Captain Wilson, hot with the combined effects of exercise and wrath,
continued the pursuit, but the pause to say sweet nothings to the
second in command was fatal to his success. He had often before had
occasion to comment ruefully upon the pace of the quarry, and
especially at such times when he felt that he had strung his courage
almost up to speaking point. To-day he was just in time to see her
vanish into the front garden of a small house, upon the door of which
she knocked with expressive vigor. She disappeared into the house just
as he reached the gate.
“Damn the mate!” he said irritably—“and the boy,” he added, anxious to
be strictly impartial.
He walked on aimlessly at a slow pace until the houses ended and the
road became a lane shaded with tall trees and flanked by hawthorn
hedges. Along this he walked a little way, and then, nervously
fingering a note in his jacket pocket, retraced his steps.
“I’ll see her and speak to her anyway,” he muttered. “Here goes.”
He walked slowly back to the house, and, with his heart thumping, and a
choking sensation in his throat, walked up to the door and gave a
little whisper of a knock upon it. It was so faint that, after waiting
a considerable time, he concluded that it had not been heard, and
raised the knocker again. Then the door opened suddenly, and the
knocker, half detained in his grasp, slipped from his fingers and fell
with a crash that made him tremble at his hardihood. An elderly woman
with white hair opened the door. She repressed a start and looked at
him inquiringly.
“Cap’n Jackson in?” inquired the skipper, his nerves thoroughly upset
by the knocker.
“Who?” said the other.
“Cap’n Jackson,” repeated the skipper, reddening.
“There is no such man here,” said the old woman. “Are you sure it is
Captain Jackson you want?” she added.
“I’m—I’m not sure,” said Wilson truthfully.
The old woman looked at him eagerly. “Will you come in?” she said
slowly, and, without giving him time to refuse, led the way into the
small front room. The skipper followed her with the conscience of a fox
invited into a poultry yard, and bringing up in the doorway, gazed
uncomfortably at the girl who had risen at his entrance.
“This gentleman is inquiring for a Captain Jackson,” said the old
woman, turning to the girl. “I thought he—he doesn’t seem quite sure
whether it is Captain Jackson he wants—he may bring news,” she
concluded incoherently.
“It’s not likely, mother,” said the girl, regarding the adventurous
mariner by no means favorably. “There is no Captain Jackson here, sir.”
“Have you been looking for him long?” inquired the mother.
“Years and years,” said the other, forgetting himself.
The old woman sighed sympathetically. “Won’t you sit down?” she said.
“Thank you,” said the skipper, and took the edge of the sofa.
“You’re not quite certain of the name?” suggested the girl coldly.
“It—it sounded like Jackson,” murmured the intruder in a small, modest
voice. “It might have been Blackson, or Dackson, or even Snackson—I
won’t swear to it.”
The old woman put her hand to her brow. “I thought perhaps you might
have brought me some news of my poor husband,” she said at length. “I
lost him some years ago, and when you came here inquiring for a
seafaring man I thought you might somehow have brought news.”
“You must see, mother, that this gentleman is looking for somebody
else,” said the girl; “you are hindering him from finding Captain
Jackson.”
“If he’s been looking for him for years,” said the old woman, bridling
mildly, “a few minutes will not make much difference.”
“Certainly not,” said Wilson, in a voice which he tried in vain to make
stronger. “When you say lost, ma’am, you mean missing?”
“Five years,” said the old woman, shaking her head and folding her
hands in her lap. “How long do you say you’ve been looking for Captain
Jackson?”
“Seven,” said the skipper with a calmness which surprised himself.
“And you haven’t given up hope, I suppose?”
“Not while life lasts,” said the other, studying the carpet.
“That’s the way I feel,” said the old woman energetically. “What a
surprise it’ll be when you meet him!”
“For both of them,” said the girl.
“It’s five years last May—the 20th of May,” said the old woman, “since
I last saw my poor husband. He—”
“It can’t be of any interest to this gentleman, mother,” interposed the
girl.
“I’m very much interested, ma’am,” said the skipper defiantly;
“besides, when I’m looking for poor Jackson, who knows I mightn’t run
up against the other.”
“Ah! who knows but what you might,” said the old woman. “There’s one
gentleman looking for him now—Mr. Glover, my daughter’s husband that is
to be.”
There was a long pause, then the skipper, by dint of combining his
entire stock of Christianity and politeness, found speech. “I hope he
finds him,” he said slowly.
“All that a man can do he’s doing,” said the old lady. “He’s a
commercial traveller by trade, and he gets about a great deal in the
way of business.”
“Have you tried advertising?” inquired the skipper, striving manfully
to keep his interest up to its former pitch.
The other shook her head and looked uneasily at her daughter.
“It wouldn’t be any good,” she said in a low voice—“it wouldn’t be any
good.”
“Well, I don’t want to pry into your business in any way,” said Wilson,
“but I go into a good many ports in the course of the year, and if you
think it would be any use my looking about I’ll be pleased and proud to
do so, if you’ll give me some idea of who to look for.”
The old lady fidgeted with all the manner of one half desiring and half
fearing to divulge a secret.
“You see we lost him in rather peculiar circumstances,” she said,
glancing uneasily at her daughter again. “He—”
“I don’t want to know anything about that, you know, ma’am,” interposed
the skipper gently.
“It would be no good advertising for my father,” said the girl in her
clear voice, “because he can neither read nor write. He is a very
passionate, hasty man, and five years ago he struck a man down and
thought he had killed him. We have seen nothing and heard nothing of
him since.”
“He must have been a strong man,” commented the skipper.
“He had something in his hand,” said the girl, bending low over her
work. “But he didn’t hurt him really. The man was at work two days
after, and he bears him no ill-will at all.”
“He might be anywhere,” said the skipper, meditating.
“He would be sure to be where there are ships,” said the old lady; “I’m
certain of it. You see he was captain of a ship himself a good many
years, and for one thing he couldn’t live away from the water, and for
another it’s the only way he has of getting a living, poor man—unless
he’s gone to sea again, which isn’t likely.”
“Coasting trade, I suppose?” said the skipper, glancing at two or three
small craft which were floating in oil round the walls.
The old lady nodded. “Those were his ships,” she said, following his
glance; “but the painters never could get the clouds to please him. I
shouldn’t think there was a man in all England harder to please with
clouds than he was.”
“What sort of looking man is he?” inquired Wilson.
“I’ll get you a portrait,” said the old lady, and she rose and left the
room.
The girl from her seat in the window by the geraniums stitched on
steadily. The skipper, anxious to appear at his ease, coughed gently
three times, and was on the very verge of a remark—about the
weather—when she turned her head and became absorbed in something
outside. The skipper fell to regarding the clouds again with even more
disfavor than the missing captain himself could have shown.
“That was taken just before he disappeared,” said the old lady,
entering the room again and handing him a photograph. “You can keep
that.”
The skipper took it and gazed intently at the likeness of a sturdy
full-bearded man of about sixty. Then he placed it carefully in his
breast-pocket and rose to his feet.
“And if I should happen to drop across him,” he said slowly, “what
might his name be?”
“Gething,” said the old lady, “Captain Gething. If you should see him,
and would tell him that he has nothing to fear, and that his wife and
his daughter Annis are dying to see him, you will have done what I can
never, never properly thank you for.”
“I’ll do my best,” said the other warmly. “Good-afternoon.”
He shook hands with the old woman, and then, standing with his hands by
his side, looked doubtfully at Annis.
“Good-afternoon,” she said cheerfully.
Mrs. Gething showed him to the door.
“Any time you are at Gravesend, captain, we shall be pleased to see you
and hear how you get on,” she said as she let him out.
The captain thanked her, pausing at the gate to glance covertly at the
window; but the girl was bending over her work again, and he walked
away rapidly.
Until he had reached his ship and was sitting down to his belated
dinner he had almost forgotten, in the joyful excitement of having
something to do for Miss Gething, the fact that she was engaged to
another man. As he remembered this he pushed his plate from him, and,
leaning his head on his hand, gave way to a fit of deep melancholy. He
took the photograph from his pocket, and, gazing at it intently, tried
to discover a likeness between the father and daughter. There was not
sufficient to warrant him in bestowing a chaste salute upon it.
“What do you think o’ that?” he inquired, handing it over to the mate,
who had been watching him curiously.
“Any friend o’ yours?” inquired the mate, cautiously.
“No,” said the other.
“Well, I don’t think much of him,” said the mate. “Where d’you get it?”
“It was given to me,” said the skipper. “He’s missing, and I’ve got to
find him if I can. You might as well keep your eyes open too.”
“Where are you going to look for him?” asked the mate.
“Everywhere,” said the other. “I’m told that he’s likely to be in a
seaport town, and if you’ll be on the look-out I’ll take it as a
favor.”
“I’ll do that, o’ course,” said the mate. “What’s he been doing?”
“Nothing that I know of,” said the skipper; “but he’s been missing some
five years, and I promised I’d do my best to find him.”
“Friends are anxious, I s’pose?” said the mate.
“Yes,” said the other.
“I always find,” continued the mate, “that women are more anxious in
these sort o’ cases than men.”
“More tender-hearted,” said the skipper.
“It ain’t a bad sort o’ face, now I come to look at it,” said the
baffled mate, regarding it closely. “Seems to me I’ve seen somebody
very much like it—a girl, I think—but I can’t say where.”
“Bearded lady at a fair, I should think,” said the skipper bluffly.
Conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Henry, who, seeing
the photograph in the mate’s hand, at once began putting the butter
away. A glance told him that the mate was holding it upside down, and
conscience told him that this was for his benefit. He therefore rigidly
averted his gaze while clearing the table, and in a small mental
ledger, which he kept with scrupulous care for items such as these,
made a debit entry in the mate’s account.
“Boy,” said the skipper suddenly.
“Sir,” said Henry.
“You’re a fairly sharp youngster, I think,” said the skipper. “Take
hold o’ that photo there.”
Henry’s face suffused with a great joy. He looked derisively at the
mate and took the photograph from him, listening intently to much the
same instructions as had been previously given to the mate. “And you
can take it for’ard,” concluded the skipper, “and let the men see it.”
“The men?” said Henry in astonishment.
“Yes, the men; don’t I speak plain?” retorted the skipper.
“Very plain, sir,” said the boy; “but they’ll only make a muddle of it,
sir. Fancy fat Sam and the cook and Dick!”
“Do as you’re told!” said the other irascibly.
“O’ course, sir,” said Henry, “but they’ll only worry me with a lot o’
questions as to who ’e is an’ wot you want ’im for.”
“You take it for’ard,” said the skipper, “and tell them there’s a
couple of sovereigns for the first man that finds him.”
The youth took the photograph, and after another careful scrutiny, with
the object of getting a start in the race for wealth, took it forward.
Fat Sam, it seemed, had seen the very man only two days before at
Poplar; the cook knew his features as well as he knew those of his own
mother, while Dick had known him for years as an old and respected
inhabitant of Plymouth. Henry went back to the skipper, and, having
furnished him with this information, meekly suggested that they should
drag Gravesend first.
It was midnight when they got the anchor up and dropped silently down
the river. Gravesend was silent, and the dotted lines of street lamps
shone over a sleeping town as the _Seamew_ crept softly by.
A big steamer in front whistled warningly for the pilot’s boat, and
slowing up as the small craft shot out from the shore to meet it,
caused a timely diversion to the skipper’s melancholy by lying across
his bows. By the time he had fully recovered from the outrage and had
drunk a cup of coffee, which had been prepared in the galley, Gravesend
had disappeared round the bend, and his voluntary search had commenced.