The Young Trawler by Robert Michael Ballantyne (classic novels txt) 📕

were separated. Then there occurred a violent scene of explanation, allegation, recrimination, and retort, during which the guardians of the peace attempted to throw oil on the troubled waters, for it is always their aim, we believe, to quiet down drunken uproars when possible rather than to take up the rioters.

As the burglar, with an injured, innocent look, denied the charge made against him, and turned all his pockets inside out in proof of his veracity, Gunter was fain to content himself with the supposition that he had lost his money in some incomprehensible manner.

In a very sulky mood he flung out of the public-house and sauntered away. He knew not where to go, for he had no friends in Yarmouth--at least none who would have welcomed him--and he had not wherewith to pay for a bed, even in the poorest lodging.

As he walked along, conscience began to smite him, but he was in no mood to listen to conscience. He silenced it, and at the same time called himself, with an oath, a big fool. There is no question that he was right, yet he would have denied the fact and fought any one else who should have ventured so to address him.

The evening was beginning to grow dark as he turned down one of the narrow and lonely rows.

Now, it so happened that this was one of the rows through which Ruth Dotropy had to pass on her way home.

Ruth was not naturally timid, but when she suddenly beheld a half-drunken man coming towards her, and observed that no one else was near, something like a flutter of anxiety agitated her breast. At the same moment something like a sledge-hammer blow smote the concave side of John Gunter's bosom.

"She's got more than she needs," he growled between his teeth, "an' I've got nothin'!"

As his conscience had been silenced this was a sufficient argument for John.

"I'll thank you for a shillin', Miss," he said, confronting the now frightened girl after a hasty glance round.

"Oh! yes, yes--willingly," gasped poor Ruth, fumbling in her pocket for her purse. The purse, however, chanced to have been left at home. "Oh, _how_ provoking! I have not my purse with me, but if these few pence will--"

"Never mind the pence, Miss," said Gunter,--accepting the pence; however, as he spoke--"that nice little watch will do jist as well."

He snatched the watch which hung at Ruth's waist-belt, snapped the slender guard that held it, and made off.

When sufficiently out of danger of pursuit, he paused under a lamp to examine his prize. To his intense disgust he found that the little watch, instead of being a gold one, as he had expected, was only a silver one, of comparatively little value.

"Well, your first haul in this line ain't worth much," he grumbled. "Hows'ever, I've got coppers enough for a night's lodgin' an' grub."

Saying which he pocketed the watch, and went on his way.

Meanwhile Ruth, having given vent to a sob of relief when the man left her, ran towards home as fast as she could, never pausing till she reached the Miss Seawards' door, which chanced to be a little nearer than her own. Against this she plunged with wonderful violence for one so gentle and tender, and then hammered it with her knuckles in a way that would have done credit to a lightweight prize-fighter.

The door was opened hastily by Liffie Lee, who, being a much lighter weight than her assailant, went down before her rush.

"Lawk! Miss Ruth," she exclaimed, on recovering her feet, "w'at's a-'appened?"

But she asked the question of the empty air, for Ruth was already half sobbing, half laughing on the sofa, with a highly agitated sister on either side trying to calm her.

"Oh! what a little donkey I am," she exclaimed, flinging off her bonnet and attempting to laugh.

"What _has_ happened?" gasped Jessie.

"_Do_ tell us, dear," cried Kate.

"I--I've been robbed, by a--dreadful man--so awfully gruff, a sailor I think, and--oh!" Ruth became suddenly much calmer. "It did not occur to me till this moment--it is _the_ watch--papa's little silver watch that Captain Bream brought him as a sort of curiosity from abroad long ago. Oh! I _am_ so sorry! It was such a favourite with dear papa, and he told me to take such care of it when he gave it to me, for there was a romantic little history connected with it."

"What was it, dear?" asked Jessie, glad to find that the sudden diversion of her thoughts to the lost watch had done more to calm Ruth than all their demonstrative comfort.

Ruth at once proceeded to relate the story of the watch, but we will not inflict it on the reader, as it has no particular bearing on our tale. It had something to do, however, with detaining Ruth far later than she had intended to remain, so that she jumped up hastily at last, saying she must really go home.

"Are you sure the robber was a sailor?" asked Kate; "sailors are such dear nice men that I can hardly believe it."

"I'm almost quite sure," returned Ruth; "at all events he was dressed like one--and, oh! he _was_ so gruff!"

From this point Ruth diverged into further and more minute details of the robbery, over which the three gloated with a species of fascination which is more frequently associated with ghost stories than true tales. Indeed we may say that _four_ gloated over it, for Liffie Lee, unable to restrain her curiosity, put her head in at the door--at first with the more or less honest intention of asking if "hany think was wanted," and afterwards let her head remain from sheer inability to withdraw it.

At one point in the thrilling narrative she became intensely excited, and when Ruth tried in sepulchral tones to imitate John Gunter's gruff voice, she exclaimed, "Oh! lawks!" in such a gasp that the three ladies leaped up with three shrieks like three conscience-smitten kittens caught in a guilty act! Liffie was rebuked, but from pity, or perhaps sympathy, was allowed to remain to hear the end.

When that point was reached, it was found to be so late that the streets were almost deserted, and the particular part in which their lodging stood was dreadfully silent.

"How am I ever to get home?" asked Ruth.

"It is not more than twenty doors off," said Kate, "and Liffie will go with you."

"Lawks, ma'am," said Liffie, "what could the likes o' me do if we was attacked? An' then--I should 'ave to return _alone_!"

"That is true," said the tender-hearted Jessie; "what _is_ to be done? Our landlady goes to bed early. It would never do to rouse her--and then, she may perhaps be as great a coward as we are. Oh! if there was only a _man_ in the house. Even a boy would do."

"Ah! I jist think 'e would," said Liffie. "If little Billy was 'ere, I wouldn't ax for no man."

"I'll tell you what," said Kate with a bright look of decision, "we'll all go together. Get on your bonnet, Jessie."

There was no resisting Kate when once she had made up her mind. She put on her own bonnet, and her sister quickly returned ready, "with a heart," as Byron says, "for any fate?"

"Now don't speak, any of you," whispered Kate. "If we are attacked, let us give a united shriek. That will raise some one to our aid."

"I should think it would, ma'am. It would a'most raise the dead," said Liffie, who also prepared herself for the ordeal.

Dark and deserted streets at late hours, with dangerous characters known to be abroad, have terrors to some small extent, even for the averagely brave; what must they have, then, for those tender ones of the weaker sex whose spirits are gentle, perhaps timid, and whose nerves have been highly strung by much converse on subjects relating to violence?

The first shock experienced by our quartette was caused by the door. From some inscrutable impulse Liffie Lee had locked it after Ruth had rushed in.

"Open it gently," whispered Jessie, for the party had now got to the condition of feeling very much as if they were themselves burglars, engaged in some unholy enterprise, and feared to arouse sleepers. But they need not have feared, for their landlady was one of the "seven sleepers" of Yarmouth.

Liffie exerted her little strength with caution, but the lock was stiff; it would not move. She screwed up her mouth, and put-to more strength; still it would not move. Screwing up her eyebrows as well as her mouth, she tried again. It would not budge. She even screwed up her nose in a stupendous effort, but all in vain. If there had been no need for caution, the thing would have been easy, but Jessie kept whispering, "Softly, Liffie, softly!" and Ruth echoed "Softly!" At last Liffie screwed herself up entirely, body and soul, in one supreme effort; she agonised with the key. It yielded, and the bolt flew back with a crack like a pistol-shot.

"Oh!" burst in four different keys--not door-keys--from the party--under their breath however.

"Open," whispered Jessie.

Liffie obeyed, and when the half-opened door revealed intense darkness outside, a feeling of horror caused their very flesh to creep.

"How I _wish_ I hadn't stayed! I'll _never_ do it again!" whispered poor Ruth in the tones of a child about to be punished.

"What's that!" exclaimed Jessie, with a start that caused Ruth almost to shriek.

"Cats!" said Liffie Lee.

"Impossible!" said Kate.

But it was not impossible, for there, in a corner not far off, were dimly seen two intensely black objects, with backs and tails arranged on the moorish-arch principle, and a species of low thunder issuing from them, suggestive of dynamite in the stomach.

Relieved to find it was nothing worse, the party emerged into the street. The cats were too much enraged and engaged with each other to observe them. They, like the ladies, were evidently cowards, for they continued to threaten without attacking.

Liffie was left on guard with strict injunctions to stand inside, hold tight to the door-handle, let in the returning sisters, and then slam the door in the face of all the world beside.

A run was now made for the Dotropy residence. We could not call it a rush, for the three ladies were too light and elegant in form to proceed in such a manner. They tripped it--if we may say so--on light fantastic toe, though with something of unseemly haste. Ruth being young and active reached the door first, and, as before, went with a rebounding bang against it. The anxious Mrs Dotropy had been for some time on the watch. She opened the door.

"Ruth!"

"Mamma!"

"Your daughter!" exclaimed the Miss Seawards in needless explanation, as they pushed her in, and then, turning round, fled homeward with so much noise that the attention of a night watchman was naturally attracted. The sisters heard his approaching foot-falls. They put on, in sporting language, a spurt. Just as the door was reached the two cats, becoming suddenly brave, filled the night-air with yells as of infants in agony.