When I saw the men shaking hands
with each other, I ran about, and, putting out my tiny fist, shook their
hands also, exclaiming, `We've licked the mounseers, haven't we? I knew
we would. Hoora! Hoora!' This amused the men greatly, and they called
me a plucky little chap, though I certainly could not boast of having
contributed to gain the victory, as I was considerably too young to act
the part even of a powder-monkey. We had lost a good many officers and
men, some of whom I saw stretched on the deck, and wondered what had
come over them, as they did not move or speak. As long as the
`Victorious' remained in commission, I continued with my father and
mother aboard her; but when she was paid off, an order came out,
prohibiting women from going to sea on board men-of-war, and mother,
greatly to her grief, had to live on shore. It was now a question
whether I should accompany my father or stay with my mother and get some
book-learning, of which I was as yet utterly ignorant, as I did not even
know my letters. I was scarcely old enough to be rated as a ship's boy,
though father would have liked to take me with him, but mother said she
could not lose us both, and, fortunately for me, father consented to
leave me with her. As the `Victorious' was paid off at Plymouth, mother
remained there, and father soon afterwards got his warrant as boatswain
to the `Emerald' sloop-of-war, ordered out on the West India station.
This was the first time I had been on shore, except for a few days when
the `Goliath' was paid off, during the whole of my life, and I did not
find it very easy to get accustomed to the ways of shore-going people.
At first I did not at all like them. There was no order or regularity,
and I missed more than anything the sound of the bell striking the hours
and half-hours day and night. However, I got accustomed to things by
degrees. I was sent to school, where I gained a good character for
regularity and obedience, just because I had been trained to it, do ye
see. I couldn't bear not to be there at the exact time, and I never
thought of disobeying the orders of these under whose authority I was
placed. I also was diligent, and thus made good progress in my studies.
I might have become a scholar had I remained at school, but after I had
been there about two years, when I got home one day I found mother
leaning back in her chair, in a fit, it seemed to me, and the parson of
the parish, who had a letter in