Chapter Three.

 The Skipper Ashore.

 

Right glad was Mrs Lockley to find that her husband had passed the Blue Boar without going in on his way home, and although she did not say so, she could not feel sorry for the accident to the Lively Poll, which had sent him ashore a week before his proper time.

 

Martha Lockley was a pretty young woman, and the proud mother of a magnificent baby, which was bordering on that age when a child begins to have some sort of regard for its own father, and to claim much of his attention.

 

“Matty,” said Stephen to his wife, as he jolted his daughter into a state of wild delight on his knee, “Tottie is becoming very like you. She’s got the same pretty little turned-up nose, an’ the same huge grey eyes with the wicked twinkle in ’em about the corners.”

 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Stephen, but tell me about this robbery.”

 

“I know nothin’ about it more than I’ve told ye, Matty. Eve didn’t know the man, and her description of him is confused—she was frightened, poor thing! But I promised to send some one to look after her at once, for her drunken mother isn’t fit to take care of herself, let alone the sick child. Who can I send, think ’ee?”

 

Mrs Lockley pursed her little mouth, knitted her brows, and gazed thoughtfully at the baby, who, taking the look as personal, made a face at her. Finally she suggested Isabella Wentworth.

 

“And where is she to be found?” asked the skipper.

 

“At the Martins’, no doubt,” replied Mrs Lockley, with a meaning look. “She’s been there pretty much ever since poor Fred Martin came home, looking after old granny, for Mrs Martin’s time is taken up wi’ nursing her son. They say he’s pretty bad.”

 

“Then I’ll go an’ see about it at once,” said Stephen, rising, and setting Tottie down.

 

He found Isa quite willing to go to Eve, though Mrs Mooney had stormed at her and shut the door in her face on the occasion of her last visit.

 

“But you mustn’t try to see Fred,” she added. “The doctor says he must be kep’ quiet and see no one.”

 

“All right,” returned the skipper; “I’ll wait till he’s out o’ quarantine. Good day; I’ll go and tell Eve that you’re coming.”

 

On his way to Mrs Mooney’s hut Stephen Lockley had again to pass the Blue Boar. This time he did not give it “a wide berth.” There were two roads to the hut, and the shorter was that which passed the public-house. Trusting to the strength of his own resolution, he chose that road. When close to the blue monster, whose creaking sign drew so many to the verge of destruction, and plunged so many over into the gulf, he was met by Skipper Ned Bryce, a sociable, reckless sort of man, of whom he was rather fond. Bryce was skipper of the Fairy, an iron smack, which was known in the fleet as the Ironclad.

 

“Hullo! Stephen. You here?”

 

“Ay, a week before my time, Ned. That lubber Groggy Fox ran into me, cut down my bulwarks, and carried away my bowsprit an’ some o’ my top-hamper.”

 

“Come along—have a glass, an’ let’s hear all about it,” said Bryce, seizing his friend’s arm; but Lockley held back.

 

“No, Ned,” he said; “I’m on another tack just now.”

 

“What! not hoisted the blue ribbon, eh!”

 

“No,” returned Lockley, with a laugh. “I’ve no need to do that.”

 

“You haven’t lost faith in your own power o’ self-denial surely?”

 

“No, nor that either, but—but—”

 

“Come now, none o’ your ‘buts.’ Come along; my mate Dick Martin is in here, an’ he’s the best o’ company.”

 

“Dick Martin in there!” repeated Lockley, on whom a sudden thought flashed. “Is he one o’ your hands?”

 

“In course he is. Left the Grimsby fleet a-purpose to j’ine me. Rather surly he is at times, no doubt, but a good fellow at bottom, and great company. You should hear him sing. Come.”

 

“Oh, I know him well enough by hearsay, but never met him yet.”

 

Whether it was the urgency of his friend, or a desire to meet with Dick Martin, that shook our skipper’s wavering resolution we cannot tell, but he went into the Blue Boar, and took a glass for good-fellowship. Being a man of strong passions and excitable nerves, this glass produced in him a desire for a second, and that for a third, until he forgot his intended visit to Eve, his promises to his wife, and his stern resolves not to submit any longer to the tyranny of drink. Still, the memory of Mrs Mooney’s conduct, and of the advice of his friend Fred Martin, had the effect of restraining him to some extent, so that he was only what his comrades would have called a little screwed when they had become rather drunk.

 

There are many stages of drunkenness. One of them is the confidential stage. When Dick Martin had reached this stage he turned with a superhumanly solemn countenance to Bryce and winked.

 

“If—if you th–think,” said Bryce thickly, “th–that winkin’ suits you, you’re mistaken.”

 

“Look ’ere,” said Dick, drawing a letter from his pocket with a maudlin leer, and holding it up before his comrade, who frowned at it, and then shook his head—as well he might, for, besides being very illegibly written, the letter was presented to him upside down.

 

After holding it before him in silence long enough to impress him with the importance of the document, Dick Martin explained that it was a letter which he had stolen from his sister’s house, because it contained “something to his advantage.”

 

“See here,” he said, holding the letter close to his own eyes, still upside down, and evidently reading from memory: “‘If Mr Frederick Martin will c–call at this office any day next week between 10 an’ 12, h–he will ’ear suthin’ to his ad–advantage. Bounce and Brag, s’licitors.’ There!”

 

“But you ain’t Fred Martin,” said Bryce, with a look of supreme contempt, for he had arrived at the quarrelsome stage of drunkenness.

 

“Right you are,” said Martin; “but I’m his uncle. Same name c–’cause his mother m–married her c–cousin; and there ain’t much difference ’tween Dick and Fred—four letters, both of ’em—so if I goes wi’ the letter, an’ says, ‘I’m Fred Martin,’ w’y, they’ll hand over the blunt, or the jewels, or wotiver it is, to me—d’ee see?”

 

“No, I don’t see,” returned Bryce so irritatingly that his comrade left the confidential stage astern, and requested to know, with an affable air, when Bryce lost his eyesight.

 

“When I first saw you, and thought you worth your salt,” shouted Bryce, as he brought his fist heavily down on the table.

 

Both men were passionate. They sprang up, grappled each other by the throat, and fell on the floor. In doing so they let the letter fall. It fluttered to the ground, and Lockley, quietly picking it up, put it in his pocket.

 

“You’d better look after them,” said Lockley to the landlord, as he paid his reckoning, and went out.

 

In a few minutes he stood in Widow Mooney’s hut, and found Isa Wentworth already there.

 

“I’m glad you sent me here,” said the girl, “for Mrs Mooney has gone out—”

 

She stopped and looked earnestly in Lockley’s face. “You’ve been to the Blue Boar,” she said in a serious tone.

 

“Yes, lass, I have,” admitted the skipper, but without a touch of resentment. “I did not mean to go, but it’s as well that I did, for I’ve rescued a letter from Dick Martin which seems to be of some importance, an’ he says he stole it from his sister’s house.”

 

He handed the letter to the girl, who at once recognised it as the epistle over which she and Mrs Martin had puzzled so much, and which had finally been deciphered for them by Dick Martin.

 

“He must have made up his mind to pretend that he is Fred,” said Isa, “and so get anything that was intended for him.”

 

“You’re a sharp girl, Isa; you’ve hit the nail fair on the head, for I heard him in his drunken swagger boast of his intention to do that very thing. Now, will you take in hand, lass, to give the letter back to Mrs Martin, and explain how you came by it?”

 

Of course Isa agreed to do so, and Lockley, turning to Eve, said he would tell her a story before going home.

 

The handsome young skipper was in the habit of entertaining the sick child with marvellous tales of the sea during his frequent visits, for he was exceedingly fond of her, and never failed to call during his periodical returns to land. His love was well bestowed, for poor Eve, besides being of an affectionate nature, was an extremely imaginative child, and delighted in everything marvellous or romantic. On this occasion, however, he was interrupted at the commencement of his tale by the entrance of his own ship’s cook, the boy Bob Lumsden, alias Lumpy.

 

“Hullo, Lumpy, what brings you here?” asked the skipper.

 

But the boy made no answer. He was evidently taken aback at the unexpected sight of the sick child, and the skipper had to repeat his question in a sterner tone. Even then Lumpy did not look at his commander, but, addressing the child, said—

 

“Beg parding, miss; I wouldn’t have come in if I’d knowed you was in bed, but—”

 

“Oh, never mind,” interrupted Eve, with a little smile, on seeing that he hesitated; “my friends never see me except in bed. Indeed I live in bed; but you must not think I’m lazy. It’s only that my back’s bad. Come in and sit down.”

 

“Well, boy,” demanded the skipper again, “were you sent here to find me?”

 

“Yes, sir,” said Lumpy, with his eyes still fixed on the earnest little face of Eve. “Mister Jay sent me to say he wants to speak to you about the heel o’ the noo bowsprit.”

 

“Tell him I’ll be aboard in half an hour.”

 

“I didn’t know before,” said Eve, “that bowsprits have heels.”

 

At this Lumpy opened his large mouth, nearly shut his small eyes, and was on the point of giving vent to a rousing laugh, when his commander half rose and seized hold of a wooden stool. The boy shut his mouth instantly, and fled into the street, where he let go the laugh which had been thus suddenly checked.

 

“Well, she is a rum ’un!” he said to himself, as he rolled in a nautical fashion down to the wharf where the Lively Poll was undergoing repairs.

 

“I think he’s a funny boy, that,” said Eve, as the skipper stooped to kiss her.

 

“Yes, he is a funny dog. Good-bye, my pretty one.”

 

“Stay,” said Eve solemnly, as she laid her delicate little hand on the huge brown fist of the fisherman; “you’ve often told me stories, Stephen; I want to tell one to you to-night. You need not sit down; it’s a very, very short one.”

 

But the skipper did sit down, and listened with a look of interest and expectation as the child began—

 

“There was once a great, strong, brave man, who was very kind to everybody, most of all to little children. One day he was walking near a river, when a great, fearful, ugly beast, came out of the wood, and seized the man with its terrible teeth. It was far stronger than the dear, good man, and it threw him down, and held him down, till—till it killed him.”

 

She stopped, and tears filled her soft eyes at the scene she had conjured up.

 

“Do you know,” she asked in a deeper tone, “what sort of awful beast it was?”

 

“No; what was it?”

 

“A Blue Boar,” said the child, pressing the strong hand which she detained.

 

Lockley’s eyes fell for a moment before Eve’s earnest gaze, and a flush deepened the colour of his bronzed countenance. Then he sprang suddenly up and kissed Eve’s forehead.

 

“Thank you, my pretty one, for your story, but it an’t just correct, for the man is not quite killed yet and, please God, he’ll escape.”

 

As he spoke the door of the hut received a severe blow, as if some heavy body had fallen against it. When Isa opened it, a dirty bundle of rags and humanity rolled upon the floor. It was Eve’s mother!

 

Lifting her up in his strong arms, Lockley carried her into the closet which opened off the outer room, and laid her tenderly on a mattress which lay on the floor. Then, without a word, he left the hut and went home.

 

It is scarcely necessary to add that he took the longer road on that occasion, and gave a very wide berth indeed to the Blue Boar.