Master Archibald’s advice to
me to escape down to the water-side and
conceal myself on shipboard though acute
enough in its way, took no account of certain difficulties
none the less real because a soldier would naturally
overlook them. To hide in a ship’s hold
you must first get on board of her unobserved, which
in broad daylight is next to impossible. Moreover,
to reach Cattewater I must either fetch a circuit
through purlieus where every householder knew me and
every urchin was a nodding acquaintance, or make a
straight dash close by the spot where by this time
Mr. Trapp would be getting anxious if indeed
Southside Street and the Barbican were not already
resounding with the hue and cry. No: if
friendly vessel were to receive and hide me, she lay
far off, across the heart of the town, amid the shipping
of the Dock. Yonder, too, Miss Plinlimmon resided.
If you think it absurd that my thoughts
turned to her, whose weak arms could certainly shield
no one from the clutches of the law, I beg you to
remember my age, and that I had never known another
protector. She, at least, would hear me and never
doubt my innocence. She must hear, too, of Archie’s
danger.
That to reach her, even if I eluded
pursuit to the Hospital gate, I must run the gauntlet
of Mr. George who would assuredly ask questions and
possibly of Mr. Scougall, scarcely occurred to me.
To reach her to sob out my story in her
arms and hear her voice soothing me this
only I desired for the moment; and it seemed that
if I could only hear her voice speaking, I might wake
and feel these horrors dissolve like an evil dream.
Meanwhile I ran.
But at the end of a lane leading into
Treville Street, and as I leapt aside to avoid colliding
with the hind-wheels of a hackney-coach drawn in there
and at a standstill close by the kerb, to my unspeakable
fright I felt myself gripped by the jacket-collar.
“Hi! Bring-to and ’vast
kicking, young coal-dust! Where’re ye
bound, hey? Answer me, and take your black mop
out of a gentleman’s weskit.”
“To to Dock, sir,”
I stammered. “Let me go, please: I’m
in a hurry.”
My captor held me out at arm’s
length and eyed me. He was a sailor, and rigged
out in his best shore-going clothes tarpaulin
hat, blue coat and waistcoat, and a broad leathern
belt to hold up his duck trousers, on which my sooty
head had left its mark. He grinned at me good-naturedly.
I saw that he had been drinking.
“In a hurry? And what’s your hurry
about? Business?”
“Ye es, sir.”
“’Stonishing what spirit
boys’ll put into work nowadays! I’ve
seen boys run for a leg o’ mutton, and likewise
I’ve seen ’em run when they’ve broken
ship; but on the path o’ duty, my sonny, you’ve
the legs of any boy in my ex-perience. Well,
for once, you’ll put pleasure first. I’m
bound for Dock or thereabouts myself, and under convoy.”
He waved his hand up the street, where twelve or fifteen
hackney-coaches stood in line ahead.
“If you please, sir ”
He threw open the coach door.
“Jump in. The frigate sets the rate o’
sailing. That’s Bill.”
I hesitated, rebellious.
“That’s Bill. Messmate
o’ mine on the Bedford, and afore that
on the Vesuvius bomb. There, sonny don’t
stand gaping at me like a stuck pig: I never
expected ye to know him! And now the time’s
past, and ye’ll go far afore finding a better.
Bill Adams his name was; but Bill to me, always,
and in all weathers.” Here for a moment
he became maudlin. “Paid off but three
days agone, same as myself, and now cut
down like a flower! He’s the corpse, ahead,
in the first conveyance.”
“Is this a funeral, sir?”
“Darn your eyes, don’t
it look like one? And after the expense I’ve
been to!” He paused, eyed me solemnly, opened
his mouth, and pointed down it with his forefinger.
“Drink done it.” His voice was
impressive. “Steer you wide of the drink,
my lad; or else drop down on it gradual. If
drink must be your moorings, don’t pick ’em
up too rash. ‘A boiled leg o’ mutton
first,’ says I, persuasive; ’and
turnips,’ and got him to Symonds’s boarding-house
for the very purpose, Symonds being noted. And
Symonds I’ll do him that justice says
the same. Symonds says ”
But at this point a young woman and
pretty, too, though daubed with paint thrust
her hat and head out of a window, three carriages away,
and demanded to know what in the name of Moses we were
waiting for.
“Signals, my dear. The
flagship’s forra’d; and keep your eye lifting
that way, if you please. I’m main
glad you fell in with us,” he went on affably,
turning to me; “because you round it up nicely.
Barring the sharks in black weepers, you’re the
only mourning-card in the bunch, and I’ll see
you get a good position at the grave.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t mention it.
We’re doin’ our best. When poor
Bill dropped down in Symonds’s” he
jerked his thumb towards the boarding-house door “Symonds
himself was for turning everyone out. Very nice
feeling he showed, I will say. ‘Damn it,
here’s a go!’ he says; ’and the
man looked healthy enough for another ten year, with
proper care!’ and went off at once
to stop the fiddlers and put up the shutters.
But, of course, it meant a loss to him, the place
being full at the time; and I felt a sort of responsibility
for having introduced Bill. So I went after
him and says I, ’This is a most unforeseen occurrence.’
‘Not a bit,’ says he; ’accidents
will happen.’ I told him that the corpse
had never been a wet blanket; it wasn’t his
nature; and I felt sure he wouldn’t like the
thought. ’If that’s the case, says
Symonds, ’I’ve a little room at the back
where he’d go very comfortable quite
shut off, as you might say. We must send for
the doctor, of course, and the crowner can sit on
him to-morrow that is, if you feel sure
deceased wouldn’ think it any disrespect.’
‘Disrespect?’ says I. ’You
don’t know Bill. Why, it’s what he’d
arsk for!’ So there we carried him, and I sent
for the undertaker same time as the doctor, and ordered
it of oak; and next morning, down I tramped to Dock
and chose out a grave, brick-lined, having heard him
say often, ’Plymouth folk for wasting, but Dock
folk for lasting.’ I won’t say but
what, between whiles, we’ve been pretty lively
at Symonds’s; and I won’t say Hallo!
Here’s more luck! Your servant, sir!”
He stepped forward leaving
me shielded and half hidden by the coach door and
accosted a stranger walking briskly up the pavement
towards us with a small valise in his hand; a gentlemanly
person of about thirty-five or forty, in clerical
suit and bands.
“Eh? Good-morning!” nodded the clergyman
affably.
“Might I arsk where you’re
bound?” Then, after a pause, “My name’s
Jope, sir; Benjamin Jope, of the Bedford, seventy-four,
bo’sun’s mate now paid off.”
The clergyman, at first taken aback
by the sudden question, recovered his smile.
“And mine, sir, is Whitmore the Reverend
John Whitmore bound just now in the direction
of Dock. Can I serve you thereabouts?”
Mr. Jope waved his hand towards the
coach door. “Jump inside! Oh, you
needn’t be ashamed to ride behind Bill!”
“But who is Bill?” The
Rev. Mr. Whitmore advanced to the coach door like
a man in two minds. “Ah, I see a
funeral!” he exclaimed as a mute advanced assailed
from each coach window, as he passed, with indecorous
obloquy to announce that the cortege
was ready to start. For the last two minutes
heads had been popping out at these windows heads
with dyed ringlets and heads with artificially coloured
noses and their owners demanding to know
if Ben Jope meant to keep them there all day, if the
corpse was expected to lead off the ball, and so on;
and I, cowering by the coach step, had shrunk from
their gaze as I flinched now under Mr. Whitmore’s.
“Hallo!” said he, and
gave me (as I thought) a searching look. “What’s
this? A chimney-sweep?”
“If your Reverence will not object?”
I turned my eyes away, but felt that
this clergyman was studying me. “Not at
all,” said he quietly after a moment’s
pause. “Is he bound for Dock, too?”
“He said so.”
“Eh? Then we’ll
see that he gets there. After you, youngster!”
To my terror the words seemed charged with meaning,
but I dared not look him in the face. I clambered
in and dropped into a seat with my back to the driver.
He placed himself opposite, nursing the valise on
his knees. Ben Jope came last and slammed-to
the door after him.
“Way-ho!” he shouted.
“Easy canvas!” and with that plumped down
beside me, and took off his tarpaulin hat, extracted
a handkerchief, and carefully wiped his brow and the
back of his neck.
“Well!” he sighed. “Bill’s
launched, anyhow.”
“Shipmate?” asked the clergyman.
“Messmate,” answered Mr.
Jope; and, opening his mouth, pointed down it with
his forefinger. “Not that a better fellow
ever lived.”
“I can quite believe it,”
said Mr. Whitmore sympathetically. He had a
pleasant voice, but somehow I did not want to catch
his eye. Instead I kept my gaze fastened upon
the knees of his well-fitting pantaloons. No
divine could have been more correctly attired, and
yet there was a latent horsiness about his cut.
I set him down for a sporting parson from the country,
and wondered why he wore clothes so much superior
to those of the Plymouth parsons known to me by sight.
“Just listen to that now!”
exclaimed Mr. Jope. A cornet in one of the coaches
ahead had struck up Tom Bowling, and before
we reached the head of the street from coach after
coach the funeral party broke into song:
“Here, a sheer hulk,
lies poor Tom Bowling,
The
darling of his crew-ew;
No more he’ll
hear the te empest how wow ling,
For
death has broach’d him to.
His form was of the e
ma hanliest beau eau ty ”
“I wouldn’t say that,
quite,” observed Mr. Jope pensively. “To
begin with, he’d had the small-pox.”
“De gustibus nil nisi bonum,”
Mr. Whitmore observed soothingly.
“What’s that?”
“Latin.”
“Wonderful! Would ye mind saying it again?”
The words were obligingly repeated.
“Wonderful! And what might be the meaning
of it, making so bold?”
“It means ‘Speak well of the dead.’”
“Well, we’re doing of it, anyhow.
Hark to ’em ahead there!”
The cortege, in fact, was attracting
general attention. Folks on the pavement halted
to watch and grin as we went by: one or two,
catching sight of familiar faces within the coaches,
waved their handkerchiefs or shouted back salutations:
and as we crawled out of Old Town Street and past
St. Andrew’s Church a small crowd raised three
cheers for us. And still above it the cornet
blared and the mourners’ voices rose uproarious:
“His friends were many
and true-hearted,
His
Poll was kind and fair;
And then he’d
sing so blithe and jolly,
Ah,
many’s the time and oft!
But mirth is turned
to melanchol ol y
For
Tom is gone aloft.”
“Bill couldn’t sing a
note,” Mr. Jope murmured: “but as
you say, sir Would you oblige us again?”
Again the Latin was repeated, and he swung round
upon me. “Think of that, now! Be
you a scholar, hey? read, write and cipher?
How would you spell ‘sojer’ for instance?”
The question knocked the wind out
of me, and I felt my face whitening under the clergyman’s
eyes.
“Soldier S.O.L.D.I.E.R,”
I managed to answer, but scarce above a whisper.
“Very good: now make a rhyme to it.”
“I please, sir, I don’t know
any rhymes.”
“Well, that’s honest,
anyway. Now I’ll tell you why I asked.”
He turned and addressed Mr. Whitmore. “I’m
Cornish born, sir; from Saltash, up across the river.
Afore I went to sea there was a maid livin’
next door to us that wanted to marry me. Well,
when she found I wasn’t to be had, she picked
up with a fellow from the Victualling Yard and married
he, and came down to Dock to live. Man’s
name was Babbage, and they hadn’t been married
six months afore he tumbled into a brine-vat and was
drowned. ‘That’s one narrow escape
to me,’ I said. Next news I had was a
letter telling me she’d a boy born, and please
would I stand godfather? I didn’t like
to say no, out of respect to her family. So
I wrote home from Gibraltar that I was agreeable,
only it must be done by proxy and she mustn’t
make it no precedent. That must be ten years
back; and what with one thing and another I never
set eyes ’pon mother or child till yesterday
when having to run down to Dock to order
Bill’s grave I thought ’twould
be neighbourly to drop ’em a visit. I found
the boy growed to be a terrible plain child, about
the size of this youngster. I didn’t like
the boy at all. So I says to his mother, ’I
s’pose he’s clever?’ for
dang it! thinks I, he must be clever to make up for
being so plain-featured as all that. ’Benjy’ she’d
a-called him Benjamin after me ’Benjy’s
the cleverest child for his age that ever you see,’
she says. ‘Why,’ says she, ’he’ll
pitch-to and make up a rhyme ‘pon anything!’
‘Can he so?’ I says, pulling a great
crown-piece out of my pocket (not that I liked the
cut of his jib, but the woman had been hinting about
my being his godfather): ’Now, my lad,
let’s see if you’re so gifted as your mother
makes out. There’s a sojer now passin’
the window. Make a rhyme ’pon he, and
you shall have the money.’ What d’ye
think that ghastly boy did? ‘Aw, that’s
easy,’ he says ”
’Sojer, sojer,
Diddy, diddy,
dodger!’
“‘Now hand me over the
money,’ he says. I could have slapped his
ear.”
Almost as he ended his simple story,
the procession came to a halt: the strains of
Tom Bowling changed into noisy and,
on the part of the ladies, very unladylike expostulations.
Mr. Jope started forward and leaned out of the window.
“I think,” said the Rev.
Mr. Whitmore, “we have arrived at the toll-gate.”
“D’ye mean to say the
sharks want to take toll on Bill?”
“Likely enough.”
“On Bill? And him a-going
to his long home? Here hold hard!”
Mr. Jope leapt out into the roadway and disappeared.
Upon us two, left alone in the coach,
there fell a dreadful silence. Mr. Whitmore leaned
forward and touched my knee; and I met his eye.
The face I looked into was thin and
refined; clean-shaven and a trifle pale as if with
the habit of study. A slight baldness by the
temples gave the brow unusual height. His eyes
I did not like at all: instead of soothing the
terror in mine they seemed to be drinking it in and
tasting it and calculating.
“I passed by the Barbican just
now,” said he; “and heard some inquiries
about a small chimney-sweep.”
He paused, as if waiting. But I had no speech
in me.
“It was a very strange story
they were telling a very dreadful and strange
story: still when I came upon you I saw, of course,
it was incredible. Boys of your size” he
hesitated and left the sentence unfinished.
“Still, you may have seen something hey?”
Again I could not answer.
“At any rate,” he went
on, “I gave you the benefit of the doubt and
resolved to warn you. It was a mistake to run
away: but the mischief’s done. How
were you proposing to make off?”
“You you won’t give me up,
sir?”
“No, for I think you must be
innocent of what they told me, at least.
I feel so certain of it that, as you see, my conscience
allows me to warn you. In the first place, avoid
the Torpoint Ferry. It will without doubt be
watched. I should make for the docks, hide until
night, and try to stow myself on shipboard. Secondly” he
put out a hand and softly unfastened the coach door “I
am going to leave you. Our friend Mr. Jope is
engaged, I see, in an altercation with the toll-keeper.
He seems a good-natured fellow. The driver
(it may help you to know) is drunk. Of course,
if by ill-luck they trace me out, to question me,
I shall be obliged to tell what I know. It amounts
to very little: still I have no wish
to tell it. One word more: get a wash as
soon as you can, and by some means acquire a clean
suit of clothes. I may be then unable to swear
to you: may be able to say that your face is
as unfamiliar to me as it was or as mine
was to you when Mr. Jope introduced us.
Eh?” His look was piercing.
“Thank you, sir.”
He picked up his valise, nodded, and
after a swift glance up the street and around at the
driver, to make sure that his head was turned, stepped
briskly out upon the pavement and disappeared around
the back of the coach.