Young Tom Bowling | Page 2

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 flagship, 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 sturdily, 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, cocking his eye as the cutter sped on its way towards the training-ship. "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."
"Ship 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 rushing 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