Jonah's Luck. Fergus Hume
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revealing small serrated teeth. His hair was long and unbrushed, his clothes were of well-worn tweed, extremely untidy, and badly fitting. Book in hand he stared at the ceiling, with lack-lustre eyes, oblivious to his surroundings. Opposite to him, and watching sneeringly, sat an elderly man, with a strong square face, much inflamed with drink. His apparel was disreputable, his head bald, and his beard untrimmed. Yet he had the thoughtful eyes of a scholar, and his hands, though dirty, were white and slender, and eloquently emphasised the fact to the observant, that he worked less with them than with his brain. Undoubtedly he had been gently reared, and the cause of his falling into this mire, could be discerned only too plainly in his red nose and shiny skin, and in the affectionate way in which he grasped a glass of what looked like water, and which was really gin.
Lastly, the new-comer's eyes wandered to the landlady, and in her he beheld the representative Whitechapel virago, so well-known in the police-courts of that district. She was tall and lean, fierce in looks, vehement of tongue, prodigal of gestures: a slattern in dress and a tyrant in manner. Having chased the girl with the bucket into the back parts of the house, she strode forward with the swing of a grenadier, and the insolence of a bully, to face the new guest.
"An' wot may y' want?" she demanded, harshly scornful.
"Bed and board for the night," replied the tramp, curtly.
"Ho! An' the money? Eh? D'y think I'm a-goin' t'waste five bob."
The man produced two half-crowns.
"A meal now, a bed later, and breakfast at nine in the morning."
"Five, an' praps bad money," muttered the woman, biting one of the coins, "sevening y' mean."
"Five shillings is all I mean to give. If you don't," he made a motion to take back the money.
The woman, who was really overpaid, closed her broad red hand sharply, and nodded contemptuously.
"But y' don't git th' bes' bedroom, thet bein' taiken by a gent, es is a gent, an' not a broken down toff. 'Ow do I know es y're respectable?"
"I certify," said a grand mellow voice from one settle, "that Mr. Angus Herries is well-born and honest!" Then with a sudden plunge into the Scottish dialect. "Dinna ding the laddie wi' sic blatter, ye fule wumon."
Herries wheeled round at the sound of those trumpet tones, and stared at the stout old rascal, who sipped his gin with a knowing leer.
"Gowrie," he gasped, quite taken aback. "Mr. Gowrie."
"Ye've a quick eye, my laddie. Michael Gowrie it is, though ye micht ca' me the Reverend Michael Gowrie, an' nae burn the tongue o' ye. Sit ye doon, my mon, an' we'll hae a dram togither for the sake o' auld lang syne." He hummed the last seven words.
Herries sat on the opposite settle, next to the untidy youth, who cast sidelong, disdainful looks on him, but took no further notice.
"I want food rather than drink," said the young man wearily.
"Aye! but drink is the ain an' the tither ye ken."
"Mister," cried the landlady, who had been bottling up her wrath, "I'd hev y' know, es m' naime es 'Liza Narby, an' I comes of genteel folk in Rotherhithe. Don't y' call me a bloomin' fool. D'ye see?"
"Pardon me," said the Reverend Michael in excellent English. "I did not misuse the word 'blooming,' which applies only to young and lovely beings of your sex."
"Such es Elspeth," sneered Mrs. Narby, with the venom of an ugly woman.
"Haud your tongue, ye limmer," thundered Gowrie, evidently irritated, and cast a look at the door, through which the girl had vanished, "or, nae mair custom do ye get frae me."
"Ho!" shouted Mrs. Narby, with her arms akimbo, and going at once on the warpath, "'spose I kin do without thet any'ow, an'----"
She was about to launch out in true Whitechapel style, when the untidy youth intervened listlessly.
"Milton talks of a blooming archangel," said he, addressing the Rev. Michael Gowrie.
"Nae in your mither's sense," chuckled the scholar.
But that a bell tinkled somewhere in the back premises, Mrs. Narby would have returned to the attack.
"There's thet gent, es come this night," she said, looking at her son,--for the untidy youth, held such a relationship towards this Amazon. "Go an' see wot he wants, Pope. Whoy, he might take a fancy t' y', an' elp publish yer poetry."
"I want no patrons," said Pope rising haughtily. "Genius stands quite alone."
All the same, he stalked out of the tap-room quickly, to see why the bell had sounded, and was followed by his mother, who was heard scolding her servant again. Herries took no notice of these Cockney vulgarities, being too weary to enjoy their humour. He stared into the glowing fire, while Gowrie chuckled, and finished his gin and water with great relish.
"Aye!" he drawled, wiping his coarse red lips with the sleeve of his dilapidated coat, "yon's wha ye ca a gowk, or maybe a stirk. Poetry quotha; the lad hes nae mair poetry nor ma fut. An' tis a queer thing, Herries, that you randy quean deems him a genius, nae less. There's a vein o' verse in yon limmer, else she wuldnae hae ca'd her bairn Pope."
"After the poet?"
"Tush, laddie. Pope, the wee crooked thing, wes nae a poet. Gi' me glorious Robby Bur-rns. Aye, aye, the besom o' a landleddy hes a glimmerin' o' the divine. 'Tis queer where the speeritual spark, as ye micht say, taks up its abode. I hae a wee bit glimmer maesel, an' I thocht ye hed it also, Herries. But ye've come doon, sadly, puir saul,--eh,--the looks of ye."
"Drink has nothing to do with them at least," retorted Herries nettled, "while to look at you,----"
"Eh, an' what ails me, laddie?"
"Drink! Gin, whisky and suchlike. Ten years ago, you had me as a pupil in Edinburgh, and although a minister without a church, you were at least respectable. Now----"
"Ye may weel say't, laddie. Drink's the curse o' a' sons o' Adaam. I wes a stickit meenister, foreby, and didnae wag ma pow in a pu-pit, mair's the peety. Aye, aye," he sighed, "whusky's the deil's broth, I'm theenking."
"How did you fall so low?" Angus asked his old preceptor.
"Whusky! Whusky!" said the old reprobate, "tho' I've tacken to gin as cheaper. But 'tis weary wark at times, for gin's nae sa quick as it micht be, in bringing oot the glorious points o' a mon."
"It doesn't make you drunk enough, I suppose you mean?"
"Joost sae. Ye micht pit it yon way."
"What a mercy you never married, Gowrie."
"Ca' me Meester Gowrie, be decent to your elders, laddie. Marrit, is it?" He chuckled again, and cast a strange glance at Herries from out his inflamed eyes. "Ou aye, marrit. Weel,--weel,--we're a' son's o Adaam, ye ken."
"Then are you----?"
"Hold your tongue, sir," interrupted Gowrie, in fierce English, "respect the secret of a gentleman. You an' me's met in a queer gait," he pursued in the homely Scotch, "maister an' pupil, an' baith doon on oor hunkers, as ye may say. It's a waefu' warld, I'm theenking."
Herries made no direct reply, being occupied with his thoughts. Ten years before he had been a pupil of the Rev. Michael Gowrie in Edinburgh, and even then the wreck before him now, had not been noted for sobriety. When Herries went to the University, he had lost sight of his old preceptor, and was therefore much surprised to meet him in these out-of-the-way parts, and in such straits.
"How do you live?" he asked abruptly.
"Well!" said the other in his odd mixture of Scotch and English, "I write for the daily press. Nature studies ye ken, laddie. I present the warks o' God in decent language tae an ignorant public, as ye micht say. It keeps me in drams, though the emoluments are nae what they micht be tae a scholar, an' a gentlemon foreby. An' yer ain history, laddie? a sad ain I doot not."
"The