The Sailor

"What's up?" said voice the second.

"What about it? Must ha' got in at Blackhampton."

"Well, damn me."

The boy burrowed deeper and deeper into the sacks.

"Here, come out of it." The owner of the first voice took him by the ear and dragged him out of the wagon.

"What's yer name?"

No answer.

His captor shook him roughly.

"Enry Arper," whimpered the boy.

"Enry what?"

"Enry Arper."

"Enry Arper, is it? Well, you are going to have something to 'arp for, you are, my lad."

"Ever had the birch rod, Mister Enry Arper?" inquired the first voice with a kind of grim pleasantness.

The boy didn't answer.

"No? Not had that pleasure? The police are going to cut the skin off o' you and sarve you right. They'll larn you to trespass on to the railway. Fetch the foreman, Ike."

While the boy, securely held by the ear, stood shivering, Ike went leisurely in search of the foreman shunter. It was six o'clock, and that individual, who had been on duty since that hour the previous evening, was on the point of going home. Ike found him in the messroom, where he had gone to exchange his lantern for the small wicker basket in which he brought his meals. His name was Job Lorimer, and being large and fat and florid he sauntered up to the scene of action with an air of frank acceptance of life as it is, that seems to go as a rule with his type of physique and countenance.

"Why, blow me, Iggins, what's all this year?"

"Allow me to introjuice Mr. Enry Arper o' Blackhampton. – Mr. Job Lorimer, foreman shunter, Kentish Town."

"'Owdy do, young man. Pleased to meet you." Mr. Lorimer winked solemnly at both his subordinates. "What can we do for you?"

"Twelve strokes with the birch rod," said subordinate the first.

"Eight for the first offence," said subordinate the second.

Suddenly the boy fell down senseless at the foreman shunter's feet.

V

"Well, blow me," said the Foreman Shunter. "Show the light, Pearson."

The second subordinate maneuvered the lantern. "On'y a kid. And I never see sich a state as he's in. No boots. No stockings. Just look at them feet. And his hands all of a mush. Gawd!" said the Foreman Shunter.

"What'll you do about it, Job?" said subordinate number one.

"Do about it?" said the Foreman Shunter sharply. "Do about what?"

"Might let him go this time?" said subordinate number two.

The boy opened his eyes.

"I'll take him 'ome to the missus and give him some breakfast," said the Foreman Shunter with an air of asperity.

The odd thing was that both subordinates seemed silently to approve this grave dereliction of a foreman shunter's duty.

"Can you walk, me lad?"

"O' course he can't, Iggins, not with them," said the Foreman Shunter. "Can't stand on 'em, let alone walk on 'em. Here, catch holt o' the bawsket."

The Foreman Shunter took the boy in his arms and carried him away from the goods yard as he would have carried a baby.

"Leave the bawsket at No. 12 when you come off duty," he called back to the first subordinate.

"Right, Job, I will," said the first subordinate rather respectfully, and then as the Foreman Shunter passed out of hearing, the first subordinate said to his mate, "Fancy taking a thing like that 'ome to your missus."

In the meantime the boy was shivering and whimpering in what he felt to be the strong arms of the police.

"Let me go, mister, this once," he whined as awful recollections surged upon him. He had been getting terribly hurt all through the night, but he knew that he was going to be hurt still more now that the police had got hold of him.

But his faint whimpers and half-hearted wriggles were without effect upon the majesty of the law.

"Lie still. Keep quiet," growled the Foreman Shunter, adding as quite an impersonal afterthought, "Blast you!"

It seemed a very long time to the boy before he came to prison. Up one strange street and down another he was carried. As he lay in the arms of the police he could make out lamp after lamp and row after row of houses in the darkness.

It was a long way to the station.

"Let me go this once, mister," he began to whine again. "I'll not do it no more."

"Quiet, blast you," growled the large, rich voice of the police.

At last they came to a door, which in the uncertain light seemed exactly similar to one he had passed through on an occasion he would never forget to his dying day. He began to cry again miserably. Perhaps they would give him something to eat – they did so before – but he would not be able to eat anything this time if they offered it, not until they had done what they had to do.

He could hear sounds a little way off … inside the prison. He gripped convulsively the rough overcoat of his captor. How vividly he remembered it all! They gave it two other boys first. Again he could hear their screams, again he could see the blood running down their bare legs.

He must try to be a man … he remembered that one of the other boys had laughed about it afterwards … he must try to be a man … at least that had been the advice of a fatherly policeman in spectacles who had presided over the ceremony…

"Mother … that you…" The terrific voice of his captor went right through him. "Where are you, Mother? Show a light."

Suddenly a door at the end of the passage was flung open. There came a blinding gush of gaslight.

"Why, Job … whatever…!"