A ship was heading north on the sparkling blue water, moving over small, friendly waves of the sort you see painted in a seaside theatre. Dad took the baby off the wife – which he did at every opportunity, even going so far as to walk without his cane in the hopes of having a carry. He pointed young Harry out to face the sea and the ship, saying to him: 'That's ballast for Hartlepool,' at which the wife burst out laughing.
She was walking on ahead, making towards the little row of houses at upper Bay that were always called 'Two Houses', even though there were three of them. We were twisting and turning down the little streets – not so much streets as steps – that led on to Main Street, where the first shop was the sweet shop, the window half blocked out with advertisements for 'Cleeves Toffee'. Dad showed the baby the sweetmeats in the window, saying, 'Thee and me'll be going in there regular, Harry.'
'When he gets his teeth,' called the wife from up ahead.
'… When you get your teeth,' said Dad, 'we'll be calling in for…'
'Hard Spanish!' called the wife, and she stood waiting for me as I walked slowly down the cobbles. She put out an arm for me, because I was still a semi-invalid, given to shortness of breath, and a ticklish cough at nights.
Bob Langan, son of the Baytown Stationmaster was coming up as we went down.
'How do, Jim?' he said, as I nodded at him. I knew him from my schooldays in Bay, just as I knew half the town for the same reason. He'd learnt all about my adventures in the Whitby Gazette, and from Dad too, of course.
'Afternoon, Mr Stringer,' he said, as he went past my dad.
I turned and looked at Bob Langan, and saw that he was looking back at me. A gunshot case was a new thing at Bay, where a lifeboat rescue was the more common run of heroics.
We were going past Barraclough's now; this was the bottom Bay butcher, whereas Dad had kept the top Bay butcher's shop. As usual, he had a long hard look in the window, reading out one of the advertisements in a doubtful tone: 'Prize-Winning Beef from Ruswarp'. Didn't think much of Barraclough's, didn't Dad, and it had been noticed in Bay that if he wanted a nice tongue – which he was particularly partial to – then he went to Whitby on the train to get it rather than call in at Barraclough's and strain to be pleasant.
A cart was coming up, bringing fish for the afternoon train, and we all had to stand aside. As we did so, I thought how Baytown put me in mind of the number one courthouse at York assizes: the 'Two Houses'… that was where the judge sat; the dock was the Independent Chapel, tallest of the buildings on Main Street, while the witness box was the post office over opposite. The sea, low, wide and changeable… that was the jury box, and the public gallery was the drying ground out along the cliffs, where a dozen white sheets leapt away in the summer sea breeze. The next thing to do was to picture Sampson in the dock, making him bigger than the Independent Chapel, making a giant of the man. The real courthouse had been sunlit too, just as Baytown presently was, with the sunbeams streaming down from the high windows for – what with all the many remands – the trial had not begun until a fortnight after Easter.
Sampson had been arraigned for the murder of the Camerons only, the evidence not being up to the mark regarding the killing of Lund, although the Chief had done his best to bring it about. Parkinson, the lost-luggage superintendent, had given evidence before the magistrates to show that Lund had found himself in the way of harm from the Sampson lot through his (Parkinson's) own actions. It was quite white of him, I thought, to make no bones of the fact that he'd spoken to Mr Five Pounds, the bent copper of Tower Street, who was now awaiting his own trial.
We were walking past the Independent Chapel now, and I saw Smith, the organist darting in, followed by the little fellow who was the organ blower. We were at the lowest level of Bay within another half-minute, directly outside the Bay Hotel.
'The Sunday dinners in there have a very good name, you know,' Dad was saying to the wife.
'A good name where?' said the wife.
'Why, here in Bay,' said Dad. I was the chief prosecution witness at the trial of ValentineSampson, although Roberts, the goods clerk, had run me close. His hands had been made small by the burning metal, like an old maid's and he had been brought to court every day from the infirmary at Armley Gaol.
Looking on from the police seats at the Assizes, I had generally avoided Sampson's eyes, but had snatched a few glances, as for example on the opening day, when he turned in the dock to face the falling sunlight, as though to take strength, and – later – as he smoothed his beard and shook the hands of his brief after the verdict we in the police seats had all been banking on was given.
We went down the steps to the beach, where the wife spread out a blanket, and Dad lowered the baby onto it. We all watched the sea, but little Harry was trying to raise himself and so, taking pity on the lad (I remembered being the only one not able to stand on Platform Four) I picked him up. As usual when I did this he looked set fair for a cry, so I put him down again sharpish, recalling as I did so that there had been one further eye-connection during the judge's summing up, when Sampson had smiled across to me, and made the sleeping sign: two hands together as in prayer, head rested against hands. He had done the same on the train to Dover.
From the Independent Chapel I could hear choir practice, and a hymn I knew: 'Now The Day is Ended', the sound sent out across the sea from the chapel door. I stood a while and listened, then turned sharply to my right – the wife was bringing the baby to me once again.
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