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Volume Two – Chapter Two.
Hopper – Ship’s Husband
“Halloa, you sir!” said a snarling voice; “mind where you’re running to.”
“Beg pardon! Halloa, Mr Hopper, is it you?” exclaimed Tom.
“Eh? What? Yes, it is me, you rough, ill-mannered cub. Tom Fraser, if you were my son, hang it, sir, I’d thrash you, sir – trying to knock down a respectable wayfarer who is getting old and infirm.”
The speaker shook the ugly stick he carried at the young man as he spoke, and his great massive head, with its unkempt grizzled hair and untended beard and whiskers, looked anything but pleasant; for from beneath his shaggy, overhanging brows his eyes seemed to flash again.
“I didn’t try to knock you down,” shouted Tom, putting his face close to that of the old fellow, who looked as if his seventy years had been spent in gathering dirt more than in cleaning it off.
“Don’t shout. I’m not so deaf as all that, you ugly ruffian. Pick up those boots.”
Tom stooped, and picked up a very old pair of unpolished boots that the other had been carrying beneath his arm, and had let fall on the pavement in the collision.
“There you are, Mr Hopper, and I beg your pardon, and I’m very sorry,” said Tom, smiling pleasantly. “There you are,” he continued, tucking the boots under his arm. “It’s all right now.”
“What are you halloaing like that for, you ugly young bull-calf?” snarled the old fellow, shaking his stick. “Do you think I want all the people in the Buildings to come out and listen? Don’t I tell you I’m not so deaf as all that, hang you? What are you going to do with that girl?”
“Only going down into the City,” replied Tom.
“Hey?” said the old fellow.
“City!” shouted Tom.
“Oh! Does your father know you’re going with her?” cried the old fellow, with a malevolent grin beginning to overspread his countenance.
“No,” said Tom, flushing slightly; while Jessie began to look troubled.
“Hey?”
“No!” shouted Tom.
“Does her father know you’ve come?” said the old fellow, pointing at Jessie with his stick.
“No!” said Tom stoutly, and beginning to grow indignant.
“Then,” continued the old man, chuckling, and rubbing his hands together, and dropping first his stick and then his boots, which Jessie hastened to pick up, “I’ll go and see Mr Shingle to-night, and tell him; and I’ll wait here till Richard Shingle comes home, and I’ll tell him; and there’ll be the devilishest devil of a row about it that ever was. You’ve no business here, and you know it, you scoundrel. She isn’t good enough for you. You’re to marry the fair Violante – the violent girl. There’ll be a storm for you to-night, young fellow; so look out.”
“I’ll trouble you to mind your own business, Mr Hopper,” exclaimed Tom hotly.
“Hey?” said the old fellow, holding a boot up to his right ear, like a speaking trumpet.
“I say, if you get interfering with my affairs, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom angrily, and paying no heed to a whispered remonstrance from Jessie, “I’ll – ”
“I can’t hear a word you say: try the right side.”
As he spoke, he held the other boot to his left ear, and leaned forward in an irritating manner, grinning the while at the speaker.
“I say that if you dare to – ”
“Tchsh! I can’t hear a word if you mumble like that. Oh, be off with you: I’ve got no time to waste. I’m seventy, and if I’m lucky I’ve got ten years to live. You’re five-and-twenty, and got fifty-five, so you are wasteful of your time, and spend it in running after girls who don’t want you – like your beautiful brother Fred. Bless him! if I had any money to leave I’d put him down in my will for it – an artful, designing scoundrel!”
“Look here, Mr Hopper,” cried Tom hotly, “you can abuse me as much as you like, and tell tales as much as you like, and play the sneak; but because you’ve known me from a child I won’t stand here and hear my brother maligned.”
“There, it’s no use, I can’t hear a word you say,” grumbled the old fellow; “but it don’t matter, – I can see by your manner that you are abusing a poor helpless old man, the friend of your mother and that girl’s father, and you are keeping her back, so that she’ll be late with her parcel, and make her lose the work, and then you’ll be happy.”
“Confound – ” began Tom. “Here, come along, Jessie,” he cried, snatching her arm through his; and the old man stood chuckling to himself as he watched them out through the tunnel, before he made for the door with the red sign, and giving a sharp rap with his stick entered at once, nodding quietly at Mrs Shingle.
“Here, I’ve brought Dick a job,” he said, carrying the old pair of boots to the bench. “He’s to do them directly, and they’re to be sixpence – I won’t pay another penny. Are you listening?”
Mrs Shingle nodded, and went on with her work.
“He’s to put a good big corn on the last of the left-hand foot, and then cut away the leather, well beat a patch and put it on. My left foot hurts me horrid.”
“You ought to have a new pair,” said Mrs Shingle.
“Hey?”
“You ought to have a new pair,” she continued, a trifle more loudly.
“Have a new pair?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Bah! How can I afford a new pair? Times are hard. Ships’ husbands don’t make money like they used. New pair, indeed! They’re good enough for me. Tell him to mend ’em well, and they are to be sixpence, d’yer hear?” Mrs Shingle nodded, with her silk in her mouth, gave it a twang, and went on.
“You’ll break your teeth one of these days,” said the old fellow, taking off his hat, placing it on his stick, and standing it in a corner. Then, going in a slow, bent way to the well waxed and polished Windsor chair, he gave the chintz cushion a punch, took a long clay pipe off the chimney-piece, made it chirrup, reached an old leaden tobacco-box from the same place, set it up on the table, and sat down.
“My teeth are used to it,” said Mrs Shingle, smiling pleasantly, as if she were quite accustomed to the old fellow’s proceedings.
“Hey?”
“I say my teeth are used to it,” repeated Mrs Shingle.
“Oh! – Don’t shout. – I say, this tobacco’s as dry as a chip,” he continued, filling his pipe.
Mrs Shingle sighed.
“Dick’s been going it awfully,” grumbled the old fellow; “there was nearly half an ounce here last night.”
Mrs Shingle rose, took the matches from the chimney-piece, struck a light, and held it to the bowl of the pipe; the visitor puffed the tobacco into a state of incandescence, and then subsided into his chair with a satisfied grunt, and sat staring straight before him, while Mrs Shingle sighed and went on with her stitching.
“I met those two,” said the old fellow, after a pause.
Mrs Shingle looked up sharply.
“Won’t do,” said her visitor.
“What won’t do?”
“Hey?”
“I say, what won’t do?” said Mrs Shingle, colouring, and looking at him anxiously.
“I can hear you – don’t shout,” said the old fellow. “I say that won’t do. Has Tom been here much?”
“No, not much,” said Mrs Shingle.
“I don’t quite understand Tom,” said the old fellow. “But I think he’s a scamp.”
“Indeed, I’m sure he’s not!” cried Mrs Shingle excitedly. “Sure he’s not?” chuckled the old fellow. “Of course. Just like you women. You take a fancy to a man, and the blacker he is the more you say he’s white.”
“I’m sure Tom is a very good, gentlemanly young fellow.”
“Of course. But it won’t do, Polly – it won’t do.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t do,” said Mrs Shingle, tossing her head. “They’re both young and nice-looking.”
“Bah! will that fill their insides?”
“And they’re getting very fond of each other.”
“More shame for you to let ’em,” said the old man composedly. And his eyes twinkled with malicious glee as he saw the little woman begin to grow ruffled, like a mother hen, and the colour come into her wattles and comb.
“And pray why?” said Mrs Shingle loudly.
“Don’t shout,” said the old fellow. “Why, indeed! What will Max say when he knows of it?”
“Ah!” sighed Mrs Shingle, “what indeed!”
“He’ll boil over in his confounded sanctified way, and kick Tom out of the house without a shilling of his mother’s money.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs Shingle, letting her work fall into her lap and wringing her hands; “that’s what I’ve been thinking, and I’ve tried all I could to stop it; but the more I try, the fonder they get of one another.”
“Of course they do. That’s their way – the young fools!” snarled the visitor; “and if you let ’em alone, Jessie will marry the young noodle, fill his house full of children, and make him a poor man all his life.”
“That wouldn’t matter much if they were happy,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“Same as you’ve kept poor old Dicky?”
“Indeed! and we never had but one little one,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Hey?”
“I say we never had but one little one – Jessie,” said Mrs Shingle indignantly.
“Gross piece of extravagance, too. You couldn’t afford children.”
“No, indeed,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“And now you’re encouraging that pretty young baggage, who coaxes and carneys round you, to get herself in the same mess, and then you’ll be happy.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear me! I wish I knew what to do,” sighed Mrs Shingle.
“What to do!” chorused the old fellow. “No business to have married. I didn’t, and I’ve saved just enough to live on with strict economy; and see how happy I am.”
“You don’t seem to be,” said Mrs Shingle tartly; “for you’re always finding fault.”
“Finding fault?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Makes me happy. Then I come and smoke a pipe here one day, and one at Max’s another day; and you’re both so glad to see me that that makes me happy too. Ha! you’ve spoiled that girl of yours, or she wouldn’t go on like she does.”
“I’m sure Jessie couldn’t |be a better behaved girl!” exclaimed Mrs Shingle.
“Stuff! You never whipped her well, and Max never trained those boys. Good thing flogging! Makes the skin soft and elastic. Gives room to grow. Where’s Dick?”
“Gone to his brother’s.”
“Gone to his brother’s?”
Mrs Shingle nodded.
“What’s he gone there for?”
“Take home a pair of new boots.”
“What! did Max give Dick an order for a new pair?” Mrs Shingle nodded.
“Wonderful! Max is getting more virtuous than ever. I’ll praise him next time I go.”
“No, don’t – please,” said Mrs Shingle earnestly. “Every little does help so just now; and we can’t afford to offend Max.”
“So you make traps, and put Jessie in for a bait, and try to catch his wife’s two boys, eh?”
“Indeed I did not,” cried Mrs Shingle; “it was all Tom’s own doing.”
“Ah, I dare say it was; but young Fred’s always hanging about here too; and as soon as-ever Max hears of it, there will be no end of a row. I shall put him on his guard.”
“Pray say nothing!” cried Mrs Shingle imploringly. “Why not? Best for both the young noodles to be brought to their senses.”
“No, no; it would make them so unhappy. Let matters take their course. It will be quite time enough for the trouble to come when Maximilian finds it out for himself. Hush! here’s Dick.”
“Hulloa! What’s that? The old game. Woman all over. Keeping secrets from your husband. Glad I never married!”
Mrs Shingle darted an indignant look at him, and no doubt a sharp retort was on her lips; but it was checked by a voice outside, and Richard Shingle, the occupier of the house, the mechanic who made boots and shoes and neatly executed repairs, entered the room, followed by his boy, with “Hallo, Hoppy, old man, how are you? Glad to see you. Too soon for the B flat yet; but you stop all day, and we’ll polish that bit off to rights.”
“How are you, Dick – how are you?” said the old man quietly. And then refilling his pipe, he lit up, half turned his back, and seemed to ignore that which followed, and to be totally ignored, on account of his deafness.
Richard Shingle was not an ill-looking man of forty; but he had a rather weak, vacillating expression of countenance, over which predominated a curious, puzzled look, which was due to something you could not make out. One moment you felt sure it was his eyes, but the next you said decidedly it was his mouth, while just as likely you set it down to his fair hair or his rather hollow cheeks, or the turn of his chin. The fact was, it was due to all his features, his figure, and his every attitude; for Richard Shingle, as he stood before you, seemed as if he had just taken you by the button-hole and said in full sincerity, as applied to the general scheme of life and man’s position on earth: “I say, what does it all mean?”
For he was one of those men who had never “got on.” He said he wanted to get on, and he worked very hard; but the world was too much for him, and he was always left behind. If he had lived at the equator, where it is hot, and man naturally feels inert, while the world races round at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, it is only natural to suppose that he might have been left behind; but it would have been just the same if Richard Shingle’s existence had been upon the very Pole itself, north or south, where he would only have been called upon to turn once round in twenty-four hours. As he lived in that part of the temperate zone known as Islington, where the medium rate of progress is in force, it remained then, that not only could poor Dick never get ahead, but was always, in spite of his misplaced efforts, getting a little more and a little more behind.
And yet he looked a sharp, animated man, full of action, as on this occasion, when he turned to his wife with “Well, mother, here we are again, boots and all!”
“But you’ve not brought them back again, Dick?” said Mrs Shingle, looking anxiously up from her work.
“What do you call that, then?” said Dick, taking a blue bag from the doleful-looking, thin, white-faced boy with very short hair, and turning the receptacle upside down, so that the contents fell out on the floor with a bang.
“Oh, Dick!”
“He said they were the wussest-made pair of boots he ever see. After all the pains as I took with ’em,” said the speaker, gloomily picking up the freshly polished leather, and examining it.
“Oh, Dick – how tiresome!”
“And swore he couldn’t get his feet into ’em, – leastwise,” he added correctively, “he didn’t swear – Max is too good to swear – he said as he couldn’t get his feet in ’em.”
“Tut – tut – tut!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle, stitching away at her work.
“He blowed me up fine; said I wasn’t fit to shoe a horse, let alone a Christian man. When – look at ’em. Did you ever see a prettier pair – eh, Hoppy?” he shouted.
The old man glanced at the boots and grunted, turning away again directly.
“Look at ’em, mother – rights and lefts, and the soles polished off smooth; and see how prettily they put out their tongues at you, all lined with a bit o’ scarlet basil. Called me a cobbler, too, he did; and after laying myself out on the artistic tack, so as to get his future patronage, and that of Mrs S.’s two boys.”
“Oh, Dick, Dick!”
“Yes, it is ‘Oh, Dick, Dick!’ Bad, too, as we want the money. Wouldn’t fit you, I suppose, Hoppy?”
“Hey?”
“I say they wouldn’t fit you, would they? You should have ’em cheap.”
“Bah, no! I couldn’t wear boots like these. Couldn’t afford it – couldn’t afford it. There’s a pair for you to mend.”
“All right, old man – all right; I’ll do ’em. Of course they wouldn’t do for you,” he continued; “bad, too, as we want the money. Said it was what always came of employing relatives; but he did it out of charitable feeling – so as to give me a lift. Called me a bungler, too, when, look here, mother, how nicely I made a little mountain on that side to hold his bunion, and a little Greenwich-hill on that side to accommodate his favourite corn. That’s working for relations, that is. Dressed up a bit, too, this morning to take ’em home, so as not to disgrace him by looking too shabby, and made Union Jack walk behind to carry the blue bag, same as if I was a sooperior kind of tradesman, and his servants shouldn’t look down on me. Said I was Mr Richard Shingle, too, when the maid opened the door. But it was all no go. Another of my failures, old gal. Tell you what it is, mother, it’ll be what the drapers call a terrific crash if it goes on like this.”
“But, Dick dear, you don’t mean that he won’t have the boots at all?”
“That’s just what I do mean. He’s shied ’em on my hands. ’Taint as if he’d shied ’em on my feet.”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle. “Dear!” said Dick, trying to raise a feeble laugh. “That’s just what they are. I can’t afford to wear a pair of handsome boots like them. Only look at ’em. Leather cost me nine shillings before I put in a stitch.”
“I declare, it’s too bad, Dick,” whimpered Mrs Shingle; “and us so badly off too. Brother, indeed! He’s worse than – ”
“There, that’ll do,” said Dick, taking off his coat, “Don’t you get letting on about him, mother, because he is my brother, you know. Blood is thicker than water.”
“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it, Dick, if it’s ten times as thick,” said Mrs Shingle, stabbing away at her boot-binding as if the kid leather were Maximilian Shingle’s skin.
“No, you don’t,” said Dick, rolling up his sleeves, and tying on his leather apron, before going to the chimney glass, and putting a piece of ribbon round his rather long hair, apparently to embellish his countenance, but really to keep the locks out of his eyes when he bent down over his work. “No, mother; that’s because you’re put out, and cross, and won’t see it; but blood is thicker than water, ain’t it, Hoppy?”
“Hey?” said the old fellow, taking his pipe out of his mouth.
“I say blood is thicker than water, ain’t it?”
“Ever so much,” growled the old fellow, going on with his smoking; while Dick, glancing over his shoulder, and seeing that his wife’s attention was taken up with the binding, slipped a half-ounce packet of tobacco into his old friend’s hand, with a nod and a wink, to indicate that the strictest secrecy must be observed.
“Yes,” continued Dick, retiring towards his bench; “that’s what I always say – brothers is brothers, and blood’s thicker than water. And as to Max – well, it’s a way he’s got, and he can’t help it.”
“Stuff!” ejaculated Mrs Shingle sharply.
“No, no, mother, it ain’t stuff neither; so don’t talk like that. Here, you sir,” he cried to the boy, who was standing staring from one to the other, “get to work, you luxurious young rascal. That ain’t the way to improve your shining hours. Wax up and get ready a pair of fine points to mend them old shoes.”
“All right, master,” said the boy. And, slipping off his threadbare jacket, he sat down on a stool, and began to unwind a ball of hemp.
“I don’t believe in such brothers,” said Mrs Shingle bitterly. “Brothers, indeed!”
“No, that’s it, mother; it’s because you are a bit put out. But you’ll see it in the right light soon.”
“Ah!” he continued, rearranging the band round his forehead; and then, catching sight of a letter tucked behind the glass, “Now, if old Uncle Rounce’s money – or present, as he calls it – would drop in now, it would be welcome.”
As he spoke he opened the often-perused letter, which was written on thin paper and bore Australian postmarks, and began to read aloud:
”‘Thinking that a little money might be useful, I have sent you a present’ – and so on. Now, I wonder when that money’s coming.”
“Never,” said Mrs Shingle tartly.
“Now, there’s where you are so wrong, mother,” said Dick. “It’s very kind of the old fellow, who must have got on famously to be able to send us a few pounds – it’s sure to be pounds when it does come.”
“And it won’t never come,” said Mrs Shingle; “for you’ve had that letter nine months.”
“Well, if it don’t, mother, it don’t – that’s all; but what I say is, blood is thicker than water, or else old Uncle Eb – as I never see, only heard o – wouldn’t have said he’d send me a present – would he, Hoppy?”
“Hey?”
“I say Uncle Rounce wouldn’t have said he’d send me a present if blood warn’t thicker than water.”
“No. Have you got it yet?” said the old fellow.
“No, not yet. I asked Max about it, and he said he didn’t believe it would come.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Yes, he said that,” replied Dick, doubling the letter again, and replacing it behind the old looking-glass. “I dessay it’ll come, though, some day.”
“You had better try and sell those boots at once,” said Mrs Shingle rather impatiently, and as if she had not much faith in the coming money.
“Sell ’em? Yes; but who’s to buy ’em? There’s only two feet in London as will fit ’em, and they’re Max’s.”
“I declare it’s too bad, Dick dear, and we so pressed for money. The rent’s due, you know. Rolling in riches, as he is, and to behave so to his poor brother, who works so hard.”
“Gently, mother, gently: it’s only a way he’s got. But I do work pretty hard, don’t I? – only I’m so unlucky.”
“Why don’t you make a good dash at something, instead of plodding, then?” said Hopper suddenly.
“Come, now,” cried Dick, with an ill-used look and tone, “don’t you turn round on me, Hoppy, old man. We’re too good friends for that. It’s what Max always says; and I ain’t clever, so how can I?”
Hopper relapsed into silence.
“There, there, I shall get over it,” continued Dick, working away; “and as to rolling in riches, why, Max can’t help rolling in riches, any more than I can help rolling in nothing. It’s his way. But I say, mother, if we had riches, I think I could roll in ’em with the best.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Dick,” said Mrs Shingle, “when we’re so worried too. There,” she added, in a whisper, as their visitor rose, “we’re driving him away.”
“Going, Hoppy, old man?” said Dick, as their visitor rose and laid aside his pipe.
“Yes, going now,” said the old fellow. “I’ll drop in, perhaps, in the evening.”
“We haven’t put you out, have we?” said Dick.
“No, no, my lad; it’s all right. Dick, just lend me sixpence. My money is not due till Monday.”
Dick’s countenance fell, and he glanced at his wife.
“Have you got a sixpence, Polly?” he said.
“Not one,” was the reply.
“I’m very sorry, Hoppy, old man,” said Dick, looking more puzzled than ever, and as if this time he really could not understand why he should be so poor and his brother so rich – “but really I haven’t got it.”
“Never mind,” said the old fellow – “never mind; I dare say I can do without.”
And, grumbling and muttering, he took up his hat and stick, and went off.
