To London Town

by Arthur Morrison

The coaster was through, and soon the bridge would shut. Uncle Isaac moved up toward the chain amid shouts and jibes. “Y’ought to be ashamed o’ yerself,” bawled the woman, “a ole man like you, annoyin’ a lady!”

But the men were at the winch, and the bridge swung. First of all the impatient passengers, Uncle Isaac sprang on the moving iron and got across at peril of life and limb ere the sections were still. He heard a louder shout of laughter from behind, where Mother Born-drunk, forgetting the chain as she made for the bridge, had sprawled over it where it hung low in the middle; and he quickened his pace.

Now it chanced that Johnny May had been taken that week to his first out-door job, on a large steamer; and, full of the wonders of the ship, he had made interest with the “shippy” (who was officially called the shipkeeper) to bring Bessy on board on Saturday afternoon. The visit was a pure delight for both, with more than a spice of danger for Bessy in climbing gangways, companions, and greasy engine-room steps; indeed, the “shippy” carried her down the lower flights of these last. Johnny explained the prodigious engines with all the extreme technicality of a new hand, and with much pride pointed out the part whereon he (with the help of three or four journeymen) had been at work. Bessy stared and marvelled, and her admiration for her brother waxed into reverence. For was he not an engineer, master of these massy, shining immensities, so amazingly greater than any engines she had dreamed of, so awful in their monstrous stillness? Bessy peeped along the tunnel of the great shaft, and then, a minute after, up into the towering complexities above, and she was almost afraid—would have been afraid to stay there alone.

They walked home gay and talkative, and Bessy’s face had a light and a colour that it had lacked since Johnny and gran’dad had seen it together. For she had seen great things, and had walked in passenger saloons more wonderful than all her palaces of romance. It struck Johnny, for the first time in his life, that Bessy was rather pretty; and as to her lameness though some would call it a blemish (as it certainly was a misfortune), yet she carried it trimly, and he almost thought it suited her.

And so they went till at a corner a hurried little man with a moon-face ran into them, hat first,—for he was brushing it again.

Now both Johnny and Bessy wore their best clothes, and both looked happy and well, so at a glance Uncle Isaac guessed that things had gone aright at Harbour Lane after all. Just as distress troubled and repelled him, so good fortune pleased his amiable genius and attracted his regards. So though he was still a little flushed and uneasy, he was glad of the encounter. He had been unwell, it seemed, and—and busy, and all that. But how was trade at the shop?

Johnny and Bessy told the tale of the new ship-yard gate, and of the cold bacon and the pickles and the new prosperity. Uncle Isaac was greatly pleased. He was sorry, very sorry, he said, that he had not been able to call lately, but he would delay no longer—he would be round that very evening. And, indeed, he came, and immensely approved of the bacon. And he came again, and approved immensely of the cheese and the pickles and whatever else there was for supper, and again after that, and usually carried something home for trial in the calmer mood of the morning. And thus family ties were made whole, and avuncular love continued.

“Jest to think,” Uncle Isaac would say with a wave of his fork, “what a quantity o’ blessin’s you owe to my advice, Nan! What was my words o’ counsel to you prefarrotory? ‘Enterprise,’ sez I. ‘Enterprise is what you want,’ I sez; there’s alwis money in Enterprise! An’ what’s the result? Enterprise, representin’ biled ’ock o’ bacon, is done the trick wonderful. But, in regards to enterprise, why not call it ’am?”

XVI.

With the spring the steady application of paint in Harbour Lane burst into a fury. Everywhere the houses and the flagstaffs and the fences took new coats of many colours, changing as the season went, and the paint-pot traffic fell into a vaster confusion. As tops were “in” among the boys, the smell of paint grew day by day, and when the marble season began little else could be smelt. With July came Fairlop Friday, and Bessy wondered at the passing of a great model of a rigged ship on wheels, drawn by horses, and filled with jubilant shipwrights on their way to Epping Forest, in accord with yearly custom. She had grown to consider the forest as a place so far off (though indeed she knew the distance in mere miles) that it came almost as a surprise to see people starting out to drive there in a few hours with so slow a vehicle, and to return the same night.