On the following morning the lieutenant took them on board the depot and put them under the charge of the boatswain. “You will have to mix with a roughish crew here,” the latter said, “but everything will go smoothly enough when you once join your ship. You had better hand over your kits to me to keep for you, otherwise there won’t be much left at the end of the first night; and if you like I will let you stow yourselves away at night in the bitts forward. It is not cold, and I will throw a bit of old sail-cloth over you; you will be better there than down with the others, where the air is almost thick enough to cut.” “Thank you very much, sir; we should prefer that. We have both been accustomed to sleep at night in the bottom of an open boat, so it will come natural enough to us. Are there any more boys on board?” “No, you are the only ones. We get more boys down in the west, but up here very few ship.” They went below together. “Dimchurch,” the boatswain said to a tall sailor-like man, “these boys have just joined. I wish you would keep an eye on them, and prevent anyone from bullying them. I know that you are a pressed man, and that we have no right to expect anything of you until you have joined your ship, but I can see that for all that you are a true British sailor, and I trust to you to look after these boys.” “All right, mate!” the sailor said. “I will take the nippers under my charge, and see that no one meddles with them. I know what I had to go through when I first went to sea, and am glad enough to do a good turn to any youngsters joining.” “Thank you! Then I will leave them now in your charge.” “This is your first voyage, I suppose,” the sailor said as he sat down on the table and looked at the boys. “I see by your togs that you have been fishing.” “Yes, we both had seven or eight years of it, though of course we were of no real use till the last five.” “You don’t speak like a fisherman’s boy either,” the man said. “No. A lady interested herself in me and got me to work all my spare time at books.” “Well, they will be of no use to you at present, but they may come in handy some day to get you a rating. I never learnt to read or write myself or I should have been mate long ago. This is my first voyage in a ship of war. Hitherto I have always escaped being pressed when I was ashore, but now they have caught me I don’t mind having a try at it. I believe, from all I hear, that the grub and treatment are better than aboard most merchantmen, and the work nothing like so hard. Of course the great drawback is the cat, but I expect that a well-behaved man doesn’t often feel it.”