The future {177} navigator was apprenticed to the
village shop; but Cook's ambitions were not to be caged behind a
counter.
Eastward rolled the North Sea. Down at Hull were heard seamen's yarns
to make the blood of a boy jump. It was 1746. The world was ringing
with tales of Bering on the Pacific, of a southern continent, which
didn't exist, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company's illimitable domain in
the north, of La Verendrye's wonderful discoveries of an almost
boundless region westward of New France toward the uncharted Western
Sea. In a year and a half, Cook had his fill of shopkeeping. Whether
he ran away, or had served his master so well that the latter willingly
remitted the three years' articles of apprenticeship, Cook now followed
his destiny to the sea. According to the world's standards, the change
seemed progress backward. He was articled to a ship-owner of Whitby as
a common seaman on a coaler sailing between Newcastle and London. One
can see such coalers any day--black as smut, grimed from prow to stern,
with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling--pushing
in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport.
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