somersault, waking up the wagoner by tumbling on top of him above the
straw, whither he had hurled as from a catapult by the sudden stoppage
of the gig in its mad career; and when he came to himself he saw that
the fragments of the vehicle lay scattered about under the front of the
wagon, against which it had been violently impelled, the bay cantering
down to its own stable with its broken traces dangling behind it.
Teddy was thunderstruck at the mishap.
He had not thought there was any danger in disobeying the doctor's
instructions, and yet here was the gig smashed up and the wagoner's
horses injured irreparably, one poor brute having to be shot afterwards;
besides which he did not know what had become of the runaway animal.
All the mishap had arisen through disobedience!
He went home at once and told his father everything; but the vicar,
though comforting him by saying that he would get the doctor a new gig,
and recompense the farmer to whom the wagon belonged for the loss of his
team, seemed to have his eyes awakened at last to the evil to which
Doctor Jolly had so vainly tried to direct his attention.
He determined that Teddy should go to school.
But, before this intention could be carried out, there was a most
unexpected arrival at the vicarage.
This was no less a personage than Uncle Jack, whom neither Teddy nor his
sisters had ever seen before, he having gone to sea the same year the
vicar had married, and never been heard of again, the vessel in which he
had sailed having gone down, and all hands reported lost.
Uncle Jack hadn't foundered, though, if his ship had, for here he was as
large as life, and that was very large, he weighing some fourteen or
fifteen stone at the least!
What was more, he had passed through the most wonderful adventures and
been amongst savages. These experiences enabled him to recount the most
delightful and hairbreadth yarns--yarns that knocked all poor Jupp's
stories of the cut-and-dried cruises he had had in the navy into a
cocked hat, Teddy thought, as he hung on every utterance of this newly-
found uncle, longing the while to be a sailor and go through similar
experiences.
Uncle Jack took to him amazingly, too, and when he had become
domesticated at the vicarage, asked one day what he was going to be.
"What, make a parson of him, brother-in-law!" exclaimed the sailor in
horrified accents. "You'd never spoil such a boy as that, who's cut out
for a sailor, every inch of him--not, of course, that I wish to say a
word against your profession. Still, he can't go into the church yet;
what are you going to do with him in the meantime, eh?"
"Send him to school," replied the other.
"Why, hasn't he been yet?"
"Oh, yes, he's not altogether ignorant," said the vicar. "I think he's
a very fair scholar for his years."
"Then why dose him any more with book learning, eh? When you fill a
water-cask too full it's apt to run over!"
"I quite agree with you about cramming, Jack," said the vicar, smiling
at the nautical simile; "but, I'm sending Teddy to a leading school more
for the sake of the discipline than for anything more that I want him to
learn at present."
"Discipline, eh! is that your reason, brother-in-law? Then allow me to
tell you he'll get more of that at sea than he ever will at school."
"Oh, father!" interrupted Teddy, who had been present all the time
during the confab, listening as gravely as any judge to the discussion
about his future, "do let me be a sailor! I'd rather go to sea than
anything."
"But you might be drowned, my boy," said the vicar gravely, his thoughts
wandering to every possible danger of the deep.
"No fear of that," answered Teddy smiling. "Why, I can swim like a
fish; and there's Uncle Jack now, whom you all thought lost, safe and
sound after all his voyages!"
"Aye and so I am!" chorused the individual alluded to.
"Well, well, we'll think of it," said the vicar. "I'll hear what my old
friend Jolly has to say to the plan first."
But he could not have consulted a more favourable authority as far as
Teddy was concerned.
"The very thing for him!" said the doctor approvingly. "I don't think
you could ever turn him into a parson, Vernon. He has too much animal
spirits for that; think of my gig, ho! ho!"
Overcome by the many arguments brought forward, and the general
consensus of judgment in favour of the project, the vicar at last
consented that Teddy might be allowed to go to sea under the aegis of
Uncle Jack, who started off at once to London to see about the shipping
arrangements; when the rest of the household set to work preparing the
young sailor's outfit in the meantime, so that no time might be lost--
little Cissy making him a wonderful anti-macassar, which, in spite of
all ridicule to the contrary, she asserted would do for the sofa in his
cabin!
Of course, Jupp and Mary came over to wish Teddy good-bye; but, albeit
there was much grief among the home circle at the vicarage when they
escorted him to the little railway-station, on the day he left there
were not many tears shed generally at his going, for, to paraphrase not
irreverently the words of the Psalmist, "Endleigh, at heart, was glad at
his departing, and the people of the village let him go free!"
CHAPTER NINE.
AT SEA.
"Well, here we are, my hearty!" said Uncle Jack, who was on the watch
for him at London Bridge station, and greeted him the moment the train
arrived; "but, come, look sharp, we've a lot to do before us, and
precious little time to do it in!"
Teddy, however, was not inclined at first to "look sharp."
On the contrary, he looked extremely sad, being very melancholy at
leaving home, and altogether "down in the mouth," so to speak.
This arose, not so much from the fact of his parting with his father and
sisters, dearly as he loved them all in his way; but, on account of poor
Puck, who, whether through grief at his going away, which the
intelligent little animal seemed quite as conscious of through the
instinct of his species as if he were a human being, or from his chronic
asthma coming to a crisis, breathed his last in Teddy's arms the very
morning of his departure from home!
The doggy, faithful to the end, was buried in the garden, Conny, Cissy,
and Liz attending his obsequies, and the two latter weeping with Teddy
over his grave, for all were fond of Puck; but none lamented him so
deeply as he, and all the journey up to town, as the train sped its
weary way along, his mind was busy recalling all the incidents that
attended their companionship from the time when his grandmother first
gave him as a present. He was a brisk young dog then, he remembered,
the terror of all strange cats and hunter of rabbits, but his affection
had not swerved down to the last year of their association, when,
toothless and wheezy, he could hunt no more, and cats came fearlessly
beneath his very nose when he went through the feeble pretence of trying
to gnaw a bone on the lawn.
Poor Puck--_requiescat in pace_!
Still, doggy or no doggy, Uncle Jack was not the sort of fellow to let
Teddy remain long in the dumps, especially as he had said there was a
good deal to be done; and, soon, Teddy was in such a whirl of
excitement, with everything new and strange around him, that he had no
time left to be melancholy in.
First, Uncle Jack hailed a hansom, all Teddy's belongings in the shape
of luggage being left in the cloak-room at the terminus, and the two
jumping in were driven off as rapidly as the crowded state of the
streets would allow, to Tower Hill, where the offices of the shipping
agents owning the _Greenock_ were situated.
Here Uncle Jack deposited a cheque which the vicar had given him, and
Master Teddy was bound over in certain indentures of a very imposing
character as a first-class apprentice to the said firm, the lad then
signing articles as one of the crew of the _Greenock_, of which vessel,
it may be mentioned, Uncle Jack had already been appointed chief
officer, so that he would be able to keep a watchful eye over his nephew
in his future nautical career.
"Now that job's done," said Uncle Jack when all the bothersome writing
and signing were accomplished and the vicar's cheque paid over, "we'll
have a run down to look at the ship; what say you to that, eh?"
"All right!" responded Teddy, much delighted at the idea; and the pair
then were driven from Tower Hill to the Fenchurch Street railway-
station, where they dismissed their cab and took train for the docks,
the state of locomotion in the neighbourhood of which does not readily
permit of the passage of wheeled vehicles, a hansom running the risk of
being squashed into the semblance of a pancake against the heavy drays
blocking the narrow streets and ways, should it adventure within the
thoroughfares thereof.
On their arrival at Poplar, Uncle Jack threaded his way with amazing
ease and familiarity through a narrow lane with high walls on either
hand, and then into a wide gateway branching off at right angles.
Entering within this Teddy found himself in a vast forest of masts, with
ships loading and unloading at the various quays and jetties alongside
the wharves, opposite to lines of warehouses that seemed to extend from
one end of the docks to the other.
Uncle Jack was not long in tumbling across the _Greenock_, which had
nearly completed taking in her cargo and was to "warp out next morning,"
as he told Teddy, who didn't know what on earth he meant by the phrase,
by the way.
There appeared to be a great deal of confusion going on in front of the
jetty to which she was moored; but Uncle Jack took him on board and
introduced him to Mr Capstan, the second officer, as a future messmate,
who showed him the cabins and everything, telling him to "make himself
at home!"
The _Greenock_ was a fine barque-rigged vessel of some two thousand
tons, with auxiliary steam-power; and she gained her living or earned
her freight, whichever way of putting it may please best, by sailing to
and fro in the passenger trade between the ports of London and
Melbourne, but doing more in the goods line on the return journey,
because colonials bent on visiting the mother country generally prefer
the mail steamers as a speedier route. Emigrants, however, are not so
squeamish, contenting themselves in getting out to Australia, that land
of promise to so many hard-up and despairing people at home, by whatever
means they can--so long only as they may hope to arrive there at some
time or other!
Teddy was surprised at the gorgeousness of the _Greenock's_ saloons and
cabins, and the height of her masts, and the multitude of ropes about
running in every conceivable direction, crossing and recrossing each
other with the bewildering ingenuity of a spider's web; but Uncle Jack
took all these wonders as a matter of course, and rather pooh-poohed
them.
"Wait till you see her at Gravesend," he said. "She's all dismantled
now with these shore lumpers and lubbers aboard, and won't be herself
till she's down the river and feels herself in sailors' hands again.
Why, you won't know her! But come along, laddie, we've got to buy a
sea-chest and a lot of things to complete your kit; and then, we'll go
to granny's and try to see something of the sights of London."
So, back they trudged again to the Poplar station and were wafted once
more to Fenchurch Street, where Uncle Jack dived within the shop of a
friendly outfitter, who had a mackintosh and sextant swinging in front
of his establishment to show his marine leanings and dealings.
Here, a white sea-chest, whose top was made like a washing-stand, and
several other useful articles, were purchased by Uncle Jack without
wasting any time, as he had made up his mind what he wanted before going
in and knew what he was about; and these things being ordered to be
forwarded to the cloak-room at the London Bridge station, to be placed
with Teddy's other luggage, Uncle Jack rubbed his hands gleefully.
"Now that business is all settled," he said, "we can enjoy ourselves a
bit, as the ship won't be ready for us till next Monday. Come along, my
hearty! Let us bear up for granny's--you haven't been to her place
before, have you, eh?"
No, Teddy explained. Granny had often been down to Endleigh to see him,
but he had never been up to town to see her; that first attempt of his,
which had been frustrated by Mary's pursuit and the machinations of
Jupp, having deterred him, somehow or other, from essaying the journey a
second time. Indeed, he had never been to London at all.
"_My_!" exclaimed Uncle Jack. "What a lot there'll be for you to see,
my hearty, eh?"
What is more, he showed him, too, all that was to be seen, taking Teddy
to monuments and exhibitions, to galleries and even to the theatre.
The time passed by rapidly enough--too rapidly, granny thought, when the
day came for her to say good-bye to Teddy; but he was nothing loth to
go, longing to be on board the _Greenock_ as one belonging to her of
right, and feel himself really at sea.
Granny wanted him to have another little dog in place of Puck; however,
he couldn't make up his mind to a substitute to supersede the former
animal's hold on his affections. Besides this, Uncle Jack said the
captain did not allow anybody to have dogs on board, and that was a
clincher to the argument at once.
Monday morning came, and with it another railway journey. It really
seemed to Teddy as if he were "on the line," like Jupp!
The _Greenock_, having taken in all her cargo, had been warped out of
dock and then towed down the river to Gravesend, where she was now lying
moored in the stream off the Lobster.
"There she is!" cried Uncle Jack when they got down to the beach.
"Where?" asked Teddy, not recognising the dirty untidy hulk he had seen
in the docks, as she first appeared to him before he was taken on board
and noticed the elegance of her cabins, in the thing of beauty he saw
now before him; with every spar in its place and snow-white canvas
extended in peaceful folds from the yards, as the vessel lay at anchor
with her topsails dropped and her courses half clewed up, ready to
spread her wings like an ocean bird.
What a change there was in her!
"Look, right in front there, laddie," said Uncle Jack. "Can't you see?
She's just about making-sail, so we'd better get on board as soon as
possible. Hi, boatman, seen any one belonging to the _Greenock_
ashore?"
"Aye, aye, sir," answered the man addressed, "her boat's just over there
by the p'int, just agoin' to shove off."
"Thank you, my hearty," said Uncle Jack, giving him a trifle for the
information; and in another minute or so Teddy found himself in the
_Greenock's_ jolly-boat in company with a lot of the new hands, like
himself, going off to join the ship. Here on his arrival on board, he
was introduced to Captain Lennard, the monarch of all he surveyed as far
as the deck of the _Greenock_ was concerned, and his future commander.
Teddy liked the look of him; while he, on his part, seemed to like the
look of Teddy, smiling kindly when he saw him come over the gangway
after Uncle Jack. He had the general appearance of a brown Jupp, being
of the same height and with just such a smiling good-humoured face, with
the exception that his hair and beard, instead of being black, was of a
lighter and ruddier hue.
Oh, yes, Teddy thought, Captain Lennard was the man for him. He looked
easy and kind-hearted and would not bully people, as he had read of some
brutal captains doing.
"This your nephew?" he asked Uncle Jack politely.
"Yes, sir," replied the other, touching his cap, being in regular
nautical rig now, as also was Teddy, who, clad in spick-and-span reefer
costume, felt as proud as Punch.
"Ah! then, if he's like you I think we'll get along very well together,
Mr Althorp," said the captain with a bow and smile. "He looks like a
chip of the old block too!"
"You're very good to say that, sir," stammered Uncle Jack, blushing at
the compliment. "The youngster's very like my poor sister, and I
suppose resembles me, as she and I were twins. I've no doubt, though,
you'll find him teachable when he's licked into shape; for, he isn't a
bad lad from what I have seen of him as yet, and is plucky enough, if
all I've heard of him down at Endleigh be true."
"Well, Master Vernon, I hope you'll justify the character your uncle
gives of you. If you only obey orders there'll be no fear of our
falling out. But, mind, I'm captain of this ship; so look out for
squalls if you shirk duty or try on any tricks!"
The captain said this pleasantly, but there was a stern look combined in
the twinkle of his hazel eyes beneath their thick brown eyebrows, like
penthouses overshadowing them; and Teddy felt that, with all his
gentleness and joking way, he was a man who intended to command and
likewise to be obeyed.
A moment later Captain Lennard changed the conversation by asking Uncle
Jack if all the hands were on board.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the other. "The whole batch, I think, came out
with us. Isn't that so, Mr Capstan?" he asked, turning to the second-
mate, who was standing close by.
"Yes, all hands aboard," replied the second-mate laconically.
"Then make sail at once," said Captain Lennard, going aft on the poop;
while Mr Capstan bustled forwards, shouting out as he scrambled up on
the windlass bitts and thence to the fo'c's'le, "All hands make sa-i-
il!" drawling out the last word as if it were a chorus to some mariner's
ditty he were singing.
The crew were all picked men, the majority having been in the ship on
one or two previous voyages; so they were quite at home, and sprang into
the rigging long before the second-mate had got to the end of his
refrain.
In a second, the topsails were dropped and sheeted home, and the
rattling of the clewgarnet blocks told of the courses following their
example; after which the hands aloft then loosed the topgallant, there
being a fine breeze fair for the Downs.
Teddy was puzzled for a moment by all the seeming confusion that reigned
in the ship, with ropes flying about and cordage cracking, while the
hoarse orders issued by Mr Capstan and Uncle Jack were answered by the
cheery cry of the men, singing out lustily as they hoisted and pulled at
the halliards with a will. But, the confusion was only momentary and in
appearance only; for, hardly had he begun to realise what all the bustle
was about, than the ship was clothed in canvas from truck to deck, like
a lady attired for a ball all in white!
The headyards were then backed, and Captain Lennard's voice rang through
the vessel fore and aft as clear as a bell--
"Hands up anchor!"
Then, the windlass was wound; and, slip, slap, click, clack, it went
round the pawl belaying every inch of cable got in.
"Cheerily, men! heave with a will!" urged the second-mate; and the
brawny fellows bent all their strength to the handspikes, heaving them
down with sheer brute force.
"Hove short!" presently sang out Mr Capstan.
"Up with it!" responded Captain Lennard from the poop, where the pilot
now appeared by his side awaiting all these preparations to be completed
before taking charge of the ship.
Half-a-dozen more heaves and the anchor-stock showed above the water.
"Hook cat!" cried the second-mate.
"I wonder what that means!" thought Teddy. "I hope they won't hurt the
poor thing!"
But, the next moment, he was undeceived.
Nothing in the shape of cruelty to animals was about to be perpetrated.
Mr Capstan only ordered the men to hook on the tackle by which the head
of the anchor was to be braced up; and, before he could say "Jack
Robinson," if he had been that way inclined, the falls were manned and
the anchor run up to the cathead with a rousing chorus as the men
scampered aft with the tail-end of the rope.
The headyards were then filled, and the ship bowed her head as if in
salute to Father Neptune, the next instant gathering way as the sails
began to draw.
"Port!" sang out the pilot from the bridge.
"Port it is," responded the man at the wheel, shifting the spokes with
both hands like a squirrel in a cage, it seemed to Teddy, who was
looking at him from the break of the poop, where he had taken up his
station by Captain Lennard's orders so that he might the more easily see
all that was going on.
"Steady!"
"Steady it is," repeated the helmsman in parrot fashion.
And so, conning and steering along, the _Greenock_ was soon bounding on
her way down channel, passing Deal and rounding the South Foreland
before noon.
Teddy at last was really at sea!
CHAPTER TEN.
TAKING FRENCH LEAVE.
The weather was beautifully fine for October, with a bright warm sun
shining down and lighting up the water, which curled and crested before
the spanking nor'-east breeze, that brought with it that bracing tone
which makes the month, in spite of its autumnal voice warning us of the
approach of winter, one of the most enjoyable in our changeable
climate--especially to those dwelling along the south coast, which the
good ship _Greenock_ now trended by on her passage out of the Channel.
Teddy as yet, although this was his first experience of "a life on the
ocean wave," was not sea-sick; for, although the vessel heeled well over
to the wind on the starboard tack she did not roll, but ploughed through
the little wavelets as calmly as if on a mill-pond, only rising now and
again to make a graceful courtesy to some cross current that brought a
swell over from the opposite shore of France, for after passing Beachy
Head she kept well off the land on the English side.
A west-nor'-west course brought the _Greenock_ off Saint Catharine's
Point; but the evening had drawn in too much for Teddy to see anything
of the Isle of Wight, and when he woke up next morning the ship was
abreast of the Start Point.
From thence, he had a fair view of the Devon and Cornish coasts in the
distance all the way to the Lizard, the scene being like an ever-
changing panorama, with plenty of life and movement about in the vessels
the _Greenock_ was continually passing either outwards or homewards
bound; while the little trawlers and fishing-boats clustered in groups
here and there, and there was the occasional smoke from some steamer
steaming along the horizon, like a dark finger-post above the level of
the sea in the distance.
He enjoyed it all, as, although he had found his bunk in the cabin
rather close and stuffy after his nice airy bed-room at the vicarage, he
was still not sea-sick; and, as he leant over the taffrail, watching the
creamy wake the ship left behind her, spreading out broader and broader
until it was lost in the surrounding waste of waters, what with the
sniff of the saline atmosphere and the bracing breeze, he began to feel
hungry, longing for breakfast-time to come and wondering when he would
hear the welcome bell sound to tell that the meal was ready.
No one was on deck, at least on the poop, when he came up, save the
helmsman, and Mr Capstan, the latter walking up and down briskly on the
windward side and exchanging a word now and again with the pilot on the
bridge; so Teddy felt a little forlorn.
Presently, the second-mate, taking a longer turn in his quarterdeck
walk, came up and spoke to him.
"Well, young shaver," he said, "how are you getting on?"
"Very well, thank you, sir," replied Teddy, touching his cap, as Uncle
Jack had told him he must always do to his superior officer.
"Ah! you're like a young bear, and have all your troubles before you,"
the other next remarked consolingly, adding immediately afterwards the
query: "Seen any of your messmates yet?"
"No, sir," replied Teddy, looking a bit puzzled--"that is, excepting
yourself and the captain, and Uncle Jack, of course. Are there any
other midshipmen like myself?"
"Aye, if you call the apprentices so, young shaver," said Mr Capstan
with an ironical grin which did not improve his rather ugly face.
"There are two more of you; and the lazy young hounds must be snoozing
below, for they haven't shown a leg yet. However, I'll soon rouse 'em
up!"
So saying, he shouted out to one of the hands in the waist forwards:
"Here, Bill Summers!"
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the man, looking up towards the break of the
poop, whence the second-mate had hailed him, leaning over the rail.
"Just go and call Jones and Maitland. Tell 'em to turn out sharp or
I'll stop their grog," cried Mr Capstan.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, proceeding towards the deck-house, which
occupied a middle position in the ship between the poop and fo'c's'le;
and presently, although hidden from the gaze of those aft, he could be
heard rapping at one of the doors, repeating in whispered tones the
order the second-mate had given him.