Sunshine Bill | Page 5

could not eat much for thinking that at last he was going on board a man-of-war. No more could his mother, but when the rest began to eat away, he followed their example; and his mother at last managed to get down the remaining sausage, which all her children insisted she should have, Susan giving it a fresh heating up before the fire, for they had a good fire that day. Many a winter's evening they had had to go without it, for want of something to burn. At last there was not as much left as a piece of grease in the dish, nor a piece of bread on the platter, and all the tea was drained to the last drop; and then Bill stood up and thanked God for their good supper.
"And it was a good one!" cried out little Tommy. "A right good one. And, Bill, I hope you may get many such aboard ship."
"Maybe," said Bill, "but they will not be like this, for there will be none of you there; and after all it's not the grub, but it's them that eats it with us that makes it pleasant."
Bill might have said more but he did not; for a good reason--he could not just then trust his voice; so he jumped up and began to dance a hornpipe, though he was not very perfect in the art of dancing.
"Never mind," he said, "I will learn something more about that too, when I get to sea."
Bill was up betimes, dressed in his new suit. "Mother, I would like to carry your basket for you," he said. "Maybe it's the last day I shall be able to do it."
"No, no, Bill," she said; "I am not going out this morning, till you are away. We will go down to the Point, and learn when the Lilly is going out of harbour. It is better to go on board now than to wait till she gets out to Spithead."
It was a hard matter for Bill to wish all his brothers and sisters good-bye, and harder still to part from his mother, but he did it in a brave, hearty way. Old Joe Simmons, who had known him all his life, and known his mother too, for that matter, since she was born, insisted on taking him off.
"The Lilly will be going out of harbour to-day, or to-morrow at farthest, and the sooner you are aboard, my boy, the better," said old Joe, taking Bill's bundle from Mrs Sunnyside. "Come along with me. And now, Mrs Sunnyside, do you go back, there's a good woman, now. I'll look after your boy, and see him all right aboard. I know three or four of her crew who shipped from here, and I will speak to one or two of them, and they will put Bill up to what he ought to do, so that he won't seem like a green-horn when they get to sea. There's the captain of the maintop, Jack Windy, son of an old shipmate of mine, and he will stand Bill's friend, if I ask him. And there's little Tommy Rebow, who has been to sea for a year or more; and I'll just tell him I will break every bone in his body if he don't behave right to Bill. So, you see, he will have no lack of friends, Mrs Sunnyside. There now, good-bye, good-bye! Bless you, missus! Bless you! Don't fret, now; Bill will be all right."
These words the old man uttered, as he pushed his wherry from the beach, and pulled up the harbour towards a fine corvette which lay at anchor off Gosport.
CHAPTER THREE.
The Lilly was a fine, rakish-looking corvette, with a crew of one hundred and twenty, officers and seamen, as Joe Simmons informed Bill.
The old man went up the side with him.
"There's the first lieutenant," he said. "You just go up and tell him you have come aboard. It will be all right. Although he looks very grand, he is all right at bottom; and I have heard more than one thing in his favour. He won't eat you; so don't be afear'd, Bill."
Bill did as he was advised, and presented the captain's card. Mr Barker glanced at it.
"Oh! You are Bill Sunnyside. We will enter you. Master-at-arms, see to this boy."
"It's all right, boy, you can go forward!"
Bill, thus dismissed, gladly rejoined his old friend, thankful that the dreaded interview was over. He would not have minded it if the captain had been aboard, for he had taken a great fancy to him, and felt ready to go through fire and water to serve him.
Old Joe introduced him, as he had promised, to a fine, active-looking seaman who had just come from aloft, with hands well tarred, and