The Young Trawler

Chapter Four.

Billy Bright the Fisher-Boy visits London—has a Fight—enlarges his Mind, and undertakes Business

We must now return to the Evening Star fishing-smack, but only for a few minutes at present. Later on we shall have occasion to visit her under stirring circumstances. We saw her last heading eastward to her fishing-ground in the North Sea. We present her now, after a two months’ trip, sailing to the west, homeward bound.

Eight weeks at sea; nine days on shore, is the unvarying routine of the North Sea smacksman’s life, summer and winter, all the year round. Two months of toil and exposure of the severest kind, fair-weather or foul, and little more than one week of repose in the bosom of his family—varied by visits more or less frequent to the tap-room of the public-house. It is a rugged life to body and soul. Severest toil and little rest for the one; strong temptation and little refreshment to the other.

“Strong temptation!” you exclaim, “what! out on the heaving billows and among the howling gales of winter on the North Sea?”

Ay, stronger temptation than you might suppose, as, in the sequel, you shall see.

But we are homeward bound just now. One of the gales above referred to is blowing itself out and the Evening Star is threading her way among the shoals to her brief repose in Yarmouth.

The crew are standing about the deck looking eagerly towards the land, and little Billy is steering. (See Frontispiece.)

Yes, that ridiculous atom of humanity, with a rope, or “steering lanyard,” round the tiller to prevent its knocking him down or sweeping him overboard, stands there guiding the plunging smack on her course through the dangerous shoals. Of course Billy’s father has an eye on him, but he does not require to say more than an occasional word at long intervals.

Need we observe that our little hero is no longer subject to the demon which felled him at starting, and made his rosy face so pale? One glance at the healthy brown cheeks will settle that question. Another glance at his costume will suffice to explain, without words, much of Billy’s life during the past eight weeks. The sou’-wester is crushed and soiled, the coat is limp, rent, mended, button-bereaved more or less, and bespattered, and the boots wear the aspect of having seen service. The little hands too, which even while ashore were not particularly white, now bear traces of having had much to do with tar, and grease, and fishy substances, besides being red with cold, swelled with sundry bruises, and seamed with several scars—for Billy is reckless by nature, and it takes time and much experience of suffering to teach a man how to take care of his hands in the fisheries of the North Sea!

An hour or two more sufficed to carry our smack into port, and then the various members of the crew hurried home.

Billy swaggered beside his father and tried to look manly until he reached his own door, where all thought of personal appearance suddenly vanished, and he leaped with an unmanly squeal of delight into his mother’s arms. You may be sure that those arms did not spare him!

“You’ll not go down to-night, David?” said Mrs Bright, when, having half choked her son, she turned to her husband.

“No, lass,—I won’t,” said the skipper in a tone of decision.

Mrs Bright was much gratified by the promise, for well did she know, from bitter experience, that if her David went down to meet his comrades at the public-house on his arrival, his brief holidays would probably be spent in a state of semi-intoxication. Indeed, even with this promise she knew that much of his time and a good deal of his hardly earned money would be devoted to the publican.

“We’ll not have much of Billy’s company this week, I fear,” said Mrs Bright, with a glance of pride at her son, who returned it with a look of surprise.

“Why so, Nell?” asked her husband.

“Because he has got to go to London.”

“To Lun’on!” exclaimed the father.

“Lun’on!” echoed the son.

“Yes; it seems that Miss Ruth—that dear young lady, Miss Ruth Dotropy—you remember her, Billy?”

“Remember her! I should think I does,” said the boy, emphatically, “if I was to live as long as Meethusilim I’d never forget Miss Dotropy.”

“Well,” continued Mrs Bright, “she wrote and asked Joe Davidson’s wife to send her a fisher-boy to London for a day or two, and she’d pay his railway fare up an’ back, and all his expenses. What ever Miss Ruth wants to do with him I don’t know, nor any one else. Mrs Davidson couldn’t find a boy that was fit to send, so she said she’d wait till you came back, Billy, and send you up.”

“Well, wonders ain’t a-goin’ to cease yet a while,” exclaimed Billy, with a look of gratified pride. “Hows’ever, I’m game for anythink—from pitch an’ toss up’ards. When am I to start, mother?”

“To-morrow, by the first train.”

“All right—an’ what sort o’ rig? I couldn’t go in them ’ere slops, you know. It wouldn’t give ’em a k’rect idear o’ Yarmouth boys, would it?”

“Of course not sonny, an I’ve got ready your old Sunday coat, it ain’t too small for you yet—an’ some other things.”

Accordingly, rigged out, as he expressed it, in a well-mended and brushed pilot-cloth coat; a round blue-cloth cap; a pair of trousers to match, and a pair of new shoes, Billy found himself speeding towards the great city with what he styled “a stiff breakfast under hatches, four or five shillings in the locker, an’ a bu’stin’ heart beneath his veskit.”

In a few hours he found himself in the bewildering streets, inquiring his way to the great square in the West End where Mrs Dotropy dwelt.

The first person of whom he made inquiry was a street boy, and while he was speaking the city Arab regarded the provincial boy’s innocent face—for it was a peculiarly innocent face when in repose—with a look of mingled curiosity and cunning.

“Now look ’ee here, young ’un,” said the Arab, “I don’t know nothink about the Vest End squares, an’ what’s more I don’t want to, but I do know a lot about the East End streets, an’ if you’ll come with me, I’ll—”

“Thank ’ee, no,” interrupted Billy, with unlooked-for decision, “I’ve got business to look arter at the West End.”

“Yell, cooriously enough,” returned the Arab, “I’ve got business at the East End. By the vay, you don’t ’appen to ’ave any browns—any coppers—about you—eh?”

“Of course I has. You don’t suppose a man goes cruisin’ about Lun’on without any shot in the locker, do you?”

“To be sure not,” responded the street boy; “I might ’ave know’d that a man like you wouldn’t, anyhow. Now, it so ’appens that I’m wery much in want o’ change. You couldn’t give me browns for a sixpence, could you?”

The Arab said this so earnestly—at the same time producing a sixpence, or something that looked like one, from his pockets—that the provincial boy’s rising suspicions were quite disarmed.

“Let me see,” he said, plunging his hand into his trousers pocket—“one, two, three—no, I’ve only got fourpence, but—”

He was cut short by the Arab making a sudden grasp at the coins, which sent most of them spinning on the pavement.

Like lightning little Billy sprang forward and planted his right fist on the point of the Arab’s nose with such vigour that the blow caused him to stagger backwards. Before he could recover Billy followed him up with a left-hander on the forehead and a right-hander on the chest, which last sent him over on his back. So sudden was the onset that the passers-by scarcely understood what was occurring before it was all over. A grave policeman stepped forward at the moment. The Arab rose, glided into a whirl of wheels and horses’ legs, and disappeared, while Billy stood still with doubled fists glaring defiance.

“Now then, my boy, what’s all this about?” said the man in blue, placing a large hand gently on the small shoulder.

“He’s bin and knocked my coppers about,” said our little hero indignantly, as he looked up, but the stern yet kindly smile on the policeman’s face restored him, and he condescended on a fuller explanation as he proceeded to pick up his pence.

Having been cautioned about the danger of entering into conversation with strangers in London—especially with street boys—Billy was directed to a Pimlico omnibus, and deposited not far from his destination. Inquiring his way thereafter of several policemen—who were, as he afterwards related to admiring friends, as thick in London as bloaters in Yarmouth—he found himself in front of the Dotropy residence.

“Yes, my little man,” said the footman who opened the door of the West End mansion, “Miss Ruth is at ’ome, and ’as been expecting you. Come this way.”

That footman lost ground in Billy’s estimation because of using the word little. If he had said “my boy,” it would have been all right; “my man” would have been gratifying; but “my little man” was repulsive. A smart servant girl who chanced to see him on his way to the library also caused him much pain by whispering to her fellow something about a sweet innocent-faced darling, and he put on a savage frown, as he was ushered into the room, by way of counteracting the sweet innocence. A glass opposite suddenly revealed to its owner the smooth rosy-brown visage, screwed up in a compound expression. That expression changed so swiftly to sheer surprise that a burst of involuntary laughter was the result. A deep flush, and silence, followed, as the urchin looked with some confusion round the room to see if he had been observed or overheard, and a sense of relief came as he found that he was alone. No one had seen or heard him except some of the Dotropy ancestors who had “come over” with the Conqueror, and who gazed sternly from the walls. For, you see, being a family of note, the dining-room could not hold all the ancestors, so that some of them had to be accommodated in the library.

That glance round had a powerful effect on the mind of the fisher-boy, so powerful indeed that all thought of self vanished, for he found himself for the first time in a room the like of which he had never seen, or heard, or dreamed of.

He knew, of course, that there were libraries in Yarmouth, and was aware that they had something to do with books, but he had never seen a collection on a large scale, and, up to that time, had no particular curiosity about books.

Indeed, if truth must be told, Billy hated books, because the only point in regard to which he and his mother had ever differed was a book! A tattered, ragged, much-soiled book it was, with big letters at the beginning, simple arrangements of letters in the middle, and maddening compounds of them towards the end. Earnestly, patiently, lovingly, yet perseveringly, had Mrs Bright tried to drill the contents of that book into Billy’s unwilling brain, but with little success, for, albeit a willing and obliging child, there was a limit to his powers of comprehension, and a tendency in his young mind to hold in contempt what he did not understand.

One day a somewhat pedantic visitor told Billy that he would never be a great man if he did not try to understand the book in question—to thoroughly digest it.

“You hear what the gentleman says, Billy, you dirty little gurnet,” said David Bright on that occasion, “you’ve got to di-gest it, my lad, to di-gest it.”

“Yes, father,” said Billy, with a finger in his mouth and his eyes on the visitor.

The boy’s mind was inquisitive and ingenious. He pestered his father, after the visitor had gone, for an explanation as to what he meant by digesting the book.

“Why, sonny,” returned David, knitting his brows very hard, for the question was somewhat of a puzzler, “he means that you’ve got to stow away in your brain the knowledge that’s in the book, an’ work away at it—di-gest it, d’ee see—same as you stow grub into yer stummick an’ digest that.”

Billy pondered this a long time till a happy thought occurred to him.

“I’ll digest it,” said he, slapping his thigh one day when he was left alone in the house. “We’ll all di-gest it together!”

He jumped up, took the lid off a pot of pea-soup that was boiling on the fire, and dropped the hated book into it.

“What’s this i’ the soup, Nell?” said David that day at dinner, as he fished a mass of curious substance out of the pot. “Many a queer thing have I fished up i’ the trawl from the bottom o’ the North Sea, but ne’er afore did I make such a haul as this in a pot o’ pea-soup. What is’t?”

“Why, David,” replied the wife, examining the substance with a puzzled expression, “I do believe it’s the primer!”

They both turned their eyes inquiringly on the boy, who sat gravely watching them.

“All right, father,” he said, “I put ’im in. We’re a-goin’ to di-gest it, you know.”

“Dirty boy!” exclaimed his mother, flinging the remains of the boiled book under the grate. “You’ve ruined the soup.”

“Never a bit, Nell,” said the skipper, who was in no wise particular as to his food, “clean paper an’ print can’t do no damage to the soup. An’ after all, I don’t see why a man shouldn’t take in knowledge as well through the stummick as through the brain. It don’t matter a roker’s tail whether you ship cargo through the main-hatch or through the fore-hatch, so long as it gits inside somehow. Come, let’s have a bowl of it. I never was good at letters myself, an’ I’ll be bound to say that Billy and I will di-gest the book better this way than the right way.”

Thus was the finishing touch put to Billy Bright’s education at that time, and we have described the incident in order that the reader may fully understand the condition of the boy’s mind as he stood gazing round the library of the West End mansion.

“Books!” exclaimed Billy, afterwards, when questioned by a Yarmouth friend, “I should just think there was books. Oh! it’s o’ no manner o’ use tryin’ to tell ’ee about it. There was books from the floor to the ceilin’ all round the room—books in red covers, an’ blue covers, an’ green, an’ yellow, an’ pink, an’ white—all the colours in the rainbow, and all of ’em more or less kivered wi’ gold—w’y—I don’t know what their insides was worth, but sartin sure am I that they couldn’t come up to their outsides. Mints of money must ’ave bin spent in kiverin’ of ’em. An’ there was ladders to git at ’em—a short un to git at the books below, an’ a long un to go aloft for ’em in the top rows. What people finds to write about beats me to understand; but who ever buys and reads it all beats me wuss.”

While new and puzzling thoughts were thus chasing each other through the fisher-boy’s brain Ruth Dotropy entered.

“What! Billy Bright,” she exclaimed in a tone of great satisfaction, hurrying forward and holding out her hand. “I’m so glad they have sent you. I would have asked them to send you, when I wrote, but thought you were at sea.”

“Yes, Miss, but I’ve got back again,” said Billy, grasping the offered hand timidly, fearing to soil it.

For the same reason he sat down carefully on the edge of a chair, when Ruth said heartily, “Come, sit down and let’s have a talk together,” for, you see, he had become so accustomed to fishy clothes and tarred hands that he had a tendency to forget that he was now “clean” and “in a split-new rig.”

Ruth’s manner and reception put the poor boy at once at his ease. For some time she plied him with questions about the fisher-folk of Yarmouth and Gorleston, in whom she had taken great interest during a summer spent at the former town,—at which time she had made the acquaintance of little Billy. Then she began to talk of the sea and the fishery, and the smacks with their crews. Of course the boy was in his element on these subjects, and not only answered his fair questioner fully, but volunteered a number of anecdotes, and a vast amount of interesting information about fishing, which quite charmed Ruth, inducing her to encourage him to go on.

“Oh! yes, Miss,” he said, “it’s quite true what you’ve bin told. There’s hundreds and hundreds of smacks a-fishin’ out there on the North Sea all the year round, summer an’ winter. In course I can’t say whether there’s a popilation, as you calls it, of over twelve thousand, always afloat, never havin’ counted ’em myself, but I know there must be a-many thousand men an’ boys there.”

“Billy was right. There is really a population of over 12,000 men and boys afloat all the year round on the North Sea, engaged in the arduous work of daily supplying the London and other markets with fresh fish.”

“And what port do they run for when a storm comes on?” asked Ruth.

“What port, Miss? why, they don’t run for no port at all, cos why? there’s no port near enough to run for.”

“Do you mean to say, that they remain at sea during all the storms—even the worst?”

“That’s just what we does, Miss. Blow high, blow low, it’s all the same; we must weather it the best way we can. An’ you should see how it blows in winter! That’s the time we catches it wust. It’s so cold too! I’ve not bin out in winter yet myself, but father says it’s cold enough to freeze the nose off your face, an’ it blows ’ard enough a’most to blow you inside out. You wouldn’t like to face that sort o’ thing—would you, Miss?”

With a light laugh Ruth admitted that she disliked the idea of such North Sea experiences.

“Oh! you’ve no idea, Miss, how it do blow sometimes,” continued Billy, who was a naturally communicative boy, and felt that he had got hold of a sympathetic ear. “Have you ever heard of the gale that blew so ’ard that they had to station two men an’ a boy to hold on to the captain’s hair for fear it should be blowed right off his ’ead?”

“Yes,” answered Ruth, with a silvery laugh. “I’ve heard of that gale.”

“Have you, Miss?” said Billy with a slightly surprised look. “That’s queer, now. I thought nobody know’d o’ that gale ’cept us o’ the North Sea, an’, p’raps, some o’ the people o’ Yarmouth an’ Gorleston.”

“I rather think that I must have read of it somewhere,” said Ruth. Billy glanced reproachfully at the surrounding books, under the impression that it must have been one of these which had taken the wind out of his sails.

“Well, Miss,” he continued, “I don’t mean for to say I ever was in a gale that obliged us to be careful of the skipper’s hair, but I do say that father’s seed somethink like it, for many a time our smack has bin blowed over on her beam-ends—that means laid a’most flat, Miss, with ’er sails on the sea. One night father’s smack was sailin’ along close-hauled when a heavy sea struck ’er abaft the channels, and filled the bag o’ the mains’l. She was just risin’ to clear herself when another sea follared, filled the mains’l again, an’ sent ’er on ’er beam-ends. The sea was makin’ a clean breach over ’er from stem to stern, an’ cleared the deck o’ the boat an’ gear an’ everythink. Down went all hands below an’ shut the companion, to prevent ’er being swamped. Meanwhile the weight o’ water bu’st the mains’l, so that the vessel partly righted, an’ let the hands come on deck agin. Then, after the gale had eased a bit, two or three o’ their comrades bore down on ’em and towed ’em round, so as the wind got under ’er an’ lifted ’er a bit, but the ballast had bin shot from the bilge into the side, so they couldn’t right her altogether, but had to tow ’er into port that way—over two hundred miles—the snow an’ hail blowin’, too, like one o’clock!”

“Really, they must have had a terrible time of it,” returned Ruth, “though I don’t know exactly how dreadful ‘one o’clock’ may be. But tell me, Billy, do the fishermen like the worsted mitts and helmets and comforters that were sent to them from this house last year?”