TO COME (or CREEP) IN THROUGH THE HAWSE-HOLES, verb. phr. (nautical).—To enter the service at the lowest grade; to rise from the forecastle.
1830. MARRYAT, The King’s Own, ch. viii. His kind and considerate captain was aware that a lad who CREEPS IN AT THE HAWSE-HOLES, i.e., is promoted from before the mast, was not likely to be favourably received in the midshipmen’s mess.
1889. Chambers’s Journal, 3 Aug., 495. A sailor who rose from the ranks was formerly said TO HAVE CREPT THROUGH THE HAWSE-HOLES.
