The Lady of the Barge Page 2

under my care."

  Miss Harris assented blithely, and talk and laughter greeted the ears ofthe indignant mate as he steered. He went down at last to cold coffeeand lukewarm herrings, returning to the deck after a hurried meal to findthe skipper narrating some of his choicest experiences to an audiencewhich hung on his lightest word.

  The disregard they showed for his feelings was maddening, and for thefirst time in his life he became a prey to jealousy in its worst form.It was quite clear to him that the girl had become desperately enamouredof the skipper, and he racked his brain in a wild effort to discover thereason.

  With an idea of reminding his brother-in-law of his position, he alludedtwo or three times in a casual fashion to his wife. The skipper hardlylistened to him, and patting Miss Harris's cheek in a fatherly manner,regaled her with an anecdote of the mate's boyhood which the latter hadspent a goodly portion of his life in denying. He denied it again,hotly, and Miss Harris, conquering for a time her laughter, reprimandedhim severely for contradicting.

  By the time dinner was ready he was in a state of sullen apathy, and whenthe meal was over and the couple came on deck again, so far forgothimself as to compliment Miss Harris upon her appetite.

  "I'm ashamed of you, Ted," said the skipper, with severity.

  "I'm glad you know what shame is," retorted the mate.

  "If you can't be'ave yourself, you'd better keep a bit for'ard till youget in a better temper," continued the skipper.

  "I'll be pleased to," said the smarting mate. "I wish the barge waslonger."

  "It couldn't be too long for me," said Miss Harris, tossing her head.

  "Be'aving like a schoolboy," murmured the skipper.

  "I know how to behave _my_-self," said the mate, as he disappeared below.His head suddenly appeared again over the companion. "If some peopledon't," he added, and disappeared again.

  He was pleased to notice as he ate his dinner that the giddy prattleabove had ceased, and with his back turned toward the couple when heappeared on deck again, he lounged slowly forward until the skippercalled him back again.

  "Wot was them words you said just now, Ted?" he inquired.

  The mate repeated them with gusto.

  "Very good," said the skipper, sharply; "very good."

  "Don't you ever speak to me again," said Miss Harris, with a stately air,"because I won't answer you if you do."

  The mate displayed more of his schoolboy nature. "Wait till you'respoken to," he said, rudely. "This is your gratefulness, I suppose?"

  "Gratefulness?" said Miss Harris, with her chin in the air. "What for?"

  "For bringing you for a trip," replied the mate, sternly.

  "You bringing me for a trip!" said Miss Harris, scornfully. "CaptainGibbs is the master here, I suppose. He is giving me the trip. You'reonly the mate."

  "Just so," said the mate, with a grin at his brother-in-law, which madethat worthy shift uneasily. "I wonder what Loo will say when she seesyou with a lady aboard?"

  "She came to please you," said Captain Gibbs, with haste.

  "Ho! she did, did she?" jeered the mate. "Prove it; only don't look tome to back you, that's all."

  The other eyed him in consternation, and his manner changed.

  "Don't play the fool, Ted," he said, not unkindly; "you know what Loois."

  "Well, I'm reckoning on that," said the mate, deliberately. "I'm goingfor'ard; don't let me interrupt you two. So long."

  He went slowly forward, and lighting his pipe, sprawled carelessly on thedeck, and renounced the entire sex forthwith. At teatime the skipperattempted to reverse the procedure at the other meals; but as Miss Harrissteadfastly declined to sit at the same table as the mate, his goodintentions came to naught.

  He made an appeal to what he termed the mate's better nature, after MissHarris had retired to the seclusion of her bed-chamber, but in vain.

  "She's nothing to do with me," declared the mate, majestically. "I washmy hands of her. She's a flirt. I'm like Louisa, I can't bear flirts."

  The skipper said no more, but his face was so worn that Miss Harris, whenshe came on deck in the early morning and found the barge gliding gentlybetween the grassy banks of a river, attributed it to the difficulty ofnavigating so large a craft on so small and winding a stream.

  "We shall be alongside in 'arf an hour," said the skipper, eyeing her.

  Miss Harris expressed her gratification.

  "P'raps you wouldn't mind going down the fo'c'sle and staying there tillwe've made fast," said the other. "I'd take it as a favour. My ownersdon't like me to carry passengers."

  Miss Harris, who understood perfectly, said, "Certainly," and with a coldstare at the mate, who was at no pains to conceal his amusement, wentbelow at once, thoughtfully closing the scuttle after her.

  "There's no call to make mischief, Ted," said the skipper, somewhatanxiously, as they swept round the last bend and came into view ofCoalsham.

  The mate said nothing, but stood by to take in sail as they ran swiftlytoward the little quay. The pace slackened, and the Arabella, as thoughconscious of the contraband in her forecastle, crept slowly to where astout, middle-aged woman, who bore a strong likeness to the mate, stoodupon the quay.

  "There's poor Loo," said the mate, with a sigh.

  The skipper made no reply to this infernal insinuation. The barge ranalongside the quay and made fast.

  "I thought you'd be up," said Mrs. Gibbs to her husband. "Now come alongto breakfast; Ted 'll follow on."

  Captain Gibbs, dived down below for his coat, and slipping ashore,thankfully prepared to move off with his wife.

  "Come on as soon as you can, Ted," said the latter. "Why, what on earthis he making that face for?"

  She turned in amazement as her brother, making a pretence of catching herhusband's eye, screwed his face up into a note of interrogation and gavea slight jerk with his thumb.

  "Come along," said Captain Gibbs, taking her arm with much affection.

  "But what's Ted looking like that for?" demanded his wife, as she easilyintercepted another choice facial expression of the mate's.

  "Oh, it's his fun," replied her husband, walking on.

  "Fun?" repeated Mrs. Gibbs, sharply. "What's the matter, Ted."

  "Nothing," replied the mate.

  "Touch o' toothache," said the skipper. "Come along, Loo; I can just dowith one o' your breakfasts."

  Mrs. Gibbs suffered herself to be led on, and had got at least five yardson the way home, when she turned and looked back. The mate had still gotthe toothache, and was at that moment in all the agonies of a phenomenaltwinge.

  "There's something wrong here," said Mrs. Gibbs as she retraced hersteps. "Ted, what are you making that face for?"

  "It's my own face," said the mate, evasively.

  Mrs. Gibbs conceded the point, and added bitterly that it couldn't behelped. All the same she wanted to know what he meant by it.

  "Ask John," said the vindictive mate.

  Mrs. Gibbs asked. Her husband said he didn't know, and added that Tedhad been like it before, but he had not told her for fear of frighteningher. Then he tried to induce her to go with him to the chemist's to getsomething for it.

  Mrs. Gibbs shook her head firmly, and boarding the barge, took a seat onthe hatch and proceeded to catechise her brother as to his symptoms. Hedenied that there was anything the matter with him, while his eyes openlysought those of Captain Gibbs as though asking for instruction.

  "You come home, Ted," she said at length.

  "I can't," said the mate. "I can't leave the ship."

  "Why not?" demanded his sister.

  "Ask John," said the mate again.

  At this Mrs. Gibbs's temper, which had been rising, gave way altogether,and she stamped fiercely upon the deck. A stamp of the foot has been forall time a rough-and-ready means of signalling; the fore-scuttle wasdrawn back, and the face of a young and pretty girl appeared framed inthe opening. The mate raised his eyebrows with a helpless ge
sture, andas for the unfortunate skipper, any jury would have found him guiltywithout leaving the box. The wife of his bosom, with a flaming visage,turned and regarded him.

  "YOU VILLAIN!" SHE, SAID, IN A CHOKING VOICE]

  "You villain!" she said, in a choking voice.

  Captain Gibbs caught his breath and looked appealingly at the mate.

  "It's a little surprise for you, my dear," he faltered,