Children of the Tide Read Online Free

start to look, Uncle? Who will you ask?’
    Isaac gave a deep sigh. ‘I’m not sure; I suppose I’ll try the clergy. We’ll try the Holy Trinity first, they’ll no doubt know if any of their congregation has gone astray. A child is hardly something that can be hidden.’ He stopped abruptly as if he had said too much and Sammi knew that, had she been able to see him, his face would have been red with embarrassment.
    ‘They may not be church-goers, Uncle.’ More than likely not, she thought. The poor ragged woman wouldn’t have been welcome among the estimable congregation. She probably did her praying at home, if she had one.
    ‘Chapel, you mean? You think that she might be chapel?’
    ‘No, Uncle. Having seen her, I think she wouldn’thave the energy or inclination for either. Why not try some of the inns? They are more likely to know the people who live in the town.’
    ‘Sir!’ James had hardly spoken on the journey, and had mostly kept his eyes glued to the carriage windows. Now he turned towards his father. ‘Perhaps we could try The Cross Keys. The landlord might remember.’
    His father drew in a sharp breath. James had told him that the only occasion when something might have happened was when he had stayed the night in town with Gilbert, though he was careful not to implicate his brother.
    The Cross Keys Inn was a busy coaching inn and stood opposite the golden statue of King William in Hull’s Market Place. It was also the departure point for the coaches to York and London, whose services were still flourishing while the North Eastern Railway board of governors and the town aldermen wrangled over where the next railway line should run. There was an arrow-straight railway track between Hull and Selby, and others not so straight to Bridlington and Withernsea on the coast, which had opened up the possibility of day excursions to see the sea.
    But the crowds of people who were passing the carriage as Sammi waited for James and his father to come out of the inn were not the kind who would be travelling by rail or coach. They teemed by on their way home from work, if they were lucky enough to be employed, from the oil or flax mills in Wincomlee, from the shipyards or the docks, and they spent their money and sought relaxation and entertainment in the streets of Hull.
    And if they were not employed, they still came out of their overcrowded, dismal houses which were squeezed together in the squalid streets and courts in the heart of the old town, searching for simple pleasures: dogfights or prize-fights made them forget their misery and poverty, and gave them their onlytaste of excitement, or if that failed, they pursued oblivion in drink.
    Sammi crouched into a corner of the carriage so that she wouldn’t be seen, and felt the occasional thud on the carriage door when someone banged it as they went by. There was some coarse bantering as well-dressed visitors arriving at the inn mingled in the street with the ill-fed and ragged poor, with beggars and thieves.
    A face pressed against the window and leered in at her; she heard Spence shout to get away and a minute later she jumped in fright as the door handle rattled and then opened, but it was only James and his father come back from a fruitless errand.
    ‘We’ve drawn a blank there, I’m afraid. The fellow’s not talking, even if he knows anything.’ Isaac sat down beside her and took off his top hat and tapped it thoughtfully. ‘We could get out and walk and ask a few people. They might talk if persuaded by a copper or two, but I don’t like to leave you here with only Spence.’
    ‘I’d rather come with you, Uncle Isaac. If we find the woman and she sees the child, she might have second thoughts about abandoning him.’
    ‘Very well. We’ll walk a little way, although I fear we must be alert constantly.’
    Sammi realized that her uncle would know of the dangers. His office was not far from the Market Place, in the old High Street which ran