“You must have the doctor, Fred.”
“I’ve had the doctor already, mother. I parted with Isa Wentworth at the bottom o’ the stair, an’ she will do me more good than dozens o’ doctors or gallons o’ physic.”
But Fred was wrong.
Not long afterwards the Lively Poll arrived in port, and Stephen Lockley hastened to announce his arrival to his wife.
Now it was the experience of Martha Lockley that if, on his regular return to land for his eight days’ holiday, after his eight weeks’ spell afloat, her handsome and genial husband went straight home, she was wont to have a happy meeting; but if by any chance Stephen first paid a visit to the Blue Boar public-house, she was pretty sure to have a miserable meeting, and a more or less wretched time of it thereafter. A conversation that Stephen had recently had with Fred Martin having made an impression on him—deeper than he chose to admit even to himself—he had made up his mind to go straight home this time.
“I’ll be down by daybreak to see about them repairs,” he said to Peter Jay, as they left the Lively Poll together, “and I’ll go round by your old friend, Widow Mooney’s, and tell her to expect you some time to-night.”
Now Peter Jay was a single man, and lodged with Widow Mooney when on shore. It was not, however, pure consideration for his mate or the widow that influenced Lockley, but his love for the widow’s little invalid child, Eve, for whose benefit that North Sea skipper had, in the kindness of his heart, made a special collection of deep-sea shells, with some shreds of bright bunting.
Little Eve Mooney, thin, wasted, and sad, sat propped up with dirty pillows, in a dirty bed, in a dirtier room, close to a broken and paper-patched window that opened upon a coal-yard with a prospect rubbish-heap beyond.
“Oh, I’m so glad it’s you!” cried Eve, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, as the fisherman entered.
“Yes, Eve, my pretty. I’m back sooner than I expected—and look what I’ve brought you. I haven’t forgot you.”
Joy beamed in the lustrous eyes and on every feature of the thin face as the sick child surveyed the treasures of the deep that Lockley spread on her ragged counterpane.
“How good—how kind of you, Stephen!” exclaimed Eve.
“Kind!” repeated the skipper; “nothing of the sort, Eve. To please you pleases me, so it’s only selfishness. But where’s your mother?”
“Drunk,” said the child simply, and without the most remote intention of injuring her parent’s character. Indeed, that was past injury. “She’s in there.”
The child pointed to a closet, in which Stephen found on the floor a heap of unwomanly rags. He was unable to arouse the poor creature, who slumbered heavily beneath them. Eve said she had been there for many hours.
“She forgot to give me my breakfast before she went in, and I’m too weak to rise and get it for myself,” whimpered Eve, “and I’m so hungry! And I got such a fright, too, for a man came in this morning about daylight and broke open the chest where mother keeps her money and took something away. I suppose he thought I was asleep, for I was too frightened to move, but I could see him all the time. Please will you hand me the loaf before you go? It’s in that cupboard.”
We need scarcely add that Lockley did all that the sick child asked him to do—and more. Then, after watching her till the meal was finished, he rose.
“I’ll go now, my pretty,” he said, “and don’t you be afeared. I’ll soon send some one to look after you. Good-bye.”
Stephen Lockley was unusually thoughtful as he left Widow Mooney’s hut that day, and he took particular care to give the Blue Boar a wide berth on his way home.
Chapter Three
The Skipper Ashore
Right glad was Mrs Lockley to find that her husband had passed the Blue Boar without going in on his way home, and although she did not say so, she could not feel sorry for the accident to the Lively Poll, which had sent him ashore a week before his proper time.
Martha Lockley was a pretty young woman, and the proud mother of a magnificent baby, which was bordering on that age when a child begins to have some sort of regard for its own father, and to claim much of his attention.
“Matty,” said Stephen to his wife, as he jolted his daughter into a state of wild delight on his knee, “Tottie is becoming very like you. She’s got the same pretty little turned-up nose, an’ the same huge grey eyes with the wicked twinkle in ’em about the corners.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Stephen, but tell me about this robbery.”
“I know nothin’ about it more than I’ve told ye, Matty. Eve didn’t know the man, and her description of him is confused—she was frightened, poor thing! But I promised to send some one to look after her at once, for her drunken mother isn’t fit to take care of herself, let alone the sick child. Who can I send, think ’ee?”
Mrs Lockley pursed her little mouth, knitted her brows, and gazed thoughtfully at the baby, who, taking the look as personal, made a face at her. Finally she suggested Isabella Wentworth.
“And where is she to be found?” asked the skipper.
“At the Martins’, no doubt,” replied Mrs Lockley, with a meaning look. “She’s been there pretty much ever since poor Fred Martin came home, looking after old granny, for Mrs Martin’s time is taken up wi’ nursing her son. They say he’s pretty bad.”
“Then I’ll go an’ see about it at once,” said Stephen, rising, and setting Tottie down.
He found Isa quite willing to go to Eve, though Mrs Mooney had stormed at her and shut the door in her face on the occasion of her last visit.
“But you mustn’t try to see Fred,” she added. “The doctor says he must be kep’ quiet and see no one.”
“All right,” returned the skipper; “I’ll wait till he’s out o’ quarantine. Good day; I’ll go and tell Eve that you’re coming.”
On his way to Mrs Mooney’s hut Stephen Lockley had again to pass the Blue Boar. This time he did not give it “a wide berth.” There were two roads to the hut, and the shorter was that which passed the public-house. Trusting to the strength of his own resolution, he chose that road. When close to the blue monster, whose creaking sign drew so many to the verge of destruction, and plunged so many over into the gulf, he was met by Skipper Ned Bryce, a sociable, reckless sort of man, of whom he was rather fond. Bryce was skipper of the Fairy, an iron smack, which was known in the fleet as the Ironclad.
“Hullo! Stephen. You here?”
“Ay, a week before my time, Ned. That lubber Groggy Fox ran into me, cut down my bulwarks, and carried away my bowsprit an’ some o’ my top-hamper.”
“Come along—have a glass, an’ let’s hear all about it,” said Bryce, seizing his friend’s arm; but Lockley held back.
“No, Ned,” he said; “I’m on another tack just now.”
“What! not hoisted the blue ribbon, eh!”
“No,” returned Lockley, with a laugh. “I’ve no need to do that.”
“You haven’t lost faith in your own power o’ self-denial surely?”
“No, nor that either, but—but—”
“Come now, none o’ your ‘buts.’ Come along; my mate Dick Martin is in here, an’ he’s the best o’ company.”
“Dick Martin in there!” repeated Lockley, on whom a sudden thought flashed. “Is he one o’ your hands?”
“In course he is. Left the Grimsby fleet a-purpose to j’ine me. Rather surly he is at times, no doubt, but a good fellow at bottom, and great company. You should hear him sing. Come.”
“Oh,