"Tell us, Donovan," said he--"now, what would you do with that monkey,
supposing I make him over to you?"
"Faith," replied Mick, not knowing whether the boatswain was trying to
take a rise out of him or not, "Oi wudn't ate him, sor."
"I suppose not," said Mr Blockley, grinning, as Mick did, in sympathy.
"But would you take care of him, my lad, if I give the monkey to you?"
"An' is it whither Oi'll take care ov him ye're afther axin' me?" said
my chum, taking hold of Jocko as he spoke. "Begorrah, ye jist coom to
me arrums, ye little baiste, and show Misther Blockley how fond yez are
ov me, ye divvle!"
Jocko, who had been standing in front of: the pair at the time on the
forecastle in the position of `present arms,' holding his little wooden
rifle as correctly as the smartest drilled marine, at once dropped this
on the deck, and sprang, not into Mick's arms, but on to his left
shoulder, where he chattered and grimaced away, no doubt telling his
chosen friend in the choicest monkey language how much he loved him.
This was proof to Mr Blockley of the affection that existed between the
two; so, without further demur, he made over all right and title he
might possess in Jocko to Mick.
"But, you're sure, my lad, you'll take good care of him," he said. "I
wouldn't like any harm to come to the poor little beggar. The doctor
gave him to me on the understanding that he would be well looked after,
and on the same conditions I trust him now to you."
"Faith, sor, ye couldn't do botther," replied Mick, caressing Jocko with
much satisfaction, evidently proud to be his real owner. "Sure, an' if
Oi've got to go to say ag'in an' can't look afther the baiste mesilf,
it's some 'un ilse Oi'll be afther givin' him to thet'll say to him aven
betther nor mesilf!"
"And who's that?" inquired the boatswain, with a laugh, noticing a flush
come over Mick's face. "You know I'm interested in the monkey and have
a sort of right to ask."
Mick looked `nine ways for Sunday,' to use his own favourite expression.
"Bedad, sor," he at length replied sheepishly, "it's Jenny, sor."
"But," persisted Mr Blockley, smelling a rat, "who's Jenny?"
"Tom's sisther, sure."
"O-o-oh!"
Not being certain exactly as to the meaning of Mr Blockley's
ejaculation, Mick went on to explain further.
"Yis, sor, she's the sisther, sure, ov me fri'nd Tom Bowlin' here, sor,"
he said, pointing me out by a punch in the ribs that nearly knocked all
the breath out of me. "An', sure, she's moighty fond ov burrds!"
Mr Blockley laughed.
"From that, I suppose, Paddy," he said, as soon as he could speak, "you
put Jocko here in the same boat as the birds?"
"Begorrah, Oi do, sor," replied Mick, with a broad grin, as he cuddled
the monkey up to him in his arms; Jocko taking off Mick's cap the while,
and carefully scattering its motley contents to the winds. "Oi call
him, sure, a Saint Michael's canary, faith, sor!"
"You'll do," said Mr Blockley, laughing again as he went away to attend
to his duties, in seeing the chain cables got up from below, and ranged
along the lower deck in preparation for our anchoring anon. "Let alone
an Irishman for having the last word!"
Having a good breeze with us from the southward and westward, we soon
rounded Saint Helen's point, off the east end of the island; and making
a wide reach in towards the Warner lightship, we brought up at Spithead
at Four Bells, comfortably.
Just before we anchored, Mr Osborne, the first lieutenant, sent for
Mick and myself, the marine who passed the word forward for us, saying
that `Number One' wanted to see us in the wardroom.
Wondering what was up, my chum and I proceeded aft, where we found Mr
Osborne seated at the table, having just had lunch, as the cloth showed.
`Number One,' who had evidently enjoyed his meal, being in a genial
mood, as indeed, to give him his due, he usually was, did not keep us
long in suspense.
"Ha, my lads," he said, on the sentry ushering us up to where he sat,
"you've given in your names, I believe, to pass for ordinary seamen,
eh?"
The cat was out of the bag at once, and mightily we felt relieved at
that.
I could not help smiling as I answered Mr Osborne in the affirmative;
while, as for Mick, his "Yis, sor," was rolled out with an emphasis that
made `Number One' laugh outright.
"I hear very good reports of both of you, my lads--of you Bowling in
particular," he said, looking at some papers before him, which he signed
and handed over to the marine sentry, telling him to send them on to the
ship's office; "and, as you are now both eighteen, the proper age to be
entered on the books as `ordinary seamen,' and have shown your aptitude
for the service during the six months you have been aboard this ship, I
pass you, my lads, so you may now look upon yourselves as `boys' no
longer!"
Thanking the lieutenant, we left the wardroom, as may be supposed,
decorously enough; but we had no sooner got out on the dock without than
Mick executed a wild caper, which made the sentry grin.
"Bedad, Tom," he said, loud enough for the marine to hear, "me fayther
allers s'id Oi'd be a man afore me moother; an', faith, Oi'm thet now,
plaize the pigs!"
It was certainly a most unexpected denouement to the ordeal we had
expected when sending in our names, both of us thinking we would have
had to pass some stiff grind in seamanship and other naval acquirements,
similar to the examinations we used to undergo on board the old _Saint
Vincent_; and as we now were rated really as seamen, with the pay of one
shilling and threepence a day, instead of sevenpence, besides having all
the dirty work of the ship taken off our hands, Mick and I considered
ourselves in clover, as you may readily imagine!
The _Active_ and _Volage_, the two Portsmouth ships of the Training
Squadron, went into harbour early the very next morning, laying
alongside the dockyard as before, to refit for their summer cruise; and,
later on, when we were moored in our old berth at the Pitch-House jetty
and things made right on board, we got leave with the rest of the
starboard watch to go ashore, Mick, of course, going home with me, and
Jocko equally, of course, forming one of the company.
On our reaching Bonfire Corner, Mick was in a fix about Jocko,
apparently, eyeing him when we got near the door of father's cottage,
and then looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face, the monkey
saving him the trouble of scratching his head, which Mick had got into
the habit of doing whenever he was in a quandary, by most affectionately
performing the operation for him.
"Hullo, old chap," said I, "what's up?"
"Faith, Tom, Oi'm onaisy in me moind, sure, about Jocko," he replied.
"Oi don't want yer sisther to be afther sayin' him at foorst. Sure, Oi
want to take her be surprise, alannah."
"Well," said I, "that needn't trouble you, Mick. Let's put the little
beggar over the garden wall."
"But, s'posin' onywun's theer?"
"You needn't be afraid of that," said I. "Mother and Jenny will be just
having tea about this time, most likely, in the kitchen; and, if
father's at home and not out in his wherry, he'll be taking a caulk in
his old seat under the mulberry-tree."
"Begorrah, thin," cried Mick, in high glee at my now giving him this
information, "we'll put the little baiste roight over the wall forninst
whare he's a-sottin'; an', faith, if Jocko says him, he'll rouse him oop
fast enuff, an' thin yer fayther'll think he's the divvle, sure, jist ez
the chaplin did aboard the ship t'other day whin Jocko got into his
cabin an' carried on `Meg's divarshuns'!"
"The very thing," I said, entering into the joke and anticipating
father's astonishment. "Sling him over by that apple-tree, and then
nobody will be able to see how he got in."
Mick at once carried out my suggestion.
The apple-tree, which had all its pretty pink and white blossoms out in
full bloom, ran up close to the side of the wall, one branch indeed
projecting over it, though at too great a height for the street boys to
get at the fruit, having to content themselves instead with shying
stones at what they were unable to reach.
Clambering up the face of the rough old brick wall like a cat, Mick
carefully let down Jocko on the other side at this point, telling him in
a whispered word of command that he was on `sentry go' and mustn't stir
till the order was given to `relieve guard.'
Jocko evidently understood him clearly; for, although I expected he
would have climbed back again on Mick's shoulder almost as soon as he
put him down, the intelligent animal remained in the garden.
All things therefore working together as we wished, Mick and I now
proceeded up to the front door and knocked.
Unfortunately, father had seen the _Active_ coming in and "blown the
gaff" on us; and so, instead of our taking them by surprise, we found
them on the lookout and all ready to receive us.
Little Jenny, who had grown considerably since I had last seen her, and
was all the prettier, too, as Mick, I noticed, observed as well as
myself, of course opened the door for us; and coming up the passage
behind her was mother and father, with the cockatoo `Ally Sloper'
bringing up the roar of the procession, all of them laughing and
talking, and saying, all in one breath and at the same time, how glad
they were to see me and Mick again, old `Ally Sloper' screaming out
louder than the lot, "I'll wring your neck! I'll wring your neck!" We
did have a tea.
To look at the table, one would have thought we had been starved all the
time we were afloat, and that mother wished us to make up what leeway we
had lost in the grub line by stowing our holds now as full as we could
possibly manage.
Bless you, there was a dish of ham and eggs got ready by Jenny in a
jiffy, sufficient to have served round the whole of our mess; while, as
for the bread and butter, cut thin so as to make one want to eat the
more, with marmalade and cakes and the jam, there was plenty, I think,
for our whole ship's company!
Mick and I ate and ate, I pressed by mother, and he unable to resist
Jenny's hospitable solicitude, until neither of us felt inclined to
rise; when, just at the end of the feast--Mick and I being only just
able then to make signs showing our inability to stow any more, speech
having failed us--a most terrible bobbery broke out in the back garden,
the cockatoo yelling like mad, and every other bird, I believe, in the
shop joining in a demoniac chorus and lending emphasis to his screams.
"Ship my rullocks!" cried father, jumping up from his seat and making
for the scullery door, with mother and Jenny after him. "It's that
dratted old tom-cat of Bill Squeers come prowling arter the birds again,
I knows. I've sworn I'll pison him some day; and, by the Lord, too, I
will, if he's bin and gone and meddled with `Ally Sloper'!"
"Aye, Thomas Bowling, just you stick to that," said mother, spurring him
on to instant vengeance, fearing that father's loudly expressed
animosity to our namesake the cat would evaporate, as it invariably did,
after the cause of the commotion had made off. "The nasty beast nearly
frightened one of Jenny's canaries to death the other day; but I gave
him one with my broom-handle which made him scoot, I can tell you, the
brute not having come back into the garden again, as I knows of, till
to-day!"
So saying, mother disappeared, with her potent broomstick, behind the
hedge of evergreens that shut off the backyard from our garden, in the
wake of father and Jenny, who, being more speedy in their movements,
were already out of sight.
Mick looked at me, and I looked at Mick; and then the two of us burst
into a roar of laughter as we followed up the chase to see the end of
it.
We arrived just in time.
Jocko, who, as may be supposed, was the originator of all the row, had
got up into the mulberry-tree, the cockatoo's own especial domain, and,
chattering and making faces at the bird, had clutched hold of one of his
legs in his hand-like paw, trying to pull him from his perch.
This `Ally Sloper' resisted with all his might and main, hanging from a
branch of the tree with the claw that was free, while he pecked and bit
the monkey with his nut-cracker beak, making Jocko wince and snarl and
pull all the harder to get him into his clutches, the cockatoo screaming
like mad, as I have said, all the while!
"Lor'!" exclaimed mother, holding up her hands at this sight, just as we
came up, "it ain't Squeers's cat after all! How ever did that there
monkey get here?"
"It must have broken loose from some place near," said Jenny. "The
milkman told me this morning that Smith, the fancier, had one the other
day which crammed a lot of cinders down the baby's throat and nearly
killed it, and that Mr Smith was obliged to get rid of it."
"Then, this can't be that chap," said father, sitting down in his old
armchair under the tree and looking up at Jocko, who had released `Ally
Sloper' on our approach and gone up aloft in one of the topmost
branches. "I'd bet 'arf-a-crown now, Sarah, as how them two youngsters
here could tell us summat o' the monkey if they likes!"
He had a sharp eye, had father, and had caught Mick winking at me.
So, there being now no longer any need, or indeed chance, of
concealment, especially with Jenny's eyes fixed on him, Mick thought it
best to make a clean breast of it at once.
"Coom down out o' thet, ye divvle. 'Tenshin, Jocko!" cried he, patting
his shoulder, to which his friend the monkey at once jumped from the
tree; and then, turning to my sister, he said, with a roguish look in
his black eyes, "Oi've brought ye a little prisint, Miss Jenny, ez Oi
hopes ez how ye'll be afther acceptin'."
Jenny smiled.
"What," said she--"a monkey?"
"No, Miss Jenny," replied Mick, grinning, while Jocko chattered in
sympathetic glee. "He ain't a monkey at all, at all. Sure, he's what I
calls a Saint Michael's canary!"
This was a settler for all of them; father leaning back in his chair and
holding his sides, while mother and Jenny enjoyed the joke as much as we
could both wish, `Ally Sloper' adding to the merriment of us all by
shrieking out at intervals alternately, "Say-rah! Say-rah!" and "Blest
if I don't have a smoke!" in father's very own voice.
On returning to the _Active_ after our leave was up, Mick and I were
sent to the guardship, or depot, having to leave our old ship through
getting our new rating as ordinary seamen, we having been drafted to her
as `boys'; for, being no longer held to be such, we, of course, had no
`local habitation or name,' according to the saying, on board her.
We did not have much of a stay at home, however, all the same, Mick
getting appointed within the next fortnight to the flagship on the Cape
station, when he and I parted for the first time since we became chums,
more than two years previously, on our joining the _Saint Vincent_
together.
A sailor's life, though, is made up of partings, not only with one
another, but with the old folks at home as well, and sometimes with
certain persons even dearer than these; so, wringing my hand in his
hearty grip and leaving a tender farewell for Jenny, whom he was unable
to see before going away, she being on a visit to a cousin of ours who
lived at Chichester, Mick and I said good-bye to one another. Really, I
envied his luck of getting the chance of seeing active service so soon!
I did not have to envy him long; for, a week later, I was turned over to
the _Mermaid_, a new second-class cruiser just commissioned to join the
eastern division of the Mediterranean Fleet, to take the place for the
time of one of the smaller ships belonging to the squadron, under refit
at Malta, our orders being then to proceed to the Red Sea, where it was
expected that Osman Digna would be making matters warm in and about
Suakin later on in the year.
Some three days subsequently to my going on board her, with a complete
new rig-out, bag, baggage, and all, the _Mermaid_ sailed for the
Straits; if sailing it can be called in a ship going by steam alone, and
which had not a royal-yard to cross, or any other spars to speak of
aloft for that matter, the cruiser being rigged to carry fore-and-aft
sail in case of emergency should her engines break down.
It might be thought from this that my early training in a sailing-ship
was thrown away, there being no longer any necessity for me to display
my activity in racing up the rigging and running out on a yard to reef
topsails.
The contrary, however, was the case; and I've found, even during my
short experience afloat--ay, and in spite of the ridiculous assertions
of some shore folk, who know about as much of life in the navy as they
do to club-haul a ship off a lee shore--that the men who have learnt to
hold on by the skin of their teeth in a heavy gale, from the aptitude
they have gained in the old-fashioned class of ships, are the handiest
and the readiest at a pinch in the new!
Of course, though, I only found out this afterwards; as on first joining
the _Mermaid_ the ship was as strange to me as I, sore at parting with
Mick, felt myself a complete stranger to all on board.
So I thought, at least.
But I was mistaken.