Kitabı oku: «Rivers of Ice», sayfa 3

The Captain looked at the handsome stripling for a few seconds in silent surprise.

“You don’t mean to tell me,” he said slowly, “that you gamble?”

“Indeed I do,” replied Lewis, with a bland smile, and something of a twinkle in his eye.

“For money?” asked the Captain.

“For money,” assented the youth; “what have you to say against it?”

“Why, I’ve to say that it’s mean.”

“That’s strong language,” said Lewis, flushing.

“It an’t strong enough by a long way,” returned the Captain, with indignation, “it’s more than mean, it’s contemptible; it’s despicable.”

The flush on Lewis’s face deepened, and he looked at his companion with the air of one who meditates knocking another down. Perhaps the massive size and strength of the Captain induced him to change his mind. It may be that there occurred to him the difficulty—if not impossibility—of knocking down a man who was down already, and the want of space in a cab for such violent play of muscle. At all events he did nothing, but looked “daggers.”

“Look ’ee here, my lad,” continued the Captain, laying his huge hand on his companion’s knee, and gazing earnestly into his face, “I don’t mean for to hurt your feelin’s by sayin’ that you are mean, or contemptible, or despicable, for I don’t suppose you’ve thought much about the matter at all, and are just following in the wake of older men who ought to know better; but I say that the thing—gambling for money—is the meanest thing a man can do, short of stealing. What does it amount to? Simply this—I want another man’s money, and the other man wants mine. We daren’t try open robbery, we would be ashamed of that; we’re both too lazy to labour for money, and labour doesn’t bring it in fast enough, therefore we’ll go play for it. I’ll ask him to submit to be robbed by me on condition that I submit to be robbed by him; and which is to be the robbed, and which the robber, shall depend on the accidental turn of a dice, or something equally trifling—”

“But I don’t gamble by means of dice,” interrupted Lewis, “I play, and bet, on billiards, which is a game of skill, requiring much practice, judgment, and thought.”

“That makes no odds, my lad,” continued the Captain. “There is no connection whatever between the rolling of a ball and the taking away of a man’s money, any more than there is between the turning of a dice and the taking of a man’s money. Both are dishonourable subterfuges. They are mere blinds put up to cover the great and mean fact, which is, that I want to get possession of my neighbour’s cash.”

“But, Captain,” retorted Lewis, with a smile—for he had now entered into the spirit of the argument—“you ignore the fact that while I try to win from my friend, I am quite willing that my friend should try to win from me.”

“Ignore it? no!” cried Captain Wopper. “Putt it in this way. Isn’t it wrong for me to have a longing desire and itching fingers to lay hold of your cash?”

“Well, put in that simple form,” said Lewis, with a laugh, “it certainly is.”

“And isn’t it equally wrong for you to have a hungering and thirsting after my cash?”

“Of course that follows,” assented Lewis.

“Well, then,” pursued the Captain, “can any agreement between you and me, as to the guessing of black or white or the turning of dice or anything else, make a right out of two wrongs?”

“Still,” said Lewis, a little puzzled, “there is fallacy somewhere in your argument. I cannot see that gambling is wrong.”

“Mark me, my lad,” returned the Captain, impressively, “it is no sufficient reason for the doing of a thing that you cannot see it to be wrong. You are not entitled to do anything unless you see it to be right. But there are other questions connected with gambling which renders it doubly mean—the question, for instance, whether a man is entitled to risk the loss of money which he calls his own, but which belongs to his wife and children as much as to himself. The mean positions, too, in which a gambler places himself, are numerous. One of these is, when a rich man wins the hard-earned and much-needed gains of a poor one.”

“But one is not supposed to know anything about the affairs of those from whom one wins,” objected Lewis.

“All the more reason,” replied Captain Wopper, “why a man should never gamble, lest, unwittingly, he should become the cause of great suffering—it might be, of death.”

Still Lewis “could not see” the wrong of gambling, and the discussion was cut short by the sudden stopping of the cab at a door in the Strand, over which hung a lamp, on which the Captain observed the word “Billiards.”

“Well, ta-ta, old fellow,” said Lewis, gaily, as he parted from his new friend, “we’ll finish the argument another day. Meanwhile, don’t forget the hour—eight, sharp.”

Chapter Four.
Shows how the Captain came to an Anchor, and conceived a Deep Design

When Captain Wopper parted from his young friend, he proceeded along the Strand in an unusually grave mood, shaking his head to such a degree, as he reflected on the precocious wickedness of the rising generation, that a very ragged and pert specimen of that generation, observing his condition, gravely informed him that there was an hospital for incurables in London, which took in patients with palsy and St. Wituses’ dance werry cheap.

This recalled him from the depths of sorrowful meditation, and induced him to hail a cab, in which he drove to the docks, claimed his chest—a solid, seamanlike structure, reminding one of the wooden walls of Old England—and returned with it to the head of the lane leading to Grubb’s Court. Dismissing the cab, he looked round for a porter, but as no porter appeared, the Captain, having been accustomed through life to help himself, and being, as we have said, remarkably strong, shouldered the nautical chest, and bore it to the top of Mrs Roby’s staircase.

Here he encountered, and almost tumbled over, Gillie White, who saluted him with—

“Hallo! ship aho–o–oy! starboard hard! breakers ahead! Why, Capp’n, you’ve all but run into me!”

“Why don’t you show a light then,” retorted the Captain, “or blow your steam-whistle, in such a dark hole? What’s that you’ve got in your arms?”

“The baby,” replied Gillie.

“What baby?” demanded the Captain.

“Our baby, of course,” returned the imp, in a tone that implied the non-existence of any other baby worth mentioning. “I brought it up to show it to the sick ’ooman next door but one to Mrs Roby’s cabin. She’s very sick, she is, an’ took a great longing to see our baby, cos she thinks it’s like what her son was w’en he was a baby. If he ever was, he don’t look much like one now, for he’s six-feet nothin’ in his socks, an’ drinks like a fish, if he don’t do nothin’ wuss. Good-night Capp’n. Baby’ll ketch cold if I keep on jawin’ here. Mind your weather eye, and port your helm when you reach the landin’. If you’ll take the advice of a young salt, you’ll clew up your mainsail an’ dowse some of your top-hamper—ah! I thought so!”

This last remark, delivered with a broad grin of delight, had reference to the fact that the Captain had run the corner of his chest against the low roof of the passage with a degree of violence that shook the whole tenement.

Holding his breath in hopeful anticipation, and reckless of the baby’s “ketching cold,” the small boy listened for more. Nor was he disappointed. In his progress along the passage Captain Wopper, despite careful steering, ran violently foul of several angles and beams, each of which mishaps sent a quiver through the old house, and a thrill to the heart of Gillie White. In his earnest desire to steer clear of the sick woman’s door, the luckless Captain came into collision with the opposite wall, and anxiety on this point causing him to forget the step on which he had “struck” once before, he struck it again, and was precipitated, chest and all, against Mrs Roby’s door, which, fortunately for itself, burst open, and let the avalanche of chest and man descend upon Mrs Roby’s floor.

Knowing that the climax was now reached, the imp descended the stair filled with a sort of serene ecstasy, while Captain Wopper gathered himself up and sat down on his nautical portmanteau.

“I tell ’ee what it is, old ’ooman,” said he, stroking his beard, “the channel into this port is about the wust I ever had the ill-luck to navigate. I hope I didn’t frighten ’ee?”

“Oh, dear no!” replied Mrs Roby, with a smile.

To say truth, the old woman seemed less alarmed than might have been expected. Probably the noise of the Captain’s approach, and previous experience, had prepared her for some startling visitation, for she was quite calm, and a humorous twinkle in her eyes seemed to indicate the presence of a spirit somewhat resembling that which actuated Gillie White.

“Well, that’s all right,” said the Captain, rising and pushing up the trap-door that led to his private berth in the new lodging; “and now, old lady, havin’ come to an anchor, I must get this chest sent aloft as fast as I can, seein’ that I’ve to clean myself an’ rig out for a dinner at eight o’clock at the west end.”

“Dear me,” said Mrs Roby, in surprise, “you must have got among people of quality.”

“It won’t be easy to hoist it up,” said the Captain, ignoring the remark, and eyeing the chest and trap-door in the roof alternately.

Just then a heavy step was heard in the passage; and a young man of large and powerful frame, with a gentle as well as gentlemanly demeanour, appeared at the door.

“Come in—come in,” said Mrs Roby, with a bright look, “this is only my new lodger, a friend of dear Wil—”

“Why, bless you, old ’ooman,” interrupted Captain Wopper, “he knows me well enough. I went to him this morning and got Mrs Stoutley’s address. Come in, Dr Lawrence. I may claim to act the host here now in a small way, perhaps, and bid visitors welcome—eh! Mrs Roby?”

“Surely, surely,” replied the old woman.

“Thank you both for the welcome,” said the visitor with a pleasant smile, as he shook hands with Mrs Roby. “I thought I recognised your voice, Captain Wopper, as you passed Mrs Leven’s door, and came out to see how you and my old friend here get on together.”

“Is she any better to-night, sir?” asked Mrs Roby, anxiously.

Lawrence shook his head sadly and said she was no better, and that he feared she had little chance of getting better while her dissipated son dwelt under the same roof with her. “It is breaking her heart,” he added, “and, besides that, the nature of her disease is such that recovery is impossible unless she is fed on the most generous diet. This of course she cannot have, because she has no means of her own. Her son gambles away nearly all his small salary, and she refuses to go to an hospital lest her absence should be the removal of the last restraining link between him and destruction. It is a very sad case—very.”

Captain Wopper was struck with this reference to gambling coming so soon after his recent conversation on that subject, and asked if there were no charitable societies or charitable people in London who would help in a case so miserable.

Yes, there were plenty of charitable institutions, Lawrence told him, but he feared that this woman had no special claim on any of them, and her refusal to go to an hospital would tell against her. There were also, he said, plenty of charitable people, but all of those he happened to be acquainted with had been appealed to by him so often that he felt ashamed to try them again. He had already given away as much of his own slender means as he could well spare, so that he saw no way out of the difficulty; but he had faith in Providential supervision of human affairs, and he believed that a way would yet be opened up.

“You’re right, sir—right,” said Captain Wopper, with emphasis, while he looked earnestly into the face of the young doctor. “This world wasn’t made to be kicked about like a foot-ball by chance, or circumstances, or anything of the sort. Look ’ee here, sir; it has bin putt into my heart to feel charitable leanings, and a good bit o’ cash has bin putt into my pocket, so that, bein’ a lone sort o’ man, I don’t have much use for it. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, here are you, sir, the son of a friend o’ my chum Willum Stout, with great need of aid from charitable people, an’ here we two are met together—both ready for action. Now, I call that a Providential arrangement, so please putt me down as one of your charitable friends. It’s little I can boast of in that way as yet but it’s not too late to begin. I’ve long arrears to pull up, so I’ll give you that to begin with. It’ll help to relieve Mrs Leven in the meantime.”

As he spoke, the Captain drew a black pocketbook from his breast pocket and, taking a piece of paper therefrom, placed it in the doctor’s hands.

“This is a fifty-pound note!” said Lawrence, in surprise.

“Well, what then?” returned the Captain. “You didn’t expect a thousand-pound note, did you?”

“Not quite that,” replied Lawrence, laughing, “but I thought that perhaps you had made a mistake.”

“Ah! you judged from appearances, young man. Don’t you git into the way of doin’ that, else you’ll be for ever sailin’ on the wrong tack. Take my advice, an’ never look as if you thought a man gave you more than he could afford. Nobody never does that.”

“Far be it from me,” returned Lawrence, “to throw cold water on generous impulses. I accept your gift with thanks, and will gladly put you on my list. If you should find hereafter that I pump you rather hard, please to remember that you gave me encouragement to do so.”

“Pump away, sir. When you’ve pumped dry, I’ll tell you!”

“Well,” said Lawrence, rising, “I’ll go at once and bring your liberality into play; and, since you have done me so good a turn, remember that you may command my services, if they can ever be of any use to you.”

The Captain cast a glance at the trap-door and the chest.

“Well,” said he, “I can scarcely ask you to do it professionally, but if you’d lend a hand to get this Noah’s ark o’ mine on to the upper deck, I’d—”

“Come along,” cried Lawrence, jumping up with a laugh, and seizing one end of the “ark.”

Captain Wopper grasped the other end, and, between them, with much puffing, pushing, and squeezing, they thrust the box through the trap to the upper regions, whither the Captain followed it by means of the same gymnastic feat that he performed on his first ascent. Thrusting his head down, he invited the doctor to “come aloft,” which the doctor did in the same undignified fashion, for his gentle manner and spirit had not debarred him from the practice and enjoyment of manly exercises.

“It’s a snug berth, you see,” said the Captain, stumbling among the dusty lumber, and knocking his head against the beams, “wants cleaning up, tho’, and puttin’ to rights a bit, but I’ll soon manage that; and when I git the dirt and cobwebs cleared away, glass putt in the port-holes, and a whitewash on the roof and walls, it’ll be a cabin fit for an admiral. See what a splendid view of the river! Just suited to a seafarin’ man.”

“Capital!” cried Lawrence, going down on his knees to obtain the view referred to. “Rather low in the roof, however, don’t you think?”

“Low? not at all!” exclaimed the Captain. “It’s nothin’ to what I’ve been used to on the coastin’ trade off Californy. Why, I’ve had to live in cabins so small that a tall man couldn’t keep his back straight when he was sittin’ on the lockers; but we didn’t sit much in ’em; we was chiefly used to go into ’em to lie down. This is a palace to such cabins.”

The doctor expressed satisfaction at finding that his new “charitable contributor” took such enlarged views of a pigeon-hole, and, promising to pay him another visit when the “cabin” should have been put to rights, said good-bye, and went to relieve the wants of the sick woman.

As the captain accompanied him along the passage, they heard the voice and step of poor Mrs Leven’s dissipated son, as he came stumbling and singing up the stair.

He was a stout good-looking youth, and cast a half impudent half supercilious look at Captain Wopper on approaching. He also bestowed a nod of careless recognition on Dr Lawrence.

Thinking it better to be out of the way, the Captain said good-bye again to his friend, and returned to the cabin, where he expressed to Mrs Roby the opinion that, “that young feller Leven was goin’ to the dogs at railway speed.”

Thereafter he went “aloft,” and, as he expressed it, “rigged himself out,” in a spruce blue coat with brass buttons; blue vest and trousers to match; a white dicky with a collar attached and imitation carbuncle studs down the front. To these he added a black silk neckerchief tied in a true sailor’s knot but with the ends separated and carefully tucked away under his vest to prevent their interfering with the effulgence of the carbuncle studs; a pair of light shoes with a superabundance of new tie; a green silk handkerchief, to be carried in his hat, for the purpose of mopping his forehead when warm, and a red silk ditto to be carried in his pocket for the benefit of his nose. In addition to the studs, Captain Wopper wore, as ornaments, a solid gold ring, the rude workmanship of which induced the belief that he must have made it himself, and a large gold watch, with a gold chain in the form of a cable, and a rough gold nugget attached to it in place of a seal or key. We class the watch among simple ornaments because, although it went—very demonstratively too, with a loud self-asserting tick—its going was irregular and uncertain. Sometimes it went too slow without apparent cause. At other times it went too fast without provocation. Frequently it struck altogether, and only consented to resume work after a good deal of gentle and persuasive threatening to wind it the wrong way. It had chronic internal complaints, too, which produced sundry ominous clicks and sounds at certain periods of the day. These passed off, however, towards evening. Occasionally such sounds rushed as it were into a sudden whirr and series of convulsions, ending in a dead stop, which was an unmistakeable intimation to the Captain that something vital had given way; that the watch had gone into open mutiny, and nothing short of a visit to the watchmaker could restore it to life and duty.

“I’m off now,” said the Captain, descending when he was fully “rigged.” “What about the door-key, mother?—you’ve no objection to my calling you mother, have you?”

“None whatever, Captain,” replied Mrs Roby, with a pleasant smile, “an old friend of William may call me whatever he pleases—short,” she added after momentary pause, “of swearin’.”

“Trust me, I’ll stop short of that. You see, old lady, I never know’d a mother, and I should like to try to feel what it’s like to have one. It’s true I’m not just a lad, but you are old enough to be my mother for all that, so I’ll make the experiment. But what about the key of the door, mother? I can’t expect you to let me in, you know.”

“Just lock it, and take the key away with you,” said Mrs Roby.

“But what if a fire should break out?” said the Captain, with a look of indecision.

“I’m not afraid of fire. We’ve got a splendid brigade and plenty of fire-escapes, and a good kick from a fireman would open my door without a key.”

“Mother, you’re a trump! I’ll lock you in and leave you with an easy mind—”

He stopped abruptly, and Mrs Roby asked what was the matter.

“Well, it’s what I said about an easy mind that threw me all aback,” replied the Captain, “for to tell ’ee the truth, I haven’t got an easy mind.”

“Not done anything wicked, I hope?” said Mrs Roby, anxiously.

“No, no; nothin’ o’ that sort; but there is somethin’ lyin’ heavy on my mind, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t make a confidant o’ you, bein’ my mother, d’ee see; and, besides, it consarns Willum.”

The old woman looked eagerly at her lodger as he knitted his brows in perplexity and smoothed down his forelock.

“Here’s where it is,” he continued, drawing his chair closer to that of Mrs Roby; “when Willum made me his exikooter, so to speak, he said to me, ‘Wopper,’ says he, ‘I’m not one o’ them fellers that holds on to his cash till he dies with it in his pocket. I’ve got neither wife nor chick, as you know, an’ so, wot I means to do is to give the bulk of it to them that I love while I’m alive—d’ee see?’ ‘I do, Willum,’ says I. ‘Well then,’ says he, ‘besides them little matters that I axed you to do for me, I want you to take partikler notice of two people. One is the man as saved my life w’en I was a youngster, or, if he’s dead, take notice of his child’n. The other is that sweet young creeter, Emma Gray, who has done the correspondence with me so long for my poor brother. You keep a sharp look-out an’ find out how these two are off for money. If Emma’s rich, of course it’s no use to give her what she don’t need, and I’ll give the most of what I’ve had the good fortune to dig up here to old Mr Lawrence, or his family, for my brother’s widow, bein’ rich, don’t need it. If both Emma and Lawrence are rich, why then, just let me know, and I’ll try to hit on some other plan to make away with it, for you know well enough I couldn’t use it all upon myself without going into wicked extravagance, and my dear old Mrs Roby wouldn’t know what to do with so much cash if I sent it to her. Now, you promise to do this for me?’ says he. ‘Willum,’ says I, ‘I do.’”

“Now, mother,” continued the Captain, “what troubles me is this, that instead o’ findin’ Miss Emma rich, and Mr Lawrence poor, or wice wersa, or findin’ ’em both rich, I finds ’em both poor. That’s where my difficulty lies.”

Mrs Roby offered a prompt solution of this difficulty by suggesting that William should divide the money between them.

“That would do all well enough,” returned the Captain, “if there were no under-currents drivin’ the ship out of her true course. But you see, mother, I find that the late Mr Stoutley’s family is also poor—at least in difficulties—although they live in great style, and seem to be rich; and from what I heard the other day, I know that the son is given to gamblin’, and the mother seems to be extravagant, and both of ’em are ready enough to sponge on Miss Emma, who is quite willin’—far too willin’—to be sponged upon, so that whatever Willum gave to her would be just thrown away. Now the question is,” continued the Captain, looking seriously at the kettle with the defiant spout, “what am I to advise Willum to do?”

“Advise him,” replied Mrs Roby, promptly, “to give all the money to Dr Lawrence, and get Dr Lawrence to marry Miss Gray, and so they’ll both get the whole of it.”

A beaming smile crossed the Captain’s visage.

“Not a bad notion, mother; but what if Dr Lawrence, after gettin’ the money, didn’t want to marry Miss Gray?”

“Get him to marry her first and give the money afterwards,” returned Mrs Roby.

“Ay, that might do,” replied the Captain, nodding slowly, “only it may be that a man without means may hesitate about marryin’ a girl without means, especially if he didn’t want her, and she didn’t want him. I don’t quite see how to get over all these difficulties.”

“There’s only one way of getting over them,” said Mrs Roby, “and that is, by bringin’ the young people together, and givin’ ’em a chance to fall in love.”

“True, true, mother, but, so far as I know, Dr Lawrence don’t know the family. We couldn’t,” said the Captain, looking round the room, dubiously, “ask ’em to take a quiet cup of tea here with us—eh? You might ask Dr Lawrence, as your medical man, and I might ask Miss Emma, as an old friend of her uncle, quite in an off-hand way, you know, as if by chance. They’d never see through the dodge, and would fall in love at once, perhaps—eh?”

Captain Wopper said all this in a dubious tone, looking at the defiant kettle the while, as if propitiating its favourable reception of the idea, but it continued defiant, and hissed uncompromisingly, while its mistress laughed outright.

“You’re not much of a match-maker, I see,” she said, on recovering composure. “No, Captain, it wouldn’t do to ask ’em here to tea.”

“Well, well,” said the Captain, rising, “we’ll let match-makin’ alone for the present. It’s like tryin’ to beat to wind’ard against a cyclone. The best way is to square the yards, furl the sails, and scud under bare poles till it’s over. It’s blowin’ too hard just now for me to make headway, so I’ll wear ship and scud.”

In pursuance of this resolve, Captain Wopper put on his wide-awake, locked up his mother, and went off to dine at the “west end.”