Lingard learned in half an hour all that there was of Willems'
commonplace story. Father outdoor clerk of some ship-broker in
Rotterdam; mother dead. The boy quick in learning, but idle in school.
The straitened circumstances in the house filled with small brothers and
sisters, sufficiently clothed and fed but otherwise running wild, while
the disconsolate widower tramped about all day in a shabby overcoat and
imperfect boots on the muddy quays, and in the evening piloted wearily
the half-intoxicated foreign skippers amongst the places of cheap
delights, returning home late, sick with too much smoking and
drinking--for company's sake--with these men, who expected such
attentions in the way of business. Then the offer of the good-natured
captain of Kosmopoliet IV., who was pleased to do something for the
patient and obliging fellow; young Willems' great joy, his still greater
disappointment with the sea that looked so charming from afar, but
proved so hard and exacting on closer acquaintance--and then this
running away by a sudden impulse. The boy was hopelessly at variance
with the spirit of the sea. He had an instinctive contempt for the
honest simplicity of that work which led to nothing he cared for.
Lingard soon found this out. He offered to send him home in an English
ship, but the boy begged hard to be permitted to remain. He wrote a
beautiful hand, became soon perfect in English, was quick at figures;
and Lingard made him useful in that way. As he grew older his trading
instincts developed themselves astonishingly, and Lingard left him
often to trade in one island or another while he, himself, made an
intermediate trip to some out-of-the-way place. On Willems expressing
a wish to that effect, Lingard let him enter Hudig's service. He felt
a little sore at that abandonment because he had attached himself, in
a way, to his protege. Still he was proud of him, and spoke up for him
loyally. At first it was, "Smart boy that--never make a seaman though."
Then when Willems was helping in the trading he referred to him as "that
clever young fellow." Later when Willems became the confidential agent
of Hudig, employed in many a delicate affair, the simple-hearted old
seaman would point an admiring finger at his back and whisper to whoever
stood near at the moment, "Long-headed chap that; deuced long-headed
chap. Look at him. Confidential man of old Hudig. I picked him up in a
ditch, you may say, like a starved cat. Skin and b