The Sailor

He could hear sounds a little way off … inside the prison. He gripped convulsively the rough overcoat of his captor. How vividly he remembered it all! They gave it two other boys first. Again he could hear their screams, again he could see the blood running down their bare legs.

He must try to be a man … he remembered that one of the other boys had laughed about it afterwards … he must try to be a man … at least that had been the advice of a fatherly policeman in spectacles who had presided over the ceremony…

"Mother … that you…" The terrific voice of his captor went right through him. "Where are you, Mother? Show a light."

Suddenly a door at the end of the passage was flung open. There came a blinding gush of gaslight.

"Why, Job … whatever…!"

"I'll set him on the sophy."

"Yes, on the sophy. Goodness gracious me!"

The boy realized that he was on a horsehair sofa, and that a fine, clean, handsome-looking lady was standing with her mouth open in front of him.

"Goodness gracious, Job!"

"Come all the way from Blackhampton in a truck this morning. By the 5:40 Express."

"Well, I'm blessed if I ever see such a hobject. I'll give him some tea and a bit o' bacon, and some bread and butter, and then I'll get some o' that mud off him."

"Some of it's blood," said the Foreman Shunter.

"Yes, I see it is. Never … did … I … see … anythink … like him. I'll make the tea; the kettle's boiling." The voice of Mother was the nearest thing to music the boy had ever heard. It was better even than that of the ladies who sang in the bar of the Wheat Sheaf, the Red Lion, and the Crown and Anchor, outside which places he had always stayed to listen when he could conveniently do so. This room was not in the least like the police station. And he was quite sure that the lady called Mother had nothing whatever to do with…

"Set him a bit nearer to the fire, Job," – yes, the voice was music – "and put this round him."

"This" was an old coat.

VI

"I'll give it him in a saucer," said Mother. "It'll be cooler that way."

A saucer of tea was offered to the boy.

"Can you hold it, me lad?"

"Yes, lady," he said, faintly.

"Lap it up, then. Better let me try it first." She sipped a little out of the saucer. "Yes, that's right enough."

The tea was so perfectly delicious that he swallowed it at a gulp. Mother and the Foreman Shunter watched him with surprise.

"Now for a bite o' bread and butter," said Mother, sawing away at a quartern loaf.

The boy seized the bread and butter like a hungry dog. Mother and the Foreman Shunter stood looking at him with queer, rather startled faces.

"I never see the likes o' that, Job."

"No, never," said the Foreman Shunter, solemnly. "Damn me."

"What's your name, boy?"

"Enry Arper, lady."

"Enry what?"

"Enry Arper, lady."

"Could you eat a bit o' bacon, do you think?"

The boy nodded with an eagerness that made the Foreman Shunter laugh.

"I see nothing to laugh at, Job Lorimer," said his wife sharply. Tears had come into her eyes. She whisked them away with a corner of her apron, and then gave a sniff of remarkable violence. "And they call this a Christian land."

"You never heard me call it that, Mother," said the Foreman Shunter.

"More shame to you, then, Job Lorimer."

"I know this," said the Foreman Shunter, speaking in a slow and decisive manner, "whatever this country is or whatever it ain't, there's as much Christianity in it as there is in that hearthrug. And there ain't a bit more."

"Shut your head," said his wife. "And hand me that knife and I'll cut up this bit o' bacon for him."

She took a delicately browned rasher out of a hissing, delicious smelling frying-pan on the fire, cut it into very small pieces, gave it to the boy, and told him to eat it slowly.

After the boy's wants had been attended to, Mother spread a newspaper on the sofa and told him to put up his legs and rest a bit. The Foreman Shunter then passed through a door and performed wonders in the way of blowing and splashing at the scullery sink. When he reappeared his face was very red and shining and the boy was fast asleep.

"I'm thinking I'll have a bite meself," said Job, with a glance at the sofa. "And then I suppose I had better take him along to the police station."

Mother made no reply, but gave her husband a breakfast worthy of a foreman shunter. She then examined carefully the boy's hands and feet.

"I never did see such a hobject," said she. And then with an imperious air, "I'll give him a wash, that's what I'll do."

In order to carry out this resolve, she went into the scullery, filled the copper, and lit the fire.

Presently the members of the family, three small boys and a smaller girl, came down to breakfast en route to school. They looked wonderingly at the creature on the sofa, with great curiosity in their half frightened eyes. Their father told them sternly to keep away from it, to get on with their breakfasts, not to make a noise, and to clear off to school.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Alfie asked Johnnie, in a thrilling whisper as soon as father had retired to help Mother in the scullery.

"A girl, o' course."

There was some excuse for Johnnie: there was something that looked exactly like a girl in the sleeping face. The rest was hidden by the coat.

The family was soon packed off to school, Johnnie "with a flea in his ear" for having cleaned his boots imperfectly the night before. Mother then cleared away the remains of breakfast, and the Foreman Shunter fetched a fair-sized zinc bath out of the washhouse, pushed back the table, and set it down before the fire. He filled it with warm water from the copper, and then gave the sleeper a shake and said,

"Now, then, boy."

The boy roused himself with a little whimper of protest. He had not been very fast asleep; the police in varying forms of their activity were still hovering round the outskirts of his mind. He began to cry miserably at the sight of the zinc bath, which supplied a forgotten link in an awful chain of memories. Yes, this was the police station after all. He remembered now quite well how they gave him a bath before they …

"What are you crying for?" asked Mother. "I'm not going to hurt you, my boy. Nice warm bath. Bind up your feet. Then you can go to sleep again."

Perhaps it wasn't the police station, after all. Certainly that institution as he knew it had no Mother and no warm tea and no fried bacon, and no sofa and no old coat.

Mother removed the filthy shirt and the tattered knickerbockers with uncompromising but not indelicate hands.

"Them had better be burnt, Job," she said sharply, as she gave them to the Foreman Shunter to throw into the back yard.

"Better ha' done this job in the scullery, Mother," said he.

"Too cold…" She took the temperature of the bath with an expert's finger… "I never did see anything like this poor child. There's nothing to him. Look at his ribs. You can count 'em. Ugh!" The eye of Mother had been arrested by a broad red mark across both thighs.

"That's been done with a whip," said the Foreman Shunter, grimly.

"Just look at those feet … they are beginning to bleed again. And these pore hands. I'll get some rags and some Friar's Balsam. And his hair! Goodness gracious me! I'll have to go to the chemist's for that, I'm thinking."

It was perfectly true that Mother had to pay a visit to the chemist for the boy's hair. Nothing less than the chemist could meet the case.

In the meantime, the Foreman Shunter soaped and washed the boy thoroughly, dried him with a coarse towel, rubbed the Friar's Balsam on the mutilated hands and feet, which made them smart horribly, and bound them in clean rags. Mother then returned to perform wonders with the chemist's lotion. Afterwards she fetched a nightgown of Alfie's, put it on the boy, wrapped him up in a couple of blankets, and made him comfortable on the sofa, and the Foreman Shunter drew it a bit nearer the fire. Then the boy was told he could sleep as long as he liked. Presently he began to doze, his mind still running on the police; but certainly this was not a bit like the station.

VII

"What'll you do with him, Mother?"

It was tea time, the kitchen blind was down, the gas was lit; and mother was toasting a muffin for the Foreman Shunter, who was about to go on duty.

"He can't stay here, you know. We've as many as we can manage already."

"I know that," snapped Mother.

Like most mothers who are worth their salt, she had rather a habit of snapping at the Foreman Shunter.

The boy was feeling wonderfully comfortable. In fact, he had never felt so comfortable in his life. And he was just sufficiently awake to know that his fate was being decided upon.

"What'll you do with him, anyhow?"

"I don't know," snapped Mother.

"I don't neither. Seems to me there's nothing for it but to hand him over to the police."

The boy was fully awake now. His heart stood still. It seemed an age before mother spoke in answer to this terrible suggestion.

"Yes, of course, there's always that," she said, at last.

The boy's heart died within him.

"He can't stay here, that's a moral," said the Foreman Shunter.

"I never said he could," snapped Mother. "But I don't hold with the police myself. It means the Work'us, and you'd better not be born at all, Job Lorimer, than go to the Work'us."

"You are right there," said the Foreman Shunter.

"He wants a honest occipation," said Mother, buttering the muffin.

"He wants eddicatin' first," said the Foreman Shunter, beginning to eat the muffin. "What can you do with a kid like that? Don't know A from a bull's foot. Not fit for any decent society."

"You are right there," said Mother. "But I'm all against the Work'us, and it's no use purtending I ain't."

"Same here," said the Foreman Shunter. "But he can't stay at No. 12, Gladstone Villas, and you can lay to that."

"Did I say he could?" snapped Mother yet again.

"Very well, then."

And the Foreman Shunter went on duty.

It took five days for the famille Lorimer to decide the fate of Henry Harper. Five wonderful days in which he lay most of the time wrapped in warm blankets on a most comfortable sofa in a warm room. Everybody was remarkably good to him. He had the nicest things to eat and drink that had ever come his way; he was spoken to in the only kind tones that had ever been used to him in all his thirteen years of life. He was given a clean shirt of Alfie's without a single hole in it; he was given a pair of Johnnie's socks; a pair of the Foreman Shunter's trousers were cut down for him; he was given boots (Alfie's), a waistcoat (Alfie's), a jacket (Alfie's), a necktie (Johnnie's), a clean linen collar (Alfie's), a red-spotted handkerchief (Percy's – by Percy's own request). In fact, in those five days he was by way of being taken to the bosom of the family.

He was really a very decent sort of boy – at least, Father said so to Mother in Johnnie's hearing. That is, he had the makings of a decent boy. And Johnnie knew that if Father said so it must be so, because Johnnie also knew that Father was an extremely acute and searching critic of boys in general. They were all very sorry for him, and Alfie and Percy were also inclined to be sorry for Johnnie, who had made a regular mug of himself by declaring that this poor street arab was a girl. It would take Johnnie at least a year to live it down, but in the meantime they were full of pity for this miserable waif out of the gutter who could neither write nor read, who tore at his food, who called Mother "lady" and Father "mister," and said "dunno" and used strange terms of the streets in a way they could hardly understand. This poor gutter-snipe, who had been so badly knocked about, who had never had a father or a mother, or a brother or a sister, was whole worlds away from the fine assurance, the complete freedom and security of Selborne Street Higher Grade Schools. He was more like a dumb animal than a boy; and sometimes as they watched his white, hunted face and heard his strange mumblings – the nearest he got, as a rule, to human speech – it would have taken very little to convince them that such was the case, could they only have forgotten that his like was to be found at every street corner selling matches and evening papers and begging for coppers when the police were not about.

During those five days the boy's future was a sore problem for the Foreman Shunter and his wife. And it was only solved at last by a god out of a machine. Mr. Elijah Hendren was the deity in question.

That gentleman happened to look in upon the evening of the fatal fifth day. A benign, cultivated man of the world, he came regularly once a week to engage the Foreman Shunter in a game of draughts. It was also Mr. Hendren's custom on these occasions to smoke a pipe of bacca and to give expression to his views upon things in general, of which from early youth he had been an accomplished critic.

Mr. Hendren, it seemed, had a relation by marriage who followed the sea. He was a rough sort of man, in Mr. Hendren's opinion not exactly what you might call polished. Still, he followed a rough sort of trade, and this was a rough sort of boy, and Mr. Hendren didn't mind having a word with Alec – the name of the relation – and see what could be done in the matter.

"I don't know about that," said Mother. "They might ill-use him, and he's been ill-used more than enough already."

"Quite so," said Mr. Hendren politely, "huffing" the Foreman Shunter. "Quite so, M'ria" – Mr. Hendren was a very old friend of the family – "I quite agree with you there. The sea's a rough trade – rough an' no mistake – Alec can tell you tales that would make your hair rise – but as I say, he's a rough boy – and even the 'igh seas is better than the Work'us."

"Anything is better than that," said Mother. "All the same, I wouldn't like the poor child to be knocked about. You see, he's not very strong; he wants building up, and he's been used that crool by somebody that he's frit of his own shadow."

"Ah," said Mr. Hendren impressively. Impressiveness was Mr. Hendren's long suit. At that time, he was perhaps the most impressive man under sixty in Kentish Town. "Ah," said Mr. Hendren, "I quite understand, M'ria. I'll speak to Alec the first thing tomorrer and see what he can do. Not to be knocked about – but the sea's the sea, you quite understand?"

"My great-uncle Dexter sailed twelve times round the Horn," said Mother with modesty.

"Did he so?" said Mr. Hendren. "Twelve times. Before the mast?"

"Before the mast?" was a little too much for Mother, as Mr. Hendren intended it to be, having no doubt a reputation to keep up.

"I don't know about afore the mast," said Mother stoutly. "I only know that great-uncle Dexter was terrible rough … terrible rough."

"All sailors is terrible rough," said Mr. Hendren, politely "huffing" the Foreman Shunter again. "Still, M'ria, I'll see what I can do with Alec … although, mind you, as I say, Alec's not as much polish as some people."

"Great-uncle Dexter hadn't neither," said Mother. "Foulest-mouthed man I ever heard in my life … and that's saying a good deal." And Mother looked volumes at the Foreman Shunter.

"That so?" said Mr. Hendren, tactfully, crowning his second king. "However … I'll see Alec … first thing tomorrer…"

"Thank you, 'Lijah," said the Foreman Shunter.

VIII

"Alec's" real name was Mr. Thompson. He was a very hirsute man, with whiskers all over him, and at first sight he seemed to bear a very striking resemblance to his arboreal ancestors of the largest and most terrifying species. His distinguished relation, upon introducing him in the course of the next evening to the family circle of No. 12, Gladstone Villas, seemed not in the least proud of him, and to tell the truth about Mr. Thompson, he did appear to be lacking in the graces of the town. His rough pea-jacket and huge, ungainly limbs, his gruff voice and gibbon-like aspect might all have been forgiven on the ground of his calling, but unfortunately he began by expectorating with really extraordinary freedom and vehemence into the kitchen fire, and from that moment it was quite impossible for Mother or any other responsible person to render Mr. Thompson in terms of the higher humanity. This was a pity, because Mr. Thompson had evidently a range of private qualities.

Truth to tell, Mother did not take to Mr. Thompson as kindly as she might have done, and it needed all Mr. Hendren's tact, which was very remarkable even for one who was "wholesale," to enable her to have any truck with "Alec" at all.

"You must be reasonable, M'ria," said Mr. Hendren, urbanely. "It's either the Work'us for this boy or it's the 'igh seas. If it's the latter, you couldn't have a better man than Alec to look after him; if it's the former, of course I wash my hands of the matter."

This flawless logic was strongly approved by the Foreman Shunter.

"'Lijah speaks to the p'int," he affirmed, with a rather doubtful glance in the direction of Mr. Thompson, who was again expectorating into the fire with a display of virtuosity that was almost uncanny.

In the meantime, the boy stood white and trembling in the midst of Johnnie and Alfie and Percy while his fate hung in the balance. Not one of these had taken kindly to Mr. Thompson, in spite of the fact that at frequent intervals the admired Mr. Hendren assured their father and mother that "he was a first-rate seaman."

"Now, this is the crux of the matter," said Mr. Elijah Hendren, bringing in the word "crux" as though he well knew it was only "wholesale" people who were allowed to use such a word at all. "Either the boy goes to sea with Alec, and he couldn't have no better to take charge of him – Alec's a first-rate seaman – else he goes to the Work'us. Now, my boy, which is it to be?" And Mr. Hendren fairly hypnotized the poor waif in father's trousers cut down with the large and rolling eye of an accepted candidate for the honorary treasurership of the Ancient Order of Hedgehogs.

"Now, me lad, which is it to be?" Mr. Hendren's forefinger wagged so sternly that the boy began to weep softly. "Alec'll not eat you, you know. If he says he'll see you through, he'll see you through. Am I right, Alec?"

"Yep," growled Alec, beginning to threaten a further assault upon the kitchen fire.

"Very well, then," said Mr. Hendren. "There you are. What can you ask fairer? You can either go with Alec – Mr. Thompson to you, my boy – else you can be handed over to the police, and they'll send you to the Work'us. Now, boy, which is it to be?" Mr. Hendren put the question with awful impressiveness. "It's a free country, you know. You can take your choice: Alec – Mr. Thompson – or the Work'us?"

If Henry Harper had had a doubt in his mind as to which was the less grim of these alternatives, the casual mention of the police undoubtedly laid it at rest. Mr. Thompson looked capable of eating a boy of his age, but after all that was very little compared with what the police, as Henry Harper knew them, took a pride in doing in the ordinary discharge of their functions.

"I'll go wiv 'im, mister," said Henry Harper, in sudden desperation.

He then hid himself behind his friend Johnnie.

"With Mr. Thompson?"

"Yes, mister."

Henry Harper began to sob, and Alfie and Percy at least didn't blame him. Mr. Thompson was the nearest thing to the wicked ogre in "Jack and the Beanstalk" they had ever seen in their lives.

However, their mother who had the heart of a lion, who was afraid of nothing so long as it was human – and even Mr. Thompson was apparently that – took upon herself to have a little serious discourse with the man of the sea.

"I suppose, Mr. Thompson, this is a decent ship to which you will be taking the poor child?" said she.

It was necessary for Mr. Thompson to roll his eyes fearfully before he could do justice to such a leading question. He was then understood to say in his queer, guttural voice, which seemed to come out of his boots, that the ship was right enough, although a bit hungry at times as all ships were.

"Is the captain of the vessel a gentleman?" demanded Mother at point-blank range.

Mr. Thompson was understood to say that when the Old Man was all right he was all right, but when in drink he was a devil.

"All men are," said Mother, succinctly. "That's the worst of it. But I understand you to say that at ordinary times the captain's a gentleman."

"Yep," said Mr. Thompson, comprehensively.

In spite, however, of this valuable testimonial to the captain's character and status, Mother seemed very loath to put her trust in him or in Mr. Thompson either. For one thing that admirable seaman expectorated again into the kitchen fire, but that apart, the note of primeval extravagance in his outward aspect hardly commended itself to Mother.

"The child is very young," she said, "to be going to sea. And you sailors has rough ways – my great-uncle Dexter always said so. And he was a rough man if you like – not as rough as you are, Mr. Thompson, but still he was rough. And as I say, the boy is not grown yet, there's nothing to him, as you might say; still, as it's you, Mr. Thompson, or the Work'us, I suppose it'll have to be you."

"Quite so, M'ria," interposed Mr. Hendren with marked urbanity.

"Now you quite understand," said Mother. "Mr. Thompson, I hold you responsible for this boy. You'll be good to him, and stand his friend, and teach him seafaring ways, and you'll see that nobody ill-uses him. You'll promise that now, Mr. Thompson. This boy's delicate, and as I say, he's already been knocked about so crool, he's frit of his own shadow."

Mr. Thompson promised with becoming solemnity that he would see no harm came to the boy. Thereupon he seemed to go up a little in Mother's estimation. Moreover, he suddenly took an odd fancy to Johnnie. He produced a foreign penny from his pea-jacket, offered it to Johnnie and asked him what he thought of it, and he seemed so gratified that Johnnie – who had about as much imagination as the leg of a chair – was not in the least afraid of him, that he told Johnnie to keep the penny, and then he fairly took away the breath of everybody, Mother included, by promising magnificently to bring Johnnie a parrot from the West Indies.

Even Mr. Elijah Hendren was impressed by this princely offer on the part of his kinsman by marriage.

"He's rough, o' course," whispered Mr. Elijah Hendren to the Foreman Shunter, "but he means it about the parrot. That's the kind o' man he is, although, mind you, I don't say he's polished."

Whatever doubts might have been entertained for the future of Henry Harper, the parrot somehow seemed to soften them. Even Mother felt that to express misgiving after that would be in bad taste. Mr. Thompson promised that he would see the old man in the course of the morrow, as the Margaret Carey had to sail on Friday, but he had no doubt it would be all right as they never minded a boy or two. And then the Foreman Shunter sent Johnnie to the end of the street for a quartern of rum, as there was only beer in the house, and that mild beverage was not the slightest use to a sailor.

Johnnie walked on air. At every shop window he came to he stopped to examine his foreign penny. But what was that in comparison with a real live parrot all the way from the West Indies? That night, Johnnie was the happiest boy in Kentish Town. He slept with the foreign penny under his pillow, and his dreams were of unparalleled magnificence.

And on the sofa in the kitchen below, tossed and dozed the unhappiest boy in Kentish Town. He had escaped the police by a miracle, he was quit of Auntie, he was free of the selling of matches, but tomorrow or the day after he was leaving the only friends he had ever known. As for the sea and Mr. Thompson and the Margaret Carey, there was some subtle but deadly instinct in him that had warned him already. There would be no Mother to wash him and bind his wounds, or to give him fried bacon and see that he came to no harm.

Twice he woke in the middle of the night, sweating with fear, and wildly calling her name.

IX

The next day it rained incessantly from morning till night, and there was just a faint hope in the boy's mind that it might prevent Mr. Thompson coming to fetch him. He clung desperately to this feeble straw, because it was the only one he had, but he was not such a fool as to think that Mr. Thompson was the kind of man who stays at home for the weather. Therefore it did not surprise him at all when he was solemnly told that evening about six o'clock, just after he had had his tea, that Mr. Thompson had come for him.