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

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 with an air of uncertainty. He did not like the look of the man, and was about to decide against him, when the jingle of the half-crown in his pocket turned the scale in his favour. Running after him, he quietly said, "I'm your man," and then began to whistle, at the same time making an abortive effort to keep step with his long-limbed employer, who said nothing in reply, but, entering a public-house, ordered two pots of beer. These, when produced, he and his little companion sat down to discuss in the most retired box in the place, and conversed in low tones.

"What was it brought you to Yarmouth, Walleye?" asked Mr Jones.

"Call me Billy," said the boy, "I like it better."

"Well, Billy--and, by the way, you may call me Morley--my name's Jones, but, like yourself, I have a preference. Now, then, what brought you here?"

"H'm, that involves a story--a hanecdote, if I may so speak," replied this precocious youngster with much gravity. "You see, some time arter I runn'd away from the work'us, I fell'd in with an old gen'lem'n with a bald head an' a fat corpus. Do 'ee happen to know, Mr Morley, 'ow it is that bald heads an' fat corpuses a'most always go together?"

Morley replied that he felt himself unable to answer that difficult question; but supposed that as good-humour was said to make people fat, perhaps it made them bald also.

"I dun know," continued Billy; "anyhow, this old gen'lem'n he took'd a fancy to me, an' took'd me home to his 'otel; for he didn't live in London--wos there only on a wisit at the time he felled in love with me at first sight. Well, he give me a splendacious suit of noo clo'es, an 'ad me put to a school, where I soon larned to read and write; an' I do b'lieve wos on the highroad to be Lord Mayor of London, when the old schoolmaster died, before I'd bin two year there, an' the noo un wos so fond o' the bangin' system that I couldn't stand it, an' so bid 'em all a tender farewell, an' took to the streets agin. The old gen'lem'n he comed three times from Yarmouth, where he belonged, for to see me arter I wos put to the school, an' I had a sort o' likin' for him, but not knowin' his name, and only been aweer that he lived at Yarmouth, I thought I'd have no chance o' findin' him. Over my subsikint career I'll draw a wail; it's enough to say I didn't like either it or my pals, so I made up my mind at last to go to Yarmouth an' try to find the old gen'lem'n as had adopted me--that's what he said he'd done to me. W'en I'd prigged enough o' wipes to pay my fare down, I comed away,--an' here I am."

"Have you seen the old gentleman?" asked Morley, after a pause.

"No, only just arrived this arternoon."

"And you don't know his name, nor where he lives?"

"No."

"And how did you expect to escape bein' nabbed and put in limbo as a vagrant?" inquired Morley.

"By gittin' employment, of coorse, from some _respectable_ gen'lem'n like yourself, an' then runnin' away from 'im w'en I'd diskivered the old chap wi' the bald head."

Morley Jones smiled grimly.

"Well, my advice to you is," he said, "to fight shy of the old chap, even if you do discover him. Depend upon it the life you would lead under his eye would be one of constant restraint and worry. He'd put you to school again, no doubt, where you'd get banged as before--a system I don't approve of at all--and be made a milksop and a flunkey, or something o' that sort--whereas the life you'll lead with me will be a free and easy rollikin' manly sort o' life. Half on shore and half at sea. Do what you like, go where you will,--when business has bin attended to--victuals and clothing free gratis, and pocket-money enough to enable you to enjoy yourself in a moderate sort of way. You see I'm not goin' to humbug you. It won't be all plain sailin', but what is a man worth if he ain't fit to stand a little rough-and-tumble? Besides, rough work makes a fellow take his ease with all the more zest. A life on the ocean wave one week, with hard work, and a run on shore the next week, with just enough to do to prevent one wearyin'. That's the sort o' thing for you and me, Billy, eh boy?" exclaimed the tempter, growing garrulous in his cups, and giving his small victim a pat on the shoulder, which, although meant to be a facetious touch, well-nigh unseated him.

Billy Towler recovered himself, however, and received it as it was meant, in perfect good humour. The beer had mounted to his own little brain, and his large eyes glowed with more than natural light as he sat gazing into his companion's rugged face, listening with delight to the description of a mode of life which he thought admirably suited to his tastes and capabilities. He was, however, a shrewd little creature. Sad and very rough experience of life had taught him to be uncommonly circumspect for his years.

"What's your business, Morley?" he demanded eagerly.

"I've a lot of businesses," said Mr Jones with a drunken leer, "but my principal one is fishcuring.