CHAPTER VII

JEREMIAH JACKSON

"BOAT ahoy! Wake up there! Or is it dead you are?"

With these words ringing in his ears, Tad sprang to his feet, nearly upsetting the little boat. The sun had gone down, the soft twilight was stealing over sea and sky, and close to him was a vessel, a good-sized schooner, laden with timber; even her decks were piled with it.

The skipper, a fat, red-headed, freckled man, with kind, blue eyes and a big voice, was looking over the ship's side at the poor solitary waif, in the oarless, sail-less boat, while another man threw a rope to Tad and called to him to catch hold. The boy had just sense enough to obey, and the sailor drew the boat close, and in a minute or two Tad was safe on the deck of the schooner.

"Where did you come from, shrimp?" asked the fellow who had thrown the rope.

"And how do you come to be making a voyage all by yourself?" cried a second sailor.

"What's up with your parents, I'd like to know," remarked a third, "that they lot you go to sea in a cockleshell?"

"Shut up, boys, and hold your noise, all of you!" said the red-haired man in a voice like a speaking-trumpet. "Time enough for all that later on. Can't you see, you three blind bats, that the lad's half dead with cold and hunger and fear? Here, Frank," he called to a tall boy who appeared just then from the cuddy with a big metal teapot in his hand, "take the youngster to your place, and let him have a wash and a warm, and then give him some tea and cold corned beef, and afterwards bring him below to me."

So, an hour later, poor Tad, clean and comfortable, and with his appetite satisfied, was ushered into the trim cabin, where the skipper sat finishing his own meal.

"Now then, my young voyager," said he, as Tad stood silently before him, "give an account of yourself! How did you happen to be floatin' round in the sea, as I found you?"

"Afore I say anything, sir," replied Tad, "what do you mean to do with me?"

"We're bound for Granville with Norwegian pine," said the skipper; "and as I can't alter my course for you, you've got to go along of me."

"And please, sir, where may Granville be? Is it in Wales or maybe Scotland?"

"No, my lad, it's in France," rejoined the man.

"France!" exclaimed Tad, aghast. "But I don't want to go to France."

"Then I don't see but what we must stop the ship, and put you aboard your small boat—as we're towin' at this present moment—and let you drift; then, as sure as my name's Jeremiah Jackson, you'll go to the bottom of the sea the first breeze that comes. If you like that better than France, I'll give the orders at once." And the big skipper laughed.

"Well, sir," said Tad, after a minute's reflection, "maybe, arter all, it won't be such a bad thing for me to go to France, considerin'—"

"Considerin' what, boy? Now then, make a clean breast of it and tell the truth."

"Considerin' as how the bobbies is arter me," replied Tad reluctantly.

The captain gave a low whistle, and a quick glance at the lad's downcast face, then he said:

"What are they after you for? What have you been and done?"

"Well sir—to tell the truth, there's several things I done, but the perlice ain't arter me for them. It's for the things I ain't done that they're arter me."

"It seems to me you must be clean off your head, child, to tell me such nonsense," remarked the skipper. "Now then, try and give me something I can believe."

So plucking up courage, and seeing real kindness in the fat skipper's face, Tad told his story, beginning with the home miseries and his longing to revenge himself on his stepmother; then his making off with his little half-brother, and the disappearance of the child with the gipsies; his subsequent adventures and escapes, his thefts and dodges and lies, and the misfortune that had followed him all the way through—all this Tad told without keeping back anything.

Jeremiah Jackson listened attentively, only interrupting the boy's narrative now and again to ask a question, if Tad's hesitating speech did not succeed in making his meaning clear.

But when the lad paused at last, adding only, "That's all, sir," the skipper said:

"So you feel as if you'd been unlucky, do you?"

"Yes, sir," rejoined Tad; "everything's gone agen me from the first; I can't think why."

"Shall I tell you?" asked Jeremiah, a kind, pitying look coming into his blue eyes, and making his big broad face almost beautiful; "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." Then, seeing that Tad did not understand, he added, "When we set out on a wrong and dangerous road, lad, we can scarce wonder—it seems to me—if we meets with ill luck. S'posin' now, that instead of gettin' out my chart and studyin' my course, careful and sure, I just let the ship drive afore the wind, whose fault would it be, think you, Teddie Poole, if we run slap up agen a rock and come to be a wreck? But judgin' from what you've been tellin' me, that's very like what you done."

Tad was silent. Deep down in his heart, where his conscience was awakening, he felt the truth of what the skipper said.

Jeremiah Jackson went on:

"I know it's been very hard for you, my poor boy. I don't wonder you wanted to run away from home, nor I don't blame you for doin' it—things bein' as they was. But the trick you played on your stepmother was a mean thing, and it's out of this wrong-doin' that all the rest of the bad things has come, makin' of you a thief and a vagabond."

"Yes, sir, that's so, but what am I to do now?"

"Well," said the skipper, "maybe you won't relish what I'm goin' to say, but if I was you I'd ask this here old Jeremiah Jackson to carry me back to England when he sails from Granville in a week's time for Southampton. And then, lad, I'd make the best of my way home again—even if I had to tramp it; and I'd tell the bobbies and my dad too the whole truth, and take brave and patient anything as comes after, whether it be the lock-up or a good hidin'. No, Teddie Poole, don't look at me so! That would be the straight, right, manly thing to do, and what's more, it would be the Christian thing too."

Tad hung his head. Jeremiah Jackson had asked a hard thing, a very hard thing. And yet the good man's words had touched him; he felt the skipper was right. But he shrank from all that he felt sure awaited him at home. The thought of his stepmother's relentless wrath daunted him. He could almost see her frowning, hateful face, and hear his father's stern voice and hard words. All that he must do and suffer if he took the course suggested to him, came to his mind now, and overwhelmed him with dread.

"Think it out, lad, to-night," said Jeremiah, "and ask the good Lord Who ain't far—so the Scripture says—from anyone of us, to help you to do the right, and leave the rest with Him."