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They had well employed the time spent in waiting, by carefully muffling the oars, so that they should make no noise as they worked in the rullocks, and it was now only necessary to take care to let the blades fall into the water, and to draw them out again with as little splash as possible.
"Most of us have our troubles, father," I replied to this bit of moral philosophy of his, speaking just in his own manner. "So our old parson said on Sunday last, when mother and Jenny and I went to church. We are all bound to have them, he said, whether on sea or on land; and I can't say as how a sailor has the worst chance." "Ship my rullocks, Tom, can't ye? Jest you look at me!" "Why, father?"
"Ship my rullocks!" cried father, jumping up from his seat and making for the scullery door, with mother and Jenny after him. "It's that dratted old tom-cat of Bill Squeers come prowling arter the birds again, I knows. I've sworn I'll pison him some day; and, by the Lord, too, I will, if he's bin and gone and meddled with `Ally Sloper'!"
"You won't mind an old seaman, sir, 'gratulatin' you, sir, on getting your step so young? Ship my rullocks, why, it do seem but t'other day when you were a mite of a middy along o' me!" "Time flies, my man; and if youth were the only bar to our promotion we'd soon be all admirals of the fleet," said the other, laughing again.
I do not censure your listening with pleasure, but merely tell you to remember the proper reserve of your years and character. Hist! there are the sounds of his barge's oars." Mildred listened, and the measured but sudden jerk of oars in the rullocks, ascended on the still night-air, as distinctly as they might have been heard in the boat.
How the frail bark creaks and groans as we ply the long oars in the rullocks how the ash bends in our sturdy grasp how the boat springs beneath their impulse. "Together, boys! together! now now we gain now, Garry, lay your oar aside up with your musket now you are near enough give it to him, in heaven's name! a good shot, too! the bullet ricocheted from the lake scarcely six inches from his nose!
Tom had bowed his head nearly to the water, in the act of listening, and now raising himself, he spoke with confidence: "That is the Tiger; I know the stroke of her crew as well as I do of my own. Mr. Merry has made them learn the new-fashioned jerk, as they dip their blades, and they feather with such a roll in their rullocks! I could swear to the stroke."
"But I can't say as how I can place your honour; though, ship my rullocks, if it ain't young Mister Mordaunt; `Gentleman Jack' we used to call you on the lower deck aboard the old Blazer beg pardon for taking the liberty, sir!"
That is to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, and to muffle the rullocks of the boats, and to make everything as trim and swift and silent as it could be made.
"Ship my rullocks, you young rascal! Don't you sit there grinning and winking at me, like a Cheshire cat eatin' green cheese, thinkin' no doubt you've got to win'ard of me; though, I'm blest, sonny, if I didn't nearly slip my painter then!"
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