“What! are you one o’ the hands, Joe?” he asked, going towards the man with an abortive attempt to walk steadily on the pitching deck.
“Ay, lad, I’m your father’s mate,” replied Joe. “But surely you are not goin’ as a hand?”
“That’s just what I am,” returned Billy, with a look of dignity which was somewhat marred by a heavy lurch causing him to stagger. “I’m part owner, d’ee see, an’ ready to take command when the old man retires, so you’d better mind your helm, young man, an’ steer clear of impudence in future, if you don’t want to lead the life of a dog aboard of this here smack.”
“I’ll try, sir,” said Joe Davidson, touching his forelock, while a humorous twinkle lit up his bright eyes.
“Hallo! Billy!” shouted the skipper, who was steering; “come here, boy. You didn’t come aboard to idle, you know; I’ve let you have a good look at the sea all for nothin’. It’s time now that you went to work to larn your duties. Zulu!”
The last word caused a woolly head to protrude from the after hatchway, revealing a youth about twice the size of Billy. Having some drops of black blood in him this lad had been styled Zulu—and, being a handy fellow, had been made cook.
“Here, take this boy below,” said the skipper, “and teach him something—anything you like, so long as you keep him at work. No idlers allowed on board, you know.”
“Yes, sar,” said Zulu.
Billy was delighted to obey. He was naturally a smart, active fellow, and not only willing, but proud, to submit to discipline. He descended a short ladder into the little cabin with which he had become acquainted, as a visitor, when the smack was in port on former occasions. With Zulu he was also acquainted, that youth having been for some time in his father’s service.
“Kin you do cookin’?” asked Zulu with a grin that revealed an unusually large cavern full of glistening teeth, mingled with more than an average allowance of tongue and gums.
“Oh! I say,” remonstrated Billy, “it’s growed bigger than ever!”
Zulu expanded his mouth to its utmost, and shut his eyes in enjoyment of the complimentary joke.
“Oh course it hab,” he said on recovering; “I’s ’bliged to eat so much at sea dat de mout gits wider ebery trip. Dat leetle hole what you’ve got in your face ’ll git so big as mine fore long, Billy. Den you be like some ob de leetle fishes we catch—all mout and no body worth mentioning. But you no tell me yit: Kin you do cookin’?”
“Oh yes, I can manage a Yarmouth bloater,” replied Billy.
“But,” said Zulu, “kin you cook a ’tater widout makin’ him’s outside all of a mush, an’ him’s inside same so as a stone?”
Instead of answering, Billy sat down on the settle which ran round the cabin and looked up at his dark friend very solemnly.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Zulu.
“There—there’s something wrong wi’ me,” said Billy, with a faint attempt to smile as he became rather pale.
Seeing this, his friend quietly put a bucket beside him.
“I say, Zulu,” observed the poor boy with a desperate attempt at pleasantry, “I wonder what’s up.”
“Des nuffin’ up yit but he won’t be long,” replied the young cook with a look full of sympathy.
It would be unjust to our little hero to proceed further. This being, as we have said, his first trip to sea, he naturally found himself, after an hour or two, stretched out in one of the bunks which surrounded the little cabin. There he was permitted to lie and think longingly of his mother, surrounded by dense tobacco smoke, hot vapours, and greasy fumes, until he blushed to find himself wishing, with all his heart, that he had never left home!
There we will leave him to meditate and form useless resolves, which he never carried out, while we introduce to the reader some of the other actors in our tale.
Chapter Two.
A Contrast to Chapter I
From that heaving grey wilderness of water called the North Sea we pass now to that lively wilderness of bricks and mortar called London.
West-end mansions are not naturally picturesque or interesting subjects either for the brush or the pen, and we would not willingly drag our readers into one of them, did not circumstances—over which we have not a shadow of control—compel us to do so.
The particular mansion to which we now direct attention belonged to a certain Mrs Dotropy, whose husband’s ancestors, by the way, were said to have come over with the Conqueror—whether in his own ship or in one of the bumboats that followed is not certain. They were De Tropys at that time, but, having sunk in the social scale in the course of centuries, and then risen again in succeeding centuries through the medium of trade, they reappeared on the surface with their patronymic transformed as now presented.
“Mother,” said Ruth Dotropy to a magnificent duchess-like woman, “I’ve come to ask you about the poor—”
“Ruth, dear,” interrupted the mother, “I wish you would not worry me about the poor! They’re a troublesome, ill-doing set; always grumbling, dirty, ill-natured, suspicious, and envious of the rich—as if it was our fault that we are rich! I don’t want to hear anything more about the poor.”
Ruth, who was a soft-cheeked, soft-handed, and soft-hearted girl of eighteen, stood, hat in hand, before her mother with a slight smile on her rosy lips.
“You are not quite just to the poor, mother,” returned Ruth, scarce able to restrain a laugh at her parent’s vehemence. “Some of them are all that you say, no doubt, but there are many, even among the poorest of the poor, who are good-natured, well-doing, unsuspicious, and respectful, not only to the rich but also to each other and to everybody. There is Mrs Wolsey, for instance, she—”
“Oh! but she’s an exception, you know,” said Mrs Dotropy, “there are not many like Mrs Wolsey.”
“And there is Mrs Gladman,” continued Ruth.
“Yes, but she’s another exception.”
“And Mrs Robbie.”
“Why, Ruth, what’s the use of picking out all the exceptions to prove your point? Of course the exception proves the rule—at least so the proverb says—but a great many exceptions prove nothing that I know of, except—that is—but what’s the use of arguing, child, you’ll never be convinced. Come, how much do you want me to give?”
Easy-going Mrs Dotropy’s mind, we need scarcely point out, was of a confused type, and she “hated argument.” Perhaps, on the whole, it was to the advantage of her friends and kindred that she did so.
“I only want you to give a little time, mother,” replied Ruth, swinging her hat to and fro, while she looked archly into Mrs Dotropy’s large, dignified, and sternly-kind countenance, if we may venture on such an expression,– “I want you to go with me and see—”
“Yes, yes, I know what you’re going to say, child, you want me to go and ‘see for myself,’ which means that I’m to soil my boots in filthy places, subject my ears to profanity, my eyes to horrible sights, and my nose to intolerable smells. No, Ruth, I cannot oblige you. Of what use would it be? If my doing this would relieve the miseries of the poor, you might reasonably ask me to go among them, but it would not. I give them as much money as I can afford to give, and, as far as I can see, it does them no good. They never seem better off, and they always want more. They are not even grateful for it. Just look at Lady Openhand. What good does she accomplish by her liberality, and her tearful eyes, and sympathetic heart, even though her feelings are undoubtedly genuine? Only the other day I chanced to walk behind her along several streets and saw her stop and give money to seven or eight beggars who accosted her. She never can refuse any one who asks with a pitiful look and a pathetic cock-and-bull story. Several of them were young and strong, and