STEPHEN'S TALE
I found it quite true that one might eat the loose sugar wherever he
judged it clean enough--as most of it was. And nothing but Grandfather
Nat's restraining hand postponed my first bilious attack.
Thus it was that I made acquaintance with the Highway, and with the
London Docks, in their more picturesque days, and saw and delighted in a
thousand things more than I can write. Port was drunk then, and hundreds
of great pipes lay in rows on a wide quay where men walked with wooden
clubs, whacking each pipe till the "shive" or wooden bung sprang into
the air, to be caught with a dexterity that pleased me like a conjuring
trick. And many a thirsty dock-labourer, watching his opportunity, would
cut a strip of bread from his humble dinner as he strolled near a pipe,
and, absorbed in the contemplation of the indefinite empyrean, absently
dip his sippet into the shive-hole as he passed; recovering it in a
state so wet and discoloured that its instant consumption was
imperative.
And so at last we came away from the docks by the thoroughfare then
called Tanglefoot Lane; not that that name, or anything like it, was
painted at the corner; but because it was the road commonly taken by
visitors departing from the wine-vaults after bringing tasting-orders.
As we passed Blue Gate on our way home, I saw, among those standing at
the corner, a coarse-faced, untidy woman, talking to a big, bony-looking
man with a face so thin and mean that it seemed misplaced on such
shoulders. The woman was so much like a score of others then in sight,
that I should scarce have noted her, were it not that she and the man
stopped their talk as we passed, with a quick look, first at my
grandfather, and then one at the other; and then the man turned his back
and walked away. Presently the woman came after us, walking quickly,
glancing doubtfully at Grandfather Nat as she passed; and at last, after
twice looking back, she turned and waited for us to come up.
"Beg pardon, Cap'en Kemp," she said in a low, but a very thick voice,
"but might I speak to you a moment, sir?"
My grandfather looked at her sharply. "Well," he said, "what is it?"
"In regards to a man as sold you a watch las' night----"
"No," Grandfather Nat interrupted with angry decision, "he didn't."
"Beg pardon, sir, jesso sir--'course not; which I mean to say 'e sold it
to a man near to your 'ouse. Is it brought true as that party--not
meanin' you, sir, 'course not, but the party in the street near your
'ouse--is it brought true as that party'll buy somethink more--somethink
as I needn't tell now, sir, p'raps, but somethink spoke of between that
party an' the other party--I mean the party as sold it, an' don't mean
you, sir, 'course not?"
It was plain that the woman, who had begun in trepidation, was confused
and abashed the more by the hard frown with which Captain Nat regarded
her. The frown persisted for some moments; and then my grandfather said:
"Don't know what you mean. If somebody bought anything of a friend o'
yours, an' your friend wants to sell him something else, I suppose he
can take it to him, can't he? And if it's any value, there's no reason
he shouldn't buy it, so far as I know." And Grandfather Nat strode on.
The woman murmured some sort of acknowledgment, and fell back, and in a
moment I had forgotten her; though I remembered her afterward, for good
reason enough.
In fact, it was no later than that evening. I was sitting in the
bar-parlour with Grandfather Nat, who had left the bar to the care of
the potman. My grandfather was smoking his pipe, while I spelled and
sought down the narrow columns of _Lloyd's List_ for news of my father's
ship. It was my grandfather's way to excuse himself from reading, when
he could, on the plea of unsuitable eyes; though I suspect that, apart
from his sight, he found reading a greater trouble than he was pleased
to own.
"There's nothing here about the _Juno_, Grandfather Nat," I said.
"Nothing anywhere."
"Ah," said my grandfather, "La Guaira was the last port, an' we must
keep eyes on the list for Barbadoes. Maybe the mail's late." Most of
Lloyd's messages came by mail at that time. "Let's see," he went on;
"Belize, La Guaira, Barbadoes"; and straightway began to figure out
distances and chances of wind.
Grandfather Nat had been considering whether or not we should write to
my father to tell him that my mother was dead, and he judged that there
was little chance of any letter reaching the _Juno_ on her homeward
passage.
"Belize, La Guaira, Barbadoes," said Grandfather Nat, musingly. "It's
the rough reason thereabout, an' it's odds she may be blown out of her
course. But the mail----"
He stopped and turned his head. There was a sudden stamp of feet outside
the door behind us, a low and quick voice, a heavy thud against the
door, and then a cry--a dreadful cry, that began like a stifled scream
and ended with a gurgle.
Grandfather Nat reached the door at a bound, and as he flung it wide a
man came with it and sank heavily at his feet, head and one shoulder
over the threshold, and an arm flung out stiffly, so that the old man
stumbled across it as he dashed at a dark shadow without.
I was hard at my grandfather's heels, and in a flash of time I saw that
another man was rising from over the one on the doorsill. But for the
stumble Grandfather Nat would have had him. In that moment's check the
fellow spun round and dashed off, striking one of the great posts with
his shoulder, and nearly going down with the shock.
All was dark without, and what I saw was merely confused by the light
from the bar-parlour. My grandfather raised a shout and rushed in the
wake of the fugitive, toward the stairs, and I, too startled and too
excited to be frightened yet, skipped over the stiff arm to follow him.
At the first step I trod on some object which I took to be my
grandfather's tobacco-pouch, snatched it up, and stuffed it in my jacket
pocket as I ran. Several men from the bar were running in the passage,
and down the stairs I could hear Captain Nat hallooing across the river.
"Ahoy!" came a voice in reply. "What's up?" And I could see the fire of
a purl-boat coming in.
"Stop him, Bill!" my grandfather shouted. "Stop him! Stabbed a man! He's
got my boat, and there's no sculls in this damned thing! Gone round them
barges!"
And now I could distinguish my grandfather in a boat, paddling
desperately with a stretcher, his face and his shirt-sleeves touched
with the light from the purl-man's fire.
The purl-boat swung round and shot off, and presently other boats came
pulling by, with shouts and questions. Then I saw Grandfather Nat, a
black form merely, climbing on a barge and running and skipping along
the tier, from one barge to another, calling and directing, till I could
see him no more. There were many men on the stairs by this time, and
others came running and jostling; so I made my way back to the
bar-parlour door.
It was no easy thing to get in here, for a crowd was gathering. But a
man from the bar who recognised me made a way, and as soon as I had
pushed through the crowd of men's legs I saw that the injured man was
lying on the floor, tended by the potman; while Mr. Cripps, his face
pallid under the dirt, and his nose a deadly lavender, stood by, with
his mouth open and his hands dangling aimlessly.
* * * * *
The stabbed man lay with his head on a rolled-up coat of my
grandfather's, and he was bad for a child to look at. His face had gone
tallowy; his eyes, which turned (and frightened me) as I came in, were
now directed steadily upward; he breathed low and quick, and though Joe
the potman pressed cloths to the wound in his chest, there was blood
about his lips and chin, and blood bubbled dreadfully in his mouth. But
what startled me most, and what fixed my regard on his face despite my
tremors, so that I could scarce take my eyes from it, was the fact that,
paleness and blood and drawn cheeks notwithstanding, I saw in him the
ugly, broken-nosed fellow who had been in the private compartment last
night, with a watch to sell; the watch, with an initial on the back,
that now lay in Grandfather Nat's cash-box.