I shall never willingly, now, leave you here--that is, except you want me to." "Then, that'll be never," said he, with an emphasis and a kindly smile that showed his were no empty words.
Nor did they prove to be as time rolled on.
For many months after that casual meeting of ours on the Hoe, which I little thought was going to lead to such happy consequences, the little cottage at Stoke was my home in winter and summer alike; when Nature was gay in her spring dress, and when dreary autumn came; although, it was never dreary to me, no matter what the season might be.
In the summer months I used generally to accompany Sam in the short trading trips he made in a little foretopsail schooner--of which he was the registered owner, and generally took the command--when we would fetch a compass for Falmouth or Torquay, and other small western ports; between which places and Plymouth the schooner went to and fro when wind and weather permitted.
Sometimes, tempted by the inducement that early potatoes and green peas were plentiful and cheap at Saint Mary's, Sam would venture out as far as the Scilly Isles; and once, a most memorable voyage, we made a round trip in the little craft to the Bristol Channel and back--facing all the perils of the "twenty-two fathom sandbank" off Cape Cornwall, with its heavy tumbling sea.
This was not time wasted on my part; for I had not forgotten my ambition of being a sailor, and now, under Sam Pengelly's able tuition I was thoroughly initiated into all the practical details of seamanship, albeit I had not yet essayed life on board ship in an ocean-going vessel.
Sam Pengelly said, that, at fourteen, I was too young to be apprenticed regularly to the sea, and that it would be much better for me to wait until I should be able to be of use in a ship, and get on more quickly in navigation.

Going to sea before would only be lost time, for I could gain quite as much experience of what it was necessary for me to know in the schooner along with him, until it was time for me to go afloat in real earnest.
This was what my old friend advised; and, although he declared himself willing to forward my wishes should they go counter to his own views, I valued his opinion too highly to disagree with it, judging that his forty years' experience of the sea must have taught him enough to know better than I about what was best in the matter.
My life, therefore, for the two intervening years, after I had run away from school and before I went actually to sea, was a very even and pleasant one--cut off completely, as it was, from all the painful past, and the associations of Aunt Matilda and Dr Hellyer's.

I had heard once from Tom, my whilom chum, it is true, telling me that his mother had persuaded him to go back to the Doctor's establishment, and that I should not have any further communication from him in consequence--which I didn't; and there was the one letter from Uncle George to Sam Pengelly, "washing his hands of me," which I have already alluded to.
With these, however, all connection with my former existence ceased; and I can't say I regretted it, cherished as I now was in the great loving Cornish hearts of Sam and Jane Pengelly.
Sam would not let my education be neglected, however.
"No, no, laddie, we must keep a clear look-out on that," he often said to me.

"If I had only had eddication when I was in the sarvice, I'd ha' been a warrant officer with a long pension now, instead o' having a short one, and bein' 'bliged to trust to my own hands to lengthen it out.

If you wants to be a good navigator, you must study now when you're young; for arterwards it will be no use, and you may be as smart a sailor as ever handled a ship, and yet be unable to steer her across the ocean and take advantage of all the short cuts and currents, and so on, that only experienced seamen and those well up in book knowledge can know about." Acting on this reasoning, he got the master of a neighbouring school to give me after-time lessons in mathematics and geography; and, in the course of a few months, I was able to be inducted into the mysteries of great circle sailing and the art of taking lunars, much to the admiration of Sam, whom I'm afraid I often took a delight in puzzling with trigonometrical phrases that sounded full of portentous difficulty, albeit harmlessly easy.
As time went on, although I was happy enough at the cottage, I was continually asking Sam if he had found me a ship yet, he having promised to "keep his eye open" and let me know as soon as he saw a good opportunity of placing me with some captain with whom I was likely to learn my nautical calling well and have a chance of getting on up the ladder; but, as regularly as I asked him the question, the old salt would give me the same stereotyped answer--"No, laddie, our ship's not got into port yet.