Читать книгу Martin of Old London - George Herbert Ely - Страница 8
ОглавлениеMARTIN’S PASSENGER
Martin spent all the next day in a fruitless search for work. Either no one wanted a boy, or the few that had places open would not engage a boy who had been dismissed for fighting.
In the evening, tired and dejected, Martin was walking homeward along the waterside. Glancing towards the stairs where he had seen Mr. Slocum embark on the foreigner’s boat, he noticed two small boys bending down over a boat that was moored to an iron ring. A third boy stood half-way up the stairs, evidently keeping watch.
While Martin was still some distance off, the two boys rose and ran up to their companion, smiling and pointing. Then all three climbed the remaining steps and darted away.
Martin could not help smiling at the mischievous little fellows. They had untied the painter, and set the boat adrift on the stream. It was now floating down on the swift-running tide.
By the time it came opposite Martin it was already a dozen yards from the shore. To his surprise he saw that it was not empty, as he had supposed. In the bottom lay a dark bearded man with a red cap and an orange jersey—the same man as Martin had seen at the same spot two or three days before. He was fast asleep, just as he had been then. Neither the action of the mischievous boys nor the motion of the stream had awakened him.
“Hi! hi!” shouted Martin, fearing that the man might come to grief if the boat struck against some larger vessel lower down.
But his cries did not awaken the sleeper, and Martin ran on to the stairs; there was usually a boat belonging to one of his watermen friends moored on the farther side; he would put off in her and catch up with the drifting boat before she came to harm. But there was no boat at hand.
“Well, never mind,” said Martin to himself. “I can’t help the sleepy-head. I dare say he’ll be seen from some wherry or lighter. How strange that he should be here again!”
He sat down with his back against the stone post, and idly watched the boat as it rapidly drifted downstream. In a few minutes two men came from behind the head of the stairs, and grumbled at the absence of the watermen. Then one appeared, rowing his wherry from the opposite shore. The men hailed him; he pulled in to the foot of the stairs, took on the impatient passengers, and rowed away again, towards the city.
The dusk was gathering, and Martin was about to rise and go home when he heard footsteps on the other side of him, and a voice say, angrily,
“The boat is not here!”
“I can’t wait,” said another voice, which Martin recognised at once as Mr. Slocum’s. Instinctively he drew farther back into the shadow of the post. “It would not be safe. You must hire a waterman.”
“There isn’t one to be seen,” said the first speaker. “There never is when you want one.”
“No doubt one will come in a minute or two,” said Mr. Slocum. “Good-night.”
The speaker had been hidden from Martin by the post. He heard Mr. Slocum hurry away; then the other man came in sight and walked down the steps. Under his arm he carried a small box.
“Old Slocum here again,” thought Martin. “It’s very strange.”
He was now so much interested that he decided to wait and see what happened. The man was tall and swarthy, with a big red nose, and a beard as black as the foreign seaman’s. As he sat on the stairs he muttered to himself.
After a while a heavily-laden wherry approached from upstream. It contained several passengers, laughing and singing noisily, and when they disembarked and mounted the stairs Martin saw that they carried baskets, and guessed that they were picknickers returning from a jaunt to Chelsea or Battersea. The waterman was Jack Boulter, a friend of his.
The waiting stranger called to Boulter, demanding to be taken to Deptford.
“Not me; not to-night,” said the waterman. “I’ve been out all day. I’m going home.”
“But you must take me, I say,” the stranger protested. He raised his voice, and Martin was surprised at a change in his accent. With Mr. Slocum he had spoken like an Englishman, but now his utterance was exactly that of a foreigner.
“What you say don’t matter,” returned Boulter, proceeding to tie up his boat. “I won’t stir out again for no man.”
The stranger began to plead and coax and threaten, but to all his excited words Boulter turned a deaf ear. Some impulse prompted Martin to rise and walk down to the bottom of the stairs.
“I say, Boulter, let me take him to Deptford,” he said.
“It’s you, young master,” said Boulter. “Well, you’ve rowed my wherry time and again, and I don’t mind if you do, so long as you promise to tie her up when you get back.”
“Ah! You are kind. You are a friend,” said the foreigner. He produced a shilling, and was handing it to Martin when Boulter reached forward and took the coin.
“Thank’ee,” he said. “Young master will take ’ee quite safe, and I’ll get along to the Pig and Whistle.”
In another minute Martin was pulling the wherry out into mid-stream. The passenger sat in silence upon the stern thwart, still grasping his box.
There was now little traffic on the river. Here and there near the banks barges were moored, and the spars of larger vessels were outlined against the glooming sky. Glancing frequently over his shoulder Martin steered a course clear of obstructions, and in no long time came within sight of the Deptford shipyards.
Presently the passenger, who had not spoken a word, motioned Martin to land him at a jetty jutting out from a quay along the wall of a house overhanging the river. It had the appearance of an empty warehouse.
Martin was pulling round when the man changed his mind.
“No, not there,” he said. “Beyond; farther: at the stairs of Deptford.”
Martin sculled on, feeling that there was something mysterious about his passenger. He seemed anxious, or excited.
The wherry was almost opposite to the Deptford stairs when a cry broke from the passenger’s lips. Martin glanced round, and saw a boat approaching swiftly. It contained a single man, pulling hard against the tide.
Martin’s passenger stood up, and shouted angrily a few words in a foreign tongue, which Martin could not understand. The man ceased rowing, and turned his head, and Martin recognised him as the foreign seaman whom he had seen a little while before asleep in the drifting craft. Next moment he swung his boat round and rowed rapidly towards the entrance of the repairing yard.
A few minutes later Martin landed his passenger at the foot of the stairs. The man seemed to be in too great a hurry even to thank him. He sped up the stairs and disappeared.
“I’ll have a little rest before I go back,” thought Martin.
He tied up the boat and strolled along by the edge of the repairing dock. Only one vessel lay there, a three-master brig without her mainmast, and it flashed into Martin’s memory that the waterman had told him of a Portugal ship that had come in for repairs.
“Is that a Portugal vessel?” he asked a man who was lounging near by.
“Ay, Portugal she is,” was the reply. “Dismasted by a Frenchman in the Channel. She’s not so foreign-looking as some Portugal ships I’ve seen, but her crew—why, bless your life, they’re as pretty a set of cut-throats as you’ve ever set eyes on.”
