Chapter EIGHT: § 1

One afternoon in May, when the first heat of the summer was in the air, and in the dust that whirled in a brown cloud behind the afternoon ’bus, a rather fuddled-looking sailorman hailed the driver on the outskirts of Newhaven. Dan was punching tickets in the front seats, and took no notice beyond pulling the bell-cord when the new passenger had collapsed creakingly in his seat at the back. It was not till he came to take his ticket that he recognized him. For fully a quarter of a mile of the Lewes road Tom Sheather and his son gazed and gaped at each other.

“Well I’m blessed!” said Daniel at last.

“Dan, is it you?” moaned his father.

“Of course it is. Who did you think it was?”

“I thought you were in Sark with your mother’s people, and I’ve had a drop to drink.... Anyway, I can’t make out what you’re doing here.”

“Earning my living,” said Dan gruffly, and pulled the bell for a non-stop at Piddinghoe. “Did you think that when you cleared out and left us all, I’d keep away, even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t? I had to come back and look after mother when you deserted her.”

“She was all right,” murmured Tom sheepishly. “I knew as Chris and Len ud look after her, even if you didn’t. And to tell you the truth, Daniel, between one man and another, the way she took on after the smash was something awful. Her tongue ... my Lord!... enough to have driven me into the deep-sea trade. But I’ve only been coasting--a Geordie, you know--what brings the coals to Newcastle--from Newcastle, I should say.”

“And is this the first time you’ve come ashore?”

“Lord, no! I’ve seen a lot of the world since I’ve been here last--Cardiff, Newcastle, Middlesbrough--first-class places--

“First the Dugeon, then the Spurn-- Flamborough Head comes next in turn. Then when Whitby’s low light I see, North by west my course will be.”

This burst of song rang through the ’bus, making even the driver turn round on his seat. Dan was covered with confusion.

“Come, father--adone, do. There’s no need to let everyone know as you’re tight.”

“Tight! I ain’t tight. I’ve had a drop of drink, as who wouldn’t having to face what I’ve got to face. I’m going to face that tongue. I’ve had to do with some first-class tongues since I took up with the Geordie trade. But never met one like hers. I never meant to go, but I promised the old man I would. Our old man’s a good old man--a good old Bible-reading man--and he says to me, ‘Sheather,’ he says, ‘a husband and wife are one flesh.’ Then I had a row with the donkeyman off Dungeness--he says to me: ‘What did you do in the great war? I got a medal!’ I don’t believe it. You can buy ’em second-hand. You never got a medal, did you, Daniel?”

“How long are you ashore for?” asked his son severely.

“For ever and ever and ever and ever,” trolled Tom--“world without end, aymen. That’s why I’m going to see your mother.”

“Aren’t you never going to sea again?”

“Not till the old _Alfred Bateson’s_ gone out of harbour. I won’t go sailing any more with a blighted skunk like that donkeyman. And there was others in the fo’c’sle too.... I won’t take sauce from nobody, not even from the skipper.”

“You mean as you’ve run off the sea same as you ran off the land?”

“No--I didn’t run off--I was paid off. I’ve got lots of money”--jingling his pockets--“I’m going to see my wife and children. I’m glad to see you, old Daniel. Fancy meeting you on a ’bus. ‘Ticket, please,’ you says to me, as cool as anything.”

“Well, here’s your ticket to Telscombe Throws. That’s where you get out, and it’s fourpence.”

“You mean to say you’re going to ask your own father to pay for his ticket on your ’bus?”

“It ain’t my ’bus. I’m only the conductor--thirty bob a week.”

“Why?”

“To earn my living, as I’ve told you before.”

“You needn’t be so sharp with me, Dan. You’ve got a tongue like a saw. You’re getting too like your mother for comfort.”

“I don’t see as you’ve a right to expect anything but straight talk after the way you’ve treated us. You land us all in a mess, and then clear out and leave us there.”

“Surelye you ain’t going to cast that up at me now?”

“Surelye I am. Now, father, this is where you get out. Mother’s not at Telscombe now, you know. She’s at Hoddern, with Chris.”

“Hoddern--what for?”

“Chris has got a job as shuvver to Mr. Williamson, and mother lives along of him. Don’t forget to turn off the Telscombe road at Bullock Down.”

“I don’t think I’m going,” said Tom suddenly.

“Of course you’re going.”

“I ain’t--I’m scared. She’ll have my skin off. I won’t go unless you come with me, Dan.”

“Come with you and leave my ’bus! Do talk sense.”

“Well, I ain’t getting off.”

“Yes, you are. I’ll put you off if you won’t go.”

“You’re an undutiful son--that’s what you are,” moaned Tom Sheather, as the ’bus drew to a standstill in response to Dan’s ring. “The Bible says, ‘honour your father and mother.’ I’ve seen it written, and they say it in church too at the Ten Commandments.”

“Well, I’d honour you fast enough if you’d give me a chance. But you took this ’bus to go and see mother, and see her you shall, whatever happens.”

“You don’t know as I’ll go there even now you have put me off.”

“Of course you’ll go there. Now, please leave hold of that rail, father. We want to get on.”

“I don’t know as I can stand without it. I don’t think any shakes of your ’bus, Daniel--it’s making everything go round and round. I feel worse than off Flamborough Head.”

“That’s your own fault,” said Dan unsympathetically--“nothing to do with the ’bus. Now, father, adone do and go off, or you’ll get me into trouble.”

“I want to see you again.”

“So you shall. I’ll call at Hoddern to-morrow. It’s my afternoon off. Good-bye.”

He rang the bell and the ’bus went grinding away on its bottom gear, leaving Tom Sheather pathetically planted at the Throws, knowing that the worst was still before him.

§ 2

When Daniel came back that way at half-past five he was horrified to see his father apparently still standing where he had left him. But he looked different somehow. He was sober for one thing, and badly cowed. He held up a melancholy hand to stop the ’bus.

“What, you still here?” greeted Daniel.

“I’ve been,” said his father ruefully--“and I’ve come back.”

He collapsed on the nearest seat.

“She wouldn’t have me. She threw me out. She said I was good-for-nothing--vagabond was her word--she’d never look at me again. That wretched boy of hers told me the same. Dressed as a shuvver, he was--in a uniform with buttons, like yours, but a sight better than yours. He’d no call to speak to me so, seeing as I’m his father. He told me I’d dished the family and then left them.”

Chris’s reproach seemed, to Daniel, to have about it the ring of truth. But during the last two hours his anger had cooled, and by now it had evaporated--he was sorry for his father, guessing what his rout at Hoddern had been like; also he had in all honesty to confess that Kitty Sheather had probably given him a terrible time before he actually went off. It was almost certainly true that she had her own tongue to blame for her desertion. Not that there was any real excuse for his dad, he told himself severely, but there were certainly extenuating circumstances, and he could not help being sorry for him in this miscarriage of his reconciliation--also he’d been told what a tick he was quite often enough.

The front part of the ’bus was full, with human cargo for the Newhaven cinemas, but the back seats were empty enough for Dan to sit down for a few minutes beside his father.

“Cheer up, dad. I’m sorry mum won’t have you, but of course she thinks of nothing but Chris these days. He was most things to her before, but now you’ve gone he’s everything. I’m nothing, neither. We’re outside together again, us two.”

“Then you haven’t turned against me, Dan?”

“Not I. I won’t say that you haven’t behaved like a mean, low-down, wicked, unnatural cad, and that you haven’t asked for all you’ve got, but I can guess what drove you to it, and reckon I’m your son and ull stick by you.”

“Same as you always did,” beamed Tom Sheather. “You remember how it was always me and you against Chris and your mother?”

“Yes,” said Dan, and sighed. He still hankered for a different alliance, but it was not the same hankering as of old. He had tacitly come to accept his mother’s remoteness. Besides, he now had his son.

“Did you know I’d got a baby, father?”

“Yes--over in Sark.”

“No--at Newhaven. I brought him home with me. I’d never leave him with that lot at the Pêche à Agneau--savages they were, just a lot of ignorant foreign savages.”

“Your mother’s stock,” said Tom vindictively.

“Well, reckon it’s where mum gets some of her hard ways from. But we mustn’t miscall her. Now, dad, where are you getting out in Newhaven? I haven’t taken your ticket yet.”

“Reckon I’ll go to the terminus. I never took a room when I landed, thinking I’d stop along of your mother. Where’s your little place, Daniel?”

“In Greville Row--close to the bridge. I’ve only got a bedroom and there ain’t room for two. But maybe the landlady ud let you have a bed in the house.”

“That ud suit me fine--till I go to sea again. I’d have gone anyhow, for it’s a better life than on land, but now reckon I’ll go quicker. If you’ll let me stay along of you, Dan, I’ll be unaccountable obliged. I’ve got plenty of cash, and I can be looking round for a ship. There’s nothing like being able to pick your job.”

“No doubt,” said Daniel, as he pulled the bell for an old woman who wanted to get off at the Brighton Road.

§ 3

When the day’s work was over, the ’bus in the garage and Dan’s returns in the office, he took his parent to Greville Row with a view to finding him accommodation. On their way they called for Thomas Helier at the crèche and Tom Sheather had his first meeting with his grandson.

The child was looking his best. Two months of the most modern and efficient care had greatly improved both his health and appearance. His teething troubles were over, he could walk a few steps, and wholesome food and fresh air had made him merry and friendly. Tom Sheather was delighted with him.

“My Lord! Ain’t he just about splendid! Did you ever see such a boy! Brown eyes, too, like yourn, but I guess he doesn’t take after his grandma’s family--and you’ve called him Thomas, after me. Reckon you don’t think so small of your poor old dad after all.”

“He was christened before you did your bunk,” said Dan truthfully.

They walked home together, Tom carrying the baby in such a manner that he could--and did--snatch off both their caps. Their laughter went before them up the street and prepared their welcome in Greville Row. Dan already had a place in his landlady’s heart. His forlorn condition, the appealing youth of his widowerhood and fatherhood, had stirred up her maternal feelings towards him. Besides, he was uncommonly handy, for a man, about the house. He had helped her many times at the end of a heavy day--once even cooking the supper for her, when she had a headache and did not like stooping over the fire. She was glad to see his father and readily promised him a bed. If he didn’t mind the top attic, there was a bed in that, and she could easily fix him up a wash-bowl and some hooks.

So three generations of Sheathers took up their abode under Mrs. Gain’s roof--not highly successful or creditable Sheathers, but comfortable none the less. It was Tom now who took his grandson every morning to the crèche, Dan having wisely determined that he was not a fit person to have charge of the child all day. In the evening he met his son at the Downs Company’s office, and they brought Thomas Helier home together. The evening was spent with the Gains, first at supper and afterwards in the parlour, where there was a gramophone, which reminded Dan, sometimes uncomfortably, of old days at Batchelors’ Hall.

Mr. Gain and Tom Sheather had a great deal in common, and told each other over their pipes endless tales of seaports and the sea. Dan noticed a change in his father--he seemed much younger, and even more irresponsible than in the days of the George. Some of the adventures he recounted were simply the pranks of schoolboys.

His head was full of the sea. Though it was barely a year since he had signed on his first ship after nearly thirty years on land, the sea was now his world, and the land forgotten. The vicissitudes of the George did not move him, even when at midsummer its amalgamation with the Crown passed from conjecture into deed. The two inns were to be run as one hotel--“The George and Crown”--with a passage bridge across the road, from which the sign should swing. Dan was rather stirred and distressed by this new change, but Tom Sheather seemed to regard it merely as a joke.

“He’ll have bought the Ritz some day, that Ernley Munk. Who’d have thought he’d turn out such a regular old hotel-keeper--him with his books and his talk and his wenches? D’you remember that gal in black he brought over to supper with us?--and then went and married your poor Belle Shackford? I wonder how she likes all this glory?”

“Reckon she likes it well enough--why shouldn’t she?”

“Never said she shouldn’t. Clean contrary. I bet she likes spending his money on clothes. She was always a gal after clothes for her back--though she might have shown less of her back when she’d got ’em on. I never saw that gal without a hook undone.”

Dan disliked his father’s reminiscences, and changed the subject.

“Have you heard of another berth yet?”

“I’ve heard of several, but they won’t do. I tell you this time I’m going to pick my job. I’ve been on the _Alfred Bateson_, on the _Yorkshire Crown_ and _Rebecca Rose_. I’ve a long seafaring experience, seeing I was in the coasting trade before many of these lads were born. My Lord! I’m glad I went back to the sea. There ain’t no good jobs on land, except for Christopher Sheather. You’ve got a rotten job, Daniel. Why don’t you chuck it and come along with me on my next voyage?”

“What should I do on a ship? I know nothing about the sea.”

“Weren’t you a Sarkie fisherman for two years?”

“Yes, but that was only motor-boats.”

“Well, even they ud teach you something. I never saw a wickeder coast than the coast of Sark--changing every hour, and some of those rocks not down on the chart at all. Know that rock under the Grande Moie?--forget what it’s called, but it wasn’t on the chart.”

“I never did much navigation over there--they wouldn’t let me. And, anyways, it ud be very different on a Geordie.”

“But you’d soon learn--you’re young and smart, and it’s a grand life.”

“Well, there’s no use talking. I’ve got a kid to look after.”

“You could leave him with Mr. and Mrs. Gain. Or Emmie ud take him at Brakey Bottom and be delighted. You’d be able to pay handsome for his keep, for you’d be making good money--a sight more than you make here, and not so much chance of spending it.”

Dan shook his head.

“There’s no good talking. I can’t leave the kid--and I’m not so badly off on this job, neither. It might lead to something better.”

“What?” asked Tom Sheather cruelly.