From my earliest days I have been known as Jovial Jack Junker. I got the name, I believe, from always being in good humour, and seeing the bright side of things. Whatever I ate did me good, and I never had had an hour’s sickness in my life; while if things happened to go wrong one day, I knew they would go right the next. People said I was of a happy disposition; I suppose I was. I always felt inclined to be singing or whistling, and when I did not, it was because I knew I ought to keep silence—in church, for instance, or in the presence of my elders, who happened to be engaged in conversation. Still, I was not born, as the saying is, with a silver spoon in my mouth, nor did I possess any great worldly advantages. I did not trouble myself much about the future, I must confess that. If I got what I wanted, I was contented; if not, I expected to get it the next day or the day after. I could wait; I always found something to amuse me in the meantime. My father was a marine—a man well known to fame, though not the celebrated “Cheeks.” He was known as Sergeant Junker. He had several small sons and daughters—young Junkers—and when I was about twelve years of age, he was left an inconsolable widower by the untimely death of our inestimable mother. She was an excellent woman, and had brought us up, to the best of her ability, in a way to make us good and useful members of society. She was indeed a greater loss to us than to our poor father; for, as my elder brother Simon observed, as he rubbed his eyes, moist with tears, with the back of his hand—

“You see, Jack, father can go and get another wife, as many do; but we can’t get another mother like her that is gone, that we can’t, nohow.”

No more thorough testimony could have been given to the virtues of our mother. She was a superior woman in many respects, and she was of a very respectable family, and had a nice little fortune of her own; but she had the common weakness of her sex, and fell in love with the handsome face of our honest, worthy father, Ben Junker the marine, at the time a private in that noble corps. She did not like his name, but she loved him, and overcame her prejudice. He could, at the period I speak of, scarcely read or write; but she set to work to educate him, and so far succeeded, that, being a very steady man, he rose in due course to be a sergeant. She had the ambition of hoping to see him obtain a commission; but he used to declare that, if he did, nothing would make him more unhappy, as he should feel exactly like a fish out of water. He was thus, at the time of which I am speaking, still a sergeant. Our mother, in consequence of the income she enjoyed, was able to give her children a much better education than we should otherwise probably have obtained. At the time of her death, it would have been difficult to find in our rank of life a more happy, contented, and better-conducted family. Our father, as I have said, was at first inconsolable; but he was of a happy, contented disposition, as it is very necessary that marines, as well as other people, should be—a disposition which I fortunately inherited from him. He took the rough with the smooth in life, as a matter of course. A favourite song of his, which he used to hum, was—

“What’s the use of sighing,
While time is on the wing?
Oh! what’s the use of crying?
Then merrily, merrily sing
Fa! la!”

Consequently, as Simon said he knew he would, he began in a short time to look out for another wife; and, unhappily for us, fixed on a widow with a family. She was, however, a very amiable woman; in fact, her great fault was, that she was too amiable, too soft and yielding. She could not manage to rule her own family, and a most uproarious, mutinous set they were. From the time they came to the house there was no peace or quiet for anyone else. They, indeed, soon took to try and rule over us with a high hand. Her girls used to come it over our girls, and her boys over our boys. Brother Simon, who was bigger and stronger than her eldest, more than once threatened that he would thrash them all round, if they had any more nonsense, and that invariably made our poor stepmother burst into tears, and plead so hard for her rebellious offspring, that the good, honest fellow had not the heart to put his threat into execution. At last some of us could stand it no longer. As Simon was old enough, he went one day, without saying anything to anybody, and enlisted in the marines. Bill, our second brother, got our father to apprentice him to a ship-carpenter; and, after no little trouble and coaxing, he promised to let me go on board a man-of-war. He did so, however, very unwillingly.

“You don’t know the sort of life that you will have to lead aboard ship, Jack,” he observed. “Boys afloat are not the happy-go-lucky sort of chaps they seem on shore, let me tell you; but, to be sure, they have got discipline there, which is more than I can say there is to be found in a certain place that you know of.” And my father uttered a deep sigh.

We were walking, one evening after tea, up and down our bit of a garden, while he smoked his pipe. He was allowed to live out of barracks, and we had a small cottage a little way off.

“I don’t know, Jack, but what I should not be sorry, if my company was ordered on service afloat,” he observed, confidentially, after a minute’s silence. “Your new mother is a good woman—a very good woman; about her I made no mistake, though she is not equal, by a long chalk, to her that’s gone; but oh! Jack,” and he sighed again, “I did not take into account those young cubs of hers. They will not rest till they have driven your sisters out of the house, as they have driven the boys; and then—and then—why, I suppose, they will drive me away too!”

My poor father! I sighed at the thoughts of his domestic happiness being so completely destroyed, in consequence of the advice of King Solomon not having been followed—the rod having been spared, and the children spoiled.

The following day, my father being sent on duty to Portsea, took me with him. Soon after we landed, I met, just on the inner end of the Common Hard, an old friend of mine, Dick Lee, a waterman.

“Father,” I said, “if Dick will let me, I’ll stop, and have a pull in his wherry. As I am going to sea, I should like to learn to row better than I now do.”

My father, glad to keep me out of harm’s way, told me that, if Dick wished it, I might remain with him. Well pleased, I ran down the Hard, and jumped into old Dick’s wherry. Dick intended that I should sit in his boat, and just practise with the oars, but I had no notion of that sort; so, casting off the painter, I shoved away from the shore. I kept pulling up and down for some time, and round and round, till my arms ached; when, determining to take a longer voyage, I turned the boat’s head out into the harbour. The tide was running out: I went on very swimmingly, I did not think of that. I had not, however, got very far, when I heard old Dick’s voice shouting to me—

“Come back, Jack, come back, you young jackanapes!”

Dick was in a rage, no doubt about that. I pulled round, and in spite of all my efforts could make no headway. Dick shouted, and swore, but to no purpose. I might have cracked my sinews with pulling, but still the boat would keep drifting down and down, running a great risk of getting athwart-hawse of some of the vessels moored a dozen yards below me. At last, Dick did what he might as well have done at first—stepped into another boat with his mate, and came after me. He soon brought me back as a prize. His temper was in no way soothed, though I cried out, again and again, I could not help it.

“Jump ashore now, lad,” he said, as we touched the Hard. “Next time you’ll do what I tell you you may do. I never said you might go and run the chance of getting the boat stove in, and yourself drownded. I keeps my family in order, whatever other people may do.”

Obeying old Dick, I stood disconsolately on the Hard, while he took his fare on board, and pulled away across to Gosport, without deigning to waste another word on me. However, I soon recovered my spirits, and amused myself making an excursion over the huge logs of timber that occupy a considerable space in that nook of the harbour.

I was running along on the more steady pieces of timber which formed the boundary of the pond, when I saw a boy in a boat, placed very much in the position from which I had just escaped. In vain he attempted to stem the tide. He was evidently not accustomed to a boat. He looked round, and saw that the boat was drifting towards the cable of a vessel moored off the Hard. I shouted out to him to pull hard with his starboard oar; but, instead of so doing, he jumped up, and caught hold of the cable, across which the boat had just then come, letting go at the same time one of his oars, which fell overboard. He now clung to the chain, and the current swept the boat away from under his feet.

“Hold on! hold on, for your life!” I shouted out; but, instead of so doing, he let go, expecting to regain his boat. He tried to swim, but he was evidently a bad swimmer. I looked round. No boat was near. I saw there was every chance of his being drowned. I was a capital swimmer; so, hoping to save the lad, I plunged in, and followed him. Just as I was taking the leap, I caught sight of old Dick, coming across the harbour. I shouted at the very top of my voice, pointing to the place where the boy was floating away. This gave me some hopes that we should be picked up. I soon saw that I had miscalculated the distance, for the boy seemed a very, very long way off. I had very little hopes of helping him, and thought it very likely I should get drowned myself, when I saw a hawser, somewhat slack, stretched across the course down which the boy was drifting. “If he has got any sense, he will catch hold of it,” I thought. How thankful I felt when I saw him grasp it! As I got near, he cried out—

“Help! help! I can hold on no longer!”

“Hold on, whatever you do?” I cried out. “Oh dear! oh dear!” he shouted again, “what will become of the boat? what will become of the boat?”

He was evidently getting somewhat stupid and confused. I redoubled my efforts, and grasping the hawser with one hand, caught hold of his jacket with the other, just as he was relaxing his grasp.

“Now, stupid!” I cried out, “just catch hold of this rope again, and hold on! You don’t want to get drowned, do you?”

“No, I don’t; but you had no business to call me stupid,” he exclaimed, in an indignant tone.

“If you go and get drowned when there’s no need of it, you are stupid,” I answered; “but if you will hold on tight, till Dick comes and takes us off, I will say something for you.”

My arguments had some effect, for hold on tight he did, I helping him by the collar of his jacket. I had enough to do, however, to keep him and myself afloat, as well as to hold on at the same time. It seemed to me that old Dick was a long time coming. At last I shouted out.

“Ay, ay!” answered his well-known voice, and at last I saw the bow of his boat coming round from under the stern of a vessel above us.

No one was on the decks of any of the vessels round us, which was the reason, I suppose, that we were allowed to hang on there so long by ourselves.

“Well, what mischief have you been after?” asked old Dick, as he hauled the other boy and me afterwards out of the water. “Well, you do look like two drownded rats?”

“He has been after no mischief at all!” exclaimed the other boy, who, in spite of his recent alarm, had not lost his spirits.

“He jumped into the water to save my life, and he has saved it; and I am sure my papa and mamma will not think it was any mischief, but will be ready to thank him very heartily, as I do.”

“And who are you, young gentleman?” asked old Dick. “What business had you to be tumbling into the water?”

He had begun to pull up the harbour, I should say, placing us in the stern sheets while he was asking these questions.

“Who am I? you want to know who I am?” said the young gentleman, who was employed in squeezing the wet out of his clothes; “I am Richard Alfred Chesterton Plumb,” answered the boy, standing up and assuming an air of dignity; “and I did not tumble into the water, but my boat got away from me, and I tried to get after it; and that reminds me that she is floating down the harbour; and so, old gentleman, I will just trouble you to go in chace of her and try to bring her back.”

“Ho! ho! ho!” exclaimed old Dick; “some young bantams do crow loud. Howsomdever, there is spirit in the lad, no doubt about that!”

“Well, old man,” again asked the young gentleman, “are you going after my boat?”

Old Dick did not deign an answer; but, looking away down the harbour, espied the boat, and, pulling round, made chase after her. We were soon up to her, and Master Richard, as he called himself, wanted to be put aboard again.

“I can row about till I am dry,” he observed. “What’s the odds?”

However, as there was only one oar remaining, this was an impossibility.

“You will only go and get yourself drownded again,” said the old man, “and catch your death of cold sitting in your wet things into the bargain. So you just come up to my missus, and she will give you a hot cup of tea and dry your duds, and then Jack here and I will see you safe home to your friends.”

I have a notion that old Dick was afraid the young master might forget all about the service which had been rendered him, and having an eye to the main chance, he was resolved that I should receive a reward—he himself hoping probably to obtain some remuneration also for his trouble. On our way back young Master Richard, who was in no way disconcerted, espied the missing oar, which had been caught in an eddy, and drifted in towards the shore. We got hold of it, and he now seemed perfectly happy. We both looked very foolish, I thought, as dripping wet we followed old Dick up to his house. The old woman had our clothes very soon off us, and tumbled us both into their bed. The young gentleman whispered to me that it was not very nice, but I was in no way particular.

“It will not do to be ungrateful. I would bear anything, rather than show I did not like it,” he added, still whispering.

He at last got rather impatient, and singing out, asked Dick if he would go and buy him a new suit at Selby’s, the tailor’s in High Street.

The old man laughed.

“I’ve got no credit there, young gentleman,” he answered. “Maybe, too, your friends would not be quite pleased. Your clothes will be dry enough in time; and, there now, the water’s boiling, and you shall have a bowl of tea hot enough to take the skin off your mouths.”

The steaming liquid was soon brought to us, and after drinking it, Master Richard said he felt as warm and comfortable as he had ever done in his life. He was only anxious to be off. At length, however, the warmth and closeness of the room sent us both off into a sound sleep. We were awoke by old Dick’s voice.

“Well, lads,” he said, “are you ready to put on your clothes, and come along to young master’s friends? I have seen your father, Jack. He knows all about them, and says it is all right. He tells me, Jack,” he whispered, “they’re no end of grand people, so I hope you have stepped into the right boat this time.”

I could not exactly understand the meaning of my old friend’s remarks, but I saw that he was well pleased. Old Mrs Lee pressed some more tea and bread and butter on us, and had a sausage frying in the pan. I was not sorry to get it; but, after taking a few mouthfuls, the young gentleman said he was very grateful, but that he had had enough, and that he expected to find dinner when he got home.

“I could not have eaten another mouthful, even if the old woman had threatened to throw me into the frying-pan,” he observed, as we left the house, “but I did not like to hurt her feelings.”

I had eaten up the remainder of the sausage, so I benefited by Master Richard’s delicacy of stomach.