Young Tom Bowling | Page 3

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 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