The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands, Robert Michael Ballantyne [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

I'm a sort of shipowner too. Leastwise I've got two craft--one bein' a sloop, the other a boat. Moreover, I charter no end of vessels, an' do a good deal in the insurance way. But you'll understand more about these things all in good time, Billy. I live, while I'm at home, in Gravesend, but I've got a daughter and a mother livin' at Yarmouth, so I may say I've got a home at both places. It's a convenient sort o' thing, you see,--a town residence and a country villa, as it were. Come, I'll take you to the villa now, and introduce 'ee to the women."

So saying, this rascal paid for the poison he had been administering in large doses to himself and his apprentice, and, taking Billy's dirty little hand in his large horny fist, led him towards the centre of the town.

Poor Billy little knew the nature of the awful gulf of sin and misery into which he was now plunging with a headlong hilarious vivacity peculiarly his own. He was, indeed, well enough aware of the fact that he was a thief, and an outcast from society, and that he was a habitual breaker of the laws of God and man, but he was naturally ignorant of the extent of his guilt, as well as of the certain and terrible end to which it pointed, and, above all, he had not the most remote conception of the almost hopeless slavery to which he was doomed when once fairly secured in the baleful net which Morley Jones had begun to twine around him.

But a higher Power was leading the poor child in a way that he knew not--a way that was little suspected by his tempter--a way that has been the means of snatching many and many a little one from destruction in time past, and that will certainly save many more in time to come--as long as Christian men and women band together to unite their prayers and powers for the rescue of perishing souls.

Traversing several streets with unsteady gait--for he was now much the worse of drink--Mr Jones led his willing captive down one of those innumerable narrow streets, or passages, termed "rows," which bear some resemblance to the "closes" of the Scottish capital. In width they are much the same, but in cleanliness there is a vast difference, for whereas the _closes_ of the northern capital are notorious for dirt, the _rows_ of Yarmouth are celebrated for their neat tidy aspect. What the cause of the neatness of the latter may be we cannot tell, but we can bear the testimony of an eye-witness to the fact that--considering the class of inhabitants who dwell in them, their laborious lives and limited means--the _rows_ are wondrously clean. Nearly all of them are paved with pebbles or bricks. The square courts opening out of them on right and left, although ridiculously small, are so thoroughly scoured and swept that one might roll on their floors with white garments and remain unsoiled. In each court may be observed a water-bucket and scrubbing-brush wet, usually, from recent use, also a green painted box-garden of dimensions corresponding to the court, full of well-tended flowers. Almost every door has a wooden or stone step, and each step is worn and white with repeated scrubbings--insomuch that one is irresistibly led to suspect that the "Bloaters" must have a strong infusion of the Dutch element in their nature.

Emerging at the lower end of the row, Mr Jones and his small companion hastened along the centre of a narrow street which led them into one of much wider dimensions, named Friar's Lane. Proceeding along this for some time, they diverged to the right into another of the rows not far from the old city-wall, at a place where one of the massive towers still rears its rugged head as a picturesque ruin. The moon sailed out from under a mass of clouds at this point, giving to objects the distinctness of daylight. Hitherto Billy Towler had retained some idea of the direction in which he was being led, but this last turn threw his topographical ideas into utter confusion.

"A queer place this," he remarked, as they emerged from the narrowest passage they had yet traversed into a neat, snug, and most unexpected little square, with a garden in the middle of it, and a flagstaff in one corner.

"Adam-and-Eve gardens, they call it," said Mr Jones; "we're pretty nigh home now."

"I wonder they didn't call it Eden at once," observed Billy; "it would have been shorter and comes to the same thing."

"Here we are at last," said Mr Jones, stumbling against a small door in one of the network of rows that surrounded this Yarmouth paradise. "Hope the women are in," he added, attempting to lift the latch, but, finding that the door was locked, he hammered at it with foot and fist violently.

"Hallo!" shouted the deep voice of a man within.

"Hallo, indeed! Who may _you_ be?" growled Mr Jones with an angry oath. "Open the door, will you?"

The door was opened at once by James Welton, who stood aside to let the other pass.

"Oh! it's you, is it?" said Mr Jones. "Didn't recognise your voice through the door. I thought you couldn't have got the sloop made snug so soon. Well, lass, how are 'ee; and how's the old ooman?"

As the man made these inquiries in a half-hearty voice, he advanced into a poorly-furnished apartment, so small and low that it seemed a couple of sizes too small for him, and bestowed a kiss first upon the cheek of his old mother, who sat cowering over the fire, but brightened up on hearing his voice, and then upon the forehead of his daughter Nora, the cheerfulness of whose greeting, however, was somewhat checked when she observed the intoxicated state of her father.

Nora had a face which, though not absolutely pretty, was intensely winsome in consequence of an air of quiet womanly tenderness which surrounded it as with a halo. She was barely eighteen, but her soft eyes possessed a look of sorrow and suffering which, if not natural to them, had, at all events, become habitual.

"Who is this little boy, father?" she said, turning towards Billy Towler, who still stood in the doorway a silent but acute observer of all that went on.

"Oh, that? why--a--that's my noo 'prentice just come down from Gravesend. He's been helpin' for some time in the `hang'" (by which Mr Jones meant the place where his fish were cured), "and I'm goin' to take him to sea with me next trip. Come in, Billy, and make yourself at home."

The boy obeyed with alacrity, and made no objection to a cup of tea and slice of bread and butter which Nora placed before him--supper being just then in progress.

"You'd better get aboard as soon as may be," said Jones to Jim Welton somewhat sternly. "I didn't expect you to leave the sloop tonight."

"And I didn't intend to leave her," replied Jim, taking no notice of the tone in which this was said; "but I thought I'd come up to ask if you wished me to begin dischargin' early to-morrow morning."

"No, we're not going to discharge," returned Jones.

"Not going to discharge!" echoed Jim in surprise. "No. I find that it's not worth while discharging any part of the cargo here. On the contrary, I mean to fill up with bloaters and run over with them to the coast of France; so you can go and stow the top tier of casks more firmly, and get ready for the noo ones. Good-night."

The tone in which this was said left no excuse for Jim to linger, so he bade the household good-night and departed.

He had not gone far, however, when he was arrested by the sound of a light footstep. It was that of Nora, who had followed him.

"Nora!" exclaimed the young sailor in surprise, returning quickly and taking one of the girl's hands in both of his.

"Oh, Jim!" said Nora, with a look and tone of earnest entreaty, "don't, don't forsake him just now--if the love which you have so often professed for me be true, don't forsake him, I beseech you."

Jim protested in the most emphatic terms that he had no intention of forsaking anybody, and made a great many more protestations, in the midst of which there were numerous ardent and more or less appropriate references to hearts that never deserted their colours, sheet-anchors that held on through thick and thin, and needles that pointed, without the smallest shadow of variation, to the pole.

"But what makes you think I'm going to leave him?" he asked, at the end of one of those flights.

"Because he is so rough to 'ee, Jim," replied the girl, leaning her head on her lover's shoulder; "he spoke so gruff even now, and I thought you went away huffed. Oh, Jim, you are the only one that has any influence over him--"

"Not the only one," returned Jim, quietly smoothing the fair girl's hair with his hard strong hand.

"Well, the only _man_, at any rate," continued Nora, "especially when he is overcome with that dreadful drink. Dear Jim, you won't forsake him, will you, even though he should insult, even though he should _strike_ you?"

"No, never! Because he is your father, Nora, I'll stick by him in spite of all he can say or do to me, and try, God helping me, to save him. But I cannot stick by him if--"

"If what?" asked the girl anxiously, observing that he hesitated.

"If he does anything against the laws," said Jim in a low voice. "It isn't that I'm afraid of my good name--I'd even let that go, for _your_ sake, if by so doing I could get him out of mischief; and as long as I know nothing against him _for certain_, I'll stand by him. But if he does fall, and I come to know it, I _must_ leave him, Nora, because I won't be art and part in it. I could no longer go on my knees to pray for him if I did that, Nora. Moreover, if anything o' that sort should happen, I must leave the country, because he'd be sure to be caught and tried, and I will never stand witness against _your_ father if I can avoid it by fair means."

Poor Nora hung her head as she asked in a low voice if Jim really thought her father was engaged in illegal practices.

"I can't say that I do," replied the youth earnestly. "Come, cheer up, dearest Nora. After all, it is chiefly through reports that my suspicions have been aroused, and we all know how easy it is for an enemy to raise an evil report. But, Nora, I wish you had not bound me to secrecy as to my reason for sticking by your father. Why should I not say boldly that it's all for love of you?"

"Why should you wish to give any reason at all, Jim, and above all, _that_ reason?" asked Nora, looking up with a blush.

"Because," said the youth, with a perplexed look, "my secrecy about the matter has puzzled my father to such an extent that his confidence in me is entirely shaken. I have been all