s to go back to school, while we were all at breakfast, he got a
long official-looking letter. No sooner had he torn it open and glanced
at its contents, than he jumped up and shook papa by the hand, then
kissed mamma, exclaiming, "They do acknowledge my services, and in a
handsome way too, and they have appointed me to the Juno intended for
the South American station; the very ship I should have chosen! I must
have Pringle with me. No nonsense, Mary. He wants to be a sailor, and
a sailor he shall be. He's well fitted for it. I'll have no denial.
It's settled--that's all right." (I had been telling him the day before
how much I wanted to go to sea.) He carried his point, and set all the
household preparing my kit, and then posted off for London, and rattled
down to Portsmouth to hoist his flag. He is not a man to do things by
halves. In three days I followed him. The ship was nearly ready for
sea. Most of the officers had joined. There was only one vacancy,
which I got. Another captain had been appointed, who had been
superseded, and he had selected most of the officers. Many of my
messmates are good fellows, but of others the less said about them the
better, at least as far as I could judge from the way they behaved when
I first went into the berth. We carry thirty-six guns. There is the
main deck, on which most of them are placed, and the upper deck, which
is open to the sky, and where all the ropes lead, and where some guns
are, and the lower deck, where we sleep in hammocks slung to the beams,
and where our berth is; that is the place where we live--our
drawing-room, and parlour, and study, and anything else you please.
There is a table in the centre, and lockers all round, and if you want
to move about you have to get behind the other fellows' backs or over
the table. Under it are cases and hampers of all sorts, which the
caterer has not unpacked. He is an old mate, and keeps us all in order.
His name is Gregson. I don't know whether I shall like him. He has
been a great many years a midshipman; for a mate is only a passed
midshipman who wants to be a lieutenant, but can't. He has no
interest--nobody to help him on--so there he is growling and grumbling
from morning to night, declaring that he'll cut the service, and go and
join the Russians, and make his country rue the day; but he doesn't, and
I believe he wouldn't, if they would make him an admiral and a count
off-hand. My chief friend they