The Runaway | Page 5

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a ship.
The sailor looked at him a moment, turned his huge tobacco quid over in his mouth, hitched up his trowsers, and said:
"Why, you young runaway, do you want to go to sea? What can such a chap as you do on a ship? Go home, and stick by your mammy for five years more, and then you'll have no trouble in shipping."
Rodney was a good deal frightened at such a reply, and walked on for some time, not venturing to ask again. Toward noon he went on board a large vessel, and seeing a man, whom he took for the captain of the ship, asked him if he could give him a place.
"No, my boy," he replied; "we don't sail for three weeks, and we never ship a crew before the time."
All day he wandered about the wharves, and to all his questions received repelling replies, mingled oftentimes with oaths, jeers, and insults. No one seemed to feel the least interest for him.
CHAPTER IV.
RODNEY FINDS A PATRON.
Late in the afternoon Rodney strolled up the East River wharves. He was hungry, for he had eaten nothing all day. He was very sad, and sat down on a cotton bale, and cried. In what a position had a single day placed him! He had no place where he could lay his head for the night, no bread to eat, and he knew nobody whom he dared to ask for a meal; and so, with a sorrowful heart, he sat down and wept.
He buried his face in his hands, and for a long time sat there motionless. He did not know that a man was standing before him, watching him, until he was startled by a voice:
"Why, my boy, what is the matter with you?"
He looked up, and saw a tall man in a sailor's dress standing near him.
"I want to get a place on a ship, sir, to go to sea," replied Rodney; "I can't find any place, and I have no money and no friends here."
The man sat down beside him, and asked him, "Where are your friends?"
"In Albany, sir."
"What did you leave them for?"
"Because I wanted to go to sea."
They talked some time together, and Rodney told him truly all about himself and his friends. The man seemed to pity him, and told him that he was a sailor, and had lately been discharged from a United States vessel, where he had served as a marine,--that he had spent almost all his money, and was looking for another ship. He told Rodney to go with him, and he would try what could be done for him. They went into a sailors' boarding-house, and got something to eat.
Then the man,--who said his name was Bill Seegor, and that he must call him Bill, and not Mister, nor sir,--took him with himself into a ball-room. Here he saw a great many sailors and bad women, who danced together, and laughed, and shouted, and cursed, and drank, until long past midnight. Rodney had never witnessed such a scene. He had never heard such filthy and blasphemous language, nor seen such indecent behavior.
"Come, my lad," said a bluff sailor to him; "if you mean to be a man, you must learn to toss off your glass. Your white face don't look as if you ever tasted anything stronger than tea. Here is a glass of grog,--down with it!"
And Rodney, who wanted to be a man, drank it with a swaggering air, though it scorched his throat; and then another, until he became very sick;--and the last he remembered was, that the sailors and the women all seemed to be swearing and fighting together.
The next morning he was awaked by Bill Seegor, and found himself in a garret, on a miserable bed, with all his clothes on. How he had ever got there he could not tell. His head ached, and his limbs were stiff and pained him when he moved. His throat was parched and burning, and he felt so wretchedly, that, if he had dared, he would have begged permission to stay there on the bed. But Bill told him that it was time to start and look up a ship, for he had only money enough to last another day. After breakfast they started, and inquired at every place which Bill knew, but without success; no men or boys were wanted.
In the afternoon, Rodney was terribly frightened at seeing his brother-in-law walking along the wharves. He knew in a moment that he had come to New York to search for him; and he darted round a corner into an alley, and hid himself behind some barrels, till he had passed by. He afterwards learned that his brother-in-law had been looking for him all day, and that he had found and taken
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