‘I want to get to some friends in Tasmania, sir,’ I answered.
I was ready for him; for weeks I had been rehearsing too diligently the part I was now playing not to be ready. ‘Satchell, sir.’
‘I don’t know, sir. I’ll find out when I arrive.’
‘“Arrive!”’ cried the captain. ‘How do you know I’ll allow you to arrive, as you call it? “Arrive,” you monkey! You’ve committed a felony; you’ve broken into private premises; for all I can tell, you may have broached the cargo of the ship. There are men in that prison down there,’ said he, pointing to the main-hatch, ‘who are being transported for life for smaller crimes.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I would do nothing wrong. I will gladly pay for my passage with my labour if you will give me work--such work as I can do.’
The doctor put his hand on the commander’s arm and whispered in his ear. Captain Barrett exclaimed: ‘If you’re satisfied with the lad’s account of himself, Captain Sutherland, he shall wait upon me, if you like.’
‘What work have you for two servants?’ exclaimed the doctor.
‘I like his pluck, d’ye know,’ answered Captain Barrett, ‘and just now he happens to be rather friendless, Ellice.’
The doctor looked annoyed and walked to the rail.
‘Where do you come from?’ asked the commander.
‘Who are your people?’ Again I hung my head.
‘He is in the right to look ashamed,’ said the doctor. ‘Take it that he has brought great grief and distress upon a respectable family by his mysterious disappearance. I don’t believe for a moment,’ continued he, eyeing me sternly, ‘that he has friends at Hobart Town. It’s just an ordinary runaway case. He may have robbed some kind employer--perhaps defrauded his own father. His clothes are new and good. Where did you get the money to buy these clothes with?’ he asked. I kept my head hung. ‘Lads of your sort,’ he continued, ‘get hold of cheap romancing works--vile, lying fictions--books which represent Jack Sheppard as a greater man than Wellington. Little by little they advance till they end there,’ said he, pointing, as Captain Sutherland had, to the main-hatch. ‘Down there, weighted with irons, branded as criminals, leaving their native country for ever, expelled by the just laws of an outraged community, are many men who have begun as you have begun--nay, who may have started on their downward career with a great deal more of modesty than you have exhibited.’