Crown and Anchor Part 4

"I don't mean the Czar of Roosia, sir. Don't you run away with that there notion! No, sir, I means the rale old gent as ye've heerd tell on, wot hangs out down below when he's at home and allers dresses in black to look genteel-like. Wears top-boots for to hide his cloven feet, sir, and carries a fine tail under his arm with a fluke at the end of it, same as that on a sheet-anchor--ah, yer knows the gent I means, sir!

"Well, yezsir, old Sir t.i.tus wer him all over and must ha' been his twin-brother; barring the tail, the admiral being shaky about the feet, too, and his boots a'most as big as the dinghy of that sloop. They wos like as two peas, sir, old Nick and he!

"Lord-sakes, though, yer must have heerd tell of him, sir, a young and gallant naval ossifer like yerself, 'specially that yarn consarnin' him and the washerwoman as was going into the dockyard one mornin' when he were a-spyin' round the gates?"

"No, waiter, I never heard the old gentleman's name before you told it me," I replied, curious to learn some further disclosures concerning so celebrated a character. "What was this story?"

"W'y, sir, it's enuff a'most for to make a cat laugh, sir," he said with a sn.i.g.g.e.r, which he immediately flicked away, as it were, with his napkin, resuming his whilom solemn demeanour. "It happen'd, if yer must know, sir, in this way, sir, yezsir.

"Old Blazes--that wer the name he allers went by in the yard--was a-hangin' round the main gate a-lookin' out for to see who comes along, w'en all of a sudding he spies this good woman as was a-takin' in the clothes from the wash for Admiralty House.

"That were where, yer knows, sir, he himself lived with Lady Fitz, close by the College and jest to the right as yer goes in the yard?

"Lord-sakes, sir! The old admiral thinks he'd made a fine haul and that the woman were a-smuggling in sperrits or somethin' 'contraband,' as they calls it, for the sailors who is allers stationed round the commander-in-chief's office; and so, he orders her for to turn out her big baskets there in the gateway afore all the grinning policemen and men who was jest a-comin' into the yard.

"Ye never see such a show, sir in all yer born days; and the beauty on it were that as he was in the middle of it sir, overhaulin' all the things from the wash, and a-pokin' 'em about with his gold-headed stick and turnin' over the ladies' fal-de-rals and all sorts of women's gear that they don't like men for to see, sir, up comes Lady Fitzblazes herself, a-going out for a walk.

"Seein' what he were after, she axes him wot he means by treating her clothes like that there.

"Lord-sakes, sir, if he were old Nick, she had a temper, too, and were as fiery as a she-tiger cat, she were; and, wot between the two, there was then--Breakfast, sir? Yezsir, comin', sir!"

The wiry little c.o.c.k-eyed waiter rushed off, with his napkin over his shoulder, as he uttered the last words; and, wondering what had caused him to break off so unexpectedly in the middle of his yarn, apparently just when he was approaching the most interesting part of it, I turned my head and saw mother and Dad were within the coffee-room, having entered the doorway just behind me.

"Hullo, Jack!" said my father, "what was that waiter chap yarning about?

You seemed very much taken up with what he was saying."

I thereupon told him as much as I had heard of the old port admiral.

"Pooh, nonsense, the rascal has only been 'pulling your leg' with a c.o.c.k-and-a-bull story, Jack," said dad in a contemptuous tone when I had finished--for he was an officer of the old school and always believed in the obligations of discipline, invariably "sticking up" for those superior to him in rank in the service--"I knew old Admiral Fitzblazes myself very well, and a better officer and gentleman never wore the Queen's uniform!"

While he was speaking to this effect, the "c.o.c.k-eyed rascal," as Dad called him, came in with our breakfast, giving me a sly wink with his sound eye behind Dad's back as he pa.s.sed him; so, sitting down, we hurried through the meal without any further conversation, I feeling more and more nervous the nearer the hour fixed for the examination approached, and mother and Dad both keeping silent, in sympathy with me.

Breakfast accomplished, Dad accompanied me to the dockyard, and saw me off to the _Excellent_; where, on getting on board, with my certificate of birth and moral character in my pocket and my heart in my mouth, I was ushered into the wardroom, with some twenty other aspirants for naval honours like myself.

All of us, of course, were mostly of the same age, but, naturally, of various builds and size; some tall, some short; some thin, some fat; some ugly, some handsome.

One little chap whom I noticed was much smaller than I was, although Dad had expressly drawn Admiral Napier's attention to the fact of my being rather short for my age.

This youngster had a bright merry face and smiled in a friendly way to me; but the others looked at me generally as a collection of strange dogs appear to regard any new comer suddenly brought amongst them, eyeing and sniffing him suspiciously before they can make up their minds whether to treat him as friend or foe--though, generally, preferring, as a rule, the latter footing!

On entering the wardroom, which had a sort of scholastic look mingled with its ordinary nautical surroundings, we were summoned in turn to the further end of the apartment.

Here, on a raised portion of the deck ab.u.t.ting on the stern gallery, three gentlemen in clerical garb were seated behind a semi-circular green baize table, in front of which we stood, respectively, like so many prisoners on trial, while answering various questions appertaining to our Christian and surnames, age and so on.

We also handed in at the same time our baptismal and medical and character certificates, all of which were duly inspected, docketed and filed, in regular official style.

These preliminaries gone through, we were then directed to take our seats on either side of a long table that ran fore and aft the cabin, whose normal purpose was for the messing of the officers of the s.h.i.+p, but which on the present occasion was supplied with folios of foolscap paper and bundles of quill pens and bottles of ink, systematically distributed along its length, instead of the more palatable viands it more generally and generously displayed.

We were immediately under the eyes of the senior chaplain of the trio forming the board of examiners, a gentleman whose position at the centre of the cross table at the top of the room enabled him to command a full view of the double line of boys and detect at once any attempt at cribbing or unfair a.s.sistance given by one to the other; and our ordeal began punctually on the s.h.i.+p's bell striking Ten o'clock, dictation being the first subject set us "to test our spelling and handwriting,"

as my Lords of the Admiralty were good enough to inform us.

Thanks to my mother's persistency in keeping me up to the mark with regard to my lessons, long before I had recourse to the crammer, this introductory stage of the examination presented no difficulties to me; and I was able not only to keep pace with the gentleman who dictated a portion of one of Macaulay's Essays to us, but also found time to look round me occasionally to see how my companions fared with the big words, the faces of some of them presenting quite a study when a portentous polysyllable was given them to spell.

The little chap with the curly hair who had smiled at me on coming in, I observed, did not smile now.

His whilom merry countenance, on the contrary, was all puckered up in the most comical way; while his brows were knit as he chewed the feather end of his quill pen trying to get inspiration from that source how to properly write some long word--I think it was "Mesopotamia!"

Poor little fellow! he had a fearful struggle over it; but, although I should have dearly liked to have helped him, it was against the rules, so I could only watch his growing despair with a mute sympathy that was mingled with amus.e.m.e.nt at the funny faces he made over the, to him, serious business.

A little later on, however, if this victim of the stiff dictation paper had looked at me when ruthless old Euclid, my former antagonist, came on the scene, he would in like fas.h.i.+on have pitied me; for I was quite fogged by an easy proposition that I had thought I knew by heart the night before, but now found I had not the slightest glimmering of, although I answered most of the other questions.

Thus the examination proceeded, until the hour came for us to hand in our papers; the lot of us then filing before the presiding genii seated behind the green baize table at the end of the wardroom, and each giving up his roll of spoilt foolscap in turn as he came up abreast of the reverend trio.

I was nearly the last of the file; and, as I approached the table, the chaplain occupying the middle seat looked up.

He had a jolly, round, benevolent sort of face, which wore at the moment such a good-humoured expression that, I suppose, it became reflected on mine causing me to smile.

"Hullo, my boy!" said he, smiling, too. "You seem in a very happy frame of mind, I'm sure. Answered all your questions right, eh?"

"I'm afraid not all, sir," I replied diffidently; "but I hope for the best."

"That's right, youngster! There's no good to be got by despairing over things, and remember, you can have another try, you know, if you fail now," said he encouragingly. "'Never say die,' you know, as an old friend of mine used always to say, 'care once killed a cat!'"

"Why, sir," I exclaimed at this, "that's what my father always tells me.

It's his favourite expression when any difficulty arises. He never gives in, sir!"

"Indeed!" said the fat gentleman, while the others on either side of him looked interested. "Who is your father, my boy, if you'll excuse my asking you the question?"

"Francis Vernon," I answered promptly. "A captain in the Royal Navy, now on half-pay, sir."

The fat clergyman laughed at my laconic reply.

"Vernon, ha!" he repeated after me. "I wonder if he is the Frank Vernon I once knew?"

"Can't say, sir," said I, cautiously. "My mother, though, always calls him 'Frank.'"

My new friend laughed again.

"Ah, I'm sure he is the same, if only from your manner, which is just like what I remember in the Frank Vernon who was in the _Pelican_ with me," said he, looking at me all over with his twinkling round eyes.

"Was your father ever up the Mediterranean with old Charley Napier, my boy?"

"Oh yes, sir," I replied, glib enough now. "It was Admiral Napier who gave me my nomination the other day, sir."

"Really, you don't say so?"

"I do, though, sir," I said st.u.r.dily, thinking he doubted my a.s.sertion.

"Dad and I met him in Pall Mall, and I got my nomination from the Admiralty, sir, the very next morning as he promised!"