“A few guineas I have saved.”

“Well, keep them; you may be in a tight place some day, and find ’em handy.  You have a hankering for the sea, you say.  Then tramp to Bristowe, as your champion Joe Punchard did, and hitch on to John Benbow if you can find him.  He’ll work you hard, if all that’s said about him is true; but he’ll either make you or break you.  That’s my advice.”

Advice that jumps with one’s own inclinations hath ever a comfortable appearance of soundness.  I told the captain that he had hit on the very scheme I had proposed to myself, adding, however, that I had thought to go a-horseback.

“A-horseback!” he cried.  “What want you with a horse?  You don’t own a horse, and to hire one you would expend all your guineas and have nothing to feed either him or yourself.  No, go on your shanks; there’s a world of knowledge to be gained by footing it on the open road.”

And so we settled that Captain Galsworthy should himself come to our house on Pride Hill and break the news to my good friends there.  They were both downcast when they heard it, Mr. Vetch more than Mistress Pennyquick, which somewhat surprised me.  He plied me with innumerable reasons for remaining with him, spoke of the long miles I should have to trudge before I reached the port, described the perils of the road, even foresaw that I should be arrested as a vagrant and clapped into jail!  He conjured up dismal pictures of the seafaring life, and waxed quite eloquent in drawing a contrast between the bare windswept deck and the cosy fireside, the dangers from storm and pirates and the serenity of our quiet town.  And then the captain broke in upon his speech with a great laugh.

“Gad, Mr. Attorney, you have o’ershot your bolt,” he cried.  “Mark you the sparkle in the boy’s eyes and the catch in his breath?  The bogies you raise are beacons to him.  D’you think to frighten him as you would a girl?  Spare your breath, man, to cool your porridge; what fellow of spirit would be deterred from a life of action by your vision of slippers and a basin of gruel?”

And indeed the lawyer’s eloquence fell on deaf ears; or rather, as the captain said, all his reasons did but whet my eagerness until I fairly tingled with the imagined delight of matching myself against the hostility of the elements and man.  And so he at last desisted, and gave a grudging compliance to my purpose; and Mistress Pennyquick concluded the discussion with a shot at Captain Galsworthy.

“This is all along o’ you, Captain,” she cried.  “This is what comes of teaching little boys to fight.  I knew years ago ’t’ud have a bad end, and I told his poor father so, and I’m sure I hope you are satisfied.”

“Abundantly, ma’am,” says the captain, bobbing her a bow.  “My pupil does me credit, and will do me more.”