Young Tom Bowling Part 1

Young Tom Bowling.

by J.C. Hutcheson.

CHAPTER ONE.

FATHER AND I "ARGUE THE POINT."

"Hullo, father!" I sang out, when we had got a little way out from the pontoon and opened the mouth of the harbour, noticing, as I looked over my shoulder to see how we were steering, a string of flags being run up aboard the old _Saint Vincent_. "They're signalling away like mad this morning all over the shop! First, atop of the dockyard semaph.o.r.e; and then the flags.h.i.+p and the old _Victory_, both of 'em, blaze out in bunting; while now the _Saint Vincent_ joins in at the game of 'follow- my-leader.' I wonder what's up?"

"Lor' bless you, Tom!" rejoined father, still steadily tugging on at his stroke oar as we pursued our course towards the middle of the stream, so that we might take advantage of the last of the flood, and allow the gradually slackening tide, which was nearly at the turn, to drift us down alongside the old _Victory_, whither we were bound to pick up a fare for the sh.o.r.e--"nothing in pertickler's up anyways uncommon that I sees, sonny; and as for the buntin' that you're making sich a fuss about, why, they've hauled all that down, and pretty near unbent all the signal flags, too, and stowed 'em away in their lockers by this time!"

"But, father," I persisted, "they don't always go on like this for nothing, I know!"

"In coorse they don't, stoopid!" said he, giving the water an angry splash as he reached forwards, the blade of his oar sending up a tidy sprinkle across my face. "Why, where's your wits, Tom, this mornin'?"

"Where you put them, father," I replied with a laugh; "you know I'm your son, and mother says I'm 'a chip of the old block' whenever she's a bit put out with me."

"None o' your imporence, Tom," said he, laughing too; for he and I were the best of friends, and I don't think we ever had a serious difference about anything since first I was able to toddle down to the Hard, a little mite of four or five, to see him put off in his wherry, and sometimes go out for a sail with him on the sly when mother wasn't watching us, up to the time, as now, when I could help him with an oar.

"None o' your imporence, you young jackanapes. But touching that there signallin', I'm surprised, sonny, you don't know by this time that when the commander-in-chief up at Admiralty House, in the dockyard, wishes for to communicate to some s.h.i.+p out at Spithead, he telegraphs from his office to the semaph.o.r.e, which h'ists his orders, and then every s.h.i.+p in port's bound to repeat the signal till the craft he means it for runs up her answering pennant, for to show us how she's took the signal in and underconstubled it."

"Oh yes, father, I know that," said I, leading him on purposely. "But what is the signal they've been so busy about this morning? I can't make it out at all."

Father snorted indignantly.

"Tom Bowling, junior, I'm right down ashamed on you for a son o' mine!"

he said, digging away at his oar savagely, as if trying to dredge up some of the silt from the bottom of the harbour. "You, turned fifteen year old, and been back'ard and forrud 'twixt Hardway and the Gosport sh.o.r.e for a matter of five years or more, and not for to know and read a common signal like that, which you must 'a seed run up at the semaph.o.r.e or on board the _Dook_ a hundred times at least. Lor'! I'm jest 'shamed of you, that's what I be!"

"But that ain't telling me, father," I retorted, "what _is_ the signal.

You needn't make such a blooming mystery of it, like that chap we saw t'other night at the theayeter!"

In return for my 'cheek' he splashed the water over me again.

"Well, if you don't know it, sonny, which I can hardly believe on, and wants for to know to improve your mind, which needs a lot of improvement, as I knows, that theer signal, Tom, was that cruiser we saw out at Spithead yesterday a-trying her speed at the measured mile, the _Mercury_, I thinks she is, axin' the port-admiral if she might have her sailin' orders; and look there, sonny, the 'affirmative' 's now run up at the mizzen aboard the _Dook_, over yonder!"

"Yes, father," said I, playing him artfully, like the wily old fish he was, with an object which you will soon learn--"and what does that mean?"

"What does that mean? You blessed young h'ignoramus! Why, Tommy, your brains be all wool-gathered this mornin'! Can't you see that old Sir Ommaney is tellin' the cruiser to 'carry on' as soon as she likes, and bid adoo to Spithead when she's weighed her anchor? See, too, sonny, the old _Vict'ry_ and the _Saint Vincent_ be now a-repeatin' the signal arter the _Dook_, the same as they did that first h'ist, jest now!"

"That is, father," said I innocently like--"the port-admiral gives that cruiser outside permission to go to sea?"

"Aye, Tom," he answered, without suspecting what my inquiry was leading up to--"that's just it. You've reckoned it up to a nicety, my hearty."

Now came the opportunity for which I had been waiting.

"The old port-admiral may be a martinet, as they say, in the dockyard,"

I said; "but he's a kinder chap than you are, father."

"The admiral kinder than me, sonny," he repeated, in a surprised tone--"why, how's that, Tom?"

"Because he gives leave when he's asked for a fellow to go to sea."

We were just then about midway between the _Saint Vincent_ and the old _Victory_; and, startled by my thus unexpectedly broaching my masked battery, father dropped his oar and let the wherry drift along the almost motionless tideway towards the stern of Nelson's whilom flags.h.i.+p, which was slowly swinging round nearer us on the bosom of the stream, thus showing that the ebb was setting in, or, rather, out.

"You owdacious young monkey!" he cried, slewing his head round on his shoulders, even as the old _Victory's_ hull slewed with the tide, so that he could look me full in the face. "So, my joker, that's the little rig you're a-tryin' to try on with me, Master Tommy, is it?"

"It ain't no rig, father," said I st.u.r.dily, sticking to my guns, now that the cat was out of the bag. "I can't see why you won't let me go to sea. I'm sure I've asked you often enough."

"Aye; and I'm sure I've had to refuse you jest as often."

"Why, father?"

"For your own good, sonny."

"I can't see it, father," I rejoined. "Look at them _Saint Vincent_ boys in that cutter a-crossing our bows now. How jolly they all seems working at their proper calling, just as I'd like to be!"

"Aye, mebbe," said father, in his sententious way, c.o.c.king his eye as the cutter sped on its way towards the training-s.h.i.+p. "But jest you look at me, Tom, and see what forty years' sailorin', man and boy, have done for one o' the same kidney as them boys, jolly though they seems now. Poor young beggars, they all has their troubles afore 'em!"

"Most of us have our troubles, father," I replied to this bit of moral philosophy of his, speaking just in his own manner. "So our old parson said on Sunday last, when mother and Jenny and I went to church. We are all bound to have them, he said, whether on sea or on land; and I can't say as how a sailor has the worst chance."

"s.h.i.+p my rullocks, Tom, can't ye? Jest you look at me!"

"Why, father?" I asked. "What's the use of that?"

"None o' your imporence, Master Tommy; jest you look at me!"

"All right, father," said I. "I am a-looking at you now!"

"Very good, Tom--one dog one bone! Well, what d'ye see?"

"I see a brave sailor and a gallant defender of his country," I answered, giving the bow oar I was pulling a vicious dig into the water as I spoke, like as if I were tackling one of the Queen's enemies; "I see a man who has got no cause to be ashamed of his past life, though he might be getting on in years--you are that, father, you know; and one who has won his medal with four clasps for hard fighting. In real wars, mind you, not your twopenny ha'penny Bombardment of Alexandria business!--aye, I see one who ought to wear the Victoria Cross if he had his rights. That's what I see, father."

"Bosh, Tom, none o' your flummery," said he, grinning as he always does at the mention of the Egyptian affair which they made such a fuss about, just when I was a little nipper learning to run about, and that old men- o'-warsmen thought all the more ridiculous from its contrast to Admiral Hornby's rus.h.i.+ng the British fleet through the Dardanelles, and stopping the Russians in their march to victory at the very gates of Constantinople, shortly before, in the days of 'old Dizzy'--which was really a deed to boast of, if any one wanted to talk of the British Lion showing his teeth and waggling his tail, as he did when he 'meant business' in the good old days of Nelson! Aye, that _was_ 'something like,' father says; and worth all the 'bronze stars' in the Khedive's collection of leather medals! "None o' your flummery, Tom; you only wants to put me off my course, you rascal, so as to make me forget what I were a-talking about. But I don't forget, sonny! Look at me, I says, and see what I've come to, with my forty year o' sailorin' all about the world an' furrin parts--a poor rhumenaticky chap as is half a cripple, forced to eke out his miserable pension of a bob an' a tanner a day by pulling a rotten old tub of a boat back'ards and forruds, up and down Porchm'uth Harbo'r, a-tryin' to gain an honest livin', an' jest only arnin' bread an' cheese at that!"

"Oh, father!" said I. "How about that rabbit smothered in onions we had yesterday for dinner, and the 'tidy little sum' you told me you and mother had in the Savings Bank? Besides that, we've bought the freehold of our little house at Bonfire Corner, I know, father, and there's the bird-shop and all the stock!"

"You knows too much, Master Tom, I'm a-thinking," he rejoined, scratching his head again, as he always did, as now, when he was in a quandary about anything, especially when any one had got the better of him in an argument, or, as he said, 'weathered' on him, and he wasn't quite prepared with an answer, reaching over the sternsheets of the wherry and dipping the blade of his oar, ready to make a stroke. "But, look out, my lad! I think we'd better be a-going alongside now. Ain't that a jolly there, signalling to us from the entry-port o' the old _Victory_?"

"Aye, father," said I, for I had seen the marine holding up his hand to summon us before he spoke. "The court-martial must be over sooner than was expected."

"Not a bit of it, Tom," he replied, as he and I bent our backs and made the boat spin along towards the old flags.h.i.+p, fetching the gangway at the foot of the accommodation ladder on the starboard side in half a dozen strokes. "The s.h.i.+p's corporal told me it'd last all day. It's only them lawyer chaps wanting to get ash.o.r.e to their lunch, that's all.

Those landsharks be as hungry arter their vittles as they is for their fees, Tom; they be rare hands, them lawyers, for keeping their weather eyes open, and is all on the look-out for whatsomedever they can pick up. They be all fur grabbin' an' grabbin', that they be, or I'm a Dutchman!"

"Really, father?" I said innocently, as I stood up in the bows of the wherry and hung on by a boathook to one of the ringbolts in the side of the old three-decker that towered up above our heads, waiting to help in a couple of gentlemen who came hurrying down the accommodation ladder to take pa.s.sage with us. "Why, I thought you and mother wanted me to go into a lawyer's office and become one of those very same sort of chaps!"

"I'd rayther see you an honest sailor, like your father an' grandfather afore you," he answered, with some heat, unthinkingly; and then, catching my eye, he grinned, recognising how seriously he had committed himself by this rash utterance after his previous advice respecting the unsatisfactory character of the vocation he now extolled, and he muttered under his breath while lending his arm to a.s.sist the gentlemen to pa.s.s astern on their jumping into the boat. "s.h.i.+p my rullocks, you young rascal! Don't you sit there grinning and winking at me, like a Ches.h.i.+re cat eatin' green cheese, thinkin' no doubt you've got to win'ard of me; though, I'm blest, sonny, if I didn't nearly slip my painter then!"

The rudder of the wherry being s.h.i.+pped, one of the gentlemen took the yoke lines as he sat down in the sternsheets facing father, handling them in a manner that showed he was no novice.