CHAPTER VIII
A WOOING EXPEDITION AND ITS SEQUEL
In the last chapter I told how I started on “the tramp” with a female companion to Middlesborough. It was early in the morning when we turned our backs upon Keighley for the North. We trudged by road to Otley, Ripley, and Ripon, Thirsk and on to Stockton-on-Tees. Here my petticoat companion was so tired and weary that I left her, having secured her lodgings with an old lady, who agreed to take care of her until my return; my intention being to get work and a home in Middlesborough, and then to fetch my partner thither.
FAMILY TROUBLES AT MIDDLESBOROUGH
I pushed on to Middlesborough, but was “flabbergasted” to find the girl’s uncle and several cousins—male, and all upgrown (!)—awaiting my arrival! It turned out that they had been apprised of my probable arrival by a letter from the girl’s parents at Keighley. It was “blood and thunder” for a few minutes when they saw me, and the uncle was fairly exasperated to find that his niece was not with me. “What have you done with her?” he asked, excitedly. “Have you drowned her?” I besought him to “be quiet,” and then I would tell him all about it. So he was quiet, and I told him where I had left the girl. There were three sons with the uncle, and the four received my story with distrust—they would see their cousin that night they declared. Thus, my position was getting pretty hot, and there was nothing for it but to return to Stockton. This conclusion vexed me sore, for with my tired and weary frame I was well-nigh ready to drop; but I saw there was no other way out of the situation. I had already met three friends I knew in Middlesborough, the three brothers O’Gorman—I had made their acquaintance some time previously at Keighley—and they agreed to walk back with me to Stockton-on-Tees. The girl’s uncle and her three cousins made the party into eight—a veritable cavalcade in quest of a poor, defenceless woman. We got to Stockton all right, and the uncle and his sons took the girl in charge, while I was left with my three friends, the O’Gormans, to do as I liked. What was more, I was robbed of all opportunities of communing with the “erstwhile companion of my choice”—
Who afterwards became, I trow,
A partner in my weal and woe.
My newly-found friends and I went back to Middlesborough. Going on the quay one morning, I fell in with two men, whom I asked if there was any chance of a job. After scanning me o’er and o’er they asked what I was able to do—what trade I was at last. Out of my thousand and odd “qualifications” I decided that I “had done a bit o’ sailoring.” “Can you do anything in the dockyard?” asked one of them. “Yes,” I thought I could. Then was I engaged.
AS A DOCK-YARD LABOURER
The salary was fixed by my employers at £5 per month, though I was told that I should have to work a month “in hand;” which was rather hard for me, seeing that I was without money. Soon after I again fell in with the O’Gormans, and was introduced to the family. The head of the household was Peter O’Gorman, who had been in America and understood dock-yard business a good bit. Well, I got on fairly well as docker—a free labourer, I think I was,—although the work was not by any means regular, depending as it did on the arrival of timber-laden vessels from Norway and Sweden. Having a good deal of time hanging on my hands I visited various parts of the town, and it was one morning, while on an errand of this sort, that one of the O’Gormans came up to me and showed me an advertisement inviting applications for the execution of certain excavating work in connection with the Middlesborough new cemetery.