Fritz and Eric | Page 3

hope so, Eric; I hope so with all my heart," said she, pressing the
eager lad to her bosom in a fond embrace; "and you may be sure that
none will be so glad to welcome you back as I!"
"Think, mother," said Eric presently, after a moment's silence, in which
the feelings of the two seemed too great to find expression in words of
common import. "Why, by that time I will have nearly sailed round the
world; for in my voyage to Java and back I will have to `double the
Cape,' as sailors say!"
"Yes, that you will, my boy," chimed in his mother, anxious to sustain
this buoyant change in his humour, and drive away the somewhat
melancholy tone she had unwittingly introduced into their last parting
conversation. "You'll be a regular little travelled monkey, like the one
belonging to the Dutchman that we were reading about the other day
which could do everything almost but speak, although I don't think
anybody would accuse you of any want of ability on the latter score,
you chatterbox!"
"No, no, little mother; I think not likewise," chuckled Eric
complacently. "I'm not one of your silent ones, not so! But, hurrah!--
There comes Fritz turning in under the old gateway. He said he would
try and get away for half an hour in the afternoon from the counting-
house to wish me another good-bye and see me off, if Herr
Grosschnapper could spare him. Ah ha, Master Fritz," shouted out the
sailor lad, as his brother drew nigh, "you're just in time to see the last of
me. I thought the worthy Herr would not let you come, you are so very
late."
"Better late than never," said the other, smiling, coming up beside the
pair, who were standing in front of one of the railway carriages, into
which Eric had already bundled his bag. "The old man did growl a bit
about my `idling away the afternoon,' as he called it; but when I
impressed him with the fact that you were going away to sea, he
relented and let me come, saying that it was a good job such a
circumstance did not occur every day!"

"Much obliged to him, I'm sure!" said Eric, with that usual toss of his
head which threw back his mane-like locks of yellow hair. "He would
have been a fine old curmudgeon to have refused you leave to wish
good- bye to your only brother!" And he put one of his arms round
Fritz's neck as he spoke.
"Hush, my son," interposed Madame Dort. "You must not speak ill of
the good merchant who has been such a kind friend to Fritz and given
him regular employment in his warehouse!"
"All right, mutterchen, I won't mention again the name of the old cur--,
I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the
twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the
narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet;
while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly
into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother's side
and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely
seen, alas! in members of the same family.
Truly, they were sons of whom any mother might have been proud.
Fritz was tall and manly, by virtue of his two-and-twenty years and a
small fringe of dark down that covered his upper lip; Eric was shorter
by some inches, but more thick-set and with broader shoulders,
predicting that he would be the bigger of the two as time rolled on.
The firstborn, Fritz, with his closely cropped hair and swarthy
complexion, took after his dead father, who had been a Holsteiner--a
mariner by profession, who had sailed his ship from the Elbe some
years before for the last time, and left his wife to bring up her fatherless
boys by the sweat of her brow and her own exertions; for Captain Dort
had left but little worldly goods behind him, his all being embarked
with himself in his ship, which was lost, with all hands on board, in the
North Sea. Fritz and Eric had both been too young at the time to
appreciate the struggles of their mother to support herself and them,
until she had achieved a comfortable competency by teaching music
and languages in several rich Hanoverian families; and now she had no
longer to battle for her bread.

Eric took after her in face and expression, having the same light-
coloured hair and bright blue eyes; but there the resemblance ceased, as
hardly had he grown to boyhood than he evinced that desire for a sea
life which he must have inherited