"Sails on Thursday, does she, Phil?" said the cheerful voice of John as his practised eye sought out a certain ship from among the crowd of vessels in the harbor.
"All hands aboard at nine o'clock's the order," replied Philo, taking off his cap, and turning his face to the wind.
"And the Sally Ann don't sail till Saturday. I say Phil, old fellow, I wish we were going together," cried John with one of his bursts.
"It's better as 'tis," said Philo, thoughtfully. "There's a better chance for one of us to come back, you know, than if we were in the same ship."
"'_Come back._' Why, of course we shall come back,--that is, I hope so, both of us. That wasn't what I meant. I'd like you for a shipmate,--that's all," was the eager response.
"Yes,--I understand," answered Philo. "We shan't both come home, _of course_; but there's hopes for both of us, and a pretty strong chance for one of us at least."
And then a seriousness fell upon the cousins, and for many minutes they sat and watched the tide creeping up to them like the lapping, hungry tongue of some slow monster, thinking such thoughts as will sometimes come unbidden to the heart of youth, and become more and more intrusive and importunate as we grow older.
These boys were offshoots of a sturdy Puritan stock, and the pluck and backbone of their ancestry suffered no degeneracy in them. John had been an orphan from infancy, and had grown up in an atmosphere of loving kindness and tender mercy under the auspices of his Aunt Betsy,--Philo's mother. She it was, who, in view of his orphanage, had winked at his boyish misdemeanors, indulged his naturally gay disposition in every way that her strict and somewhat barren orthodoxy allowed, and when his sea-going propensities could no longer be controlled by the mild influences of her molasses gingerbread and sweet cider, she had made him a liberal outfit of flannel shirts and blue mixed hose, and, tucking a Bible into the corner of his chest, bade him God-speed on his first voyage.
It was with some surprise that she saw him come back from a three months' cruise, with no more serious damage than a scar across his forehead; but still she felt reproached at the sight of it, and on Jack's next start rectified her previous neglect, by sending Philo along with him in the capacity of mentor and protector,--an office which she, in the devotion of her heart, would most joyfully have undertaken herself if the art and practice of navigation could have been adapted so as to admit of the services of an elderly lady. But becoming convinced of the utter impracticability of this plan, she wisely settled herself down to be comfortable with tea-drinking and knitting-work, with great confidence in Philo's sobriety and force of character, as applied to preserve her darling Jack from harm; for Aunt Betsy, like many other excellent people, was not free from favoritism, and her adopted son was the child of her affections, while Philo had the secondary place, and was expected to consider it his highest happiness to fiddle for Jack's dancing, and otherwise to hold the candle in a general way for the benefit and pleasure of that superior being. Had Jack been less jolly and generous, or Philo less amiable and forbearing, this maternal arrangement would have been a fruitful source of jealousy and contention; but the two natures were so fortunately balanced that even the one-sided weight of Aunt Betsy's partiality worked no such derangement of the family peace, as might have been supposed. The boys had made three short voyages together, and were now about shipping for their first long absence in different vessels only because Philo's superior education and business aptitude qualified him for the position of supercargo, which had been offered him on board the Skylark.