She was properly engaged to him now, and things seemed to be going on very serenely.
I went down to the village and saw him and Dr. Fox, and Jenkins too, in mortal fear of his wife—I guessed that at once—and the Captain asked me to his wedding, which he hoped would take place in August.
Dr. Fox was as grim as ever. He was opening a parcel when I went in, and I heard him say in his snappy voice, "Look what the silly fools have sent me! What a waste of time, and I have nowhere to put the thing."
It was a brass model of the big Krupp gun in its gun-pit, and round the oak stand was a silver plate with the names of all the Laird's men on the lower deck who had fought on One Gun Hill.
I myself should have been jolly proud to get it, but Dr. Fox gave one or two funny coughs, and said again, "What silly fools! I shall have to write and thank them, I suppose. I hate writing letters."
I met Mr. Saunderson that day just outside Portsmouth Dockyard, walking along the Hard. He stretched out his huge hand and lifted me half off the ground.
I was glad to see him.
"Don't want you to keep the bullets off now, Glover," he said, and took me into the Keppel's Head and gave me lunch.
I went to sea for the next four months in my new ship, the Royal Oak, in the Channel Fleet, and when the July promotions came out it was simply fizzing.
Captain Helston and the Commander had both been promoted to post-captains, and Mr. Parker of "No. 3" and Mr. Lang of "No. 2" to commanders. Collins, the sub of "No. 3", and Harrington of "No. 1", who had tried to save the stokers when the shell burst her boiler, were made lieutenants, and best of all, down at the bottom of the list was "Noted for Early Promotion", and then followed my name, and Toddles's and Mellins's, two more of the Laird's midshipmen, and three of the Strong Arm's. Dumpling's name wasn't there. Ogston, the Assistant Engineer of the Laird, had been promoted a few days before. We were all so glad.