"Pooh, nonsense, the rascal has only been `pulling your leg' with a
cock-and-a-bull story, Jack," said dad in a contemptuous tone when I had
finished--for he was an officer of the old school and always believed in
the obligations of discipline, invariably "sticking up" for those
superior to him in rank in the service--"I knew old Admiral Fitzblazes
myself very well, and a better officer and gentleman never wore the
Queen's uniform!"
While he was speaking to this effect, the "cock-eyed rascal," as Dad
called him, came in with our breakfast, giving me a sly wink with his
sound eye behind Dad's back as he passed him; so, sitting down, we
hurried through the meal without any further conversation, I feeling
more and more nervous the nearer the hour fixed for the examination
approached, and mother and Dad both keeping silent, in sympathy with me.
Breakfast accomplished, Dad accompanied me to the dockyard, and saw me
off to the _Excellent_; where, on getting on board, with my certificate
of birth and moral character in my pocket and my heart in my mouth, I
was ushered into the wardroom, with some twenty other aspirants for
naval honours like myself.
All of us, of course, were mostly of the same age, but, naturally, of
various builds and size; some tall, some short; some thin, some fat;
some ugly, some handsome.
One little chap whom I noticed was much smaller than I was, although Dad
had expressly drawn Admiral Napier's attention to the fact of my being
rather short for my age.
This youngster had a bright merry face and smiled in a friendly way to
me; but the others looked at me generally as a collection of strange
dogs appear to regard any new comer suddenly brought amongst them,
eyeing and sniffing him suspiciously before they can make up their minds
whether to treat him as friend or foe--though, generally, preferring, as
a rule, the latter footing!
On entering the wardroom, which had a sort of scholastic look mingled
with its ordinary nautical surroundings, we were summoned in turn to the
further end of the apartment.
Here, on a raised portion of the deck abutting on the stern gallery,
three gentlemen in clerical garb were seated behind a semi-circular
green baize table, in front of which we stood, respectively, like so
many prisoners on trial, while answering various questions appertaining
to our Christian and surnames, age and so on.
We also handed in at the same time our baptismal and medical and
character certificates, all of which were duly inspected, docketed and
filed, in regular official style.
These preliminaries gone through, we were then directed to take our
seats on either side of a long table that ran fore and aft the cabin,
whose normal purpose was for the messing of the officers of the ship,
but which on the present occasion was supplied with folios of foolscap
paper and bundles of quill pens and bottles of ink, systematically
distributed along its length, instead of the more palatable viands it
more generally and generously displayed.
We were immediately under the eyes of the senior chaplain of the trio
forming the board of examiners, a gentleman whose position at the centre
of the cross table at the top of the room enabled him to command a full
view of the double line of boys and detect at once any attempt at
cribbing or unfair assistance given by one to the other; and our ordeal
began punctually on the ship's bell striking Ten o'clock, dictation
being the first subject set us "to test our spelling and handwriting,"
as my Lords of the Admiralty were good enough to inform us.
Thanks to my mother's persistency in keeping me up to the mark with
regard to my lessons, long before I had recourse to the crammer, this
introductory stage of the examination presented no difficulties to me;
and I was able not only to keep pace with the gentleman who dictated a
portion of one of Macaulay's Essays to us, but also found time to look
round me occasionally to see how my companions fared with the big words,
the faces of some of them presenting quite a study when a portentous
polysyllable was given them to spell.
The little chap with the curly hair who had smiled at me on coming in, I
observed, did not smile now.
His whilom merry countenance, on the contrary, was all puckered up in
the most comical way; while his brows were knit as he chewed the feather
end of his quill pen trying to get inspiration from that source how to
properly write some long word--I think it was "Mesopotamia!"
Poor little fellow! he had a fearful struggle over it; but, although I
should have dearly liked to have helped him, it was against the rules,
so I could only watch his growing despair with a mute sympathy that was
mingled with amusement at the funny faces he made over the, to him,
serious business.
A little later on, however, if this victim of the stiff dictation paper
had looked at me when ruthless old Euclid, my former antagonist, came on
the scene, he would in like fashion have pitied me; for I was quite
fogged by an easy proposition that I had thought I knew by heart the
night before, but now found I had not the slightest glimmering of,
although I answered most of the other questions.
Thus the examination proceeded, until the hour came for us to hand in
our papers; the lot of us then filing before the presiding genii seated
behind the green baize table at the end of the wardroom, and each giving
up his roll of spoilt foolscap in turn as he came up abreast of the
reverend trio.
I was nearly the last of the file; and, as I approached the table, the
chaplain occupying the middle seat looked up.
He had a jolly, round, benevolent sort of face, which wore at the moment
such a good-humoured expression that, I suppose, it became reflected on
mine causing me to smile.
"Hullo, my boy!" said he, smiling, too. "You seem in a very happy frame
of mind, I'm sure. Answered all your questions right, eh?"
"I'm afraid not all, sir," I replied diffidently; "but I hope for the
best."
"That's right, youngster! There's no good to be got by despairing over
things, and remember, you can have another try, you know, if you fail
now," said he encouragingly. "`Never say die,' you know, as an old
friend of mine used always to say, `care once killed a cat!'"
"Why, sir," I exclaimed at this, "that's what my father always tells me.
It's his favourite expression when any difficulty arises. He never
gives in, sir!"
"Indeed!" said the fat gentleman, while the others on either side of him
looked interested. "Who is your father, my boy, if you'll excuse my
asking you the question?"
"Francis Vernon," I answered promptly. "A captain in the Royal Navy,
now on half-pay, sir."
The fat clergyman laughed at my laconic reply.
"Vernon, ha!" he repeated after me. "I wonder if he is the Frank Vernon
I once knew?"
"Can't say, sir," said I, cautiously. "My mother, though, always calls
him `Frank.'"
My new friend laughed again.
"Ah, I'm sure he is the same, if only from your manner, which is just
like what I remember in the Frank Vernon who was in the _Pelican_ with
me," said he, looking at me all over with his twinkling round eyes.
"Was your father ever up the Mediterranean with old Charley Napier, my
boy?"
"Oh yes, sir," I replied, glib enough now. "It was Admiral Napier who
gave me my nomination the other day, sir."
"Really, you don't say so?"
"I do, though, sir," I said sturdily, thinking he doubted my assertion.
"Dad and I met him in Pall Mall, and I got my nomination from the
Admiralty, sir, the very next morning as he promised!"
"All right, my boy, all right," he observed in an absent way, turning to
whisper to the two other gentlemen something, I think, about "old
Charley," and "must be passed for my old shipmate's sake."--"I quite
believe what you say: I do not doubt your word for an instant; for Frank
Vernon's son, I am sure, could not but always speak the truth. Did your
father come down with you for your examination?"
"Yes, sir," I answered. "He and my mother came with me; and we're all
staying at the old `Keppel's Head Hotel,' on Hardway, sir."
"Humph! I think I know the place you mention, youngster," said he, with
a significant twinkle in his eye which made the other two chaplains
grin, I could see, at some joke they had between them. "I'll try and
call on your father, if I can find time before he leaves Portsmouth.
Tell him when you get back, that old Tangent asked after him, please."
"I'll make a point of doing so, sir," I replied, with a bow, repeating
the name after him to make certain. "I will tell him, sir, about Old
Tangent."
"Old Tangent, indeed!" cried the old fellow, shaking his fat sides,
while the other two examiners roared outright. "You've a pretty good
stock of impudence of your own, I'm sure! Be off with you, you young
rascal, or I'll pluck you as certain as I'm that Old Tangent with whom
you dare to be so familiar!"
His jovial face, however, belied the threat, so it did not occasion me
any alarm; and, bowing again politely to the three clerical gentlemen
collectively, I bent my steps, on the grin all the way, to the door of
the wardroom, which was opened and shut behind me by a marine standing
without.
I was Last of the Mohicans, all the other fellows having taken their
departure and gone ashore long before I got my own happy dismissal.
"By Jove, Jack, I think you may put yourself down as passed!" said my
father when I subsequently detailed the incidents of my examination,
drawing a good augury from my description of what had occurred on board
the gunnery ship. "He was always a knowing hand was Old Tangent; and
such a remark from him to his brother examiners, would be as efficacious
as a whisper in ear of the First Lord's Secretary on your behalf, my
boy!"
"Do you remember him, Frank? I mean the gentleman who spoke to Jack."
"Oh, yes, my dear," replied Dad to this question of my mother's, "I
recollect Old Tangent quite well. He was always a good-natured fellow
and a capital shipmate. Why, he sang the best song of any of us in the
mess on board the old _Pelican_!"
"What!" exclaimed my mother, holding up her hands in pious horror at the
mention of such an unclerical characteristic. "A clergyman sing songs?"
"Yes, why not?" retorted Dad, who was in his jolliest mood at the
prospect of my having passed my examination successfully. "They were
spiritual songs of course, my dear, I assure you!"
"No doubt," said mother, drily. "I think, my dear, you can `tell that
yarn to the marines,' as you say in your favourite sea slang. _I_ know
what sort of spirits you refer to!"
At which observation they both laughed; and, naturally, I laughed too.