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

An irrepressible shriek burst from the sisters as they tripped over each other into the passage, and the faithful Liffie slammed the door in the face of the discomfited policeman.

It was a crucial test of friendship, and the Miss Seawards came to the conclusion that night, before retiring to rest, that nothing on earth would ever induce them to do it again.


CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.


A HOPEFUL CLUB DISCOVERED.

When Captain Bream, as before mentioned, was obliged to hurry off to London, and forsake the Miss Seawards, as well as his theological studies, he hastened to that portion of the city where merchants and brokers, and money-lenders, and men of the law do love to congregate.

Turning down Cheapside the captain sought for one of the many labyrinths of narrow streets and lanes that blush unseen in that busy part of the Great Hive.

"Only a penny, sir, _only_ a penny."

The speaker was an ill-conditioned man, and the object offered for sale was a climbing monkey of easily deranged mechanism.

"Do you suppose," said the captain, who, being full of anxious thought was for the moment irascible, "do you suppose that I am a baby?"

"Oh! dear no, sir. From appearances I should say you've bin weaned some little time--only a penny, sir. A nice little gift for the missus, sir, if you ain't got no child'n."

"Can you direct me," said the captain with a bland look--for his tempers were short-lived--"to Brockley Court?"

"First to the left, sir, second to the right, straight on an' ask again--only a penny, sir, climbs like all alive, sir."

Dropping a penny into the man's hand with a hope that it might help the monkeys to climb, Captain Bream turned into the labyrinth, and soon after found himself in a dark little room which was surrounded by piles of japanned tin boxes, and littered with bundles of documents, betokening the daily haunt of a man-of-law.

The lawyer himself--a bland man with a rugged head, a Roman nose and a sharp eye--sat on a hard-bottomed chair in front of a square desk. Why should business men, by the way, subject themselves to voluntary martyrdom by using polished seats of hard-wood? Is it with a view to doing penance, for the sins of the class to which they belong?

"Have you found her, Mr Saker?" asked Captain Bream, eagerly, on entering.

"No, not got quite so far as that yet--pray sit down; but we have reason to believe that we have got a clue--a slight one, indeed, but then, the information we have to go upon in our profession is frequently very slight--very slight indeed."

"True, too true," assented the captain. "I sometimes wonder how, with so little to work on at times, you ever begin to go about an investigation."

The lawyer smiled modestly in acknowledgment of the implied compliment.

"We do, indeed, proceed on our investigations occasionally with exceeding little information to go upon, but then, my dear sir, investigation may be said to be a branch of our profession, for which we are in a manner specially trained. Let me see, now."

He took up a paper, and, opening it, began to read with a running commentary:--

"Fair hair, slightly grey; delicate features, complexion rather pale, brown eyes, gentle manners."

"That's her--that's her!" from the captain.

"Age apparently a little over thirty. You said, I think, that your sister was--"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the captain in some excitement, "she was considerably younger than me, poor girl!"

"Let me, however, caution you, my dear sir, not to be too sanguine," said the man-of-law, looking over his spectacles at his client; "you have no idea how deceptive descriptions are. People are so prone to receive them according to their desires rather than according to fact."

"Well, but," returned the captain, with some asperity, "you tell me that this woman has fair hair slightly grey, delicate features, pale complexion, brown eyes, and gentle manners, all of which are _facts_!"

"True, my dear sir, but they are facts applicable to many women," replied the solicitor. "Still, I confess I have some hope that we have hit upon the right scent at last. If you could only have given us the name of her husband, our difficulty would have been comparatively slight. I suppose you have no means of hunting that up now. No distant relative or--"

"No, none whatever. All my relations are dead. She lived with an old aunt at the time, who died soon after the poor girl's foolish elopement, leaving no reference to the matter behind her. It is now fifteen years since then. I was away on a long voyage at the time. On my return, the old lady, as I have said, was dead, and her neighbours knew nothing except that my sister was reported to have run away with a seafaring man. Some who had seen him about the place said he seemed to be beneath her in station but none knew his name."

"Is it not strange," asked the solicitor, "that she has never in all these years made inquiries about you at the mercantile house which employed you?"

"Well, not so strange as it would seem, for my sister's memory for names was a bad one. She used constantly to forget the name of the ship I commanded, and, as far as I can remember, did not trouble herself about the owners. I have no doubt she must have made many efforts to discover me--unless she was ashamed of having made a low match. At all events," added the captain, with a weary sigh, "I have never ceased to make inquiries about her, although I have not until now made the attempt through a lawyer. But where is this person you have heard of to be found?"

"On board of an emigrant ship," said the solicitor.

"Where bound for?" demanded the captain in peat surprise.

"For Australia, and she sails the day after to-morrow, I am told."

"Her name!" cried the captain, starting up.

"Calm yourself, my dear sir. I have made all needful arrangements for your going off to-morrow. It is too late to-day. Sit down and let me explain; and, above all, bear in mind that this may turn out to be a wrong scent after all. Of course you may surmise that we lawyers obtain our information from many and various sources. The source whence the information concerning your matter has come is peculiar, namely, a lay-missionary who is going to visit the ship to-morrow--having some friends on board. Happening to meet the man the other day, I mentioned your matter to him. He is a very sharp-witted man, and one whose accuracy of observation I should trust implicitly, even if his own interests were involved. Well, he said that on board of the steam-ship _Talisman_, now lying off Gravesend, he saw that very day a woman among the steerage emigrants who answered to my description exactly, and added that he had heard her spoken of as the wife of a somewhat dissipated man, who had all the appearance of a seafaring person, named Richards. Of course I attach no importance to the name, as you say you never knew it, but his being a sailor-like man, and the fact that he was probably beneath his wife in station, coupled with the correct description of the wife, while it does not justify our being too sanguine, raises our hopes, you see--"

"I see, I see--yes. I beg that you will give me the agent's name and address," cried the captain, whose hopes, despite the guarded and cautious statements of the solicitor, had been raised to the highest point.

"Here is his name, with the part of the river where you are to meet him," said the calm man of law, handing his client a slip of paper; "but let me, my dear sir, impress on you the advisability of not allowing yourself to become too sanguine. Disappointments are invariably more severe in cases where expectations have been too high; and I fear that you may be already building too trustfully upon the very slender foundation supplied by this information."

Admitting the force of this truism, and putting the slip of paper in his purse, Captain Bream bade his solicitor good-bye, with many protestations of undying gratitude, and left the room with the highest possible hopes of success.


CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.


IN THE MISSION BOAT ON THE THAMES--THE DAMPING OF THE BODY CANNOT DAMP THE ARDENT SPIRIT.

Next morning Captain Bream accompanied the lay-missionary to Gravesend, where they took a boat and put off to the emigrant ship.

Great was the captain's satisfaction to find that his companion had been a sailor, and could talk to him--in nautical language too--about seafaring matters and distant climes.

"It is a good work in which you are engaged," he said; "are you going to preach to 'em?"

"No, only to distribute Testaments, tracts, and good books--though I may preach if I get the chance. My work lies chiefly among emigrants and boat and barge men, but I also do a good deal among regular sailors."

"Ah! That's the work that _I'm_ fond of," said the captain, with enthusiasm. "Of course I don't mean to say that the soul of a sailor is of more value than that of any other man, but I lean to sailors naturally, havin' been among 'em the greater part of my life. I've done a little myself in the way of preachin' to 'em."

"Have you?" exclaimed the missionary, with a pleased look.

And from this point the two men went off into a confidential and animated talk about their varied experiences on the sea of spiritual work, on which they had both been launched, while the boatman--an old and evidently sympathetic man--pulled them to the vessel which lay at some distance from the place of embarkation.

While the two friends--for such they had become by that time--were chatting thus with each other, a little accident was in store for Captain Bream, which not only disarranged his plans, but afterwards considerably affected his career.

Having reached the age of sixty years, our captain was not quite as active in body as he had once been. He was, however, quite as active in heart and mind, besides having much of the fire of youth still burning in him. Hence he was apt at times to forget his body in the impulsive buoyancy of his spirit. An instance of this forgetfulness occurred that day. The missionary paid a passing visit to a vessel on their way to the emigrant ship. Having run alongside, Captain Bream put his foot on the first step of the ladder, with intent to mount the vessel's side.

"Have a care, sir," said the old boatman, who was assisting him with some anxiety.

It may be that the captain's too youthful spirit spurned assistance, or that he had miscalculated the powers of his too ancient body, for at the moment his foot slipped while as yet his hold of the man-ropes was not secure, and he fell with a lion-like roar that might have shamed the stoutest king of the African forests.

It was not a cry of fear, still less was it a shout for help. It seemed rather like an effervescing roar of indignant surprise.

The boatman held