Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant

John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson

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• Publié par: chuej
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 43
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crown and Anchor, by John Conroy Hutcheson
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Title: Crown and Anchor
Under the Pen'ant
Author: John Conroy Hutcheson
Illustrator: John B. Greene
Release Date: March 25, 2008 [EBook #24916]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROWN AND ANCHOR ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
John Conroy Hutcheson
"Crown and Anchor"
Chapter One.
An Old Sea-Lion.
“Hullo, Dad!” I cried out, stopping abruptly in front of the red granite coloured
Reform Club, down the marble steps of which a queer-looking old gentleman was
slowly descending. “Who is that funny old fellow there? He’s just like that ‘old
clo’’ man we saw at the corner of the street this morning, only that he hasn’t got
three hats on, one on top of another, the same as the other chap had!”
We were walking along Pall Mall on our way from Piccadilly to Whitehall, where
my father intended calling in at the Admiralty to put in a sort of official
appearance on his return to England after a long period of foreign service; and
Dad was taking advantage of the opportunity to show me a few of the sights of
London that came within our ken, everything being strange to me, for I had
never set foot in the metropolis before the previous evening, when mother and I
had come up by a late train from the little Hampshire village where we lived, to
meet father on his arrival and welcome him home.Under these circumstances, therefore, as might
reasonably have been expected, our
halts had been already frequent and oft to satisfy the cravings of my wondering
fancy; and Dad must have been tired of answering my innumerable questions
and inquiries ere half our journey had been accomplished.
He was very good-tempered and obliging, however, and bore with me patiently,
giving me all the information in his power concerning the various persons and
objects that attracted my attention, and never “turning nasty” at my insatiable
curiosity.
So now, as heretofore, obedient to my bidding, he turned to look in the direction
to which I pointed.
“Where’s your friend, the funny old fellow you spoke of, my boy?” he said kindly,
though half-quizzingly. “I don’t see him, Jack.”
“Why, there he is, right opposite to us, Dad!” I exclaimed. “He’s coming down the
steps from that doorway there, and is quite close to us now!”
“Oh! that’s your friend, Jack, eh?” said father, glancing in his turn at the old
gentleman who had caught my eye. “Let me see if I can make him out for you.”
The old fellow was not one whom an ordinary observer would style a grand
personage, or think worthy of notice in any way, very probably; and yet, there
was something about him which irresistibly attracted my attention making me
wonder who he was and want to know all about him. Boy though I was, and new
to London and London life, I was certain, I’m sure I can’t tell why, that he must
be “somebody.”A short broad-shouldered man was he, with iron-grey hair, and a very prominent
nose that was too strongly curved to be called aquiline, and which, with his
angular face, equally tanned to a brick-dust hue from exposure to wind and
weather, gave him a sort of eagle-like look, an impression that was supported by
his erect bearing and air of command; albeit, sixty odd years or more must have
rolled over his head, and his great width of chest, as he moved downwards
throwing out his long arms, made his thick-set figure seem stumpier than it
actually was, though, like most sailors of the old school, there was no denying the
fact, as Dad said subsequently, that he was “broad in the beam and Dutch built
over all!”
Nature had, undoubtedly, done much for the old gentleman, but art little, so far
as his personal appearance was concerned; for nothing could have been more
quaint and out of keeping with Pall Mall and its fashionable surroundings than his
eccentric costume.
The upper part of his person was habited in a rough shooting-jacket,
considerably the worse for wear, such as a farmer or gamekeeper might have
donned in the country, away from the busy haunts of men, when out in the
coverts or engaged thinning the preserves; while his lower extremities rejoiced in
a yet shabbier pair of trousers, whose shortness for their wearer did not tend to
enhance their artistic effect.
To complete the picture, his bushy head of iron-grey hair was surmounted by an
old beaver hat that had once been white, but which inexorable Time had
mellowed in tone, and whose nap, having been brushed up the wrong way,
against the grain, frizzed out around its circumference like a furze bush, making
it resemble the “fretful porcupine” spoken of by the immortal Shakespeare.
His whole appearance was altogether unique for a West-end thoroughfare in the
height of the season; and, the more especially, too, at that time of day, when
dandies of the first water were sauntering listlessly along the shady side of the
pavement ogling the gorgeously-attired ladies who rolled by in their stately
barouches drawn by prancing horses that must have cost fortunes, and on
whose boxes sat stately coachmen and immaculate footmen clad in liveries
beyond price, “Solomon in all his glory” not approaching their radiant
magnificence!
Emerging as he did, however, from the Reform Club, the old gentleman’s
unconventional “rig-out” bore testimony to the incontrovertible fact that, no
matter how “advanced” his principles may have become from the teachings of
Cobden, and the example of Peel, he had not allowed his political convictions to
revolutionise his original ideas on the subject of dress.
Nor was this the only peculiarity noticeable about the queer-looking old fellow.
He was coming down the steps of the club-house, while Dad and I looked at him,
so slowly that his dilatory rate of progression conveyed the impression that he
was either a martyr to corns or suffering from a recent attack of the gout;
feeling his way carefully with one foot first before bringing along its fellow, prior
to adventuring the next step, just as my baby sister, a little toddlekin of six, used
to go up and downstairs.
This, of course, was not so remarkable in itself, but as he descended thus, crab-
fashion, to the level of the pavement where Dad and I stood observing him, my
eyes grew wide with wonder at the enormous handfuls of snuff he took—not
pinches, such as I had seen snuff-takers sniff up from the backs of their handsmany a time before, without bestowing a thought on the action.
Oh, no, nothing of the sort!
They were actual handfuls that he extracted from his waistcoat pocket, as I could
not help noticing, on account of his roomy shooting-jacket being wide open and
thrown back; the old prodigal scooping up the fragrant dust in his palm, and then
doubling his fist and shoving it up his nostrils with a violent snort of inhalement,
after which he proceeded to blow his red nose with another loud report, like that
of a blunderbuss going off. This was accompanied by the flourish of a brightly
coloured pocket-handkerchief, whose vivid hue approximated closely to the
general tint of his cheeks and eagle-like beak, and which he held loosely, ready
for action, in his disengaged left hand; for, his right was ever at work oscillating
between the magazine of snuff in his deep waistcoat pocket and the nasal
promontory that consumed it with almost rhythmical regularity, sniff and snort
and resonant trumpet blast of satisfaction succeeding each other in systematic
sequence, as the veteran came down the stairway leisurely, step by step.
It all appeared to me very comical; but, I did not laugh at the old man as another
youngster might very pardonably have done, without any thought of mocking or
making fun of him.
To tell the truth, he seemed to me to be so out of place there that I was actually
pained on his account, believing, in my innocent ignorance, that he had
unhappily made a mistake in going up to the members’ entrance of the grand-
looking club-house; and that the fat hall-porter in scarlet, who now stood without
the swinging glass doors of the portal, had warned him thence, ordering him, so
it struck my fancy, to go down below by way of the area steps, to the basement
of the establishment, where his business would probably rather lie with the lower
menials of the mansion than with such an august personage as he, one who
acted solely as the janitor to the great ones of the earth possessing the password
of the club!
Yes, this was the thought uppermost in my mind; and, as the queer-looking old
gentleman continued to hobble downwards I began to wonder whether the
scullions in the kitchen, whom I could dimly discern beneath the street level and
behind a screen of iron railings, would not, likewise, turn u