Part 5

“Puffect!” declared Horace, with enthusiasm. “A born actor couldn’t do it better, especially when you rolls your eyes up like that. I see it was blowing a bit fresh when I come along just now, so there’ll be a nice little ground-swell off the ’arbour-mouth to-morrow. ’Ave you arranged to ’ave colic to-morrow, like I told you?”

“All fixed up; and I’ve got some one else to look after the ferry for the day, and I’ve borrowed a small boat, like what you said. And I shall be waiting where you told me all the morning.”

“That’s the idea!” approved Horace. “And now we’ll just go and see if Peter Lock remembers all he’s got to say, and then we’ll see if the clock in the ‘Jolly Sailors’ keeps good time.”

Mr. Horace Dobb was patrolling the platform of Shorehaven railway-station next morning when the express from London came to a standstill there.

Of the few passengers that thankfully alighted, the majority were sailormen. Several women and children made up a goodly share of the rest of the number. Of the half-dozen residue, five were gentlemen known to Mr. Dobb by sight or personally. The sixth was a complete stranger, and Mr. Dobb, with a pious expression of gratitude for this simplification of his task of identifying Mrs. Jackson’s expected visitor, at once approached him.

“Are you going straight back to the Town ’All, Mr. Binson?” asked Horace, innocently.

“I’m afraid you’re making an error,” was the reply. “My name is not Binson.”

“Mean to tell me you’re not Mr. Binson, our town-clerk of Shore’aven ’ere?” demanded Mr. Dobb, incredulously.

“No, I am not. I am a complete stranger to this town.”

“Well, well,” marvelled Mr. Dobb, “you are the exact image of Mr. Binson, that’s all I can say.”

“Indeed?” returned the other, with scant interest in the coincidence. “Well, as I say, I am a perfect stranger here. I should be glad, in fact, if you would tell me the nearest way to the High Street. I have a business appointment there.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Dobb, with equal listlessness. “Which end of ’Igh Street? It makes a difference ’ow you goes from ’ere, according to which end you want.”

“Number one hundred and twenty-one. It’s a barber’s shop.”

“I know it,” said Mr. Dobb. “Name of Bonner.”

“At present, yes,” conceded the other. “It really belongs to a lady, though—to Mrs. Jackson. Perhaps you know her?”

“’Eard of ’er, I fancy,” returned Mr. Dobb, cursorily. “Pity you got out at this station, though. Your nearest would ’ave been the station the other side of the river. ’Owever, you come along of me, and I’ll see you on the right road. Shall we just ’ave one gargle before we start?”

“Gargle?” asked the other one, in perplexity.

“Tonic,” elucidated Mr. Dobb. “Drink.”

“Thank you, no,” was the reply. “I am a lifelong abstainer from all alcoholic drinks.”

“Just as you like,” said Mr. Dobb, readily. “Well, come along with me, and I’ll take you down to the ferry and get you taken across the river, and you’ll soon be there.”

“I didn’t know there was another station. I suppose the ferry _is_ the shortest way? I’m not a good sailor, and—”

Mr. Dobb’s eyes glinted.

“Oh, you’ll be all right!” he declared, and led the other man by devious paths away from the neighbourhood of the High Street and down to the harbour. To avoid questions which might be thorny to answer, Mr. Dobb walked swiftly and a little in advance of his companion, who, evidently deeming Mr. Dobb something of a roisterous blade, seemed relieved by this arrangement. Arrived at the quay, Mr. Dobb perceived the lounging form of Mr. Samuel Clark, and led the stranger up to him.

“This gent wants you to row ’im over to near the ’Igh Street, ferryman,” said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, and be as quick over it as you can,” he added, holding Mr. Clark’s gaze; “because ’e says ’e’s not a very good sailor.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” promised Mr. Clark; “but there’s a pretty strong tide running, sir, don’t forget.”

“There’s no risk I suppose?” asked the visitor, smiling a little anxiously.

“Bless you, no, sir,” declared Mr. Clark, cosily. “You’ll be as safe as ’ouses with me!”

With a courteous exchange of compliments, Mr. Dobb parted from his new acquaintance. A minute later Mr. Clark had begun to convey his passenger across the river, and Mr. Dobb was returning homeward with the mien of one whose morning has been well spent.

“The current seems quite strong,” remarked the gentleman from London.

“It are,” agreed Mr. Clark, straining at his sculls. “The current’s always pretty strong ’ere when the tide’s running out. Like a mill-stream sometimes, and the worst of it is that you don’t know it till you get well out on it.”

“I hope we’ll land at the nearest point opposite.”

“We’ll _try_ to 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 running _out_?” 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 if _I_ can ’elp it!” denied Mr. Clark, and gave a straining, spectacular display of oarsmanship.

“We _shall_ be 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 we _do_? What _can_ we 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, accentuated by 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. “He _do_ look 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 this morning,” 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 the _smell_ of 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, unceremoniously dumped 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’d _got_ a brother!”

_EPISODE IV_ BLACK CATS ARE ALWAYS LUCKY

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 amateur grower 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.