Читать книгу Workhouse Characters, and other sketches of the life of the poor - Margaret Wynne Nevinson - Страница 6

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I will go back to the great sweet mother,

Mother and lover of men, the sea.

The Master of the Casual Ward rattled his keys pompously in the lock of the high workhouse gates, and the shivering tramps entered the yard, a battered and footsore procession of this world's failures, the outcast and down-trodden in the fierce struggle for existence. Some of them were young and strong, some old and feeble, all wan and white with hunger and the chill of the November fog which wrapped like a wet blanket round their ill-clothed bodies. Amongst them was an old man with ear-rings, and thick, curly white hair, with broad shoulders and rolling gait, and as he passed I seemed to feel the salt wind of the sea blowing in my face, and the plunge of the good ship in the billows of the bay. One by one the master shut them up in the dreary little cell where each man is locked for thirty-six hours on a dietary of porridge, cheese, and bread, and ten hours' work a day at stone-breaking or fibre-picking. And yet the men walk in with something approaching relief on their weary faces; the hot bath will restore circulation; and really to appreciate a bed one should wander the streets through a winter's night, or "lodge with Miss Green" as they term sleeping on the heath.

Half an hour later, as I sat in one of the sick-wards, I felt once again the salt freshness of the air above the iodoform and carbolic, and lying on the ambulance I saw the curly white head of the old sailor, his face blanched under its tan.

"Fainted in the bath, no food for three days; we get them in sometimes like that from the Casual Ward. Wait a moment till I put the pillow straight," said the nurse, as quickly and deftly she raised the hoary head, which has been called a crown of glory.

A few weeks later I passed through the ward, and saw the old man still lying in bed; his sleeves were rolled up, and his nightshirt loose at the throat, and I saw his arms and chest tattooed gorgeously with ships and anchors and flags, with hearts and hands and the red dragon of Wales.

"He's been very bad," said the nurse; "bronchitis and great weakness—been starving for weeks, the doctor thinks. Talks English all right when his temperature is down, but raves to himself in a sort of double-Dutch no one can understand, though we have French and Germans and Russians in the ward."

"Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, paham y'm gadewaist?" cried the old man, and I recognized the cry from the Cross, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

"Oh! lady," he exclaimed as I sat down beside him—"oh! lady, get me out of this. My mates tell me as I'm in the workhouse, and if my old mother knew it would kill her—it would, indeed. Yes, lady, I follow the sea—went off with my old dad when I was eight year old; we sailed our old ship Pollybach for wellnigh forty years; and then she foundered off Bushy Island Reef, Torres Straits, and we lost nearly all we had. After that I've sailed with Captain Jones, of the Highflyer, as first mate; but now he's dead I can't get a job nohow. I'm too old, and I've lost my left hand; some tackle got loose in a storm and fell upon it, and though the hook is wonderful handy, they won't enter me any more as an A.B.

"I'm a skipper of the ancient time—a Chantey-man and a fiddler. I can navigate, checking the chronometer by lunar observation. I can rig a ship from rail to truck; I can reef, hand-steer, and set and take in a top-mast studding sail; and I can show the young fools how to use a marlin-spike. Yes, indeed! But all this is no good now.

"I came up to London to find an old shipmate—Hugh Pugh. We sailed together fifty years ago, but he left the sea when he got married and started in the milk business in London. We was always good mates, and he said to me not long ago, down in Wales, that the Lord had prospered him, and that I was to turn to him in any trouble. So when my skipper died I remembered me of Hugh Pugh, and slung my bundle to come and find him. Folks was wonderful kind to me along the road, and I sailed along in fair weather till I got to London; and then I was fair frightened; navigation is very difficult along the streets—the craft's too crowded—and folks were shocking hard and unkind. I cruised about for a long time, but London's a bigger place than I thought, knowing only the docks; and David Evans doesn't seem to have got the address quite ship-shape, and I just drifted and lost faith. Somehow it's harder to trust the Lord in London than on the high seas. Then the mates tell me I fainted and was brought into the ship's hospital; and here I've lain, a-coughing, and a-burning, and a-shivering, with queer tunes a-playing in my head; couldn't remember the English, they say, and talked only Welsh; and they thought I was a Dutchman. This morning I felt a sight better, and though the nurse told me not to get up, I just tried to put on my clothes and go; but blowed if my legs didn't behave shocking—rolled to larboard, rolled to starboard, and then pitched me headlong, so that I thought I'd shivered all my timbers. So I suppose I must lie at anchor a bit longer; my legs will never stand the homeward voyage, they're that rotten and barnacled; but I'll never get better here; what I'm sickening for is the sea—the sight of her, and the smell of her, and the noise of the waves round the helm; she and me's never been parted before for more than two days, and I'm as sick for her as a man for his lass. Oh, dear! oh, dear! If I could only find Hugh Pugh——"

I suggested that there was a penny post. "Yes, lady; but, to tell the truth, I haven't got a stamp, nor yet a penny; and David Evans hasn't got the address ship-shape. The policeman laughed in my face when I asked him where Hugh Pugh lived, and said I must get it writ down better than that for London." Out of his locker he drew a Welsh Testament containing a piece of tobacco-stained paper, on which was written—

Hugh Pugh, Master Mariner, now Dairyman;

In a big house in a South-Eastern Road,

Off the North-road, out of London, Nor-East by Nor.

Fortunately, Hugh Pugh is not a common name—a visit to the library, a search in the trade directory, and a telephonic communication saved all further cruising.

A couple of days later I got a letter from Hugh Pugh—

Dear Madam,

I thank you for your communication with regard to my old friend and shipmate, Joshua Howell, of whom I had lost sight. I am glad to say I am in a position to find him some work at once, having given up my London business to my sons, and taken a house down by the sea. I am in want of a good waterman to manage a ferryboat over the river and to take charge of a small yacht, and I know that I can trust old Joshua with one hand better than most men with two. There is a cottage on the shore where he can live with his mother; and tell him we shall all be delighted to welcome an old friend and shipmate. My daughter is coming down here shortly with her children, and will be very glad for Joshua to travel with her; she will call and make arrangements for him to go to her house as soon as he is well enough to be moved. I enclose £5 for clothes or any immediate expenses, and am sorry that my old friend has been through such privations. As to any expenses for his keep at the infirmary, I will hold myself responsible.

Yours faithfully,

Hugh Pugh.

Llanrhywmawr, December 6.

A Welsh letter was enclosed for the old sailor, over which he pored with tears of joy running down his cheeks.

A few days later Hugh Pugh's daughter's motor throbbed at the door of the workhouse, and the old tar rolled round shaking hands vigorously with the mates: "Good-bye; good-bye, maties; the Lord has brought me out of the stormy waters, and it's smooth sailing now. He'll do the same for you, mates, if you trust Him."

Then the door closed, and the fresh breeze dropped, and it seemed as if the ward grew dark and grey.