CHAPTER XVI.
KIT LEAVES THE “NORTH CAPE.”
THOUGH the voyage to and from Marseilles had been a pleasant one, and the business had been transacted in a way that he knew must be satisfactory to his employers, Kit was remarkably glad when the North Cape was inside of Sandy Hook again. It was time, more than time, for an answer to his letter to New Zealand; and although at his last news from home no answer had arrived, he felt sure that he must find one when he reached Huntington.
“I shall be busy for five or six days getting out my cargo,” he wrote home when his first rush on arrival was over; “but you can expect to see me by the beginning of next week. I have so many things to tell you; and I hope you will have news for me from Wellington.”
He was to have more things to tell them when he got to Huntington than he then had any idea of; but he sent some messages and packages home by Harry Leonard, as before, and worked away at his cargo till the greater part of it was in the warehouse.
He had eight hundred boxes of soap among his other cases, for Marseilles is a great point for the manufacture of soaps; “and it’s a pity they send so much of it away,” he often said to himself, “when they’re in such need of it over there.” But his soap needed particular attention; and he had to make several trips to his employers’ office to get directions concerning it. On his return from one of these trips he went into the cabin and found that there was a visitor in the Captain’s room.
“Come in, Silburn,” the Captain called through the open door. “Here’s a friend of yours come to see you.”
Kit went in, wondering whether his mother could have received important news and hastened to the city to tell him of it; but his hand was instantly seized by the rotund purser Clark, of the Trinidad, as fat and bluntly good-natured and short-breathed as ever.
“Glad to see you again, Silburn,” the purser puffed. “It’s not so long since we cooled ourselves with ice cream in the ice-house down in Barbadoes; but I hear you’ve been seeing a good deal of the world since then.”
“Oh, a few corners of it,” Kit answered. “It’s hard to find a better part of it than our own country, though.”
“You’re right there!” Mr. Clark acquiesced, bringing his hand down on his fat knee with a bang. “You’re just right there, young man. But it’s a good plan to see how the other fellows live, to make us appreciate our own advantages. I’ve not been seeing much of it lately, for my part; just going up and down, up and down, among those black rascals in the West Indies. I’ve had a great deal too much work to do; it’s wearing me down to skin and bone.”
Kit and the Captain were inclined to laugh at this, considering the purser’s hearty appearance; but his face was as solemn as a judge’s.
“The work seems to agree with you pretty well, sir,” Kit suggested.
“No, it don’t!” the purser declared, giving his knee another sounding slap. “That’s a mistake; work don’t agree with anybody, in spite of all the twaddle about it. I don’t believe in work. My theory is that nobody should have to work at all. Every man should have an income of at least five thousand dollars a year, and live on his money. The trouble is things are not arranged right, and some of us get left. No, work is all humbug.”
It was impossible to tell from the purser’s round face whether he was joking or not. He certainly was a hard worker himself.
“The only concession I will make,” he went on, “is, that being compelled to work at all, it is better to do it well. I believe you go on that theory too, Silburn; that’s the reason I’ve come to see you. Although, as I say, I don’t believe in work, still when it has to be done I like to see it done well. I believe you have been defrauded by society, like myself, of the five thousand a year that every man is entitled to, and have to work a little for a living? And that being the case, how would you like to leave the North Cape and come and work for me?”
“For you, sir?” Kit exclaimed, naturally taken by surprise by the suddenness of the question. “On the Trinidad, do you mean?”
“Well, I mean for my company, of course,” Mr. Clark replied; “but with me, on the Trinidad. You see the situation is this. Our business has increased so much down among those islands, both in passengers and freight, that there is more work for the purser on the Trinidad than any one man ought to be asked to do. I am away behind in my work all the time, and that don’t do. So the company has consented to let me have an assistant. And as my assistant will be with me all the time, and I will be responsible for his work, it is only fair that I should have the privilege of selecting him. They see the force of that too; and the matter being left with me, I said to myself, young Silburn’s the sort of man I want with me, if I can get him. He attends to his business without any nonsense, and I’m going to hunt him up.
“So I have had a talk with the Captain here about you,” the purser went on; “and if you want to be my assistant purser on the Trinidad at one hundred dollars a month, you have only to say the word.”
For a few moments Kit hardly knew how to reply. Mr. Clark had been jesting, he was sure, in talking about his dislike of work; and he was still jesting. Kit thought, when he first spoke of Kit’s working for him. But there was no joke about such an offer as he had just made. That was sober earnest, and required an answer.
“Why, I should like to have one hundred dollars a month, sir,” he replied, “very much indeed. And I should like to be with you. But on the other hand I should dislike to leave Captain Griffith and the old North Cape. And there is one thing that would interfere with my going into a new place just now. I don’t know whether I told you about my father, how he was shipwrecked and has been missing for a long time. There is a man in New Zealand, in a hospital, who may prove to be my father; and if he should, it might be necessary for me to go over there to bring him home.”
“Yes, Captain Griffith has told me all about that,” Mr. Clark answered, “and that need not be any objection. It is quite right that you should do everything possible for your father. But it is not such a long voyage to New Zealand in these days of steam, and I could put some one in your place while you were gone. Besides, it takes money for such a trip, and you would get the money much faster as my assistant than you can make it as a supercargo.”
“Yes, sir, that is true,” Kit said; “I thought of that at once. And it is very kind in you to make me such a liberal offer. But can you let me have a little time to think of it in, Mr. Clark? Say a week or ten days? I have always had a sort of horror of changing about from one place to another, and should not like to do it without consulting Captain Griffith and my mother.”
“Take a week and welcome to think it over in, my lad,” the purser answered. “I can’t say more than a week, because I must have some one before I start on the next voyage. But you can do a heap of thinking in a week, if you set about it. And I hope you will make up your mind to go with me. I think it will be to your advantage and mine too.”
After the purser was gone Kit had to look after his soap-boxes; but as soon as they were attended to he returned to the cabin and had a serious talk with Captain Griffith.
“I don’t like the idea of your leaving us, Silburn,” the Captain said; “don’t like it at all. But it would be selfish in me to stand in the way of your bettering yourself. The Quebec company is a good company, the Trinidad is a fine ship, and Mr. Clark is a good man to be with. I have known him slightly for a long time. To be sure, he has some odd ways, but then most of us have. He is always talking about not believing in work, yet he works as hard as any man I know.
“And the one hundred dollars a month is a great object,” he continued. “It is really large pay, considering that you would live on the ship and would have hardly any expenses. You would have to wear the company’s uniform, of course, and keep well dressed on account of the passengers; but that does not amount to much. And you would likely become one of their pursers in time, if you gave satisfaction. Much as I should dislike to lose you, it is only fair for me to say that I think it is a very fine offer. I don’t see how you can do anything but accept it.”
To add to the unsettled state of Kit’s mind, the next day brought him a letter from Vieve saying that they had heard from the consul at Wellington. But she did not say whether the man in the hospital had proved to be their father or not. This he looked upon as a bad sign, for if there had been good news, she would have been in a hurry to tell it. So with this matter to be discussed, and his Marseilles experiences to be related, and his new offer to be considered and decided upon, he felt as if a week at home would hardly be half long enough.
“I never had any regret at going ashore before, Captain,” he said, as he shook the Captain’s hand in bidding him good-by. “But this time it seems almost like leaving home. It has been so pleasant on the North Cape, and you have always been so kind, I should feel strange to belong anywhere else. If I accept Mr. Clark’s offer, I’ll not belong on the old ship any longer, and it makes me feel bad in advance.”
“I don’t like to think of your going, Kit,” the Captain answered, returning to the first name as a mark of affection; “but the manner of your going makes a great difference, you know. If you were going under compulsion, I should feel downright bad about it. Going to something better is a different matter entirely. I suppose when a United States senator is elected President he doesn’t have any great regrets about leaving his old seat in the Senate Chamber. And it is the same thing with you, in a smaller way. But we know each other, Kit, and though you may leave the ship, we will still be friends. Anyhow, when you are in need of a friend you need not go further than the cabin of the North Cape.”
There was so much to be done at home that Kit laid out a programme on his way to Bridgeport. The letter from New Zealand he thought the most important matter, and that should be considered first. Then the offer from Mr. Clark. He had pretty much made up his mind that that ought to be accepted; but if his mother opposed it he was ready to give it up. Then after all the business was done he could tell about his second voyage to Europe. This time he caught the stage to Huntington, and so saved himself a long walk.
“Why, you folks have grown so grand here I’m almost afraid to go in,” he laughed, looking up at the freshly painted house as his mother and Vieve ran out to the gate to meet him.
“Oh, I’m glad you think so!” Vieve answered, taking possession of the side opposite her mother. “I thought maybe we would seem too poor and common for you, since you’ve taken to travelling about with cardinals. But I know more about your cardinal now than you do, Mr. Supercargo, for Mr. Wright has translated his letter for me, and told me all about him.”
They were all too full of the New Zealand letter to let that stand long; and before Kit had been in the house many minutes he asked for it. When they gave it to him he read it carefully, then read it again, and thought over it for a few minutes without speaking.
“Well, it is not as bad as I feared,” he said, at length. “When Vieve wrote that you had received the letter, without saying what was in it, I thought there must be such bad news that you did not want to tell me. But this is only more delay. What little news there is in it is good news, for they seem to have found the scar, though they are not sure about it, and the teeth correspond with father’s. It looks more hopeful than ever, only we must wait till we can hear again. And the photograph ought to settle the question, when that comes. I will write to the consul again, and give him all the particulars we can all think of.”
“And that letter from the cardinal,” Mrs. Silburn suggested. “It seems he is a very great man, and the letter is to the Bishop of New Zealand—a Catholic of course, but I wouldn’t mind what he was if he could help us. This is a nice time of life for a God-fearing Protestant woman to begin talking about cardinals and bishops; but wouldn’t it be as well to send that letter on and ask the bishop to help us?”
Kit asked to see the translation before he gave any opinion about it, for he did not yet know what was in the letter.
“I am inclined to think it would be better to save this for another purpose,” he said, after he had read it. “I have never said so before, but I have often thought, and the same thing must have occurred to you, that I may have to go on to New Zealand. It is a long journey, but any of us would go further than that, further than the end of the world, to have father with us again. If I should go there, this letter would be a very valuable thing to take with me, and I think it ought to be kept for that. The only thing is to have some reasonable certainty that the man in the hospital is really father. With any good evidence of that, even very slight evidence, I should go over there at once.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Silburn answered, with tears in her eyes; “I have often thought of that, Kit. And I knew of course that you would think of it. If we can get any reasonable evidence that that may be your father, I think you ought to go. It will take all the money we can borrow on this little place, and leave us badly in debt again, but we must not stop for that. All the money in the world is nothing compared with having your father back again.”
“Oh, we are not as badly off as all that!” Kit said. Never in his life before had he felt so proud of being able to earn money. “You don’t know how easily we sea-faring fellows can get about the world. I think maybe I can get a job for one round voyage on some vessel bound for Australia or New Zealand, even if I have to work only for my passage. Then the only expense will be paying father’s fare home. Captain Griffith would help me to get such a job, I know; and I have another friend now who would help me to it, I am sure. You see I have some more news for you, though I didn’t intend to tell you till to-morrow.”
Then he told of his offer of one hundred dollars a month from the Quebec Steamship Company, and how he had consulted Captain Griffith, and how the Captain had advised him to accept it; and explained that he thought very favorably of it himself, but waited to hear what his mother thought.
“A hundred dollars a month!” Vieve cried, throwing her arms about her brother’s neck and nearly choking him. “You? Just for writing out those paper things on a ship? That’s twelve hundred dollars a year! why, Mr. Wright don’t get more than a thousand, I’m sure, and the parsonage; but then you’ll have a sort of parsonage too—at least the ship to live in.”
“Ah! but Mr. Wright don’t travel about with cardinals!” Kit laughed. “That makes all the difference in the world. What do you think of it, mother? It is an important matter, and you are the one to decide it.”
“No, we have got beyond that, Kit,” Mrs. Silburn answered, as well as her demonstrations of pleasure would allow. “You are the one to decide questions for us, not we for you. As far as I can see I should think you would not hesitate at all about it. But you know all the circumstances better than I do. You must decide for yourself.”
“Then it is already decided, mother,” he said. “I had made up my mind to accept it, provided you did not object. You don’t know how much I love Captain Griffith and the North Cape. The Captain is one man in a thousand; he has been like a father to me. But one hundred dollars a month is a splendid offer, and the Captain himself advises me to take it.”
There was a little feast in the Silburn cottage that evening to celebrate Kit’s improved prospects. That was what it meant when he beckoned Vieve into the hall and slipped some money into her hand, and told her, after making her purchases, to go to Harry Leonard’s and invite him to come over. Not very much of a feast; if she had had a purseful of gold to spend she could not have bought the materials for a banquet in the little shops of Huntington, at such short notice; but what she found in her hurried trip answered every purpose.
“Now don’t you be making eyes at Harry Leonard, miss!” Kit warned her, when she returned with the provisions, and began by unloading a fat chicken and some bunches of Malaga grapes. “I know you used to be very fond of him.”
“At Harry Leonard!” Vieve retorted, assuming her grandest air. “Humph! I guess when I have a beau (which I won’t have), he’ll be nothing short of a cardinal.”
“Then you’ll die an old maid,” Kit laughed; “don’t you know that cardinals are Catholic priests, and never marry?”
They were a merry party at supper, though Harry was disconsolate for a while at hearing that Kit was going to leave the North Cape.
“Why, I don’t know what we’ll do without him on board, Mrs. Silburn!” he exclaimed. “It will be like a different ship. It will make a great change for me, I tell you. No more good times on shore now for the cabin boy, I suppose. The Captain thinks I’m too young and giddy to go ashore alone in strange ports, though I’m not; but he was always satisfied when I was with Kit.”
The whole story of their visit to Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde had to be told while they were eating, and their meeting with the mysterious stranger; and Harry kept them in roars of laughter when he described how the old and young priests always entered the room “on their marrow bones,” as he called it. Somewhere in Marseilles he had heard the French pronunciation of Vieve’s name, and he added to the merriment by insisting upon giving it the French twang whenever he addressed her: “Miss Zhou-vay-ve; Miss Zhou-vay-ve.”
The spectre at the feast did not show itself till all was over and Harry had gone home, for Kit guarded it carefully as long as he could. But at last he had to let it out.
“My change of work will cut short my visit home,” he announced. “I can’t go off suddenly and leave my employers in the lurch, you know. They must have time to get some one else in my place; and if they ask it, I may have to wait another voyage before going on the Trinidad. But if they let me off, I will still have a great deal to do. My accounts must all be straightened out, and I will have some business with the tailors. I will have to wear the company’s uniform on the Trinidad, you know.”
“Ah! that’s it!” Vieve declared, pretending to be hurt at Kit’s leaving them sooner than he expected, though it was not all pretence. “He wants to get his new clothes! Won’t he be grand, though, when he comes out in a new uniform with gold braid!”
“Yes, you know I always think so much about my clothes,” he answered. “But I’ll be with you all day to-morrow; and busy enough, too, writing letters. To-morrow I must write to that New Zealand consul again, and there are several more to be written. Then the next morning I must go back to New York. But then this won’t be like those long trips to Europe. Why, I’ll be back again in no time at all. The Trinidad only runs to the island of Trinidad and back, stopping at St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, and Barbadoes. She makes the round trip in twenty-eight days. Being a mail and passenger boat, you know, she has to make time.”
It was hard work for Kit to go back to the North Cape to say good-by, after his employers had generously released him at once, with many expressions of satisfaction and good will. It was on her that he had changed from a waif on the docks to a cabin boy, and from cabin boy to supercargo. In her cabin he had made his start in life, and every man on board was his friend. He could not bid good-by to Captain Griffith in the cabin and then go away. The crew crowded around him to wish him happiness and prosperity. Men who had never shown any particular interest in him before, seemed grieved to have him go. He had to shake hands with Mr. Mason and Mr. Hanway, with Tom Haines and his chief, with the steward, even with Chock Cheevers.
In four days more, when in all the glory of bright new uniform he stood on the deck of a faster and handsomer ship, watching once more the hoisting of the flags as she sped by the Sandy Hook signal station, it gave him a start when he saw that the uppermost flag did not bear the familiar number of the North Cape.
“The Trinidad,” the signals said this time; “for Trinidad and intermediate ports.”