It was not cheering. Though the summer sun was high and powerful, it failed to touch the broken pavement of Grubb’s Court, or to dry up the moisture which oozed from it and crept up the walls of the surrounding houses. Everything was very old, very rotten, very crooked, and very dirty. The doorways round the court were wide open—always open—in some cases, because of there being no doors; in other cases, because the tenements to which they led belonged to a variety of families, largely composed of children who could not, even on tiptoe, reach or manipulate door-handles. Nursing mothers of two feet high were numerous, staggering about with nurslings of a foot and a half long. A few of the nurslings, temporarily abandoned by the premature mothers, lay sprawling—in some cases squalling—on the moist pavement, getting over the ground like large snails, and leaving slimy tracks behind them. Little boys, of the “City Arab” type, were sprinkled here and there, and one or two old women sat on door-steps contemplating the scene, or conversing with one or two younger women. Some of the latter were busy washing garments so dirty, that the dirty water of old Father Thames seemed quite a suitable purifier.

“Gillie,” cried one of the younger women referred to, wiping the soap-suds from her red arms, “come here, you bad, naughty boy. W’ere ’ave you bin? I want you to mind baby.”

“W’y, mother,” cried the small boy—who answered to the name of Gillie—“don’t you see I’m engaged? I’m a-showin’ this ’ere sea-capp’n the course he’s got to steer for port. He wants to make the cabin of old mother Roby.”

“W’y don’t you do it quickly, then?” demanded Gillie’s mother, “you bad, naughty, wicked boy. Beg your parding, sir,” she added, to the seaman, “the boy ’an’t got no sense, besides bein’ wicked and naughty—’e ain’t ’ad no train’, sir, that’s w’ere it is, all along of my ’avin’ too much to do, an’ a large family, sir, with no ’usband to speak of; right up the stair, sir, to the top, and along the passage-door straight before you at the hend of it. Mind the step, sir, w’en you gits up. Go up with the gentleman, you bad, wicked, naughty boy, and show—”

The remainder of the sentence became confused in distance, as the boy and the seaman climbed the stair; but a continuous murmuring sound, as of a vocal torrent, conveyed the assurance that the mother of Gillie was still holding forth.

“’Ere it is,” said the young pilot, pausing at the top of the staircase, near the entrance to a very dark passage. “Keep ’er ’ead as she goes, but I’d recommend you to shorten sail, mind your ’elm, an ’ave the anchor ready to let go.”

Having thus accommodated his language to the supposed intelligence of the seaman, the elfin youth stood listening with intense eagerness and expectation as the other went into the passage, and, by sundry kicks and bumps against wooden walls, gave evidence that he found the channel intricate. Presently a terrible kick occurred. This was the seaman’s toe against the step, of which he had been warned, but which he had totally forgotten; then a softer, but much heavier blow, was heard, accompanied by a savage growl—that was the seaman’s nose and forehead against old Mrs Roby’s portal.

At this, Gillie’s expectations were realised, and his joy consummated. With mischievous glee sparkling in his eyes, he hastened down to the Court to exhibit his sixpence to his mother, and to announce to all whom it might concern, that “the sea-capp’n had run his jib-boom slap through the old ’ooman’s cabin-door.”

Chapter Two. The Seaman Takes the “Cabin” by Surprise and Storm

Without having done precisely what Gillie had asserted of him, our seaman had in truth made his way into the presence of the little old woman who inhabited “the cabin,” and stood there gazing round him as if lost in wonder; and well he might be, for the woman and cabin, besides being extremely old, were exceedingly curious, quaint, and small.

The former was wrinkled to such an extent, that you could not have found a patch of smooth skin large enough for a pea to rest on. Her teeth were all gone, back and front, and her nose, which was straight and well-formed, made almost successful attempts to meet a chin which had once been dimpled, but was now turned up. The mouth between them wore a benignant and a slightly humorous expression; the eyes, which were bright, black, and twinkling, seemed to have defied the ravages of time. Her body was much bent as she sat in her chair, and a pair of crutches leaning against the chimney-piece suggested the idea that it would not be much straighter if she stood up. She was wrapped in a large, warm shawl, and wore a high cap, which fitted so close round her little visage, that hair, if any, was undistinguishable.

The room in which she sat resembled the cabin of a ship in more respects than one. It was particularly low in the root so low that the seaman’s hair touched it as he stood there looking round him; and across this roof ran a great beam, from which hung a variety of curious ornaments, such as a Chinese lantern, a Turkish scimitar, a New Zealand club, an Eastern shield, and the model of a full-rigged ship. Elsewhere on the walls were, an ornamented dagger, a worsted-work sampler, a framed sheet of the flags of all nations, a sou’-wester cap and oiled coat, a telescope, and a small staring portrait of a sea-captain in his “go-to-meeting” clothes, which looked very much out of keeping with his staring sunburnt face, and were a bad fit. It might have been a good likeness, and was certainly the work of one who might have raised himself to the rank of a Royal Academician if he had possessed sufficient talent and who might have painted well if he had understood the principles of drawing and colour.

The windows of the apartment, of which there were two very small square ones, looked out upon the river, and, to some extent overhung it, so that a man of sanguine temperament might have enjoyed fishing from them, if he could have been content to catch live rats and dead cats. The prospect from these windows was, however, the best of them, being a wide reach of the noble river, crowded with its stately craft, and cut up by its ever-bustling steamers. But the most noteworthy part of this room, or “cabin,” was the space between the two windows immediately over the chimney-piece, which the eccentric old woman had covered with a large, and, in some cases, inappropriate assortment of objects, by way of ornament, each article being cleaned and polished to the highest possible condition of which it was susceptible. A group of five photographs of children—three girls and two boys, looking amazed—formed the centrepiece of the design; around these were five other photographs of three young ladies and two young gentlemen, looking conscious, but pleased. The spaces between these, and every available space around them, were occupied by pot-lids of various sizes, old and battered, but shining like little suns; small looking-glasses, also of various sizes, some square and others round; little strings of beads; heads of meerschaums that had been much used in former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll’s houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a host of other nick-nacks, for which it were impossible to find names or imagine uses. Everything—from the old woman’s cap to the uncarpeted floor, and the little grate in which a little fire was making feeble efforts to warm a little tea-kettle with a defiant spout—was scrupulously neat, and fresh, and clean, very much the reverse of what one might have expected to find in connection with a poverty-stricken population, a dirty lane, a filthy court, a rickety stair, and a dark passage. Possibly the cause might have been found in a large and much-worn family Bible, which lay on a small table in company with a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles, at the old woman’s elbow.

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