"PAID OFF!"
But it is time to bring this long yarn of mine to a close.
It was a fine, bright day, in the early part of October, that we hove
the ship to for soundings, our observations then showing us that we were
near Scilly and closing the land; so, on getting sand and shells at
five-and-thirty fathoms, which proved that we were well within the Chops
of the Channel, we squared away our mainyard before a brisk sou'-west
breeze and made for the Lizard, which we sighted at Four Bells in the
forenoon watch.
We then bore up Channel direct, and, the wind holding fair, we passed
Saint Catharine's Point next morning; saluting the port admiral on our
rounding Bembridge Ledge and anchoring at Spithead somewhere about
mid-day.
"By jingo!" cried Mr Jellaby, who was now our first lieutenant, having
gained a step by the promotion of our former chief officer, "glass-eye;"
though most of the old officers who had sailed with me from England paid
off in the ship with us, there having been few changes in our
complement, whether through death, disease or desertion, beyond the
losses we had experienced in our unsuccessful attack on the Taku Forts,
and from the subsequent sickness we had aboard when we were up the Gulf
of Pechili in the hot season. "How jolly glad I shall be to see the
general's daughters again, young Vernon; what chawming gurls they were,
to be sure! I do hope they're not all married!"
"Indeed, sir?" said I, interrogatively. "I hope they're not, I'm sure,
for your sake, if not for their own. But, I'm not thinking, now of any
young ladies, sir. I'm looking forward to seeing my dear old Dad again,
and my mother and sister."
"Ah, that's what you say now, my boy," he retorted, with his genial
laugh. "But, when your whiskers are grown, like mine, you'll be
thinking of some other fellow's sister, I bet."
His surmise might have been correct; though all I need add on this point
is that my old friend "Joe" is now an admiral, with grown-up daughters
of his own, and from his austere manner no one would ever dream of his
susceptible nature and flirtive disposition in the days of which I
speak.
Not so Larkyns, who is the same sprightly, merry fellow as of old,
albeit his hair is streaked with grey, and the crowsfeet winkle in the
corners of his eyes when he laughs, as he is ever doing.
But, my dear old Dad, who came on board the ship to see me while she was
at Spithead, without waiting for her to go into harbour, he, like "Poor
Tom Bowling" of the song, has now "gone aloft;" my mother following him,
within an early date of his departure to that bourne whence no traveller
returns.
Gone where I hope to meet them both by-and-by; for, I can honestly say,
that, beyond trying to do my duty when wearing Her Majesty's uniform, I
have considered myself always as serving "Under the Pen'ant" of even a
higher power, and hope, perhaps, to earn a crown like that which I know
my poor father strove for ever, when I come also to my last anchorage.