They went aboard the schooner again, and the mate, remaining on deck, listened anxiously for the return of the redoubtable Mrs. Tipping, occasionally glancing over the side in expectation of being boarded from the neighbouring stairs; but with the exception of a false alarm caused by two maddened seamen unable to obtain admittance, and preferring insulting charges of somnolency against the watchman, the time passed quietly until high water. With the schooner in midstream slowly picking her way through the traffic, any twinges of remorse that he might have had for the way he had treated two helpless women left him, and he began to feel with his absent commander some of the charm which springs from successful wrong-doing.
CHAPTER VII.
He brought up off Greenwich in the cold grey of the breaking day. Craft of all shapes and sizes were passing up and down, but he looked in vain for any sign of the skipper. It was galling to him as a seaman to stay there with the wind blowing freshly down the river; but over an hour elapsed before a yell from Tim, who was leaning over the bows, called his attention to a waterman’s skiff, in the stern of which sat a passenger of somewhat dejected appearance. He had the air of a man who had been up all night, and in place of returning the hearty and significant greeting of the mate, sat down in an exhausted fashion on the cabin skylight, and eyed him in stony silence until they were under way again.
“Well,” he said at length, ungraciously.
Chilled by his manner, Fraser, in place of the dramatic fashion in which he had intended to relate the events of the preceding night, told him in a few curt sentences what had occurred. “And you can finish this business for yourself,” he concluded, warmly; “I’ve had enough of it.”
“You’ve made a pretty mess of it,” groaned the other; “there’ll be a fine set-out now. Why couldn’t you coax ’em away? That’s what I wanted you to do. That’s what I told you to do.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunities of coaxing yourself so far as I can see,” retorted Fraser, grimly. “Then you’ll see how it works. It was the only way of getting rid of them.”
“You ought to have sent round to me and let me know what you were doing,” said Flower. “I sat in that blamed pub till they turned me out at twelve, expecting you every minute. I’d only threepence left by then, and I crossed the water with that, and then I had to shuffle along to Greenwich as best I could with a bad foot. What’ll be the end of it all, I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re all right at present,” said Fraser, glancing round; “rather different to what you’d have been if those two women had come to Ipswich and seen Cap’n Barber.”
The other sat for a long time in thought. “I’ll lay up for a few weeks with this foot,” he said, slowly, “and you’ll have to tell the Tipping family that I’ve changed into another trade. What with the worry I’ve had lately, I shall be glad of a rest.”