Young Tom Bowling | Page 3

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 flagship, fetching the gangway at the foot of the accommodation ladder on the starboard side in half a dozen strokes. "The ship's corporal told me it'd last all day. It's only them lawyer chaps wanting to get ashore 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 passage 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 assist the gentlemen to pass astern on their jumping into the boat. "Ship my rullocks, you young rascal! Don't you sit there grinning and winking at me, like a Cheshire 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 shipped, 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.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed presently, looking steadily at father, as he steered us aslant the tide so as not to check the way of the boat, while making straight for the pontoon across the stream, which was now running out, like a regular good coxswain. "Aren't you Tom Bowling?"
"Aye, aye, sir, that's my rating," said father, looking at him in his turn. "But I can't say as how I can place your honour;--though, ship my rullocks, if it ain't young Mister Mordaunt; `Gentleman Jack' we used to call you on the lower deck aboard the old Blazer--beg pardon for taking the liberty, sir!"
"Yes, I'm that same, Bowling, only grown a bit since then in stature and likewise in years; for none of us can manage to work a traverse on old Father Time and grow younger," said the other, laughing lightheartedly and showing his white teeth as he stretched out his hand to father in the most cordial way, like a real gentleman, as if he were a friend and fellow-sailor. "I'm very glad to