STEPHEN'S TALE
My father's death wrought in Grandfather Nat a change that awed me. He looked older and paler—even smaller. He talked less to me, but began, I fancied, to talk to himself. Withal, his manner was kinder than before, if that were possible; though it was with a sad kindness that distressed and troubled me. More than once I woke at night with candle-light on my face, and found him gazing down at me with a grave doubt in his eyes; whereupon he would say nothing, but pat my cheek, and turn away.
Early one evening as I sat in the bar-parlour, and my grandfather stood moodily at the door between that and the bar, a man came into the private compartment whom I had seen there frequently before. He was, in fact, the man who had brought the silver spoons on the morning when I first saw Ratcliff Highway, and he was perhaps the most regular visitor to the secluded corner of the bar. This time he slipped quietly and silently in at the door, and, remaining just within it, out of sight from the main bar, beckoned; his manner suggesting business above the common.
But my grandfather only frowned grimly, and stirred not as much as a finger. The man beckoned again, impatiently; but there was no favour in Grandfather Nat's eye, and he answered with a growl. At that the man grew more vehement, patted his breast pocket, jerked his thumb, and made dumb words with a great play of mouth.
"You get out!" said Grandfather Nat.
A shade of surprise crossed the man's face, and left plain alarm behind it. His eyes turned quickly toward the partition which hid the main bar from him, and he backed instantly to the door and vanished.
A little later the swing doors of the main bar were agitated, and an eye was visible between them, peeping. They parted, and disclosed the face of that same stealthy visitor but lately sent away from the other door. Reassured, as it seemed, by what he saw of the company present, he came boldly in, and called for a drink with an elaborate air of unconcern. But, as he took the glass from the potman, I could perceive a sidelong glance at my grandfather, and presently another. Captain Nat, however, disregarded him wholly; while the pale man, aware of he knew not what between them, looked alertly from one to the other, ready to abandon his long-established drink, or to remain by it, according to circumstances.
The man of the silver spoons looked indifferently from one occupant of the bar to the next, as he took his cold rum. There was the pale man, and Mr. Cripps, and a sailor, who had been pretty regular in the bar of late, and who, though noisy and apt to break into disjointed song, was not so much positively drunk as never wholly sober. And there were two others, regular frequenters both. Having well satisfied himself of these, the man of the silver spoons finished his rum and walked out. Scarce had the door ceased to swing behind him, when he was once more in the private compartment, now with a knowing and secure smile, a cough and a nod. For plainly he supposed there must have been a suspicious customer in the house, who was now gone.
Grandfather Nat let fall the arm that rested against the door frame. "Out you go!" he roared. "If you want another drink the other bar's good enough for you. If you don't I don't want you here. So out you go!"
The man was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it again, and slunk backward.