eeze on the beam. Long before he
ever saw the outside of the bar he had heard of every point on the
coast. The possibility of becoming anything but a sailor never entered
his head. He tried to copy the flat-footed rolling walk of the seamen,
and he longed for the time when he might wear a braided cap and smoke a
pipe. While yet little more than a child he went on his trial voyage,
and had his first experience of sea-sickness. Then he was bound
apprentice for five years, his wages beginning at L8 per year, and
increasing yearly by L2 until the end of his term. His troubles began
after his indentures were signed. The average skipper had no thought of
cruelty and yet was very cruel. The poor lad had a very scanty allowance
of water for washing; yet if he appeared at breakfast-time with face and
hands unclean he was sent squeaking up to the galley with a few smart
weals tingling upon him. All sorts of projectiles were launched at him
merely to emphasize orders. The mate, the able seamen (or
"full-marrows"), the ordinary seamen (or "half-marrows") never dreamed
of signifying their pleasure to him save with a kick or an open-handed
blow. His only time of peace came when it was his watch below, and he
could lay his poor little unkempt head easily in his hammock. In bad
weather he took his chance with the men. The icy gusts roared through
the rigging; the cold spray smote him and froze on him; green seas came
over and forced him to hold on wheresoever he might. Sometimes the
clumsy old brig would drown everybody out of the forecastle, and the
little sailor had to curl up in his oilskins on the streaming floor of
the after-cabin. Sometimes the ship would have to "turn" every yard of
the way from Thames to Tyne, or from Thames to Blyth. Then the cabin-boy
had to stamp and shiver with the rest until the vessel came round on
each new tack, and then perhaps he would be forced to haul on a rope
where the ice was hardening. It might be that on one bad night, when the
fog lay low on the water and the rollers lunged heavily shoreward, the
skipper would make a mistake. The look-out men would hear the thunder of
broken water close under the bows; and then, after a brief agony of
hurry and effort, the vessel beat herself to bits on the remorseless
stones. In that case the little cabin-boy's troubles were soon over. The
country people found him in the morning stretched on the beach with his
eyes sealed with the soft sand. But in most instance