WITH the spring the steady application of paint in Harbour Lane burst
into a fury. Everywhere the houses and the flagstaffs and the fences
took new coats of many colours, changing as the season went, and the
paint-pot traffic fell into a vaster confusion. As tops were "in" among
the boys, the smell of paint grew day by day, and when the marble season
began little else could be smelt. With July came Fairlop Friday, and
Bessy wondered at the passing of a great model of a rigged ship on
wheels, drawn by horses, and filled with jubilant shipwrights on their
way to Epping Forest, in accord with yearly custom. She had grown to
consider the forest as a place so far off (though indeed she knew the
distance in mere miles) that it came almost as a surprise to see people
starting out to drive there in a few hours with so slow a vehicle, and to
return the same night.
Bob Smallpiece had written once or twice (he kept an eye on the empty
cottage, and looked out for a tenant), but he had never made a visit, as
Nan May had asked him. The last news was that his bedridden old mother
was worse, and not expected to live.
The trade went well--better than ever, indeed, and scarce a month passed
but Nan May put a sovereign or two in the post-office savings bank; and
Uncle Isaac began secretly to look upon the shop in Harbour Lane as a
convenient retreat for his later years. Already he took as many meals
there as possible, for, as he said, he could get no proper attention in
his new lodgings. Of his old friend Mr. Butson he had seen nothing for
months. For Butson, he knew, had lost his berth on the steamboat, and
had fallen on evil times--and Uncle Isaac never intruded on private
griefs of this description.
But late in the year, when the anniversary of Johnny's apprenticeship was
nearing, and when Johnny himself was near a head taller--for he grew
quickly now--Uncle Isaac saw Butson from afar as he crossed the docks,
and Butson saw him. There was no escape, but Uncle Isaac, with a grin
and a wave of the hand, tried to pass on hurriedly, as though urgent
business claimed his time. But Mr. Butson rose from his
bollard--bollards had been his most familiar furniture for months
now--and intercepted him.
"You've 'ad about a year now to git that 'urry over," he said, with
something not unlike a sneer. "If you're goin' that way, I'll come along
too. Got any 'bacca?"
Uncle Isaac, with a bounteous air that scarce covered his reluctance,
pulled out a screw of paper, and Mr. Butson filled his pipe. For some
little way he smoked in silence, for tobacco was an uncommon luxury with
him just now, and he enjoyed a succession of puffs with no interruption.
Then he said, "Workin' at Turton's now?"
"No," Uncle Isaac replied, with a slight cough. "I--no, I ain't workin'
there."
"Thought not. Looked out for y' often. An' you moved too." Butson
smoked again for a space, and then went on. "I've 'ad a pretty awful
year," he said. "Why I was very near goin' stokin' once or twice." (He
had not quite gone, because the chief engineer always sent him ashore.)
"Nice thing, that, for a man o' my bringin'-up."
They walked on. Truly the bad year had left its marks on Mr. Butson.
The soles were three-quarters gone from his boots, and the uppers were
cracked. He wore a mixture of ordinary and working clothes, frayed and
greasy and torn, and he shivered under a flimsy dungaree jacket, buttoned
so close to the neck as to hint an absence of shirt. His bowler hat was
weather-beaten and cracked, and the brim behind was beginning to leave
the crown because of rain-rot.
Presently Uncle Isaac, impelled to say something, asked, "Bin out all the
time?"
"Very near. Got a job on a 'draulic, but the chap began jawin' me about
somethin'. I wasn't goin' to stand that, so I just walked out."
"Nothin' else?"
"Not much. One or two things I got on to, but they didn't last. Know
the laundry over the Cut? Well they took me on there to run the engine,
an' sacked me in a week. Said I was asleep! Measly swine. Much the
same at other places. Seemed to want to treat me like--like any common
feller. But I showed 'em different to that!"
"Ah!" commented Uncle Isaac absently. He was wondering which way to lead
the walk, and how to take leave of his companion. But his invention was
at a stand, and presently the other went on.
"Well," he said, "you ain't got so much to say as you used. Know any job
you can put me on to?"
"No, I don't," replied Uncle Isaac with gloomy simplicity. "Trade's
bad--very bad. I bin workin' short time meself, an' standin' auf day
after day. Stood auf to-day."
"Well then, lend us a bob."
Uncle Isaac started, and made the space between them a foot wider.
"Reely, Mr. Butson, I--"
"All right, make it two bob then, if you'd rather. You've 'ad more 'n
that out o' me one time an' another."
"But--but I tell you I'm unfort'net meself. I bin standin' auf day after
day--"
"Seems to me you're tryin' to stand auf as much as ye can now. Look
'ere." Mr. Butson stood and faced Uncle Isaac. "I'm broke, clean broke,
an' worse. I'm 'ungry."
"It's--it's very bad," said Uncle Isaac. "But why not go t' yer rich
relations?"
Butson frowned. "Never mind them," he said. "I'd rather try an' tap
your small property. What am I to do? I'm at the end of me tether, an'
I've tried everything."
"Ah--Enterprise is what you want," Uncle Isaac said, being at a loss what
else to recommend. "Enterprise. I've recommended Enterprise before,
with wonderful results--wonderful. An'--an' 'ow about marryin'? There's
the lan'lady at the Mariner's Arms. She was alwis very friendly, an'
that's a life as ought to suit ye."
"G-r-r-r!" Mr. Butson turned his head with a growl and took to walking
again, Uncle Isaac by his side. "She'd want to make a potman of me,
an'--an'--well that ain't much catch, any'ow. If you won't lend me a
bob, stand me a feed o' some sort. Ain't 'ad yer tea, 'ave ye?"
Plainly something must be sacrificed to Butson, and it struck Uncle Isaac
that the cheapest article would be some of Nan May's bacon. So he said,
"Well, I was thinkin' o' poppin' round to my niece's to tea. I'm sure
she'd make ye very welcome."
"Awright. Same niece as give us tea over in the Forest that time?"
"Yus. She's round in 'arbour Lane."
The lamplighter scuffled past into the thickening dusk, leaving his
sparse trail of light-spots along the dock wall. The two men came
through streets where little sitting-rooms, lighted as yet by fires
alone, cheered Butson with promise of the meal to come; and when at last
he stood in Nan May's shop, now no place of empty boxes, but ranged close
with bacon, cheese, candles, sausages, brawn, spiced beef, many eggs and
a multitude of sundries, there was some shadow of the old strut and sulky
swagger, hanging oddly about the broken-up Butson of these later days.
Uncle Isaac did it with an air, for an air was an inexpensive
embellishment that won him consideration. "Good-evenin', Nan. I've took
the liberty (which I'm sure you'll call it a pleasure) to introduce a of
friend to tea which we well remember with 'appier circumstances. Mr.
Butson is come to see you."
Duller eyes than Nan May's would have seen Butson's fallen condition at a
glance, and it afflicted her to know that while fortune had favoured her
it had stricken him so sorely. She led them in, offering Butson a
cordiality in some sort exaggerated by her anxiety not to seem to see his
poor clothes, nor to treat him a whit the worse for his ill-luck. As for
Mr. Butson, he found a good fire and a clean hearth, with an armchair
beside it, in a better room than he had seen for long. Old Mr. May's
photograph hung over the mantelpiece, and below it was the sole remaining
butterfly trophy, a small glass case, set when the old man was young.
The ragged books that were Bessy's solace stood on a sideboard top, and
Bessy herself, disturbed in reading, was putting one of them carefully in
its place. The kettle sang on the hob. And when Johnny came from work
he was astonished to find a tea-party of great animation.
Johnny was a big lad now (though he was scarce sixteen years of age), and
Mr. Butson condescended to shake hands with him, to condole with him on
the choice of the wretched trade that had so ill supported himself, and
to exchange a remark or two on the engineering topics of the week.
But chiefly Mr. Butson attended to the meal. Nan May had never seen two
men together eat such a meal as his. Plainly he was famished. She was
full of pity for this unfortunate, so well brought up (thought the simple
soul), so cruelly neglected by his well-to-do relations. She cut more
slices of bacon, and more, and still more of bread and butter, quietly
placing them to his hand, till at last he was satisfied.
Mr. Butson was refreshed, filled his pipe again from Uncle Isaac's paper,
and gave some attention to the conversation. But the conversation took
to itself the property of rarely travelling far from Mr. Butson and his
troubles. He had no false modesty about them. He had parted with almost
all his clothes, and hadn't a shirt to his back. His tools were in pawn,
and a man felt discouraged from looking for a job when his tools were
"put away," and he had no money to redeem them. But he would starve
sooner than apply to his unnatural relations; he would take the help of
strangers first.
When at last Mr. Butson took leave, and went shivering into the gusty
night, Uncle Isaac was careful to let him go alone, and to remain,
himself, in the shop parlour till his friend was clear away. But Nan May
ran down the street after her departed guest. There were a few hurried
words of entreaty in the woman's voice: "Here, Mr. Butson. Do! you
really must!"--and she scurried back breathless and a trifle shamefaced.
She reached across the counter and shut the till ere she came into the
shop parlour.
Uncle Isaac Iooked up sharply in her face as she entered, but went on
with his pipe.