Читать книгу The Doomington Wanderer - Louis Golding - Страница 10

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It is some five years after the first meeting of Sailor Mason and Tom Molyneux. Tom’s total worldly possessions are stacked into one small straw basket which lies under the table in the saloon on the New York water-side. He has also a ticket for England in his trouser pocket. It is hard for Sailor Mason to give him up, but the time has at last come for Tom to set sail across the wide waters and make himself the world’s champion prize-fighter.

For that is what Sailor Mason has had in mind from the beginning, and has lost no opportunity of impressing upon him. “You are going to England, Tom. There’s a new champion now. Jem Belcher’s day is over. It’s another lad from Bristol; Tom Cribb is his name. But you’re worth ten Tom Cribbs, Tom my boy. Do you hear that? Get that into your thick skull—ten Tom Cribbs. You’re the best fighter the Lord God ever made, Tom, even though He sewed you up in a black skin. So you’re going to England, Tom, and you’ll beat this Cribb till he’s blacker than you are. And you’ll come back world’s champion. And we’ll build a great shack for you in the Bowery, and we’ll scoop up the dollars in great gold shovels!”

“And ah’ll have all de roast chicken I want?” asked Tom Molyneux. “Three times a day?”

“Ten times a day, if you want it!” Sailor Mason promised him generously.

And this is the last night before the sailing. There’s already a boxful of empty bottles on the table, and here’s another full one coming round.

“There’s one more thing you’ve got to bring back from England,” says Sailor Mason, leaning forward. His eyes are a little bloodshot already, and his speech is not so clear as it was. “I’ve waited till to-night to tell you, because I know you can’t carry too many ideas in that thick box of yours. Are you listening, you black lump of hog’s flesh?”

“Ah’m listenin’,” Tom assures him humbly.

He would have scattered the teeth of any other man in America who had dared to call him a black lump of hog’s flesh. But Sailor Mason was father and mother to him; he loved him dearly.

“There’s a state in England called Somerset. Say ‘Somerset.’ ”

“Somerset.”

“There’s a girl in Winfold named Mary Jane Spender. Say ‘Mary Jane Spender.’ ”

“Mary Jane Spender.”

“I love that girl more than anything in the world, Tom; even more than you, though I love you, too. And she loves me more than anything in the world. She lives in Winfold with her two brothers. She keeps house for them. She did five years ago. When you beat Tom Cribb you will go and find her.”

“But—s’pose she’s not dere, Joe?” Tom asked nervously.

Sailor Mason brought his glass down on the table and smashed it. The liquor ran about in runnels and lay about in pools.

“Then you won’t find her, you toad! You must go the length and breadth of England till you do find her. Wherever she is, she’s waiting for me. Find her, and whisper my name into her ear. Let no one else hear, or, by God, Tom——! She’s waiting for word from me. She’s been waiting all these years. She’ll get up and follow you though both her brothers should be dying in their beds. And you’ll go to Liverpool, or Bristol, or wherever it may be, and bring her to me. You hear, Tom? You’ll bring her to me!”

“Yes, Joe, sho’ ah will!”

“Swear you will, by the love of God!”

“By de love of God, ah sho’ will, Joe!”

“Then fill your glass again and pledge it! Hi, you nigger there, fetch me another glass! And another bottle!”

Another glass for the broken one, another bottle for the empty one, were set before them. Then suddenly Tom Molyneux gave tongue. His voice was excited and shrill as a small boy’s. An idea had, in fact, entered his head, without anyone helping it there, and that was a rare occurrence.

“Say, Joe,” he cried, “why don’ you come to England, too, and mebbe yuh can go and fetch her yo’self? Ah reckon sho’ she’d like dat, don’ you, Joe?”

Then suddenly Sailor Mason’s jaw dropped, as if something had gone wrong with the sinews. His face became pale as marsh-grass. He lifted his forefinger to his lips, and it trembled there like a leaf. “Hush! hush!” he whispered. He moved his chair nearer to Tom’s. “Bring your ear close, Tom. That’s right, Tom. Look round. See if anybody’s listening. No one? Are you sure? I’ll tell you why, Tom. I murdered a man on Bristol Quay the night before we sailed. I didn’t intend to kill him. Would I kill you? And he was white, Tom, like my own brother. We played together in Fishponds, by Bristol, when we were both so high. What should I kill him for?”

“Now, Joe, now, Joe!” It was queer to see that elephantine hand stroking the sailor’s shaggy mane as gently as any mother might stroke her child.

“We had some drink inside us,” the sailor went on, “and we had two or three words, and he lunged out at me, and I heaved back at him—no harder than this, Tom. And there he was, God help me, lying at my feet, dead as beef!”

“Come, Joe, don’ shiver so! Heah, let me fill yo’ glass again! Listen, Joe; ah wan’ you to listen! Ah can say it all off pat. Somerset. Winfold. Mary Jane Spender. Ah swear by God ah’ll find her for you and ah’ll ... Listen! Listen!”

But Sailor Mason was beyond listening. His head fell in upon his chest. Tom Molyneux shook him by the shoulder once or twice, then he let him be. His drunken snores ripped healthily along his palate.

Tom Molyneux stood over him for a minute or so, shaking his head from side to side like a huge black doll. Then he stooped and lifted his straw basket from under the table.

“Ah guess he’ll be all right again to-morrow, nigger!” he said haughtily to the dusky young gentleman by his side. “How much will all dat be? Thank yuh, nigger! And tek dis heah for yo’self!”

He rose and strode to the door, and out along the water-side to the dark ship; and, a few hours later, set sail for England, the winds there and the bare fields there, and the bare knuckles.