The Young Trawler, R. M. Ballantyne [dark books to read TXT] 📗

so they sent me to ask if you’ll undertake to help in the work, or if they’re to git some one else to do it. Now, will you, or will you not? that’s the pint.”

“Of course we shall be only too happy,” answered Jessie, “though the application is strange. How did you come to know that we were in want of—that is, who sent you to us?”

“The house sent me, as I said afore, Miss.”

“Yes, but how did the house come to know of our existence, and how is it that a house of any sort should send a sailor-boy as its messenger?”

“How the house came to know of you is more than I can say. They don’t tell me all the outs-an’-ins of their affairs, you know. As to a house sendin’ a sailor-boy as its messenger—did you ever hear of the great house of Messrs Hewett and Company, what supplies Billin’sgate with fish?”

“I’m not sure—well, yes, I think I have heard of that house,” said Kate, “though we are not in the way of hearing much about the commercial houses of London.”

“Well,” continued Billy, “that house sends hundreds of fisher-boys as messengers. It sends ’em to the deep-sea with a message to the fish, an the message is—‘come out o’ the water you skulkin’ critters, an’ be sent up to Billin’sgate to be sold an’ eaten!’ The fish don’t come willin’ly, I’m bound for to say that, but we make ’em come all the same, willin’ or not, for we’ve wonderful powers o’ persuasion. So you see, houses do send fisher-boys as messengers sometimes; now, what am I to say to the partikler house as sends me? will you go in for mitts? you may take comforters if you prefer it, or helmets.”

“What do you mean by helmets, my boy?”

“Worsted ones, of course. Things made to kiver up a man’s head and neck and come down to his shoulders, with a hole in front just big enough to let his eyes, nose, and cheek-bones come through. With a sou’-wester on top, and a comforter round the neck, they’re not so bad in a stiff nor’-wester in Janoowairy. Now’s your chance, ladies, now, or niver!”

There was something so ludicrous in the manly tone and decided manner of the smooth-faced little creature before them, that the sisters burst into a hearty fit of laughter.

“Forgive us, dear boy, but the idea of our being asked in this sudden way to make innumerable mitts and comforters and worsted helmets seems so odd that we can’t help laughing. What is your name? That is not a secret, I hope?”

“By no means. My name is Billy Bright. If you’re very partikler, you may call me Willum.”

“I prefer Billy,” said Kate. “Now, Billy, it is near our dinner hour. Will you stay and dine with us? If you do, you’ll meet such a nice man—such a big man too—and somewhat in your own line of life; a sea-captain. We expect him every—”

“No, thank ’ee, Miss,” interrupted the boy, rising abruptly. “I sees more than enough o’ big sea-captings when I’m afloat. Besides, I’ve got more business on hand, so I’ll bid ’ee good-day.”

Pulling his forelock he left the room.

“The ladies has undertook some work for me, my dear,” said Billy to Liffie Lee, as he stood at the door buttoning up his little coat, “so p’raps I may see you again.”

“It won’t break my ’art if you don’t,” replied Liffie; “no, nor yet yours.”

“Speak for yourself, young ’ooman. You don’t know nothing about my ’art.”

As he spoke, a heavy foot was heard at the bottom of the stair.

“That’s our lodger,” said Liffie; “no foot but his can bang the stair or make it creak like that.”

“Well, I’m off,” cried Billy, descending two steps at a time.

Half-way down he encountered what seemed to him a giant with a chest on his shoulder. It was the darkest part of the stair where they met.

“Look out ahead! Hard a starboard!” growled Captain Bream, who seemed to be heavily weighted.

“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Billy, as he brushed past, bounded into the street, and swaggered away.

“What boy was that, Liffie?” asked the captain, letting down the chest he carried with a shock that caused the frail tenement to quiver from cellar to roof-tree.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“He must be a sailor-boy, from his answer,” rejoined the captain. “Open the door o’ my cabin, lass, and I’ll carry it right in. It’s somewhat heavy.”

He lifted the chest, which was within an eighth of an inch of being too large to pass through the little door-way, and put it in a corner, after which he entered the parlour, and sat down in a solid wooden chair which he had supplied to the establishment for his own special use.

“You see,” he had said, on the day when he introduced it, “I’ve come to grief so often in the matter of chairs that I’ve become chary as to how I use ’em. If all the chairs that I’ve had go crash under me was put together they’d furnish a good-sized house. Look before you leap is a well-known proverb, but look before you sit down has become a more familiar experience to me through life. It’s an awkward thing bein’ so heavy, and I hope you’ll never know what it is, ladies.”

Judging from their appearance just then there did not seem much prospect of that!

“Now,” continued the captain, rubbing his hands and looking benignantly at Jessie, “I have settled the matter at last; fairly said good-bye to old Ocean, an’ fixed to cast anchor for good on the land.”

“Have you indeed, captain?” said Jessie, “I should fancy that you must feel rather sorry to bid farewell to so old a friend.”

“That’s true, Miss Seaward. An old and good friend the sea has been to me, thank God. But I’m gettin’ too old myself to be much of a friend to it, so I’ve fixed to say good-bye. And the question is, Am I to stop on here, or am I to look out for another lodgin’? You see I’ve been a good many weeks with you now, an’ you’ve had a fair taste of me, so to speak. I know I’m a rough sort o’ fish for the like o’ you to have to do with, and, like some o’ the hermit crabs, rather too big for my shell, so if you find me awkward or uncomfortable don’t hesitate to say so. I won’t be surprised, though I confess I should be sorry to leave you.”

“Well, Captain Bream,” said Kate, who was generally the speaker when delicate, difficult or unpleasant subjects had to be dealt with, “since you have been so candid with us we will be equally candid with you. When you first came to us, I confess that we were much alarmed; you seemed—so very big,” (the captain tried to shrink a little—without success—and smiled in a deprecating manner), “and our rooms and furniture seemed so very small and delicate, so to speak; and then your voice was so fearfully deep and gruff,” (the captain cleared his throat softly—in B natural of the bass clef—and smiled again), “that we were almost frightened to receive you; but, now that we have had experience of you, we are quite willing that you should continue with us—on one condition, however.”

“And that is?” asked the captain anxiously.

“That you pay us a lower rent.”

“A—a higher rent you mean, I suppose?”

“No; I mean a lower.”

Captain Bream’s benign visage became grave and elongated.

“You see, captain,” continued Kate, flushing a little, “when you first came, we tried—excuse me—to get rid of you, to shake you off, and we almost doubled the rent of our little room, hoping that—”

“Quite right, quite right,” interrupted the captain, “and according to strict justice, for ain’t I almost double the size of or’nary men, an’ don’t I give more than double the trouble?”

“Not so,” returned Kate, firmly, “you don’t give half the trouble that other men do.”

“Excuse me, Miss Kate,” said the captain with a twinkle in his grey eye, “you told me I was your first lodger, so how can you know how much trouble other men would give?”

“No matter,” persisted Kate, a little confused, “you don’t give half the trouble that other lodgers would have given if we had had them.”

“Ah! h’m—well,” returned the captain softly, in the profoundest possible bass, “looking at the matter in that light, perhaps you are not far wrong. But, go on.”

“Well, I have only to add,” continued Kate, “that you have been so kind to us, and so considerate, and have given us so little—so very little trouble, that it will give us both great pleasure to have you continue to lodge with us if you agree to the reduction of the rent.”

“Very well,” said Captain Bream, pulling out an immense gold chronometer—the gift, in days gone by, of a band of highly grateful and appreciative passengers. “I’ve got business in the city an hour hence. We shall have dinner first. Two hours afterwards I will return with a cab and take away my boxes. That will give you plenty of time to make out your little bill and—”

“What do you mean, captain?” interrupted Kate, in much surprise.

“I mean, dear ladies, that you and I entered into an agreement to rent your little cabin for so much. Now it has been my rule in life to stick to agreements, and I mean to stick to this one or throw up my situation. Besides, I’m not goin’ to submit to have the half of my rent cut off. I can’t stand it. Like old Shylock, I mean to stick to the letter of the bond. Now, is it ‘to be, or not to be?’ as Hamlet said to the ass.”

“I was not aware that Hamlet said that to an ass,” remarked Jessie, with a little laugh.

“Oh yes! he did,” returned the captain quite confidently; “he said it to himself, you know, an’ that was the same thing. But what about the agreement?”

“Well, since you are so determined, I suppose we must give in,” said Kate.

“We can’t resist you, captain,” said Jessie, “but there is one thing that we must positively insist on, namely, that you come and sit in this room of an evening. I suppose you read or write a great deal, for we see your light burning very late sometimes, and as you have no fire you must often feel very cold.”

“Cold!” shouted the captain, with a laugh that caused the very window-frames to vibrate. “My dear ladies, I’m never cold. Got so used to it, I suppose, that it has no power over me. Why, when a man o’ my size gets heated right through, it takes three or four hours to cool him even a little. Besides, if it do come a very sharp frost, I’ve got a bear-skin coat that our ship-carpenter made for me one voyage in the arctic regions. It is hot enough inside almost to cook you. Did I ever show it you? I’ll fetch it.”

Captain Bream rose with such energy that he unintentionally spurned his chair—his own solid peculiar chair—and caused it to pirouette on one leg before tumbling backward with a crash. Next minute he returned enveloped from head to foot in what might be termed a white-bear ulster, with an enormous hood at the back of his neck.

Accustomed as the sisters were to their lodger’s bulk, they were not prepared for the marvellous increase caused by the monstrous hairy garment.

“It would puzzle the cold to get at me through this, wouldn’t it?” said its owner, surveying it with complacency. “It was my own invention too—at least the carpenter and I concocted it between us.

“The sleeves are closed up at the ends, you see, and a thumb attached to each, so as to make sleeves and mittens all of a piece, with a slit near the wrists to let you shove your hands out when you want to