Mr. Sol Ketchmaid, landlord of the Ship, sat in his snug bar, rising
occasionally from his seat by the taps to minister to the wants of the
customers who shared this pleasant retreat with him.
Forty years at sea before the mast had made Mr. Ketchmaid an authority
on affairs maritime; five years in command of the Ship Inn, with the
nearest other licensed house five miles off, had made him an autocrat.
From his cushioned Windsor-chair he listened pompously to the
conversation. Sometimes he joined in and took sides, and on these
occasions it was a foregone conclusion that the side he espoused would
win. No matter how reasonable the opponent’s argument or how gross his
personalities, Mr. Ketchmaid, in his capacity of host, had one
unfailing rejoinder—the man was drunk. When Mr. Ketchmaid had
pronounced that opinion the argument was at an end. A nervousness about
his license—conspicuous at other times by its absence—would suddenly
possess him, and, opening the little wicket which gave admission to the
bar, he would order the offender in scathing terms to withdraw.
Twice recently had he found occasion to warn Mr. Ned Clark, the village
shoemaker, the strength of whose head had been a boast in the village
for many years. On the third occasion the indignant shoemaker was
interrupted in the middle of an impassioned harangue on free speech and
bundled into the road by the ostler. After this nobody was safe.
To-night Mr. Ketchmaid, meeting his eye as he entered the bar, nodded
curtly. The shoemaker had stayed away three days as a protest, and the
landlord was naturally indignant at such contumacy.
“Good evening, Mr. Ketchmaid,” said the shoemaker, screwing up his
little black eyes; “just give me a small bottle o’ lemonade, if you
please.”
Mr. Clark’s cronies laughed, and Mr. Ketchmaid, after glancing at him
to make sure that he was in earnest, served him in silence.
“There’s one thing about lemonade,” said the shoemaker, as he sipped it
gingerly; “nobody could say you was drunk, not if you drank bucketsful
of it.”
There was an awkward silence, broken at last by Mr. Clark smacking his
lips.
“Any news since I’ve been away, chaps?” he inquired; “or ’ave you just
been sitting round as usual listening to the extra-ordinary adventures
what happened to Mr. Ketchmaid whilst a-follering of the sea?”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, Ned,” said Mr. Peter Smith, the
tailor, reprovingly.
The shoemaker assented. “But I never thought so till I heard some o’
the things Mr. Ketchmaid ’as been through,” he remarked.
“Well, you know now,” said the landlord, shortly.
“And the truthfullest of your yarns are the most wonderful of the lot,
to my mind,” said Mr. Clark.
“What do you mean by the truthfullest?” demanded the landlord, gripping
the arms of his chair.
“Why, the strangest,” grinned the shoemaker.
“Ah, he’s been through a lot, Mr. Ketchmaid has,” said the tailor.
“The truthfullest one to my mind,” said the shoemaker, regarding the
landlord with spiteful interest, “is that one where Henry Wiggett, the
boatswain’s mate, ’ad his leg bit off saving Mr. Ketchmaid from the
shark, and ’is shipmate, Sam Jones, the nigger cook, was wounded saving
’im from the South Sea Highlanders.”
“I never get tired o’ hearing that yarn,” said the affable Mr. Smith.
“I do,” said Mr. Clark.
Mr. Ketchmaid looked up from his pipe and eyed him darkly; the
shoemaker smiled serenely.
“Another small bottle o’ lemonade, landlord,” he said, slowly.
“Go and get your lemonade somewhere else,” said the bursting Mr.
Ketchmaid.
“I prefer to ’ave it here,” rejoined the shoemaker, “and you’ve got to
serve me, Ketchmaid. A licensed publican is compelled to serve people
whether he likes to or not, else he loses of ’is license.”
“Not when they’re the worse for licker he ain’t,” said the landlord.
“Certainly not,” said the shoemaker; “that’s why I’m sticking to
lemonade, Ketchmaid.”
The indignant Mr. Ketchmaid, removing the wire from the cork,
discharged the missile at the ceiling. The shoemaker took the glass
from him and looked round with offensive slyness.
“Here’s the ’ealth of Henry Wiggett what lost ’is leg to save Mr.
Ketchmaid’s life,” he said, unctuously. “Also the ’ealth of Sam Jones,
who let hisself be speared through the chest for the same noble
purpose. Likewise the health of Captain Peters, who nursed Mr.
Ketchmaid like ’is own son when he got knocked up doing the work of
five men as was drowned; likewise the health o’ Dick Lee, who helped
Mr. Ketchmaid capture a Chinese junk full of pirates and killed the
whole seventeen of ’em by—’Ow did you say you killed ’em, Ketchmaid?”
The landlord, who was busy with the taps, affected not to hear.
“Killed the whole seventeen of ’em by first telling ’em yarns till they
fell asleep and then choking ’em with Henry Wiggett’s wooden leg,”
resumed the shoemaker.
“Kee—hee,” said a hapless listener, explosively. “Kee—hee—kee——”
He checked himself suddenly, and assumed an air of great solemnity as
the landlord looked his way.
“You’d better go ’ome, Jem Summers,” said the fuming Mr. Ketchmaid.
“You’re the worse for licker.”
“I’m not,” said Mr. Summers, stoutly.
“Out you go,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, briefly. “You know my rules. I keep a
respectable house, and them as can’t drink in moderation are best
outside.”
“You should stick to lemonade, Jem,” said Mr. Clark. “You can say what
you like then.”
Mr. Summers looked round for support, and then, seeing no pity in the
landlord’s eye, departed, wondering inwardly how he was to spend the
remainder of the evening. The company in the bar gazed at each other
soberly and exchanged whispers.
“Understand, Ned Clark,” said the indignant Mr. Ketchmaid, “I don’t
want your money in this public-house. Take it somewhere else.”
“Thank’ee, but I prefer to come here,” said the shoemaker,
ostentatiously sipping his lemonade. “I like to listen to your tales of
the sea. In a quiet way I get a lot of amusement out of ’em.”
“Do you disbelieve my word?” demanded Mr. Ketchmaid, hotly.
“Why, o’ course I do,” replied the shoemaker; “we all do. You’d see how
silly they are yourself if you only stopped to think. You and your
sharks!—no shark would want to eat you unless it was blind.”
Mr. Ketchmaid allowed this gross reflection on his personal appearance
to pass unnoticed, and for the first time of many evenings sat
listening in torment as the shoemaker began the narration of a series
of events which he claimed had happened to a seafaring nephew. Many of
these bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Ketchmaid’s own experiences,
the only difference being that the nephew had no eye at all for the
probabilities.
In this fell work Mr. Clark was ably assisted by the offended Mr.
Summers. Side by side they sat and quaffed lemonade, and burlesqued the
landlord’s autobiography, the only consolation afforded to Mr.
Ketchmaid consisting in the reflection that they were losing a harmless
pleasure in good liquor. Once, and once only, they succumbed to the
superior attractions of alcohol, and Mr. Ketchmaid, returning from a
visit to his brewer at the large seaport of Burnsea, heard from the
ostler the details of a carouse with which he had been utterly unable
to cope.
The couple returned to lemonade the following night, and remained
faithful to that beverage until an event transpired which rendered
further self-denial a mere foolishness.
It was about a week later; Mr. Ketchmaid had just resumed his seat
after serving a customer, when the attention of all present was
attracted by an odd and regular tapping on the brick-paved passage
outside. It stopped at the tap-room, and a murmur of voices escaped at
the open door. Then the door was closed, and a loud, penetrating voice
called on the name of Sol Ketchmaid.
“Good Heavens!” said the amazed landlord, half-rising from his seat and
falling back again, “I ought to know that voice.”
“Sol Ketchmaid,” bellowed the voice again; “where are you, shipmate?”
“Hennery Wiggett!” gasped the landlord, as a small man with ragged
whiskers appeared at the wicket, “it can’t be!”
The new-comer regarded him tenderly for a moment without a word, and
then, kicking open the door with an unmistakable wooden leg, stumped
into the bar, and grasping his outstretched hand shook it fervently.
“I met Cap’n Peters in Melbourne,” said the stranger, as his friend
pushed him into his own chair, and questioned him breathlessly. “He
told me where you was.”
“The sight o’ you, Hennery Wiggett, is better to me than diamonds,”
said Mr. Ketchmaid, ecstatically. “How did you get here?”
“A friend of his, Cap’n Jones, of the barque _Venus_, gave me a passage
to London,” said Mr. Wiggett, “and I’ve tramped down from there without
a penny in my pocket.”
“And Sol Ketchmaid’s glad to see you, sir,” said Mr. Smith, who, with
the rest of the company, had been looking on in a state of great
admiration. “He’s never tired of telling us ’ow you saved him from the
shark and ’ad your leg bit off in so doing.”
“I’d ’ave my other bit off for ’im, too,” said Mr. Wiggett, as the
landlord patted him affectionately on the shoulder and thrust a glass
of spirits into his hands. “Cheerful, I would. The kindest-’earted and
the bravest man that ever breathed, is old Sol Ketchmaid.”
He took the landlord’s hand again, and, squeezing it affectionately,
looked round the comfortable bar with much approval. They began to
converse in the low tones of confidence, and names which had figured in
many of the landlord’s stories fell continuously on the listeners’
ears.
“You never ’eard anything more o’ pore Sam Jones, I s’pose?” said Mr.
Ketchmaid.
Mr. Wiggett put down his glass.
“I ran up agin a man in Rio Janeiro two years ago,” he said,
mournfully. “Pore old Sam died in ’is arms with your name upon ’is
honest black lips.”
“Enough to kill any man,” muttered the discomfited Mr. Clark, looking
round defiantly upon his murmuring friends.
“Who is this putty-faced swab, Sol?” demanded Mr. Wiggett, turning a
fierce glance in the shoemaker’s direction.
“He’s our cobbler,” said the landlord, “but you don’t want to take no
notice of ’im. Nobody else does. He’s a man who as good as told me I’m
a liar.”
“Wot!” said Mr. Wiggett, rising and stumping across the bar; “take it
back, mate. I’ve only got one leg, but nobody shall run down Sol while
I can draw breath. The finest sailor-man that ever trod a deck is Sol,
and the best-’earted.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr. Smith; “own up as you’re in the wrong, Ned.”
“When I was laying in my bunk in the fo’c’s’le being nursed back to
life,” continued Mr. Wiggett, enthusiastically, “who was it that set by
my side ’olding my ’and and telling me to live for his sake?—why, Sol
Ketchmaid. Who was it that said that he’d stick to me for life?—why Sol
Ketchmaid. Who was it said that so long as ’e ’ad a crust I should have
first bite at it, and so long as ’e ’ad a bed I should ’ave first half
of it?—why, Sol Ketchmaid!”
He paused to take breath, and a flattering murmur arose from his
listeners, while the subject of his discourse looked at him as though
his eloquence was in something of the nature of a surprise even to him.
“In my old age and on my beam-ends,” continued Mr. Wiggett, “I
remembered them words of old Sol, and I knew if I could only find ’im
my troubles were over. I knew that I could creep into ’is little
harbour and lay snug. I knew that what Sol said he meant. I lost my leg
saving ’is life, and he is grateful.”
“So he ought to be,” said Mr. Clark, “and I’m proud to shake ’ands with
a hero.”
He gripped Mr. Wiggett’s hand, and the others followed suit. The
wooden-legged man wound up with Mr. Ketchmaid, and, disdaining to
notice that that veracious mariner’s grasp was somewhat limp, sank into
his chair again, and asked for a cigar.
“Lend me the box, Sol,” he said, jovially, as he took it from him. “I’m
going to ’and ’em round. This is my treat, mates. Pore old Henry
Wiggett’s treat.”
He passed the box round, Mr. Ketchmaid watching in helpless indignation
as the customers, discarding their pipes, thanked Mr. Wiggett warmly,
and helped themselves to a threepenny cigar apiece. Mr. Clark was so
particular that he spoilt at least two by undue pinching before he
could find one to his satisfaction.
Closing time came all too soon, Mr. Wiggett, whose popularity was never
for a moment in doubt, developing gifts to which his friend had never
even alluded. He sang comic songs in a voice which made the glasses
rattle on the shelves, asked some really clever riddles, and wound up
with a conjuring trick which consisted in borrowing half a crown from
Mr. Ketchmaid and making it pass into the pocket of Mr. Peter Smith.
This last was perhaps not quite so satisfactory, as the utmost efforts
of the tailor failed to discover the coin, and he went home under a
cloud of suspicion which nearly drove him frantic.
“I ’ope you’re satisfied,” said Mr. Wiggett, as the landlord, having
shot the bolts of the front door, returned to the bar.
“You went a bit too far,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, shortly; “you should ha’
been content with doing what I told you to do. And who asked you to
’and my cigars round?”
“I got a bit excited,” pleaded the other.
“And you forgot to tell ’em you’re going to start to-morrow to live
with that niece of yours in New Zealand,” added the landlord.
“So I did,” said Mr. Wiggett, smiting his forehead; “so I did. I’m very
sorry; I’ll tell ’em to-morrow night.”
“Mention it casual like, to-morrow morning,” commanded Mr. Ketchmaid,
“and get off in the arternoon, then I’ll give you some dinner besides
the five shillings as arranged.”
Mr. Wiggett thanked him warmly, and, taking a candle, withdrew to the
unwonted luxury of clean sheets and a soft bed. For some time he lay
awake in deep thought and then, smothering a laugh with the
bed-clothes, he gave a sigh of content and fell asleep.
To the landlord’s great annoyance his guest went for a walk next
morning and did not return until the evening, when he explained that he
had walked too far for his crippled condition and was unable to get
back. Much sympathy was manifested for him in the bar, but in all the
conversation that ensued Mr. Ketchmaid listened in vain for any hint of
his departure. Signals were of no use, Mr. Wiggett merely nodding
amiably and raising his glass in response; and when, by considerable
strategy, he brought the conversation from pig-killing to nieces, Mr.
Wiggett deftly transferred it to uncles and discoursed on pawn-broking.
The helpless Mr. Ketchmaid suffered in silence, with his eye on the
clock, and almost danced with impatience at the tardiness of his
departing guests. He accompanied the last man to the door, and then,
crimson with rage, returned to the bar to talk to Mr. Wiggett.
“Wot d’y’r mean by it?” he thundered.
“Mean by what, Sol?” inquired Mr. Wiggett, looking up in surprise.
“Don’t you call me Sol, ’cos I won’t have it,” vociferated the
landlord, standing over him with his fist clenched. “First thing
to-morrow morning off you go.”
“Off?” repeated the other in amazement. “Off? Whereto?”
“Anywhere,” said the overwrought landlord; “so long as you get out of
here, I don’t care where you go.”
Mr. Wiggett, who was smoking a cigar, the third that evening, laid it
carefully on the table by his side, and regarded him with tender
reproach.
“You ain’t yourself, Sol,” he said, with conviction; “don’t say another
word else you might say things you’ll be sorry for.”
His forebodings were more than justified, Mr. Ketchmaid indulging in a
few remarks about his birth, parentage, and character which would have
shocked an East-end policeman.
“First thing to-morrow morning you go,” he concluded, fiercely. “I’ve a
good mind to turn you out now. You know the arrangement I made with
you.”
“Arrangement!” said the mystified Mr. Wiggett; “what arrangement? Why,
I ain’t seen you for ten years and more. If it ’adn’t been for meeting
Cap’n Peters—”
He was interrupted by frenzied and incoherent exclamations from Mr.
Ketchmaid.
“Sol Ketchmaid,” he said, with dignity, “I ’ope you’re drunk. I ’ope
it’s the drink and not Sol Ketchmaid, wot I saved from the shark by
’aving my leg bit off, talking. I saved your life, Sol, an’ I ’ave come
into your little harbour and let go my little anchor to stay there till
I go aloft to join poor Sam Jones wot died with your name on ’is lips.”
He sprang suddenly erect as Mr. Ketchmaid, with a loud cry, snatched up
a bottle and made as though to brain him with it.
“You rascal,” said the landlord, in a stifled voice. “You infernal
rascal. I never set eyes on you till I saw you the other day on the
quay at Burnsea, and, just for an innercent little joke like with Ned
Clark, asked you to come in and pretend.”
“Pretend!” repeated Mr. Wiggett, in a horror-stricken voice. “Pretend!
Have you forgotten me pushing you out of the way and saying, ‘Save
yourself, Sol,’ as the shark’s jaw clashed together over my leg? Have
you forgotten ’ow—?”
“Look ’ere,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, thrusting an infuriated face close to
his, “there never was a Henery Wiggett; there never was a shark; there
never was a Sam Jones!”
“Never—was—a—Sam Jones!” said the dazed Mr. Wiggett, sinking into his
chair. “Ain’t you got a spark o’ proper feeling left, Sol?”
He fumbled in his pocket, and producing the remains of a dirty
handkerchief wiped his eyes to the memory of the faithful black.
[Illustration: “Wiped his eyes to the memory of the faithful black.”]
“Look here,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, putting down the bottle and regarding
him intently, “you’ve got me fair. Now, will you go for a pound?”
“Got you?” said Mr. Wiggett, severely; “I’m ashamed of you, Sol. Go to
bed and sleep off the drink, and in the morning you can take Henry
Wiggett’s ’and, but not before.”
He took a box of matches from the bar and, relighting the stump of his
cigar, contemplated Mr. Ketchmaid for some time in silence, and then,
with a serious shake of his head, stumped off to bed. Mr. Ketchmaid
remained below, and for at least an hour sat thinking of ways and means
out of the dilemma into which his ingenuity had led him.
He went to bed with the puzzle still unsolved, and the morning yielded
no solution. Mr. Wiggett appeared to have forgotten the previous
night’s proceedings altogether, and steadfastly declined to take
umbrage at a manner which would have chilled a rhinoceros. He told
several fresh anecdotes of himself and Sam Jones that evening;
anecdotes which, at the immediate risk of choking, Mr. Ketchmaid was
obliged to indorse.
A week passed, and Mr. Wiggett still graced with his presence the bar
of the Ship. The landlord lost flesh, and began seriously to consider
the advisability of making a clean breast of the whole affair. Mr.
Wiggett watched him anxiously, and with a skill born of a life-long
study of humanity, realised that his visit was drawing to an end. At
last, one day, Mr. Ketchmaid put the matter bluntly.
“I shall tell the chaps to-night that it was a little joke on my part,”
he announced, with grim decision; “then I shall take you by the collar
and kick you into the road.”
Mr. Wiggett sighed and shook his head.
“It’ll be a terrible show-up for you,” he said, softly. “You’d better
make it worth my while, and I’ll tell ’em this evening that I’m going
to New Zealand to live with a niece of mine there, and that you’ve paid
my passage for me. I don’t like telling any more lies, but, seeing it’s
for you, I’ll do it for a couple of pounds.”
“Five shillings,” snarled Mr. Ketchmaid.
Mr. Wiggett smiled comfortably and shook his head. Mr. Ketchmaid raised
his offer to ten shillings, to a pound, and finally, after a few
remarks which prompted Mr. Wiggett to state that hard words broke no
bones, flung into the bar and fetched the money.
The news of Mr. Wiggett’s departure went round the village at once, the
landlord himself breaking the news to the next customer, and an
overflow meeting assembled that evening to bid the emigrant farewell.
The landlord noted with pleasure that business was brisk. Several
gentlemen stood drink to Mr. Wiggett, and in return he put his hand in
his own pocket and ordered glasses round. Mr. Ketchmaid, in a state of
some uneasiness, took the order, and then Mr. Wiggett, with the air of
one conferring inestimable benefits, produced a lucky halfpenny, which
had once belonged to Sam Jones, and insisted upon his keeping it.
“This is my last night, mates,” he said, mournfully, as he acknowledged
the drinking of his health. “In many ports I’ve been, and many snug
pubs I ’ave visited, but I never in all my days come across a nicer,
kinder-’earted lot o’ men than wot you are.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr. Clark.
Mr. Wiggett paused, and, taking a sip from his glass to hide his
emotion, resumed.
“In my lonely pilgrimage through life, crippled and ’aving to beg my
bread,” he said, tearfully, “I shall think o’ this ’appy bar and these
friendly faces. When I am wrestlin’ with the pangs of ’unger and being
moved on by the ’eartless police, I shall think of you as I last saw
you.”
“But,” said Mr. Smith, voicing the general consternation, “you’re going
to your niece in New Zealand?”
Mr. Wiggett shook his head and smiled a sad, sweet smile.
“I ’ave no niece,” he said, simply; “I’m alone in the world.”
At these touching words his audience put their glasses down and stared
in amaze at Mr. Ketchmaid, while that gentleman in his turn gazed at
Mr. Wiggett as though he had suddenly developed horns and a tail.
“Ketchmaid told me hisself as he’d paid your passage to New Zealand,”
said the shoemaker; “he said as ’e’d pressed you to stay, but that you
said as blood was thicker even than friendship.”
“All lies,” said Mr. Wiggett, sadly. “I’ll stay with pleasure if he’ll
give the word. I’ll stay even now if ’e wishes it.”
He paused a moment as though to give his bewildered victim time to
accept this offer, and then addressed the scandalised Mr. Clark again.
“He don’t like my being ’ere,” he said, in a low voice. “He grudges the
little bit I eat, I s’pose. He told me I’d got to go, and that for the
look o’ things ’e was going to pretend I was going to New Zealand. I
was too broke-’earted at the time to care wot he said—I ’ave no wish to
sponge on no man—but, seeing your ’onest faces round me, I couldn’t go
with a lie on my lips—Sol Ketchmaid, old shipmate—good-bye.”
He turned to the speechless landlord, made as though to shake hands
with him, thought better of it, and then, with a wave of his hand full
of chastened dignity, withdrew. His stump rang with pathetic insistence
upon the brick-paved passage, paused at the door, and then, tapping on
the hard road, died slowly away in the distance. Inside the Ship the
shoemaker gave an ominous order for lemonade.