"No, sir," I replied. "I am not quite certain."
"Was it Terence, do you think?" he asked.
"Yes, sir!" I exclaimed. "Terence it was--Terence McSwiney--that was
his name. I remember it now, for he repeated it several times."
"That is my name," said the gentleman; "and I, Jack, am the very little
lad to whom your kind friend gave your old clothes. I would much like
to meet him again, to thank him, as I do you, for your share of the
favour conferred on me. Of one thing you may be certain--I have not
been idle. When not engaged in my master's business, I was employed in
study and in improving my own mind. I never lost an opportunity of
gaining knowledge, and never willingly wasted a moment."
Mr McSwiney told me a good deal more about himself, and I felt how very
different a life I had led, and how little I had ever done to improve my
mind or to gain knowledge. I even then thought that it was too late to
begin, and so I went on in my idleness.
The day before we reached Carlisle Bay the captain sent for me, and told
me that the passengers had been interested in my history, and that, as I
had lost all my kit in the brig, they had made a collection to enable me
to purchase a new one. This he presented to me in the shape of thirty
dollars. I expressed myself, as I felt, very grateful for the kindness
I had received.
Although Mr McSwiney had once been in the same rank of life to which I
belonged, and in one respect even worse off, because I had a suit of
clothes on my back when he had none, I did not, in consequence, address
him as an equal. He seemed to appreciate my feeling, and I believe that
I thereby secured his esteem. He would have taken me to the lodging he
had engaged at Bridge Town, but I said, "No, sir, thank you; I will
remain on board the ship till I get a berth in some other craft. I have
no fancy for living ashore." I went up to see him several times, and we
parted, I believe, with mutual feelings of regard. He had more than
repaid me for the benefit I had been formerly the means of doing him,
and he as well as I soon found that our habits of thought were so
different that we could not associate on really equal terms, however
much we might wish the attempt to succeed.
Finding a brig, the _Jane and Mary_, short of hands, sailing for the
port of Hull, I shipped on board her. I was not much better off in her
though, than I had been in the _Rainbow_ with Captain Grindall. The
captain and mates did not proceed to such extremities as he and Mr
Crosby did, but they were rough, ignorant, ill-tempered men, and treated
the crew as brutes, looking upon them as mere machines, out of whom they
were to get as much work as their strength would allow. When we reached
Hull I was glad to leave the _Jane and Mary_; and without even going on
shore for a day's spree--as most of the other hands did, and accordingly
fell in with press-gangs--I transferred myself to a barque trading to
Archangel, on the north coast of Russia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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