Young Tom Bowling | Page 4

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 see you again--aye, and looking so hale
and hearty, too, old shipmate!"
"So am I to see you, sir," rejoined father, resting on his oar, while the
two exchanged a good grip of their fists; I also stopping pulling, of
course, and grinning in sympathy. "Why, I were only talking about you
last pension day to Bill Murphy--You remembers Bill; don't you, sir?

He wer' cap'en of the foretop in the Blazer with us, Mr Mordaunt--a
little chap with ginger hair."
"Oh yes, I recollect Murphy well enough. He was a mad Irishman,
always full of fun and mischief," rejoined the other, smiling at the
remembrance of some joke in which the chap of whom they spoke had
part. "But you must put a handle to my name, Bowling; I'm posted
now."
"Beg pardon, cap'en, I didn't know it, in course, or wouldn't have forgot
my manners," said father, raising his hand in salute; and then, gripping
the loom of his oar, he started a long steady stroke towards the pontoon
at the foot of the railway jetty, on the Portsea shore, abreast of the old
Victory; I following suit, of course. "You won't mind an old seaman, sir,
'gratulatin' you, sir, on getting your step so young? Ship my rullocks,
why, it do seem but t'other day when you were a mite of a middy along
o' me!"
"Time flies, my man; and if youth were the only bar to our promotion
we'd soon be all admirals of the fleet," said the other, laughing again.
"Why, it's more than twenty years ago, Bowling, since we were in the
old Blazer together."
"Aye, I knows that, Cap'en Mordaunt," replied father, in his dry way;
"an' I knows, too, that there's many a youngster o' yer own standing as
ain't got further than liftenant yet, sir! It's only the smart officers like
yerself that gits promoted."
"Well, well, we won't argue about that, Bowling; `kissing,' you know,
sometimes `goes by favour,'" said father's old friend, smiling; and then,
to turn the current of conversation from this rather personal theme,
Captain Mordaunt, as I afterwards found out for myself when I sailed
with him, being of a singularly modest and retiring disposition, he
abruptly asked, "This your son, eh?"
"Yes, sir--Cap'en Mordaunt, I means, sir," replied father. "I've got one
darter as is older; but he's my only son."

"How old is he now?"
"Fifteen years an' ten months," said father, after careful consideration
and much counting on his fingers. "He'll be sixteen next April, on
`Primrose Day,' as they call it."
"Another Tom Bowling, eh?"
"Yes, sir," said father. "He's `young Tom,' an' I'm the `old un' now!"
"Humph! He's a fine grown young chip for his age. What are you going
to make of him? He ought to be a sailor and serving the Queen by now,
like his father before him!"
Father `hummed' and `hawed,' not knowing what to answer to this;
while I burned all over with joy at having so potent an advocate coming
to my aid in this unexpected way.
Captain Mordaunt saw this: though anybody could have seen it from
one glance at my face; for if I grinned `like a Cheshire cat eating green
cheese' on ordinary occasions, as father used to say, why, I must have
looked now as if I had bolted all the cheese in one lump, and it had
stuck in my throat, keeping my mouth open on the stretch!
So, noticing this, father's old friend put the question to me point- blank.
"I think, youngster, you've pretty well made up your mind already in
the matter, if I'm not very much mistaken," said he to me, as I
unshipped my oar and stood up in the bow of the wherry, ready to fend
her off from the pontoon as we ran up alongside, right under the stern
of one of the Ryde steamers that was just backing out from the railway
pier above us. "You'd like to go to sea, young Tom, I'm sure, eh?"
"There's nothing I should like better, sir," I answered glibly enough,
catching hold of one of the piles of the pier with my boathook and
bringing up the wherry easily to the landing-stage. "I only wish you'd
coax my father, sir, to let me be a sailor!"

"Now, Bowling, my old friend," said this new ally of mine, who, it
struck me, would turn out to be a very important factor in this decision
anent my future destiny, "the matter rests entirely with you.