Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 8

"That's more nor myself can tell," said Dan; "the facts o' the case is clear, so far as they come'd under our obsarvation. But as to the circ.u.mstances o' the case, 'specially those of 'em as hasn't yet transpired, I don't rightly know myself wot opinions I ought to entertain."

Susan listened to these remarks with profound admiration, chiefly because she did not understand them; but cook, who was more matter-of-fact in her nature, and somewhat demonstrative in her tendencies, advised Dan not to talk gammon, but to explain what he meant.

"Explain what I mean, coolinary sunbeam!" said Dan; "isn't it explainin'

that I am as plain as the nose on yer face, (an' a purty wan it is), though I haven't got the powers of a lawyer, nor yit a praist? Didn't a drippin' wet sailor come to our door at the dead o' night an' ring the bell as bowld as bra.s.s, an' when Mrs Niven, whose intellect was niver much beyond that of a poplypus--"

"What's a poplypus?" interrupted cook.

"Well now," remonstrated Dan, "I ain't 'xactly a walkin' dictionary; but I b'lieve it's a baist o' the say what hain't got nothin' but a body an'

a stummik, indeed I'm not sure but that it's all stummik together, with just legs enough to move about with, or may be a fin or two, an' a hole to let in the wittles; quite in your line, by the way, Miss Bounder."

"Imperance!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed cook.

"No offence," said Dan; "but `to resoom the thread o' the narrative,' as the story books say, Mrs Niven she opened the door, and the drippin'

wet sailor he puts a little wet spalpeen in her arms, an' goes right off without so much as by your lave, an' that's all we know about it. An'

Grumpy he goes ragin' about the house sayin' he'll have nothin' to do wi' the poor little thing--who's not so little naither, bein' a ten-year-old if she's an hour, an' a purty sweet face to boot--an' that he'll send her to the workus' or pris'n, or anywhere; but in his house she's not to stop another day. Well, not havin' the management o' the whole of this world's affairs, (fort'nately, else a scrubbily managed world it would be), Grumpy finds out that when he wants to send little Emmie, (as she calls herself), off, she's knocked down by a ragin'

fever, an' the doctor he says it's as much as her life is worth to move her. So Grumpy has to grin and bear it, and there's little Emmie lyin'

at this minit in our best bed, (where Mrs Niven put her the moment she was took bad), a-tossin' her purty arms in the air, an' makin' her yellow hair fly over the pillows, and kickin' off the close like a young angel in a pa.s.sion, and callin' on her mama in a voice that would make a stone immage weep, all the while that Miss Penelope is snivellin' on one side o' the bed, an' Mrs Niven is snortin' on the other."

"Poor dear," said Susan in a low voice, devoting herself with intensified zeal to the tea-pot, while sympathetic tears moistened her eyes.

I interrupted the conversation at this point by entering the kitchen with my note to my friend Stuart. I had to pa.s.s through the kitchen to my back garden when I wished to leave my house by the back garden gate.

I had coughed and made as much noise as possible in approaching the cook's domains, but they had been so much engrossed with each other that they did not hear me. Dan sprang hastily off the table, and suddenly a.s.sumed a deeply respectful air.

"Dan," said I, "take this note to Mr Stuart as quickly as possible, and bring me an answer without delay. I am going to see Haco Barepoles at--"

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Susan with a start, and looking at me interrogatively.

"Oh, I forgot, Susan; your father has just arrived from Aberdeen, and is at this moment in the Sailors' Home. You may run down to see him, my girl, if you choose."

"Thank you, sir," said Susan, with a glow of pleasure on her good-looking face, as she pushed the tea-pot from her, and dropt the cloth, in her haste to get away to see her sire.

"Stay, Susan," said I; "you need not hurry back. In fact, you may spend the day with your father, if you choose; and tell him that I will be down to see him in a few minutes. But I shall probably be there before you. You may take Mr Stuart's answer to the Home," I added, turning to Dan; "I shall be there when you return with it."

"_Yes_, sir," said Dan in a tone so energetic as to cause me to look at him. I observed that he was winking towards the kitchen door. Casting my eyes thither I saw that Susan's face was much flushed as he disappeared into the pa.s.sage. I also noted that the cook's face was fiery red, and that she stirred a large pot, over which she bent, with unnecessary violence--viciously, as it were.

Pondering on these things I crossed my garden and proceeded towards the Home, which stood on a conspicuous eminence near the docks, at the east end of the town.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE SAILORS' HOME AND THE MAD SKIPPER.

The Sailors' Home in Wreck.u.moft was a neat, substantial, unpretending edifice, which had been built by a number of charitable people, in order to provide a comfortable residence, with board at moderate terms, for the numerous seamen who frequented our port. It also served as a place of temporary refuge to the unfortunate crews of the numerous wrecks which occurred annually on our sh.o.r.es.

Here I found Haco Barepoles, the skipper of a coal sloop, seated on the side of his bed in one of the little berths of the Home, busily engaged in stuffing tobacco into the bowl of a great German pipe with the point of his little finger. Susan, who had outstripped me, was seated beside him with her head on his shoulder.

"Oh, father!" I heard Susan say, as I walked along the pa.s.sage between the rows of sleeping berths that lined each side of the princ.i.p.al dormitory of our Home; "I shall lose you some day, I fear. How was it that you came so near bein' wrecked?"

Before the skipper could reply I stood in the doorway of his berth.

"Good-day, Haco," said I; "glad to see you safe back once more."

"Thankee, Cap'n Bingley--same to you, sir," said Haco, rising hastily from the bed and seizing my hand, which he shook warmly, and, I must add, painfully; for the skipper was a hearty, impulsive fellow, apt to forget his strength of body in the strength of his feelings, and given to grasp his male friends with a gripe that would, I verily believe, have drawn a roar from Hercules.

"I've come back to the old bunk, you see," he continued, while I sat down on a chest which served for a chair. "I likes the Home better an'

better every time I comes to it, and I've brought all my crew with me; for you see, sir, the `Coffin's' a'most fallin' to pieces, and will have to go into dock for a riglar overhaul."

"The Coffin?" said Susan, interrogatively.

"Yes, la.s.s; it's only a nickname the old tub got in the north, where they call the colliers coal-coffins, 'cause it's ten to one you'll go to the bottom in 'em every time ye go to sea."

"Are they _all_ so bad as to deserve the name?" inquired Susan.

"No, not 'xactly all of 'em; but there's a good lot as are not half so fit for sea as a was.h.i.+n' tub. You see, they ain't worth repairin', and owners sometimes just take their chance o' makin' a safe run by keepin'

the pumps goin' the whole time."

I informed Haco that I had called for the purpose of telling him that I had applied to Mr Stuart, who owned his little coal sloop, to give a few wrecked Russians a pa.s.sage to London, in order that they might be handed over to the care of their consul; but that I would have to find a pa.s.sage for them in some other vessel, as the "Coffin" was so unseaworthy.

"Don't be in too great a hurry, sir," said Haco, with a peculiar smile and twinkle in his eye; "I'm inclined to think that Mr Stuart will send her back to London to be repaired there--"

"What!" exclaimed Susan, with a flush of indignation, "an' risk your life, father?"

"As to that, la.s.s, my life has got to be risked anyhow, and it ain't much worth, to say the truth; so you needn't trouble yourself on that pint."

"It's worth a great deal to me," said Susan, drawing herself closer to the side of her rugged parent.

I could not help smiling as I looked at this curious specimen of a British seaman shaking his head gravely and speaking so disparagingly of himself, when I knew, and every one in the town knew, that he was one of the kindest and most useful of men. He was a very giant in size, with a breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an alt.i.tude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs--a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to perceive that fact.

"Whatever your life may be worth, my friend," said I, "it is to be hoped that Mr Stuart will not risk it by sending you to sea in the `Coffin'

till it is thoroughly overhauled."

"Come in!" shouted the skipper, in answer to a rap at the door.

The invitation to enter was not accepted, but the rap was repeated.

"Go, Susan," said I, "see who it is."

Susan obeyed--with unusual alacrity, as I fancied, but did not return with equal quickness. We heard her whispering with some one; then there was a sound as if of a suppressed scream, followed by something that was marvellously like a slap applied to a cheek with an open hand. Next moment Susan re-appeared with a letter and a very flushed face.

"A letter, sir," said Susan, dropping her eyes.

"Who brought it?" I inquired.

"Mr Horsey, sir." Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. "He waits an answer, sir."

Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.