Little Miss Joy. Marshall Emma
ashore, if you choose, and I'll put a few shillings in your pocket to get back home. Do you hear?"
"Yes," Jack said, "I hear; but I am in for it now, and I had better stick to it. I should only make more trouble by going back. That old aunt, who made my life miserable, would only be worse than ever. No, sir, thank you; I'll go on, and I must put up with it."
"Lie on the bed you've made for yourself, lad? Ah, that's a precious uneasy one! I'd like to tell you how I made mine, and I will some day; but now you'd better turn in, there's the watch on deck, telling midnight."
"Where am I to turn in?" Jack asked.
"There's an empty hammock close by. Climb up there, and sleep till I call you. There isn't much sleep for me. Good-night."
Jack found it no easy matter to climb into the hammock. Like everything else, it requires practice; he took off his boots and made attempts to clamber up, but failed each time.
"You young cur, what are you about?" called a gruff voice. "Can't you turn in without waking a fellow from his sleep? Get along with you;" and a leg was thrust out, which gave Jack a very emphatic kick.
At last he gave up the attempt, and taking off his jacket he made a pillow of it, and curled himself up on the deck.
The motion of the ship began to be more decided, for just at dawn a fresh breeze sprung up, and the Galatea curtesied on the crest of the waves, and the water made a splash against her sides. Jack was rolled against a locker, and found sleep impossible.
The sailor who had grumbled at his disturbing him by his unsuccessful attempt to get into his berth, turned out at three o'clock, to relieve the watch on deck, and stumbling over Jack exclaimed —
"You baby bunting! So you can't get to your berth! I'll teach you!" And taking Jack roughly by one arm and leg, he tossed him as if he had been a feather into the hammock, and said —
"Lie there till you are wanted, and be thankful you've got there!"
There is a certain rule which I think has seldom an exception, though I know we say that all rules have an exception to prove their truth. But it is seldom indeed that we see the rule departed from, that "as a man soweth so shall he reap."
We all of us prove its truth at one time or other of our lives. "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption"; and many a bitter tear of self-reproach is caused by the crop our own hands have sown, when we took our own way, and turned from His way, "who gave us an example that we should follow in His steps."
CHAPTER V.
A TEA-PARTY IN THE ROW
The hot summer days passed by in the Row, and the inhabitants took advantage of the long evenings to go down to the beach and pier, and listen to the bands playing merry tunes, and watch the gaily-dressed people who frequent Yarmouth in the season.
Little Miss Joy was drooping somewhat with the heat, for the summer was one of rather unusual warmth. But though she was quieter, and her voice was not so often heard singing like a bird from her high window opposite Mrs. Harrison's, still she did not get dull or cross. "My Sunbeam!" her old friend called her; and there was nothing he liked better than to sit at his door, after business hours, while Joy talked to him or read him a story. She went to a little day-school in the market-place, and was, in old Mr. Boyd's opinion, a wonderful scholar.
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