CHAPTER IV
STEPHEN'S TALE
Many small matters of my first few hours at the Hole in the Wall were impressed on me by later events. In particular I remember the innocent curiosity with which I asked: "Did you ever kill a man, Gran'fa' Nat?"
There was a twitch and a frown on my grandfather's face, and he sat back as one at a moment's disadvantage. I thought that perhaps he was trying to remember. But he only said, gruffly, and with a quick sound like a snort: "Very nigh killed myself once or twice, Stevy, in my time," and rose hastily from his chair to reach a picture of a ship that was standing on a shelf. "There," he said, "that's a new 'un, just done; pretty picter, ain't it? An' that there," pointing to another hanging on the wall, "that's the Juno, what your father's on now."
I had noticed that the walls, both of the bar and of the bar-parlour, were plentifully hung with paintings of ships; ships becalmed, ships in full sail, ships under bare spars; all with painful blue skies over them, and very even-waved seas beneath; and ships in storms, with torn sails, pursued by rumbustious piles of sooty cloud, and pelted with lengths of scarlet lightning. I fear I should not have recognised my father's ship without help, but that was probably because I had only seen it, months before, lying in dock, battered and dingy, with a confusion of casks and bales about the deck, and naked yards dangling above; whereas in the picture (which was a mile too small for the brig) it was booming along under a flatulent mountain of clean white sail, and bulwarks and deck-fittings were gay with lively and diversified colour.
I said something about its being a fine ship, or a fine picture, and that there were a lot of them.
"Ah," he said, "they do mount up, one arter another. It's one gentleman as did 'em all – him out in the bar now, with the long hair. Sometimes I think I'd rather a-had money; but it's a talent, that's what it is!"
The artist beyond the outer bar had been talking to the potman. Now he coughed and said: "Ha – um! Cap'en Kemp, sir! Cap'en Kemp! No doubt as you've 'eard the noos to-day?"
"No," said Grandfather Nat, finishing the rolling of his shirt-sleeves as he stepped down into the bar; "not as I know on. What is it?"
"Not about Viney and Marr?"
"No. What about 'em?"
Mr. Cripps rose on his toes with the importance of his information, and his eyes widened to a moment's rivalry with his nose. "Gone wrong," he said, in a shrill whisper that was as loud as his natural voice. "Gone wrong. Unsolvent. Cracked up. Broke. Busted, in a common way o' speakin'." And he gave a violent nod with each synonym.
"No," said Grandfather Nat; "surely not Viney and Marr?"
"Fact, Cap'en; I can assure you, on 'igh a'thority. It's what I might call the universal topic in neighbourin' circles, an' a gen'ral subjick o' local discussion. You'd 'a 'eard it 'fore this if you'd bin at 'ome."
My grandfather whistled, and rested a hand on a beer-pull.
"Not a stiver for nobody, they say," Mr. Cripps pursued, "not till they can sell the wessels. What there was loose Marr's bolted with; or, as you might put it, absconded; absconded with the proceeds. An' gone abroad, it's said."
"I see the servant gal bringin' out her box from Viney's just now," said Grandfather Nat. "An' Crooks the ship-chandler was on the steps, very white in the gills, with a paper. Well, well! An' you say Marr's bolted?"
"Absconded, Cap'en Kemp; absconded with the proceeds; 'opped the twig. Viney says 'e's robbed 'im as well as the creditors, but I 'ear some o' the creditors' observation is 'gammon.' An' they say the wessels is pawned up to their r'yals. Up to their r'yals!"
"Well," commented my grandfather, "I wouldn't ha' thought it. The Juno was that badly found, an' they did everything that cheap, I thought they made money hand over fist."
"Flyin' too 'igh, Cap'en Kemp, flyin' too 'igh. You knowed Viney long 'fore 'e elevated hisself into a owner, didn't you? What was he then? Why, 'e was your mate one voy'ge, wasn't he?"
"Ay, an' more."
"So I've 'eard tell. Well, arter that surely 'e was flyin' too 'igh! An' now Marr's absconded with the proceeds!"
The talk in the bar went on, being almost entirely the talk of Mr. Cripps; who valued himself on the unwonted importance his news gave him, and aimed at increasing it by saying the same thing a great many times; by saying it, too, when he could, in terms and phrases that had a strong flavour of the Sunday paper. But as for me, I soon ceased to hear, for I discovered something of greater interest on the shelf that skirted the bar-parlour. It was a little model of a ship in a glass case, and it was a great marvel to me, with all its standing and running rigging complete, and a most ingenious and tumultuous sea about it, made of stiff calico cockled up into lumps and ridges, and painted the proper colour. Much better than either of the two we had at home, for these latter were only half-models, each nothing but one-half of a little ship split from stem to stern, and stuck against a board, on which were painted sky, clouds, seagulls, and (in one case) a lighthouse; an exasperating make-believe that had been my continual disappointment.
But this was altogether so charming and delightful and real, and the little hatches and cuddy-houses so thrilled my fancy, that I resolved to beg of my grandfather to let me call the model my own, and sometimes have the glass case off. So I was absorbed while the conversation in the bar ranged from the ships and their owners to my father, and from him to me; as was plain when my grandfather called me.
"Here he is," said my grandfather, with a deal of pride in his voice, putting his foot on a stool and lifting me on his knee. "Here he is, an' a plucked 'un; ain't ye, Stevy?" He rubbed his hand over my head, as he was fond of doing. "Plucked? Ah! Why, he was agoin' to keep house all by hisself, with all the pluck in life, till his father come home! Warn't ye, Stevy boy? But he's come along o' me instead, an' him an' me's goin' to keep the Hole in the Wall together, ain't we? Pardners: eh, Stevy?"
I think I never afterwards saw my grandfather talking so familiarly with his customers. I perceived now that there was another in the bar in addition to Mr. Cripps; a pale, quiet, and rather ragged man who sat in an obscure corner with an untouched glass of liquor by him.
"Come," said my grandfather, "have one with me, Mr. Cripps, an' drink the new pardner's health. What is it? An' you – you drink up too, an' have another." This last order Grandfather Nat flung at the man in the corner, just in the tones in which I had heard a skipper on a ship tell a man to "get forrard lively" with a rope fender, opposite our quay at Blackwall.
"I'm sure 'ere's wishin' the young master every 'ealth an' 'appiness," said Mr. Cripps, beaming on me with a grin that rather frightened than pleased me, it twisted the nose so. "Every 'ealth and 'appiness, I'm sure!"
The pale man in the corner only looked up quickly, as if fearful of obtruding himself, gulped the drink that had been standing by him, and receiving another, put it down untasted where the first had stood.
"That ain't drinkin' a health," said my grandfather, angrily. "There – that's it!" and he pointed to the new drink with the hand that held his own.
The pale man lifted it hurriedly, stood up, looked at me and said something indistinct, gulped the liquor and returned the glass to the counter; whereupon the potman, without orders, instantly refilled it, and the man carried it back to his corner and put it down beside him, as before.
I began to wonder if the pale man suffered from some complaint that made it dangerous to leave him without a drink close at hand, ready to be swallowed at a moment's notice. But Mr. Cripps blinked, first at his own glass and then at the pale man's; and I fancy he thought himself unfairly treated.
Howbeit his affability was unconquerable. He grinned and snapped his fingers playfully at me, provoking my secret indignation; since that was what people did to please babies.
"An' a pretty young gent 'e is too," said Mr. Cripps, "of considerable personal attractions. Goin' to bring 'im up to the trade, I s'pose, Cap'en Kemp?"
"Why,