Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 10

Haco Barepoles, being at the time a boarder in the home, was ent.i.tled to his dinner in the general mess-room, but being bent on enjoying his meal in company with Susan, he chose to forego his rights on that occasion.

Being the hour at which a number of seamen, labourers, clerks, and others were wont to experience the truth of the great fact that nature abhors a vacuum, the room was pretty full, and a brisk demand was going on for soup, tea, coffee, rolls, and steaks, etcetera, all of which were supplied on the most moderate terms, in order to accommodate the capacities of the poorest purse.

In this temple of luxury you could get a small bowl of good soup for one penny, which, with a halfpenny roll, might form a dinner to any one whose imagination was so strong as to enable him to believe he had had enough. Any one who was the fortunate possessor of threepence, could, by doubling the order, really feel his appet.i.te appeased. Then for those whose poverty was extreme, or appet.i.te unusually small, a little cup of tea could be supplied for one halfpenny--and a good cup of tea too, not particularly strong, it is true, but with a fair average allowance of milk and sugar.

"Waiter," cried Haco Barepoles in a voice that commanded instant attention.

"Yessir."

"Soup for two, steaks an' 'taties for ditto to foller."

"Yessir."

"Please, father, I would like a cup of coffee after the soup instead of a steak. I don't feel very hungry."

"All right, la.s.s. Waiter, knock off one o' the steaks an' clap a cup o'

coffee in its place."

"Yessir. Roll with it, Miss?"

"Of course," said Haco.

"b.u.t.ter, Miss?"

"Sartinly. An' double allowance o' milk an' sugar," replied the skipper. "S'pose you han't got cream?"

"No sir."

"Never mind. Look alive now, lad. Come, Susan, here's a box with only one man in't, we'll--Hallo! shiver my timbers if it ain't--no--it can't be--Stephen Gaff, eh! or his ghost?"

"Just so," said Stephen, laying down his knife and fork, and shaking warmly the hand which Haco stretched across the table to him; "I'm always turnin' up now an' again like a bad shillin'. How goes life with 'ee, Haco? you don't seem to have multiplied the wrinkles since I last saw ye."

"Thank 'ee, I'm pretty comf'rable. This is my darter Susan," said Haco, observing that his friend glanced inquiringly at his fair companion--"The world always uses me much the same. I find it a roughish customer, but it finds me a jolly one, an' not easily put out.

When did I see ye last? Let me see,--two years come Christmas. Why, I've been wrecked three times since then, run down twice, an' drownded at least half-a-dozen times; but by good luck they always manages to bring me round--rowsussitate me, as the doctors call it."

"Ay, you've had hard times of it," observed Gaff, finishing his last morsel of meat, and proceeding to sc.r.a.pe up the remains of gravy and potato with his knife; "I've bin wrecked myself sin' we last met, but only once, and that warn't long ago, just the last gale. You coasters are worse off than we are. Commend me to blue water, and plenty o'

sea-room."

"I believe you, my boy," responded the skipper. "There's nothin' like a good offing an' a tight ship. We stand but a poor chance as we go creepin' 'long sh.o.r.e in them rotten tubs, that are well named `Coal-Coffins.' Why, if it comes on thick squally weather or a gale when yer dodgin' off an' on, the `Coal-Coffins' go down by dozens.

Mayhap at the first burst o' the gale you're hove on your beam-ends, an'

away go the masts, leavin' ye to drift ash.o.r.e or sink; or p'raps you're sharp enough to get in sail, and have all snug, when, just as ye're weatherin' a headland, away goes the sheet o' the jib, jib's blowed to ribbons, an' afore ye know where ye are, `breakers on the lee bow!' is the cry. Another gust, an' the rotten foretops'l's blow'd away, carryin' the fore-topmast by the board, which, of course, takes the jib-boom along with it, if it an't gone before. Then it's `stand by to let go the anchor.' `Let go!' `Ay, ay, sir.' Down it goes, an' the `Coffin's' brought up sharp; not a moment too soon, mayhap, for ten to one but you see an' hear the breakers, roarin' like mad, thirty yards or so astern. It may be good holdin' ground, but what o' that?--the anchor's an old 'un, or too small; the fluke gives way, and ye're adrift; or the cable's too small, and can't stand the strain, so you let go both anchors, an' ye'd let go a dozen more if ye had 'em for dear life; but it's o' no use. First one an' then the other parts; the stern is crushed in a'most afore ye can think, an' in two minutes more, if not less, it's all up with ye, unless there's a lifeboat at hand."

"Ah! pity there's not more of 'em on the coast," said Gaff.

"True," rejoined Haco, "many a poor feller's saved every year by them blessed boats, as would otherwise have gone to the bottom, an' left widder and childer to weep for him, an' be a burden, more or less, on the country."

The waiter appeared at this point in the conversation with the soup, so Haco devoted himself to dinner, while Gaff ordered a plate of bread and cheese extra in order to keep him company. For some minutes they all ate in silence. Then Haco, during the interval between the courses, informed Gaff that he expected to return to the port of London in a day or two; whereupon Gaff said that he just happened to be lookin' out for a ship goin' there, as he had business to do in the great city, and offered to work his way. The skipper readily promised to ship him as an extra hand, if the owner chose to send the `Coffin' to sea without repairs, "which," observed Haco, "is not unlikely, for he's a close-fisted customer."

"Who is he?" inquired Gaff.

"Stuart of Seaside Villa," said Haco.

"Ha! he _is_ a tough un," observed Gaff, with a significant grin. "I knows him well. He don't much care riskin' fellers' lives, though I never heard of him riskin' his own."

"He'd very near to answer for mine this voyage," said Haco, as well as he could through a mouthful of steak and potato.

"How was that?"

"This is how it was," answered the skipper, bolting the mouthful, "you see the `Coffin's' not in a fit state for sea; she's leaky all over, an'

there's a plank under the starboard quarter, just abaft the cabin skylight, that has fairly struck work, caulk it and pitch it how you please, it won't keep out the sea no longer, so when we was about to take in cargo, I wrote to Mr Stuart tellin' him of it, an' advisin'

repairs, but he wrote back, sayin' it was very awk'ard at this time to delay that cargo, an' askin' if I couldn't work the pumps as I had used to do, besides hintin' that he thought I must be gettin' timid as I grew old! You may be sure I didn't think twice. Got the cargo aboard; up sail an' away.

"Well, it was blowin' a stiff nor'-wester when we got away, an' we couldn't have beat into port again if our lives depended on it. So I calls the crew aft, an' told 'em how the matter stood. `Now, lads,'

says I, `to speak plain English, the sloop is sinkin' so you had as well turn to an' pump for yer lives, an' I'll show ye how.' With that I off coat an' set to work, an' took my turn the whole voyage. But it was touch an' go with us. We nigh sank in the harbour here, an' I had to run her ash.o.r.e to perwent her goin' down in deep water. They're patchin' up the rotten plank at this minute, an' if old Stuart won't go in for a general overhaul, we'll be ready for sea in a day or two, and you'll have the pleasure o' navigatin' a lot o' wrecked Roosians to London. Now, waiter, ahoy!--"

"Yessir."

"Fetch me a pannikin o' tea, for it's dry work tellin' a anikdot. You see, Gaff, I'm a reg'lar teetotaller--never go the length o' coffee even without a doctor's surtificate. Another cup, Susan?"

"No thank 'ee, father, I couldn't."

"Werry good. Now, Gaff, what's the 'ticklers o' _your_ case. Time about's fair play, you know."

Gaff, feeling a gush of confidence come over him, and having ascertained that, in regard to secrecy, Susan was as "safe as the bank," related the circ.u.mstances of the wreck, and his having left Emmie at her grandfather's villa; the relation of all which caused Haco Barepoles to give vent to a series of low grunts and whistles, expressive of great surprise.

"Now," said Gaff in conclusion, "there's a land-shark, (by which I means a lawyer), in London what writes to me that there's somethin' I'll hear of to my advantage if I calls on him."

"Don't go," said Haco, stoutly, as he struck the table with his fist, causing the crockery to rattle again; "take the advice of an old friend, an' _don't go_. If you do, he'll _do_ you."

"Thank'ee, an' I'd foller yer advice, but I happens to know this land-shark. He's an old acquaintance, an' I can trust him."

"Oh, that alters the case--well?"

"Well, but before I go," continued Gaff, "I wants to write a letter to old Stuart to warn him to look arter Emmie; a very partikler letter."

"Ay, how much partikler a one?" inquired Haco.

"A hambigoo-ous one," replied his friend.

"A ham--what?" said Haco interrogatively.

"A ham-big-oo-ous one."

"What sort of a one may that be, mate?"

"Well," said Gaff, knitting his heavy brows, and a.s.suming altogether a learned aspect, "it's a one that you can't make head nor tail of nohow; one as'll read a'rnost as well back'ard as for'ard, an' yet has got a smack o' somethin' mysterious in it, w'ich shows, so to speak, to what pint o' the compa.s.s your steerin' for--d'ye see?"

"H'm--rather hazy ahead," answered the skipper with a deeply sagacious look; "a difficult letter to write in my opinion. How d'ye mean to do it?"