NINE.

YOUNG DECISION.

One week later, and three men might be seen walking briskly along a by-
street in Liverpool towards the docks. These were Hubert Oliphant,
Frank Oldfield, and Captain Merryweather, commander of the barque
_Sabrina_, bound for South Australia. The vessel was to sail next day,
and the young men were going with the captain to make some final
arrangements about their cabins. Hubert looked bright and happy, poor
Frank subdued and sad. The captain was a thorough and hearty-looking
sailor, brown as a coffee-berry from exposure to weather; with abundance
of bushy beard and whiskers; broad-shouldered, tall, and upright. It
was now the middle of October, just three days after the flight of
Samuel Johnson from Langhurst, as recorded in the opening of our story.
As the captain and his two companions turned the corner of the street
they came upon a group which arrested their attention at once.

Standing not far from the door of a public-house was a lad of about
fourteen years of age. He looked worn and hungry, yet he had not at all
the appearance of a beggar. He was evidently strange to the place, and
looked about him with an air of perplexity, which made it clear that he
was in the midst of unfamiliar and uncongenial scenes. Three or four
sailors were looking hard at him, as they lounged about the public-house
door, and were making their comments to one another.

"A queer-looking craft," said one. "Never sailed in these waters afore,
I reckon."

"Don't look sea-worthy," said another.

"Started a timber or two, I calculate," remarked a third.

"Halloa! messmate," shouted another, whose good-humoured face was
unhappily flushed by drink, "don't lie-to there in that fashion, but
make sail, and come to an anchor on this bench."

The lad did not answer, but stood gazing at the sailors in a state of
utter bewilderment.

"Have you carried away your jawing-tackle, my hearty?" asked the man who
had last addressed him.

"I can't make head nor tail of what you say," was the boy's reply.

"Well, what's amiss with you, then? Can you compass that?"

"Ay," was the reply; "I understand that well enough. There's plenty
amiss with me, for I've had nothing to eat or drink since yesterday, and
I haven't brass to buy anything with."

"Ah, I see. I suppose you mean by that foreign lingo that you haven't a
shot in your locker, and you want a bit of summut to stow away in your
hold."

"I mean," replied