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Updated: May 31, 2025
Of course, nobody answered; but, the crack, crack, cracking continued, and in another minute, with a bang, off went Dr Hellyer's hat! Nor was that all.
The novelty of our new situation, combined with its strange surroundings, kept us awake for a little time, but we were too much fatigued both in body and mind for our eyelids to remain long open; and soon, in spite of our daring escapade and the fact that the unknown future was a world of mystery before us, we were as snugly asleep as if in our beds in the dormitory at Dr Hellyer's albeit we were down in the hold of a dirty coal brig, with our lullaby sung by the incoming tide, which was by this time nearly on the turn, washing and splashing by the bows of the vessel lying alongside the projecting jetty, in its way up the estuary of the river that composed the little harbour.
Thereupon, we both followed Jorrocks into the dark little den in the fore-part of the vessel, with which Tom had first made acquaintance the night we went on board, after escaping from Dr Hellyer's, now four days since a long while it seemed to us, although only so short an interval, from the experiences we had since gained, and our entirely new mode of life.
"B'y fur Hellyer's, hey?" I felt annihilated. "Do you mean to ask whether I am the new pupil for Dr Hellyer's establishment?" I said with some dignity, I flatter myself. But that horrible porter was not a bit abashed! "Yees," he drawled out in his cracked accents, with an intonation that clearly evinced the fact of his having been born in Sussex.
I, of course, told him all about my cruel bringing-up under Aunt Matilda's auspices, and he imparted the information that he was almost an orphan like myself; his father, who was a clergyman, having died early and left his widowed mother with a large number of children to support on a scanty income; whence the fact of his being at such a poor second-rate school as Dr Hellyer's, about which Tom then proceeded to unfold the most wonderful revelations.
But there was "balm in Gilead" in store for Bob; for, hardly had the long face that he pulled on learning the unwelcome news of Hellyer's absence merged again into the ordinary round contour with which his friends were familiar, than, whom should he see coming along the beach, only a little way off, but who should you think? Why, Dick!
But, only after you and the ladies, sir," was Hellyer's respectful reply; and then, with all the training of an experienced servant, knowledge he had gained in the exercise of his manifold duties during several years' service as the Captain's coxswain, he proceeded to assist Dick in waiting, with an "If you'll allow me, sir." "Some bread, please," called out the Captain presently.
This was Dr Hellyer's very practical first stage of punishment; he always commenced with starving us for any offence against his laws and ordinances, and then wound up his trilogy of penance with a proportionate number of "pandies" and solitary confinement.
When I was at Dr Hellyer's, the only two things I ever really learnt that were of any use to me in my after-life were, a substantial grounding in mathematics thanks to "Smiley" which subsequently made the study of navigation easy to me when Sam Pengelly put me under charge of a tutor; and, secondly, the art of swimming, the place where the school was situated and the practice of taking out the boys on the beach for the purpose every day, offering great facilities to any one with the least aptitude for taking to the water and possessed of a desire to learn how to support himself in it.
To illustrate this, I may state without exaggeration that, had it not been for Dr Hellyer's hat taken in connection with the mischievous promptings of that madcap Tom Larkyns, my special chum at the time it is more than probable that the grand climax which so abruptly brought my school-days to a close might have been averted; and, in that case, following out the argument, I should not have gone to sea; have never started on that disastrous voyage round Cape Horn which nearly terminated my then newly-commenced nautical career as summarily as my whilom academical studies had been put a stop to just previously; and, as a natural consequence, I should most certainly have never had the opportunity or necessity for spinning the present yarn.
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