The boys were singing a little; the
smell of the coffee was coming up, hot and home-like, from the galley. I
was up in the maintop, I forget what for, when all at once there came a
cry and a shout; and, when I touched deck, I saw a crowd around the
fore-hatch.

"What's all this noise for?" says Mr. Whitmarsh, coming up and scowling.

"A stow-away, sir! A boy stowed away!" said Bob, catching the officer's
tone quick enough. Bob always tested the wind well, when a storm was
brewing. He jerked the poor fellow out of the hold, and pushed him along
to the mate's feet.

I say "poor fellow," and you'd never wonder why if you'd seen as much of
stowing away as I have.

I'd as lief see a son of mine in a Carolina slave-gang as to see him
lead the life of a stow-away. What with the officers from feeling that
they've been taken in, and the men, who catch their cue from their
superiors, and the spite of the lawful boy who hired in the proper way,
he don't have what you may call a tender time.

This chap was a little fellow, slight for his years, which might have
been fifteen, I take it. He was palish, with a jerk of thin hair on his
forehead. He was hungry, and homesick, and frightened. He looked about
on all our faces, and then he cowered a little, and lay still just as
Bob had thrown him.

"We--ell," says Whitmarsh, very slow, "if you don't repent your bargain
before you go ashore, my fine fellow,--me, if I'm mate of the
Madonna! and take that for your pains!"

Upon that he kicks the poor little lubber from quarter-deck to bowsprit,
or nearly, and goes down to his supper. The men laugh a little, then
they whistle a little, then they finish their song quite gay and well
acquainted, with the coffee steaming away in the galley. Nobody has a
word for the boy,--bless you, no!

I'll venture he wouldn't have had a mouthful that night if it had not
been for me; and I can't say as I should have bothered myself about him,
if it had not come across me sudden, while he sat there rubbing his eyes
quite violent, with his face to the west'ard (the sun was setting
reddish), that I had seen the lad before; then I remembered walking on
the wharves, and him on the box, and Molly saying softly that I was
cross to him.

Seeing that my wife had smiled at him, and my baby thrown a kiss at him,
it went against me, you see, not to look after the little rascal a bit
that night.

"But you've got no business here, you know," said I; "nobody wan