Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “‘Ah!’ says Wicks, more satisfied with himself than he’d ever been before in his life, ‘then we must put it off, my dear. I shall be on duty to-night!’ An’ that was about all the truth he’d spoken since breakfast.

  “He pretty well guessed what the evenin’ meetin’ meant, with the gal sent out o’ the way, an’ he made up his mind to wait an’ have men and tubs together. An’ so he did.

  “He promised the chief-officer a real catch this night, an’ they fetched patrols an’ boatmen in, very quiet, from all ways alongshore. They crep’ up the hill by different ways an’ lay down snug all round the house, waitin’. An’ then Mr. Archie Wicks, bein’ the smart man o’ the gang, he crarled round by the yard to where he could peep in at the keepin’-room winder, where the light were.

  “‘Twere all in good train, as he could see. There were oad Tom Blyth sittin’ there with Martin Cox — a man Mr. Wicks wanted near as much as oad Tom hisself. They was a-sittin’ by the table, with glasses, grinnin’ an’ chucklin’ and talkin’, and there were a tub, shameless an’ open, on the table before ‘em, with a turnpipe an’ spigot in it. As he were peepin’ there came somebody along the lane, an’ presently up got oad Tom an’ let in Jeff Cater by the front door.

  “Jeff sat down, an’ oad Tom gets another glass for him an’ fills it at the tub, with his back to Jeff as he did it. Wicks guessed he were after givin’ him the drink neat, to make him cough, an’ so ’twould seem. The stuff was about a hundred over proof, so you may guess what it ‘ud be like without any water. Jeff took a gulp, innocent enough, an then began to cough an’ spit into the fire, while the others sat an’ laughed at him.

  “Then oad Tom let in Sim Bartrip, an’ they played the same game on him. Sim nearly coughed hisself black in the face, though if you’d ha’ knowed Sim an’ his habits you’d ha’ backed him to swallow it bilin’.

  “Then in comes Rob Sturt, an’ they put the joke on him. Well, to make it short, half a dozen o’ Tom’s friends came in, countin’ all, an’ each one was made to cough most outrageous, while all the others as had been had in their turns sat an’ enjoyed the fun.

  “Mr. Archie Wicks counted he’d seen enough, so he crep’ back to the chief-officer an’ reported. They waited a bit longer, but no more o’ Tom Blyth’s friends showed up, an’ ‘twere gettin’ late. So the chief-officer wouldn’t wait no longer thinkin’ seven smugglers an ‘a full cargo o’ tubs prize enough. So he brings up his men close round the house, an’ he an’ Wicks goes and bangs hard at at the front door.

  “Oad Tom comes to the door with a candle. ‘Good-evenin’,’ says oad Tom.

  “‘Good-evenin’,” says Wicks, shovin’ his back agin the door while the chief-officer stepped in. ‘We’ve just come on a little perfessional wisit, Mr. Blyth, an’ it won’t be any good you jumpin’ through the winders or what not, ‘cos the house is surrounded.’

  “‘All right,’ says oad Tom, ‘what should I want to jump through winders for?’

  “‘What for?’ says Wicks, shovin’ oad Tom before him into the keepin’-room. ‘What for? Why, what d’ye call this here little party?’ The tub was gone from the table, but that was what he expected. ‘What d’ye call this here little party?’ says Wicks.

  “‘This here’s a teetotal meetin’,’ says oad Toni.

  “‘Ah! so I should ha’ guessed,’ says Wicks. ‘Here, Wilkins!’ he sings out, ‘you an’ two more o’ you come an’ pull out this chest.’

  “‘What d’ye want to come a-movin’ my furnitude about for?’ says oad Tom Blyth, makin’ to putt a bold face on it. ‘There ain’t nothen’ o’ yourn there! No, nor nothin’ agin the law, nayther!’

  “‘Lucky for you if there ain’t,’ says Wicks. An’ with that he pulls back the wainscot, an’ there lay the tubs all in rows, snug as peas in a pod, just as he’d seen in the mornin’.

  “‘All right,’ says oad Tom, seein’ there was no more to be said. ‘All right,’ says he, ‘I’ll go quiet. But you don’t want my friends.’

  “‘Ha, ha! But we can’t spare ‘em yet!’ says Wicks; for there wasn’t a man of ‘em that Wicks hadn’t had his eye on for months. ‘We’ll adjourn this here teetotal meeting solid as it stands. Come along! One at a time, please whistle the rest in, Wilkins!’

  “An’ so there went down the hill such a procession as ain’t been seen since. There was the seven prisoners an’ the tubs, an’ all Leigh out in their night-rig to see the show. Master Archie Wicks was prancin’ on the wind, like a promoted peacock in full flight, an’ he pitched off the gammick of the teetotal meetin’ left and right. In them days teetotal meetin’s were things you only read about in the papers, up in Lancashire an’ thereaway, an’ the joke of a teetotal meetin’ of oad smugglers here in Essex, sittin’ round a cargo o’ tubs, went through Leigh like fireworks.

  “When they was all safe in the Custom-’us at last, oad Tom Blyth ups and says: ‘Well now, Mr. Wicks, you an’ your men had better set about broachin’ your ‘lowance tub, for however it goes I admit you’ve earned it!’

  “In them days you see, when there was a seizure, one tub went to the men as a sort o’ perquisite. I doubt it wouldn’t be allowed now, but then ‘twere quite the reg’lar thing. So Mr. Wicks, ready enough, rememberin’ his mornin’ dram, sticks a gimlet into the first tub that comes, and fills pannikins right an’ left. But he never emptied that tub. Afore he’d gone down a dozen pannikins there was some of his men a-coughin’ an’ a-spittin as fast as any o’ the smugglers up at Blyth’s. ‘Why, choke me blind!’ roars the one as got his tongue first; ‘it’s WATER!’

  “An’ that was just what it was — water, every tub of it! They had been full o’ white brandy once, but there were plugged-up gimlet holes in every tub, an’ nothin’ but water inside ‘em!

  “‘Why,’ said oad Tom Blyth, lookin’ surprised, ‘o’ course, it’s water. What did I tell ye? Den’t I say it was a teetotal meetin’?’

  “‘Course he did’ sings out the other smugglers. ‘An’ you’ve been a-callin’ it a teetotal meetin’ yourself, at the top of your voice, all through Leigh town! What did ye expect to find if ‘tweren’t water, eh?’

  “‘I dunno why me an’ my friends hey been brought down here in this ill-convenient way,’ says oad Tom very solemn, ‘but I do know as I insist on these here tubs o’ water bein’ carried back to where they kim from!’

  “Well, well; I’ve seen a number o’ fanteegs round these parts in my time, but in all ninety year I never heard such a dovercourt as there were over that teetotal meetin’. Wicks was glad to get a shove on to another station. Of course, you may guess the time hadn’t been wasted while that teetotal meetin’ was on, an’ while all the preventive men for miles round were attendin’ to it. The carriers had taken their evenin’ off the night before, but this night it was their turn to work. Golden Adams captained ‘em again, an’ they whipped off the real tubs from wherever they were hid while the teetotal meetin’ were in full blast. Two nights runnin’ oad Tom Blyth had got all the coastguards in a crowd together just where it suited him best, an’ finished up by makin’ ‘em the joke of half Essex.”

  “It seems to me,” I said, “that something depended on Nell Blyth, too.”

  “Nell Blyth,” said Roboshobery, “were an obedient gal, an’ more to it, she did what she were told with a proper gumption. You know her.”

  “I?”

  “Yes, I count you do. She went past this here winder while I was talkin’.”

  “What, old Mrs. Furber?”

  “What you’d call old, sir, no doubt, though she might be my darter. Joe Furber died ten year back.”

  THE DRINKWATER ROMANCE

  I

  MR. REGINALD DRINKWATER had rooms in the Temple. That was almost all of importance that could be said about Mr. Reginald Drinkwater, whose life had been wholly uneventful for the twenty-four years of it that had passed before he encountered this, his first adventure of a romantic complexion.

  Mr
. Drinkwater had not been called to the bar — he had not even begun to read with that purpose; but he was here, at the Temple, quite convenient if ever he should definitely decide to take that step. In fact, he had literary leanings, and had long reasoned with himself that, if he should actually embrace the profession of letters, any time spent in preparing for the law would be wasted, and waste of time was a vice against which a literary man should guard himself with especial care.

  He had not actually produced any literary work, for that, as everybody knows, is not a thing to be rushed at. But he had taken the chambers once occupied by a novelist of great reputation, and had laid in a large stock of manuscript paper of the sort said to be used by Mr. Thomas Hardy, and a fountain pen having a testimonial from Mr. Hall Caine; so that there remained no obstacle to success, in case his final decision should set him in the direction of his inclinations. Meantime, he received from his mother in Bedfordshire a regular allowance which was quite sufficient for his quiet requirements, and he wisely reflected that so long as one refrained from committing oneself irrevocably to one or other profession one avoided the possibility of an error which might cause serious regret throughout the rest of one’s career.

  Mr. Drinkwater’s rooms had the advantage of a situation from which one looked into the windows, a few yards away, of the chambers of the great Buss, K.C. The two sets of rooms, in fact, adjoined at the back of next-door houses set at an angle, so that Reginald Drinkwater, were it not for the general decorum of his behavior and his particular reverence for his distinguished neighbor, might have peashot Buss, K.C., at short range, when the windows were a little open. Also, if Buss, K.C., had not been a very fat, stumpy little man, with very short arms, and if he and Reginald Drinkwater had been acquainted, they might have shaken hands across the sills of the two windows closest to the angle over the little yard below. This, indeed, was a neighborly courtesy of which Reginald had dreamed as a possibility in his future times of eminence. Meanwhile, what with the proximity of Buss, K.C., and the literary associations of his own rooms, he felt himself rather eminent than otherwise, already.

  “Ah, yes,” he would say on the infrequent occasion of a friend’s visit; “they are old Buss’s rooms. Fine collection of old silver he’s got there, too.” Which looked almost as though Reginald were a familiar visitor of Buss, K.C.; though, in fact, he only knew of the fine old silver, as others did, by report, and from the newspaper accounts of auction sales at which the great Buss was a buyer.

  When Mr. Reginald Drinkwater’s inactivity had so endured for a good while he conceived a grievance against his very comfortable circumstances, in that his life had been wholly empty of adventure. This, he told himself, was the reason that he had not as yet launched on a brilliant literary career; for he had heard on high authority that one could only write in the light of one’s own actual experience. So he took to seeking adventure in the streets of London, where, he believed, from the teaching of many magazine stories, it was very readily encountered. But his luck was out, for after many attempts he was rewarded with nothing better than the purchase of a dummy pawn-ticket from a plausible young man in fetter Lane. It is possible that a naturally retiring disposition hindered Reginald’s ambitions, since, after all, London is a strange and adventurous place enough, as he was at length convinced. For indeed his romance came at last.

  He had left his rooms one february afternoon, with the simple design of buying tobacco at a shop in fleet Street; and because it was to be so short an expedition he had merely locked his inner door and left his “oak” swung open. The “oak” and the inner door, it may be explained parenthetically, stood, as is usual, scarce two feet apart, and the former, a ponderous iron-strapped fabric, was only locked when the inmate was away from home, or, being in, desired no visitors.

  Reginald Drinkwater bought the tobacco he required, and strolled easily back up fleet Street with his purchase in his pocket and his ignoble condition in his mind. Here he walked, in the midst of six million romances — for he had read, and therefore believed, that every life held its own — and not only had he found no romance himself, but he could guess at none of those about him. So Reginald walked, puzzled and ill-content, unaware that his romance waited for him a hundred strides away, and was nearer with every step.

  He turned in at the Temple Gate and twisted left and right through the passages leading to his quarters, musing gloomily; and so he ascended the stairs, and reached his landing to perceive that his “oak” was standing much closer than he had left it. He swung it back, and stood amazed. For here was his romance.

  Crouching between the “oak” and the inner door, shrinking into the angle farthest from him, her lips parted and her eyes full of fear, was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen or ever wished to see.

  Her heavy veil was flung back from her now pale face, her eyes were black and large and appealing, and her skin, brilliantly clear, had the tone of ivory.

  “You will not hurt me?” she pleaded. “You are not an enemy?”

  Reginald, confounded by the vision before him, and too anxious to remove such an impression to be wholly coherent, stammered fervent denials. Except for the lady’s own obvious terror he would have been a little frightened himself, for he was young and susceptible, and prone to nervousness in female society.

  “I am much afraid,” she said. “I am pursued. You are not angry that I should hide in your doorway?”

  He protested, still with some confusion, that nothing was so far from his thoughts; and was adding that, on the contrary, he was ready and anxious to do anything on earth to save her, when she checked him with raised forefinger, and a head turned to listen.

  “Was not that a step?” she said. “Is there nobody else on the stairs?”

  They listened together, but there was no sound.

  “They are waiting, then,” she said, “and watching to me — watching for me at the outside. Can I not go by another door?”

  There was no other door, he explained, and indeed there was no need for such an exit. If she would place herself under his protection he would be happy to see her safely —

  “No, no!” she interrupted; “you do not understand how bad it is. I should be followed — they would kill me somewhere else — and my brother, my dear brother! I must wait a little while. I think they do not know it is in this house I have come. You will be kind, sir, will you not? I have not one friend; and if you will let me stay in your room a little while, till it comes dark, I can escape, I think. You are very kind — will you let me stay a little while?”

  It might seem an odd request in ordinary; but the circumstances were far from ordinary now. To Reginald, who had met his adventure at last, they were stunning, bewildering. Could he possibly drive away a friendless girl — to meet the strange perils she feared, alone? Was he not rather conscious of a secret joy that the danger, whatever it was had driven her to his protecting arm? He turned the key in the inner door, and thrust it open.

  “Oh, you are very kind, sir — so very kind,” the stranger repeated as she entered; and it was only now that Reginald noticed that she said “vehry” and that her whole accent and manner were a little foreign. “You have saved me,” she continued, still much agitated; “and my brother — especially you have saved my dear brother!”

  “Your brother?” repeated Reginald, with a doubtful look about the staircase as he closed the door. “Your brother?”

  “Yes — my dear brother. He is not here — he is hiding. That is why I am so afraid to be followed, for then they will find him. Oh, the wicked men! They are so very cruel!”

  The beautiful girl sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Reginald, his whole soul filled with indignation that the world could hold creatures so base as to put her to such distress, was tortured with helplessness. If only he could do something — if only the unknown enemy stood tangibly before him.

  Presently she looked up and spoke again. “Pardon me,” she said; “I am very weak when I should be very
strong. You are a kind friend, but I should not trouble you with these things. Perhaps I can go away. Can they see these windows from the street?”

  Reginald hastened to reassure her. The windows overlooked nothing but a private yard, to which there was no access from any public place.

  “You are really quite safe,” he protested. “And if there is anything I can do — anything in the world — if I am not intruding on private affairs, and you will tell me—”

  But her attention was fixed on the windows. “Perhaps,” she said, “I could go that way, if the other houses have doors in other streets. There is no other door here, you say, but the windows would not be so difficult — to go out by that house.”

  She nodded toward Mr. Buss’s rooms. But, as Reginald explained, Mr. Buss was away, taking a fortnight on the Riviera, and the door of his chambers would be locked. At the same time it gave him a further sense of the desperate situation of this delicate girl, that she should for a moment contemplate an escape by the expedient of scrambling from one window to another across an angle of wall thirty feet above the yard. He strove again to reassure her.

  “That way is not possible,” he said; “but you are really quite safe. Perhaps you have come from a country where the police are not—” She looked up quickly.

  “From another country?” she said. “You know I am not English? And they say my English is so good! How quick and clever you are!”

  Never had flattery sounded so sweet in Reginald’s ears. Indeed flattery was a thing to them singularly unfamiliar, so small was his acquaintance with the world.

  “Your English,” he replied, “is splendid — beautiful! But I thought — I supposed — something suggested that you were a foreigner, and I wish to tell you that our London police—”

  “Yes, I know — they are excellent,” she interrupted. “Better, I hope, at least than those of my poor country, where they have allowed a terrible crime — a horrible crime — that has made the whole world shudder!”