A PARIAH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 2

A PARIAH.

[By Henry Seton Mbrbiman.] " I have heard that there is corn in Egypt."

.Slyne's Chare is in South Shields, and Mason's Chop House stands at the lower corner of Slyne's Chare — Mason's Chop House, where generations of honest Tyneside sailors have consumed pounds of honest mutton and beef, and onions therewith. For your true sailor loves an onion ashore, which makes him a pleasanter companion at sea. Mason's Chop House is a low-roofed, red-tiled, tarred cottage with a balcony — a "balcohny" overhanging the river. It was quite evident that the "balcohny" was originally built, and has subsequently been kept in repair, by ships' carpenters. It is so glaringly shipshape, so, redolent of tar, so ridiculously

stiimg. .The keen fresli breeze — and there is nothing keener, fresher, stronger and wliolesomer in the world than that which comes roaring up between the two piers of the Tyne — this breeze Wowb right through Mason's, and blows the fume of cooking out'into Slyne's Chare.

•It i 3 evening — tea time — and the day's work is almost done; for Mason's does little in suppers. A bullet-headed boy is rubbing pewter pots at the door. Mrs Mason, comfortably somnolent at the entrance, of the little kitchen, watches her daughter — comely, grave-faced Annie Mason — " our Annie," as she is^salled, who is already folding the table-cloths. A few belated customers linger in the partitioned loose boxes, which lend a certain small privacy to the tables, and often save a fight. They are talking in gruff, North country voices, which are never harsh.

A man comes in, after a moment's awkward pause at the open door, and seeks a sf<r^ded seat where the gas overhead hs/oly vffords illumination. He is a broad b /flt masv— a Tynesider ; not so very big f/r South fields ; a matter of 6ft lin per-7-aps. He carries a blue spotted handkerchief against Us^ left cheek, and the boy with .the pewter pgfcs stares eagerly at the other.- A boy of p«>gr tact this ; for the customer's right cE^ek is horribly disfigured. It is all Ifcnised and battered in ixom. the curve of a evjuare jaw to the cheek bone, which is broken. But the eye is intact ; a shrewd, keen eye, accustomed to the penetration of a northern miat — accustomed to a close scrutiny of men's faces. It is painfully obvious that this sailor — for gait and clothes and manner set aside all other crafts — is horribly conscious of his deformity.

" Got the toothache ? " inquires the tactless youth.

The new comer replies in the negative, and orders a cup of tea and a herring. It ia Annie who brings the simple meal and seta it down -without looking at the man. "Thanks," he growls in his brown beard, and the woman pauses suddenly. She listens, as if hearing some distant sound. Then sh&slowly turns — f or she has gone a step or two from the table — and makes a pretence of setting the salt and pepper closer to him. Three ships had come up with the afternoon.tide — a coaster, a Norwegian barque in ballast and a full-rigged ship with nitrate from the West Coast of South America. "Just ashore?" inquired Annie — economical with her words, as they mostly are round the northern river. "Ay!" " Prom the West Coast?" " Ay," grumbles the man. He holds the handkerchief to his cheek and turns the herring tentatively with a fork. "You'll find it's a good enough fish," says the woman bluntly. Her two hands are pressed to her comely bosom in a singular 'way. " Ay !" says the man again, as if he had no other word. The clock strikes six, and the boy, more mindful of his own tea than his" neighbour's ailments, slips on his jacket and goes home. The last customers dawdle out with a grunt intended for a salutation. Mra Mason is softly heard to snore. And all the while Annie Mason — all the colour vanished from her wholesome face — stands with her hands clutching her dress, gazing down at the man, who still examines the herring with a self-conscious awkwardness. "Geordie!" she says. They are all called Geordie in South Shields. "Ay. lass ! " he answers shamefacedly. Annie Mason sits down suddenly — opposite to him. He does not look up, but remains, his face half hidden by the spotted blue handkerchief, a picture of self conscious guilt and shame. " What did ye do it for, Geordie ? " she asks breathlessly. "Eleven years come March — oh, it was cruel ! " "What did I do it for?" he repeats. " What did Ido it for ? Why, lass, can't ye see my face ? " Ec drops the handkerchief, and holds up his poor scarred countenance. He does not look at her, but away past her with the pathetic shame of a maimed dog. The cheek thus suddenly exposed to view is whole and brown and healthy. Beneath the mahogany coloured skin there is a glow singularly suggestive of a blush. " Ay, I see your face," she answers, with a note of tenderness for the poor scarred cheek. "I hope you haven't been at the drink." He shakes his head with a little sad smile that twists up his one-sided month. " Is it because you wanted to get shot of me?" asks the woman with a sort of breathlessness. She has large grey blue eyes, with a look of constant waiting in them — a habit of looking up at the open door at the sound of every footstep. "D- — nit, Annie. Could I comeback to you with a face like this ; and you the prettiest lass on the Tyneside ?" She is fumbling with her apron-string. There is a half-coquetti3h bend of her head — with the gray hairs already at the temple—^awakened perhaps by some far-off echo in his passionate voice. She looks up slowly, and does not answer his question. "Tell us," she says, slowly j "tell us where ye've been ?" •ySeen !— oh, I don't know, lass ! I don't rightly remember. Not that it matters. Up the West Coast, trading backwards and forwards. I've got my master's certificate now. Serving first mate on board the Mallard, to Falmouth for orders, and they ordered her up to the Tyne. I brought her round — I knew the way. Thought you'd be married lass. But mpybe ye arei" "May be I'm daft," put in Annie, coolly. "I greatly Seared," the man goes on, with the slow self-consciousness of one unaccustomed to talk of himself— "l greatly feared I'd meet up with a bairn of yours playing in the doorway. Losh ! I could not have stood that! But thafs why I stayed away, Annie, lass ! So that you might marry a man with a face on him. I thought you would Jiot-know me if I held my handkerchief over my other iheek." There is>a strange gleam_in the woman's »yes— a gleam that one or two of the old casters have succeeded in catching and mparting to the face of their Madonnas, *ut only SHe-flr-tr^r

"How did you come by your hurt P" she asks in her low voice.

" Board the old Walleroo going out. You mind the old ship ? We had a fire in the hold, and the skipper he would go down alone to locate it before we cut a hole in the deck and chipped the hose in. The old man did not come up again. You mind him ? Old Eutherford of Jarrow. And I went down and looked for him. It was a hell of smoke and fire, and something in the cargo stinking like— like hell fire as it burnt. I got a hold of the old man, and was fetching him out on my hands and knees, when something busts up and sends us all through the deck. I had three months in Valparaiso hospital ; but I saved old Jack Eutherford of Jarrow. And when I got up and looked at my face I saw that it was not iv the nature of things that I could ever ask a lass- to have me. So I just stayed away and made believe that — that I had changed my mind." The man pauses. He is not glib of speech, though quick enough at sea. As he takes up the little teapot and shakes it roundwise, after the manner of the galley, his great brown hand shakes too.

" I would noC have come back here," he goes on after a silence, " but the Mallard was ordered to the Tyne. And a chap must do his duty by his shipmates and his owners. And I thought it would be safe — after eleven years. When I saw the old place and smelt the smell of the old woman's frying pan, I could not get past the door. But I hung around, looking to make sure there were no bairns playing on the floor. I have only come in, lass, to pass the time of day and to tell you ye're a free woman."

He is not looking at her. He seems to find that difficult. So he does not see the queer little smile — rather sadder, in itself, than tears.

"And you stayed away eleven years — because o' that," says the woman slowly.

" Ay, you know, lass, I'm no great hand at the preaching and Bibles and the like : bvit it seems pretty clear that- them who's working things did not think it fit that we should marry. And so it was sent. I got to think it so in time — least, I think it's that sometimes. And no woman would like to say, 'That's my man — him with only half a face.' So I just stayed away."

"All for that ?" asks the woman, her face, which is still pretty and round and rosy, working convulsively.

" Ay, lass.*' "Then; honey," she cries, softly, "you dinna understand us women ! "