Young Tom Bowling | Page 5

`Toby or
not Toby,' as Hamlet says in the play. Is your son, young Tom here, to
go to sea or not?"
Father took off his hat with his right hand and scratched his head
deliberately and deliberatively with his left, `humming' and `hawing'
over this crucial question.
"Well, sir--Cap'en Mordaunt that is, begging your pardon, sir, ag'in,"
said he--"as you goes on to make sich a favour on it, sir, we'll see about
it, sir."
"See about it?--Stuff and nonsense, Bowling, my man, that won't do for
me!" exclaimed the other, as, resting his hand lightly on my shoulder as
he crossed the thwarts, he stepped out of the wherry on to the landing-
stage. "I tell you what it is, young Tom must go to sea, my man--aye,
and to-morrow too!"
"Lor' sakes, you're just the same, sir, as you were aboard the old Blazer
twenty years ago!" said father, breaking into a regular horse- laugh,
which he never did except something particularly funny tickled his
fancy. "You allers gave your orders sharp as a youngster, and some of
us used for to call you `Commander Jack' sometimes. Lor', I remembers
it all as if it wer' but yesterday!"
"All right, Bowling, I'm glad your memory is so good," replied Captain
Mordaunt, standing on the pontoon and looking down at us, with a
smile on his cheery, handsome face. "You will remember, too, that my
word was always as good as any bond, and when I say a thing I mean a
thing! I'm stopping for a day or two at the Keppel's Head, and if you'll
come over there this evening after dinner, or send young Tom, should
you like that better than a glass of grog, why, I will give you a letter for
him to take on board the Saint Vincent to the commander, who's an old
friend of mine like yourself, and we'll have young Tom entered on the
books of the training-ship in a brace of shakes!"

"Thank you kindly, sir," said father, raising his hand to his cap again in
salute as the captain turned to leave us. "You're very good, sir, for to
h'interest yourself, sir, in this yere young scamp of a son o' mine, sir!"
"Not a bit of it, Bowling, not a bit of it," rejoined the other cheerily, as
he chucked father a sovereign for his fare ashore, and told him to be
sure to come up to the Keppel's Head on the Hard and see him in the
evening for the letter of introduction for me. "It's a shame that such a
likely young fellow should not be allowed to follow in his father's
footsteps and turn out as brave and handy a sailor as himself. He's a
born seaman, every inch of him, Bowling, and a regular chip of the old
block!"
CHAPTER TWO.
"A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK!"
"Oh!" exclaimed mother, when an hour or so later father set about
explaining the matter of our meeting Captain Mordaunt, and his
promise of sending me aboard the Saint Vincent to be trained for the
service. "You just go and tell that to the marines! Don't you try on any
of your old yarns with me!"
"I ain't a-tryin' on nothing, old woman," protested father, after a vain
attempt to continue his dinner, bolting a piece of potato, which stuck in
his throat and set him coughing. "I'm a-tellin' you the honest truth,
Sarah, that I be!"
"Well, and suppose it is true," retorted mother, giving him a slap on the
back to send the obstructive potato down, "p'raps you'll tell me, Tom
Bowling, how Jenny and I are a-going to get along without young Tom?
Who's going to look after the birds in the mornin's, I'd like to know--
with twelve dozen fresh canaries a-comin' from Norwich the day arter
to- morrow, too?"
"Oh, we'll manage all right, mother," put in my sister Jenny, with a
merry laugh. "You'll make Tom conceited if you let him think we
cannot get along without him!"

She was a bright, fairy-like little creature, with beautiful hazel eyes,
and a wealth of brown hair on her tiny head that was a veritable crown
of glory, reaching below her waist, and looking like a tangle of gold
when the sun played upon it; and, somehow or other, she was the life
and light of our home, always having a kind word for everybody, and
ever acting as the peacemaker when any little difference arose between
father and mother, as sometimes happens in most family circles.
Father and I when out together in the wherry, talking over home
matters, would often wonder where Jenny could have come from, she
was so different to all of us; mother being a big stout woman,