Now I had seen Mr Godfrey, I should not forget him easily. But what struck me as strange was the feeling that I had seen him before. Of course one may meet anybody, casually pass him in the street, and so forth, retaining a vague recollection of his features; but this was not altogether like that. I seemed to have some recent knowledge of him, but where, or how, I racked my brains in vain to find out.
My plan was to watch Mr Godfrey. I had learned, I considered, all I could at the office; the only thing to be done now was to find out more concerning his habits and associates; therefore I gave up the porter’s livery next day. To do this was not difficult, as one of the out-door men was ordered to take my duty until the return of the regular official.
I felt in duty bound to return Mr Picknell’s liberality, and to ask him to have a glass with me at my expense; but I would not do this before the other clerks, as the young man might not like it; consequently, I waited until the men had left, and then, lingering outside for Mr Picknell, I intended to speak to him when a little way from the office. As I knew where he lived, I took up a position accordingly; but he turned in an unexpected direction, and went quickly away from me. This might easily happen from his having a special engagement; but there was something in the manner of his crossing the road, and then hurrying down a bystreet, which looked like a man endeavouring to escape notice; and I made up my mind to follow and watch, instead of speaking to him. It was not easy to keep him in sight, so quickly did he go, and so suddenly did he turn down unexpected streets, but I managed pretty well, until I found, much to my astonishment, that we were drawing near the neighbourhood in which I had earned my shilling on the previous evening, and, in fact, were close to the house of Mr Godfrey Harleston.
It was surely impossible that he could be going there; but he kept on until we were almost in the street, when he entered a low-looking public-house which stood in a mews close by. I waited, hidden in a neighbouring doorway, to see him come out. A long time passed; and as he did not appear, I began to grow uneasy. At last I went into the house, and found, to my disgust, that it opened on the other side into a bystreet near the mews, and by this way, no doubt, Mr Picknell had gone. This was surprise enough; but, to add to my astonishment, I saw, leaning against the bar, smoking, and with a half-emptied tumbler before him, Sam Braceby, the Long-necked Sam whom I had saved at the Old Bailey. I knew him at once, and the recognition was mutual. Sam had nothing to fear from me now, but I could tell that he was rather staggered by seeing me. Of course I could not consider him as being after any good, see him where I might, and he knew that as well as I did. He touched his cap, and asked to be allowed the pleasure of standing a glass. When I declined this, he said he had been to the West End on a profitable bit of business—indeed, he thought he was going to take a snug little beerhouse there, which a friend had promised to put him into. I looked at him steadily while he said this, and smiled when he had finished. In spite of himself, Sam could not help smiling also, although he tried to disguise it by drinking some gin-and-water.
AN ANCIENT SPINNER.
In the ‘good old days’ before the invention of the spinning-jenny and the steam-engine, when working-men were slaves, and the rich had not the luxuries they have now, spinning was the work of the mistress of the house. Many good stories begin with an account of a fair maiden at a spinning-wheel, and a very ancient rhyme refers to the days ‘when Adam delved and Eve span.’ When a young lady was growing of a marriageable age, in the days of the spinning-wheel, she made preparation for her nuptials by spinning the material for sheets, tablecloths, napkins, and all manner of household necessaries; hence she was called a ‘spinster.’
Words change in their meanings with the changing fashions of a changeful world. There is one class of spinners, however, to which the whir of the loom and the steam-engine has made but little difference. ‘Men may come, and men may go, but they go on for ever.’ All the changes of our complex civilisation make but little difference to these little spinners. They live in their dark little houses; spin their threads; live their lives; die in peace, or else get eaten up, and pass off the scene, making no fuss, seeking no honour. Some people call them mussels; scientific naturalists call them Mytilus edulis. They deserve a good name, for they are an ancient and honourable family, that have fought a good fight in the fierce battle of life, and have endured through long ages, while many others have perished.
Every one who has visited the seashore must have noticed at times a little mussel forming the centre of a tangled mass of threads, shells, stones, and all sorts of fragments. These are bound together by the labour of the black-shelled spinster. Instead of anchoring to a rock, as a well-behaved little mussel ought to have done, this one has gone off and anchored to all sorts of rubbish, and been driven and tossed by the waves of the sea in all directions, until it has formed the centre of the tangled mass we find on the beach. In the natural way, a mussel settles between high and low water mark. When covered by the tide, he opens his doors, and angles for a living with his wonderful fishing-apparatus, for the spinsters of the sea are all born fishermen. When the tide is going out, the little angler closes the valves of his house as tight as a steel safe, and keeps his mouth shut, with a lot of water inside, until the tide covers him again.
How the Frenchmen have learned the habits of this well-known little spinner, and cultivated him, and made of him a cheap and nutritious article of diet for the French nation, is fairly well known. How the little fellow builds his house and weaves his ropes, is not quite so well known. The house itself, with its black outside, and the beautiful sky-blue, pearly inside, is a work of the greatest skill, while the mechanism by which it is opened and closed forms a chapter in the world’s wonder-lore. The little spinner lives in a soft, fleshy ‘mantle,’ inside of his stony house. On the edge of this mantle are tiny fingers (cilia) and little pigment cells with which he builds. The material—carbonate of lime—is extracted from the clear sea-water by a simple process in the life of the animal. Just as our food goes to form blood and bone, muscle and sinew, so does the food of the little spinner go to form his delicate tissues and his hard shelly house. The mussel-house is as much a part of the mussel’s life as our homes are part of our lives, and the processes of building are not so very different either; both are simple, both are mysterious.
To watch this little spinner make his thread is very interesting. From one side of his house protrudes a curious little pad of flesh, a quaint, pointed sort of a tab. This is called his ‘foot,’ though it might just as well have been called his hand. He touches the rock, or whatever he desires to attach himself to, with this foot, then withdraws it, leaving a tiny thread, which he has made by some mystic process, in his own body, just as a spider makes her silken cord. The foot comes out again and again, always leaving a thread, until a strong rope is woven, which binds him securely to his chosen home. He can shorten or lengthen this cable by a simple contractile motion, which allows him a little play; but he may be said to be fixed for life, once he settles down. After a severe storm, some of them will generally be found on the shore, driven from their moorings, helpless and homeless on the strand; but they can stand the storm as well as the ships of more skilful people, and their disasters at sea are probably less numerous in proportion than ours are.