Part 8

In the beginning he had no thought of this plan for the Harbour Lane shop, being mainly concerned to get a tenant, no matter in what trade; and indeed in his eye the place was as little suited for chandlery as for anything. Even now he must wait, for he doubted the lasting quality of the new prosperity; better a few years of forbearance than a too hurried seizure of a weakening concern, to find little more than the same tenantless shop on his hands after all. And if it seemed that the trade owed anything to the personal qualities and connexions of Mrs. May, well, it would be a simple thing to keep her on to manage, instead of a man. It would be an act of benevolence, moreover, to an unfortunate widow, and come cheaper. But that was a matter for the future.

Meanwhile Nan May, active and confident, filled her shop by purchase from whatsoever factor sold best and cheapest, and travellers called for her orders. The hungry husband who first came for cooked bacon she always treated with particular consideration, finding him good cuts. He ceased his regular visits in three weeks or less, and Nan May, taught by experience in her earlier London life, well guessed the cause of his coming. In the spring, three months or so later, great crowds thronged about the ship-yard to see the launch of the battleship that overtime had so long been worked on; and when the launch was over, this man and his wife, the man carrying the baby, came into the shop for something to celebrate the occasion at tea. The parents did not altogether comprehend Nan May's enthusiasm over the baby, which she took from its father's arms and danced merrily about the shop, while customers waited. But they set it down to admiration of its personal beauty, though truly it was an ordinary slobbery baby enough. But it went away down the street in great state, triumphantly stabbing at its mouth with the sugarstick gripped by one hand, and at its father's whiskers with that brandished in the other.

XV.

ON a Saturday afternoon about this time, Uncle Isaac, in his best black suit and very tall hat, and with the Turk's-head walking-stick in his hand, started out to see a foreman. Work was rather slack just now (shipwrights' work was slack everywhere), and the three holidays a week that once were the glory and boast of a free and independent shipwright, were now apt to be a woeful compulsion. Uncle Isaac had been of late poorer (because idler) than he liked, and in such case it was his way to seek the chance of meeting his foreman out of hours, in order to a display of rhetoric, oblique flattery, and dexterous suggestion, that might influence a distribution of short time that would be more favourable to the orator.

He had wondered much as to the fortunes of Nan and her children, but as it has been said, his tenderness of heart kept him as far as possible from what he believed must now be a scene of sheer failure and destitution: if, indeed, the shop were not abandoned; and he was by no means anxious that his poor relations should discover his new lodgings. So now he picked his way with circumspection, and with careful cogitation of a mental map of the streets; because a thoughtless straightforward journey would take him much too near to Harbour Lane.

He crossed a swing bridge that gave access to a hundred and fifty yards of roadway ending in another swing bridge. But there was a crook in the road, and when he passed it he found that the second bridge was open. Now in Blackwall an "open" bridge did not mean one that the passenger could cross; that was a "shut" bridge. The "open" bridge was one swung aside to let a ship through, as a pair of gates is opened for a carriage. So Uncle Isaac resigned himself to wait, with an increasingly impatient group, till the bridge should swing into place again and give passage. He stood behind the chain that hung across the road to check traffic, and meditatively rubbed his nose with the Turk's-head. Presently he grew conscious of a rusty figure on his left, edging unsteadily a little nearer.

"'Ow do, Mr. Mundy?" came a hoarse whisper. And Mother Born-drunk, a trifle less drunk than usual, but careful to grasp a post, leered a grimy leer and waved her disengaged hand in his face, as one saluting a friend at a great distance. Uncle Isaac emitted a non-committal grunt--one that might be taken for an accidental cough by the bystanders--and sidled a foot or two away. For he, too, had known Emma Pacey in her more decent days, and, with other acquaintances of that time, was sometimes put to shifts to avoid her.

Mother Born-drunk left the post and followed her victim. "Don' run 'way," she ejaculated, unsteadily. "I'm ole pal. Mish' Mundy!" She thrust out a foul paw, and dropped her voice coaxingly. "Len'sh twopence!" Uncle Isaac gazed uneasily in another direction, and took more ground to the right. The waiting passengers, glad of a little amusement, grinned one at another.

"J'year, Mr. Mundy!" This in a loud voice, with an imperious gesture. "J'year! Can'tche' answer when a lady speaks t'ye?"

"Go on, guv'nor!" said a boy encouragingly, sitting on a post. "Where's yer manners? Take auf yer 'at to the laidy!" And there was a snigger. Uncle Isaac shifted farther still, and put a group of men between himself and his persecutor. But she was not to be so easily shaken off. Drawing herself up with a scornful majesty that was marred by an occasional lurch, and the bobbing of the tangled bonnet hanging over one ear, she came after Uncle Isaac through the passage readily made by the knot of men.

"Ho! so it's this, is it," she declaimed, with a stately backward sweep of the arm. "If a lady asks a triflin' favour you insult 'er. Ye low, common, scoundrel!" This very slowly, with a deep tragedy hiss and a long pause. Then with a piercing note of appeal: "Mr. Mundy! I demand an answer! Once more! _Will_ you lend me twopence?"

The people (a small crowd by this time) forgot the troublesome bridge, and turned to the new diversion. "Give the laidy twopence!" roared the boy on the post, in a deep bass. "'Arf a pint 'ud save 'er life!"

Uncle Isaac looked desperately about him, but he saw no sympathy. Dockmen, workmen, boys--all were agog to see as much fun as possible in the time at disposal. The pursuing harpy came a step nearer, and bawled again, "_Will_ you lend me twopence?"

"No!" cried Uncle Isaac, driven to bay at last. "No, I won't! Go away! Go away, you--you infamious creacher!"

"You won't?"

"No, not by no means. Go away. Y'ought to be ashamed of yerself, you--you--you opstroperous faggit!"

"Calls 'isself a gen'leman," she said, lifting her gaze to the clouds. "Calls 'isself a gen'leman, an' uses such language to a lady!"

"Shockin'," said one in the hilarious crowd. "What a wicked ole bloke!"

Uncle Isaac gave another unquiet glance about him, and moved another yard. The woman brought her eyes to earth again, and: "Won't gimme twopence," she proclaimed, "an' I'm a orficer's widow! Never mind, len' me a penny; on'y a penny, Mr. Mundy. Do, there'sh a dear! O you _are_ a ole duck!" And Mother Born-drunk stumbled toward Uncle Isaac with affectionately extended arms.

The crowd shrieked with joy, but Uncle Isaac turned and ran, one hand clapped to the crown of his very tall hat. He would wait for no bridge now, but get away as best he could. The boys yelled and whistled, and kept up at an easy trot with the quick scuttle of his short legs; behind them came Mother Born-drunk, tripping and floundering, spurred to infuriate chase by sight and sound of her unchanging enemies, the boys, and growing at every step more desirous of clawing at one of them than of catching Uncle Isaac.

As for him, he dropped his hat once, and nearly fell on it, in looking behind. So he thrust it under his arm as he scurried past the bend in the road; and there despair seized him, for now the other bridge was open too. Which escape might he make first? At the end from which he had turned back, a great liner was being towed through at a snail's pace, funnels and masts scarce seeming to move across the street. But at this end a small coaster went out briskly, and her mizzen was more than half over now. The woman was less than twenty yards off, but though she still staggered nearer, she was engaged with boys. Uncle Isaac put panic aside, and resolved on dignity. He took his hat from under his arm, and began to brush it on his sleeve.

Mother Born-drunk was in the hands of her enemies, though there were fewer than usual. She swore and swiped at them, and they flung and yelled and danced. But they drew nearer Uncle Isaac, for it was a new variation in the sport to involve an old gentleman with his Sunday clothes on. Then shouted the woman breathlessly: "P'lice! p'lice! Mish' Mundy, I'll give y' in charge for annoyin' me. 'J'ear!" She came very near and made a catch at him, which he dodged without regard to dignity. "Mish' Mundy! Stand a drop--just a little drop for ole times! If ye don't stand a drop I'll give y' in charge!"

The coaster was through, and soon the bridge would shut. Uncle Isaac moved up toward the chain amid shouts and jibes. "Y'ought to be ashamed o' yerself," bawled the woman, "a ole man like you, annoyin' a lady!"

But the men were at the winch, and the bridge swung. First of all the impatient passengers, Uncle Isaac sprang on the moving iron and got across at peril of life and limb ere the sections were still. He heard a louder shout of laughter from behind, where Mother Born-drunk, forgetting the chain as she made for the bridge, had sprawled over it where it hung low in the middle; and he quickened his pace.

Now it chanced that Johnny May had been taken that week to his first out-door job, on a large steamer; and, full of the wonders of the ship, he had made interest with the "shippy" (who was officially called the shipkeeper) to bring Bessy on board on Saturday afternoon. The visit was a pure delight for both, with more than a spice of danger for Bessy in climbing gangways, companions, and greasy engine-room steps; indeed, the "shippy" carried her down the lower flights of these last. Johnny explained the prodigious engines with all the extreme technicality of a new hand, and with much pride pointed out the part whereon he (with the help of three or four journeymen) had been at work. Bessy stared and marvelled, and her admiration for her brother waxed into reverence. For was he not an engineer, master of these massy, shining immensities, so amazingly greater than any engines she had dreamed of, so awful in their monstrous stillness? Bessy peeped along the tunnel of the great shaft, and then, a minute after, up into the towering complexities above, and she was almost afraid--would have been afraid to stay there alone.

They walked home gay and talkative, and Bessy's face had a light and a colour that it had lacked since Johnny and gran'dad had seen it together. For she had seen great things, and had walked in passenger saloons more wonderful than all her palaces of romance. It struck Johnny, for the first time in his life, that Bessy was rather pretty; and as to her lameness though some would call it a blemish (as it certainly was a misfortune), yet she carried it trimly, and he almost thought it suited her.

And so they went till at a corner a hurried little man with a moon-face ran into them, hat first,--for he was brushing it again.

Now both Johnny and Bessy wore their best clothes, and both looked happy and well, so at a glance Uncle Isaac guessed that things had gone aright at Harbour Lane after all. Just as distress troubled and repelled him, so good fortune pleased his amiable genius and attracted his regards. So though he was still a little flushed and uneasy, he was glad of the encounter. He had been unwell, it seemed, and--and busy, and all that. But how was trade at the shop?

Johnny and Bessy told the tale of the new ship-yard gate, and of the cold bacon and the pickles and the new prosperity. Uncle Isaac was greatly pleased. He was sorry, very sorry, he said, that he had not been able to call lately, but he would delay no longer--he would be round that very evening. And, indeed, he came, and immensely approved of the bacon. And he came again, and approved immensely of the cheese and the pickles and whatever else there was for supper, and again after that, and usually carried something home for trial in the calmer mood of the morning. And thus family ties were made whole, and avuncular love continued.

"Jest to think," Uncle Isaac would say with a wave of his fork, "what a quantity o' blessin's you owe to my advice, Nan! What was my words o' counsel to you prefarrotory? 'Enterprise,' sez I. 'Enterprise is what you want,' I sez; there's alwis money in Enterprise! An' what's the result? Enterprise, representin' biled 'ock o' bacon, is done the trick wonderful. But, in regards to enterprise, why not call it 'am?"

XVI.

WITH the spring the steady application of paint in Harbour Lane burst into a fury. Everywhere the houses and the flagstaffs and the fences took new coats of many colours, changing as the season went, and the paint-pot traffic fell into a vaster confusion. As tops were "in" among the boys, the smell of paint grew day by day, and when the marble season began little else could be smelt. With July came Fairlop Friday, and Bessy wondered at the passing of a great model of a rigged ship on wheels, drawn by horses, and filled with jubilant shipwrights on their way to Epping Forest, in accord with yearly custom. She had grown to consider the forest as a place so far off (though indeed she knew the distance in mere miles) that it came almost as a surprise to see people starting out to drive there in a few hours with so slow a vehicle, and to return the same night.

Bob Smallpiece had written once or twice (he kept an eye on the empty cottage, and looked out for a tenant), but he had never made a visit, as Nan May had asked him. The last news was that his bedridden old mother was worse, and not expected to live.

The trade went well--better than ever, indeed, and scarce a month passed but Nan May put a sovereign or two in the post-office savings bank; and Uncle Isaac began secretly to look upon the shop in Harbour Lane as a convenient retreat for his later years. Already he took as many meals there as possible, for, as he said, he could get no proper attention in his new lodgings. Of his old friend Mr. Butson he had seen nothing for months. For Butson, he knew, had lost his berth on the steamboat, and had fallen on evil times--and Uncle Isaac never intruded on private griefs of this description.

But late in the year, when the anniversary of Johnny's apprenticeship was nearing, and when Johnny himself was near a head taller--for he grew quickly now--Uncle Isaac saw Butson from afar as he crossed the docks, and Butson saw him. There was no escape, but Uncle Isaac, with a grin and a wave of the hand, tried to pass on hurriedly, as though urgent business claimed his time. But Mr. Butson rose from his bollard--bollards had been his most familiar furniture for months now--and intercepted him.

"You've 'ad about a year now to git that 'urry over," he said, with something not unlike a sneer. "If you're goin' that way, I'll come along too. Got any 'bacca?"

Uncle Isaac, with a bounteous air that scarce covered his reluctance, pulled out a screw of paper, and Mr. Butson filled his pipe. For some little way he smoked in silence, for tobacco was an uncommon luxury with him just now, and he enjoyed a succession of puffs with no interruption. Then he said, "Workin' at Turton's now?"

"No," Uncle Isaac replied, with a slight cough. "I--no, I ain't workin' there."

"Thought not. Looked out for y' often. An' you moved too." Butson smoked again for a space, and then went on. "I've 'ad a pretty awful year," he said. "Why I was very near goin' stokin' once or twice." (He had not quite gone, because the chief engineer always sent him ashore.) "Nice thing, that, for a man o' my bringin'-up."

They walked on. Truly the bad year had left its marks on Mr. Butson. The soles were three-quarters gone from his boots, and the uppers were cracked. He wore a mixture of ordinary and working clothes, frayed and greasy and torn, and he shivered under a flimsy dungaree jacket, buttoned so close to the neck as to hint an absence of shirt. His bowler hat was weather-beaten and cracked, and the brim behind was beginning to leave the crown because of rain-rot.

Presently Uncle Isaac, impelled to say something, asked, "Bin out all the time?"

"Very near. Got a job on a 'draulic, but the chap began jawin' me about somethin'. I wasn't goin' to stand that, so I just walked out."

"Nothin' else?"

"Not much. One or two things I got on to, but they didn't last. Know the laundry over the Cut? Well they took me on there to run the engine, an' sacked me in a week. Said I was asleep! Measly swine. Much the same at other places. Seemed to want to treat me like--like any common feller. But I showed 'em different to that!"

"Ah!" commented Uncle Isaac absently. He was wondering which way to lead the walk, and how to take leave of his companion. But his invention was at a stand, and presently the other went on.

"Well," he said, "you ain't got so much to say as you used. Know any job you can put me on to?"

"No, I don't," replied Uncle Isaac with gloomy simplicity. "Trade's bad--very bad. I bin workin' short time meself, an' standin' auf day after day. Stood auf to-day."

"Well then, lend us a bob."

Uncle Isaac started, and made the space between them a foot wider. "Reely, Mr. Butson, I--"

"All right, make it two bob then, if you'd rather. You've 'ad more 'n that out o' me one time an' another."

"But--but I tell you I'm unfort'net meself. I bin standin' auf day after day--"

"Seems to me you're tryin' to stand auf as much as ye can now. Look 'ere." Mr. Butson stood and faced Uncle Isaac. "I'm broke, clean broke, an' worse. I'm 'ungry."

"It's--it's very bad," said Uncle Isaac. "But why not go t' yer rich relations?"

Butson frowned. "Never mind them," he said. "I'd rather try an' tap your small property. What am I to do? I'm at the end of me tether, an' I've tried everything."

"Ah--Enterprise is what you want," Uncle Isaac said, being at a loss what else to recommend. "Enterprise. I've recommended Enterprise before, with wonderful results--wonderful. An'--an' 'ow about marryin'? There's the lan'lady at the Mariner's Arms. She was alwis very friendly, an' that's a life as ought to suit ye."

"G-r-r-r!" Mr. Butson turned his head with a growl and took to walking again, Uncle Isaac by his side. "She'd want to make a potman of me, an'--an'--well that ain't much catch, any'ow. If you won't lend me a bob, stand me a feed o' some sort. Ain't 'ad yer tea, 'ave ye?"

Plainly something must be sacrificed to Butson, and it struck Uncle Isaac that the cheapest article would be some of Nan May's bacon. So he said, "Well, I was thinkin' o' poppin' round to my niece's to tea. I'm sure she'd make ye very welcome."

"Awright. Same niece as give us tea over in the Forest that time?"

"Yus. She's round in 'arbour Lane."

The lamplighter scuffled past into the thickening dusk, leaving his sparse trail of light-spots along the dock wall. The two men came through streets where little sitting-rooms, lighted as yet by fires alone, cheered Butson with promise of the meal to come; and when at last he stood in Nan May's shop, now no place of empty boxes, but ranged close with bacon, cheese, candles, sausages, brawn, spiced beef, many eggs and a multitude of sundries, there was some shadow of the old strut and sulky swagger, hanging oddly about the broken-up Butson of these later days.

Uncle Isaac did it with an air, for an air was an inexpensive embellishment that won him consideration. "Good-evenin', Nan. I've took the liberty (which I'm sure you'll call it a pleasure) to introduce a of friend to tea which we well remember with 'appier circumstances. Mr. Butson is come to see you."

Duller eyes than Nan May's would have seen Butson's fallen condition at a glance, and it afflicted her to know that while fortune had favoured her it had stricken him so sorely. She led them in, offering Butson a cordiality in some sort exaggerated by her anxiety not to seem to see his poor clothes, nor to treat him a whit the worse for his ill-luck. As for Mr. Butson, he found a good fire and a clean hearth, with an armchair beside it, in a better room than he had seen for long. Old Mr. May's photograph hung over the mantelpiece, and below it was the sole remaining butterfly trophy, a small glass case, set when the old man was young. The ragged books that were Bessy's solace stood on a sideboard top, and Bessy herself, disturbed in reading, was putting one of them carefully in its place. The kettle sang on the hob. And when Johnny came from work he was astonished to find a tea-party of great animation.

Johnny was a big lad now (though he was scarce sixteen years of age), and Mr. Butson condescended to shake hands with him, to condole with him on the choice of the wretched trade that had so ill supported himself, and to exchange a remark or two on the engineering topics of the week.

But chiefly Mr. Butson attended to the meal. Nan May had never seen two men together eat such a meal as his. Plainly he was famished. She was full of pity for this unfortunate, so well brought up (thought the simple soul), so cruelly neglected by his well-to-do relations. She cut more slices of bacon, and more, and still more of bread and butter, quietly placing them to his hand, till at last he was satisfied.

Mr. Butson was refreshed, filled his pipe again from Uncle Isaac's paper, and gave some attention to the conversation. But the conversation took to itself the property of rarely travelling far from Mr. Butson and his troubles. He had no false modesty about them. He had parted with almost all his clothes, and hadn't a shirt to his back. His tools were in pawn, and a man felt discouraged from looking for a job when his tools were "put away," and he had no money to redeem them. But he would starve sooner than apply to his unnatural relations; he would take the help of strangers first.

When at last Mr. Butson took leave, and went shivering into the gusty night, Uncle Isaac was careful to let him go alone, and to remain, himself, in the shop parlour till his friend was clear away. But Nan May ran down the street after her departed guest. There were a few hurried words of entreaty in the woman's voice: "Here, Mr. Butson. Do! you really must!"--and she scurried back breathless and a trifle shamefaced. She reached across the counter and shut the till ere she came into the shop parlour.

Uncle Isaac Iooked up sharply in her face as she entered, but went on with his pipe.

XVII.

THIS visit was but the first of many from Mr. Butson: until after a very few months he came as regularly as Uncle Isaac himself. He recovered his old appearance a little at a time, one new article of clothing coming after another; but he seemed to have no luck in his quest for a job--or very little. What small success he found was ever brought to naught by the captiousness--even the rudeness--of those in direction, or their unreasonable exactions in the way of work. To simple Nan May he seemed the most shamefully ill-used of exemplars.