"Peter, I can't bear the thoughts of leaving you, and yet I know you
wouldn't like to ship before the mast again; but if I stay ashore what
am I to do? I've no fancy to spending my days in a wherry, and haven't
got one if I had. I've taken a liking to Jack, and you've many friends,
and can do without me, so if you don't say no I'll ship with the rest."
I need not repeat what I said to Jim. I was sure that it was the best
thing he could do, and advised him accordingly.
"I'm with you, mates," he said, in a husky tone, going back to the rest,
and away they all went together, while I returned to Mr Gray's.
"I wish the lads had shipped on board a peaceable merchantman," he
observed when I told him, "but I can't pretend to dictate to them. I am
glad thou hast been better directed, Peter."
Jack and Jim came to see us before the ship went out of harbour. Jack
said he knew that he must work for his living, and that he would rather
serve aboard a man-o'-war than do anything else.
"I'll look after him as I used to do you, Peter," said Jim. "And I hope
some day we'll come back with our pockets full of gold, and maybe bear
up for wherever you've dropped your anchor."
A few days after this a letter came from Mr Troil, inviting Mary, Jack,
and me to Shetland. Mary was very unwilling to leave her kind friends,
but Mr Gray said that it would be to our advantage, and advised Mary
and me to go.
He was right, for when we arrived Mr Troil received us as relatives.
Mary became like a second daughter to him. I assisted in managing his
property, and in the course of a few years Maggie, to whom he left
everything he possessed, became my wife, while Mary married the owner of
a neighbouring estate.
Some few years after a small coaster came into the Voe. I went down to
see what she had on board. A sailor-looking man, with a wooden leg, and
a woman, stepped ashore.
"That's him--that's him!" I heard them exclaim, and in a moment I was
shaking hands with Jim and Nancy, who had become his wife. He had got
his discharge, and had come, he said, to settle near me. I several
times heard from my brother Jack, who, after serving as bo'sun on board
a line-of-battle ship, retired from the service with a pension, and
joined our family circle in Shetland, where he married, and declared
that he was too happy ever to go to sea again.