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Syd Belton: The Boy who would not go to Sea, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 2 |
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_ CHAPTER TWO. The next morning Sydney Belton rose in excellent time, but not from a desire to keep good hours. He could not sleep well, so he dressed and went out, to find it was only on the stroke of six. As he reached the garden, there was his self-constituted enemy stretching out before him, far as eye could reach, and sparkling gloriously in the morning sunshine. "Bother the sea!" muttered the boy, scowling. "Wish it was all dry land." "What cheer, lad! Mornin', mornin'. Don't she look lovely, eh?" "Morning, Barney," said the boy, turning to see that the old boatswain had come to work with a scythe over his shoulder. "What looks lovely this morning?" "Eh? Why, the sea, of course. Wish I was afloat, 'stead of having to shave this lawn, like a wholesale barber. Got any noos?" "Yes, Barney," said the boy, bitterly; "I'm to go to sea." "Hurray!" cried the old boatswain, rubbing his scythe-blade with the stone rubber, and bringing forth a musical sound. "You're glad of it, then?" "Course I am, my lad. Be the making on you. Wish I was coming too." "Bah!" ejaculated Sydney, and he left the old boatswain to commence the toilet of the dewy lawn, while in a desultory way, for the sake of doing something to fill up the time till breakfast, he strolled round to the back, where a loud whistling attracted his attention. The sound came from an outhouse, toward which the boy directed his steps. "Cleaning the knives, I suppose," said Sydney to himself, and going to the door he looked in. The tray of knives was there waiting to be cleaned, and the board and bath-brick were on a bench, but the red-faced boy was otherwise engaged. He was kneeling down with a rough, curly-haired retriever dog sitting up before him, with paws drooped and nose rigid, while Pan was carefully balancing a knife across the pointed nose aforesaid. Pan was so busily employed that he did not hear the step, and the first notification he had of another's presence was given by the dog, who raised his muzzle suddenly and uttered a loud and piteous whine directed at Sydney--the dog's cry seeming to say, "Do make him leave off." The glance the boatswain's son gave made him spring at the board, snatch up a couple of the implements, and begin to rub them to and fro furiously, while the dog, in high glee at being freed from an arduous task, began to leap about, barking loudly, and making dashes at his young master's legs. "Poor old Don--there!" cried Sydney, patting the dog's ears. "He don't like discipline, then. Well, Pan, when are you going to sea?" "Not never," said the boy, shortly. "Yes, you are. Your father said he should send you." "If he does I shall run away, so there," cried the boy. Sydney turned away, and walked through the garden, his head bent, his brow wrinkled, and his mind so busily occupied, that he hardly heeded which way he went. "If his father sends him he shall run away." Those words kept on repeating themselves in Sydney's brain like some jingle, and he found himself thinking of them more and more as he passed through the gate, and went along the road that late autumn morning, kicking up the dead leaves which lay clustering beneath the trees. "If his father sends him to sea he shall run away," said Sydney to himself; and then he thought of how Pan Strake would be free, and have no more boots and shoes or knives to clean, and not have to go into the garden to weed the paths. Then by a natural course he found himself thinking that if he, Sydney Belton, were to leave home, he would escape being sent to sea--at all events back to school--and he too would be free. With a boy's wilful obstinacy, he carefully drew a veil over all the good, and dragged out into the mental light all that he looked upon as bad in his every-day life, satisfied himself that he was ill-used, and wished that he had had a mother living to, as he called it, take his part. "I wonder what running away would be like?" he thought. "There would be no Uncle Tom to come and bully and bother me, and father wouldn't be there to take his side against me. I wonder what one could do if one ran away?" "Morning!" Sydney started, for he had been so intent upon his thoughts that he had not heard the regular trot, trot of a plump cob, nor the grinding of wheels, and he looked up to see that it was Doctor Liss who had suddenly drawn rein in the road. "Going for a walk, Syd?" "Yes; but--I--Where are you going, doctor?" "Into the town. Just been called up. Poor fellow injured in the docks last night." "Take me with you." "What?" cried the doctor, smiling down in the eager face before him. "Didn't I get scolded enough last night, you young dog, for leading you astray?" "Oh, but father didn't mean it. Do take me. Is he much hurt?" "Broken leg, I hear. No, no. Go home to breakfast. Ck! Sally. Good morning." The doctor touched the cob as he nodded to Sydney, and the wheels of the chaise began to turn, but with a bound the boy was out in the road, and hanging on to the back. "No, no, Doctor Liss, don't leave me behind. I do so want to go, and there's plenty of time for me to get back to breakfast." "But Sir Thomas will declare I am leading you into the evil paths of medicine and surgery." "Uncle won't know. Do pull up; let me come." "Well," said the doctor, smiling grimly, "I don't see that it can do you any harm, Syd. Here, jump in." There was no need for a second consent. Almost before the horse could be stopped the boy had leaped lightly in, and with his face bright and eager once more, and the dark misty notions upon which he had been brooding gone clean away, he began chatting merrily to his old friend, whose rounds he had often gone. "Yes, yes, Syd, that's all very well," said the doctor, making his whip-lash whistle through the air, "but you don't know what a doctor's life is. All very well driving here on a bright autumn morning to get an appetite for breakfast, but look at the long dark dismal rides I have at all times in the winter." "Well, they can't be half so bad as keeping a watch in a storm right out at sea. Why, I've heard both father and Uncle Tom say that it's awful sometimes." "Only sometimes, Syd." "Well, I can't help it. I hate it, and I won't go." "Must, my boy, must. Take it like a dose of my very particular. You know, Syd," said the doctor, nudging the boy with his elbow; "that rich thick morning draught I gave you after a fever." "Oh, I say, don't," cried Sydney, with a wry face and a shudder; "it's horrid. I declare, when I'm a doctor, I'll never give any one such stuff." "No, Syd, you'll be a captain, and the physic for your patients will be cat-o'-nine-tails." Sydney frowned, and as they neared the busy town, with its little forest of masts rising beyond the houses, Doctor Liss glanced sideways at the boy's gloomy and thoughtful countenance. "Why, Syd," he said at last merrily, "you look as gloomy as if you had been pressed. Come, my lad, take your medicine, and then you can have that sweet afterwards that we call duty." Sydney made no reply, but his face did not brighten, for duty seemed to him then a nauseous bitter. "Doctor Liss," he said, just as they reached the docks, down one of whose side lanes the patient lay, "if I make up my mind to be a doctor--" "You can't, Syd. You are too young to have one yet. A man's mind is as strong as if it had bone and muscle. Yours is only like jelly." Syd was silent again for a minute. Then he began once more-- "If I determined to be a doctor, and wouldn't be anything else, would you teach me?" "No, certainly not." "Then I'd teach myself," cried Syd, fiercely. "Oh, indeed! Humph! I retract my words about your young mind being jelly. I see there is some substance in it growing already. But no, Syd, you are not going to be a doctor; and here we are." He drew up at a cottage door, where a couple of rough-looking men were waiting about, one of whom held the horse while the doctor descended, and Syd followed into the room, where a poor fellow lay in great agony with a badly fractured leg. This was reduced, Syd looking on, and handing the doctor splints and bandages as they were required. After this the pair re-entered the gig, and drove back toward the Heronry. "Just a quarter to nine, Syd. You'll be back in time for breakfast." "I think I could set a broken leg now," said Syd, whose thoughts were still at the cottage. "Bless the boy!" exclaimed the doctor. "Take one off, I suppose, if it were wanted?" "No," said Syd, gravely, "I shouldn't feel enough confidence to do that." "I should think not, indeed," muttered the doctor, as he gave a sidelong look at his companion. "Why, you morbid young rascal, you ought to be thinking of games and outdoor sports instead of such things as this. Here we are. Ready for your breakfast?" "Yes, I am getting hungry," said Syd. "How long will those bones be growing together again?" "Confound you--young dog! Go and pick grilled chicken bones. I'll never take you out with me again. Jump out. Good-bye, sailor." The doctor nodded and drove off, while Syd walked slowly up to the house, and entered the dining-room just as his father and uncle came down, punctual to the moment. "Ah, Syd," said his father; "you are first." "Morning, boy, morning," cried his uncle. "Been for a walk on deck?" "No, uncle; I've been for a drive." "Drive! Drive!" said his father. "Who with?" "Doctor Liss, father." _Bang_! Sir Thomas's hand made the coffee-cups rattle this time, as he said sharply-- "Harry, my lad, if I were you I should take this spark up to town and see Dashleigh at once. I'll go with you." "Very well. And he can be measured for his kit at the same time, eh?" "Of course. Mind the tailor makes his clothes big enough, for as soon as he gets to sea he'll grow like a twig." Syd sat stirring his coffee, and taking great bites out of his bread and butter, as the words of Pan came back to him--"If he does I shall run away, so there!" _ |
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