“Welcome of Rochester,” said Starboard, reading the name on a lifebuoy.
With the engine quietening, they could hear the noise of the barge rushing through the water, and the creaking of blocks and gear. The old skipper of the Welcome had turned over the wheel to his mate and came to the side.
“Hullo, Bob,” he said.
“Hullo, Jack. Bound for Beccles?”
“Beccles Mills,” called the skipper.
“Friends o’ mine,” said Old Bob, “joinin’ a boat gone up just ahead o’ ye. Will ye give ‘em a lift?”
The skipper of the Welcome hesitated a moment, looking down with a puzzled face at the two small girls in the little tow-boat, but before he could speak the woman who was knitting was standing beside him.
“Don’t be so slow, Jack,” she said. “Of course ’e will, and welcome.”
“But …” began Port.
Old Bob was edging his little boat nearer to the barge. The two were touching now, with only the tow-boat’s fenders between them.
“Can you make it?” he shouted.
“Give me a ‘and, missie.”
“Up she goes. And the next …”
The two boats, the little tow-boat and the big barge were moving fast through the water. But there was no time to think. There were strong arms to help them. Somehow or other, both twins found themselves aboard the barge. Their knapsacks and rugs came flying aboard after them. Old Bob’s engine roared again, and the Come Along had sheered off and was racing up the river.
“I say,” said Port. “We’ve never thanked him.”
Aboard the barge, moving under sail, there was quiet. The woman was speaking to them, not shouting, and her voice sounded queer to the twins, whose ears were still throbbing from the chug, chug of the Come Along.
“Where’s ’e off to? Going upriver in a ’urry. Why don’t ’e take you wiv ’im if ’e’s going that way?”
“He’s meeting that boat,” said Starboard, pointing to the white triangle of sail still in the same place.
“They’ll be glad to see ’im,” said the skipper. “If they’re trying to beat down over this tide. And where’s this craft o’ yours?”
“She’s going to Beccles,” said Starboard. “She can’t be very far ahead. But which way are you going?” she asked, as the Welcome of Rochester turned up the Yare instead of keeping round to the left up the Waveney.
“We go up to Reedham and through the New Cut,” said the skipper. “Same thing in the end.”
GETTING A LIFT
“But what shall we do if they stop at St. Olave’s or somewhere?”
“They won’t stop if they’re bound for Beccles,” said the skipper, “not before they ’ave to.”
There was nothing to be done about it. Bob and the Come Along were already out of sight and in the other river. And anyway this was better than going back to Yarmouth.
“And what about a nice cup o’ tea?” the woman with the knitting broke in. “I was just going to make tea for my ’usband, that’s Mr. Whittle. I’m Mrs. Whittle. And the mate’s name is Mr. ’Awkins.”
“Our name’s Farland,” said Starboard. “I’m Nell and this is Bess.”
“Well, now we know each other,” said Mrs. Whittle. “That kettle should be on the boil now, if you’ll come this way with me. I’ll go down first, seeing as ’ow I know the way. And mind that bottom step.”
For the first moment after stepping off the steep companion ladder, Port and Starboard could hardly see. Then, gradually, their eyes grew accustomed to the twilight below decks. There was Mrs. Whittle, bending over an oil-stove and turning up the wick so that flames flickered out from under the kettle. “The cooking stove’s forrard,” she was saying, “but we ’ave this ’ere for convenience. That? That’s Jack’s darling in there. That’s the engine-room. Spoilt our state-room it ’as, putting that in. And taken most of the light. Jack’s darling, I call it. The time ’e spends on that engine polishing and oiling, you wouldn’t believe. Use it? Not ’im. ’E’s bin in sail all ’is life, Jack ’as, and ’e makes it ’is pride to use no petrol what ’e can’t ’elp. But polishing and oiling, ’e’s at it morning, noon an’ night.”
“May we look?” said Starboard.
“’E’ll show you,” said Mrs. Whittle. “When they put that in, I ’ad a partition wall (it ain’t a bulk’ead, not really) put right across ’ere so we ’as no smell of engine, which I can’t abide. But you should ’ave seen the stateroom as it was. All this was in it and that spare bunk we use for stores. It’s a bit cramped now, but snug.”
She opened a door, and let them peep into a tiny sleeping-cabin filling the extreme after end of the barge. There were two bunks in it, and a very small table with a lace cover on it held in place by brass-headed drawing-pins. There was a clock and a barometer fixed to the wall and a blue velvet frame with a picture in it of a young sailor with a big curl across his forehead. “That’s our Jacky,” said Mrs. Whittle. “’E’s in the Iron Duke.”
From a locker in this inner cabin, Mrs. Whittle took a red-and-white checked table cloth. This she spread on a table that when not in use folded flat against the wall of the engine-room. When it was open people could just squeeze in round it to sit on a low fixed bench.
“I like things what I call nice,” said Mrs. Whittle, who was clearly very pleased to have the twins to talk to. “It ain’t no life for a woman aboard a barge. Nothing to keep clean. Not even a doorstep you can take a pride in. They won’t let you do nothing on deck. Everything must be their way, no matter ’ow much better it might be done. But I ’ave things my way in ’ere.” She poured out a huge mug of tea and going up two steps of the ladder reached out and put it on the deck.
“Jack,” she said. “You give this to ’Awk, and tell ’im to take the wheel while you come down and ’ave a cup o’ tea.”
A moment later the light from the companion-hatch was blotted out by the descending skipper.
“Now you two missies slip in there,” said Mrs. Whittle.… “Twins, did you say. You’re not as like as some twins I’ve seen. Like as peas, some of ’em, and you ’ave to dress ’em different to know ’em apart.”
The twins squeezed together along the bench. Mr. Whittle took off his billycock hat, worked himself round the corner of the table and sat down, smoothing his moustache with his fingers. Mrs. Whittle liked to be handy for the kettle and the stove. And presently the twins were eating bread and strawberry jam, and drinking their tea, listening to the water sluicing past them on the other side of the planking, and to the short clank of the steering gear above their heads when Mr. Hawkins spun the wheel this way and that as the Welcome of Rochester nosed her way up the river.
“And ’ow did you ’appen to miss ’im?” asked Mr. Whittle.
“Well, you ’ave ’ad a day of it,” said Mrs. Whittle, when they had told about finding the Teasel gone from the staithe, and how Jim Wooddall had given them a lift down to Yarmouth, and how Old Bob had taken them up Breydon in the Come Along.
“It was very lucky he knew you,” said Starboard.
“’E didn’t,” said the skipper.
“But he called you Jack,”
“They calls all sailormen Jack.”
“And you called him Bob,” said Port.
“Is ’is name Bob? I didn’t know. I ’ad to call ’im something.”
“Then why did you take us?” asked Starboard.
“It was jolly nice of you,” said Port.
“And why not?” asked Mr. Whittle. “It’s dull for the missus being the only lady aboard.”
“Coming to the Cut.” Mr. Hawkins called from up on deck.
The skipper emptied the last of his deep mug and went nimbly up the ladder.
“And this Mrs. Barrable?” said Mrs. Whittle. “She’s your aunt, I s’pose?”
“Oh no.”
“Tom’s aunt then?”
“She isn’t relation to any of us.”
“And you said there was two other
s with her as well as your Tom?”
They set off again, first one and then the other, explaining how it happened that the Admiral had gathered such a crew.
Suddenly there was a great noise overhead, the squeaking and groaning of blocks, the flap of heavy canvas, the clank of steering gear. The whole barge shook with a sudden jar as the great sprit swung across and the mainsail filled again. Running footsteps sounded on the decks.
“What’s happening?” said Starboard.
“May we go and see?” said Port.
“Give ’em ’alf a mo’ to settle down,” said Mrs. Whittle.
After waiting a minute or two, everything seemed quiet, and the twins went up on deck. The Welcome had left the Yare, had swung round into the New Cut, and, with the skipper at the wheel, was sailing between high banks that stretched away into the distance where the Cut was crossed by a bridge. The bridge in the distance looked so small that it was hard to believe there would be room for the barge to go through even if it opened.
“Have you been this way before?” asked Starboard, hardly liking to suggest that they might not be able to get through the bridge.
“Many a time,” said Mr. Hawkins. “It ain’t no trouble, not if them lazy scuts is on ’and to lift the bridge.”
On and on they sailed down that straight, narrow cut, feeling all the time as if there was scarcely room between the banks for the barge and her own bow wave, which rushed along the piling on either side of her. Beyond the little bridge they would be coming into the Waveney again, and the twins were doing their best to catch sight of the Teasel’s sail.
They were close to the bridge before there was any sign of its opening. The twins looked at Mr. Whittle. He seemed at ease though the big barge was racing down the narrow Cut, and there was certainly no room to turn her.
“’Ere y’are, ’Awk,” said Mr. Whittle, putting his hand in his trouser pocket. “’Ere’s the money for the butterfly net.”
Almost as he spoke, the bridge seemed to split in half, and both halves cocked up in the air. Two men appeared, one of them with a little bag at the end of a long pole. Mr. Hawkins went to the side. The barge swept through, and as she passed the bag was held out and Mr. Hawkins, holding his hand high above it, dropped two shillings in it.
“Keep the chynge,” he said. “There ain’t none,” he added, turning with a wink to the twins.
The barge was through.
“P’raps they haven’t got so far,” said Starboard to Mr. Whittle.
Mr. Whittle shouted out to a man in a blue jersey and sea-boots who was digging in a potato patch just where the New Cut joins the Waveney River.
“Say, mate, you seen a little white yacht, wiv a white tender to ’er? Lot o’ kids aboard.”
“They was by here half-hour ago. From Hornin’ they tell me. Pushing on to see how far they could get afore dark.”
Half an hour ahead. Only half an hour. It almost seemed to the twins that they were in touch with the Teasel at last. Evening was closing in, too. The Admiral would soon be mooring for the night. Any time now they might see the Teasel tied up to the bank, with the Titmouse astern of her, and Tom and Dick and Dorothea hard at work getting the awnings up.
The twins went forward to the bows of the barge, and stood there, looking out. Mrs. Whittle and Mr. Hawkins came forward to join them.
“She’s the finest ship we’ve ever been in,” said Starboard to Mr. Hawkins.
“There ain’t many barges afloat to touch ’er,” said Mr. Hawkins. “Carries ’er way, and ’andy, too. You should see ’er in the London River.”
“She’s been foreign many a time,” said Mrs. Whittle. “Gives you quite a turn, coming up out of that companion after a night at sea to find yourself in a foreign ’arbour and everybody talking Dutch.”
But the twins were really thinking less of the Welcome than of the Teasel. They had remembered that half an hour ahead at the end of a day might be a very long time.
The railway bridge at Herringfleet was closed, and a red flag was showing by the signal-box, but the flag came fluttering down, and a moment later the bridge was swinging. It was open just in time to let the Welcome through.
At Somerleyton it was the same. Nothing happened to delay them for a moment.
“They simply can’t have gone much farther,” said Starboard.
“Isn’t that a sail?” said Port. “You can just see it over the reeds.”
“I can’t,” said Starboard.
“They will be ’appy when they sees you,” said Mrs. Whittle. “Getting almost too dark to knit,” she added. “Cold, too.”
And then, suddenly, the wind failed them. It had been weakening for some time. Now it died utterly away. Flat shining patches showed on the river astern. A windmill was reflected as if in glass. The skipper’s eye noted some old mooring posts standing up above the reeds.
“Topsail, ’Awk! Foresail! Brails!”
As if by magic the foresail came down and the other sails shrank away against the mast. The great sprit towered bare into the sky.
“Dead water,” said the skipper. “Tide’s turning.”
The Welcome, hardly moving, slid nearer to the reeds.
“Couldn’t ’ave let us down ’andier.”
The next moment he had left the wheel and he and Mr. Hawkins were busy with creaking warps, mooring the Welcome for the night.
“But they aren’t going to stop here?” said Starboard in despair.
“No wind,” said Mrs. Whittle. “Getting dark, too.”
“Won’t he use the engine?” suggested Port.
“Not ’im,” said Mrs. Whittle. “We ain’t due in Beccles till tomorrow, and you won’t catch ’im wasting owner’s petrol.”
“What’s sails for?” said the skipper. “Dark coming, too. We’ve a good berth ’ere, and we’ll be in Beccles tomorrow before they want us.”
“But what about Tom and the Teasel?” said Starboard.
“’E ain’t expecting you,” said Mr. Whittle. “So ’e won’t worry. And you’ll give ’im a ’ail in the morning and startle ’im out of ’is skin.”
“Jack’s right,” said Mrs. Whittle, “and now what do you say to a nice fresh ’erring for your supper, and then I’ll make the two of you snug in that spare bunk? I’ll ’ave the stores out of it in no time.”
“You wouldn’t ’ave us going on, and maybe passing ’em or running of ’em down in the dark,” said Mr. Hawkins by way of comfort. “And we’ll all be in Beccles tomorrow.” He pulled his mouth organ from his pocket, and played just a bar or two from The bonny bonny Banks of Loch Lomond. “There’s no high road and low road to Beccles,” he said. “So you can’t miss ’em.”
The dark closed down over the marshes and the river. A light was hoisted up the forestay, for even in inland waters the Welcome of Rochester did not forget that she was a sea-going vessel. Down below, under a lantern hanging from a beam, her crew and her passengers ate fresh herrings and bread and butter. And there was talk of London River and Rochester Bridge, and of Rotterdam and other foreign ports. And Mr. Hawkins brought out his mouth organ and gave them a tune when invited to do so by Mrs. Whittle.
At last Mr. Whittle was spoken to by his wife for yawning. Mr. Hawkins covered his own mouth with a huge and tarry hand, said “Good night,” and went off up the ladder and away in the darkness to his berth forward. Port and Starboard climbed the ladder, too, and walked up and down the deck as Mrs. Whittle told them to, while she cleared that spare bunk for them. They came down again to find that Mr. Whittle had disappeared. Already a steady snore came through the partition wall.
“Up at five ’e was,” said Mrs. Whittle. “It’s been a long day for ’im. You mustn’t take no notice of ’is snoring.”
“We don’t mind it,” said Starboard.
“We like it,” said Port.
“You won’t feel lonely, any’ow,” said Mrs. Whittle. “Well, good night, everybody, as they say.” And she, too, was gone into the tiny stateroom, a
fter turning the lantern low.
In a minute or two the twins had stuffed themselves into the bunk, and rolled their rugs about them. All was quiet, except for the skipper’s easy snore. Presently Mrs. Whittle started snoring too, in a slightly different tone.
“My word,” said Starboard just before she fell asleep. “Just think what Ginty would say if she knew.”
“A dinna ken juist whit she wudna say,” murmured Port.
CHAPTER XXII
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
WILLIAM had waked the Teasel early. He had gone ashore by his private gang-plank and met a terrier. He had not exactly run away, but he had waited to bark until he was safely back aboard, and after that nobody had been able to sleep another minute. Tom, still thinking of record passages, had called out from the Titmouse that the wind was just right and the tide running up. They had moored in the dusk quite close to a little ancient church, with a tower built in steps, like a pyramid. “Burgh St. Peter,” the Admiral had said. As soon as they were dressed she had sent Dick and Dorothea off along the bank to the Waveney Inn near by to get the milk for breakfast. Tom had stowed both awnings by the time they had got back. They had sailed on after a hurried breakfast. Trees on the banks had bothered them a little, but Dick had been allowed to do some quanting, this time without even looking as if he were going to fall in. And now, for a long time, the tower of Beccles Church had been in sight, and Dorothea had been expecting the Admiral to make some memorable remark.
“At last. At last. The town of his birth lay before him in the evening sunshine. The exile tottered, leaning on his stick. For a moment towers and houses and long-memoried trees vanished in a mist of tears.” Something like that, Dorothea thought, the return of a native ought to be. “Long-memoried” pleased her a good deal. It was better than “well-remembered,” and did not mean the same thing either. Or course, really, it was going to be morning, not evening, and the returning native was Mrs. Barrable, and not an aged man. But for Dorothea the main thing was that there would be a good deal of feeling about it. And somehow the Admiral, seemed hardly to realise that she was coming home at last. She was making studies of trees in her sketch-book. “In spring,” she said, “one has a chance of seeing their bones.”