The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands. Robert Michael Ballantyne
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no time.”
This reply had the effect of slightly damaging the small boy’s character for simplicity in Katie’s mind, although it caused both herself and her companion to laugh.
“Well, Billy,” she said, opening her card-case, “here is my card—give it to your sick brother, and when he sends it to me with his address written on the back of it I’ll call on him.”
“Thankee, ma’am,” said the small boy.
After he had said this, he stood silently watching the retiring figure of his benefactress, until she was out of sight, and then dashing round the corner of a bye-street which was somewhat retired, he there went off into uncontrollable fits of laughter—slapped his small thighs, held his lean little sides with both hands, threw his ragged cap into the air, and in various other ways gave evidence of ecstatic delight. He was still engaged in these violent demonstrations of feeling when Morley Jones—having just landed at Yarmouth, and left the sloop Nora in charge of young Welton—came smartly round the corner, and, applying his heavy boot to the small boy’s person, kicked him into the middle of the road.
Chapter Six.
The Tempter and the Tempted
“What are ye howlin’ there for, an’ blockin’ up the Queen’s highway like that, you precious young villain?” demanded Morley Jones.
“An’ wot are you breakin’ the Queen’s laws for like that?” retorted Billy Towler, dancing into the middle of the road and revolving his small fists in pugilistic fashion. “You big hairy walrus, I don’t know whether to ’ave you up before the beaks for assault and battery or turn to an’ give ’ee a good lickin’.”
Mr Jones showed all his teeth with an approving grin, and the small boy grinned in return, but still kept on revolving his fists, and warning the walrus to “look hout and defend hisself if he didn’t want his daylights knocked out or his bows stove in!”
“You’re a smart youth, you are,” said Jones.
“Ha! you’re afraid, are you? an’ wants to make friends, but I won’t ’ave it at no price. Come on, will you?”
Jones, still grinning from ear to ear, made a rush at the urchin, who, however, evaded him with such ease that the man perceived he had not the smallest chance of catching him.
“I say, my lad,” he asked, stopping and becoming suddenly grave, “where d’you come from?”
“I comes from where I b’longs to, and where I’m agoin’ back to w’en it suits me.”
“Very good,” retorted Jones, “and I suppose you don’t object to earn a little money in an easy way?”
“Yes, I do object,” replied Billy; “it ain’t worth my while to earn a little money in any way, no matter how easy; I never deals in small sums. A fi’ pun’ note is the lowest figur’ as I can stoop to.”
“You’ll not object, however, to a gift, I daresay,” remarked Jones, as he tossed a half-crown towards the boy.
Billy caught it as deftly as a dog catches a bit of biscuit, looked at it in great surprise, tossed it in the air, bit its rim critically, and finally slid it into his trousers pocket.
“Well, you know,” he said slowly, “to obleege a friend, I’m willin’ to accept.”
“Now then, youngster, if I’m willing to trust that half-crown in your clutches, you may believe I have got something to say to ’ee worth your while listenin’ to; for you may see I’m not the man to give it to ’ee out o’ Christian charity.”
“That’s true,” remarked Billy, who by this time had become serious, and stood with his hands in his pockets, still, however, at a respectful distance.
“Well, the fact is,” said Mr Jones, “that I’ve bin lookin’ out of late for a smart lad with a light heart and a light pocket, and that ain’t troubled with much of a conscience.”
“That’s me to a tee,” said Billy promptly; “my ’art’s as light as a feather, and my pocket is as light as a maginstrate’s wisdom. As for conscience, the last beak as I wos introdooced to said I must have bin born without a conscience altogether; an’ ’pon my honour I think he wos right, for I never felt it yet, though I’ve often tried—’xcept once, w’en I’d cleaned out the pocket of a old ooman as was starin’ in at a shop winder in Cheapside, and she fainted dead away w’en she found it out, and her little grand-darter looked so pale and pitiful that I says to myself, ‘Hallo! Walleye, you’ve bin to the wrong shop this time; go an’ put it back, ye young dog;’ so I obeyed orders, an’ slipped back the purse while pretendin’ to help the old ooman. It wos risky work, though, for a bobby twigged me, and it was only my good wind and tough pair o’ shanks that saved me. Now,” continued the urchin, knitting his brows as he contemplated the knotty point, “I’ve had my doubts whether that wos conscience, or a sort o’ nat’ral weakness pecooliar to my constitootion. I’ve half a mind to call on the Bishop of London on the point one o’ these days.”
“So, you’re a city bird,” observed Jones, admiringly.
“Ah, and I can see that you’re a provincial one,” replied Billy, jingling the half-crown against the silver in his pocket.
“What brings you so far out of your beat, Walleye?” inquired Jones.
“Oh, I’m on circuit just now, makin’ a tower of the provinces. I tried a case just before you came up, an’ made three shillins out of it, besides no end o’ promises—which, unfort’nately, I can’t awail myself of—from a sweet young lady, with such a pleasant face, that I wished I could adopt her for a darter. But that’s an expensive luxury, you see; can’t afford it yet.”
“Well, youngster,” said Jones, assuming a more grave yet off-hand air, “if you choose to trust me, I’ll put you in the way of makin’ some money without much trouble. It only requires a little false swearing, which I daresay you are used to.”
“No, I ain’t,” retorted the urchin indignantly; “I never tells a lie ’xcept w’en I can’t help it. Then, of course, a feller must do it!”
“Just so, Walleye, them’s my sentiments. Have you got a father?”
“No, nor yet a mother,” replied Billy. “As far as I’m aweer of, I wos diskivered on the steps of a city work’us, an’ my first impressions in this life wos the knuckles of the old woman as banged me up. The governor used to talk a lot o’ balderdash about our bein’ brought up; but I knows better. I wos banged up; banged up in the mornins, banged to meals, and banged to bed; banged through thick and thin, for everything an’ for nothin’, until I banged myself out o’ the door one fine mornin’, which I banged arter me, an’ ’ave bin bangin’ about, a gen’lem’n at large, ever since.”
“Ha! got no friends and nothin’ to do?” said Morley Jones.
“Jis so.”
“Well, if you have a mind to take service with me, come along an’ have a pot o’ beer.”
The man turned on his heel and walked off to a neighbouring public-house, leaving the small boy to follow or not as he pleased, and apparently quite indifferent as to what his decision might be.
Billy Towler—alias Walleye—looked after him with an air of uncertainty. He did not like the look of the man, and was about to decide against him, when the jingle of the half-crown in his pocket turned the scale in his favour. Running after him, he quietly said, “I’m your man,” and then began to whistle, at the same time making an abortive effort to keep step with his long-limbed employer, who said nothing in reply, but, entering a public-house, ordered two pots of beer. These, when produced, he and his little companion sat down to discuss in the most retired box in the place, and conversed in low tones.
“What was it brought you to Yarmouth, Walleye?” asked Mr Jones.
“Call me Billy,” said the boy, “I like it better.”
“Well,