It was but a hundred yards to the sailor's cottage, which stood on the edge of the sharp rise, a short distance back from the river. "Here, wife," he said as he entered, "I've got a new apprentice, and I expect he's pretty hungry; I am, I can tell you, and I hope tea's ready. His name's Bill, and he's going to stop here, tonight." "Tea is quite ready, John, and there's plenty of mackerel. I thought you would not be getting them again, for a spell. "Do you like fish?" she asked the boy. "I don't know, ma'am--I never tasted them." "Bless me!" the woman cried, in astonishment; "never tasted fish! To think, now!" "I've been brought up in a workhouse," William said, coloring a little as he spoke, for he knew the prejudice against the House. "Ah!" she said, "we have had a good many of that sort; and I can't say as I likes 'em, for the most part. But you haven't got the look about you. You don't seem that sort." "I hope I shall turn out none the worse for it," the boy said; "at any rate, I'll do my best." "And none can't do more," the good woman said, briskly. "I like your looks, Bill, and you've a nice way of talking. Well, we shall see." In a few minutes tea was upon the table, and Will sat down with the skipper, his wife, and two daughters--girls of ten and twelve. The lad enjoyed his meal immensely, and did full justice to the fish. "You will have plenty of them, before you eat your next tea on shore. We pretty nigh live on them, when we are on the fishing grounds." "The same kind of fish as this?" "No, mackerel are caught in small boats, with a different sort of gear, altogether. We get them, sometimes, in the trawl--not shoals of 'em, but single fish, which we call horse mackerel." After tea, the skipper lit his pipe; and his wife, after clearing up, took some knitting, and sat down and began to question the new apprentice. "It's lucky, for you, you found such a good friend," she said, when he had finished his story. "That's how it is you are so different from other boys who have been apprenticed from the House. I should never have thought you had come from there. "And she gave you good advice as to how you should go on, I'll be bound." "Yes, ma'am," Will said, "and I hope I shall act up to it." "I hope so, Bill; but you'll find it hard work to keep yourself as you should do, among them boys. They are an awful lot, them smack boys." "Not worse nor other boys," her husband said. "Not worse than might be looked for, John, but they are most of 'em pretty bad. The language they use make my blood run cold, often. They seems to take a delight in it. The hands are bad enough, but the boys are dreadful. "I suppose you don't swear, Will. They look too sharp after you, in the House; but if you take my advice, boy, don't you ever get into the way of bad language. If you once begin, it will grow on you. There ain't no use in it, and it's awful to hear it."