“In five minutes more, though, it was all over, Dodgy not being able to see plain — except to get out o’ Bill’s way — and hitting wild. He seemed to think the whole fo’c’s’le was full o’ Bills sitting on a locker and waiting to be punched, and the end of it was a knock-out blow from the real Bill which left ‘im on the floor without a soul offering to pick ‘im up.
“Bill ‘elped ‘im up at last and shook hands with ‘im, and they rinsed their faces in the same bucket, and began to praise each other up. They sat there purring like a couple o’ cats, until at last we ‘eard a smothered voice coming from Joe Simms’s bunk.
“‘Is it all over?’ he asks.
“‘Yes,’ ses somebody.
“‘How is Bill?’ ses Joe’s voice again.
“‘Look for yourself,’ ses Tom.
“Joe sat up in ‘is bunk then and looked out, and he no sooner saw Bill’s face than he gave a loud cry and fell back agin, and, as true as I’m sitting here, fainted clean away. We was struck all of a ‘eap, and then Bill picked up the bucket and threw some water over ‘im, and by and by he comes round agin and in a dazed sort o’ way puts his arm round Bill’s neck and begins to cry.
“‘Mighty Moses!’ ses Dodgy Pete, jumping up, ‘it’s a woman!’
“‘It’s my wife!’ ses Bill.
“We understood it all then, leastways the married ones among us did. She’d shipped aboard partly to be with Bill and partly to keep an eye on ‘im, and Tom Baker’s mistake about a prizefighter had just suited her book better than anything. How Bill was to get ‘er home ‘e couldn’t think, but it ‘appened the second officer had been peeping down the fo’c’s’le, waiting for ever so long for a suitable opportunity to stop the fight, and the old man was so tickled about the way we’d all been done ‘e gave ‘er a passage back as stewardess to look arter the ship’s cat.”
THE RESURRECTION OF MR. WIGGETT
Mr. Sol Ketchmaid, landlord of the Ship, sat in his snug bar, rising occasionally from his seat by the taps to minister to the wants of the customers who shared this pleasant retreat with him.
Forty years at sea before the mast had made Mr. Ketchmaid an authority on affairs maritime; five years in command of the Ship Inn, with the nearest other licensed house five miles off, had made him an autocrat.
From his cushioned Windsor-chair he listened pompously to the conversation. Sometimes he joined in and took sides, and on these occasions it was a foregone conclusion that the side he espoused would win. No matter how reasonable the opponent’s argument or how gross his personalities, Mr. Ketchmaid, in his capacity of host, had one unfailing rejoinder — the man was drunk. When Mr. Ketchmaid had pronounced that opinion the argument was at an end. A nervousness about his license — conspicuous at other times by its absence — would suddenly possess him, and, opening the little wicket which gave admission to the bar, he would order the offender in scathing terms to withdraw.
Twice recently had he found occasion to warn Mr. Ned Clark, the village shoemaker, the strength of whose head had been a boast in the village for many years. On the third occasion the indignant shoemaker was interrupted in the middle of an impassioned harangue on free speech and bundled into the road by the ostler. After this nobody was safe.
To-night Mr. Ketchmaid, meeting his eye as he entered the bar, nodded curtly. The shoemaker had stayed away three days as a protest, and the landlord was naturally indignant at such contumacy.
“Good evening, Mr. Ketchmaid,” said the shoemaker, screwing up his little black eyes; “just give me a small bottle o’ lemonade, if you please.”
Mr. Clark’s cronies laughed, and Mr. Ketchmaid, after glancing at him to make sure that he was in earnest, served him in silence.
“There’s one thing about lemonade,” said the shoemaker, as he sipped it gingerly; “nobody could say you was drunk, not if you drank bucketsful of it.”
There was an awkward silence, broken at last by Mr. Clark smacking his lips.
“Any news since I’ve been away, chaps?” he inquired; “or ‘ave you just been sitting round as usual listening to the extra-ordinary adventures what happened to Mr. Ketchmaid whilst a-foller-ing of the sea?”
“Truth is stranger than fiction, Ned,” said Mr. Peter Smith, the tailor, reprovingly.
The shoemaker assented. “But I never thought so till I heard some o’ the things Mr. Ketchmaid ‘as been through,” he remarked.
“Well, you know now,” said the landlord, shortly.
“And the truthfullest of your yarns are the most wonderful of the lot, to my mind,” said Mr. Clark.
“What do you mean by the truthfullest?” demanded the landlord, gripping the arms of his chair.
“Why, the strangest,” grinned the shoemaker.
“Ah, he’s been through a lot, Mr. Ketchmaid has,” said the tailor.
“The truthfullest one to my mind,” said the shoemaker, regarding the landlord with spiteful interest, “is that one where Henry Wiggett, the boatswain’s mate, ‘ad his leg bit off saving Mr. Ketchmaid from the shark, and ‘is shipmate, Sam Jones, the nigger cook, was wounded saving ‘im from the South Sea Highlanders.”
“I never get tired o’ hearing that yarn,” said the affable Mr. Smith.
“I do,” said Mr. Clark.
Mr. Ketchmaid looked up from his pipe and eyed him darkly; the shoemaker smiled serenely.
“Another small bottle o’ lemonade, landlord,” he said, slowly.
“Go and get your lemonade somewhere else,” said the bursting Mr. Ketchmaid.
“I prefer to ‘ave it here,” rejoined the shoemaker, “and you’ve got to serve me, Ketchmaid. A licensed publican is compelled to serve people whether he likes to or not, else he loses of ‘is license.”
“Not when they’re the worse for licker he ain’t,” said the landlord.
“Certainly not,” said the shoemaker; “that’s why I’m sticking to lemonade, Ketchmaid.”
The indignant Mr. Ketchmaid, removing the wire from the cork, discharged the missile at the ceiling. The shoemaker took the glass from him and looked round with offensive slyness.
“Here’s the ‘ealth of Henry Wiggett what lost ‘is leg to save Mr. Ketchmaid’s life,” he said, unctuously. “Also the ‘ealth of Sam Jones, who let hisself be speared through the chest for the same noble purpose. Likewise the health of Captain Peters, who nursed Mr. Ketchmaid like ‘is own son when he got knocked up doing the work of five men as was drowned; likewise the health o’ Dick Lee, who helped Mr. Ketchmaid capture a Chinese junk full of pirates and killed the whole seventeen of ’em by— ‘Ow did you say you killed’em, Ketchmaid?”
The landlord, who was busy with the taps, affected not to hear.
“Killed the whole seventeen of ’em by first telling ’em yarns till they fell asleep and then choking ’em with Henry Wiggett’s wooden leg,” resumed the shoemaker.
“Kee — hee,” said a hapless listener, explosively. “Kee — hee — kee — —”
He checked himself suddenly, and assumed an air of great solemnity as the landlord looked his way.
“You’d better go ‘ome, Jem Summers,” said the fuming Mr. Ketchmaid. “You’re the worse for liker.”
“I’m not,” said Mr. Summers, stoutly.
“Out you go,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, briefly. “You know my rules. I keep a respectable house, and them as can’t drink in moderation are best outside.”
“You should stick to lemonade, Jem,” said Mr. Clark. “You can say what you like then.”
Mr. Summers looked round for support, and then, seeing no pity in the landlord’s eye, departed, wondering inwardly how he was to spend the remainder of the evening. The company in the bar gazed at each other soberly and exchanged whispers.
“Understand, Ned Clark,” said the indignant Mr. Ketchmaid, “I don’t want your money in this public-house. Take it somewhere else.”
“Thank’ee, but I prefer to come here,” said the shoemaker, ostentatiously sipping his lemonade. �
��I like to listen to your tales of the sea. In a quiet way I get a lot of amusement out of ’em.”
“Do you disbelieve my word?” demanded Mr. Ketchmaid, hotly.
“Why, o’ course I do,” replied the shoemaker; “we all do. You’d see how silly they are yourself if you only stopped to think. You and your sharks! — no shark would want to eat you unless it was blind.”
Mr. Ketchmaid allowed this gross reflection on his personal appearance to pass unnoticed, and for the first time of many evenings sat listening in torment as the shoemaker began the narration of a series of events which he claimed had happened to a seafaring nephew. Many of these bore a striking resemblance to Mr. Ketch-maid’s own experiences, the only difference being that the nephew had no eye at all for the probabilities.
In this fell work Mr. Clark was ably assisted by the offended Mr. Summers. Side by side they sat and quaffed lemonade, and burlesqued the landlord’s autobiography, the only consolation afforded to Mr. Ketchmaid consisting in the reflection that they were losing a harmless pleasure in good liquor. Once, and once only, they succumbed to the superior attractions of alcohol, and Mr. Ketchmaid, returning from a visit to his brewer at the large seaport of Burnsea, heard from the ostler the details of a carouse with which he had been utterly unable to cope.
The couple returned to lemonade the following night, and remained faithful to that beverage until an event transpired which rendered further self-denial a mere foolishness.
It was about a week later, Mr. Ketchmaid had just resumed his seat after serving a customer, when the attention of all present was attracted by an odd and regular tapping on the brick-paved passage outside. It stopped at the tap-room, and a murmur of voices escaped at the open door. Then the door was closed, and a loud, penetrating voice called on the name of Sol Ketchmaid.
“Good Heavens!” said the amazed landlord, half-rising from his seat and falling back again, “I ought to know that voice.”
“Sol Ketchmaid,” bellowed the voice again; “where are you, shipmate?”
“Hennery Wig-gett!” gasped the landlord, as a small man with ragged whiskers appeared at the wicket, “it can’t be!”
The new-comer regarded him tenderly for a moment without a word, and then, kicking open the door with an unmistakable wooden leg, stumped into the bar, and grasping his outstretched hand shook it fervently.
“I met Cap’n Peters in Melbourne,” said the stranger, as his friend pushed him into his own chair, and questioned him breathlessly. “He told me where you was.”
“The sight o’ you, Hennery Wiggett, is better to me than diamonds,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, ecstatically. “How did you get here?”
“A friend of his, Cap’n Jones, of the barque Venus, gave me a passage to London,” said Mr. Wiggett, “and I’ve tramped down from there without a penny in my pocket.”
“And Sol Ketchmaid’s glad to see you, sir,” said Mr. Smith, who, with the rest of the company, had been looking on in a state of great admiration. “He’s never tired of telling us ‘ow you saved him from the shark and ‘ad your leg bit off in so doing.”
“I’d ‘ave my other bit off for ‘im, too,” said Mr. Wiggett, as the landlord patted him affectionately on the shoulder and thrust a glass of spirits into his hands. “Cheerful, I would. The kindest-’earted and the bravest man that ever breathed, is old Sol Ketchmaid.”
He took the landlord’s hand again, and, squeezing it affectionately, looked round the comfortable bar with much approval. They began to converse in the low tones of confidence, and names which had figured in many of the landlord’s stories fell continuously on the listeners’ ears.
“You never ‘eard anything more o’ pore Sam Jones, I s’pose?” said Mr. Ketchmaid.
Mr. Wiggett put down his glass.
“I ran up agin a man in Rio Janeiro two years ago,” he said, mournfully. “Pore old Sam died in ‘is arms with your name upon ‘is honest black lips.”
“Enough to kill any man,” muttered the discomfited Mr. Clark, looking round defiantly upon his murmuring friends.
“Who is this putty-faced swab, Sol?” demanded Mr. Wiggett, turning a fierce glance in the shoemaker’s direction.
“He’s our cobbler,” said the landlord, “but you don’t want to take no notice of ‘im. Nobody else does. He’s a man who as good as told me I’m a liar.”
“Wot!” said Mr. Wiggett, rising and stumping across the bar; “take it back, mate. I’ve only got one leg, but nobody shall run down Sol while I can draw breath. The finest sailor-man that ever trod a deck is Sol, and the best-’earted.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr. Smith; “own up as you’re in the wrong, Ned.”
“When I was laying in my bunk in the fo’c’s’le being nursed back to life,” continued Mr. Wig-gett, enthusiastically, “who was it that set by my side ‘olding my ‘and and telling me to live for his sake? — why, Sol Ketchmaid. Who was it that said that he’d stick to me for life? — why Sol Ketchmaid. Who was it said that so long as ‘e ‘ad a crust I should have first bite at it, and so long as ‘e ‘ad a bed I should ‘ave first half of it? — why, Sol Ketchmaid!”
He paused to take breath, and a flattering murmur arose from his listeners, while the subject of his discourse looked at him as though his eloquence was in something of the nature of a surprise even to him.
“In my old age and on my beam-ends,” continued Mr. Wiggett, “I remembered them words of old Sol, and I knew if I could only find ‘im my troubles were over. I knew that I could creep into ‘is little harbour and lay snug. I knew that what Sol said he meant. I lost my leg saving ‘is life, and he is grateful.”
“So he ought to be,” said Mr. Clark, “and I’m proud to shake ‘ands with a hero.”
He gripped Mr. Wiggett’s hand, and the others followed suit. The wooden-legged man wound up with Mr. Ketchmaid, and, disdaining to notice that that veracious mariner’s grasp was somewhat limp, sank into his chair again, and asked for a cigar.
“Lend me the box, Sol,” he said, jovially, as he took it from him. “I’m going to ‘and ’em round. This is my treat, mates. Pore old Henry Wig-gett’s treat.”
He passed the box round, Mr. Ketchmaid watching in helpless indignation as the customers, discarding their pipes, thanked Mr. Wiggett warmly, and helped themselves to a threepenny cigar apiece. Mr. Clark was so particular that he spoilt at least two by undue pinching before he could find one to his satisfaction.
Closing time came all too soon, Mr. Wiggett, whose popularity was never for a moment in doubt, developing gifts to which his friend had never even alluded. He sang comic songs in a voice which made the glasses rattle on the shelves, asked some really clever riddles, and wound up with a conjuring trick which consisted in borrowing half a crown from Mr. Ketchmaid and making it pass into the pocket of Mr. Peter Smith. This last was perhaps not quite so satisfactory, as the utmost efforts of the tailor failed to discover the coin, and he went home under a cloud of suspicion which nearly drove him frantic.
“I ‘ope you’re satisfied,” said Mr. Wiggett, as the landlord, having shot the bolts of the front door, returned to the bar.
“You went a bit too far,” said Mr. Ketchmaid, shortly; “you should ha’ been content with doing what I told you to do. And who asked you to ‘and my cigars round?”
“I got a bit excited,” pleaded the other.
“And you forgot to tell ’em you’re going to start to-morrow to live with that niece of yours in New Zealand,” added the landlord.
“So I did,” said Mr. Wiggett, smiting his forehead; “so I did. I’m very sorry; I’ll tell ’em tomorrow night.”
“Mention it casual like, to-morrow morning,” commanded Mr. Ketchmaid, “and get off in the arternoon, then I’ll give you some dinner besides the five shillings as arranged.”
Mr. Wiggett thanked him warmly, and, taking a candle, withdrew to the unwonted luxury of clean sheets and a soft bed. For some time he lay awake in deep thought and then, smothering a laugh with the bed-clo
thes, he gave a sigh of content and fell asleep.
To the landlord’s great annoyance his guest went for a walk next morning and did not return until the evening, when he explained that he had walked too far for his crippled condition and was unable to get back. Much sympathy was manifested for him in the bar, but in all the conversation that ensued Mr. Ketchmaid listened in vain for any hint of his departure. Signals were of no use, Mr. Wiggett merely nodding amiably and raising his glass in response; and when, by considerable strategy, he brought the conversation from pig-killing to nieces, Mr. Wiggett deftly transferred it to uncles and discoursed on pawn-broking.
The helpless Mr. Ketchmaid suffered in silence, with his eye on the clock, and almost danced with impatience at the tardiness of his departing guests. He accompanied the last man to the door, and then, crimson with rage, returned to the bar to talk to Mr. Wiggett.
“Wot d’y’r mean by it?” he thundered.
“Mean by what, Sol?” inquired Mr. Wiggett, looking up in surprise.
“Don’t you call me Sol, ‘cos I won’t have it,” vociferated the landlord, standing over him with his fist clenched. “First thing to-morrow morning off you go.”
“Off?” repeated the other in amazement. “Off? Whereto?”
“Anywhere,” said the overwrought landlord; “so long as you get out of here, I don’t care where you go.”
Mr. Wiggett, who was smoking a cigar, the third that evening, laid it carefully on the table by his side, and regarded him with tender reproach.
“You ain’t yourself, Sol,” he said, with conviction; “don’t say another word else you might say things you’ll be sorry for.”
His forebodings were more than justified, Mr. Ketchmaid indulging in a few remarks about his birth, parentage, and character which would have shocked an East-end policeman.
Works of W. W. Jacobs Page 154
