rushed in different directions, one to stumble
over a coil of rope, perform an evolution like the leap of a frog, and
come down flat on his front; the other to butt his head right into the
chest of a big, burly, sunburnt man, who gave vent to a sound between a
bellow and a roar.

"Where are--Hi! aloft there!--oh, my wind! Ahoy there, you--!"

Then followed, as the big burly man recovered his breath, a startling
volley of words--expletives and sea terms, in which he denounced the
gang of men aloft as sea-cooks and lubbers, and threatened divers
punishments and penalties for their carelessness.

Then he turned to another man who was bigger, burlier, redder, and
browner, especially about the nose, and made certain exceedingly
impolite inquiries as to what he was about, to allow the owner's tackle
to be smashed about in that fashion. To which the bigger and browner
man growled out a retort that he'd nothing to do with the gang, as
things hadn't been handed over to him yet. And then he grew frantic
too, and kicked the fallen yard, and yelled up to the riggers that the
said piece of wood was sprung, that they'd have to get another yard, for
he wasn't going to sea with a main-top-galn'sl-yard fished and spliced.

Meantime the first brown man had turned to the two lads, and cooling
down, nodded to them.

"Come on board then, eh?"

"Yes, sir--yes, sir."

"Lucky for you that you both hopped out of the way, youngsters, or I
should have had to send one of you back home with a hole through him,
and t'other broke in half."

I was the boy who would have been sent home with a hole through him--I
the boy who write this--and the other boy who would have been broken in
half, was one whom I had encountered at the dock-gates, where we had
both arrived together, that miserable, mizzly morning, in four-wheeled
cabs with our sea-chests on the top, and both in mortal dread--and yet
somehow hopeful--that we should be too late, and that the good ship
Burgh Castle had sailed.

I had been very anxious to go to sea. I loved it, and all through the
preparations I was eagerness itself; but somehow, when it came to the
morning that I started from the hotel where I had slept for the one
night in London, a curious feeling of despondency came over me, a
feeling which grew worse as I passed through the city, and then along
the water-side streets, where there were shops displaying tarpaulins,
canvas, and ropes; others dealing in ships' store