Part 27 (1/2)
”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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, 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 lights.h.i.+p, we brought up at Spithead at Four Bells, comfortably.
Just before we anch.o.r.ed, Mr Osborne, the first lieutenant, sent for Mick and myself, the marine who pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p'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 apt.i.tude for the service during the six months you have been aboard this s.h.i.+p, I pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s some stiff grind in seamans.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+lling and threepence a day, instead of sevenpence, besides having all the dirty work of the s.h.i.+p taken off our hands, Mick and I considered ourselves in clover, as you may readily imagine!
The _Active_ and _Volage_, the two Portsmouth s.h.i.+ps 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 ash.o.r.e, 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.”