Hocken and Hunken Part 3

As he stepped out upon the Quay, Captain Cai lifted his gaze towards the tower of the Parish Church, visible above an alley-way that led between a gable-end of the Town Hall and the bulging plank of the "King of Prussia." Aloft there the clock began to chime out the eight notes it had chimed, at noon and at midnight, through his boyhood, and had been chiming faithfully ever since.

Yes, it was good to be home! Captain Cai would have been astonished to learn that his thirty-five years at sea had left any corner for sentiment. Yet a sudden mist gathered between him and the face of the old clock. Nor had it cleared when, almost punctually on the last stroke, a throng of children came pouring from school through the narrow alley-ways. They ran by him with no more than a glance, not interrupting their shouts. In a moment the Quay was theirs; they were at leap-frog over the bollards; they were storming the sand-heap, pelting a king of the castle, who pelted back with handfuls.

Captain Cai felt an absurd sense of being left out in the cold. Not a child had recognised him.

All very well . . . but to think that these thirty-odd years had made not a sc.r.a.p of difference--that the Quay lay as it had lain, neglected, untidy as ever! Thirty-odd years ago it had been bad enough. But what conscience was there in standing still and making no effort to move with the times? As Barber Toy said, it was scandalous.

CHAPTER III.

TABB'S CHILD.

"Three hundred pounds a-year . . ." mused Captain Cai between two puffs of tobacco smoke. He repeated the words, rolling them in his mouth, as though they tasted well. "You're pretty sure 'twill come to that?"

"Sure," answered Mr Rogers. The pair had dined, and were now promoting digestion with pipes and grog in Mr Rogers' bow-window overlooking the harbour. "You might put your money to an annuity, o' course, an' live like a lord: but I'm reckonin' it in safe ord'nary investments, averagin' (let's say) four per cent. An' that's leavin' out your thirty-odd shares in the _Hannah Hoo_, when she's for sale.

Ship-auctions be chancey things in these days, an' private purchasers hard to find."

"I never knew 'em when they weren't," said Captain Cai.

"When d'ye pay off, by the way?"

"Not till Sat.u.r.day. There's no hurry. When a man drops hook on his last cruise I allow 'tis his duty to tidy up an' leave all ship-shape; in justice to hisself, you understand. There's Tregaskis an' the crew, too,--old shipmates every one--"

The chandler nodded.

"Ay, you're to be envied, Cap'n. There's others--masters of oil-tanks, f'r instance--as makes their pile faster; some of em' in ways that needn't be mentioned atween you an' me. But slow an' honest has been your motto; an' here you be--What's your age? Fifty? Say fifty at the outside.--Here you be at fifty with a tidy little income and a clean conscience to sit with in your pew o' Sundays; nothing to do o'

week-days but look after a few steady-goin' investments an' draw your little dividends."

"That'd be more business than I've a mind for, Rogers," answered Captain Cai; "at any rate, while you live. I've a-left my affairs to you these twelve year, an' mean to continue, please G.o.d--you knowin' my ways."

The chandler blinked. "That's very han'some o' ye, Cap'n," he said after a long pause. "But--"

"There's no 'but' about it," interrupted Captain Cai shortly, looking away and resting his gaze on the _Hannah Hoo_ out in the harbour, where she lay on the edge of the deep-water channel among a small crowd of wind-bounders. Her crew had already made some progress in unbending sails, and her stripped spars shone as gold against the westering sunlight. "No 'but' about it, Rogers--unless o' course you're unwillin'."

"What's willin' or unwillin' to a man broken in health as I be?

That's the p'int, Cap'n--here, set opposite to 'ee, staring 'ee in the face--a hulk, shall we say?--rudder gone, ridin' to a thread o' life--"

"You'll ride to it a many years yet, please G.o.d again."

"I take 'e to witness this is not my askin'."

Captain Cai stared. "'Tis my askin', Rogers. I put it as a favour."

"What about your friend? I was thinkin' as maybe _he'd_ take over the job."

"'Bias?" Captain Cai shook his head. "He've no gift in money matters; let be that I don't believe in mixin' friendship in business."

Mr Rogers pondered this for some while in silence. Then he struck a hand-bell beside him, and his summons was answered by a small short-skirted handmaiden who had waited table.

"Pipe's out, my dear," he announced. "An' while you're about it you may mix us another gla.s.sful apiece."

"Not for me, thank 'ee," said Captain Cai.

"An' not for him, neither," said the girl. She was but a child, yet she spoke positively, and yet again without disrespect in her manner.

"'Tis poison for 'ee," she added, knocking out the ash from her master's churchwarden pipe and refilling it from the tobacco-jar. "You know what the doctor said?"

"Ugh!--a pair o' tyrants, you an' the doctor! Just a thimbleful now--if the Cap'n here will join me."

"You heard him? He don't want another gla.s.s."

Her solemn eyes rested on Captain Cai, and he repeated that he would take no more grog.

She struck a match and held it to the pipe while the chandler drew a few puffs. Then she was gone as noiselessly as she had entered.

"That's a question now," observed Captain Cai after a pause.

"What's a question?"

"Servants. I've talked it over with 'Bias, and he allows we should advertise for a single housekeeper; a staid honest woman to look after the pair of us--with maybe a trifle of extra help. That gel, for instance, as waited table--"

"Tabb's child?"

"Is that her name?"

"She was christened Fancy--Fancy Tabb--her parents being a brace o'

fools. Ay, she's a nonesuch, is Tabb's child."

"With a manageable woman to give her orders--What's amiss with ye, Rogers?"

Captain Cai put the question in some alarm, for the heaving of the ship-chandler's waistcoat and a strangling noise in his throat together suggested a sudden gastric disturbance.

But it appeared they were but symptoms of mirth. Mr Rogers lifted his practicable hand, and with a red bandanna handkerchief wiped the rheum from his eyes.

"Ho, dear!--you'll excuse me, Cap'n; but 'with a manageable woman,' you said? I'd pity her startin' to manage the like of Fancy Tabb."

"Why, what's wrong wi' the child?"

"Nothin'--let be I can't keep a grown woman in the house unless she's a half-wit. I have to get 'em from Tregarrick, out o' the Home for the Feeble-Minded. But it don't work so badly. They're cheap, you understand; an' Fancy teaches 'em to cook. If they don't show no promise after a fortni't's trial, she sends 'em back. I hope," added the chandler, perceiving Captain Cai to frown, "you're not feelin' no afterthoughts about that leg o' mutton. Maybe I ought to have warned 'ee that 'twas cooked by a person of weak intellect."

"Don't mention it," said Captain Cai politely. "What the eye don't see the heart don't grieve, as they say; an' the jint was boiled to a turn.

. . . I was only wonderin' how you picked up such a maid!"

The chandler struck again upon the small hand-bell. "I got her from a bad debt."

"Seems an odd way--" began Captain Cai, after pondering for a moment, but broke off, for the hand-maiden stood already on the threshold.

"Fancy Tabb," commanded the chandler, "step fore, here, into the light."