The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-04
HER POOR OLD LAD.

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 "You were just remarking," said tht
 doctor, raising his voice and looking a
 the three friends seated with him 1T
 the library after dinner, lon the phe
 nomena] character of the life in large
 seaport city like this, and wondering
 whether the customs of the poorer
 class are affected to any appreciable
 extent by the speech or manners of the
 foreign sailors who are continually
 among them. I myself incline to think
 that such influence is not so formidable
 as might be supposed, but incredible
 things happen at times in the obscure
 parts of our maritime cities. l can tell
 you a story which came under my own
 observation not so very long ago, You
 know that for some years I was house surgeon in the S. hospital? We'll, to-
 day I have been looking at the altera- tions they are making between that in- stitution and the dukes dock, and l see that among the buildings which are be- ing dismantled there is an old lodging house called The Royers' Return, in which a strange incident occurred dur ing my stay in that part of the town.
 This house, which on account of it's situation near the dock gates was fre- auented solely by seafaring men and emigrants of the poorest type, was kept for many years by an old woman, then sixty-five years of age-a good-hu- mored, contented soul, who could neith- CT read nor write, and who never in her life had set foot beyond her native town. Whether the stories which fil- tered to her through her seagoing clients from all quarters of the globe had been too much for her cannot say; but she was known to have a strong prejudice against those strange and wicked lands beyond the sea, and had been often heard to declare, when any one spoke in her hearing of foreign peo- pie, that Thank Heaven, she knowed nothing of them!' and Please God, she'd live and die in a Christian coun- try! She was a favorite in the dis trlct, since she was chatty, good na- tured, and in no way held herself to be better than her neighbors, and had be- sides, what I have often noticed in il- literate people, an extraordinary ten acious memory for all the family his- tories and interests of the district.
 Her husband was a morose old u, that time earning ten shillings week as a night Watchman in the streets. Wrinkled like seaweed, with mouth so contracted that his nose and chin almost met, and with on inscrutable expreshion in the eyes, this man, who scarcely ever spoke, had been in his youth strong radical, member of several societies for the destruction of society, and ac- tually at the time of his marriage la boring to save the required sum for ad- mission to some utopian colony in America whose chief law was the com munity of goods. But he had met fate and married, and nothing further was heard of this land of promise. The ten pounds which he had scraped together for this project remained in the saw ings bank, a provision for old age. This strangely mated couple had one son, hunchbacked cobbler, who had | hard work to live, and who cherished a | secret dislike toward his father
 ''The old man was should think, the most silent person under heaven but certainly, for man who said so little, he appeared to have a good deal confi ded to him. The box, like a coffin planted on end, in which he sat out the night behind his brazier of glowing coals, so attractive sight in the cold | dark streets, seemed to be a meeting | place for wanderers and odd fish of all | kinds. Out of the darkness of the over- hanging storages these night birds | would appear singly and in twos and threes, sometimes in whole companies, attracted like moths to the irresistible center of light and warmth. Watching this circle of haggard faces under the impish freaks of the freight, one might have thought that this gathering in the midst of heaped timber and road wreckage had the appearance of a con- piracy, as if some dark understanding drew these aliens together.
 "As might be supposed, the queerest wanderers afoat came to lodge in that part of the town, mariners who ap- peared at night from one end of the globe and set out in the morning for the other; and on an afternoon in winter two men came to The Rovers' Return, one the captain of a small sailing yes sel, surly and red eyed and full of oaths, and with him his only passen- ger, a lean, bilious man of no settled The old woman, Isabel took sudden and violent dislike to this lodger for no apparent reason, seeing that he paid regularly and gave no trouble. But she called him a spy, and, as was remembered af- terward, she had been heard to say, When that man comes into the room It's time for me to go out The captain in his turn had settled with himself that it was point of honor to him to escort his passenger round the sights of the port Every , day therefore, while the vessel re- maned in dock he and his friends would set out to see the sights and since these, to the sailor, meant often |. the red lamps of the taverns, their jour- ney would always end in one of the in- places which entertain those engaged in or attached to maritime pursuits. Once settled in one of these