The Three Midshipmen - Kingston
Chapter One.
Chapter Two.
Chapter Three.
Chapter Four.
Chapter Five.
Chapter Six.
Chapter Seven.
Chapter Eight.
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
Chapter Eleven.
Chapter Twelve.
Chapter Thirteen.
Chapter Fourteen.
Chapter Fifteen.
Chapter Sixteen.
Chapter Seventeen.
Chapter Eighteen.
Chapter Nineteen.
Chapter Twenty.
Chapter Twenty One.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Chapter Twenty Five.
Chapter Twenty Six.
Chapter Twenty Seven.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
Chapter Twenty Nine.
Chapter Thirty.
Chapter Thirty One.
Chapter Thirty Two.
Chapter Thirty Three.
Chapter Thirty Four.
W.H.G. Kingston
The Three Midshipmen
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Chapter One.
Ours was a capital school, though it was not a public one. It was not far from London, so that a coach could carry us down there in little more than an hour from the White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly. On the top of the posts, at each side of the gates, were two eagles; fine large birds I thought them. They looked out on a green, fringed with tall elms, beyond which was our cricket field. A very magnificent red-brick old house rose behind the eagles, full of windows, belonging to our sleeping-rooms. The playground was at the back of the house, with a grand old tulip tree in the centre, a tectum for rainy weather on one side, and the large schoolroom on the other. Beyond, was a good-sized garden, full of apple and pear trees, but as we very seldom went into it I do not remember its appearance. Perhaps, were I to see the place again, I might find its dimensions somewhat altered. The master was a first-rate schoolmaster. What his attainments were, I cannot say; but he understood managing boys admirably. He kept us all in very good order, had us fairly taught, fed us with wholesome, if not luxurious, food, and though he used his cane freely, treated us justly. We held him in awe, and yet we liked him.
It was after the summer holidays, when I had just got back, I heard that three new boys had come. In the afternoon they all appeared in the playground. They were strangers to each other as well as to us, but their similarity of face drew them together. One was a slightly made, dark, and somewhat delicate-looking boy; another was a sturdy little fellow, with a round, ruddy countenance, and a jovial good-natured expression in it, yet he did not look as if he would stand any nonsense; the third was rather smaller than the other two, a pleasant-looking fellow, and though his eyes were red with crying, he seemed to be cutting some joke which made his companions laugh. He had come all the way from Ireland we heard, and his elder brother had that morning left him and gone back home, and that made him unhappy just then. He at once got the name of Paddy in the school. He did not mind it. His real name was Terence Adair, so sometimes he was called Paddy Adair.
“I say, you fellow, what’s your name?” asked a biggish boy of the stoutest of the three newcomers.
“Jack Rogers,” was the answer, given in a quiet tone.
“I don’t believe it,” replied the big boy, who was known as Bully Pigeon; “it’s such a rum name.”
“I’ll make you believe it, and remember it too,” exclaimed the newcomer, eyeing the other from head to foot, and walking firmly up to him, with his lips closed, while he moved his head slowly from side to side. “I tell you my name is Jack Rogers—now!”
The bully did not say a word. He looked as if he would have liked to have hit, but Paddy Adair had followed his new friend, and was evidently about to join in the fray if it was once begun; so the big boy thought better of it. He would gain no credit for attacking a little fellow the first day of his coming. There were many witnesses of the scene, and Jack was unanimously pronounced to be a plucky little chap. Pigeon, defeated in one direction, turned his attention to the first-named boy, who had scarcely moved since he entered the playground, but kept looking round with his large black eyes on the scene before him, which was evidently strange to his sight.
“What are you called, I should like to know?” he asked in a rude tone.
“Alick Murray,” was the answer, in a quiet gentlemanly voice.
“Then you come from Scotland, I suppose,” said the bully.
“Yes, I do,” replied the former.
“Oh! I wonder your mamma would let you go away from her,” observed the big boy with a sneer.
“My mamma is just dead,” answered Murray in a mild tone, a tear springing to his eye.
“Shame! shame!” shouted the voices of several boys who had come up; among them that of Jack Rogers was the loudest.
Terence said he should like it very much, if he did not go back to Ireland. He had three brothers and a sister, but they were all older than himself. His papa was the Honourable Mr Adair, and he had an uncle, Lord Derrynane. He did not know whether they were rich or not. They lived in a big house, and had a number of servants, and people were constantly coming and going; so he supposed they were. The truth was, as I heard afterwards, they were living a great deal too fast, and Terence had nothing left as his share of his father’s property, except, as he said, his debts. That, however, was no fault of his.
“I say,” observed Jack, “don’t let us leave that poor fellow alone any longer. He seems very low-spirited about his mother. It’s natural, you know; though I don’t like to see a fellow blubbering just because he has hurt himself, or lost a peg-top, or anything of that sort.”
So they went up to Alick Murray, and began talking to him, and Terence said something funny and made him laugh.
“I wonder what games they have here?” asked Jack.
“Coach and horses,” said a biggish fellow, who had just entered the playground with some long strips of leather over his arm and a whip in his hand. “Now, if you three fellows will just be harnessed, you’ll make a very good unicorn.”
They all looked at each other, and as the big boy spoke in a good-natured tone, they agreed to do as he wished. Jack and Alick were harnessed together; Terence insisted on going as unicorn.
“I say, though,” cried Jack, looking back; “what are you called? I always like to know the name of the driver.”
“Ben Trotter, when I am not called Master Benjamin Trotter,” was the answer.
“Not a bad name for a coachman,” observed Jack, beginning to prance and kick about. He got a cut with the whip in return for his remark. Terence reared and neighed, and kicked about furiously all the time, like a high-mettled steed who wanted to be off; and at last, Trotter having got the ribbons adjusted to his satisfaction, away they all went round the playground at a great rate, looking with great disdain on those boys who had only got string for harness. Thus were the three newcomers first yoked in fellowship. They were very much together ever afterwards, though they also had their own especial friends. Murray and Rogers were the most constant to each other. Murray was a studious, gentle boy. He had more talent than Jack; that is to say, he did his lessons a great deal better, and never got into any scrapes. Jack never picked a quarrel, but he now and then got into one, and was apt in his lessons to give a false quantity, and sometimes a translation of his Caesar, which put him down to the bottom of the class. Murray was always ready and able to help him, but Jack was not a fellow who would consent to trust to the help of another. When he really tried, he could always do his work, and very creditably too. Adair, unlike his friends, was nearly always getting into trouble. He would not think enough about consequences. Once he and others had been letting off fireworks of their own manufacture in a remote corner of the playground. Notice was given that an usher was coming. They threw away their combustibles and fled. Terence, however, had a piece of lighted touchpaper, which in his hurry he shoved into his pocket. It was already full of a similar preparation. He was caught and hauled away into the schoolroom to receive condign punishment. He tried to look very innocent, and requested to know why he was dragged along so unceremoniously. Paddy under no circumstances ever lost his politeness. Unhappily for him, just as he reached the door the proofs of his guilt became apparent. Streams of smoke and sparks burst out of his pockets, and the master had to pull out the burning paper to prevent him from being seriously injured. As to his lessons, he very frequently was at the top of his class, but he never could manage to keep there many days together. For some neglect or other, he soon again lost his place. Still he was a general favourite. Even the masters could not help liking him.
Time sped on, we were getting up in the school, new boys were coming and old ones were going away, when the first night, after our return from the Christmas holidays, we all lay awake talking of our adventures.
“This is my last half,” said Jack; “I’ve made up my mind to be a sailor, and my father says I may: and an admiral, a friend of ours, has promised to get me a ship; and so it’s all settled, and I’m going.”
“Are you, old fellow? how capital!” exclaimed Terence; “I’ve been asked if I would go to sea, and I said yes; for there’s nothing else I want to do that I know of, but I little thought you would be going too. Well, that is good, and clenches the matter.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” cried Murray; “it is what I have been longing to do for years past, almost since I could read. The only profession I felt that I should ever like was the navy, but I never saw a chance till these holidays of being able to get into it. I believe it is settled; I shall know shortly, I hope.”
“What, are we all three going? how capital! What fun we will have,” cried Jack. “Of course they’ll let you. Oh, hang it, you must go with us.” Murray seldom talked much of what he wished to do, or expressed his feelings, except perhaps to a trusted friend like Jack; but of the three companions he had probably the strongest will, and when he had set his mind on an object no one could exert himself more resolutely to accomplish it. He wrote and wrote to his friends, expressing his wish in as strong terms as he could, giving many excellent reasons for having formed it. Before many weeks had passed Murray received a letter. The contents would have made Jack and Terence throw up their caps and shout had they under similar circumstances received it. He felt a choking sensation, and the tears sprung to his eyes.
All his long-cherished hopes were about to be accomplished. He had the promise from the First Lord of the Admiralty of an appointment speedily to a ship. The half came to an end, the school broke up, and the boys separated with all animosities and quarrels sunk in oblivion; and in the belief that they should meet each other again soon, if not at school, somewhere or other. Jack went home, and was then sent, by the advice of his naval friend, to an academy at Portsmouth where young gentlemen were prepared for the navy. Jack wanted to become a real sailor, so he set to work manfully to stow away all the navigation he could pick up. He soon also made himself known and respected among his companions much in the same way that he had done at his old school. At last he heard that he was appointed to a ship, but that he was to go home before joining to take leave. He was first to go to Selby the tailor to get measured for his outfit.
“You’ll like to have your uniform at once, sir,” observed Mr Selby; “most young gentlemen do.” Jack thought it would be very nice, as his best clothes were already shabby; so in an incredibly short space of time he found himself exactly fitted in his naval habiliments with a dirk by his side, and a gold lace cap. He did not like to wear them in the street, “lest he should appear conspicuous,” he observed to a schoolfellow, so he did not put them on till he was ready to start in the morning by the coach up to London. He had got leave to go down to Eagle House to visit his former master and old schoolfellows, and how grand he looked as he walked up and down the playground handling his dirk. Even Pigeon felt a great respect for him, and looked on him with somewhat of an eye of envy and thought he should like to go into the navy. Had he gone, he would have had to learn many a lesson, or would very soon have been kicked out of it again. Jack dined at the master’s table at one end of the long dining-room, and good Mrs Jones looked at him very proudly, for she had always thought him one of her best boys; and many an eye gazed wistfully at his anchor buttons and dirk, and smiling jovial countenance, as he laughed and chatted with wonderful ease with old Rowley, as if he was not a bit afraid of him; and some idle fellows envied him his emancipation from Virgil and Horace and other classical authors for whom they had so little affection themselves. Then he had to jump up and hurry off to catch the coach, in order to reach the mail which was to carry him down that night to Northamptonshire. Jack could obtain no certain information about Murray and Adair, but old Rowley told him he understood they had already been sent to sea. Jack spent three very jolly days at home. He had a big trunk filled with all sorts of things which he was to stow away in his chest. Then the moment came for parting; the family were not much addicted to crying, not that they did not love each other very much. Jack’s little sister Lucy cried the most. He promised to write to her, and she promised to write to him and tell him about everybody and everything, and the horses and dogs, and something very like a tear came into his eyes, and a difficulty of speaking to which he was not accustomed as he gave her his last kiss. Just then Admiral Triton, Jack’s naval friend, drove up to the door, and by a mighty effort all traces of his feelings were banished, not that the Admiral would have thought the worse of him a bit on account of them. The Admiral was of the old school. He had one leg, the other being supplied by what looked remarkably like a mop stick. His appearance was somewhat rough, especially when he went out in rainy weather, and his countenance was not a little battered; but his heart was as tender and almost as simple as Jack’s or even Lucy’s for that matter. He had insisted on taking Jack to Portsmouth and seeing him on board. “It will be an advantage to the youngster perhaps, and, besides, it will freshen me up a bit myself,” he observed to Jack’s father; “so say no more about it, neighbour Rogers.”
On their arrival at Portsmouth they went to the George, and the Admiral then took Jack to try on the rest of his kit.
Leaving Jack with the tailor, who was really a very trustworthy man, Admiral Triton stumped down to the Common Hard to have a look about him, as he said. While he was standing there, with his hands in his old pea-coat pocket gazing out on the harbour, and thinking of bygone days and many an event of his youth connected with that place, a man-of-war’s boat ran in among the wherries, and a youngster sprung out of her, a small portmanteau being afterwards handed to him.
