Will Weatherhelm | Page 4

showed me all over her; I thought her a very fine vessel, and how much I should like to go to sea in her. The next day he appeared at our house in great glee, and told my grandmother and Aunt Bretta that he had come to wish them good-bye, that his father had bound him apprentice to the owners of the schooner, and that he was to go to sea in her that very voyage. I was sorry to part with him, and I could not help envying him for being able to start at once to see the world. When he was gone, I could talk of nothing else but of what Charley was going to see, and of what he was going to do; and I never ceased trying to persuade my grandmother and aunt to let me go and be a sailor also. Poor things, I little thought of the grief I was causing them.
"Willand, my dear laddie, ye ken that your father, and your grandfather, and two uncles were all sailors, and were lost at sea,--indeed, I may well say that such has been the hard lot of all the males of our line,-- then why should ye wish without reason or necessity to go and do the same, and break your old grandmother's heart, who loves ye far better than her own life's blood," said the kind old lady, taking me in her arms and pressing me to her bosom. "Be content to stay at home, laddie, and make her happy."
"Oh, that ye will, Willand dear," chimed in Aunt Bretta; "we'll get a wee shoppie for ye, and may be ye'll become a great merchant, or we'll just rent a croft up the country here, and ye shall keep cows, and sheep, and fowls, and ye shall plough, and sow, and reap, and be happy as the day is long. Won't that be the best life for Willand, grannie? It's what he is just fitted for, and there isn't another like it."
I shook my head. All these pictures of rural felicity or of mercantile grandeur had no charms for me. I had set my heart on being a rover, and seeing all parts of the world, and I believe that had I been offered a lucrative post under Government with nothing to do, without a moment's hesitation I should have rejected it, lest it might have prevented me from carrying my project into execution. Still for some time I did not like to say anything more on the subject, and the kind creatures began to hope that I had given up my wishes to their remonstrances. Had they from the first taught me the important lessons of self-denial and obedience, they might have found that I was willing to do so; but I had no idea of sacrificing my own wishes to those of others, and I still held firmly to my resolution of leaving home on the first opportunity.
I was one day walking down High Street, Plymouth, when I saw advancing towards me a fine sailor-like looking lad, with a well-bronzed jovial countenance.
"Why, Will, old boy, you don't seem to know me," he exclaimed, stretching out his hand, which seemed as hard as iron.
"Why, I scarcely did, Charley, till I heard your voice," I answered, shaking him warmly by the hand. "You've grown from a boy almost into a man. There's nothing like the life of a sailor for hardening a fellow, and making him fit for anything. I see that plainly."
"Then come to sea with me at once," he replied; "I can get you a berth aboard our schooner, and we'll have a merry life of it altogether, that we will."
I liked his confident and self-satisfied way of talking; but I said I was afraid I could not take advantage of his offer, though I would try and get leave from my grandmother.
"Leave from your grandmother!" he exclaimed with a taunting laugh; "take French leave from the old lady. You are far better able to judge what you like than she is, and she can't expect to tie you to her apron-strings all your life, can she?"
"No, but she is very kind and good to me, and I'm young yet to leave her and Aunt Bretta. Perhaps, when I am older, she will not object to my going away," I replied.
"Pooh, pooh! feeds you with bread and milk, and lollipops; and as to being too young--why, you are not much more than a year younger than I am, and fully as stout, and I should like to know who would venture to say that I am not fit to go to sea. I would soon show him which was the best man of the two."
These remarks, for I will not call them