The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales Part 9

"I'd like to know why you were hammering out that tinplate?" said he.

"I can see with my own eyes you've been knocking dents in the deck; but I s'pose that wasn't your only object."

"I reckoned to tack it over this here hole in the bulwarks where the tide swung her up against the quay-end." Captain Jacka showed him the place.

"I'd have let you have a fresh plank if you'd only reported the damage in time."

"Oh," said Jacka, "a sc.r.a.p of tin will answer just as well--every bit."

"I can't think, Captain Tackabird, how it comes that you've no more regard for appearances. Just look at the _Unity_, for instance, and how young Hewitt keeps her."

"Born different, I suppose."

"Ay, and if you don't look out you'll end different. Patching a boat with tin!" Mr. Job let out a rasping kind of laugh. "But that's Polperro, all over. Do you know what they tell about you, down to St.

Ann's?"--Mr. Job came from St. Ann's--"They say, down there, that every man-child in Polperro is born with a patch in the seat of his--"

Mr. Job stood up and cast a hand behind him, to explain. . . .

"I put it there to keep off the wopses," said Captain Jacka.

"But what did he say?" asked Mary Polly, when her husband brought home the tale.

"First he said, 'I'll make you pay for this.' Well, that was fair enough, for I ought to have warned him; but when I asked the price, and where the stuff could be matched--for 'twas his best suit, you understand--all of a sudden he stamps his foot and lets fly with the most horrible oaths. It fairly creamed my flesh to hear him.

He's a man of wrath, my love, and the end of him will be worse than the beginning."

"I daresay; but he'll give you the sack before that happens."

The two poor old souls looked at one another; for Job had control of all the privateering companies in Polperro, and influence enough to starve a man out of the place.

"Lev us take counsel of the Lord," said the old boy, as she knew he would. So down on their knees they went, and prayed together.

Jacka even put up a pet.i.tion for Mr. Job, but Mary Polly couldn't say "Amen" to that.

The next morning Captain Jacka went down to the _Pride_ at the usual hour, but only to find his crew scrubbing decks and Mr. Job ready for him. "There's your marching orders," says the enemy, handing him a paper; "and if you want a character at any time, just come to me, and I'll give you a daisy."

Well, the old chap said no word, but turned about then and there, and back along the quay like a man in a dream. All the way he kept fumbling the doc.u.ment without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun.

He was sitting there, dazed and quiet, when the door opened and out came Mary Polly with a rag-mat in her hand, meaning to bang it against the wall, as her custom was.

"Hullo!" says she, stopping short on the threshold. "Back again, like a bad penny?"

"Bad enough, this time," says her husband, without turning round; and drops his head with a groan.

I must say the woman's behaviour was peculiar. For first of all she stepped forward and gave his head a stroking, just as you might a child's, and then she looks up and down the street, and says, "I'm ashamed of 'ee, carryin' on like this for all the public to see.

Stick your hands in your pockets," says she.

"What's the use of that?" But he did it.

"Now whistle."

"Eh?"

"Whistle a tune."

"But I can't."

"You can if you try; I've heard you whistlin' 'Rule Britannia' scores of times, or bits of it. Now I'm goin' to beat this mat and make believe to be talkin' to 'ee. At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury'll poke her head out, she always does. So you go on whistlin', and don't mind anything I say. There'll be no peace in life for us after she gets wind you've been sacked; and just now I want a little time to myself to relieve my feelin's."

So Jacka started to whistle, feeling mighty shy, and Mary Polly picked up the mat.

"I wish," says she to the mat, "you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang). I do dearly wish for my life you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang). I'd take your ugly old head with its stivery grey whiskers and I'd (bang, whang)--I'd (bang, whang)--I'd treat you like this here mat, and lay you down for folks to wipe their shoes upon, Mr.

(whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang)."

"When Britain first at Heaven's command," whistled Jacka; and the Widow Scantlebury, two doors up the street, was properly taken in. An hour later, when the news of Jacka's dismissal was all over the town, she had to sit down and consider. "I see'd him come up the street"--this was how she told the story, being the sort of woman that never knows where the truth ends--"just as Mary Polly was shaking out her mat. He came up like a whipped dog, stuck his hands in his pockets and started to whistle, for all the world like a whipped dog, you understand? Any fool could see the man had something on his mind and wanted to break it gentle. But not she! Went on banging the mat, if you'll believe me, till my flesh ached to see a woman so dull-minded. Of course it wasn'

no business of mine, tho' you _would_ think, after living with a man thirty years--" and so on, and so on.

But when Mary Polly had relieved her feelings, and the two old souls were in the kitchen with the door shut behind them, they came very near to breaking down. You see, Captain Jacka had followed the trade in Polperro all his days, and his heart was in it till Mr. Job pulled him up by the roots. He and Mary Polly had saved a little, and looked forward to leaving it to their only child--my wife's mother, that was; and anyway it wasn't enough to maintain them, let be that to touch a penny of it would have burnt their fingers. No; Captain Jacka must find a new billet.

But in a month or so, when folks had given up sympathising--for Mary Polly hated to be pitied, and gave them no encouragement--he saw plain enough that there was no billet for him in a small place like Polperro where Mr. Job ruled the roost. Before Christmas his mind was made up; and early in Christmas week he said good-bye to his wife, marched up to Four Turnings with his kit on his back, and shipped on board Boutigo's Two-Horse Conveyance for Falmouth.

There was a Mr. Rogers living at Falmouth who had been a shareholder in the old "Hand and Glove" company, but had sold out over some quarrel with Mr. Job; and to him Jacka applied.

"I'm told that seamen are scarce, sir," says he. "I was wondering if you could find me a berth anywhere, for I've 'arned forty per cent. for my employers before now, and could do it again, but for a man of my unfortunate looks 'tis hard to get a start."

Mr. Rogers tapped the desk with his ruler, like one considering.

"Why have they turned you out?" he asked. "Anything professional?"

"How could _I_ help Mr. Job's sitting down on a lump of honey?

I put it to you, sir, as a business man."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Rogers. "Let's have the story."

So out it all came. "He's a man of wrath," said Captain Jacka, "and he'll be sorry for it when he comes to die."

"There's one or two," said Mr. Rogers, "would like to hurry that reckoning a bit. Well, well, I can make shift to fit you up with something for a week or two, and maybe by that time there'll be an opening aboard one of the Packets. Just now, in Christmas week, business is slack enough, but what do you say to going mate on a vessel as far as the Downs?"

"Nothing I should like better," says Jacka.

"You'd better have a look at her first," says Mr. Rogers.

So he takes Jacka off to the Market Strand, calls for a waterman's wherry, and inside of ten minutes they were being pulled out to the Roads.

"There's your ship," says Mr. Rogers, as they pushed out beyond the old dock into Carrick Roads.

Jacka opened first his eyes and then his mouth. The vessel was a kind of top-sail schooner, but with a hull there was no mistaking, the more by token that the tide was swinging her stern-on, and showing him a pair of windows picked out in red paint, with shutter-boards and bra.s.s hinges shining.

"Mr. Rogers," he said, "I han't read the _Sherborne Mercury_ lately, but is--is the war over?"

"No, nor likely to be."