“A FINE CUTTER CAME THRASHING THROUGH IT.”
It was rather thick weather in the Channel, and we saw no land till we made the South Foreland. A fine cutter came thrashing through it to alongside of us when off Dungeness, and a pilot climbed out of her over our side. With what profound interest, and joy, and admiration did my young eyes explore his purple visage, and survey his stout coat and the warm shawl round his neck! He had not been on board ten minutes when the sun shone forth, and the green and frothing waters of the Channel showed clear to the horizon. Then it was that the coast of our dear old home lay fair and beautiful upon our port beam and bow—white cliffs slopes of green sward, delicate as satin, groups of Liliputian houses, with windows sparkling, the chocolate-coloured canvas of smacks, the white wings of pleasure-yachts, the grimy cloths of round-bowed, black-hulled colliers, enriching the surface of the laughing seas betwixt us and the line of shingle upon which the surf was surging.
Off the South Foreland a tug chased and cleverly hooked us by making a short cut to the North Foreland, where she intercepted us as we swept round in a large, majestic arch, with the red-hulled lightship stationed abreast of Ramsgate resting like a spot of colour against the yellow shelf of the Goodwin Sands, on our port quarter, and a busy scene of shipping opening under our bows as we headed for the River Thames. But the shift of helm brought the wind ahead, and by this time our captain and the skipper of the tug, having agreed upon the question of terms for towage, the order was given to clew up and furl; a line from the tug was hove to us, the end of a huge hawser attached to it and paid out over the bow, and presently the Lady Violet, in tow of the panting little steamer, was quietly gliding along for her home in the East India Docks, with her crew aloft sending down sails and unreeving gear.
News of our being in the Channel had reached my father long before we had arrived in the river, and he was one of the first to step on board when we had been warped to our berth in the docks.
I was below, polishing myself up to go ashore, when Kennet called through the hatch that my father was on the quarter-deck and waiting to see me. I rushed up, and in a moment was in his arms. I had no objection to his kissing me now; in fact, I may say that I kissed him. The overstrained sense of manliness in me was gone. I was a young sailor with a full heart, and there were tears both in my father’s and my own eyes as he drew away from me, after our first hug, to have a good look at me.
“The picture of health!—gracious, how sunburnt—grown a whole foot, I do declare!—my goodness, Tommy, what shoulders!”
This, and the like, was all he could say for some time. I asked after my mother, my sisters, my little brother. Thank God, they were all well, and eagerly awaiting my arrival at home.
“I have ordered a jolly good dinner at the Brunswick Hotel,” said my father; “let us go and partake of it, my son. But first you will say good-bye to the officers and your shipmates.”