"Ha! I thought so. Are you aware, Mr Jones, that your character for honesty has of late been called in question?"

"I am aware that I have got enemies," replied the fish-merchant coldly.

"If their false reports are to be believed to my disadvantage, of course I cannot expect--"

"It is not my belief in their reports," replied Mr Durant, "that creates suspicion in me, but I couple these reports with the fact that you have again and again deceived me in regard to the repayment of the loans which you have already received at various times from me."

"I can't help ill-luck, sir," said Morley with a downcast look. "If men's friends always deserted them at the same time with fortune there would be an end of all trade."

"Mr Jones," said the other decidedly, "I tell you plainly that you are presumptuous when you count me one of your _friends_. Your deceased brother, having been an old and faithful servant of mine, was considered by me a friend, and it is out of regard to his memory alone that I have a.s.sisted _you_. Even now, I will lend you the sum you ask, but be a.s.sured it is the last you shall ever get from me. I distrust you, sir, and I tell you so--flatly."

While he was speaking the old gentleman had opened a desk. He now sat down and wrote out a cheque, which he handed to his visitor, who received it with a grim smile and a curt acknowledgment, and instantly took his leave.

Mr Durant smoothed the frown from his brow, and returned to the drawing-room, where Katie's sweet voice instantly charmed away the memory of the evil spirit that had just left him.

The table was covered with beautiful pencil sketches and chalk-heads and water-colour drawings in various stages of progression--all of which were the production of the same fair, busy, and talented little hand that copied the accounts for the Board of Trade, for love instead of money, without a blot, and without defrauding of dot or stroke a single _i_ or _t_!

Queeker was gazing at one of the sketches with an aspect so haggard and savage that Mr Durant could not refrain from remarking it.

"Why, Queeker, you seem to be displeased with that drawing, eh? What's wrong with it?"

"Oh, ah!" exclaimed the youth, starting, and becoming very red in the face--"no, not with the drawing, it is beautiful--_most_ beautiful, but I--in--fact I was thinking, sir, that thought sometimes leads us into regions of gloom in which--where--one can't see one's way, and _ignes fatui_ mislead or--or--"

"Very true, Queeker," interrupted the old gentleman, good-humouredly; "thought is a wonderful quality of the mind--transports us in a moment from the Indies to the poles; fastens with equal facility on the substantial and the impalpable; gropes among the vague generalities of the abstract, and wriggles with ease through the thick obscurities of the concrete--eh, Queeker? Come, give us a song, like a good fellow."

"I never sing--I _cannot_ sing, sir," said the youth, hurriedly.

"No! why, I thought Katie said you were attending the singing-cla.s.s."

The fat cousin was observed here to put her handkerchief to her mouth and bend convulsively over a drawing.

Queeker explained that he had just begun to attend, but had not yet attained sufficient confidence to sing in public. Then, starting up he suddenly pulled out his watch, exclaimed that he was quite ashamed of having remained so late, shook hands nervously all round, and, rushing from the house, left Stanley Hall in possession of the field!

Now, the poor youth's state of mind is not easily accounted for.

Stanley, being a close observer, had at an early part of the evening detected the cause of Queeker's jealousy, and, being a kindly fellow, sought, by devoting himself to f.a.n.n.y Hennings, to relieve his young friend; but, strange to say, Queeker was _not_ relieved! This fact was a matter of profound astonishment even to Queeker himself, who went home that night in a state of mind which cannot be adequately described, sat down before his desk, and, with his head buried in his hands, thought intensely.

"Can it be," he murmured in a sepulchral voice, looking up with an expression of horror, "that I love them _both_? Impossible. Horrible!

Perish the thought--yes." Seizing a pen:--

"Perish the thought Which never ought To be, Let not the thing."

"Thing--wing--bing--ping--jing--ring--ling--ting--cling--dear me! what a lot of words with little or no meaning there are in the English language!--what _will_ rhyme with--ah! I have it--sting--"

"Let not the thing Reveal its sting To me!"

Having penned these lines, Queeker heaved a deep sigh--cast one long lingering gaze on the moon, and went to bed.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE SLOOP NORA--MR. JONES BECOMES COMMUNICATIVE, AND BILLY TOWLER, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, THOUGHTFUL.

A dead calm, with a soft, golden, half-transparent mist, had settled down on Old Father Thames, when, early one morning, the sloop Nora floated rather than sailed towards the mouth of that celebrated river, bent, in the absence of wind, on creeping out to sea with the tide.

Jim Welton stood at the helm, which, in the circ.u.mstances, required only attention from one of his legs, so that his hands rested idly in his coat pockets. Morley Jones stood beside him.

"So you managed the insurance, did you?" said Jim in a careless way, as though he put the question more for the sake of saying something than for any interest he had in the matter.

Mr Jones, whose eyes and manner betrayed the fact that even at that early hour he had made application to the demon-spirit which led him captive at its will, looked suspiciously at his questioner, and replied--

"Well, yes, I've managed it."

"For how much?" inquired Jim.

"For 300 pounds."

Jim looked surprised. "D'ye think the herring are worth that?" he asked.

"No, they ain't, but there's some general cargo besides as'll make it up to that, includin' the value o' the sloop, which I've put down at 100 pounds. Moreover, Jim, I have named you as the skipper. They required his name, d'ye see, and as I'm not exactly a seafarin' man myself, an'

wanted to appear only as the owner, I named you."

"But that was wrong," said Jim, "for I'm _not_ the master."

"Yes, you are," replied Morley, with a laugh. "I make you master now.

So, pray, Captain Welton, attend to your duty, and be civil to your employer. There's a breeze coming that will send you foul o' the Maplin light if you don't look out."

"What's the name o' the pa.s.senger that came aboard at Gravesend, and what makes him take a fancy to such a craft as this?" inquired Jim.

"I can answer these questions for myself," said the pa.s.senger referred to, who happened at that moment to come on deck. "My name is Stanley Hall, and I have taken a fancy to the Nora chiefly because she somewhat resembles in size and rig a yacht which belonged to my father, and in which I have had many a pleasant cruise. I am fond of the sea, and prefer going to Ramsgate in this way rather than by rail. I suppose you will approve my preference of the sea?" he added, with a smile.

"I do, indeed," responded Jim. "The sea is my native element. I could swim in it as soon a'most as I could walk, and I believe that--one way or other, in or on it--I have had more to do with it than with the land."

"You are a good swimmer, then, I doubt not?" said Stanley.

"Pretty fair," replied Jim, modestly.

"Pretty fair!" echoed Morley Jones, "why, he's the best swimmer, I'll be bound, in Norfolk--ay, if he were brought to the test I do b'lieve he'd turn out to be the best in the kingdom."

On the strength of this subject the two young men struck up an acquaintance, which, before they had been long together, ripened into what might almost be styled a friendship. They had many sympathies in common. Both were athletic; both were mentally as well as physically active, and, although Stanley Hall had the inestimable advantage of a liberal education, Jim Welton possessed a naturally powerful intellect, with a capacity for turning every sc.r.a.p of knowledge to good use.

Their conversation was at that time, however, cut short by the springing up of a breeze, which rendered it necessary that the closest attention should be paid to the management of the vessel among the numerous shoals which rendered the navigation there somewhat difficult.

It may be that many thousands of those who annually leave London on voyages, short and long--of profit and pleasure--have very little idea of the intricacy of the channels through which they pa.s.s, and the number of obstructions which, in the shape of sandbanks, intersect the mouth of the Thames at its junction with the ocean. Without pilots, and an elaborate well-considered system of lights, buoys, and beacons, a vessel would be about as likely to reach London from the ocean, or _vice versa_, in safety, as a man who should attempt to run through an old timber-yard blindfold would be to escape with unbroken neck and shins.

Of shoals there are the East and West Barrows, the n.o.b, the Knock, the John, the Sunk, the Girdler, and the Long sands, all lying like so many ground-sharks, quiet, un.o.btrusive, but very deadly, waiting for ships to devour, and getting them too, very frequently, despite the precautions taken to rob them of their costly food.

These sand-sharks (if we may be allowed the expression) separate the main channels, which are named respectively the Swin or King's channel, on the north, and the Prince's, the Queen's, and the South channels, on the south. The channel through which the Nora pa.s.sed was the Swin, which, though not used by first-cla.s.s ships, is perhaps the most frequented by the greater portion of the coasting and colliery vessels, and all the east country craft. The traffic is so great as to be almost continuous; innumerable vessels being seen in fine weather pa.s.sing to and fro as far as the eye can reach. To mark this channel alone there was, at the time we write of, the Mouse light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Mouse sand; the Maplin lighthouse, on the sand of the same name; the Swin middle light-vessel, at the western extremity of the Middle and Heaps sand; the Whittaker beacon, and the Sunk light-vessel on the Sunk sand--besides other beacons and numerous buoys. When we add that floating lights and beacons cost thousands and hundreds of pounds to build, and that even buoys are valued in many cases at more than a hundred pounds each, besides the cost of maintenance, it may be conceived that the great work of lighting and buoying the channels of the kingdom--apart from the _light-house_ system altogether--is one of considerable expense, constant anxiety, and vast national importance.

It may also be conceived that the Elder Brethren of the Corporation of Trinity House--by whom, from the time of Henry VIII down to the present day, that arduous duty has been admirably performed--hold a position of the highest responsibility.

It is not our intention, however, to trouble the reader with further remarks on this subject at this point in our tale. In a future chapter we shall add a few facts regarding the Trinity Corporation, which will doubtless prove interesting; meanwhile we have said sufficient to show that there was good reason for Jim Welton to hold his tongue and mind his helm.