The Young Trawler by R. M. Ballantyne (i read books txt) 📖

Chapter Twenty. Details Two Robberies and an Awful Situation.

The attainment of Felicity is said to be the aim of all mankind. In order to this end, men in all ages have voluntarily submitted themselves to prolonged infelicity. They have toiled in daily pain and sorrow throughout a long life to attain at last, if possible, to the coveted condition. Some have pursued it in eager intensity, dancing and singing as they went. Others have rushed after it in mad determination, cursing and grumbling as they ran. Many have sought it in rapt contemplation of the Sublime and Beautiful. Thousands have grubbed and grovelled for it in the gratification or the drowning of the senses, while not a few have sought and found it in simple, loving submission to their Maker’s will, as made known by Conscience and Revelation.

Of all the varied methods, John Gunter, the fisherman, preferred the grub-and-grovelling method, and the favourite scene of his grovelling was a low grog-shop in one of the lower parts of Yarmouth.

It must be said, at this point, that Gunter was not considered by his mates as a regular out-and-out fisherman. He had never served his apprenticeship, but, being a powerful and sufficiently active seaman, was tolerated among them.

It is said that adversity makes strange bed-fellows. It is not less true that strong drink makes strange companions. Gunter’s shipmates having had more than enough of him on the sea were only too glad to get clear of him when on land. He therefore found himself obliged to look out for new companionships, for it is certain that man yearns after sympathy of some sort, and is not, under ordinary circumstances, content to be alone.

The new friends he sought were not difficult to find. In one of the darkest corners of the public-house referred to he found them—an accidental, group—consisting of an ex-clerk, an ex-parson, and a burglar, not “ex” as yet! They had met for the first time, yet, though widely separated as regards their training in life, they had found the sympathetic level of drink in that dingy corner. Of course, it need hardly be said that the first two had swung far out of their proper orbits before coming into harmonious contact with the last. Of course, also, no one of the three desired that his antecedents should be known. There was not much chance, indeed, that the former occupations of the clerk or the parson would be guessed at, for every scrap of respectability had long ago been washed out of them by drink, and their greasy coats, battered hats, dirty and ragged linen, were, if possible, lower in the scale of disreputability than the rough garments of the burglar.

The subject of their conversation was suitable to all ages and countries, to all kinds and conditions of men, for it was politics! A fine, healthy, flexible subject, so utterly incomprehensible to fuddled brains that it could be distended, contracted, inflated, elongated, and twisted to suit any circumstances or states of mind. And such grand scope too, for difference, or agreement of opinion.

Oh! it was pitiful to see the idiotic expressions of these fallen men as they sat bound together by a mutual thirst which each abhorred, yet loved, and which none could shake off. And there was something outrageously absurd too—yes, it is of no use attempting to shirk the fact—something intolerably funny in some of the gestures and tones with which they discussed the affairs of the nation.

“Hail fellow well met,” was the generous tendency of Gunter’s soul when ashore. Accosting the three in gruff off-hand tones with some such sentiment, he sat down beside them.

“Same to you, pal,” said the burglar, with a sinister glance at the new-comer from under his heavy brows.

“How do? ol’ salt!” exclaimed the clerk, who was by far the most tipsy of the three. “Come ’ere. We’ll make you r’free—umpire—to shettle zish d’shpute. Queshn is, whether it’s the dooty of the poor to help the rish—no, zhat’s not it. W–w’ether it’s dooty of rish to help the poor—what’s it—by sharin’ all they have with ’em or—”

“That’s not the question at all,” cried Gunter, gruffly—“the question is, what’ll you have to drink!”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the parson, “that is the question!”

“You’re a trump!” said the burglar.

“Well,” exclaimed the clerk, with a tremendous assumption of winking-dignity, “ishn’t zhat zactly what I was goin’ to shay, if you’d on’y listen. ‘What’ll you ’ave to drink!’ jus’ so. Now, if you want to argue it out properly, you’ll—”

He was checked and almost floored by a tremendous though facetious slap on the back from Gunter, who said that they wouldn’t argue it out; that they would drink it out first and argue it out afterwards.

In pursuance of this plan he called the landlord, and, ordering spirits and water, treated the assembled company all round—including a few bloated and wretched women, some of whom carried children in their arms.

Whatever of the ludicrous might have struck an observer of the scene, while listening to the above conversation, it would have been all put to flight by the sight of these poor women, and perchance by the thought that they had been brought up to that life; had never known better, and would never have a chance of knowing better, unless some exceptional rays of heavenly light should penetrate the dark region in which they lived. Praise be to God! such rays do visit such haunts at times, and brands are often plucked from the fire, but with these we have nothing to do at present. Our object just now is to trace the course of John Gunter.

You may be sure that one who spent his money so freely, and at the same time drank heavily, was not likely to escape the special attention of his new friend, the burglar. That worthy, besides being an expert in the heavier branches of his art, was not unacquainted with its lighter work. He watched the fisherman narrowly, observed in which pocket he kept his money, waited until he was sufficiently drunk for his purpose, and then picked his pockets at an engrossing moment, when the clerk was unfolding a perfect scheme of national reform to the parson, who, with eyes shut, and supposed to be listening intently, was in reality fast asleep.

His object accomplished, the burglar said he would go out, and have a look at the weather, which he did, and having quietly hidden his spoils he returned to report the weather “all right,” and to make quite sure that he had left nothing whatever in any of Gunter’s pockets. Having satisfied himself on this point he was about to retire to take a final look at the weather when Gunter said—“Hold on, mate; ’ave another glass.”

He felt in his pocket for the wherewith to pay for the drink, and missed his money. He was by no means as drunk as he appeared to be, and at once suspected his comrade.

“You’ve stole my blunt!” he shouted, without a moment’s hesitation.

“You’re a liar,” returned the burglar, promptly. Gunter was fierce by nature. He made no rejoinder, but struck a blow at the other which would have felled him had it taken effect. The burglar, however, was a pugilist. He evaded the blow, and returned it with such force that the fisherman staggered, but recovered himself, and grappled with his adversary.

In a moment all was uproar and confusion; benches were upset, spittoons kicked about, and pipes smashed, as the two powerful men swayed about, and tried fiercely to strangle each other. The women rushed screaming from the place; the landlord and his assistants interfered, but it was not until the police were called in that the combatants were separated. Then there occurred a violent scene of explanation, allegation, recrimination, and retort, during which the guardians of the peace attempted to throw oil on the troubled waters, for it is always their aim, we believe, to quiet down drunken uproars when possible rather than to take up the rioters.

As the burglar, with an injured, innocent look, denied the charge made against him, and turned all his pockets inside out in proof of his veracity, Gunter was fain to content himself with the supposition that he had lost his money in some incomprehensible manner.

In a very sulky mood he flung out of the public-house and sauntered away. He knew not where to go, for he had no friends in Yarmouth—at least none who would have welcomed him—and he had not wherewith to pay for a bed, even in the poorest lodging.

As he walked along, conscience began to smite him, but he was in no mood to listen to conscience. He silenced it, and at the same time called himself, with an oath, a big fool. There is no question that he was right, yet he would have denied the fact and fought any one else who should have ventured so to address him.

The evening was beginning to grow dark as he turned down one of the narrow and lonely rows.

Now, it so happened that this was one of the rows through which Ruth Dotropy had to pass on her way home.

Ruth was not naturally timid, but when she suddenly beheld a half-drunken man coming towards her, and observed that no one else was near, something like a flutter of anxiety agitated her breast. At the same moment something like a sledge-hammer blow smote the concave side of John Gunter’s bosom.

“She’s got more than she needs,” he growled between his teeth, “an’ I’ve got nothin’!”

As his conscience had been silenced this was a sufficient argument for John.

“I’ll thank you for a shillin’, Miss,” he said, confronting the now frightened girl after a hasty glance round.

“Oh! yes, yes—willingly,” gasped poor Ruth, fumbling in her pocket for her purse. The purse, however, chanced to have been left at home. “Oh, how provoking! I have not my purse with me, but if these few pence will—”

“Never mind the pence, Miss,” said Gunter,—accepting the pence; however, as he spoke—“that nice little watch will do jist as well.”

He snatched the watch which hung at Ruth’s waist-belt, snapped the slender guard that held it, and made off.

When sufficiently out of danger of pursuit, he paused under a lamp to examine his prize. To his intense disgust he found that the little watch, instead of being a gold one, as he had expected, was only a silver one, of comparatively little value.

“Well, your first haul in this line ain’t worth much,” he grumbled. “Hows’ever, I’ve got coppers enough for a night’s lodgin’ an’ grub.”

Saying which he pocketed the watch, and went on his way.

Meanwhile Ruth, having given vent to a sob of relief when the man left her, ran towards home as fast as she could, never pausing till she reached the Miss Seawards’ door, which chanced to be a little nearer than her own. Against this she plunged with wonderful violence for one so gentle and tender, and then hammered it with her knuckles in a way that would have done credit to a lightweight prize-fighter.

The door was opened hastily by Liffie Lee, who, being a much lighter weight than her assailant, went down before her rush.

“Lawk! Miss Ruth,” she exclaimed, on recovering her