother the
dad.  Our secret, eh, you dog?"

"What's that?" cried the captain.

"Mind your own business, sir," cried the admiral, with mock rage.
"Private instructions to our young officer.  There, be off, Syd, before
he begins to pump."

The boy gladly escaped from the library, to dash up into his own room,
and fling the money into a corner with a demonstration of rage, before
sitting down, resting his chin upon his doubled fists, and staring
straight before him.

"It's all over," he said at last.  "I wanted to be a gentleman, and do
what was right; but--Yes, it's all over now."

Just at the same time Captain Belton was speaking to his brother in the
library.

"I'm sorry the boy took it like that, Tom," he said.  "I don't like his
sulky manner."

"Bah! only a boy," cried the admiral.  "Chuffy because he can't have his
own way.  Wait till he gets his cocked hat and his dirk."

The old man chuckled and wiped his eyes.

"I haven't forgotten the sensation yet, Harry.  You remember too?"

"Oh yes, I remember," said the captain, thoughtfully.

"Of course you do.  I say, what a pair of young gamecocks we were.  Why,
I can remember now flourishing the tooth-pick about, with its blade half
blue steel and a lion's head on the hilt.  Never you mind about Syd; the
uniform will set him right."

"I hope so."

"Hope so.  Don't I tell you it will!  I like the boy; plenty of
downright British courage in him.  Isn't afraid of either of us.  Egad,
I like him, Harry; and he'll turn out a big man."



CHAPTER FOUR.

The rest of that day passed gloomily for Sydney, who was in the garden
just before dinner, when Barney came up to him.

"Seen him, Master Sydney?" he said gloomily.

"Seen who?  My father?"

"No, my boy, Panama.  Strikes me he's cut and run, and when the skipper
hears on it there'll be no end of a row."

"Oh, nonsense!  He's hiding in the lofts, or one of the outhouses,
Barney."

"No, my lad, I've hunted 'em all over with a hay-fork."

"And of course you didn't find him.  If he saw you coming with a
two-pronged fork what would he think?"

"But I wasn't going to job on him with it, Master Syd."

"How was he to know that, Barney?"

"'Cause I'm allus such a good father to him."

"And hit him with the rake-handle only this morning."

"Well, that would only loosen his skin a bit, and give him room to grow.
Do him good."

"Don't see it, Barney.  Wouldn't do me any good, only make me wild."

"But you don't think he's cut and run, do you, lad?"

"I dare say he has, but he'll soon come back."

"Only let me get hold of him then."

"If you touch him when he does, I'll tell my father and Sir Thomas you
ill-use him."

"What a shame!  Master Syd, you shouldn't.  But you do think he'll come
back, sir?"

"Why, of course."

"That's right.  I want him to go along o' you."

"Along with me?"

"Of course.  I heared the skipper was going to take you up to town
to-morrow to see your new captain."

"Oh!" ejaculated Syd; and he turned sharp round and ran into the house,
where he was soon after seated at table with his uncle and father,
feeling that the servants were watching him, and expecting every moment
to hear some allusion to the next day's journey.

But though no word of the kind was said, Syd cracked no walnuts that
night, but sat gloomily over the dessert till his uncle filled his
glass, called upon him to pass the port to his father, and then in a
loud voice said--

"Here's health and success to Sydney Belton--middy, master's mate,
lieutenant, commander, post--captain, admiral."

"Hear! hear!" cried Captain Belton; and Sydney sat feeling more guilty
than ever he had felt in his life.

For his brain was full of thoughts that he dared not have laid bare, and
his inclination was trying to drag down the balance in which he felt
that he hung.

As he sat there holding on tightly by the nut-crackers that he had not
used, he felt as if he should have to answer all manner of questions
directly, and be put through a terrible ordeal; but to his intense
relief, the conversation turned upon an expedition to Portobello, and
the way in which certain ships had been handled, the unfortunate
officers in command not having done their duty to the satisfaction of
the admiral.  And as this argument seemed to grow more exciting the boy
softly slipped from his chair and went out again to his place of
meditation--the garden.

"Shall I--shan't I?" he said to himself.  Should he make a bold dash,
and go off like heroes he had read of before, seeking his fortune
anywhere?

He was quite ready to do this, but in a misty way it seemed to him that
there would be no fortune to be found; and in addition, it would be
going in direct opposition to his father's and uncle's wishes, and they
would never forgive him.

"No," he said, as he walked up and down the broad walk nearest the road,
"I must give up and go to sea."

But even as he said this softly, he felt so much on the balance, that he
knew that a very little would send him away.

That very little came unexpectedly, for as he walked on down the garden
in the darkness, where the short sturdy oak-trees sent their branches
over the path on one side, and overhung the road on the other, a voice
whispered his name--

"Master Syd!"

"Yes.  What is it?"

"Hush!  Don't make such a row, or they'll hear you."

"Who is it--Pan?"

"Yes, Master Syd."

"Where are you?"

"Sittin' straddlin' on this here big bough."

"You've come back then, sir.  Your father thought you had run away,"
said Syd sternly.

"So I have; and I arn't come back, on'y to see you, Master Syd."

"Come down, then.  What are you doing up that tree?"

"On'y waiting to talk to you."

"But your father says he is going to rope's-end you for running away."

"No, he isn't going to, because I shan't come back."

"But you are back."

"Oh no, I arn't, Master Syd.  I'm not going to be knocked about with
rake-handles, and then sent off to sea.  How would you like it?"

"I'm not knocked about, Pan; but I'm going to be sent off to sea."

"Then don't go, Master Syd."

There was no answer for the moment; then the latter looked up in among
the dark branches, where the dying leaves still clung.

"You said you had come back to see me, Pan."

"Yes, Master Syd."

"What for?  Because you repented?"

"No; it was to ask you--"

"What for?  Some money, Pan?"

"No, Master Syd," replied the boy in a hesitating way.  "Hist!  Listen!
Some one coming?"

"No; I can't hear any one.  Why did you come back?"

"You don't want to go to sea, Master Syd, do you?"

"No."

"More don't I, and I won't go."

"Well?"

"I'm going right away, Master Syd, to make a fortune.  Come along o'
me."

"What!" said Syd, who felt startled at the suddenness of the
proposition, one which accorded so well with his own wishes.  "Go with
you?"

"Oh, I don't mean as mates, only go together," whispered Pan.  "You'd
always be master, and I'd always clean your knives and boots for you."

"And what should we do, Pan?  Where could we go so as to make a living?"

"Make a living?" said Pan, in a wondering tone.  "Don't want to make a
living--we want to make a fortune."

"But we must have some money."

"I've got two shillings saved up."

Syd's brow puckered.  He knew a little more about the necessities of
life, and did not feel disposed to set sail on the river of life with no
more than two shillings.

"But you've got some money, Master Syd?"

"Yes; eight or nine shillings, and a crown uncle gave me day before
yesterday."

"Come along then, that's enough."

Syd hesitated, and thought of the five guineas thrown down in his room.

"If you don't come they'll send you to sea."

That settled it.  So evenly was the lad balanced, that a feather-weight
was enough to work a change.  His dread of the sea sent the scale down
heavily.

"Wait here," he said.

"What for?"

"Till I've been and tied up some clean clothes to take with me."

"Never mind your clothes," whispered Pan.  "If your father catches you
there'll be no chance."

"Look here," said Syd sharply, "if I'm going with you, Pan Strake, I
shall do as I like.  I'm not going to be ordered about by you."

"No, Master Syd, I won't say nothing no more."

Sydney stood thinking for a moment or two, not hesitating, for his mind
seemed quite made up.  Then without another word he stepped on to the
grass, and ran up the garden, keeping out of sight of the occupants of
the dining-room, by interposing the bushes between him and them.

His heart began to beat heavily now, as the full force of that which he
was about to do impressed him on hearing his father's voice speaking
loudly; and as he crept nearer the window, so as to pass it, behind the
bushes, and reach the entrance, he heard the captain say plainly, his
words sounding loudly from the open dining-room window--

"Yes, Tom, I've quite made up my mind.  It will be the best thing for
him.  It will be a better school than the one he is at.  Time he began
to learn the profession, eh?"

"Yes, quite; and good luck to him," said his uncle, gruffly.

Syd stopped to hear no more, but hurried to the front, waited till all
was silent in the pantry, and then slipped up to his bedroom, where a
few minutes sufficed for him to make up a change of clothes in a
handkerchief.

That was all he wanted, he told himself.  No: a brush and comb.

"Comb will do," he muttered; "people going to seek their fortunes don't
want brushes."

He ran his hand in the darkness along the dressing-table, and touched
not a comb, but a tiny pile of money.

Five shillings!  And on his dressing-table!  How did they come there?

He knew the next moment they were not shillings but guineas, the five he
passionately threw down in a corner of the room, and when the maid came
up to straighten the place she must have found them and placed them on
the table.  It was tempting.

Syd was going away out into the wide world with only a few shillings in
his pocket, and these guineas, which were honestly his, would be
invaluable, and help him perhaps out of many a scrape.  Should he take
them or no?

Syd pushed them away from him.  They were given to him because his uncle
believed that he was going patiently with him to see his friend in
London.  If he took them it would seem despicable, and he could not bear
that; so hurrying out of the room, he ran down-stairs lightly and as
quickly as possible, so as to get away and beyond the power of the
house, which seemed to be all at once growing dear to him, and acting
like a magnet to draw him back.

As he cleared the door and made for the shrubs, he heard his uncle's
voice as he laughed at something the captain said.  Then Captain Belton
spoke again, and Syd clapped his hand and his bundle to his ears to stop
the sound.

"If I listen I shan't be able to go," he said with a sigh; and he was
just about to break into a trot to run down and join Pan, when there was
a footstep on the gravel, and the boy stopped short in the shadow cast
by a tree.

"Father!" he said to himself.  "Can he have found out so soon?"

The step on the gravel came nearer, and Syd knew that it must have
passed right under the tree where Pan was hiding.

"Could father have gone down there so quickly?" thought the boy.

Then all doubt was at an end, for he whose steps were heard stopped
close at hand, muttering aloud--

"Swears he ketched sight on him in the road to-night, so he must have
come home.  If I on'y do get howd on him by the scruff of his precious
neck, I'll teach him to run away."

A cold chill ran through Sydney, and he shivered.  Suppose his father
knew that he was going to do this mean, contemptible thing--run away and
degrade himself--what would he say? and how would he act?  Like Barnaby
spoke, his old boatswain and gardener?

Syd shivered again.  He was not afraid of the pain, but he shrank from
the idea of the degradation.  He fancied himself held by the collar and
a stick raised to punish him.  It was horrible.

"If I don't loosen his hide my name arn't what it is," growled the old
boatswain; and he moved on, going close by Sydney, who stood listening
with heavily beating heart till Barney had gone right up to the back of
the house.

Then only did Sydney run on till he was beneath the tree, and called
Pan.

"You there?"

"Yes, Master Syd."

"Did you hear who that was down the garden?"

"Father."

"Did you hear what he said?"

There was a low laugh up in the tree.

"Yes, I heared; but he has got to ketch me first.  Ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready, Pan."

"Get up here then."

"Why?"

"You can get out along one of these big branches, and drop out into the
road."

"No, no, come down, and let's go by the gate."

"And come upon my father waiting with a rope's-end?  Why, when he's wild
he lets out anyhow, and in the dark you'd get it as much as me.  This
way."

Syd listened, and heard the boy creep actively along the bough and drop
down on the other side of the fence.

"Catch," he whispered.  "Ready?"

"Yes."

He threw over his bundle, and then swung himself up into the tree, got
astride the big bough, and was working himself along, when a sound close
at hand made him stop short to listen.

It was intensely dark where he sat beneath the thickly-leaved tree, and
all was quite still.  But he felt sure that he had heard some one
approaching, and just as he had made up his mind to get further along,
Pan's voice reached him from the other side of the paling--

"Come on."

Hoping that he might have been mistaken, Syd changed his position, so
that he hung over the bough, and had just begun to edge along, when
there was a quick rustling behind him, and the breaking down of shrubs,
as if a man was forcing himself through, and the next minute he felt one
of his legs seized.

"My father!" thought Syd, and a cold chill of dread, shame, and misery
ran through him as he lay across the bough, silent and motionless, but
clinging to it with all his might.

"Got ye, have I, Pan-y-mar?" growled a husky voice.  "Now then, let go,
and come and take it in your room, or I'll lay on here."

The first sound of that voice sent a warm glow through Syd, and thawed
his frozen faculties.

Exulting in the idea that it was only the old boatswain, he drew himself
all together as he held on with his arms to the bough, and then he
kicked out with all his might; the attack being so unexpected, that as
Barney received both feet in his chest, he loosened his hold, grasped
wildly at the air to save himself, and then came down in a sitting
position with sufficient force to evoke a groan; while by the time he
had recovered himself sufficiently to rise and get to the fence, he
could hear the rapid beat of steps in the distance.

"Why, there must be some one with him," growled Barney.  "All right, my
boy, on'y wait a bit.  You'll come crawling round the cottage 'fore
you're many hours older, and I'll lay that there rope's-end in the tub.
It'll make it lie closer and heavier round your back.  Oh!"

He had taken a step to go back out of the shrubbery to the path, when an
acute pain ran up his spine, and made him limp along to the gardener's
cottage at the bottom of the grounds, grumbling to himself, and
realising that men of sixty can't fall so lightly as those who are forty
years younger.

"But never mind, I'll make him pay for the lot.  He shan't play tricks
with me.  Lor', I wish I was going to sea again, and had that boy under
me; I'd make him--Oh, murder! he's a'most broke my back."



CHAPTER FIVE.

As Syd kicked himself free of Barney's grasp he heard the heavy fall,
but he stopped for no more.  A couple of vigorous sidewise movements
took him clear of the fence, a couple more beyond the ditch, and before
Barney had begun to think of getting up Syd had whispered to his
companion the magic words--

"Your father!"

The next minute, hand in hand, and keeping step, the two boys were
running hard along the road leading away into the country, thinking of
only one thing, and that--how great a distance they could put between
them and the Heronry.

Fear lent them wings, for in imagination they saw the old boatswain
running off to the house, spreading the alarm, and Captain Belton
ordering the servants out in pursuit, determined to hunt them down and
bring them back to punishment.

Their swift run, in spite of their will, soon settled down into a steady
trot, and at the end of a couple of miles this had become a sharp walk.
Every hair was wet with perspiration, and as they stopped from time to
time to listen, their hearts beat heavily, and their breath came in a
laboured way.

"Hear anything?" said Sydney at last.

"No; they've given it up," replied Pan.  "Father can't run far now."

"Think they'll get out the horses, Pan?"

"Dunno.  If they do we shall hear 'em plain enough, and we can take to
the woods.  They'll never ketch us now.  Arn't you glad you've come?"

Sydney did not answer, for if he had replied he would have told the
truth, and he did not wish to tell the truth then, because it would have
been humiliating.

For there they were tramping along the dark road going west, with the
stars shining down brightly, and, save the distant barking of a dog, all
most mournfully still.

Pan made another attempt at conversation.

"Won't my father be wild because he arn't got me to hit?"

Syd was too deep in his own thoughts to reply, for he was picturing the
library at the Heronry, and his father and uncle talking together after
returning from a vain pursuit.  He could picture their florid faces and
shining silvery hair by the light of the wax candles.  He even seemed to
see how many broad wrinkles there were in his father's forehead as he
stood frowning; and then something seemed to be asking the boy what he
was doing there.

"Getting tired, Master Syd?" said Pan, after a long pause, filled by the
_beat beat_ of their footsteps.

But still there was no answer.  The latter question took too much study,
and suggested other questions in its unanswerable-ness.

Where was he going? and why was he going? and why had he chosen this
road, which led toward the great forest with its endless trees and bogs?

Sydney could not answer these questions, and by way of relieving the
buzzing worry in his own brain, he turned to Pan and became a
questioner.

"Where are we going to sleep to-night?"

"Eh?"

"Where are we going to sleep to-night?"

Pan took off his hat and scratched his head.

"I never thought of that," he said.

"We can't go on walking all night."

"Can't we?"

"Of course we can't.  We shall have to knock at some cottage, and ask
them to give us a bed."

"But they won't," said Pan, sagely enough.  "'Tarn't likely at this time
o' night; I wish we could find a haystack."

Pan's wish did not obtain fulfilment, and the two lads tramped on along
the lonely road for quite a couple of hours longer, when hunger began to
combine with weariness; and these two at last made themselves so plainly
heard, that Sydney came to a full stop.

"Yes?" said Pan.

"I did not speak, I was only thinking," said Sydney, drearily.

"What were you thinking, Master Syd?"

"That all this is very stupid, and that we should be ever so much more
comfortable in bed."

Pan sighed.

"Oh, I dunno," he said.  "I shouldn't, on'y my legs ache ever so."

"We ought to have brought a lot of cold meat and bread with us, Pan."

"Ah! wouldn't it be good now!"

"How long do you think it will be before morning, so that we can get to
a town, and buy some bread and milk?"

"I dunno, Master Syd.  It can't be late yet, and it's ever so far to a
town this way, 'cause it's all forest for miles and miles."

They were tramping on again now, but in a more irregular way.  There was
none of the vigorous pace for pace that had marked the beginning of
their flight, and as the road grew more rough their steps began to err,
and sometimes one, sometimes the other was a little in advance.

"Don't you wish you were back in your bed, Pan?" said Sydney at last.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because father would be standing there with the rope's-end."

This was so much to the point that Sydney did not try to pursue that
vein of conversation, and they again travelled on in silence till Pan
spoke--

"Wish you were back in your bed, Master Syd?"

"No," said the latter sharply.

"Course you don't; 'cause your uncle would be one side o' the bed and
the captain the other, and that would be worse than being here, wouldn't
it?"

No answer.

"You'd ketch it, wouldn't you, Master Syd?"

Still no answer; and Pan plodded on in silence, wondering whether his
young master would always be so quiet and strange.

"What's that?" said Sydney suddenly.

"Rabbud."

The two lads stood listening to the rapid run of feet through the
rustling fern, and then tramped on again through the darkness.

Sydney was having a hard fight the greater part of the time with his
thoughts, and try how he would, they seemed to be too much for him.  In
fact, so great a hold did they get at last, that somewhere about three
o'clock he stopped short; but Pan went on with his head down till his
name was sharply pronounced, when he stopped short with a start.

"Why, I believe you were asleep."

"Was I, Master Syd?" said the boy, blankly looking about him.  "I s'pose
'twas because I thought father was making me walk round and round the
garden all night for not cleaning the boots."

"Turn round--this way."

"Yes, Master Syd.  Where are we going now?"

"Back again."

"Back--again?"

"Yes, to the Heronry."

"What for, sir?"

"Because I've been an idiot."

"But if we go back we shall be punished, Master Syd."

"Of course we shall.  But if we go on we shall be punishing ourselves.
Oh," cried Sydney, in a voice full of rage against himself, "how could I
have been such a donkey!"

"It warn't my fault," said Pan, dolefully.  "Father was after me with
the rope's-end.  I was obliged to go.  Let's try another way, Master
Syd."

"There is no other way," cried the boy passionately.  "There's only one
way for us to go, and that's straight back home."

"Oh, there's lots of other ways, Master Syd."

"No, there are not.  There's only one that we can tread."

"Which way's that, sir?"

"I told you--home."

"But I dursen't go back, Master Syd; I dursen't, indeed."

"Yes, you dare; and you shall too."

"Well, not till it's light, Master Syd.  It do hurt so in the dark, and
you have no chance."

But Syd did not answer, only gave an involuntary shiver, and walked
slowly back over the ground they had covered during the night.



CHAPTER SIX.

A long tramp in silence; but they did not get over the ground very
rapidly, for Pan's pace grew slower and slower, and when urged by Sydney
to keep up he made no reply.

"Come along," said Syd at last; "do try and make haste."

"I arn't in a hurry," came in a surly growl.

"But I am.  I want to get back before it's light; we don't want to be
seen."

"Don't matter whether we're seen or whether we arn't; they'll be
awaitin' for us."

"Can't help it, Pan," said Syd with a sigh; "we've got to go through
it."

"I hope, Master Syd, you won't get no rope's-end."

"I'd take yours for you if I could, Pan."

"Ah, you say so," sneered the lad, as he dragged one foot after the
other, "but you know you can't."

"I know I would," cried Syd, hotly.  "But it's of no use to talk.  We've
got to go through it like men would."

"Men don't have no rope's-ending," grumbled Pan.

They went on back for another half-mile, with the stars shining
brightly, and seeming to wink derisively at them; and just as Sydney had
fancied this, as he gazed up at the broad band of glittering light seen
through the dense growth of trees which shut them in on either side, a
loud, ringing, mocking laugh smote their ears, that sounded so strange
and jeering, that the boys stopped short.

"What's that?" whispered Syd.

"Only a howl.  Why, you've heard 'em lots of times."

"But it never sounded like that before."

"You never heard it out in the woods before.  There she goes again."

The shout rang out again, but more distant.  "Hoi, hoi, hoi, hoi!"
sounding now more like a hail.

"Oh, yes, it is an owl," said Sydney, breathing more freely.  "Come
along."

Pan did not move, but stood with his hands in his pockets, and his
shoulders up to his ears.

"Do you hear?  Come along, and let's get it over."

No answer--no movement.

"Don't be stupid, Pan.  I know you're tired, but you are no more tired
than I am."

"Yes, I am--ever so much."

"You're not.  You're pretending, because you don't want to come back.
Now then, no nonsense."

Pan stood like a stork, with his chin down upon his chest.

"Will--you--come--on?"

It was very dark, but Sydney could just make out that the boy shook his
head.

"Then it isn't because you are so tired.  It's obstinacy."

No response.

"I declare you're as obstinate as an old donkey; and if you don't come
on I'll serve you the same."

Pan did not stir.

"Do you want me to cut a stick, and make you come, Pan?"

Still no reply; and weary, hungry, and disgusted with himself as well as
his companion, Sydney felt in that state of irritable rawness which can
best be described as having the skin off his temper.  He was just in the
humour to quarrel; and now, stirred beyond bearing by his companion's
obstinacy, Syd flew at him, grasped his arm, gave it a tug which
snatched it from the pocket, and roared out--

"Come on!"

Then he retreated a step, for, to his intense surprise, there came from
the lad, who had always been obedient and respectful, a short, snappish
"Shan't!" which was more like the bark of a dog than the utterance of a
boy.

"What!" cried Sydney, as he recovered from his surprise, and felt the
blood flush in his face.

"Says I shan't.  I arn't coming home to be larruped."

"You are not coming home?"

"No, I arn't.  He's waitin' for me with a big rope's-end all soaked
hard, and I know what that means, so I shan't come."

Sydney drew a long breath as he reviewed their position, and told
himself that it was more his fault than that of the gardener's boy that
they were there.

"I know better than he does, and ought to have stopped him instead of
going with him, and he shall come back, because it's right."

"Now then, Pan," he said aloud, "I am going back home."

"All right, Master Syd, go home then; but I didn't think you was such a
coward."

"It isn't being a coward to go back, Pan; it's being a coward to run
away."

"No, it arn't."

"Yes, it is, so come along."

"I shan't."

"Yes, you will, sir; I order you to come home with me at once."

"Shan't come to be rope's-ended, I tell you.  I'm going away by myself
if you won't come."

"You are coming home with me, and we're going to ask them to forgive us
for being so stupid.  Now then; will you come?"

"No."

"Do you want me to make you?"

"I don't want no more to do with you; you're a coward."

Sydney made a dart to seize his arm, but Pan dodged, and there was no
sign of weariness now, for he bounded aside, and then set off running
fast in the opposite direction to that in which his companion wished him
to go.

Pan placed half a dozen good yards between them before Sydney recovered
from his surprise.  Then without hesitation the pursuit began, both lads
striving their utmost to escape and capture, and at the end of a couple
of hundred yards Syd had done so well that with a final bound he flung
himself upon his quarry, and grasped at his collar.

The result was not anticipated.  Sydney missed the collar, but the
impetus he gave to the boy he pursued was sufficient to send him
sprawling in the dirty road; and unable to check himself, Sydney came
down heavily on Pan's back.

"Now then, will you come home?" panted Sydney.

"Oh!  Ah!"

Two loud yells as Pan wrested himself over, strove to get up, was
resisted, and then for five minutes there was a fierce wrestling bout,
now down, now up, in which Sydney found himself getting the worst of it;
and feeling that in another minute Pan would get free and escape, he
changed his mode of attack, striking his adversary a heavy blow in the
face, with the natural result that the wrestling bout became a fight.

Here Sydney soon showed his superiority, easily avoiding Pan's ugly
rushes, and dealing such a shower of blows upon the lad's head that
before many minutes had elapsed Pan was seated in one of the wettest
parts of the road, whimpering and howling, while Sydney stood over him
with fists clenched.

"You're a coward, that's what you are," howled Pan.

"Get up then, and I'll show you I'm not.  Do you hear?"

"How-ow!"

"Don't howl like a dog.  Get up, sir, and take your beating like a man,"
said Syd.

"I didn't think it of you, Master Syd," whimpered Pan.

"Now will you get up and walk home?"

For answer the boy got up slowly and laboriously, went on a few yards in
front, and Sydney followed, feeling, as he thought, as if he was driving
a donkey home.

For about a mile Pan walked steadily on, with Sydney feeling better than
he had since he left home, although his knuckles were bruised, and there
was a dull aching sensation in one angle of his jaw.  He had gained two
victories, and in spite of his weariness something very near akin to
satisfaction began to warm his heart, till all at once the figure of Pan
began to be visible; and as at the end of another hundred yards or so
they came out upon a patch of open forest land, the figure was much
plainer.  So was his own, as he looked down and saw in dismay that it
would soon be broad daylight, that they were some miles from the
Heronry, and that Pan was covered with mud, his face smeared with ruddy
stains, and that he, Sydney Belton, known as "the young gentleman up at
the house," was in very little better trim.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

The day grew brighter; tiny flecks of orange and gold began to appear
high up, then there was a warm glow in the east, with the birds chirping
merrily in the woodlands, and then day began.

But as the morning brightened Syd's spirits grew cloudy, and as they
reached another patch of wood through which ran a little stream, he
stopped short, looking anxiously along the road in both directions.

"We can't go home like this, Pan," he said.  "It would be horrid."

"Well, I don't want to go home, do I?" grumbled the boy, in an ill-used
tone.

"We shall have to hide here in the wood till night, and we can dry and
clean our muddy clothes and have a good wash before then."

"And what are we to get to eat?"

"Blackberries, and sloes, and nuts."

"Oh yes, and pretty stuff they are.  One apple off the big old tree's
worth all the lot here."

"Can't help it, Pan.  We must do the best we can."

"Don't let's go back, Master Syd.  You can't tell how rope's-end hurts.
Alter your mind, and let's go and seek our fortunes somewhere."

"This way," said Syd, by way of answer; and pointing off the road, the
two lads plunged farther and farther into the wood, keeping close to the
little stream, which had cut its way deep down below the level; so that
it was some time before they came to an open sandy spot, where, with the
bright morning sun shining full upon them, they had a good refreshing
wash; and soon after, as they sat in a sunny nook where the sand was
deep and dry, first one and then the other nodded off to sleep.

It was late in the afternoon before Syd awoke, to look up anxiously
about before the full force of his position dawned upon him; and feeling
faint and more low-spirited than had ever been his lot before, he sat
there thinking about what he had to go through.

As near as he could judge they were about five miles from the Heronry,
and two hours before it grew dark would be ample time for their journey.

"I may as well let him sleep," said Syd.  "He'll only want to go away,
and we can't do that."

Then, in spite of his efforts to the contrary, his mind began to dwell
upon home and the various meals.  Just about dusk the dinner would be
ready, and his father and uncle sitting down, while he--

"Oh, I do feel so hungry!" he muttered.  "I'd give anything for some
bread and cheese."

He went to the side of the little stream, lay down, and placing his lips
to the clear cool water, drank heartily a draught that was refreshing,
but did not allay his hunger; and after sitting down and thinking for a
time, he put his hands in his pockets and felt his money.  But it was of
no use out there in the woods.

He sat thinking again, wishing now that they had gone on in spite of
their condition, for then the trouble would have been over, and he would
have had food, if it had only been bread and water.

"Oh dear!  I can't bear this any longer!" he said, suddenly jumping up.
"We must get something to eat if it's only nuts.  Here, Pan, Pan!"

He touched the boy with his foot, but it had no effect; and bending
down, he took one arm and shook it.

The effect was magical.  Pan sat up, fending his face with his arm, and
apostrophising some imaginary personage, as he fenced and complained.

"Oh, don't!  I'll never do so no more.  Oh, please!  Oh, I say!  It
hurts!--You, Master Syd?"

"Yes; who did you think it was?"

"My father with the rope's-end and--oh, I say, I am so stiff and sore,
and--have you got anything to eat?"

Sydney shook his head despondingly.

"I was waking you up to come and try and find some."

"There's lots o' rabbits about here," grumbled Pan, "if we could catch
some."

"Yes, and hares too, Pan, if we had a good gun.  Come along."

They rambled along by the stream, finding before long a blackthorn laden
with sloes, of which Pan ate two, and Sydney contented himself with half
of one.  Then they were voted a failure, and the blackberries growing in
a sunny, open spot were tried with no better result.

At the end of another quarter of an hour a clump of hazel stubs came in
view--fine old nut-bearers, with thickly mossed stumps, among which grew
clusters of light golden buff fungi looking like cups; but though these
were good for food, in the eyes of the boys they were simply toadstools,
and passed over for the sake of the fringed nuts which hung in twos and
threes, even here and there in fours and fives.

It did not take long to get a capful of these, and they soon sat down to
make their _al fresco_ meal.

Another disappointment!  The nuts, as they cracked them, were, with a
few exceptions, full of a blackish dust, and the exceptions contained in
addition a poor watery embryo of a nut that was not worth the cracking
to obtain.

They gave up the food hunt in despair, for there was no cultivated land
near, where a few turnips might have been obtained; and wandering slowly
back they at last reached the road.

The search had not been, though, without result--it had taken time; and
when they reached the solitary road the sun was so near setting, that
after a final protest from Pan, Syd started at once for home and the
scenes they had to face.

The route they had chosen for their flight was the most solitary leading
from Southbayton.  It was but little used, leading as it did right out
into the forest, and in consequence they had it almost to themselves
while the light lasted, and after dark they did not pass a soul as they
made their way to the Heronry, under whose palings they stood at last to
debate in whispers on the next step.

Pan was for flight after they had been on into the town and bought some
bread and cheese; but the position in which they were brought out
Sydney's best qualities.

"No," he said, "we've done wrong, and I'll face it out."

"But I won't--I can't," whimpered Pan.  "How do I know as father isn't
waiting just inside the gate with that there bit of rope?"

"You must, and you shall come back, Pan," said Sydney, decisively.
"It's of no use to kick against it.  Am I to hit you again?"

"I d' know," whimpered Pan.  "I'm the most miserable chap as ever was.
Every one's agen me.  Even you knocks me about, and I didn't think it of
you, Master Syd--I didn't; I thought you would be my friend."

"So I am, Pan, only you don't know it.  Come now, get up.  Go in with
me, and let's walk straight in to the dining-room, and ask father to
forgive us."

"I would ha' done it at first," whimpered Pan, "but I can't now."

"Why?"

"'Cause I'm so 'orrid hungry."

"Well, so am I.  Father will give us plenty to eat as soon as he knows.
Come along; it's only a scolding."

"No, Master Syd, I dursen't.  You go and ask him to forgive you, and to
order father not to hit me.  P'r'aps I might be able to come then."

"You are the most horrid coward I ever knew," cried Sydney, impatiently.
"Do you think I don't feel how terrible it is to go and tell father
I've done wrong?  I'd give anything to be able to run right away."

"Come along, can't yer, Master Syd.  Never mind being hungry; come on."

"No, Pan, I can't.  Now then, don't try to sneak out of it.  Come and
face them, like a man."

"But I arn't a man, Master Syd, and I can't stir now.  Oh dear! oh dear!
what will father say?"

"That I've got you at last," roared a gruff voice.  "Hi!  I've got 'em--
here they are!"



CHAPTER EIGHT.

Barney, the old gardener, had been round the garden that evening, and
had paused thoughtfully close to the tree where he had had his adventure
the night before; and as he went over the various phases of his little
struggle and his fall, thinking out how he would have proceeded had he
got hold of that boy again, he fancied he heard whispering.

The fancy became certainty, and creeping inch by inch closer to the
palings, without making a rustle among the shrubs, he soon made himself
certain of who was on the other side.

Barney's face did not beam.  It never had done so, but it brightened
with a grin as he slowly and cautiously backed out of the shrubs on to
the path, stepped across on to the grassy verge, and set off at a trot
in true sailor fashion up the garden toward the house to give the alarm.

"Nay, I won't," he said, as he neared the door.  "They two may have cut
and run again before I get them two old orsifers round outside.  Sure to
have gone, for the skipper goes along like a horse, while the admiral's
more like a helephant on his pins.  Scare any two boys away, let alone
them.  Lor', if I had on'y brought that there bit o' rope!"

But Barney had left it in his cottage; and as he reached the gate he
stood to consider.

"Now if I goes down here from the gate, they'll hear me, and be scared
away.  I know--t'otherwise."

Chuckling to himself, he circumnavigated, as he would have called it,
the park-like grounds of the Heronry, a task which necessitated the
climbing of two high fences and the forcing a way through a dense
quickset hedge.

But these obstacles did not check the old sailor, who cleared the
palings, reached the road at the other side, panting, stopped to get his
breath, and then crept along through the darkness on the tips of his
toes, treating the tall palings as if they were the bulwarks of a ship,
and by degrees edged himself up nearer and nearer till he was able to
pounce upon the fugitives in triumph.

Pan uttered a howl, dropped down, and lay quite still; but as the
ex-boatswain grappled Sydney by the coat, the lad wrenched himself free
and kept his captor at bay.

"No, no," cried Barney; "you don't get away.  Hoi! help!"

"Hold your noise, you old stupid," cried Sydney.  "Who wants to get
away?  Keep your hands off."

"Nay, I won't.  I've got you, and I'll keep you."

"I tell you I was going home, only Pan wouldn't stir."

"Wouldn't stir, wouldn't he?  We'll see 'bout that.  Now it's of no use,
Master Syd.  You're my prisoner, so give in and cry quarter."

"I tell you I have given in; and once more, Barney, I warn you, I'm in
such a temper I shall hit you."

"Yah! hit away, Midget, who's afeard!  Do you s'render?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then you're my prisoner."

"Nonsense!  Make Pan come."

"Make him come?  Yes, I just will, my lad.  But, I say, to think o' you
two cutting yourselves adrift, and going off like that!"

"Don't talk so, but bring Pan along.  You needn't be afraid, I shall not
try to go."

"Par--role, lad?"

"Yes, parole," said Sydney.

"Ah, well, you are a gent, and I can trust you," said Barney.  "Now
then," he added, as he stirred up his son with the toe of his natty
evening shoe; "get up."

"No, no, no," whined Pan.

"If you don't get up I'll kick you over the palings.  Get up, you ugly
young lubber, or I'll--"

"Oh!"  Pan winced, and rose to his knees, eagerly scanning his father's
hands in the gloom to see if the rope's-end was visible.

"And, look here, Barney," said Sydney, quietly, "you are not to hit
Pan."

"Not what, my lad?"

"You are not to rope's-end him."

"Who says so?"

"I do."

"Oh, you do, do you?  Well, look here, my lad, he's hurt my feelings so
that I'm going to lock myself up with him in his bedroom, and then I'm
going to skin him."

"Oh, oh!" cried Pan.

"You are not going to touch him, but to bring him before my father."

"'Fore the skipper?" said Barney, in a puzzled voice.  "Well, yes, my
lad, he's in full command.  There is something in that."

"But you shouted, and said some one was coming.  Who is it?"

"Oh, that was only a manoofer, Master Syd, just to scare you into
s'rending."

"Then there is no one coming?"

"It's par--role, mind."

"Yes, parole, of course."

"And you won't try to cut and run again?"

"No--no!" cried Sydney, impatiently.

"No one.  Now then you, Pan, my man, hyste yerself on them two legs o'
yourn.  On'y you wait till I'm a-handlin' that there bit o' rope."

"You touch him if you dare!" cried Sydney.  "My father will punish him."

"Oh, Master Syd!" cried Pan.

"Hold your row, will you, you lubber," growled Barney, seizing his son
by the collar, setting him on his legs, and giving him a good shake at
the same time.

Pan uttered a low moan, and shuffling his feet along the gravel, allowed
himself to be led towards the gate.

Sydney shivered as he felt that he was approaching sentence.

"Is my father in the dining-room?"

"Yes, Master Sydney.--Here you, lift up them pretty hoofs o' yours, will
yer!"

"Is my uncle with him?"

"Yes, Master Syd."

"Have they been trying to find us?"

"No, Master Syd.  The skipper said as if you was such a young cur as to
go and disgrace yourself like that 'ere by running away and desarting
the King's colours, he wouldn't stir a step arter yer."

"Oh!" groaned Sydney to himself.  Then in a whisper, "What did my uncle
say?"

"Said Amen to it, and that he'd been fool enough to give you the money
to go with."

"No, no, Barney, I didn't take his money."

"Ah, well, I don't know nothing 'bout that.  But here's the gate.  On
you go first."

"No; go on first with Pan."

"And let you shoot off."

"Am I not on parole?"

"Ay, ay.  Forgetted that.  Now then, you swab; on with you."

As Barney led the way towards the front door, Sydney noticed that there
was a light in the dining-room, whose windows were open, the weather
being still warm and fine.

"Stop, Barney," he said, after a sudden thought, "we'll go in there
through the window."

"Nay, my lad, nay," said the boatswain; "it'll look as if I was spellin'
arter a glass o' wine."

"Never mind.  I'll go first, and you bring in Pan afterwards."

"Oh, Master Syd, don't."

"Yah! you swab, be quiet!" said Barney, giving his unfortunate son
another shake.  "Wait till the admiral's pronounced court-martial on
you; and then--"

He did not finish, but followed close behind Sydney, who drew a long
breath, walked boldly up to the open French window, looked in a moment
on where the two fine old veterans were sitting talking sadly together,
and then stepped in.

"What!" roared the admiral, rising from his chair, and oversetting his
glass of port.

"You here, sir!" cried Captain Belton.  "Why have you come back?"

"Because I've been thinking all night, father," said Syd, quietly, "and
I've found out I was a fool."



CHAPTER NINE.

There was a dead silence in the dining-room at the Heronry for some
time, during which Syd stood with his head erect gazing at his father,
who was erect by the table as he might have stood in old times upon his
quarter-deck with some mutineer before him; the admiral dropped back
into his arm-chair, stared from one to the other as if astounded by his
nephew's declaration, while the light shone full upon Syd, who looked
pale, shabby, and dirty, but with a frank daring in his face which kept
the two old men silent.

In the background close to the window stood Barney, with all his old
training manifest in his attitude--that of a petty officer in charge of
a prisoner; for that was the character which his son occupied just then
in his eyes.  His gardening was, for the time being, forgotten, and he
felt that he was in the presence of his commanding officer, not of the
master whom he served.

The painful silence was broken by Pan, to whom all this was
awe-inspiring.  For the moment he forgot all about ropes'-ends, and
worked himself up into the belief that he would be sentenced to some
terrible punishment.  He fidgeted about, breathed hard, looked
appealingly from the captain to the admiral and back again, and at last,
unable to contain himself longer, he burst forth into a long and piteous
howl, dropping down upon his knees, and from that attitude would have
thrown himself prone, had not Barney tightened his hold upon his collar
and shaken him up into a kneeling position again.

"Stow that!" he growled, as the admiral seized the port wine decanter as
if to throw at the boy, but altered his mind and poured himself out a
glass instead.

Then the terrible silence began again, and lasted till the captain
turned to his brother.  But he did not speak, and after a few moments
longer Sir Thomas exclaimed--

"You young dog! spent all the money you got out of me, and now you've
sneaked back."

"I haven't, uncle," cried Syd, indignantly.  "I didn't take it.  It's on
the table in my room."

This seemed to unlock Captain Belton's lips.

"Well, sir, now you have come back, what do you want?" he said.

"I've told you, father.  I've been wrong, and want you to forgive me."

"No, sir: you deserted; and now you come crawling back and want to go on
as before.  Can't trust you again.  Go and be a doctor."

"Will you hold up!" growled Barney, fiercely, as he shook his son, who
seemed to want to burrow down out of sight through the carpet.

"Oh, father!" began Syd.  But he was stopped by his uncle.

"Hold your tongue, sir!  Court hasn't called upon you for your defence.
Look here, Harry, put the prisoners back while we talk it over."

"Yes," said the captain, coldly, "you can go to your room, sir, and wait
till your uncle and I have decided what steps we shall take."

"Yes, sir, confound you! and go and wash your dirty face," said Sir
Thomas, fiercely; "you look a disgrace to your name."

"As for your boy, Strake, take him and punish him well."

"Ay, ay, sir!" growled Barney, with alacrity; but his voice was almost
drowned by a howl of misery from Pan--a cry that was checked by his
father's fierce grip.

"Like me to do down Master Syd same time, sir?" whispered the
ex-boatswain.

"No, father, don't let him be punished," said Sydney, quickly.  "I made
him come back."

"Yes, sir, he did, he did," cried Pan, eagerly.  "You did; didn't you,
Master Syd?"

"And I promised him he should not be punished."

"Yes, sir, he did, or else I wouldn't have come back."

"What!" roared the admiral, in a tone which made Pan shrink into
himself.  "And look here, sir," he continued, turning to his nephew,
"who made you first in command with your promises?"

"Don't let him be flogged, father," pleaded Syd.  "I'm to blame about
him.  I did promise him that if he would come back he should not be
punished."

"Take your boy home, Strake, and bring him here to-morrow morning," said
the captain, sternly.  "He is not to be flogged till he has made his
defence."

"Ay, ay, sir!" growled the old boatswain; and pulling an imaginary
forelock, he hauled Pan out of the room, their passage down the path
towards the gardener's cottage being accompanied by a deep growling
noise which gradually died away.

"Well, sir," said the captain, coldly, "you heard what I said."

Syd looked from one to the other appealingly, feeling that as he had
humbly confessed he was in the wrong, he ought to be treated with more
leniency, but his uncle averted his gaze, and his father merely pointed
to the door, through which, faint, weary, and despondent, the boy went
out into the hall, while the two old men seemed to be listening till he
had gone up-stairs.

"A miserable, mean-spirited young scoundrel!" said Captain Belton,
angrily, but his face grew less stern directly, as he saw his brother
throw himself back in his chair, to laugh silently till he was nearly
purple.

"Oh, dear me!" he panted at last, "nearly given me a fit.  What a dirty,
miserable object he looked!"

"Disgraceful, Tom!" said the captain.  "Now, then, what would you do
with the young dog?  Send him off to some school for a couple of years?"

"No," said the admiral, quietly.

"I don't like thrashing the boy."

"Of course not, Harry."

"But I must punish him."

"What for?"

"What for?  Disobedience.  This mad escapade--"

"Bah!"

"Tom?"

"I said _Bah_!  Punish him?  Why, look at the boy.  Hasn't he punished
himself enough?  Why, Harry, we were boys once, and precious far from
perfect, eh?  I say, I don't think either of us would have had the
courage to have faced our old dad and confessed like that."

"Humph! perhaps not, Tom."

"No perhaps about it, dear old boy."

"But I must punish him."

"No, you mustn't.  I won't have him punished.  I like the young dog's
spirit.  We said he should go to sea.  He said he didn't want to go, and
sooner than do what he didn't like he cut and run, till he found out he
was making a fool of himself, and when he did find it out he came and
said so like a man."

"Well, yes," said the captain, "he did confess, but this must not be
passed over lightly."

"Bah!  Tchah!  Pah! let it be.  You see if he don't come the humble
to-morrow morning, and want us to let him go to sea."

"Think so?"

"Sure of it, my dear boy.  I'm not angry with him a bit.  He showed that
he had some spirit in running away."

"And that he was a cur in sneaking back."

"Steady there," cried the admiral, "nothing of the kind.  I say it took
more pluck to come back and face us, and own he was in the wrong, than
to run away."

The captain sat slowly sipping his port, and the subject was discussed
no more.

Then at last bedtime came.

Syd was seated in his room alone.  He had washed and changed his
clothes, expecting moment by moment to be summoned to hear his fate, but
the hours had passed, and he was sick and faint with hunger and
exhaustion.

As he sat there he heard the various familiar noises in the house, each
of which told him what was going on.  He recognised the jingling of
glasses on a wooden tray, which he knew meant the butler clearing the
dining-room.  He heard the closing of the library door.  Then there was
a long silence, followed by the rattling of shutters, the shooting of
bolts, the noise made by bars, and after another lapse, the murmur of
deep voices in the hall, the clink of silver candlesticks on the marble
slab, and a deep cough.

"They're gone up to bed," said Sydney to himself, and wearily thinking
that he would not be spoken to, and that he had better patiently try to
forget his hunger in sleep, so as to be ready for the painful interview
of the morning, he rose to undress.

But he did not begin.  He stood thinking about the events of the past
twenty-four hours, and like many another, felt that he would have given
anything to recall the past.

For he was very miserable, and his misery found vent once more as he was
asking himself what would be his fate in the world.

"Yes, I've behaved like a wretched, thoughtless fool."

"Pst!  Syd!"

He started and looked round, to see that the door had been slightly
opened, and that his uncle's great red face was thrust into the room.

"Yes, sir," he faltered--he dared not say, "Yes, uncle."

"Had anything to eat?" whispered the old admiral.

"No, sir."

The door closed, and the boy's spirits rose a little, for with all his
fierceness it was evident that the old admiral was kindly disposed.  But
his spirits went down again.  Uncle Tom was only a visitor, and his
father was horribly stern and harsh.  His voice had thrilled the boy,
who again and again had wondered what was to be his fate.

"I'll tell uncle how sorry I am, and ask him to side with me," thought
Sydney; and he had just made up his mind to speak to him if he came
again, and surely he would after coming to ask him about the food, when
the door-handle rattled slightly, and the boy involuntarily turned to
meet his uncle just as the door was pressed open a little, and he found
himself face to face with his father, who remained perfectly silent for
a few moments as Syd shrank away.

"Hungry, my lad?" he said at last.

"Yes, father--very."

"Hah!"

The door closed, and the prisoner was left once more to his own
thoughts.



CHAPTER TEN.

"I can't bully him to-night--a young dog!" said the captain.  "He must
be half-starved.  I wonder whether Broughton has gone to bed."

He went down slowly to the library without a light, meaning to summon
the butler and make him prepare a tray.

But meanwhile Admiral Belton had provided himself with a chamber
candlestick and stolen softly down-stairs, through the baize door at one
side of the hall, and along the passage that led to the kitchen.

"Can't leave the poor lad to starve," he muttered; "and I dare say I
shall find out the larder by the smell."

He chuckled to himself as he softly unfastened a door.

"Nice game this for one of his Majesty's old officers of the fleet," he
said.  "Wonder what they'd say at the club if they saw me?"

The door passed, he had no difficulty in finding the kitchen, for there
was a pleasant chirping of crickets to greet his ear; a kitcheny smell
that was oniony and unmistakable, and a few paces farther on his feet
were on stones that were sanded, and all at once there was a loud pop
where he put down his foot.

He lowered the light and saw that black beetles were scouring away in
all directions.

"Cockroaches, by George!" he muttered.  "Now where can the larder be?"

There were three doors about, and he went to the first.

"Hah!" he ejaculated, with a sniff.  "Here we are; no doubt about it."

He slipped a bolt, lifted a latch, stepped in and stepped out again
quickly, then closed the door.

"Scullery!" he snarled.  "Bah! what an idiot I do seem, prowling about
here."

He crossed the kitchen, slaying two more black beetles with his broad
feet in transit, and opened another door.  This he found led into a cool
passage, along one side of which was a wirework kind of cage.

"Here we are at last," he said; and opening the door, he found himself
in presence of part of a cold leg of mutton, a well-carved piece of
beef, and a cold roast pheasant.

"Now then for a plate," he muttered; and this he secured by sliding some
tartlets off one on to the shelf.

"Why, I've no knife," he muttered, as he cast his eyes upon the cold
roast pheasant.  "I must have some bread too."

A huge brown pan on the stone floor suggested the home of the loaves,
and on raising the lid he found a half loaf, which he broke in two,
secured one piece, and transferred it to the plate.

"Hang it all, where is there a knife?" he muttered.  "One can't cut beef
or mutton without a knife.  'Tisn't even as if one had got one's sword.
Here--I know."

He seized the pheasant.

"Humph! too much for a boy.  Don't know, though; dare say he could
finish it.  Wouldn't do him good.  I'll--that's it."

He took hold of one leg, and holding the bird down, pulled off one of
its joints; then another; after which he placed the pair of legs
thoughtfully on the plate.

"May as well give him a wing too," he said; and seizing the one having
the liver, he was in the act of tearing it off, when an exclamation
behind made him start round and face the captain.

"My dear Tom!" exclaimed the latter.  "Why, my dear boy, didn't you
speak, and so have ordered a supper-tray?"

"But you seem to be hungry too," growled the admiral, pointing with the
wing he had now torn-off at a plate and knife and fork his brother
carried.

"Eh? yes," said the captain, starting and looking conscious.  "I--er--
that is--"

"Why, Harry!" exclaimed Sir Thomas.

"Tom!" cried the captain.  "You don't mean that you have come down to--"

"Yes, I do," cried the admiral, fiercely.  "Think I was going to bed
after a good dinner to shut my eyes whilst that poor boy was
half-starved?"

"But it is a punishment for him," said the captain, sternly.

"Punishment be hanged, sir!" cried Sir Thomas.  "Harry, you are my
brother, and I am only a guest here, but you are a humbug, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"Mean that you've been bouncing about being strict, and the rest of it,
and yet you brought that plate and knife to cut your boy some supper."

"Well, er--I'm afraid I did, Tom."

"I'm not afraid, but I'm very glad you're not such a hard-hearted
scoundrel.  Poor boy! he must be famished.  Here, give me that knife."

The captain handed the knife, but in doing so brushed his sleeve over
the flame of the candle he carried, and extinguished it.

"How provoking!"

"Never mind," said his brother; "one must do."

As he spoke, the admiral hacked a great piece off the breast of the
pheasant, and added it to the legs and wing.

"There," he said, "that ought to keep him going till breakfast.  Must
have a bit o' salt, Harry.  Hush!"

He stooped down and blew out the remaining candle, as the captain caught
his arm, and they stood listening.

For the creaking of a door had fallen upon their ears; and partly from
involuntary action consequent upon the dread of being caught in so
unusual a position, partly from the second thought to which he
afterwards gave vent, the admiral sought refuge in the dark.

"Burglars, Harry," he whispered.  "They're after your plate."

"Hist! don't speak; we may catch them," was whispered back, and the two
old officers stood listening for what seemed an interminable length of
time before they saw the dim reflection of a light; heard more
whispering, and then the door leading into the larder passage was softly
opened.

"Coming into the trap," thought the captain, as with his heart beating
fast he prepared for the encounter which he foresaw must take place.
"Be ready," he said, with his lips to his brother's ear.

"Right.  They're going to board," was whispered back.

They were not long kept in doubt, for the larder door was suddenly
thrown open, and three men dashed in armed with bludgeons and a cutlass.
There was a sharp scuffle in the darkness, in which the two brave old
officers made desperate efforts to master their assailants, but only to
find that their years were against them, and they were completely
overcome.

"You lubbers!  Do you give in?" cried a hoarse voice--that of the man
sitting on the captain's chest, while two men were holding down the
admiral, who still heaved and strove to get free.

"Strake, you scoundrel! is it you?" panted the captain.

Barney executed a curious manoeuvre, half bound, half roll, off his
master, and brought up close to one of the larder shelves, while one of
the other men left the admiral and ran out, to return with a light.

The scene was strange.  Barney was standing supporting himself against
the larder shelf, with his elbow on the cold sirloin of beef; the
footman, in his shirt and breeches, was in a corner; and Captain Belton
and his brother, with their clothes half torn-off their backs, were
seated on the bare floor, staring angrily at their assailants; while
Broughton, the butler, was in the doorway, with the candle he had
fetched held high above his head.

"My last tooth gone," roared the admiral.  "You scoundrels, you shall
pay for this."

"Strake, you rascal!" cried the captain.  "Broughton, is this some plot
to rob me?"

The men stared aghast, as the captain struggled up.

"Speak, you ruffians!  You, John!" roared the captain, as he got his
breath again, and stood trembling with passion as he glared at the
footman.

"Beg pardon, sir," stammered the frightened servitor.

"No, don't stop for that, sir," cried his master; "tell me what the
dickens this means."

"Please, sir, I heard noises down-stairs, and I thought it was after the
plate; so I told Broughton, sir, and he sent me after the gardener,
sir."

"And then you came and attacked us," roared the admiral.  "Here, I'm
half killed."

"We didn't know it was you, Sir Thomas," growled Barney.

"Then why didn't you know, you idiot?" cried the captain.

"Didn't think anybody could be down-stairs, sir," said the butler,
respectfully.

"Why didn't you show your colours, you scoundrel?" cried the admiral,
"and not come firing broadsides into your friends.  Confound--I say,
Harry, my lad, just look at me."

"I'm very sorry, sir," faltered the butler.

"Hang your sorrow, sir!  You've broke my watch-glass, and I can feel the
bits pricking me."

"Come to me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, all of you," cried the
captain, fiercely, "and I'll pay you your wages, and you shall go."

"No, no, no," said the admiral; "I think we've given them as much as
they gave us, and--haw, haw, haw!" he roared, bursting into a tremendous
peal of laughter; "we didn't show our colours either.  It's all right,
brother Harry; they took us for burglars--but they needn't have hit
quite so hard."

"Beg your honour's pardon, sir, sure," growled Barney.

"Beg my pardon, sir!--after planting your ugly great knees on my chest,
and then sitting on me with your heavy carcase!"

"Is anything the matter?" said a voice at the door, and Sydney made his
appearance, looking startled at the scene.

"No, no, my boy," cried his uncle, cheerily; "only your father and I
came down to get you a bit of supper, and then they boarded us in the
dark."

"Yes, yes, that was it, Syd," said the captain.  "Here, put that plate
on a tray, Broughton, and take it into the library.  I'm very sorry this
has happened."

"All a mistake, sir, I'm sure," said the butler, taking the plate with
the hacked and torn-off portions of pheasant.

"Yes; don't say any more about it.  Come, brother Tom; come, Sydney."

He led the way, but the jolly old admiral could not follow for laughing.
He leaned up against the larder shelf, and stood wiping his eyes; and
every time he got over one paroxysm he began again.  But at last he
beckoned to Barney.

"Here, give me your arm, bo'sun," he said, "and help me into the
library; I feel as if everything were going by the board.  Oh, dear me!
oh, dear me!  Wait till I've buttoned this waistcoat.  Well, it's a
lesson.  Done for you, Syd, if you had been going to sea.  Never attack
without proper signals to know who are enemies and who are not."

The supper was soon spread in the library, and Sydney was ravenous for a
few mouthfuls, but after that he pushed his plate away, and could eat no
more.

"What!" cried his uncle; "done?  Nonsense!  I can peck a bit now myself;
and, Harry, my boy, I must have a glass of grog after this."

The result was that Syd did eat a decent supper, and an hour later, when
all was still, he sat thinking for a time about the coming morning.
Perhaps more than that of the fact that neither his father nor his uncle
had shaken hands when they parted for the night.

Then came sleep--sweet, restful sleep--and he was dreaming vividly for a
time of a desperate fight with the French, in which he boarded a larder,
and captured a butler, footman, and a gardener.  After that all was
dense, dreamless sleep, till he started up in bed, for there was a
knocking at his door.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"May I come in, sir?"

"Yes; come in, Broughton," said Syd, recognising the voice, and the
butler entered with one hand bound up.

"That, sir?  Oh, nothing, sir.  Only got it in the scrimmage last night.
So glad to see you back again, Master Syd."

"Oh, don't talk about it, Broughton," groaned the boy.  "My father
down?"

"No, sir; but he's getting up, and your uncle too.  I was to come and
tell you to make haste."

"Yes, I'll make haste," said Syd; and as soon as he was alone he began
to dress hurriedly, with every thought of the blackest hue, and a
sensation of misery and depression assailing him that was horrible.

He quite started as he went to the glass to brush his hair, for his face
was white and drawn as if he had been ill.  But there was very little
more time for thought.  The breakfast-bell rang, and he hurried down
into the dining-room, glad to get off the staircase and through the
hall, where one of the housemaids was still busy, and ready to look at
him curiously as the boy who ran away from home--and came back.

Syd thought of that latter, for he knew but too well the servants might
think it was brave--almost heroic and daring--to run away; to come back
seemed very weak and small.

In those few moments Syd wished that ten years would glide away, and all
the trouble belong to the past.

His father was in a chair by the window ready to look up sharply, and
then let his eye fall upon the book he was reading without uttering a
word.

Broughton came in bearing a tray with the coffee and a covered dish or
two ready to place upon the table, then he left, and Syd was alone again
with his father.

"What will he say?" thought the culprit; but he could not decide in
which form his verbal castigation would come.

As he sat glancing at his father from time to time, Syd noted that there
was a scratch upon his forehead, and that a bit of sticking-plaster was
on one of his knuckles, proofs these of the severity of the past night's
struggle.

Then came a weary waiting interval before there was a deep-toned cough
outside the door.

"Hah!" ejaculated the captain, rising from his seat as the door opened,
and the old admiral stumped into the room.

"Morning, Harry," he said; "morning, Syd."

He closed the door behind him and came forward, and then, odd as it may
sound in connection with one who was weak, unwell, and suffering from so
much mental trouble, Sydney burst into a hearty fit of laughter.  He
tried to check it; he knew that under the circumstances it was in the
worst of taste; he felt that he would excite his father's anger, and
that then he would be furious; but he laughed all the same, and the more
he tried the more violent and lasting the fits grew.

"Sydney!" cried his father, and then there was a pause followed by a
hearty "Ha, ha, ha!" as the captain joined in, and the admiral gently
patted his own face first on one side and then on the other.

"Yes," he said, quietly; "you may well laugh.  I look a nice guy, don't
I?"

"Oh, uncle!  I beg your pardon--but--oh, oh, oh, I can't stop laughing,"
cried Sydney.

"Well, get it done, boy," said the old gentleman, "for I want my
breakfast.  Oh, here is Broughton."

The butler entered with a rack of hot dry toast, and as he advanced to
the table the admiral exclaimed--

"Now, sir, look here; you've made a nice mess of my phiz.  What have you
got to say to this?"

The butler raised his eyes as he set down the toast, gazed full in the
old gentleman's face, his own seemed frozen solid for a moment, and
then, clapping the napkin he carried to his mouth to smother his
laughter, he turned and fled.

"And that son of a sea-cook begged my pardon last night, and said he was
sorry.  Yes, I am a sight.  Look at my eyes, Harry, swollen up and
black.  There's a nose for you; and one lip cut.  Why, I never got it so
bad in action.  And all your fault, Syd.  There, I forgive you, boy."

"Well, it's impossible to give this boy a serious lecture now, Tom,"
said the captain, wiping his eyes, as he passed the coffee.

"Of course.  Who wants serious lectures?" said the admiral, testily.
"The boy did wrong, and he came back and said he was sorry for it.
You've told me scores of times that you never flogged a man who was
really sorry for getting into a scrape.  Give me some of that ham, Syd,
and go on eating yourself.  I say, rum old punch I look, don't I?"

Syd made no reply, but filled his uncle's plate, and the breakfast went
on nearly to the end before the topic dreaded was introduced.

"Well, Sydney," said his father, rather sadly, "so I suppose I must let
you be a doctor?"

"Wish he was one now," cried the admiral.  "I'd make him try to make me
fit to be seen.  Humph! doctor, eh?  No; I don't think I shall try to be
ill to give you a job, Syd; but I'm very glad, my boy, that you did not
take that money."

Sydney bent over his coffee, and his father went on--

"It's like letting you win a victory, sir, but I suppose I must give in.
I don't like it though."

"Humph! more do I," said Sir Thomas.  "I'll forgive you though if you
train up for a naval surgeon.  Do you hear, sir?"

"Yes, uncle, I hear," said Sydney.

"Then why don't you speak?"

"I was thinking of what you said, uncle."

"Humph!  Well, I hope you'll take it to heart."

"Yes," said his father; "you may as well be a surgeon."

"That's what I should have liked to be," said Sydney, "if I had been a
doctor."

"Well, you're going to be, sir.  Your uncle and I have talked it over,
and you shall study for it, and begin as soon as you're old enough."

Sydney sat still, gazing at his plate; but he raised his eyes at last,
and looked firmly at his father, who was watching him keenly.

"Thank you, father," he said.

"No, sir, don't thank me; thank your indulgent uncle."

"No, don't, boy, because I give way most unwillingly; and I'm
confoundedly sorry you should want to be such a physic-mixing swab."

"You needn't be sorry, uncle," said Sydney, quietly; "and I'm very
grateful to you, father, but I shall not be one now."

"Not be a doctor!" said the captain, sharply.  "Then pray, sir, what do
you mean to be?"

"A sailor, father."

"What?" cried the brothers in chorus.

"And I want to go to sea at once."

"You do, Syd?"

"Yes, father.  I saw it all when I'd gone away, and I came back for
that."

"Hurrah!" cried the admiral, starting from his seat, and dropping back
with a groan of pain.  "Bless my heart!" he cried, "how sore I am!  But
hurrah! all the same.  You'll be a middy, my boy."

"Yes, uncle.  I want to be at once."

"And you'll try to make yourself a good officer, my boy?" cried his
father, leaning over the table to catch his son's hand.

"Yes, father, as hard as ever I can."

"T'other hand, Syd, lad," cried the admiral; and he grasped it firmly.
"Try, Harry?--he won't need to try.  He's a Belton every inch of him,
and he'll make a ten times better officer than ever we did.  Here,
where's the port?  Who's going to drink success to the boy in coffee?
Bah, what does the liquor matter!  We'll drink it in our hearts, boy.
Here's to Admiral Belton--my dear boy--our dear boy, Harry, eh?"

"God bless you, my lad!" cried Captain Belton.  "You've made me feel
more proud of you and happy than I have felt for years."

"Here, hi!" roared the admiral; "where's that lubber Strake?  I want
some one to help me cheer.  Sydney, boy, God bless you!  I _am_ glad you
ran away."

"Then you forgive me, father?"

"Hold your tongue, sir," cried Captain Belton, laying his hand on his
son's shoulder.  "There are things that we all like to forget as soon as
we can--this is one of them.  Let's blot it out."

"But I want to ask a favour, father."

"Granted, my boy, before you ask."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

Sydney Belton, as he felt the pressure of his father's hand, could not
speak for a few minutes, and when he did find utterance, he seemed to
have caught a fresh cold, for his voice sounded husky.

"I want as a favour, father--" he began, in a faltering voice.

"Here, it's all right, Syd, my boy," said his uncle; "don't bother your
father for money.  Now then, how much do you want?"

"I don't want money, uncle."

"Eh?  Don't want money, sir?  Wait a bit then till you get among your
messmates, and you'll want plenty."

"I want to beg Panama off from being punished."

"Ah, to be sure.  I'd forgotten him," cried Captain Belton; and he went
to the fireplace and rang the bell.

The butler answered, looking very serious and apologetic now as he
glanced at Sir Thomas.  But the old gentleman only shook his fist at him
good-humouredly as his brother spoke.

"Send John down to the cottage, to tell Strake to come up directly with
his son."

"Look here," said Sir Thomas, chuckling, "don't you two look like that.
Pull serious faces, and let's scare the young dog.  Do him good."

By the time the breakfast was ended steps were heard in the hall, and
the butler came in to announce that the gardener was waiting with his
boy.

"Send them in," said Captain Belton, austerely.

The butler retired; Sir Thomas gave his brother and nephew several nods
and winks, and then sat up looking most profoundly angry as the door was
again opened and a low growling arose from the hall.  Then a few
whimpering protests, more growling, with a few words audible:
"Swab"--"lubber"--"hold up!"--and then there was a scuffle, another
growl, and Panama, looking white and scared, seemed to be suddenly
propelled into the room as if from a mortar, the mortar making its
appearance directly after in the shape of Barney, who pulled his
forelock and kicked out a leg behind to each of the old officers before
pointing to Pan and growling out--

"Young desarter--wouldn't come o' deck, your honours, and--"

Barney's remarks had been addressed to his master, but he now turned
round toward Sir Thomas, and seemed for the first time to realise the
old admiral's condition, when his jaw dropped, he stared, and then began
to scratch his head vigorously.

"My!" he ejaculated; "your honour did get it last night."

"Get it, you rascal--yes," cried Sir Thomas; "you nearly killed me
amongst you."

"And, your honour," said Barney, hoarsely, as he turned to his master,
"I hadn't no idee it was you.  I thought it was--"

"Yes, yes, never mind now," said the captain.  "I sent for you about
this lad."

"Oh, Master Syd, sir, say a word for me," cried the boy, piteously.
"Father would ha' whacked me if I hadn't run away; then you whacked me
when I did; and now I'm to be whacked again.  Wish I was dead, I do."

"Eh! eh! what's that?" cried Captain Belton.  "You thrashed him, Sydney;
what for?"

"Well, father, we did have a little misunderstanding," said Sydney,
composedly.

"It was 'cause I wouldn't come back, sir; that's it, sir," whimpered
Pan.  "I knowd father had made the rope's-end ready for me, and he had."

"What's that?" said the captain.  "I said you were not to be flogged
until you had been tried."

"Well, your honour, orders it was, and I didn't lay it on him," growled
Barney.

"No; but you laid it across me in bed, and you kep' on showing of it to
me, and you said that was my supper, and my breakfass, and--and--I wish
I hadn't come back, I do."

"Is this true, Strake?"

"Well, your honour, I s'pose it's about it," said the boatswain.  "I
'member showing of it to him once or twyste."

"He's got it in his pocket now, sir," cried Pan.

"Ay, ay.  That's a true word, lad."

"Let's see," said Sir Thomas, in magisterial tones.

Barney fumbled unwillingly in his pocket, and drew out a piece of rope
about two feet long, well whipped round at the ends with twine.

"Humph!" said Sir Thomas, taking the instrument of torture.  "So that's
what you flog him with."

"Well, your honour, meant to make a man of him."

"Arn't yer going to speak a word for me, Master Syd?" whispered Pan.

"Silence, sir!" said the captain.  "Now look here: you ran away from
your service, and from your father's house.  Then, I suppose, you tried
to persuade my son to go with you."

Pan looked up reproachfully at Sydney.

"I wouldn't ha' told o' you, Master Syd.  But I don't care now.  Yes; I
wanted him to _come_."

"Well, I'm glad you spoke the truth; but your companion did not tell
tales of you.  Now, look here, sir: I suppose you know you've behaved
like an ungrateful young scoundrel?"

"Yes, sir," whimpered Pan.

"And you know you deserve to be flogged?"

"Yes, sir, and I want it over; it's like all flogging, and wuss, for him
to keep on showing me that there rope's-end."

"Better pipe all hands to punishment, bo'sun," said Sir Thomas.

"Ay, ay, sir," said Barney, thrusting his hand in his breast; and
bringing out a silver whistle attached to his neck by a black ribbon, he
put it to his lips.

"No, no," cried the captain, "we're not aboard ship now.  I wish we
were," he added, "eh?"

Sir Thomas nodded.

"Well, sir," continued the captain, "are you ready to take your
flogging?"

"Yes, sir," said Pan, dolefully.

"And what will you say if I forgive you?"

"And make him forgive me too, sir?" cried Pan, nodding his head sideways
at his father.

"Yes, my lad."

"Anything, sir.  There, I'll never run away agen."

"Will you be a good, obedient lad, and do as your father wishes you, and
go to sea?"

"No," said Pan, stolidly, "I won't."

"Humph! what are we to say to this, Sir Thomas?"

"Say?--that he's a cowardly young swab."

"Ay, ay, sir; that's it," cried Barney.

"Silence, sir.  Look here, boy; we'll give you another chance.  Will you
go to sea?"

The boy shook his head.

"What! not with my son?"

"What!" cried Barney, excitedly.  "Master Syd going?"

"Yes, Barney," cried the boy.  "I'm going to be a sailor after all."

The ex-boatswain showed every tooth in his head in a broad grin, slapped
one hand down on the other, and cried in a gruff voice--

"Dear lad!  There, your honours!  The right stuff in him arter all.
Can't you get me shipped in the same craft with him, Sir Thomas?  I'm as
tough as ratline hemp still."

"You going to sea, Master Syd?" said Pan, looking at the companion of
his flight wonderingly.

"Yes, Pan; at once.  Will you come?"

"Course I will, sir," cried Pan.  "Going to-day?"

"There--there, your honours!  Hear that?" cried Barney, excitedly.
"Aren't that the right stuff too?  Here, your honour, begging your
pardon, that bit of rope's-end's mine."

He caught up the rope, and gave it a flourish over his head.

"Here, stop! what are you going to do?" cried Sydney, dashing at him,
and getting hold of one end of the rope.

"Going to do, Master Syd?--burn it; you may if you like.  It's done it's
dooty, and done it well.  I asks your honours, both on you--aren't that
wirtoo in a bit o' rope?  See what it's made of him.  Nothing like a bit
o' rope's-end, neatly seized with a bit o' twine."

"Ah, well, you've a right to your opinion, Strake," said the captain.
"There, you can take him back home.  I dare say we can manage to get him
entered in the same ship as my son."

"And if he's going to do the right thing now," said Sir Thomas, "I'll
pay for his outfit too."

"Thank, your honour; thank, your honour!" cried Barney.

"Oh!"

This last was from Pan, who had received a side kick from his father's
shoe.

"Then why don't yer touch yer hat to the admiral and say thankye too,
you swab?" growled Barney, in a deep, hoarse whisper.

"There," said the captain, "you can go now."

"Long life to both your honours," cried Barney.  "Come, Pan, my lad, get
home; you dunno it, but your fortune's made."

"Well, Syd, are you satisfied?" said the captain, as soon as they were
alone.

"Yes, father."

"Then we'll go up by to-night's coach and see Captain Dashleigh
to-morrow.  What do you say?"

"I'm ready, father.  Will uncle come too?"

"Uncle Tom come too, you young humbug! how can I?" cried the admiral.
"No, I'm on sick leave, till my figure-head's perfect, so I shall have
to stop here and sip the port."



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A supercilious-looking waiter--that is to say, a waiter who has had a
good season and saved a little money--was standing at the door of the
oldest hotel in Covent Garden, when a clumsy coach was driven up to the
door.

The coach was so old and shabby, and drawn by two such wretched beasts,
that the supercilious waiter could not see it; and after looking to his
right and his left he turned to go in.

"Here, hi!" came from the coach; but the waiter paid no heed.

"Here, Syd, fetch that scoundrel here."

The door was flung open, the lad leaped out and went at the waiter like
a dog, seizing him by the collar, spinning him round, and racing him
protesting the while down the steps and over the rough pavement to the
coach door.

"You insolent scoundrel, why didn't you come when I called?" said
Captain Belton, from inside the fusty coach.

"Don't I tell you we're full!" cried the waiter; "and don't you come
putting--"

"Silence, sir! how dare you!" cried the captain in his fiercest tones.
"How do you know that we want to stay in your dirty hotel?  Take my card
up to Captain Dashleigh, and say I am waiting."

The man glanced at the card, turned, and ran with alacrity into the
house.

"That's just the sort of fellow I should like to set Strake at, Syd,
with his mates and the cat.  A flogging would do him good."

The next minute the waiter was back at the coach door with Captain
Dashleigh's compliments, delivered in the most servile tones, and would
Captain Belton step up?

"Get down my valise and pay the coachman," said the captain.  "We shall
sleep here to-night, though you are full."

They were shown into a room where a little, dandified man in full
uniform was walking up and down, evidently dictating to his secretary,
who was busily writing.

Syd stared.  He had been accustomed to look upon his father and uncle,
and the friends who came to see them, as types of naval officers--big,
loud-spoken, grey-haired, bluff men, well tanned by long exposure to the
weather; and he wondered who this individual could be who walked with
one hand upon the hilt of his sword, pressing it down so that the sheath
projected nearly at right angles between the tails of his coat, and as
he walked it seemed to wag about like a monkeyish part of his person.
The other hand held a delicate white handkerchief, which he waved about,
and at each movement it scented the air.

"Ah, my dear Captain Belton, so glad to see you.  Lucky your call was
now.  So much occupied, you see.  Sit down, my dear sir.  And this is
your son?  Ah," he continued, inspecting Syd through a gold-rimmed
eyeglass, "nice little lad.  Looks healthy and well.  Seems only the
other day I joined the service in his uncle's ship.  I have your
brother's letter in my secretary's hands.  So glad to oblige him if I
can.  How is the dear old fellow?"

"Hearty, Captain Dashleigh," said Syd's father.  "Desired to be kindly
remembered to you."

"Ah, very good of him.  Splendid officer!  The service has lost a great
deal through his growing too old."

"We don't consider ourselves too old for service.  Timbers are sound.
We only want the Admiralty to give us commands."

"Ah, yes, to be sure," said the dandy captain, who seemed to be about
eight-and-thirty; and he continued his walk up and down the room as his
visitors sat.

"You have succeeded well, Dashleigh," said Captain Belton.

"Well, yes--pretty well--pretty well.  Very arduous life though."

"Oh, hang the arduous life, sir," said Captain Belton.  "It's a grand
thing to be in command of a two-decker."

"Yes," said the little man, who in physique was rather less than Sydney;
"the Government trust me, and his Majesty seems to have confidence in my
powers.  But you will, I know, excuse me, my dear old friend, if I
venture to hint that my time is not my own.  Sir Thomas said you would
call and explain how I could serve him.  What can I do?  One moment--I
need not say that I look upon him as my father in the profession, and
that I shall be delighted to serve him.  You will take a pinch?"

He handed a magnificent gold snuff-box set with diamonds, and a portrait
on china in the lid indicated that it came from one of the ministers.

"Thanks, yes.  But, my dear Dashleigh, you should not use scented
snuff."

"Eh?--no?  The fashion, my dear sir.  Now I am all attention."

"Then why don't you sit down as a gentleman would?" said Captain Belton
to himself.  Then aloud--"My business is very simple, sir.  This is my
son, whom I wish to devote to the King's service, and my brother, Sir
Thomas Belton, asks, and I endorse his petition, that you will enter him
in your ship, and try to do by him as my brother did by you."

"My dear Captain Belton!  Ah, this is sad!  What could have been more
unfortunate!  If you had only been a week sooner!"

"What's the matter, sir?" said the captain, sternly.

"Matter?--I am pained, my dear Captain Belton; absolutely pained.  I
would have done anything to serve you both, my dear friends, but my
midshipmen's berth is crammed.  I could not--dare not--take another.  If
there was anything else I could do to serve Sir Thomas and you I should
be delighted."

"Thank you, Captain Dashleigh," said Syd's father, rising; "there is
nothing else.  I will not detain you longer."

"I would say lunch with me, my dear sir, but really--as you see--my
secretary--the demands upon my time--you thoroughly understand?"

"Yes, sir, I understand.  Good morning."

"Good morning, my dear Captain Belton; _good_ morning, my young friend.
I will speak to any of the commanding officers I know on your behalf.
Good day."

The captain stalked silently down-stairs, closely followed by Syd, and
then led the way round and round the market, taking snuff savagely
without a word.

But all at once he stopped and drew himself up, and gave his cane a
thump on the pavement, while his son thought what a fine-looking, manly
fellow he was, and what a pleasure it was to gaze upon such a specimen
of humanity after the interview with the dandy they had left.

"Syd," said the captain, fiercely, "if I thought you would grow up into
such an imitation man as that, confound you, sir, I'd take and pitch you
over one of the bridges."

"Thank you, father.  Then you don't like Captain Dashleigh?"

"Like him, sir?  A confounded ungrateful dandy Jackanapes captain of a
seventy-four-gun ship!  Great heavens! the Government must be mad.  But
that's it--interest at court!  Such a fellow has been promoted over the
heads of hundreds of better men.  All your uncle's services to him
forgotten, and mine too."

"But if there wasn't room in his ship, father?"

"Room in his ship sir?" cried the captain, wrathfully.  "Do you think
there would not have been room in my ship for the son and nephew of two
old friends?  Why, hang me, if I'd been under that man's obligations,
I'd have shared my cabin with the boy but what he should have gone."

"Yes, father, I think you would.  So we've failed."

"Failed?  Yes.  No; never say die.  But I'm glad.  Hang him!  With a
captain like that, what is the ship's company likely to be!  No, Syd, if
you can't go afloat with a decent captain, you shall turn doctor or
tailor."

"Why don't you have a ship again, father?"

"Because I have no interest, my boy, and don't go petitioning and
begging at court.  But they don't want sea-captains now, they want
scented popinjays.  Why, Syd, I've begged for a ship scores of times
during the past two years, but always been passed over.  I wouldn't care
if they'd appoint better men; but when I see our best vessels given to
such things as that!  Oh, hang it, I shall be saying what I shall be
sorry for if I go on like this.  Come and have a walk.  No; I'll go to
the Admiralty, and see if I can get a hearing there.  If I can't--if
they will not help me to place my boy in the service which all the
Beltons have followed for a hundred and fifty years, I'll--There, come
along, boy, the world is not perfect."

He walked sharply down into the Strand and then on to Whitehall, where
he turned into the Admiralty Yard, and sent in his card to one of the
chief officials, who kept him waiting two hours, during which the
captain fumed to see quite a couple of score naval officers go in and
return, while he was passed over.

"Here you see an epitome of my life during the past fifteen years, Syd,"
he said, bitterly.  "Always passed over and--"

"His lordship will see you now, if you please," said an official.

"Hah! pretty well time," muttered the captain.  "Come along, Syd."

They followed the clerk along a gloomy passage, and were shown into a
dark room where a fierce-looking old gentleman in powder and queue sat
writing, but who laid down his pen and rose as Captain Belton's name was
announced; shook hands cordially, and then placed his hands upon his
visitor's shoulders and forced him into an easy-chair.

"Sit down, Harry Belton, sit down," he cried.  "Sorry to keep you
waiting, but wanted to get rid of all my petitioners and visitors, so as
to be free for a long talk.  Why, I haven't seen you or heard of you
these ten years."

"Not for want of my applying for employment, my lord," said Captain
Belton, stiffly.

"But then I've not been in office, my dear Belton; and, hang it, man,
don't `my lord' me.  And who's this?"

"My son, my lord," said the captain.

"Don't `my lord' me, man!" cried the old gentleman, fiercely.  "You
always were a proud, stubborn fellow.  And so this is your son, is it?"
he continued, peering searchingly in the boy's face.  "Ah! chip of the
old block; stubborn one too, I can see.  Shake hands, sir.  Now then,
what are you going to be?"

"A sailor, sir--my lord, I mean."

"Don't correct yourself, boy.  A sailor, eh?  Like your father and
grandfather before you, eh?  Good; can't do better.  I wish you luck, my
lad.  We want a school of lads of your class.  The navy's full of
milksops, and dandies, and fellows who have got their promotion by
favour, while men like your father, who have done good service and ought
to be doing it now, instead of idling about as country gentlemen--"

"Not my fault," cried the captain, hotly.  "I've begged for employment
till I've grown savage, and sworn I would appeal no more."

"Hah! yes," said the old gentleman, sitting back in his chair, and
holding Syd's hand still in his; "there's a deal of favour and interest
in these days, my dear Belton.  John Bull's ships ought to be commanded
by the best men in the navy, but they're not; and those of us who would
like to do away with all the corruption, can't stir.  Never mind that
now.  Let's talk of Admiral Tom.  How is the dear old boy?"

"Like I am--growing old and worn with disappointment."

"Nonsense, Belton; nonsense.  We can't shape our own lives.  Better make
the best of things as they are.  Well, my boy, what ship have you
joined?"

"None, sir--yet."

"I came up to see Dashleigh, on the strength of his having been under my
brother, and asked him to take my son."

"And he wouldn't, of course," said the old gentleman, more fiercely
still.  "Wrong man, my dear sir.  Ladder kicker.  And so, young sir, you
haven't got a ship?"

"No; and if you could help me, my lord--"

"If you call me my lord again, Harry Belton, I won't stir a peg.--Do you
know, boy, that I was once in command of a small sloop, and your father
was my first officer?  I say, Belton, remember those old days?"

"Ay, I do," said the captain, with his eyes lighting up.

"Remember cutting out the Spaniard at Porto Bello?"

"Yes; and the fight with the big vessel in the Gut."

"Ah, to be sure.  How we made the splinters fly!  Bad luck that was for
those other two to come up.  Rare games we had, my boy.  We must get you
a ship under some good captain."

"If you could do that for me," said Captain Belton, eagerly.

"Well, I can try and serve an old friend, even if he is a lazy one who
likes to be in dock instead of being at sea.  By the way, Belton, how
old are you?"

"Fifty-eight."

"Ah, and I'm seventy.  Plenty of work in me yet, though.  There, I'll
bear my young friend here in mind.  Come and dine with me one day next
week, Belton, for I must send you off now; you've had half an hour
instead of five minutes.  Say Monday--Tuesday."

"Thank you, no," said the captain, rising.  "I've done all I can, and
will get back home."

"Bah!  You're a bad courtier, Belton.  Stubborn as ever.  You ought to
hang about here, and sneak and fawn upon me, and jump at the chance of
dining with me, in the hope that I might be able to help you."

"Yes, my lord, I suppose so," said the captain, sadly; "but if the
country wants my services it will have to seek me now.  I'm growing too
old to beg for what is my right."

"And meanwhile our ships are badly handled and go to the bottom, which
would be a good thing if only their inefficient captains were drowned;
but it's their crews as well.  There, good-bye, Belton.  Don't come to
town again without calling on me.  I'll try and serve your boy.  One
moment--where are you?  Oh yes, I see; I have your card.  Good-bye,
middy.  Remember me to the admiral."

The fierce-looking old gentleman saw them to the door, and soon after
father and son were on their way back to the hotel, and the next morning
on the Southbayton coach.

"Ah, Sydney, lad," said the captain, "we shall have to bind you
'prentice to a 'pothecary, after all."

"But Lord Claudene said he would try and serve you about me, father; and
I should be disappointed if I didn't go to sea now."

"Indeed?" said the captain, laughing.  "You will have to bear the
disappointment.  There are hundreds constantly applying at the
Admiralty."

"Yes, father, but you are a friend."

"Yes, my boy, I am a friend; and yet what I want I should have to be
waiting about for years, and then perhaps not succeed."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"What!" cried Sir Thomas, when he heard the adventures in town, "you
mean to tell me that Dashleigh treated you as you say?"

"Exactly," replied his brother.

"My face show the marks much now?"

"No; hardly at all."

"Then we'll go up to town to-morrow."

"What for, Tom?" said the captain.  "You'll do no better than I did."

"I'm not going to try, Harry," said the old gentleman, fiercely.

"Then why go?  You are comfortable here."

"I'm going up to horsewhip that contemptible little scoundrel Dashleigh,
and fight him afterwards, though he's hardly gentleman enough."

"Nonsense, Tom!"

"Nonsense?  Why I made that fellow--and pretty waste of time too!  And
now he's in command of a seventy-four, and you may go begging for a word
to get your boy into the midshipmen's berth."

Uncle Tom did not go up to town to horsewhip or fight.

"Never mind," he said, "he's sure to run his ship on the rocks, or get
thrashed--a scoundrel!  Here, Syd, take my advice."

"What is it, uncle?"

"Never do any one a kind action as long as you live."

"You don't mean it, uncle."

"What, sir?  No, I don't: you're right."

A week passed, during which Barney suggested that the proper thing for
Captain Belton to do was to purchase some well-built merchant schooner,
and fit her out as a privateer.

"I could soon get together as smart a crew as you'd care to have, and
then there'd be a chance for your son to get to be a leefftenant 'fore
you knew where you were."

But Captain Belton only laughed, and matters at the Heronry remained as
they were, till one day with the other letters there came one that was
big and official, and its effect upon the two old officers was striking.

"From the Admiralty, Tom," said the captain, as he glanced at the great
seal, and then began to take out his knife to slit open the fold.

"I can see that," said the admiral.  "It's from Claudene.  Syd, lad,
you're in luck.  He has got you appointed to a ship, after all."

"Bless my soul!" cried the captain, dropping the great missive on the
table.

"What is it, my lad?--what is it?" cried Sir Thomas.

"Read--read," cried Captain Belton, huskily--"it's too good to believe."

Sir Thomas snatched up the official letter, cast his eyes over it, and
then, forgetting his gout, caught hold of Syd's hands and began to caper
about the room like a maniac.

"Hurrah!  Bravo, Harry, my lad.  I've often grumbled; but I avow it--I
am past service, gouty as I am; but you were never more seaworthy."

"Uncle, why don't you speak?" cried Sydney, excitedly.  "Has father got
a ship?"

"Got a ship, my lad?  He's appointed to one of the smartest in the
navy--the _Sirius_ frigate, and she's ordered abroad."

Captain Belton drew himself up, and his eyes flashed as in imagination
he saw himself treading once more the quarter-deck of a smart ship.

"It's too good to believe," he muttered--"too good to believe."

"You haven't read the letter," said his brother, looking wistfully
across to the tall, eager-looking man before him.

"No," said Captain Belton.  "Hah! from Claudene,"--and he read aloud:--

"My dear Belton, I have managed this for you, and I'm very glad, for you
will do us credit.  The appointment will clear away the difficulty about
your boy, for you can have him in your own ship, and keep the young dog
under your eye.  My good wishes to you, and kind regards to your
brother.  Tell him I wish I could serve him as well, but I can't see my
way."

"Of course he can't," said the old admiral, quickly.  "No; I'm too old
and gouty now.  But as for you, you dog, why don't you stand on your
head, or shout, or something?  Here, I am well enough to go up to town
after all.  Syd and I are going to see about his uniform.  The
_Sirius_--well, you two have luck at last.  Here, hi! you, sir!  Put
down that confounded birch-broom, and come here."

Uncle Tom had caught sight of Barney at the bottom of the lawn sweeping
leaves into a heap for his son to lift them between two boards into the
waiting barrow.

As Barney looked up and saw the admiral signalling from the window, he
came across the lawn at a trot, dragging the broom after him.

"Drop that broom and salute your officer, you confounded old barnacle!"
roared the old gentleman.  "Salute, sir, salute: your master's appointed
to the smartest frigate in the service."

Barney struck an attitude, sent his old cocked hat spinning into the
air, and then catching it, tucked it under his arm, and pulled his
imaginary forelock over and over again.

"Good luck to your honour!  I am glad.  When would you like me to be
ready, sir?  Shall I go on first and begin overhauling?"

"You, Strake?" said the captain, thoughtfully.

"You're not going to leave me behind, sir?  No, no, sir; don't say that,
sir--don't think it, sir.  I'm as strong and active as ever I was, and a
deal more tough.  Ask him to take me, Master Syd."

"Take you, Strake?" said the captain again.  "Why, what is to become of
my garden?"

"Your garden, captain!  What do you want with a garden when you're at
sea?  Salt tack and biscuit, and a few bags o' 'tatoes about all you
want aboard ship."

The captain shook his head.

"It's a long time since you were on active service, Strake."

"Active sarvice, captain!  Why, I was on active sarvice when the admiral
hailed me; and, I tell you, I never felt more fit for work in my life.
Course I'd like to be your bo'sun, captain, but don't you stand 'bout
that.  You take me, and I'll sarve you afore the mast as good and true
as if I was warrant officer once more.  You've knowed me a lot o' years,
Sir Thomas; say a good word for me."

"I'll say you're a good fellow, Strake, and a first-class sailor," said
the admiral.

"For which I thank ye kindly, sir.  But you don't say a word for a man,
Master Syd.  I know I've cut up rough with you, sir, often over plums
and chyce pears as I wanted to save for the dessart, but my 'art's been
allus right for you, my lad, and never a bit o' sorrow till I see you
flying in the master's face and not wantin' to sarve the King.  You
won't bear malice, sir, and 'atred in yer 'art.  Say a good word."

"Yes, Barney.  Do take him, father."

"It is a question of duty and of the man's ability.  Look here, Strake,
if I say no, it's because I fear that you would not be smart enough at
your age.  It is not a question of the will to serve."

"I should think not, sir.  Why, you won't have a man of your crew more
willing to sarve you right."

"I know that; but the activity and smartness?"

"Activity, sir?  Why, I'm as light as a feather, sir, and I'd run up the
ratlines and away aloft and clap my hand on the main-truck long afore
some o' your youngsters."

"Well, Strake, I'll take you."

"Why--"

"Stop a moment.  It must be with the understanding that you undertake
anything I set you to do, for there may be a good boatswain aboard."

"Right, sir; any thing's my work.  I'll see about my kit at once."

"Syd, you shall go with me, unless you would like to wait for a chance
on another ship."

"No, father, I'll go with you," cried Syd.  "And what about Pan?"

"He can come," said the captain.  "Now leave me with your uncle, I want
to talk to him at once."

A complete change seemed to have come over Barney as he made for the
open window, not walking as usual, but in a light trot upon his toes, as
if he were once more on the deck of a ship; and as soon as he was in the
garden and out of sight of the window, he folded his arms and began to
evince his delight by breaking into the first few steps of a hornpipe.

He was just in the middle of it when Pan came silently up behind with a
board in each hand, to stand gazing from Syd to his father and back
again in speechless wonderment, and evidently fully believing that the
old man had gone mad.

All at once Barney was finishing off his dance with a curve round on his
heels, but this brought him face to face with his wide-eyed, staring
son.

The effect was instantaneous.  He stopped short in a peculiar attitude,
feeling quite abashed at being found so engaged, and Syd could hardly
contain his laughter at the way in which the old boatswain got out of
his difficulty.

"What now, you ugly young swab!" he roared.  "Never see a sailor of the
ryle navy stretch his legs afore?"

"Is that how sailors stretches their legs?" said Pan, slowly.

"Yes, it be.  Now then, what have you got to say to that?"

"You arn't a sailor, father."

"What?  Hear him, Master Syd?  That's just what I am, boy, and you too.
We're all on us outward bound; and now you come along, and I'll just
show you something with a rope's-end."

"Why, I aren't been doing nothing now," cried Pan, drawing back.

"Who said you had, you swab!  Heave ahead.  Stow talking and get that
there rope.  I'm going to give you your first lesson in knotting and
splicing.  Ah, you've got something to larn now, my lad.  Go and run
that there barrow and them tools into the shed.  No more gardening.
Come on into the yard, Master Syd, and we'll rig up that there big pole,
and a yard across it, and I'll show you both how to lay out with your
feet in the sturrup.  Come on."

"But, Master Syd, father isn't going to sea again, is he?"

"Yes, Pan, we're all off to join a fine frigate."

"And make men on you both," cried Barney.  "Lor', it's a wonder to me
how I've managed to live this 'long-shore life so long.  Come on, my
lads.  No, no, don't walk like that.  Think as you've got a deck under
your feet, and run along like this."

Barney set the example, and Syd laughed again, for the gardener seemed
to have gone back ten years of big life, and trotted along as active as
a boy.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"Have they come, Syd, lad?" said the admiral, as the boy walked into the
private room of the Red Lion, Shoreport, where the old man had taken up
his quarters for the past fortnight, and had spent his time down at the
docks, where the _Sirius_ was being overhauled in her rigging, and was
getting in her stores and ammunition ready for her start to the West
Indian station in another week's time.

The coach had not long come in, and on hearing the horn the old sailor,
with a twinkle in his eye, had sent the lad to do exactly what he
wanted, but would have shrunk from for fear of seeming particular.

"Yes, uncle," he said quietly, "a box has come."

"Well, well, where is it?"

"I told him to put it in my bedroom."

"Well, why don't you go and open it, and see if your outfit is all
right?"

"Oh, there's plenty of time, uncle," said Syd, with assumed
carelessness.

"Yah! get out, you miserable young humbug.  Think I was never a boy
myself, and don't know what it means.  You're red-hot to go and look at
your duds.  There, be off and put on your full-dress uniform, and then
come down and let's see."

"Put them on, uncle, now?"

"Yes; put them on now," cried the old man, imitating his nephew's voice
and manner.  "Yes, put them on--now.  Not ashamed of the King's livery,
are you?"

"No, sir, of course not."

"Then go and put them on, and don't come down with your cocked hat wrong
way on."

Syd hesitated, feeling a little abashed, but his uncle half jumped out
of his seat.

"Be off, you disobedient young dog," he roared.  "If you don't want to
see them, I do.  There, I'll give you a quarter of an hour."

Sydney took half an hour, and then hesitated about going down-stairs.
He peeped out of his room twice, but there was always some one on the
stairs, chambermaid, waiter, or guest staying in the place.

At last, though, all seemed perfectly quiet, and fixing his cocked hat
tightly on his head, and holding his dirk with one hand to keep it from
swinging about and striking the balusters, he ran along the passage and
dashed down the stairs.

The quick movement caused his cocked hat to come down in front over his
eyes, and before he had raised it again he had run right into the arms
of the stout landlady.  There was a shrill scream, and the lady was
seated on the mat, while by the force of the rebound Sydney was sitting
on the stairs, from which post he sprang up to offer his apologies.

"You shouldn't, my dear," said the landlady, piteously, as she stretched
out her hands like a gigantic baby who wanted to be helped up.

Sydney's instincts prompted him to rush on to his father's small
sitting-room, but politeness and the appeal of the lady compelled him to
stay; and after he had raised her to her proper perpendicular, she
smiled and cast her eyes over his uniform, making the boy colour like a
girl.

"Well, you do look nice," she said; "only don't knock me down again.
There, I'm not hurt.  They're quite new, ain't they?"

Sydney nodded.

"I thought so, because you haven't got them on quite right."

Sydney stopped to hear no more, but ran on, checked himself, and tried
to walk past three waiters in the entry with dignity.

He did not achieve this, because if he had the waiters would not have
laughed and put their napkins to their mouths, on drawing back to let
him pass.

"Oh, shouldn't I like to!" he thought, as he set his teeth and clenched
his fists.

He felt very miserable and as if he was being made a laughing-stock; in
fact his sensations were exactly those of a sensitive lad who appears in
uniform for the first time; and hence he was in anything but a peaceful
state of mind as he dashed into the room where his uncle was waiting, to
be greeted with a roar of laughter.

"What a time you have been, sir!  Why, Syd, I don't think much of your
legs, and, hang it all, your belt's too loose, and they don't fit you.
Bah! you haven't half dressed yourself.  Come here.  Takes me back fifty
years, boy, to see you like that."

"Why did you tell me to go and put them on?" cried the boy, angrily, "if
you only meant to laugh at me?"

"Bah! nonsense!  What do you mean, sir?  Are you going to be so
thin-skinned that you can't bear to be joked?  Come here."

The boy stood by his side.

"I was going to show you how to take up your belt and to button your
waistcoat.  There! that's better.  Flying out like that at me because I
laughed!  How will you get along among your messmates, who are sure to
begin roasting you as soon as you go aboard?"

"I beg your pardon, uncle.  I seemed to feel so ridiculous, and
everybody laughed."

"Let them.  There! that's better.  See how a touch or two from one who
knows turns a slovenly look into one that's smart.  Hallo! some one at
the door, my lad; go and see.  No; stop.  Come in."

The door was opened, and Barney in his uniform of petty officer entered,
looking smartened up into a man ten years younger than when he worked in
the garden at the Heronry.

As Barney took off his hat and entered, closing the door behind him, his
eyes lit first upon Syd, and his face puckered up into a broad grin.

"And now you!" cried Sydney, angrily.  "Uncle, I'm not fit to wear a
uniform; I look ridiculous."

"Who says so?" cried the old man, angrily.  "Here you, Strake, don't
stand grinning there like a corbel on an old church."

"Couldn't help it, your honour."

"There, you see, uncle."

"I don't, sir.  Going to let the grin of that confounded fellow upset
you?  If he laughs at you again because he thinks you are a fool, show
him that you're not one; knock him down."

"His honour the captain's compliments, Sir Thomas, and he'd be glad to
see you on board along o' Master Sydney here."

"Is your master on board, then?"

"Ay, sir; and I've come across in the gig, as is waiting for us with one
of the young gentlemen to keep the men in their places."

"Right; we'll come," said the old admiral.  "Now, Syd," he whispered,
"do you know why people laugh?"

"Yes, uncle, at me."

"Well, yes, my lad; so they did at me years ago.  But you don't know
why."

"I think I do, uncle."

"No, boy, you do not; you look as if you had got on your uniform for the
first time.  We're going out now, so look as if you hadn't got it on for
the first time.  Hold up your head, cock your hat, and if you look at
people, don't look as if you were wondering what they thought of you,
but as if you were taking his weight.  See?"

"Yes, uncle, I think I do.  But must I go like this?"

"Confound you, sir!" growled the old man.  "Why do you talk like that?"

"Because I look absurd."

"Oh, that's it, is it?  Then look here, Syd, I'll prove that you don't."

"If you can prove that, uncle, I shall never mind wearing a uniform
again."

"Then you need not mind, boy, for if you looked absurd I wouldn't be
seen with you.  Now then, hold up your head, and remember you are a
king's officer.  March!"

The old man gave his cane a thump, cocked his own hat, and stamped along
by the side of his nephew.  Pan, who was outside waiting for his
father's return, staring wide-eyed at Sydney's uniform, and then
following behind with Barney, wishing he was allowed to wear a little
gilded sword like that.

In this way they walked down to the boat, which lay a short distance
from the landing-place, with a handsome boy in middy's uniform leaning
back in the stern-sheets, and keeping strict watch on his men to keep
them from yielding to the attraction of one of the public-houses,
stronger than that of duty.

Barney stepped forward and hailed the boat, which was quickly rowed
alongside, the coxswain holding on as the admiral stepped in, followed
by his nephew, who found himself directly after beside the good-looking,
dark-complexioned middy, who took the helm, and gave the order to give
way.  The oars fell with a splash, and Sydney felt that he was at last
afloat and on his way to join the frigate.

The admiral took snuff, and after a word or two with the middy in charge
of the boat, sat gazing silently about him, while from time to time
Sydney turned his eyes to find that his companion was examining him
closely, and with a supercilious air which made the new addition to the
midshipmen's mess feel irritable and ready to resent any insult.

But none was offered, and the men rowed on, till after threading their
way through quite a forest of masts the frigate was sighted.

"There she lies, Syd," whispered his uncle; "as fine a craft as you need
wish to see.  What's your name, youngster?"

"Michael Terry," said the midshipman.

"Ho!" ejaculated the admiral.  "Well, this is my nephew, Sydney Belton,
your new messmate.  I hope you'll be very good friends."

"I'm sure we shan't," said the young fellow to himself.  "Too cocky for
me.  But we can soon cut his comb."

"Arn't you going to shake hands, youngsters?"

"Oh, yes, if you like," said the youth.  "There's my hand."

Sydney put out his, but somehow the hand-shake which followed did not
seem to be a friendly one, and more than once afterwards he thought
about that first grip.

"Ah, that's right," said the admiral; "always be good friends with your
messmates."

Syd looked up quickly, and a feeling of angry resentment made his cheeks
flush, for his eyes encountered those of the midshipman, and being
exceedingly sensitive that day, it seemed to him that Terry was laughing
in his sleeve at Sir Thomas.

Syd's eyes flashed, and the young officer stared at him haughtily in
return, his glance seeming to say, "Well, I shall laugh at the
comical-looking old boy if I like."

The eye encounter which had commenced was checked by Sir Thomas suddenly
turning to his nephew.

"There's your ship, boy," he said, "and I wish you luck in her."

Syd looked in the direction pointed out, to see the long, graceful
vessel lying at anchor with quite a swarm of men busy aloft bending on
new sails, renewing the running-rigging, and repairing the damages
caused her in a severe encounter with a storm.  And as he gazed with an
unpleasant feeling of shrinking troubling him, the boat rapidly neared
the side, the oars were thrown up, the coxswain deftly manoeuvred the
stern close to the ladder, held on, and Sir Thomas rose and went up the
side with an activity that seemed wonderful for his years.

Then with a sensation of singing in his ears, and confused and puzzled
by the novelty of all around, Sydney Belton somehow found himself
standing on deck facing his father, who came forward to meet the
admiral, then gave him a nod and a look which took in his uniform before
he went aft, leaving the new-comer standing alone and feeling horribly
strange, and in everybody's way.

For the boat's crew were busy making fast the gig in which they had come
aboard, and Syd had to move three times, each position he took up
seeming to be worse.

He wanted to go after Sir Thomas, but did not like to stir, and he felt
all the more uncomfortable as he noticed that people kept looking at
him, and talking to one another about him, he felt sure.

"Where can Barney be gone?" he muttered, angrily.  "How stupid to leave
me standing dressed up like this for every one to stare at!  Father
ought to have stopped."

He gave a furtive glance to the left, and the blood flushed in his
cheeks again as he caught sight of Terry, who was talking to another lad
of his own age in uniform, and Syd felt that they must be talking about
him; and if he had felt any doubt before, their action would have
endorsed his opinion, for they smiled at one another and walked away.

"It's too bad," he said to himself; "they must know how horribly strange
I feel."

"Hullo, squire!  Who are you?"

Syd turned round to face the speaker, for the words had, as it were,
been barked almost into his ear, and he had heard no one approach, for
it had seemed to be one of the peculiarities of aboard ship that people
passed to and fro and by him without making a sound.

He found himself facing a stern, middle-aged man in uniform, who looked
him over at a glance, and Syd flinched again, for the officer smiled
slightly, not a pleasant smile, for it seemed as if he were going to
bite.

"I am Sydney Belton, sir."

"Eh?  Oh, the captain's boy.  Yes, of course.  In full rig, eh?  Well,
why don't you go below?  You look so strange."

"Does he mean in uniform?" thought Syd.

"Yes, sir," he said aloud.  "My father has gone down there."

"Aft, boy, aft; don't say down there.  Well, why don't you go below?
Seen your messmates?"

"I have seen the young officer who came with us in the boat."

"Eh?  Who was that?  Yes, I remember.  Well, he ought to have taken you
down.  Here, Mr Terry, Mr Roylance--oh, there you are!--take Mr
Belton down and introduce him to his messmates; and, I say, youngster--
no, never mind now.  Look sharp and learn your duties.  Hi! you sirs,
what are you doing with that yard?" he yelled out to some men up aloft,
and he walked nimbly away just as the two midshipmen joined Syd.

"Thought, as you were the captain's son, you might be going to have your
quarters in the cabin," said Terry, with a sneering look in his face.
"Be better there, wouldn't he, Roy?"

"I should think so," said the other, looking at the new-comer
quizzically.

"My father said I should have to be with the other midshipmen," said
Syd, quickly.

"With the midshipmen, not the _other_ midshipmen," said Terry, with a
sneer.  "You are not a midshipman, are you?"

"I suppose I am going to be one when I have learned how," replied
Sydney, shortly.  "My father said that I was not to expect any favours
because I was the captain's son."

"Did he now?" said Roylance; "and what did your mother say?"

Syd winced, and looked so sharply at the speaker that the latter
pretended to be startled.

"Wo ho!" he cried.  "I say, Terry, this chap's a fire-eater; a bit
wild."

"Here, come along down, youngster.  Don't banter him, Hoy," said Terry,
who had noticed that the officer who had given the order was coming
back, and he led the way toward the companion-ladder.

"Who's that gentleman in uniform?" said Sydney.  "Eh?  That one?" said
Terry, looking in another direction.  "Oh, that's the purser.  You'll
have to be very civil to him--ask him to dinner and that sort of thing."

"No, no, I wouldn't do that at first," said Roylance, as they descended.
"Ask him to have a glass of grog with you."

"Yes," said Terry.  "Get to the dinner by and by.  Pray how old are
you?"

"Between sixteen and seventeen," replied Sydney, who writhed under his
companion's supercilious ways, but was determined to make friends if he
could.

"Are you though?" said Roylance.  "Fine boy for his age; eh, Mike?"

"Very.  Mind your head, youngster.  We're going to have all this
properly lighted now, I suppose.  Our last captain did not give much
thought to the 'tween decks.  By the way, the young gentlemen of our
mess are a bit particular.  He ought to show to the best advantage, eh,
Roy, and make a good impression."

"Yes, of course."

"Perhaps," continued Terry, turning to Syd, "you'd like to see the
ship's barber and have a shave before we go in."

"No, thank you," said Syd, laughing, "I don't shave."

"Remarkable," said Roylance.

"Don't banter, Roy," cried Terry.  "The young gentleman is strange, and
you take advantage, and begin to be funny.  Don't you take any notice of
him.  By the way though, I didn't introduce you.  This is Mr William
Roylance, Esquire.  Father's not a captain, but a bishop, priest, or
deacon, or something of that kind.  Very good young man, but don't you
lend him money!  I say, see that door?"

"Yes," said Sydney, looking at a dimly-seen opening barely lit by a
smoky lanthorn.

"Thought I'd show you.  Hot water baths in there if you ever wash."

"Ever wash?" said Syd, wonderingly.

"Yes.  We do here--a little--when there is any water.  Rather particular
on board a frigate.  Here we are."

He led the way to where in a dimly-lit hole, so it seemed to Sydney,
about half a dozen youths were seated beneath a swinging lanthorn busily
engaged in some game, which consisted in driving a penny-piece along a
dirty wooden table, scoured with lines and spotted with blackened drops
of tallow.

The coming, as it seemed, of a visitor, in all the neatness and show of
a spick and span new uniform, caused a cessation of the game and its
accompanying noise; but before a word was spoken, Sydney had taken in at
a glance the dingy aspect of the place, and had time to consider whether
this was the midshipmen's berth.

"Here you are, gentlemen," shouted Terry.  "Your new messmate: the boy
with a belt on."

"Let him take it off then," cried a voice.  "Come on, youngster, here's
room.  Got any money?"

Syd thought of his new uniform and felt disposed to shrink, but he did
not hesitate.  He had an idea that if he was to share the mess of the
lads about him, the sooner he was on friendly terms the better, so he
nodded and went forward; but his pace was increased by a sudden thrust
from behind, which sent him against the end of the table, and his hat
flying to the other side.

"Shame! shame!" cried Terry, loudly, and there was a roar of laughter.
"Look here, Roy, I won't have it; it's too bad.  Not hurt, are you,
Belton?"

"No," said Syd, turning and looking him full in the face; "only a little
to find you should think me such a fool as not to know you pushed me."

"I?  Come, young fellow, you'll have to learn manners."

He moved threateningly toward Syd, but the latter did not heed him, for
his attention was taken up by what was going on at the table, for one of
the lads cried out--

"Any one want a new hat?  Too big for me."

"Let me try."

"No; pass it here."

"Get out, I want one most."

There was a roar of laughter, and Syd bit his lip as he saw his new hat
snatched about from one to the other, and tried on in all sorts of ways,
back front, amidships, over the eyes, over the ears, and it was by no
means improved when the new hand snatched it back and turned to face
Terry.

"Look here, sir," said the latter, haughtily; "you had the insolence to
accuse me of having pushed you."

There was a dead silence as Sydney stood brushing his hat with the
sleeve of his coat, and without shrinking, for there was a curious
ebullition going on in his breast.  He did not look up, for he was
fighting--self, and thinking about his new uniform in a peculiar way.
That is to say, in connection with dirty floors, scuffles, falls, the
dragging about of rough hands, etcetera.

"Do you hear what I say, sir?" continued Terry, loudly, and every neck
was craned forward in the dim cockpit.

"Yes, I heard what you said," replied Syd, huskily; and then he bit his
lip and tried to force down the feeling of rage which was in his breast.

"And I heard what you said, sir," cried Terry, ruffling up like a
game-cock, and thinking to awe the new reefer and impress the lads
present, over whom he ruled with a mighty hand.  "You are amongst
gentlemen here, and we don't allow new greenhorns or country bumpkins to
come and insult us."

"I don't want to insult anybody," said Syd, in a low tone.  "I want to
be friends, as my father told me to be."

"But you insulted me, sir.  You said I pushed you just now."

"So you did," cried Sydney, a little more loudly.

"What?" cried Terry, threateningly.

"And then shammed that it was that other middy."

A murmur of excitement ran round the mess.

"Why, you insolent young cub," cried Terry, seizing Sydney by the collar
of his coat; but quick as thought his hand was struck aside, and the two
lads were chest to chest, glaring in each other's eyes.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" cried Terry, with a mocking laugh.  "Well, the
sooner he has his plateful of humble-pie the better; eh, lads?"

The murmur of excitement increased.

"Then I shall have to fight," thought Syd; but at that moment a gruff
voice exclaimed--

"Cap'en wants you, Master Syd.  Admiral's going ashore."



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"Why, what was up, sir?" whispered Barney, whose timely appearance put
an end to the discussion.  "Wasn't going to be a fight, weer it?"

"I suppose so, Barney," said Syd, rather dolefully.

"Then it'll have to be yet, lad; but it's a bit early."

"Yes, Barney."

"They didn't lose no time in 'tackling on yer."

"No, Barney."

"Well, lad, it's part of a reefer's eddication, so you'll have to go
through with it.  You're a toughish chickin as can whack my Pan; and he
knows how to fight, as lots o' the big lads knows at home."

"I don't want to fight," said Sydney, bitterly.

"No, my lad, but you've got to now.  Well, that there's a big un, and
he'll lick you safe; but you give him a tough job to do it, and then all
t'others 'll let you alone."

"Well, Syd, lad; seen your new messmates?" cried a cheery voice.

"Yes, uncle, I've seen them."

"That's right, boy.  I'm going ashore now.  I'm proud of your ship, Syd,
proud of the crew, and proud of you, my lad.  Keep your head up, and may
I live to see you posted.  No, that's too much, but I must see you wear
your first swab."

"Am I to go ashore with uncle, father?" said Sydney.

"Hush, my boy, once for all," said Captain Belton.  "You are a junior
officer now; I am your captain.  We must keep our home life for home.
No, Mr Belton, you will not go ashore again.  You have joined your
ship, and your chest will be brought on board by the boatswain."

"Is Barney going to be a boatswain, sir?" cried Sydney, in his
eagerness.

Captain Belton gave him a look which said plainly enough, "Remember that
I am your captain, sir!"

And feeling abashed, the boy looked in another direction, to see that
Barney was winking and screwing up his face in the most wonderful way to
convey certain information of the fact that in his inexperience Sydney
had not read in his uniform.

"There, good-bye, Syd," said the old admiral, after a few minutes' more
conversation with the captain, during which time the boat's crew had
been piped away, and Terry had hurried on deck to take charge once more.
Then there was a warm grasp of the hand as the old man leaned toward
him, his words seeming the more impressive after what had just occurred.

"God bless you, my lad!" he whispered.  "You'll get some hard knocks;
perhaps it'll come to a fight among your messmates, but if it does,
don't have your comb cut.  Recollect you're a Belton, and never strike
your colours.  Always be a gentleman, Syd, and never let any young
blackguard with a dirty mind lead you into doing anything you couldn't
own to openly.  There, that's all, my boy.  Drop the father, and never
go to him with tales; he has to treat you middies all alike.  There!
Oh, one word; don't bounce and show off among your messmates, because
your father's the captain, and you've got an old hulk at home who is an
admiral; but whenever you want a few guineas to enjoy yourself, Uncle
Tom's your banker, you dog.  There!  Be off!"

Syd tried hard, but his eyes would get a little dim as the bluff old
gentleman touched his hat to the officers, and went over the side, while
the captain put his hands behind him and walked thoughtfully aft, to
have a long consultation with the first lieutenant, after which he too
went ashore without seeing his son again, and Sydney prepared for his
first night on board.

There was so much that was novel that the new middy had no time to feel
dull, and he spent his time on deck, watching the return of the boat,
saw it swung up to its davits again, and then, after noting the marines
relieve guard, and the sentries at their posts, he was going forward,
when he encountered the officer who had before spoken to him.

"Got your traps on board yet, Mr Belton?"

"Not yet, sir.  My chest is coming to-night."

"That's right.  You'll be in a different fig then to-morrow, and I'll
have a talk to you.  Better pick up what you can from your messmates,
but don't quarrel, and don't believe everything they tell you."

He nodded not unkindly to the boy, and went off, while Barney, who had
been watching his opportunity, came up and touched his hat.

"Your chest's come aboard, sir, and I've had it put below.  Better keep
it locked, my lad, for you'll find my young gents pretty handy with
their games."

"Thank you, Barney."

"Say Strake, sir, please now, or bo'sun."

"Very well, Strake.  Where is Pan?"

"Right, sir.  Forrard along with the other boys.  Getting his roasting
over.  What yer think o' the first luff?"

"I haven't seen him yet, Bar--Strake."

"Oh, come now, sir; speak the truth whatever you do, and don't try those
games on me.  Why, I sin yer talking to him."

"That?" said Sydney, smiling, as one who knows better smiles at the
ignorant.  "Why, Strake, that was the purser."

"Poof!" ejaculated the boatswain, with a smothered laugh.  "Who told you
that, sir?"

"That midshipman who brought us off in the boat."

"A flam, sir, a flam.  He was making game of you.  That's the first
luff."

"What a shame!" thought Syd, and then he fell a thinking about the
orders he gave him--not to quarrel with his messmates.  "And I'm sure to
quarrel as soon as I go down.  No, I will not.  He may say what he
likes."

"You speak, sir?" said the bo'sun.

"No, Strake, I was thinking."

"Here, you're wanted below, I think," said one of the warrant officers,
coming up and speaking to the ex-gardener.

"Who wants me?"

"That's your boy, isn't it, that you brought aboard?"

"Ay, it is."

"Well, I think he has got into a bit of a row with some of the young
monkeys below.  Go and stop it at once."

"That's Pan-y-mar gone and showed his teeth, Master Syd," whispered the
bo'sun, and he trotted forward, while feeling now that he ought to go
and see about his chest, and at the same time wishing that he could go
forward and see what was wrong about Pan--but fearing to make some
breach of discipline--Sydney once more went below.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

It was impossible to help thinking about the handsome old dining-room at
the Heronry as Sydney sat down to his first meal at the midshipman's
mess, and however willing he might have been to consider that polished
mahogany tables and plate were not necessaries, he could not help
comparing the food with that to which he had been accustomed.

As luck had it, he found himself seated next to Roylance, who laughed
good-humouredly, and said--

"Don't take any notice of the rough joking, youngster."

He was not above a year older than Sydney, but he had been two years at
sea, and seemed to look down from a height of experience at his
companion.

"I am not going to," said Sydney, looking up frankly to the other's
handsome face.

"That's right.  Terry's cock of the walk here, and shows off a good
deal.  We all give in to him, so be civil too, and it will save a row.
The luff doesn't like us to quarrel."

"He told me not to," said Syd.

"Then I wouldn't.  If Terry gives you a punch on the head, take it, and
never mind."

Syd was silent.

"Got your chest, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Everything's new, awkward, and fresh to you now, but you'll soon get
used to it.  You'll put on your undress uniform to-morrow, of course.
I'll tell you anything you want to know.  Nobody told me when I came on
board, and I had a hard time of it."

"Did the others tease you much?"

"They did and no mistake, and I got it worse because I kicked against
it; and the _more_ a fellow kicks, the more they worry you."

These few friendly advances from a messmate who seemed to be one of the
most likely-looking for a companion, sent a feeling of warmth through
the new-comer's breast, and in spite of the coarseness of the
provisions, which were eked out with odds and ends brought by the
middies from the shore, Sydney made a fairly satisfactory meal, the
better that Terry was on duty.

"But I've got to meet him some time," thought Sydney; and he wondered
how he would feel when he received that blow which was sure to come, and
stamp him as one of the subordinates of the lad whom his new friend had
dubbed the cock of the walk.

In spite of the novelty of everything about him, Syd had plenty of time
to feel low-spirited, and to envy the light-heartedness of his new
friend, who in the course of the evening seemed to feel that further
apology was due for their first encounter that day.

"I say, Belton," he said, "I am sorry I played you those tricks and
sided with Terry as I did.  It was all meant for a game.  We have such a
rough, uncomfortable life here that one gets into the habit of making
fun of everything and everybody, from the captain downwards."

"Don't say any more about it," replied Sydney, holding out his hand.
"I'm not such a milksop that I mind it."

"That's right," cried Roylance, grasping the extended hand.  "You'll
soon be all right with us."

"Hi! look there," cried a squeaky-voiced little fellow at the end of the
table; "there's old Roy making friends with the new fellow.  I say,
Belt, don't you believe him.  He'll want to borrow money to-morrow."

_Bang_!

"No, you didn't," cried the little middy, who had ducked cleverly and
avoided half a loaf which Roylance threw at his head and struck the
bulkhead instead.

"You'll have to be stopped, Jenkins," said Roylance.  "You've got off so
far because you are such a miserable little beggar."

"Don't you believe him, Belt," cried the little fellow, who had a
withered, old-mannish look, and an exceedingly small nose, like a peg in
the middle of his face.  "Roy's afraid of me.  Look at that."

He slipped off his coat, drew up his sleeve, and exhibited his muscle in
a pugnacious fashion, which brought forth a roar of laughter.

"Baby Jenks fights best with his tongue," said Roylance, coolly.  "We
shall have to cut it before he grows civil."

The rattle of the chattering tongues went on till bedtime, and at last,
for the first time in his life, Sydney found himself lying in a hammock,
tired out but confused, and hardly able to realise that he was down
below in a close place, with his face not many inches from the ceiling
with its beams and rings.  Talking was going on upon each side.  The
place was very dark, and there was a dim-looking lantern swinging some
distance away in the middle of what seemed to be a luminous fog.

He lay there thinking that the hammock was not so very uncomfortable,
only he did not feel quite at home with his head and heels high, and as
every time he moved he felt as if he must fall, he at last lay very
still, thinking how strange it all was, and how he seemed to be
completely separated from his father, as much so as if they were in
different ships.

Then after coming to the conclusion that he rather liked Roylance, but
that he should never care for life aboard ship, the light from the
lanthorn swung to and fro a little, and then all was perfectly black
where it had hung the minute before.

This did not trouble Syd, for it seemed quite a matter of course that
the light should be put out, and so he lay thinking over all that had
passed that day--that he was glad Barney Strake and Pan were on board;
that Roy lance seemed to be so friendly; then that he should have to
stand up and meet Terry before very long and allow himself to be
thrashed.  Then he thought about nothing at all, for that pleasant,
restful sensation that precedes sleep came over him, and all was blank
till he felt a curious shock and was wide-awake.

"Here, hi!  What's the matter?" shouted a squeaky voice.

"I--I don't know," said Sydney, feeling about him and gradually
realising that he was on the floor among his blankets.  "I think the
rope of my hammock has broken."

There was an outburst of tittering at this, and now it began to dawn
upon him that he was the victim of some trick.

"Look here, you fellows," said a voice which Sydney recognised; "the
first luff said there was to be no more of these games.  Who did it?"

"Baby Jenks," said a voice, and there was a laugh.

"I didn't," squeaked the little middy; "it was one of Roy's games."

"Say it was me again, and I'll come and half smother you."

"Well, they said it was me," protested Jenkins.  "I was asleep."

"Who was it?" cried Roylance again.

"Captain Belton, to make his boy sharp," said a voice out of the
darkness--a voice evidently disguised by being uttered through a pair of
half-closed hands.

There was a hearty laugh here, during which, feeling very miserable and
dejected, Syd was groping about, trying to find out how the hammock was
fastened, and in the darkness growing only more confused.

"Where are you?" said Roylance.

"Here.  It's come untied, I think."

"Untied!  You've been cut down."

"Cut?" said Sydney, wonderingly.

"Down.  Never mind.  It was only at your feet.  I'll soon put you right
again."

Syd stood there listening to his companions' hard breathing and the
whispering and tittering going on in the other hammocks for a few
minutes, during which a noise went on like as if a box was being corded.
At last this ceased.

"There you are!  Where are your blankets?"

"Here; but they're all in a dreadful muddle."

There was a shout of laughter at this, and directly after Sydney heard a
gruff voice say--

"Steady there, young gen'lemen.  Anything the matter?"

"No; it's all right.  Only some one tumbled out of bed."

There was a low grumbling sound, and Roylance whispered--

"Never mind; I'll put 'em right for you.  There you are; turn in, and I
don't suppose any one will upset you after to-night.  If anybody comes,
and you hear him, hit out."

"Thank you," said Syd, rather dolefully; "I will."

He climbed into his hammock again, and listened to the rustling sound
made by Roylance and the remarks of his messmates.

"Baby Jenks was right.  Old Roy means to suck every shilling out of the
new fellow," said a voice.

"Does he, Bolton?" cried Roylance.  "I know your voice."

"Why, I never spoke.  'Twasn't me," cried the accused.

"Well, it sounded like you," grumbled Roylance, and there was another
roar of laughter.

"Look here, youngsters, I want to go to sleep, and I'll come and cut
down the next fellow who makes a row."

"Yah!"

"Boo!"

"Daren't!"

These ejaculations came tauntingly from different parts, but in
smothered tones, which indicated that the voices were disguised, and
after a few more threats from Roylance, there was perfect quiet once
more in the berth.

"So I'm not to sleep," thought Sydney, "but keep guard and wait for
whoever it was that cut the cords of my hammock.  A nasty cowardly
trick."

The fall and its following had so thoroughly roused up the sufferer that
he felt not the slightest inclination to sleep, and feeling that he
could easily keep awake and hear any one approach, he lay listening to
the hard breathing on both sides till all grew more and more subdued;
and though it was pitch dark the surroundings grew misty and strange,
and Syd lay listening to a strange sound which made him turn his head in
the direction of the door, towards where he could see a sturdily-built
young fellow down on his hands and knees, crawling in as easily as a
dog.  Now he peered to one side, now to the other.  Then he ran on all
fours under the hammocks, which seemed to stand out quite clearly with
their occupants therein.  Then his head appeared, and it seemed, though
he could not make out the face, that it was Terry.  But the head
disappeared again, and as Syd watched he felt that his hammock was the
object in view, and in his dread he started to find that all was
intensely dark and that he had been dreaming all this.

It was very hot, and there was heavy breathing all around, but not
another sound, so feeling once more that it would be impossible to
sleep, and that he might as well be on guard, Syd kept his vigil for
quite five minutes, and then, as was perfectly natural, went off fast
asleep again, to lie until it seemed to him that there was a crash of
thunder, and then all was blank.

"Here, hi!  Sentry!  Bring a lantern.  It's a mean, cowardly act, and
I'll complain to the first lieutenant."

The roar of laughter which had been going on, mingled with comments,
ceased at this, and was succeeded by a low buzzing sound, which seemed
to Syd to be close to his ears as he saw a dim light, felt horribly
sleepy, and as if his head ached violently.

"It's too bad.  The other was only a game.  The poor fellow's head's cut
and bleeding, and whoever did this is a mean-spirited coward, and no
gentleman."

"Shall I go and rouse up the doctor, sir?"

"No; we'll bind it up, and keep it all quiet.  There'd be no end of
trouble if the captain knew.  I only wish I knew who did it, cutting a
fellow down by the head like this."

Syd tried to speak, but he was like one in a dream.

"If I knew who it was--" said Roylance.

"What would you do?" said a voice, which Syd seemed to recognise; "go
and tell his daddy?"

"No; I'd tell him he was a mean-spirited, cowardly hound," said
Roylance, "and not fit for the society of gentlemen."

"Hark at the bishop's boy, I dare say he did it himself."

"Just the sort of thing I should do!" replied Roylance, sharply.  "More
likely one of Mike Terry's brutal tricks."

"Oh, very well, Master Roy.  You and I can talk that over another time.
So you mean to say I did it?"

Roylance did not answer, and just then Sydney recovered his voice, the
faintness passing away like a cloud.  "Was it he?" whispered the boy.
"I'm not sure," whispered Roylance.  "Don't quarrel because of me.  Does
my head bleed now?"

"No; I've tied my handkerchief tightly round it.  Lie still, you'll be
better soon.--Here, marine, knot up that hammock again.  You shan't be
cut down again, for I'll keep watch."

"There's nothing the matter," said Terry, from the other end of the
berth; "it's only one of Miss Roylance's fads.  Currying favour with the
skipper by making a pet monkey of his boy."

Roylance ground his teeth, and Syd lay very quiet listening, and
watching the marine as he knotted together the broken lines, helping him
in afterwards, and going away with the lantern.

"Don't wait," whispered Syd; "it's very good of you, but I'm not hurt
much.  They cut the ropes up by my head, didn't they?"

"Yes; the cowards!  But I don't think they'll touch you again now.
Shall I stop?"

"No; don't, please.  I may as well take my chance."

"Very well," said Roylance, and he went back to his own hammock amongst
the remarks and laughs of those who, from liking or dread, had made
themselves the parasites of the leader of the mess.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Syd started into wakefulness in the morning to find that he had been
sleeping heavily.  His head ached a little, and when he moved there was
a smarting sensation, but he felt disturbed mentally more than in body.
He turned out of his hammock and dressed as quickly as the new stiff
buttonholes of his uniform would allow, all the time suffering from a
sensation of misery and discomfort which made his temper anything but
amiable.

"How's your head?" said Roylance, who was one of the last to wake.

"Bad--sore--aches."

"Let me look."

Syd submitted himself unwillingly.

"Only wants a bathe, and a bit of plaister.  I'll see to that."

The dressing was finished, the hammocks rolled up, and Syd was wondering
how long breakfast would be, and what they should have.  Terry, who was
strolling about the place watching him furtively, suddenly stood aside,
the others watching him.

At that moment Roylance came down into his berth with a pair of scissors
and some sticking-plaister.

"Here you are," he said.  "I'll just cut a little of the hair away, and
put a bit of this on.  It won't show under your hat."

"All right," said Syd, sitting down in the middle of the place on the
top of his sea-chest; "but you needn't have fetched that.  I had some in
here."

"Do for next time," said Roylance, cutting off a large piece of
plaister.

"Oh, nonsense," said Syd, laughing; "a quarter of that would do.  I
could do it myself if I could see."

Just then Terry came swaggering up, and Roylance winced, the scissors
with which he was cutting the plaister trembling a little.

"Oh, look here, Master Roy," said Terry, haughtily.  "You made some
remarks to me in the night about that cutting down of the hammock.  I
want an apology from you."

"I'm busy now, Mr Terry," said Roylance; and the irritable feeling
which troubled Syd seemed to be on the increase.

"I didn't ask you if you were busy, sir, I said I wanted an apology,"
continued Terry, while the rest of the mess looked on excitedly at the
promising quarrel between the two eldest middies on board the _Sirius_.

"I'm attending to this new messmate's hurt."

"Let him go to the doctor if he is hurt," snarled Terry.  "I tell you I
want an apology.  You as good as said that I cut down this cub's hammock
last night."

"If I had quite said it, I dare say I shouldn't have been far wrong,"
replied Roylance, in a low tone.

"Oh, indeed, miss," sneered Terry, "you always were clever with your
tongue, like the long thin molly you are.  Now then, take that back
before--"

He ceased speaking and doubled his fists.

Syd felt as if he were sitting on a fire, and something within him was
beginning to boil.

"I'm not going to apologise now," said Roylance, wincing a little, but
speaking more determinedly than before.

"Arn't you?  Then I'm going to make you," said Terry.  "Bolton, go to
the bottom of the ladder and give warning."

"No, no; send Jenks," said the boy addressed, appealingly.

"You go, and do as you're told," said Terry, fiercely; and Syd felt as
if he must boil over soon, no matter how much he was hurt.

"Now then, Miss Roylance, if you please, I'm waiting," said Terry, in an
offensive way.  "You're such a talker that you can easily make a nice
apology."

Roylance went on cutting and sticking the piece of plaister.

"Do you hear me, sir?" cried Terry, "or am I to set Baby Jenks to thrash
you?"

"Stand up, Belton," said Roylance, quietly.  "Now then, turn a little
more to the light;" and Sydney rose.

"Stand aside, youngster.  I want to give Miss Roylance a bit of
sticking-plaister first."

As he spoke he gave Syd, who was between them, a push, whose result
astounded him.

"Out of the way will you," cried Syd, fiercely; "can't you see he's
busy?"

That which had been boiling in him had gone over the side at last, and
Terry stopped short staring with astonishment.

"If you want to talk to him, wait till he has done my head.  Better talk
to me, for it was you, you great coward, who cut me down."

"Why you--oh, this is too good!" cried Terry, with a forced laugh, as he
looked round at the little knot of his messmates.  "There, wait a minute
till I've done with Molly Roylance, and I'll soon settle your little
bill."

Roylance stood looking pale and excited, with the scissors and plaister
still in his hand, but on his guard ready to spring back or sidewise if
attacked.  Then he, like his would-be assailant, stared in astonishment.
For Syd had resumed his position between them as if about to lower his
head to the light; when, feeling that if he wished to maintain his
character he must act sharply against what was to him a new boy in the
midshipman's mess, Terry laid hold of Syd's collar and swung him round.

"Out of the way, will you!" he said; and as the road was clear he made a
spring at Roylance, but suddenly gave his head a twist, tripped over the
new sea-chest that was in the way, and fell heavily.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" he cried, as he sprang to his feet.  "Well, the
sooner you have your lesson the better."

He began to divest himself of his upper garment as he spoke; and Syd,
whose teeth were set, and whose knuckles were tingling from the effect
of the blow he had planted on Terry, rapidly imitated him.

"No, no," said Roylance, excitedly; "this is my quarrel.  You see fair."

"You want me to quarrel with you?" cried Syd, fiercely; "see fair
yourself.  Hold that."

He threw his garment to the tall slight lad, and rolled up his sleeves,
to stand forth no mean antagonist for the bully, though Terry was a
couple of inches taller, as many years older, and better set.

"Be ready to pick him up, Molly Roy," said Terry, sneeringly.  "Get a
sponge and a basin of water ready, Baby Jenks, and--"

He staggered back.  For as he spoke he had begun sparring at one who was
smarting with rage, and the thought that the cowardly fellow who had
injured him so in the night was before him ready for him to take his
revenge.  Syd thought of nothing else, and the moment he was facing his
adversary, clashed in at him, delivering so fierce a blow that Terry
nearly went down.

Then came and went blow after blow.  There was a close, a fierce
struggle here and there, and both went down just as a pair of broad
shoulders were seen at the door beside those of Bolton, who was keeping
watch over the fight instead of the companion-ladder, and the broad
shoulders and the rugged countenance were those of the new boatswain.

"Arn't lost much time," he growled.

"No.  Don't stop 'em," whispered Bolton.  "Let them have it out."

"Oh, I arn't agoin' to stop 'em," growled back Barney.  "He's got to be
a fighting man, so he'd better larn to fight."

"Can he fight?" whispered the middy.

"Seems like it, sir: that was right in the nose."

An excited murmur ran through the spectators, as after a sharp little
episode, during which Syd had been a good deal knocked about, Terry went
back against the bulkhead and stood with his hand to his face.

"Ready for the sponge and basin, Mike Terry?" squeaked Jenks; and there
was a laugh.

"I'll remember that, Baby," cried Terry, squaring up to his adversary
again with the full intention of putting an end to an encounter beneath
his dignity; and after a sharp struggle Syd's crown struck the bulkhead
loudly, and he went down sitting on a locker.

"That's done him," said Bolton, with a sigh, as if he were disappointed.

"Not it, my lad.  Master Syd arn't got warm yet.  Your chap's got his
work cut out to lick him."

"Then he can fight?" whispered Bolton, eagerly.

"Well, it arn't so much his fighting; it's a way he's got o' not being
able to leave off when he's wound up, and that tires 'em.  Look at
that."

The fight had been renewed by Terry rushing forward to finish off his
antagonist, who had seemed to be a little confused by the last round.

But Sydney eluded him, and with a wonderful display of activity avoided
several awkward blows, and after wearying his enemy managed to deliver
one with all his might in unpleasant proximity to Terry's eyes.

The struggle went on with varying success, Syd on the whole naturally
getting far the worst of it; but Barney stood stolidly looking on, and
when Roylance felt his heart sink as he saw how badly his brave young
defender was being beaten, the boatswain said coolly to Bolton in reply
to a--

"Now then, what do you think of that?"

"Lot's o' stuff in him yet, young gen'leman.  He's good for another
hour."

There was encounter after encounter, and close after close, during which
Syd generally went down first; but to Terry's astonishment the more he
knocked his young antagonist about the fiercer it made him, and at last
after delivering a successful blow full in Syd's chest he cried out--

"Take him away, Roy; I don't want to hurt him any--"

Terry did not finish his remark, for the second half of that last word
was knocked back by a bang right in the mouth, followed up by several
others so rapidly delivered that the champion of the midshipmen's mess
went down this time without a struggle.

"What do you think o' that, young gen'leman?" said Barney.

"Hurray!" whispered Bolton, bending down and squeezing his hands between
his knees; "he'll lick him."

"Eh?  I thought he was your man."

"A beast!  He's always knocking us about," whispered Bolton.  "Hurray!
go it, Belt."

The adversaries were face to face again, and there was a breathless
silence.

"Had enough?" panted Terry.

"No, not half," cried Syd, rushing at him.

"Look at that!  See his teeth?" said Barney.  "That's British bull-dog,
that is.  Master Syd never fights till he's made, but when he does--My
eye! that was a crack."

But it was not Barney's eye.  It was Terry's, and the blow was so sharp
that the receiver went down into a corner, and refused to get up again,
while the subjects of the fallen king crowded round the victor eager to
shake hands.

"No, no," panted Syd; "don't: my knuckles are all bleeding.  What's my
face like?" he said sharply to Roylance.

"Knocked about; but never mind that, Belton; you've won."

"I don't mind," was the reply; "and I don't want to win.  Are you much
hurt?" he continued, going to Terry's corner, where the vanquished hero
was still seated upon the floor with little Jenkins, with much sympathy,
offering to sponge his face.

"I'm sorry we fought," said Syd, quietly.  "Shake hands."

There was no reply.

"You're not hurt much, are you?"

Terry gave him one quick look, and then let his head down on his chest.

"You'll shake hands?" said Syd.  "We can be friends now."

Still no notice.

"Shake hands, Mike Terry," piped little Jenkins.  "You've licked
everybody, and it was quite your turn."

"Hold your tongue, you little wretch," hissed the other.  "I owe you
something for this."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the impish little fellow, beginning to caper about
with the sponge.  "You touch me aga

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