CHAPTER SEVEN.
DON AND JEM GO HOME TO TEA.
It required no little effort on Don's part to go home that afternoon tothe customary meat tea which was the main meal of the day at his uncle'shome.
He felt how it would be--that his uncle would not speak to him beyondsaying a few distant words, such as were absolutely necessary. Kittywould avert her eyes, and his mother keep giving him reproachful looks,every one of which was a silent prayer to him to speak.
The afternoon had worn away, and he had done little work for thinking.His uncle had not been back, and at last Jem's footstep was heardoutside, and he passed the window to tap lightly on the door and thenopen it.
"Come, Mas' Don," he said, cheerily, "going to work all night?"
"No, Jem, no. I was just thinking of going."
"That's right, my lad, because it's past shutting-up time. Feel betternow, don't you?"
"No, Jem, I feel worse."
"Are you going to keep the yard open all the evening, Jem?" cried ashrill voice. "Why don't you lock-up and come in to tea?"
"There! Hear that!" said Jem, anxiously. "Do go, Mas' Don, or Isha'n't get to the end on it. 'Nuff to make a man talk as you do."
"Jem!"
"Here, I'm a-coming, arn't I?" he cried, giving the door a thump withhis fist. "Don't shout the ware'us down!"
"Jem!"
"Now did you ever hear such a aggrawatin' woman?" cried Jem. "She'ssuch a little un that I could pick her up, same as you do a kitten, Mas'Don--nothing on her as you may say; but the works as is inside her isthat strong that I'm 'fraid of her."
"Jem!"
He opened the door with a rush.
"Ya-a-a-as!" he roared; "don't you know as Mas' Don arn't gone?"
Little Mrs Wimble, who was coming fiercely up, flounced round, and thewind of her skirts whirled up a dust of scraps of matting and cooper'schips as she went back to the cottage.
"See that, Mas' Don? Now you think you've all the trouble in the worldon your shoulders, but look at me. Talk about a woman's temper turningthe milk sour in a house. Why, just now there's about three hundredhogsheads o' sugar in our ware'us--two hundred and ninety-three, andfour damages not quite full, which is as good as saying three hundred--see the books whether I arn't right. Well, Mas' Don, I tell you for thetruth that I quite frights it--I do, indeed--as she'll turn all thatthere sweetness into sour varjus 'fore she's done. Going, sir?"
"Yes, Jem, I'm going--home," said Don; and then to himself, "Ah, I wishI had a home."
"Poor Mas' Don!" said Jem, as he watched the lad go out through thegate; "he's down in the dumps now, and no mistake; and dumps is the loto' all on us, more or less."
Then Jem went in to his tea, and Don went slowly home to his, andmatters were exactly as he had foreseen. His uncle was scarcely polite;Kitty gave him sharp, indignant glances when their eyes met, and thenaverted hers; and from time to time his mother looked at him in sopitiful and imploring a manner that one moment he felt as if he were anutter scoundrel, and the next that he would do anything to take her inhis arms and try and convince her that he was not so bad as she thought.
It was a curious mental encounter between pride, obstinacy, and thebetter feelings of his nature; and unfortunately the former won, forsoon after the meal was over he hurried out of the room.
"I can't bear it," he cried to himself, as he went up to his own littlechamber,--"I can't bear it, and I will not. Every one's against me. IfI stop I shall be punished, and I can't face all that to-morrow.Good-bye, mother. Some day you'll think differently, and be sorry forall this injustice, and then--"
A tear moistened Don's eye as he thought of his mother and her tender,loving ways, and of what a pity it was that they ever came there to hisuncle's, and it was not the tear that made Don see so blindly.
"I can't stand it, and I will not," he cried, passionately. "Unclehates me, and Mike Bannock's right, scoundrel as he is. Uncle hasrobbed me, and I'll go and fight for myself in the world, and when I getwell off I'll come back and seize him by the throat and make him give upall he has taken."
Don talked to himself a good deal more of this nonsense, and then, withhis mind fully made up, he went to the chest of drawers, took out ahandkerchief, spread it open upon the bed, and placed in it a couple ofclean shirts and three or four pairs of stockings.
"There," he said, as he tied them up tightly as small as he could, "Iwon't have any more. I'll go and start fair, so that I can beindependent and be beholden to nobody."
Tucking the bundle under his arm, he could not help feeling that it wasa very prominent-looking package--the great checked blue and whitehandkerchief seeming to say, "This boy's going to seek his fortune!" andhe wished that he was not obliged to take it.
But, setting his teeth, he left the room with the drawers open, and hisbest suit, which he had felt disposed to take, tossed on a chair, andthen began to descend.
It was a glorious summer evening, and though he was in dirty, smokyBristol, everything seemed to look bright and attractive, and to producea sensation of low-spiritedness such as he had never felt before.
He descended and passed his mother's room, and then went down moreslowly, for he could hear the murmur of voices in the dining-room, whichhe had to pass to reach the front door, outside which he did not carewhat happened; but now he had to pass that dining-room, and go along thepassage and by the stand upon which his cocked hat hung.
It was nervous work, but he went on down the first flight, running hishand slowly along the hand-balustrade, all down which he had so oftenslid while Kitty looked on laughing, and yet alarmed lest he shouldfall. And what a long time ago that seemed!
He had just reached the bottom flight, and was wondering what to say ifthe door should open and his uncle meet him with the blue bundle underhis arm, when the dining-room door did open, and he dashed back to thelanding and stood in the doorway of his mother's room, listening as astep was heard upon the stairs.
"Kitty!" he said to himself, as he thrust against the door, whichyielded to his pressure, and he backed in softly till he could push thedoor to, and stand inside, watching through the crack.
There was the light, soft step coming up and up, and his heart began tobeat, he knew not why, till something seemed to rise in his throat, andmade his breath come short and painfully.
His mother!
She was coming to her room, and in another moment she would be there,and would find him with the bundle under his arm, about to run away.
Quick as thought he looked sharply round, bundle in hand, when, obeyingthe first impulse, he was about to push it beneath the bedclothes, butcast aside the plan because he felt that it would be noticed, and quickas thought he tossed the light bundle up on the top of the great canopyof the old-fashioned bedstead, to lie among the gathering of flue anddust.
By that time the footsteps were at the door.
"What shall I say?" Don asked himself; "she will want to know why I amhere."
He felt confused, and rack his brains as he would, no excuse would come.
But it was not wanted, for the light footstep with the rustle of silkpassed on upstairs, and Don opened the door slightly to listen. Hisbreath came thickly with emotion as he realised where his mother hadgone. It was to his bedroom door, and as he listened he heard her taplightly.
"Don! Don, my boy!" came in low, gentle tones.
For one moment the boy's heart prompted him to rush up and fling himselfin her arms, but again his worse half suggested that he was to bescolded and disbelieved, and mentally thrusting his fingers into hisears, he stepped out, glided down the staircase in the old boyishfashion of sliding down the banister, snatched his hat from the stand,and softly stole out to hurry down the street as hard as he could go.
He had been walking swiftly some five minutes, moved by only onedesire--that of getting away from the house--when he awoke to the factthat he was going straight towards the constable's quarters and theold-fashioned lock-up where Mi
ke must be lying, getting rid of theconsequences of his holiday-making that morning.
Don turned sharply round in another direction, one which led him towardsthe wharves where the shipping lay.
While this was taking place, Jem Wimble had been banging the doors andrattling his keys as he locked up the various stores, feelingparticularly proud and self-satisfied with the confidence placed in him.
After this was done he had a wash at the pump, fetching a piece of soapfrom a ledge inside the workshop where the cooper's tools were kept, andwhen he had duly rubbed and scrubbed and dried his face and hands, hewent indoors to stare with astonishment, for his little wife was makingthe most of her size by sitting very upright as she finished her tea.
Jem plumped himself indignantly down, and began his. This was a newannoyance. Sally had scolded times out of number, and found fault withhim for being so late, but this was the first time that she had everbegun a meal without his being present, and he felt bitterly hurt.
"As if I could help it," he said, half aloud. "A man has his work todo, and he must do it."
"Five o'clock's tea-time, and you ought to have been here."
"And if I wasn't here, it was your dooty to wait for me, marm."
"Was it?" cried Sally; "then I wasn't going to. I'm not going to beordered about and ill-treated, Jem; you always said you liked your teaready at five o'clock. I had it ready at five o'clock, and I waitedtill half-past, and it's now five-and-twenty to six."
"I don't care if it's five-and-twenty to nineteen!" cried Jem angrily."It's your dooty to wait, same as it's mine to shut up."
"You might have shut up after tea."
"Then I wasn't going to, marm."
"Then you may have your tea by yourself, for I've done, and I'm notgoing to be trampled upon by you."
Sally had risen in the loudness of her voice, in her temper, and in herperson, for she had got up from her chair; but neither elevation wasgreat; in fact, the personal height was very small, and there wassomething very kittenish and comic in her appearance, as she crossed thebright little kitchen to the door at the flight of stairs, and passingthrough, banged it behind her, and went up to her room.
"Very well," said Jem, as he sat staring at the door; "very well, marm.So this is being married. My father used to say that if two people asis married can't agree, they ought to divide the house between 'em, butone ought to take the outside and t'other the in. That's what I'ma-going to do, only, seeing what a bit of a doll of a thing you are, andbeing above it, I'm going to take the outside myself. There's coffeebags enough to make a man a good bed up in the ware'us, and it won't bethe first time I've shifted for myself, so I shall stop away till youfetches me back. Do you hear?"
"Oh, yes, I can hear," replied Sally from the top of the stairs, Jemhaving shouted his last speech.
"All right, then," said Jem: "so now we understands each other and cango ahead."
Tightening up his lips, Jem rinsed out the slop-basin, shovelled in agood heap of sugar, and then proceeded to empty the teapot, holding thelid in its place with one fat finger the while.
This done, he emptied the little milk jug also, stirred all well uptogether, and left it for a few minutes to cool, what time he took thecottage loaf from the white, well-scrubbed trencher, pulled it in two,took a handful of bread out of one half, and raising the lump of freshSomersetshire butter on the point of a knife, he dabbed it into the holehe had made in the centre, shut it up by replacing the other half of thebread, and then taking out his handkerchief spread it upon his knee andtied the loaf tightly therein. Then for a moment or two he hesitatedabout taking the knife, but finally concluding that the clasp knife inhis pocket would do, he laid the blade on the table, gave his tea afinal stir, gulped down the basinful, tucked the loaf in thehandkerchief under his left arm, his hat very much on one side, and thenwalked out and through the gate, which he closed with a loud bang.
"Oh!" ejaculated Sally, who had run to the bedroom window, "he hasgone!"
Sally was quite right, Jem, her husband, was gone away to his favouriteplace for smoking a pipe, down on the West Main wharf, where he seatedhimself on a stone mooring post, placed the bundle containing the loafbeside him, and then began to eat heartily? Nothing of the kind. Jemwas thinking very hard about home and his little petulant, girlish wife.
Then he started and stared.
"Hullo, Jem, you here?"
"Why, Mas' Don, I thought you was at home having your tea."
"I thought you were having yours, Jem."
"No, Mas' Don," said Jem sadly; "there's my tea"--and he pointed to thebundle handkerchief; "there's my tea; leastwise I will tell the truth,o' course--there's part on it; t'other part's inside, for I couldn't tiethat up, or I'd ha' brought it same ways to have down here and look atthe ships."
"Then why don't you eat it, man?"
"'Cause I can't, sir. I've had so much o' my Sally that I don't want nowittals."
Don said nothing, but sat down by Jem Wimble to look at the ships.