The Sailor Part 25

"Yes, sir," said Ginger, with formidable politeness.

"Very good. Now, Arper, the directors is prepared to rise to twenty-five shillings a week, an' that's their limit."

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," said Ginger, "but twenty-five bob a week is not a bit o' use to either on us. We like the town what we've seen on it, but two pound a week's our minimum. It's only wastin' time to talk of less. If we ain't worth two pound a week to the Blackhampton Rovers, I dessey we'll be worth it to the Otspur or the Villa. Come on, Sailor.

We're only wastin' our time, boy."

This carefully delivered ultimatum made quite a sensation. There was not one of the committee who would not cheerfully have slain Mr. W. H.

Jukes. But they wanted that goalkeeper very badly. Moreover, the mention of the Hotspur and the Villa did not lessen this desire.

"One moment, Jukes."

A further consultation followed. This matter called for very masterful and, at the same time, very delicate handling.

Mr. Augustus Higginbottom went to the length of removing his cigar from the corner of his mouth.

"See here, Jukes," said he, "it's not you we want, it's the goalkeeper.

Now, Arper, I am empowered by my feller directors to offer you two pound a week with a rise next year if you turn out satisfactory."

"That's more like it," said Ginger coolly. "Two pound a week and a rise next year. What do you say, Sailor boy? Or do you think it would be better to see the Villa?"

It was as much as the chairman could do to keep from pitching Jukes out of the room. His cheek was amazing, but if this course was taken, it was clear that Harper would not adorn his person with a chocolate and blue shirt.

The unlucky fact was that the goalkeeper and the right full back had only one mind between them. And that mind was not in the possession of the goalkeeper.

"We've allus played together," said Ginger, "and we allus shall. I've taught him all he knows--haven't I, Sailor boy?"

"Yep," said the Sailor, coming humbly into the conversation for the first time.

"We've allus played for the same club, we lodge together, we work together, we are pals in everythink--ain't we, Sailor boy?"

"Yep," said the Sailor.

"And if you don't want us it's all the same to us--ain't it, Sailor boy?"

"Yep," said the Sailor.

There followed a final consultation between the chairman of the club and his fellow committee-men. But only one conclusion to the matter was possible. The Blackhampton Rovers must either accept Mr. W. H.

Jukes with all his limitations, or lose the type of goalkeeper they had been seeking up and down the land for many a year.

XIII

To the Sailor, the visit to Blackhampton was a fairy tale. At first, he could not realize that he had worn the chocolate and blue, and had performed wonderful deeds at the instance of a power beyond himself.

As for the sequel, involving a farewell to the wharf of Antcliff and Jackson, Limited, and a triumphal return to his natal city as a salaried player of the Rovers, even when this had really happened, it was very hard to believe.

Ginger took the credit. And if he had not had a talent for affairs these things could not have come about. It was entirely due to him that Henry Harper learned to play football, and had he not mastered the art, it is unlikely that he would ever have found the key to his life.

The Sailor was a simple, modest soul. He felt the sudden turn of fortune's wheel was due to no grace of his own. From that amazing hour when certain doc.u.ments were signed and Henry Harper, who had suffered terrible things to gain a few dollars a month, began to draw a salary of two pounds a week with surprisingly little to do in order to earn it, his devotion to Ginger became almost that of a dog for its master.

They both had their feet on the ladder now, if ever two young men had.

It might be luck, it might be pluck, it might be a combination of anything you chose to call it, but there it was; two untried men had imposed their personalities upon some of the shrewdest judges of football in the United Kingdom. The Sailor had shown genius on the field; Ginger had shown genius of a kind more valuable.

On the Monday week following their triumph, they invaded Blackhampton again. This time they were accompanied not merely by their Gladstone bags and their velvet-collared overcoats, but they came with the whole of their worldly goods.

They obtained---"they" meaning Ginger--some quite first-rate lodgings in Newcastle Street, near the ca.n.a.l. These had been recommended by d.i.n.kie Dawson, who lodged in the next street but two. The charges of the new landlady, Miss Gwladys Foldal, were much higher than those of Mrs. Sparks, but the accommodation was Cla.s.s compared to Paradise Alley. As Ginger informed the Sailor, socially they had taken a big step up.

For example, Miss Foldal herself was, in Ginger's opinion, far more a woman of the world than Mrs. Sparks. Her hair was golden, it was always amazingly curled about tea time, when she had newly powdered her nose; she maintained a "slavey" and did little of the housework herself, apparently never soiling her well-kept hands with anything menial; also she had an undoubted gift of conversation, could play the piano, and if much entreated would lift occasionally an agreeable voice in song; in a word, Miss Foldal was a lady versed in the enchantments of good society.

The Sailor was quite overawed at first by Miss Foldal. Always very responsive to the impact of her s.e.x, a word or a look from the least of its members was enough to embarra.s.s him. Miss Foldal, with her tempered brilliancy and her matured charm, impressed him greatly.

Even Ginger, who was so cynical in regard to ladies in general and landladies in particular, was inclined to approve her. This was a great concession on Ginger's part, because up till then there were only two persons in the universe whom Ginger did approve, one being himself, whom he approved wholeheartedly, the other being d.i.n.kie Dawson, whom he accepted with reservations.

Ginger and the Sailor soon settled down in their new quarters. They were well received by their fellow players. They must not look beyond the second team at present, so august was the circle in which they now moved, but Harper was "the goods" undoubtedly; one of these days the world would hear of him; while as for Jukes, although without genius as a player he was such a trier that he was bound to improve. Indeed, he began to improve in every match in which he appeared in this exalted company. His time was not yet, but the directors of the club, resentful as they were of the coup that Ginger had played, shrewdly foresaw that a man of such will and determination might one day prove a sound investment.

These were golden days for the Sailor. The perils and the hardships aboard the _Margaret Carey_, the t.i.tanic fights with nature, the ceaseless struggles on the yards of that crazy vessel in order to save himself from being dashed to pieces on the deck below, had been such a training for his present life as nothing else could have been.

It was now for the first time that Henry Harper began to envisage that queer thing, Himself. He was never at any period an egotist in a narrow way. Fate had mercilessly flogged a sense of proportion into him at the threshold of his life; whatever the future had in store he would never be able to forget that man himself is a creature of strange, terrible, and tragic destiny. As soon as a little prosperity came to him, he began to develop. The respect of others for the accidental prowess he wore so una.s.sumingly, good food, regular habits, a sense of security, did much for Henry Harper in this critical phase of his fortunes.

First he learned to take a pride in his body. That was a very simple ethic of the great religion to be revealed to him. He was quick to see that he was one of a company of highly trained athletes whom nature had endowed n.o.bly. Together with his fellow players, he was exercised with as much care as if he had been a racehorse. He was bathed and ma.s.saged, groomed and tended; such a sense of physical well-being came to him that he could not help growing in grace and beauty, in strength and freedom of mind and soul.

After several weeks of this new and wonderful life there was still a dark secret that continued to haunt the Sailor. He could neither read nor write, and he was living in a world in which these accomplishments were taken for granted. He had to conceal the fact as best he could.

None must know, but a means would have to be found of overcoming this stigma.

He dared not speak of it to Ginger, or to Miss Foldal either, much as he liked and respected her. He remembered the face of Mrs. Sparks.

But after giving much thought to the matter, he made cautious inquiries, and then one morning it suddenly occurred to him that he was a fool. Here was Henry Harper in his native city of Blackhampton, certain parts of which he knew like the back of his hand, and yet he had forgotten the night school in Driver's Lane that c.o.c.ky Foot.i.t and Leary Jeac.o.c.k went to and never did any good afterwards.

The thought hit the Sailor hard as he was seated at his princely breakfast of eggs and bacon, very choicely fried, and such a cup of coffee as any man might have envied him. He remembered how seven years ago, in the c.o.c.ky Foot.i.t and Leary Jeac.o.c.k days, he simply daren't go home at night unless he had sold a certain number of _Evening Stars_.

And what a home it was for any boy to go to!

In spite of the eggs and bacon and the warm fire and Ginger seated opposite with the _Athletic News_ propped against the coffee pot, a shudder crept through Henry Harper. He regretted bitterly that he should have allowed his thoughts to stray. But how could they go back to c.o.c.ky Foot.i.t and Leary Jeac.o.c.k and the night school they attended in Driver's Lane, without taking a leap unbidden to that other lane which ran level with Driver's, with the rag and bone yard and the iron gates where dwelt Auntie and her cart whip, the only home at that time he had known?

He couldn't help shuddering at the picture in his mind. Where was Auntie now? How would she look to one who had sailed before the mast over all the oceans of the world?

The subject of Auntie had a morbid fascination. It held him as completely as the night school in Driver's Lane. The truth was, it was impossible to recall the one without envisaging the other.

As soon as he had finished breakfast, he put on the overcoat with the velvet collar and the smart tweed cap, stepped into Newcastle Street and began to wander across the ca.n.a.l bridge. Then he turned to the right through Clover Street, crossed the tram lines, pa.s.sed the Crown and Cushion, his favorite public-house of yore, where he had listened many an evening to the music and singing that floated through the swing doors, with always a half formed thought at the back of his mind which he dared not face. As of old, he stood to listen, but there was no music now, for it was only ten o'clock in the morning, and it didn't begin until seven at night.

He was not afraid of the life of seven years ago. As he stood outside the Crown and Cushion that was the idea which exalted him. Henry Harper was not obliged to meet Auntie, but was going to do so out of curiosity, and because he owed it to himself to prove that he no longer went in fear of her.

That might be so, but as he pa.s.sed through the old familiar streets and alleys, with bareheaded Aunties standing arms akimbo in conversation with the neighbors, while many a Henry Harper sprawled half naked in the gutter, his courage almost failed. The slums of Blackhampton had changed less than he in seven years.

Yes, this was Crow's Yard. And there at the door of No. 1, as of yore, was Mother Crow, toothless and yellow, unspeakably foul of word and aspect, whose man often threatened to swing for her and finally swung for another. Henry Harper stole swiftly through Crow's Yard, fearing at every step that he would be recognized.

With a thudding heart, he came into Wright's Lane. It was like a horrible dream; he nearly turned and ran. What if Auntie was still there? He had just seen Mother Crow and Meg Baker and c.o.c.k-eyed Polly and others of her circle. Well, if she was...?

The beating of his heart would not let him meet the question. He ought not to have come. All the same, there was nothing to be afraid of now.