Amongst those that came on board here were the officers and men of the Grampus, including none others than Captain Sackville, who had quite recovered from his wounds, Mick Donovan, and ‘Gyp.’
I need hardly say what a jolly passage home we all had; Larrikins and Mick and I, with some other old shipmates of the Saint Vincent, yarning all the way from morning till night, not much work being wanted of us as we had fine weather throughout; while ‘Gyp,’ who still retained his affection for me, exhibited his old bias for lower deck company and could not be kept away from the fo’c’s’le where we were.
Captain Sackville, of course, noticed this, but he was not a bit angry at it; and, on our leaving the old Dromedary at Portsmouth, where we finally arrived safe and sound after a pretty speedy passage for such an old tub, he gladdened my heart when saying farewell by making me a present of ‘Gyp.’
“Begorrah,” as Mick related to Larrikins subsequently, when we returned to the depot, after our customary payoff leave ashore, “ye nivver sayd sich a coomin’ home, sure, ez Tom hed, an’ me too, bedad, whin we got up to the owld cottage at Bonfoire Corner. Sure, there wor Tom’s faither a-sottin’ in the garden in his owld armchair under the mulberry-tree, faith, afther Miss Jenny resayved us at the door—”
“Ah,” interposed Larrikins at this point, with a knowing wink. “But, what o’ Tom’s sister? Yer ain’t told us about her at all, chummy. Did she give ye a kiss, now?”
“Git away wid ye,” cried Mick, giving him a dig in his ribs, and grinning the while all over his face at the recollection of something about which I might have told a tale if I had liked, before proceeding to go on with his story of the warm reception we had met with.
“Well, thin, Tom’s fayther wor a-sottin’ in the armchair, ez I wor a-sayin’ whin you put me off me coorse, Larry, ye baste. Tom wor goin’ on ahid, wid ‘Gyp’ a-kapin’ behoind him, an’ Oi, sure, behoind him agin wid Miss Jenny, whin the monkey Jocko, who wor alongside of Tom’s fayther, catches sight of ‘Gyp,’ and makes for the to’-gallant crosstrees ov the mulberry-tree, faith. Now, Larry, ye moost rimimber the owld cockatoo ‘Ally Sloper’ wor alriddy oop there aloft; an’ whin the burrd says Jocko makin’ fur him, he oop stick, or rayther oop wid his crist an’ flies down roight atop ov Tom’s hid, shraykin’ out, ‘Say-rah, Say-rah!’ as loud as the divvle could bawl. ‘Gyp’ on this starts barkin’ loike mad at the blissid cockatoo; whin down cooms Masther Jocko fur to have his share in the foight. Begorrah, ye nivver sayd sich a rumpus in yer loife, Larry, ’specially whin Tom’s fayther got overturned in his armchair an’ Misthress Bowlin’ came out fur to say wot all the row was about; whoile Miss Jenny an’ Tom an’ me, sure, wor all a-dyin’ wid larfin’, bedad!”
I may add, in conclusion, that Mick and I went from the depot to the Excellent, to go through a regular course of gunnery, preparatory to our aspiring to the grade of ‘petty officer’; and I hope, as my old friend the ‘Jaunty’ of the Saint Vincent prophesied, to rise bye-and-bye to the rank of ‘warrant.’
It is a pity, though, that no chance is yet afforded in our service in the present day, as used to be the case in the past, when many an admiral ‘crept through the hawsehole,’ as the saying was, for respectable young fellows of good education and bright abilities to look any higher; but, it is to be hoped that the day will come, as father’s old friend Captain Mordaunt said only the other day when talking to us both under the old mulberry-tree in our garden, when this state of things will be changed, and a boy who enters the service as I did on board one of our training-ships, will, as Bonaparte said the conscript carried a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack, keep snugly stowed away an admiral’s cocked hat in his ditty box!