CHAPTER I.

COMING HOME.

"You seem to be weary, my friend," said Mr. Curtis, the vicar of Colme, stopping courteously to speak to a sailor, who was seated on the stump of a tree at the side of the pathway. It was a glowing day in August; the air was hot and sultry, and dust lay thick on the road.

Ned Franks, the sailor, rose on being addressed, and touched his glazed hat, on which appeared the badge of the anchor, surmounted by a crown, which showed that he had belonged to the Royal Navy. He was a fine stalwart-looking young man, scarcely thirty years of age, with sunburnt cheek, and thick curling hair; and as Mr. Curtis met the glance of his clear blue eye, the clergyman thought that he had never looked upon a face more manly or pleasant.

"I've walked twenty miles, sir, since sunrise," said Franks, glancing at the bundle which he had been carrying on a stick across his shoulder, and which was now resting against the stump from which he had risen. "But I'm nigh port now, I take it, if yonder's the village of Colme."

"Are you going to visit it?" asked the vicar.

"I'm going to drop anchor there for good, sir," answered the tar. "I've a sister—a step-sister I should say, living yonder; she and I are all that are left of the family now, and I'll make my home with her, please God."

"Surely you are too young to give up the navy, my friend. Idleness would be no blessing to a fine strong lad such as you seem to be; you may have many years before you yet of good service to the Queen."

"I shall never serve the Queen again, bless her!" replied the young sailor, with a touch of sadness.

And Mr. Curtis then, for the first time, remarked that the left sleeve of Ned's blue jacket hung empty.

"But I don't look to be idle, sir," continued Franks, in a tone more cheerful, "Bessy will have my bit of a pension for the mess and the berth, and I'll see if I can't make myself useful in some way or other—go errands, or maybe try the teaching tack; anything would be better than lying like a log on the shore."

"Teaching?" repeated the clergyman. "What are you able to teach?"

"Not many things," replied the sailor, with a smile, "reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic, and not much of them neither; but I like a book when I can overhaul one, and I usually make good way with the younkers."

"I well believe that," said Mr. Curtis; "I doubt not that you've many a good sea story to tell, and stirring adventure to relate. I see," he continued, "from the badge on your hat that you've served in the 'Queen;' I daresay that you lost your arm by a Russian ball from a Sebastopol battery," and the vicar looked with interest at the young seaman, picturing him at the post of duty amidst the smoke and din of a fight.

"No, sir," replied Ned, frankly; "I smashed my arm on shore, stumbling down an open cellar on a starless night."

Mr. Curtis slightly raised his eyebrows, and there was a little less interest in his manner as he inquired, "And who is the sister with whom you are to live?"

"Bessy Peele, sir; she's a widow in these parts."

"I know her," said Mr. Curtis, rather drily; "she lives in the thatched cottage yonder, whose chimney you can just see over these trees. I hope that she may make you comfortable," he added.

"It's not much, sir, that I want," said the sailor: "a dry berth, a wholesome mess, and a welcome, he who gets that may be thankful, whether on sea or on shore."

"I shall call and see you," said the clergyman, kindly, "and have a little talk with you on other matters than those which concern but this passing life."

"I shall be heartily glad, sir," replied Ned, again touching his glazed hat; "it's well to have some one to teach us how to steer 'twixt the rocks and the shoals."

"I hope that we have both the same port in view," said the clergyman.

"I hope so," answered Ned Franks, cheerfully; and as the vicar bade him good day, he turned in the direction of his new home.

Mrs. Peele's cottage stood a little retired from the dusty high road, being divided from it by a bit of waste ground, on which some pigs were feeding. The ground was overgrown with nettles and straggling briars: the dwelling was of mud, with a roof of thatch, green with lichen and moss, under which, as under heavy overhanging brows, peeped two dots of windows like eyes. The door stood open, and within Ned caught sight of his sister engaged in washing.

Mrs. Peele was a tall bony woman, with a habitual stoop, clad in a rusty black dress, with a cap which was rustier still. Broad lines of grey streaked her hair, and Ned's first feeling was that of painful surprise at the change which years had made. He did not stop, however, to dwell on the past.

"Holloa, Bessy! Don't you know me?" he exclaimed, as he quickened his pace, and the next minute Mrs. Peele had run out, with her bare arms covered with soap-suds, to welcome her younger brother.

She was followed by a lad about ten or eleven years of age; a sharp, wiry boy, whose pointed upturned nose, quick little black eyes, and restless manner, somehow suggested to the sailor's mind the idea of a weasel. Ned shook him heartily by the hand on hearing that this was his nephew Dan; and, with a heart glowing with pleasure at being once more in a home, the seaman entered the cottage accompanied by the Peeles.

"Now, Dan, you take your uncle, and show him his room, while I wring these out, and get a bit of something ready for dinner," said Bessy. "I hardly looked for you so early, Ned," she added, addressing herself to her brother.

"I was up with the lark," answered the sailor.

Dan, looking up with curiosity in his keen small eyes towards the stranger, whom he scarcely yet ventured to call "uncle," led the way to the back of the cottage, where was a kind of garden—if a place could deserve that name where nothing but sickly cabbages seemed to grow, with a full crop of chickweed and groundsel between. A small wood-house adjoined the cottage, and over this was a little loft, to be reached by a rough sort of ladder.

"We're to go up the hatchway, are we?" said Ned, mounting the ladder with a lightness and rapidity which surprised his nephew. He had to stoop his curly head low as he passed through the entrance, the door of which appeared never to have been intended to fit, since even when shut it admitted as much light as the small one-paned window of greenish glass, with a thick knob in the middle. The loft was very small, with walls unpapered, and rafters uncovered; a dirty mattress lay on the dirtier floor, and a musty scent pervaded the place.

"I can't say much for the berth," thought Ned; "it's not big enough to swing a cat in, and doesn't look as if the planks had ever been holystoned. I must set things a little ship-shape. Bessy, poor soul, has enough to keep her busy with her washing; I must try if I can't make my one hand do the business of two."

The man-of-war's seaman, accustomed to spotless cleanliness and neatness, looked around on the miserable den with a mixture of disgust and good humour.

"I'll rub up the bull's eye," he said, "and get that door to fasten with something better than a piece of old rope; and I'll try to knock up a bit of a shelf in that corner, for I've a few books in that bundle of mine. We'll soon have all right and trim as a captain's cabin!"

Ned Franks was to find that other things in his new home required setting to rights as well as his loft, and that there are spots and stains harder to rub out than those on his walls and floor.

"Why don't you keep that garden in trimmer order?" asked the sailor, as he descended the ladder, followed by Dan. "You might grow enough of potatoes and cabbages in yon slip to supply your mother half the year."

"I've not a minute's time," answered Dan; "I look after Sir Lacy Barton's cows."

"Lacy Barton!" repeated Ned. "Why that's the name of one of our middies."

"Sir Lacy has a son in the 'Queen' as I've heard."

"What are you saying about Sir Lacy?" asked Bessy Peele, catching the sound of the name, as her brother and Dan re-entered the kitchen.

"That he has a son aboard my old vessel the 'Queen.'"

"That's a piece of luck for us!" cried Bessy, pausing in her occupation of cutting rashers from a fine large piece of bacon. "He's our landlord, is Sir Lacy Barton, and he's thinking of pulling down our cottage to build the new school in its place, and I'm mighty anxious to be in his favour. 'Tis a lucky chance that you've come, and can tell him all about his son."

"That depends on what I've to tell," answered Ned, with a smile; "in some cases, it's 'least said soonest mended.' I hope that none of the family will come to question me about young Mr. Barton—" and the frank face of the sailor expressed more than his words, as he remembered the doings of the most worthless youth on board of the man-of-war.

"Well, if you was asked, you'd say something pleasant I hope," observed Bessy.

"I could not say what was false," answered Ned.

The words were simple enough, but the decided tone in which they were uttered, made Bessy exchange glances with her son. The boy shrugged his shoulders slightly, and something like a smile rose to the corners of his lips. The very straightforwardness of the sailor made him appear strange to those who had long mistaken cunning for wisdom, and low deceit for sharpness.