第6章

With clasped hands they formed a ring,and circled joyously to a song of childland,the immemorial rhymes handed down from one generation to another as savages preserve tribal rites.The fresh,shrill voices broke on the air,mingled with silvery peals of laughter.

What will you give to know her name,Know her name,know her name?

What will you give to know her name,On a cold and frosty morning?

Across the street comes a burst of coarse laughter,and a string of foul,obscene words on the heels of a jest.And again the childish trebles would ring on the tainted air:

Green gravel,green gravel,Your true love is dead;I send you a message To turn round your head.

They are ragged and dirty,true children of the gutter,but Romance,with the cloudy hair and starry eyes,holds them captive for a few merciful years.Their parents loll against the walls,or squat on the kerbstone,devouring with infinite relish petty scandals about their neighbours,or shaking with laughter at some spicy yarn.

About ten o'clock the children are driven indoors with threats and blows,and put to bed.By eleven the street is quiet,and only gives a last flicker of life when a drunken man comes swearing down the street,full of beer,and offering to fight anyone for the pleasure of the thing.

By twelve the street is dead,and the tread of the policeman echoes with a forlorn sound as if he were walking through a cemetery.

As Mrs Yabsley leaned over the gate,Mrs Swadling caught sight of her,and,throwing her apron over her head,crossed the street,bent on gossip.

Then Mrs Jones,who had been watching her through the window,dropped her mending and hurried out.

The three women stood and talked of the weather,talking for talking's sake as men smoke a pipe in the intervals of work.Presently Mrs Yabsley looked hard at Mrs Swadling,who was shading her head from the sun with her apron.

"Wot's the matter with yer eye?"she said,abruptly.

"Nuthin',"said Mrs Swadling,and coloured.

The eye she was shading was black from a recent blow,a present from her husband,Sam the carter,who came home for his tea,fighting drunk,as regular as clockwork.

"I thought I 'eard Sam snorin'after tea,"said Mrs Jones.

"Yes,'e was;but 'e woke up about twelve,an'give me beans 'cause I'd let 'im sleep till the pubs was shut.""An'yer laid 'im out wi'the broom-handle,I s'pose?""No fear,"said Mrs Swadling."I ran down the yard,an''ollered blue murder.""Well,"said Mrs Yabsley,reflectively,"an 'usband is like the weather,or a wart on yer nose.It's no use quarrelling with it.If yer don't like it,yer've got ter lump it.An'if yer believe all yer 'ear,everybody else 'as got a worse."She looked down the street,and saw Jonah and Chook,with a few others of the Push,sunning themselves in the morning air.Her face darkened.

"I see the Push 'ave got Jimmy Sinclair at last.Only six months ago 'e went ter Sunday school reg'lar,an'butter wouldn't melt in 'is mouth.

Well,if smokin'cigarettes,an'spittin',and swearin'was 'ard work,they'd all die rich men.There's Waxy Collins.Last week 'e told 'is father 'e'd 'ave ter keep 'im till 'e was twenty-one 'cause of the law,an'the old fool believed 'im.An'little Joe Crutch,as used ter come 'ere beggin'a spoonful of drippin'fer 'is mother,come 'ome drunk the other night so natural,that 'is mother mistook 'im fer 'is father,an'landed 'im on the ear with 'er fist.An''im the apple of 'er eye,as the sayin'is.It's 'ard ter be a mother in Cardigan Street.Yer girls are mothers before their bones are set,an'yer sons are dodgin'the p'liceman round the corner before they're in long trousers."It was rare for Mrs Yabsley to touch on her private sorrows,and there was an embarrassing silence.But suddenly,from the corner of Pitt Street,appeared a strange figure of a man,roaring out a song in the voice of one selling fish.Every head turned.

"'Ello,"said Mrs Jones,"Froggy's on the job to-day."The singer was a Frenchman with a wooden leg,dressed as a sailor.As he hopped slowly down the street with the aid of a crutch,his grizzled beard and scowling face turned mechanically to right and left,sweeping the street with threatening eyes that gave him the look of a retired pirate,begging the tribute that he had taken by force in better days.The song ended abruptly,and he wiped the sweat from his face with an enormous handkerchief.Then he began another.

The women were silent,greedily drinking in the strange,foreign sounds,touched for a moment with the sense of things forlorn and far away.

The singer still roared,though the tune was caressing,languishing,a love song.But his eyes rolled fiercely,and his moustache seemed to bristle with anger.

Le pinson et la fauvette Chantaient nos chastes amours,Que les oiseaux chantent toujours,Pauvre Colinette,pauvre Colinette.

When he reached the women he hopped to the pavement holding out his hat like a collection plate,with a beseeching air.The women were embarrassed,grudging the pennies,but afraid of being thought mean.

Mrs Yabsley broke the silence.

"I don't know wot ye're singin'about,an'I shouldn't like ter meet yer on a dark night,but I'm always willin'ter patronize the opera,as they say."She fumbled in her pocket till she found tuppence.The sailor took the money,rolled his eyes,gave her a magnificent bow,and continued on his way with a fresh stanza:

Lorsque nous allions tous deux Dans la verdoyante allee,Comme elle etait essoufflee,Et comme j'etais radieux.