The Shipwreck | Page 6

good you were to me. Who will protect
me now when they all tease me?"
"Oh, but you are all here together and like each other so much,"
answered Willy. "Who is going to protect me from this bad man?" The
last words he whispered in the ear of his little friend.
"Your holy guardian angel," he answered, "and we will all pray for
you."
"Come on, nephew, I don't want to stay here any longer," urged the
Captain, and a moment later the two had left the College of the Holy
Saviour and were out in the street.
Immediately after their departure Father Somazzo called his pupils into
the chapel and there they commended their small companion to the
Blessed Virgin and the holy guardian angels. Of all there assembled
small Peppo prayed most earnestly.
"O holy guardian angel, thou who art my protector," he said in his
childish simplicity, "Willy will now have need of two guardian angels
instead of one, if God will permit, go and help Willy's guardian angel
to protect him from the bad man who has taken him away. You see here
where I am the good Fathers will watch over me, and it will be enough
if each day you but look at me and then fly away to Willy. But, dear
angel, come to me when I am in danger and call for help."
After this the boys returned to the schoolroom, and as soon as they
were at work, Father Somazzo took his hat and walking-stick and went
to the city to consult Mr. Black, an English lawyer. To him he stated
the case assuring the learned gentleman that the father would not
willingly have placed his child under the guardianship of this younger
brother, who was a gambler and a spendthrift, and asked if there was
any way of getting the boy a way from him. Mr. Black said that
according to law the uncle, as next of kin, could claim the guardianship
of his brother's children, and unless sufficient proof that he was not a fit
person to have such guardianship could be secured immediately,
months might elapse before he could be taken from him. At the time of

our story Hongkong was not connected with Europe by telegraph, as it
now is, and it took from eight to ten weeks to communicate with people
in Dublin.
CHAPTER III.
Aboard the "St. George."
The Captain took his nephew directly to the harbor. The boy cried
softly to himself as he trudged along, and at last his uncle said to him in
a mild tone of voice, "Willy, stop your crying. See, all the passersby are
looking at you. If I were a boy like you, I would be only too happy to
get out of such a tiresome old place where you just learn and pray all
day long. I am going to take you into quite a different school, one in
which all is bright and gay. On board the ship you won't have any old
exercises to do."
"Oh, but I liked everything at the College so much, and in the new
school there won't anybody know me," wailed Willy. "And you--are
you really my uncle?"
"Most assuredly. How can you doubt if? Just look at me! Have I not the
same hooked nose that your father had?"
"Yes, but you have no such friendly eye. And my father always had so
much reverence for the Father Prefect."
"While I speak to the Father Prefect only compliments in which all the
i's are dotted and all the t's are crossed most punctiliously--ha! ha!--not
so bad. But now see here: let us strike a bargain. You recognize me as
your uncle to whom you owe obedience, and everything will be all
right. If you go on in this obstinate, defiant way, you shall, so sure as
my name is John Brown, this very day make the acquaintance of the
cat-o'-nine-tails, and take a diet of bread and water in the company of
the rats in the hold of the ship for awhile."
Willy had once seen a cabin boy flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails, and
there was nothing in the world which he feared more than rats, so he

thought it best to make peace with his uncle. After a pause he said:
"If you really are my uncle, I must obey you, but don't whip me, and
don't shut me up with the rats, please.--If you wish me to love you very
much indeed, send me back to the College."
"Don't say another word about that College," snarled the Captain with a
dark look. "Now dry your eyes. Here we are on the shore, and here is
our boat. Get in, obey--else--"
The Captain sprang into the boat and Willy