Chapter One.

Father and I “Argue the Point.”

“Hullo, father!” I sang out, when we had got a little way out from the pontoon and opened the mouth of the harbour, noticing, as I looked over my shoulder to see how we were steering, a string of flags being run up aboard the old Saint Vincent. “They’re signalling away like mad this morning all over the shop! First, atop of the dockyard semaphore; and then the flagship and the old Victory, both of ’em, blaze out in bunting; while now the Saint Vincent joins in at the game of ‘follow-my-leader.’ I wonder what’s up?”

“Lor’ bless you, Tom!” rejoined father, still steadily tugging on at his stroke oar as we pursued our course towards the middle of the stream, so that we might take advantage of the last of the flood, and allow the gradually slackening tide, which was nearly at the turn, to drift us down alongside the old Victory, whither we were bound to pick up a fare for the shore—“nothing in pertickler’s up anyways uncommon that I sees, sonny; and as for the buntin’ that you’re making sich a fuss about, why, they’ve hauled all that down, and pretty near unbent all the signal flags, too, and stowed ’em away in their lockers by this time!”

“But, father,” I persisted, “they don’t always go on like this for nothing, I know!”

“In coorse they don’t, stoopid!” said he, giving the water an angry splash as he reached forwards, the blade of his oar sending up a tidy sprinkle across my face. “Why, where’s your wits, Tom, this mornin’?”

“Where you put them, father,” I replied with a laugh; “you know I’m your son, and mother says I’m ‘a chip of the old block’ whenever she’s a bit put out with me.”

“None o’ your imporence, Tom,” said he, laughing too; for he and I were the best of friends, and I don’t think we ever had a serious difference about anything since first I was able to toddle down to the Hard, a little mite of four or five, to see him put off in his wherry, and sometimes go out for a sail with him on the sly when mother wasn’t watching us, up to the time, as now, when I could help him with an oar. “None o’ your imporence, you young jackanapes. But touching that there signallin’, I’m surprised, sonny, you don’t know by this time that when the commander-in-chief up at Admiralty House, in the dockyard, wishes for to communicate to some ship out at Spithead, he telegraphs from his office to the semaphore, which h’ists his orders, and then every ship in port’s bound to repeat the signal till the craft he means it for runs up her answering pennant, for to show us how she’s took the signal in and underconstubled it.”

“Oh yes, father, I know that,” said I, leading him on purposely. “But what is the signal they’ve been so busy about this morning? I can’t make it out at all.”

Father snorted indignantly.

“Tom Bowling, junior, I’m right down ashamed on you for a son o’ mine!” he said, digging away at his oar savagely, as if trying to dredge up some of the silt from the bottom of the harbour. “You, turned fifteen year old, and been back’ard and forrud ’twixt Hardway and the Gosport shore for a matter of five years or more, and not for to know and read a common signal like that, which you must ’a seed run up at the semaphore or on board the Dook a hundred times at least. Lor’! I’m jest ’shamed of you, that’s what I be!”

“But that ain’t telling me, father,” I retorted, “what is the signal. You needn’t make such a blooming mystery of it, like that chap we saw t’other night at the theayeter!”

In return for my ‘cheek’ he splashed the water over me again.

“Well, if you don’t know it, sonny, which I can hardly believe on, and wants for to know to improve your mind, which needs a lot of improvement, as I knows, that theer signal, Tom, was that cruiser we saw out at Spithead yesterday a-trying her speed at the measured mile, the Mercury, I thinks she is, axin’ the port-admiral if she might have her sailin’ orders; and look there, sonny, the ‘affirmative’ ’s now run up at the mizzen aboard the Dook, over yonder!”

“Yes, father,” said I, playing him artfully, like the wily old fish he was, with an object which you will soon learn—“and what does that mean?”

“What does that mean? You blessed young h’ignoramus! Why, Tommy, your brains be all wool-gathered this mornin’! Can’t you see that old Sir Ommaney is tellin’ the cruiser to ‘carry on’ 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?”