"Prigged it," said the child in a business-like voice. "Don't know why I
gave it back: seemed that I wanted to. That's why I offered to come with
you: and now I'm glad. Don't care if I _do_ get a hiding."
For the moment, while she plodded alongside, I could only feel the watch
over in my hand, making sure that it was really mine.
"But," said I, after a long pause of wonder, "you don't suppose that _I_
want to give you a hiding, eh?--and you a girl, too!"
"No."
"Then who's going to beat you?"
"Mother." After a moment she added reassuringly, "But I've got another
inside o' my bodice."
I whistled again, and called up Hartnoll, who had been lagging behind
sulkily. But he lost his sulks when I showed him the watch: and he too
whistled, and we stood stock-still gazing at the child, who had halted
with one bare foot on the edge of the gutter.
"She has another about her," said I. "She confessed it."
"Good Lord!" As the child made a motion to spring away, Hartnoll stepped
out across the gutter and intercepted her. "I--I say," he stammered,
"you don't by any chance happen to have my dirk?"
She fell to whimpering. "Lemme go . . . I took pity on yer an' done yer a
kindness . . . put myself out o' the way, I did, and this is what I get
for it. Thought you was kind-hearted, I did, and--if you don't lemme go,
I'll leave you to find your way, and before mornin' the crimps'll get
you." She threatened us, trembling with passion, shaking her finger at
the ugly darkness.
"Look here," said I, "if you said anything about another watch, understand
that I didn't hear. You don't suppose I want to take it from you?
I'm only too glad to have my own again, and thank you."
"I thought _'e_ might," she said, only half-reassured, jerking a nod
towards Hartnoll. "As for his dirk, I never took it, but I know the boy
as did. He lives the way we're going, and close down by the water; and if
you spring a couple o' tanners maybe I'll make him give it up."
"I'd give all I possess to get back that dirk," said Hartnoll, and I
believe he meant it.
"Come along, then,"--and we plunged yet deeper into the dark bowels of
Portsmouth. The child had quite recovered her confidence, and as we went
she explained to us quite frankly why her mother would be angry.
The night--if I may translate out of her own language, which I forget--
was an ideal one for pocket-picking, what with the crowd at the fair, and
the fog, and (best of all, it seemed) the constables almost to a man drawn
off to watch the roads around Fareham.
"But what," I asked, "is the matter with Fareham?"
My ignorance staggered her. "What? Hadn't we heard of the great
Prize-fight?" We had not. "Not the great fight coming off between Jem
Clark and the Dustman?" We were unfamiliar even with the heroes' names.
She found this hard--very hard--to believe. Why, Portsmouth was full of
it, word having come down from London the date was to-morrow, and that
Fareham, or one of the villages near Fareham, the field of battle.
The constabulary, too, had word of it--worse luck--and were on their
mettle to break up the meeting, as the sportsmen of Portsmouth and its
neighbourhood were all on their mettle to attend it. This, explained the
child in her thin clear voice,--I can hear it now discoursing its sad,
its infinitely weary wisdom to us two Johnny Newcomes,--this was the
reason why the fair had closed early. The show-folk were all waiting, so
to speak, for a nod. The tip given, they would all troop out northward,
on each other's heels, greedy for the aftermath of the fight.
Rumour filled the air, and every rumour chased after the movements of the
two principals and their trainers, of whom nothing was known for certain
save that they had left London, and (it was said) had successfully dodged
a line of runners posted for some leagues along the Bath and Portsmouth
roads. For an hour, soon after sunset, the town had been stunned by a
report that Brighton, after all, would be the venue: a second report said
Newbury, or at any rate a point south-west of Reading. Fire drives out
fire: a third report swore positively that Clark and the Dustman were in
Portsmouth, in hiding, and would run the cordon in the small hours of the
morning.
So much--and also that her own name was Meliar-Ann and her mother kept a
sailor's lodging-house--the small creature told us, still trotting by our
side, until we found ourselves walking alongside a low wall over which we
inhaled strong odours of the sea and of longshore sewage, and spied the
riding-lights of the harbour looming through the fog. At the end of this
we came to the high walls of a row of houses, all very quiet and black to
the eye, except that here and there a chink of light showed through a
window-shutter or the sill of a street-door. Throughout that long walk I
had an uncanny sensation as of being led through a town bewitched, hushed,
but wakeful and expectant of something. . . . I can get no nearer to
explaining. We must have passed a score of taverns at least; of that I
have assured myself by many a later exploration of Portsmouth: and in
those days a Portsmouth tavern never closed day or night, save for the
death of a landlord, nor always for that. But to-night a murmur at most
distinguished it from the other houses in the street.