Now, although it is an undoubted fact that the skippers of the North Sea
trawling smacks are first-rate seamen, it is an equally certain fact
that strong drink can render them unfit for duty. One of the skippers
was, if we may say so, unmanned by drink at the time the fleet sheered
off from the steam-carrier, as stated in the last chapter. He was named
Georgie Fox--better known in the fleet as Groggy Fox.
Unfortunately for himself as well as others, Skipper Fox had paid a
visit to one of the _copers_ the day before for the purpose of laying in
a stock of tobacco, which was sold by the skipper of the floating
grog-shop at 1 shilling 6 pence a pound. Of course Fox had been treated
to a glass of fiery spirits, and had thereafter been induced to purchase
a quantity of the same. He had continued to tipple until night, when he
retired in a fuddled state to rest. On rising he tippled again, and
went on tippling till his fish were put on board the steamer. Then he
took the helm of his vessel, and stood with legs very wide apart, an
owlish gaze in his eyes, and a look of amazing solemnity on his visage.
When a fleet sheers off from a steam-carrier after delivery of cargo,
the sea around is usually very much crowded with vessels, and as these
cross and re-cross or run past or alongside of each other before finally
settling into the appointed course, there is a good deal of hearty
recognition--shouting, questioning, tossing up of arms, and expressions
of goodwill--among friends. Several men hailed and saluted Fox as his
smack, the _Cormorant_, went by, but he took no notice except with an
idiotic wink of both eyes.
"He's bin to the _coper_," remarked Puffy, as the _Cormorant_ crossed
the bow of the _Lively Poll_. "I say, Lumpy, come here," he added, as
Bob Lumsden came on deck. "Have 'ee got any o' that coffee left?"
"No, not a drop. I gave the last o't to Fred Martin just as he was
goin' away."
"Poor Fred!" said Puffy. "He's in for suthin' stiff, I doubt, measles
or mulligrumps, if not wuss."
"A great pity," remarked Peter Jay, who stood at the helm, "that Martin
couldn't hold out a week longer when our turn comes round to run for
Yarmouth."
"It's well we got him shipped off to-day," said Lockley. "That hand of
his would have made him useless before another day was out. It's a long
time for a man in his state to be without help, that run up to Lun'on.
Port your helm a bit, Jay. Is it the _Cormorant_ that's yawin' about
there in that fashion?"
"Ay, it's the _Cormorant_," replied Jay. "I seed her just now a'most
run foul o' the _Butterfly_."
"She'll be foul of us. Hi! Look out!" cried Lockley, becoming excited,
as he saw the _Cormorant_ change her course suddenly, without apparent
reason, and bear straight down upon his vessel.
There was, indeed, no reason for the strange movements of the smack in
question, except that there was at the helm a man who had rendered his
reason incapable of action. With dull, fishy eyes, that stared
idiotically at nothing, his hand on the tiller, and his mind asleep,
Georgie Fox stood on the deck of the _Cormorant_ steering.
"Starboard a bit, Jay," said Lockley, with an anxious look, "she'll
barely clear us."
As he spoke, Fox moved his helm slightly. It changed the course of his
vessel only a little, but that little sufficed to send the cutwater of
the _Cormorant_ straight into the port bows of the _Lively Poll_ with a
tremendous crash, for a smart breeze was blowing at the time. The
bulwarks were cut down to the deck, and, as the _Cormorant_ recoiled and
again surged ahead, the bowsprit was carried away, and part of the
topmast brought down.
Deep and fierce was the growl that burst from Lockley's lips at this
disaster, but that did not mend matters. The result was that the
_Lively Poll_ had to quit the fleet a week before her time of eight
weeks afloat was up, and run to Yarmouth for repairs. Next day,
however, it fell calm, and several days elapsed before she finally made
her port.
Meanwhile Fred Martin reached London, with his feverish complaint
greatly aggravated, and his undressed wound much worse. In London he
was detained some hours by his employers, and then sent on to Yarmouth,
which he reached late in the afternoon, and ultimately in a state of
great suffering and exhaustion, made his way to Gorleston, where his
mother lived.
With his mind in a species of wild whirl, and acute pains darting
through his wounded hand and arm, he wended his way slowly along the
road that led to his mother's house. Perhaps we should style it her
attic, for she could claim only part of the house in which she dwelt.
From a quaint gable window of this abode she had a view of the sea over
the houses in front.
Part of Fred's route lay along the banks of the Yare, not far from its
mouth. At a spot where there were many old anchors and cables, old and
new trawl-beams, and sundry other seafaring rusty and tarry objects, the
young fisherman met a pretty young girl, who stopped suddenly, and, with
her large blue eyes expressing unspeakable surprise, exclaimed, "Fred!"
The youth sprang forward, seized the girl with his uninjured hand, and
exclaimed, "Isa!" as he drew her towards him.
"Fred--not here. Behave!" said Isa, holding up a warning finger.
Fred consented to behave--with a promise, however, that he would make up
for it at a more fitting time and place.
"But what is the matter!" asked Isa, with an anxious look, laying her
pretty little hands on the youth's arm.
Yes, you need not smile, reader; it is not a perquisite of ladies to
have pretty little hands. Isa's hands were brown, no doubt, like her
cheeks, owing to exposure and sunshine, and they were somewhat roughened
by honest toil; but they were small and well-shaped, with taper fingers,
and their touch was very tender as she clasped them on her lover's arm.
"Nothing serious," replied the youth lightly; "only an accident with a
fish-bone, but it has got to be pretty bad for want of attention; an'
besides I'm out o' sorts somehow. No physic, you see, or doctors in our
fleet, like the lucky dogs of the Short-Blue. I've been knocked up more
or less for some weeks past, so they sent me home to be looked after.
But I won't need either physic or doctor now."
"No? why not?" asked the girl, with a simple look.
"Cause the sight o' your sweet face does away with the need of either."
"Don't talk nonsense, Fred."
"If that's nonsense," returned the fisherman, "you'll never hear me talk
sense again as long as I live. But how about mother, Isa? Is she
well!"
"Quite well. I have just left her puzzling herself over a letter from
abroad that's so ill-written that it would bother a schoolmaster to read
it. I tried to read it, but couldn't. You're a good scholar, Fred, so
you have come just in time to help her. But won't she be surprised to
see you!"
Thus conversing, and walking rather slowly, the pair made their way to
the attic of Mrs Martin, where the unexpected sight of her son threw
the patient woman into a great flutter of surprise and pleasure. We use
the word "patient" advisedly, for Mrs Martin was one of those
wholesome-minded creatures who, having to battle vigorously for the bare
necessaries of life in the face of many adverse circumstances, carry on
the war with a degree of hearty, sweet-tempered resolution which might
put to shame many who are better off in every way. Mrs Martin was a
widow and a washerwoman, and had a ne'er-do-well brother, a fisherman,
who frequently "sponged" upon her. She also had a mother to support and
attend upon, as well as a "bad leg" to endure. True, the attendance on
her mother was to the good woman a source of great joy. It constituted
one of the few sunbeams of her existence, but it was not on that account
the less costly, for the old woman could do nothing whatever to increase
the income of the widow's household--she could not, indeed, move a step
without assistance. Her sole occupation was to sit in the attic window
and gaze over the sands upon the sea, smiling hopefully, yet with a
touch of sadness in the smile; mouthing her toothless gums, and
muttering now and then as if to herself, "He'll come soon now." Her
usual attitude was that of one who listens expectantly.
Thirty years before Granny Martin had stood at the same attic window, an
elderly woman even then, looking out upon the raging sea, and muttering
anxiously the same words, "He'll come soon now." But her husband never
came. He was lost at sea. As years flew by, and time as well as grief
weakened her mind, the old woman seemed to forget the flight of time,
and spent the greater part of every day in the attic window, evidently
on the look-out for some one who was to come "soon." When at last she
was unable to walk alone, and had to be half carried to her seat in the
attic window by her strong and loving daughter, the sadness seemed to
pass away, and her cheery spirit revived under the impression,
apparently, that the coming could not be delayed much longer. To every
one Granny was condescendingly kind, especially to her grandchild Fred,
of whom she was very fond.
Only at intervals was the old woman's cheerfulness disturbed, and that
was during the occasional visits of her ne'er-do-well son Dick, for he
was generally drunk or "half-seas-over" when he came. Granny never
mentioned his name when he was absent, and for a long time Mrs Martin
supposed that she tried to forget him, but her opinion changed on this
point one night when she overheard her mother praying with intense
earnestness and in affectionate terms that her dear Dick might yet be
saved. Still, however much or frequently Granny's thoughts might at any
time be distracted from their main channel, they invariably returned
thereto with the cheerful assurance that "_he_ would soon come now."
"You're ill, my boy," said Mrs Martin, after the first greetings were
over.
"Right you are, mother," said the worn-out man, sitting down with a
weary sigh. "I've done my best to fight it down, but it won't do."
"You must have the doctor, Fred."
"I've had the doctor already, mother. I parted with Isa Wentworth at
the bottom o' the stair, an' she will do me more good than dozens o'
doctors or gallons o' physic."
But Fred was wrong.
Not long afterwards the _Lively Poll_ arrived in port, and Stephen
Lockley hastened to announce his arrival to his wife.
Now it was the experience of Martha Lockley that if, on his regular
return to land for his eight days' holiday, after his eight weeks' spell
afloat, her handsome and genial husband went straight home, she was wont
to have a happy meeting; but if by any chance Stephen first paid a visit
to the Blue Boar public-house, she was pretty sure to have a miserable
meeting, and a more or less wretched time of it thereafter. A
conversation that Stephen had recently had with Fred Martin having made
an impression on him--deeper than he chose to admit even to himself--he
had made up his mind to go straight home this time.
"I'll be down by daybreak to see about them repairs," he said to Peter
Jay, as they left the _Lively Poll_ together, "and I'll go round by your
old friend, Widow Mooney's, and tell her to expect you some time
to-night."
Now Peter Jay was a single man, and lodged with Widow Mooney when on
shore. It was not, however, pure consideration for his mate or the
widow that influenced Lockley, but his love for the widow's little
invalid child, Eve, for whose benefit that North Sea skipper had, in the
kindness of his heart, made a special collection of deep-sea shells,
with some shreds of bright bunting.
Little Eve Mooney, thin, wasted, and sad, sat propped up with dirty
pillows, in a dirty bed, in a dirtier room, close to a broken and
paper-patched window that opened upon a coal-yard with a prospect
rubbish-heap beyond.
"Oh, I'm _so_ glad it's you!" cried Eve, with flushed cheeks and
sparkling eyes, as the fisherman entered.
"Yes, Eve, my pretty. I'm back sooner than I expected--and look what
I've brought you. I haven't forgot you."
Joy beamed in the lustrous eyes and on every feature of the thin face as
the sick child surveyed the treasures of the deep that Lockley spread on
her ragged counterpane.
"How good--how kind of you, Stephen!" exclaimed Eve.
"Kind!" repeated the skipper; "nothing of the sort, Eve. To please you
pleases me, so it's only selfishness. But where's your mother?"
"Drunk," said the child simply, and without the most remote intention of
injuring her parent's character. Indeed, that was past injury. "She's
in there."
The child pointed to a closet, in which Stephen found on the floor a
heap of unwomanly rags. He was unable to arouse the poor creature, who
slumbered heavily beneath them. Eve said she had been there for many
hours.
"She forgot to give me my breakfast before she went in, and I'm too weak
to rise and get it for myself," whimpered Eve, "and I'm _so_ hungry!
And I got such a fright, too, for a man came in this morning about
daylight and broke open the chest where mother keeps her money and took
something away. I suppose he thought I was asleep, for I was too
frightened to move, but I could see him all the time. Please will you
hand me the loaf before you go? It's in that cupboard."
We need scarcely add that Lockley did all that the sick child asked him
to do--and more. Then, after watching her till the meal was finished,
he rose.
"I'll go now, my pretty," he said, "and don't you be afeared. I'll soon
send some one to look after you. Good-bye."
Stephen Lockley was unusually thoughtful as he left Widow Mooney's hut
that day, and he took particular care to give the Blue Boar a wide berth
on his way home.