and men-of-war lay off Portsmouth and out at Spithead; boats of various sizes rowed between them, or to and from the shore. Never had they imagined such a scene; the enormous bulk of the men-of-war struck them with wonder. Will admired equally the tapering spars and the more graceful lines of the frigates and corvettes, and his heart thrilled with pride as he felt that he too was a sailor, and a portion, however insignificant, of one of these mighty engines of war.
The officer in command of the receiving-ship at Whitby had passed on to the captain of the cutter what had been told him of the two boys by the lieutenant of the Antelope, and he in turn related the story to one of the chief officers of the dockyard. It happened that they were the only two boys that had been brought down, and the dockyard official said it would be a pity to separate them.
“I will put them down as part of the crew of the Furious. I want a few specially strong and active men for her; her commander is a very dashing officer, and I should like to see that he is well manned.”
The two boys had especially noticed and admired theFurious, which was a thirty-four-gun frigate, so next morning, when the new hands were mustered and told off to different ships, they were delighted when they found their names appear at the end of the list for that vessel, all the more so because Dimchurch was to join her also.
“I am pleased, Dimchurch, that we are to be in the same ship with you,” Will exclaimed as soon as the men were dismissed.
“I am glad too, youngster. I have taken a fancy to you, as you seem to have done to me, and it will be very pleasant for us to be together. But now you must go and get your kit-bags ready at once; we are sure to be sent off to theFurious in a short time, and it will be a bad mark against you if you keep the boat waiting.”
In a quarter of an hour a boat was seen approaching from the Furious. The officer in charge ascended to the deck of the cutter, and after a chat with the captain called out the list, and counted the men one by one as they went down to the boat, each carrying his kit.
“Not a bad lot,” he said to the young midshipman sitting by his side. “This pretty nearly makes up our complement; the press gang are sure to pick up the few hands we want either to-day or to-morrow.”
“I shall be glad when we are off, sir,” the midshipman said.“I am never comfortable, after beginning to get into commission, until we are out on blue water.”
“Nor am I. I hope the dockyard won’t keep us waiting for stores. We have got most of them, but the getting on board of the powder and shot is always a long task, and we have to be so careful with the powder. There is the captain on deck; he is looking out, no doubt, to see the new hands. I am glad they are good ones, for nothing puts him into a bad temper so readily as having a man brought on board who is not, as he considers, up to the mark.”
As they mustered on deck the captain’s eye ran with a keen scrutiny over them. A slight smile crossed his lips as he came to the two boys.
“That will do, Mr. Ayling; they are not a bad lot, taking them one for all, and there are half a dozen men among them who ought to make first-rate topmen. I should say half of them have been to sea before, and the others will soon be knocked into shape. The two boys will, of course, go into the same mess as the others who have come on board. One of them looks a very sharp young fellow.”
“He has been rather specially passed down, sir. He belonged to one of the most noted smuggling villages on the Yorkshire coast, which is saying a great deal, and he struck against smuggling because some lady in the place told him that it was wrong. Of course he drew upon himself the enmity of the whole village. The coast-guard stopped a landing, and two or three of the fishermen were killed. The hostility against the lad, which was entirely unfounded, rose in consequence of this to such a pitch that he was obliged to take refuge in the coast-guard station. I hear from the captain of the Hearty that the boy has been far better educated than the generality of fisher lads, and was specially recommended to him by the officer of the receiving-ship.”
“Is there anything extraordinary about the other boy?”the captain asked with a slight smile.
“No, sir; I believe he joined chiefly to be near his companion, the two being great friends.”
“He looks a different kind of boy altogether,” the captain said. “You could pick him out as a fisher boy anywhere, and picture him in high boots, baggy corduroy breeches, and blue guernsey.”
“He is a strong, well-built lad, and I should say a good deal more powerful than his friend.”
“Well, they are good types of boys, and are not likely to give us as much trouble as some of those young scamps, run-away apprentices and so on, who want a rope’s end every week or so to teach them to do their duty.”
The boys were taken down to a deck below the water-level, where the crew were just going to begin dinner. At one end was a table at which six boys were sitting.
“Hillo, who are you?” the eldest among them asked. “I warn you, if you don’t make things comfortable, you will get your heads punched in no time.”
“My name is William Gilmore, and this is Tom Stevens. As to punching heads, you may not find it as easy as you think. I may warn you at once that we are friends and will stick together, and that there will be no punching one head without having to punch both.”
“We shall see about that before long,” the other said.“Some of the others thought they were going to rule the roost when they joined a few days ago, but I soon taught them their place.”
“Well, you can begin to teach us ours as soon as you like,”Tom Stevens said. “We have met bullies of your sort before. Now, as dinner is going on, we will have some of it, as they didn’t victual us before we left the cutter.”
“Well, then, you had better go to the cook-house and draw rations. No doubt the cook has a list of you fellows’ names.”
The boys took the advice and soon procured a cooked ration of meat and potatoes. The cook told them where they would find plates.
“One of the mess has to wash them up,” he said, “and stow them away in the racks provided for them.”
“Johnson,” the eldest boy said to the smallest of the party,“you need not wash up to-day; that is the duty of the last comer.”
“I suppose it is the duty of each one of the mess by turn,”Will said quietly; “we learnt that much as we came down the coast.”
“You will have to learn more than that, young fellow,” the bully, who was seventeen, blustered. “You will have to learn that I am senior of the mess, and will have to do as I tell you. I have made one voyage already, and all the rest of you are greenhorns.”
“It seems to me from the manner in which you speak, that it is not a question of seniority but simply of bounce and bullying, and I hope that the other boys will no more give in to that sort of thing than Stevens or myself. I have yet to learn that one boy is in any way superior to the others, and in the course of the next hour I shall ascertain whether this is so.”
“Perhaps, after the meal is over, you will go down to the lower deck and allow me to give you a lesson.”
“As I told you,” Will answered quietly, “my friend and I are one. I don’t suppose that single-handed I could fight a great hulking fellow like you, but my friend and I are quite willing to do so together. So now if there is any talk of fighting, you know what to expect.”
The bully eyed the two boys curiously, but, like most of the type, he was at heart a coward, and felt considerable doubt whether these two boys would not prove too much for him. He therefore muttered sullenly that he would choose his own time.
“All right! choose by all means, and whenever you like to fix a time we shall be perfectly ready to accommodate you.”
“Who on earth are you with your long words? Are you a gentleman in disguise?”
“Never mind who I am,” Will said. “I have learnt enough, at any rate, to know a bully and a coward when I meet him.”
The lad was too furious