Chapter Three.
Life on the Roarer.
I went back with my father, and the remainder of the day was spent by my stepmother in getting my outfit ready. It was an unusually good one, in consequence of the brigadier’s gift.
“I don’t expect to hear much more about that,” observed my father. “There is a good deal of talk about those sort of people; though, to be sure, the old man and the young one have some feeling; still I don’t see what good they could do you, Jack, even if they wished it. I should not wish you put above your station; though, to be sure, your poor dear mother was a lady herself, that she was, every inch of her, and too good for me. However, Jack, there’s one thing I have got to counsel you: do your duty, tell the truth, and never mind the sneers or laughter of those who try to lead you astray. There is One in heaven who will hear your prayers, and don’t you go and forget to tell Him your wants, and ask Him to do what is best for you. And now, my boy, you have my blessing; and I am sure, that good mother of yours—she who’s gone I mean—will be looking down from wherever she is, and watching over you, and praying for you, if so be she has the power; but of that matter, I must own, I have no certain knowledge, only I do think it’s the work she would like to be employed in, anyhow.”
The next morning I took an affectionate farewell of my brothers and sisters, and very far from an affectionate one of the children of my poor stepmother. She herself, however, wept bitterly, as I went out of the house; my father, and a marine he had got from the barracks, carrying my chest. It was not a very big one, as may be supposed. We had got some distance from the house, when who should I see, scampering after us, and well out of breath, than the young Master Richard.
“Oh, Jack!” he exclaimed, “where are you going? I wanted to come yesterday, but could not, because my mother took me to see the Port-Admiral, and all sorts of other naval authorities. I wanted, as I told you, to go to sea, and she seems to think it’s a very good place for me to go to. She says that as I have been so nearly drowned once, I am not likely to be drowned again; that it’s much less expensive than being in the dragoons, and, in fact, she made up her mind that to sea I was to go. Somehow or other she and the naval big-wigs have settled it, and I am to go on board the old Roarer, which is to sail, in a short time, for the East Indies.”
“That’s the very ship I have joined,” I answered.
“Is it? How jolly! but are you to be a midshipman?”
“No,” I answered, “I am only rated as a boy on board.”
“Oh! I suppose there is no great difference. I do not know much about a ship, or the ways of a ship. I am to have a fine new uniform, and a dirk, and a chest full of no end of things. Well, we shall know more about it by-and-by; but I was forgetting what I came for. I wanted you to come up to the house. My father wants to talk to you, and my sisters want to see you; to make much of you, I fancy, but that might be a bore. But, I say, let those two soldiers take your chest aboard, and present your compliments to the captain, and say you will come by-and-by.”
My father and his companion, on hearing this, burst out laughing.
“I have a notion, young master,” said my father, “that that would not do for Jack. Much obliged to you all the same; but you are likely to be in one station, and he in another, so I am afraid the kindness you intend him will not do him any good. I promised to take him on board the Roarer this morning, and I shall have to go on duty again very soon; so once more I have to thank you, and wish you good morning!”
Master Plumb seemed rather astonished at this answer.
“Rather a proud chap that soldier,” he said to me. “I should have taken him for an officer, if he had not been carrying the box. Who is it?”
“My father,” I answered.
“Oh, that’s it,” he observed. “Well, Jack, I wish you could come, but if you cannot, I must take your excuses; though I am sure the captain would not be angry, if you sent him a polite message.”
“My father knows better than I do,” I answered; “and I have not seen the captain, so I must go. I am very sorry, for I should like to have come with you.”
Master Richard wrung my hand very warmly, and most unwillingly went back towards his home. How Sergeant Turbot did laugh when we got on board, and my father told him what had happened. He advised me not to give Master Richard’s message. My father, having left me under charge of the sergeant, took his departure. He came on board, however, several times in old Dick’s wherry.
“I don’t ask you to come home, my boy,” he said, “for I have not got the heart to go through that parting business again. Besides, Jack, the home is not as comfortable as it should be. Perhaps, however, when you come back, four or five years hence, things will have mended. And you will not forget your father, Jack, and I’m sure you won’t her that’s gone.”
These remarks were made the last time I saw my worthy father before the ship went out of harbour. I, in time, got accustomed to the ways of a ship, or, rather, to the ways of the men. It was rather curious, at first, to see a number of big fellows standing round a tub or basin, all washing themselves in the same water; one toothbrush, if they were particular enough to have such a thing, and one comb, serving for the whole party. Only a few, however, of the cleanest men used the former article. Still, things were somewhat trying to a young chap. When the ship appeared to have got a little quiet, suddenly, as I was seated near Sergeant Turbot, I heard a sharp whistle and a ferocious growl, which made me jump off the bench. “All hands on deck?” or some such cry, were the words which followed the whistle.
“Who is that growling out?” I asked of the sergeant.
“That is one of our licensed growlers,” was the answer. “It’s his business to growl; he is paid for it. Seamen are fond enough of growling generally, but they get nothing when they do, though they growl till they are hoarse.”
Now, as I said, I had been aboard all sorts of ships in ordinary, or in the dockyard, but never before on board one fitting-out. When, therefore, I stepped on deck after the men, I was perfectly confounded; and the scene of confusion around me—such piping, and swearing, and bawling, and shouting, swaying up yards, getting in guns and stores, and pulling and hauling in all directions. Still, I made the best of it; and, having my eyes about me, kept out of harm’s way, and stood ready to try and do anything I was told to do. This went on till the men knocked off work again, and the hubbub was concentrated on the main and lower decks, especially round the galley-fire, where the cooks were busy serving out dinners to the different messes. “It smells fine, at all events,” I thought to myself, and would have made me hungry, if I had not been so already. Then a marine struck a bell four times double, which made eight bells, and the officer of the watch roared out, “Pipe to dinner!” Didn’t the whistle of the boatswain and his men sound shrilly then! The dishes being arranged on the mess-tables, which were placed in rows along the decks, all hands fell to with a will; and I, among the number, ate my first dinner aboard ship. In about an hour there was another pipe, and the word “Grog!” was bawled out. Each man went to receive his quantum of rum and water. The sergeant said that rum was a bad thing for little boys, and drank mine for me. I now think that he was right. I had as yet seen nothing of Master Plumb, and I began to think that he was not coming after all. This did not concern me, I own, very much; for, as he would be at one end of the ship and I at the other, we should not exchange words very often, and I knew pretty well, from what I had already seen, that he would soon get into the ways of his messmates, and look down upon me, and swear and abuse me, as some of the other young gentlemen were apt to do.
At last all stores were on board, the sails were bent, and, casting off from the old hulk, we hauled out into the stream. The Roarer certainly looked to greater advantage than she had hitherto done. The next day decks were cleared, the men put on clean shirts and trousers, the officers appeared in full fig, and the long-expected captain came up the side.
“Butter won’t melt in his mouth,” I heard one of the seamen near me observe.
“You think so?” remarked Ned Rawlings. “Now do you just get near, and have a look at his eye, and you will sing a different song. It’s not always the rough-and-ready looking chaps, like you and I, Tom, as are the best men for work!”
Our captain certainly did look more fit for a ball-room, or a naval officer in love on the stage, than for the deck of a man-of-war. He was the most polished article about his whole ship. His whiskers were curled; his cheeks were pink; the gold lace on his coat shone with undimmed lustre, not a particle of dust rested on the fine cloth of which it was made, while it fitted with perfection to his well-formed figure. Kid gloves covered his hands, and a fine cambric handkerchief appeared from his breast-pocket. He bowed to the flag, and he bowed to the officers, as he cast a scrutinising glance round the deck. Some of the older officers pulled rather long faces when they saw him. In a short time, he ordered all hands to come aft, and then, in a clear, somewhat soft voice, made a long speech. The sum total of it was, that he was determined to have a crack ship, and a crack crew, and that he did not like to use the lash, but that he did not always do what he liked; still, that he always would have done what he wanted done. The men could not quite make him out, nor could I; but I came to the conclusion, that he was not just the sort of man to whom I should like to carry such a message as Master Plumb had requested me to give.
Next day we went out to Spithead. No signs of my friend. I told Sergeant Turbot that I thought Master Richard Plumb would not come after all.
“Perhaps not,” he answered; “Mrs Brigadier does not like to part from him, or maybe they are washing and combing him, and making him fit to come aboard, which I suppose occupied the time of a certain person who should be nameless, and prevented him joining us till yesterday. Maybe, young master has thought better of the matter, and would rather go for a parson, or one of those chaps as goes to foreign courts to bamboozle the people.”
I, at all events, made up my mind that I should see no more of Master Richard. However, scarcely had I come to this conclusion, than a large wherry came alongside, and a card was sent up for the captain.
“Certainly,” he answered.
The boatswain’s mate whistled; the side boys were called away, I being one of them, and we hastened to our posts on the accommodation-ladder. There, in a boat, sat Mrs Brigadier, with the Brigadier on one side and Master Richard on the other, and the two young ladies I had before seen. Mrs Brigadier, putting her hand on the shoulder of one of the men who was holding on the bow stepped up the accommodation-ladder with a dignified air, followed humbly by the Brigadier. Then came the young ladies. Young master followed his sisters in a spick-and-span new uniform, looking especially well pleased at himself. As he came up he espied me. That there was no pride in him, he showed by an inclination to shake hands with me. But against this there were two reasons: first, I should have fallen from my perch, and then it would have been decidedly against nautical etiquette.
“Why, Jack, shall I have to do this sort of work?” he asked, as he passed me.
“I think not, sir,” I answered, for I had learned to say “sir” to a uniform. “I am a side boy, you are a midshipman.”
“Oh, ay, that makes a difference,” he observed, following up his sisters; and I do believe he gave the last a pinch in the ankles, as he pretended to keep down her petticoats, for she kicked out behind, missing his nose, though, narrowly. The whole party were soon on deck, where the captain stood to receive them, bowing with formal politeness to Mrs Brigadier and to the Brigadier, as well as to the young ladies. He cast a very different sort of glance at young master, who came up, no way disconcerted, by the side of his father.
“We were anxious to see the last of our boy,” said Mrs Brigadier, for the Brigadier seldom spoke much in her presence. “We wished also properly to introduce him to you and to his brother officers. He is not our only son, but he is our youngest son, and as such we naturally prize him greatly. These are our two girls—Leonora and Euphemia. They are not likely to leave us, unless at any time they should be destined to make the home of some worthy man happy; but boys, Captain Sharpe, must go out into the world, and Richard Alfred Chesterton does not find himself an exception to the general rule. He desired to enter your noble profession, and I am sure, Captain Sharpe, that you will watch over him with paternal care; I trust by-and-by because you appreciate his merits, but at present, as he is unknown to you, for my sake—for the sake of a fond, doting mother.”
“I always do look after my midshipmen, madam,” answered the captain; “I wish them to learn their duty, and I make them do it. If your son behaves himself, he will get on as well as the rest; but if not, he will probably find himself spending a considerable portion of his time up aloft there,” and the captain glanced at the mast-head.
I saw young master screw up his mouth at this. However, Mrs Brigadier said nothing. She had unburdened her maternal bosom, and done her duty, as she considered it.
The captain now invited the Brigadier and his family down to luncheon, and Master Richard followed, his air of confidence somewhat abated. He had taken the captain’s measure, and the captain had taken his, but they were not likely to get on the worse for that. I saw many glances of admiration cast at the young ladies by the lieutenants and midshipmen, for really they were very pretty, nice girls, according to my notion—not a bit like their mamma.
At last the party came out of the cabin again, and the side boys were once more called away. The old Brigadier took a hearty affectionate farewell of his boy, and his sisters kissed him—all very right and proper—and then came Mrs Brigadier. I saw that poor Master Richard was rather uncomfortable, when, quite regardless of where they were, she took him up in her long arms, and kissed his cheeks, and his forehead, and his lips, just as if he had been a baby, and a big tear did start into her eye. “Well, she is human, at all events,” I thought, “in spite of her appearance.”
Though some of the midshipmen might have laughed, the captain looked as grave as a judge, and so did the other officers. Master Richard went down the ladder, and saw his party off: then he again came up the side, and walked about the deck by himself, evidently not knowing exactly what to do. At last, the first-lieutenant, Mr Blunt, went up to him.
“Have you ever been to sea before, Mr Plumb?” he asked.
“No, indeed, I have not,” was the answer, “and I am rather doubtful—”
“Well, well,” broke in Mr Blunt, “remember, I speak to you as a friend. You should say, ‘Sir!’ when you address a superior officer.”
“Certainly,” answered Master Dicky, “but I did not know you were my superior officer.”
The lieutenant laughed.
“You will have a good deal to learn, I suspect, Mr Plumb. Remember, I am the first-lieutenant of the ship, and you must obey with promptitude any orders which I, or any of the other lieutenants give, or the master, or the warrant-officers, or, indeed, any officers on duty, may issue. You have a great many people above you on board this ship, Mr Plumb.”
“So it seems, sir,” said Richard, “but if they all try to teach me my duty, so much the better; I shall learn the faster.”
“You will,” said Mr Blunt, “only there is one thing you must never pretend to be, and that is—stupid. The captain believes you to be one of the sharpest lads who ever came to sea; and, let me tell you, he is not the man to allow anybody to gainsay his opinion.”