Slopperton is very little changed since the murder at the Black Mill set every tongue going upon its nine-days wonder. There may be a few more tall factory chimneys; a few more young factory ladies in cotton jackets and coral necklaces all the week, and in rustling silks and artificial flowers on Sunday; the new town—that dingy hanger-on of the old town—may have spread a little farther out towards the bright and breezy country; and the railway passenger may perhaps see a larger veil of black smoke hanging in the atmosphere as he approaches the Slopperton station than he saw eight years ago.
Mr. Peters, being no longer a householder in the town, takes up his abode at a hostelry, and, strange to say, selects the little riverside public-house in which he overheard that conversation between the usher and the country girl, the particulars of which are already known to the reader.
He is peculiar in his choice of an hotel, for “The Bargeman’s Delight” certainly does not offer many attractions to anyone not a bargeman. It is hard indeed to guess what the particular delight of the bargeman may be, which the members of that guild find provided for them in the waterside tavern alluded to. The bargeman’s delight is evidently not cleanliness, or he would go elsewhere in search of that virtue; neither can the bargeman affect civility in his entertainers, for the host and that one slipshod, young person who is barmaid, barman, ostler, cook, chambermaid, and waiter all in one, are notoriously sulky in their conversation with their patrons, and have an aggrieved and injured bearing very unpleasant to the sensitive customer. But if, on the other hand, the bargeman’s delight should happen to consist in dirt, and damp, and bad cooking, and worse attendance, and liquors on which the small glass brandy-balls peculiar to the publican float triumphantly, and pertinaciously refuse to go down to the bottom—if such things as these be the bargeman’s delight, he has them handsomely provided for him at this establishment.
However this may be, to “The Bargeman’s Delight” came Mr. Peters on the very day of the Count’s arrest, with a carpetbag in one hand and a fishing-rod in the other, and with no less a person than Mr. Augustus Darley for his companion. The customer, by the by, was generally initiated into the pleasures of this hostelry by being tripped up or tripped down on the threshold, and saluting a species of thin soup of sawdust and porter, which formed the upper stratum of the floor, with his olfactory organ. The neophyte of the Rosicrucian mysteries and of Freemasonry has, I believe, something unpleasant done to him before he can be safely trusted with the secrets of the Temple; why, then, should not the guest of the Delight have his initiation? Mr. Darley, with some dexterity, however, escaped this danger; and, entering the bar safely, entreated with the slipshod and defiant damsel aforesaid.
“Could we have a bed?” Mr. Darley asked; “in point of fact, two beds?”
The damsel glared at him for a few minutes without giving any answer at all. Gus repeated the question.
“We’ve got two beds,” muttered the defiant damsel.
“All right, then,” said Gus. “Come in, old fellow,” he added to Mr. Peters, whose legs and bluchers were visible at the top of the steps, where he patiently awaited the result of his companion’s entreaty with the priestess of the temple.
“But I don’t know whether you can have ’em,” said the girl, with a more injured air than usual. “We ain’t in general asked for beds.”
“Then why do you put up that?” asked Mr. Darley, pointing to a board on which, in letters that had once been gilt, was inscribed this legend, “Good Beds.”
“Oh, as for that,” said the girl, “that was wrote up before we took the place, and we had to pay for it in the fixtures, so of course we wasn’t a-goin’ to take it down! But I’ll ask master.” Whereon she disappeared into the damp and darkness, as if she had been the genius of that mixture; and presently reappeared, saying they could have beds, but that they couldn’t have a private sitting-room because there wasn’t one—which reason they accepted as unanswerable, and furthermore said they would content themselves with such accommodation as the bar-parlour afforded; whereon the slipshod barmaid relaxed from her defiant mood, and told them that they would find it quite cheerful, as there was a nice lookout upon the river.
Mr. Darley ordered a bottle of wine—a tremendous order, rarely known to be issued in that establishment—and further remarked that he should be glad if the landlord would bring it in, as he would like five minutes’ conversation with him. After having given this overwhelming order, Gus and Mr. Peters entered the parlour.
It was empty, the parlour; the bargeman was evidently taking his delight somewhere else that afternoon. There were the wet marks of the bargeman’s porter-pots of the morning, and the dry marks of the bargeman’s porter-pots of the day before, still on the table; there were the bargeman’s broken tobacco-pipes, and the cards wherewith he had played all-fours—which cards he had evidently chewed at the corners in aggravation of spirit when his luck deserted him—strewn about in every direction. There were the muddy marks of the bargeman’s feet on the sandy floor; there was a subtle effluvium of mingled corduroy, tobacco, onions, damp leather, and gin, which was the perfume of the bargeman himself; but the bargeman in person was not there.
Mr. Darley walked to the window, and looked out at the river. A cheerful sight, did you say, slipshod Hebe? Is it cheerful to look at that thick dingy water, remembering how many a wretched head its current has flowed over; how many a tired frame has
