Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn by R. M. Ballantyne (freenovel24 .txt) 📗

Chapter Nine. The Sailors’ Home and the Mad Skipper.

The Sailors’ Home in Wreckumoft was a neat, substantial, unpretending edifice, which had been built by a number of charitable people, in order to provide a comfortable residence, with board at moderate terms, for the numerous seamen who frequented our port. It also served as a place of temporary refuge to the unfortunate crews of the numerous wrecks which occurred annually on our shores.

Here I found Haco Barepoles, the skipper of a coal sloop, seated on the side of his bed in one of the little berths of the Home, busily engaged in stuffing tobacco into the bowl of a great German pipe with the point of his little finger. Susan, who had outstripped me, was seated beside him with her head on his shoulder.

“Oh, father!” I heard Susan say, as I walked along the passage between the rows of sleeping berths that lined each side of the principal dormitory of our Home; “I shall lose you some day, I fear. How was it that you came so near bein’ wrecked?”

Before the skipper could reply I stood in the doorway of his berth.

“Good-day, Haco,” said I; “glad to see you safe back once more.”

“Thankee, Cap’n Bingley—same to you, sir,” said Haco, rising hastily from the bed and seizing my hand, which he shook warmly, and, I must add, painfully; for the skipper was a hearty, impulsive fellow, apt to forget his strength of body in the strength of his feelings, and given to grasp his male friends with a gripe that would, I verily believe, have drawn a roar from Hercules.

“I’ve come back to the old bunk, you see,” he continued, while I sat down on a chest which served for a chair. “I likes the Home better an’ better every time I comes to it, and I’ve brought all my crew with me; for you see, sir, the ‘Coffin’s’ a’most fallin’ to pieces, and will have to go into dock for a riglar overhaul.”

“The Coffin?” said Susan, interrogatively.

“Yes, lass; it’s only a nickname the old tub got in the north, where they call the colliers coal-coffins, ’cause it’s ten to one you’ll go to the bottom in ’em every time ye go to sea.”

“Are they all so bad as to deserve the name?” inquired Susan.

“No, not ’xactly all of ’em; but there’s a good lot as are not half so fit for sea as a washin’ tub. You see, they ain’t worth repairin’, and owners sometimes just take their chance o’ makin’ a safe run by keepin’ the pumps goin’ the whole time.”

I informed Haco that I had called for the purpose of telling him that I had applied to Mr Stuart, who owned his little coal sloop, to give a few wrecked Russians a passage to London, in order that they might be handed over to the care of their consul; but that I would have to find a passage for them in some other vessel, as the “Coffin” was so unseaworthy.

“Don’t be in too great a hurry, sir,” said Haco, with a peculiar smile and twinkle in his eye; “I’m inclined to think that Mr Stuart will send her back to London to be repaired there—”

“What!” exclaimed Susan, with a flush of indignation, “an’ risk your life, father?”

“As to that, lass, my life has got to be risked anyhow, and it ain’t much worth, to say the truth; so you needn’t trouble yourself on that pint.”

“It’s worth a great deal to me,” said Susan, drawing herself closer to the side of her rugged parent.

I could not help smiling as I looked at this curious specimen of a British seaman shaking his head gravely and speaking so disparagingly of himself, when I knew, and every one in the town knew, that he was one of the kindest and most useful of men. He was a very giant in size, with a breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an altitude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs—a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to perceive that fact.

“Whatever your life may be worth, my friend,” said I, “it is to be hoped that Mr Stuart will not risk it by sending you to sea in the ‘Coffin’ till it is thoroughly overhauled.”

“Come in!” shouted the skipper, in answer to a rap at the door.

The invitation to enter was not accepted, but the rap was repeated.

“Go, Susan,” said I, “see who it is.”

Susan obeyed—with unusual alacrity, as I fancied, but did not return with equal quickness. We heard her whispering with some one; then there was a sound as if of a suppressed scream, followed by something that was marvellously like a slap applied to a cheek with an open hand. Next moment Susan re-appeared with a letter and a very flushed face.

“A letter, sir,” said Susan, dropping her eyes.

“Who brought it?” I inquired.

“Mr Horsey, sir.” Susan stammered the name, and looked confused. “He waits an answer, sir.”

Haco Barepoles had been eyeing his daughter gravely the while. He now sprang up with the wild energy that was his peculiar characteristic, and flinging the door wide-open with a crash that shook the whole framework of the berth, stood face to face with Dan Horsey.

Intense gravity marked the features of the groom, who stood, hat in hand, tapping the side of his top-boot with a silver-mounted riding-whip. He met Haco’s steady frown with a calm and equally steady gaze of his clear grey eyes; and then, relaxing into a smile, nodded familiarly, and inquired if the weather was fine up there, bekaise, judgin’ from his, (Haco’s), face he would be inclined to think it must be raither cowld!

Haco smiled grimly: “Ye was to wait an answer, was ye?”

“If I may venture to make so bowld as to say so in the presence of your highness, I was.”

“Then wait,” said Haco, smiling a little less grimly.

“Thank ye, sir, for yer kind permission,” said Dan in a tone and with an air of assumed meekness.

The skipper returned to the bed, which creaked as if taxed to its utmost, when he sat down on it, and drew Susan close to his side.

“This is from Mr Stuart, Haco,” said I, running my eye hastily over the note; “he consents to my sending the men in your vessel, but after what you have told me—”

“Don’t mind wot I told ye, Captain Bingley. I’ll see Mr Stuart to-day, an’ll call on you in the afternoon. The ‘Coffin’ ain’t quite so bad as she looks. Have ’ee any answer to send back?”

“No,” said I, turning to Dan, who still stood at the door tapping his right boot with a jaunty air; “tell your master, with my compliments, that I will see him about this matter in the evening.”

“And hark’ee, lad,” cried Haco, again springing up and confronting the groom, “d’ye see this young ’ooman?” (pointing to Susan.)

“Sure I do,” replied Dan, with a smile and