The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands
“Here it is, papa, I’ve got it!” exclaimed Katie, looking up with enthusiasm similar to that which might be expected in a youthful sportsman on the occasion of hooking his first salmon. “It was the two-and-sixpence which you told me to give to—”
At that moment the outer door bell rang.
“There’s cousin Fanny, oh, I’m so glad!” exclaimed Katie, shutting up her books and clearing away a multitude of papers with which the table was lumbered; “she has promised to stay a week, and has come in time to go with me to the singing class this afternoon. She’s a darling girl, as fond of painting and drawing almost as I am, and hates cats. Oh, I do so love a girl that doesn’t like cats. Eh, pussy, shall I tread on your tail?”
This question was put to a recumbent cat which lay coiled up in earthly bliss in front of the fire, and which Katie had to pass in carrying her armful of books and papers to the sideboard drawer in which they were wont to repose. She put out her foot as if to carry her threat into execution.
“Dare!” exclaimed Mr Durant, with whom the cat was a favourite.
“Well, then, promise that if Mr Queeker comes to-night you won’t let him stay to spoil our fun,” said Katie, still holding her foot over the cat’s unconscious tail.
As she spoke, one of the rather heavy account-books (which ought to have been bound in cloth of gold) slipped off the pile, and, as ill luck would have it, fell on the identical tail in question, the cat belonging to which sprang up with a fierce caterwaul in rampant indignation.
“Oh, papa, you know I didn’t mean it.”
Mr Durant’s eyes twinkled with amusement as he beheld the sudden change of poor Katie’s expression to intense earnestness, but before he could reply the door was thrown open; “cousin Fanny” rushed in, the cat rushed out, the two young ladies rushed into each other’s arms, and went in a species of ecstatic waltz up-stairs to enjoy the delights of a private interview, leaving Mr Durant to sink into the arms of his easy chair and resume his paper—this time with the right side up!
Let it be understood that the old gentleman was employed in Yarmouth under one of the departments of the Board of Trade. We refrain from entering into particulars as to which department, lest the vindictive spirit which was accredited to that branch of the Government by Miss Katie—who being a lady, must of course have been right—should induce it to lay hold of our estimable friend and make an example of him for permitting his independent daughter to expose its true character. In addition to his office in this connection Mr Durant also held the position of a retired merchant and ship-owner, and was a man of considerable wealth, although he lived in a quiet unostentatious way. In fact, his post under Government was retained chiefly for the purpose of extending his influence in his native town—for he counted himself a “bloater”—and enabling him to carry out more vigorously his schemes of Christian philanthropy.
Cousin Fanny Hennings was a “darling girl” in Katie’s estimation, probably because she was her opposite in many respects, though not in all. In good-humour and affection they were similar, but Fanny had none of Katie’s fire, or enthusiasm, or intellect, or mischief; she had, however, a great appreciation of fun, and was an inordinate giggler. Fat, fair, and fifteen, with flaxen curls, pink cheeks, and blue eyes, she was the beau-idéal of a wax-doll, and possessed about as much self-assertion as may be supposed to belong to that class of the doll-community which is constructed so as to squeak when squeezed. As Katie Durant squeezed her friend pretty often, both mentally and physically, cousin Fanny squeaked a good deal more than usual during her occasional visits to Yarmouth, and even after her return home to Margate, where she and her widowed mother dwelt—as Queeker poetically said—“in a cottage by the sea.” It was usually acknowledged by all her friends that Fanny had increased her powers amazingly while absent, in so much that she learned at last to squeak on her own account without being squeezed at all.
After the cousins had talked in private until they had made themselves almost too late for the singing-class, they issued from the house and betook themselves to the temple of music, where some amazing pieces were performed by some thirty young vocalists of both sexes to their own entire satisfaction, and to the entire dissatisfaction, apparently, of their teacher, whose chief delight seemed to be to check the flow of gushing melody at a critical point, and exclaim, “Try it again!” Being ignorant of classical music we do not venture to give an opinion on these points, but it is important to state, as bearing on the subject in a sanitary point of view, that all the pupils usually left the class in high spirits, with the exception of Queeker, who had a voice like a cracked tea-kettle, knew no more about music than Katie’s cat—which he adored because it was Katie’s—and who went to the class, which was indebted for its discord chiefly to him, wholly and solely because Katie Durant went to it, and thus afforded him an opportunity of occasionally shaking hands with her.
On the present evening, however, being of a shy disposition, he could not bring himself to face cousin Fanny. He therefore left the hall miserable, and went home with desperate intentions as to the moon. Unfortunately that luminary was not visible, the sun having just set, but from his bedroom window, which commanded a view of the roadstead, he beheld the lantern of the Saint Nicolas Gatt floating-light, and addressed the following lines to it with all the fervour incident to a hopeless affection:—
“Why blaze, ye bright benignant beaming star,Guiding the homebound seaman from afar,Lighting the outbound wand’rer on his way,With all the lightsome perspicuity of day?Why not go out at once! and let be hurl’dDark, dread, unmitigated darkness o’er the world?Why should the heavenly constellations shine?Why should the weather evermore be fine?Why should this rolling ball go whirling round?Why should the noise of mirth and music sound?Why should the sparrow chirp, the blackbird sing,The mountains echo, and the valleys ring,With all that’s cheerful, humorous, and glad,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 spleenIn 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 plotTo 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.
Chapter Six.
The Tempter and the Tempted
“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 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. I’m a sort of shipowner too. Leastwise I’ve got two craft—one bein’ a sloop, the other a boat. Moreover, I charter no end of vessels, an’ do a good deal in the insurance way. But you’ll understand more about these things all in good time, Billy. I live, while I’m at home, in Gravesend, but I’ve got a daughter and a mother livin’ at Yarmouth, so I may say I’ve got a home at both places. It’s a convenient sort o’ thing, you see,—a town residence and a country villa, as it were. Come, I’ll take you to the villa now, and introduce ’ee to the women.”
So saying, this rascal paid for the poison he had been administering in large doses to himself and his apprentice, and, taking Billy’s dirty little hand in his large horny fist, led him towards the centre of the town.
Poor Billy little knew the nature of the awful gulf of sin and misery into which he was now plunging with a headlong hilarious vivacity peculiarly his own. He was, indeed, well enough aware of the fact that he was a thief, and an outcast from society, and that he was a habitual breaker of the laws of God and man, but he was naturally ignorant of the extent of his guilt, as well as of the certain and terrible end to which it pointed, and, above all, he had not the most remote conception of the almost hopeless slavery to which he was doomed when once fairly secured in the baleful net which Morley Jones had begun to twine around him.
But a higher Power was leading the poor child in a way that he knew not—a way that was little suspected by his tempter—a way that has been the means of snatching many and many a little one from destruction in time past, and that will certainly save many more in time to come—as long as Christian men and women band together to unite their prayers and powers for the rescue of perishing souls.
Traversing several streets with unsteady gait—for he was now much the worse of drink—Mr Jones led his willing captive down one of those innumerable narrow streets, or passages, termed “rows,” which bear some resemblance to the “closes” of the Scottish capital. In width they are much the same, but in cleanliness there is a vast difference, for whereas the closes of the northern capital are notorious for dirt, the rows of Yarmouth are celebrated for their neat tidy aspect. What the cause of the neatness of the latter may be we cannot tell, but we can bear the testimony of an eye-witness to the fact that—considering the class of inhabitants who dwell in them, their laborious lives and limited means—the rows are wondrously clean. Nearly all of them are paved with pebbles or bricks. The square courts opening out of them on right and left, although ridiculously small, are so thoroughly scoured and swept that one might roll on their floors with white garments and remain unsoiled. In each court may be observed a water-bucket and scrubbing-brush wet, usually, from recent use, also a green painted box-garden of dimensions corresponding to the court, full of well-tended flowers. Almost every door has a wooden or stone step, and each step is worn and white with repeated scrubbings—insomuch that one is irresistibly led to suspect that the “Bloaters” must have a strong infusion of the Dutch element in their nature.