“I hope we’ll land at the nearest point opposite.”
“We’lltryto land there,” amended Mr. Clark, gravely. “Matter of fact, the tide’s stronger to-day than I’ve ever known it before.”
“We seem to be drifting further and further down the river,” observed the other, now clearly falling prey to nerves. “Do you think it would be better to turn round and go back?”
“Turn round, sir—with the tide runningout?” asked Mr. Clark, in accents almost scandalized. “Why,we should be capsized for dead, certain sure, in less than no time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it’s plain you’re no sailor, to talk like that. No, we can’t turn back.”
“Well, perhaps if you were to—to keep the—the front of the boat pointed straighter for the bank opposite—”
“I can’t!” stated Mr. Clark. “The tide’s too strong. We must land as near as we can, that’s all. I never knoo such a tide!” he ended, pettishly.
“You—you don’t think there’s any chance of being carried out beyond that lighthouse there at the very end, do you?”
“I ’ope and pray not!” soberly returned Mr. Clark.
He bent to his sculls with the greatest determination. A more sophisticated passenger might have noticed that the ferryman was pulling far harder with one arm than the other. The present fare, however, was engrossed in observing more and more of the opposite bank slip by.
“I do believe we shall be carried right out to sea!” he said at last, with the utmost concern.
“Not ifIcan ’elp it!” denied Mr. Clark, and gave a straining, spectacular display of oarsmanship.
“Weshallbe carried out to sea!”
Mr. Clark, shipping his skulls with commendable neatness, stared owlishly at the passenger for a few moments, and then ejaculated:
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” with intensity of feeling.
“What is it? Whatever is it?”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” repeated Mr. Clark. “It’s my ’eart!” he explained, hollowly, and made a fearsome rolling of his eyes. “I’ve strained it, or busted it, or something.”
“But—but we shall be capsized—drowned!”
“I couldn’t row another stroke just now, not to save my life,” groaned Mr. Clark. “And you mustn’t try to take the oars, not even if you know ’ow to manage ’em. You’d upset the boat if you tried to change places with me, and you’d upset it if you tried to row from where you’re sitting.”
His passenger, abandoning a half-formed intention, sat very still.
“Can’t we shout to the people ashore?” he asked, dismally, as the little boat swept on past the harbour lighthouse.
“They couldn’t ’ear you,” moaned Mr. Clark.
“I could wave to them!”
“And upset the boat?” asked Mr. Clark, faintly. “She’s very, very easy upset. The chap what owns this boat never tells ’er ’istory when ’e’s ’iring it out to visitors in the summer.”
“What can wedo? Whatcanwe do?”
“Do? Why, nothing, except ’ope. We must just let the old boat float out and trust to luck.”
“But—but—” protested the other, wildly.
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” bellowed Mr. Clark, in accents of acute anguish, as the easiest way to foreclose vain conversation.
He sat back, groaning horribly, and rubbing various portions of his anatomy, a fearful glare in his eyes.
The other man, watching him miserably, took a firm grasp of the seat as the little craft began to pitch and dance over the turmoil of the harbour-bar.
“We—we—we—” murmured Mr. Clark, with difficulty.
“We what?” asked the other, eagerly.
“I dunno,” said Mr. Clark, blankly.
There was dire silence. The little boat drifted further and further out, till it was clear of the harbour, and here the scour of the tide carried it well away from the roadstead.
Mr. Clark, opening one eye, shrewdly surveyed the locality.
“Just—just remembered,” he said. “We’ve got a anchor ’ere in the locker—a anchor and any amount of cable. We’ll chuck it over, and we’ll ride ’ere, as easy as easy, till the tide turns.”
“Don’t you feel strong enough to row us back now?”
“’Ave a ’eart, sir!” begged Mr. Clark, reproachfully. “It ’ud pull my arms out of their sockets to row against this current. But we’ll be all right ’ere. Once I get the anchor overboard, like this, we’ll be as safe as safe.”
“All very well!” fulminated the passenger, recovering a little spirit when he noted that the anchor had checked further seaward flow. “But why—”
“Ooh! Ooh, ah!” interrupted Mr. Clark. “For ’eaven’s sake, sir, don’t go a-hagitating of me. When I ’ave attacks like this, I’m sometimes liable to fits, and if I ’ave a fit ’ere, over goes the boat, and it’s all up with both of us!”
“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” wailed the other, subsiding.
“I—I’m going to lie down in the bottom of the boat,” announced Mr. Clark, wanly. “And if I smokes a pipe that might do me good, by composing of my nerves.”
He kindled his pipe, and forthwith settled himself very comfortably in the bottom of the boat. For headrest, he had a pillow he fortunately happened to have brought with him. By a similar kindness of chance, he had also provided himself with a thick overcoat, and with this he now snugly covered himself.
Ensued a bleak period of human silence, accentuatedby the lapping of the water round the boat, and the phantom-like scream of wheeling sea-birds. The passenger, sitting humped-up in an attitude of complete dejection, surveyed the prone Mr. Clark and subconsciously became aware of the gentle, rhythmic fall and rise of the anchored craft.
“Really, it’s most unfortunate!” he whined, at last. “Most unfor—”
He stopped abruptly; his expression was a blend of alarm and self-suspicion.
“Dear me!” he muttered. “Oh! I do hope—”
Mr. Clark, stirring, opened one eye sufficiently to see that the complexion of his companion had passed to a strange olive-green shade, and that he was holding his palm to his forehead. Mr. Clark closed his eye again with a warm glow of satisfaction.
Twenty minutes later, Mr. Clark again glanced at his companion. That gentleman’s complexion was now some shades lighter, though still green of hue, and he was sitting with his arms hanging limply by his side. His expression suggested that he had no further interest in life.
“’Ow are you gettin’ on?” asked Mr. Clark.
The other man, turning a pair of glassy eyes on him, shook his head dolefully and groaned. Mr. Clark, settling down again in comfort, was callous enough to smile.
Another half-hour elapsed, with the stout ferryman taking life easily at the bottom of the boat, and with the passenger gaining inside information as to the treacherous nature of a small boat when anchored in deep waters. Then, for the third time, Mr. Clark appraised the state of his passenger and decided that the time for convalescence had come.
Heartily remarking that the rest had done him a world of good, he resumed his seat and began to scull towards the harbour with the greatest of ease. His passenger, drooping woefully in his place, evidenced no emotion whatever at this impending termination to his troubles.
In excellent style Mr. Clark regained the sanctuary of the harbour and drew near to the quay. Mr. Peter Lock, an alert sentinel there for some while past, was waiting to greet him.
“Oh, poor fellow!” sympathized Mr. Lock. “Hedolook ill!”
“You needn’t trouble to feel sorry for ’im, Peter,” said Mr. Clark. “’E’s in that state ’e don’t know what’s ’appening, or whether it’s ’appening to ’im or somebody else. Got a bit of a ’eadache, ain’t you, sir?” he bawled at the passenger.
“Oh!” groaned the sufferer, making feeble gestures with his hands and showing the yellows of his eyes.
“Oh!” he moaned again, and would have collapsed had not Mr. Clark passed a supportive arm round him.
“There you are, Peter. How’s that?” said Mr. Clark, with something of a showman’s pride. “Give me a hand to get ’im out of the boat and up on to the quay. All O.K., I s’pose?” he added, enigmatically.
Mr. Lock nodded.
“She’s going to ’ave tea with ’Orace’s missis, and she’s there now. She’s been up to the station twice to see if a Mr. Briblett ’ad arrived, but there was no trace of ’im.”
“Briblett,” murmured the passenger, dazedly. “That’s my name. Don’t—oh, don’t bother me! I’m ill—ill!”
“’Orace ’as kept out of ’er way all the time, in case some one might ’ave seen ’im up at the station thismorning,” whispered Mr. Lock. “She might begin to smell a rat before the bomb goes off, if she starts putting questions to ’im.”
With a certain inconsiderate vigour the two friends half-lifted, half-dragged Mr. Briblett from the boat and assisted him up the steps to the quay.
“A drop o’ brandy is the only thing to do this poor gent any good,” prescribed Mr. Lock, producing a flask.
The stranger, although in a comatose condition, proved true to his lifelong traditions, and feebly waved the stimulant aside.
“Oh, well,” said Mr. Lock, “if ’e won’t drink it, p’r’aps thesmellof it might do ’im good!”
Thus speaking, he delicately sprinkled Mr. Briblett’s shoulder with a few drops of the spirit, and then very fraternally shared the remainder with Mr. Clark.
“And now off we goes!” directed Mr. Lock, and, supported by the two sailormen, the cadaverous Mr. Briblett tottered forward on two swerving, unstable legs. Closed were Mr. Briblett’s eyes, and the expression on his face was one of pained indifference to all mundane affairs.
By quiet side-streets was Mr. Briblett conducted to the neighbourhood of the little shop in Fore Street. Rounding a corner, the trio at last reached that emporium. Mr. Lock remembered to knock Mr. Briblett’s hat off for him, retrieving it with sundry muddy adhesions, and replacing it on the sufferer’s head at a rakish angle.
Then the door of Mr. Dobb’s shop flew open, the three lurched over the threshold, and Mr. Dobb quickly flitted in after them from nowhere. A moment later Mr. Clark and Mr. Lock were exhaustedly mopping their foreheads, and their burden, unceremoniouslydumped into a chair, was lolling back in his seat, too indisposed even for protest at his treatment.
“Good gracious, whatever—” began Horace’s spouse, appearing in vast surprise at the inner door.
Mr. Lock, perceiving a second female rising from a chair in the back parlour, began to speak loudly and rapidly.
“We’ve just found this chap lying ’elpless at the corner of the road,” he stated. “We brought ’im ’ere because ’e said ’e wanted to find a Mrs. Jackson, sir, and we thought that p’r’aps you might know the good lady. Though whether she’d care to admit to knowing him, I shouldn’t like to say, her being a most respectable lady, by all accounts.”
“’E must ’ave been drinking the ’ole of the day!” observed Mr. Clark, in tones of righteous contempt. “I see ’im myself go into the ‘Jolly Sailors,’ and the ‘Blue Lion,’ and the ‘Cutlass and Cannon’.”
“I see ’im myself this morning,” said Horace. “I see him come out of the station, and I thought ’e looked a pretty queer fish. ’E come straight out of the station and went into the ‘Railway Inn.’”
“I see ’im leave the ‘Flag and Pennant’ at dinner-time,” contributed Mr. Lock. “’E left there to go to the ‘Royal George’.”
“Brandy, too!” intoned Mr. Clark, sepulchrally. “You just bend down and sniff. If you can’t smell brandy, I’ll—”
Mr. Briblett, raising his head with extreme difficulty, partly opened his eyes.
“Where am I?” he demanded, weakly. “I’m—I’m not at all well! I feel ill—very ill!”
“So I should think!” concurred Mr. Lock. “And the language he was using!”
“Said ’e’d backed three winners out of five yesterday, and didn’t care if it snowed pink!” supplied Mr. Clark.
“Wanted us to ’ave a game of ’apenny nap with ’im on the steps of the Town Hall,” added Mr. Lock.
“Said ’e’d come down to see about a ’air-dressing business, but it could go to—but ’e wasn’t going to trouble!” stated Mr. Clark.
As one existing on a plane of complete isolation, the stricken Mr. Briblett rose unsteadily to his feet. Clutching at the back of his chair, he swayed delicately a while, and then sat down again.
“I—I’d like to go to sleep,” he announced. “I want to go to sleep! I want to lie down! Oh, I feel so queer! That boat, drifting out to sea—”
“Boat—sea!” cried Mr. Clark, readily. “There you are! Delirious, and no wonder! Raving—raving! What a ’orrible hexample for all right-minded men!”
There was a little wait. Then Mrs. Jackson, coming out of a sort of trance, pushed past her hostess and stepped through the doorway of the back parlour. For three long seconds she stared at Mr. Briblett, and then, drawing a deep breath, she shrilly began to take the predominant part in the conversation. . . .
Five minutes later Mr. Dobb, Mr. Clark, and Mr. Lock were standing some streets away, dazedly fanning their brows.
“’Ow the dooce was I to know?” whispered Mr. Dobb, brokenly. “’Ow the dooce was I to know the chap would be so punctual as to be too early for the hexpress and come straight along to see Mrs. Jackson at ’er ’ome?”
His hearers shook their heads in confession of inability to answer the question.
“And ’ow the dooce was I to know,” continued Mr.Dobb, bitterly, “that she’d asked this other chap to come down and ’elp ’er with ’er business affairs, now ’e’d got back to England after fifteen years in the Colonies, and never been to Shore’aven before to see ’er? ’Ow the dooce was I to know? . . . Why, I didn’t even know she’dgota brother!”
It had been a day thickly veined and marbled with emotions for the little group of men who, aforetime, had in some measure controlled the sea-going vagaries of that decrepit old barque, the “Jane Gladys.” For, that day, the “Jane Gladys” had ceased to be a ship dowered with an imposing collection of virtues perceptible only to the auctioneer, and had become but so much old wood and rusting iron to be exploited by the speculative marine-store dealer who hazarded the highest price for her unlovely bulk.
This distressful climax in the nautical career of the “Jane Gladys” was not allowed to go unwitnessed by those who had so long lived and thrived amid the sinister shadows of her ill-repute as a barque that was the natural home of venal duplicities. The erstwhile crew of the “Jane Gladys,” those established confederates in mercenary plot and counterplot, had rallied to watch the transfer of their stronghold into alien and unsympathetic ownership, and, in the untroubled throng about the auctioneer, they stood as figures thrust apart from their fellow-men by the stern arm of Tragedy.
Captain Peter Dutt was there, his countenance a very show-case of mournful reminiscence as he gazed upon his late command, although he had retired ashore on a comfortable pension, and had already taken to bragging about his extraordinary prowess as an amateurgrower of vegetables. That venerable and corpulent amphibian, Mr. Samuel Clark, was there, too, having contrived to evade for a while his present duties as ferryman across Shorehaven Harbour in order to attend this dismal chapter in the history of the vessel upon which he had served for so many years. And Mr. Horace Dobb, who formerly graced the cook’s galley of the doomed ship, was also in attendance in the great glory of garb which was explained and justified by the fact that he had married a widow and a snug second-hand business at one fortunate sweep.
But, as may be inferred, the regrets of Captain Dutt, of Mr. Clark, and of Mr. Dobb were almost entirely retrospective, for their daily bread was assured. The future was firm ground for their feet to tread, and their woeful deportment had therefore merely a sentimental value. Far more earnest and practical was the grief at the passing of the “Jane Gladys” of the two remaining members of her old crew, Mr. Peter Lock and Mr. Joseph Tridge.
Despite the assiduity with which these two gentlemen had of late pointed out to the great god Luck ways by which he might help them, that fickle deity had proved himself singularly unresponsive. And this meant that neither Mr. Lock nor Mr. Tridge had any attractive prospects to solace them for the loss of their employment on the “Jane Gladys.”
By personal inquiry they had discovered that no master mariner was prepared to risk the morale of his crew by importing into the fo’c’sle anyone who had been even remotely connected with the “Jane Gladys,” nor was a task ashore obtainable when once they had mentioned the only references they could give.
True, Mr. Dobb had promised them his favour, but,so far, nothing had come of it save the abortive attempt to procure employment for Mr. Tridge as a hairdresser. Not that there was any question as to Mr. Dobb’s sincerity of purpose, for, in projecting philanthropies for his two unfortunate shipmates, he was largely considering his own interests. “Strictly Business!” was the self-chosen motto that controlled Mr. Dobb’s energies in every direction, and always there was present in his mind the idea that profitable disposal of stock from the shop in Fore Street might skilfully be accelerated by the placing of his old accomplices of the “Jane Gladys” in strategic situations about the town.
But, apart from securing Mr. Samuel Clark his present job, Mr. Dobb’s efforts had hitherto been negligible in result, and now, of those who mourned the end of the “Jane Gladys,” none mourned her with more genuine feeling or with a greater sense of personal bereavement than Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge, for others were only mourning for memories, while they were mourning a lost home.
Gradually, however, as the day had worn on, they had struggled with and overcome their melancholy, mounting, indeed in the end to a flippant hilarity which fitted but incongruously with the gravity of their prospects.
But this was not till the day was nearing its close. The early afternoon had been a space of sighs and doleful head-shakings, for, at the close of the sale, Captain Dutt had led his old subordinates into the “Turk’s Head,” and here they had all spoken so wistfully and reverently about the “Jane Gladys” that the landlady had wondered how one of them could have come back wearing a green and pink tie from a funeral.
Mr. Horace Dobb, not averse from exhibiting the opulence of his new sphere in life to his former skipper, competed with that worthy for the honour of being prime host to the party. It was a challenge which Captain Dutt’s pride forbade him to refuse, and so round after round of refreshment was served, till by degrees a brisker mood descended upon the company.
It was not till past tea-time that the party had begun to break up. Mr. Clark was the first to leave, having suddenly remembered that he had faithfully promised to return to the ferry at one o’clock sharp. And next Mr. Dobb went, pleading the calls of business, and purchasing a cigar at the bar as he left, with excellent effect. For Captain Dutt, after silently and disapprovingly considering such an action on an ex-cook’s part, at last stigmatized it as a kind of Socialism, and bought Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge a cigar apiece to re-establish his prestige.
Soon after, Captain Dutt reluctantly announced that he, too, must now depart, and Messrs. Tridge and Lock accompanied him to the nearest draper’s shop, where he sagely selected a bonnet to be presented to Mrs. Dutt the moment he got home. And when the skipper, already holding the hat-box before him in a propitiatory manner, had passed from their sight round a corner, Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock looked hard and remindedly at each other, and then made search in their pockets.
As a result, the one party produced a shilling and five pennies, and the other party disclosed a florin and a halfpenny; frank and unabashed confession admitted these coins to be “change” which the skipper had forgotten to pick up amid the mental distractions of the afternoon.
Whereupon, congratulating themselves and each other on this presence of mind in face of opportunity, Mr. Lock and Mr. Tridge had retired to the tap-room of the “Royal William,” and had there abundantly developed their policy of drowning dull care.
By now the night was well advanced, and a fevered, reckless brilliance was illuminating Mr. Lock’s personality, lighting up all those manifold polite accomplishments of which he was a master. Thus, he had entertained the company with a series of imitations of bird-calls, and performed clever feats of legerdemain with corks and pennies and hats.
Mr. Tridge was in complete eclipse. He had tried hard to be not ungenial, but his temperament was different from Mr. Lock’s, and every minute of revelry only found him more and more subdued and morose. He had struggled against this psychological handicap, even to the extent of exhibiting to the company four or five styles of dancing with which he was familiar, but so morose and forbidding was his countenance as he jigged and gyrated that none dared claim his attention by offering applause, so that when he sat down again it was amid complete and discouraging silence.
Mr. Lock, however, shone still more effulgently as the evening progressed. Knotting his handkerchief into semblance of a doll, he affected that it was a wife and that he was its husband, and built up on these premises a highly diverting ventriloquial monologue.
And, after that, he successfully introduced some farmyard mimicry, and then got well away with card tricks. Appreciative, and even enthusiastic, were Mr. Lock’s audience, and none was more enthusiastic or appreciative than the plump, fresh-faced little landlord of the “Royal William.” Not once, nor twice, but thrice, didhe pay tribute to Mr. Lock’s powers in the medium most gratifying to that artist, and his flow of hospitality ceased only when a big and stern-visaged lady came presently and stood behind the bar at his side. And, thereafter, the licensee of the “Royal William” took, as it were, but a furtive and subsidiary interest in Mr. Lock’s entertainment; while the lady eyed the performance with a cold hostility which was inimical to true art.
And whether it was that Mr. Lock grew a little flustered under her malign regard, or whether it was that he sought to sting the landlord into revolt against domestic oppression, the fact remains that he began to intersperse his card tricks with humorous, but inflammatory, remarks bearing on the subject of domineering wives and too submissive husbands.
It is possible that the landlord of the “Royal William” derived amusement from these sallies. Certainly his eyes gleamed at each thrust, and more than once he turned away to conceal a grin, but he was too craven to exhibit open hilarity at Mr. Lock’s satires. The landlady, however, did not hesitate to betray her feelings in the matter, and thus it was that, at the tail of an amusing anecdote of domestic tyranny, Mr. Lock found himself confronted with a stern and acidulated request to sit down and keep quiet unless he wished to find himself in trouble.
Mr. Lock, a little nonplussed, glanced at the landlord to enlist his support. The landlord’s gaze was apologetic but unhelpful. Mr. Lock looked around among his admirers, but their demeanour had become absent and constrained. Mr. Lock turned and regarded Mr. Tridge; Mr. Tridge was wrapped in his own sablemeditations. Pettishly, Mr. Lock flung down the pack of cards and sulked in a corner.
The landlady, having thus suppressed unwelcome propaganda, indulged in a tight-lipped smile of triumph, and began a rinsing of glasses. The hush deepened in the room, developing an atmosphere which brought Mr. Lock back to remembrance of his own insecure position in the world, and this was rendered still more discomforting by what followed. For an amiable gentleman in a check coat, after twice clearing his throat, sought to re-establish light conversation, and asked the landlord whether there was yet any news of Ted.
“I had a letter from him,” answered the landlord, coming out of a sort of thoughtful trance.
“Thanking you for all the kindnesses you’ve showed him, I lay,” hazarded the checkered gentleman.
“No,” returned the landlord, slowly. “’E only asked me to send on after him a pair of boots he’d left behind for mendin’.”
“Fancy bothering about boots!” marvelled the other. “If my uncle died and leftmea greengrocery shop—”
“And a nice little business, too, by all accounts,” struck in an individual in a mackintosh.
“Ay, byhisaccounts,” agreed the landlord. “If half he said was true, he won’t have to do any more billiard-marking and odd-jobbing.”
“Not while the money lasts, at any rate,” said the man in the mackintosh. “Have you got anyone to take his place yet?”
The landlord, shaking his head, replied that he had not yet found a successor to Ted. Billiard-markers, he added, were scarce; people who desired employment as such were, as a rule, of one or two unsatisfactory classes, knowing either too little or too much.
Mr. Lock, assimilating this talk, lifted his eyes and peered as it were through the mists of his troubles. Here, obviously, was a vacancy going, and one which he was well qualified to fill, for his knowledge of the billiard table was neither elementary nor academic. A post as a marker and odd-job man at the “Royal William” appealed with equal force to his temperament and his talents. He could conceive of no form of employment more compatible with his desires. He almost groaned with mortification at the thought that he had allowed afaux pasto ruin his chances of so delectable a situation.
None the less, he determined to make sure that his opportunity was indeed irrevocably lost, and, to that end, when the landlady had temporarily quitted the apartment, he sidled up to the host of the “Royal William,” and put a blunt inquiry to him.
“No chance whatever!” answered that worthy, regretfully shaking his head.
“You’ll find me just the sort of chap you want,” pleaded Mr. Lock.
“I’ve no doubt of it,” accepted the landlord. “If it was only me what had the say, you could start to-morrow. I don’t mind admitting straight to your face that I’ve took to you. You’ve got a civil, well-bred, amoosin’ way with you. You’d get on like a house afire with the gents in the billiard-room. But—”
He shook his head again, sighed, and left the ellipsis to carry its own implication.
“The missis, eh?” said Mr. Lock, sadly.
“The missis,” agreed the landlord.
“I suppose it ’ud be no good my trying to—”
“It ’ud be no good your trying anything!” interrupted the landlord, with conviction. “You can betshe’s got her knife into you, and you can bet nothing ’ud please her more than to twist it round like a corkscrew.”
“Well, if I had a job here,” contended Mr. Lock, “she’d have a lot more chances to twist it.”
“Look here, I’d give you the job if I dared, but I dare not, and that’s flat and honest,” said the landlord, earnestly. “I daren’t! See? That’s how it is—I daren’t! But here she comes;youcan ask her about it, if you like.”
The landlady, returning, bent a gaze of extreme displeasure on both Mr. Lock and her husband at finding them in commune. Mr. Lock, studying her countenance but the briefest while, turned away.
“I don’t think it matters,” he remarked.
Twenty minutes later the law’s exigency emptied the “Royal William.” The fresh air outside immediately had a restorative effect on Mr. Lock’s spirits, giving back to him his normal buoyancy, so that he shed his worries like a mantle, and became again his gay and debonair self. Mr. Tridge, however, had come to a slow and obstinate truculency of mood, and avowed an open antagonism to all mankind. And this divergency of outlook led to an unfortunate sequel, for, as they made their way back to the ship, which was only to continue as their home until the formalities of her sale had been completed, a black cat shot across their path, and Mr. Lock gleefully hailed its transit as a fortunate omen. “Black cats are always lucky!” declared Mr. Lock, with elation.
“You’re a liar!” churlishly declared Mr. Tridge.
“But they are!” insisted Mr. Lock.
“And I’ll prove you’re a liar!” cried Mr. Tridge,irately, and forthwith struck Mr. Lock a grevious blow on the right eye.
“’Ere—steady!” shouted Mr. Lock.
“’Oo are you giving orders to?” bellowed Mr. Tridge, in high passion, and straightway smote Mr. Lock’s left eye. “Nowdo you think black cats are always lucky?”
Mr. Lock, sitting down on a convenient doorstep, pressed his palms to his eyes, too engrossed in a species of private astronomy to reply to Mr. Tridge’s question. Mr. Tridge, as one who had creditably sustained the truth of his assertions, cocked his head proudly and walked on. Mr. Lock, recovering after a while, followed him with marked caution, nor did he attempt reprisals. But this magnanimity was less because he knew that no one would be more surprised and apologetic on the morrow over the occurrence than Mr. Tridge, than because Mr. Tridge was altogether a larger and more powerful man than Mr. Lock.
Mr. Tridge, achieving the “Jane Gladys” in grim solitude, made his simple preparations for slumber, and lay down in his bunk with a sigh of weary content. He was fast asleep ere Mr. Lock ventured down to the fo’c’sle and wooed repose.
* * *
“’Strewth!” cried Mr. Tridge, in utter amazement, waking next morning.
Mr. Lock, who had just risen reluctantly to dress, turned an inquiring gaze on his shipmate.
“Nowwhat is it?” he asked, petulantly.
“’Strewth!” exclaimed Mr. Tridge again, staring incredulously at the polychromatic setting of Mr. Lock’seyes. “Peter, youmust’ave been a-going it last night!” he added, with intense conviction. “My word!”
“Me? No worse than you!” denied Mr. Lock.
“You must ’ave got to scrapping,” surmised Mr. Tridge. “Did you win or lose?”
“What do you mean?” sourly questioned Mr. Lock. “I never scrapped with no one. I was—I was imitating canaries. Canaries don’t scrap.”
“’Ow did you get them two awful big black eyes, then?” wonderingly queried Mr. Tridge.
“Black eyes?” murmured Mr. Lock, perplexed. “Black eyes?”
“Black and red and green and yaller and blue and purple and horange,” supplemented Mr. Tridge.
Mr. Lock crossed to the little mirror which hung on the shelf.
“So I ’ave!” he said, in blank surprise. “So I ’ave! I thought it was only the front part of my ’eadache!”
“Two real beauties!” declared Mr. Tridge. “You must ’ave got nasty over something, Peter. Why didn’t you leave it to me to do your scrapping for you, like we always does? I shouldn’t ’ave got ’it like that, you can bet!”
Mr. Lock, disturbed by the discovery, sat down on the edge of his bunk and shook his head, an action which caused him such discomfort that he lay down again.
“Can’t you remember ’ow it ’appened, Peter?” asked Mr. Tridge, with genuine sympathy. “If you can remember the chapI’llstep along and square up with ’im for you,” he promised.
“I’ve been trying to remember,” said Mr. Lock.“I don’t think it was a scrap, though. I believe it was a hexaplosion somewhere. I seem to remember a lot of sparks.”
“Now I come to think of it, I seem to remember a fire or something,” murmured Mr. Tridge, after mental gropings. “Or was it something to do with the ’arbour-master?”
The twain lay silent, striving to recollect the cause of the alteration to Mr. Lock’s countenance, and they were still silently seeking to establish the origin of the disaster when Mr. Horace Dobb made his appearance in the fo’c’sle.
“Well, did you ’ave a good time last—” he began, and then broke off at sight of Mr. Lock’s contused features. “Ah, I see you did!” he ended, sapiently.
“Bothof ’em! That’s what I can’t understand,” mused Mr. Tridge. “Bothof ’em! ’E must ’ave been carrying something in his arms at the time, that’s the only way I can hexplain it.”
“’Ow did it ’appen, Peter?” asked Mr. Dobb, curiously.
“I can’t remember yet whether it was a man or the hact of providence,” confessed Mr. Lock. “I’ve got a headache and can’t think clear.”
“Pity,” commented Mr. Dobb. “I’ve come down to see you on a little matter of business, but if you ain’t equal to—”
“Talking business always clears my ’ead,” said Mr. Lock, eagerly. “Have you found me a job, then?”
“Found you a road leading to a job,” amended Mr. Dobb. “I can put you on it, but you must walk up it yourself. ’Ow do you like the hidea of going around with a milk-cart?”
“Not much,” frankly returned Mr. Lock.
“It’ll do you all right to go on with,” urged Mr. Dobb. “You’ve got to find something to do, ain’t you?”
“Peter Lock in a milk-cart!” marvelled Mr. Tridge. “Amilk-cart! Don’t that just show you what a rum world this is?”
“I shan’t half get chaffed!” foretold Mr. Lock.
“You needn’t keep it longer than it takes you to find a better job,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “Meanwhile, you’ll be remaining in Shore’aven ’ere, and we shall all be in touch with each other, like what we’ve always planned on.”
“But a milk-cart!” protested Mr. Lock. “Now, if it ’ad been a wine and spirit shop—”
“Think of all the pretty gals you’ll be ’anding in cans to!” recommended Mr. Dobb. “Everything’s got its bright side.”
“Come to think of it, it ain’t such a bad job,” agreed Mr. Lock, brightening. “When do I start?”
“You’ve got to get the job first,” Mr. Dobb reminded him. “You’ll ’ave to play up for it very careful and polite and artful, and that’s why I thought it was a better chance for you than for Joe, there. There’s a old geezer, a Mrs. Golightly, what you’ll ’ave to be hextra special hattentive to. ’Er ’usband runs a grocery shop, and she’s going to start the dairy business as a side-line in a week or two. You play your cards right, and the job is yours for the asking. You see, you’re going to do the old geezer a favour before she knows what you’re after, and that’s always a big ’elp.”
Mr. Dobb paused and pointed impressively at Mr. Lock.
“You’re one of the finest amytoor animal doctors in England,” he told him.
“Ho, am I?” said Mr. Lock, casually. “First I’ve heard of it.”
“Same ’ere till a hour ago,” returned Mr. Dobb. “Only I ’appened to be talking with ’er, and one thing led to another, and then I see you just ’ad to be good at animal doctoring.”
“Why?” asked Mr. Lock.
“Why, because you’re going to cure ’er pet cat of fits for ’er.”
“Am I?” remarked Mr. Lock. “’Ow do I do that?”
“That’s for you to decide,” answered Mr. Dobb, easily. “It’ll be the beginning of your job in the milk line. It’s lucky she’s got a pet cat with fits, ain’t it? It’s a black cat, too. Black cats,” he stated, dogmatically, “are always lucky.”
At mention of these words a swift tremor coursed through Mr. Lock’s frame, and he sat up in his bunk, staring hard at Mr. Tridge, and gradually raising a rigid forearm to point accusingly at him. A similar start of surprise pulsed through Mr. Tridge, and after a long, horrified stare at Mr. Lock’s damaged optics, he suddenly turned on his mattress and guiltily drew his blankets over his head. Mr. Dobb, viewing this by-play in surprise, offered the theory that his friends were rehearsing for employment as kinema actors.
“I know who done it now!” cried Mr. Lock, bitterly. “And so does he! It was you talking about black cats, ’Orace, what done it!”
“I done what by talking about black cats?” demanded the mystified Mr. Dobb.
Mr. Lock irately made the situation clear to Mr. Dobb, who, as soon as he had regained composure, assumed the role of peacemaker so successfully that erelong Mr. Tridge was encouraged to emerge again from beneath his blankets and promise all manner of recompense to Mr. Lock at some future date when liberality should be more convenient. This understanding reached, Mr. Dobb returned to the object of his call.
“Soon as ever Mrs. Golightly told me about ’er cat ’aving fits,” said Mr. Dobb, “I thought at once of you, Peter. Remember that cat you cured of hiccups at Teignmouth?”
“Isaidit was cured,” shamelessly corrected Mr. Lock. “I never went back to see once I’d got the money for it.”
“Anyway, you canstartto cure this old geezer’s cat for ’er, can’t you? You’ve got till next’ Saturday aboard this old boat, ’aven’t you? Well, suppose you get the cat and bring it ’ere, and keep it with you till then?”
“I see,” said Mr. Lock, readily. “Then I can take it back to ’er and say I’m sorry, but I’m leaving the town to find work elsewhere; and what a pity it is, seeing that the cat’s so much better already under my treatment.”
“That’s the hidea, Peter!” concurred Mr. Dobb. “The old gal is regularly wrapped up in that cat. She couldn’t make more fuss of it if she tried. And ’er ’usband is very fond of it, too. It’s more like a nursery than anything else when that cat comes into the room, and to ’ear ’em both sit round hencouraging it to eat its meals! It’s like a baby spending a day with its grandparents!”
“They’ll be very grateful if I can cure it of fits,” said Mr. Lock, thoughtfully; “and if I ’aven’t had time enough to do it—”
“They’ll pretty well offer you that job in the milkline without being asked, simply to keep you near your patient,” prophesied Mr. Dobb. “You dress yourself now and come along with me, and you’ll see what a simple, easy affair it is to a smart chap like you.”
“See?” said Mr. Lock severely to Mr. Tridge. “Black catsarealways lucky, after all!”
Half an hour later Mr. Lock, furnished with a very circumstantial story about a carriage accident to account for the spectacular state of his features, had the felicity of being introduced to Mrs. Golightly and her husband by Mr. Horace Dobb. The conventions of etiquette thus fulfilled, Mr. Dobb came straight to the point of the business in hand.
“Peter’s going to do you a favour and cure that ’ere cat of yours, ain’t you, Peter?” he observed.
“All being well, yes,” said Mr. Lock, modestly.
“Ifyoucan’t cure it, no one can!” gushed Mr. Dobb. “You’re a wonder at curing animals, Peter, and you knows that’s true. Remember that dog you cured for the dook?”
“Which one?” asked Mr. Lock, carelessly.
“The—the blood’ound,” answered Mr. Dobb.
“I meant, which dook?” said Mr. Lock.
“The—the one what give you the gold watch and chain,” replied Mr. Dobb. “Show ’em to Mrs. Golightly, Peter; she’d like to see ’em.”
Mr. Lock’s hand made a movement towards his waistcoat, and then checked itself. “I forgot,” he said, with a smile. “I left it at the bank in London, along with all them other testimonials and medals I’ve got for animal doctoring. A chap what lives a travelling, seafaring life,” he explained to the lady, “needs to be careful of his property.”
“Yes, indeed,” she assented. “But I wonder you don’t give up the sea and settle down ashore.”
“So ’e means to one day,” struck in Mr. Dobb. “’E’s going to give up seafaring and animal-curing, ain’t you, Peter, and settle down quiet and peaceful ashore?”
“In a nice, quiet, respectable job, when I find one to suit me,” said Mr. Lock.
“I wonder if you’d—” began the lady, and then paused. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind seeing poor Jonathan now?”
Mr. Lock professing readiness to interview his prospective patient, both Mr. and Mrs. Golightly bustled from the room, making loud and endearing appeal to the stricken feline to come and be shown to the kind gentleman. Left alone, Mr. Lock and Mr. Dobb winked very pleasantly at each other.
“It’s as good as yours, that job is, Peter,” said Mr. Dobb. “She nearly offered it to you just now of ’er own accord. Did you ’ear ’er? You’ve made a ’it there, Peter, my boy! Keep it up!”
Mrs. Golightly, returning presently with an undistinguished-looking black cat in her arms, postponed consideration of its condition while she delivered an affectionate address on the manifold virtues of the animal. Mr. Lock, after gravely listening to the tale of so much excellence, plainly enhanced his favour with the good dame by remarking that the cat reminded him very much of a similar animal, the property of a countess, which he had cured of sunstroke in two days. He added that the countess’s gratitude was most touching and substantial.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Golightly. “I do ’ope you ain’t going to charge me very, very much for curing Jonathan! I ain’t a countess, not by no means.”
“I shouldn’t dream of charging you anything, ma’am,” replied Mr. Lock. “I’ve already took a great fancy to this cat, for one thing, and for another, I believe we all ought to do folks good turns whenever we get the chance.”
He now bent professionally over the cat, felt all the joints in its tail in a highly technical manner, and then gravely studied its eyes. Mr. and Mrs. Golightly, watching him, awaited his verdict in breathless suspense.
“He can and shall be cured,” said Mr. Lock. “If,” he added, “I can do it in the time.”
Within the hour the afflicted animal had taken up temporary residence on board the “Jane Gladys.” Sundry dainties which had, at Mr. Lock’s instruction, been secured for the patient’s diet served as an excellent dinner that day for two impecunious mariners. An indignant black cat found that “rest and quiet” were terms interpreted on the “Jane Gladys” by enforced seclusion in a sea-chest while the human occupants of the fo’c’sle enjoyed a protracted siesta after their meal. Indeed, it was only when a late tea had restored full energy to Mr. Lock that he recollected the needs of his patient. A foray in the galley was rewarded with the discovery of a red herring in a dark corner, and, armed with this booty, Mr. Lock prepared to inaugurate an altered course of dietetics for his patient.
Cautiously he raised the lid of the chest, but not cautiously enough; for the black cat, wearied of solitary confinement, slipped through the opening, and, easily dodging the convulsive clutch of Mr. Lock and the outstretched hands of the interested Mr. Tridge, it streaked out of the fo’c’sle and up on to the deck. Mr. Lock’s ill-timed recriminations of Mr. Tridge’s clumsiness caused a regrettable delay in pursuit, andwhen at last the two sailormen had reached the deck, the black cat had completely vanished in the darkness.
Frenzied and exhaustive search was made, only to be abandoned in the end when sundry sportive souls on the wharf took to jocund mimicry of the enticing calls made by Mr. Lock and his companion. Loudly did Mr. Lock bewail so inauspicious and swift a termination to his high hopes of the conduct of a milk-cart.
And moodily did he make his way to Fore Street, there to seek Mr. Dobb in his home, and tell him of this underhand trick which the cat had played upon one who had desired to deal benevolently by it.
“Well, it’s no good crying over spilt milk-carts,” pronounced Mr. Dobb, when his visitor began to sorrow over the wreck of his ambitions. “You’ve got to be up and doing—that’s all. As long as that cat don’t turn up at its old ’ome, you’ve always got a chance of finding it again somewhere.”
“Suppose we don’t find it, though?” asked Mr. Lock.
“Things might be worse even then,” said Mr. Dobb. “After all,” he hinted, “one black cat is very like another. And they can’t talk and give things away, can they?”
“No,” agreed Mr. Lock, immensely relieved. “And, besides, a cat that’s been taken away to be cured of fits ain’t hardly likely to look quite the same when it comes back again, is it?”
A nod of perfect understanding passed between these two keen tacticians, and Mr. Dobb promised that he would take care to call frequently at the residence of the Golightlys to ascertain whether Jonathan was controlled by homing instincts sufficiently serviceable to lead him back to his mistress. In that deplorable event, it was decided that action must depend upon theinspiration of the moment. In the meanwhile, Mr. Lock expressed his firm intention of securing another black cat from somewhere, and making its escape a matter of impossibility this time.
And thus it was that Mr. Lock, going wistfully about the environs of the harbour at a late hour that night at last managed to track down and capture an animal of the species and colour that he desired. He conveyed his protesting prisoner swiftly aboard the “Jane Gladys,” and there he extemporized for it a prison system from which not even a cat provided with a burglar’s kit and the ability to use it could have escaped.
For three days did Mr. Lock keep close watch and ward over his captive. Mr. Robb, on reconnoitring duty, was able to tell him that the vanished Jonathan had not yet put in an appearance at his home, and that the Golightlys were looking forward with the liveliest emotions of thankfulness to the moment which should restore to them their pet cured of its ailment by Mr. Lock’s veterinary skill.
“But s’pose,” put forward Mr. Tridge, one afternoon, in a pessimistic mood—“s’pose that that there first cat turns up at ’is old ’ome one day after you’ve got your other cat settled there. It’ll be awkward, won’t it?”
“Not a bit of it,” vaunted Mr. Lock. “I shall be working at the place by then, so it’s a ’undred to one that I shall catch sight of it first, and then there won’t be no fatted calf killed for the returned prodigal, you can bet. I shall just collar it and shove it in a sack and come down and have a look to see how the old harbour is getting on.”
“Ah, but s’pose you ain’t on the spot?” persisted Mr. Tridge. “What ’appens then?”
“Why, I shall swear it can’t be their belovedJonathan, because ’e’d never ’ave left my sight while I ’ad ’im ’ere, so the new-comer must be a stray. Oh, I’ll manage them all right, don’t you fret!”
Next morning Mr. Lock arrayed himself in his best, shaved himself to a miracle of velvet smoothness, and brushed his hair with extraordinary interest, for he purposed now to restore the pseudo-Jonathan to its expectant master and mistress, and to bring diplomacy to bear upon the securing of the coveted post of chaperone to a milk-cart.
“Pity my eyes don’t lose a bit of their colour,” he observed, studying his reflection in the glass. “They look just as black as they did when we first ’ad that little dispute, Joe.”
“They look as if you might only ’ave got them last night,” agreed Mr. Tridge. “’Pon my soul, they makes me feel almost like a bad character myself, just to be talking to ’em.”
Mr. Lock, recognizing the futility of wishes, dropped the subject and took up the imprisoned cat. Slipping it into a hamper, he set off up town with it, and speedily came to the home of the Golightlys.
“’Ere’s you cat, ma’am,” he said to that lady, handing the animal over to her.
“My, that’s never our Jonathan!” cried the lady.
“Don’t he look well?” asked Mr. Lock, with enthusiasm. “I reckon he’s more than half cured by now.”
“But—but this is ever so much bigger than our dear old Jonathan,” objected the lady. “Bigger and—and stouter.”
“That’s the treatment and diet I give ’im,” explained Mr. Lock. “It always ’as that effect on my patients. It puts on weight and improves their coat wonderful. Ah, I never grudged him nothing! The best ofeverything he’s had, even though I’ve ’ad to go short myself sometimes.”
“Well, he certainly is wonderfully improved,” said the lady, gratefully. “I shouldn’t ’ardly have ever known ’im. And in that short time, too! ’Owever did you do it, young man?”
“Trade secret,” said Mr. Lock, promptly.
“He—he don’t seem to take much notice of me,” said the lady, a little disappointedly. “Before he went away, when I used to speak to him, ’e’d look back at me and mew like a Christian; but now ’e don’t even seem to like me ’olding ’im.”
“You’re a bit strange to ’im at present, that’s all,” Mr. Lock assured her. “’E’ll be loving and affectionate to you again very soon. And, as for ’is fits—well, I can take my solemn gospel oath that he ain’t even had a attempt at one all the time ’e’s been in my charge.”
“How splendid!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “I’m sure he looks heaps better. You must ’ave took good care of ’im.”
“I did,” Mr. Lock asserted. “Never let him out of my sight for a single moment. Brushed and combed him three times a day, fed him on tid-bits, give him his physic regular with an oyster after it to take the taste of it out of his mouth, and used to sit by ’is side at night till he fell off to sleep.”
“You have been good to him!” cried the lady, moved by such devotion. “I wish I could make it right with you, some’ow!”
“I done it because I took a fancy to the cat,” said Mr. Lock, “and I don’t want no reward. I shall miss the old chap, though,” he went on, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry to part with him, for his sake as well as my own. If he could only have had a bit longer undermy care, he’d ’ave been cured for good and all of them fits. As it is, there’s always the chance that they may come on after a while, and I’ll be far away by then.”
“But—but can’t you stop here in Shorehaven?”
“No, mum. I’ve got my living to earn, and there ain’t a job going here that would suit me. I want to give up the sea. I used to be a milkman afore I was a sailor, and naturally I’d like to take on the job of milkman again, only there ain’t no vacancies in this ’ere town.”
“That’s just where you’re wrong!” cried the lady, in high good humour. “I’m starting a dairy business here next week, and I’m looking out for a man to take the milk-round!”
“Well, well,” breathed Mr. Lock, “if ever there was a coincidence—”
He ceased abruptly, for sometimes Coincidence has two long arms and uses both simultaneously. Mr. Lock, gazing spellbound at the doorway, saw Mr. Golightly framed in it, and clasped in Mr. Golightly’s embrace was a black cat.
“Jonathan!” stated Mr. Golightly, simply.
“What?” screamed the lady.
“Just found him outside the back door, mewing enough to break his heart,” said her husband. “Look at him! Covered in mud, half starved—”
“That ain’t your cat!” denied Mr. Lock. “’E’s only a mangy old stray you’ve got ’old of. There’s your Jonathan in the fire-place there. Cured and improved out of all recognition.”
Mrs. Golightly picked up both cats and set them side by side.
“Jonathan!” she called, and the cat that Mr. Lock had brought foolishly strove to get up the chimney,while the other animal, uttering a half-plaintive, half-delighted mew, tottered forward to lick the lady’s hand.
“‘Never let him out of my sight’!” cried Mrs. Golightly. “‘Washed and brushed him every day! Fed him on all the best! Sat by ’im till ’e went off—’! ’Ere!” she ended, fiercely. “You go off—now—this minute! Else—”
Mr. Lock, ever one to recognize defeat, turned to take his departure. Mrs. Golightly, retrieving the alien cat from the chimney, thrust it into the hamper.
“’Ere, take your rubbish with you!” she ordered; and, thus encumbered, Mr. Lock took his departure.
“Blest if I am so sure that black cats are always lucky!” he murmured, dazedly.
At the corner of the road he ran into Mr. Horace Dobb. Mr. Dobb was in a state of considerable excitement.
“You ’aven’t left that cat at the Golightlys’ yet, then?” he observed, with relief. And, taking Mr. Lock by the arm, eagerly dragged him forward. “Well, then, the Golightlys ’ave lost their second chance of a cat, that’s all! ’Ere, come on in ’ere!” he directed, turning into the “Royal William.”
The aggressive landlady and the cheerful little landlord were behind the counter. At Mr. Dobb’s entry, they both turned expectantly towards him, and the severity of the landlady perceptively waned.
“’Ere’s the young fellow I spoke about just now!” cried Mr. Dobb. “Look at the state of ’is eyes, and you can see I was telling the truth!”
“And ’as ’e got it there in the basket?” asked the landlord, eagerly.
“’E ’as!” declared Mr. Dobb, and, unfastening the lid of the hamper, he allowed its occupant to escape.
“That’s ’im!” cried the landlord, raptly.
“That’s our dear, dear little lost one!” shrilled the lady, in happy agitation.
“Well, you’re a trump!” declared the landlord, turning to Mr. Lock. “This gent ’ere ’as been telling us all about it!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Lock, lamely.
“Yes, indeed,” answered the landlord. “We ’appened to mention to ’im that our cat was missing, and ’e told us ’ow ’e knew of a cat what ’ad been saved from torture by a sailorman. There was a great big ’ulking chap and another chap ’ad got ’old of our cat,” narrated the landlord, “and you see ’em ill-treating it, and you interfered, and they knocked you about cruel, and give you two terrible black eyes—”
“And they are terrible, too!” said the landlady, with a sympathetic shudder. “You must ’ave suffered, young man.”
“I did, ma’am. I did!”
“But you saved our pet!” cried the landlord. “You see, that gent there’s been telling us all about it! It come out quite by accident, to—we was talking about billiard-marking; that was what led up to it, some’ow. Anyway, you saved our cat, and me and my missis are very grateful to you for it. And you’ve been keeping it till you felt less knocked about, and then you were going to try and find its home! Well, you’re saved that trouble, anyway!”
“From what I saw of you the other night,” confessed the landlady, “I should never have thought you could have behaved so noble.”
Husband and wife now retired apart for a brief whispered colloquy. Within one minute of its conclusion, Mr. Lock had been offered and had accepted thevacant post of billiard-marker and odd-job man to the “Royal William”. . . .
Late that same night, Mr. Tridge ceased undressing and looked across at Mr. Lock.
“You’re right, Peter!” he admitted. “Theyare!”