The Project Gutenberg EBook of At Sunwich Port, Complete, by W.W. Jacobs

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Title: At Sunwich Port, Complete

Author: W.W. Jacobs

Release Date: October 29, 2006 [EBook #10876]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT SUNWICH PORT, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

AT SUNWICH PORT

BY

W. W. JACOBS

ILLUSTRATIONS

From Drawings by Will Owen

CHAPTER I

The ancient port of Sunwich was basking in the sunshine of a July
afternoon. A rattle of cranes and winches sounded from the shipping in
the harbour, but the town itself was half asleep. Somnolent shopkeepers
in dim back parlours coyly veiled their faces in red handkerchiefs from
the too ardent flies, while small boys left in charge noticed listlessly
the slow passing of time as recorded by the church clock.

It is a fine church, and Sunwich is proud of it. The tall grey tower is
a landmark at sea, but from the narrow streets of the little town itself
it has a disquieting appearance of rising suddenly above the roofs
huddled beneath it for the purpose of displaying a black-faced clock with
gilt numerals whose mellow chimes have recorded the passing hours for
many generations of Sunwich men.

Regardless of the heat, which indeed was mild compared with that which
raged in his own bosom, Captain Nugent, fresh from the inquiry of the
collision of his ship _Conqueror_ with the German barque _Hans Muller_,
strode rapidly up the High Street in the direction of home. An honest
seafaring smell, compounded of tar, rope, and fish, known to the educated
of Sunwich as ozone, set his thoughts upon the sea. He longed to be
aboard ship again, with the Court of Inquiry to form part of his crew.
In all his fifty years of life he had never met such a collection of
fools. His hard blue eyes blazed as he thought of them, and the mouth
hidden by his well-kept beard was set with anger.

Mr. Samson Wilks, his steward, who had been with him to London to give
evidence, had had a time upon which he looked back in later years with
much satisfaction at his powers of endurance. He was with the captain,
and yet not with him. When they got out of