Read Ebook: 12 Pies Husbands Like Best: Aunt Jenny's Recipe Book by Lever Brothers Company

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Ebook has 245 lines and 13880 words, and 5 pages

"I must go and have a wash first. I am not fit for these things," he answered, looking at his dirty clothes and hands; and out he rushed to the pump in the back yard, where he was wont to perform his ablutions. He returned for a piece of soap, however.

"I am going to do it right well," he said, "while I am about it."

He came back in about ten minutes, looking thoroughly fresh and clean. In the meantime, his mother and sister had laid the table for supper. It was not a very grand one, but more than usually abundant. There were hot sausages and toast, and maybe butter, or what did duty for butter, for it was very, very white, and tea, and some milk in a cream-jug.

"Well, I do feel as if I had been and done it right well!" exclaimed Bill, as he stood in a blue check shirt which his mother had sent out to him to put on after he had washed.

"Now, Bill, do try this on," she said, handing him a pair of trousers. They fitted nicely round the waist; no braces were needed. Then she made him put his arms into the jacket, and fasten a black silk handkerchief round his neck with a sailor's knot. And then his sister came behind, and clapped on a broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat, with a long ribbon round it, hanging down on one side.

"There! There! How well he does look!"

"Bill, you do, darling!" exclaimed his mother. "Every inch a sailor. Bless you, Bill!" His brothers and sisters made some of these remarks, and many others; and came round, taking him by the hand, or patting him on the back, and Bill stood by smiling and well pleased. He had never in his life been so nicely dressed. Then they brought him a pair of low shoes. He thought them rather incumbrances, but he put them on for the honour of the thing; and they had broad ribbon bows in front, and did look very natty, to be sure.

In their eagerness they almost forgot the sausages, which were somewhat overdone--burnt all on one side; but that did not matter much, and at length they all sat down, and while they were laughing and talking, the sausages hissed and spluttered in return, as much as to say, "We are all ready; we wish you would eat us. You look so merry and happy, and perhaps we shall be merry and happy too."

Bill at first could not eat much for thinking that at last he was going on board a man-of-war. No more could his mother, but when the rest began to eat away, he followed their example; and his mother at last managed to get down the remaining sausage, which all her children insisted she should have, Susan giving it a fresh heating up before the fire, for they had a good fire that day. Many a winter's evening they had had to go without it, for want of something to burn. At last there was not as much left as a piece of grease in the dish, nor a piece of bread on the platter, and all the tea was drained to the last drop; and then Bill stood up and thanked God for their good supper.

"And it was a good one!" cried out little Tommy. "A right good one. And, Bill, I hope you may get many such aboard ship."

"Maybe," said Bill, "but they will not be like this, for there will be none of you there; and after all it's not the grub, but it's them that eats it with us that makes it pleasant."

Bill might have said more but he did not; for a good reason--he could not just then trust his voice; so he jumped up and began to dance a hornpipe, though he was not very perfect in the art of dancing.

"Never mind," he said, "I will learn something more about that too, when I get to sea."

Bill was up betimes, dressed in his new suit. "Mother, I would like to carry your basket for you," he said. "Maybe it's the last day I shall be able to do it."

It was a hard matter for Bill to wish all his brothers and sisters good-bye, and harder still to part from his mother, but he did it in a brave, hearty way. Old Joe Simmons, who had known him all his life, and known his mother too, for that matter, since she was born, insisted on taking him off.

These words the old man uttered, as he pushed his wherry from the beach, and pulled up the harbour towards a fine corvette which lay at anchor off Gosport.

The old man went up the side with him.

"There's the first lieutenant," he said. "You just go up and tell him you have come aboard. It will be all right. Although he looks very grand, he is all right at bottom; and I have heard more than one thing in his favour. He won't eat you; so don't be afear'd, Bill."

Bill did as he was advised, and presented the captain's card. Mr Barker glanced at it.

"Oh! You are Bill Sunnyside. We will enter you. Master-at-arms, see to this boy."

"It's all right, boy, you can go forward!"

Bill, thus dismissed, gladly rejoined his old friend, thankful that the dreaded interview was over. He would not have minded it if the captain had been aboard, for he had taken a great fancy to him, and felt ready to go through fire and water to serve him.

Old Joe introduced him, as he had promised, to a fine, active-looking seaman who had just come from aloft, with hands well tarred, and a big clasp knife hung by a rope round his neck. Jack Windy was every inch a sailor.

"Oh, ay, Joe! No fear; we'll look after the lad," he said, giving an approving glance at Bill. "We will make a prime seaman of him, never you fear. And here, Tommy Rebow, you just come here, boy. You show Bill here what he will have to do, and what he must not do; and none of your jackanape tricks--mind that."

Thus Bill had not been many minutes on board before he found himself with several acquaintances. Old Joe, satisfied that all was right, wished him good-bye.

"There, Bill," he said, taking him by the hand, "just do you go on doing what you have been, and there's One who will look after you, and knows better how to do so than I could, or your own father, if he was alive, or the captain himself; and when I say my prayers--and I do say them, and so must you, Bill--I will put in a word about you; and I am sure your mother will, and your brothers and sisters as is big enough; and you see, Bill, you have every reason to go away contented and happy. Now good-bye, lad, God bless you!"

And again old Joe wrung Sunshine Bill's hand, and went down the side of the ship into his wherry.

"Now, do you mind, Bill," he shouted, as, taking his seat, he seized the sculls and sprung them briskly into the water. Once more he stopped, and, resting his oars for a moment, waved another farewell with his right hand.

The men had just been piped to breakfast when Bill went on board, and the ship was comparatively quiet. In a short time, however, all was bustle and seeming confusion. The officers were shouting, the boatswain was piping, and the men hurrying here and there along the decks or up the rigging; some bending sails, others hoisting in stores, or coming off, or going away in boats. Bill had often been on board ship, so it was not so strange to him as it would have been to many boys. Yet he had never before formed one of a ship's company, and he could not help feeling that he might at any moment be called upon to perform some duty or other with which he was totally unacquainted.

"Never you fear, Bill," said Tommy Rebow, who observed his anxiety. "I will put you up to anything you want to know. Just you stick by me."

Presently a quartermaster ordered Tommy to lay hold of a rope and haul away; and Bill ran and helped him, and quickly got the rope taut, when an officer sung out, "Belay," and Tommy made the rope fast. This was the first duty Bill ever performed in the service of his country.

After this, whenever there was any pulling or hauling, Bill ran and helped, unless ordered elsewhere. Though he could not always remember the names of the ropes, still he felt that he was making himself useful.

Amidst the bustle, he at length heard the first lieutenant sing out, "Man the sides." The boatswain's whistle sounded. The sideboys stood with the white man-ropes in their hands, the officers collected on either side of the gangway. The marines hurried from below with their muskets, and stood, drawn up in martial array; and presently Bill saw a boat come alongside, and an officer in full uniform, whom he at once recognised as Captain Trevelyan, stepped upon deck. Saluting the officers by lifting his hat, he spoke a few kind, good-natured words to them, and then gave a scrutinising glance along the decks, turning his eyes aloft.

"You have made good progress, Mr Barker. I hope we shall go out to Spithead to-morrow," he observed. "How many hands do you still want?" he asked.

"We have our complement complete, sir," was the answer.

"Has that boy I spoke to you about come on board--Sunnyside?"

"Yes, sir; he came on board this morning. He is a sharp lad, and will make a good seaman."

Bill would have been proud, had he known that he was the subject of conversation between the captain and first lieutenant.

Bill was soon perfectly at home among his new shipmates. He had never been so well fed in his life--plenty of good boiled beef and potatoes, and sweet biscuit.

"I have often wished to come to sea, and I am very glad I have come," he said, as he was seated at mess. "I did not think they fed us so well."

"Just you wait till we have been a few months in blue water, youngster," observed Sam Grimshaw--"old Grim," as his shipmates called him--"when we get down to the salted cow and pickled horse, and pork which is all gristle and bone. You will then sing a different tune, I have a notion."

Old Grim was noted for grumbling. He grumbled at everything; and as to pleasing him, that was out of the question.

"Well," answered Bill, "all I can say is, I am thankful for the good things now I've got them; and when the bad come, it will be time enough to cry out. I used to think, too, when once a ship got into the Channel clear away from the land, there would be nothing but tumbling and tossing about; and here we are running on as smoothly as we might up Portsmouth Harbour. Now, I am thankful for that."

"Well, so it's as well to be, my lad, for before many days are over we may be tumbling about in a heavy gale under close-reefed topsails, and then you will sing another tune to what you are doing now."

"I shall be singing that I know the bad weather won't last for ever, and that I have no doubt the sun will shine out," answered Bill.

"But maybe you will get washed overboard, or a loose block will give you a knock on the head and finish you, or some other mishap will befall you," growled out old Grim.

"As to that," answered Bill, "I am ready for the rough and smooth of life, and for the ups and downs. As I hope to have some of the ups, I must make up my mind to be content with a few of the downs."

"Well, well! There's no making you unhappy," growled out old Grim. "Now, you don't mean to say this duff is fit food for Christians," he exclaimed, sticking his fork into a somewhat hard piece of pudding.

"It's fit for hungry boys at sea," answered Bill; "and I only wish that my brothers and sisters had as good beef and pork for dinner, not to speak of peas-pudding and duff, as we have got every day. I should like to send them some of mine, and yours too, if you do not eat it."

"Well, as we cannot live on nothing, I am obliged to eat it, good or bad," answered old Grim; "and as to giving you some of mine, why, I don't see that there's overmuch I get for myself."

"I did not ask it for myself, and I am glad to see you do not find it too bad to eat after all," said Bill, observing that old Grim cleared his plate of every particle of food it contained.

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