"What are ye howlin' there for, an' blockin' up the Queen's highway like
that, you precious young villain?" demanded Morley Jones.
"An' wot are you breakin' the Queen's laws for like that?" retorted
Billy Towler, dancing into the middle of the road and revolving his
small fists in pugilistic fashion. "You big hairy walrus, I don't know
whether to 'ave you up before the beaks for assault and battery or turn
to an' give 'ee a good lickin'."
Mr Jones showed all his teeth with an approving grin, and the small boy
grinned in return, but still kept on revolving his fists, and warning
the walrus to "look hout and defend hisself if he didn't want his
daylights knocked out or his bows stove in!"
"You're a smart youth, you are," said Jones.
"Ha! you're afraid, are you? an' wants to make friends, but I won't 'ave
it at no price. Come on, will you?"
Jones, still grinning from ear to ear, made a rush at the urchin, who,
however, evaded him with such ease that the man perceived he had not the
smallest chance of catching him.
"I say, my lad," he asked, stopping and becoming suddenly grave, "where
d'you come from?"
"I comes from where I b'longs to, and where I'm agoin' back to w'en it
suits me."
"Very good," retorted Jones, "and I suppose you don't object to earn a
little money in an easy way?"
"Yes, I do object," replied Billy; "it ain't worth my while to earn a
_little_ money in any way, no matter how easy; I never deals in small
sums. A fi' pun' note is the lowest figur' as I can stoop to."
"You'll not object, however, to a gift, I daresay," remarked Jones, as
he tossed a half-crown towards the boy.
Billy caught it as deftly as a dog catches a bit of biscuit, looked at
it in great surprise, tossed it in the air, bit its rim critically, and
finally slid it into his trousers pocket.
"Well, you know," he said slowly, "to obleege a _friend_, I'm willin' to
accept."
"Now then, youngster, if I'm willing to trust that half-crown in your
clutches, you may believe I have got something to say to 'ee worth your
while listenin' to; for you may see I'm not the man to give it to 'ee
out o' Christian charity."
"That's true," remarked Billy, who by this time had become serious, and
stood with his hands in his pockets, still, however, at a respectful
distance.
"Well, the fact is," said Mr Jones, "that I've bin lookin' out of late
for a smart lad with a light heart and a light pocket, and that ain't
troubled with much of a conscience."
"That's me to a tee," said Billy promptly; "my 'art's as light as a
feather, and my pocket is as light as a maginstrate's wisdom. As for
conscience, the last beak as I wos introdooced to said I must have bin
born without a conscience altogether; an' 'pon my honour I think he wos
right, for I never felt it yet, though I've often tried--'xcept once,
w'en I'd cleaned out the pocket of a old ooman as was starin' in at a
shop winder in Cheapside, and she fainted dead away w'en she found it
out, and her little grand-darter looked so pale and pitiful that I says
to myself, `Hallo! Walleye, you've bin to the wrong shop this time; go
an' put it back, ye young dog;' so I obeyed orders, an' slipped back the
purse while pretendin' to help the old ooman. It wos risky work,
though, for a bobby twigged me, and it was only my good wind and tough
pair o' shanks that saved me. Now," continued the urchin, knitting his
brows as he contemplated the knotty point, "I've had my doubts whether
that wos conscience, or a sort o' nat'ral weakness pecooliar to my
constitootion. I've half a mind to call on the Bishop of London on the
point one o' these days."
"So, you're a city bird," observed Jones, admiringly.
"Ah, and I can see that you're a provincial one," replied Billy,
jingling the half-crown against the silver in his pocket.
"What brings you so far out of your beat, Walleye?" inquired Jones.
"Oh, I'm on circuit just now, makin' a tower of the provinces. I tried
a case just before you came up, an' made three shillins out of it,
besides no end o' promises--which, unfort'nately, I can't awail myself
of--from a sweet young lady, with such a pleasant face, that I wished I
could adopt her for a darter. But that's an expensive luxury, you see;
can't afford it yet."
"Well, youngster," said Jones, assuming a more grave yet off-hand air,
"if you choose to trust me, I'll put you in the way of makin' some money
without much trouble. It only requires a little false swearing, which I
daresay you are used to."
"No, I ain't," retorted the urchin indignantly; "I never tells a lie
'xcept w'en I can't help it. _Then_, of course, a feller _must_ do it!"
"Just so, Walleye, them's my sentiments. Have you got a father?"
"No, nor yet a mother," replied Billy. "As far as I'm aweer of, I wos
diskivered on the steps of a city work'us, an' my first impressions in
this life wos the knuckles of the old woman as banged me up. The
governor used to talk a lot o' balderdash about our bein' brought up;
but I knows better. I wos banged up; banged up in the mornins, banged
to meals, and banged to bed; banged through thick and thin, for
everything an' for nothin', until I banged myself out o' the door one
fine mornin', which I banged arter me, an' 'ave bin bangin' about, a
gen'lem'n at large, ever since."
"Ha! got no friends and nothin' to do?" said Morley Jones.
"Jis so."
"Well, if you have a mind to take service with me, come along an' have a
pot o' beer."
The man turned on his heel and walked off to a neighbouring
public-house, leaving the small boy to follow or not as he pleased, and
apparently quite indifferent as to what his decision might be.
Billy Towler--_alias_ Walleye--looked after him with an air of
uncertainty. He did not like the look of the man, and was about to
decide against him, when the jingle of the half-crown in his pocket
turned the scale in his favour. Running after him, he quietly said,
"I'm your man," and then began to whistle, at the same time making an
abortive effort to keep step with his long-limbed employer, who said
nothing in reply, but, entering a public-house, ordered two pots of
beer. These, when produced, he and his little companion sat down to
discuss in the most retired box in the place, and conversed in low
tones.
"What was it brought you to Yarmouth, Walleye?" asked Mr Jones.
"Call me Billy," said the boy, "I like it better."
"Well, Billy--and, by the way, you may call me Morley--my name's Jones,
but, like yourself, I have a preference. Now, then, what brought you
here?"
"H'm, that involves a story--a hanecdote, if I may so speak," replied
this precocious youngster with much gravity. "You see, some time arter
I runn'd away from the work'us, I fell'd in with an old gen'lem'n with a
bald head an' a fat corpus. Do 'ee happen to know, Mr Morley, 'ow it
is that bald heads an' fat corpuses a'most always go together?"
Morley replied that he felt himself unable to answer that difficult
question; but supposed that as good-humour was said to make people fat,
perhaps it made them bald also.
"I dun know," continued Billy; "anyhow, this old gen'lem'n he took'd a
fancy to me, an' took'd me home to his 'otel; for he didn't live in
London--wos there only on a wisit at the time he felled in love with me
at first sight. Well, he give me a splendacious suit of noo clo'es, an
'ad me put to a school, where I soon larned to read and write; an' I do
b'lieve wos on the highroad to be Lord Mayor of London, when the old
schoolmaster died, before I'd bin two year there, an' the noo un wos so
fond o' the bangin' system that I couldn't stand it, an' so bid 'em all
a tender farewell, an' took to the streets agin. The old gen'lem'n he
comed three times from Yarmouth, where he belonged, for to see me arter
I wos put to the school, an' I had a sort o' likin' for him, but not
knowin' his name, and only been aweer that he lived at Yarmouth, I
thought I'd have no chance o' findin' him. Over my subsikint career
I'll draw a wail; it's enough to say I didn't like either it or my pals,
so I made up my mind at last to go to Yarmouth an' try to find the old
gen'lem'n as had adopted me--that's what he said he'd done to me. W'en
I'd prigged enough o' wipes to pay my fare down, I comed away,--an' here
I am."
"Have you seen the old gentleman?" asked Morley, after a pause.
"No, only just arrived this arternoon."
"And you don't know his name, nor where he lives?"
"No."
"And how did you expect to escape bein' nabbed and put in limbo as a
vagrant?" inquired Morley.
"By gittin' employment, of coorse, from some _respectable_ gen'lem'n
like yourself, an' then runnin' away from 'im w'en I'd diskivered the
old chap wi' the bald head."
Morley Jones smiled grimly.
"Well, my advice to you is," he said, "to fight shy of the old chap,
even if you do discover him. Depend upon it the life you would lead
under his eye would be one of constant restraint and worry. He'd put
you to school again, no doubt, where you'd get banged as before--a
system I don't approve of at all--and be made a milksop and a flunkey,
or something o' that sort--whereas the life you'll lead with me will be
a free and easy rollikin' manly sort o' life. Half on shore and half at
sea. Do what you like, go where you will,--when business has bin
attended to--victuals and clothing free gratis, and pocket-money enough
to enable you to enjoy yourself in a moderate sort of way. You see I'm
not goin' to humbug you. It won't be all plain sailin', but what is a
man worth if he ain't fit to stand a little rough-and-tumble? Besides,
rough work makes a fellow take his ease with all the more zest. A life
on the ocean wave one week, with hard work, and a run on shore the next
week, with just enough to do to prevent one wearyin'. That's the sort
o' thing for you and me, Billy, eh boy?" exclaimed the tempter, growing
garrulous in his cups, and giving his small victim a pat on the
shoulder, which, although meant to be a facetious touch, well-nigh
unseated him.
Billy Towler recovered himself, however, and received it as it was
meant, in perfect good humour. The beer had mounted to his own little
brain, and his large eyes glowed with more than natural light as he sat
gazing into his companion's rugged face, listening with delight to the
description of a mode of life which he thought admirably suited to his
tastes and capabilities. He was, however, a shrewd little creature.
Sad and very rough experience of life had taught him to be uncommonly
circumspect for his years.
"What's your business, Morley?" he demanded eagerly.
"I've a lot of businesses," said Mr Jones with a drunken leer, "but my
principal one is fishcuring. I'm a sort of shipowner too. Leastwise
I've got two craft--one bein' a sloop, the other a boat. Moreover, I
charter no end of vessels, an' do a good deal in the insurance way. But
you'll understand more about these things all in good time, Billy. I
live, while I'm at home, in Gravesend, but I've got a daughter and a
mother livin' at Yarmouth, so I may say I've got a home at both places.
It's a convenient sort o' thing, you see,--a town residence and a
country villa, as it were. Come, I'll take you to the villa now, and
introduce 'ee to the women."
So saying, this rascal paid for the poison he had been administering in
large doses to himself and his apprentice, and, taking Billy's dirty
little hand in his large horny fist, led him towards the centre of the
town.
Poor Billy little knew the nature of the awful gulf of sin and misery
into which he was now plunging with a headlong hilarious vivacity
peculiarly his own. He was, indeed, well enough aware of the fact that
he was a thief, and an outcast from society, and that he was a habitual
breaker of the laws of God and man, but he was naturally ignorant of the
extent of his guilt, as well as of the certain and terrible end to which
it pointed, and, above all, he had not the most remote conception of the
almost hopeless slavery to which he was doomed when once fairly secured
in the baleful net which Morley Jones had begun to twine around him.
But a higher Power was leading the poor child in a way that he knew
not--a way that was little suspected by his tempter--a way that has been
the means of snatching many and many a little one from destruction in
time past, and that will certainly save many more in time to come--as
long as Christian men and women band together to unite their prayers and
powers for the rescue of perishing souls.
Traversing several streets with unsteady gait--for he was now much the
worse of drink--Mr Jones led his willing captive down one of those
innumerable narrow streets, or passages, termed "rows," which bear some
resemblance to the "closes" of the Scottish capital. In width they are
much the same, but in cleanliness there is a vast difference, for
whereas the _closes_ of the northern capital are notorious for dirt, the
_rows_ of Yarmouth are celebrated for their neat tidy aspect. What the
cause of the neatness of the latter may be we cannot tell, but we can
bear the testimony of an eye-witness to the fact that--considering the
class of inhabitants who dwell in them, their laborious lives and
limited means--the _rows_ are wondrously clean. Nearly all of them are
paved with pebbles or bricks. The square courts opening out of them on
right and left, although ridiculously small, are so thoroughly scoured
and swept that one might roll on their floors with white garments and
remain unsoiled. In each court may be observed a water-bucket and
scrubbing-brush wet, usually, from recent use, also a green painted
box-garden of dimensions corresponding to the court, full of well-tended
flowers. Almost every door has a wooden or stone step, and each step is
worn and white with repeated scrubbings--insomuch that one is
irresistibly led to suspect that the "Bloaters" must have a strong
infusion of the Dutch element in their nature.
Emerging at the lower end of the row, Mr Jones and his small companion
hastened along the centre of a narrow street which led them into one of
much wider dimensions, named Friar's Lane. Proceeding along this for
some time, they diverged to the right into another of the rows not far
from the old city-wall, at a place where one of the massive towers still
rears its rugged head as a picturesque ruin. The moon sailed out from
under a mass of clouds at this point, giving to objects the distinctness
of daylight. Hitherto Billy Towler had retained some idea of the
direction in which he was being led, but this last turn threw his
topographical ideas into utter confusion.
"A queer place this," he remarked, as they emerged from the narrowest
passage they had yet traversed into a neat, snug, and most unexpected
little square, with a garden in the middle of it, and a flagstaff in one
corner.
"Adam-and-Eve gardens, they call it," said Mr Jones; "we're pretty nigh
home now."
"I wonder they didn't call it Eden at once," observed Billy; "it would
have been shorter and comes to the same thing."
"Here we are at last," said Mr Jones, stumbling against a small door in
one of the network of rows that surrounded this Yarmouth paradise.
"Hope the women are in," he added, attempting to lift the latch, but,
finding that the door was locked, he hammered at it with foot and fist
violently.
"Hallo!" shouted the deep voice of a man within.
"Hallo, indeed! Who may _you_ be?" growled Mr Jones with an angry
oath. "Open the door, will you?"
The door was opened at once by James Welton, who stood aside to let the
other pass.
"Oh! it's you, is it?" said Mr Jones. "Didn't recognise your voice
through the door. I thought you couldn't have got the sloop made snug
so soon. Well, lass, how are 'ee; and how's the old ooman?"
As the man made these inquiries in a half-hearty voice, he advanced into
a poorly-furnished apartment, so small and low that it seemed a couple
of sizes too small for him, and bestowed a kiss first upon the cheek of
his old mother, who sat cowering over the fire, but brightened up on
hearing his voice, and then upon the forehead of his daughter Nora, the
cheerfulness of whose greeting, however, was somewhat checked when she
observed the intoxicated state of her father.
Nora had a face which, though not absolutely pretty, was intensely
winsome in consequence of an air of quiet womanly tenderness which
surrounded it as with a halo. She was barely eighteen, but her soft
eyes possessed a look of sorrow and suffering which, if not natural to
them, had, at all events, become habitual.
"Who is this little boy, father?" she said, turning towards Billy
Towler, who still stood in the doorway a silent but acute observer of
all that went on.
"Oh, that? why--a--that's my noo 'prentice just come down from
Gravesend. He's been helpin' for some time in the `hang'" (by which Mr
Jones meant the place where his fish were cured), "and I'm goin' to take
him to sea with me next trip. Come in, Billy, and make yourself at
home."
The boy obeyed with alacrity, and made no objection to a cup of tea and
slice of bread and butter which Nora placed before him--supper being
just then in progress.
"You'd better get aboard as soon as may be," said Jones to Jim Welton
somewhat sternly. "I didn't expect you to leave the sloop tonight."
"And I didn't intend to leave her," replied Jim, taking no notice of the
tone in which this was said; "but I thought I'd come up to ask if you
wished me to begin dischargin' early to-morrow morning."
"No, we're not going to discharge," returned Jones.
"Not going to discharge!" echoed Jim in surprise. "No. I find that
it's not worth while discharging any part of the cargo here. On the
contrary, I mean to fill up with bloaters and run over with them to the
coast of France; so you can go and stow the top tier of casks more
firmly, and get ready for the noo ones. Good-night."
The tone in which this was said left no excuse for Jim to linger, so he
bade the household good-night and departed.
He had not gone far, however, when he was arrested by the sound of a
light footstep. It was that of Nora, who had followed him.
"Nora!" exclaimed the young sailor in surprise, returning quickly and
taking one of the girl's hands in both of his.
"Oh, Jim!" said Nora, with a look and tone of earnest entreaty, "don't,
don't forsake him just now--if the love which you have so often
professed for me be true, don't forsake him, I beseech you."
Jim protested in the most emphatic terms that he had no intention of
forsaking anybody, and made a great many more protestations, in the
midst of which there were numerous ardent and more or less appropriate
references to hearts that never deserted their colours, sheet-anchors
that held on through thick and thin, and needles that pointed, without
the smallest shadow of variation, to the pole.
"But what makes you think I'm going to leave him?" he asked, at the end
of one of those flights.
"Because he is so rough to 'ee, Jim," replied the girl, leaning her head
on her lover's shoulder; "he spoke so gruff even now, and I thought you
went away huffed. Oh, Jim, you are the only one that has any influence
over him--"
"Not the only one," returned Jim, quietly smoothing the fair girl's hair
with his hard strong hand.
"Well, the only _man_, at any rate," continued Nora, "especially when he
is overcome with that dreadful drink. Dear Jim, you won't forsake him,
will you, even though he should insult, even though he should _strike_
you?"
"No, never! Because he is your father, Nora, I'll stick by him in spite
of all he can say or do to me, and try, God helping me, to save him.
But I cannot stick by him if--"
"If what?" asked the girl anxiously, observing that he hesitated.
"If he does anything against the laws," said Jim in a low voice. "It
isn't that I'm afraid of my good name--I'd even let that go, for _your_
sake, if by so doing I could get him out of mischief; and as long as I
know nothing against him _for certain_, I'll stand by him. But if he
does fall, and I come to know it, I _must_ leave him, Nora, because I
won't be art and part in it. I could no longer go on my knees to pray
for him if I did that, Nora. Moreover, if anything o' that sort should
happen, I must leave the country, because he'd be sure to be caught and
tried, and I will never stand witness against _your_ father if I can
avoid it by fair means."
Poor Nora hung her head as she asked in a low voice if Jim really
thought her father was engaged in illegal practices.
"I can't say that I do," replied the youth earnestly. "Come, cheer up,
dearest Nora. After all, it is chiefly through reports that my
suspicions have been aroused, and we all know how easy it is for an
enemy to raise an evil report. But, Nora, I wish you had not bound me
to secrecy as to my reason for sticking by your father. Why should I
not say boldly that it's all for love of you?"
"Why should you wish to give any reason at all, Jim, and above all,
_that_ reason?" asked Nora, looking up with a blush.
"Because," said the youth, with a perplexed look, "my secrecy about the
matter has puzzled my father to such an extent that his confidence in me
is entirely shaken. I have been all my life accustomed to open all my
heart to him, and now, without rhyme or reason, as he thinks, I have
suddenly gone right round on the other tack, and at the same time, as he
says, I have taken up with doubtful company. Now, if--"
The sound of approaching footsteps here brought the interview to an
abrupt close. Nora ran back to her poor home, and Jim Welton, directing
his steps towards the harbour, returned on board the little sloop which
had been named after the girl of his heart.