CHAPTER X.
I GO ON A HONEYMOON.
"Sure-ly I know that voice?" said Mr. Jope.
He drew out the knife reflectively. It relieved me to see that noblood dyed the blade.
"Oh, Mr. Jope, I was afraid you'd stabbed him!"
"'Tisn't a him, 'tis a her. I touched somebody up, and that's thetruth."
"Ahoy there!" said a voice immediately overhead; and we looked up.A round-faced man was gazing down on us from the tilted bulwarks."You might ha' given us notice," he grumbled.
"I knew 'twas soft, but not so soft as all that," Mr. Jope explained.
"Got such a thing as a scrap o' chalk about ye?"
"No."
The round-faced man felt in his pocket and tossed down a piece."Mark a bit of a line round the place, will ye? I'll give it a lickof paint afore the tide rises. It's only right the owner should haveit pointed out to him."
"Belong to these parts?" asked Mr. Jope affably, having drawn therequired circle. "I don't seem to remember your face."
"No?" The man seemed to think this out at leisure. "I was marriedthis morning," he said at length with an air of explanation.
"Wish ye joy. Saltash maid?"
"Widow. Name of Sarah Treleaven."
"Why that's my sister!" exclaimed Mr. Jope.
"Is it?" The round-faced man took the news without apparent surpriseor emotion. "Well, I'm married to her, any way."
"Monstrous fine woman," Mr. Jope observed cheerfully.
"Ay; she's all that. It seems like a dream. You'd best step onboard: the ladder's on t'other side."
As we passed under the vessel's stern I looked up and read her name--_Glad Tidings, Port of Fowey_.
"I've a-broken it to her," our host announced, meeting us at the topof the ladder. "She says you're to come down."
Down the companion we followed him accordingly and so into a smallcabin occupied--or, let me rather say, filled--by the stoutest womanit has ever been my lot to meet. She reclined--in such a positionas to display a pair of colossal feet, shoeless, clothed in thickworsted stockings--upon a locker on the starboard side: and no one,regarding her, could wonder that this also was the side towardswhich the vessel listed. Her broad recumbent back was supported by apile of seamen's bags, almost as plethoric as herself and containing(if one might judge from a number of miscellaneous articlesprotruding from their distended mouths) her bridal outfit.Unprepared as she was for a second visitor in the form of a smallchimney-sweep, she betrayed no astonishment; but after receiving herbrother's kiss on either cheek bent a composed gaze on me, and soeyed me for perhaps half a minute. Her features were not uncomely.
"O.P.," she addressed her husband. "Ask him, Who's his friend?"
"Who's your friend?" asked the husband, turning to Mr. Jope.
"Chimney-sweep," said Mr. Jope; "leastways, so apprenticed, as Iunderstand."
The pair gazed at me anew.
"I asked," said the woman at length, "because this is a poor placefor chimbleys."
"He's in trouble," Mr. Jope explained; "in trouble--along o' killinga Jew."
"Oh no, Mr. Jope!" I cried. "I didn't--"
"Couldn't," interrupted his sister shortly, and fell into a brownstudy. "Constables after him?" she asked.
Mr. Jope nodded.
Her next utterance struck me as irrelevant, to say the least of it."Ben, 'tis high time you followed O.P.'s example."
"Meaning?" queried Ben.
"O, Onesimus. P, Pengelly. Example, marriage. There's thewidow Babbage, down to Dock: she always had a hankering for you.You're neglecting your privileges."
"Ever seen that boy of hers?" asked Ben in an aggrieved voice."No, of course you haven't, or you wouldn't suggest it. And whymarry me up to a widow?"
"O.P.," said the lady, "tell him you prefer it."
"I prefer it," said Mr. Pengelly.
"Oh," explained Ben, "present company always excepted, o' course.I wish you joy."
"Thank ye," the lady answered graciously. "You shall drink the sameby and by in a dish o' tea; which I reckon will suit ye best thismorning," she added eyeing him. "O.P., put on the kettle."
Ben Jope winced and attempted to turn the subject. "What's yourcargo, this trip?" he asked cheerfully.
"I didn't write," she went on, ignoring the question. "O.P. took meso sudden."
"Oh, Sarah!" Mr. Pengelly expostulated.
"You did; you know you did, you rogue!"
Mr. Pengelly took her amorous glance and turned to us. "It seemslike a dream," he said, and went out with the kettle.
The lady resumed her business-like air. "We sail for Looe next tide.It's queer now, your turning up like this."
"Providential. I came o' purpose, though, to look ye up."
"I might ha' been a limpet."
"Eh?"
"By the way you prised at me with that knife o' yours. And you callit Providence."
Ben grinned. "Providence or no, you'll get this lad out o' the way,Sarah?"
"H'm?" She considered me. "I can't take him home to Looe."
"Why not?"
"Folks would talk," she said modestly.
"'Od rabbit it!" exclaimed Ben. "He's ten year old; and you weresaying just now that the man took ye sudden!"
"Well, I'll see what can be done: but on conditions."
"Conditions?"
"Ay, we'll talk that over while he's cleanin' himself." She liftedher voice and called, "O.P., is that water warm?"
"Middlin'," came O.P.'s voice from a small cuddy outside.
"Then see to the child and wash him. Put him inside yourfoul-weather suit for the time, and then take his clothes out on thebeach and burn 'em. That seam'll be the better for a lick of pitchafore the tide rises, and you can use the same fire for the caldron."
So she dismissed me; and in the cuddy, having washed myself clean ofsoot, I was helped by Mr. Pengelly into a pair of trousers whichreached to my neck, and a seaman's guernsey, which descended to myknees. My stockings I soaped, scrubbed, wrung out and laid acrossthe companion rail to dry: but, as it turned out, I was never to usethem or my shoes again. My sweep's jumper, waistcoat, and breechesMr. Pengelly carried off, to burn them.
All this while Ben Jope and his sister had been talking earnestly: Ihad heard at intervals the murmur of their voices through thepartition; but no distinct words save once, when Mrs. Pengelly calledout to her husband to keep an eye along the beach and report theappearance of constables. Now so ludicrous was the figure I cut inmy borrowed clothes that on returning to the cabin I expected to bewelcomed with laughter. To my surprise, Ben Jope arose at once witha serious face and shook me by the hand.
"Good-bye, my lad," he said. "She makes it a condition."
"You're not leaving me, Mr. Jope!"
"Worse'n that. I'm a-goin to marry the widow Babbage."
"Oh, ma'am!" I appealed.
"It'll do him good," said Mrs. Pengelly.
"I honestly think, Sarah," poor Ben protested, "that just now you'resetting too much store by wedlock altogether."
"It's my conditions with you; and you may take it or leave it, Ben."His sister was adamant, and he turned ruefully to go.
"And you're doing this for me, Mr. Jope!" I caught his hand.
"Don't 'ee mention it. Blast the child!" He crammed his tarpaulinhat on his head. "I don't mean you, my lad, but t'other one.If he makes up a rhyme 'pon me, I'll--I'll--"
Speech failed him. He wrung my hand, staggered up the companion, andwas gone.
"It'll be the making of him," said Mrs. Pengelly with composure."I don't like the woman myself, but a better manager you wouldn'tmeet."
She remembered presently that Ben had departed without his promiseddish of tea, and this seemed to suggest to her that the time hadarrived for preparing a meal. With singular dexterity and almostwithout shifting her posture she slipped one of the seamen's bagsfrom somewhere beneath her shoulders, drew it upon her lap, andproduced a miscella
neous feast--a cheek of pork, a loaf, a saffroncake; a covered jar which, being opened, diffused the fragrance ofmarinated pilchards; a bagful of periwinkles, a bunch of enormousradishes, a dish of cream wrapped about in cabbage-leaves, a basketof raspberries similarly wrapped; finally, two bottles of stout.
"To my mind," she explained as she set these forth on the tablebeside her, each accurately in its place, and with such economyof exertion that only one hand and wrist seemed to be moving,"for my part, I think a widow-woman should be married quiet. I don'tknow what _your_ opinion may be?"
I thought it wise to say that her opinion was also mine.
"It took place at eight o'clock this morning." She disengaged a pinfrom the front of her bodice, extracted a periwinkle from its shell,ate it, sighed, and said, "It seems years already. I gathered thesemyself, so you may trust 'em." She disengaged another pin and handedit to me. "We meant to be alone, but there's plenty for three.Now you're here, you'll have to give a toast--or a sentiment," sheadded. She made this demand in form when O.P. appeared, smellingstrongly of pitch, and taking his seat on the locker opposite, helpedhimself to marinated pilchards.
"But I don't know any sentiments, ma'am."
"Nonsense. Didn't they learn you any poetry at school?"
Most happily I bethought me of Miss Plinlimmon's verses in myTestament--now alas! left in the Trapps' cottage and lost to me; andrecited them as bravely as I could.
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pengelly, "there's many a true word spoken in jest.'Where shall we be in ten years' time?' Where indeed?"
"Here," her husband cheerfully suggested, with his mouth full.
"Hush, O.P.! You never buried a first."
She demanded more, and I gave her Wolfe's last words before Quebec(signed by him in Miss Plinlimmon's Album).
"'They run!'--but who? 'The Frenchmen!' Such Was the report conveyed to the dying hero. 'Thank Heaven!' he cried, 'I thought as much.' In Canada the glass is frequently below zero."
On hearing the author's name and my description of Miss Plinlimmon,she fell into deep thought.
"I suppose, now, she'd look higher than Ben?"
I told her that, so far as I knew, Miss Plinlimmon had no desire tomarry.
"She'd look higher, with her gifts, you may take my word for it."But a furrow lingered for some time on Mrs. Pengelly's brow, and(I think) a doubt in her mind that she had been too precipitate.
The meal over, she composed herself to slumber; and Mr. Pengelly andI spent the afternoon together on deck, where he smoked many pipeswhile I scanned the shore for signs of pursuit. But no: the tiderose and still the foreshore remained deserted. Above us the ferryplied lazily, and at whiles I could hear the voices of thepassengers. Nothing, even to my strained ears, spoke of excitement;and yet, in the great town beyond the hill, murder had been done andmen were searching for me. So the day dragged by.
Towards evening, as the vessel beneath us fleeted and the deckresumed its level, Mr. Pengelly began to uncover the mainsail.I asked him if he expected any crew aboard? For surely, thought I,he could not work this ketch of forty tons or so single-handed.
He shook his head. "There was a boy, but I paid him off. Sarahtakes the helm from this night forth. You wouldn't believe it, butshe can swig upon a rope too: and as for pulling an oar--"He went on to tell me that she had been rowing a pair of paddles whenhis eye first lit on her: and I gathered that the courtship had beenconducted on these waters under the gaze of Saltash, the male in oneboat pursuing, the female eluding him in another, for longindomitable, but at length gracefully surrendering.
My handiness with the ropes, when I volunteered to help in hoistingsail, surprised and even perplexed him. "But I thought you was achimney-sweeper?" he insisted. I told him then of my voyages withMr. Trapp, yet without completely reassuring him. Hitherto he hadtaken me on my own warrant, and Ben's, without a trace of suspicion:but henceforth I caught him eyeing me furtively from time to time,and overheard him muttering as he went about his preparations.
As he had promised, when the time came for hauling up our smallanchor, Mrs. Pengelly emerged from the companion hatch like a _geni_from a bottle. She bore two large hunches of saffron cake and handedone to each of us before moving aft to uncover the wheel.