"If her account book were ever captured—my hat!" said Mr. Thomas.
In consideration for not broaching cargo, Mr. James had three bottles of gin per voyage, duly shown in petit cash %. For abstinence from pawning the anchor, sails, or ship stores he had two bottles of gin per voyage. Yet shipments being in advance of his performance, when he needed a little refreshment in port he pawned Bill's blanket, or, on the present occasion, it being Monday, mother's Sunday bonnet. It might have been observed that mother had some cotton wound round her third left finger by way of a keeper to guard her wedding ring. If that were pawned while she slept, she would not be a respectable woman any more at all.
Concerning her husband, not a bad sort of fellow when he was sober, the wife made no complaint. She remembered him as a gallant corporal of horse, with the loveliest little fluffy whiskers and a fine red coat. And her parents had objected to his persiflage. He said "Damme!" To put them quite in the wrong, she married him. So had she made her bed, and now must lie in it for better or for worse. Still the slightest expression of sympathy would set her raving; but then, the dressing of our wounds rather depends upon the sort of nurse, and if Satan has a hospital in Hades, the publican's daughters, Miss Fright and Miss Euphemia Fright, may be employed there as chief and assistant torturers.
When Bill told Uncle Thomas about the stolen bonnet, the publican—abed with a bandaged head—was not in the best of tempers. He said it served the woman damn well right for her holy airs and graces. "All the same," said he, "your father has most annoying 'abits, vich I resents his deportment of a Sunday, making a shindy in my bar-parlor. The next time the press gang comes, Bill, I'll send you away out of sight, and offer hup your father to the Navy. He'll make a good thank offering, and you shall 'ave the barge."
"Mother won't like that," said Bill, somewhat aggrieved, "and I'd be lonesome vithout no punching block to keep me hexercised. As to thishyer Polly Phemus, you know my mother is master. Leave dad to me—I'll pet him comfortable."'
Mrs. James Fright, as everybody knew on London River, was the real master of the Polly Phemus. As Bill had grown up from childhood, each year she found more and more relief from a job beyond her strength, until now he left to her only a little steering at times when he entered or left port, or made or shortened sail. The sailorizing jobs of sennit and spunyarn, chafing gear, patching the canvas, renewing rigging, or tarring down he did when he felt disposed, which was very seldom, but therein father set an example by doing nothing at all.
On the whole the lad was unselfish, keen, and able, and kept the Ten Commandments, except the fifth. For when it came to honoring his father, he would do so with a clip under the ear or a punch in the jaw. Whenever the parent needed a slight hint on points of conduct, Bill would oblige at once. So, drunk or partially sober, Mr. James Fright found it was not expedient to speak unless he was spoken to, for if he said too much Bill knocked him overboard. Being a Quaker, Mrs. Fright would register a diplomatic protest against any sort of strife; but, as Bill explained, it takes two persons to make an argument, and the parent never got a word in edge-ways. One could not call that even a disagreement, much less a violation of Quaker principles. Mrs. Fright being very human, protested outwardly, but loved Bill all the more because he rebuked an erring husband beyond her own control.
She took the tiller for the run to Margate, not in her Sunday best, but in an old sou'wester, a jersey, a homespun skirt, and sea boots. To do her justice, never a bargee on London River, or even a deep-sea bo's'n, could pass remarks or exchange amenities without being presently floored by Mrs. Fright. Like theirs, her words were scriptural, but the men were merely profane, whereas the lady's fulminations were worthy even of the major prophets. Even so, they could bear up manfully under her heaviest fire until she crossed her words, and when she spoke of heathen raging furiously, she had them furing ragiously in the abomination of detonation, bowling their trails in the pist of the but.
The fact is she shocked the very worst of them, and it may be added that Bill took kindly to her scriptural lessons. He plied a sixteen-foot sweep to swing the Polly Phemus into the tide while mother steered until they shot the three bridges, Waterloo, Southwark, and London. New built was London Bridge of granite brought by sea from Aberdeen, and never a stone less than a ton and a half in weight. To hit such masonry was bad for barges. Clear of the arch Bill stepped the mast in haste, and loosed the brails so that the big tanned mainsail filled, to give the Polly Phemus her steerage way. Then he set the topsail. Needed was that as she threaded the narrow channel in the Pool, whence six abreast for miles on either side the sailing ships lay berthed, and masts in uncounted thousands formed a forest. Bill set the headsail and came aft to take the helm, while mother cooked the belated dinner. Presently Bill snuffed the savor of kippers and fried bread which came up out of the cabin, filling his emptiness with a sort of anguish so greatly he desired to be fed. The parent was dining on a bottle of gin, squat in a corner, droning "Jump, Jim Crow," to the wheeze of his concertina. Then he began a convict song, a twopenny broadsheet sold at the street corners:
Come Bet my pet, and Sal my pal—a buss and then farewell,
And Ned, the primest ruffling cove—that ever nail'd a swell
To share the swag, or chaff the gab—we'll never meet again,
The hulk is now my bowsing crib—the hold my dossing ken.
Don't nab the bib my Bet, this chance—must happen soon or later,
For certain sure it is that trans—portation comes by natur'.
His Lordship's self upon the bench—so downie his white wig in,
Might sail with me if friends had he—to bring him up to priggin'.
And it is not unkimmon fly—in them as rules the nation,
To make us end with Botany—our public edication?
But Sal, so kind, be sure you mind—the beaks don't catch you
tripping;
You'll find it hard to be for shop—ping sent on board the shipping.
So tip your mauns[[1]] before we part—don't blear your eyes and nose,
Another grip my jolly hearts—here's luck! and off we goes!