Before morning came Will had thought the matter over in every light, and concluded that he could not do better than join the navy for a few years. Putting all other things aside, it was a life of adventure, and adventure is always tempting to boys. It really did not seem to him that, if he entered the merchant service at once, he would be any better off than he would be if he had a preliminary training in the royal navy. He knew that the man-of-war training would make him a smarter sailor, and he hoped that he would find time enough on board ship to continue his work, so that afterwards he might be able to pass as a mate in the merchant service.
Tom Stevens came round in the morning.
“I have quite made up my mind to go with you if you will let me,” he said.
“I will let you readily enough, Tom, but I must warn you that you will not have such a good look-out as I shall. You know, I have learnt a good deal, and if the first cruise lasts for five years I have no doubt that at the end of it I shall be able to pass as a mate in the merchant service, and I am afraid you will have very little chance of doing so.”
“I can’t help that,” Tom said. “I know that I am not like you, and I haven’t learnt things, and I don’t suppose that if I had had anyone to help me it would have made any difference. I know I shall never rise much above a sailor before the mast. If you leave the service and go into a merchantman I will go there with you. It does not matter to me where I am. I felt so before, and of course I feel it all the more now that you have saved my life. I am quite sure you will get on in the world, Will, and sha’n’t grudge you your success a bit, however high you rise, for I know how hard you have worked, and how well you deserve it. Besides, even if I had had the pains bestowed upon me, and had worked ever so hard myself, I should never have been a bit like you. You seem different from us somehow. I don’t know how it is, but you are smarter and quicker and more active. I expect some day you will find out something about your father, and then probably we shall be able to understand the difference between us. At any rate I am quite prepared to see you rise, and I shall be well content if you will always allow me to remain your friend.”
Will gratified the sub-officer later by telling him that he had made up his mind to ship on board one of the king’s vessels, and that his friend and chum, Tom Stevens, had made up his mind to go with him.
The coxswain looked Tom up and down.
“You have the makings of a fine strong man,” he said, “and ought to turn out a good sailor. The training you have had in the fishing-boats will be all in your favour. Well, I will let you know when the lieutenant makes his rounds. I am sure there will be no difficulty in shipping you. Boys ain’t what they were when I was young. Then we thought it an honour to be shipped on board a man-of-war, now most of them seem to me mollycoddled, and we have difficulty in getting enough boys for the ships. You see, we are not allowed to press boys, but only able-bodied men; so the youngsters can laugh in our faces. Most of the crimps get one or two of them to watch the sailors as the boys of the village watch our men, and give notice when they are going to make a raid. I don’t think, therefore, that there is any fear of your being refused, especially when I say that one of you has got into great trouble from refusing to aid in throwing us off the scent when a lugger is due. If for no other reason he owes you a debt for that.”
Three days passed. Will still remained at the coast-guard station, and men still hovered near. Tom came over once and said that it had been decided among a number of the fishermen that no great harm should be done to Will when they got him, but that he should be thrashed within an inch of his life. On the third day the coxswain said to Will:
“I have a message this morning from the lieutenant, that he will be here by eleven o’clock. If you will write a line to your friend I will send it over by one of the men.”
Tom arrived breathless two minutes before the officer.
“My eye, I have had a run of it,” he said. “The man brought me the letter just as I was going to start in the boat with my uncle. I pretended to have left something behind me and ran back to the cottage, he swearing after me all the way for my stupidity. I ran into the house, and then got out of the window behind, and started for the moors, taking good care to keep the house in a line between him and me. My, what a mad rage he will be in when I don’t come back, and he goes up and finds that I have disappeared! I stopped a minute to take a clean shirt and my Sunday clothes. I expect, when he sees I am not in the cottage, he will look round, and he will discover that they have gone from their pegs, and guess that I have made a bolt of it. He won’t guess, however, that I have come here, but will think I have gone across the moors. He knows very well how hard he has made my life; still, that won’t console him for losing me, just as I am getting really useful in the boat.”
The lieutenant landed from his cutter at the foot of the path leading up to the station. The sub-officer received him at the top, and after a few words they walked up to the station together.
“Who are these two boys?” he asked as he came up to them.
“Two lads who wish to enter the navy, sir.”
“Umph! runaways, I suppose?”
“Not exactly, sir. Both of them are fatherless. That one has received a fair education from the daughter of the clergyman of the village, who took a great fancy to him. He has for some years now been assisting in one of the fishing-boats and, as he acknowledges, in the spying upon our men, as practically everyone else in the village does. When, however, Miss Warden told him that smuggling was very wrong, he openly announced his intention of having nothing more to do with it. This has had the effect of making the ignorant villagers think that he must have taken bribes from us to keep us informed of what was going on. In consequence he has suffered severe persecution and has been sent to Coventry. After the fight we had with them the other day they appear to think that there could be no further doubt of his being concerned in the matter, and four men set out after him to take his life. He fled here as his nearest possible refuge, and if you will look over there you will see two men on the watch for him. He had made up his mind to ship as an apprentice on a merchantman, but I have talked the matter over with him, and he has now decided to join a man-of-war.”
“A very good choice,” the officer said. “I suppose you can read and write, lad?”
“Yes, sir,” Will said, suppressing a smile.
“Know a bit more, perhaps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you are civil and well behaved, you will get on. And who is the other one?”
“He is Gilmore’s special chum, sir. He has a brute of an uncle who is always knocking him about, and he wants to go to sea with his friend.”
“Well, they are two likely youngsters. The second is more heavily built than the other, but there is no doubt as to which is the more intelligent. I will test them at once, and then take them off with me in the cutter and hand them over to the tender at Whitby. Now send four men and catch those two fellows and bring them in here. I will give them a sharp lesson against ill-treating a lad who refuses to join them in their rascally work.”
A minute later four of the men strolled off by the cliffs, two in each direction. When they had got out of sight of the watchers, they struck inland, and, making a detour, came down behind them. The fishermen did not take the alarm until it was too late. They started to run, but the sailors were more active and quick-footed, and, presently capturing them, brought them back to the coast-guard station.
“So my men,” the lieutenant said sternly, “you have been threatening to ill-treat one of His Majesty’s subjects for refusing to join you in your attempts to cheat the revenue? I might send you off to a magistrate for trial, in which case you would certainly get three months’ imprisonment. I prefer, however, settling such matters myself. Strip them to the waist, lads.”
The orders were executed in spite of the men’s struggles and execrations.
“Now tie them up to the flag-post and give them a dozen heartily.”
As the men were all indignant at the treatment that had been given to Will they laid the lash on heavily, and the execrations that followed the first few blows speedily subsided into shrieks for mercy, followed at last by low moaning.
When both had received their punishment, the lieutenant said: “Now you can put on your clothes again and carry the news of what you have had to your village, and tell your friends that I wish I had had every man concerned in the matter before me. If I had I would have dealt out the same punishment to all. Now, lads, I shall be leaving in an hour’s time; if you like to send back to the village for your clothes, one of the men will take the message.”
Tom already had all his scanty belongings, but Will was glad to send a note to John Hammond, briefly stating his reasons for leaving, and thanking him for his kindness in the past, and asking him to send his clothes to him by the bearer. An hour and a half later they embarked in the lieutenant’s gig and were rowed off to the revenue cutter lying a quarter of a mile away. Here they were put under the charge of the boatswain.
“They have shipped for the service, Thompson,” the lieutenant said. “I think they are good lads. Make them as comfortable as you can.”
“So you have shipped, have you?” the boatswain said as he led them forward. “Well, you are plucky young cockerels. It ain’t exactly a bed of roses, you will find, at first, but if you can always keep your temper and return a civil answer to a question you will soon get on all right. You will have more trouble with the other boys than with the men, and will have a battle or two to fight.”
“We sha’n’t mind that,” Will said; “we have had to deal with some tough ones already in our own village, and have proved that we are better than most of our own age. At any rate we won’t be licked easily, even if they are a bit bigger and stronger than ourselves, and after all a licking doesn’t go for much anyway. What ship do you think they will send us to, sir?”
“Ah, that is a good deal more than I can say! There is a cutter that acts as a receiving-ship at Whitby, and you will be sent off from it as opportunity offers and the ships of war want hands. Like enough you will go off with a batch down to the south in a fortnight or so, and will be put on board some ship being commissioned at Portsmouth or Devonport. A large cutter comes round the coast once a month, to pick up the hands from the various receiving-ships, and as often as not she goes back with a hundred. And a rum lot you will think them. There are jail-birds who have had the offer of release on condition that they enter the navy; there are farm-labourers who don’t know one end of a boat from the other; there are drunkards who have been sold by the crimps when their money has run out; but, Lord bless you, it don’t make much difference what they are, they are all knocked into shape before they have been three months on board. I think, however, you will have a better time than this. Our lieutenant is a kind-hearted man, though he is strict enough in the way of business, and I have no doubt he will say a good word for you to the commander of the tender, which, as he is the senior officer, will go a long way.”
The two boys were soon on good terms with the crew, who divined at once that they were lads of mettle, and were specially attracted to Will on account of the persecution he had suffered by refusing to act as the smugglers’ watcher, and also when they heard from Tom how he had saved his life.
“You will do,” was the verdict of an old sailor. “I can see that you have both got the right stuff in you. When one fellow saves another’s life, and that fellow runs away and ships in order to be near his friend, you may be sure that there is plenty of good stuff in them, and that they will turn out a credit to His Majesty’s service.”
They were a week on board before the cutter finished her trip at Whitby. Both boys had done their best to acquire knowledge, and had learnt the names of the ropes and their uses by the time they got to port.
“You need not go on board the depot ship until to-morrow,” the lieutenant said. “I will go across with you myself. I have had my eye upon you ever since you came on board, and I have seen that you have been trying hard to learn, and have always been ready to give a pull on a rope when necessary. I have no fear of your getting on. It is a pity we don’t get more lads of your type in the navy.”
On the following morning the lieutenant took them on board the depot and put them under the charge of the boatswain. “You will have to mix with a roughish crew here,” the latter said, “but everything will go smoothly enough when you once join your ship. You had better hand over your kits to me to keep for you, otherwise there won’t be much left at the end of the first night; and if you like I will let you stow yourselves away at night in the bitts forward. It is not cold, and I will throw a bit of old sail-cloth over you; you will be better there than down with the others, where the air is almost thick enough to cut.”
“Thank you very much, sir; we should prefer that. We have both been accustomed to sleep at night in the bottom of an open boat, so it will come natural enough to us. Are there any more boys on board?”
“No, you are the only ones. We get more boys down in the west, but up here very few ship.”
They went below together. “Dimchurch,” the boatswain said to a tall sailor-like man, “these boys have just joined. I wish you would keep an eye on them, and prevent anyone from bullying them. I know that you are a pressed man, and that we have no right to expect anything of you until you have joined your ship, but I can see that for all that you are a true British sailor, and I trust to you to look after these boys.”
“All right, mate!” the sailor said. “I will take the nippers under my charge, and see that no one meddles with them. I know what I had to go through when I first went to sea, and am glad enough to do a good turn to any youngsters joining.”
“Thank you! Then I will leave them now in your charge.”
“This is your first voyage, I suppose,” the sailor said as he sat down on the table and looked at the boys. “I see by your togs that you have been fishing.”
“Yes, we both had seven or eight years of it, though of course we were of no real use till the last five.”
“You don’t speak like a fisherman’s boy either,” the man said.
“No. A lady interested herself in me and got me to work all my spare time at books.”
“Well, they will be of no use to you at present, but they may come in handy some day to get you a rating. I never learnt to read or write myself or I should have been mate long ago. This is my first voyage in a ship of war. Hitherto I have always escaped being pressed when I was ashore, but now they have caught me I don’t mind having a try at it. I believe, from all I hear, that the grub and treatment are better than aboard most merchantmen, and the work nothing like so hard. Of course the great drawback is the cat, but I expect that a well-behaved man doesn’t often feel it.”
The others had looked on curiously when the lads first came down, but they soon turned away indifferently and took up their former pursuits. Some were playing cards, others lying about half-asleep. Two or three who were fortunate enough to be possessed of tobacco were smoking. In all there were some forty men. When the evening meal was served out the sailor placed one of the boys on each side of him, and saw that they got their share.
“I must find a place for you to sleep,” he said when they had finished.
“The officer who brought us down has given us permission to sleep on deck near the bitts.”
“Ah, yes, that is quite in the bows of the ship! You will do very well there, much better than you would down here. I will go up on deck and show you the place. How is it that he is looking specially after you?”
“I believe Lieutenant Jones of the Antelope was good enough to speak to the officer in command of this craft in our favour.”
“How did you make him your friend?”
Will told briefly the story of his troubles with the smugglers. The sailor laughed.
“Well,” he said, “you must be a pretty plucky one to fly in the face of a smuggling village in that way. You must have known what the consequence would be, and it is not every boy, nor every man either, if it comes to that, that would venture to do as you did.”
“It did not seem to me that I had any choice when I once found out that it was wrong.”
The sailor laughed again. “Well, you know, it is not what you could call a crime, though it is against the law of the land, but everyone does a bit of smuggling when they get the chance. Lord bless you! I have come home from abroad when there was not one of the passengers and crew who did not have a bit of something hidden about him or his luggage—brandy, ’baccy, French wines, or knick-knacks of some sort. Pretty nigh half of them got found out and fined, but the value of the things got ashore was six or eight times as much as what was collared.”
“Still it was not right,” Will persisted.
“Oh, no! it was not right,” the sailor said carelessly, “but everyone took his chance. It is a sort of game, you see, between the passengers and crew on one side and the custom-house officers on the other. It was enough to make one laugh to see the passengers land. Women who had been as thin as whistles came out as stout matrons, owing to the yards and yards of laces and silk they had wound round them. All sorts of odd places were choke-full of tobacco; there were cases that looked like baggage, but really had a tin lining, which was full of brandy. It was a rare game for those who got through, I can tell you, though I own it was not so pleasant for those who got caught and had their contraband goods confiscated, besides having to pay five times the proper duty. As a rule the men took it quietly enough, they had played the game and lost; but as for the women, they were just raging tigers.
“For myself, I laughed fit to split. If I lost anything it was a pound or two of tobacco which I was taking home for my old father, and I felt that things might have been a deal worse if they had searched the legs of my trousers, where I had a couple of bladders filled with good brandy. You see, young ’un, though everyone knows that it is against the law, no one thinks it a crime. It is a game you play; if you lose you pay handsomely, but if you win you get off scot-free. I think the lady who told you it was wrong did you a very bad service, for if she lived near that village she must have known that you would get into no end of trouble if you were to say you would have nothing more to do with it. And how is it”—turning to Tom—“that you came to go with him? You did not take it into your head that smuggling was wrong too?”
“I never thought of it,” Tom said, “and if I had been told so should only have answered that what was good enough for others was good enough for me. I came because Will came. We had always been great friends, and more than once joined to thrash a big fellow who put upon us. But the principal thing was that a little while ago he saved me from drowning. There was a deep cut running up to the foot of the cliffs. One day I was running past there, when I slipped, and in falling hurt my leg badly. I am only just beginning to use it a bit now. The pain was so great that I did not know what I was doing; I rolled off the rock into the water. My knee was so bad that I could not swim, and the rock was too high for me to crawl out. I had been there for some time, and was beginning to get weak, when Will came along on the top of the cliff and saw me. He shouted to me to hold on till he could get down to me. Then he ran half a mile to a place where he was able to climb down, and tore back again along the shore till he reached the cut, and then jumped in and swam to me. There was no getting out on either side, so he swam with me to the end of the cut and landed me there. I was by that time pretty nigh insensible, but he half-helped and half-carried me till we got to the point of the cliff where he had come down. Then he left me and ran off to the village to get help. So you will understand now why I should wish to stick to him.”
“I should think so,” the sailor said warmly. “It was a fine thing to do, and I would be glad to do it myself. Stick to him, lad, as long as he will let you. I fancy, from the way he speaks and his manner, that he will mount up above you, but never you mind that.”
“I won’t, as long as I can keep by him, and I hope that soon I may have a chance of returning him the service he has done me. He knows well enough that if I could I would give my life for him willingly.”
“I think,” the sailor said to Will seriously, “you are a fortunate fellow to have made a friend like that. A good chum is the next best thing to a good wife. In fact, I don’t know if it is not a bit better. Ah, here comes the boatswain with a bit of sail-cloth, so you had better lie down at once. We shall most of us turn in soon down below, for there is nothing to pass the time, and I for one shall be very glad when the cutter comes for us.”
The boys chatted for some time under cover of the sail-cloth. They agreed that things were much better than they could have expected. The protection of the boatswain was a great thing, but that of their sailor friend was better. They hoped that he would be told off to the ship in which they went, for they felt sure that he would be a valuable friend to them. The life on board the cutter, too, had been pleasant, and altogether they congratulated themselves on the course they had taken.
“I have no doubt we shall like it very much when we are once settled. They look a rough lot down below, and that sentry standing with a loaded musket at the gangway shows pretty well what sort of men they are. I am not surprised that the pressed men should try to get away, but I have no pity for the drunken fellows who joined when they had spent their last shilling. Our fishermen go on a spree sometimes, but not often, and when they do, they quarrel and fight a bit, but they always go to work the next morning.”
“That is a different thing altogether, for I heard that in the towns men will spend every penny they have, give up work altogether, and become idle, lazy loafers.”
Two days later, to the great satisfaction of the boys, a large cutter flying the white ensign was seen approaching the harbour. No doubt was entertained that she was the receiving-ship. This was confirmed when the officer in charge of the depot-ship was rowed to the new arrival as soon as the anchor was dropped. A quarter of an hour later he returned, and it became known that the new hands were to be taken to Portsmouth. The next morning two boats rowed alongside. Will could not but admire the neat and natty appearance of the crew, which formed a somewhat striking contrast to the slovenly appearance of the gang on the depot-ship. A list of the new men was handed over to the officer in charge, and these were at once transferred to the big cutter.
Here everything was exquisitely clean and neat. The new-comers were at once supplied with uniforms, and told off as supernumeraries to each watch. Will and Tom received no special orders, and were informed that they were to make themselves generally useful. Beyond having to carry an occasional message from one or other of the midshipmen, or boatswain, their duties were of the lightest kind. They helped at the distribution of the messes, the washing of the decks, the paring of the potatoes for dinner, and other odd jobs. When not wanted they could do as they pleased, and Will employed every spare moment in gaining what information he could from his friend Dimchurch, or from any sailor he saw disengaged and wearing a look that invited interrogation.
“You seem to want to know a lot all at once, youngster,” one said.
“I have got to learn it sooner or later,” Will replied, “and it is just as well to learn as much as I can while I have time on my hands. I expect I shall get plenty to do when I join a ship at Portsmouth. May I go up the rigging?”
“That you may not. You don’t suppose that His Majesty’s ships are intended to look like trees with rooks perched all over them? You will be taught all that in due time. There is plenty to learn on deck, and when you know all that, it will be time enough to think of going aloft. You don’t want to become a Blake or a Benbow all at once, do you?”
“No,” Will laughed, “it will be time to think of that in another twenty years.”
The sailor broke into a roar of laughter.
“Well, there is nothing like flying high, young ’un; but there is no reason why in time you should not get to be captain of the fore-top or coxswain of the captain’s gig. I suppose either of these would content you?”
“I suppose it ought,” Will said with a merry laugh. “At any rate it will be time to think of higher posts when I have gained one of these.”
The voyage to Portsmouth was uneventful. They stopped at several receiving-stations on their way down, and before they reached their destination they had gathered a hundred and twenty men. Will and Tom were astonished at the bustle and activity of the port. Frigates 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 the Furious, 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 the Furious 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 to answer, but finished his dinner in silence, his anger being all the more acute from the fact that he saw that some of the other boys were tittering and nudging each other. But he resolved that, though it might be prudent for the present to postpone any encounter with the boys, he would take his revenge on the first opportunity.
