"If Tom L---, who ran away from school in company with another boy on
the night of November the Fifth and is supposed to have gone to sea,
will communicate with his distressed mother, all will be forgiven."
"Why, Tom," said I, reading it aloud, with some further particulars
describing him, which I have not quoted--"this must refer to you!"
"So it does," said he.
"And what will you do?" I asked him.
"Well, Martin, I don't like to leave you, but then you know my mother
must be so anxious, as I told you before, that I think I'd better write
to her."
I suggested a better course, however, as soon as I saw he wished to go
home; and that was, that, as his mother lived not very far from Exeter,
he should take the balance of the money we had left after paying for our
breakfast, and go off thither by train at once.
This, after some demur, he agreed to; so, as soon as we had finished our
meal and discharged the bill, which only took eightpence put of our
store, we made our way to the railway station.
A train was luckily just about starting, and Tom getting a ticket for
half-price, he and I parted, not meeting again until many days had
passed, and then in a very different place!
When I realised the fact that Tom was gone, and that I was now left
alone in that strange place, where I had never been in my life before, I
felt so utterly cast down, that instinctively I made my way to the sea,
there seeking that comfort and calm which the mere sight of it, somehow
or other, always afforded me.
I got down, I recollect, on the Hoe, and, walking along the esplanade,
halted right in front of the Breakwater, whence I could command a view
of the harbour, with the men-of-war in the Hamoaze on my right hand, and
the Cattwater, where the _Saucy Sall_ was lying, on my left.
I was very melancholy, and after a bit I sat down on an adjacent seat;
when, burying my face in my hands, I gave way to tears.
Presently, I was roused by the sound of a man's voice close at hand, as
if of some one speaking to me.
I looked up hastily, ashamed of being caught crying. However, the good-
natured, jolly, weather-beaten face I saw looking into mine reassured
me.
"Hullo, young cockbird," said the owner of the face--a middle-aged,
respectable, nautical-looking sort of man--speaking in a cheery voice,
which went to my heart; "what's the row with you, my hearty? Tell old
Sam Pengelly all about it!"