"Sure, yer honour, ye're the bhoy to make 'em show a leg when ye wants to, an' no misthake at all, at all!" "Aye, and I want them now," rejoined the other with emphasis.

"We have got no time to lose; for, the tide is making fast, and the tug has been outside the lock-gates waiting for the last half-hour or more to take us in tow as soon as we get out in the stream.

Below there--look alive and tumble up before I come down after you!" In obedience to this last hail of Mr Mackay, which had a sharp authoritative ring about it, a short, podgy little man with a fat neck and red whiskers, who, as I presently learned, was Mr Saunders, the second mate, came up the companion way; and as I perceived him to be wiping his mouth as he stepped over the coaming of the hatchway, this showed that the boatswain's surmise of his being engaged "grubbing" with the others was not far wrong.
Mr Saunders was followed up from below by a couple of sturdy youths, who appeared to be between eighteen and nineteen or thereabout; and, behind them again, the last of the file, slowly stepped out on to the deck a lanky boy of about the same age as myself--which I forgot to mention before was just fifteen, although I looked older from my build and height.
"You're a nice lot of lazy fellows to leave in charge of the work of the ship!" cried Mr Mackay on the three presenting themselves before him, slowly mounting the companion stairs, one after the other, as if the exertion was almost too great for them, poor fellows, after their dinner! "Here, you Matthews, look sharp and stir your stumps a bit--one would think you were walking in your sleep.

I want you to see to that spring forwards as we unmoor!" The boatswain had already descended from the poop and gone to his station in the fore part of the ship; and now, with the first mate's words, all was stir and action on board.
The tallest of the two youths immediately dashed off towards the bows of the ship with an alacrity that proved his slow movements previously had been merely put on for effect, and were not due to any constitutional weakness; for, he seemed to reach the forecastle in two bounds, and I could see him, from a coign of vantage to which he nimbly mounted on top of the knightheads, giving orders to a number of men on the wharf, who had gathered about the ship in the meantime, and directing them to pass along the end of the fore hawser round a bollard on the jetty, near the end of the lock-gates by which entrance was gained from the adjacent river to the basin in which the vessel was lying.
Tom Jerrold, the second youth--I heard him called by that name--was sent to look after another hawser passed over the bows of the ship on the starboard side, the end of the rope being bent round a capstan in the centre of the wharf.
Then, on Mr Mackay's word of command, the great wire cables mooring the ship to the jetty were cast off; and, a gang of the dock labourers manning the capstan, with their broad chests and sinewy arms pressed against the bars, as they marched round it singing some monotonous chorus ending in a "Yo, heave, ho!" the ship began to move--at first slowly inch by inch, and then with increased way upon her as the _vis inertiae_ of her hull was overcome--towards the lock at the mouth of the basin, the gates of which had been opened, or rather the caisson floated out shortly before, as the tide grew to the flood.
Dear me! What with the constant and varied orders to the gang of men working the capstan, and the others easing off the hawser that had been passed round the bollard, keeping a purchase on it and hauling in the slack as the vessel crept along out of the dock so as to prevent her "taking charge" and slewing round broadside on at the entrance where she met the full force of the stream, I was well-nigh deafened with the hoarse shouts and unintelligible cries that filled the air on all sides, everybody apparently having something to say, and all calling out at once.
"Bear a hand with that spring!" Mr Mackay would roar out one instant in a voice that quite eclipsed that of Tim Rooney, loud as I thought that on first going on board.

"Easy there!" screamed Matthews from his perch forwards, not to be outdone; while the boatswain was singing out for a "fender" to guard the ship's bows from scrunching against the dock wall, and Tom Jerrold overseeing the men at the bollard on the wharf calling out to them to "belay!" as her head swung a bit.