swain.

"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