Part 13

Mr. Butson, in fact, began to chafe under the restraints of narrow circumstances. Not that he was poorer than had been his habit--indeed he was much better off--but that his needs had expanded with his prosperity and with his successes in society. And it was just now that his wife began to attempt retrenchment. Probably she was encouraged by the outrageous revolt of her son, a revolt which had made advisable a certain degree of caution on the part of himself, the head of the household. She spoke of a rumour that the ship-yard opposite might close, as so many other Thames ship-yards had closed of late years. That, she said, would mean ruin for the shop, and she must try to save what little she might, meantime. An absurdity, of course, in Mr. Butson's view. He felt no interest in the rumours of old women about ship-yards, and petty measurement of the sordid chances of trade irritated him. If his wife found one source of profit running dry, she must look out and tap another, that was all. So long as he got what he wanted he troubled little about the manner of its getting. But now he ran near having less than he wanted, and his wife was growing even less accommodating. She went so far as to hint of withholding the paltry sum the lad earned; he should have it himself, she thought, to buy his clothes, and to save toward the end of his apprenticeship. More than this, Mr. Butson much suspected that Johnny had actually had his own money for some while past, and that Mrs. Butson had descended to the mean subterfuge of representing as his earnings a sum which in reality she extracted each week from the till; an act of pure embezzlement. And then there was the cottage in Epping Forest. She wouldn't sell it now, though she wanted to sell when she first left it. What good was there in keeping it? True there was three-and-sixpence a week of rent, but that was nothing; it would go in a round of drinks, or in half a round, in any distinguished bar; and there were deductions even from the three-and-sixpence. Sold, the cottage might produce a respectable sum--perhaps a hundred pounds--at anyrate eighty. The figures stirred his blood. What a magnificent dash a man might cut with eighty pounds! And a fortune might be made out of it, too, if it were used wisely, and not buried away in a wretched three-and-sixpenny cottage. Properly invested on judicious flat-race Certainties, it would double itself about twice a week. So he made it very plain to Nan that the sale of the cottage for what it would fetch and the handing over of the proceeds was a plan he insisted on. But the stupid woman wouldn't see it. It was plain that she was beginning to over-estimate her importance in the establishment, by reason that of late she had not been sufficiently sworn at, shoved, thumped, and twisted and pinched on the arms. That was the worst of kindness to a woman--she took advantage.

So that he was obliged to begin to thump again. There was no need to do it so that Johnny might know, and so cause a low disturbance. In fact, Johnny took little notice of things at home just now, no longer made inquiries, nor lifted the poker with so impudent a stare; and he was scarce indoors at all. Wherefore Mr. Butson punched and ruffianed--being careful to leave no disreputable marks in visible spots, such as black eyes--and sometimes he kicked; and he demanded more money and more, but all the while insisted on the sale of the cottage. The monstrous laws of conveyance made it impossible for him to lay hands on the deeds and sell the place himself, or he would have done it, of course. And he made it advisable, too, for Bessy to avoid him--and that had a better effect than any direct attack on Nan. Till at last the woman was so far reduced that she was near a very dangerous rebellion indeed--nearer than Mr. Butson suspected. For she began to think of attempting a separation by magistrate's order, shameful as it would be in the neighbourhood. Though she feared greatly.

So it was when Johnny turned toward home on an evening a little before nine o'clock, sick of blind searching, and ready to tell his mother the story of Nora Sansom, first to last. At Harbour Lane corner he saw Butson walking off, and wondered to see him about Blackwall so early in the evening.

Nobody was in the shop, and Johnny went through so quietly that he surprised his mother and Bessy, in the shop-parlour, crying bitterly. Nan sat on a chair and Bessy bent over her, and no concealment was possible. Johnny was seized by a dire surmise. "Mother! What's this?" he said. "What's he been doing?"

Nan bent lower, but answered nothing. Johnny looked toward Bessy, almost sternly. "He--he's beaten mother again," Bessy blurted, between sobs.

"Beaten mother! Again!" Johnny's face was white, and his nostrils stood wide and round. "Beaten mother! Again!"

"He's always doing it now," Bessy sobbed. "And wanting more money. I'd a good mind to tell you before, but--but--"

"Beaten mother!" The room swam before Johnny's eyes. "Why--"

Nan rose to close the door. "No, Johnny," she said meekly. "I'm a bit upset, but don't let it upset you. Don't you--"

"What's the matter with your leg? You're limping!"

"He kicked her! I saw him kick at her ankle!" Bessy burst out, pouring forth the tale unrestrained. "I tried to stop him and--and--"

"And then he hit you?" asked Johnny, not so white in the cheeks now, but whiter than ever about the mouth.

"Yes; but it was mother most!" and Bessy wept afresh.

Perhaps his evenings of disappointment had chastened Johnny's impatience. He knew that the man was out of reach now, and he forced his fury down. In ten minutes he knew the whole thing, between Bessy's outpourings and Nan's tearful admissions.

"When is he coming back?"

They did not know--probably he would be late, as usual. "But don't go doing anything hasty, Johnny," Nan implored; "I'm so afraid of you doing something rash! It's not much, really--I'm a bit upset, but--"

"I'll have to think about this," Johnny said, with such calmness that Nan felt somewhat reassured, though Bessy was inwardly afraid. "I'm going out for an hour."

He strode away to the Institute, walking by instinct, and seeing nothing till he was under the lettered lamp. He went to the dressing-room and hurried into his flannels. In the gymnasium the instructor, a brawny sergeant of grenadiers, was watching some lads on the horizontal bar. Johnny approached him with a hesitating request for a "free spar."

"Free spar, my lad?" said the sergeant. "What's up? Gettin' cheeky? Want to give me a hidin'?"

"No, sergeant," Johnny answered. "Not such a fool as that. But I never had a free spar with a man much heavier than myself, and--and I just want to try, that's all!"

There was a comprehending twinkle about the sergeant's eyes. "Right," he said; "you're givin' me near two stone--that's if you're a bit over eleven. Fetch the gloves."

At another time Johnny would never have conceived the impudence of asking the sergeant--once champion of the army--for a free spar. Even a "light" spar with the sergeant was something of an undertaking, wherein one was apt to have both hands full, and a bit over. But the lad had his reasons now.

He dashed at the professor with a straight lead, and soon the blows were going like hail on a window-pane. The sergeant stood like a rock, and Johnny's every rush was beaten back as by hammer-blows on the head. But he came again fresh and eager, and buzzed his master merrily about the head, getting in a very respectable number of straight drives, such as would knock an ordinary man down, though the sergeant never winked; and bringing off one on the "mark" that _did_ knock out a grunt, much as a punch in that region will knock one out of a squeaking doll.

"Steady," the sergeant called after two long rounds had been sparred. "You'll get stiff if you keep on at that rate, my lad, and _that's_ not what you want, I reckon!" This last with a grin. "You haven't been boxin' regular you know, just lately."

"But you're all right," he added, as they walked aside. "Your work keeps you in good condition. Not quite so quick as you would ha' been if you'd been sparrin' every evening, o'course. But quick enough for your job, I expect." And again Johnny saw the cunning twinkle.

It was about closing time, and when Johnny had changed his clothes, he found the sergeant leaving also. He thanked him and bade him good-night.

"Good-night, May," the sergeant called, and turned into the street. But he swung back along the footpath after Johnny, and asked, "Is it to-morrow?"

"What, sergeant?"

"Oh, I ain't a sergeant--I'm a stranger. There's a sergeant goes to that moral establishment p'raps," with a nod at the Institute, "but he behaves strictly proper. I'm just a chap out in the street that would like to see the fight, that's all. When is it?"

"I don't quite know that myself," Johnny answered.

"Oh--like that, is it? Hum." The sergeant was thoughtful for a moment--perhaps incredulous. Then he said, "Well, can't be helped, I suppose. Anyway, keep your left goin' strong, but don't lead quite so reckless, with your head up an' no guard. You're good enough. An' the bigger he is, the more to hit!"

XXIX.

MR. BUTSON was perhaps a shade relieved when he returned home that night and found all quiet, and Johnny in bed. He had half expected that his inopportune return might have caused trouble. But the night after, as he came from the railway station, a little earlier than usual, Johnny stopped him in the street.

"I want to speak to you," he said. "Just come round by the dock wall."

His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered. "Why?" he asked. "Can't you tell me here?"

"No, I can't. There are too many people about. It's money in your pocket if you come."

Mr. Butson went. What it meant he could not imagine, but Johnny usually told the truth, and he said it would be money in his pocket--a desirable disposition of the article. The dock wall was just round a corner. A tall, raking wall at one side of a sparsely lit road that was empty at night, and a lower wall at the other; the road reached by a flight of steps rising from the street, and a gateway in the low wall.

"Well, what is it now?" Mr. Butson asked, suspiciously, as Johnny stopped under a gas-lamp and looked right and left along the deserted road.

"Only just this," Johnny replied, with simple distinctness. "You wanted mother to give you my money every week, though in fact she's been letting me keep it. Well, here's my last week's money"--he shook it in his hand--"and I'll give it you if you'll stand up here and fight me."

"What? Fight you? You?" Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret uneasiness.

"Yes, me. You'd rather fight a woman, no doubt, or a lame girl. But I'm going to give you a change, and make you fight me--here." Johnny flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.

"Don't be such a young fool," quoth Mr. Butson loftily. "Put on your jacket an' come home."

"Yes--presently," Johnny replied grimly. "Presently I'll go home, and take you with me. Come, you're ready enough to punch my mother, without being asked; or my sister. Come and punch me, and take pay for it!"

Mr. Butson was a little uncomfortable. "I suppose," he sneered, "you've got a knife or a poker or somethin' about you like what you threatened me with before!"

"I haven't even brought a stick. You're the sort o' coward I expected, though you're bigger than me and heavier. Come--" he struck the man a heavy smack on the mouth. "Now fight!"

Butson snarled, and cut at the lad's head with the handle of his walking stick. But Johnny's arm straightened like a flash, and Butson rolled over.

"What I thought you'd do," remarked Johnny, seizing his wrist and twisting the stick away. "Now get up. Come on!"

Mr. Butson sat and gasped. He fingered his nose gently, and found it very tender, and bleeding. He seemed to have met a thunderbolt in the dark. He turned slowly over on his knees, and so got on his feet.

"Hit me--come, hit me!" called Johnny, sparring at him. "Fancy I'm only my mother, you cur! Come, I'm hitting you--see! So!" He seized the man by the ear, twisted it, and rapped him about the face. The treatment would have roused a sheep. Butson sprang at Johnny, grappled with him, and for a moment bore him back. Johnny asked nothing better. He broke ground, checked the rush with half-arm hits, and stopped it with a quick double left, flush in the face.

It was mere slaughter; Johnny was too hard, too scientific, too full of cool hatred. The wretched Butson, bigger and heavier as he might be, was flaccid from soft living, and science he had none. But he fought like a rat in a corner--recking nothing of rule, but kicking, biting, striking, wrestling madly; though to small purpose: for his enemy, deadly calm and deadly quick, saw every movement ere it was made, and battered with savage precision.

"Whenever you've had enough," said Johnny, as Butson staggered, and leaned against the wall, "you can stop it, you know, by calling the p'lice. You like the p'lice. There's always one of 'em in the next street, an' you've only to shout. I shall hammer you till ye do!"

And he hammered. A blow on the ear drove Butson's head against the wall, and a swing from the other fist brought it away again. He flung himself on the ground.

"Get up!" cried Johnny. "Get up. What, you won't? All right, you went down by yourself, you know--so's to be let alone. But I'm coming down too!" and with that he lay beside Butson and struck once more and struck again.

"Chuck it!" groaned Butson. "I'm done! Oh! leave me alone!"

"Leave you alone?" answered Johnny, rising and reaching for his jacket. "Not I. You didn't leave my mother alone a soon as she asked you, did you? I'll never pass you again without clouting your head. Come home!"

He hauled the bruised wretch up by the collar, crammed his hat on his head and cut him across the calves with his own walking stick. "Go on! March!"

"Can't you leave me alone now?" whined Butson. "You done enough, ain't ye?"

"No--not near enough. An' you'll have a lot more if you don't do as I tell you. I said I'd take you home, an' I will. Go on!"

Two or three dark streets led to Harbour Lane, but they were short. It was past closing time, and when they reached the shop the lights were turned down and the door shut. Nan opened to Johnny's knock, and he thrust Butson in before him. "Here he is," said Johnny, "not thrashed half enough!"

Dusty and bleeding, his face nigh unrecognisable under cuts and bruises, Butson sat on a box, a figure of shame. Nan screamed and ran to him.

"I did it where the neighbours wouldn't hear," Johnny explained, "and if he'd been a man he'd have drowned himself rather than come here, after the way I've treated him. He's a poor cur, an' I'll buy a whip for him. There's the money I promised you" he went on, putting it on the box. "It's the first you've earned for years, and the last you'll have here, if I can manage it!"

But Nan was crying over that dishonourable head, and wiping it with her handkerchief.

XXX.

"WHY what's that?" said Long Hicks on the way to work in the morning. "Got cuts all over yer hands!"

"Yes," Johnny answered laconically. "Fighting."

"Fightin'!" Long Hicks looked mighty reproachful. "Jest you be careful what company you're gettin' into," he said severely. "You're neglectin' yer drawin' and everything lately, an' now--fightin'!"

"I ain't ashamed of it," Johnny replied gloomily. "An' I've got other things to think about now, besides drawing."

Hicks stared, stuttered a little, and rubbed his cap over his head. He wondered whether or not he ought to ask questions.

They went a little way in silence, and then Johnny said: "It's him; Butson."

"No!" exclaimed Hicks, checking in his stride, and staring at Johnny again. "What! Bin fightin' Butson?"

Johnny poured out the whole story; and as he told Hicks's eyes widened, his face flushed and paled, his hands opened and closed convulsively, and again and again he blew and stuttered incomprehensibly.

"Job is, to drive the brute away," Johnny concluded wearily. "He'll stop as long as he's fed. An' mother thinks it's a disgrace to get a separation--goin' before a magistrate an' all. I'm only tellin' you because I know you won't jaw about it among the neighbours."

That day Long Hicks got leave of absence for the rest of the week, mightily astonishing Mr. Cottam by the application, for Hicks had never been known to take a holiday before.

"'Awright," the gaffer growled, "seein' as we're slack. There's one or two standin' auf for a bit a'ready. But what's up with you wantin' time auf? Gittin' frisky? Runnin' arter the gals?"

And indeed Long Hicks spent his holiday much like a man who is running after something, or somebody. He took a walking tour of intricate plan, winding and turning among the small streets, up street and down, but tending northward; through Bromley, Bow and Old Ford, and so toward Homerton and the marshes.

Meantime Johnny walked to and from his work alone, and brooded. He could not altogether understand his mother's attitude toward Butson. She had been willing, even anxious, to get rid of him by any process that would involve no disgrace among the neighbours, and no peril to the trade of the shop; he had made her life miserable; yet now she tended the brute's cuts and bumps as though he didn't deserve them, and she cried more than ever. As for Johnny himself, he spared Butson nothing. Rather he drew a hideous solace from any torture wherewith he might afflict him.

"When are you going to clear out?" he would say. "You'd rather be kept than work, but you don't like being thrashed, do you? Thrashed by a boy, eh? You'll enjoy work a deal better than the life I'll lead you here, I can tell you. I'll make you glad to drown yourself, mean funk as you are, before I'm done with you! Don't be too careful with that eye: the sooner it's well, the sooner I'll bung it up again!"

Bessy marvelled at this development of morose savagery on her brother's part. With her, though he spoke little, he was kinder than ever, but it was his pastime to bully Butson: who skulked miserably in the house, being in no fit state for public exhibition.

As to his search for Nora Sansom, Johnny was vaguely surprised to find himself almost indifferent. It would have been useless to worry his mother about it now, and though he spent an hour or two in aimless tramping about the streets, it was with the uppermost feeling that he should rather be at home, bullying Butson. He had no notion why, being little given to introspection; and he was as it were unconscious of his inner conviction that after all Nora could not be entirely lost. While Butson's punishment was the immediate concern, and as the thing stood, the creature seemed scarce to have been punished at all.

XXXI.

LONG HICKS'S holiday had lasted three days, and Mr. Butson's minor bruises were turning green. It was at the stroke of five in the afternoon, and Bessy was minding shop. From the ship-yard opposite a score or so of men came, in dirty dungaree (for it was Friday), vanguard of the tramping hundreds that issued each day, regular as the clock before the timekeeper's box. Bessy rose on her crutch, and peeped between a cheese and a packet of candles, out of window. Friday was not a day when many men came in on their way home, because by that time the week's money was run low, and luxuries were barred. Bessy scarce expected a customer, and it would seem that none was coming.

Peeping so, she grew aware of a stout red-faced woman approaching at a rapid scuttle; and then, almost as the woman reached the door, she saw Hicks at her heels, his face a long figure of dismay.

The woman burst into the shop with a rasping shriek. "I want my 'usband!" she screamed. "Where's my 'usband?"

"Come away!" called Hicks, deadly pale, and nervously snatching at her shoulder. "Come away! You know what you promised!"

"Take yer 'and auf me, ye long fool! Where's my 'usband? Is it you what's got 'im?" She turned on Bessy and bawled the words in her face.

"No--no it ain't!" cried Hicks, near beside himself. "Come away, an'--an' we'll talk about it outside!"

"Talk! O yus, I'll give 'im talk!" The woman's every syllable was a harsh yell, racking to the brain, and already it had drawn a group about the door. "I'll give 'im talk, an' 'er too! Would anyone believe," she went on, turning toward the door and haranguing the crowd, that grew at every word, "as 'ow a woman calling 'erself respectable, an' keepin' a shop like any lady, 'ud take away a respectable woman's 'usband--a lazy good-for-nothin' scoundril as run away an' left me thirteen year ago last Whitsun!"

Boys sprang from everywhere, and pelted in to swell the crowd, drawn by the increasing screams. Many of the men, who knew the shop so well, stopped to learn what the trouble was; and soon every window in Harbour Lane displayed a woman's head, or two.

"My 'usband! Where's my 'usband? Show me the woman as took my 'usband!"

Nan came and stood in the back parlour doorway, frightened but uncomprehending. The woman turned. "You! You is it?" she shrieked, oversetting a pile of tins and boxes, and clawing the air above her. "Gimme back my 'usband, you shameless creechor! Where 'a' ye got 'im? Where's my 'usband?"

Hicks put his arm about the woman's waist and swung her back. He was angry now. "Get out!" he said, "I didn't bring you to make a row like that! You swore you wouldn't!"

Finding his arm too strong for her, the woman turned on Hicks and set to clawing at his face, never ceasing to scream for her husband. And then Johnny came pushing in at the door, having run from the far street-corner at sight of the crowd.

Hicks, as well as he could for dodging and catching at the woman's wrists, made violent facial signals to Johnny, who stared, understanding none of them. But he heard the woman's howls for her husband, and he caught at her arm. "Who is your husband?" he said. "What's his name?"

"What's 'is name? Why Butson--'enery Butson's 'is name! Gimme my 'usband! My 'usband! Let me go, you villain!"

It was like an unexpected blow on the head to Johnny, but, save for a moment, it stunned not at all--rather roused him. "I'll fetch him!" he cried, and sprang into the house.

Here was release--the man had another wife! He would drag the wretch down to her, and then give him to the police. No wonder he feared the police! The load was lifted at last--Butson's punishment was come indeed! Fiercely glad, and thinking of nothing but this, Johnny swung into each room in turn.

But there was no Butson. His pipe lay broken on the front bedroom fender, and his coat hung behind the door; but there was no other sign.

Johnny dashed into the back yard. That, too, was empty. But in the yard behind, the old lighterman, paint-pot in one hand and brush in the other, just as he had broken off in the touching up of his mast, stood, and blinked, and stared, with his mouth open. His house-doors, back and front, stood wide, because of wet paint, and one could see through to the next street. It was by those doorways that Mr. Butson had vanished a minute ago, after scrambling over the wall, hatless, and in his shirt sleeves. And the old lighterman thought it a great liberty, and told Johnny so, with some dignity.

Johnny rushed back to the shop. "Gone!" he cried. "Bolted out at the back!"

He might have offered chase, but his mother lay in a swoon, and Bessy hung over her, hysterical. "Shove that woman out," he said, and he and Hicks, between them, thrust the bawling termagant into the street and closed the door.