Part 15 (1/2)
My complacency, too, was heightened by Jenny coming out presently, and the admiration she expressed at my dignified att.i.tude under the mulberry-tree, leaning back in father's armchair, and smoking his very own churchwarden.
”Good gracious me, Tom!” she exclaimed; Jack the thrush calling out ”Jenny! Jenny! Jenny!” at sight of her, as he always did. ”Why, you're just like daddy!”
This made me feel proud, I can tell you; though old 'Ally Sloper' didn't appear to like my performance, for I was amusing myself by puffing the smoke in his face, making him put up his lemon crest and spread out his collar-like feathers, screaming for mother like mad.
I had 'crossed the Rubicon,' however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ash.o.r.e, I used to have a whiff at father's pipe on the sly-- without his knowledge though, you bet!
By this means, I soon became a regular smoker; and, content no longer with an occasional draw at father's churchwarden, I bought a fine briar- root pipe for myself out of my pocket-money, which was increased by my becoming a first-cla.s.s boy now to a s.h.i.+lling a week.
This pipe I carried about with me, in company with an old bra.s.s tobacco- box I found in the mud one day at Point, stowed carefully away with all my other portable gear in my cap, according to the custom of the service.
I got so bold at last, that even on board the training-s.h.i.+p I would take a stray whiff of a while, when I got into some snug corner on deck where I thought I would be un.o.bserved; though my chum Mick, who didn't take kindly to the habit like myself, often cautioned me about the risk I ran in being caught.
”Faith, Tom, me bhoy,” he would say to me, ”Oi can't say howivver ye can go fur to do it, sure, a gossoon loike yersilf who's got a carrackter fur to loose; aye, an' fur sich a dirthy, nasty thing as thit, a- spillin' the tasthe ov good ghrub, so thit ye can't tell whither ye're aitin' spuds or pay doo. Ef it wor a chap loike that 'Ugly' now, the sulky baste ez wouldn't hev a koind wurrd fur ye, loike a Christian, since ye saved his rascally loife last year, begorrah, Oi could say the sinse ov it; but, fur a chap loike yersilf, Tom, fur to do it, with ivverythin' to loose, Oi'm ashamed on ye!”
Mick's remonstrances, however, were all in vain; for, as mother frequently accused father of being, I was 'obstinate like all the Bowlings,' and once I had set my mind on a thing I'm sorry to say nothing would turn me from it.
The first time I was caught thus smoking on board against the rules, I was let off with only a caution; Mr Brown, the s.h.i.+p's corporal, who had always continued my friend, not bringing my offence to the notice of the authorities.
”Don't let it occur again, though, Tom Bowling,” said he to me, with a pinch of the ear, on seeing me once having a whiff behind the windla.s.s bitts; ”for, let me tell you, if you're nabbed by me or any one else at it again, as I must inform the master-at-arms, though I know he won't let it go further now, you'll be brought up on the quarter-deck and receive punishment.”
The s.h.i.+p's corporal's advice, however, went through one deaf ear and out of the other, like my chum's remonstrance; and one fine day I was 'brought up all standing' in the very act of committing the same offence.
Unfortunately for me, my captor on this occasion was a new corporal who had just been promoted to the police force of the s.h.i.+p, a young seaman whose good conduct had earned him the post, and who wished, of course, to show himself especially smart.
Unthinking of my approaching doom, I was smoking away one evening between the lights, never dreaming for a moment that any one was near or noticing me, when all at once a hand gripped the back of my neck and slewed my head round.
”Ha, my joker,” cried Nemesis, in the shape of this young corporal, who I saw was surrounded by a small crowd of my grinning s.h.i.+pmates, ”I've caught you this time!”
He had, with a vengeance; for not only had he seized me 'flagrante delicto,' as the captain said to me subsequently, he being a Latin scholar, the meaning of which was, I suppose, that I had the delicious fragrance of the 'baccy about me, but Smithers, the corporal, wrenched the pipe that was the cause of all the mischief from my hand, as I hastily removed it from my mouth and attempted to conceal it.
He reported me in due course to 'Jimmy the One,' our first lieutenant, who in due course put me in the black list; and I was brought up the next day on the quarter-deck before the captain, when we all mustered for 'divisions' on the upper deck.
The commanding officer spoke to me kindly, saying he was sorry to see me in such a position; but, all the same, the offence being one which he said he could not possibly excuse, as he was determined to stop the pernicious habit of smoking, which, if indulged in by young boys, would ruin their const.i.tutions for life, he sentenced me to have six strokes, the usual penalty.
Accordingly, 'the horse' kept for the purpose, a sort of rough and round wooden structure with four posts for legs, similar to those saddle- blocks seen in harness shops, was rigged, and one of the gunner's mates gave me the allotted number of administrations of the cane that I had earned.
The boys on board the _Saint Vincent_ in their slang called this stroking business 'stroniky'; and they have a rude rhyme anent it, which embodies likewise what they catalogue as the hards.h.i.+ps of the service--
”Pea doo and bolliky, Hard work and stroniky, Who wouldn't join the Navy!”
I bore my punishment unflinchingly, for, really I knew I deserved it; but, although the gunner's mate did not spare his arm and the cuts he gave me with his cane stung sharply, sharper than the pain I felt physically was the consciousness that I had lost my good character!
My leave, too, was stopped, so that I did not get home for a month; not that I cared about this much, for, to tell the truth, I hardly liked to face father and Jenny till the recollection of my punishment had become somewhat deadened by time and the chaff of my messmates.
They did not attach the disgrace that I did to my experience of 'stroniky.'
On the contrary, many anecdotes were told anent it after turning in that evening, the time when we indulged in yarning amongst ourselves after 'lights out' was sounded, and all was darkness on the lower deck.
One story told was that of a young Scotchman, who, with the characteristic thoughtfulness of his race, while blubbering, and yelling out 'Mudder--Mudder--Mudder--Mudder!' throughout the operation, yet calculated accurately the duration of his ordeal, shouting in the most matter-of-fact voice when given the last stroke, 'That's sax!'