My First Voyage to Southern Seas | Page 4

them into contact and competition with all classes and orders of men. They should not be thrown among the crowd struggling on to gain wealth, or name, or station, or they most assuredly will be trampled under foot. So our father said, and I think he judged rightly, when he advised Herbert to fix his thoughts on becoming a minister of the gospel. "If I am considered worthy, there is no vocation I would so gladly follow," was dear Herbert's answer. Those who knew him best would most assuredly have said that he was worthy, compared to the usual standard of frail human nature.
The time to which I have now been alluding was during our summer holidays. We all three went to a first-rate school near Blackheath, where I believe we were general favourites. I know that Alfred and Herbert were, and I had many friends among the boys, while the masters always expressed themselves kindly towards me. If not exactly what is called studiously disposed, I was, at all events, fond of learning and reading, and gaining information in every variety of way, and the commendations I received from my masters encouraged me to be diligent and attentive. My father also was pleased with my progress; and as I delighted in giving him pleasure, I had another strong motive to study hard, not only what I especially liked--for there is very little virtue in that--but what I was told would ultimately prove a benefit to me. I was especially fond of reading about foreign countries, and I thought to myself, if I am not allowed to enter the navy, I will, at all events, become a great traveller, and, perhaps, as a merchant, be able to visit all those wonderful lands, with the accounts of which I am now so much interested. I will not dwell upon my school life. It was a very happy one. We were boarders, but we came home frequently, and we did not thereby lose the love of home; for my part, I think we loved it the more for frequently going to it. We kept up our home interests, had our home amusements, and our home pets. Our more particular friends among our school-fellows frequently came home with us, especially to spend their Easter and Michaelmas holidays, when they would otherwise have had to remain at school. We had also generally a good supply of eatables, and for these and the reasons of which I have before spoken, we were probably altogether the most popular boys at school. Alfred had been so, and so was Herbert, and I in time came in for my share of popularity, and, as I found, for what is far more valuable, of sincere, true friendship. We all at that time undoubtedly enjoyed the sunshine of prosperity.
We heard occasionally from Alfred; but he was not an apt penman, and did not prove himself so good a correspondent as we had hoped. We had a letter from him written at Rio de Janeiro, and a short one from the Cape of Good Hope. Then the ship went to India, and was there a couple of years, during which time he wrote occasionally. At last he sent us a few hurried lines from the Mauritius, saying that he was well, but that the frigate was about to return to India, and on her way to visit several interesting places.
Waiting for some time after the receipt of that letter, we began to be anxious about receiving another, but none came. Day after day, week after week, and month after month passed by, and we heard nothing. Our disappointment was great, but our anxiety did not increase in the same proportion, as we had no doubt that his letters had by some means miscarried. We never allowed ourselves to suppose for a moment that the ship had been lost, or that any other misfortune had occurred, still less that Alfred himself was ill or had died. None of us, it seemed, could have borne that thought. At last my father became really anxious and wrote to the captain. He waited for a long time for a reply, and at last he got one, not from the former captain, who had died from fever, but from the officer who had been first lieutenant when my brother sailed, saying that Mr Marsden had thought fit to quit his ship without leave; he could not be considered as belonging to the navy, and that, therefore, he had no further charge over him. He did not say where Alfred had left the ship, or when, or why, allowing us to remain most cruelly in a dreadful state of suspense. My father instantly wrote again to make further inquiries, but during the time we were waiting for