The Project Gutenberg EBook of Afloat at Last, by John Conroy Hutcheson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Afloat at Last A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea Author: John Conroy Hutcheson Illustrator: W. H. Overend Release Date: April 16, 2007 [EBook #21104] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AFLOAT AT LAST *** Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England John Conroy Hutcheson "Afloat at Last" Chapter One. In the Rectory Garden. “And so, Allan, you wish to go to sea?” “Yes, father,” I replied. “But, is there no other profession you would prefer—the law, for instance? It seems a prosperous trade enough, judging from the fact that solicitors generally appear well to do, with plenty of money— possibly that of other people—in their possession; so, considering the matter from a worldly point of view, you might do worse, Allan, than join their ranks.” I shook my head, however, as a sign of dissent to this proposition. “Well then, my boy,” went on father in his logical way, anxious that I should clearly understand all the bearings of the case, and have the advantages and disadvantages of each calling succinctly set before me, “there is medicine now, if you dislike the study of Themis, as your gesture would imply. It is a noble profession, that of healing the sick and soothing those bodily ills which this feeble flesh of ours is heir to, both the young and old alike—an easier task, by the way, than that of ministering to ‘the mind diseased,’ as Shakespeare has it; although, mind you, I must confess that a country physician, such as you could only hope to be, for I have not the means of buying you a London practice, has generally a hard life of it, and worse pay. However, this is beside the question; and I want to avoid biassing your decision in any way. Tell me, would you like to be a doctor—eh?” But to this second proposal of my father as to my future career, I again signified my disapproval by shaking my head; for I did not wish to interrupt his argument by speaking until he had finished all he had to say on the subject, and I could see he had not yet quite done. “H’m, the wise man’s dictum as to speech being silvern and silence gold evidently holdeth good with the boy, albeit such discretion in youth is somewhat rare,” he murmured softly to himself, as if unconsciously putting his thoughts in words, adding as he addressed me more directly: “You ought to get on in life, Allan; for ‘a still tongue,’ says the proverb, ‘shows a wise head.’ But now, my son, I’ve nearly come to the end of the trio of learned professions, without, I see, prepossessing you in favour of the two I have mentioned. You are averse to the law, and do not care about doctoring; well then, there’s the church, last though by no means least—what say you to following my footsteps in that sacred calling, as your brother Tom purposes doing when he leaves Oxford after taking his degree?” I did not say anything, but father appeared to guess my thoughts. “Too many of the family in orders already—eh? True; still, recollect there is room enough and work enough, God knows, amid all the sin and suffering there is in the world, for you also to devote your life to the same good cause in which, my son, I, your father, and your brother have already enlisted, and you may, I trust, yet prove yourself a doughtier soldier of the cross than either of us. W hat say you, Allan, I repeat, to being a clergyman—the noblest profession under the sun?” “No, father dear,” I at length answered on his pausing for my reply, looking up into his kind thoughtful gray eyes, that were fixed on my face with a sort of wistful expression in them; and which always seemed to read my inmost mind, and rebuke me with their consciousness, if at any time I hesitated to tell the truth for a moment, in fear of punishment, when, as frequently happened, I chanced to be brought before him for judgment, charged with some boyish escapade or youthful folly. “I don’t think I should ever be good enough to be a clergyman like you, father, however hard I might try; while, though I know I am a bad boy very often, and do lots of things that I’m sorry for afterwards, I don’t believe I could ever be bad enough to make a good lawyer, if all the stories are true that they tell in the village about Mr Sharpe, the attorney at Westham.” The corners of father’s mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile, but did not think it right to do so. “You are shrewd in your opinions, Allan,” he said; “but dogmatic and paradoxical in one breath, besides being too censorious in your sweeping analysis of character. I should like you to show more charity in your estimate of others. Your diffidence in respect of entering the church I can fully sympathise with, having felt the same scruples myself, and being conscious even now, after many years, of falling short of the high ideal I had originally, and have still, of one who would follow the Master; but, in your wholesale condemnation of the law and lawyers, judging on the ex uno disce omnes principle and hastily, you should remember that all solicitors need not necessarily be rogues because one of their number has a somewhat evil reputation. Sharpe is rather a black sheep according to all report; still, my son, in connection with such rumours we ought to bear in mind the comforting fact that there is a stratum of good even in the worst dispositions, which can be found by those who seek diligently for it, and do not merely try to pick out the bad. W ho knows but that Sharpe may have his good points like others? But, to return to our theme—the vexed question as to which should be your occupation in life. As you have decided against the church and the law, giving me your reasons for coming to an adverse conclusion in each instance, pray, young gentleman, tell me what are your objections to the medical profession?” “Oh, father!” I replied laughing, he spoke in so comical a way and with such a queer twinkle in his eye, “I shouldn’t care at all to be only a poor country surgeon like Doctor Jollop, tramping about day and night through dirty lanes and sawing off people’s sore legs, or else feeling their pulses and giving them physic; although, I think it would be good fun, father, wouldn’t it, just when some of those stupid folk, who are always imagining themselves ill wanted to speak about their fancied ailments, to shut them up by saying, ‘Show me your tongue,’ as Doctor Jollop bawls out to deaf old Molly the moment she begins to tell him of her aches and pains? I think he does it on purpose.” Father chuckled. “Not a bad idea that,” said he; “and our friend the doctor must have the credit of being the first man who ever succeeded in making a woman hold her tongue, a consummation most devoutly to be wished-for sometimes—though I don’t know what your dear mother would say if she heard me give utterance to so heretical and ungallant a doctrine in reference to the sex.” “W hy, here is mother now!” I exclaimed, interrupting him in my surprise at seeing her; it being most unusual for her to leave the house at that hour in the afternoon, which was generally devoted to Nellie’s music lesson, a task she always superintended. “She’s coming up the garden with a letter in her hand.” “I think I know what that letter contains,” said father, not a bit excited like me; “for, unless I’m much mistaken, it refers to the very subject about which we’ve been talking, Allan,—your going to sea.” “Does it?” I cried, pitching my cap up in the air in my enthusiasm and catching it again dexterously, shouting out the while the refrain of the old song— “The sea, the sea, a sailor’s life for me! Hurrah! Hurrah!” Father sighed, and resumed his “quarter-deck walk,” as mother termed it, backwards and forwards along the little path under the old elm-tree in front of the summer-house, with its bare branches stretched out like a giant’s fingers clutching at the sky, always turning when he got up to the lilac bush and retracing his steps slowly and deliberately, as if anxious to tread in his former footprints in the very centre of the box-edged walk. I think I can see him now: his face, which always had such a bright genial look when he smiled, and seemed to light up suddenly from within when he turned to speak to you, wearing a somewhat sad and troubled air, and a far-away thoughtful expression in his eyes that was generally there when he was having a mental wrestle with some difficulty, or trying to solve one of those intricate social problems that were being continually submitted for his consideration. And yet, at first glance, a stranger would hardly have taken him to be a clergyman; for he had on an old brown shooting-jacket very much the worse for wear, and was smoking one of those long clay pipes that are called “churchwardens,” discoloured by age and the oil of tobacco, and which he had lit and let out and relit again half a dozen times at least during our talk. “Very unorthodox,” some critical people will say. Aye, possibly so; but if these censors only knew father personally, and saw how he fulfilled his mission of visiting the fatherless and widow in their affliction, in addition to preaching the gospel and so winning souls to heaven, and how he was liked and loved by every one in the parish; perhaps they could condone his “sin of omission” in the matter of not wearing a proper clerical black coat with a stand-up collar of Oxford cut and the regulation white tie, and that of “commission” in smoking such a vulgar thing as a common clay pipe! Presently, after his second turn as far as the lilac bush and back, father’s face cleared, as if he had worked out the question that had been puzzling him; for, its anxious expression vanished and his eyes seemed to smile again. “I suppose it’s a family trait, and runs in the blood,” he said. “Your grandfather,—my father, that is, Allan,—was a sailor; and I know I wanted to go to sea too, just like you, before I was sent to college. So, that accounts for your liking for it—eh?” “I suppose so,” I answered without thinking, just echoing his words like a parrot; although, now I come to consider the thing fully, I really can see no other reason than this hereditary instinct to account for the passionate longing that possessed me at that period to be a sailor, as, beyond reading Robinson Crusoe like other boys, I was absolutely ignorant of the life and all concerning it. Indeed, up to then, although it may seem hardly credible, I had only once actually seen the sea, and a ship in the distance—far-away out in the offing of what appeared to me an immeasurable expanse of space. This was when father took my sister Nellie and me for a day’s visit to Brighton. It was a wonderful experience to us, from the contrast the busy town on the coast offered to the quiet country village where we lived and of which my father was the pastor, buried in the bosom of the shires away from the bustling world, and out of contact with seafaring folk and those that voyage the deep. Yes, there’s no doubt of it. That love for the sea, which made me wish to be a sailor as naturally as a cat loves cream, ran in my blood, and must have been bred in my bone, as father suggested. Before, however, we could either of us pursue the psychological investigation of this theory any further, our argument was interrupted by my mother’s coming to where we were standing under the elm-tree at the top of the garden. Father at once put away his pipe on her approach, always respecting and honouring her beyond all women even as he loved her; and he greeted her with a smile of welcome. “Well, dear?” said he sympathetically as she held out the letter she carried and then placed her hand on his arm confidingly, turning her anxious face up to his in the certainty of finding him ready to share her trouble whatever it might be. “Now tell me all about it.” “It has come, Robert!” she exclaimed, nestling nearer to him. “Yes, I see, dear,” he replied, glancing at the open sheet; for they had no secrets from each other, and she had opened the letter already, although it had been addressed to him. Then, looking at me, father added: “This is from Messrs Splice and Mainbrace, the great ship-brokers of Leadenhall Street, to whom I wrote some time since, about taking you in one of their vessels, Allan, on your expressing such a desire to go to sea.” “Oh, father!” was all I could say. “They inform me now,” continued he, reading from the broker’s communication, “that all the arrangements have been completed for your sailing in the Silver Queen on Saturday next, which will be to-morrow week, your premium as a first-class apprentice having been paid by my London agents, by whom also your outfit has been ordered; and your uniform, or ‘sea toggery’ as sailors call it, will be down here next Monday or Tuesday for you to try on.” “Oh, father!” I cried again, in wondering delight at his having settled everything so promptly without my knowing even that he had acceded to my wishes. “W hy, you seem to have decided the question long ago, while you were asking me only just now if I would not prefer any other profession to the sea!” “Because, my son,” he replied affectionately, “I know that boys, like girls, frequently change their minds, and I was anxious that you should make no mistake in such a vital matter as that of your life’s calling; for, even at the last hour, if you had told me you preferred being a clergyman or a doctor or a lawyer to going to sea, I would cheerfully have sacrificed the money I have paid to the brokers and for your outfit. Aye, and I would willingly do it now, for your mother and I would be only too glad of your remaining with our other chicks at home.” “And why won’t you, Allan?” pleaded mother, throwing her arms round me and hugging me to her convulsively. “It is such a fearful life that of a sailor, amid all the storms and perils of the deep.” “Don’t press the boy,” interposed father before I could answer mother, whose fond embrace and tearful face almost made me feel inclined to reconsider my decision. “It is best for him to make a free choice, and that his heart should be in his future profession.” “But, Robert—” rejoined mother, but half convinced of this truth when the fact of her boy going to be a sailor was concerned. “My dear,” said father gently, interrupting her in his quiet way and drawing her arm within his again, “remember, that God is the God of the sea as well as of the land, and will watch over our boy, our youngest, our Benjamin, there, as he has done here!” Father’s voice trembled and almost broke as he said this; and it seemed to me at the moment that I was an awful brute to cause such pain to those whom I loved, and who loved me so well. But, ere I could tell them this, father was himself again, and busy comforting mother in his cheery way. “Now, don’t fret, dear, any more,” he said; “the thing is settled now. Besides, you know, you agreed with me in the matter at Christmas-tide, when, seeing how Allan’s fancy was set, I told you I thought of writing to London to get a ship for him, so that no time might be wasted when he finally made up his mind.” “I know, Robert, I know,” she answered, trying to control her sobs, while I, glad in the new prospect, was as dry-eyed as you please; “but it is so hard to part with him, dear.” “Yes, yes, I know,” said he soothingly; “I shall miss the young scaramouch, too, as well as you. But, be assured, my dear, the parting will not be for long; and we’ll soon have our gallant young sailor boy back at home again, with lots of—oh! such wonderful yarns, and oh! such presents of foreign curios from the lands beyond sea for mother, when the Silver Queen returns from China.” “Aye, you will, mother dear, you will!” cried I exultingly. “And though our boy will not wear the Queen’s uniform like his grandfather, and fight the foe,” continued father, “he will turn out, I hope, as good an officer of the mercantile marine, which is an equally honourable calling; and, possibly, crown his career by being the captain of some magnificent clipper of the seas, instead of ending his days like my poor old dad, a disappointed lieutenant on half-pay, left to rust out the best years of his life ashore when the war was over.” “I hope Allan will be good,” said mother simply. “I know he will be, with God’s help,” rejoined father confidently, his words making me resolve inwardly that I would try so that my life should not disgrace his assuring premise. “I must go in now and tell Nellie,” observed mother after a pause, in which we were all silent, and I could see father’s lips move as if in silent prayer; “there’ll be all Allan’s shirts and socks to get ready. To-morrow week, you said, the ship was to sail—eh, dear?” “Yes, to-morrow week,” answered father bracing himself up; “and while your mother and Nellie are looking after the more delicate portions of your wardrobe, Allan, you and I had better walk over to Westham, and see about buying some new boots and other things which the outfitters haven’t got down on their list.” As he was going into such a fashionable place as Westham, the nearest county town to our parish, at mother’s especial request father consented to hide the beauties of his favourite old shooting-jacket under a more clerical-looking overcoat of a greyish drab colour, or “Oxford mixture.” He was induced to don, too, a black felt hat, more in keeping with the coat than the straw one he had worn in the garden; and thus “grandly costumed,” as he laughingly said to mother and Nell, who watched our departure from the porch of the rectory, he and I set out to make our purchases. Dear me! the bustle and hurry and worry that went on in the house and out of the house in getting my things ready was such that, as father said more than once in his joking way, one would have thought the whole family were emigrating to the antipodes, instead of only a mere boy like me going to sea! And then, when everything else had been packed and repacked a dozen times or so by mother’s loving hands in the big, white-painted sea-chest that had come down from London—which had my name printed on the outside in big capital letters that almost made me blush, and with such a jolly little washhand-basin and things for dressing on the top of it just inside the lid—the stupid outfitters delayed sending my blue uniform to try on in time; and it was only on the very day before I had to start that it was finished and sent home, for mother and Nellie to see how I looked in it, as I wished them to do, feeling no small pride when I put it on. Tom, too, got away from Oxford to spend this last day with me at home; and, though he could hardly spare the time, mother believed, from his studies, I think he was more interested in some forthcoming race in which his college boat was engaged. My last morning came round at length, and with it the final parting with mother and all at the rectory, which I left by myself. Father decided this to be the wisest course; for, as I was, as he said, making my first start in life, it was better to do so in a perfectly independent way, bidding the dear home- folks good-bye at home. My last recollection was of father’s eyes fixed on mine with a loving smile in them, and an expression of trust and hope which I determined to deserve. The long railway journey to town, which at any other time would have been a rattle and whirr of delight and interest, seemed endlessly monotonous to me, full of sad thoughts at parting with all I loved; and I was glad enough when the train at length puffed and panted its way into the terminus at London Bridge. Thence, I took a cab, according to father’s directions, to the offices of the brokers in Leadenhall Street, handing them a letter which he had given me to establish my identity. In return, Messrs Splice and Mainbrace, as represented by the junior partner of the firm, similarly handed me over to the tender mercies of one of the younger clerks of the establishment, by whom I was escorted through a lot of narrow lanes and dirty streets, down Wapping way to the docks; the young clerk ultimately, anxious not to miss his dinner, stopping in front of a large ship. “There you are, walk up that gangway,” he said; and thereupon instantly bolted off! So, seeing nothing better to be done, I marched up the broad plank he pointed out, somewhat nervously as there was nothing to hold on to, and I should have fallen into the deep water of the dock had my foot slipped, the vessel being a little way out from the wall of the wharf; and, the next instant, jumping down on the deck, I found myself on board a ship for the first time in my life. Chapter Two. My Friend the Boatswain. I soon made the discovery on getting there, however, that I was neither alone nor unobserved; for a man called out to me almost the same instant that my feet touched the deck. “Hullo, youngster!” he shouted. “Do you mean me?” I asked him politely, as father bad trained me always to address every one, no matter what their social condition might be. “An’ is it manin’ yez, I am?” retorted my interlocutor sharply. “Tare an’ ’ouns, av coorse it is! W ho ilse should I mane?” The speaker was a stout, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man, clad in a rough blue jersey as to the upper portion of his body, and wearing below a rather dirty pair of canvas overalls drawn over his trousers, which, being longer, projected at the bottom and overlapped his boots, giving him an untidy look. He was busy superintending a gang of dock labourers in their task of hoisting up in the air a number of large crates and heavy deal packing-cases from the jetty alongside, where they were piled up promiscuously in a big heap of a thousand or so and more, and then, when the crane on which these items of cargo were thus elevated had been swung round until right over the open hatchway, giving entrance to the main-hold of the ship, they were lowered down below as quickly as the tackle could be eased off and the suspending chain rattle through the wheel-block above. The clip-hooks were then unhitched and the chain run up and the crane swung back again over the pile of goods on the jetty for another load to be fastened on; and, so on, continually. The man directing these operations, in turning to speak to me, did not pause for an instant either in giving his orders to “hoist!” and “lower away!” or in keeping a keen weather-eye open, as he afterwards explained to me, on the gang, so as to see that none of the hands shirked their work; and, as I stared helplessly at him, quite unable as yet to apprehend his meaning, or know what he wished me to do, he gave a quick side-glance over his shoulder to where I stood and renewed his questioning. “Sure an’ ye can answer me if you loike, for ye ar’n’t dumb, me bhoy, an’ ye can spake English fast enough. Now. I’ll ax ye for the last toime—whare d’ye spring from?” “Spring from?” I repeated after him, more puzzled than ever and awed by his manner, he spoke so sharply, in spite of his jovial face and twinkling eyes. “I jumped from that plank,” pointing to the gangway by which I came on board as I said this. This response of mine seemed, somehow, to put him into all the greater rage—I’m sure I can’t tell why. “Bad cess t’ye for an omahdawn! Sure, an’ it isn’t springin’—joompin’ I mane,” he thundered in a voice that made me spring and jump both. “W here d’ye hail from, me joker? That’s what I want to know. An’ ye’d betther look sharp an’ till me!” “Hail from?” I echoed, completely bewildered by this time; for, being unused to sailor’s talk, as I’ve previously mentioned, I could not make head or tail of his language, which his strong Irish brogue, equally strange to me then, made all the more difficult to be understood. I could see, of course, that he wanted to learn something of me; but what that something was I was unable to guess, although all the time anxious to oblige him to the best of my ability. He was so impatient, however, that he would hardly give me time to speak or inquire what he wanted, besides which, he frightened me by the way in which he roared out his unintelligible questions. So, unable to comprehend his meaning, I remained silent, staring at him helplessly as before. Strange to say, though, my answer, or rather failure to answer this last interrogatory of his—for I had only repeated his own words—instead of further exasperating him as I feared, trembling the while down to my very boots, appeared to have the unexpected effect of appeasing his sudden outburst of passion, which now disappeared as quickly as it had broken out over my unoffending head. “Be jabers, the gossoon’s a born nat’ral!” he said sympathetically in a sort of stage whisper to the stevedores, although in loud enough tones for me to hear; and then, looking at me more kindly, and speaking in a gentler key than he had yet adopted, he added, accentuating every word separately and distinctly, with a racier Milesian accent than ever: “Arrah, sure, an’ I didn’t mane to be rough on ye, laddie; but, till me now, whar’ d’ye come from, what’s y’r name, an’ what for are ye doin’ here?” This was plain language, such as I could understand; and, seeing that he must be some one in authority, despite his tarred clothes and somewhat unpolished exterior, I hastened to answer his string of questions, doffing my cap respectfully as I did so. “My name is Allan Graham,” I said on his motioning to those working the crane to stop a bit while I spoke, “and I came up early this morning from the country to sail in the Silver Queen. The brokers in Leadenhall Street, Messrs Splice and Mainbrace, to whom I went first, told me to go on down to the docks and join the ship at once, sending a clerk to show me the way, which he did, pointing out this vessel to me and leaving me after saying that I was to go on board by the ‘gangway,’ as he called the plank I walked up by—that is why I am here!” I uttered these last words somewhat sturdily and in a dignified tone, plucking up courage as I proceeded; for, I began to get rather nettled at the man’s suspicions about me, his questions apparently having that look and bearing. “Och, by the powers!” he ejaculated, taking no notice of my dignified demeanour; “yis, an’ that’s it, is it? Sure, an’ will ye till me now, are ye goin’ as a cabin passinger or what, avic?” “I’m going in the Silver Queen as a first-class apprentice,” I answered with greater dignity than ever, glancing down proudly at the smart blue suit I wore, with its shining gilt buttons ornamented with an anchor in relief, which mother and sister Nellie had so much admired the day before, when I had donned it for the first time, besides inspecting me critically that very morning previous to my leaving home, to see that I looked all right—poor mother! dear Nell! “W he-e-e-up!” whistled my questioner between his teeth, a broad grin overspreading his yet broader face. “Alannah macree, me poor gossoon! it’s pitying ye I am, by me sowl, from the bottom av me heart. Ye’re loike a young bear wid all y’r throubles an’ thrials forenenst ye. Aye, yez have, as sure’s me name’s Tim Rooney, me darlint!” “W hy do you say so, sir?” I asked—more, however, out of curiosity than alarm, for I thought he was only trying to “take a rise out of me,” as the saying goes. “Why should you pity me?” “An’ is it axin’ why, yez are?” said he, his broad smile expanding into a chuckle and the chuckle growing to a laugh. “Sure, an’ ye’ll larn afore ye’re much ouldher, that the joker who goes to say for fun moight jist as well go to the ould jintleman’s place down below in the thropical raygions for divarshun, plaize the pigs!” His genial manner, and the merry twinkle in his eyes, which reminded me of father’s when he made some comical remark, utterly contradicted his disparaging comments on a sailor’s life, and I joined in the hearty “ho, ho, ho!” with which he concluded his statement. “W hy, then, did you go to sea, Mr Rooney,” I asked, putting him into a quandary with this home- thrust; “that is, if it is such a bad place as you make out?” “Bedad, sorry o’ me knows!” he replied, shoving his battered cheese-cutter cap further off his brows and scratching his head reflectively. “Sure, an’ it’s bin a poozzle to me, sorr, iver since I furst wint afore the mast.” “But—” I went on, wishing to pursue my inquiries, when he interrupted me before I was able to proceed any further. “W hisht! Be aisy now, me darlint,” he whispered, with an expressive wink; and, turning round sharply on the stevedores, who, taking advantage of his talking to me, had struck work and were indulging in a similar friendly chat, he began briskly to call them to task for their idleness, raising his voice to the same stentorian pitch that had startled me just now on our first introduction. “W hat the mischief are ye standin’ star-gazin’ there for, ye lazy swabs, chatterin’ an’ grinnin’ away loike a parcel av monkeys?” he cried, waving his arms about as if he were going to knock some of them down. “If I had my way wid ye, an’ had got ye aboord a man-o’-war along o’ me, it’s ‘four bag’ I’d give ivery man Jack o’ ye. Hoist away an’ be blowed to ye, or I’ll stop y’r pay, by the howly pokher I will!” At this, the men, who seemed to understand very well that my friend of the woollen jersey and canvas overalls’s hard voice and words did not really mean the terrible threats they conveyed, although the speaker intended to be obeyed, started again briskly shipping the cargo and lowering it down into the hold, grinning the while one to another as if expressing the opinion that their taskmaster’s bark was worse than his bite. “I must kape ’em stirrin’ their stoomps, or ilse, sure, the spalpeens ’ud strike worrk the minnit me back’s toorned,” said he on resuming his talk with me, as if in explanation of this little interlude. “Yez aid y’r name’s Grame, didn’t ye? I once knew a Grame belongin’ to Cork, an’ he wor a pig jobber. S’pose now, he warn’t y’r ould father, loike?” “Certainly not!” cried I, indignantly. “My father is a clergyman and a gentleman and an Englishman, and lives down in the country. Our name, too, is Graham and not Grame, as you pronounce it.” “’Pon me conshinsh, I axes y’r pardin, sorr. Sure, an’ I didn’t mane no harrm,” said my friend, apologising in the most handsome way for the unintentional insult; and, putting out a brawny hairy paw like that of Esau’s, he gave a grip to my poor little mite of a hand that made each knuckle crack, as he introduced himself in rough and hearty sailor fashion. “Me name’s Tim Rooney, as I tould you afore, Misther Gray-ham—sure, an’ it’s fond I am ov bacon, avic, an’ ham, too, by the same token! I’d have ye to know, as ye’re a foorst-class apprentice—which kills me enthirely wid the laffin’ sure!—that I’m the bosun av the Silver Quane; an’ as we’re agoin’ to be shipmets togither, I hopes things’ll be moighty plisint atwane us, sure.” “I’m sure I hope so, too,” I replied eagerly, thinking him an awfully jolly fellow, and very unlike the man I imagined him to be at first; and we then shook hands again to cement the compact of eternal friendship, although I took care this time that my demonstrative boatswain should not give me so forcible a squeeze with his huge fist as before, observing as I looked round the vessel and up at her towering masts overhead: “What a splendid ship!” “Aye, she’s all that, ivery inch of her from truck to kelson,” he answered equally enthusiastically; “an’ so’s our foorst mate, a sailor all over from the sole av his fut to the crown av his hid.” “And the captain,” I inquired, “what sort of a man is he?” “Arrah, now you’re axin’ questions,” he rejoined with a sly look from his roguish eyes. “D’ye happen to know what’s inside av an egg, now, whither it’s a chicken, sure, or ownly the yoke an’ white, till ye bhrake the shill?” “No,” said I laughing. “But, we don’t find chickens generally in our eggs at home.” “Wait till ye thry one on shipboord,” he retorted. “Still, ye can’t deny now that ye don’t know for sure what’s insoide the shill till ye bhrake it, an’ say for yoursilf—eh?” “No,” I assented to this reasoning; “but, I don’t see what that’s got to do with the captain.” “Don’t ye, honey?” replied he with another expressive wink. “Wait till ye can say for yourself, that’s all.” “Oh!” I exclaimed, understanding now that he was shrewd enough not to commit himself to any opinion on the point; so, I did not pursue the inquiry any further. “Sure, ye’ll excuse me, Misther Gray-ham,” he said presently, after another word or two on irrelevant matters; “but I must stop yarnin’ now, as I expexes the foorst mate aboord ivery minnit, an’ he’ll be groomblin’ like a badger wid a sore tail if those lazy lubbers ain’t hove all the cargy in. We’ve got to warp out o’ dock this arternoon, an’ the tide’ll make about ‘six bells’!” “W hen is that?” I asked, to know the meaning of this nautical term, which I guessed referred to the time of day, as my friend the boatswain turned round again towards the stevedores, hurrying them on and making them work with a will. “Thray o’clock. Sure, I forgot ye didn’t savvy our sailor’s lingo at all, at all,” he explained to me between the interval of his orders to the men, shouted out in the same high key as at first. “An’, be the same token, as it’s now jist toorned two bells, or one o’clock, savin’ your prisince, I’ve got no toime to lose, me bhoy. Jist d’ye go oop that ladder there, an’ wait out av harum’s way till I’ve done me job an’ can come for ye.” He pointed as he spoke to the steps or stairway leading from the main-deck, where I had been standing alongside of him, to the poop. I at once obeyed him; and, ascending with alacrity the poop ladder, was able to see from that elevated position the capital way in which he urged on and encouraged the men, until, as if by magic, the heavy boxes and lumbering crates that had but a short time before almost covered the jetty beside the ship, were all hoisted inboard and lowered down into her hold. Here, below, another gang of stevedores, not less busy than those above, took charge of the stowage of the cargo, slamming the chests and crates about, and so ramming and jamming them between the decks by the aid of jack-screws, that they were soon packed together in one homogeneous mass—so tightly squeezed that not even a cockroach could have crawled in between them, not a single crack or cranny being left vacant. “Thare now! Sure, an’ that job’s done wid anyhow for this v’yge, plaize the pigs, ma bouchal!” exclaimed the boatswain with a jolly laugh, after seeing the main-hatchway covered and battened down, and a tarpaulin spread over it to make all snug, gazing round with an air of proud satisfaction, as he slowly made his way up the poop ladder again and came up to where I was standing by the rail looking over. “Don’t ye think we’ve made pretty sharp work of it at the last, sorr, eh?” “I’m sure you have, Mr Rooney,” I replied enthusiastically. For, I could not help admiring the way in which he had got the stevedores to work so steadily and speedily in getting in the cargo and clearing the ship’s deck, so that it was now trim and orderly in place of being littered over with lumber as previously—the active boatswain helping one here, encouraging another there, and making all laugh occasionally with some racy joke, that seemed to lighten their labour greatly and cause them to set to their task with redoubled vigour.—“It’s wonderful how you managed them.” “Arrah, sure it’s a way I’ve got wid me, honey,” said he with a wink. Still, I could see he was pleased with my remark all the same, from the smile of contentment that overspread his face as he added: “Bless ye though, me darlint, sure an’ it’s ownly blarney arter all!” “And what is that?” I asked. “Faix, ya moost go owver to old Oireland to larn, me bhoy,” he answered with a laugh. “Wait till ye kiss the blarney stone, an’ thin ye’ll know!” “I suppose it’s what father calls the suaviter in modo,” said I, laughing also, he put on such a droll look. “And I think, Mr Rooney, you possess the fortiter in re, too, from the way you can speak sometimes.” “Bedad, I don’t ondercumstubble,” he replied, taking off his cap and scratching his head reflectively, rather taken aback by my Latin quotation; “though if that haythen lingo manes soft sawder, by the powers I’ve got lashins av it! Howsomedevers, youngster, we naydn’t argify the p’int; but if the foorst mate were ownly aboord, d’ye know what I’d loike to do?” “What?” I inquired. “W hy, trate them dock loompers to grog all round. They’ve worruked loike blue nayghurs; specially that l’adin’ man av theirs, that chap there, see him, wid the big nose on his face? I’d loike to pipe all hands down in the cabin to splice the main-brace, if ownly the foorst mate were aboord,” he repeated in a regretful tone. Adding, however, the next moment more briskly: “An’, by the blissid piper that played before Moses, there he is!” Chapter Three. Warping out of Dock. W hile the boatswain was still speaking, and expressing his regret at not being able to show the stevedores that he properly appreciated the mode in which they had done their work, I noticed a boy come out from somewhere on the deck below, just underneath where we were standing, and make his way towards the forepart of the ship, apparently in a great hurry about something or other. I wondered what he was going to do, and was puzzling my head about the matter, not liking to interrupt Tim Rooney, when the boy himself the next instant satisfied my curiosity by going up to the ship’s bell, which was suspended in its usual place, under the break of the forecastle, just above and in front of the windlass bits away forward; when, catching hold of a lanyard hanging from the end of the clapper, he struck four sharp raps against the side of the bell, the sound ringing through the air and coming back distinctly to us aft on the poop. I should, however, explain that I, of course, was not familiar with all these nautical details then, only learning them later on, mainly through Tim Rooney’s help, when my knowledge of ships and of sea terms became more extended. Just as the last stroke of the bell rang out above the babble of the men’s voices and the shuffling noise of their feet moving about, the four strokes being sounded in pairs, “cling-clang, cling-clang!” like a double postman’s knock, a slim gentlemanly young man, with brown hair and beard and moustache, who was dressed in a natty blue uniform like mine, save that he wore a longer jacket and had a band of gold lace round his cap in addition to the solitary crown and anchor badge which my head-gear rejoiced in, appeared on top of the gangway leading from the wharf alongside. The next instant, jumping down from the top of the bulwarks on to the main-deck, a couple of strides took him to the foot of the poop ladder, quickly mounting which, he stood beside us. “Sure, an’ it’s proud I am to say yez, sorr,” exclaimed the boatswain, touching the peak of his dilapidated cheese-cutter in salute, and with a smile of welcome on his genial face; “though it’s lucky, bedad, ye didn’t come afore, Misther Mackay, or faix ye’d have bin in toime to be too soon.” “How’s that, Rooney?” inquired the other with a pleasant laugh, showing his nice white teeth. “Instead of being too early, I’m afraid I am a little late.” “The divil a bit, sorr,” replied Rooney. “We’ve only jist this viry minnit struck down the last av the cargo; an’ if ye’d come afore, why, it’s ruckshions there’d a bin about our skulkin’, I know.” “No, no,” laughingly said the young officer; who, I suppose, was older than he looked, for Tim Rooney told me in a loud whisper while he was speaking that he was the “foorst mate” of the ship. “I’m not half such a growler as you are, bosun; but, all the same, I’m glad you’ve got the job done. W ho’s been looking after the dock mateys below, seeing to the stowage?” “Misther Saunders, sorr,” promptly answered Rooney. Adding aside for my enlightenment as to who this worthy might be: “The ‘sicond mate,’ sure, mavourneen.” “Ah, then we need have no fears about its being well done,” rejoined Mr Mackay, or the first mate, as I’d better call him. “W ho is our friend here alongside of you, bosun? I don’t recollect having the pleasure of seeing him before. Another youngster from Leadenhall Street—eh?” He looked at me inquiringly as he asked the question. “Yes, sorr. He’s Misther Gray-ham, sorr; jist come down to jine the Silver Quane, sorr, as foorst-class apprentice,” replied the boatswain with a sly wink to the other, which I was quick enough to catch. Adding in a stage whisper, which I also could not help overhearing: “An’ it’s foorst-class he is entoirely—a raal broth av a bhoy, sure.” “Indeed,” said Mr Mackay, smiling at the Irishman’s irony at my expense, in return no doubt for my whimsical assumption of dignity when telling him who I was. “I suppose he’s come to fill the place of young Rawlings, who, you may remember, cut and run from us at Singapore on our last voyage out?” “I s’pose so, sorr,” rejoined Tim laconically. “I’m very happy, I am sure, to see you on board and make your acquaintance,” said the pleasant- faced young officer, turning to me in a nice cordial way that increased the liking I had already taken to him at first sight. “Have you got your traps with you all right, Mr Graham?” “My father sent on my sea-chest containing all my clothes and things last night by the goods train from our place, addressed to the brokers in Leadenhall Street, as they directed, sir; so I hope it will arrive in time,” I replied, quite proud of a grown-up fellow like Mr Mackay addressing me as “Mister.” “You needn’t be alarmed about its safety, then, I suppose,” observed he jokingly. But, of course, although he might have thought so from my manner, I had really no fears respecting the fate of my chest, and of its being forthcoming when I wanted it. Indeed, until that moment, I had not thought about it at all; for I knew father had despatched it all right from Westham; and when he attended to anything no mishap ever occurred—at least that was our opinion at home! Fancying, from the expression of my face as these thoughts and the recollection of those I had left behind at the rectory flashed through my mind, that I was perhaps worrying myself about the chest, which of course I wasn’t, Mr Mackay hastened, as he imagined, to allay my fears. “There, there! don’t bother yourself about your belongings, my boy,” said he kindly; “your chest and other dunnage came down to the ship early this morning from the brokers along with that of the other youngsters, and you’ll find it stowed in that after-deckhouse below there, where you midshipmen or apprentices will all live together in a happy family sort of way throughout the voyage.” “Thank you, sir,” I answered, much obliged for his courtesy and information; although, I confess, I wondered where the “house” was of which he spoke, there being nothing like even a cottage on the deck, which with everything connected with it was utterly strange to me. My face must again have reflected my thoughts; for even Tim Rooney noticed the puzzled expression it bore, as I looked over the poop rail in the direction Mr Mackay pointed. “I don’t think, sorr, the young gintleman altogether onderconstubbles your manin’,” he remarked to the mate in that loud whisper of his which the poor man really did not intend me to hear, as I’m sure he wouldn’t have intentionally hurt my feelings. “Sure an’ it’s a reg’ler green hand the bhoy is entoirely.” “Never mind that now; he’ll soon learn his way to the weather earring, if I don’t mistake the cut of his jib,” retorted Mackay in a lower tone of voice than the other, although I caught the sense of what he said equally well, as he turned to me again with the evident desire of putting me at my ease. “Have you seen any of your mess-mates yet, my boy—eh?” “No, sir,” I answered, smiling in response to his kindly look. “I have seen no one since I came on board but you and Mr Rooney, who spoke to me first; and, of course, those men working over there.” “Sure, sorr, all av ’em are down below a-grubbin’ in the cuddy since dinner-toime,” interposed my friend the boatswain by way of explanation, on seeing the mate looked surprised at hearing that none of the other officers were about when all should have been so busy. “Ivery man Jack av ’em, sorr, barrin’ Misther Saunders; who, in coorse, as I tould you, sorr, has bin down in the hould a-sayin’ to the stowage of the cargy, more power to his elbow! An’, be the same token, I thinks I sayed him jist now coom up the main-hatchway an’ goin’ to the cuddy too, to join the others at grub.” “Oh!” ejaculated Mr Mackay with deep meaning, swinging round on his heel, all alert in an instant; and taking hold of a short bar of iron pointed at the end, lying near, which Tim Rooney told me afterwards was what is called a “marling-spike,” he proceeded to rap with it vigorously against the side of the companion hatchway, shouting out at the same time so that he could be heard all over the ship: “Tumble up, all you idlers and stowaways and everybody! Below there—all hands on deck to warp out of dock!” “Be jabers, that’ll fetch ’em, sorr,” cried Tim with a huge grin, much relishing this summoning of the laggards to work. “Sure, yer honour, ye’re the bhoy to make ’em show a leg when ye wants to, an’ no misthake at all, at all!” “Aye, and I want them now,” rejoined the other with emphasis. “We have got no time to lose; for, the tide is making fast, and the tug has been outside the lock-gates waiting for the last half-hour or more to take us in tow as soon as we get out in the stream. Below there—look alive and tumble up before I come down after you!” In obedience to this last hail of Mr Mackay, which had a sharp authoritative ring about it, a short, podgy little man with a fat neck and red whiskers, who, as I presently learned, was Mr Saunders, the second mate, came up the companion way; and as I perceived him to be wiping his mouth as he stepped over the coaming of the hatchway, this showed that the boatswain’s surmise of his being engaged “grubbing” with the others was not far wrong. Mr Saunders was followed up from below by a couple of sturdy youths, who appeared to be between eighteen and nineteen or thereabout; and, behind them again, the last of the file, slowly stepped out on to the deck a lanky boy of about the same age as myself—which I forgot to mention before was just fifteen, although I looked older from my build and height. “You’re a nice lot of lazy fellows to leave in charge of the work of the ship!” cried Mr Mackay on the three presenting themselves before him, slowly mounting the companion stairs, one after the other, as if the exertion was almost too great for them, poor fellows, after their dinner! “Here, you Matthews, look sharp and stir your stumps a bit—one would think you were walking in your sleep. I want you to see to that spring forwards as we unmoor!” The boatswain had already descended from the poop and gone to his station in the fore part of the ship; and now, with the first mate’s words, all was stir and action on board. The tallest of the two youths immediately dashed off towards the bows of the ship with an alacrity that proved his slow movements previously had been merely put on for effect, and were not due to any constitutional weakness; for, he seemed to reach the forecastle in two bounds, and I could see him, from a coign of vantage to which he nimbly mounted on top of the knightheads, giving orders to a number of men on the wharf, who had gathered about the ship in the meantime, and directing them to pass along the end of the fore hawser round a bollard on the jetty, near the end of the lock-gates by which entrance was gained from the adjacent river to the basin in which the vessel was lying. Tom Jerrold, the second youth—I heard him called by that name—was sent to look after another hawser passed over the bows of the ship on the starboard side, the end of the rope being bent round a capstan in the centre of the wharf. Then, on Mr Mackay’s word of command, the great wire cables mooring the ship to the jetty were cast off; and, a gang of the dock labourers manning the capstan, with their broad chests and sinewy arms pressed against the bars, as they marched round it singing some monotonous chorus ending in a “Yo, heave, ho!” the ship began to move—at first slowly inch by inch, and then with increased way upon her as the vis inertiae of her hull was overcome—towards the lock at the mouth of the basin, the gates of which had been opened, or rather the caisson floated out shortly before, as the tide grew to the flood. Dear me! W hat with the constant and varied orders to the gang of men working the capstan, and the others easing off the hawser that had been passed round the bollard, keeping a purchase on it and hauling in the slack as the vessel crept along out of the dock so as to prevent her “taking charge” and slewing round broadside on at the entrance where she met the full force of the stream, I was well- nigh deafened with the hoarse shouts and unintelligible cries that filled the air on all sides, everybody apparently having something to say, and all calling out at once. “Bear a hand with that spring!” Mr Mackay would roar out one instant in a voice that quite eclipsed that of Tim Rooney, loud as I thought...