"It must be nice to be a sailor, and I wish I was one. Every thing
goes wrong and mother is always scolding me, and father is never done
growling; I am getting tired of it."
The speaker was a little, round-cheeked lad, of about nine years of
age. He was standing, with a tall, fair-haired girl, evidently his
sister, on the edge of the river Wyncombe. He was not a lively boy. He
was one of those thoughtful, gloomy little boys who are always
dreaming; always thinking and imagining some fancied injury from
either father or mother.
[Illustration: "NOBODY CARES."]
Archie Phillips was the little boy's name, and he and his sister had
got a holiday and were watching a party of older children from the
Wynne High School, who had come down to the river to spend the
afternoon. There was Algernon Wright with a large model yacht, and
Willie Schofield, the Mayor's son, with a new silver-mounted fishing
rod. They were all as happy and full of frolic as all boys in the
spring-time of life ought to be. Little Archie was, however, of a
morose temperament, and did not share in any of the amusements.
The village of Wynne is a fishing village, and is approached from the
sea by a beautiful cove on the Cornish coast. The town is built on the
slopes of the hills reaching down to the water's edge, and the river
Wynne empties itself into the sea near by.
It is, indeed, a pleasant place. At the time of this story all the
boys of Wynne, young and old, were crazy after maritime pursuits and
sports. They spent the bulk of their holiday time either in sailing
about the bay, or in fishing, bathing, or holding model yacht races in
the cove.
"Why don't I have a yacht in the place of a silly ball? Why don't I
have boys to play with instead of Lucy and Gyp? What do girls or dogs
know about a top or a cat hunt? I'm disgusted! I'll go for a sailor!
I'll run away; there!"
The girl took no notice of this discourse. It was no new thing for her
to hear grumbling from her brother, and she was accustomed to bear it
without murmur or dissent. Presently she ran away, along the river
bank, with her doll, to a shady place, where she knew the sun was not
strong, and where some rushes overhung the path. There she could put
her doll to sleep. It was no use asking Archie to join her. He was too
old and too much of a man to enter into any such stupidity.
Presently Archie sat down in the shade, on the balustrades of the
churchyard and watched the glee of the High-Schoolboys with a sulky
envy.
It was a glorious summer afternoon. The sky overhead was one vast,
inverted field of blue, without a single speck of cloud. The hot sun
was beating down almost perpendicularly, and the rays penetrated the
leaves, shedding a lattice-work pattern on the ground.
"I know Ben Huntly, the boat-builder, will tell me how to go to sea.
He has been a sailor himself, and I know he will tell me all about it.
Nobody cares; well, mother might, perhaps, a bit, but then, I don't
know."
Then he paused in his musings and thought of all the injustice done to
him by his mother. He thought, like all gloomy, wretched little boys,
of all that was ill. He didn't for one moment remember, how, that very
morning, the self-same, unjust mother, after packing up his little
lunch-basket, had put her arms round his neck, and a little
red-cheeked apple in his pocket, and told him to keep away from the
river. Oh, no, he seemed to have quite forgotten all that.
Then the sun went behind a cloud and Archie felt the cool wind, which
blew from the cove, on his cheek, so he jumped down from his musing
place and sped away as fast as his legs would carry him toward the
house of the boat-builder. He ran across the green, down the grassy
slopes and across a stretch of shingly beach, to the cottage of his
friend.
Ben Huntly, the boat-builder, was a good-hearted fellow, and was
extremely fond of all the children of the village. He had that method
possessed by few people of searching into the heart of a child and
arguing with him in a manner suitable for a child's understanding.
Archie had often sought Ben's counsel when things seemed to go wrong,
and it was seldom that the boat-builder had failed to convince the
boy, even to his satisfaction, that he was wrong.
It was an off day for the boat-builder. He was sitting, smoking his
pipe, in the cottage porch, and reading a well-thumbed copy of "Gray's
Master Mariner." He welcomed Archie with a secret delight, for he
knew, by his little friend's face, that he was brooding over some
fancied injury, and it gave the boat-builder pleasure to talk his
little friend out of his troubles.
"Well, Archie, what's new in the wind," said Ben, as he greeted the
boy with a grasp of the hand. "It seems almost an age since I saw you,
my boy."
Little Archie sat down on a large stone bench in the porch, and told
Ben his story. His mother had been vexed with him that morning. She
had asked him to call at the rectory with a message for Doctor Hart,
and he wanted to cut grass at the time, and objected. His mother did
not scold him, oh, no, Ben, she sent Carrie, who willingly took the
message, and his father had called him a name. Then, again, he had no
toys like other boys. Some had a pony; he couldn't have one. His
father always answered his request for a pony with the reply that he
couldn't afford one just then and he would see about it some day. If
Ben would only tell him how to go to sea he would certainly run away
the next day.
[Illustration: "AND DISCUSSED LITTLE ARCHIE'S PURPOSED FLIGHT."]
Now, Ben knew the character of little Archie better, perhaps, than his
own mother did; so, when he had given the little boy a draught of cool
milk from the cottage kitchen, Ben lit his pipe afresh, and took down
an old telescope, a relic of his sea-faring days, from the wall. The
young man and the boy then strolled across a low, level tract of sand,
to a grassy hillock, formed by the current of the Wyncombe. Here they
sat down in the fast waning twilight, and discussed little Archie's
purposed flight.
"Yes, Archie," said Ben, "a sailor's life is well enough, if you don't
mind hard beds and harder words. If you can eat salty meat and mouldy
bread it's a fine life, Archie. There is no life I'd like better if
they'd give you fresher water and not quite so many cruel blows. But,
if you've made up your mind, Archie, and think you can go to bed
nights in a rolling, tossing sea, with the wind howling and the rain
pouring, and your mother thousands of miles away, looking at your
little empty bed, I should think very seriously about it." Archie
looked thoughtful, as the gloom deepened on his face, and silence fell
on the pair for a time.
[Illustration: ARCHIE THINKING OF BEN'S STORY.]
Suddenly Ben spied a French frigate looming against the darkening sky
and showed it to Archie through the telescope. He explained all the
parts of the ship and dwelt long in his answers to the lad's
questions. He told little Archie how, early one stormy morning, he had
been awakened from his bed in the cottage by the sound of guns away at
sea, how he had descended to the beach with a lot of the villagers, to
find the waves beating mercilessly over a great broken ship. He told
how they had all stood, in the leaden morning, stricken with dread at
the sight of the disaster they were all powerless to prevent; leaning
hard against the wind, their breath and vision often failing as the
sleet and spray rushed at them from the great mountain of foaming sea
which kept breaking on the rocks in the cove. He told farther, how,
before all their eyes, the vessel had given one great heave backwards
and sank beneath the waves forever; how they could faintly hear the
heart-rending screams of women and children above the storm as the
great waste of waters covered the struggling vessel. He told Archie
that, on the following evening, while he was mending a boat down the
bay, he came across something lying amongst a mass of sea-weed, and on
turning it over had found it to be the dead body of a sailor--a fair,
curly-headed youth.
"He was clad," said Ben, "in a pair of linen trowsers and a sea shirt,
and the weeds and sand were all tangled in his hair. I raised him up
from the beach and a small bundle fell out of his bosom. I laid him in
my boat and went for Doctor Hart. It was the talk of the village for
days. Dr. Hart found the bundle to contain a packet of letters written
in a feeble hand and signed by the dead sailor's mother. They were
loving letters of expected joy at her boy's return."
Ben would have gone on with the story, but he was attracted by the
appearance of Archie. The little lad was sitting, with his pale face
turned up to Ben, and with two great tears, as large as horse beans,
in the corners of his eyes. On meeting Ben's gaze he broke down
thoroughly and burst into a flood of tears, throwing his arms round
the honest boat-builder's neck, sobbing on his breast.
"Oh, Ben, I don't want to leave mother; I am a wicked boy. If she were
to die, Ben, what should I do? Do you think she is alive now, Ben? I
don't want to go away, Ben."
The boat-builder soothed the little lad and smiled at the success of
his purpose to divert the boy's mind.
It was now nearly night, and time for Archie to go home, so Ben took
him on his shoulders and carried him to Mr. Archer's house, where the
family were all waiting supper for the little boy.
Archie ran to his mother as soon as he got in and kissed her over and
over again. He told her his little story, making the good woman's
heart overflow with love for her little son.
Ben stayed to supper with the family that night, and all was bright
and happy as the merry party sat round the board laughing and joking
to their heart's content.
* * * * *
Archie is a young man now, and has outgrown his gloomy, brooding
disposition. He is a clerk in the office of a rich corn merchant in
Oxbridge, the nearest market to Wynne, and shows every tendency to
become a successful and respected business man.
Occasionally, when things do not happen to his satisfaction, and he
feels the old spirit of discontent rising, he checks it by reflecting
on his early unhappiness. If his mother or father are harsh or angry
with him, or if Mr. Gayton, his employer, speaks quickly or loudly to
him, he stifles any tendency to sulk and become angry by thinking of
Ben Huntly and the story of the wreck.