Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn Part 32

"It may be so, but I hate him. The hatred is peculiar, though I believe not incurable, but at present it is powerful. That preposterous giant, that fathom and four inches of conceit, that insufferable disgrace to his cloth, that huge ma.s.s of human bones in a pig-skin--he--he bothers me."

"But how does he bother you?"

"Well, in the first place, he positively refuses to let his daughter Susan marry Dan Horsey, and I have set my heart on that match, for Susan is a favourite of mine, and Dan is a capital fellow, though he is a groom and a scoundrel--and nothing would delight me more than to bother our cook, who is a perfect vixen, and would naturally die of vexation if these two were spliced; besides, I want a dance at a wedding, or a shindy of some sort, before setting sail for the land of spices and n.i.g.g.e.rs. Haco puts a stop to all that; but, worse still, when I was down at the Sailors' Home the other day, I heard him telling some wonderful stories to the men there, in one of which he boasted that he had never been taken by surprise, nor got a start in his life; that a twenty-four pounder had once burst at his side and cut the head clean off a comrade, without causing his nerves to shake or his pulse to increase a bit. I laid him a bet of ten pounds on the spot that I could give him a fright, and he took it at once. Now I can't for the life of me think how to give him a fright, yet I _must_ do it somehow, for it will never do to be beat."

"Couldn't you shoot off a pistol at his ear?" suggested Lizzie.

Miss Puff sn.i.g.g.e.red, and Gildart said he might as well try to startle him with a sneeze.

"Get up a ghost, then," said Lizzie; "I have known a ghost act with great effect on a dark night in an out-of-the-way place."

"No use," returned Gildart, shaking his head. "Haco has seen ghosts enough to frighten a squadron of horse-marines."

Miss Puff sn.i.g.g.e.red again, and continued to do so until her puffy face and neck became extremely pink and dangerously inflated, insomuch that Gildart asked her somewhat abruptly what in the world she was laughing at. Miss Puff said she wouldn't tell, and Gildart insisted that she would; but she positively declined, until Gildart dragged her forcibly from her chair into a window-recess, where she was prevailed on to whisper the ideas that made her laugh.

"Capital!" exclaimed the middy, chuckling as he issued from the recess; "I'll try it. You're a charming creature, Puff, with an imagination worthy the owner of a better name. There, don't pout. You know my sentiments. Adieu, fair cousin! Puff, good-bye."

So saying, the volatile youth left the room.

That afternoon Gildart sauntered down to the Sailors' Home and entered the public hall, in which a dozen or two of sailors were engaged in playing draughts or chatting together. He glanced round, but, not finding the object of his search, was about to leave, when Dan Horsey came up, and, touching his hat, asked if he were looking for Haco Barepoles.

"I am," said Gildart.

"So is meself," said Dan; "but the mad skipper an't aisy to git howld of, an' not aisy to kape howld of when ye've got him. He's goin' to Cove this afternoon, I believe, an'll be here before startin', so I'm towld, so I'm waitin' for him."

As he spoke Haco entered, and Dan delivered a letter to him.

"Who from?" inquired the skipper sternly.

"Mr Stuart, _alias_ the guv'nor," replied Dan with extreme affability; "an' as no answer is required, I'll take my leave with your highness's permission."

Haco deigned no reply, but turned to Gildart and held out his hand.

"You've not gone to stay at Cove yet, I see," said Gildart.

"Not yet, lad, but I go to-night at nine o'clock. You see Mrs Gaff is a-goin' to visit a relation for a week, an' wants me to take care o' the house, the boodwar, as she calls it, though why she calls it by that name is more than I can tell. However I'll be here for a week yet, as the `Coffin' wants a few repairs, (I wonder if it ever didn't want repairs), an' I may as well be there as in the Home, though I'm bound to say the Home is as good a lodgin' as ever I was in at home or abroad, and cheap too, an' they looks arter you so well. The only thing I an't sure of is whether the repairs is to be done here or in Athenbury."

"The letter from Mr Stuart may bear on that point," suggested Gildart.

"True," replied the skipper, opening the letter.

"Ha! sure enough the repairs _is_ to be done there, so I'll have to cut my visit to Cove short by four days."

"But you'll sleep there to-night, I suppose?" asked Gildart, with more anxiety than the subject seemed to warrant.

"Ay, no doubt o' that, for Mrs G and Tottie left this mornin', trustin'

to my comin' down in the evenin'; but I can't get before nine o'clock."

"Well, good-day to you," said Gildart; "I hope you'll enjoy yourself at Cove."

The middy hastened away from the Sailors' Home with the air of a man who had business on hand. Turning the corner of a street he came upon a bra.s.s band, the tones of which were rendering all the bilious people within hearing almost unable to support existence. There was one irascible old gentleman, (a lawyer), under whose window it was braying, who sat at his desk with a finger in each ear trying to make sense out of a legal doc.u.ment. This was a difficult task at any time, for the legal doc.u.ment was compounded chiefly of nonsense, with the smallest possible modic.u.m of sense scattered through it. In the circ.u.mstances the thing was impossible, so the lawyer rose and stamped about the floor, and wished he were the Emperor of Russia with a cannon charged with grape-shot loaded to the muzzle and pointed at the centre of that bra.s.s band, in which case he would--. Well, the old gentleman never thought out the sentence, but he stamped on and raved a little as the band brayed below his window.

There was a sick man in a room not far from the old lawyer's office. He had spent two days and two nights in the delirium of fever. At last the doctor succeeded in getting him to fall into a slumber. It was not a very sound one; but such as it was it was of inestimable value to the sick man. The bra.s.s band, however, brayed the slumber away to the strains of "Rule Britannia," and effectually restored the delirium with "G.o.d Save the Queen."

There were many other interesting little scenes enacted in that street in consequence of the harmonious music of that bra.s.s band, but I shall refrain from entering into farther particulars. Suffice it to say that Gildart stood listening to it for some time with evident delight.

"Splendid," he muttered, as an absolutely appalling burst of discord rent the surrounding air and left it in tatters. "Magnificent! I think that will do."

"You seem fond of bad music, sir," observed an elderly gentleman, who had been standing near a doorway looking at the middy with a quiet smile.

"Yes, on the present occasion I am," replied Gildart; "discord suits my taste just now, and noise is pleasant to my ear."

The band ceased to play at that moment, and Gildart, stepping up to the man who appeared to be the leader, inasmuch as he performed on the clarionet, asked him to turn aside with him for a few minutes.

The man obeyed with a look of surprise, not unmingled with suspicion.

"You are leader of this band?"

"Yes, sir, I ham."

"Have you any objection to earn a sovereign or two?"

"No, sir, I han't."

"It's a goodish band," observed Gildart.

"A fus'-rater," replied the clarionet. "No doubt the trombone is a little cracked and bra.s.sy, so to speak, because of a hinfluenza as has wonted him for some weeks; but there's good stuff in 'im, sir, and plenty o' lungs. The key-bugle is a noo 'and, but 'e's capital, 'ticklerly in the 'igh notes an' flats; besides, bein' young, 'e'll improve. As to the French 'orn, there ain't his ekal in the country; w'en he does the pathetic it would make a banker weep. You like pathetic music, sir?"

"Not much," replied the middy.

"No! now that's hodd. _I_ do. It 'armonises so with the usual state o'

my feelin's. My feelin's is a'most always pathetic, sir."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, 'cept at meal-times, w'en I do manage to git a little jolly. Ah!

sir, music ain't wot it used to be. There's a general flatness about it now, sir, an' people don't seem to admire it 'alf so much as w'en I first began. But if you don't like the pathetic, p'raps you like the bravoory style?"

"I doat on it," said Gildart. "Come, let's have a touch of the `bravoory.'"

"I've got a piece," said the clarionet slowly, looking at the sky with a pathetic air, "a piece as I composed myself. I don't often play it, 'cause, you know, sir, one doesn't 'xactly like to shove one's-self too prominently afore the public. I calls it the `Banging-smash Polka.'

But I generally charge hextra for it, for it's dreadful hard on the lungs, and the trombone he gets cross when I mention it, for it nearly bu'sts the hinstrument; besides, it kicks up sich a row that it puts the French 'orn's nose out o' jint--you can't 'ear a note of him. I flatter myself that the key-bugle plays his part to parfection, but the piece was written chiefly for the trombone and clarionet; the one being deep and crashing, the other shrill and high. I had the battle o' Waterloo in my mind w'en I wrote it."

"Will that do?" said Gildart, putting half-a-crown into the man's hand.

The clarionet nodded, and, turning to his comrades, winked gravely as he p.r.o.nounced the magic word--"Banging-smash."

Next moment there was a burst as if a bomb-sh.e.l.l had torn up the street, and this was followed up by a series of crashes so rapid, violent, and wildly intermingled, that the middy's heart almost leapt out of him with delight!