Chapter 2. After Three Ages

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_ CHAPTER TWO. AFTER THREE AGES

Perhaps it was with reading _Robinson Crusoe_ and _Sindbad the Sailor_-- I don't know, but I always did have a hankering after going abroad.

Twopence was generally the extent of my supply of hard cash, so I used to get dreaming about gold, and to think that I had only to be wrecked upon some rocky shore to find the remains of a Spanish galleon freighted with gold in doubloons, and bars, and ingots, a prize to which I could lay claim, and be rich for ever after.

Now, with such ideas as these in my head, I ask anybody, was it likely that I could take to soap-boiling?

That was my father's business, and he was very proud of his best and second quality yellow, and his prime hard mottled. He had made a comfortable living out of it, as his father and grandfather had before him, helping to cleanse no end of people in their time; but I thought then, as I think now, that it was a nasty unpleasant business, whose odour is in my nostrils to the present day.

"You're no good, Harry," said my father, "not a bit, and unless you sink that tin-pot pride of yours, and leave off wandering about and wearing out your boots, and take off your coat and go to work, you'll never get a living. You've always got your nose stuck in a book--such trash! Do you ever see me over a book unless it's a daybook or ledger, eh?"

My father had no sooner done speaking than my mother shook her head at me, and I went and stood out in the yard, leaning my back up against one of the great tallow hogsheads, and thought.

It only took me five minutes to make up my mind, for the simple reason that it was already seven-eighths on the way, this not being the first time by many a score that my father had given me his opinion respecting my future prospects in life; and as I neared twenty such opinions used to seem to grit in amongst my mental works, while the longer I lived the more I thought that I should never get my livelihood by soap-boiling.

Well, my mind was made up most stubbornly that I would go out to Uncle Reuben.

Just then, as I stood moodily there, I heard the sound of a scuffle and a sharp smack, and directly after, one of our lads, a young fellow of my own age Tom Bulk by name, came hurriedly out of the kitchen door, rubbing the side of his red face, but only to drop his hand the moment he caught sight of me leaning against the tallow-tub.

"What's the matter, Tom?" I said, though I knew well enough that Tom was in hot water.

"Got a flea in my ear, Mas'r Harry," he said, with a grin of vexation. "I caught it in the kitchen."

"So have I, Tom," I said bitterly; "but I caught mine in the parlour."

"Mas'r been rowing you agen, sir?"

"Yes, Tom," I said drearily, "and it's for the last time. If I'm no good I may as well be off. I can't take to our business."

"Well, tain't so sweet as it used to be, sir; and it don't seem right that, to make other folks clean, we should allers be in a greasy mess. But what are you going to do, Mas'r Harry?" he said anxiously.

"Going abroad, Tom."

"So am I, Mas'r Harry."

"You, Tom?"

"Sure I am, Mas'r Harry, if you are," said Tom; and then and there he pulled off his great, greasy leather apron and soapy white slop, and fetched his shiny jacket out of the boiling-house. "I'm ready, Mas'r Harry," he exclaimed, as he fought hard to get one arm properly into his sleeve, but had to try again and again, because the button was off the wristband of his shirt, and the sleeve kept slipping up to his shoulder, necessitating a fresh attempt.

I burst out laughing at him, as I saw the earnest way in which he took my announcement; but the more I laughed the more solid Tom became, as he worked his body into his old coat, and then proceeded to button it right up to the chin, slapping himself several times upon the chest to settle a wrinkle here and there, and ending by spitting in his hands, and looking at me as much as to say, "Where's boxes, Mas'r Harry? Let's be off."

"Watcher larfin' at, Mas'r Harry?" he said at last.

"At you, Tom," I replied.

"All right, Mas'r Harry," he replied in the most philosophical way, "larfin' don't cost nothing, and it's very pleasant, and it don't matter when it's them as you know; but when it comes to somebody you don't know, why then it riles."

I turned serious on the instant.

"Do you know what you are talking about, Tom?" I said.

"Sure I do, Mas'r Harry. Talkin' 'bout going abroad."

"But where?"

"I d'know, Mas'r Harry; only it's along o' you."

"But, my good fellow," I said, "perhaps I'm about to do very wrong in going."

"Then, p'r'aps I am, Mas'r Harry," he replied, "and that don't matter."

"But it might be the ruin of your prospects, Tom."

"Ruin o' my prospecks!" cried Tom. "Hark at him!" and he seemed to be addressing a pile of chests. "Don't see as there's much prospeck in looking down into a taller tub. I could do that anywheres."

"But you don't understand me, Tom," I cried.

"Don't want to, Mas'r Harry," he said. "I know as I'm allers gettin' my face slapped when I go into the kitchen; that I always get the smell o' the tallow in my nose and can't get it out; and that I hate soap to such an extent that I wouldn't care if I never touched a bit again."

"Oh, but you'll get on here, Tom, in time, and perhaps rise to be foreman."

"No, I sha'n't, Mas'r Harry, 'cause I'm coming along with you."

"But don't you see that I am going to a place where it would not be suitable for you."

"What's sootable for you, Mas'r Harry, would be just as sootable for me, and I'd work like one of the niggers out there, only harder."

"Niggers out where, Tom?"

"Where we're going, Mas'r Harry."

"How do you know there are any niggers where we are going, sir?"

"Oh, there's sure to be, Mas'r Harry. There's niggers everywheres, I've heerd tell."

"Oh, but really, Tom," I said, "it is all nonsense. Look here, I'm going out to join my uncle in South America."

"South America, Mas'r Harry!" said Tom eagerly. "Why, that's just the very place I want to go to."

"I don't believe it, Tom," I said sharply. "If I had told you I was going to South Australia, you would have said just the same."

"Dessay I should, Mas'r Harry," he replied grinning.

"Well now, look here, Tom," I continued very seriously, "I am going out to join my uncle, and if I get on, and can see that there is a good chance for you out there, why, I'll send you word, and you can join me."

"No, you won't, Mas'r Harry," he said quietly.

"But I promise you that I will."

"No, you won't, Mas'r Harry."

"Don't you believe my word, Tom?"

"I believe that you believe you mean me to believe, Mas'r Harry," he said; "but I don't mean you to go without me, and so I tell you. There wouldn't be no getting on without me alongside o' you, that there wouldn't, and I'm going along with you."

"What are you two quarrelling about?" said my father, coming up just then.

"We were not quarrelling, father," I replied, snatching at the opportunity to lay bare my plans now that I was a little excited, for I had been rather nervous about how my proposals would be taken.

"Mas'r Harry's going out foreign abroad," said Tom sturdily; "and he said I warn't to go with him, and I said I would, sir--that's all."

"Oh, he's going abroad, is he?" said my father.

"Yes, sir," I replied, "I have made up mind to go and see if Uncle Reuben can find me anything to do."

"I hope you don't think that you are going to lead a life of idleness out there, sir?"

"Oh no, sir," I replied, "I mean to work."

"Then why don't you work here?" said my father.

"Because I hate the trade so, sir."

"Nice clean business too," said my father; "makes clean money, and keeps people clean. I suppose you know it's horribly hot out there?"

"Not so hot as in our boiling-house, sir," I replied.

"Humph!" said my father; and then, without another word, he walked back into the house.

"I _am_ glad," cried Tom, rubbing his hands together softly. "What a time of it we shall have, Mas'r Harry!"

It was my turn now to be silent, and I stood watching Tom, and thinking as I struggled with myself that it would, after all, be very pleasant to have a sturdy trustworthy fellow like Tom always at my back when I was in a strange land. For I had read that the descendants of the old Spaniards in South America were courtly noble-looking gentlemen enough, but were bitter and revengeful, and not always disposed to look with favour upon Englishmen. How did I know but in my fortune-seeking adventures--for truly enough I meant to go out to seek my fortune--I might make enemies, and be sometime or another in danger. Then how good it would be to have such a henchman as Tom at my side.

My thoughts were very visionary, of course, for I could not foresee the strange adventures through which I should have to go; and for the moment I was about to turn sharp round on Tom, and shake hands and say, "That's right, Tom, we will go out and carve our fortunes together." But I checked myself directly, as I thought of my position.

For how was I to take out with me what to all intents and purposes would be a servant, when the probabilities were that I should hardly have the money to pay my own passage to the far-off land?

I was interrupted in my thoughts by Tom, who turned to me and said, "Give me your knife, Mas'r Harry, and I'll give it a good sharp up along o' mine. There's nothing like having a good keen knife in your pocket when you're going travelling, so they say."

"Very true, Tom," I cried laughing; "are you really in earnest over this?"

"Really in earnest, Mas'r Harry? Why, I never felt so earnest before in my life. To be sure I am, I want to see a bit o' the world."

"Very well then, Tom," I replied; "you will have a hard lot to share with me, but share it you shall if you like."

"I don't want to share or anything of the kind," said Tom gruffly. "You're young master, and I'm only lad. I know what I am and what I'm fit for well enough, Mas'r Harry, so don't you get talking no more about sharing danger, because it won't do."

"Oh, very well, Tom, we won't quarrel about that."

"That's right then, Mas'r Harry; so now give us hold of your knife."

I gave him my knife, in a thoughtful way, and he took it, opened it, and examined its edge.

"Blunt as a butter knife, Mas'r Harry," he cried. "And now, when do we start?"

"Start, Tom?" I cried laughing. "Oh, it is not like going to London, we must make a great many preparations first, for it's a long journey."

"Is it?" he said. "Two or three hundred miles, Mas'r Harry?"

"A good deal more than two or three thousand, Tom," I replied.

"Oh, all right, Mas'r Harry. I don't mind how far it is, as long as we keep together. My word an' honour, won't it be different to making best yaller and mottled and cutting it into bars?"

"Different, Tom?" I said dreamily. "Yes, my lad, it will indeed." _

Read next: Chapter 3. I Come To An Understanding With My Father

Read previous: Chapter 1. Introductory

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