The Young Trawler

“Why, Billy, I didn’t see ye,” cried Mrs Joe, holding out her hand; “how are ye, puss in boots?”

“If it was any other female but yourself, Maggie, as said that, I’d scorn to notice you,” returned Billy, half indignant.

“My darling boy!” cried Mrs Bright, turning to her son and enfolding him in her arms.

“Ah! that’s the way to do it,” responded Billy, submitting to the embrace. “You’re the old ooman as knows how to give a feller a good hearty squeeze. But don’t come it too strong, mother, else you’ll put me all out o’ shape. See, daddy’s a-goin’ to show his-self off.”

This last remark had reference to a small bundle which David Bright was hastily untying.

“See here, Nell,” he said, with a strange mixture of eagerness and modesty, “I’ve joined ’em at last old girl. Look at that.”

He unrolled a M.D.S.F. flag, which he had purchased from the skipper of the mission smack.

“An’ I’ve signed the pledge too, lass.”

“Oh! David,” she exclaimed, grasping her husband’s right hand in both of hers. But her heart was too full for more.

“Yes, Nell, I’ve had grace given me to hoist the Lord’s colours in the Short Blue, an’ it was your little book as done it. I’d ha’ bin lost by now, if it hadn’t bin for the blessed Word of God.”

Again Nell essayed to speak, but the words refused to come. She laid her head on her husband’s shoulder and wept for joy.

We have said that David Bright was not by nature given to the melting mood, but his eyes grew dim and his voice faltered at this point and it is not improbable that there would have been a regular break-down, if Joe’s blessed babby had not suddenly come to the rescue in the nick of time with one of her unexpected howls. As temporary neglect was the cause of her complaint it was of course easily cured. When quiet had been restored Mrs Bright turned to her son—“Now, Billy, my boy, I must send you off immediately.”

“But what if I won’t go off—like a bad sky-rocket?” said the boy with a doubtful expression on his face.

“But you’ll have to go—and you’ll be willing enough, too, when I tell you that it’s to see Miss Ruth Dotropy you are going.”

“What!—the angel?”

“Yes, she’s here just now, and wants to see you very much, and made me promise to send you to her the moment you came home. So, off you go! She lives with her mother in the old place, you know.”

“All right, I know. Farewell, mother.”

In a few minutes Billy was out of sight and hearing—which last implies a considerable distance, for Billy’s whistle was peculiarly loud and shrill. He fortunately had not to undergo the operation of being “cleaned” for this visit, having already subjected himself to that process just before getting into port. The only portions of costume which he might have changed with propriety on reaching shore were his long boots, but he was so fond of these that he meant to stick to them, he said, through thick and thin, and had cleaned them up for the occasion.

At the moment he turned into the street where his friends and admirers dwelt, Ruth chanced to be at the window, while the Miss Seawards, then on a visit to her mother, were seated in the room.

“Oh! the darling!” exclaimed Ruth, with something almost like a little shriek of delight.

“Which darling—you’ve got so many?” asked her mother.

“Oh! Billy Bright, the sweet innocent—look at him; quick!”

Thus adjured the sisters ran laughing to the window, but the stately mother sat still.

“D’you mean the boy with the boots on?” asked Jessie, who was short-sighted.

“Yes, yes, that’s him!”

“If you had said the boots with the boy in them, Jessie,” observed Kate, “you would have been nearer the mark!”

In a few minutes, Billy, fully alive to his importance in the ladies’ eyes, sat gravely in the midst of them answering rapid questions.

“You’ve not had tea, Billy, I hope,” said Ruth, rising and ringing the bell.

“No, miss, I haven’t, an’ if I had, I’m always game for two teas.”

Soon Billy was engaged with bread, butter, cakes, and jam, besides other luxuries, some of which he had never even dreamed of before.

“What an excellent appetite you have!” said Jessie Seaward, scarcely able to restrain her admiration.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Billy, accepting another bun with much satisfaction, “we usually does pretty well in the Short Blue in that way, though we don’t have sich grub as this to tickle our gums with. You see, we has a lot o’ fresh air out on the North Sea, an’ it’s pretty strong air too—specially when it blows ’ard. W’y, I’ve seed it blow that ’ard that it was fit to tear the masts out of us; an’ once it throw’d us right over on our beam-ends.”

“On what ends, boy?” asked Mrs Dotropy, who was beginning to feel interested in the self-sufficient little fisherman.

“Our beam-ends, ma’am. The beams as lie across under the deck, so that w’en we gits upon their ends, you know, we’re pretty well flat on the water.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Jessie; “but when that happens how can you walk the deck?”

“We can’t walk the deck, ma’am. We has to scramble along the best way we can, holdin’ on by hands and teeth and eyelids. Thank ’ee, miss, but I really do think I’d better not try to eat any more. I feels chock-full already, an’ it might be dangerous. There’s severe laws now against overloadin’, you know.”

“No such laws in this house, Billy,” said Ruth, with a laugh. “But now, if you have quite done, I should like to put a few questions to you.”

“Fire away, then, Miss,” said the boy, looking exceedingly grave and wise.

“Well, Billy,” began Ruth, with an eager look, “I want to know something about your dear mother.”

She hesitated at this point as if uncertain how to begin, and the boy sought to encourage her with—“Wery good, Miss, I knows all about her. What d’ee want to ax me?”

“I want to ask,” said Ruth, slowly, “if you know what your mother’s name was before she was married?”

Ruth did not as the reader knows, require to ask this question, but she put it as a sort of feeler to ascertain how far Billy might be inclined to assist her.

“Well, now, that is a stumper!” exclaimed the boy, smiting his little thigh. “I didn’t know as she had a name afore she was married. Leastwise I never thought of it or heerd on it, not havin’ bin acquainted with her at that time.”

With a short laugh Ruth said, “Well, never mind; but perhaps you can tell me, Billy, if your mother ever had a brother connected with the sea—a sailor, I mean.”

“Stumped again!” exclaimed the boy; “who’d have thought I was so ignorant about my own mother? If she ever had sich a brother, he must have bin drownded, for I never heerd tell of ’im.”

“Then you never heard either your father or mother mention any other name than Bright—I mean in connection with yourselves?” said Ruth in a disappointed tone.

“Never, Miss, as I can reck’lect on. I would willin’ly say yes, to please you, but I’d raither not tell no lies.”

“That’s right my good boy,” said Mrs Dotropy, with a stately but approving nod, “for you know where all liars go to.”

“Yes, ma’am, an’ I knows where liars don’t go to,” returned Billy, looking up with pious resignation, whereat the Miss Seawards and Ruth burst into a laugh.

It must not be supposed that Billy meant to be profane, but he had taken a dislike to Mrs Dotropy, and did not choose to be patronised by her.