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

But she asked the question of the empty air, for Ruth was already half sobbing, half laughing on the sofa, with a highly agitated sister on either side trying to calm her.

“Oh! what a little donkey I am,” she exclaimed, flinging off her bonnet and attempting to laugh.

“What has happened?” gasped Jessie.

“Do tell us, dear,” cried Kate.

“I—I’ve been robbed, by a—dreadful man—so awfully gruff, a sailor I think, and—oh!” Ruth became suddenly much calmer. “It did not occur to me till this moment—it is the watch—papa’s little silver watch that Captain Bream brought him as a sort of curiosity from abroad long ago. Oh! I am so sorry! It was such a favourite with dear papa, and he told me to take such care of it when he gave it to me, for there was a romantic little history connected with it.”

“What was it, dear?” asked Jessie, glad to find that the sudden diversion of her thoughts to the lost watch had done more to calm Ruth than all their demonstrative comfort.

Ruth at once proceeded to relate the story of the watch, but we will not inflict it on the reader, as it has no particular bearing on our tale. It had something to do, however, with detaining Ruth far later than she had intended to remain, so that she jumped up hastily at last, saying she must really go home.

“Are you sure the robber was a sailor?” asked Kate; “sailors are such dear nice men that I can hardly believe it.”

“I’m almost quite sure,” returned Ruth; “at all events he was dressed like one—and, oh! he was so gruff!”

From this point Ruth diverged into further and more minute details of the robbery, over which the three gloated with a species of fascination which is more frequently associated with ghost stories than true tales. Indeed we may say that four gloated over it, for Liffie Lee, unable to restrain her curiosity, put her head in at the door—at first with the more or less honest intention of asking if “hany think was wanted,” and afterwards let her head remain from sheer inability to withdraw it.

At one point in the thrilling narrative she became intensely excited, and when Ruth tried in sepulchral tones to imitate John Gunter’s gruff voice, she exclaimed, “Oh! lawks!” in such a gasp that the three ladies leaped up with three shrieks like three conscience-smitten kittens caught in a guilty act! Liffie was rebuked, but from pity, or perhaps sympathy, was allowed to remain to hear the end.

When that point was reached, it was found to be so late that the streets were almost deserted, and the particular part in which their lodging stood was dreadfully silent.

“How am I ever to get home?” asked Ruth.

“It is not more than twenty doors off,” said Kate, “and Liffie will go with you.”

“Lawks, ma’am,” said Liffie, “what could the likes o’ me do if we was attacked? An’ then—I should ’ave to return alone!”

“That is true,” said the tender-hearted Jessie; “what is to be done? Our landlady goes to bed early. It would never do to rouse her—and then, she may perhaps be as great a coward as we are. Oh! if there was only a man in the house. Even a boy would do.”

“Ah! I jist think ’e would,” said Liffie. “If little Billy was ’ere, I wouldn’t ax for no man.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Kate with a bright look of decision, “we’ll all go together. Get on your bonnet, Jessie.”

There was no resisting Kate when once she had made up her mind. She put on her own bonnet, and her sister quickly returned ready, “with a heart,” as Byron says, “for any fate?”

“Now don’t speak, any of you,” whispered Kate. “If we are attacked, let us give a united shriek. That will raise some one to our aid.”

“I should think it would, ma’am. It would a’most raise the dead,” said Liffie, who also prepared herself for the ordeal.

Dark and deserted streets at late hours, with dangerous characters known to be abroad, have terrors to some small extent, even for the averagely brave; what must they have, then, for those tender ones of the weaker sex whose spirits are gentle, perhaps timid, and whose nerves have been highly strung by much converse on subjects relating to violence?

The first shock experienced by our quartette was caused by the door. From some inscrutable impulse Liffie Lee had locked it after Ruth had rushed in.

“Open it gently,” whispered Jessie, for the party had now got to the condition of feeling very much as if they were themselves burglars, engaged in some unholy enterprise, and feared to arouse sleepers. But they need not have feared, for their landlady was one of the “seven sleepers” of Yarmouth.

Liffie exerted her little strength with caution, but the lock was stiff; it would not move. She screwed up her mouth, and put-to more strength; still it would not move. Screwing up her eyebrows as well as her mouth, she tried again. It would not budge. She even screwed up her nose in a stupendous effort, but all in vain. If there had been no need for caution, the thing would have been easy, but Jessie kept whispering, “Softly, Liffie, softly!” and Ruth echoed “Softly!” At last Liffie screwed herself up entirely, body and soul, in one supreme effort; she agonised with the key. It yielded, and the bolt flew back with a crack like a pistol-shot.

“Oh!” burst in four different keys—not door-keys—from the party—under their breath however.

“Open,” whispered Jessie.

Liffie obeyed, and when the half-opened door revealed intense darkness outside, a feeling of horror caused their very flesh to creep.

“How I wish I hadn’t stayed! I’ll never do it again!” whispered poor Ruth in the tones of a child about to be punished.

“What’s that!” exclaimed Jessie, with a start that caused Ruth almost to shriek.

“Cats!” said Liffie Lee.

“Impossible!” said Kate.

But it was not impossible, for there, in a corner not far off, were dimly seen two intensely black objects, with backs and tails arranged on the moorish-arch principle, and a species of low thunder issuing from them, suggestive of dynamite in the stomach.

Relieved to find it was nothing worse, the party emerged into the street. The cats were too much enraged and engaged with each other to observe them. They, like the ladies, were evidently cowards, for they continued to threaten without attacking.

Liffie was left on guard with strict injunctions to stand inside, hold tight to the door-handle, let in the returning sisters, and then slam the door in the face of all the world beside.

A run was now made for the Dotropy residence. We could not call it a rush, for the three ladies were too light and elegant in form to proceed in such a manner. They tripped it—if we may say so—on light fantastic toe, though with something of unseemly haste. Ruth being young and active reached the door first, and, as before, went with a rebounding bang against it. The anxious Mrs Dotropy had been for some time on the watch. She opened the door.

“Ruth!”

“Mamma!”

“Your daughter!” exclaimed the Miss Seawards in needless explanation, as they pushed her in, and then, turning round, fled homeward with so much noise that the attention of a night watchman was naturally attracted. The sisters heard his approaching foot-falls. They put on, in sporting language, a spurt. Just as the door was reached the two cats, becoming suddenly brave, filled the night-air with yells as of infants in agony. An irrepressible shriek burst from the sisters as they tripped over each other into the passage, and the faithful Liffie slammed the door in the face of the discomfited policeman.

It was a crucial test of friendship, and the Miss Seawards came to the conclusion that night, before retiring to rest, that nothing on earth would ever induce them to do it again.