Harry Milvaine: or, The Wanderings of a Wayward Boy. Stables Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ that streamed from the funnel, only the wild waves on every side, their white crests flashing and shimmering here and there as if they were living monsters. Sometimes one would hit the ship with a dull, dreary thud, and the spray would dash on board, and anon the steamer would duck her head and ship a great green sea that came tumbling aft, carrying everything movable before it, and drenching every one to the skin whom it met in its passage.

      Poor Harry was too sick and ill to care much what became of him.

      He had crawled in under a tarpaulin, and there, with his head on a coil of ropes, fallen soundly asleep once more.

      It was a painful first experience of the sea, and to tell you the truth, even at the expense of my young hero’s reputation, more than once he almost wished he had not left his Highland home. Almost, but not quite.

      And now here he was standing looking down from a hill-top, and wishing himself safe and sound on board one of these stately Greenland ships. But how to get there?

      That was the difficulty.

      There was no great hurry for a week. He had secured cheap lodgings in a quiet private house, so he must keep still and think fortune might favour him.

      The object of the captains of these Greenland whalers in lying for a time at Lerwick is to ship additional hands, for here they can be obtained at a cheaper rate than in Scotland.

      All day the streets were crowded to excess with seamen, and at night the place was like a bedlam newly let loose. It was not a pleasant scene to look upon.

      Now Harry Milvaine had read so much, that he knew quite a deal about the manners and customs of seafarers, and also of the laws that govern ships, their masters, and their crews.

      “If I go straight to the captain of some ship,” he said to himself, “and ask him to take me, then, instead of taking me, he will hand me over to the authorities, and they will send me home. That would not do.”

      For a moment, but only a moment, it crossed his mind to become a stowaway.

      But there was something most abhorrent in the idea. A mean, sneaking stowaway! Never.

      “I’ll do things in a gentlemanly kind of way, whatever happens,” he said to himself.

      Well, anyhow, he would go and buy some addition to his outfit. He had read books about Greenland, and he knew what to purchase. Everything must be rough and warm.

      When he had made his purchases he found he had only thirty shillings remaining of all his savings.

      As he was bargaining for a pair of thick mitts a gentleman entered the shop and bade the young woman who had been serving Harry a kindly good morning.

      “What can I do for you to-day, Captain Hardy?” asked the woman, with a smile.

      “Ah! well,” returned the captain, “I really didn’t want anything, you know. Just looked in to have a peep at your pretty face, that’s all.”

      “Oh, Captain Hardy, you’re not a bit changed since you were here last season.”

      “No, Miss Mitford, no; the seasons may change, but Captain Hardy – never. Well, I’ll have a couple of pairs of worsted gloves; no fingers in them, only a thumb.”

      “Anything else?”

      “Come, now to think of it, May-day will come before many months, and – ”

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