Rivers of Ice by R. M. Ballantyne (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

much straighter if she stood up. She was wrapped in a large, warm shawl, and wore a high cap, which fitted so close round her little visage, that hair, if any, was undistinguishable.

The room in which she sat resembled the cabin of a ship in more respects than one. It was particularly low in the root so low that the seaman’s hair touched it as he stood there looking round him; and across this roof ran a great beam, from which hung a variety of curious ornaments, such as a Chinese lantern, a Turkish scimitar, a New Zealand club, an Eastern shield, and the model of a full-rigged ship. Elsewhere on the walls were, an ornamented dagger, a worsted-work sampler, a framed sheet of the flags of all nations, a sou’-wester cap and oiled coat, a telescope, and a small staring portrait of a sea-captain in his “go-to-meeting” clothes, which looked very much out of keeping with his staring sunburnt face, and were a bad fit. It might have been a good likeness, and was certainly the work of one who might have raised himself to the rank of a Royal Academician if he had possessed sufficient talent and who might have painted well if he had understood the principles of drawing and colour.

The windows of the apartment, of which there were two very small square ones, looked out upon the river, and, to some extent overhung it, so that a man of sanguine temperament might have enjoyed fishing from them, if he could have been content to catch live rats and dead cats. The prospect from these windows was, however, the best of them, being a wide reach of the noble river, crowded with its stately craft, and cut up by its ever-bustling steamers. But the most noteworthy part of this room, or “cabin,” was the space between the two windows immediately over the chimney-piece, which the eccentric old woman had covered with a large, and, in some cases, inappropriate assortment of objects, by way of ornament, each article being cleaned and polished to the highest possible condition of which it was susceptible. A group of five photographs of children—three girls and two boys, looking amazed—formed the centrepiece of the design; around these were five other photographs of three young ladies and two young gentlemen, looking conscious, but pleased. The spaces between these, and every available space around them, were occupied by pot-lids of various sizes, old and battered, but shining like little suns; small looking-glasses, also of various sizes, some square and others round; little strings of beads; heads of meerschaums that had been much used in former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll’s houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a host of other nick-nacks, for which it were impossible to find names or imagine uses. Everything—from the old woman’s cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble efforts to warm a little tea-kettle with a defiant spout—was scrupulously neat, and fresh, and clean, very much the reverse of what one might have expected to find in connection with a poverty-stricken population, a dirty lane, a filthy court, a rickety stair, and a dark passage. Possibly the cause might have been found in a large and much-worn family Bible, which lay on a small table in company with a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, at the old woman’s elbow.

On this scene the nautical man stood gazing, as we have said, with much interest; but he was too polite to gaze long.

“Your servant, missis,” he said with a somewhat clumsy bow.

“Good morning, sir,” said the little old woman, returning the bow with the air of one who had once seen better society than that of Grubb’s Court.

“Your name is Roby, I believe,” continued the seaman, advancing, and looking so large in comparison with the little room that he seemed almost to fill it.

The little old woman admitted that that was her name.

“My name,” said the seaman, “is Wopper, tho’ I’m oftener called Skipper, also Capp’n, by those who know me.”

Mrs Roby pointed to a chair and begged Captain Wopper to sit down, which he did after bestowing a somewhat pointed glance at the chair, as if to make sure that it could bear him.

“You was a nuss once, I’m told,” continued the seaman, looking steadily at Mrs Roby as he sat down.

“I was,” answered the old woman, glancing at the photographs over the chimney-piece, “in the same family for many years.”

“You’ll excuse me, ma’am,” continued the seaman, “if I appear something inquisitive, I want to make sure that I’ve boarded the right craft d’ee see—I mean, that you are the right ’ooman.”

A look of surprise, not unmingled with humour, beamed from Mrs Roby’s twinkling black eyes as she gazed steadily in the seaman’s face, but she made no other acknowledgment of his speech than a slight inclination of her head, which caused her tall cap to quiver. Captain Wopper, regarding this as a favourable sign, went on.

“You was once, ma’am, I’m told, before bein’ a nuss in the family of which you’ve made mention, a matron, or somethin’ o’ that sort, in a foundlin’ hospital—in your young days, ma’am?”

Again Mrs Roby admitted the charge, and demanded to know, “what then?”

“Ah, jus’ so—that’s what I’m comin’ to,” said Captain Wopper, drawing his large hand over his beard. “You was present in that hospital, ma’am, was you not, one dark November morning, when a porter-cask was left at the door by some person unknown, who cut his cable and cleared off before the door was opened,—which cask, havin’ on its head two X’s, and bein’ labelled, ‘This side up, with care,’ contained two healthy little babby boys?”

Mrs Roby, becoming suddenly grave and interested, again said, “I was.”

“Jus’ so,” continued the captain, “you seem to be the right craft—’ooman, I mean—that I’m in search of. These two boys, who were supposed to be brothers, because of their each havin’ a brown mole of exactly the same size and shape on their left arms, just below their elbows, were named ‘Stout,’ after the thing in which they was headed up, the one bein’ christened James, the other Willum?”

“Yes, yes,” replied the little old woman eagerly, “and a sweet lovely pair they was when the head of that barrel was took off, lookin’ out of the straw in which they was packed like two little cheruphims, though they did smell strong of the double X, and was a little elevated because of the fumes that ’ung about the wood. But how do you come to know all this, sir, and why do you ask?”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” replied the sailor with a smile, which curled up his huge moustache expressively,—“you shall know presently, but I must make quite sure that I’m aboard of—that is to say, that you are the right ’ooman. May I ask, ma’am, what became of these two cheruphims, as you’ve very properly named ’em?”

“Certainly,” answered Mrs Roby, “the elder boy—we considered him the elder, because he was the first took out of the barrel—was a stoodious lad, and clever. He got into a railway company, I believe, and became a rich man—married a lady, I’m told,—and changed his name to Stoutley, so ’tis said, not thinkin’ his right name suitable to his circumstances, which, to say truth, it wasn’t, because he was very thin. I’ve heard it said that his family was extravagant, and that he went to California to seek his brother, and look after some property, and died there, but I’m not rightly sure, for he was a close boy, and latterly I lost all knowledge of him and his family.”

“And the other cheruphim, Willum,” said the sailor, “what of him?”

“Ah!” exclaimed Mrs Roby, a flush suffusing her wrinkled countenance, while her black eyes twinkled more than usual, “he was a jewel, he was. They said in the hospital that he was a wild good-for-nothing boy, but I never thought him so. He was always fond of me—very fond of me, and I of him. It is true he could never settle to anythink, and at last ran away to sea, when about twelve year old; but he didn’t remain long at that either, for when he got to California, he left his ship, and was not heard of for a long time after that. I thought he was dead or drowned, but at last I got a letter from him, enclosing money, an’ saying he had been up at the noo gold-diggings, an’ had been lucky, dear boy, and he wanted to share his luck with me, an would never, never, forget me; but he didn’t need to send me money to prove that. He has continued to send me a little every year since then;—ah! it’s many, many years now,—ay, ay, many years.”

She sighed, and looked wistfully at the spark of fire in the grate that was making ineffectual attempts to boil the little tea-kettle with the defiant spout; “but why,” she continued, looking up suddenly, “why do you ask about him?”

“Because I knew him,” replied Captain Wopper, searching for something which appeared to be lost in the depths of one of his capacious pockets. “Willum Stout was a chum of mine. We worked together at the Californy gold-mines for many a year as partners, and, when at last we’d made what we thought enough, we gave it up an’ came down to San Francisco together, an’ set up a hotel, under the name of the ‘Jolly Tars,’ by Stout and Company. I was the Company, ma’am; an’, for the matter o’ that I may say I was the Stout too, for both of us answered to the Stout or the Company, accordin’ as we was addressed, d’ee see? When Company thought he’d made enough money to entitle him to a holiday, he came home, as you see; but before leavin’, Willum said to him, ‘Company, my lad, w’en you get home, you’ll go and see that old ’oom of the name of Roby, whom I’ve often told you about. She lives in Lunun, somewheres down by the river in a place called Grubb’s Court. She was very good to me, that old ’oom was, when she was young, as I’ve told you before. You go an’ give her my blessin’—Willum’s blessin’—and this here bag and that there letter.’ ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘Willum, I’ll do it, my boy, as soon as ever I set futt on British soil.’ I did set futt on British soil this morning, and there’s the letter; also the bag; so, you see, old lady, I’ve kep’ my promise.”

Captain Wopper concluded by placing a small but heavy canvas bag, and a much-soiled letter, in Mrs Roby’s lap.

To say that the little old woman seized the letter with eager delight, would convey but a faint idea of her feelings as she opened it with trembling hands, and read it with her bright black eyes.

She read it half aloud, mingled with commentary, as she proceeded, and once or twice came to a pause over an illegible word, on which occasions her visitor helped her to the word without looking at the letter. This circumstance struck her at last as somewhat singular, for she looked up suddenly, and said, “You appear, sir, to be familiar with the contents of my letter.”

“That’s true, ma’am,” replied Captain Wopper, who had been regarding the old woman with a benignant smile; “Willum read it to me before I left, a-purpose to enable me to translate the ill-made pot-hooks and hangers, because, d’ee see, we were more used to handlin’ the pick and shovel out there than the pen, an’ Willum used to say he never was much of a dab at a letter. He never wrote you very long ones, ma’am, I believe?”

Mrs Roby looked at the fire pensively, and said,