{"id":"01KG8AKX74MCH74QRK7ZQY2JVG","cid":"bafkreifhnbd2i63vlqmumayb5wovaqbofojcrxb32vk2mubsif5bjajhpy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4406,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":4346,"text":"feet high, an English lad, who, when we were about forty-eight hours\r\nfrom New York, suddenly appeared on deck, asking for something to eat.\r\n\r\nIt seems he was the son of a carpenter, a widower, with this only\r\nchild, who had gone out to America in the Highlander some six months\r\nprevious, where he fell to drinking, and soon died, leaving the boy a\r\nfriendless orphan in a foreign land.\r\n\r\nFor several weeks the boy wandered about the wharves, picking up a\r\nprecarious livelihood by sucking molasses out of the casks discharged\r\nfrom West India ships, and occasionally regaling himself upon stray\r\noranges and lemons found floating in the docks. He passed his nights\r\nsometimes in a stall in the markets, sometimes in an empty hogshead on\r\nthe piers, sometimes in a doorway, and once in the watchhouse, from\r\nwhich he escaped the next morning, running as he told me, right between\r\nthe doorkeeper’s legs, when he was taking another vagrant to task for\r\nrepeatedly throwing himself upon the public charities.\r\n\r\nAt last, while straying along the docks, he chanced to catch sight of\r\nthe Highlander, and immediately recognized her as the very ship which\r\nbrought him and his father out from England. He at once resolved to\r\nreturn in her; and, accosting the captain, stated his case, and begged\r\na passage. The captain refused to give it; but, nothing daunted, the\r\nheroic little fellow resolved to conceal himself on board previous to\r\nthe ship’s sailing; which he did, stowing himself away in the\r\n_between-decks;_ and moreover, as he told us, in a narrow space between\r\ntwo large casks of water, from which he now and then thrust out his\r\nhead for air. And once a steerage passenger rose in the night and poked\r\nin and rattled about a stick where he was, thinking him an uncommon\r\nlarge rat, who was after stealing a passage across the Atlantic. There\r\nare plenty of passengers of that kind continually plying between\r\nLiverpool and New York.\r\n\r\nAs soon as he divulged the fact of his being on board, which he took\r\ncare should not happen till he thought the ship must be out of sight of\r\nland; the captain had him called aft, and after giving him a thorough\r\nshaking, and threatening to toss him overboard as a tit-bit for _John\r\nShark,_ he told the mate to send him forward among the sailors, and let\r\nhim live there. The sailors received him with open arms; but before\r\ncaressing him much, they gave him a thorough washing in the\r\nlee-scuppers, when he turned out to be quite a handsome lad, though\r\nthin and pale with the hardships he had suffered. However, by good\r\nnursing and plenty to eat, he soon improved and grew fat; and before\r\nmany days was as fine a looking little fellow, as you might pick out of\r\nQueen Victoria’s nursery. The sailors took the warmest interest in him.\r\nOne made him a little hat with a long ribbon; another a little jacket;\r\na third a comical little pair of man-of-war’s-man’s trowsers; so that\r\nin the end, he looked like a juvenile boatswain’s mate. Then the cook\r\nfurnished him with a little tin pot and pan; and the steward made him a\r\npresent of a pewter tea-spoon; and a steerage passenger gave him a jack\r\nknife. And thus provided, he used to sit at meal times half way up on\r\nthe forecastle ladder, making a great racket with his pot and pan, and\r\nmerry as a cricket. He was an uncommonly fine, cheerful, clever, arch\r\nlittle fellow, only six years old, and it was a thousand pities that he\r\nshould be abandoned, as he was. Who can say, whether he is fated to be\r\na convict in New South Wales, or a member of Parliament for Liverpool?\r\nWhen we got to that port, by the way, a purse was made up for him; the\r\ncaptain, officers, and the mysterious cabin passenger contributing\r\ntheir best wishes, and the sailors and poor steerage passengers\r\nsomething like fifteen dollars in cash and tobacco. But I had almost\r\nforgot to add that the daughter of the dock-master gave him a fine lace\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQSB3A6BR5CJ3SG0FQ1M","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKX74XZWZY749G6SPEXKM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKX6V783TBNFAA7SRBH9G","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:19.684Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.662Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}