There was no playing truant on board ship; and as to the master poor
John Broom served now, his cruelty made the memory of the farm-bailiff a
memory of tenderness and gentleness and indulgence. Till he was
half-naked and half-starved, and had only short snatches of sleep in
hard corners, it had never struck him that when one has got good food
and clothes, and sound sleep in a kindly home, he has got more than
many people, and enough to be thankful for.

He did everything he was told now as fast as he could do it, in fear for
his life. The one-eyed sailor had told him that the captain always took
orphans and poor friendless lads to be his cabin-boys, and John Broom
thought what a nice kind man he must be, and how different from the
farm-bailiff, who thought nobody could be trustworthy unless he could
show parents and grand-parents, and cousins to the sixth degree. But
after they had sailed, when John Broom felt very ill, and asked the
one-eyed sailor where he was to sleep, the one-eyed sailor pleasantly
replied that if he hadn't brought a four-post bed in his pocket he must
sleep where he could, for that all the other cabin-boys were sleeping in
Davy's Locker, and couldn't be disturbed. And it was not till John Broom
had learned ship's language that he found out that Davy's Locker meant
the deep, and that the other cabin-boys were dead. "And as they'd nobody
belonging to 'em, no hearts was broke," added the sailor, winking with
his one eye.

John Broom slept standing sometimes for weariness, but he did not sleep
in Davy's Locker. Young as he was he had dauntless courage, a careless
hopeful heart, and a tough little body; and that strong, life-giving sea
smell bore him up instead of food, and he got to the other side of the
world.