Afloat and Ashore | Page 5

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! Who 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