The White Peacock Part 57

"I don't know what you want to go for, Cyril," she said, "and Sunday night, and, everybody everywhere. I want to go home."

"Well-you go then-Emily will come with you."

"Ha," cried the latter, "you think I won't go to see her."

I shrugged my shoulders, and George pulled his moustache.

"Well, I don't care," declared Lettie, and we marched down the twitchel, Indian file.

We came near to the ugly rows of houses that back up against the pit-hill. Everywhere is black and sooty: the houses are back to back, having only one entrance, which is from a square garden where black-speckled weeds grow sulkily, and which looks on to a row of evil little ash-pit huts. The road everywhere is trodden over with a crust of soot and coal-dust and cinders.

Between the rows, however, was a crowd of women and children, bare heads, bare arms, white ap.r.o.ns, and black Sunday frocks bristling with gimp. One or two men squatted on their heels with their backs against a wall, laughing. The women were waving their arms and screaming up at the roof of the end house.

Emily and Lettie drew back.

"Look there-it's that little beggar, Sam!" said George.

There, sure enough, perched on the ridge of the roof against the end chimney, was the young imp, coatless, his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves torn away from the cuffs. I knew his bright, reddish young head in a moment. He got up, his bare toes clinging to the tiles, and spread out his fingers fanwise from his nose, shouting something, which immediately caused the crowd to toss with indignation, and the women to shriek again. Sam sat down suddenly, having almost lost his balance.

The village constable hurried up, his thin neck stretching out of his tunic, and demanded the cause of the hubbub.

Immediately a woman with bright brown squinting eyes and a birthmark on her cheek, rushed forward and seized the policeman by the sleeve.

"Ta'e 'im up, ta'e 'im up, an' birch 'im till 'is b.l.o.o.d.y back's raw,"

she screamed.

The thin policeman shook her off, and wanted to know what was the matter.

"I'll smosh 'im like a rotten tater," cried the woman, "if I can lay 'ands on 'im. 'E's not fit ter live nowhere where there's decent folks-the thievin', brazen little devil--" thus she went on.

"But what's up!" interrupted the thin constable, "what's up wi' 'im?"

"Up-it's 'im as 'is up, an' let 'im wait till I get 'im down. A crafty little--"

Sam, seeing her look at him, distorted his honest features, and overheated her wrath, till Lettie and Emily trembled with dismay.

The mother's head appeared at the bedroom window. She slid the sash back, and craned out, vainly trying to look over the gutter below the slates. She was even more dishevelled than usual, and the tears had dried on her pale face. She stretched further out, clinging to the window frame and to the gutter overhead, till I was afraid she would come down with a crash.

The men, squatting on their heels against the wall of the ashpit, laughed, saying:

"Nab 'im, Poll-can ter see 'm-clawk 'im!" and then the pitiful voice of the woman was heard crying: "Come thy ways down, my duckie, come on-on'y come ter thy mother-they shanna touch thee. Du thy mother's biddin', now-Sam-Sam-Sam!" her voice rose higher and higher.

"Sammy, Sammy, go to thy mammy," jeered the wits below.

"Shonna ter come, Shonna ter come to thy mother, my duckie-come on, come thy ways down."

Sam looked at the crowd, and at the eaves from under which rose his mother's voice. He was going to cry. A big gaunt woman, with the family steel comb stuck in her back hair, shouted, "Tha' mun well bend thy face, tha' needs ter scraight," and aided by the woman with the birthmark and the squint, she reviled him. The little scoundrel, in a burst of defiance, picked a piece of mortar from between the slates, and in a second it flew into fragments against the family steel comb. The wearer thereof declared her head was laid open and there was general confusion. The policeman-I don't know how thin he must have been when he was taken out of his uniform-lost his head, and he too began brandis.h.i.+ng his fists, spitting from under his sweep's-brush moustache as he commanded in tones of authority:

"Now then, no more on it-let's 'a'e thee down here, an' no more messin'

about!"

The boy tried to creep over the ridge of the roof and escape down the other side. Immediately the brats rushed round yelling to the other side of the row, and pieces of red-burnt gravel began to fly over the roof.

Sam crouched against the chimney.

"Got 'im!" yelled one little devil "Got 'im! Hi-go again!"

A shower of stones came down, scattering the women and the policeman.

The mother rushed from the house and made a wild onslaught on the throwers. She caught one and flung him down. Immediately the rest turned and aimed their missiles at her. Then George and the policeman and I dashed after the young wretches, and the women ran to see what happened to their offspring. We caught two lads of fourteen or so, and made the policeman haul them after us. The rest fled.

When we returned to the field of battle, Sam had gone too.

"If 'e 'asna slived off!" cried the woman with a squint. "But I'll see him locked up for this."

At this moment a band of missioners from one of the chapels or churches arrived at the end of the row, and the little harmonium began to bray, and the place vibrated with the sound of a woman's powerful voice, propped round by several others, singing:

"At even 'ere the sun was set--"

Everybody hurried towards the new noise, save the policeman with his captives, the woman with the squint, and the woman with the family comb.

I told the limb of the law he'd better get rid of the two boys and find out what mischief the others were after.

Then I enquired of the woman with the squint what was the matter.

"Thirty-seven young uns 'an we 'ad from that doe, an' there's no knowin'

'ow many more, if they 'adn't a-gone an' ate-n 'er," she replied, lapsing, now her fury was spent, into sullen resentment.

"An' niver a word should we a' known," added the family-comb-bearer, "but for that blessed cat of ourn, as scrat it up."

"Indeed," said I, "the rabbit?"

"No, there were nowt left but th' skin-they'd seen ter that, a thieving, dirt-eatin' lot."

"When was that?" said I.

"This mortal night-an' there was th' head an' th' back in th' dirty stewpot-I can show you this instant-I've got 'em in our pantry for a proof, 'aven't I, Martha?"

"A fat lot o' good it is-but I'll rip th' neck out of 'im, if ever I lay 'ands on 'im."

At last I made out that Samuel had stolen a large, lop-eared doe out of a bunch in the coal-house of the squint-eyed lady, had skinned it, buried the skin, and offered his booty to his mother as a wild rabbit, trapped. The doe had been the chief item of the Annables' Sunday dinner-albeit a portion was unluckily saved till Monday, providing undeniable proof of the theft. The owner of the rabbit had supposed the creature to have escaped. This peaceful supposition had been destroyed by the comb-bearer's seeing her cat, scratching in the Annables garden, unearth the white and brown doe-skin, after which the trouble had begun.

The squint-eyed woman was not so hard to manage. I talked to her as if she were some male friend of mine, only appealing to her womanliness with all the soft sadness I could press into the tones of my voice. In the end she was mollified, and even tender and motherly in her feelings toward the unfortunate family. I left on her dresser the half-crown I shrank from offering her, and, having reduced the comb-wearer also, I marched off, carrying the stewpot and the fragments of the ill-fated doe to the cottage of the widow, where George and the girls awaited me.

The house was in a woeful state. In the rocking chair, beside the high guard that surrounded the hearth, sat the mother, rocking, looking sadly shaken now her excitement was over. Lettie was nursing the little baby, and Emily the next child. George was smoking his pipe and trying to look natural. The little kitchen was crowded-there was no room-there was not even a place on the table for the stew-jar, so I gathered together cups and mugs containing tea sops, and set down the vessel of ignominy on the much slopped tea-cloth. The four little children were striped and patched with tears-at my entrance one under the table recommenced to weep, so I gave him my pencil which pushed in and out, but which pushes in and out no more. The sight of the stewpot affected the mother afresh.

She wept again, crying:

"An' I niver thought as 'ow it were aught but a snared un; as if I should set 'im on ter thieve their old doe; an' tough it was an' all; an' 'im a thief, an me called all the names they could lay their tongues to: an' then in my bit of a pantry, takin' the very pots out: that stewpot as I brought all the way from Nottingham, an' I've 'ad it afore our Minnie wor born-"

The baby, the little baby, then began to cry. The mother got up suddenly, and took it.