The Runaway | Page 3

"Well, you poor mouse-heart, stay at home, then, and tie yourself to
your mamma's apron-strings!" was the reply. "Do as you please; but, I
tell you,--and I trust the secret to you, and hope you won't blow it,--I
have made up my mind to go to sea."
"Will you run away?"
"Indeed I will."
"When?"
"Why should I tell you, if you will not go with me?"
"Well, I want to be off with you, but how can I?"
"Easy enough. But I will see you to-morrow night, and we will talk it
over. It is time to go home."
"I must see Dick Vanderpool, and find out where the text was, so that I
can tell the old folks."
CHAPTER II.
REVOLVING AND RESOLVING.
Conversations similar to those recorded in the last chapter, were
frequently held between the two lads, during the next month. Will
Manton's determination was fixed, and he was making secret
preparations to start upon his wild journey. Rodney, though equally
desirous to escape the restraints of home, could not yet make up his
mind to risk the adventure. He regarded his comrade as a sort of young
hero; and he wished he had the courage to be like him.
One Monday morning, in June, as he was returning from his work, he

saw Will Manton's old grandfather standing before the door, looking up
and down the street; and he noticed that he seemed very uneasy, and
much distressed. When he came opposite the house, on the other side of
the street, the old gentleman called him over, and asked him, "Rodney,
do you know where Will is?"
The boy's heart beat wildly, and his cheek turned pale; for he at once
surmised that his comrade had carried out his purpose. He stammered
out, in reply,
"I have not seen him since last Friday night."
"It is very strange," said the old man. "He has not been at home since
last Sunday, at dinner-time. What has become of him?"
Will Manton was gone!
To the anxious inquiries that were made, his friends discovered that he
had left Albany in the evening boat, on Tuesday, for New York.
Though a messenger was immediately sent after him, no trace of him
could be discovered. A few months after, they received a letter from
him, written from Liverpool, where he had gone in a merchant-ship, as
a cabin-boy. His friends were very much grieved and distressed, but
hoped that he would soon grow weary of a hard and roving life, and
return to his home.
There was a romantic interest in all this for young Rodney. In his
imagination, Will Manton was a hero. He was scarcely ever out of his
thoughts. He would follow him in fancy, bounding over the broad sea,
with all the sails of the majestic ship swelling in the favoring breeze,
now touching at some island, and looking at the strange dresses and
customs of a barbarous people; now meeting a homeward-bound vessel,
and exchanging joyful greetings; and now lying to in a calm, and
spearing dolphins and harpooning whales. When the storm raged, he
almost trembled lest he might be wrecked; but, when it was over, he
fancied the noble ship, having weathered the storm, stemming safely
the high waves, and careering gracefully on her course. Or, if he was
wrecked, he imagined that he must be cast upon some shore where the

hospitable inhabitants hurried down to the beach to the relief of the
crew, bore them safely through the breakers, and pressed upon them the
comforts of their homes. His wild imagination followed him to other
lands, and roved with him along the streets of European cities, among
the ruins of Grecian temples, over the gardens of Spain and the
vineyards of Italy, through the pagodas of India, and the narrow streets
of Calcutta and Canton.
"O," thought he, "how delightful must be such a life! How pleasant to
be roaming amid scenes that are always new! And how wretched to be
tied to such a life as I lead, following the same weary round of
miserable drudgery every day!"
But it was Rodney's own fancy that painted this enjoyment of a
sailor-boy's life. Will Manton did not find it so pleasant in reality.
There was more menial drudgery to the poor cabin-boy on ship-board,
than he had ever known in the carpenter's shop. He was sworn at, and
thumped, and kicked, and driven from one thing to another, by the
captain, and mates, and steward, and crew, all day long. And many a
night, when, weary and sore, he crept to his hard, narrow bunk, he lay
and cried himself to sleep, thinking of his kind and pleasant home.
When Fancy pictures before the restless mind distant and unknown
scenes, she divests