Part 3

How long he remained thus he never knew. When he came to himself, conscious of a stiff back and an aching head, and raised himself, he found that he was alone in the boat, which was drifting towards the mud flats on the Surrey shore.

He looked around; the other boat, the fugitive boy, the pursuers, all had disappeared.

“Where am I?” he thought.

There were few lights on the banks; in the darkness he could not recognise his whereabouts. Seizing his sculls, he rowed slowly, painfully, across the stream towards the northern shore. Presently, in the distance, he caught sight of dim lights stretching across the river, and knew that they shone from the houses on London Bridge.

With a sigh he swung the boat about, and pulled still more slowly against the running tide, keeping close to the shore. It seemed hours before he came to the well-known stairs. He tied up the boat and then deliberated.

“Shall I go and tell Boulter what’s happened? He’ll be at the Pig and Whistle: I’d better go home.”

Dragging himself along, more distressed at his failure to save the boy than at his own injuries, he reached his house, groped stumblingly down the dark stairs, and found Susan Gollop placidly knitting.

“Why, sakes alive, what’s come to you?” she cried, as the candlelight fell upon his pale face.

“I’ve hurt my head,” he replied, dropping into a chair.

“There! If my thumbs didn’t prick!” she exclaimed. “I knew something had happened to you, you’re so late. I said to Gollop: ‘That boy’s got into mischief, and you can’t deny it.’ Now just you sit still and let me look at the place and tell me all about it.”

The good woman lifted his hair gently.

“Gracious me! A lump as big as a duck’s egg,” she cried. “You’ve been fighting again, I’ll be bound, though I’d have thought——”

“Don’t be a goose, Susan,” Martin interrupted. “If I’d fought, the bump would have been in front. I was hit a foul blow, and I’ll tell you.”

Susan Gollop was more tender in action than in speech. She bathed the wounded head and bound it up with a strip of linen, while Martin recounted the events of the evening.

“Dear, dear! Well, I’m sure! Poor little boy! Oh, the wretch!” she exclaimed at points of the story.

“Well, I never did hear the like,” she said at the end. “That Slocum: it’s my belief he’s doing something he’s ashamed of, or ought to be, drat him! It’s a mercy you don’t work for him any more. And the other man; would you know him again? For you must tell Gollop all about it, and he’ll take the wretch up and see what the magistrates have to say to him.”

“Yes, I’d know him again,” Martin replied. “I couldn’t forget his big red nose and his beard as black as your saucepan.”

“That’s strange,” said the woman thoughtfully.

“What’s strange?”

“Why, if I didn’t see just such a one this very day! Ay, and in this very street. He passed me as I came back from shopping! ‘That’s a red coal in a black grate,’ thinks I, and indeed he was a fearsome-looking creature.”

“I wonder what he was doing about here?”

“Ah! Who knows? But don’t bother your head about him any more. Get you to your bed, and I hope the bump’ll be flatter by the morning.”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

THE FACE AT THE WINDOW

At breakfast next morning Martin expected to have to tell his story over again to Dick Gollop, who had been out on duty half the night. But the moment he entered the room, with his head still bandaged, the constable took the wind out of his sails.

“Ahoy, shipmate!” he said, “how’s the weather? By what I hear you’ve run through a bit of a squall.”

“You know, then?” said Martin.

“Know! Of course I know. When my watch was over, somewhere about four bells, and I came below dead-beat and turned in, d’you think I could get any sleep? Not a wink, believe me. There was my old woman wide-awake, and bursting with the news.

“‘Gollop,’ says she, ‘there’s rogues and rascals in the world.’ That being no news at all, I just gave a grunt and began to snore. ‘Listen to me,’ says she, ‘and don’t pretend.’ What you can’t help, put up with. So I listened, always ready to oblige, and out it came, like a flood over a weir.

“I own I dozed one or twice afore she was well under way, but I was fair shook up when she’d got her canvas full spread. You take my meaning? I’ve fought with a cutlass, and I’ve knocked down a swabber with a marline-spike, but never in my born days have I hit a man with an oar; there’s something uncommon about that, and as a constable I took note of it.

“Foreign ways, to be sure. Them fellows in the boat must have been some of the crew of that Portugal ship.”

“Not the big-nosed man with the black beard,” said Martin. “I’m sure he was an Englishman.”

“Maybe, but I ask you, what was he doing along with those foreigners? And what’s his ploy with Slocum?”

“Ay, and why come along this very street?” Susan put in.

“There you go!” said Dick. “I’ve seen many a big nose, also red, _and_ black beards, likewise many tabby cats. You can’t tell one from t’other unless you’ve studied ’em. I see a tabby in one place; you see one in another; that don’t make ’em the same.”

“What’s cats got to do with it?” protested Susan.

“Nothing,” said Dick. “All I say is, if I took up a man just because he’d a big red nose and a black beard the magistrates would call me a fool, and belike I’d have to pay damages, and then where’d you be?”

“Then why talk about cats?” said Susan. “And tabbies! Now if you’d said black cats——”

“Drat the cats!” cried the constable. “You’ll go on about ’em till you’re tired, I suppose. Martin, what I say is, keep your weather-eye open, and if so be as you spy that black-haired fellow again, keep him in sight, my lad, and inform an officer of the law.”

A tapping was heard on the banisters at the head of the stairs.

“There’s Mounseer, Lucy,” said Susan, “waiting to take you to school.”

The little girl sprang up; she liked her morning walk with the old Frenchman. She ran up the stairs, but returned in a few moments.

“Mounseer says will you please lend him a hammer and chisel,” she said.

“Willing, and anything else,” said Gollop. “But ask him if I can do the hammering for him. I’ve been reckoned a handy man in my time; you have to turn your hand to any odd job at sea.”

The girl gave the message and returned.

“Mounseer says it’s a trifle, and he won’t trouble you!”

“Very well then; take him the things, and welcome.”

The Frenchman laid the tools on a chair in his room, then locked the door and started with Lucy for the half-mile walk to her school.

Soon afterwards Gollop and Martin went out together, the former to take his morning draught with his cronies, the latter to make another effort to find work.

In his pocket he carried some bread and cheese, so that he need not come home for the mid-day meal.

All through the hot summer day he wandered about, seeking employment. In the evening he returned and reported that he had again met with no success.

“Never mind,” said Susan. “Things will take a turn. Now, just run upstairs and ask Mounseer for that hammer. I want it to knock some nails in Lucy’s cupboard, so as she can hang up her things tidy. Tell him he shall have it back if he hasn’t done with it, but he’s been banging nearly all day, so I dare say he has.”

On reaching the Frenchman’s door Martin saw that a staple had been fitted to one of the side joists, evidently to receive a padlock. From within the room came the sound of knocking. He tapped on the door; the sound ceased and Mounseer asked:

“Who is there?”

“It’s me, sir,” said Martin.

“Ah, you, my young friend. Wait but one little moment.”

The bolts were drawn inside, the door was opened, and there stood Mounseer in his shirt-sleeves, chisel in hand. Martin gave his message.

“But yes; assuredly: I ask pardon for keeping it so long. But you see, one must be careful. My lock was broken by that villain; therefore I must make other defences.”

Martin noticed that an iron socket for a bar was fitted to the inside of the door, and the bar itself, a stout baulk of wood, was leaning against the wall.

“Pouf! It is hot,” the Frenchman went on, “though I take off my coat and open the window. A little rest will be agreeable. But I ask for the hammer again, until I finish; I wish to finish this night.”

Promising to bring the hammer back in a few minutes Martin went down to the basement. But it was more than half an hour later, and dusk was already falling, before he was able to return: Susan’s job had taken longer than he had expected.

This time there was no answer to his tap on Mounseer’s door, nor any sound from within. He waited awhile, then tapped again. A sleepy voice asked who was there, and when Martin was at last admitted, the old gentleman apologised for the delay.

“It is the terrible heat,” he said, spreading out his hands. “I fall asleep; I am old, and the labour fatigues me. How I would like to be young, like you! Labour is light for the young.”

“But I can’t get any work, sir,” said Martin.

“Courage, my young friend. It will come. Seat yourself, and tell me where you go to-day; I am very much interested.”

Sitting on a chair facing the open window, Martin began to relate his wanderings of the day, while the Frenchman took the hammer and chisel and worked away at the bar of wood by the light of a candle.

While Martin was speaking he fancied he saw something move just outside the window. Though somewhat startled, he had the presence of mind to go on with his story, and a few moments afterwards was astonished to see a hat appear above the edge of the window-sill, at a corner.

It rose slowly; the dim light of the candle at the farther end of the room showed him a man’s face—a face seamed with a scar across the temple. So great was his surprise at recognising one of the men who had tried to steal his parcel that he jumped up with a sudden cry.

Instantly the face disappeared, and by the time Martin and the Frenchman reached the window the man was half-way down the gutter-pipe up which he had climbed.

With amazing quickness Mounseer seized a three-legged stool and hurled it down. It missed the man by an inch or two, and fell with a crash upon the ground. In another second the man dropped beside it and bolted across the open space into the darkness.

“What is the matter?” asked a voice from above.

Looking up, Martin saw Mr. Seymour, the occupant of the upper floor, leaning over his window-sill.

“A matter of no consequence,” said the Frenchman, drawing Martin back into the room. “I must close the shutters,” he went on, “though it will be very hot. But I do not like the curious people.”

“That face belonged to one of the men who tried to rob me,” said Martin. “It is strange he should have come to the house where I live, for I’ve nothing worth stealing here. I’ll describe him to Gollop, and he’ll circulate the description, and someone will arrest the fellow.”

“Not for me, my friend,” said the Frenchman. “I, a stranger, would not give trouble. And indeed my best protection is not in the Law, but in a few stout bolts and my lifelong friend yonder.”

He pointed to his rapier, hanging on the wall.

It was clear to Martin that the Frenchman wished to be alone, so he said Good-night and went downstairs. On the way he was struck by a curious circumstance. According to Susan Gollop, Mounseer had been hammering all day; why then was there so little sign of it? All that he had done would have been the work of only an hour or two. But perhaps the old gentleman was not expert with tools.

CHAPTER THE NINTH

AN ADVENTURE IN PUDDING LANE

Next morning, when the time came for Lucy to start for school, the Frenchman said that he felt a little indisposed, and would not venture out in the heat.

“I’ll take her,” said Martin. “But I can’t promise to bring her back, because I’m going in search of work again, and I don’t know where I’ll be when school is over.”

“Don’t you worry, my lad,” said Susan. “Dick will be home then, and he can fetch the child for once. And I hope you’ll get a job to-day, for it makes a difference not having your few shillings at the weekend.”

When he had left his sister at the door of the dame’s school, Martin stood for a minute or two undecided as to the way he would go in his hunt for work.

He was feeling rather disheartened. It was the first time Susan Gollop had said a word to hint that he was a burden to her, and in his pride he was determined that she should never have another occasion for any remark of the sort.

Up to the present his applications for a job had been made at the larger places of business—establishments that would rank equal with Mr. Greatorex’s shop in Cheapside. But it was no time to pick and choose; he would take the meanest job that offered itself, no matter what it was.

It occurred to him that he might have better success if he crossed the river and made inquiries at the Hop Market in Southwark. In the course of his walk towards London Bridge he was crossing Pudding Lane, a narrow street near Billingsgate, when he was almost thrown down by the sudden impact of a strange figure that darted out of a baker’s shop at the corner.

“Steady!” he cried, putting up his hands to protect himself.

The figure recoiled, then without a word of excuse or explanation dashed down the lane. Martin laughed; he had never seen a more comical object than this boy, a little bigger than himself, who was covered with flour, and whose head was almost concealed in a large mass of dough.

His amusement was increased when he saw a second figure issue from the shop—the figure of a short, stout man, he too cased in dough and flour from head to foot. The baker set off at a toddling scamper after the boy, their course marked on the cobblestones with a white trail.

In a few moments the pursuer recognised that his chase was hopeless. The boy, indeed, had turned the corner and was out of sight by the time his master had run half a dozen paces.

“The young villain!” cried the man, stopping short and shaking his fist in the direction of the vanished fugitive.

He turned back towards the shop, picking at the dough that clung to his hair and beard, spluttering and muttering curses the while. As he was passing Martin a mass of the loosened dough fell over his eyes, and for a moment he tottered like a blind man.

Martin sprang to his side, held him steady, and helped him to rid himself of some of the dough, which hung in long clammy strips about his face, like the curls of a full-bottomed wig.

“Ugh! Ugh!” gasped the baker. “The insolent young ruffian! Thank you! Thank you! My hair is short, or—— The young viper! ’Tis a mercy none of the neighbours have seen my plight. Quick, boy; lead me. I can scarcely see my own shop door!”

Martin took him by the arm and led him the few paces to his shop. On the sign hanging above the door were the words: “Faryner, Baker to His Majesty the King.”

Within the shop Martin stayed to give further assistance to the angry baker, who intermingled abuse of the runaway boy with explanations, half to himself, and half to Martin.

“The whelp!” he exclaimed. “He comes late, and when I tax him, is saucy, scandalously saucy. ’Twould try the patience of a saint, and I’m no saint. Must silence his chattering tongue. Up with a pan of dough; dab it on the rascal’s head.

“The impudence of the knave! What does he do but snatch up another pan and empty it over me—me, a master baker, baker to the King, contractor to the Admiralty, purveyor to half the nobility and gentry. Ay, and flings a bag of flour at me. What do you think of that? What is the world coming to?”

Martin did not venture to say what he thought.

“Well, he’ll never darken my doors again, that’s certain. And that reminds me. There’s his basket—the loaves ought to have been delivered an hour ago. I was already one boy short, and the rascal knew it, and yet he came late. I shall lose some of my best customers.”

The greater part of the sticky mass had now been plucked from the baker’s head. He looked ruefully at the basket of loaves in a corner of the shop, scratched his head, became conscious that there were still some fragments of dough adhering to his short-clipped hair, and burst out again into violent denunciation of his errand boy.

On the impulse of the moment Martin spoke up.

“I’ll take the basket. I’m out of a job.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the baker, looking at him keenly as if he was only just aware of him. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Martin Leake.”

“Are you honest?”

“Won’t you try me?”

“That’s not a bad answer. You’ve done me a service and I like the look of you. I’ll try you. Here’s a list of the customers these loaves are to be delivered to. Set off at once. Nay, wait! I don’t like changes. If I try you, and you satisfy me, I shall expect you to stick to the job. Five shillings a week and a loaf a day. That’s my wages.”

“I’ll be glad to earn that to begin with,” said Martin.

“Then that’s a bargain. Don’t loiter.”

Martin took the basket on his arm, and as he went out he heard the baker mutter:

“How shall I get rid of the rest of this plaguey dough? The young ruffian!”

Scanning the list of customers given him, Martin was interested to find at the bottom the name of Mr. Slocum, at the goldsmith’s shop in Cheapside. The idea of meeting his old master was not at all pleasant, but he reflected that if he went to the back entrance, from a yard leading out of Bow Lane, he would probably avoid such a meeting, and see only the housekeeper or the cook, who had both been on friendly terms with him.

“I’m glad it’s the last on the list,” he thought. “But I wish I hadn’t to go there at all. What strange fate is always bringing me into contact with old Slocum? I don’t like it. There’s something mysterious about it.”

And it was with a strange feeling of misgiving that he trudged on with his heavy load of bread.

CHAPTER THE TENTH

A MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

Martin’s first hour’s experience as baker’s boy was by no means pleasant. Mr. Faryner’s customers had been kept waiting for their morning rolls and loaves, and at nearly every house where Martin called he was received with dark looks and cutting words.

He took it all in good part, explained that he was a new boy, and promised to be earlier on the morrow. As the basket became lighter he grew more cheerful, and by the time he reached Bow Lane he had almost forgotten the forebodings with which he had started.

Turning into the yard by which he would reach the back entrance to Mr. Slocum’s house he suddenly collided with a boy coming in the opposite direction. He was turning round; the basket was jerked off his arm, and the two loaves it contained rolled out on the cobblestones.

“Now, clumsy, why don’t you look where you are going?” said a well-remembered voice.

Martin had already recognised his old opponent, the apprentice through whom he had been dismissed. He was himself recognised before he could say a word in reply, and for a moment or two the boys stared at each other. Then the apprentice laughed.

“Dash my eyes!” he said. “Do I see Martin Leake?”

Without waiting for an answer he swooped on the loaves, picked them up, rubbed the dust off on his breeches, and rushed back into the open doorway of the house.

“Sally, here’s Martin Leake turned baker’s boy,” Martin heard him shout.

In a few seconds he came out again followed by the cook with the loaves in her hands. Martin had picked up his basket, and was standing just outside the door.

“Well I never!” exclaimed the cook, who had always been well disposed towards Martin. “So you are working for Faryner, are you? I was wondering what had come to the boy. Mr. Slocum is in a towering rage because he’s been kept waiting for his breakfast. I’ll just send up the bread, then I’ll come back, Master Hopton; mind you that.”

She retreated into the house, and the boys were left at the door. They stood looking at each other awkwardly. Martin bore Hopton no malice; on the other hand he could not feel friendly towards him, and had not the cook asked him to remain he would have walked away.

“Slocum’s a terror,” said the apprentice suddenly.

Martin did not reply.

“Sent me out to buy a loaf,” Hopton went on. “You saved me a journey.”

This did not appear to call for an answer. There was silence again for a few moments.

“I say, I’m sorry I got you turned out,” said Hopton, awkwardly.

“You needn’t be,” said Martin, surprised. “I wouldn’t come back again for anything.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m sick of Slocum and his tempers. Does Faryner pay you well?”

“Now what’s that to do with you, Master Hopton?” said the cook, returning. “Just you run back to the shop, or you’ll get into trouble.”

“All right, Sally,” said the apprentice, grinning. He gave Martin a friendly wink as he turned into the house.

“So you have made up your quarrels,” said the cook.

“I’m not sure that we have,” replied Martin, with a smile. “But he’s very friendly. I wonder why?”

“He wishes he were you, I daresay, instead of being bound to Mr. Slocum for seven years. To Mr. Slocum, says I, though ’tis really to Mr. Greatorex. Ah! I wish the old master had never left the City. What things are coming to I don’t know. Mr. Slocum’s cursing and cuffing those apprentices from morning till night, and you’re lucky to be out of it.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Goodness alone knows! It’s my belief he has something on his mind, but—— There he is, bawling for me. Don’t let him see you. Coming, sir, coming!”

Martin hurried away, feeling more than ever glad that he was no longer in Mr. Slocum’s service, and wondering whether his old employer’s ill temper was connected in any way with his mysterious doings on the riverside.

Another round, in a different part of the city, occupied part of the afternoon, and Martin had to clean out the shop before he left for home. Again it had been a very hot day, and he was more tired than he had ever been before; so tired, indeed, that he was not inclined to talk about his new job.

“’Tis a come-down, to be sure, for a master mariner’s son,” said Dick Gollop; “but what you can’t help, make the best of.”

“Now don’t you go for to dishearten the lad, with your come-downs,” said Susan. “’Tis honest and useful, and we shan’t have to buy so much bread.”

Weary though he was, Martin that night found it impossible to sleep. His room was small and felt like an oven, though he had opened the window and the door, and thrown off all the bedclothes.

The senses of a sleepless person are extraordinarily acute, and as the hours dragged on Martin became annoyed at the regular snores of Susan Gollop in the room beyond. Dick happened to be out on night duty again. For a long time the only other sounds Martin heard were the footsteps of Mr. Seymour as he went along the passage above and up the stairs to his room.

“He’s very late home,” thought Martin.

He heard the lodger shut his door; then all was silent again until a new sound, outside his window, caught his ear. It was a slight thud, such as would be made by a small object falling on the ground, and he might hardly have noticed it had not recent events made him heedful and suspicious.

Rising from his bed he tiptoed on bare feet to the window and looked out, taking care to keep out of sight himself. It was a starry night, and he saw a dark patch against the sky—the form of a man standing on the square of waste ground above the basement level.

His thoughts flew to the man who had climbed the gutter pipe to the old Frenchman’s room, and his heart began to beat more quickly. Then he heard whispering voices. The man was evidently talking to someone on one of the upper floors. Only a few words were spoken, then the man walked quickly away.