Afloat and Ashore | Page 4

me to her convulsively. "It is such a fearful life that of a sailor, amid all the storms and perils of the deep."
"Don't press the boy," interposed father before I could answer mother, whose fond embrace and tearful face almost made me feel inclined to reconsider my decision. "It is best for him to make a free choice, and that his heart should be in his future profession."
"But, Robert--" rejoined mother, but half convinced of this truth when the fact of her boy going to be a sailor was concerned.
"My dear," said father gently, interrupting her in his quiet way and drawing her arm within his again, "remember, that God is the God of the sea as well as of the land, and will watch over our boy, our youngest, our Benjamin, there, as he has done here!"
Father's voice trembled and almost broke as he said this; and it seemed to me at the moment that I was an awful brute to cause such pain to those whom I loved, and who loved me so well.
But, ere I could tell them this, father was himself again, and busy comforting mother in his cheery way.
"Now, don't fret, dear, any more," he said; "the thing is settled now. Besides, you know, you agreed with me in the matter at Christmas-tide, when, seeing how Allan's fancy was set, I told you I thought of writing to London to get a ship for him, so that no time might be wasted when he finally made up his mind."
"I know, Robert, I know," she answered, trying to control her sobs, while I, glad in the new prospect, was as dry-eyed as you please; "but it is so hard to part with him, dear."
"Yes, yes, I know," said he soothingly; "I shall miss the young scaramouch, too, as well as you. But, be assured, my dear, the parting will not be for long; and we'll soon have our gallant young sailor boy back at home again, with lots of--oh! such wonderful yarns, and oh! such presents of foreign curios from the lands beyond sea for mother, when the Silver Queen returns from China."
"Aye, you will, mother dear, you will!" cried I exultingly.
"And though our boy will not wear the Queen's uniform like his grandfather, and fight the foe," continued father, "he will turn out, I hope, as good an officer of the mercantile marine, which is an equally honourable calling; and, possibly, crown his career by being the captain of some magnificent clipper of the seas, instead of ending his days like my poor old dad, a disappointed lieutenant on half-pay, left to rust out the best years of his life ashore when the war was over."
"I hope Allan will be good," said mother simply.
"I know he will be, with God's help," rejoined father confidently, his words making me resolve inwardly that I would try so that my life should not disgrace his assuring premise.
"I must go in now and tell Nellie," observed mother after a pause, in which we were all silent, and I could see father's lips move as if in silent prayer; "there'll be all Allan's shirts and socks to get ready. To-morrow week, you said, the ship was to sail--eh, dear?"
"Yes, to-morrow week," answered father bracing himself up; "and while your mother and Nellie are looking after the more delicate portions of your wardrobe, Allan, you and I had better walk over to Westham, and see about buying some new boots and other things which the outfitters haven't got down on their list."
As he was going into such a fashionable place as Westham, the nearest county town to our parish, at mother's especial request father consented to hide the beauties of his favourite old shooting-jacket under a more clerical-looking overcoat of a greyish drab colour, or "Oxford mixture." He was induced to don, too, a black felt hat, more in keeping with the coat than the straw one he had worn in the garden; and thus "grandly costumed," as he laughingly said to mother and Nell, who watched our departure from the porch of the rectory, he and I set out to make our purchases.
Dear me! the bustle and hurry and worry that went on in the house and out of the house in getting my things ready was such that, as father said more than once in his joking way, one would have thought the whole family were emigrating to the antipodes, instead of only a mere boy like me going to sea!
And then, when everything else had been packed and repacked a dozen times or so by mother's loving hands in the big, white-painted sea-chest that had come down from London--which had my name printed on the outside in big capital letters that almost made me blush, and with such