Syd Belton: The Boy Who Would Not Go to Sea

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?”