The Lively Poll by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best detective novels of all time .txt) 📕

"Ain't a gentleman a man wot's gentle? An' w'en you was the other day a-spreadin' of them lovely shells, an' crabs, an' sea-goin' kooriosities out on her pocket-hankercher, didn't I _see_ that you was gentle?"

"I'll be pretty rough on you, Pat, in a minit, if you don't hold your jaw," interrupted Bob, who, however, did not seem displeased with his friend's definition of a gentleman. "Well, you may say what you like, only be sure you say what's true. An' then you'll have to take some nice things as I'll get for her from time to time w'en I comes ashore. But there'll be difficulties, I doubt, in the way of gettin' her to take wittles w'en she don't know who they comes from."

"Oh, don't you bother your head about that," said Pat. "I'll manage it. I'm used to difficulties. Just you leave it to me, an' it'll be all right."

"Well, I will, Pat; so you'll come round with me to the old furnitur' shop in Yarmouth, an' fetch the chair. I got it awful cheap from the old chap as keeps the shop w'en I told him what it was for. Then you'll bring it out to Eve, an' try to git her to have a ride in it to-day, if you can. I'll see about the wittles arter. Hain't quite worked that out in my mind yet. Now, as to wages. I fear I can't offer you none--"

"I never axed for none," retorted Pat proudly.

"That's true Pat; but I'm not a-goin' to make you slave for nuthin'. I'll just promise you that I'll save all I can o' my wages, an' give you what I can spare. You'll just have to trust me as to that."

"Trust you, Bob!" exclaimed Pat, with enthusiasm, "look here, now; this is how the wind blows. If the Prime Minister o' Rooshia was to come to me in full regimentals an' offer to make me capting o' the Horse Marines to the Hemperor, I'd say, `No thankee, I'm engaged,' as the young woman said to the young man she didn't want to marry."

The matter being thus satisfactorily settled, Bob Lumsden and his little friend went off to Yarmouth, intent on carrying out the first part of their plan.

It chanced about the same time that another couple were having a quiet chat together in the neighbourhood of Gorleston Pier. Fred Martin and Isa Wentworth had met by appointment to talk over a subject of peculiar interest to themselves. Let us approach and become eavesdroppers.

"Now, Fred," said Isa, with a good deal of decision in her tone, "I'm not at all satisfied with your explanation. These mysterious and long visits you make to London ought to be accounted for, and as I have agreed to become your wife within the next three or four months, just to please _you_, the least you can do, I think, is to have no secrets from _me_. Besides, you have no idea what the people here and your former shipmates are saying about you."

"Indeed, dear lass, what do they say?"

"Well, they say now you've got well they can't understand why you should go loafing about doin' nothin' or idling your time in London, instead of goin' to sea."

"Idlin' my time!" exclaimed Fred with affected indignation. "How do they know I'm idlin' my time? What if I was studyin' to be a doctor or a parson?"

"Perhaps they'd say that _was_ idlin' your time, seein' that you're only a fisherman," returned Isa, looking up in her lover's face with a bright smile. "But tell me, Fred, why should you have any secret from _me_?"

"Because, dear lass, the thing that gives me so much pleasure and hope is not absolutely fixed, and I don't want you to be made anxious. This much I will tell you, however: you know I passed my examination for skipper when I was home last time, and now, through God's goodness, I have been offered the command of a smack. If all goes well, I hope to sail in her next week; then, on my return, I hope to--to take the happiest. Well, well, I'll say no more about that, as we're gettin' near mother's door. But tell me, Isa, has Uncle Martin been worrying mother again when I was away?"

"No. When he found out that you had got the money that was left to her, and had bought an annuity for her with it, he went away, and I've not seen him since."

"That's well. I'm glad of that."

"But am I to hear nothing more about this smack, not even her name?"

"Nothing more just now, Isa. As to her name, it's not yet fixed. But, trust me, you shall know all in good time."

As they had now reached the foot of Mrs Martin's stair, the subject was dropped.

They found the good woman in the act of supplying Granny Martin with a cup of tea. There was obvious improvement in the attic. Sundry little articles of luxury were there which had not been there before.

"You see, my boy," said Mrs Martin to Fred, as they sat round the social board, "now that the Lord has sent me enough to get along without slavin' as I used--to do, I takes more time to make granny comfortable, an' I've got her a noo chair, and noo specs, which she was much in want of, for the old uns was scratched to that extent you could hardly see through 'em, besides bein' cracked across both eyes. Ain't they much better, dear?"

The old woman, seated in the attic window, turned her head towards the tea-table and nodded benignantly once or twice; but the kind look soon faded into the wonted air of patient contentment, and the old head turned to the sea as the needle turns to the pole, and the soft murmur was heard, "He'll come soon now."


CHAPTER SEVEN.


A RESCUE.

Never was there a fishing smack more inappropriately named than the _Fairy_,--that unwieldy iron vessel which the fleet, in facetious content, had dubbed the "Ironclad," and which had the honour of being commanded by that free and easy, sociable--almost too sociable--skipper, Ned Bryce.

She was steered by Dick Martin on the day of which we now write. Dick, as he stood at the helm, with stern visage, bloodshot eyes, and dissipated look, was not a pleasant object of contemplation, but as he played a prominent part in the proceedings of that memorable day, we are bound to draw attention to him. Although he had spent a considerable portion of the night with his skipper in testing the quality of some schnapps which they had recently procured from a _coper_, he had retained his physical and mental powers sufficiently for the performance of his duties. Indeed, he was one of those so-called seasoned casks, who are seldom or never completely disabled by drink, although thoroughly enslaved, and he was now quite competent to steer the _Fairy_ in safety through the mazes of that complex dance which the deep-sea trawlers usually perform on the arrival of the carrying-steamer.

What Bryce called a chopping and a lumpy sea was running. It was decidedly rough, though the breeze was moderate, so that the smacks all round were alternately presenting sterns and bowsprits to the sky in a violent manner that might have suggested the idea of a rearing and kicking dance. When the carrier steamed up to the Admiral, and lay to beside him, and the smacks drew towards her from all points of the compass, the mazes of the dance became intricate, and the risk of collisions called for careful steering.

Being aware of this, and being himself not quite so steady about the head as he could wish, Skipper Bryce looked at Martin for a few seconds, and then ordered him to go help to launch the boat and get the trunks out, and send Phil Morgan aft.

Phil was not a better seaman than Dick, but he was a more temperate man, therefore clearer brained and more dependable.

Soon the smacks were waltzing and kicking round each other on every possible tack, crossing and re-crossing bows and sterns; sometimes close shaving, out and in, down-the-middle-and-up-again fashion, which, to a landsman, might have been suggestive of the 'bus, cab, and van throng in the neighbourhood of that heart of the world, the Bank of England.

Sounds of hailing and chaffing now began to roll over the North Sea from many stentorian lungs.

"What cheer? what cheer?" cried some in passing.

"Hallo, Tim! how are 'ee, old man! What luck?"

"All right, Jim; on'y six trunks."

"Ha! that's 'cause ye fished up a dead man yesterday."

"Is that you, Ted?"

"Ay, ay, what's left o' me--worse luck. I thought your mother was goin' to keep you at home this trip to mind the babby."

"So she was, boy, but the babby fell into a can o' buttermilk an' got drownded, so I had to come off again, d'ee see?"

"What cheer, Groggy Fox? Have 'ee hoisted the blue ribbon yet?"

"No, Stephen Lockley, I haven't, nor don't mean to, but one o' the fleet seems to have hoisted the blue flag."

Groggy Fox pointed to one of the surrounding vessels as he swept past in the _Cormorant_.

Lockley looked round in haste, and, to his surprise, saw floating among the smaller flags, at a short distance, the great twenty-feet flag of a mission vessel, with the letters MDSF (Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen) on it, in white on a blue ground.

"She must have lost her reckoning," muttered Lockley, as he tried to catch sight of the vessel to which the flag belonged--which was not easy, owing to the crowd of smacks passing to and fro between it and him.

Just at that moment a hearty cheer was heard to issue from the Admiral's smack, the _Cherub_. At the same time the boat of the _Lively Poll_ was launched into the sea, Duffy and Freeman and another hand tumbled into her, and the skipper had to give his undivided attention to the all-important matter of transhipping the fish.

Dozens of boats were by that time bobbing like corks on the heaving sea, all making for the attendant steamer. Other dozens, which had already reached her, were clinging on--the men heaving the fish-boxes aboard,-- while yet others were pushing off from the smacks last arrived to join the busy swarm.

Among these was the boat of the _Fairy_, with Dick Martin and two men aboard. It was heavily laden--too heavily for such a sea--for their haul on the previous night had been very successful.

North Sea fishermen are so used to danger that they are apt to despise it. Both Bryce and Martin knew they had too many trunks in the boat, but they thought it a pity to leave five or six behind, and be obliged to make two trips for so small a number, where one might do. Besides, they could be careful. And so they were--very careful; yet despite all their care they shipped a good deal of water, and the skipper stood on the deck of the _Fairy_ watching them with some anxiety. Well he might, for so high were the waves that not only his own boat but all the others