Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection)

“I wouldn’t get up for all the geraniums in the world,” he declared. “I’m just going to have one more pipe and then I’m off to bed. Running don’t agree with me.”

He went, despite his daughter’s utmost efforts to prevent him, and she sat in silent consternation, listening to his heavy tread overhead. She heard the bed creak in noisy protest as he climbed in, and ten minutes later the lusty snoring of a healthy man of full habit resounded through the house.

She went to bed herself at last, and, after lying awake for nearly a couple of hours, closed her eyes in order to think better. She awoke with the sun pouring in at the window and the sounds of vigorous brushing in the yard beneath.

“I’ve nearly got it off,” said the sergeant, looking up. “It’s destroying evidence in a sense, I suppose; but I can’t go about with my uniform plastered with mud. I’ve had enough chaff about it as it is.”

Miss Pilbeam stole to the door of the next room and peeped stealthily in. Not a sound came from the cupboard, and a horrible idea that the prisoner might have been suffocated set her trembling with apprehension.

“H’sh!” she whispered.

An eager but stifled “H’st!” came from the cup-board, and Miss Pilbeam, her fears allayed, stepped softly into the room.

“He’s downstairs brushing the mud off,” she said, in a low voice.

“Who is?” said the skipper.

“The fat policeman,” said the girl, in a hard voice, as she remembered her father’s wrongs.

“What’s he doing it here for?” demanded the astonished skipper.

“Because he lives here.”

“Lodger?” queried the skipper, more astonished than before.

“Father,” said Miss Pilbeam.

A horrified groan from the cupboard fell like music on her ears. Then the smile forsook her lips, and she stood quivering with indignation as the groan gave way to suppressed but unmistakable laughter.

“H’sh!” she said sharply, and with head erect sailed out of the room and went downstairs to give Mr. Pilbeam his breakfast.

To the skipper in the confined space and darkness of the cupboard the breakfast seemed unending. The sergeant evidently believed in sitting over his meals, and his deep, rumbling voice, punctuated by good-natured laughter, was plainly audible. To pass the time the skipper fell to counting, and, tired of that, recited some verses that he had acquired at school. After that, and with far more heartiness, he declaimed a few things that he had learned since; and still the clatter and rumble sounded from below.

It was a relief to him when he heard the sergeant push his chair back and move heavily about the room. A minute later he heard him ascending the stairs, and then he held his breath with horror as the foot-steps entered the room and a heavy hand was laid on the cupboard door.

“Elsie!” bawled the sergeant. “Where’s the key of my cupboard? I want my other boots.”

“They’re down here,” cried the voice of Miss Pilbeam, and the skipper, hardly able to believe in his good fortune, heard the sergeant go downstairs again.

At the expiration of another week—by his own reckoning—he heard the light, hurried footsteps of Miss Pilbeam come up the stairs and pause at the door.

“H’st!” he said, recklessly.

“I’m coming,” said the girl. “Don’t be impatient.”

A key turned in the lock, the door was flung open, and the skipper, dazed and blinking with the sudden light, stumbled into the room.

“Father’s gone,” said Miss Pilbeam.

The skipper made no answer. He was administering first aid to a right leg which had temporarily forgotten how to perform its duties, varied with slaps and pinches at a left which had gone to sleep. At intervals he turned a red-rimmed and reproachful eye on Miss Pilbeam.

“You want a wash and some breakfast,” she said, softly, “especially a wash. There’s water and a towel, and while you’re making yourself tidy I’ll be getting breakfast.”

The skipper hobbled to the wash-stand, and, dipping his head in a basin of cool water, began to feel himself again. By the time he had done his hair in the sergeant’s glass and twisted his moustache into shape he felt better still, and he went downstairs almost blithely.

“I’m very sorry it was your father,” he said, as he took a seat at the table. “Very.”

“That’s why you laughed, I suppose?” said the girl, tossing her head.

“Well, I’ve had the worst of it,” said the other. “I’d sooner be upset a hundred times than spend a night in that cupboard. However, all’s well that ends well.”

“Ah!” said Miss Pilbeam, dolefully, “but is it the end?”

Captain Bligh put down his knife and fork and eyed her uneasily.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Never mind; don’t spoil your breakfast,” said the girl. “I’ll tell you afterwards. It’s horrid to think, after all my trouble, of your doing two months as well as a night in the cupboard.”

“Beastly,” said the unfortunate, eying her in great concern. “But what’s the matter?”

“One can’t think of everything,” said Miss Pilbeam, “but, of course, we ought to have thought of the mate getting uneasy when you didn’t turn up last night, and going to the police-station with a description of you.”

The skipper started and smote the table with his fist.

“Father’s gone down to watch the ship now,” said Miss Pilbeam. “Of course, it’s the exact description of the man that assaulted him. Providential he called it.”

“That’s the worst of having a fool for a mate,” said the skipper, bitterly. “What business was it of his, I should like to know? What’s it got to do with him whether I turn up or not? What does he want to interfere for?”

“It’s no good blaming him,” said Miss Pilbeam, thinking deeply, with her chin on her finger. “The thing is, what is to be done? Once father gets his hand on you–”

She shuddered; so did the skipper.

“I might get off with a fine; I didn’t hurt him,” he remarked.

Miss Pilbeam shook her head. “They’re very strict in Woodhatch,” she said.

“I was a fool to touch him at all,” said the repentant skipper. “High spirits, that’s what it was. High spirits, and being spoken to as if I was a child.”

“The thing is, how are you to escape?” said the girl. “It’s no good going out of doors with the police and half the people in Woodhatch all on the look-out for you.”

“If I could only get aboard I should be all right,” muttered the skipper. “I could keep down the fo’-c’s’le while the mate took the ship out.”

Miss Pilbeam sat in deep thought. “It’s the getting aboard that’s the trouble,” she said, slowly. “You’d have to disguise yourself. It would have to be a good disguise, too, to pass my father, I can tell you.”

Captain Bligh gave a gloomy assent.

“The only thing for you to do, so far as I can see,” said the girl, slowly, “is to make yourself up like a coalie. There are one or two colliers in the harbor, and if you took off your coat—I could send it on afterwards—rubbed yourself all over with coal-dust, and shaved off your moustache, I believe you would escape.”