She was the commodore’s ship of the squadron, and the very one we had longed to be appointed to, her commander being a smart seaman well known in the service, and a friend of father’s old friend Captain Mordaunt.
The latter, as luck would have it, had come to see us the previous Sunday, when I happened to be home and had promised me to put in a good word for me in the event of my being appointed to the ship.
By a strange coincidence, Mick and I had been that very day talking of this while we were engaged cleaning some rusty rifles on the main-deck, which job one of the petty officers had put us at, from his seeing my chum and me star-gazing about, with nothing to do.
“Be jabers!” said Mick, sighting his rifle and pretending to take aim at the swab as he went off after imposing this extra task on us, though he waited until the officious gentleman’s back was turned, as may be taken for granted, “Oi wud loike to spot thet chap roight in the bull’s-eye, bad cess to him! Och, but wait till we’re aboord the Active, Tom, an’, sure, we’ll hev no more of straight-backed jokers loike him to dale with!”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, Mick,” said I. “We’re not appointed to her yet.”
“Blatheration!” exclaimed my chum, smacking the butt of his rifle on the deck and making the petty officer who was on the other side of the hatchway jump round in a jiffy, looking marline-spikes in our direction. “Ye jist say, now, if we don’t join her! Sure, I dramed ov her last noight, alannah. Oi’d dropped off into a swate shlape afther thet chap made sich a row toomblin’ out ov his hammick thet wor next moine, bein’ three sheets an’ more, faith, in the woind whin he come off from shore; an’ I dramed ez how, Tom, we two wor aboord the Active, which Oi wor lookin’ over ounly yisterday whin Oi come by Pitch-House Jetty, where she’s lyin’ preparin’ for say. Yis, we wor aboord her roight enuf; an’ Oi heerd the bo’sun poipe to ‘make sail,’ an’ the order guv ’way aloft, lay out on the yards an’ loose tops’ls. Thin Oi thinks ez how Oi’m ashore, ez will ez aboord; an’ Oi says the Active a-sailin’ out o’ harbour, ez nate ez ye plaize wid all her upper sails an’ flyin’ jib, an’ fore-topmast stays’l set!”
“I don’t think you’re likely to see that, Mick,” said I, laughing. “It may do well enough in a dream; but I’ve heard father say that no ship has ever worked out of harbour under sail alone for the last forty years or more!”
“Begorrah, just ye wait an’ say,” rejoined he. “Oi hed a paice ov shamrock, which I tuk out ov the fairy ring, sure, at Glasnevin, under me hid last noight whin Oi wor shlapin’, an’ me drame’s bound fur to come thrue!”
Strangely enough, so it turned out, too.