"Ah! Hawkesley! yes, that is the name. I remember now. Captain Vernon
told me that although you have never been to sea as yet you are not
altogether a greenhorn. What can you do?"
"I can hand, reef, and steer, box the compass, pull an oar, or sail a
boat; and I know the name and place of every spar, sail, and rope
throughout the ship."
"Aha! say you so? Then you will prove indeed a valuable acquisition.
What is the name of this rope?"
"The main-topgallant clewline," I answered, casting my eye aloft to note
the "lead" of the rope.
"Right!" he replied with a smile. "And you have the true nautical
pronunciation also, I perceive. Mr Johnson,"--to a master's mate who
happened to be passing at the moment--"this is Mr Hawkesley. Kindly
take him under your wing and induct him into his quarters in the
midshipmen's berth, if you please. Don't stop to stow away your things
just now, Mr Hawkesley," he continued. "I shall have an errand for you
in a few minutes."
"Very well, sir," I replied. And following my new acquaintance, I first
saw to the hoisting in of my traps, and then with them descended to the
place which was to be my home for so many months to come.
This was a tolerably roomy but very indifferently lighted cabin on the
lower or orlop deck, access to which was gained by the descent of a very
steep ladder. The furniture was of the most meagre description,
consisting only of a very solid deal table, two equally solid forms or
stools, and a couple of arm-chairs, one at each end of the table, all
securely lashed down to the deck. There was a shelf with a ledge along
its front edge, and divisions to form lockers, extending across the
after-end of the berth; and under this hung three small book-cases,
(which I was given to understand were private property) and a mirror six
inches long by four inches wide, before which the "young gentlemen"--
four in number, including myself--and the two master's mates had to
perform their toilets as best they could. The fore and after bulkheads
of the apartment were furnished with stout hooks to which to suspend our
hammocks, which, by the by, when slung, left, I noticed, but a very
small space on either side of the table; and depending from a beam
overhead there hung a common horn lantern containing the most attenuated
candle I ever saw--a veritable "purser's dip." This lantern, which was
suspended over the centre of the table, afforded, except at meal-times
or other special occasions, the sole illumination of the place.
Although the ship was new, and the berth had only been occupied a few
days, it was already pervaded by a very powerful odour of paint and
stale tobacco-smoke, which made me anxious to quit the place with the
least possible delay.
Merely selecting a position, therefore, for my chest, and leaving to the
wretched lad, whom adverse fortune had made the attendant of the place,
the task of lashing it down, I hastened on deck again, and presenting
myself once more before the first lieutenant, announced that I was now
ready to execute any commission with which he might be pleased to
intrust me.
"Very well," said he. "I want you to take the gig and proceed on board
the _Saint George_ with this letter for the first lieutenant of that
ship. Wait for an answer, and if he gives you a parcel be very careful
how you handle it, as it will contain articles of a very fragile
character which must on no account be damaged or broken."
The gig was thereupon piped away, and when she was in the water and her
crew in her I proceeded in my most stately manner down the side and
flung myself in an easily negligent attitude into the stern-sheets.
I felt at that moment exceedingly well satisfied with myself. I had
joined the ship but a bare half-hour before; yet here I was, singled out
from the rest of the midshipmen as the fittest person to be intrusted
with an evidently important mission. I forgot not only my father's
caution against vanity but also my sorrow at parting with him; my _amour
propre_ rose triumphant above every other feeling; the disagreeable lump
in my throat subsided, and with an unconscious, but no doubt very
ludicrous, assumption of condescending authority, I gave the order to--
"Shove off, and get the muslin upon her, and see that you crack on,
coxswain, for I am in a hurry."
"Ay, ay, sir," returned that functionary in a very respectful tone of
voice. "Step the mast, for'ard there, you sea-dogs, `and get the muslin
on her.'"
With a broad grin, whether at the verbatim repetition of my order, or in
consequence of some pantomimic gesture on the part of the coxswain, who
was behind me--I had a sudden painful suspicion that it might possibly
be _both_--the men sprang to obey the order; and in another instant the
mast was stepped, the halliard and tack hooked on, the sheet led aft,
and the sail was all ready for hoisting.
"What d'ye say, Tom; shall us take down a reef!" asked one of the men.
"Reef? No, certingly not. Didn't you hear the gentleman say as how we
was to `crack on' because he's in a hurry? Give her whole canvas,"
replied the coxswain.
With a shivering flutter and a sudden violent jerk the sail was run up;
and, careening gunwale-to, away dashed the lively boat toward the
harbour.
It was blowing fresh and squally from the eastward, and for the first
mile of our course there was a nasty choppy sea for a boat. The men
flung their oil-skins over their shoulders, and ranging themselves along
the weather side of the boat, seated themselves on the bottom-boards,
and away we went, jerk-jerking through it, the sea hissing and foaming
past us to leeward, and the spray flying in a continuous heavy shower in
over the weather-bow and right aft, drenching me through and through in
less than five minutes.
"I'm afeard you're gettin' rayther wet, sir," remarked the coxswain
feelingly when I had just about arrived at a condition of complete
saturation; "perhaps you'd better have my oil-skin, sir."
"No, thanks," I replied, "I am very comfortable as I am."
This was, to put it mildly, a perversion of the truth. I was _not_ very
comfortable; I was wet to the skin, and my bran-new uniform, upon which
I so greatly prided myself, was just about ruined. But it was then too
late for the oil-skin to be of the slightest benefit to me; and,
moreover, I did not choose that those men should think I cared for so
trifling a matter as a wetting.
But a certain scarcely-perceptible ironical inflection in the coxswain's
voice, when he so kindly offered me the use of his jumper, suggested the
suspicion that perhaps he was quietly amusing himself and his shipmates
at my expense, and that the drenching I had received was due more to his
management of the boat than anything else, so I set myself quietly to
watch.
I soon saw that my suspicion was well-founded. The rascal, instead of
easing the boat and meeting the heavier seas as he ought to have done,
was sailing the craft at top speed right through them, varying the
performance occasionally by keeping the boat broad away when a squall
struck her, causing her to careen until her gunwale went under, and as a
natural consequence shipping a great deal of water.
At length he rather overdid it, a squall striking the boat so heavily
that before he could luff and shake the wind out of the sail she had
filled to the thwarts. I thought for a moment that we were over, and so
did the crew of the boat, who jumped to their feet in consternation.
Being an excellent swimmer myself, however, I managed to perfectly
retain my _sang-froid_, whilst I also recognised in the mishap an
opportunity to take the coxswain down a peg or two.
Lifting my legs, therefore, coolly up on the side seat out of reach of
the water, I said:
"How long have you been a sailor, coxswain?"
"Nigh on to seven year, sir. Now then, lads, dowse the sail smartly and
get to work with the bucket."
"Seven years, have you?" I returned placidly. "Then you _ought_ to
know how to sail a boat by this time. I have never yet been to sea; but
I should be ashamed to make such a mess of it as this."
To this my friend in the rear vouchsafed not a word in reply, but from
that moment I noticed a difference in the behaviour of the men all
round. They found they had not got quite the greenhorn to deal with
that they had first imagined.
When at last the boat was freed of the water and sail once more made
upon her, I remarked to the coxswain:
"Now, Tom--if that is your name--you have amused yourself and your
shipmates at my expense--to your heart's content, I hope--you have
played off your little practical joke upon me, and I bear no malice.
But--let there be no more of it--do you understand?"
"Ay ay, sir; I underconstumbles," was the reply; "and I'm right sorry
now as I did it, sir, and I axes your parding, sir; that I do. Dash my
buttons, though, but you're a rare plucky young gentleman, you are, sir,
though I says it to your face. And I hopes, sir, as how you won't bear
no malice again' me for just tryin' a bit to see what sort o' stuff you
was made of, as it were?"
I eased the poor fellow's mind upon this point, and soon afterwards we
arrived alongside the _Saint George_.
I found the first lieutenant, and duly handed over my despatch, which he
read with a curious twitching about the corners of the mouth.
Having mastered the contents, he retired below, asking me to wait a
minute or two.
At that moment my attention was attracted to a midshipman in the main
rigging, who, with exaggerated deliberation, was making his unwilling
way aloft to the mast-head as it turned out. A certain familiar
something about the young gentleman caused me to look up at him more
attentively; and I then at once recognised my recent acquaintance, Lord
Fitz-Johnes. At the same moment the second lieutenant, who was eyeing
his lordship somewhat wrathfully, hailed him with:
"Now then, Mr Tomkins, are you going to be all day on your journey?
Quicken your movements, sir, or I will send a boatswain's mate after you
with a rope's-end to freshen your way. Do you hear, sir?"
"Ay ay, sir," responded the _ci-devant_ Lord Fitz-Johnes--now plain Mr
Tomkins--in a squeaky treble, as he made a feeble momentary show of
alacrity. Just then I caught his eye, and, taking off my hat, made him
an ironical bow of recognition, to which he responded by pressing his
body against the rigging--pausing in his upward journey to give due
effect to the ceremony--spreading his legs as widely apart as possible,
and extending both hands toward me, the fingers outspread, the thumb of
the right hand pressing gently against the point of his nose, and the
thumb of the left interlinked with the right-hand little finger. This
salute was made still more impressive by a lengthened slow and solemn
twiddling of the fingers, which was only brought to an end by the second
lieutenant hailing:
"Mr Tomkins, you will oblige me by prolonging your stay at the mast-
head until the end of the afternoon watch, if you please."
As the answering "Ay ay, sir," came sadly down from aloft, I felt a
touch on my arm, and, turning round, found my second acquaintance, Lord
Tomnoddy, by my side. As I looked at him I felt strongly inclined to
ask him whether _he_ also had changed his name since our last meeting.
"Oh, look here, Hawksbill," he commenced, "I'm glad you've come on
board; I wanted to see you in order that I might repay you the sovereign
you lent us the other day. Here it is,"--selecting the coin from a
handful which he pulled out of his breeches pocket and thrusting it into
my hand--"and I am very much obliged to you for the loan. I _really_
hadn't a farthing in my pocket at the time, or I wouldn't have allowed
Tomkins to borrow it from you--and it was awfully stupid of me to let
you go away without saying where I could send it to you."
"Pray do not say anything further about it, Mr --, Mr --."
"I am Lord Southdown, at your service--_not_ Lord Tomnoddy, as my
whimsical friend Tomkins dubbed me the other day. It is perfectly
true," he added somewhat haughtily, and then with a smile resumed: "but
I suppose I must not take offence at your look of incredulity, seeing
that I was a consenting party to that awful piece of deception which
Tomkins played off upon you. Ha, ha, ha! excuse me, but I really wish
you could have seen yourself when that mischievous friend of mine
accused you of--of--what was it? Oh, yes, of playing fast and loose
with the affections of the fictitious Lady Sara, or whatever the fellow
called her. And then again, when he remarked upon your extraordinary
resemblance to Lord--Somebody--another fictitious friend of his, and
directed attention to your `lofty intellectual forehead, your proud
eagle-glance, your--' oh, dear! it was _too_ much."
And off went his lordship into another paroxysm of laughter, which sent
the tears coursing down his cheeks and caused me to flush most painfully
with mortification.
"Upon my word, Hawksbill--" he commenced.
"My name is Hawkesley, my lord, at your service," I interrupted,
somewhat angrily I am afraid.
"I beg your pardon, Mr Hawkesley; the mistake was a perfectly genuine
and unintentional one, I assure you. I was going to apologise--as I
_do_, most heartily, for laughing at you in this very impertinent
fashion. But, my dear fellow, let me advise you as a friend to overcome
your very conspicuous vanity. I am, perhaps, taking a most
unwarrantable liberty in presuming to offer you advice on so delicate a
subject, or, indeed, in alluding to it at all; but, to tell you the
truth, I have taken rather a liking for you in spite of--ah--ahem--that
is--I mean that you struck me as being a first-rate fellow
notwithstanding the little failing at which I have hinted. You are
quite good enough every way to pass muster without the necessity for any
attempt to clothe yourself with fictitious attributes of any kind. Of
course, in the ordinary run of events you will soon be laughed out of
your weakness--there is no place equal to a man-of-war for the speedy
cure of that sort of thing--but the process is often a very painful one
to the patient--I have passed through it myself, so I can speak from
experience--so _very_ painful was it to me that, even at the risk of
being considered impertinent, I have ventured to give you a friendly
caution, in the hope that your good sense will enable you to profit by
it, and so save you many a bitter mortification. Now I _hope_ I have
not offended you?"
"By no means, my lord," I replied, grasping his proffered hand. "On the
contrary, I am very sincerely obliged to you--"
At this moment the first lieutenant of the _Saint George_ reappeared on
deck, and coming up to me with Mr Austin's letter open in his hand,
said:
"My friend Mr Austin writes me that you are quite out of eggs on board
the _Daphne_, and asks me to lend him a couple of dozen." (Here was
another take-down for me; the important despatch with which I--_out of
all the midshipmen on board_--had been intrusted was simply a request
for the loan of two dozen eggs!) "He sends to me for them instead of
procuring them from the shore, because he is afraid you may lose some of
your boat's crew." (Evidently Mr Austin had not the high opinion of me
that I fondly imagined he had.) "I am sorry to say I cannot oblige Mr
Austin; but I think we can overcome the difficulty if you do not mind
being delayed a quarter of an hour or so. I have a packet which I wish
to send ashore, and if you will give Lord Southdown here--who seems to
be a friend of yours--a passage to the Hard and off again, he will look
after your boat's crew for you whilst you purchase your eggs."
I of course acquiesced in this proposal; whereupon Lord Southdown was
sent into the captain's cabin for the packet in question; and on his
reappearance a few minutes later we jumped into the boat and went ashore
together, his lordship regaling me on the way with sundry entertaining
anecdotes whereof his humorous friend Tomkins was the hero.
We managed to execute our respective errands without losing any of the
boat's crew; and duly putting Lord Southdown on board the _Saint George_
again, I returned triumphantly to the _Daphne_ with my consignment of
eggs and handed them over intact to Mr Austin. After which I dived
below, just in time to partake of the first dinner provided for me at
the expense of His Most Gracious Majesty George IV.
For the remainder of that day and during the whole of the next, until
nearly ten o'clock at night, we were up to our eyes in the business of
completing stores, etcetera, and, generally, in getting the ship ready
for sea; and at daybreak on the second morning after I had joined, the
fore-topsail was loosed, blue peter run up to the fore royal-mast head,
the boats hoisted in and stowed, and the messenger passed, after which
all hands went to breakfast. At nine o'clock the captain's gig was sent
on shore, and at 11 a.m. the skipper came off; his boat was hoisted up
to the davits, the canvas loosed, the anchor tripped, and away we went
down the Solent and out past the Needles, with a slashing breeze at
east-south-east and every stitch of canvas set, from the topgallant
studding-sails downwards.