CHAPTER FOUR.
DIVERS MATTERS.
Charles Hazlit, Esquire, was a merchant and a shipowner, a landedproprietor, a manager of banks, a member of numerous boards andcommittees, a guardian of the poor, a volunteer colonel, and agood-humoured man on the whole, but purse-proud and pompous. He wasalso the father of Aileen.
Behold him seated in an elegant drawing-room, in a splendid mansion atthe "west end" (strange that all aristocratic ends would appear to bewest ends!) of the seaport town which owned him. His blooming daughtersat beside him at a table, on which lay a small, peculiar, box. Hedoated on his daughter, and with good reason. Their attention was soexclusively taken up with the peculiar box that they had failed toobserve the entrance, unannounced, of a man of rough exterior, who stoodat the door, hat in hand, bowing and coughing attractively, but withoutsuccess.
"My darling," said Mr Hazlit, stooping to kiss his child--his onlychild--who raised her pretty little three-cornered mouth to receive it,"this being your twenty-first birthday, I have at last brought myself tolook once again on your sainted mother's jewel-case, in order that I maypresent it to you. I have not opened it since the day she died. It isnow yours, my child."
Aileen opened her eyes in mute amazement. It would seem as though therehad been some secret sympathy between her and the man at the door, forhe did precisely the same thing. He also crushed his hat somewhatconvulsively with both hands, but without doing it any damage, as it wasa very hard sailor-like hat. He also did something to his lips with histongue, which looked a little like licking them.
"Oh papa!" exclaimed Aileen, seizing his hand, "how kind; how--"
"Nay, love, no thanks are due to me. It is your mother's gift. On herdeathbed she made me promise to give it you when you came of age, and totrain you, up to that age, as far as possible, with a disregard fordress and show. I think your dear mother was wrong," continued MrHazlit, with a mournful smile, "but, whether right or wrong, you canbear me witness that I have sought to fulfil the second part of herdying request, and I now accomplish the first."
He proceeded to unlock, the fastenings of the little box, which was madeof some dark metal resembling iron, and was deeply as well as richlyembossed on the lid and sides with quaint figures and devices.
Mr Hazlit had acquired a grand, free-handed way of manipulatingtreasure. Instead of lifting the magnificent jewels carefully from thecasket, he tumbled them out like a gorgeous cataract of light andcolour, by the simple process of turning the box upside down.
"Oh papa, take care!" exclaimed Aileen, spreading her little hands infront of the cataract to stem its progress to the floor, while her twoeyes opened in surprise, and shone with a lustre that might have madethe insensate gems envious. "How exquisite! How inexpressiblybeautiful!--oh my dear, darling mother--!"
She stopped abruptly, and tears fluttered from her eyes. In a fewseconds she continued, pushing the gems away, almost passionately--
"But I cannot wear them, papa. They are worthless to me."
She was right. She had no need of such gems. Was not her hair goldenand her skin alabaster? Were not her lips coral and her teeth pearls?And were not diamonds of the purest water dropping at that moment fromher down-cast eyes?
"True, my child, and the sentiment does your heart credit; they areworthless, utterly worthless--mere paste"--at this point the face of theman at the door visibly changed for the worse--"mere paste, as regardstheir power to bring back to us the dear one who wore them.Nevertheless, in a commercial point of view"--here the ears of the manat the door cocked--"they are worth some eight or nine thousand poundssterling, so they may as well be taken care of."
The tongue and lips of the man at the door again became active. Heattempted--unsuccessfully, as before--to crush his hat, andinadvertently coughed.
Mr Hazlit's usually pale countenance flushed, and he started up.
"Hallo! My man, how came _you_ here?"
The man looked at the door and hesitated in his attempt to reply to souseless a question.
"How comes it that you enter my house and drawing-room without beingannounced?" asked Mr Hazlit, drawing himself up.
"'Cause I wanted to see you, an' I found the door open, an' there warn'tnobody down stair to announce me," answered the man in a rather surlytone.
"Oh, indeed?--ah," said Mr Hazlit, drawing out a large silkhandkerchief with a flourish, blowing his nose therewith, and casting itcarelessly on the table so as to cover the jewel-box. "Well, as you arenow ere, pray what have you got to say to me?"
"Your ship the _Seagull_ has bin' wrecked, sir, on Toosday night on thecoast of Wales."
"I received that unpleasant piece of news on Wednesday morning. Whathas _that_ to do with your visit?"
"Only that I thought you might want divers for to go to the wreck, an'_I'm_ a diver--that's all."
The man at the door said this in a very surly tone, for the slighttendency to politeness which had begun to manifest itself while theprospect of "a job" was hopeful, vanished before the haughty manner ofthe merchant.
"Well, it is just possible that I may require the assistance of divers,"said Mr Hazlit, ringing the bell; "when I do, I can send for you.--John, show this person out."
The hall-footman, who had been listening attentively at the key-hole,and allowed a second or two to elapse before opening the door, bowedwith a guilty flush on his face and held the door wide open.
David Maxwell--for it was he--passed out with an angry scowl, and as hestrode with noisy tread across the hall, said something uncommonly pithyto the footman about "upstarts" and "puppies," and "people who thoughtthey was made o' different dirt from others," accompanied with manyother words and expressions which we may not repeat.
To all of this John replied with bland smiles and polite bows, hopingthat the effects of the interview might not render him feverish, andreminding him that if it did he was in a better position than most menfor cooling himself at the bottom of the sea.
"Farewell," said John earnestly; "and if you should take a fancy tohonour us any day with your company to dinner, _do_ send a line to sayyou're coming."
John did not indulge in this pleasantry until the exasperated diver wasjust outside of the house, and it was well that he was so prudent, forMaxwell turned round like a tiger and struck with tremendous force athis face. His hard knuckles met the panel of the door, in which theyleft an indelible print, and at the same time sent a sound like adistant cannon shot into the library.
"I'm afraid I have been a little too sharp with him," said Mr Hazlit,assisting his daughter to replace the jewels.
Aileen agreed with him, but as nothing could induce her to condemn herfather with her lips she made no reply.
"But," continued the old gentleman, "the rascal had no right to enter myhouse without ringing. He might have been a thief, you know. He lookedrough and coarse enough to be one."
"Oh papa," said Aileen entreatingly, "don't be too hasty in judgingthose who are sometimes called rough and coarse. I do assure you I'vemet many men in my district who are big and rough and coarse to look at,but who have the feelings and hearts of tender women."
"I know it, simple one; you must not suppose that I judged him by hisexterior; I judged him by his rude manner and conduct, and I do notextend my opinion of him to the whole class to which he belongs."
It is strange--and illustrative of the occasional perversity of humanreasoning--that Mr Hazlit did not perceive that he himself had giventhe diver cause to judge him, Mr Hazlit, very harshly, and the worst ofit was that Maxwell _did_, in his wrath, extend his opinion of themerchant to the entire class to which he belonged, expressing a deepundertoned hope that the "whole bilin' of 'em" might end their days in aplace where he spent many of his own, namely, at the bottom of the sea.It is to be presumed that he wished them to be there without the benefitof diving-dresses!
"It is curious, however," continued Mr Hazlit, "that I had beenthinking this very morning about making inquiries after a div
er, onewhom I have frequently heard spoken of as an exceedingly able andrespectable man--Balding or Bolding or some such name, I think."
"Oh! Baldwin, Joe Baldwin, as his intimate friends call him," saidAileen eagerly. "I know him well; he is in my district."
"What!" exclaimed Mr Hazlit, "not one of your paupers?"
Aileen burst into a merry laugh. "No, papa, no; not a pauper certainly.He's a well-off diver, and a Wesleyan--a local preacher, I believe--buthe lives in my district, and is one of the most zealous labourers in it.Oh! If you saw him, papa, with his large burly frame and his roughbronzed kindly face, and broad shoulders, and deep bass voice and heartylaugh."
The word suggested the act, for Aileen went off again at the bare ideaof Joe Baldwin being a pauper--one at whose feet, she said, shedelighted to sit and learn.
"Well, I'm glad to have such a good account of him from one so well ableto judge," rejoined her father, "and as I mean to go visit him withoutdelay I'll be obliged if you'll give me his address."
Having received it, the merchant sallied forth into those regions of thetown where, albeit she was not a guardian of the poor, his daughter'slight figure was a much more familiar object than his own.
"Does a diver named Baldwin live here?" asked Mr Hazlit of a figurewhich he found standing in a doorway near the end of a narrow passage.
The figure was hazy and indistinct by reason of the heavy wreaths oftobacco-smoke wherewith it was enveloped.
"Yis, sur," replied the figure; "he lives in the door it the other indo' the passage. It's not over-light here, sur; mind yer feet as ye go,an' pay attintion to your head, for what betune holes in the floor an'beams in the ceilin', tall gintlemen like you, sur, come to griefsometimes."
Thanking the figure for its civility, Mr Hazlit knocked at the doorindicated, but there was no response.
"Sure it's out they are!" cried the figure from the other end of thepassage. "Joe Baldwin's layin' a charge under the wreck off the jettyto-day--no doubt that's what's kep' 'im, and it's washin'-day with MrsJoe, I belave; but I'm his pardner, sur, an' if ye'll step this way,Mrs Machowl'll be only too glad to see ye, sur, an' I can take yerorders."
Not a little amused by this free-and-easy invitation, Mr Hazlit entereda small apartment, which surprised him by its clean and tidy appearance.A pretty little Irishwoman, with a pert little turned-up nose, auburnhair so luxuriant that it _could_ not be kept in order, and a set ofteeth that glistened in their purity, invited him to sit down, and wipeda chair with her apron for his accommodation.
"You've got a nice little place here," remarked the visitor, lookinground him.
"Troth, sur, ye wouldn't have said that if you'd seen it whin we firstcame to it. Of all the dirty places I iver saw! I belave an Irish pigwould have scunnered at it, an' held his nose till he got out. It'svery well for England, but we was used to cleaner places in the owldcountry. Hows'iver we've got it made respictable now, and we're nothard to plaze."
This was a crushing reply. It upset Mr Hazlit's preconceived ideasregarding the two countries so completely that he was perplexed. Notbeing a man of rapid thought he changed the subject:--
"You are a diver, you say?"
"I am, sur."
"And Mr Baldwin's partner--if I understand you correctly?"
"Well, we work together--whin we're not workin' apart--pritty regular.He took in hand to train me some months gone by, an' as our twomissusses has took a fancy to aich other, we're likely to hold on forsome time--barrin' accidents, av coorse."
"Well, then," said Mr Hazlit, "I came to see Mr Baldwin about a vesselof mine, which was wrecked a few days ago on the coast of Wales--"
"Och! The _Seagull_ it is," exclaimed Rooney.
"The same; and as it is a matter of importance that I should have thewreck visited without delay, I shall be obliged by your sending yourpartner to my house this evening."
Rooney promised to send Baldwin up, and took his wife Molly to witness,with much solemnity, that he would not lose a single minute. Thereafterthe conversation became general, and at last the merchant left the placemuch shaken in his previous opinion of Irish character, and deeplyimpressed with the sagacity of Rooney Machowl.
The result of this visit was that Baldwin was engaged to dive for thecargo of the _Seagull_, and found himself, a few days later, busy atwork on the Welsh coast with a staff of men under him, among whom wereour friends Rooney Machowl and surly David Maxwell. The latter had atfirst declined to have anything to do with the job, but, onconsideration of the wages, he changed his mind.