paths away from the neighbourhood of the High Street and down to the
harbour. To avoid questions which might be thorny to answer, Mr. Dobb
walked swiftly and a little in advance of his companion, who, evidently
deeming Mr. Dobb something of a roisterous blade, seemed relieved by this
arrangement. Arrived at the quay, Mr. Dobb perceived the lounging form
of Mr. Samuel Clark, and led the stranger up to him.
“This gent wants you to row ’im over to near the ’Igh Street, ferryman,”
said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, and be as quick over it as you can,” he added,
holding Mr. Clark’s gaze; “because ’e says ’e’s not a very good sailor.”
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” promised Mr. Clark; “but there’s a pretty
strong tide running, sir, don’t forget.”
“There’s no risk I suppose?” asked the visitor, smiling a little
anxiously.
“Bless you, no, sir,” declared Mr. Clark, cosily. “You’ll be as safe as
’ouses with me!”
With a courteous exchange of compliments, Mr. Dobb parted from his new
acquaintance. A minute later Mr. Clark had begun to convey his passenger
across the river, and Mr. Dobb was returning homeward with the mien of
one whose morning has been well spent.
“The current seems quite strong,” remarked the gentleman from London.
“It are,” agreed Mr. Clark, straining at his sculls. “The current’s
always pretty strong ’ere when the tide’s running out. Like a
mill-stream sometimes, and the worst of it is that you don’t know it till
you get well out on it.”
“I hope we’ll land at the nearest point opposite.”
“We’ll _try_ to land there,” amended Mr. Clark, gravely. “Matter of
fact, the tide’s stronger to-day than I’ve ever known it before.”
“We seem to be drifting further and further down the river,” observed the
other, now clearly falling prey to nerves. “Do you think it would be
better to turn round and go back?”
“Turn round, sir—with the tide running _out_?” asked Mr. Clark, in
accents almost scandalized. “Why, we should be capsized for dead,
certain sure, in less than no time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s
plain you’re no sailor, to talk like that. No, we can’t turn back.”
“Well, perhaps if you were to—to keep the—the front of the boat pointed
straighter for the bank opposite—”
“I can’t!” stated Mr. Clark. “The tide’s too strong. We must land as
near as we can, that’s all. I never knoo such a tide!” he ended,
pettishly.
“You—you don’t think there’s any chance of being carried out beyond that
lighthouse there at the very end, do you?”
“I ’ope and pray not!” soberly returned Mr. Clark.
He bent to his sculls with the greatest determination. A more
sophisticated passenger might have noticed that the ferryman was pulling
far harder with one arm than the other. The present fare, however, was
engrossed in observing more and more of the opposite bank slip by.
“I do believe we shall be carried right out to sea!” he said at last,
with the utmost concern.
“Not if _I_ can ’elp it!” denied Mr. Clark, and gave a straining,
spectacular display of oarsmanship.
“We _shall_ be carried out to sea!”
Mr. Clark, shipping his skulls with commendable neatness, stared owlishly
at the passenger for a few moments, and then ejaculated:
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” with intensity of feeling.
“What is it? Whatever is it?”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” repeated Mr. Clark. “It’s my ’eart!” he explained,
hollowly, and made a fearsome rolling of his eyes. “I’ve strained it, or
busted it, or something.”
“But—but we shall be capsized—drowned!”
“I couldn’t row another stroke just now, not to save my life,” groaned
Mr. Clark. “And you mustn’t try to take the oars, not even if you know
’ow to manage ’em. You’d upset the boat if you tried to change places
with me, and you’d upset it if you tried to row from where you’re
sitting.”
His passenger, abandoning a half-formed intention, sat very still.
“Can’t we shout to the people ashore?” he asked, dismally, as the little
boat swept on past the harbour lighthouse.
“They couldn’t ’ear you,” moaned Mr. Clark.
“I could wave to them!”
“And upset the boat?” asked Mr. Clark, faintly. “She’s very, very easy
upset. The chap what owns this boat never tells ’er ’istory when ’e’s
’iring it out to visitors in the summer.”
“What can we _do_? What _can_ we do?”
“Do? Why, nothing, except ’ope. We must just let the old boat float out
and trust to luck.”
“But—but—” protested the other, wildly.
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” bellowed Mr. Clark, in accents of acute anguish, as the
easiest way to foreclose vain conversation.
He sat back, groaning horribly, and rubbing various portions of his
anatomy, a fearful glare in his eyes.
The other man, watching him miserably, took a firm grasp of the seat as
the little craft began to pitch and dance over the turmoil of the
harbour-bar.
“We—we—we—” murmured Mr. Clark, with difficulty.
“We what?” asked the other, eagerly.
“I dunno,” said Mr. Clark, blankly.
There was dire silence. The little boat drifted further and further out,
till it was clear of the harbour, and here the scour of the tide carried
it well away from the roadstead.
Mr. Clark, opening one eye, shrewdly surveyed the locality.
“Just—just remembered,” he said. “We’ve got a anchor ’ere in the
locker—a anchor and any amount of cable. We’ll chuck it over, and we’ll
ride ’ere, as easy as easy, till the tide turns.”
“Don’t you feel strong enough to row us back now?”
“’Ave a ’eart, sir!” begged Mr. Clark, reproachfully. “It ’ud pull my
arms out of their sockets to row against this current. But we’ll be all
right ’ere. Once I get the anchor overboard, like this, we’ll be as safe
as safe.”
“All very well!” fulminated the passenger, recovering a little spirit
when he noted that the anchor had checked further seaward flow. “But
why—”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” interrupted Mr. Clark. “For ’eaven’s sake, sir, don’t
go a-hagitating of me. When I ’ave attacks like this, I’m sometimes
liable to fits, and if I ’ave a fit ’ere, over goes the boat, and it’s
all up with both of us!”
“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” wailed the other, subsiding.
“I—I’m going to lie down in the bottom of the boat,” announced Mr. Clark,
wanly. “And if I smokes a pipe that might do me good, by composing of my
nerves.”
He kindled his pipe, and forthwith settled himself very comfortably in
the bottom of the boat. For headrest, he had a pillow he fortunately
happened to have brought with him. By a similar kindness of chance, he
had also provided himself with a thick overcoat, and with this he now
snugly covered himself.
Ensued a bleak period of human silence, accentuated by the lapping of the
water round the boat, and the phantom-like scream of wheeling sea-birds.
The passenger, sitting humped-up in an attitude of complete dejection,
surveyed the prone Mr. Clark and subconsciously became aware of the
gentle, rhythmic fall and rise of the anchored craft.
“Really, it’s most unfortunate!” he whined, at last. “Most unfor—”
He stopped abruptly; his expression was a blend of alarm and
self-suspicion.
“Dear me!” he muttered. “Oh! I do hope—”
Mr. Clark, stirring, opened one eye sufficiently to see that the
complexion of his companion had passed to a strange olive-green shade,
and that he was holding his palm to his forehead. Mr. Clark closed his
eye again with a warm glow of satisfaction.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Clark again glanced at his companion. That
gentleman’s complexion was now some shades lighter, though still green of
hue, and he was sitting with his arms hanging limply by his side. His
expression suggested that he had no further interest in life.
“’Ow are you gettin’ on?” asked Mr. Clark.
The other man, turning a pair of glassy eyes on him, shook his head
dolefully and groaned. Mr. Clark, settling down again in comfort, was
callous enough to smile.
Another half-hour elapsed, with the stout ferryman taking life easily at
the bottom of the boat, and with the passenger gaining inside information
as to the treacherous nature of a small boat when anchored in deep
waters. Then, for the third time, Mr. Clark appraised the state of his
passenger and decided that the time for convalescence had come.
Heartily remarking that the rest had done him a world of good, he resumed
his seat and began to scull towards the harbour with the greatest of
ease. His passenger, drooping woefully in his place, evidenced no
emotion whatever at this impending termination to his troubles.
In excellent style Mr. Clark regained the sanctuary of the harbour and
drew near to the quay. Mr. Peter Lock, an alert sentinel there for some
while past, was waiting to greet him.
“Oh, poor fellow!” sympathized Mr. Lock. “He _do_ look ill!”
“You needn’t trouble to feel sorry for ’im, Peter,” said Mr. Clark.
“’E’s in that state ’e don’t know what’s ’appening, or whether it’s
’appening to ’im or somebody else. Got a bit of a ’eadache, ain’t you,
sir?” he bawled at the passenger.
“Oh!” groaned the sufferer, making feeble gestures with his hands and
showing the yellows of his eyes.
“Oh!” he moaned again, and would have collapsed had not Mr. Clark passed
a supportive arm round him.
“There you are, Peter. How’s that?” said Mr. Clark, with something of a
showman’s pride. “Give me a hand to get ’im out of the boat and up on to
the quay. All O.K., I s’pose?” he added, enigmatically.
Mr. Lock nodded.
“She’s going to ’ave tea with ’Orace’s missis, and she’s there now.
She’s been up to the station twice to see if a Mr. Briblett ’ad arrived,
but there was no trace of ’im.”
“Briblett,” murmured the passenger, dazedly. “That’s my name. Don’t—oh,
don’t bother me! I’m ill—_ill_!”
“’Orace ’as kept out of ’er way all the time, in case some one might ’ave
seen ’im up at the station this morning,” whispered Mr. Lock. “She might
begin to smell a rat before the bomb goes off, if she starts putting
questions to ’im.”
With a certain inconsiderate vigour the two friends half-lifted,
half-dragged Mr. Briblett from the boat and assisted him up the steps to
the quay.
“A drop o’ brandy is the only thing to do this poor gent any good,”
prescribed Mr. Lock, producing a flask.
The stranger, although in a comatose condition, proved true to his
lifelong traditions, and feebly waved the stimulant aside.
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Lock, “if ’e won’t drink it, p’r’aps the _smell_ of
it might do ’im good!”
Thus speaking, he delicately sprinkled Mr. Briblett’s shoulder with a few
drops of the spirit, and then very fraternally shared the remainder with
Mr. Clark.
“And now off we goes!” directed Mr. Lock, and, supported by the two
sailormen, the cadaverous Mr. Briblett tottered forward on two swerving,
unstable legs. Closed were Mr. Briblett’s eyes, and the expression on
his face was one of pained indifference to all mundane affairs.
By quiet side-streets was Mr. Briblett conducted to the neighbourhood of
the little shop in Fore Street. Rounding a corner, the trio at last
reached that emporium. Mr. Lock remembered to knock Mr. Briblett’s hat
off for him, retrieving it with sundry muddy adhesions, and replacing it
on the sufferer’s head at a rakish angle.
Then the door of Mr. Dobb’s shop flew open, the three lurched over the
threshold, and Mr. Dobb quickly flitted in after them from nowhere. A
moment later Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock were exhaustedly mopping their
foreheads, and their burden, unceremoniously dumped into a chair, was
lolling back in his seat, too indisposed even for protest at his
treatment.
“Good gracious, whatever—” began Horace’s spouse, appearing in vast
surprise at the inner door.
Mr. Lock, perceiving a second female rising from a chair in the back
parlour, began to speak loudly and rapidly.
“We’ve just found this chap lying ’elpless at the corner of the road,” he
stated. “We brought ’im ’ere because ’e said ’e wanted to find a Mrs.
Jackson, sir, and we thought that p’r’aps you might know the good lady.
Though whether she’d care to admit to knowing him, I shouldn’t like to
say, her being a most respectable lady, by all accounts.”
“’E must ’ave been drinking the ’ole of the day!” observed Mr. Clark, in
tones of righteous contempt. “I see ’im myself go into the ‘Jolly
Sailors,’ and the ‘Blue Lion,’ and the ‘Cutlass and Cannon’.”
“I see ’im myself this morning,” said Horace. “I see him come out of the
station, and I thought ’e looked a pretty queer fish. ’E come straight
out of the station and went into the ‘Railway Inn.’”
“I see ’im leave the ‘Flag and Pennant’ at dinner-time,” contributed Mr.
Lock. “’E left there to go to the ‘Royal George’.”
“Brandy, too!” intoned Mr. Clark, sepulchrally. “You just bend down and
sniff. If you can’t smell brandy, I’ll—”
Mr. Briblett, raising his head with extreme difficulty, partly opened his
eyes.
“Where am I?” he demanded, weakly. “I’m—I’m not at all well! I feel
ill—very ill!”
“So I should think!” concurred Mr. Lock. “And the language he was
using!”
“Said ’e’d backed three winners out of five yesterday, and didn’t care if
it snowed pink!” supplied Mr. Clark.
“Wanted us to ’ave a game of ’apenny nap with ’im on the steps of the
Town Hall,” added Mr. Lock.
“Said ’e’d come down to see about a ’air-dressing business, but it could
go to—but ’e wasn’t going to trouble!” stated Mr. Clark.
As one existing on a plane of complete isolation, the stricken Mr.
Briblett rose unsteadily to his feet. Clutching at the back of his
chair, he swayed delicately a while, and then sat down again.
“I—I’d like to go to sleep,” he announced. “I want to go to sleep! I
want to lie down! Oh, I feel so queer! That boat, drifting out to sea—”
“Boat—sea!” cried Mr. Clark, readily. “There you are! Delirious, and no
wonder! Raving—raving! What a ’orrible hexample for all right-minded
men!”
There was a little wait. Then Mrs. Jackson, coming out of a sort of
trance, pushed past her hostess and stepped through the doorway of the
back parlour. For three long seconds she stared at Mr. Briblett, and
then, drawing a deep breath, she shrilly began to take the predominant
part in the conversation. . . .
Five minutes later Mr. Dobb, Mr. Clark, and Mr. Lock were standing some
streets away, dazedly fanning their brows.
“’Ow the dooce was I to know?” whispered Mr. Dobb, brokenly. “’Ow the
dooce was I to know the chap would be so punctual as to be too early for
the hexpress and come straight along to see Mrs. Jackson at ’er ’ome?”
His hearers shook their heads in confession of inability to answer the
question.
“And ’ow the dooce was I to know,” continued Mr. Dobb, bitterly, “that
she’d asked this other chap to come down and ’elp ’er with ’er business
affairs, now ’e’d got back to England after fifteen years in the
Colonies, and never been to Shore’aven before to see ’er? ’Ow the dooce
was I to know? . . . Why, I didn’t even know she’d _got_ a brother!”
_EPISODE IV_
BLACK CATS ARE ALWAYS LUCKY
It had been a day thickly veined and marbled with emotions for the little
group of men who, aforetime, had in some measure controlled the sea-going
vagaries of that decrepit old barque, the “Jane Gladys.” For, that day,
the “Jane Gladys” had ceased to be a ship dowered with an imposing
collection of virtues perceptible only to the auctioneer, and had become
but so much old wood and rusting iron to be exploited by the speculative
marine-store dealer who hazarded the highest price for her unlovely bulk.
This distressful climax in the nautical career of the “Jane Gladys” was
not allowed to go unwitnessed by those who had so long lived and thrived
amid the sinister shadows of her ill-repute as a barque that was the
natural home of venal duplicities. The erstwhile crew of the “Jane
Gladys,” those established confederates in mercenary plot and
counterplot, had rallied to watch the transfer of their stronghold into
alien and unsympathetic ownership, and, in the untroubled throng about
the auctioneer, they stood as figures thrust apart from their fellow-men
by the stern arm of Tragedy.
Captain Peter Dutt was there, his countenance a very show-case of
mournful reminiscence as he gazed upon his late command, although he had
retired ashore on a comfortable pension, and had already taken to
bragging about his extraordinary prowess as an amateur grower of
vegetables. That venerable and corpulent amphibian, Mr. Samuel Clark,
was there, too, having contrived to evade for a while his present duties
as ferryman across Shorehaven Harbour in order to attend this dismal
chapter in the history of the vessel upon which he had served for so many
years. And Mr. Horace Dobb, who formerly graced the cook’s galley of the
doomed ship, was also in attendance in the great glory of garb which was
explained and justified by the fact that he had married a widow and a
snug second-hand business at one fortunate sweep.
But, as may be inferred, the regrets of Captain Dutt, of Mr. Clark, and
of Mr. Dobb were almost entirely retrospective, for their daily bread was
assured. The future was firm ground for their feet to tread, and their
woeful deportment had therefore merely a sentimental value. Far more
earnest and practical was the grief at the passing of the “Jane Gladys”
of the two remaining members of her old crew, Mr. Peter Lock and Mr.
Joseph Tridge.
Despite the assiduity with which these two gentlemen had of late pointed
out to the great god Luck ways by which he might help them, that fickle
deity had proved himself singularly unresponsive. And this meant that
neither Mr. Lock nor Mr. Tridge had any attractive prospects to solace
them for the loss of their employment on the “Jane Gladys.”
By personal inquiry they had discovered that no master mariner was
prepared to risk the morale of his crew by importing into the fo’c’sle
anyone who had been even remotely connected with the “Jane Gladys,” nor
was a task ashore obtainable when once they had mentioned the only
references they could give.
True, Mr. Dobb had promised them his favour, but, so far, nothing had
come of it save the abortive attempt to procure employment for Mr. Tridge
as a hairdresser. Not that there was any question as to Mr. Dobb’s
sincerity of purpose, for, in projecting philanthropies for his two
unfortunate shipmates, he was largely considering his own interests.
“Strictly Business!” was the self-chosen motto that controlled Mr. Dobb’s
energies in every direction, and always there was present in his mind the
idea that profitable disposal of stock from the shop in Fore Street might
skilfully be accelerated by the placing of his old accomplices of the
“Jane Gladys” in strategic situations about the town.
But, apart from securing Mr. Samuel Clark his present job, Mr. Dobb’s
efforts had hitherto been negligible in result, and now, of those who
mourned the end of the “Jane Gladys,” none mourned her with more genuine
feeling or with a greater sense of personal bereavement than Mr. Lock and
Mr. Tridge, for others were only mourning for memories, while they were
mourning a lost home.
Gradually, however, as the day had worn on, they had struggled with and
overcome their melancholy, mounting, indeed in the end to a flippant
hilarity which fitted but incongruously with the gravity of their
prospects.
But this was not till the day was nearing its close. The early afternoon
had been a space of sighs and doleful head-shakings, for, at the close of
the sale, Captain Dutt had led his old subordinates into the “Turk’s
Head,” and here they had all spoken so wistfully and reverently about the
“Jane Gladys” that the landlady had wondered how one of them could have
come back wearing a green and pink tie from a funeral.
Mr. Horace Dobb, not averse from exhibiting the opulence of his new
sphere in life to his former skipper, competed with that worthy for the
honour of being prime host to the party. It was a challenge which
Captain Dutt’s pride forbade him to refuse, and so round after round of
refreshment was served, till by degrees a brisker mood descended upon the
company.
It was not till past tea-time that the party had begun to break up. Mr.
Clark was the first to leave, having suddenly remembered that he had
faithfully promised to return to the ferry at one o’clock sharp. And
next Mr. Dobb went, pleading the calls of business, and purchasing a
cigar at the bar as he left, with excellent effect. For Captain Dutt,
after silently and disapprovingly considering such an action on an
ex-cook’s part, at last stigmatized it as a kind of Socialism, and bought
Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge a cigar apiece to re-establish his prestige.
Soon after, Captain Dutt reluctantly announced that he, too, must now
depart, and Messrs. Tridge and Lock accompanied him to the nearest
draper’s shop, where he sagely selected a bonnet to be presented to Mrs.
Dutt the moment he got home. And when the skipper, already holding the
hat-box before him in a propitiatory manner, had passed from their sight
round a corner, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock looked hard and remindedly at
each other, and then made search in their pockets.
As a result, the one party produced a shilling and five pennies, and the
other party disclosed a florin and a halfpenny; frank and unabashed
confession admitted these coins to be “change” which the skipper had
forgotten to pick up amid the mental distractions of the afternoon.
Whereupon, congratulating themselves and each other on this presence of
mind in face of opportunity, Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge had retired to the
tap-room of the “Royal William,” and had there abundantly developed their
policy of drowning dull care.
By now the night was well advanced, and a fevered, reckless brilliance
was illuminating Mr. Lock’s personality, lighting up all those manifold
polite accomplishments of which he was a master. Thus, he had
entertained the company with a series of imitations of bird-calls, and
performed clever feats of legerdemain with corks and pennies and hats.
Mr. Tridge was in complete eclipse. He had tried hard to be not
ungenial, but his temperament was different from Mr. Lock’s, and every
minute of revelry only found him more and more subdued and morose. He
had struggled against this psychological handicap, even to the extent of
exhibiting to the company four or five styles of dancing with which he
was familiar, but so morose and forbidding was his countenance as he
jigged and gyrated that none dared claim his attention by offering
applause, so that when he sat down again it was amid complete and
discouraging silence.
Mr. Lock, however, shone still more effulgently as the evening
progressed. Knotting his handkerchief into semblance of a doll, he
affected that it was a wife and that he was its husband, and built up on
these premises a highly diverting ventriloquial monologue.
And, after that, he successfully introduced some farmyard mimicry, and
then got well away with card tricks. Appreciative, and even
enthusiastic, were Mr. Lock’s audience, and none was more enthusiastic or
appreciative than the plump, fresh-faced little landlord of the “Royal
William.” Not once, nor twice, but thrice, did he pay tribute to Mr.
Lock’s powers in the medium most gratifying to that artist, and his flow
of hospitality ceased only when a big and stern-visaged lady came
presently and stood behind the bar at his side. And, thereafter, the
licensee of the “Royal William” took, as it were, but a furtive and
subsidiary interest in Mr. Lock’s entertainment; while the lady eyed the
performance with a cold hostility which was inimical to true art.
And whether it was that Mr. Lock grew a little flustered under her malign
regard, or whether it was that he sought to sting the landlord into
revolt against domestic oppression, the fact remains that he began to
intersperse his card tricks with humorous, but inflammatory, remarks
bearing on the subject of domineering wives and too submissive husbands.
It is possible that the landlord of the “Royal William” derived amusement
from these sallies. Certainly his eyes gleamed at each thrust, and more
than once he turned away to conceal a grin, but he was too craven to
exhibit open hilarity at Mr. Lock’s satires. The landlady, however, did
not hesitate to betray her feelings in the matter, and thus it was that,
at the tail of an amusing anecdote of domestic tyranny, Mr. Lock found
himself confronted with a stern and acidulated request to sit down and
keep quiet unless he wished to find himself in trouble.