Volume Three – Chapter Two.
Confidential
D. Wragg seemed to think that, in spite of his words, the mistake might be on his side if he made any complaints about the treatment he had received from the police. Once or twice he bristled up, and seemed to be making ready for a grand eruption; but second thoughts always came in time to calm him down, and those second thoughts, as a rule, related to the three dogs in the attic, the sacks of new corks, and the large flat hamper of Westphalia hams, respecting the possession of which goods he would not have liked to be too closely questioned.
That the police still had an eye upon his place he was sure; for he had many little quiet hints to that effect from friends outside, who knew a policeman in plain-clothes quite as well as if he were in uniform, and who, in consequence, were rather given to laughing at the popular notion that plain-clothes officers were able to mix here and there unknown with any society they might choose. But as the police seemed disposed to confine their attentions to a little quiet surveillance, and in other respects left him quite at peace, D. Wragg did not conceive that it would be advisable to beard the lions of the public order in their dens; so he winked to himself, watched anxiously every bystander who struck him as being at all like a policeman in mufti, and contented himself with talking largely to his confidential friends, though how far he was placing confidence in them remains to be proved.
“Look here, you know,” he said to Monsieur Canau one morning, when they had met on that neutral ground the passage, and adjourn ed to the shop, where they stood looking at one another in a curious distrustful fashion, – “look here, you know; we’re old friends, and you’ve lodged with me goodness knows how many years. I don’t mind speaking out before you. But don’t you make no mistake; there ain’t nothing kept back by me. As to them dorgs, how could I help about the dorgs when friends comes to me and says, ‘My dorg ain’t quite the thing to-day; I think I’ll get you to give him a dust o’ your distemper powder.’ And another one says, ‘I wish you’d take my dorg for a bit, and see if you think it’s mange as is a-comin’ on;’ while directly after comes another with a skye wiry, and says as he isn’t satisfied with the sit of his dorg’s ears, nor the way he sets up his tail. Well, in course I has to see to these things for ’em, my place being a sorter orspittle; and that’s how them dorgs come to be up-stairs; and the way they’ve come on since I’ve had ’em is something wonderful.”
Monsieur Canau nodded, and began to roll up a cigarette with clever manipulating fingers, keeping his eyes half closed the while, and smiling in a strange reserved way, that might have meant amusement, contempt, or merely sociability.
D. Wragg saw it, and became directly more impressive in his manner.
“Look here, you know,” he continued, earnestly; “I don’t mind speaking out before you. Don’t you make no mistake; we’re old friends, and this is how it is. Don’t you see, it’s all a plant as that there Jack Screwby got up because I as good as kicked him out – a vagabond! Wanted to come sneaking here after – but there!” he jerked out, throwing himself into quite a convulsion of spasmodic kicks, and scattering imaginary turnip-seed by the handful; – “I won’t talk about that no more. Only look here, you know; you’re my lodger, and I like my lodgers to look up to their landlord with respect; so don’t you make no mistake, and go for to think as them corks ain’t all square, because they air – square as square.”
Canau nodded, and lit his cigarette.
“Look here, you know,” continued D. Wragg; “it’s like this here – A man comes to you and he says, ‘I want two score o’ blue rocks’ – pigeons, you know, for trap-shooting, a thing as you furriners can’t understand, though you may come to some day. Well, he says, ‘I want two score o’ blue rocks, and I ain’t got no money, but I’ve got corks;’ and corks, you know, is money, if there ain’t no money, same as, when there warn’t no money, people used to swop. Well, then, we settles it in that way – wally for wally – he has blue rocks, and I has corks; and he’ll sell his blue rocks for money to the swells, and I shall sell my corks for money to a chap I knows as makes ginger-pop. And now, what’s the matter? No one can’t say after that as them corks ain’t square, can they?”
“But there was the ham,” said Canau, apparently disposed to cavil.
“Don’t you make no mistake about that. That there ham’s sweet enough; nothing couldn’t be squarer. We like ham, we do; and Mother Winks is mortal partial to a rasher. That’s why I laid in a stock.”
“Um!” said Canau, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke; “and about – about the young man?”
“Well,” said D. Wragg, looking sidewise out of his little eyes, “perhaps I worn’t quite square over that; for you see the young chap was all on the stare about little Pellet; and as he seemed ready to buy half the shop if she was likely to be here, I did think we might as well make a few pounds extry; for times is werry hard, you know, Mr Canau, and expenses is werry great: things runs up ’orrid.”
Canau smoked fiercely, his yellow forehead growing knit and angry-looking; but he did not speak.
“She didn’t like it, though,” continued D. Wragg; “and don’t you make no mistake: I was sorry for it afterwards, and called myself a bumble-footed old beast when I see her a cryin’. But don’t you make no mistake; as soon as I see she didn’t like it, why, bless her little heart, I says, ‘Don’t you go in the shop no more than you like, my pet,’ I says; and, bless her, she said she done it for poor Janet’s sake.”
D. Wragg seemed to be so affected by his recollections that he drew out a pocket-handkerchief and removed a faint drop of moisture from the corner of one eye, and another from the right side of his nose with the stem of his pipe, Canau nodding satisfaction the while many times over – seeming, too, more tranquil of spirit, for the puffs of smoke from his cigarette were evolved far more slowly, and went curling gently upwards towards the ceiling of the shop.
“I like natur, Mr Canau,” said D. Wragg, “and being a spoiled child of natur myself, I always did like natur. That little Pellet’s like, as you may say, natur’s cream, all served up together. Dorgs is natur, and all these here’s natur.”
D. Wragg paused, inserted his left thumb in the armhole of his vest, and with the other hand gracefully waved round the stem of his pipe, indicating in turn the caged prisoners around.
“I loved natur, Mr Canau, when I was a boy, and went birds’-nestin’ and ketchin’ frogs instead of goin’ to school, and took to the serciety of bird-ketchers, which is men of nat’ral habits, as is in some things a pleasure to know. It was my love of natur, Mr Canau, as fust set me beginning trade – selling ’edge-hogs and greenfinches and nesties of young birds in the streets; and it was natur as made me to prosper and get into this here large way of business. I’m a London man bred and born, though justice worn’t done me in either case – for I’m wideawake to what’s wrong with me; but I’ll back myself in nat’ral history to tell anything you like, from a ork down to a tom-tit, and t’other way from a mouse up to a helephant – if so be as they’re all English. For, you see, I never went travelling, only once, when I went round for a whole year with Wombwell’s nadgery, feeding the wild beasties, and helping to put the carrywans straight, – and all from a love of natur, Mr Canau, though you did get rather more natur there than you liked, ’specially as regards smells, and bein’ kep’ awake of a night by the hyenas a laughin’, or them great furrin cats letting go like hooray – let alone the other things. And that was why I left it and took to dorgs, – selling washed pups at carriage-doors, warranted never to get no bigger. And look here,” he continued, with a grin; “if ever you should take to that there trade, I’ll put you up to a breed as the pups is the werry smallest in natur, and washes the whitest in natur; but as for the size they grows up to in a swell’s house, where they’re fed up like bloated haristocrats, with their chicking and weal cutlet, and all that sorter thing, and the colour they gets to – my!”
Mr D. Wragg chuckled loudly as he described this freak of “natur;” but it was observable that the puffs of smoke from Canau’s cigarette came swiftly, as he still watched the dealer with a strange indescribable expression.
“I love natur, Mr Canau; and that’s how it is I always did love babies and little gals, for they is natur, the prettiest bits of all. I can always kiss them little soft bits of natur, babies – if so be as they’re clean, but to be dirty down here in Decadia, ’tis their natur to. But you see they ain’t werry fond o’ being kissed by me, not being no ways handsome. Natur never took no pains with me when she made me, you know. I don’t believe as I were ever finished, and ’cordingly I wear this thick boot. But this here set out’s quite upset me, Mr Canau, and I don’t think I shall have any more to do with dorgs. I’ll keep to birds only; for just fancy having the police in your house, and wanting to make out as you’ve got a young fellow burked away somewhere, and frightening them poor girls a’most to death! You know it’s nothing but that upset as has made poor Mother Winks slip out to get that ginger-beer bottle of her’s filled so many times. She don’t generally do more in that way than we do with our ’bacco.”
“I listen to all you say,” said Monsieur Canau now, for D. Wragg was almost breathless; “but this does not explain. Where is the young man?”
“How should I know?” snarled D. Wragg, fiercely. “You don’t suppose I’ve had any hand in it, do you? How should I know where he is?”
“But he came here, and he is gone,” said the Frenchman.
“Well, suppose he is,” said D. Wragg, sulkily. “He came here, and he is gone. How should I know where he is gone. Into the sewers or down the river for aught I know. Do you know where he is gone?”
“Who? who? do I know?” cried Canau, excitedly. “No, no – no, no! I know nothing. I have not seen him here or anywhere at all lately. I do not know anything about him – nothing at all.”
“No more don’t I,” growled D. Wragg, sullenly.
“You do not? You will swear you know nothing at all of the poor young man?”
“Course I will,” said D. Wragg, stoutly. “He’s got dropped on to by somebody; and no wonder. Dessay its part of Jack Screwby’s lot; but I ain’t going to blow upon anybody. He thought that he was very cunning in setting it down to my door so as to get it away from his; but he didn’t work much out of it anyhow. The young chap was safe to come in for it though, flashing about streets like these here with his gold watches and chains and rings, when there’s hundreds of hungry mouths about, and hundreds of fingers itching to snatch at ’em. And since you come to that, don’t you make no mistake; I never does nothing as ain’t honest. But, mind you, I don’t say as Jack Screwby knows all about it. I’d just as soon say you do, for you know as you didn’t like his coming.”
“Who? – I? – I know? Not I – nothing at all,” cried Canau, very heartily. “But I will take one more little pinch of tabaque, Monsieur Wragg,” he said, with the extreme of cold politeness; “and then you will excuse – I go to my promenade.”
D. Wragg gazed curiously at his sallow lodger, as he prepared himself another cigarette, till, as if feeling that he was watched, Canau stealthily raised his eyes till they encountered those of the dealer, when, for a few moments the two men stood, each trying to read the other’s thoughts, till, lowering his lids, Monsieur Canau lit his cigarette, raised his pinched hat a few inches, and then slowly left the shop.
Volume Three – Chapter Three.
After the Search
Upon several occasions when Monsieur Canau saw Patty home to the pleasant manufacturing shades of Duplex Street, he sought to open up this affair with Jared Pellet, so as to hear his opinion upon the subject; but it was only to find Jared dull and abstracted, and ready to return monosyllabic answers to all that was said. Twice over he had called too, bringing with him his violin; but upon those occasions weary-looking Tim Ruggles had been there, and no music had followed – no Mozart, not even one of Corelli’s old sad-toned minor trios, with movements named after the dances of our forefathers, corantos and sarabands; funeral marches they ought rather to have been, unless it is that music grows mellow and sad-hued with age, changing even after the fashion of wine.
Monsieur Canau used to divine that there was trouble afloat, and refrained from hinting at the object of his visits, contenting himself with buying a couple of Jared’s atrocious Roman strings, and then coming away.
“They have a bébé there,” muttered Canau, “that is like a music-box; and I think they wind him up every night just before I go, for he is always cry.”
It was as patent to Monsieur Canau as to D. Wragg that the Brownjohn Street house was under police surveillance, for there was often some stranger to be seen loitering about, one very ordinary-looking individual, trying very hard not to seem as if watching the former as he went out.
But D. Wragg was not deceived in the slightest degree, for beside his great experience of ‘natur,’ he had attempted to acquire something of art – to wit, police art – enough to enable him to point out, with the accompaniment of a peculiar wink, the plain-clothes officer to his French lodger, who had, however, only replied by a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, and a look in another direction.
But D. Wragg did not look another way, evidently bent upon wearing the aspect of utter defiance of the law. He stood now at his shop-door fiercely smoking, giving himself twitches and jerks that quite scared such of his stock-in-trade as were in close proximity, and sent his dogs shrinking back, snapping and snarling, whenever he turned their way.
Mr John Screwby and he had encountered more than once – the former gentleman making a practice of insulting the dealer; and, as if out of revenge for his non-success in obtaining the two hundred pounds reward, – staring up at the front of the house, or making believe, with a grin, to peer down into the cellar, – movements which made D. Wragg, under the idea that he was gnashing his teeth like an ordinary mortal, snap and snarl like a flea-bitten terrier.
Upon this day, it was fated that, as soon as Monsieur Canau was out of sight, Mr John Screwby should appear loafing along the opposite side of the road, so far from upright in his conduct, that he rubbed his right shoulder here and there against wall and window-frame as he passed. His cap was drawn down over his ears, a piece of straw in his mouth, and his hands right above the wrists in his pockets, and their owner staring heavily here and there after something fresh, till he came in sight of D. Wragg. Now he grinned spitefully, and, walking slowly on, stopped at last opposite the dealer’s house, to stare heavily up at the attic windows, shading his eyes, leaning a little on this side and a little on that, as if eagerly searching for something to be seen. Then, according to custom, he crossed the road to gaze for a moment through the cellar-grating, holding one hand to his ear as if listening attentively; and then fixing his eyes upon the dirty sash of the window seen through the grating, he began to walk slowly backwards and forwards, totally ignoring the presence of D. Wragg the while.
“There’ll be a row directly, Mr Jack Screwby,” said the dealer, with a sharp snarl, as he stood watching his enemy’s actions.
Mr Screwby took not the slightest notice of the speaker, only stopped short as if he had caught a glimpse of something.
“I wonder wot they’ve done with the pore chap!” he said at last, in quite a loud voice. “I shouldn’t be a bit s’prised if they’ve berried ’im in the kitchin.”
“If I could have my way with you, young fellow, I’d serve you out for this!” said D. Wragg, shaking his fist, to the great amusement of a small crowd fast collecting.
“What ’ud you do with me, eh?” said Screwby, with a grin. “Burke me, like the pore chap as come arter his dorg, eh?”
“You wouldn’t dare to talk like that there, Jack Screwby, if I was a man of your own size and age,” said D. Wragg, viciously.
“P’raps I should – p’raps I shouldn’t,” sneered Screwby. “But how about the pore young man?”
D. Wragg made a terrier-like movement, as if about to rush at a bull-dog, to the great delight of the crowd, especially as at that moment the thick new boot, freshly completed by Mr Purkis, caught in the grating, and D. Wragg nearly fell.
“Don’t let him come a-nigh you,” said Screwby, grinning, “or he’ll serve you same as he did the pore young man.”
Here there was another shout, and the popular feeling seemed to be growing so strong, that, raging within himself, D. Wragg began to think it would be prudent to retreat, and he did so, followed by a loud jeering laugh.
But even now he was not to have peace, for he had hardly reached the sanctuary of his own room before a couple of small boys, probably incited thereto by Mr John Screwby, thrust their heads in at the shop-door, to roar, at the utmost pitch of their shrill treble —
“Who burked the boy?” fleeing the next moment as if for their very lives, on hearing the scraping of the dealer’s chair.
This is merely a sample of the unpleasantness that the little dealer was called upon to bear; for Mr Screwby was exceedingly bitter against the house of Wragg, inasmuch as there had been no discovery made – not even the trace or tiny ravelling of a thread sufficient to commence a clue; and what was more, Sergeant Falkner had strongly negatived the necessity for rewarding him, even in the slightest degree – though, unseen by the police, Clayton had slipped a sovereign into the man’s hand.
But what was a sovereign as compared with the golden heap that two hundred would have made? And then what things it would have bought! Mr John Screwby had already gloated over several articles – notably a brown fur cap, dyed catskin, which he coveted hugely; but now the whole of his air-built castle was swept away; and to make matters ten times worse, he had been requested by the sergeant not to show himself anywhere near a certain number in Regent Street any more.
This last was rather a serious command, for it was indeed a special order, although couched in the form of a request. To a gentleman in Mr Screwby’s circumstances, matters might turn out very unpleasantly if he slighted the sergeant’s impressive words.
Under these circumstances, though not caring a jot for the fate of Lionel Redgrave, Mr John Screwby, failing money, determined to have the full measure of his revenge, brimming over, if it were possible, and therefore he joined himself heart and soul to the party whose every effort was directed towards the elucidation of the mystery which had prostrated Sir Francis. For after striving most manfully to fight against bodily weakness, the old baronet lay at his son’s chambers in a state upon which the medical men consulted declined to give a decided opinion.
To a bystander Sir Francis seemed weak and perfectly helpless, but a few words relating to information would galvanise him into life once more; and so it was that one afternoon, when a rough, waterside-looking fellow presented himself, Sir Francis immediately ordered him to be shown up.
Volume Three – Chapter Four.
The New Clue
“He’s been out again, sir,” said Mr Stiff to Clayton, as he entered the passage.
“What! Sir Francis?”
“Yes, sir. A man came from down Bermondsey way, and said he had some news, and I daren’t refuse him. You know, sir, it might be valuable, and it would not do for me to be shutting off the very bit of information that might be worth anything.”
“What kind of man was it?” asked Harry.
“Poor Jack sort of fellow, sir, from river stairs; and I told Sir Francis, as he told me to tell him of everybody who called only this morning again, and I showed the man up. Then they went off together in a cab, and he’s just come back, sir.”
“What madness – in his state!” exclaimed Harry, and he hurried up the stairs to find Sir Francis seated on a low chair, with his face buried in his hands.
Sir Francis looked up as the young man entered, to gaze at him in a confused, dazed way, as if he did not quite comprehend the meaning of his coming.
“Was not this rather foolish of you, Sir Francis?” said Harry, gently. “Indeed you are in no condition for going out. I see how it is, though, and I feared it when you put in the advertisement; the very name of the chambers in Regent Street was enough to bring down a host of reward-seekers. Why did you not take my advice, and refer them to the police?”
“I couldn’t, Clayton – I couldn’t,” groaned Sir Francis. “You do not know what I feel, or you would not speak to me as you do. Poor lad! – poor lad!”
Harry was silent for a few minutes, and then he spoke again.
“It was, of course, a useless quest, sir?”
“I can’t tell – I don’t know,” said Sir Francis, feebly. “I am confused and troubled in the head, Clayton, and I have been trying hard to recollect what it all was, and what I did; but as soon as I grasp anything, it seems to glide from me again.”
“Lie down, sir,” said Harry, gently, and he passed an arm beneath that of the old man.
“Not yet – not yet – not yet, Clayton. I think I have it now. Yes, that is it – I have it. The man came and said they had found some one by the river-side, and I went half-way with him; and then I suppose I must have fainted, for I can recollect no more, only that I was brought back – or no, I think I must have found my way back by myself. This weakness is a cruel trial just now.”
“You must put your strength to the test no more, sir,” said Harry, firmly. “Try and believe that I will do all that is possible. Indeed, I will leave no stone unturned.”
“I know it, Clayton – I know it!” exclaimed Sir Francis; “and indeed I do try, but this suspense is at times more than I can bear.”
At the young man’s persuasion, he now went to lie down, giving up in a weary vacant manner the effort to recollect where the man had been about to take him. He tried once to recall the names, till Harry felt a dread of delirium setting in, and it was only by his promising to follow up the clue that had been freshly opened out, that he kept the afflicted father to his couch.
Once more alone, Harry rang for Stiff, who, however, could only repeat what he had before said, and his querist was puzzled as to what should be the next steps taken.
The problem was solved by the waterside man himself, who came, he said, to see if the gentleman was well enough to go now.
“He turned ill in the cab, did he not?” said Clayton.
“Yes, sir; would go in a cab, he would. I don’t like ’em – ready to choke yer, they are; but he wouldn’t come on a ’bus. ’Fore we’d gone far, he turns as white as his hankychy, and shuts his eyes curus like, and gets all nohow in what he was a saying; but he says, he does, ‘Take me back, and come agen.’ So I brought him back, and now I’ve comed agen.”
“And now, what is your news?” said Harry. “The gentleman has placed it in my hands.”
The man looked curiously at him for a few minutes, and then rubbed the bridge of his nose with a rough hand.
“But you see, sir, this is a matter o’ offring rewards for some one as is missing, and I’ve got a mate in this here job. For, you know, as soon as ever there’s a notice up o’ that sort, my mate and I begins to look out, so as to try if we can’t find what’s missing, and get what’s offered. Now, I ask your parding, sir, but I should like to know who you may be, and what you’ve got to do with it at all? S’pose I leads you to it, shall we get the ready?”
“You may deal with me precisely as you did with the gentleman you saw before. You know for yourself that he is too ill to leave the house, and he has deputed me to act for him, as I told you.”
“True for you, sir – I did see it; and as you seem to be a gent as is all right, let’s go.”
A cab was brought, and, not without a glance at his unsavoury companion, Harry followed him into the vehicle.
“Hadn’t yer better let me ride outside, sir?” said the man, looking at the stuffed and cushioned interior with an aspect of disgust.
“No,” said Harry; “I want to know what more you have to say respecting this affair.”
The man gave a tug at an imaginary forelock, and then waited apparently to be questioned, while Harry took in his outward appearance at a glance.
He was rough and dirty enough to have passed for the veriest vagabond in existence, but all the same he did not seem as if he belonged to that portion of society that has been dubbed “the dangerous classes;” for there was a good open aspect to the brown face, and though the Bardolphian nose told tales of drams taken to keep out the cold river mists, on either side a frank grey eye looked you full in the face; while, greatest test of all, the fellow’s palms were hard and horny, and ended by fingers that had been chipped, bent, bruised, and distorted by hard labour.
“Well, sir,” said the man, “I ain’t got much to tell you; only that, seeing the reward up, my mate and me thought we might as well have it as any one else, so we set to and – ”
“You found him?” exclaimed Harry, eagerly.
“Well, sir, that’s for you to say when you sees him. My mate generally sees people about these sorter things, but I come to-day; and a fine job I had to get to know where you lived, for I’d forgot the number; but I found out at last from a gal cleaning the door-step close by. It don’t do for us, you know, to go to no police – they humbugs a man about so; and I don’t know now whether they ain’t been down on my mate, ’cos you see we didn’t want to say nothing to them till as how you’d been and seen it.”
Harry shuddered at that last word “it;” there was something so repellent, though at the same time expressive, in the one tiny syllable it now, not him; and again he shuddered as he thought of the ordeal through which he had to go. He roused himself at last, though, to ask a few questions as the cab drove on, the driver making his way over the river to the Surrey side; and, as soon as they were in the comparative silence of the narrow streets, Harry learned that during the past night his companion had been successful in his search, and that what he had sought lay now in a boat-house far down the Thames in the low-lying district where wharf and dock and rickety stairs, or steam-boat pier, alternate with muddy-pile and drain, with bank after bank of slime, over which the water of the swift tide seemed to glide and play, here and there washing it up into a foul frothy scum, compounded of the poisonous refuse daily cast into the mighty stream.
It was a long ride, down deplorable looking streets, where wretched tumble-down tenements, with frowsy aspect and dingy, patchy windows, were dominated by lordly warehouses, with great gallows-like cranes at every floor – floors six, seven, and eight stories from the ground – from whose open doors men stood gazing down as coolly as if they were on terra firma, though a moment’s giddiness must have precipitated them into the street below.
Harry saw all this as they rode slowly on, in spite of the pre-occupation of his thoughts, as he tried to nerve himself for the task to come. Probably his brain was abnormally excited, and the pictures of the panorama passing the cab-window seemed to force themselves upon him. Now he was apparently interested in the places where the ship-chandlers hung out their wares; the next minute, the gate of a dock, with its scores of labourers waiting for a job, took his attention; or low public-houses and beer-shops, with their lounging knots of customers, half labourer, half sailor, or lighterman, with the inevitable brazen, high-cheeked, muscular woman. A little farther on, and he would be grazing at a clump of masts rising from behind high walls. Then came comparatively decent dwellings with a vast display of green paint, and to the doors brass knockers of the most dazzling lustre. In nearly every parlour-window he saw was a parrot of grey or gaudy hue swinging or climbing about. In front of more than one house were oyster forts with sham cannon; while others again had flagstaff’s rigged up with halyards, vane, and pennant, looking down upon the bruised figure-head of a ship which ornamented the neighbour’s garden.
Maritime population with maritime tastes, the houses of trading skippers and mates of small vessels. Sea-chests could be seen in baxrows at every turn, along with the big bolster-like bag that forms the orthodox portmanteau for a sailor’s kit. Here and there he passed, in full long-shore togs, the dwellers in the sea-savouring houses – passing along the pavement with one eye to windward, and the true nautical roll which told of sea-legs brought ashore.
On still, with the rattling of the wretched cab and its jangling windows seeming to form a tune which repeated itself ever to his ears. The man, from watching his companion, had taken to drumming the top of the door with his hard fingers, blackened and stained with tar, while from time to time he thrust out his head to give some direction or another to the driver, whose eccentric course seemed as if it would never end.
At last, though, the guide seemed to grow excited, giving his orders more frequently, the cab being slowly driven in and out of rugged, tortuous lanes, from one of which it had to back out, so as to give place to a waggon laden with ships’ spars and cables. Narrow ways seemed the rule, and down these the cab went jolting, till the driver drew up short at the end of a wretched alley.
Here the guide dismounted.
“Can’t get no furrer with cabs here, sir,” he said; “we must walk the rest on it.”
Harry told the driver to wait; and then, in a troubled state of mind, he followed his conductor in and out by wharf and crazy waterside shed, where paths were wet and muddy, and the few people seen looked poverty-stricken and repulsive. Tall walls heaved upward to shut out the light and air from the low, damp dwellings. A few yards farther and there was the din of iron as rivets were driven cherry-red into the plates of some huge metallic sea-ark. And again a little farther, and they were where corn ran in teeming golden cascades out of shoots to lighter or granary. Farther still, and the rap, rap, incessant rap, of the caulkers’ hammers were heard as they drove in the tarry oakum between the seams of the wooden vessels.