"Deark d'on Dearka." ("_Beg of a Beggar_.")
_Irish Proverb_.
"... From her way of speaking they also saw immediately that she
too was an Eirisher.... They must be a bonny family when they are
all at home!"--_The Life of Mansie Tailor in Dalkeith_.
"Dock" (so ran the 536th of the 'Penny Numbers') is "a place
artificially formed for the reception of ships, the entrance of which is
generally closed by gates. There are two kinds of docks, dry-docks and
wet-docks. The former are used for receiving ships in order to their
being inspected and repaired. For this purpose the dock must be so
contrived that the water may be admitted or excluded at pleasure, so
that a vessel can be floated in when the tide is high, and that the
water may run out with the fall of the tide, or be pumped out, the
closing of the gates preventing its return. Wet-docks are formed for the
purpose of keeping vessels always afloat.... One of the chief uses of a
dock is to keep a uniform level of water, so that the business of
loading and unloading ships can be carried on without any
interruption.... The first wet-dock for commercial purposes made in this
kingdom was formed in the year 1708 at Liverpool, then a place of no
importance."
_The business of loading and unloading ships can be carried on without
any interruption._ If everything that the Penny Numbers told of were as
true to the life as that, the world's wonders (at least those of them
which begin with the first four letters of the alphabet) must be all
that I had hoped; and perhaps that bee-hive about which Master Isaac and
I had had our jokes, did really yield a "considerable income" to the
fortunate French bee-master!
Loading and unloading, coming and going, lifting and lowering, shouting
and replying, swearing and retorting, creaking and jangling, shrieking
and bumping, cursing and chaffing, the noise and restlessness of men and
things were utterly bewildering. I had often heard of a Babel of sounds,
but I had never before heard anything so like what one might fancy it
must have been when that great crowd of workmen broke up, and left
building their tower, in a confounding of language and misunderstanding
of speech. For the men who went to and fro in these docks, each his own
way, jostling and yelling to each other, were men of all nations, and
the confusion was of tongues as well as of work. At one minute I found
myself standing next to a live Chinaman in a pigtail, who was staring as
hard as I at some swarthy supple-bodied sailors with eager faces, and
scant clothing wrapped tightly round them, chatting to each other in a
language as strange to the Chinaman as to me, their large lustrous eyes
returning our curiosity with interest, and contrasting strangely with
the tea-caddy countenance of my elbow neighbour. Then a turbaned Turk
went by, and then two grinning negroes, and there were lots of men who
looked more like Englishmen, but who spoke with other tongues, and
amongst those who loaded and unloaded in this busy place, which was once
of no importance, Irish brogue seemed the commonest language of all.
One thing made me hopeful--there were plenty of boys no bigger than
myself who were busy working, and therefore earning wages, and as I saw
several lads who were dressed in suits the very counterpart of my own, I
felt sure that my travelling companion had done me a good turn when he
rigged me out in slops. An incident that occurred in the afternoon made
me a little more doubtful about this.
I really had found much to counterbalance the anxieties of my position
in the delightful novelty and variety of life around me, and not a
little to raise my hopes; for I had watched keenly for several hours as
much as I could see from the wharf of what was going on in this ship
and that, and I began to feel less confused. I perceived plainly that a
great deal of every-day sort of work went on in ships as well as in
houses, with the chief difference, in dock at any rate, of being done in
public. In the most free and easy fashion, to the untiring entertainment
of crowds of idlers besides myself, the men and boys on vessel after
vessel lying alongside, washed out their shirts and socks, and hung them
up to dry, cooked their food, cleaned out their pots and pans, tidied
their holes and corners, swept and brushed, and fetched and carried, and
did scores of things which I knew I could do perfectly, for want of
something better to do.
"It's clear there's plenty of dirty work to go on with till one learns
seamanship," I thought, and the thought was an honest satisfaction to
me.
I had always swept Uncle Henry's office, and that had been light work
after cleaning the school-room at Snuffy's. My hands were never likely
to be more chapped at sea than they had been with dirt and snow and want
of things to dry oneself with at school; and as to coal-carrying--
Talking of coals, on board the big ship, out of which great white bales,
strapped with bars of iron, were being pulled up by machinery, and
caught and flung about by the "unloaders," there was a man whose
business it seemed to be to look after the fires, and who seemed also to
have taken a roll in the coal-hole for pleasure; and I saw him find a
tin basin and a square of soap, and a decent rough towel to wash his
face and hands, such as would have been reckoned luxurious in a
dormitory at Snuffy's. Altogether--when a heavy hand was laid suddenly
on my shoulder, and a gruff voice said,
"Well, my young star-gazing greenhorn, and what do you want?"
I replied with alacrity, as well as with more respect than the
stranger's appearance was calculated to inspire, "Please, sir, I want to
go to sea, and I should like to ship for America."
He was not a nice-looking man by any means--far too suggestive of
Snuffy, when Snuffy was partly drunk. But after a pause, he said,
"All right. Where are your papers? What was your ship, and why did ye
run?"
"I have not served in a ship yet, sir," said I, "but I'm sure--"
He did not allow me to go on. With a sudden fierce look that made him
more horribly like Snuffy than before, he caught me by my sleeve and a
bit of my arm, and shoved me back from the edge of the dock till we
stood alone. "Then where did ye steal your slops?" he hissed at me with
oaths. "Look here, ye young gallows-bird, if ye don't stand me a liquor,
I'll run ye in as a runaway apprentice. So cash up, and look sharp."
I was startled, but I was not quite such a fool as I looked, mind or
body. I had once had a hardish struggle with Snuffy himself when he was
savage, and I was strong and agile beyond my seeming. I dived deeply
into my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and
the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I
suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a
battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered
city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he
had put out to trip me, I fled blindly down the quay.
No one can take orange-peel into account, however. I slipped on a large
piece and came headlong, with the aggravation of hearing my enemy
breathing hoarsely close above me. As regards him, I suppose it was
lucky that my fall jerked the shilling and the penny out of my pocket,
for as the shilling rolled away he went after it, and I saw him no more.
What I did see when I sat up was the last of my penny (which had rolled
in another direction), as it gave one final turn and fell into the dock.
I could have cried with vexation, and partly with fatigue, for it was
getting late, and I was getting tired. I had fallen soft enough, as it
happened, for I found myself on a heap of seeds, some kind of small
bean, and the yielding mass made a pleasant resting-place. There was no
one very near, and I moved round to the back of the heap to be still
more out of sight, and sat down to try and think what it was best to do.
If my slops were really a sort of uniform to which I was not entitled,
they would do me more harm than good. But whom could I ask? If there
were an honest, friendly soul in all this crowd, and I could come across
him, I felt that (without telling too much of my affairs) I could
explain that I had exchanged some good shore clothes of my own for what
I had been told were more suitable to the work I was looking out for,
and say further that though I had never yet been at sea, I was hardy,
and willing to make myself useful in any way. But how could I tell whom
to trust? I might speak fair to some likely-looking man, and he might
take me somewhere and strip me of my slops, and find my leather
money-bag, and steal that too. When I thought how easily my
fellow-traveller might have treated me thus, I felt a thrill of
gratitude towards him, and then I wondered how he had prospered in his
search for work. As for me, it was pretty clear that if I hoped to work
my way in this wicked world, I must suspect a scoundrel in every man I
met, and forestall mischief by suspicion. As I sat and thought, I sifted
the beans through my fingers, and saw that there were lots of strange
seeds mixed with them, some of very fantastic shapes; and I wondered
what countries they came from, and with what shape and scent and colour
the plants blossomed, and thought how Charlie would like some of them to
sow in pots and watch. As I drove my hands deeper into the heap, I felt
that it was quite warm inside, and then I put my head down to smell if
there was any fragrance in the seeds, and I did not lift it up again,
for I fell fast asleep.
I was awakened by a touch on my head, and a voice just above me, saying:
"He's alive anyhow, thank GOD!" and sitting up among the beans I found
that it was dark and foggy, but a lamp at some distance gave me a pretty
good view of an old woman who was bending over me.
She was dressed, apparently, in several skirts of unequal lengths, each
one dingier and more useless-looking than the one beneath it. She had a
man's coat, with a short pipe in the breast-pocket; and what her bonnet
was like one could not tell, for it was comfortably tied down by a
crimson handkerchief with big white spots, which covered it completely.
Her face was as crumpled and as dirty as her clothes, but she had as
fine eyes and as kind eyes as mine had ever met. And every idea of
needful wariness and of the wickedness of the world went quite naturally
out of my head, and I said, "Did you think I was dead, Mother?"
"I did not; though how would I know what would be the matter wid ye,
lying there those three hours on your face, and not a stir out o' ye?"
"You're very kind," I said, dusting the bean-dust off my trousers, and I
suppose I looked a little puzzled, for the old woman (helping me by
flicking at my sleeve) went on: "I'll not deceive ye, my dear. It was my
own Micky that was on my mind; though now you've lifted your face,
barring the colour of his hair, there's no likeness betwixt ye, and I'm
the disappointed woman again, GOD help me!"
"Is Micky your son?" I asked.
"He is, and a better child woman never had, till he tired of everything
I would do for him, being always the boy for a change, and went for a
stowaway from this very port."
"Sit down, Mother; stowaways are lads that hide on board ship, and get
taken to sea for nothing, aren't they?"
"They are, darlin'; but it's not for nothing they get kept at sea, ye
may take your oath. And many's the one that leaves this in the highest
of expictations, and is glad enough to get back to it in a tattered
shirt and a whole skin, and with an increase of contintment under the
ways of home upon his mind."
"And you hope Micky'll come back, I suppose?"
"Why wouldn't I, acushla? Sure it was by reason o' that I got bothered
with the washin' after me poor boy left me, from my mind being
continually in the docks, instead of with the clothes. And there I would
be at the end of the week, with the Captain's jerseys gone to old Miss
Harding, and _his_ washing no corricter than _hers_, though he'd more
good nature in him over the accidents, and iron-moulds on the
table-cloths, and pocket-handkerchers missin', and me ruined entirely
with making them good, and no thanks for it, till a good-natured sowl of
a foreigner that kept a pie-shop larned me to make the coffee, and lint
me the money to buy a barra, and he says: 'Go as convanient to the ships
as ye can, Mother; it'll aise your mind. My own heart,' says he, laying
his hand to it, 'knows what it is to have my body here, and the whole
sowl of me far away.'"
"Did you pay him back?" I asked. I spoke without thinking, and still
less did I mean to be rude; but it suddenly struck me that I was young
and hearty, and that it would be almost a duty to share the contents of
my leather bag with this poor old woman, if there were no chance of her
being able to repay the generous foreigner.
"Did I pay him back?" she screamed. "Would I be the black-hearted thief
to him that was kind to me? Sorra bit nor sup but dry bread and water
passed me lips till he had his own agin, and the heart's blessings of
owld Biddy Macartney along with it."
I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I could, and turned the
conversation back to her son.
"So you live in the docks with your coffee-barrow, Mother, that you may
be sure not to miss Micky when he comes ashore?"
"I do, darlin'. Fourteen years all but three days. He'll be gone fifteen
if we all live till Wednesday week."
"_Fifteen_? But, Mother, if he were like me when he went, he can't be
very like me now. He must be a middle-aged man. Do you think you'd know
him?"
This question was more unfortunate than the other, and produced such
howling and weeping, and beating of Biddy's knees as she rocked herself
among the beans, that I should have thought every soul in the docks
would have crowded round us. But no one took any notice of us, and by
degrees I calmed her, chiefly by the assertion--"He'll know you, Mother,
anyhow."
"He will so, GOD bless him!" said she, "And haven't I gone over it all
in me own mind, often and often, when I'd see the vessels feelin' their
way home through the darkness, and the coffee staymin' enough to cheer
your heart wid the smell of it, and the laste taste in life of something
betther in the stone bottle under me petticoats. And then the big ship
would be coming in with her lights at the head of her, and myself
sitting alone with me patience, GOD helping me, and one and another
strange face going by. And then he comes along, cold maybe, and smells
the coffee. 'Bedad, but that's a fine smell with it,' says he, for Micky
was mighty particular in his aitin' and drinkin'. 'I'll take a dhrop of
that,' says he, not noticing me particular, and if ever I'd the saycret
of a good cup he gets it, me consayling me face. 'What will it be?' says
he, setting down the mug, 'What would it be, Micky, from your Mother?'
says I, and I lifts me head. Arrah, but then there's the heart's delight
between us. 'Mother!' says he. 'Micky!' says I. And he lifts his foot
and kicks over the barra, and dances me round in his arms, 'Ochone!'
says the spictators; 'there's the fine coffee that's running into the
dock.' 'Let it run,' says I, in the joy of me heart, 'and you after it,
and the barra on the top of ye, now Micky me son's come home!'"
"Wonderfully jolly!" said I. "And it must be pleasant even to think of
it."
But Biddy's effort of imagination seemed to have exhausted her, and she
relapsed into the lowest possible spirits, from which she suddenly
roused herself to return to her neglected coffee-stall.
"Bad manners to me, for an old fool! sitting here whineging and
lamenting, when there's folks, maybe, waiting for their coffee, and
yourself would have been the betther of some this half-hour. Come along
wid ye."
And giving a tighter knot to the red kerchief, which had been disordered
by her lamentations, the old woman went down the dock, I following her.
We had not to go far. Biddy's coffee-barrow was placed just as the
pieman had advised. It was as near the ships as possible. In fact it was
actually under the shadow of a big black-looking vessel which loomed
large through the fog, and to and from which men were coming and going
as usual. With several of these the old woman interchanged some
good-humoured chaff as she settled herself in her place, and bade me sit
beside her.
"Tuck your legs under ye, agra! on that bit of an ould sack. Tis what I
wrap round me shoulders when the nights do be wet, as it isn't this
evening, thank GOD! And there's the coffee for ye."
"Mother," said I, "do you think you could sit so as to hide me for a few
minutes? All the money I have is in a bag round my neck, and I don't
want strangers to see it."
"Ye'll just keep it there, then," replied Biddy, irately, "and don't go
an' insult me wid the show of it."
And she turned her back on me, whilst I drank my coffee, and ate some
excellent cakes, which formed part of her stock-in-trade. One of these
she insisted on my putting into my pocket "against the hungry hour." I
thanked her warmly for the gift, whereupon she became mollified, and
said I was kindly welcome; and whilst she was serving some customers, I
turned round and looked at the ship. Late as it was, people seemed very
busy about her, rather more so than about any I had seen. As I sat, I
was just opposite to a yawning hole in the ship's side, into which men
were noisily running great bales and boxes, which other men on board
were lowering into the depths of the vessel with very noisy machinery
and with much shouting in a sort of uncouth rhythm, to which the grating
and bumping of the crane and its chains was a trifle. I was so absorbed
by looking, and it was so impossible to hear anything else unless one
were attending, that I never discovered that Biddy and I were alone
again, till the touch of her hand on my head made me jump.
"I beg your pardon, Mother," I said; "I couldn't think what it was."
"I ax yours, dear. It's just the curls, and I'm the foolish woman to
look at 'em. Barrin' the hair, ye don't favour each other the laste."
I had really heard a good deal about Micky, and was getting tired of
him, and inclined to revert to my own affairs.
"Mother, do you know where this ship comes from?"
"I do not. But she sails with the morning for Halifax, I'm told. And
that's America way, and I insensed the cook--that was him that axed me
where I bought my coffee--to have an eye out for Micky, in case he might
come across him anywhere."
America way! To-morrow morning! A storm of thoughts rushed through my
head, and in my passionate longing for help I knelt up by the old
Irishwoman and laid my hand upon hers.
"Mother dear, do help me! You are so kind, and you've a boy of your own
at sea. I want to go to America, and I've no papers or anything.
Couldn't I stow away as Micky did? Couldn't I stow away on this one? I
can work well enough when they find me out, if I could only hide so as
to get off; and you know the ships and the docks so well, you could tell
me how, if only you would."
I am always ashamed to remember the feeble way in which I finished off
by breaking down, though I do not know that I could have used any
argument that would have gone so far with Biddy. If it had been a man
who had been befriending me, I'm sure I shouldn't have played the fool,
but it was a woman, so I felt doubly helpless in having to depend on
her, and she felt doubly kind, and, in short, I put my face in my hands
and sobbed.
For quite four hours after this I was puzzled to death by smelling stale
bad tobacco about myself; then I discovered that by some extraordinary
jerk in the vehemence of the embrace which was Biddy's first response to
my appeal, the little black pipe had got out of her coat-pocket and
tumbled down the breast of my slops.
I hope my breakdown was partly due to the infectious nature of emotion,
of which Biddy was so lavish that my prospects were discussed in a sadly
unbusiness-like fashion. My conscience is really quite clear of having
led her to hope that I would look out for Micky on the other side of the
Atlantic, but I fear that she had made up her mind that we should meet,
and that this went far towards converting her to my views for stowing
away on the vessel lying alongside of us. However, that important point
once reached, the old woman threw herself into the enterprise with a
practical knowledge of the realities of the undertaking and a zest for
the romance of it which were alike invaluable to me.
"The botheration of it is," said Biddy, after some talk, tangling her
bonnet and handkerchief over her face till I felt inclined to beg her to
let me put her straight--"the botheration of it is, that it's near to
closing-time, and when the bell rings every soul'll be cleared out,
labourers and idlers, and myself among 'em. Ye'll have to hide, me
darlin', but there'll be no mighty difficulty in that, for I see a fine
bit of tarpaulin yonder that'd consale a dozen of the likes of you. But
there's that fool of a watchman that'll come parading and meandering up
and down wid all the airs of a sentry on him and none of his good looks,
and wid a sneaking bull's-eye of a lantern in his hand. He's at the end
of the wharf now, purshuin' to him! Maybe I'll get him to taste a dhrop
of me coffee before the bell rings. Many's the cup I gave to the old
watchman before him, peace to his sowl, the kindly craythur! that never
did a more ill-natured thing on his beat than sleep like a child. Hide
now, darlin', and keep the tail of your eye at the corner where ye'll
see the ship. Maybe he'll take a nap yet, for all his airs, and then
there's the chance for ye! And mind now, keep snug till the pilot's gone
as I warned ye, and then it's the bold heart and the civil tongue, and
just the good-nature of your ways, that'll be your best friends. The
cook tells me the captain's as dacent a man as iver he served with, so
you might aisy do worse, and are not likely to do better. Are ye hid
now? Whisht! Whisht!"
I heard most of this through a lifted corner of the tarpaulin, under
which I had the good luck to secrete myself without observation and
without difficulty. In the same manner I became witness to the admirable
air of indifference with which Biddy was mixing herself a cup of coffee
as the watchman approached. I say _mixing_ advisedly, for as he came up
she was conspicuously pouring some of the contents of the stone bottle
into her cup. Whether this drew the watchman's attention in an unusual
degree, of course I do not know, but he stopped to say, "Good-evening,
Biddy."
"Good-evening to ye, me dear, and a nasty damp evening it is."
"You're taking something to keep the damp out, I see, missus."
"I am, dear; but it's not for a foine milithrary-looking man like
yourself to be having the laugh at a poor old craythur with nothin' but
the wind and weather in her bones."
"The wind and weather get into my bones, I can tell you," said the
watchman; "and I begin my work in the fog just when you're getting out
of it."
"And that's thrue, worse luck. Take a dhrop of coffee, allanna, before I
lave ye."
"No, thank ye, missus; I've just had my supper."
"And would that privint ye from takin' the cup I'd be offering ye, wid a
taste of somethin' in it against the damps, barrin' the bottle was
empty?"
"Well, I'm not particular--as you are so pressing. Thank ye, mum; here's
your good health."
I heard the watchman say this, though at the moment I dared not peep,
and then I heard him cough.
"My sakes, Biddy, you make your--coffee--strong."
"Strong, darlin'? It's pure, ye mane. It's the rale craythur, that, and
bedad! there's a dhrop or two left that's not worth the removing, and
we'll share it anyhow. Here's to them that's far--r away."
"Thank you, thank you, woman."
"Thim that's _near_, and thim that's far away!" said Biddy, improving
upon her toast.
There was a pause. I could hear the old woman packing up her traps, and
then the man (upon whom the coffee and whisky seemed to produce a
roughening rather than a soothing effect) said coarsely, "You're a rum
lot, you Irish!"
"We are, dear," replied Biddy, blandly; "and that's why we'd be comin'
all the way to Lancashire for the improvement of our manners." And she
threw the sacking round her neck, and lifted the handles of her barrow.
"Good-night, me darlin'!" said she, raising her voice as she moved off.
"_We'll meet again_, GOD willing."
"Safe enough, unless you tumble into the dock," replied the watchman.
"Go steady, missus. I hope you'll get safe home with that barra o'
yours."
"GOD send all safe home that's far from it!" shouted Biddy, in tones
that rose above the rumbling of the wheel and the shuffling of her
shoes.
"Haw! haw!" laughed the watchman, and with increased brutalness in his
voice he reiterated, "You're a rum lot, Biddy! and free of most things,
blessings and all."
I was not surprised that the sound of the wheel and the shoes ceased
suddenly. Biddy had set down her barrow to retort. But it was with deep
gratitude that I found her postpone her own wrath to my safety, and
content herself with making her enemy "a prisint of the contimpt of a
rogue."
"And what would I be doing but blessing ye?" she cried, in a voice of
such dramatic variety as only quick wits and warm feelings can give, it
was so full at once of suppressed rage, humorous triumph, contemptuous
irony, and infinite tenderness. And I need hardly say that it was raised
to a ringing pitch that would have reached my ears had they been buried
under twenty tarpaulins, "GOD bless ye for ivermore! Good luck to ye!
fine weather to ye! health and strength to ye! May the knaves that would
harm ye be made fools for your benefit, and may niver worse luck light
on one hair of your head than the best blessings of Biddy Macartney!"
Something peculiar in the sound of Biddy's retreating movements made me
risk another glance from an angle of the tarpaulin.
And upon my honour it is strictly true that I saw the old Irish woman
drive her barrow down the dock till she passed out of sight, and that
she went neither walking nor running, but _dancing_; and a good high
stepping dance too, that showed her stockings, and shook the
handkerchief on her head. And when she reached the end of the wharf she
snapped her fingers in the air.
Then I drew my head back, and I could hear the watchman guffaw as if he
would have split his sides. And even after he began to tramp up and down
I could hear him still chuckling as he paced by.
And if I did not hear Biddy chuckle, it was perhaps because the joke on
her side lay deeper down.