True Tilda. Arthur Quiller-Couch
where mercifully his wife's ample shadow spread an aegis over him.
"Mr. Hucks, sir?" Mrs. Mortimer answered the challenge. "I saw him, not twenty minutes ago, step into his private office there to the left, and by the light in the window he's there yet."
"But who is it?" she asked, as the stranger, swinging his lantern, marched straight up to Mr. Hucks's door.
"Good Lord, it's the man himself—Glasson! And he's come for his orphans."
"He shan't have 'em, then," said Mrs. Mortimer.
CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH MR. HUCKS TAKES A HAND.
"A many-sided man."—COLERIDGE ON SHAKESPEARE.
Let Mr. Christopher Hucks introduce himself in his own customary way, that is, by presenting his card of business:—
———————————————————————————————————— | | | CHRISTOPHER HUCKS | | | | ANCHOR WHARF, CANAL END BASIN, BURSFIELD | | CANAL CARRIER, LIGHTERMAN, FREIGHTER AND WHARFINGER | | BOAT BUILDER, COAL AND GENERAL MERCHANT | | AUCTIONEER, PRACTICAL VALUER, HOUSE AND ESTATE AGENT | | | |——————— | | | | FIRE, LIFE, ACCIDENT AND PLATE GLASS INSURAMCES EFFECTED | | FIRE AND INCOME TAX CLAIMS PREPARED AND ADJUSTED | | LIVE STOCK INSURED AGAINST DEATH FROM ACCIDENT OR DISEASE | | SERVANTS REGISTRY OFFICE | | | |———————— | | | | AGENT FOR JOHN TAYLOR AND CO.'S PHOSPHATE AND SOLUBLE BONE | | MANURES | | COPPERAS, CHARCOAL, ETC., FOR SEWAGE AND OTHER PURPOSES | | ACIDS AND ANILINES FOR THE TEXTILE TRADES | | | |———————— | | | | VALUATIONS FOR PROBATE EMIGRATION AGENT | | PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS NEGOTIATED WITH CREDITORS | | | |———————— | | | | N.B.—ALL KINDS OF RIVER AND CANAL CRAFT BUILT OR REPAIRED, | | PURCHASED, SOLD, OR TO LET. NOTE THE ADDRESS | | |
Mr. Hucks, a widower, would have to be content in death with a shorter epitaph. In life his neighbours and acquaintances knew him as the toughest old sinner in Bursfield; and indeed his office hours (from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. nominally—but he was an early riser) allowed him scant leisure to practice the Christian graces. Yet though many had occasion to curse Mr. Hucks, few could bring themselves to hate him. The rogue was so massive, so juicy.
He stood six feet four inches in his office slippers, and measured fifty-two inches in girth of chest. He habitually smoked the strongest shag tobacco, and imbibed cold rum and water at short intervals from morning to night; but these excesses had neither impaired his complexion, which was ruddy, jovial and almost unwrinkled, nor dimmed the delusive twinkle of his eyes. These, under a pair of grey bushy brows, met the world humorously, while they kept watch on it for unconsidered trifles; but never perhaps so humorously as when their owner, having clutched his prey, turned a deaf ear to appeal. For the rest, Mr. Hucks had turned sixty, but without losing his hair, which in colour and habit resembled a badger's; and although he had lived inland all his life, carried about with him in his dress, his gait, his speech an indefinable suggestion of a nautical past. If you tried to fix it, you found yourself narrowed down to explaining it by the blue jersey he wore in lieu of shirt and waistcoat. (He buttoned his braces over it, and tucked its slack inside the waistband of his trousers.) Or, with luck, you might learn that he habitually slept in a hammock, and corroborate this by observing the towzled state of his back hair. But the suggestion was, in fact, far more subtle, pervasive—almost you might call it an aroma.
The Counting House—so he called the single apartment in which he slung his hammock, wrote up his ledgers, interviewed his customers, and in the intervals cooked his meals on an oil-stove—was, in pact, a store of ample dimensions. To speak precisely, it measured thirty-six feet by fourteen. But Mr. Hucks had reduced its habitable space to some eight feet by six, and by the following process.
Over and above the activities mentioned on his business card, he was a landlord, and owned a considerable amount of cottage property, including a whole block of tenement houses hard by The Plain. Nothing could be simpler than his method of managing this estate. He never spent a penny on upkeep or repairs. On a vacancy he accepted any tenant who chose to apply. He collected his rents weekly and in person, and if the rent were not forthcoming he promptly distrained upon the furniture.
By this process Mr. Hucks kept his Counting House replete, and even crowded, with chattels, some of which are reckoned among the necessaries of life, while others—such as an accordion, a rain-gauge, and a case of stuffed humming-birds—rank rather with its superfluities. Of others again you wondered how on earth they had been taken in Mr. Hucks's drag-net. A carriage umbrella, for example, set you speculating on the vicissitudes of human greatness. When the collection impinged upon Mr. Hucks so that he could not shave without knocking his elbow, he would hold an auction, and effect a partial clearance; and this would happen about once in four years. But this clearance was never more than partial, and the residuum ever consisted in the main of musical instruments. Every man has his own superstitions, and for some reason Mr. Hucks—who had not a note of music in his soul—deemed it unlucky to part with musical instruments, which was the more embarrassing because his most transitory tenants happened to be folk who practised music on the public for a livelihood—German bandsmen, for instance, not so well versed in English law as to be aware that implements of a man's trade stand exempt from seizure in execution. Indeed, the bulk of the exhibits in Mr. Hucks's museum could legally have been recovered from him under writ of replevy. But there they were, and in the midst of them to-night their collector sat and worked at his ledger by the light of a hurricane lamp.
A knock at the door disturbed his calculations.
"Come in!" he called, and Dr. Glasson entered.
"Eh? Good evenin'," said Mr. Hucks, but without heartiness.
He disliked parsons. He looked upon all men as rogues more or less, but held that ministers of religion claimed an unfair advantage on the handicap. In particular this Dr. Glasson rubbed him, as he put it, the wrong way.
"Good evening," said Dr. Glasson. "You will excuse my calling at this late hour."
"Cert'nly. Come to pay for the coals? Fifteen tons best Newcastle at eighteen shillin' makes thirteen ten, and six pounds owin' on the last account—total nineteen ten. Shall I make out the receipt?"
"You don't seriously expect me, Mr. Hucks, to pay for your coals on the same day you deliver them—"
"No," Mr. Hucks agreed, "I didn' expect it; but I looked for ye to pay up the last account before I sent any more on credit. I've told Simmonds he was a fool to take your order, and he'll get the sack if it happens again. Fifteen tons, too! But Simmonds has a weak sort of respect for parsons. Sings in the choir somewhere. Well, if you ain't come to pay, you've come for something; to explain, may be, why you go sneakin' around my foreman 'stead of dealin' with me straight an' gettin' 'no' for an answer."
"Your manner is offensive, Mr. Hucks, but for the moment I must overlook it. The fact is, I want information, if you can give it, on an urgent matter. One of my charges is missing."
"Charges?" repeated Mr. Hucks. "Eh? Lost one of your orphans? Well, I haven't found him—or her, if it's a girl. Why don't you go to the police?"
"It is a boy. Naturally I hesitate to apply to the police if the poor child can be recovered without their assistance. Publicity in these matters, as no doubt you can understand—"
Mr. Hucks nodded.
"I understand fast enough."
"The newspapers exaggerate … and then the public—even the charitable public—take up some groundless suspicion—"
"Puts two and two together," agreed Mr. Hucks, still nodding, "and then the fat's in the fire. No, I wouldn' have the police poke a nose into the 'Oly Innocents—not if I was you. But how do I come into