GREAT 
 
 EMERGENCY 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIANA 
 
 HORATIA 
 EWING 
 
 COSY CORNER SERIES 
 
LIBS. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Education 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Louise Farrow Barr 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY 
 
THE GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIANA HORATIA EWING 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JACKANAPES," 
 "THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE," ETC. 
 
 E. B. BARRY 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897 
 
 L. C. PACK AND COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 Education 
 Add'l 
 GIFT 
 
 Colonial 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 I. RUPERT'S LECTURES. THE 
 
 LEATHER BOOK 
 
 OLD YELLOW 
 
 II. HENRIETTA. A FAMILY CHRONICLE. THE 
 
 SCHOOL MIMIC. MY FIRST FIGHT 
 
 III. SCHOOL CRICKET. LEMON-KALI. THE BOYS' 
 
 BRIDGE. AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY 
 
 IV. A DOUBTFUL BLESSING. A FAMILY FAILING. 
 
 OLD BATTLES. THE CANAL-CARRIER'S 
 HOME 
 
 V. THE NAVY CAPTAIN. SEVEN PARROTS IN A 
 
 FUSCHIA-TREE. THE HARBOR LION AND 
 
 THE SILVER CHAIN. THE LEGLESS GIANTS. 
 
 DOWN BELOW. JOHNSON'S WHARF 
 
 VI. ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES. THE MONKEY- 
 BARGE AND THE DOG. WAR, PLAGUE, AND 
 FIRE. THE DULLNESS OF EVERY-DAY LIFE. 
 
 10 
 
 35 
 
 43 
 
 344 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 VII. WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY. SCRUPLES. 
 
 BABY CECIL. I PREPARE. I RUN AWAY . 65 
 
 VIII. WE GO ON BOARD. THE PIE. AN EXPLO- 
 SIO N. MR. ROWE, THE BARGEMASTER. 
 
 THE WHITE LION. Two LETTERS. WE 
 DOUBT MR. ROWE'S GOOD FAITH. . . 78 
 
 IX. A COASTING VOYAGE. MUSK ISLAND. LlN- 
 
 NET FLASH. MR. ROWE AN OLD TAR. 
 
 THE DOG-FANCIER AT HOME ... 89 
 
 X. LOCKS. WE THINK OF GOING ON THE TRAMP. 
 
 PYEBRIDGE. WE SET SAIL . . . 100 
 XL MR. ROWE ON BARGE-WOMEN. THE RIVER. 
 
 NINE ELMS. A MYSTERIOUS NOISE. 
 
 ROUGH QUARTERS. A CHEAP SUPPER. 
 
 JOHN'S BERTH. WE MAKE OUR ESCAPE. 
 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD .... IO7 
 XII. EMERGENCIES AND POLICEMEN. FENCHURCH 
 
 STREET STATION. THIRD CLASS TO CUS- 
 TOM HOUSE. A SHIP FOREST . . .122 
 
 XIII. A DIRTY STREET. A BAD BOY. SHIPPING 
 AND MERCHANDISE. WE STOW AWAY ON 
 BOARD THE " ATALANTA." A SALT TEAR. 129 
 
 XIV. A GLOW ON THE HORIZON. A FANTASTIC 
 
 PEAL. WHAT I SAW WHEN THE ROOF FELL 
 
 IN 14? 
 
 XV. HENRIETTA'S DIARY. A GREAT EMERGENCY . 153 
 XVI. MR. ROWE ON THE SUBJECT. OUR COUSIN. 
 WESTON GETS INTO PRINT. THE HAR- 
 BOR'S MOUTH. WHAT LIES BEYOND. . 159 
 
PACK 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 THE GREAT EMERGENCY 
 
 "SHE RODE THE PONY BAREBACKED" 
 
 "I GOT HENRIETTA TO ... BOX WITH ME" . 
 
 " THE FIELD . . . WAS ON THE BANKS OF THE CANAL" 
 "BABY CECIL CAME RUNNING AFTER ME". 
 ON THE CANAL 
 
 "CAN YOU GET US ANYTHING RATHER CHEAP 
 
 FOR SUPPER?" 
 
 " VY, I THOUGHT YOU WOS SWELLS !" . I;?I 
 
 "STRONG HANDS LIFTED THE TARPAULIN FROM OUR 
 
 HEADS" .... 
 
 <GO DOWN ON ALL FOURS, HENNY,' SAID RUPERT I $6 
 
 13 
 31 
 
 37 
 75 
 97 
 
 II S 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RUPERT'S LECTURES. THE OLD YELLOW 
 LEATHER BOOK. 
 
 WE were very happy, Rupert, Henrietta, 
 Baby Cecil, and I. The only thing we found 
 fault with in our lives was that there were so 
 few events in them. 
 
 It was particularly provoking because we 
 were so well prepared for events, any events. 
 Rupert prepared us. He had found a fat old 
 book in the garret, bound in yellow leather, at 
 the end of which were, " Directions how to act 
 with presence of mind in any emergency ; " 
 and he gave lectures out of this in the kitchen 
 garden. 
 
 Rupert was twelve years old. He was the 
 eldest. Then came Henrietta, then I, and 
 
2 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 last of all Baby Cecil, who was only four. 
 The day I was nine years old, Rupert came 
 into the nursery, holding up his handsome 
 head with the dignified air which became him 
 so well that I had more than once tried to 
 put it on myself before the nursery looking- 
 glass, and said to me, " You are quite old 
 enough now, Charlie, to learn what to do what- 
 ever happens ; so every half -holiday, when I 
 am not playing cricket, I'll teach you pres- 
 ence of mind, near the cucumber-frame, if 
 you're punctual. I've put up a bench." 
 
 I thanked him warmly, and the next day he 
 put his head into the nursery at three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, and said, " The lecture." 
 
 I jumped up, and so did Henrietta. 
 
 " It's not for girls," said Rupert ; " women 
 are not expected to do things when there's 
 danger." 
 
 " We take care of them" said I, wondering 
 if my mouth looked like Rupert's when I spoke, 
 and whether my manner impressed Henrietta 
 as much as his impressed me. She sat down 
 again and only said, " I stayed in all Friday 
 afternoon, and worked in bed on Saturday 
 morning, to finish your net." 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 3 
 
 "Come along," said Rupert. "Yrm know 
 I'm very much obliged to you for the net ; it's 
 a splendid one." 
 
 " 111 bring a camp-stool if there's not room 
 on the bench," said Henrietta cheerfully. 
 
 " People never take camp-stools to lectures," 
 said Rupert, and when we got to the cucumber- 
 frame, we found that the old plank, which he 
 had raised on inverted flower-pots, would have 
 held a much larger audience than he had invited. 
 Opposite to it was a rhubarb-pot, with the round 
 top of a barrel resting on it. On this stood a 
 glass of water. A delightful idea thrilled through 
 me, suggested by an imperfect remembrance of a 
 lecture on chemistry which I had attended. 
 
 " Will there be experiments ? " I whispered. 
 
 "I think not," Henrietta replied. "There 
 are glasses of water at the missionary meet- 
 ings, and there are no experiments." 
 
 Meanwhile, Rupert had been turning over 
 the leaves of the yellow leather book. To 
 say the truth, I think he was rather nervous ; 
 but if we have a virtue among us it is that of 
 courage ; and, after dropping the book twice, 
 and drinking all the water at a draught, he 
 found his place, and began, 
 
4 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 "How to act in an emergency." 
 
 " What's an emergency ? " I asked. I was 
 very proud of being taught by Rupert, and 
 anxious to understand everything as we went 
 along. 
 
 "You shouldn't interrupt," said Rupert, 
 frowning. I am inclined now to think that 
 he could not answer my question off-hand ; for 
 though he looked cross then, after referring 
 to the book he answered me, " It's a fire, or 
 drowning, or an apoplectic fit, or anything 
 of that sort." After which explanation he 
 hurried on. If what he said next came out 
 of his own head, or whether he had learned 
 it by heart, I never knew. 
 
 "There is no stronger sign of good-breed- 
 ing than presence of mind in an 
 
 "Apoplectic fit," I suggested. I was giving 
 the keenest attention, and Rupert had hesitated, 
 the wind having blown over a leaf too many of 
 the yellow leather book. 
 
 "An emergency!" he shouted, when he had 
 found his place. " Now we'll have one each 
 time. The one for to-day is, how to act in 
 a case of drowning." 
 
 To speak the strict truth, I would rather not 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 5 
 
 have thought about drowning. I had my own 
 private horror over a neighboring mill-dam, and 
 I had once been very much frightened by a 
 spring tide at the sea ; but cowardice is not an 
 indulgence for one of my race, so I screwed up 
 my lips and pricked my ears to learn my duty 
 in the unpleasant emergency of drowning. 
 
 " It doesn't mean being drowned yourself," 
 Rupert continued, "but what to do when an- 
 other person has been drowned." 
 
 The emergency was undoubtedly easier, and 
 I gave a cheerful attention as Rupert began to 
 question us. 
 
 " Supposing a man had been drowned in the 
 canal, and was brought ashore, and you were 
 the only people there, what would you do with 
 him ? " 
 
 I was completely nonplussed. I felt quite 
 sure I could do nothing with him, he would be 
 so heavy ; but I felt equally certain that this 
 was not the answer which Rupert expected, so 
 I left the question to Henrietta's readier wit. 
 She knitted her thick eyebrows for some min- 
 utes, partly with perplexity, and partly because 
 of the sunshine reflected from the cucumber- 
 frame, and then said, 
 
6 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " We should bury him in a vault ; Charlie 
 and I couldrit dig a grave deep enough." 
 
 I admired Henrietta's foresight, but Rupert 
 was furious. 
 
 " How silly you are ! " he exclaimed, knock- 
 ing over the top of the rhubarb-pot table and the 
 empty glass in his wrath. " Of course I don't 
 mean a dead man. I mean what would you do 
 to bring a partly-drowned man to life again ?" 
 
 "That wasn't what you said" cried Henri- 
 etta, tossing her head. 
 
 " I let you come to my lecture," grumbled 
 Rupert bitterly, as he stooped to set his table 
 right, "and this is the way you behave ! " 
 
 "I'm very sorry, Rupert, dear," said Henri- 
 etta. " Indeed, I only mean to do my best, and 
 I do like your lecture so very much ! " 
 
 "So do I," I cried, "very, very much!" 
 And by a simultaneous impulse Henrietta and 
 I both clapped our hands vehemently. This 
 restored Rupert's self-complacency, and he 
 bowed and continued the lecture. From this 
 we learned that the drowned man should be 
 turned over on his face, to let the canal water 
 run out of his mouth and ears, and that his wet 
 clothes should be got off, and he should be 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 7 
 
 made dry and warm as quickly as possjble, and 
 placed in a comfortable position, with the head 
 and shoulders slightly raised. All this seemed 
 quite feasible to us. Henrietta had dressed 
 and undressed lots of dolls, and I pictured 
 myself filling a hot-water bottle at the kitchen 
 boiler with an air of responsibility that should 
 scare all lighter-minded folk. But the directions 
 for " restoring breathing" troubled our sincere 
 desire to learn ; and this, even though Henri- 
 etta practised for weeks afterwards upon me. 
 I represented the drowned man, and she drew 
 my arms above my head for "inspiration" and 
 counted "one, two;" and doubled them and 
 drove them back for "expiration;" but it 
 tickled, and I laughed, and we could not feel 
 at all sure that it would have made the drowned 
 man breathe again. 
 
 Meanwhile, Rupert went on with the course 
 of lectures, and taught us how to behave in the 
 events of a fire in the house, an epidemic in the 
 neighborhood, a bite from a mad dog, a chase 
 by a mad bull, broken limbs, runaway horses, 
 a chimney on fire, or a young lady burning to 
 death. The lectures were not only delightful 
 in themselves, but they furnished us with a 
 
8 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 whole set of new games, for Henrietta and 
 I zealously practised every emergency as far 
 as the nature of things would allow. Covering 
 our faces with wet cloths to keep off the smoke, 
 we crept on our hands and knees to rescue a 
 fancy cripple from an imaginary burning house, 
 because of the current of air which, Rupert told 
 us, was to be found near the floor. We fastened 
 Baby Cecil's left leg to his right by pocket- 
 handkerchiefs at the ankle, and above and below 
 the knee, pretending that it was broken, and 
 must be kept steady till we could convey him 
 to the doctor. But for some unexplained reason 
 Baby Cecil took offence at this game, and I do 
 not think he could have howled and roared 
 louder under the worst of real compound frac- 
 tures. We had done it so skilfully that we 
 were greatly disgusted by his unaccommodating 
 spirit and his obstinate refusal to be put into 
 the litter we had made out of Henrietta's stilts 
 and a railway rug. We put a Scotch terrier in 
 instead ; but when one end of the litter gave 
 way and he fell out, we were not sorry that the 
 emergency was a fancy one, and that no broken 
 limbs were really dependent upon our well- 
 meant efforts. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. Q 
 
 There was one thing about Rupert's lectures 
 which disappointed me. His emergencies were 
 all things that happened in the daytime. Now 
 I should not have liked the others to know 
 that I was ever afraid of anything ; but, really 
 and truly, I was sometimes a little frightened 
 not of breaking my leg, or a house on fire, 
 or an apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort, 
 but of things in the dark. Every half holi- 
 day I hoped there would be something about 
 what to do with robbers or ghosts, but there 
 never was. I do not think there can have been 
 any emergencies of that kind in the yellow 
 leather book. 
 
 On the whole, I fancy Rupert found us sat- 
 isfactory pupils, for he never did give up the 
 lectures, in a huff, though he sometimes threat- 
 ened to do so, when I asked stupid questions, 
 or Henrietta argued a point. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HENRIETTA. A FAMILY CHRONICLE. THE 
 
 SCHOOL MIMIC. MY FIRST FIGHT. 
 
 HENRIETTA often argued points, which made 
 Rupert very angry. He said that even if she 
 were in the right, that had nothing to do with 
 it, for girls oughtn't to dispute or discuss. 
 And then Henrietta argued that point too. 
 
 Rupert and Henrietta often squabbled, and 
 always about the same sort of thing. I am 
 sure he would have been very kind to her if she 
 would have agreed with him, and done what he 
 wanted. He often told me that the gentlemen 
 of our family had always been courteous to 
 women, and I think he would have done any- 
 thing for Henrietta if it had not been that she 
 would do everything for herself. 
 
 When we wanted to vex her very much, we 
 used to call her " Monkey," because we knew 
 she liked to be like a boy. She persuaded 
 
 10 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. II 
 
 Mother to let her have her boots made like 
 ours, because, she said, the roads were so rough 
 and muddy (which they are). And we found 
 two of her books with her name written in, and 
 she had put " Henry," and Rupert wrote Etta 
 after it, and " Monkey" after that. So she 
 tore the leaves out. Her hair was always com- 
 ing out of curl. It was very dark, and when it 
 fell into her eyes she used to give her head a 
 peculiar shake and toss, so that half of it fell 
 the wrong way, and there was a parting at the 
 side, like our partings. Nothing made Rupert 
 angrier than this. 
 
 Henrietta was very good at inventing things. 
 Once she invented a charade quite like a 
 story. Rupert was very much pleased with it, 
 because he was to act the hero, who was to be 
 a young cavalier of a very old family our 
 family. He was to arrive at an inn ; Henrietta 
 made it the real old inn in the middle of the 
 town, and I was the innkeeper, with Henrietta's 
 pillow to make me fat, and one of Nurse's clean 
 aprons. Then he was to ask to spend a night 
 in the old castle, and Henrietta made that the 
 real Castle, which was about nine miles off, and 
 which belonged to our cousin, though he never 
 
12 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 spoke to us. And a ghost was to appear, the 
 ghost of the ancestor in the miniature in 
 Mother's bedroom. Henrietta did the ghost 
 in a white sheet ; and with her hair combed, 
 and a burnt cork mustache, she looked so 
 exactly like the picture that Rupert started 
 when she came in, and stared ; and Mother 
 said he had acted splendidly. 
 
 Henrietta was wonderfully like the picture. 
 Much more like than Rupert ever was, which 
 rather vexed him, because that ancestor was 
 one of the very bravest, and his name was 
 Rupert. He was rather vexed, too, when she 
 rode the pony bare-backed which had kicked 
 him off. But I think the pony was fonder of 
 Henrietta, which perhaps made it easier for her 
 to manage it. She used to feed it with bits of 
 bread. It got them out of her pocket. 
 
 One of the things Henrietta could not do as 
 well as Rupert was cricket. Rupert was one of 
 the best players in the school. Henrietta used 
 to want to play with us at home, and she and I 
 did play for a bit, before breakfast, in the dry- 
 ing-ground ; but Rupert said, if I encouraged 
 her in being unladylike, he would not let me 
 come to the school matches. He said I might 
 

 SHE RODE THE PONY BAREBACKED." 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 15 
 
 take my choice, and play either with girls or 
 boys, but not with both. But I thought it 
 would be very mean to leave Henrietta in the 
 lurch. So I told her I would stick by her, as 
 Rupert had not actually forbidden me. He had 
 given me my choice, and he always kept his 
 word. But she would not let me. She pre- 
 tended that she did not mind ; but I knew she 
 did, for I could see afterwards that she had 
 been crying. However, she would not play, 
 and Mother said she had much rather she did 
 not, as she was so afraid of her getting hit by the 
 ball. So that settled it, and I was very glad not 
 to have to give up going to the school matches. 
 
 The school we went to was the old town 
 grammar school. It was a very famous one ; 
 but it was not so expensive as big public schools 
 are, and I believe this was why we lived in this 
 town after my father's death, for Mother was 
 not at all rich. 
 
 The grammar school was very large, and there 
 were all sorts of boys there sons of gentle- 
 men, and tradesmen, and farmers. Some of the 
 boys were so very dirty, and had such horrid 
 habits out of school, that when Rupert was 
 thirteen, and I was ten, he called a council at 
 
1 6 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 the beginning of the half, and a lot of the boys 
 formed a committee and drew up the code of 
 honor, and we all subscribed to it. 
 
 The code of honor was to forbid a lot of 
 things that had been very common in the 
 school : lying, cheating over bargains, telling 
 tales, bragging, bad language, and what the code 
 called " conduct unbecoming schoolfellows and 
 gentlemen." There were a lot of rules in it, 
 too, about clean nails, and shirts, and collars, 
 and socks, and things of that sort. If any boy 
 refused to agree to it, he had to fight with 
 Thomas Johnson. 
 
 There could not have been a better person 
 than Rupert to make a code of honor. We 
 have always been taught that honor was the 
 watchword of our family dearer than any- 
 thing that could be gained or lost, very much 
 dearer than mere life. The motto of our arms 
 came from an ancestor who lost the favor of 
 the King by refusing to do something against 
 his conscience for which he would have been 
 rewarded. It is, " Honor before honors." 
 
 I can just remember the man, with iron-gray 
 hair and gold spectacles, who came to our house 
 after my father's death. I think he was a 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. If 
 
 lawyer. He took lots of snuff, so ~that Hen- 
 rietta sneezed when he kissed her, which made 
 her very angry. He put Rupert and me in 
 front of him, to see which of us was most like 
 my father, and I can recall the big pinch of 
 snuff he took, and the sound of his voice say- 
 ing, " Be like your father, boys ! He was as 
 good as he was gallant. And there never lived 
 a more honorable gentleman." 
 
 Every one said the same. We were very 
 proud of it, and always boasted about our 
 father to the new nursemaids, or any other 
 suitable hearer. I was a good deal annoyed 
 by one little maid, who, when I told her, over 
 our nursery tea, that my father had been the 
 most honorable of men, began to cry about her 
 father, who was dead too, and said he was "just 
 the same ; for in the one and twenty years he 
 kept a public-house, he never put so much as a 
 pinch of salt into the beer, nor even a gill of 
 water, unless it was in the evening at fair-time, 
 when the only way to keep the men from fight- 
 ing was to give them their liquor so that it 
 could not do them much harm." I was very 
 much offended by the comparison of my father, 
 who was an officer and a gentleman of rank, 
 
1 8 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 with her father, who was a village publican ; 
 but I should like to say that I think now that 
 I was wrong and Jane was right. If her father 
 gave up profit for principle, he was like my 
 father, and like the ancestors we get the motto 
 from, and like every other honorable man, of 
 any rank or any trade. 
 
 Every time I boasted in the nursery of my 
 father being so honorable, I always finished 
 by saying, that that was why he had the word 
 Honorable before his name, as men in old times 
 used to be called "the Good," or "the Lion 
 Heart." The nursemaids quite believed it, 
 and I believed it myself, till the first week I 
 went to school. 
 
 It makes me hot all over to remember what 
 I suffered that week, and for long afterwards. 
 But I think it cured me of bragging, which 
 is a mean, ungentlemanly habit, and of telling 
 everybody everything about myself and my 
 relations, which is very weak-minded. 
 
 The second day I was there, one of the 
 boys came up to me and said, with a mock 
 ceremony and* politeness which unfortunately 
 took me in, " If I am not mistaken, sir, that 
 esteemed lady, your mother, is an Honorable?" 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 1 9 
 
 He was nearly five years older ttiatv I ; his 
 name was Weston ; he had a thin, cadaverous 
 face, a very large nose, and a very melancholy 
 expression. I found out afterwards that he 
 was commonly called " the Clown," and was 
 considered by boys who had been to the 
 London theatres to surpass the best profes- 
 sional comic actors, when he chose to put 
 forth his powers. I did not know this then. 
 I thought him a little formal, but particularly 
 courteous in his manner, and not wishing to 
 be behindhand in politeness, I replied, with as 
 much of his style as I could assume, " Cer- 
 tainly, sir. But that is because my father was 
 an Honorable. My father, sir, was the most 
 honorable of men." 
 
 A slight spasm appeared to pass over Wes- 
 ton's face, and then he continued the conver- 
 sation in a sadder tone than the subject seemed 
 to require ; but I supposed that this was due to 
 his recalling that my father was dead. 
 
 I confess that it did not need many leading 
 inquiries to draw from me such a narrative of 
 my father's valor and high principle, as well 
 as the noble sentiments and conspicuous brav- 
 ery which have marked our family from Saxon 
 
2O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 times, as I was well accustomed to pour forth 
 for the edification of our nursemaids. I had 
 not proceeded far, when my new friend said, 
 " Won't you walk in and take a seat ? " It 
 was recreation time, and the other boys were all 
 out in the playground. I had no special friend 
 as yet ; Rupert had stuck to me all the first 
 day, and had now left me to find my own level. 
 I had lingered near the door as we came out, 
 and there Weston had joined me. He now 
 led me back into the deserted schoolroom, 
 and we sat down together on an old black oak 
 locker, at the bottom of the room. 
 
 How well I remember the scene ! The 
 dirty floor, the empty benches, the torn books 
 sprinkled upon the battered desks, the dusty 
 sunshine streaming in, the white-faced clock 
 on the wall opposite, over which the hands 
 moved with almost incredible rapidity. But 
 when does time ever fly so fast as with people 
 who are talking about themselves or their 
 relations ? 
 
 Once the mathematical master passed through 
 the room. He glanced at us curiously, but 
 Weston's face was inscrutable, and I tra- 
 cing some surprise that I should have secured so 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 21 
 
 old and so fine-mannered a boy for a friend held 
 up my head, and went on with my narrative, as 
 fluently as I could, to show that I had parts 
 which justified Weston in his preference. 
 
 Tick, tack ! went the clock. Click, clack ! 
 went my tongue. I fear that quite half an 
 hour must have passed, when a big boy, with 
 an open face, blue eyes, and closely curling 
 fair hair, burst in. On seeing us he ex- 
 claimed, " Hulloh ! " and then stopped, I sus- 
 pect in obedience to Weston's eyes, which 
 met his in a brief but expressive gaze. Then 
 Weston turned to me. 
 
 "Allow me," said he, "to introduce Mr. 
 Thomas Johnson. He bears a very high char- 
 acter in this school, and it will afford him the 
 keenest satisfaction to hear an authentic ac- 
 count of such a man as your esteemed father, 
 whose character should be held up for the 
 imitation of young gentlemen in every estab- 
 lishment for the education of youth." 
 
 I blushed with pride and somewhat with 
 nervousness as Mr. Thomas Johnson seated 
 himself on the locker on the other side of me 
 and begged (with less elegance of expression 
 than my first friend) that I would "go ahead." 
 
22 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 I did so. But a very few minutes exhausted 
 the patience of my new hearer. When he had 
 kicked a loose splinter of wood satisfactorily off 
 the leg of one of the desks he began to look at 
 the clock, which quickened my pace from my 
 remoter ancestors to what the colonel of the 
 regiment in which my father was an ensign had 
 said of him. I completed my narrative at last 
 with the lawyer's remark, and added, "and 
 everybody says the same. And that is why my 
 father had ' The Honorable ' before his name, 
 just as " etc., etc. 
 
 I had no sooner uttered these words than 
 Johnson started from his seat, and, covering 
 his face with a spotted silk pocket-handkerchief, 
 rushed precipitately from the schoolroom. For 
 one brief instant I fancied I heard him choking 
 with laughter, but when I turned to Weston he 
 got up too, with a look of deep concern. " Mr. 
 Johnson is taken very unwell, I fear," said he. 
 " It is a peculiar kind of spasm to which he is 
 subject. Excuse me ! " 
 
 He hurried anxiously after his friend, and I 
 was left alone in the schoolroom, into which 
 the other boys shortly began to pour. 
 
 " Have you been all alone, old fellow ? " said 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 23 
 
 Rupert kindly ; " I hoped you had picked up a 
 chum." 
 
 " So I have," was my proud reply; "two 
 chums." 
 
 " I hope they're decent fellows," said Rupert. 
 (He had a most pestilent trick of perpetually 
 playing monitor, to the wet-blanketing of all 
 good-fellowship.) 
 
 " You know best," said I pertly ; " it's Weston 
 and Johnson. We've been together a long time." 
 
 " Weston ? " cried Rupert. " I hope to good- 
 ness, Charlie, you've not been playing the fool ! " 
 
 "You can ask them," said I, and tossing my 
 head, I went to my proper place. 
 
 For the rest of school-time I wore a lofty, 
 and Rupert an anxious, demeanor. Secure on 
 the level of a higher friendship, I was mean 
 enough to snub the friendly advances of one 
 or two of the younger boys. 
 
 When we went home at night, I found my 
 mother much more ready than Rupert to be- 
 lieve that my merits had gained for me the 
 regard of two of the upper boys. I was exul- 
 tantly happy. Not a qualm disturbed the 
 waking dreams in which (after I was in bed) I 
 retold my family tale at even greater length 
 
24 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 than before, except that I remembered one or 
 two incidents which, in the excitement of the 
 hour, I had forgotten when in school. 
 
 I was rather sorry, too, that, bound by the 
 strictest of injunctions from Rupert and my 
 own promise, I had not been able, ever so 
 casually, to make my new friends aware that 
 among my other advantages was that of being 
 first cousin to a peer, the very one who lived 
 at the Castle. The Castle was a show place, 
 and I knew that many of my schoolfellows were 
 glad enough to take their friends and go them- 
 selves to be shown by the housekeeper the 
 pictures of my ancestors. On this point they 
 certainly had an advantage over me. I had not 
 seen the pictures. Our cousin never called on 
 us, and never asked us to the Castle, and of 
 course we could not go to our father's old home 
 like common holiday-making townspeople. 
 
 I would rather not say very much about the 
 next day. It must seem almost incredible that 
 I could have failed to see that Weston and 
 Johnson were making fun of me ; and I confess 
 that it was not for want of warnings that I had 
 made a fool of myself. 
 
 I had looked forward to going to school with 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 2$ 
 
 about equal measures of delight ancl dread ; my 
 pride and ambition longed for this first step in 
 life, but Rupert had filled me with a wholesome 
 awe of its stringent etiquette, its withering 
 ridicule, and unsparing severities. However, 
 in his anxiety to make me modest and circum- 
 spect, I think he rather overpainted the picture, 
 and when I got through the first day without 
 being bullied, and made such creditable friends 
 on the second, I began to think that Rupert's 
 experience of school life must be due to some 
 lack of those social and conversational powers 
 with which I seemed to be better endowed. 
 And then Weston's acting would have deceived 
 a wiser head than mine. And the nursemaids 
 had always listened so willingly ! 
 
 As it happened, Rupert was unwell next day 
 and could not go to school. He was obviously 
 afraid of my going alone, but I had no fears. 
 My self-satisfaction was not undone till play- 
 time. Then, not a boy dispersed to games. 
 They all gathered round Weston in the play- 
 ground, and with a confident air I also made 
 my way to his side. As he turned his face to 
 me I was undeceived. 
 
 Weston was accustomed at such times as 
 
26 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 suited his caprice and his resources to give 
 exhibitions of his genius for mimicry to the 
 rest of the boys. I had heard from Rupert of 
 these entertainments, which were much admired 
 by the school. They commonly consisted of 
 funny dialogues between various worthies of the 
 place, well known to everybody, which made 
 Weston's audience able to judge of the accu- 
 racy of his imitations. From the head-master 
 to the idiot who blew the organ bellows in 
 church, every inhabitant of the place who was 
 gifted with any recognizable peculiarity was 
 personated at one time or another by the wit 
 of our school. The favorite imitation of all 
 was supposed to be one of the Dialogues of 
 Plato, " omitted by some strange oversight in 
 the edition which graces the library of our 
 learned and respected doctor," Weston would 
 say with profound gravity. The Dialogue was 
 between Dr. Jessop and Silly Billy, the idiot 
 already referred to, and the apposite Latin 
 quotations of the head-master and his pompous 
 English, with the inapposite replies of the 
 organ - blower, given in the local dialect and 
 Billy's own peculiar jabber, were supposed to 
 form a masterpiece of mimicry. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 2/ 
 
 Little did I think that my family chronicle 
 was to supply Weston with a new field for his 
 talents. 
 
 In the midst of my shame, I could hardly 
 help admiring the clever way in which he had 
 remembered all the details, and twisted them 
 into a comic ballad, which he had composed 
 overnight, and which he now recited with a 
 mock heroic air and voice which made every 
 point tell, and kept the boys in convulsions of 
 laughter. Not a smile crossed his long lan- 
 tern-jawed face; but Mr. Thomas Johnson 
 made no effort this time to hide a severe fit 
 of his peculiar spasms in his spotted hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 Sometimes at night, in the very bottom of 
 my own heart, when the darkness seemed 
 thick with horrors, and when I could not make 
 up my mind whether to keep my ears strained 
 to catch the first sound of anything dreadful, 
 or to pull the blankets over my head and run 
 the risk of missing it, in such moments, I say, 
 I have had a passing private doubt whether 
 I had inherited my share of the family instinct 
 of courage at a crisis. 
 
 It was therefore a relief to me to feel that in 
 
28 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 this moment of despair, when I was only wait- 
 ing till the boys, being no longer amused by 
 Weston, should turn to amuse themselves with 
 me, my first and strongest feeling was a sense 
 of relief that Rupert was not at school, and that 
 I could bear the fruits of my own folly on my 
 own shoulders. To be spared his hectoring 
 and lecturing, his hurt pride, his reproaches, 
 and rage with me, and a probable fight with 
 Weston, in which he must have been seriously 
 hurt and I should have been blamed, this was 
 some comfort. 
 
 I had got my lesson well by heart. Fifty 
 thousand preachers in fifty thousand pulpits 
 could never have taught me so effectually as 
 Weston's ballad and the laughter of his audi- 
 ence, that there is less difference than one 
 would like to believe between the vanity of 
 bragging of oneself and the vanity of bragging 
 of one's relations. Also, that it is not digni- 
 fied or discreet to take new acquaintances into 
 your entire confidence ; and that, even if one 
 is blessed with friends of such quick sympathy 
 that they really enjoy hearing about people 
 they have never seen, it is well not to 
 abuse the privilege, and now and then to 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 2Q 
 
 allow them an " innings " at describing their 
 remarkable parents, brothers, sisters, and re- 
 moter relatives. 
 
 I realized all this fully as I stood, with burn- 
 ing cheeks and downcast eyes, at the very elbow 
 of my tormentor. But I am glad to know that 
 I would not have run away even if I could. My 
 resolution grew stubborner with every peal of 
 laughter, to bear whatever might come with 
 pluck and good temper. I had been a fool, but 
 I would show that I was not a coward. 
 
 I was very glad that Rupert's influenza 
 kept him at home for a few days. I told him 
 briefly that I had been bullied, but that it was 
 my own fault, and I would rather say no more 
 about it. I begged him to promise that he 
 would not take up my quarrel in any way, but 
 leave me to fight it out for myself, which he 
 did. When he came back, I think he regretted 
 his promise. Happily, he never heard all the 
 ballad, but the odd verses which the boys sang 
 about the place put him into a fury. It was a 
 long time before he forgave me, and I doubt if 
 he ever quite forgave Weston. 
 
 I held out as well as I could. I made no 
 complaint, and kept my temper. I must say 
 
3O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 that Henrietta behaved uncommonly well to 
 me at this time. 
 
 "After all, you know, Charlie," she said, 
 " you've not done anything really wrong or dis- 
 honorable." This was true, and it comforted 
 me. 
 
 Except Henrietta, I really had not a friend ; 
 for Rupert was angry with me, and the holding 
 up at school only made me feel worse at home. 
 
 At last, the joke began to die out, and I was 
 getting on very well, but for one boy, a heavy- 
 looking fellow with a pasty face, who was always 
 creeping after me and asking me to tell him 
 about my father. "Johnson Minor/' we called 
 him. He was a younger brother of Thomas 
 Johnson, the champion of the code of honor. 
 
 He was older than I, but he was below me 
 in class, and though he was bigger, he was not 
 a very great deal bigger ; and if there is any 
 truth in the stories I have so often told, our 
 family has been used to fight against odds for 
 many generations. 
 
 I thought about this a good deal, and meas- 
 ured Johnson Minor with my eye. At last, I 
 got Henrietta to wrestle and box with me for 
 practice. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 She was always willing to do anything torn- 
 boyish, indeed, she was generally willing to do 
 anything one wanted, and her biceps were as 
 hard as mine, for I pinched them to see. We 
 
 got two pairs of gloves, much too big for us, 
 and stuffed cotton-wool in to make them like 
 boxing-gloves, as we used to stuff out the buff- 
 colored waistcoat when we acted old gentleman 
 
32 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 in it. But it did not do much good ; for I did 
 not like to hurt Henrietta when I got a chance, 
 and I do not think she liked to hurt me. So 
 I took to dumb-belling every morning in my 
 night-shirt ; and at last I determined I would 
 have it out with Johnson Minor, once for all. 
 
 One afternoon, when the boys had been very 
 friendly with me, and were going to have me in 
 the paper chase on Saturday, he came up in the 
 old way and began asking me about my father, 
 quite gravely, like a sort of poor imitation of 
 Weston. So I turned round and said, " What- 
 ever my father was, he's dead. Your father's 
 alive, Johnson, and if you weren't a coward, you 
 wouldn't go on bullying a fellow who hasn't got 
 one." 
 
 " I'm a coward, am I, Master Honorable ? " 
 said Johnson, turning scarlet, and at the word 
 Honorable I thought he had broken my nose. 
 I never felt such pain in my life, but it was the 
 only pain I felt on the occasion ; afterwards I 
 was too much excited. I am sorry that I can- 
 not remember very clearly about it, which I 
 should have liked to do, as it was my first 
 fight. 
 
 There was no time to fight properly. I was 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 33 
 
 obliged to do the best I could. 1 made a sort 
 of rough plan in my head, that I would cling to 
 Johnson as long as I was able, and hit him 
 whenever I got a chance. I did not quite know 
 when he was hitting me from when I was 
 hitting him ; but I know that I held on, and 
 that the ground seemed to be always hitting us 
 both. 
 
 How long we had been struggling and cuffing 
 and hitting (less scientifically but more effectu- 
 ally than when Henrietta and I flourished our 
 stuffed driving-gloves, with strict and constant 
 reference to the woodcuts in a sixpenny Boxer's 
 Guide) before I got slightly stunned, I do not 
 know ; when I came around I was lying in 
 Weston's arms, and Johnson Minor was weep- 
 ing bitterly (as he believed) over my corpse. 
 I fear Weston had not allayed his remorse. 
 
 My great anxiety was to shake hands with 
 Johnson. I never felt more friendly towards 
 any one. 
 
 He met me in the handsomest way. He 
 apologized for speaking of my father, " Since 
 you don't like it," he added, with an appearance 
 of sincerity which puzzled me at the time, and 
 which I did not understand till afterwards, 
 
34 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and I apologized for calling him a coward. We 
 were always good friends, and our fight made an 
 end of the particular chaff which had caused it. 
 
 It reconciled Rupert to me, too, which was 
 my greatest gain. 
 
 Rupert is quite right. There is nothing like 
 being prepared for emergencies. I suppose, as 
 I was stunned, that Johnson got the best of it ; 
 but judging from his appearance as we washed 
 ourselves at the school pump, I was now quite 
 prepared for the emergency of having to defend 
 myself against any boy not twice my own size. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL CRICKET. LEMON-KALI. THE BOYS* 
 
 BRIDGE. AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY. 
 
 RUPERT and I were now the best of good 
 friends again. I cared more for his favor than 
 for the good-will of any one else, and kept as 
 much with him as I could. 
 
 I played cricket with him in the school 
 matches. At least, I did not bat or bowl, but 
 I and some of the junior fellows " fielded 
 out;" and when Rupert was waiting for the ball, 
 I would have given my life to catch quickly and 
 throw deftly. I used to think no one ever 
 looked so handsome as he did in his orange- 
 colored shirt, white flannel trousers, and the 
 cap which Henrietta made him. He and I had 
 spent all our savings on that new shirt, for 
 Mother would not get him a new one. She 
 did not like cricket, or anything at which 
 people could hurt themselves. But Johnson 
 35 
 
36 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Major had got a new sky-blue shirt and cap, 
 and we did not like Rupert to be outdone 
 by him, for Johnson's father is only a canal- 
 carrier. 
 
 But the shirt emptied our pockets, and 
 made the old cap look worse than ever. Then 
 Henrietta, without saying a word to us, 
 bought some orange flannel, and picked the 
 old cap to pieces and cut out a new one by 
 it, and made it all herself, with a button and a 
 stiff peak and everything ; and it really did per- 
 fectly, and looked very well, in the sunshine, 
 over Rupert's brown face and glossy black 
 hair. 
 
 There always was sunshine when we played 
 cricket. The hotter it was, the better we liked 
 it. We had a bottle of lemon-kali powder on 
 the ground, and I used to have to make fizzing- 
 cup in a tin mug for the other boys. I got the 
 water from the canal. 
 
 Lemon-kali is delicious on a very hot day - 
 so refreshing ! But I sometimes fancied I felt 
 a little sick afterwards^ if I had had a great 
 deal. And Bustard (who was always called 
 Bustard-Plaster, because he was the doctor's 
 son) said it was the dragons out of the canal 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 37 
 
 water lashing their tails inside us. He had 
 seen them under his father's microscope. 
 
 The field where we played was on the banks 
 of the canal, the opposite side to the town. I 
 believe it was school property. At any rate 
 we had the right of playing there. 
 
 We had to go nearly a quarter of a mile out 
 of the way before there was a bridge, and it 
 was very vexatious to toil a quarter of a mile 
 down on one side and a quarter of a mile up on 
 the other to get at a meadow which lay directly 
 opposite to the school. Weston wrote a letter 
 about it to the weekly paper, asking the town 
 to build us a bridge. He wrote splendid let- 
 ters, and this was one of his very best. He 
 
38 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 said that if the town council laughed at the 
 notion of building a bridge for boys, they must 
 remember that the boys of to-day were the 
 men of to-morrow (which we all thought a 
 grand sentence, though MacDonald, a very 
 accurate-minded fellow, said it would really 
 be some years before most of us were grown 
 up). Then Weston called us the Rising Gen- 
 eration, and showed that, in all probability, the 
 Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Primate 
 of the years to come, now played "all uncon- 
 scious of their future fame" in the classic fields 
 that lay beyond the water, and promised that 
 in the hours of our coming greatness we would 
 look back with gratitude to the munificence of 
 our native city. He put lots of Latin in, and 
 ended with some Latin verses of his own, in 
 which he made the Goddess of the Stream 
 plead for us as her sons. By "the Stream " he 
 meant the canal, for we had no river, which 
 of course Weston couldn't help. 
 
 How we watched for the next week's paper ! 
 But it wasn't in. They never did put his things 
 in, which mortified him sadly. His greatest 
 ambition was to get something of his own 
 invention printed. Johnson said he believed 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 39 
 
 it was because Weston always put something 
 personal in the things he wrote. He was very 
 sarcastic, and couldn't help making fun of 
 people. 
 
 It was all the kinder of Weston to do his 
 best about the bridge, because he was not 
 much of a cricketer himself. He said he was 
 too short-sighted, and that it suited him better 
 to poke in the hedges for beetles. He had a 
 splendid collection of insects. Bustard used to 
 say that he poked with his nose, as if he were 
 an insect himself, and it was a proboscis ; but 
 he said, too, that his father said it was a pleas- 
 sure to see Weston make a section of anything, 
 and prepare objects for the microscope. His 
 fingers were as clever as his tongue. 
 
 It was not long after Rupert got his new 
 shirt and cap that a very sad thing happened. 
 
 We were playing cricket one day, as usual. 
 It was tery hot, and I was mixing some lemon- 
 kali at the canal, and holding up the mug to 
 tempt Weston over, who was on the other side 
 with his proboscis among the water-plants, col- 
 lecting larvae. Rupert was batting, and a new 
 fellow, who bowled much more swiftly than 
 we were accustomed to, had the ball. I was 
 
4<D A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 straining my ears to catch what Weston was 
 shouting to me between his hands, when I 
 saw him start and point to the cricketers, 
 and turning round; I saw Rupert lying on the 
 ground. 
 
 The ball had hit him on the knee and 
 knocked him down. He struggled up, and 
 tried to stand ; but whilst he was saying it 
 was nothing and scolding the other fellows for 
 not going on, he fell down again, fainting from 
 pain. 
 
 "The leg's broken, depend upon it," said 
 Bustard Plaster; " shall I run for my father?" 
 
 I thanked him earnestly, for I did not like 
 to leave Rupert myself. But Johnson Major, 
 who was kicking off his cricketing shoes, said, 
 " It'll take an hour to get 'round ; I'll go. Get 
 him some water, and keep his cap on ; the 
 sun is blazing." And before we could speak 
 he was in the canal and swimming across. 
 
 I went back to the bank for my mug, in 
 which the lemon-kali was fizzing itself out, and 
 with this I got some water for Rupert, and at 
 last he opened his eyes. As I was getting the 
 water, I saw Weston unmooring a boat which, 
 was fastened a little farther up. He was evi- 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 4! 
 
 dently coming to help us to get Rupert across 
 the canal. 
 
 Bustard's words rang in my ears. Perhaps 
 Rupert's leg was broken. Bustard was a 
 doctor's son, and ought to know. And I 
 have often thought it must be a very diffi- 
 cult tiling to know, for people's legs don't 
 break right off when they break. My first 
 feeling had been utter bewilderment and mis- 
 ery ; but I collected my senses with the reflec- 
 tion that, if I lost my presence of mind in 
 the first real emergency that happened to me, 
 my attendance at Rupert's lectures had been 
 a mockery, and I must be the first fool and 
 coward of my family. And if I failed in the 
 emergency of a broken leg, how could I ever 
 hope to conduct myself with credit over a case 
 of drowning ? I did feel thankful that Rupert's 
 welfare did not depend on our pulling his arms 
 up and down in a particular way ; but as Wes- 
 ton was just coming ashore, I took out my 
 pocket-handkerchief, and kneeling down by 
 Rupert said, with as good an air as I could 
 assume, "We must tie the broken leg to the 
 other at the " 
 
 " Dorit touch it, you young fool ! " shrieked 
 
42 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Rupert. And though directly afterwards he 
 begged my pardon for speaking sharply, he 
 would not hear of my touching his leg. 
 So they got him into the boat the best way 
 they could, and Weston sat by him to hold 
 him up ; and the boy who had been bowling 
 pulled them across. I wasn't big enough to do 
 either, so I had to run around by the bridge. 
 
 I fancy it must be easier to act with pres- 
 ence of mind if the emergency has happened 
 to somebody who has not been used to order- 
 ing you about as much as Rupert was used to 
 ordering me. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DOUBTFUL BLESSING. A FAMILY FAILING. 
 
 OLD BATTLES. THE CANAL-CARRIER'S 
 
 HOME. 
 
 WHEN we found that Rupert's leg was not 
 broken, and that it was only a severe blow on 
 his knee, we were all delighted. But when 
 weeks and months went by and he was still 
 lame and very pale, and always tired, we began 
 to count for how long past it would have been 
 set, and poor Rupert quite well, if the leg had 
 been broken. And when Johnny Bustard said 
 that legs and arms were often stronger after 
 being broken than before (if they were properly 
 set, as his father could do them), we felt that, if 
 Gregory would bowl for people's shins, he had 
 better break them at once, and let Mr. Bustard 
 make a good job of them. 
 
 The first part of the time Rupert made light 
 of his accident, and wanted to go back to school, 
 43 
 
44 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and was very irritable and impatient. But as 
 the year went on, he left off talking about its 
 being all nonsense, and though he suffered a 
 great deal, he never complained. I used quite 
 to miss his lecturing me, but he did not even 
 squabble with Henrietta now. 
 
 This reminds me of a great fault of mine, 
 I am afraid it was a family failing, though it is 
 a very mean one, I was jealous. If I were 
 "particular friends" with any one, I liked to 
 have him all to myself ; when Rupert was 
 "out" with me because of the Weston affair, 
 I was "particular friends" with Henrietta. I 
 did not exactly give her up when Rupert and I 
 were all right again, but when she complained 
 one day (I think she was jealous, too !), I said, 
 "I'm particular friends with you as a sister 
 still ; but you know Rupert and I are both 
 boys." 
 
 I did love Rupert very dearly, and I would 
 have given up anything and everything to serve 
 him and wait upon him now that he was laid 
 up ; but I would rather have had him all to 
 myself, whereas Henrietta was now his particu- 
 lar friend. It is because I know how meanly 
 I felt about it that I should like to say how 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 45 
 
 good she was. My mother was very delicate, 
 and she had a horror of accidents ; but Hen- 
 rietta stood at Mr. Bustard's elbow all the time 
 he was examining Rupert's knee, and after that 
 she always did the fomentations and things. 
 At first, Rupert said she hurt him, and would 
 have Nurse to do it ; but Nurse hurt him so 
 much more that then he would not let any- 
 body but Henrietta touch it. And he never 
 called her Monkey now, and I could see how 
 she tried to please him. One day she came 
 down to breakfast with her hair all done up in 
 the way that was in fashion then, like a 
 grown-up young lady, and I think Rupert was 
 pleased, though she looked rather funny and 
 very red. And so Henrietta nursed him alto- 
 gether, and used to read battles to him as he 
 lay on the sofa ; and Rupert made plans of the 
 battles on cardboard, and moved bits of pith 
 out of the elder-tree about for the troops, and 
 showed Henrietta how, if he had had the moving 
 of them really, and had done it quite differently 
 from the way the generals did, the other side 
 would have won instead of being beaten. 
 
 And Mother used to say, " That's just the 
 way your poor father used to go on ! As if it 
 
46 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 wasn't enough to have to run the risk of being 
 killed or wounded once or twice yourself, with- 
 out bothering your head about battles you've 
 nothing to do with." 
 
 And when he did the battle in which my 
 father fell, and planted the battery against 
 which he led his men for the last time, and 
 where he was struck under the arm with which 
 he was waving his sword over his head, Rupert 
 turned whiter than ever, and said, " Good 
 heavens, Henrietta ! Father limped up to that 
 battery ! He led his men for two hours after 
 he was wounded in the leg, before he fell, and 
 here I sit and grumble at a knock from a 
 cricket-ball ! " 
 
 Just then Mr. Bustard came in, and when he 
 shook Rupert's hand he kept his fingers on it 
 and shook his own head ; and he said there was 
 an "abnormal condition of the pulse," in such 
 awful tones that I was afraid it was something 
 that Rupert would die of. But Henrietta 
 understood better, and she would not let Ru- 
 pert do that battle any more. 
 
 Rupert's friends were very kind to him when 
 he was ill, but the kindest of all was Thomas 
 Johnson. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 4/ 
 
 Johnson's grandfather was a carfal-carrier, 
 and made a good deal of money, and Johnson's 
 father got the money and went on with the 
 business. We had a great discussion once in 
 the nursery as to whether Johnson's father 
 was a gentleman, and Rupert ran downstairs 
 and into the drawing-room, shouting, " Now, 
 Mother, is a carrier a gentleman ? " 
 
 And Mother, who was lying on the sofa, said, 
 " Of course not. What silly things you children 
 do ask ! Why can't you amuse yourselves in the 
 nursery ? It is very hard you should come and 
 disturb me for such a nonsensical question."* 
 
 Rupert was always good to Mother, and he 
 shut the drawing-room door very gently. Then 
 he came rushing up to the nursery to say that 
 Mother said, " Of course not." But Henrietta 
 said, "What did you ask her?" And when 
 Rupert told her, she said, " Of course Mother 
 thought you meant one of those men who have 
 carts to carry things, with a hood on the top 
 and a dog underneath." 
 
 Johnson's father and grandfather were not 
 carriers of that kind. They owned a lot of 
 canal-boats and one or two big barges, which 
 took all kinds of things all the way to London. 
 
48 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Mr. Johnson used to say, " In my father's 
 time, men of business lived near their work 
 both in London and the country. That's why 
 my house is close to the wharf. I'm not 
 ashamed of my trade, and the place is very 
 comfortable, so I shall stick to it. Tom may 
 move into the town, and give the old house to 
 the foreman when I am gone, if he likes to 
 play the fine gentleman." 
 
 Tom would be very foolish if he did. It is 
 the dearest old house one could wish for. It 
 was built of red brick, but the ivy has covered 
 it so thickly that it is clipped around the old- 
 fashioned windows like a hedge. The gardens 
 are simply perfect. In summer you can pick 
 as many flowers and eat as much fruit as you 
 like, and if that is not the use and beauty of a 
 garden, I do not know what is. 
 
 Johnson's father was very proud of him, and let 
 him have anything he liked ; and in the midsum- 
 mer holidays Johnson used to bring his father's 
 trap and take Rupert out for drives, and Mrs. 
 Johnson used to put meat pies and strawberries 
 in a basket under the seat, so that it was a kind 
 of picnic, for the old horse had belonged to Mr. 
 Bustard and was a capital one for standing still. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 49 
 
 It was partly because of the Johnsons being 
 so kind to Rupert that Johnson Minor and I 
 became chums at school, and partly because 
 the fight had made us friendly and I had no 
 Rupert now, and was rather jealous of his 
 taking completely to Henrietta, and most of 
 all, I fancy, because Johnson Minor was deter- 
 mined to be friends with me. He was a very 
 odd fellow. There was nothing he liked so 
 much as wonderful stories about people, and I 
 never heard such wonderful stories as he told 
 himself. When we became friends, he told me 
 he had never meant to bully me when he asked 
 about my father ; he really did want to hear 
 about his battles, and so forth. 
 
 But the utmost I could tell him about my 
 father was nothing to the tales he told me 
 about his grandfather, the navy captain. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NAVY CAPTAIN. SEVEN PARROTS IN A 
 
 FUCHSIA-TREE. THE HARBOR LION AND THE 
 
 SILVER CHAIN. THE LEGLESS GIANTS. - 
 
 DOWN BELOW. JOHNSON'S WHARF. 
 
 THE Johnsons were very fond of their father, 
 he was such a good, kind man ; but I think they 
 would have been glad if he had had a profession 
 instead of being a canal-carrier, and I am sure 
 it pleased them to think that Mrs. Johnson's 
 father had been a navy captain, and that his 
 portrait uniform and all -- hung over the 
 horsehair sofa in the dining-room, near the 
 window where the yellow roses used to come 
 in. 
 
 If I could get the room to myself, I used to 
 kneel on the sofa, on one of the bolsters, and 
 gaze at the faded little picture till I lost my 
 balance on the slippery horsehair, from the in- 
 tensity of my interest in the hero of Johnson 
 50 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 51 
 
 . 
 
 Minors tales. Every time, I think, I expected 
 to see some change in the expression of the 
 Captain's red face, adapting it better to what, 
 by his grandson's account, his character must 
 have been. It seemed so odd he should look 
 so wooden after having seen so much. 
 
 The Captain had been a native of South 
 Devon. 
 
 " Raleigh, Drake, my grandfather, and lots of 
 other great sailors were born in Devonshire," 
 Johnson said. He certainly did brag ; but he 
 spoke so slowly and quietly that it did not 
 sound so much like bragging as it would have 
 done if he had talked faster, I think. 
 
 The Captain had lived at Dartmouth, and of 
 this place Johnson gave me such descriptions 
 that, to this day, the name of Dartmouth has 
 a romantic sound in my ears, though I know 
 now that all the marvels were Johnson's own 
 invention, and barely founded upon the real 
 quaintness of the place, of which he must have 
 heard from his mother. It became the high- 
 est object of my ambition to see the Captain's 
 native city. That there must be people shop- 
 keepers, for instance, and a man to keep the 
 post-office who lived there all along, was a 
 
52 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 fact that I could not realize sufficiently to envy 
 them. 
 
 Johnson or Fred, as I used to call him by 
 this time only exaggerated the truth about 
 the shrubs that grow in the greenhouse atmos- 
 phere of South Devon, when he talked of the 
 Captain's fuchsia-trees being as big as the old 
 willows by the canal wharf ; but the parrots 
 must have been a complete invention. He 
 said the Captain had seven. Two green, two 
 crimson, two blue, and one violet with an 
 orange-colored beak and gray lining to his 
 wings ; and that they built nests in the fuchsia- 
 trees of sandal-wood shavings, and lined them 
 with the Captain's silk pocket-handkerchiefs. 
 He said that though the parrots stole the Cap- 
 tain's handkerchiefs, they were all very much 
 attached to him ; but they quarrelled among 
 themselves, and swore at each other in seven 
 dialects of the West Coast of Africa. 
 
 Mrs. Johnson herself once showed me a little 
 print of the harbor, and told me that it was 
 supposed that in old times an iron chain was 
 stretched from rock to rock across its mouth as 
 a means of defence. And that afternoon Fred 
 told me a splendid story about the chain, and 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 53 
 
 how it was made of silver, and that each link 
 was worth twenty pounds, and how, at the end 
 where it was fastened with a padlock every 
 night, at sunset to keep out the French, a lion 
 sat on a ledge of rock at the harbor's mouth, 
 with the key tied round his neck by a sea-green 
 ribbon. He had to have a new ribbon on the 
 first Sunday in every month, Fred said, because 
 his mane dirtied them so fast. A story which 
 Fred had, of his grandfather's single-handed 
 encounter with this lion on one occasion, when 
 the gallant Captain would let a brig in distress 
 into the harbor after sunset, and the lion would 
 not let him have the key, raised my opinion of 
 his courage and his humanity to the highest 
 point. But what he did at home was nothing 
 to the exploits which Fred recounted of him in 
 foreign lands. 
 
 I fancy Fred must have read some real 
 accounts of South America, the tropical for- 
 ests, the wonderful birds and flowers, and the 
 ruins of those buried cities which have no 
 history; and that on these real marvels he 
 built up his own romances of the Great Stone 
 City, where the Captain encountered an awful 
 race of giants with no legs, who carved stones 
 
54 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 into ornaments with clasp-knives as the Swiss 
 cut out pretty things in wood, and cracked 
 the cocoanuts with their ringers. I am sure 
 he invented flowers as he went along, when 
 he was telling me about the forests. He used 
 to look around the garden (which would have 
 satisfied any one who had not seen or heard of 
 what the Captain had come across), and say in 
 his slow way, "The blue chalice - flower was 
 about the shape of that magnolia, only twice 
 as big, and just the color of the gentians in 
 the border, and it had a great white tassel 
 hanging out like the cactus in the parlor win- 
 dow, and all the leaves were yellow underneath ; 
 and it smelt like rosemary." 
 
 If the Captain's experiences in other countries 
 outshone what had befallen him in his native 
 land, both of these paled before the wonders 
 he had seen, and the emergencies he had been 
 placed in at sea. Fred told me that his grand- 
 father had a diving-bell of his own on board his 
 own ship, and the things he saw when he went 
 down in it must have made his remembrances 
 of the South American forests appear tame by 
 comparison. 
 
 Once, in the middle of the Pacific, the Captain 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 55 
 
 dropped down in his bell into the midst of a 
 society of sea people who had no hair, but the 
 backs of their heads were shaped like sou'- 
 wester hats. The front rim formed one eye- 
 brow for both eyes, and they could move the 
 peak behind as beavers move their tails, and it 
 helped them to go up and down in the water. 
 They were not exactly mermaids, Fred said; 
 they had no particular tail, it all ended in a 
 kind of fringe of seaweed, which swept after 
 them, when they moved, like the train of a lady's 
 dress. The Captain was so delighted with them 
 that he stayed below much longer than usual ; 
 but in an unlucky moment some of the sea 
 people let the water into the diving-bell, and 
 the Captain was nearly drowned. He did be- 
 come senseless, but when his body floated, it 
 was picked up and restored to life by the 
 first mate, who, with tears in his eyes, had been 
 cruising over the spot, in the ship's boat, for 
 seven days without taking anything to eat. 
 "He was a Dartmouth man, too," said Fred 
 Johnson. 
 
 " He evidently knew what to do in the emer- 
 gency of drowning," thought I. 
 
 I feel as if any one who hears of Fred's 
 
56 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 stories must think he was a liar. But he 
 really was not. Mr. Johnson was very strict 
 with the boys in some ways, though he was 
 so good-natured, and Fred had been taught to 
 think a lie to get himself out of a scrape, or 
 anything of that sort, quite as wrong as we 
 should have thought it. But he liked telling 
 things. I believe he made them up and amused 
 himself with them in his own head if he had 
 no one to listen. He used to say, " Come and 
 sit in the kitchen-garden this afternoon, and I'll 
 tell you." And whether he meant me to think 
 them true or not, I certainly did believe in his 
 stories. 
 
 One thing always struck me as very odd 
 about Fred Johnson, He was very fond of 
 fruit, and when we sat on the wall and ate the 
 white currants with pounded sugar in a mug 
 between us, I believe he always ate more than 
 I did, though he was " telling " all the time, 
 and I had nothing to do but listen and eat. 
 
 He certainly talked very slowly, in a dreary, 
 monotonous sort of voice, which suited his 
 dull, pasty face better than it suited the 
 subject of his exciting narratives. But I 
 think it seemed to make one all the more 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 57 
 
 impatient to hear what was coming. A very 
 favorite place of ours for "telling" was 
 the wharf (Johnson's wharf, as it was called), 
 where the canal-boats came and went, and 
 loaded and unloaded. We made a " coast-guard 
 station " among some old timber in the corner, 
 and here we used to sit and watch for the 
 boats. 
 
 When a real barge came we generally went 
 over it, for the men knew Fred, and were very 
 good-natured. The barges seemed more like 
 ships than the canal-boats did. They had 
 masts, and could sail when they got into the 
 river. Sometimes we went down into the 
 cabin, and peeped into the little berths with 
 sliding shutter fronts, and the lockers, which 
 were like a fixed seat running around two sides 
 of the cabin, with lids opening and showing 
 places to put away things in. I was not 
 famous in the nursery for keeping my things 
 very tidy, but I fancied I could stow my 
 clothes away to perfection in a locker, and 
 almost cook my own dinner with the barge- 
 man's little stove. 
 
 And every time a barge was loaded up, and 
 the bargemaster took his post at the rudder, 
 
$8 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 whilst the old horse strained himself to start, 
 and when the heavy boat swung slowly down 
 the canal and passed out of sight, I felt more 
 and more sorry to be left behind upon the 
 wharf. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ST. PHILIP AND ST. JAMES. THE MONKEY- 
 BARGE AND THE DOG. WAR, PLAGUE, AND 
 
 FIRE. THE DULLNESS OF EVERY-DAY LIFE. 
 
 THERE were two churches in our town. Not 
 that the town was so very large or the churches 
 so very small as to make this needful. On the 
 contrary, the town was of modest size, with no 
 traces of having ever been much bigger, and 
 the churches were very large and very hand- 
 some. That is, they were fine outside, and 
 might have been very imposing within but for 
 the painted galleries which blocked up the 
 arches above, and the tall pews which dwarfed 
 the majestic rows of pillars below. They were 
 not more than a quarter of a mile apart. One 
 was dedicated to St. Philip, and the other to St. 
 James, and they were commonly called "the 
 brother churches." In the tower of each hung 
 a peal of eight bells. 
 
 59 
 
60 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 One clergyman served both the brother 
 churches, and the services were at St. Philip 
 one week, and at St. James the next. We were 
 so accustomed to this that it never struck us as 
 odd. What did seem odd, and perhaps a little 
 dull, was that people in other places should 
 have to go to the same church week after week. 
 
 There was only one day in the year on 
 which both the peals of bells were heard, the 
 Feast of SS. Philip and James, which is also 
 May-day. Then there was morning prayer at 
 St. Philip, and evening prayer at St. James, and 
 the bells rang changes and cannons, and went 
 on ringing by turns all the evening, the bell- 
 ringers being escorted from one church to 
 another with May garlands and a sort of 
 triumphal procession. The churches were 
 decorated, and flags put out on the towers, 
 and everybody in the congregation was ex- 
 pected to carry a nosegay. 
 
 Rupert and I and Henrietta and Baby Cecil 
 and the servants always enjoyed this thor- 
 oughly, and thought the churches delightfully 
 sweet ; but my mother said the smell of the 
 cottage nosegays and the noise of the bells 
 made her feel very ill, which was a pity. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 6 1 
 
 Fred Johnson once told me some wonderful 
 stories about the brother churches. We had 
 gone over the canal to a field not far from the 
 cricketing-field, but it was a sort of water- 
 meadow, and lower down, and opposite to the 
 churches, which made us think of them. We 
 had gone there partly to get yellow flags to try 
 and grow them in tubs as Johnson's father did 
 water-lilies, and partly to watch for a canal-boat, 
 or " monkey-barge," which was expected up with 
 coal. Fred knew the old man, and we hoped 
 to go home as part of the cargo if the old 
 man's dog would let us ; but he was a rough 
 terrier, with an exaggerated conscience, and 
 strongly objected to anything coming on 
 board the boat which was not in the bill of 
 lading. He could not even reconcile himself 
 to the fact that people not connected with 
 barges took the liberty of walking on the canal- 
 banks. 
 
 " He've been a-going up and down with me 
 these fifteen year," said the old man, " and he 
 barks at 'm still." He barked so fiercely at us 
 that Fred would not go on board, to my great 
 annoyance, for I never feel afraid of dogs, and 
 was quite sure I could see a disposition to wag 
 
62 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 about the stumpy tail of the terrier, in spite of 
 his " bowfs." 
 
 I may have been wrong, but once or twice I 
 fancied that Fred shirked adventures which 
 seemed nothing to me ; and I felt this to be 
 very odd, because I am not as brave as I should 
 like to be, and Fred is grandson to the navy 
 captain. 
 
 I think Fred wanted to make me forget the 
 canal-boat, which I followed with regretful 
 eyes, for he began talking about the churches. 
 
 " It must be splendid to hear all sixteen bells 
 going at once," said he. 
 
 "They never do," said I, unmollified. 
 
 "They do sometimes" said Fred slowly, 
 and so impressively that I was constrained to 
 answer, "When?" 
 
 " In great emergencies," was Fred's reply, 
 which startled me. But we had only lived in 
 the place for part of our lives, and Fred's 
 family belonged to it, so he must know better 
 than I. 
 
 " Is it to call the doctor ? " I asked, thinking 
 of drowning, and broken bones, and apoplectic 
 fits. 
 
 " It's to call everybody," said Fred ; "that is, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 63 
 
 in time of war, when the town is in danger. 
 And when the Great Plague was here, St. Philip 
 and St. James both tolled all day long with 
 their bells muffled. But when there's a fire 
 they ring backwards, as witches say prayers, 
 you know." 
 
 War and the plague had not been here for a 
 very long time, and there had been no fire in 
 the town in my remembrance ; but Fred said 
 that awful calamities of the kind had happened 
 within the memory of man, when the town was 
 still built in great part of wood, and that one 
 night, during a high gale, the whole place, ex- 
 cept a few houses, had been destroyed by fire. 
 After this the streets were rebuilt of stone and 
 bricks. 
 
 These new tales which Fred told me, of 
 places I knew, had a terrible interest peculiarly 
 their own. For the Captain's dangers were 
 over for good now, but war, plague, and fire in 
 the town might come again. 
 
 I thought of them by day and dreamed of 
 them by night. Once I remember being awak- 
 ened, as I fancied, by the clanging of the two 
 peals in discordant unison, and as I opened my 
 eyes a bright light on the wall convinced me 
 
64 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 that the town was on fire. Fred's vivid descrip- 
 tions rushed to my mind, and I looked out 
 expecting to see St. Philip and St. James stand- 
 ing up like dark rocks in a sea of dancing 
 flames, their bells ringing backwards, "as 
 witches say prayers." It was only when I saw 
 both the towers standing gray and quiet above 
 the gray and quiet town, and when I found 
 that the light upon the wall came from the 
 street-lamp below, that my head seemed to 
 grow clearer, and I knew that no bells were 
 ringing, and that those I fancied I heard were 
 only the prolonged echoes of a bad dream. 
 
 I was very glad that it was so, and I did not 
 exactly wish for war or the plague to come 
 back ; and yet the more I heard of Fred's tales, 
 the more restless I grew because the days were 
 so dull, and because we never went anywhere, 
 and nothing ever happened. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY. SCRUPLES. 
 
 BABY CECIL. I PREPARE. I RUN AWAY. 
 
 I THINK it was Fred's telling me tales of the 
 navy captain's boyhood which put it into our 
 heads that the only way for people at our age, 
 and in our position, to begin a life of adventure 
 is to run away. 
 
 The Captain had run away. He ran away 
 from school. But then, the school was one 
 which it made your hair stand on end to hear 
 of. The master must have been a monster of 
 tyranny, the boys little prodigies of wickedness 
 and misery, and the food such as would have 
 been rejected by respectably reared pigs. 
 
 It put his grandson and me at a disadvantage 
 that we had no excuses of the kind for running 
 away from the grammar school. Doctor Jessop 
 was a little pompous, but he was sometimes 
 positively kind. There was not even a cruel 
 
 65 
 
66 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 usher. I was no dunce, nor was Fred, though 
 he was below me in class, so that we had not 
 even a grievance in connection with our lessons. 
 This made me feel as if there would be some- 
 thing mean and almost dishonorable in running 
 away from school. " I think it would not be 
 fair to the Doctor," said I ; "it would look as 
 if he had driven us to it, and he hasn't. We 
 had better wait till the holidays." 
 
 Fred seemed more willing to wait than I 
 had expected ; but he planned what we were 
 to do when we did go as vigorously as ever. 
 
 It was not without qualms that I thought of 
 running away from home. My mother would 
 certainly be greatly alarmed ; but then, she 
 was greatly alarmed by so many things to 
 which she afterwards became reconciled ! My 
 conscience reproached me more about Rupert 
 and Henrietta. Not one of us had longed for 
 " events " and exploits so earnestly as my sister ; 
 and who but Rupert had prepared me for em- 
 ergencies, not perhaps such as the Captain had 
 had to cope with, but of the kinds recognized 
 by the yellow leather book ? We had been 
 very happy together, Rupert, Henrietta, 
 Baby Cecil, and I ? and we had felt in 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 6/ 
 
 common the one defect of our lives, that there 
 were no events in them ; and now I was 
 going to begin a life of adventure, to run 
 away and seek my fortune, without even tell- 
 ing them what I was going to do. 
 
 On the other hand, that old mean twinge of 
 jealousy was one of my strongest impulses to 
 adventure-seeking, and it urged me to perform 
 my exploits alone. Some people seem to like 
 dangers and adventures whilst the dangers are 
 going on ; Henrietta always seemed to think 
 that the pleasantest part ; but I confess that I 
 think one of the best parts must be when they 
 are over and you are enjoying the credit of 
 them. When the Captain's adventures stirred 
 me most, I looked forward with a Jthrill of 
 anticipation to my return home, modest from 
 a justifiable pride in my achievements, and so 
 covered with renown by my deeds of daring 
 that I should play second fiddle in the family 
 no more, and that Rupert and Henrietta would 
 outbid each other for my " particular " friend- 
 ship, and Baby Cecil dog my heels to hear 
 the stories of my adventures. 
 
 The thought of Baby Cecil was the heaviest 
 pang I felt when I was dissatisfied with the 
 
68 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 idea of running away from home. Baby Cecil 
 was the pet of the house. He had been born 
 after my father's death, and from the day he 
 was born everybody conspired to make much 
 of him. Dandy, the Scotch terrier, would re- 
 nounce a romping ramble with us to keep 
 watch over Baby Cecil when he was really a 
 baby and was only carried for a dull airing 
 in the nursemaid's arms. I can quite under- 
 stand Dandy's feelings ; for if, when one was 
 just preparing for a paper-chase, or anything 
 of that sort, Baby Cecil trotted up and, fling- 
 ing himself head first into one's arms, after 
 his usual fashion, cried, " Baby Cecil 'ants 
 Charlie to tell him a long, long story so 
 much / " it always ended in one's giving up 
 the race or the scramble, and devoting one- 
 self as sedately as Dandy to his service. But 
 I consoled myself with the thought of how 
 Baby Cecil would delight in me, and what 
 stories I should be able to tell him on my 
 return. 
 
 The worst of running away nowadays is that 
 railways and telegrams run faster. I was pre- 
 pared for any emergency except that of being 
 found and brought home again, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 69 
 
 Thinking of this brought to my mind one 
 of Fred's tales of the Captain, about how he 
 was pursued by bloodhounds and escaped by 
 getting into water. Water not only retains 
 no scent, it keeps no track. I think perhaps 
 this is one reason why boys so often go to 
 sea when they run away, that no one may be 
 able to follow them. It helped my decision 
 that we would go to sea when we ran away, 
 Fred and I. Besides, there was no other 
 road to strange countries, and no other way of 
 seeing the sea people with the sou'wester 
 heads. 
 
 Fred did not seem to have any scruples 
 about leaving his home, which made me feel 
 how much braver he must be than I. But 
 his head was so full of the plans he made 
 for us, and the lists he drew up of natural 
 products of the earth in various places, on 
 which we could live without paying for our 
 living, that he neglected his school work, and 
 got into scrapes about it. This distressed me 
 very much, for I was working my very best 
 that half, on purpose that no one might say 
 that we ran away from our lessons, but that 
 it might be understood that we had gone 
 
7O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 solely in search of adventure, like sea-cap- 
 tains or any other grown-up travellers. 
 
 All Fred's tales now began with the word 
 " suppose." They were not stories of what 
 had happened to his grandfather, but of what 
 might happen to us. The half-holiday that 
 Mr. Johnson's hay was carted, we sat behind 
 the farthest haycock all the afternoon with 
 an old atlas on our knees, and Fred " sup- 
 posed " till my brain whirled to think of all 
 that was coming on us. " Suppose we get on 
 board a vessel bound for Singapore, and hide 
 behind some old casks - he would say, 
 coasting strange continents with his stumpy 
 little forefinger as recklessly as the Captain 
 himself ; on which, of course, I asked, " What 
 is Singapore like ? " which enabled Fred to 
 close the atlas and lie back among the hay 
 and say whatever he could think of and I 
 could believe. 
 
 Meanwhile we saved up our pocket-money 
 and put it in a canvas bag, as being sailor-like. 
 Most of the money was Fred's, but he was very 
 generous about this, and said I was to take care 
 of it, as I was more managing than he. And 
 we practised tree-climbing, to be ready for the 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 7 1 
 
 masts, and ate earth-nuts to learn to live upon 
 roots, in case we were thrown upon a desert 
 island. Of course we did not give up our 
 proper meals, as we were not obliged to yet, 
 and I sometimes felt rather doubtful about how 
 we should feel, living upon nothing but roots for 
 breakfast, dinner, and tea. However, I had ob- 
 served that whenever the Captain was wrecked 
 a barrel of biscuits went ashore soon afterwards, 
 and I hoped it might always be so in wrecks, 
 for biscuits go a long way, especially sailors' 
 biscuits, which are large. 
 
 I made a kind of handbook for adventure- 
 seekers, too, in an old exercise-book, showing 
 what might be expected and should be prepared 
 for in a career like the Captain's. I divided it 
 under certain heads : Hardships, Dangers, Emer- 
 gencies, Wonders, etc. These were subdivided 
 again, thus : Hardships i, Hunger ; 2, Thirst ; 
 3, Cold ; 4, Heat ; 5, No clothes ; and so forth. 
 I got all my information from Fred, and I read 
 my lists over and over again, to get used to the 
 ideas, and to feel brave. And on the last page I 
 printed in red ink the word " Glory." 
 
 And so the half went by and came to an 
 end ; and when the old Doctor gave me my 
 
72 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 three prizes, and spoke of what he hoped I 
 would do next half, my blushes were not solely 
 from modest pride. 
 
 The first step of our runaway travels had 
 been decided upon long ago. We were to go 
 by barge to London. " And from London you 
 can go anywhere," Fred said. 
 
 The day after the holidays began, I saw a 
 canal-boat loading at the wharf, and finding she 
 was bound for London, I told Fred of it. But 
 he said we had better wait for a barge, and that 
 there would be one on Thursday. " Or if you 
 don't think you can be ready by then, we can 
 wait for the next," he added. He seemed quite 
 willing to wait, but (remembering that the Cap- 
 tain's preparations for his longest voyage had 
 only taken him eighteen and a half minutes by 
 the chronometer, which was afterwards damaged 
 in the diving-bell accident, and which I had 
 seen with my own eyes, in confirmation of the 
 story) I said I should be ready any time at half 
 an hour's notice, and Thursday was fixed as the 
 day of our departure. 
 
 To facilitate matters, it was decided that Fred 
 should invite me to spend Wednesday with 
 him, and to stay all night, for the barge was 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 73 
 
 to start at half-past six o'clock on Thursday 
 morning. 
 
 I was very busy on Wednesday. I wrote a 
 letter to my mother in which I hoped I made it 
 quite clear that ambition, and not discontent, 
 was leading me to run away. I also made a 
 will, dividing my things fairly between Rupert, 
 Henrietta, and Baby Cecil, in case I should be 
 drowned at sea. My knife, my prayer-book, the 
 ball of string belonging to my kite, and my 
 little tool-box I took away with me. I also 
 took the match-box from the writing-table, but 
 I told mother of it in the letter. The Captain 
 used to light his fires by rubbing sticks to- 
 gether, but I had tried it, and thought matches 
 would be much better, at any rate, to begin 
 with. 
 
 Rupert was lying under the crab-tree, and 
 Henrietta was reading to him, when I went 
 away. Rupert was getting much stronger ; he 
 could walk with a stick, and was going back to 
 school next half. I felt a very unreasonable 
 vexation because they seemed quite cheerful. 
 But as I was leaving the garden to go over the 
 fields, Baby Cecil came running after me, with 
 his wooden spade in one hand and a plant of 
 
74 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 chickweed in the other, crying, " Charlie, dear ! 
 Come and tell Baby Cecil a story." I kissed 
 him, and tied his hat on, which had come off as 
 he ran. 
 
 "Not now, Baby," I said; "I am going out 
 now, and you are gardening." 
 
 " I don't want to garden," he pleaded. 
 " Where are you going ? Take me with you." 
 
 "I am going to Fred Johnson's," I said 
 bravely. 
 
 Baby Cecil was a very good child, though he 
 was so much petted. He gave a sigh of dis- 
 appointment, but only said very gravely, " Will 
 you promise, onyeronor, to tell me one when 
 you come back ? " 
 
 " I promise to tell you lots when I come back, 
 on my honor," was my answer. 
 
 I had to skirt the garden-hedge for a yard or 
 two before turning off across the meadow. In 
 a few minutes I heard -a voice on the other side. 
 Baby Cecil had run down the inside, and was 
 poking his face through a hole, and kissing both 
 hands to me. There came into my head a won- 
 der whether his face would be much changed 
 the next time I saw it. I little guessed when 
 and how that would be. But when he cried, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. // 
 
 "Come back very soon, Charlie, dear," my imper- 
 fect valor utterly gave way; and hanging my 
 head, I ran, with hot tears pouring over my face, 
 all the way to Johnson's wharf. 
 
 When Fred saw my face he offered to give 
 up the idea if I felt faint-hearted about it. 
 Nothing that he could have said would have 
 dried my tears so soon. Every spark of pride 
 in me blazed up to reject the thought of turn- 
 ing craven now. Besides, I longed for a life of 
 adventure most sincerely ; and I was soon quite 
 happy again in the excitement of being so near 
 to what I had longed for. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WE GO ON BOARD. THE PIE. AN EXPLO- 
 SION. MR. ROWE, THE BARGEMASTER. - 
 
 THE WHITE LION. TWO LETTERS. WE 
 
 DOUBT MR. ROWE'S GOOD FAITH. 
 
 THE dew was still heavy on the grass when 
 Fred and I crossed the drying - ground, about 
 five o'clock on Thursday morning, and scram- 
 bled through a hedge into our old " coast- 
 guard " corner on the wharf. We did not 
 want to be seen by the bargemaster till we 
 were too far from home to be put ashore. 
 
 The freshness of early morning in summer 
 has some quality which seems to go straight 
 to the heart. I felt intensely happy. There 
 lay the barge, the sun shining on the clean 
 deck, and reflected from the dewy edges of 
 the old ropes, and from the bargemaster' s zinc 
 basin and pail put out to sweeten in the air. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 79 
 
 " She won't leave us behind this time ! " I 
 cried, turning triumphantly to Fred. - 
 
 " Take care of the pie," said Fred. 
 
 It was a meat pie which he had taken from 
 the larder this morning ; but he had told Mrs. 
 Johnson about it in the letter he had left behind 
 him, and had explained that we took it instead 
 of the breakfast we should otherwise have eaten. 
 We felt that earth-nuts might not be forthcom- 
 ing on the canal-banks, or even on the wharf at 
 Nine Elms when we reached London. 
 
 At about a quarter to six, Johnson's wharf was 
 quite deserted. The bargemaster was having 
 breakfast ashore, and the second man had gone 
 to the stable. " We had better hide ourselves 
 now," I said. So we crept out, and went on 
 board. We had chosen our hiding-place before. 
 Not in the cabin, of course, nor among the 
 cargo, where something extra thrown in at the 
 last moment might smother us, if it did not lead 
 to our discovery, but in the fore part of the boat, 
 in a sort of well or hold, where odd things be- 
 longing to the barge itself were stowed away, 
 and made sheltered nooks into which we could 
 creep out of sight. Here we found a very con- 
 venient corner, and squatted down, with the pie 
 
8O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 at our feet, behind a hamper, a box, a coil of 
 rope, a sack of hay, and a very large ball, 
 crossed four ways with rope, and with a rope- 
 tail, which puzzled me extremely. 
 
 " It's like a giant tadpole/' I whispered to 
 Fred. 
 
 "Don't nudge me," said Fred. "My pockets 
 are full, and it hurts." 
 
 My pockets were far from light. The money- 
 bag was heavily laden with change, small in 
 value, but large in coin. The box of matches 
 was with it, and the knife. String, nails, my 
 prayer-book, a pencil, some writing-paper, the 
 handbook, and a more useful hammer than the 
 one in my tool-box, filled another pocket. Some 
 gooseberries and a piece of cake were in my 
 trousers, and I carried the tool - box in my 
 hands. We each had a change of linen, tied 
 up in a pocket-handkerchief. Fred would allow 
 of nothing else. He said that when our jack- 
 ets and trousers were 'worn out we must make 
 new clothes out of an old sail. 
 
 Waiting is very dull work. After a while, 
 however, we heard voices, and the tramp of the 
 horse, and then the bargemaster and Mr. John- 
 son's foreman^ and other men, kept coming and 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 8 1 
 
 going on deck, and for a quarter of an hour we 
 had as many hairbreadth escapes of discovery 
 as the Captain himself could have had in the 
 circumstances. At last somebody threw the 
 bargemaster a bag of something (fortunately 
 soft) which he was leaving behind, and which 
 he chucked on to the top of my head. Then the 
 driver called to his horse, and the barge gave a 
 jerk which threw Fred on to the pie, and in 
 a moment more we were gliding slowly and 
 smoothly down the stream. 
 
 When we were fairly off we ventured to peep 
 out a little and stretch our cramped limbs. 
 There was no one on board but the barge- 
 master, and he was at the other end of the 
 vessel, smoking and minding his rudder. The 
 driver was walking on the towing-path, by 
 the old gray horse. The motion of the boat 
 was so smooth that we seemed to be lying still, 
 whilst villages and orchards and green banks 
 and osier-beds went slowly by, as though the 
 world were coming to show itself to us, instead 
 of our going to see the world. 
 
 When we passed the town we felt some 
 anxiety for fear we should be stopped ; but 
 there was no one on the bank, and though the 
 
82 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 towers of St. Philip and St. James appeared 
 again and again, in lessening size, as we looked 
 back, there came at last a bend in the canal, 
 when a high bank of gorse shut out the dis- 
 tance, and we saw them no more. 
 
 In about an hour, having had no breakfast, 
 we began to speak seriously of the pie. (I had 
 observed Fred breaking little corners from the 
 crust with an absent air more than once.) 
 Thinking of the first subdivision under the word 
 " Hardships " in my handbook, I said, " I'm afraid 
 we ought to wait till we are worse hungry." 
 
 But Fred said, " Oh, no ! " And that, out 
 adventure-seeking, it was quite impossible to 
 save and plan and divide your meals exactly, 
 as you could never tell what might turn up. 
 The Captain always said, " Take good luck and 
 bad luck and pot luck as they come ! " So 
 Fred assured me, and we resolved to abide by 
 the Captain's rule. 
 
 " We may have to weigh out our food with a 
 bullet, like Admiral Bligh, next week," said Fred. 
 
 "So we may," said I. And the thought 
 must have given an extra relish to the beef- 
 steak and hard-boiled eggs, for I never tasted 
 anything so good. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 83 
 
 Whether the smell of the pie went aft, or 
 whether something else made the bargemaster 
 turn round and come forward, I do not know ; 
 but when we were encumbered with open clasp- 
 knives and full mouths, we saw him bearing 
 down upon us, and in a hasty movement of 
 retreat I lost my balance, and went backward 
 with a crash upon a tub of potatoes. 
 
 The noise this made was not the worst part 
 of the business. I was tightly wedged amongst 
 the odds and ends, and the money-bag being 
 sharply crushed against the match-box, which 
 was by this time well warmed, the matches 
 exploded in a body, and whilst I was putting 
 as heroic a face as I could on the pain I was 
 enduring in my right funny-bone, Fred cried, 
 " Your jacket's smoking! You're on fire ! " 
 
 Whether Mr. Rowe, the bargemaster, had 
 learnt presence of mind out of a book, I do not 
 know ; but before Fred and I could even think 
 of what to do in the emergency, my jacket was 
 off, the matches were overboard, and Mr. Rowe 
 was squeezing the smouldering fire out of my 
 pocket rather more deliberately than most men 
 brush their hats. Then, after civilly holding 
 the jacket for me to put it on again, he took 
 
84 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 off his hat, took his handkerchief out of it and 
 wiped his head, and replacing both, with his 
 eyes upon us, said, more deliberately still, 
 " Well, young gentlemen, this is a nice start ! " 
 
 It was impossible to resist the feeling of con- 
 fidence inspired by Mr. Rowe's manner, his 
 shrewd and solid appearance, and his prompt- 
 ness in an emergency. Besides, we were com- 
 pletely at his mercy. We appealed to it, and 
 told him our plans. We offered him a share of 
 the pie too, which he accepted with conscious 
 condescension. When the dish was empty he 
 brought his handkerchief into use once more, 
 and then said, in a peculiarly oracular manner, 
 " You just look to me, young gentlemen, and 
 I'll put you in the way of every think." 
 
 The immediate advantage we took of this 
 offer was to ask about whatever interested us 
 in the landscape constantly passing before our 
 eyes, or the barge-furniture at our feet. The 
 cord-compressed balls were shore-fenders, said 
 Mr. Rowe, arid were popped over the side when 
 the barge was likely to grate against the shore, 
 or against another vessel. 
 
 "Them's osier-beds. They cuts 'em every 
 year or so for basket-work. Wot's that little 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 85 
 
 bird a-hanging head downwards ? It's a tit- 
 mouse looking for insects, that is. There's 
 scores on 'em in the osier-beds. Aye, aye, 
 the yellow lilies is pretty enough, but there's 
 a lake the other way a mile or two beyond 
 your father's, Master Fred where there's 
 white water-lilies. They're pretty, if you 
 like ! It's a rum thing in spring," continued 
 Mr. Rowe, between puffs of his pipe, " to see 
 them lilies come up from the bottom of the 
 canal, the leaves packed as neat as any parcel ; 
 and when they git to the top, they turns down 
 and spreads out on the water as flat as you 
 could spread a cloth upon a table." 
 
 As a rule, Mr. Rowe could give us no names 
 for the aquatic plants at which we clutched as 
 we went by, nor for the shells we got out of 
 the mud ; but his eye for a water-rat was like a 
 terrier's. It was the only thing which seemed 
 to excite him. 
 
 About mid-day we stopped by a village, 
 where Mr. Rowe had business. The horse 
 was to rest and bait here ; and the barge- 
 master told us that if we had "a shilling or 
 so about " us, we might dine on excellent 
 bread and cheese at the White Lion, or even 
 
86 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 go so far as poached eggs and yet more excel- 
 lent bacon, if our resources allowed of it. We 
 were not sorry to go ashore. There was abso- 
 lutely no shelter on the deck of the barge from 
 the sunshine, which was glaringly reflected by 
 the water. The inn parlor was low, but it was 
 dark and cool. I felt doubtful about the luxury 
 even of cheese after that beefsteak pie ; but Fred 
 smacked his lips and ordered eggs and bacon, 
 and I paid for them out of the canvas-bag. 
 
 As we sat together I said, " I wrote a letter 
 to my mother, Fred. Did you write to Mrs. 
 Johnson ? " 
 
 Fred nodded, and pulled a scrap of dirty paper 
 from his pocket, saying, " Tfiat's the letter; 
 but I made a tidy copy of it afterwards." 
 
 I have said that Fred was below me in class, 
 though he is older ; and he was very bad at 
 spelling. Otherwise the letter did very well, 
 except for smudges. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 Charlie and I are going to run away at least by 
 the time you get this we have run away but never mind 
 for wen weve seen the wurld were cumming back we 
 took the pi wich I hope you won't mind as we had no 
 brekfust and I'll bring back the dish we send our best 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 8/ 
 
 love and I've no more to tell you to-day from your affec- 
 tionate son FRED. 
 
 I saw Mr. Rowe, myself, very busy in the bar 
 of the White Lion, with a sheet of paper and an 
 old steel pen, which looked as if the point had 
 been attenuated to that hair-like fineness by sheer 
 age. He started at the sight of me, which caused 
 him to drop a very large blot of ink from the 
 very sharp point of the pen on to his paper. I 
 left him wiping it up with his handkerchief. But 
 it never struck me that he was writing a letter 
 on the same subject as Fred and I had been 
 writing about. He was, however, and Mr. John- 
 son keeps it tied up with Fred's to this day. 
 The spelling was of about the same order. 
 " MR. JOHNSON. HONERD SIR. 
 
 i rites in duty bound to acqaint you that the 
 young genlemen is with me, looking out for Advenchurs 
 and asking your pardon i wish they may find them as 
 innercent as 2 Babes in the Wood on the London and 
 Lancingford Canal were they come aboard quite un- 
 known to me and blowed theirselves up with lucifers 
 the fust go off and youve no need to trubble your- 
 self sir ill keep my I on them and bring em safe to 
 hand with return cargo and hoping you'll excuse the 
 stamp not expecting to have to rite from the fust stop- 
 pige your obedient humble servant. 
 
 SAMUEL ROWE." 
 
88 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 As I have said, we did not suspect that Mr. 
 Rowe had betrayed us by post ; but in the 
 course of the afternoon Fred said to me, " I'll 
 tell you what, Charlie, I know old Rowe well, 
 and he's up to any trick, and sure to want to 
 keep in with my father. If we don't take care, 
 he'll take us back with him. And what fools 
 we shall look then ! " 
 
 The idea was intolerable ; but I warned Fred 
 to carefully avoid betraying that we suspected 
 him. The Captain had had worse enemies to 
 outwit, and had kept a pirate in good humor 
 for a much longer voyage by affability and rum. 
 We had no means of clouding Mr. Rowe's par- 
 ticularly sharp wits with grog, but we resolved 
 to be amiable and wary, and when we did get to 
 London to look out for the first opportunity of 
 giving the bargemaster the slip. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A COASTING VOYAGE. MUSK ISLAND. LIN- 
 NET FLASH. MR. ROWE AN OLD TAR. 
 
 THE DOG-FANCIER AT HOME. 
 
 IT was a delightful feature of our first voy- 
 age and one which we could not hope to 
 enjoy so often in voyages to come that we 
 were always close to land, and this on both 
 sides. We could touch either coast without 
 difficulty, and as the barge stopped several 
 times during the day to rest the horse, Fred 
 and I had more than one chance of going 
 ashore. 
 
 I hope to have many a voyage yet, and to 
 see stranger people and places than I saw 
 then, but I hardly hope ever to enjoy myself 
 so much again. I have long ago found out 
 that Fred's stories of the Captain's adventures 
 were not true stories, and as I have read and 
 learned more about the world than I knew 
 89 
 
QO A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 at that time, I know now that there are only 
 certain things which one can meet with by 
 land or by sea. But when Fred and I made 
 our first voyage, in emulation of his grand- 
 father, there was no limit to my expectations, 
 or to what we were prepared to see or ex- 
 perience at every fresh bend of the London 
 and Lancingford Canal. 
 
 I remember one of Fred's stories about the 
 Captain was of his spending a year and a day 
 on an island called Musk Island, in the Pacific. 
 He had left the ship, Fred said, to do a little 
 exploring alone in his gig. Not knowing at 
 that time that the captain's gig is a boat, I was 
 a good deal puzzled, I remember, to think of 
 Mrs. Johnson's red-faced father crossing the 
 sea in a gig like the one Mr. Bustard used to 
 go his professional " rounds " in. And when 
 Fred spoke of his " pulling himself," I was yet 
 more bewildered by the unavoidable conclusion 
 that they had no horse on board, and that the 
 gallant and ever-ready Captain went himself 
 between the shafts. The wonder of his get- 
 ting to Musk Island in that fashion was, how- 
 ever, eclipsed by the wonders he found when 
 he did get there. Musk-hedges and bowers 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 9! 
 
 ten feet high, with flowers as large as bind- 
 weed blossoms, and ladies with pale gold hair, 
 all dressed in straw-colored satin, and with 
 such lovely faces that the Captain vowed that 
 no power on earth should move him till he had 
 learned enough of the language to propose 
 the health of the Musk Island beauties in a 
 suitable speech after dinner. "And there he 
 would have lived and died, I believe," Fred 
 would say, "if that first mate, who saved his 
 life before, had not rescued him by main force, 
 and taken him back to "his ship." 
 
 I am reminded of this story when I think 
 of the island in Linnet Lake, for we were so 
 deeply charmed by it that we very nearly 
 broke our voyage, as the Captain broke his, 
 to settle on it. 
 
 Mr. Rowe called the lake Linnet Flash. 
 Wherever the canal seemed to spread out, 
 and then go on again narrow and like a river, 
 the bargemaster called these lakes " flashes " 
 of the canal. There is no other flash on that 
 canal so large or so beautiful as Linnet Lake, 
 and in the middle of the lake lies the island. 
 
 It was about three o'clock, the hottest part 
 of a summer's day, and Fred and I, rather 
 
92 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 faint with the heat, were sitting on a coil of 
 rope holding a clean sheet, which Mr. Rowe 
 had brought up from the cabin to protect our 
 heads and backs from sunstroke. We had 
 refused to take shelter below, and sat watch- 
 ing the fields and hedges, which seemed to 
 palpitate in the heat as they went giddily by, 
 and Mr. Rowe, who stood quite steady, con- 
 versing coolly with the driver. The driver 
 had been on board for the last hour, the way 
 being clear, and the old horse quite able to 
 take care of itself and us, and he and the 
 bargemaster had pocket-handkerchiefs under 
 their hats like the sou'wester flaps of the 
 Captain's sea-friends. Fred had dropped his 
 end of the sheet to fall asleep, and I was pro- 
 tecting us both, when the driver bawled some 
 directions to the horse in their common lan- 
 guage, and the bargemaster said, " Here's a 
 bit of shade for you, Master Fred ; " and we 
 roused up and found ourselves gliding under 
 the lee of an island covered with trees. 
 
 " Oh, do stop here ! " we both cried. 
 
 "Well, I don't mind," said Mr. Rowe, re- 
 moving his hat, and mopping himself with 
 his very useful pocket-handkerchief. "Jem, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 93 
 
 there's a bit of grass there ; let her have a 
 mouthful." 
 
 " I thought you'd like this," he continued ; 
 "there ain't a prettier bit between here and 
 Pyebridge." 
 
 It was so lovely that the same idea seized 
 both Fred and me : Why not settle here, at 
 least for a time ? It was an uninhabited island, 
 only waiting to be claimed by some adventurous 
 navigator, and obviously fertile. The prospect 
 of blackberries on the mainland was particularly 
 fine, and how they would ripen in this blazing 
 sun ! Birds sang in the trees above ; fish leap- 
 ing after flies broke the still surface of the 
 water with a musical splash below ; and beyond 
 a doubt there must be the largest and sweetest 
 of earth-nuts on the island, easy to get out of 
 the deep beds of untouched leaf-mould. And 
 when Mr. Rowe cried, " Look ! " and we saw a 
 water-fowl scud across the lake, leaving a sharp 
 trail like a line of light behind her, we felt that 
 we might spend all our savings in getting to 
 the Pacific Ocean, and not find when we got 
 there a place which offered more natural re- 
 sources to the desert islander. 
 
 If the bargemaster would have gone ashore 
 
94 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 on the mainland, out of the way, and if we could 
 have got ashore on the island without help, we 
 should not have confided our plans to so doubt- 
 ful a friend. As it was, we were obliged to tell 
 Mr. Rowe that we proposed to found a settle- 
 ment in Linnet Lake, and he was completely 
 opposed to the idea. 
 
 It was only when he said, with that air of 
 reserved and funded knowledge which gave 
 such unfathomable depth to his irony, and 
 made his sayings so oracular, " There's very 
 different places in the world to Linnet Flash," 
 that we began to be ashamed of our hasty 
 enthusiasm, and to think that it would be a pity 
 to stop so short in our adventurous career. 
 
 So we decided to go on; but the masterly 
 way in which Mr. Rowe spoke of the world 
 made me think he must have seen a good deal 
 of it, and when we had looked our last upon the 
 island, and had crept with lowered mast under 
 an old brick bridge where young ferns hung 
 down from the archway, and when we were 
 once more travelling between flat banks and 
 coppices that gave us no shelter, I said to the 
 bargemaster, " Have you ever been at sea, Mr. 
 Rowe ? " 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 95 
 
 " Seventeen year in the Royal Navy," said 
 Mr. Rowe, with a strong emphasis upon teen, 
 as if he feared, we might do him the injustice of 
 thinking he had only served his queen and 
 country for seven. 
 
 For the next two hours Fred and I sat, in- 
 different alike to the sunshine and the shore, 
 in rapt attention to Mr. Rowe's narrative of his 
 experiences at sea under the flag that has 
 
 " Braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." 
 
 I believe Fred enjoyed them simply as stories, 
 but they fanned in my heart that restless fever 
 for which sea-breezes are the only cure. I 
 think Mr. Rowe got excited himself as he re- 
 called old times. And when he began to bawl 
 sea-songs with a voice like an Atlantic gale, and 
 when he vowed in cadence 
 
 " A sailor's life is the life for me," 
 
 I felt that it was the life for me also, and ex- 
 pressed myself so strongly to that effect that 
 Mr. Rowe became alarmed for the consequences 
 of his indiscretion, and thenceforward told us 
 sea-stories with the obvious and quite futile 
 
96 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 intention of disgusting me with what I already 
 looked upon as my profession. 
 
 But the bargemaster's rapid change of tactics 
 convinced me more and more that we could not 
 safely rely on him to help us in our plans. 
 
 About five o'clock, he made tea on board, and 
 boiled the water on the little stove in the cabin. 
 I was very anxious to help, and it was I who 
 literally made the tea, whilst Mr. Rowe's steadier 
 hand cut thick slices of bread and butter from a 
 large loaf. There was only one cup and saucer. 
 Fred and I shared the cup, and the barge- 
 master took the saucer. By preference, he 
 said, as the tea cooled quicker. 
 
 The driver had tea after we returned to the 
 deck and could attend to the horse and boat. 
 
 Except the island in Linnet Lake, the most 
 entertaining events of the first day of our voy- 
 age were our passing villages or detached houses 
 on the canal-banks. 
 
 Of the latter by far the most interesting was 
 that of a dog-fancier, from whose residence melo- 
 dious howls, in the dog dialect of every tribe 
 deserving to be represented in so choice a com- 
 pany, were wafted up the stream, and met our 
 ears before our eyes beheld the landing-stage 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 97 
 
 of the establishment, where the dog-fancier and 
 some of his dogs were lounging in the cool of 
 the evening, and glad to see the barge. 
 
 The fancier knew Mr. Rowe, and refreshed 
 him, and us, with shandygaff in horn tumblers. 
 Some of the dogs who did not, barked inces- 
 santly at us, wagging their tails at the same 
 
 time, however, as if they had some doubts of 
 the correctness of their judgment in the matter. 
 One very small, very white, and very fluffy 
 toy dog, with a dove-colored ribbon, was, no 
 doubt, incurably ill-tempered and inhospitable ; 
 but a large brindled bull-dog, trying politely 
 but vainly to hide his teeth and tongue, wagged 
 
98 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 what the fancier had left him of a tail, and 
 dribbled with the pleasure of making our ac- 
 quaintance, after the wont of his benevolent 
 and much-maligned family. I have since felt 
 pretty certain that Mr. Rowe gave his friend a 
 sketch of our prospects and intentions in the 
 same spirit in which he had written to Mr. 
 Johnson, and I distinctly overheard the dog- 
 fancier make some reply, in which the words 
 "hoffer a reward" were audible. But the 
 bargem aster shook his head at suggestions 
 probably drawn from his friend's professional 
 tradition, though the fancier told him some 
 very good story about the ill-tempered toy dog, 
 to which he referred with such violent jerks of 
 the head as threatened to throw his fur cap on 
 to that of the brindled gentleman who sat drip- 
 ping and smiling at his feet. 
 
 When Mr. Rowe began to tell him something 
 good in return, and in spite of my utmost en- 
 deavors not to hear anything, the words " Lin- 
 net Flash " became audible, I blushed to hear 
 the fancier choking over his shandygaff, with 
 laughter, I feared, at our project for settling on 
 the island. 
 
 The interview was now at an end, but as 
 
4 GREAT EMERGENCY. 99 
 
 Mr. Rowe stepped briskly on board, the fur cap 
 nodded to the forehatch, where Fred and I 
 were sitting on coiled ropes, and the fancier 
 said very knowingly, " The better the breed, the 
 gamier the beast." 
 
 He patted the bulldog as he said it, and the 
 bulldog kissed his dirty hand. 
 
 " Hup to hanythink," were Mr. Rowe's part- 
 ing words, as we went aft and the driver called 
 to his horse. 
 
 He may have referred to the bulldog, but I 
 had some doubts about it, even then. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 LOCKS. WE THINK OF GOING ON THE TRAMP. 
 
 PYEBRIDGE. WE SET SAIL. 
 
 DURING our first day's voyage we passed two 
 locks. There was one not very far from home, 
 and Fred and I had more than once been to see 
 a barge pass it, sitting on the bank whilst the 
 boat gradually sank to the level of the water 
 below. 
 
 It was great fun being on board whilst the 
 barge went down and down, though I must say 
 we did not feel anything peculiar, we sank so 
 gradually. 
 
 " Just fancy if it was a hole in the ship's 
 bottom," said Fred, " and we were settling 
 down with all on board. Some ships do, and 
 are never heard of again." 
 
 We amused ourselves as we went along by 
 
 guessing beforehand on which shore the next 
 
 house or hamlet would appear. We betted 
 
 shillings on the result, but neither of us won 
 
 icx? 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. IOI 
 
 or lost, for however often the shillings changed 
 hands, they remained in the canvas bag. 
 
 Perhaps places look more as if events hap- 
 pened in them if you do not know them well. 
 I noticed that even our town looked more inter- 
 esting from the water than I had ever seen it 
 look, 'so I dare say to strangers it does not 
 appear so dull as it is. All the villages on 
 the canal-banks looked interesting. We passed 
 one soon after tea, where the horse rested 
 under some old willows by the towing-path, and 
 we and Mr. Rowe went ashore. Whilst the 
 bargemaster delivered a parcel to a friend, Fred 
 and I strolled into a lane which led us past 
 cottages with very gay gardens, to the church. 
 The church was not at all like St. Philip or St. 
 James. It was squat and ivy-covered, and 
 carefully restored; and it stood in a garden 
 where the flowers almost hid the graves. Just 
 outside the lych-gate, four lanes met, and all 
 of them were so shady and inviting, and it was 
 so impossible to say what they might not lead 
 to, that I said to Fred : 
 
 " You said the only way to run away besides 
 going to sea was to tramp. It sounds rather 
 low, but we needn't beg, and I think walking 
 
IO2 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 would be nice for a change, and I don't believe 
 it would be much slower than the barge, and it 
 would be so much shadier ; and we could get 
 off from old Rowe at once, and hide if we 
 heard anybody coming. I wonder how far it 
 is to London now ? " 
 
 " Not far, I dare say," said Fred, who was 
 pleased by the idea, "and if we keep on we 
 must get there in time. And we can get 
 things to eat in the hedges, which we can't 
 do on the barge." 
 
 At this moment there passed a boy, to whom 
 I said, " Which is the way to London, if you 
 please ? " for there were four roads to choose 
 from. 
 
 " What d'say ? " said the boy. 
 
 I repeated my question. 
 
 " Dunno," he replied, trying to cram half his 
 hand into his mouth. The Captain would have 
 thought him very stupid if he had met him as a 
 native in one of the islands of the Pacific, I am 
 sure ; but I followed him, and begged him to 
 try and think if he had not heard of people 
 going to London. 
 
 At last his face brightened. He was looking 
 over my head down the lane. " There's a man 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 1 03 
 
 a-cummin' yonder's always a-going to Lunnon," 
 said he. Visions of a companion on our tramp, 
 also perhaps in search of adventures, made me 
 look briskly around. " Him with the pipe, as 
 b'longs to the barge," the boy explained. 
 
 It was indeed Mr. Rowe, come to look for us, 
 and we had to try and seem glad to see him, and 
 to go on board once more. 
 
 Towards evening the canal-banks became 
 dotted with fishers of all ages and degrees, 
 fishing very patiently, though they did not 
 seem to catch much. 
 
 Soon after dark we reached the town of 
 Pyebridge. 
 
 When the barge lay to for the night, and the 
 driver was taking the horse away to a stable, 
 Mr. Rowe confronted us, in his firmest manner, 
 with the question, " And where are you going 
 to sleep, young gentlemen ? " 
 
 "Where are you going to sleep, Mr. Rowe ? " 
 said I, after a thoughtful pause. 
 
 " / sleeps below, but the captain's cabin is guv 
 up to no one unless it be the Queen," replied 
 the bargemaster, humorously but decidedly. 
 
 " We should like to sleep on deck," said I. 
 
 But Mr. Rowe would not hear of it, on 
 
104 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 account of various dreadful diseases which he 
 assured us would be contracted by sleeping 
 "in the damps of the water," "the dews of the 
 ^air," and " the rays of the moon." 
 
 " There's a hotel ' he began ; but I said 
 at once, "We couldn't afford a hotel; but if you 
 know of any very cheap place, we should be 
 much obliged." 
 
 Mr. Rowe took off his hat and took out his 
 handkerchief, though it was no longer hot. 
 Having cleared his brain, he said he "would 
 see," and he finally led -us along one of the 
 pebbled streets of Pyebridge to a small house, 
 with a small shop window for the sale of vege- 
 tables, and with a card announcing that there 
 were beds to let. A very little old woman got 
 up from behind a very big old geranium in 
 the window as we entered, and with her Mr. 
 Rowe made our arrangements for the night. 
 We got a clean bed, and had a mug of milk and 
 a slice of bread and treacle apiece for breakfast 
 the next morning, and I paid two shillings. As 
 I thanked the old lady and bade her good day, 
 she called to me to hold out my hat, which she 
 filled with cherries, and then stood at the door 
 and watched us out of sight. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 1 05 
 
 There was a railway station in Pyebridge, and 
 we might easily have escaped from Mr. Rowe, 
 and gone by train to London. But besides the 
 fact that our funds were becoming low, the 
 water had a new attraction for us. We had 
 left the canal behind, and were henceforward 
 on a river. If the wind favored us, we were to 
 sail. 
 
 " A canal's nothing to a river," said Mr. 
 Rowe, " same as a river's nothing to the sea," 
 and when Fred had some difficulty in keeping 
 his hat on, in the gusty street (mine was in 
 use as a fruit-basket), and the bargemaster 
 said it was a "nice fresh morning," I felt 
 that life on Linnet Island would have been 
 tame indeed compared to the hopes and fears 
 of a career which depended on the winds and 
 waves. 
 
 And when the boom went up the barge's 
 mast, and the tightly corded roll of dark canvas 
 began to struggle for liberty, and writhe and 
 flap with throttling noises above our heads ; and 
 when Mr. Rowe wrestled with it, and the driver 
 helped him, and Fred and I tried to, and were 
 all but swept overboard in consequence, whilst 
 the bargemaster encouraged himself by strange 
 
IO6 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and savage sounds ; and when the sunshine 
 caught our nut-brown sail, just as she spread 
 gallantly to the breeze, our excitement grew till 
 we both cried in one breath : 
 
 "This is something like being at sea ! " 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MR. ROWE ON BARGE-WOMEN. THE RIVER. 
 
 NINE ELMS. A MYSTERIOUS NOISE. ROUGH 
 
 QUARTERS. -- A CHEAP SUPPER. - - JOHN'S 
 
 BERTH. WE MAKE OUR ESCAPE. OUT 
 
 INTO THE WORLD. 
 
 MR. ROWE is quite right. A canal is noth- 
 ing to a river. 
 
 There was a wide piece of water between us 
 and one of the banks now, and other barges 
 went by us, some sailing, some towing only, 
 and two or three with women at the rudder, 
 and children on the deck. 
 
 " I wouldn't have my wife and fam'ly on 
 board for something!" said Mr. Rowe grimly. 
 
 " Have you got a family, Mr. Rowe ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the bargemaster. "I have, 
 like other folk. But women and children's 
 best ashore." 
 
 107 
 
108 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " Of course they are," said I. 
 
 " If you was to turn over in your mind what 
 they might be good for, now," he continued, 
 with an unfathomable eye on the mistress of a 
 passing canal-boat, " you'd say washing the 
 decks and keeping the pots clean. And they 
 don't do it as well as a man, not by half." 
 
 " They seem to steer pretty well," said I. 
 
 " I've served in very different vessels to 
 what I'm in now," said Mr. Rowe, avoiding a 
 reply, " and I may come as low as a monkey- 
 barge and coal ; but I'm blessed if ever I see 
 myself walk on the towing-path and leave the 
 missus in command on board." 
 
 At this moment a barge came sailing along- 
 side of us. 
 
 "Oh, look!" cried Fred; "it's got a white 
 horse painted on the sail." 
 
 "That's a lime-barge, sir," said Mr. Rowe; 
 " all lime-barges is marked that way." 
 
 She was homeward bound, and empty, and 
 soon passed us ; but we went at a pretty good 
 pace ourselves. The wind kept favorable, a 
 matter in which Fred and I took the deepest 
 interest. We licked our fingers, and held them 
 up to see which side got cooled by the breeze, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and whenever this experiment convinced me 
 that it was still behind us, I could not help 
 running back to Fred to say with triumph, 
 "The wind's dead aft," as if he knew nothing 
 about it. 
 
 At last this seemed to annoy him, so I went 
 to contain myself by sitting on the potato-tub 
 and watching the shore. 
 
 We got into the Thames earlier than usual, 
 thanks to the fair wind. 
 
 The world is certainly a very beautiful place. 
 I suppose when I get right out into it, and go 
 to sea, and to other countries, I shall think 
 nothing of England and the Thames, but it was 
 all new and wonderful to Fred and me then. 
 The green slopes and fine trees, and the houses 
 with gardens down to the river, and boats rock- 
 ing by the steps, the osier islands, which Mr. 
 Rowe called "aits," and the bridges where 
 the mast had to be lowered ; all the craft on the 
 water, the red-sailed barges with one man on 
 board, the steamers with crowded decks and 
 gay awnings, the schooners, yachts, and pleas- 
 ure-boats ; and all the people on shore, the 
 fishers, and the people with water-dogs and 
 sticks, the ladies with fine dresses and parasols, 
 
IIO A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and the ragged boys who cheered us as we went 
 by ; everything we saw and heard delighted 
 us, and the only sore place in my heart was 
 where I longed for Rupert and Henrietta to 
 enjoy it too. 
 
 Later on we saw London. It was in the 
 moonlight that we passed Chelsea. Mr. Rowe 
 pointed out the Hospital, in which the pension- 
 ers must have been asleep, for not a wooden 
 leg was stirring. In less than half an hour 
 afterwards we were at the end of our voyage. 
 
 The first thing which struck me about Nine 
 Elms was that they were not to be seen. I had 
 thought of those elms more than once under 
 the burning sun of the first day. I had imag- 
 ined that we should land at last on some green 
 bank, where the shelter of a majestic grove 
 might tempt Mr. Rowe to sleep, while Fred 
 and I should steal gently away to the neighbor- 
 ing city, and begin a quite independent search 
 for adventures. But I think I must have mixed 
 up with my expectations a story of one of the 
 Captain's escapes, from a savage chief in a 
 mango-grove. 
 
 Our journey's end was not quite what I had 
 thought it would be, but it was novel and 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. Ill 
 
 interesting enough. We seemed to nave thor- 
 oughly got to the town. Very old houses, with 
 feeble lights in their paper-patched windows, 
 made strange reflections on the river. The 
 pier looked dark and dirty even by moonlight, 
 and threw blacker and stranger shadows 
 still. 
 
 Mr. Rowe was busy, and tired, and, we 
 thought, a little inclined to be cross. 
 
 " I wonder where we shall sleep ? " said Fred, 
 looking timidly up at the dark old houses. 
 
 I have said before that I find it hard work to 
 be very brave after dark, but I put a good face 
 on the matter, and said I dared say old Rowe 
 would find us a cheap bedroom. 
 
 " London's an awful place for robbers and 
 murders, you know," said Fred. 
 
 I was hoping the cold shiver running down 
 my back was due to what the bargemaster 
 called " the damps from the water," when 
 a wail like the cry of a hurt child made my 
 skin stiffen into goose-prickles. A wilder 
 moan succeeded, and then one of the windows 
 of one of the dark houses was opened, and 
 something thrown out, which fell heavily down. 
 Mr. Rowe was just coming on board again, and 
 
112 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 I found courage in the emergency to gasp out, 
 "What was that?" 
 
 " Wot's wot ? " -said Mr. Rowe testily. 
 
 " That noise and the falling thing." 
 
 " Somebody throwing somethin' at a cat," 
 said the bargemaster. " Stand aside, sir, if 
 you please." 
 
 It was a relief, but when at length Mr. 
 Rowe came up to me with his cap off, in 
 the act of taking out his handkerchief, and 
 said, " I suppose you're no richer than you 
 was yesterday, young gentlemen, how about 
 a bed ? " I said, " No o. That is, I mean, 
 if you can get us a cheap one in a safe I 
 mean a respectable place 
 
 " If you leaves a comfortable 'ome, sir," mor- 
 alized the bargemaster, " to go a-looking for 
 adventures in this fashion, you must put up 
 with rough quarters, and wot you can get." 
 
 "We'll go anywhere you think right, Mr. 
 Rowe," said I diplomatically. 
 
 " I knows a waterman," said Mr. Rowe, 
 "that was in the Royal Navy like myself. 
 He lives near here, and they're decent folk. 
 The place is a poor place, but you'll have to 
 make the best of it, young gentlemen, and a 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 113 
 
 shilling '11 cover the damage. If you wants 
 supper, you must pay for it. Give the missis 
 the money, and she'll do the best she can, and 
 bring you the change to a half-farthing." 
 
 My courage was now fully restored, but Fred 
 was very much overwhelmed by the roughness 
 of the streets we passed through, the drunken, 
 quarrelling, poverty-struck people, and the grim, 
 dirty old houses. 
 
 "We shall be out of it directly," I whis- 
 pered, and indeed in a few minutes more Mr. 
 Rowe turned up a shabby entry, and led us to 
 one of several lower buildings round a small court. 
 The house he stopped at was cleaner within 
 than without, and the woman was very civil. 
 
 "It's a very poor place, sir," said she, "but 
 we always keep a berth, as his father calls it, 
 for our son John." 
 
 " But we can't take your son's bed," said 
 I; "we'll sit up here, if you will let us." 
 
 " Bless ye, love," said the woman, " John's 
 in foreign parts. He's a sailor, sir, like his 
 father before him ; but John's in the mer- 
 chant service." 
 
 Mr. Rowe now bade us good-night. " I'll be 
 round in the morning," said he. 
 
114 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 "What o'clock, Mr. Rowe ? " I asked ; I had 
 a reason for asking. 
 
 " There ain't much in the way of return 
 cargo," he replied; "but I've a bit of business 
 to do for your father, Mr. Fred, that'll take 
 me until half-past nine. I'll be here by then, 
 young gentlemen, and show you about a bit." 
 
 " It's roughish quarters for you," added the 
 bargemaster, looking around, " but you'll find 
 rougher quarters at sea, Master Charles." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's moralizings nettled me, and they 
 did no good, for my whole thoughts were now 
 bent on evading his guardianship and getting 
 to sea, but poor Fred was quite overpowered. 
 " I wish we were safe home again," he almost 
 sobbed when I went up to the corner into 
 which he had huddled himself. 
 
 " You'll be all right when we're afloat," 
 said I. 
 
 "I'm so hungry," he moaned. 
 
 I was hungry myself, and decided to order 
 some supper, so when the woman came up and 
 civilly asked if she could do anything for us 
 before we went to bed, I said, " If you please, 
 we're rather hungry, but we can't afford any- 
 thing very expensive. Do you think you 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 115 
 
 can get us anything rather cheap for 
 supper ? " 
 
 "A red herring," she suggested, 
 
 " What price are they ? " I felt bound to 
 inquire. 
 
 " Mrs. Jones has them beautiful and mild at 
 
 two for a penny. You can get 'em at three a 
 penny, but you wouldn't like 'em, sir." 
 
 I felt convinced by the expression of her face 
 that I should not, so I ordered two. 
 
 "And a penny loaf?" suggested our land- 
 lady, getting her bonnet from behind the door. 
 
I 1 6 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 " And a bunch of radishes and a pint of four- 
 penny would be fivepence-halfpenny the lot, 
 sir." 
 
 " If you please. And, if you please, that will 
 do," said I, drawing a shilling from the bag, for 
 the thought of the herrings made me ravenous, 
 and I wanted her to go. She returned quickly 
 with the bread and herrings. The "four- 
 penny " proved to be beer. She gave me six- 
 pence-halfpenny in change, which puzzled my 
 calculations. 
 
 "You ^i&fourpenny" said I, indicating the 
 beer. 
 
 "Yes, sir, but it's a pint," was the reply; 
 and it was only when, in after years, I learned 
 that beer at fourpence a quart is known to some 
 people as "fourpenny," that I got that part of 
 the reckoning of the canvas bag straight in my 
 own mind. 
 
 The room had an unwholesome smell about 
 it, which the odor from our fried herrings soon 
 pleasantly overpowered. The bread was good, 
 and the beer did us no harm. Fred picked up 
 his spirits again, and when Mr. Rowe's old 
 mate came home, he found us very cheerful and 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 1 1 7 
 
 chatty. Fred asked him about the son who 
 was at sea, but I had some more important 
 questions to put, and I managed so to do, and 
 with a sufficiently careless air. 
 
 " I suppose there are lots of ships at Lon- 
 don? " said I. 
 
 " In the docks, sir, plenty," said our host. 
 
 "And where are the docks?" I inquired. 
 " Are they far from you ? " 
 
 "Well, you see, sir, there's a many docks. 
 There's the East India Docks, St. Katherine's 
 Docks, and the Commercial Docks, and Vic- 
 toria Docks, and lots more." 
 
 I pondered. Ships in the East India Dock 
 probably went only to India. St. Katherine 
 conveyed nothing to my mind. I did not fancy 
 Commercial Docks. I felt a loyal inclination 
 towards the Victoria Dock. 
 
 " How do people get from here to Victoria 
 Dock now, if they want to ? " I asked. 
 
 "Well, of course, sir, you can go down the 
 river, or part that way, and then by rail from 
 Fenchurch Street." 
 
 "Where is Fenchurch Street, Mr. Smith?" 
 said I, becoming a good deal ashamed of my 
 pertinacity. 
 
I 1 8 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " In the city, sir," said Mr. Smith. 
 
 The city ! Now, I never heard of any one 
 in any story going out into the world to seek 
 his fortune, and coming to a city, who did not 
 go into it to see what was to be seen. Leaving 
 the king's only daughter and those kind of 
 things, which belong to story-books, out of the 
 question, I do not believe the Captain would 
 have passed a new city without looking into 
 it. 
 
 " You go down the river to Fenchurch Street 
 - in a barge? " I suggested. 
 
 " Bless ye, no, sir ! " said Mr. Smith, getting 
 the smoke of his pipe down his throat the wrong 
 way with laughing, till I thought his coughing 
 fit would never allow him to give me the impor- 
 tant information I required. "There's boats, 
 sir, plenty on 'em, I could take you myself, 
 and be thankful, and there's steamers calls at 
 the wharf every quarter of an hour or so 
 through the day, from nine in the morning, and 
 takes you to London Bridge for threepence. 
 It ain't many minutes' walk to Fenchurch 
 Street, and the train takes you straight to the 
 Docks." 
 
 After this we conversed on general seafaring 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. I IQ 
 
 matters. Mr. Smith was not a very able-bodied 
 man, in consequence of many years' service in 
 unhealthy climates, he said ; and he complained 
 of his trade as a " poor one," and very different 
 from what it had been in his father's time, and 
 before new London Bridge was built, which 
 "anybody and anything could get through" 
 now, without watermen's assistance. In his 
 present depressed condition he seemed to look 
 back on his seafaring days with pride and 
 tender regret, and when we asked for tales of 
 his adventures he was checked by none of the 
 scruples which withheld Mr. Rowe from en- 
 couraging me to be a sailor. 
 
 "John's berth" proved to be a truckle-bed 
 in a closet which just held it, and which also 
 held more nasty smells than I could have be- 
 lieved there was room for. Opening the win- 
 dow seemed only to let in fresh ones. When 
 Fred threw himself on his face on the bed, and 
 said, " What a beastly hole ! "and cried bitterly, 
 I was afraid he was going to be ill ; and when I 
 had said my prayers and persuaded him to say 
 his and come to bed, I thought that if we got 
 safely through the night we would make the 
 return voyage with Mr. Rowe, and for the 
 
I2O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 future leave events and emergencies to those 
 who liked danger and discomfort. 
 
 But when we woke with the sun shining on 
 our faces, and through the little window beheld 
 it sparkling on the river below us, and on the 
 distant city, we felt all right again, and stuck to 
 our plans. 
 
 " Let's go by the city," said Fred ; " I should 
 like to see some of the town." 
 
 " If we don't get off before half past nine, 
 we're lost," said I. 
 
 We found an unexpected clog in Mr. Smith, 
 who seemed inclined to stick to us and repeat 
 the stories he had told us overnight. At about 
 half past eight, however, he went off to his 
 boat, saying he supposed we should wait for 
 Mr. Rowe ; and when his wife went into a 
 neighbor's house, I laid a shilling on the table, 
 and we slipped out and made our way to the 
 pier. 
 
 Mr. Rowe was not there, and a church clock 
 near struck nine. This was echoed from the 
 city more than once, and then we began to look 
 anxiously for the steamer. Five, ten minutes 
 must have passed they seemed hours to me 
 when I asked a man who was waiting also, 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 121 
 
 when the steamer for London Bridge would 
 come. 
 
 " She'll be here soon," said he. 
 
 " So will old Rowe," whispered Fred. 
 
 But the steamer came first, and we went on 
 board, and the paddles began to splash, and our 
 escape was accomplished. 
 
 It was a lovely morning, and the tall, dirty 
 old houses looked almost grand in the sunlight 
 as we left Nine Elms. The distant city came 
 nearer and shone brighter, and when the fretted 
 front of the Houses of Parliament went by us 
 like a fairy palace, and towers and blocks of 
 buildings rose solidly one behind another in 
 shining tints of white and gray against the blue 
 summer sky, and when above the noise of our 
 paddle-wheels came the distant roar of the busy 
 streets, Fred pressed the arm I had pushed 
 through his and said, " We're out in the world 
 at last ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EMERGENCIES AND POLICEMEN. -- FENCHURCH 
 
 STREET STATION. THIRD CLASS TO CUSTOM 
 
 HOUSE. A SHIP FOREST. 
 
 POLICEMEN are very useful people. I do not 
 know how we should have got from the London 
 Bridge pier to the Fenchurch Street Station if 
 it had not been that Fred told me he knew one 
 could ask policemen the way to places. There 
 is nothing to pay, which I was very glad of, as 
 the canvas bag was getting empty. 
 
 Once or twice they helped us through emer- 
 gencies. We had to go from one footpath to 
 another, straight across the street, and the 
 street was so full of carts and cabs and drays 
 and omnibuses, that one could see that it was 
 quite an impossibility. We did it, however, for 
 the policeman made us. I said, " Hadn't we 
 better wait till the crowd has gone ?" But the 
 policeman laughed, and said then we had better 
 
 122 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 123 
 
 take lodgings close by and wait at the window. 
 So we did it. Fred said the Captain once ran 
 in a little cutter between two big ships that 
 were firing into him, but I do not think that 
 can have been much worse than running 
 between a backing dray full of rolling barrels, 
 and a hansom cab pulled up and ramping 
 like a rocking-horse at the lowest point of the 
 rockers. 
 
 When we were safely on the other pavement, 
 we thanked the policeman very much, and then 
 went on, asking our way till we got to Fenchurch 
 Street. 
 
 If anything could smell nastier than Johns' 
 berth in Nine Elms, it is Fenchurch Street Sta- 
 tion. And I think it is worse in this way : 
 John's berth smelt horribly, but it was warm 
 and weather-tight ; you never swallow a drop 
 of pure air in Fenchurch Street Station, and 
 yet you cannot find a corner in which you can 
 get out of the draughts. 
 
 With one gale blowing on my right from an 
 open door, and another gale blowing on my left 
 down some steps, and nasty smells blowing from 
 every point of the compass, I stood at a dirty 
 little hole in a dirty wooden wall and took our 
 
124 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 tickets. I had to stand on tiptoe to make the 
 young man see me. 
 
 "What is the cheapest kind of tickets you 
 have, if you please ? " I inquired, with the can- 
 vas bag in my hand. 
 
 "Third class," said the young man, staring 
 very hard at me, which I thought rather rude. 
 " Except working men's tickets, and they're not 
 for this train." 
 
 "Two third-class tickets for Victoria Dock, 
 then, if you please," said I. 
 
 " Single or return ? " said he. 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" I said, for I was 
 puzzled. 
 
 "Are you coming back to-day ? " he inquired. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! " said I, for some of the Cap- 
 tain's voyages had lasted for years ; but the 
 question made me anxious, as I knew nothing 
 of railway rules, and I added, "Does it matter?" 
 
 "Not by no means," replied the young man 
 smartly, and he began to whistle, but stopped 
 himself to ask, " Custom House or Tidal 
 Basin ? " 
 
 I had no alternative but to repeat, " I beg 
 your pardon ? " 
 
 He put his face right through the hole and 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 125 
 
 looked at me. " Will you take your tickets for 
 Custom House or Tidal Basin ? " he repeated. 
 "Either will do for Victoria Docks." 
 
 "Then, whichever you please," said I as 
 politely as I could. 
 
 The young man took out two tickets and 
 snapped them impatiently in something, and 
 as a fat woman was squeezing me from behind, 
 I was glad to take what I could get and go back 
 to Fred. 
 
 He was taking care of our two bundles and 
 the empty pie-dish. 
 
 That pie-dish was a good deal in our way. 
 Fred wanted to get rid of it, and said he was 
 sure his mother would not want us to be both- 
 ered with it ; but Fred had promised in his 
 letter to bring it back, and he could not break 
 his word. I told him so, but I said as he did 
 not like to be seen with it I would carry it. So 
 I did. 
 
 With a strong breeze aft, we were driven 
 upstairs in the teeth of a gale, and ran before 
 a high wind down a platform where, after annoy- 
 ing one of the railway men very much by not 
 being able to guess which was the train and 
 having to ask him, we got in among a lot of 
 
126 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 rough-looking people, who were very civil and 
 kind. A man with a black face and a white 
 jacket said he would tell us when we got to 
 Custom House, and he gave me his seat by the 
 window, that I might look out. 
 
 What struck me as rather odd was that every- 
 body in the third-class carriage seemed to have 
 bundles like ours, and yet they couldn't all be 
 running away. One thin woman with a very 
 troublesome baby had three. Perhaps it is 
 because portmanteaus and things of that sort 
 are rather expensive. 
 
 Fred was opposite to me. It was a bright, 
 sunny morning, a fresh breeze blew, and in the 
 sunlight the backs of endless rows of shabby 
 houses looked more cheerful than usual, though 
 very few of the gardens had anything in them 
 but dirt and cats, and very many of the win- 
 dows had the week's wash hanging out on strings 
 and poles. The villages we had passed on the 
 canal-banks all looked pretty and interesting, 
 but I think that most of the places we saw out 
 of the window of the train would look very ugly 
 on a dull day. 
 
 I fancy there were poplar-trees at a place 
 called Poplar, and I thought it must be called 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 after them; but Fred says, No, and we have 
 never been there since, so I cannot be sure 
 about it. If not, I must have dreamed it. 
 
 I did fall asleep in the corner, I know ; I was 
 so very much tired, and we had had no break- 
 fast, and I sat on the side where the wind 
 blows in, which I think helped to make me 
 sleepy. I was wakened partly by the pie-dish 
 slipping off my lap, and partly by Fred saying 
 in an eager tone : 
 
 " Oh, Charlie! Look! Are they all ships?" 
 
 We stuffed our heads through the window, 
 and my hat was nearly blown away, so the man 
 with the black face and the white jacket gave 
 it to the woman with the troublesome baby to 
 take care of for me, and he held us by our 
 legs for fear we should fall out. 
 
 On we flew ! There was wind enough in 
 our faces to have filled the barge sail three 
 times over, and Fred licked his lips and said, 
 "I do believe there's salt in it!" 
 
 But what he woke me up to show me drove 
 me nearly wild. When I had seen a couple 
 of big barges lying together, with their two 
 bare masts leaning towards each other, I used 
 to think how dignified and beautiful they 
 
128 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 looked. But here were hundreds of masts, 
 standing as thick as tree-trunks in a fir-wood ; 
 and they were not bare poles, but lofty and 
 slender, and crossed by innumerable yards, and 
 covered with ropes in orderly profusion, which 
 showed in the sunshine as cobwebs shine out 
 in a field in summer. Gay flags and pennons 
 fluttered in the wind ; brown sails, gray sails, 
 and gleaming white sails went up and down ; 
 and behind it all the water sparkled and daz- 
 zled our eyes like the glittering reflections 
 from a mirror moving in the sun. 
 
 As we ran nearer the ropes looked thicker, 
 and we could see the devices on the flags. 
 And suddenly, straining his eyes at the yards 
 of a vessel in the thick of the ship-forest, on 
 which was something black, like a spider with 
 only four legs, Fred cried, " It's a sailor ! " 
 
 I saw him quite well. And seeing him 
 higher up than on any tree one could ever 
 climb, with the sunny sky above him and the 
 shining water below him, I could only mutter 
 out with envious longing, " How happy he 
 must be ! " 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A DIRTY STREET. A BAD BOY. SHIPPING 
 
 AND MERCHANDISE. WE STOW AWAY ON 
 
 BOARD THE " ATALANTA." - A SALT TEAR. 
 
 THE man in the white jacket helped us out, 
 smiling as he did so, so that his teeth shone 
 like ivory in his black face. We took the pie- 
 dish and our bundles, and thanked him very 
 much, and the train went on and took him 
 with it, which we felt sorry for. For when 
 one is out in the world, you know, one some- 
 times feels rather lonely, and sorry to part 
 with a kind friend. 
 
 Everybody else went through a little gate 
 into the street, so we did the same. It was 
 a very dirty street, with houses on one side 
 and the railway on the other. There were 
 cabbages and carrots, and old shoes and fishes' 
 heads, and oyster-shells and potato-peelings in 
 the street, and a goat was routing among it 
 129 
 
I3O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 all with its nose, as if it had lost something 
 and hoped to find it by and by. 
 
 Places like this always seemed to depress 
 Fred's courage. Besides which, he was never 
 in good: .spirits when he had to go long with- 
 out food, which made me fear he would not 
 bear being cast adrift at sea without provi- 
 sions as well as his grandfather had done. I 
 was not surprised when he said : 
 
 " What a place ! And I don't believe one 
 can get anything fit to eat, and I am so 
 hungry ! " 
 
 I looked at the houses. There was a pork- 
 butcher's shop, and a real butcher's shop, and 
 a slop shop, and a seedy jeweller's shop with 
 second-hand watches, which looked as if noth- 
 ing would ever make them go, and a small 
 toy and sweetmeat shop, but not a place that 
 looked like breakfast. I had taken Fred's 
 bundle because he was so tired, and I suppose 
 it was because I was staring helplessly about 
 that a dirty boy, a good deal bigger than either 
 of us, came up and pulled his dirty hair and 
 said : 
 
 " Carry your things for you, sir ? " 
 
 " No, thank you," said I, moving on with 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 131 
 
 the bundles and the pie-dish ; but as the boy 
 would walk by me, I said: 
 
 " We want some breakfast very much, but 
 we haven't much money." And, remembering 
 the cost of our supper, I added, " Could we 
 
 get anything here for about twopence-half- 
 penny or threepence apiece ? " 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then the 
 boy gave a long whistle. 
 
 " Vy, I thought you wos swells ! " said he. 
 
 I really do not know whether it was because 
 I did not like to be supposed to be a poor per- 
 son, when it came to the point ; or whether it 
 
132 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 was because of that bad habit of mine of which 
 even Weston's ballad has not quite cured me, 
 of being ready to tell people more about my 
 affairs than it can be interesting for them to 
 hear or discreet for me to communicate, but 
 I replied at once, "We are gentlemen, but we 
 are going in search of adventures, and we don't 
 want to spend more money than we can help 
 till we see what we may want it for when we 
 get to foreign countries." 
 
 " You're going to sea, then, hare you ? " said 
 the boy, keeping up with us. 
 
 " Yes," said I ; " but could you tell us where 
 to get something to eat before we go? " 
 
 " There's a shop I knows on," said our new 
 friend, "where they sells prime pudding at a 
 penny a slice. The plums go all through and 
 no mistake. Three slices would be threepence : 
 one for you, one for him, and one for my trouble 
 in showing you the way. Threepence more's 
 a quart of stout, and we drink fair by turns. 
 Shall I take your purse and pay it for you ? 
 They might cheat a stranger." 
 
 " No, thank you," said I, " but we should like 
 some pudding, if you will show us the way." 
 
 The slices were small, but then they were 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 133 
 
 very heavy. We had two each. I rejected 
 the notion of porter, and Fred said he was 
 not thirsty ; but I turned back again into the 
 shop to ask for a glass of water for myself. 
 The woman gave it me very civilly, looking, as 
 she did so, with a puzzled manner first at me 
 and then at my bundles and the pie-dish. As 
 she took back the tumbler she nodded her head 
 towards the dirty boy, who stood in the doorway, 
 and said : 
 
 " Is that young chap a companion of yours, 
 my dear ? " 
 
 "Oh, dear, no," said I ; "only he showed us 
 the way here." 
 
 "Don't have nothing to do with him," she 
 whispered ; " he's a bad un." 
 
 In spite of this warning, however, as there 
 was no policeman to be seen, and the boy would 
 keep up with us, I asked him the way to Vic- 
 toria Dock. 
 
 It was not so easy to get to the ships as I had 
 expected. There were gates to pass through, 
 and they were kept by a porter. He let some 
 people in and turned others back. 
 
 " Have you got an order to see the docks ? " 
 asked the boy. 
 
134 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 I confessed that we had not, but added that 
 we wanted very much to get in. 
 
 " My eyes ! " said the bad boy, doubling him- 
 self in a fit of amusement, " I believe you're 
 both going for stowaways ! " 
 
 "What do you mean by stowaways?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Stowaways is chaps that hides aboard ves- 
 sels going out of port, to get their passage free 
 gratis for nothing." 
 
 " Do a good many manage it ? " I asked with 
 an anxious mind. 
 
 " There ain't a vessel leaves the docks without 
 one, and sometimes more aboard. The captain 
 never looks that way, not by no accident what- 
 soever. He don't lift no tarpaulins while the 
 ship's in dock, but when she gets to sea the 
 captain gets his eyesight back, and he takes it 
 out of the stowaways for their wittles then. 
 Oh, yes, rather so ! " said the bad boy. 
 
 There was a crowd at the gates. 
 
 " Hold your bundles down on your right 
 side," said the boy, "and go in quickly after 
 any respectable-looking cove you see." 
 
 Fred had got his own bundle now, and we 
 followed our guide's directions, and went through 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 135 
 
 the gates after an elderly, well-dressed man. 
 The boy seemed to try to follow us, squeezing 
 very close up to me, but the gatekeeper stopped 
 him. When we were on the other side I saw 
 him bend down and wink backwards at the gate- 
 keeper through his straddled legs. Then he 
 stood derisively on his head. After which he 
 went away as a catherine-wheel, and I saw him 
 no more. 
 
 We were among the ships at last ! Vessels 
 very different from Mr. Rowe's barge, or even 
 the three-penny steamboat. Lofty and vast, 
 with shining decks of marvellous cleanliness, 
 and giant figureheads like dismembered Jins 
 out of some Arabian tale. Streamers of many 
 colors high up in the forest of masts, and sea- 
 men of many nations on the decks and wharves 
 below, moved idly in the breeze, which was 
 redolent of many kinds of cargo. Indeed, if 
 the choice of our ship had not been our chief 
 care, the docks and warehouses would have 
 fascinated us little less than the shipping. 
 Here were huge bales of cotton, packed as 
 thickly as bricks in a brick-field ; there were 
 wine-casks innumerable ; and in another place 
 the air was aromatic with so large a cargo of 
 
136 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 coffee that it seemed as if no more could be 
 required in this country for some generations. 
 
 It was very entertaining, and Fred was always 
 calling to me to look at something new, but my 
 mind was with the shipping. There was a good 
 deal of anxiety on it, too. The sooner we chose 
 our ship and "stowed away," the better. I hesi- 
 tated between sailing vessels and steamers. I 
 did not believe that one of the Captain's adven- 
 tures happened on board any ship that could 
 move faster than it could sail. And yet I was 
 much attracted by some grand-looking steam- 
 ships. Even their huge funnels had a look of 
 power, I thought, among the masts, like old and 
 hollow oaks in a wood of young and slender 
 trees. 
 
 One of these was close in dock, and we could 
 see her well. There were some casks on deck, 
 and by them lay a piece of tarpaulin which 
 caught my eye, and recalled what the bad boy 
 had said about captains and stowaways. Near 
 the gangway were standing two men who did 
 not seem to be sailors. They were respectably 
 dressed, one had a book and a pencil, and they 
 looked, I thought, as if they might have author- 
 ity to ask our business in the docks, so I drew 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 137 
 
 Fred back under shelter of some piled -up 
 boxes. 
 
 "When does she sail?" asked the man with 
 the book. 
 
 "To-morrow morning, sir," replied the other. 
 
 And then they crossed the gangway and went 
 into a warehouse opposite. 
 
 It was noon, and being the men's dinner- 
 time, the docks were not very busy. At this 
 moment there was not a soul in sight. I grasped 
 Fred's arm, and hoisted the bundle and pie-dish 
 well under my own. 
 
 "That's our ship," I said triumphantly; 
 "come along! " 
 
 We crossed the gangway unperceived. " The 
 casks ! " I whispered, and we made our way to 
 the corner I had noticed. If Fred's heart beat 
 as chokingly as mine did, we were far too much 
 excited to speak, as we settled ourselves into a 
 corner, not quite as cosy as our hiding-place in 
 the forehold of the barge, and drew the tarpau- 
 lin over our heads, resting some of the weight 
 of it on the casks behind, that we might not be 
 smothered. 
 
 I have waited for the kitchen kettle to boil 
 when Fred and I wanted to make "hot grog" 
 
138 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 with raspberry - vinegar and nutmeg at his 
 father's house ; I have waited for a bonfire to 
 burn up when we wanted to roast potatoes ; 
 I have waited for it to leave off raining when 
 my mother would not let us go out for fear of 
 catching colds ; but I never knew time to pass 
 so slowly as when Fred and I were stowaways 
 on board the steamship Atalanta. 
 
 He was just beginning to complain, when we 
 heard men coming on board. This amused us 
 for a bit, but we were stowed so that we could 
 not see them, and we dared not look out. Neither 
 dared we speak, except when we heard them a 
 good way off, and then we whispered. So, sec- 
 ond after second, and minute after minute, and 
 hour after hour went by, and Fred became very 
 restless. 
 
 " She's to sail in the morning," I whispered. 
 
 " But where are we to get dinner and tea and 
 supper ? " asked Fred indignantly. I was tired, 
 and felt cross on my own account. 
 
 " You said yourself we might have to weigh 
 out our food with a bullet, like Admiral Bligh, 
 next week." 
 
 " He must have had something, or he couldn't 
 have weighed it," retorted Fred; "and how do 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 139 
 
 we know if they'll ever give us anything to eat 
 on board this ship ? " 
 
 " I dare say we can buy food at first, till they 
 find us something to do for our meals," said I. 
 
 " How much money is there left ? " asked Fred. 
 
 I put my hand into my pocket for the canvas 
 bag, but it was gone ! 
 
 There could be little doubt that the bad boy 
 had picked my pocket at the gate, but I had a 
 sense of guiltiness about it, for most of the 
 money was Fred's. This catastrophe com- 
 pletely overwhelmed him, and he cried and 
 grumbled till I was nearly at my wits' end. 
 I could not stop him, though heavy steps were 
 coming quite close to us. 
 
 " Sh ! Sh ! " muttered I ; "if you go on like 
 that they'll certainly find us, and then we shall 
 have managed all this for nothing, and might as 
 well have gone back with old Rowe." 
 
 " Which, wind and weather permitting, young 
 gentlemen, you will," said a voice just above us, 
 though we did not hear it. 
 
 "I wish we could," sobbed Fred; "only 
 there's no money now. But I'm going to get 
 out of this beastly hole, anyway." 
 
 " You're a nice fellow to tell me about your 
 
I4O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 grandfather," said I, in desperate exasperation ; 
 " I don't believe you've the pluck for a com- 
 mon sailor, let alone a great discoverer." 
 
 " You've hit the right nail on the head there, 
 Master Charles," said the voice. 
 
 " Fiddlesticks about my grandfather ! " said 
 Fred. 
 
 In the practical experiences of the last three 
 days my faith in Fred's tales had more than 
 once been rather rudely shaken ; but the con- 
 temptuous tone in which he disposed of our 
 model, the Great Sea-Captain, startled me so 
 severely that I do not think I felt any addi- 
 tional shock of astonishment when strong 
 hands lifted the tarpaulin from our heads, and 
 grave amid several grinning faces we 
 saw the bargemaster. 
 
 How he reproached us, and how Fred begged 
 him to take us home, and how I besought him 
 to let us go to sea, it would be tedious to 
 relate. I have no doubt now that he never 
 swerved from his intention of taking us back, 
 but he preferred to do it by fair means if 
 possible. So he fubbed me off, and took us 
 round the docks to amuse us, and talked of 
 dinner in a way that went to Fred's heart. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 143 
 
 But when I found that we were approaching 
 the gates once more, I stopped dead short. 
 As we went about the docks I had replied to 
 the bargemaster's remarks as well as I could, 
 but I had never ceased thinking of the desire 
 of my heart, and I resolved to make one pas- 
 sionate appeal to his pity. 
 
 " Mr. Rowe," I said, in a choking voice, 
 "please don't take me home! I would give 
 anything in the world to go to sea. Why 
 shouldn't I be a sailor, when. I want to? Take 
 Fred home if he wants to go, and tell them 
 that I'm all right, and mean to do my duty 
 and come back a credit to them." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's face was inscrutable, and I 
 pleaded harder. 
 
 " You're an old navy man, you know, Rowe," 
 I said, " and if you recommended me to the cap- 
 tain of one of these ships for a cabin-boy, I'll 
 be bound they'd take me." 
 
 " Mr. Charles, ' ' said the old man earnestly, " you 
 couldn't go for a cabin-boy ; you don't know 
 
 " You think I can't rough it," I interrupted 
 impatiently, "but try me, and see. I know 
 what I'm after," I added consequentially, "and 
 I'll bear what I have to bear, and do what I'm 
 
144 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 set to do, if I can get afloat. I'll be a captain some 
 day, and give orders instead of taking them." 
 
 Mr. Rowe drew up to attention and took off 
 his hat. " And wanting an able-bodied sea- 
 man in them circumstances, sir, for any voy- 
 age you likes to make," said he emphatically, 
 "call for Samuel Rowe." He then wiped the 
 passing enthusiasm from the crown of his head 
 with his handkerchief, and continued, with 
 the judicious diplomacy for which he was re- 
 markable, " But of course, sir, it's the Royal 
 Navy you'll begin in, as a midshipman. It's 
 seamanship you wants to learn, not swabbing 
 decks or emptying buckets below whilst others 
 is aloft. Your father's son would be a good 
 deal out of place, sir, as a cabin-boy in a com- 
 mon trading vessel." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's speech made an impression, and 
 I think he saw that it did. 
 
 " Look here, Master Charles," said he, 
 " you've a gentleman's feelings ; come home 
 now, and bear me out with your widowed 
 mother and your only sister, sir, and with 
 Master Fred's father, that I'm in duty bound 
 to, and promised to deliver safe and sound as 
 return cargo, wind and weather permitting." 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 145 
 
 " Oh, come home ! come home ! " reiterated 
 Fred. 
 
 I stood speechless for a minute or two. All 
 around and above me rose the splendid masts, 
 trellised with the rigging that I longed to 
 climb. The refreshing scent of tar mingled 
 with the smells of the various cargoes. The 
 coming and going of men who came and went 
 to and from the ends of the earth stirred all my 
 pulses to restlessness. And above the noises 
 of their coming and going I heard the lapping 
 of the water of the incoming tide against the 
 dock, which spoke with a voice more powerful 
 than that of Mr. Rowe. 
 
 And yet I went with him. 
 
 It was not because the canvas bag was empty, 
 not because Fred would not stay with me (for 
 I had begun to think that the Captain's grand- 
 son was not destined to be the hero of exploits 
 on the ocean) ; but when Mr. Rowe spoke of my 
 widowed mother and of Henrietta, he touched 
 a sore spot on my conscience. I had had an 
 uneasy feeling from the first that there was 
 something rather mean in my desertion of 
 them. Pride, and I hope some less selfish 
 impulse, made me feel that I could never be 
 
146 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 quite happy even on the mainmast-top if 
 I knew that I had behaved ill to them. 
 
 I could not very well speak, but I turned 
 round and began to walk in the direction of 
 the dock -gates. Mr. Rowe behaved uncom- 
 monly kindly. He said nothing more, but 
 turned as if I had given the word of command, 
 and walked respectfully just behind me. I re- 
 solved not to look back, and I did not. I was 
 quite determined, too, about one thing : Mr. 
 Rowe should never be able to say he had seen 
 me make a fool of myself after I had made 
 up my mind. But in reality I had very hard 
 work to keep from beginning to cry, just when 
 Fred was beginning to leave off. 
 
 I screwed up my eyes and kept them dry, 
 however. But as we went through the gate 
 there came in a sailor with a little bundle like 
 ours, and a ship's name on his hat. His hat sat 
 as if a gale were just taking it off, and his sea- 
 blue shirt was blown open by breezes that my 
 back was turned upon. In spite of all I could 
 do, one tear got through my eyelashes and ran 
 down, and I caught it on my lips. 
 
 It was a very bitter tear, and as salt as the 
 salt, salt sea ! 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A GLOW ON THE HORIZON. A FANTASTIC PEAL. 
 
 - WHAT I SAW WHEN THE ROOF FELL IN. 
 
 IT was the second day of our return voyage. 
 Mr. Rowe had been very kind, and especially 
 so to me. He had told us tales of seafaring 
 life, but they related exclusively to the Royal 
 Navy, and not unfrequently bore with dispar- 
 agement on the mercantile marine. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, are grades of rank more 
 strongly marked, with professional discipline and 
 personal independence better combined, than in 
 the army and navy. But the gulf implied by 
 Mr. Rowe between the youngest midshipman 
 and the highest seaman who was not an officer 
 was, I think, in excess of the fact. As to be- 
 coming cabin-boy to a trading vessel in hopes 
 of rising to be a captain, the bargemaster con- 
 trived to impress me with the idea that I might 
 as well take the situation of boot and knife- 
 
148 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 cleaner in the royal kitchen, in hopes of its 
 proving the first step towards ascending the 
 throne. 
 
 We seemed to have seen and done so much 
 since we were on the canal before, that I felt 
 quite sentimental as we glided into Linnet 
 Flash. 
 
 "The old place looks just the same, barge- 
 master," said I, with a travelled air. 
 
 " So it do, sir," said Mr. Rowe, and he added, 
 "There's no place like home." 
 
 I hardly know how near we were to the town, 
 but I know that it was getting late, that the 
 dew was heavy on the towing-path, and that 
 among the dark pencilled shadows of the sal- 
 lows in the water the full moon's reflection lay 
 like a golden shield, when the driver, who was 
 ahead, stepped back and shouted, " The bells are 
 ringing ! " 
 
 When we got a little nearer we heard them 
 quite clearly, and just when I was observing 
 a red glow diffuse itself in the cold night sky 
 above the willow hedge on our left, Mr. Rowe 
 said, "There must be a queer kind of echo 
 somewhere ; I heard sixteen bells." 
 
 And then I saw the driver, whose figure 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 149 
 
 stood out dark against the moonlit moorland 
 on our right, point with his arm to the fast 
 crimsoning skv, and Mr. Rowe left the rudder 
 and came forward, and Fred, who had had his 
 head low down, listening, ran towards us from 
 the bows and cried : 
 
 " There are sixteen, and they're ringing back- 
 wards, it's a fire ! ' ' 
 
 The driver mounted the horse, which was put 
 to the trot, and we hurried on. The bells came 
 nearer and nearer with their fantastic clanging, 
 and the sky grew more lurid as they rang. 
 Then there was a bend in the canal, and we 
 caught sight of the two towers of St. Philip 
 and St. James, dark against the glow. 
 
 "The whole town is in flames ! " cried Fred. 
 
 "Not it," said the bargemaster ; "it's ten to 
 one nothing but a rubbish-heap burning, or the 
 moors on fire beyond the town." 
 
 Mr. Rowe rather snubbed Fred, but I think 
 he was curious about the matter. The driver 
 urged his horse, and the good barge Betsy 
 swung along at a pace to which she was little 
 accustomed. 
 
 When we came by the cricket-field Mr. Rowe 
 himself said," It's in the middle of the town." 
 
I5O A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Through the deafening noise of the bells I 
 contrived to shout in his ear a request that 
 I might be put ashore, as we were now about 
 on a level with my home. Mr. Rowe ran a 
 plank quickly out and landed me, without time 
 for adieux. 
 
 I hastened up to the town. The first street 
 I got into was empty, but it seemed to vibrate 
 to St. Philip's peal. And after that I pushed my 
 way through people, hurrying as I was hurrying, 
 and the nearer I got to home the thicker grew 
 the crowd and the ruddier became the glow. 
 And now, in spite of the bells, I caught other 
 noises. The roar of irresistible fire, which 
 has a strange likeness to the roar of irresistible 
 water, the loud crackling of the burning wood, 
 and the moving and talking of the crowd, which 
 was so dense that I could hardly get forward. 
 
 I contrived to squeeze myself along, however, 
 and as I turned into our street I felt the warmth 
 of the fire, and when I looked at my old home 
 it was a mass of flames. 
 
 I tried to get people to make way for me 
 by saying, " It's my house ; please let me 
 through ! " But nobody seemed to hear me. 
 And yet there was a pause, which was only 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 % 
 
 filled by that curious sound when a crowd of 
 people gasp or sigh ; and if every man had been 
 a rock it could not have been more impossible 
 to move backwards or forwards. It was dark, 
 except for the moonlight, where I stood, but in 
 a moment or two the flames burst from the 
 bedroom windows, and the red light spread 
 farther, and began to light up faces near me. 
 I was just about to appeal to a man I knew, 
 when a roar began which I knew was not that 
 of the fire. It was the roar of human voices. 
 And when it swelled louder, and was caught up 
 as it came along, and then broke into deafening 
 cheers, I was so wild with excitement and anxi- 
 ety that I began to kick the legs of the man in 
 front of me to make him let me go to the home 
 that was burning before my eyes. 
 
 What he would have done in return, I don't 
 know, but at this moment the crowd broke up, 
 and we were pushed, pressed, and jostled about, 
 and people kept calling to " Make way ! " and 
 after tumbling down, and being picked up twice, 
 I found myself in the front row of a kind of 
 lane that had been made through the crowd, 
 down which several men were coming, carrying 
 on their shoulders an armchair with people in it. 
 
152 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 * 
 
 As they passed me there was a crash, which 
 seemed to shake the street. The roof of our 
 house had fallen in ! 
 
 As it fell, the flames burst up on every side, 
 and in the sudden glare the street became as 
 bright as day, and every little thing about one 
 seemed to spring into sight. Half the crowd was 
 known to me in a moment. 
 
 Then I looked at the chair which was being 
 carried along ; and by a large chip on one of 
 the legs I knew it was my father's old arm- 
 chair. 
 
 And in the chair I saw Rupert in his shirt 
 and trousers, and Henrietta in a petticoat and 
 an outdoor jacket, with so white a face that 
 even the firelight seemed to give it no color, 
 and on her lap was Baby Cecil in his night- 
 gown, with black smut marks on his nose and 
 chin. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 HENRIETTA'S DIARY. A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 RUPERT never was a fellow who could give 
 descriptions of things, and Henrietta was ill for 
 some time after the fire, and Mr. Bustard said 
 she wasn't to talk about it. 
 
 But she knew I wanted to know, so one day 
 when she was downstairs with me in the " Min- 
 iature Room " (it was at the Castle), she gave me 
 a manuscript book, and said, " It's my diary, 
 Charlie, so I know you won't look. But I've 
 put in two marks for the beginning and end of 
 the bit about the fire. I wrote it that evening, 
 you know, before Mr. Bustard came, and my 
 head got so bad." 
 
 Of course I made her show me exactly where 
 to begin and leave off, and then I read it. This 
 was it : 
 
 " It had been a very hot day, and I had got rather a 
 headache and gone to bed. The pain kept me awake a 
 153 
 
154 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 good bit, and when I did get to sleep I think I slept 
 rather lightly. I was partly awakened by noises which 
 seemed to have been going in my head all night till I 
 could bear them no longer, so I woke up, and found 
 that people were shouting outside, and that there was a 
 dreadful smell of burning. I had got on my flannel 
 petticoat when Rupert called me and said, ' Henny, dear, 
 the house is on fire ! Just put something round you, 
 and come quickly.' 
 
 "Just outside the door we met Cook; she said, * The 
 Lord be thanked; it's you, Miss Henrietta! Come 
 along ! ' 
 
 " Rupert said, ' Where's Mother, Cook ? ' 
 " Missus was took with dreadful fainting fits,' she 
 replied, ' and they've got her over to the Crown. 
 We're all to go there, and everything that can be 
 saved.' 
 
 "'Where's Baby,' said I, 'and Jane?' 
 " ' With your ma, miss, I expect,' Cook said ; and as 
 we came out she asked some one, who said, I saw 
 Jane at the door of the Crown just now.' I had been 
 half asleep till then, but when we got into the street 
 and saw the smoke coming out of the dining-room 
 window, Rupert and I wanted to stay and try to save 
 something, but one of the men who was there said, 
 'You and your brother's not strong enough to be of 
 no great use, miss ; you're only in the way of the 
 engine. Everybody's doing their best to save your 
 things, and if you'll go to the Crown to your mamma, 
 you'll do the best that could be.' 
 
 " The people who were saving our things saved 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 155 
 
 them all alike, they threw them out of the window, 
 and as I had seen the big blue china jar smashed to 
 shivers, I felt a longing to go and show them what 
 to do ; but Rupert said, ' The fellow's quite right, 
 Henny,' and he seized me by the hand and dragged 
 me off to the Crown. Jane was in the hall, looking 
 quite wild, and she said to us, ' Where's Master Cecil ? ' 
 I didn't stop to ask her how it was that she didn't 
 know. I ran out again, and Rupert came after me. 
 I suppose we both looked up at the nursery window 
 when we came near, and there was Baby Cecil stand- 
 ing and screaming for help. Before we got to the 
 door other people had seen him, and two or three 
 men pushed into the house. They came out gasping 
 and puffing, without Cecil, and I heard one man say, 
 It's too far gone. It wouldn't bear a child's weight, 
 and if you got up, you'd never come down again.' 
 
 " ' God help the poor child ! ' said the other man, 
 who was the chemist, and had a large family, I know. 
 I looked round and saw by Rupert's face that he had 
 heard. It was like a stone. I don't know how it 
 was, but it seemed to come into my head : If Baby 
 Cecil is burned it will kill Rupert too.' And I be- 
 gan to think, and I thought of the back, stairs. There 
 was a pocket-handkerchief in my jacket pocket, and I 
 soaked it in the water on the ground. The town bur- 
 gesses wouldn't buy a new hose when we got the new 
 steam fire-engine, and when they used the old one it 
 burst in five places, so that everything was swimming, 
 for the water was laid on from the canal. I think 
 my idea must have been written on my face, for though 
 
I S 6 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 I didn't speak, Rupert seemed to guess at once, and 
 he ran after me, crying, * Let me go, Henrietta ! ' but I 
 pretended not to hear. 
 
 " When we got to the back of the house the fire was 
 not nearly so bad, and we got in. But though it wasn't 
 exactly on fire where we were, the smoke came rolling 
 down the passage from the front of the house, and by 
 the time we got to the back stairs we could not see or 
 breathe, in spite of wet cloths over our faces, and our 
 
 eyes smarted with the smoke. ' Go down on all fours, 
 Henny,' said Rupert. So I did. It was wonderful. 
 When I got down with my face close to the ground 
 there was a bit of quite fresh air, and above this the 
 smoke rolled like a cloud. I could see the castors of 
 the legs of a table in the hall, but no higher up. In 
 this way we saw the foot of the back stairs, and climbed 
 up them on our hands and knees. But in spite of the 
 bit of fresh air near the ground the smoke certainly 
 grew thicker, and it got hotter and hotter, and we 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 could hear the roaring of the flames coming nearer, 
 and the clanging of the bells outside, and I never knew 
 what it was to feel thirst before then ! When we were 
 up the first flight, and the smoke was suffocating, I 
 heard Rupert say, ' Oh, Henny, you good girl, shall we 
 ever get down again? ' I couldn't speak, my throat was 
 so sore, but I remember thinking, ' It's like going up 
 through the clouds into Heaven, and we shall find Baby 
 Cecil there.' But after that it got rather clearer, be- 
 cause the fire was in the lower part of the house then, 
 and when we got to the top we stood up, and found 
 our way to the nursery by hearing Baby Cecil scream. 
 
 " The great difficulty was to get him down, for we 
 couldn't carry him and keep close to the ground. So 
 I said, You go first on your hands and knees back- 
 wards, and tell him to do as you do, and I'll come 
 last, so that he may see me doing the same and imi- 
 tate me.' Baby was very good about it, and when the 
 heat worried him, and he stopped, Rupert said, ' Come 
 on, Baby, or Henny will run over you,' and he scram- 
 bled down as good as gold. 
 
 " And when we got to the door the people began to 
 shout and to cheer, and I thought they would have torn 
 Baby to bits. It made me very giddy, and so did the 
 clanging of those dreadful bells ; and then I noticed 
 that Rupert was limping, and I said, Oh, Rupert, have 
 you hurt your knee? ' and he said, ' It's nothing; come 
 to the Crown: But there were two of the young men 
 from Jones's shop there, and they said, ' Don't you walk 
 and hurt your knee, sir ; we'll take you.' And they 
 pushed up my father's armchair, which had been saved 
 
158 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and was outside, and Rupert sat down, I believe, be- 
 cause he could not stand. Then they said, ' There's 
 room for you, miss,' and Rupert told me to come, and I 
 took Baby on my lap ; but I felt so ill I thought I should 
 certainly fall out when they lifted us up. 
 
 " The way the people cheered made me very giddy ; 
 I think I shall always feel sick when I hear hurrahing 
 now. 
 
 " Rupert is very good if you're ill. He looked at me 
 and said, ' You're the bravest girl I ever knew ; but dont' 
 faint if you can help it, or Baby will fall out.' 
 
 " I didn't ; and I wouldn't have fainted when we got 
 to the Crown if I could have stopped myself by anything 
 I could do." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MR. ROWE ON THE SUBJECT. OUR COUSIN. - 
 
 WESTON GETS INTO PRINT. THE HARBOR'S 
 MOUTH. WHAT LIES BEYOND. 
 
 MR. ROWE'S anxiety to see Rupert and Hen- 
 rietta, and to " take the liberty of expressing 
 himself " about their having saved Baby Cecil's 
 life, was very great, but the interview did not 
 take place for some time. The barge Betsy 
 took two voyages to Nine Elms and home again 
 before Henrietta was downstairs and allowed to 
 talk about the fire. 
 
 Rupert refused to see the bargemaster when 
 he called to ask after Henrietta ; he was vexed 
 because people made a fuss about the affair, 
 and when Rupert was vexed he was not gra- 
 cious. When Henrietta got better, however, 
 she said, " We ought to see old Rowe and 
 thank him for his kindness to Charlie ; " so 
 '59 
 
l6o A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 the next time he called, we all went into the 
 housekeeper's room to see him. 
 
 He was very much pleased and excited, 
 which always seemed to make him inclined to 
 preach. He set forth the noble motives which 
 must have moved Rupert and Henrietta to 
 their heroic conduct in the emergency, so that 
 I felt more proud of them than ever. But 
 Rupert frowned, and said, " Nonsense, Rowe, 
 I'm sure I never thought anything of the kind ; 
 I don't believe we either of us thought any- 
 thing at all." 
 
 But Mr. Rowe had not served seventeen 
 years in the Royal Navy to be put down when 
 he expounded a point of valor. 
 
 "That's where it is, Master Rupert," said he. 
 " It wouldn't have been you or Miss Henrietta 
 either if you had. A man overboard,' says 
 you, that's enough for one of your family, sir. 
 They never stops to think ' Can I swim ? ' but 
 in you goes, up the stairs that wouldn't hold 
 the weight of a new-born babby, and right 
 through the raging flames." 
 
 "Oh, dear!" cried Henrietta, "that's just 
 what Cook and all kinds of people will say. 
 But it was the front stairs that were on fire. 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. l6l 
 
 We only went up the back stairs, and they 
 weren't burning at all." 
 
 The bargemaster smiled in reply. But it 
 was with the affability of superior knowledge, 
 and I feel quite sure that he always told the 
 story (and believed it) according to this impos- 
 sible version. 
 
 It was on the third day after the fire that 
 our cousin called at the Croivn. He had never 
 been to see us before, and, as I have said, we 
 had never been to the Castle. But the next 
 day he sent a close carriage for Henrietta and 
 my mother, and a dog-cart for Rupert and me, 
 and brought us up to the Castle. We were 
 there for three months. 
 
 It was through him that Rupert went to 
 those baths abroad, which cured his knee com- 
 pletely. And then, because my mother could 
 not afford to do it, he sent him to a grander 
 public school than Doctor Jessop's old grammar 
 school, and Mr. Johnson sent Thomas Johnson 
 there too, for Tom could not bear to be parted 
 from Rupert, and his father never refused him 
 anything. 
 
 But what I think was so very kind of our 
 cousin was his helping me. Rupert and Hen- 
 
1 62 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 rietta had been a credit to the family, but I 
 deserved nothing. I had only run away in the 
 mean hope of outshining them, and had made 
 a fool of myself, whilst l.hey had been really 
 great in doing their duty at home. However, 
 he did back me up with Mother about going to 
 sea, and got me on board the training-ship 
 Albion; and my highest hope is to have the 
 chance of bringing my share of renown to my 
 father's name, that his cousin may never regret 
 having helped me to my heart's desire. 
 
 Fred Johnson and I are very good friends, 
 but since our barge voyage we have never been 
 quite so intimate. I think the strongest tie 
 between us was his splendid stories of the Cap- 
 tain, and I do not believe in them now. 
 
 Oddly enough, my chief friend of the 
 whole lot is Weston. Rupert always said I 
 had a vulgar taste in the choice of friends, so 
 it seems curious that of our schoolmates John- 
 son should be his friend and Weston mine. 
 For Johnson's father is only a canal-carrier, 
 and Weston is a fellow of good family. 
 
 He is so very clever ! And I have such a 
 habit of turning my pockets inside out for 
 everybody to see, that I admire his reticence ; 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 163 
 
 and then, though he is so ironical with himself, 
 as well as other people, he has very fine ideas 
 and ambitions, and very noble and upright prin- 
 ciples, when you know him well. 
 
 " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," 
 and the fire that burned down our house got 
 Weston into print at last. 
 
 It was not a common letter either, in the 
 " correspondence " part, with small type, and 
 the editor not responsible. It was a leading 
 article, printed big, and it was about the fire 
 and Rupert and Henrietta. Thomas Johnson 
 read it to us, and we did not know who wrote 
 it ; but it was true, and in good taste. After 
 the account of the fire came a quotation from 
 Horace : 
 
 " Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis" 
 
 And Johnson cried, "That's Weston, depend 
 upon it ! He's in the Weekly Spectator at 
 last ! " 
 
 And then, to my utter amazement, came 
 such a chronicle of the valiant deeds of Ru- 
 pert's ancestors as Weston could only have got 
 from one source. What had furnished his 
 ready pen with matter for a comic ballad to 
 
164 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 punish my bragging had filled it also to do 
 honor to Rupert and Henrietta's real bravery ; 
 and down to what the colonel of my father's 
 regiment had said of him, it was all there. 
 
 Weston came to see me the other day at 
 Dartmouth, where our training-ship Albion lies, 
 and he was so charmed by the old town, with 
 its carved and gabled houses, and its luxuriant 
 gardens rich with pale-blossomed laurels, which 
 no frost dwarfs, and crimson fuchsias gnarled 
 with age, and its hill-embosomed harbor, where 
 the people of all grades and ages, and of both 
 sexes, flit hither and thither in their boats as 
 landlubbers would take an evening stroll, that 
 I felt somewhat justified in the romantic love 
 I have for the place. 
 
 And when we lay in one of the Albion s boats, 
 rocking up and down in that soothing swell 
 which freshens the harbor's mouth, Weston 
 made me tell him all about the lion and the 
 silver chain, and he called me a prig for saying 
 so often that I did not believe in it now. I 
 remember he said, " In this sleepy, damp, de- 
 lightful Dartmouth, who but a prig could deny 
 the truth of a poetical dream ! " 
 
 He declared he could see the lion in a cave in 
 
A GREAT EMERGENCY. 165 
 
 the rock, and that the poor beast wanted a new 
 sea-green ribbon. 
 
 Weston speaks so much more cleverly than 
 I can, that I could not explain to him then that 
 I am still but too apt to dream ! But the har- 
 bor's mouth is now only the beginning of my 
 visions, which stretch far over the sea beyond, 
 and over the darker line of that horizon where 
 the ships come and go. 
 
 I hope it is not wrong to dream. My father 
 was so modest as well as ambitious, so good as 
 well as so gallant, that I would rather die than 
 disgrace him by empty conceit and unprofitable 
 hopes. 
 
 Weston is a very religious fellow, though he 
 does not " cant " at all. When I was going 
 away to Dartmouth, and he saw me off (for we 
 were great friends), one of the last things he 
 said to me was, " I say, don't leave off saying 
 your prayers, you know." 
 
 I haven't, and Itold him so this last time. 
 I often pray that if ever I am great, I may be 
 good too ; and sometimes I pray that if I try 
 hard to be good God will let me be great as 
 well. 
 
 The most wonderful thing was old Rowe's 
 
1 66 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 taking a cheap ticket and coming down to see 
 me last summer. I never can regret my voy- 
 age with him in the Betsy, for I did thoroughly 
 enjoy it ; though I often think how odd it is 
 that in my vain, jealous, wild-goose chase after 
 adventures, I missed the chance of distinguish- 
 ing myself in the only Great Emergency which 
 has yet occurred in our family. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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