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CRINGLE AND CROSS-TREE;

OR,

THE SEA SWASHES OF A SAILOR.

IN WHICH PHIL TALKS OF GOING TO SEA, AND MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

"I have a very decided fancy for going to sea, father."

"Going to sea!" exclaimed my father, opening his eyes with astonishment. "What in the world put that idea into your head?"

I could not exactly tell what had put it there, but it was there. I had just returned to St. Louis from Chicago, where I had spent two years at the desk. I had been brought up in the wilds of the Upper Missouri, where only a semi-civilization prevails, even among the white settlers. I had worked at carpentering for two years, and I had come to the conclusion that neither the life of a clerk nor that of a carpenter suited me. I had done well at both; for though I was only eighteen, I had saved about twelve hundred dollars of my own earnings, which, added to other sums, that had fallen to me, made me rich in the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars.

My life in the backwoods and my campaign with the Indians had given me a taste for adventure. I wished to see more of the world. But I am sure I should not have yielded to this fancy if it had been a mere whim, as it is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred with boys. I had never left, of my own accord, a place where I worked: the places had left me. The carpenter with whom I had served my apprenticeship gave up business, and the firm that had employed me as assistant book-keeper was dissolved by the death of the junior partner. I was again out of business, and I was determined to settle what seemed to be the problem of my life before I engaged in any other enterprise.

For eleven years of my life I had known no parents. They believed that I had perished in the waters of the Upper Missouri. I had found my father, who had been a miserable sot, but was now, an honest, sober, Christian man, in a responsible position, which yielded him a salary of three thousand dollars a year. But while he was the degraded being I had first seen him, his wife had fled from him to the protection and care of her wealthy father. My mother had suffered so much from my father's terrible infirmity, that she was glad to escape from him, and to enjoy a milder misery in her own loneliness.

Though my father had reformed his life, and become a better man than ever before, he found it impossible to recover the companion of his early years. She had been in Europe five years, where the health of her brother's wife required him to live. My father had written to Mr. Collingsby, my grandfather, and I had told him, face to face, that I was his daughter's son; but I had been indignantly spurned and repelled. My mother's family seemed to have used every possible effort to keep both my father and myself from communicating with her. She had spent the winter in Nice, and was expected to remain there till May.

I had never seen my mother since I was two years old. I had no remembrance of her, and I did not feel that I could settle down upon the business of life till I had told her the strange story of my safety, and gathered together our little family under one roof. Existence seemed to be no longer tolerable unless I could attain this desirable result. Nice was on the Mediterranean, and, with little or no idea of the life of a sailor, I wanted to make a voyage to that sea.

I had served the firm of Collingsby & Faxon in Chicago as faithfully as I knew how; I had pursued and captured the former junior partner of the firm, who had attempted to swindle his associate; and for this service my grandfather and his son had presented me the yacht in which the defaulter had attempted to escape. In this craft I had imbibed a taste for nautical matters, and I wished to enlarge my experience on the broad ocean, which I had never seen.

In pursuing Mr. Collingsby's junior partner, I had run athwart the hawse of Mr. Ben Waterford, a reckless speculator, and the associate of the defaulter, who had attempted to elope with my fair cousin, Marian Collingsby. I had thus won the regard of the Collingsbys, while I had incurred the everlasting hatred of Mr. Waterford, whose malice and revenge I was yet to feel. But in spite of the good character I had established, and the service I had rendered, the family of my mother refused to recognize me, or even to hear the evidence of my relationship. I thought that they hated my father, and intended to do all they could to keep him from seeing her. Her stay in Europe was prolonged, and I feared that her father and brother were using their influence to keep her there, in order to prevent my father or me from seeing her.

I was determined to see her, and to fight my way into her presence if necessary. At the same time I wanted to learn all about a ship, and about navigation. I had flattered myself that I should make a good sailor, and I had spent my evenings, during the last year of my stay in Chicago, in studying navigation. Though I had never seen the ocean, I had worked up all the problems laid down in the books. I wanted to go to sea, and to make my way from a common sailor up to the command of a ship. I say I wanted to do this, and the thought of it furnished abundant food for my imagination; but I cannot say that I ever expected to realize my nautical ambition. I had borrowed a sextant, and used it on board of my boat, so that I was practically skilled in its use. I had taken the latitude and longitude of many points on Lake Michigan, and proved the correctness of my figures by comparing them with the books.

I intended to go to Nice, whether I went to sea as a sailor or not. I had sold my boat for eight hundred dollars, and with seven hundred more I had saved from my salary, I had fifteen hundred dollars, which I was willing to devote to the trip to Europe. But somehow it seemed to go against my grain to pay a hundred dollars or more for my passage, when I wanted to obtain knowledge and experience as a sailor. I preferred to take a place among the old salts in the forecastle, go aloft, hand, reef, and steer, to idling away my time in the cabin.

"I want to be a sailor, father," I added. "I want to know the business, at least."

"I'm afraid that boat on the lake has turned your head, Philip," said my father. "Why, you never even saw the ocean."

"Well, I have seen the lake, and the ocean cannot be very much different from it, except in extent."

"But the life of a sailor is a miserable one. You will be crowded into a dirty forecastle with the hardest kind of men."

"I am willing to take things as they come. I am going to Nice, at any rate, and I may as well work my passage there, and learn what I wish to know, as to be a gentleman in the cabin."

"You are old enough to think for yourself, Philip; but in my opinion, one voyage will satisfy you."

"If it does, that's the end of the idea."

"Do you expect to go to work in a ship just as you would in a store, and leave her when it suits your own convenience?" asked my father, with a smile.

"I can ship to some port on the Mediterranean, and leave the vessel when she reaches her destination."

"I think not. I believe sailors ship for the voyage out and home, though you may be able to make such an arrangement as you propose. I don't like your plan, Philip. You are going to find your mother. It is now the middle of March. If you get off by the first of April, you may make a long passage, and perhaps not reach Nice till your mother has gone from there."

"I shall follow her, if I go all over Europe," I replied.

"But don't you think it is absurd to subject yourself and me to all this uncertainty?"

"Perhaps it is; but I wanted to kill two birds with one stone."

"When you throw one stone at two birds, you are pretty sure to hit neither of them. Be sensible, Philip. Go to New York, take a steamer to Liverpool or Havre, and then proceed to Nice by railroad. You will be there in a fortnight after you start."

My father was very earnest in his protest against my plan, and finally reasoned me out of it. I believed that fathers were almost always right, and I was unwilling to take the responsibility of disregarding his advice, even while he permitted me to do as I pleased. I had been idle long enough to desire to be again engaged in some active pursuit or some stirring recreation. I abandoned my plan; but circumstances afterwards left me no alternative but to adopt it again.

I immediately commenced making my preparations for the trip to Europe, and in three days I was ready to depart. I had called upon and bade adieu to all my friends in St. Louis, except Mr. Lamar, a merchant who had been very kind to me in the day of adversity. On the day before I intended to start, I went to his counting-room, and found him busy with a gentleman. I waited till he was disengaged, and picked up The Reveille to amuse myself for the time. Before I could become interested in the contents of the newspaper, the voice of the gentleman with whom the merchant was occupied attracted my attention. I looked at him a second time, and as he turned his head I recognized Mr. Ben Waterford.

I was conscious that this man was my enemy for life. I was rather startled, for I assure my sympathizing reader that I was not at all anxious to meet him. The last time I had seen him was on the bank of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of a creek where I had left him, having taken possession of his yacht, after a hard battle with him, in order to prevent him from running away with my fair cousin, Miss Marian Collingsby. I had entirely defeated his plans, as well as those of Mr. Whippleton, Mr. Collingsby's partner; and when the business affairs of the latter were examined, they involved those of the former. He was driven into bankruptcy, and did not again show his face in Chicago. Very likely, if I had not thwarted him, he would have married the daughter of Mr. Collingsby, and, perhaps, at the same time, have saved himself from financial ruin.

I read my newspaper, and hoped Mr. Ben Waterford would not see me. I was rather curious to know what business he had with Mr. Lamar. I could hear an occasional word, and I was soon satisfied that the parties were talking about lands. The Chicago gentleman was at his former business, evidently; for then he had been a speculator in lands. I could not understand how one as effectually cleaned out as he was represented to be could have any lands to sell, or any funds to buy them.

"How are you, Phil? How do you do?" said Mr. Lamar, as, for the first time, he happened to discover me.

"Don't let me disturb you, sir. I will wait," I replied.

"Ah, Phil! how do you do?" added Mr. Waterford; and I thought or imagined that there was a flush on his face, as though the meeting was no more agreeable to him than to me.

I shook hands with Mr. Lamar, but I had not the hypocrisy to do so with the Chicago swindler, though he made a motion in that direction. He was not glad to see me, though he smiled as sweetly as the rose in June.

"Take a seat, Phil," continued Mr. Lamar. "I will think of the matter, Mr. Waterford," he added, as the latter turned to leave the counting-room.

IN WHICH PHIL STARTS FOR NEW YORK, AND IS STOPPED ON THE WAY.

"Do you know that gentleman, Phil?" asked Mr. Lamar, when Waterford had gone.

"Yes, sir; I know him, and he knows me as well as I know him," I replied, cheerfully.

"He has some land to sell in the vicinity of Chicago."

"He! He don't own a foot of land on the face of the earth."

"Perhaps he don't own it himself, but is authorized to sell it."

"That may be. Where is the land, sir?"

"So much the worse for him."

"I am thinking of buying this land."

"Don't think of it any more, Mr. Lamar."

"But he offers to sell it to me for half its value, for he is going to leave the country--"

"For his country's good," I suggested.

"That may be; but he wants the money."

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