The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands, R. M. Ballantyne [polar express read aloud .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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Now that my heart is smitten and my brain gone mad?”
Queeker fetched a long deep-drawn sigh at this point, the agony of intense composition being for a moment relaxed. Then, catching his breath and glaring, he went on in a somewhat gentler strain—
“Forgive me, Floating-light, and you, ye sun,
Moon, stars, and elements of Nature, every one;
I did but vent my misery and spleen
In utt’ring words of fury that I hardly mean.
At least I do in part—but hold! why not?
Oh! cease ye fiendish thoughts that rage and plot
To bring about my ruin. Hence! avaunt!
Or else in pity tell me what you want.
I cannot live, and yet I would not die!
My hopes are blighted! Where, oh whither shall I fly?
’Tis past! I’ll cease to daily with vain sophistry,
And try the virtue of a calm philosophy.”
The effect of composition upon Queeker was such that when he had completed his task he felt greatly tranquillised, and, having shut up his portfolio, formed the sudden resolution of dropping in upon the Durants to tea.
Meantime, and before the love-sick youth had begun the lines above quoted, Katie and her cousin walked home by a road which conducted them close past the edge of those extensive sandy plains called the Denes of Yarmouth. Here, at the corner of a quiet street, they were arrested by the sobbing of a little boy who sat on a railing by the roadside, swaying himself to and fro in an agony of grief.
Katie’s sympathetic heart was instantly touched. She at once went up to the boy, and made earnest inquiries into the cause of his distress.
“Please, ma’am,” said the boy, “I’ve lost a shillin’, and I can’t find it nowheres. Oh, wot ever shall I do? My mother gave it me to give with two other bobs to my poor sick brother whom I’ve comed all this way to see, and there I’ve gone an’ lost it, an’ I’ll ’ave to lay out all night in the cold, for I dursn’t go to see ’im without the money—boo, hoo!”
“Oh, how very unfortunate!” exclaimed Katie with real feeling for the boy, whose soul was thus steeped to all appearance in woe unutterable, was very small, and very dirty and ragged, and had an extremely handsome intelligent face, with a profusion of wild brown curls. “But I can make that up to you, poor boy,” she added, drawing out her purse, “here is a shilling for you. Where do you live?”
“At Ramsgate, ma’am.”
“At Ramsgate?” exclaimed Katie in surprise, “why, how did you manage to get here?”
“I come in a lugger, ma’am, as b’longs to a friend o’ ourn. We’ve just arrived, an’ we goes away agin to-morrow.”
“Indeed! That will give you little time to see your sick brother. What is the matter with him?”
“Oh, he’s took very bad, ma’am. I’m sorry to say he’s bad altogether, ma’am. Bin an’ run’d away from ’ome. A’most broke his mother’s ’eart, he has, an’ fall’d sick here, he did.”
The small boy paused abruptly at this point, and looked earnestly in Katie’s kind and pitiful face.
“Where does your brother live?” asked Katie.
The small boy looked rather perplexed, and said that he couldn’t rightly remember the name of the street, but that the owner of the lugger “know’d it.” Whereat Katie seemed disappointed, and said she would have been so glad to have visited him, and given him such little comforts as his disease might warrant.
“Oh, ma’am,” exclaimed the small boy, looking wistfully at her with his large blue eyes, “wot a pity I’ve forgot it! The doctor ordered ’im wine too—it was as much as ’is life was worth not to ’ave wine,—but of course they couldn’t afford to git ’im wine—even cheap wine would do well enough, at two bob or one bob the bottle. If you was to give me two bob—shillins I mean, ma’am—I’d git it for ’im to-night.”
Katie and her cousin conversed aside in low tones for a minute or two as to the propriety of complying with this proposal, and came to the conclusion that the boy was such a nice outspoken honest-like fellow, that it would do no harm to risk that sum in the circumstances. Two shillings were therefore put into the boy’s dirty little hand, and he was earnestly cautioned to take care of it, which he earnestly, and no doubt honestly, promised to do.
“What is your name, boy?” asked Katie, as she was about to leave him.
“Billy—Billy Towler, ma’am,” answered the urchin, pulling his forelock by way of respectful acknowledgment, “but my friends they calls me Walleye, chiefly in consikence o’ my bein’ wery much the rewerse of blind, ma’am, and niver capable of bein’ cotched in a state o’ slumber at no time.”
This reply had the effect of slightly damaging the small boy’s character for simplicity in Katie’s mind, although it caused both herself and her companion to laugh.
“Well, Billy,” she said, opening her card-case, “here is my card—give it to your sick brother, and when he sends it to me with his address written on the back of it I’ll call on him.”
“Thankee, ma’am,” said the small boy.
After he had said this, he stood silently watching the retiring figure of his benefactress, until she was out of sight, and then dashing round the corner of a bye-street which was somewhat retired, he there went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter—slapped his small thighs, held his lean little sides with both hands, threw his ragged cap into the air, and in various other ways gave evidence of ecstatic delight. He was still engaged in these violent demonstrations of feeling when Morley Jones—having just landed at Yarmouth, and left the sloop Nora in charge of young Welton—came smartly round the corner, and, applying his heavy boot to the small boy’s person, kicked him into the middle of the road.
“What are ye howlin’ there for, an’ blockin’ up the Queen’s highway like that, you precious young villain?” demanded Morley Jones.
“An’ wot are you breakin’ the Queen’s laws for like that?” retorted Billy Towler, dancing into the middle of the road and revolving his small fists in pugilistic fashion. “You big hairy walrus, I don’t know whether to ’ave you up before the beaks for assault and battery or turn to an’ give ’ee a good lickin’.”
Mr Jones showed all his teeth with an approving grin, and the small boy grinned in return, but still kept on revolving his fists, and warning the walrus to “look hout and defend hisself if he didn’t want his daylights knocked out or his bows stove in!”
“You’re a smart youth, you are,” said Jones.
“Ha! you’re afraid, are you? an’ wants to make friends, but I won’t ’ave it at no price. Come on, will you?”
Jones, still grinning from ear to ear, made a rush at the urchin, who, however, evaded him with such ease that the man perceived he had not the smallest chance of catching him.
“I say, my lad,” he asked, stopping and becoming suddenly grave, “where d’you come from?”
“I comes from where I b’longs to, and where I’m agoin’ back to w’en it suits me.”
“Very good,” retorted Jones, “and I suppose you don’t object to earn a little money in an easy way?”
“Yes, I do object,” replied Billy; “it ain’t worth my while to earn a little money in any way, no matter how easy; I never deals in small sums. A fi’ pun’ note is the lowest figur’ as I can stoop to.”
“You’ll not object, however, to a gift, I daresay,” remarked Jones, as he tossed a half-crown towards the boy.
Billy caught it as deftly as a dog catches a bit of biscuit, looked at it in great surprise, tossed it in the air, bit its rim critically, and finally slid it into his trousers pocket.
“Well, you know,” he said slowly, “to obleege a friend, I’m willin’ to accept.”
“Now then, youngster, if I’m willing to trust that half-crown in your clutches, you may believe I have got something to say to ’ee worth your while listenin’ to; for you may see I’m not the man to give it to ’ee out o’ Christian charity.”
“That’s true,” remarked Billy, who by this time had become serious, and stood with his hands in his pockets, still, however, at a respectful distance.
“Well, the fact is,” said Mr Jones, “that I’ve bin lookin’ out of late for a smart lad with a light heart and a light pocket, and that ain’t troubled with much of a conscience.”
“That’s me to a tee,” said Billy promptly; “my ’art’s as light as a feather, and my pocket is as light as a maginstrate’s wisdom. As for conscience, the last beak as I wos introdooced to said I must have bin born without a conscience altogether; an’ ’pon my honour I think he wos right, for I never felt it yet, though I’ve often tried—’xcept once, w’en I’d cleaned out the pocket of a old ooman as was starin’ in at a shop winder in Cheapside, and she fainted dead away w’en she found it out, and her little grand-darter looked so pale and pitiful that I says to myself, ‘Hallo! Walleye, you’ve bin to the wrong shop this time; go an’ put it back, ye young dog;’ so I obeyed orders, an’ slipped back the purse while pretendin’ to help the old ooman. It wos risky work, though, for a bobby twigged me, and it was only my good wind and tough pair o’ shanks that saved me. Now,” continued the urchin, knitting his brows as he contemplated the knotty point, “I’ve had my doubts whether that wos conscience, or a sort o’ nat’ral weakness pecooliar to my constitootion. I’ve half a mind to call on the Bishop of London on the point one o’ these days.”
“So, you’re a city bird,” observed Jones, admiringly.
“Ah, and I can see that you’re a provincial one,” replied Billy, jingling the half-crown against the silver in his pocket.
“What brings you so far out of your beat, Walleye?” inquired Jones.
“Oh, I’m on circuit just now, makin’ a tower of the provinces. I tried a case just before you came up, an’ made three shillins out of it, besides no end o’ promises—which, unfort’nately, I can’t awail myself of—from a sweet young lady, with such a pleasant face, that I wished I could adopt her for a darter. But that’s an expensive luxury, you see; can’t afford it yet.”
“Well, youngster,” said Jones, assuming a more grave yet off-hand air, “if you choose to trust me, I’ll put you in the way of makin’ some money without much trouble. It only requires a little false swearing, which I daresay you are used to.”
“No, I ain’t,” retorted the urchin indignantly; “I never tells a lie ’xcept w’en I can’t help it. Then, of course, a feller must do it!”
“Just so, Walleye, them’s my sentiments. Have you got a father?”
“No, nor yet a mother,” replied Billy. “As far as I’m aweer of, I wos diskivered on the steps of a city work’us, an’ my first impressions in this life wos the knuckles of the old woman as banged me up. The governor used to talk a lot o’ balderdash about our bein’ brought up; but I knows better. I wos banged up; banged up in the mornins, banged to meals, and banged to bed; banged through thick and thin, for everything an’ for nothin’, until I banged myself out o’ the door one fine mornin’, which I banged arter me, an’ ’ave bin bangin’ about, a gen’lem’n at large, ever since.”
“Ha! got no friends and nothin’ to do?” said Morley Jones.
“Jis so.”
“Well, if you have a mind to take service with me, come along an’ have a pot o’ beer.”
The man turned on his heel and walked off to a neighbouring public-house, leaving the small boy to follow or not as he pleased, and apparently quite indifferent as to what his decision might be.
Billy Towler—alias Walleye—looked after him
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