“Here we are at last,” said Mr Jones, stumbling against a small door in one of the network of rows that surrounded this Yarmouth paradise. “Hope the women are in,” he added, attempting to lift the latch, but, finding that the door was locked, he hammered at it with foot and fist violently.
“Hallo!” shouted the deep voice of a man within.
“Hallo, indeed! Who may you be?” growled Mr Jones with an angry oath. “Open the door, will you?”
The door was opened at once by James Welton, who stood aside to let the other pass.
“Oh! it’s you, is it?” said Mr Jones. “Didn’t recognise your voice through the door. I thought you couldn’t have got the sloop made snug so soon. Well, lass, how are ’ee; and how’s the old ooman?”
As the man made these inquiries in a half-hearty voice, he advanced into a poorly-furnished apartment, so small and low that it seemed a couple of sizes too small for him, and bestowed a kiss first upon the cheek of his old mother, who sat cowering over the fire, but brightened up on hearing his voice, and then upon the forehead of his daughter Nora, the cheerfulness of whose greeting, however, was somewhat checked when she observed the intoxicated state of her father.
Nora had a face which, though not absolutely pretty, was intensely winsome in consequence of an air of quiet womanly tenderness which surrounded it as with a halo. She was barely eighteen, but her soft eyes possessed a look of sorrow and suffering which, if not natural to them, had, at all events, become habitual.
“Who is this little boy, father?” she said, turning towards Billy Towler, who still stood in the doorway a silent but acute observer of all that went on.
“Oh, that? why—a—that’s my noo ’prentice just come down from Gravesend. He’s been helpin’ for some time in the ‘hang’” (by which Mr Jones meant the place where his fish were cured), “and I’m goin’ to take him to sea with me next trip. Come in, Billy, and make yourself at home.”
The boy obeyed with alacrity, and made no objection to a cup of tea and slice of bread and butter which Nora placed before him—supper being just then in progress.