Perhaps he was sent to school, the
school supported by the "Weavers' Guild." But between working at home
and going to school, he evidently made many little trips down to the
busy wharves.
Was there ever any spot more fascinating than the wharves in olden days
--in that far-off time when there were no books to read, and when a boy's
only chance of hearing about other countries was to go and talk to the
crew of each vessel that came into port? The men to whom our lad talked
had sailed the whole length and breadth of the biggest body of explored
water, the Mediterranean. Some had gone farther east, into the Black
Sea; and still others--bravest of all--had passed beyond the Straits of
Gibraltar and out on to the great unknown ocean. It was to these last,
we may be sure, that the adventurous boy listened most eagerly.
Those hardy sailors were the best possible professors for a boy who
intended to follow the sea. They were, doubtless, practical men who
never talked much about the sea-monsters and other nonsense that many
landsmen believed in; nor did they talk of the world being flat, with a
jumping-off place where the sun set. That belief was probably cherished
by men of book-learning only, who lived in convents and who never risked
their lives on the waves.
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