A Master of Craft Part 6

"That'll get me into trouble, if anything will," said the mate, gloomily. "On the other hand, if I tell you where he is now, that'll get me into trouble, too."

He sat back and drummed on the table with his fingers. "Well, I'll risk it," he said, at length; "you'll find him at 17, Beaufort Street, Bow."

The younger woman sprang excitedly to her feet, but Mrs. Tipping, eyeing the young man with a pair of shrewd, small eyes, kept her seat.

"And while we're going, how do we know the capt'n won't come back and go off with the ship?" she enquired.

Fraser hesitated. "Well, I'll come with you, if you like," he said, slowly.

"And suppose they go away and leave you, behind?" objected Mrs. Tipping.

"Oh, well, you'd better stay then," said the mate, wearily, "unless we take a couple of the hands with us. How would that suit you? They can't sail with half a crew."

Mrs. Tipping, who was by no means as anxious for a sea voyage as she tried to make out, carefully pondered the situation. "I'm going to take an arm of each of 'em and Matilda'll take yours," she said, at length.

"As you please," said Fraser, and in this way the procession actually started up the wharf, and looking back indignantly over its shoulder saw the watchman and Ben giving way to the most unseemly mirth, while the cook capered joyously behind them. A belated cab was pa.s.sing the gate as they reached it, and in response to the mate's hail pulled sharply up.

Mrs. Tipping, pushing her captives in first, stepped heavily into the cab followed by her daughter, while the mate, after a brief discussion, clambered onto the box.

"Go on," he said, nodding.

"Wot, ain't the rest of you comin'?" enquired the cabman, eyeing the crowd at the gate, in pained surprise.

"No. 17, Beaufort Street, Bow," said Mrs. Tipping, distinctly, as she put her head out of the window.

"You could sit on 'er lap," continued the cabman, appealingly.

No reply being vouchsafed to this suggestion, he wrapped himself up in various rugs and then sat down suddenly before they could unwind themselves. Then, with a compa.s.sionate "click" to his horse, started up the road. Except for a few chance wayfarers and an occasional coffee-stall, the main streets were deserted, but they were noisy compared with Beaufort Street. Every house was in absolute darkness as the cab, with instinctive deference to slumber, crawled slowly up and down looking for No. 17.

It stopped at last, and the mate, springing down, opened the door, and handing out the ladies, led the way up a flight of steps to the street door.

"Perhaps you won't mind knocking," he said to Mrs. Tipping, "and don't forget to tell the cap'n I've done this to oblige you because you insisted upon it."

Mrs. Tipping, seizing the knocker, knocked loud and long, and after a short interval repeated the performance. Somebody was heard stirring upstairs, and a deep voice cried out that it was coming, and peremptorily requested them to cease knocking.

"That's not Flower's voice," said Fraser.

"Not loud enough," said Miss Tipping.

The bolts were drawn back loudly and the chain grated; then the door was flung open, and a big, red-whiskered man, blinking behind a candle, gruffly enquired what they meant by it.

"Come inside," said Mrs. Tipping to her following.

"Ain't you come to the wrong house?" demanded the red-whiskered man, borne slowly back by numbers.

"I don't think so," said Mrs. Tipping, suavely; "I want to see Captain Flower."

"Well, you've come to the wrong house," said the red-whiskered man, shortly, "there's no such name here."

"Think," said Mrs. Tipping.

The red-whiskered man waved the candle to and fro until the pa.s.sage was flecked with tallow.

"Go away directly," he roared; "how dare you come disturbing people like this?"

"You may just as well be pleasant over it," said Mrs. Tipping, severely; "because we sha'n't go away until we have seen him. After all, it's got nothing to do with you."

"We don't want anything to say to you," affirmed her daughter.

"Will--you--get--out--of--my--house?" demanded the owner, wildly.

"When we've seen Capt'n Flower," said Mrs. Tipping, calmly, "and not a moment before. We don't mind your getting in a temper, not a bit. You can't frighten us."

The frenzied and reckless reply of the red-whiskered man was drowned in the violent slamming of the street-door, and he found himself alone with the ladies. There was a yell of triumph outside, and the sounds of a hurried scramble down the steps. Mrs. Tipping, fumbling wildly at the catch of the door, opened it just in time to see the cabman, in reply to the urgent entreaties of the mate, frantically lashing his horse up the road.

"So far, so good," murmured the mate, as he glanced over his shoulder at the little group posing on the steps. "I've done the best I could, but I suppose there'll be a row."

The watchman, with the remainder of the crew, in various att.i.tudes of expectant curiosity, were waiting to receive them at the wharf. A curiosity which increased in intensity as the mate, slamming the gate, put the big bar across and turned to the watchman.

"Don't open that to anybody till we're off," he said, sharply. "Cap'n Flower has not turned up yet, I suppose?"

"No, sir," said Ben.

They went aboard the schooner again, and the mate, remaining on deck, listened anxiously for the return of the redoubtable Mrs. Tipping, occasionally glancing over the side in expectation of being boarded from the neighbouring stairs; but with the exception of a false alarm caused by two maddened seamen unable to obtain admittance, and preferring insulting charges of somnolency against the watchman, the time pa.s.sed quietly until high water. With the schooner in midstream slowly picking her way through the traffic, any twinges of remorse that he might have had for the way he had treated two helpless women left him, and he began to feel with his absent commander some of the charm which springs from successful wrong-doing.

CHAPTER VII.

He brought up off Greenwich in the cold grey of the breaking day. Craft of all shapes and sizes were pa.s.sing up and down, but he looked in vain for any sign of the skipper. It was galling to him as a seaman to stay there with the wind blowing freshly down the river; but over an hour elapsed before a yell from Tim, who was leaning over the bows, called his attention to a waterman's skiff, in the stern of which sat a pa.s.senger of somewhat dejected appearance. He had the air of a man who had been up all night, and in place of returning the hearty and significant greeting of the mate, sat down in an exhausted fashion on the cabin skylight, and eyed him in stony silence until they were under way again.

"Well," he said at length, ungraciously.

Chilled by his manner, Fraser, in place of the dramatic fashion in which he had intended to relate the events of the preceding night, told him in a few curt sentences what had occurred. "And you can finish this business for yourself," he concluded, warmly; "I've had enough of it."

"You've made a pretty mess of it," groaned the other; "there'll be a fine set-out now. Why couldn't you coax 'em away? That's what I wanted you to do. That's what I told you to do."

"Well, you'll have plenty of opportunities of coaxing yourself so far as I can see," retorted Fraser, grimly. "Then you'll see how it works. It was the only way of getting rid of them."

"You ought to have sent round to me and let me know what you were doing," said Flower. "I sat in that blamed pub till they turned me out at twelve, expecting you every minute. I'd only threepence left by then, and I crossed the water with that, and then I had to shuffle along to Greenwich as best I could with a bad foot. What'll be the end of it all, I don't know."

"Well, you're all right at present," said Fraser, glancing round; "rather different to what you'd have been if those two women had come to Ipswich and seen Cap'n Barber."

The other sat for a long time in thought. "I'll lay up for a few weeks with this foot," he said, slowly, "and you'll have to tell the Tipping family that I've changed into another trade. What with the worry I've had lately, I shall be glad of a rest."

He made his way below, and turning in slept soundly after his fatigue until the cook aroused him a few hours later with the information that breakfast was ready.

A wash and a change, together with a good breakfast, effected as much change in his spirits as in his appearance. Refreshed in mind and body, he slowly paced the deck, his chest expanding as he sniffed the fresh air, and his soul, encouraged by the dangers he had already pa.s.sed through, bracing itself for fresh encounters.

"I 'ope the foot is goin' on well, sir," said Tim, breaking in upon his meditations, respectfully.

"Much easier this morning," said the skipper, amiably.

Tim, who was lending the cook a hand, went back into the galley to ponder. As a result of a heated debate in the fo'c's'le, where the last night's proceedings and the mysterious appearance of the skipper off Greenwich had caused a great sensation, they had drawn lots to decide who was to bell the cat, and Tim had won or lost according as the subject might be viewed.

"You don't want to walk about on it much, sir," he said, thrusting his head out again.

The skipper nodded.

"I was alarmed last night," said Tim. "We was all alarmed," he added, hastily, in order that the others might stand in with the risk, "thinking that perhaps you'd walked too far and couldn't get back."

The master of the Foam looked at him, but made no reply, and Tim's head was slowly withdrawn. The crew, who had been gazing over the side with their ears at the utmost tension, gave him five minutes' grace and then, the skipper having gone aft again, walked up to the galley.

"I've done all I could," said the wretched youth.

"Done all ye could?" said Joe, derisively, "why you ain't done nothin' yet."

"I can't say anything more," said Tim. "I da.s.sent. I ain't got your pluck, Joe."

"Pluck be d.a.m.ned!" said the seaman, fiercely; "why there was a chap I knew once, shipwrecked he was, and had to take to the boats. When the grub give out they drew lots to see who should be killed and eaten. He lost. Did 'e back out of it? Not a bit of it; 'e was a man, an' 'e shook 'ands with 'em afore they ate 'im and wished 'em luck."

"Well, you can kill and eat me if that's what you want," said Tim, desperately. "I'd sooner 'ave that."

"Mind you," said Joe, "till you've arsked them questions and been answered satisfactorily--none of us'll 'ave anything to do with you, besides which I'll give you such a licking as you've never 'ad before."

He strolled off with Ben and the cook, as the skipper came towards them again, and sat down in the bows. Tim, sore afraid of his shipmates' con. tempt, tried again.

"I wanted to ask your pardon in case I done wrong last night, sir," he said, humbly.

"All right, it's granted," replied the other, walking away.

Tim raised his eyes to heaven, and then lowering them, looked even more beseechingly at his comrades.

"Go on," said Ben, shaping the words only with his mouth.

"I don't know, sir, whether you know what I was alloodin' to just now," said Tim, in trembling accents, as the skipper came within earshot again. "I'm a-referring to a cab ride."

"And I told you that I've forgiven you," said Flower, sternly, "forgiven you freely--all of you."

"It's a relief to my mind, sir," faltered the youth, staring.

"Don't mix yourself up in my business again, that's all," said the skipper; "you mightn't get off so easy next time."

"It's been worrying me ever since, sir," persisted Tim, who was half fainting. "I've been wondering whether I ought to have answered them ladies' questions, and told 'em what I did tell 'em."

The skipper swung round hastily and confronted him. "Told them?" he stuttered, "told them what?"

"I 'ardly remember, sir," said Tim, alarmed at his manner. "Wot with the suddenness o' the thing, an' the luckshury o' riding in a cab, my 'ead was in a whirl."

"What did they ask you?" demanded the shipper.

"They asked me what Cap'n Flower was like an' where 'e lived," said Tim, "an' they asked me whether I knew a Mr. Robinson."

Captain Flower, his eyes blazing, waited.

"I said I 'adn't got the pleasure o' Mr. Robinson's acquaintance," said Tim, with a grand air. "I was just goin' to tell 'em about you when Joe 'ere gave me a pinch."

"Well?" enquired the skipper, stamping with impatience.

"I pinched 'im back agin," said Tim, smiling tenderly at the reminiscence.

"Tim's a fool, sir," said Joe, suddenly, as the overwrought skipper made a move towards the galley. "'E didn't seem to know wot 'e was a sayin' of, so I up and told 'em all about you."

"You did, did you? d.a.m.n you," said Flower, bitterly.

"In answer to their questions, sir," said Joe, "I told 'em you was a bald-headed chap, marked with the small-pox, and I said when you was at 'ome, which was seldom, you lived at Aberdeen."

The skipper stepped towards him and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder. "You ought to have been an admiral, Joe," he said, gratefully, without intending any slur on a n.o.ble profession.

"I also told George, the watchman, to tell 'em the same thing, if they came round again worrying," said Joe, proudly.

The skipper patted him on the shoulder again.

"One o' these days, Joe," he remarked, "you shall know all about this little affair; for the present it's enough to tell you that a certain unfortunate young female has took a fancy to a friend o' mine named Robinson, but it's very important, for Robinson's sake, that she shouldn't see me or get to know anything about me. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," said Joe, sagely.

His countenance was calm and composed, but the cook's forehead had wrinkled itself into his hair in a strong brain effort, while Ben was looking for light on the deck, and not finding it. Flower, as a sign that the conversation was now ended, walked aft again, and taking the wheel from the mate, thoughtfully suggested that he should go below and turn in for five minutes.

"I'll get through this all right, after all," he said, comfortably. "I'll lay up at Seabridge for a week or two, and after that I'll get off the schooner at Greenwich for a bit and let you take her up to London. Then I'll write a letter in the name of Robinson and send it to a man I know in New York to post from there to Miss Tipping."

His spirits rose and he slapped Fraser heartily on the back. "That disposes of one," he said, cheerily. "Lor', in years to come how I shall look back and laugh over all this!"

"Yes, I think it'll be some time before you do any laughing to speak of," said Fraser.

"Ah, you always look on the dark side of things," said Flower, briskly.

"Of course, as things are, you're going to marry Miss Banks," said Fraser, slowly.

"No, I'm not," said the other, cheerfully; "it strikes me there's plenty of time before that will come to a head, and that gives me time to turn round. I don't think she's any more anxious for it than I am."

"But suppose it does come to a head," persisted Fraser, "what are you going to do?"