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, with dark hair and eyes; while father ‘belonged to Pharaoh’s lean kine,’ as the country folks say, being tall, and thin, and wiry, with as little flesh on his bones as a scaffolding pole. In this respect, I may add, he was said to resemble all the Bowlings ever mentioned in history, up to the time of our remote ancestor, the celebrated Tom Bowling of Dibdin’s song, who ‘went aloft’ more than a hundred years ago.
Aye, she was a pretty little girl was my sister Jenny, though but a mere slip of a thing to me, who almost stood a head and shoulders over her, and she, the mite, quite a year my elder; but, what is more to the purpose, she was as good as she was pretty, taking all the cares of the household off mother’s hands and winding her, aye and father too, round her tiny fingers in whatever way she pleased when the fancy took her.
I used to like best seeing her, however, amongst the birds.
We lived in a queer little double-fronted, old-fashioned cottage near Bonfire Corner. This is close up against the dockyard wall, and not far from the Marlborough Gate, you must know, if you be a stranger to the old town of Portsmouth and that labyrinth of narrow streets lying to the north of Hardway and the harbour. Yes, a labyrinth of rectangular rows, arranged in parallel lines and all precisely alike, of twin two-storied, russet-bricked houses of the same size and pattern, all looking as if they had been turned out of a mould, and all of them having little projecting circular bay-windows of wood, mostly English live oak, or teak from the Eastern Indies. All were painted green alike, and furnished with diamond panes, or bottle glass with bull’s-eye centres, of the last century; and all, likewise, had similarly retreating doorways, sheltered by timber pent-houses to keep off the rain, access to them being gained by three or four perpendicular steps, so as to avoid flooding from the rivers of mud that covered the cobblestone roadway in wet weather, overflowing the narrow gutters, and narrower flagging along the side that did duty for a pavement.
Attached to our cottage was an out-house which ran flush along the side of Beacon Street, fencing off our bit of a garden from the road and an adjacent tenement; and this out-house, mother, who was of an inventive nature, with a strong proclivity for money-making, had converted into a shop for the sale of all sorts of birds, both foreign and native born, and pigeons, in addition to sundry specimens of the rarer species of poultry.
Mother said she had been forced into the trade from the necessity of her having to do ‘something for a living’ after grandfather’s death, on account of her having us two children to keep, as well as herself, on only the allotment pay of father, who was away at sea at the time; but, in a weak moment she once confessed she had started the bird-keeping business more for the sake of having her hands employed than anything else, she not being partial to needlework, like most west-country women, while she was particularly fond of birds!
Not only that, she was certainly accustomed to their feathery ways, and learned in the art of their breeding and bringing up, even from the nest; for Jenny and I could bear witness to having seen her often enough poking pap with a stick down the outstretched throats of gaping young blackbirds and thrushes as soon as they had sufficiently developed beaks to open, and coddling up shivering little canaries and larklets in flannel before the fire when their proper parents would not attend to their infantile needs—mother tenderly feeding them with the point of a camel’s-hair brush dipped in egg paste and weak wine and water before they were old enough even to ‘peep’ or flutter their nascent little wings.
Bye-and-bye, when my sister got big enough, she took charge of all this part of the business, and saved mother a world of trouble, as she thankfully acknowledged, without being a bit jealous of her greater success with the fledgelings; for Jenny handled the little things as tenderly as if she were a canary herself, and was so fortunate in her treatment of them, medical and otherwise, that she never lost even the most delicate of her bird baby patients, nursing them through their various ailments, and rearing them triumphantly up to the full perfection of their plumage and song.
You should only have seen her amongst them of a morning when I had the job of cleaning out their cages, while Jenny gave them all fresh food and water!
They did not pay much attention to me, save to flutter a bit as I moved them about, and especially when I put my hand between the bars of their little wooden prisons; but with Jenny the case was very different.
“Bless you!” as father would say, every one of them knew her and recognised her as a friend and fellow-comrade, for she would sing to them sometimes like a lark, which always set them all on the twitter; goldfinches, linnets, and bullfinches, of which mother kept a large stock, hopping about their cages trying by every means in their power to attract her notice on her entering the shop and coming near them; while the lemon-crested cockatoo, who was christened ‘Ally Sloper,’ on account of his fine flow of language, and a habit he had of ruffling up the feathers round his neck when spoken to, making him look as if he had a particularly high and stiff collar on, would shriek out ‘Say-rah!’ which was mother’s name, just as if father were shouting for her to come downstairs in a sort of ‘reef topsails’ on a stormy night sort of voice.
Our pet thrush ‘Jack’ also liked her better than any of us, though he was tame enough to eat out of my hand, giving me a friendly nip with his sharp beak occasionally, just to show what he could do if he had a mind to and was not socially disposed.
But he never nipped Jenny’s little fingers—not he!
On the contrary, he used to dance with delight if she only uttered his name in a whisper, chuckling first to express his great pleasure at the sight of her, and then breaking into a regular roulade that wound up with the call ‘Jenny! Jenny!’ or something which we all thought sounded uncommonly like it; for he used to keep it up for a good spell if she went away without speaking to him, or even failed to put in an appearance to wish him “good morning.”
Avast there, however.
I’m afraid I am making a long circumbendibus from my original yarn; but, as mother says of father, it runs in the blood, all the Bowlings having their jaw tackle well abreast, and not knowing when to stop when once they begin; so, being a ‘chip of the old block’ and a Bowling all over in my love of talking and love for the sea, I hope you will excuse me and let me start afresh again.
I was saying when I went off my course on this tangent about the birds, that little Jenny stepped in just as father and mother were getting to loggerheads about my going on board the Saint Vincent, the old lady saying she couldn’t possibly spare me, and that he, to put it mildly, was not a very sensible person to think so lightly of losing my services in the wherry just when I was beginning, as she pointed out to him, to be of some use to him.
“But it’s no good my talking,” she cried at the end of a long harangue, to which father politely listened, with his knife and fork expectantly in hand, and his dinner getting colder and colder on the plate before him. “It’s just like you Bowlings all over! You’re all headstrong and foolish, and always bent on having your own way, in spite of all the good advice one gives you!”
“All right, Sarah,” said father, in his quiet way, bowing, wise man that he was, before the storm. “All right.”
“No, it’s nothing of the sort,” retorted mother. “It’s all wrong!”
At that moment a happy diversion was made by the lemon-crested cockatoo, who, by reason of his highly respectable deportment and polished manners, had been made free of our parlour, and could hop in and out from the shop when the mood seized him, through a small trapdoor or porthole, originally constructed for a window, and which served ‘Ally Sloper’ as a means of intercommunication between the two apartments, the wily bird being easily able to unlatch at pleasure the swing door of his cage.
“I’ll wring your neck!” he screamed in his hoarse, sepulchral voice; “I’ll wring your neck! Say-rah! Say-rah!”
This, of course, made us all laugh, even mother joining in, though the joke was certainly against her; and taking advantage of the opportunity thus afforded of ‘throwing oil on the troubled waters,’ little Jenny went on to speak of the advantages to be gained by my going to sea and earning my living as a gallant seaman in the service of my country, pointing out to mother how I had always hankered after father’s profession, and that she was sure I would never be contented in any shore billet, and might possibly go to the bad if I had my inclinations thwarted!
“Who knows, too,” she added, as a clincher to her argument, “whether Tom may not rise to be a leftennant, ay, and even an admiral, through this good Captain Mordaunt’s introduction!”
“Right you are, my lass, bless you!” chimed in father, rising up enthusiastically from his seat and tossing off the glass of beer he held in his hand. “So he will too, you’ll see, or I’m a Dutchman. Hurrah, Sarah, here’s good luck to the boy and speedy promotion!”
“’Oo-ray, Say-rah!” screamed ‘Ally Sloper,’ the cockatoo, in cordial appreciation, apparently, of this sentiment. “’Ip, ’ip, ’oo-ray!”
That settled the matter.
So, early the following morning, after an affectionate hug from mother and a kiss from Jenny, who came to the corner to see the last of me, I started off for the Saint Vincent with father, who rowed me aboard himself, I being the very first fare he had for the day, though, of course, as you can imagine, he did not earn much by the job.
However, it pleased father at any rate; and, as soon as he had landed me safe and sound at the foot of the accommodation ladder on the port side of the old ship, which lay broadside on, almost on the mud abreast of Haslar Creek, the tide being out, he handed me a big official letter which Captain Mordaunt had given him overnight, as he had promised, recommending me to the commander of the training-vessel, and enclosing certificates of my birth and character.
“There, sonny, them’s yer papers,” said he, thus laconically wishing me good-bye, sheering off out of the way of an approaching galley from the shore whose sternsheets were chock-full of big quartern loaves of bread, and then laying on his oars as I skipped up the ladder. “You jest give that there letter to the cap’en when you sees him, and good luck to you, my lad!”
I waved my hand in reply as he sculled away, all alone now in the wherry, towards the flagship to try and pick up some stray passenger for Gosport or Hardway; and the next instant I had gained the top of the accommodation ladder, and was standing within the entry-port leading on to the middle deck.
“Hullo!” cried a bluejacket stationed at the gangway, who, I noticed, had a red stripe on his arm, and subsequently learnt was one of the ship’s corporals, who serve as police always aboard a man-of-war. “What do you want here, boy?”
“I’ve come to join the ship, sir,” said I to him respectfully, seeing that he was some one in authority, and having been taught by father to be deferential to everybody, especially those who were my superiors, respect to rank and station being the very essence of the discipline of the service. “Got a letter for the cap’en.”
“Give it here, my lad,” said the man more civilly to me, calling to a marine close by. “I’ll have the letter passed off to him at once; and you’d best step into the office there and wait till the master-at-arms can see you.”
So saying, he pointed to a large open sort of cabin, with glass sides to it, immediately adjoining the entry-port, where I found a couple of boys of about my own age, and who had evidently come aboard on a similar errand.
One of these was a red-haired, short, thickset fellow, with an ugly, bulldog sort of a face, whose beetle-brows met over a pair of ferrety eyes, giving him a most forbidding appearance, and I did not like the look of him at all.
The other was a poor ragged chap, without any shoes to his feet; but he had a jaunty devil-me-care air, and such a pleasant smile and merry twinkle about the corners of his mouth, that I could not help taking a fancy to him, at once hoping that we might be chums.
However, I did not have much time for reflection anent either of them; for hardly had we taken stock of each other, when a stoutish middle-aged man, dressed in a tight-fitting monkey-jacket, ornamented with the letters ‘NP’ on the collar, and a row of bright crown-and-anchor buttons down the front, besides having a gold badge bearing the same device over the mohair band of his blue peaked cap, appeared at the doorway of the cabin, or ‘police office,’ as the place is properly called, where we three boys were waiting anxiously to learn our fate.
“Ha, humph! A nice lot of raw material to be licked into shape!” observed this gentleman, whose uniform denoted that he was the master-at-arms, or head of the ship’s police. He was evidently cogitating within himself as to our respective and collective capabilities, for he eyed us critically the while as we stood before him, hats off and mute as mice. “Hi, my lads! I fancy I know what you’re after this fine morning. You want to join the service, I can see, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” the three of us shouted in three different keys—“yes, sir—yes, sir!”
“Keep your hair on, lads,” he said, amused at our eagerness. “Got your papers all right, eh?”
To this the ugly chap, as well as the one to whom I had taken a liking, responded by handing over to the master-at-arms certain official documents representing their certificate of birth to show they were of the proper age, and a declaration of their parents that they were joining Her Majesty’s Service with their full consent and goodwill.
When it came to my turn, though, I had absolutely nothing to show.
“Hullo!” exclaimed the master-at-arms. “Where are your papers, young ’un?”
I was about to explain; but the ship’s corporal who had first spoken to me at the entry-port and taken on to the captain the letter from Captain Mordaunt which father had handed to me, saved all further trouble.
“Here are Tom Bowling’s certificates, sir,” said he, giving the couple of sheets of foolscap in question to his superior officer. “The cap’en says they’re all right, and he’s to be entered if he passes the schoolmaster and is medically fit.”
“That’s all right, then, Mister Bowling,” said the master-at-arms to me, with a mock bow. “Hullo, though, Bowling—Bowling? It strikes me I’ve heard that name before, my lad. Father in the service, eh?”
“He has served in the navy, sir,” I replied. “But he’s a pensioner now, and works as a waterman up and down the harbour.”
“Ah, I thought so! He and I were old shipmates together out in the Ashantee War on the West Coast, and I recollect him well. You are very like him, too, I can see now from the cut of your jib, youngster! You’re a regular chip of the old block.”
“So everybody says, sir,” I said with a grin. “I only hope, sir, I will turn out as good a sailor!”
“Only act up to that wish, my boy, and you’ll do! I say, corporal, take these three lads down to the schoolmaster and see what he makes of them.”
With that, giving me a friendly nod, the master-at-arms dismissed us, and the ship’s corporal conducted us down the nearest hatchway to the lower deck.
At the other end of this we three neophytes were ushered into a large apartment, fitted with rows of desks and benches, arranged in parallel lines, which gave it the appearance of an ordinary schoolroom ashore; the only difference being that there was a harmonium on one side, and a cottage piano on the other, while a large circular band-stand stood in between the two in the centre.
Here one of the assistant-masters took charge of us, placing ‘Ugly’ and ‘Rattlebrains,’ as I had mentally christened my two companions, along with myself at a table in a corner of the room, away from the rest of the boys, some three hundred odd in number, who were all busy at their lessons.
No great obstacle to our joining the service was put in our way by the examination which we underwent; for, after being asked to spell a few easy words, tested as to our arithmetic with a sum in simple addition, and the multiplication table as far as six times six, besides being given a short sentence from some reader to write from dictation, the head schoolmaster filled up a form, which he attached to our papers, notifying that we were sufficiently educated to become Saint Vincent boys.
Our ordeal was thus ended.
The three of us were then escorted back again to the police office on the middle deck, where our papers were again handed to the master-at-arms to show that the regulations had been complied with.
This functionary did not seem at all surprised at our reappearance.
“Ha, Bowling, so you’ve passed your schooling all right, my lad, eh?” he said to me. “I thought you’d manage to pull through, somehow or other; and you, too, young shaver—you with that fine pair of flesh-coloured stockings on, I mean! I can’t quite make out your name here from the writing. It looks like ‘Damerum,’ or ‘Dunekin,’ or ‘Donkeyvan,’ or something of that sort! What do you call yourself, my lad, when you’re at home, eh?”
“Donovan, sor,” promptly answered my friend the ragged boy without any covering to his feet, whom, of course, he was addressing. “Me name’s Mick Donovan, sor.”
“An Irishman, eh?”
“No, sor; Oi’m an Oitalian, yer honour.”
The master-at-arms burst out laughing, for really the devil-me-care chap’s brogue was strong enough to have hung a kettle full of potatoes on it. Even the ship’s corporal could not help smiling, though in the presence of his superior officer.
“Nonsense, boy, don’t you try to gammon me,” cried the master-at-arms, as soon as he was able to speak. “An Italian from the county Cork, I’m thinking!”
“Oi’m that same, yer honour,” protested the other, as grave as a judge. “Me fayther came over here harvestin’ last summer, sor, an’ turned organ-grinder; an’ now, sure, he’s an Oitalian.”
“Was it him that signed this paper?” asked the master-at-arms, when he was able to control his speech again after a second burst of merriment at the Irish boy’s droll way of expressing himself, and comical look. “I s’pose it’s his new foreign style of writing and spelling that prevented my making out your name at first?”
“Sure, sor, he wanted the praste fur to soign it,” said the other in his racy brogue. “But Father Maloney said he’d be persecuted for bigummy if he did it, an’ he’d have fur to do it himsilf; an’ so, bad cess to it, fayther stuck the ind of his dhudeen in the ink-bottle, I’ll take me oath, sor, an’ soigned his name thare, sor, jist whare ye say it, wid his own hand, as Oi’m a livin’ sinner!”
“Well, well, Donovan, that’s enough. I’ll take your word for it,” said the master-at-arms, anxious to get rid of him, feeling his gravity giving way again. “But you’ll first have to pass your medical examination, my lad, before you can join the ship. Corporal, take all three of them to the doctor in the sick-bay, at once!”
With that, the lot of us started off, in company with the corporal.