Part 2

'That's what I'll do,' I shouted loud, 'I'll tell this sanctimonious crowd, This town of window-peeping, prying, Maligning, peering, hinting, lying, Male and female human blots Who would, but daren't be, whores and sots, That they're so steeped in petty vice That they're less excellent than lice, That they're so soaked in petty virtue That touching one of them will dirt you, Dirt you with the stain of mean Cheating trade and going between, Pinching, starving, scraping, hoarding Spying through the chinks of boarding To see if Sue the prentice lean Dares to touch the margarine. Fawning, cringing, oiling boots, Raging in the crowd's pursuits, Flinging stones at all the Stephens, Standing firm with all the evens, Making hell for all the odd, All the lonely ones of God, Those poor lonely ones who find Dogs more mild than human kind. For dogs,' I said, 'are nobles born To most of you, you cockled corn. I've known dogs to leave their dinner, Nosing a kind heart in a sinner. Poor old Crafty wagged his tail The day I first came home from jail, When all my folk, so primly clad, Glowered black and thought me mad, And muttered how they'd been respected, While I was what they'd all expected. (I've thought of that old dog for years, And of how near I come to tears.)

'But you, you minds of bread and cheese, Are less divine than that dog's fleas. You suck blood from kindly friends, And kill them when it serves your ends. Double traitors, double black, Stabbing only in the back, Stabbing with the knives you borrow From the friends you bring to sorrow. You stab all that's true and strong; Truth and strength you say are wrong; Meek and mild, and sweet and creeping, Repeating, canting, cadging, peeping, That's the art and that's the life To win a man his neighbour's wife. All that's good and all that's true, You kill that, so I'll kill you.'

At that I tore my clothes in shreds And hurled them on the window leads; I flung my boots through both the winders And knocked the glass to little flinders; The punch bowl and the tumblers followed, And then I seized the lamps and holloed. And down the stairs, and tore back bolts, As mad as twenty blooded colts; And out into the street I pass, As mad as two-year-olds at grass, A naked madman waving grand A blazing lamp in either hand. I yelled like twenty drunken sailors, 'The devil's come among the tailors.' A blaze of flame behind me streamed, And then I clashed the lamps and screamed 'I'm Satan, newly come from hell.' And then I spied the fire-bell.

I've been a ringer, so I know How best to make a big bell go. So on to bell-rope swift I swoop, And stick my one foot in the loop And heave a down-swig till I groan, 'Awake, you swine, you devil's own.'

I made the fire-bell awake, I felt the bell-rope throb and shake; I felt the air mingle and clang And beat the walls a muffled bang, And stifle back and boom and bay Like muffled peals on Boxing Day, And then surge up and gather shape, And spread great pinions and escape; And each great bird of clanging shrieks O Fire, Fire! from iron beaks. My shoulders cracked to send around Those shrieking birds made out of sound With news of fire in their bills. (They heard 'em plain beyond Wall Hills.)

Up go the winders, out come heads, I heard the springs go creak in beds; But still I heave and sweat and tire, And still the clang goes 'Fire, Fire!' 'Where is it, then? Who is it, there? You ringer, stop, and tell us where.' 'Run round and let the Captain know.' 'It must be bad, he's ringing so.'

'It's in the town, I see the flame; Look there! Look there, how red it came.' 'Where is it, then 'O stop the bell.' I stopped and called: 'It's fire of hell; And this is Sodom and Gomorrah, And now I'll burn you up, begorra.'

By this the firemen were mustering, The half-dressed stable men were flustering, Backing the horses out of stalls While this man swears and that man bawls, 'Don't take th'old mare. Back, Toby, back. Back, Lincoln. Where's the fire, Jack?' 'Damned if I know. Out Preston way.' 'No. It's at Chancey's Pitch, they say.' 'It's sixteen ricks at Pauntley burnt.' 'You back old Darby out, I durn't.' They ran the big red engine out, And put 'em to with damn and shout. And then they start to raise the shire, 'Who brought the news, and where's the fire?' They'd moonlight, lamps, and gas to light 'em. I give a screech-owl's screech to fright 'em, And snatch from underneath their noses The nozzles of the fire hoses. 'I am the fire. Back, stand back, Or else I'll fetch your skulls a crack; D'you see these copper nozzles here? They weigh ten pounds apiece, my dear; I'm fire of hell come up this minute To burn this town, and all that's in it. To burn you dead and burn you clean, You cogwheels in a stopped machine, You hearts of snakes, and brains of pigeons, You dead devout of dead religions, You offspring of the hen and ass, By Pilate ruled, and Caiaphas. Now your account is totted. Learn Hell's flames are loose and you shall burn.'

At that I leaped and screamed and ran, I heard their cries go 'Catch him, man.' 'Who was it?' 'Down him.' 'Out him, Ern. 'Duck him at pump, we'll see who'll burn.' A policeman clutched, a fireman clutched, A dozen others snatched and touched. 'By God, he's stripped down to his buff.' 'By God, we'll make him warm enough.' 'After him.' 'Catch him,' 'Out him,' 'Scrob him. 'We'll give him hell.' 'By God, we'll mob him.' 'We'll duck him, scrout him, flog him, fratch him. 'All right,' I said. 'But first you'll catch him.'

The men who don't know to the root The joy of being swift of foot, Have never known divine and fresh The glory of the gift of flesh, Nor felt the feet exult, nor gone Along a dim road, on and on, Knowing again the bursting glows, The mating hare in April knows, Who tingles to the pads with mirth At being the swiftest thing on earth. O, if you want to know delight, Run naked in an autumn night, And laugh, as I laughed then, to find A running rabble drop behind, And whang, on every door you pass, Two copper nozzles, tipped with brass, And doubly whang at every turning, And yell, 'All hell's let loose, and burning.'

I beat my brass and shouted fire At doors of parson, lawyer, squire, At all three doors I threshed and slammed And yelled aloud that they were damned. I clodded squire's glass with turves Because he spring-gunned his preserves. Through parson's glass my nozzle swishes Because he stood for loaves and fishes, But parson's glass I spared a tittle. He give me an orange once when little, And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street, And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom come, And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth, For life is joy, and mind is fruit, And body's precious earth and root. But lawyer's glass--well, never mind, Th'old Adam's strong in me, I find. God pardon man, and may God's son Forgive the evil things I've done.

What more? By Dirty Lane I crept Back to the Lion, where I slept. The raging madness hot and floodin' Boiled itself out and left me sudden, Left me worn out and sick and cold, Aching as though I'd all grown old; So there I lay, and there they found me On door-mat, with a curtain round me. Si took my heels and Jane my head And laughed, and carried me to bed. And from the neighbouring street they reskied My boots and trousers, coat and weskit; They bath-bricked both the nozzles bright To be mementoes of the night, And knowing what I should awake with They flannelled me a quart to slake with, And sat and shook till half-past two Expecting Police Inspector Drew.

I woke and drank, and went to meat In clothes still dirty from the street. Down in the bar I heard 'em tell How someone rang the fire-bell, And how th'inspector's search had thriven, And how five pounds reward was given. And Shepherd Boyce, of Marley, glad us By saying it was blokes from mad'us, Or two young rips lodged at the Prince Whom none had seen nor heard of since, Or that young blade from Worcester Walk (You know how country people talk).

Young Joe the ostler come in sad, He said th'old mare had bit his dad. He said there'd come a blazing screeching Daft Bible-prophet chap a-preaching, Had put th'old mare in such a taking She'd thought the bloody earth was quaking. And others come and spread a tale Of cut-throats out of Gloucester jail, And how we needed extra cops With all them Welsh come picking hops; With drunken Welsh in all our sheds We might be murdered in our beds. By all accounts, both men and wives Had had the scare up of their lives.

I ate and drank and gathered strength, And stretched along the bench full length, Or crossed to window seat to pat Black Silas Jones's little cat. At four I called, 'You devil's own, The second trumpet shall be blown. The second trump, the second blast; Hell's flames are loosed, and judgment's passed. Too late for mercy now. Take warning I'm death and hell and Judgment morning.' I hurled the bench into the settle, I banged the table on the kettle, I sent Joe's quart of cider spinning. 'Lo, here begins my second inning.' Each bottle, mug, and jug and pot I smashed to crocks in half a tot; And Joe, and Si, and Nick, and Percy I rolled together topsy versy. And as I ran I heard 'em call, 'Now damn to hell, what's gone with Saul?'

Out into street I ran uproarious The devil dancing in me glorious. And as I ran I yell and shriek 'Come on, now, turn the other cheek.' Across the way by almshouse pump I see old puffing parson stump. Old parson, red-eyed as a ferret From nightly wrestlings with the spirit; I ran across, and barred his path. His turkey gills went red as wrath And then he froze, as parsons can. 'The police will deal with you, my man.' 'Not yet,' said I, 'not yet they won't; And now you'll hear me, like or don't. The English Church both is and was A subsidy of Caiaphas. I don't believe in Prayer nor Bible, They're lies all through, and you're a libel, A libel on the Devil's plan When first he miscreated man. You mumble through a formal code To get which martyrs burned and glowed. I look on martyrs as mistakes, But still they burned for it at stakes; Your only fire's the jolly fire Where you can guzzle port with Squire, And back and praise his damned opinions About his temporal dominions. You let him give the man who digs, A filthy hut unfit for pigs, Without a well, without a drain, With mossy thatch that lets in rain, Without a 'lotment, 'less he rent it, And never meat, unless he scent it, But weekly doles of 'leven shilling To make a grown man strong and willing, To do the hardest work on earth And feed his wife when she gives birth, And feed his little children's bones. I tell you, man, the Devil groans. With all your main and all your might You back what is against what's right; You let the Squire do things like these, You back him in't and give him ease, You take his hand, and drink his wine, And he's a hog, but you're a swine. For you take gold to teach God's ways And teach man how to sing God's praise. And now I'll tell you what you teach In downright honest English speech.

'You teach the ground-down starving man That Squire's greed's Jehovah's plan. You get his learning circumvented Lest it should make him discontented (Better a brutal, starving nation Than men with thoughts above their station), You let him neither read nor think, You goad his wretched soul to drink And then to jail, the drunken boor; O sad intemperance of the poor. You starve his soul till it's rapscallion, Then blame his flesh for being stallion. You send your wife around to paint The golden glories of "restraint." How moral exercise bewild'rin' Would soon result in fewer children. You work a day in Squire's fields And see what sweet restraint it yields; A woman's day at turnip picking, Your heart's too fat for plough or ricking.

'And you whom luck taught French and Greek Have purple flaps on either cheek, A stately house, and time for knowledge, And gold to send your sons to college, That pleasant place, where getting learning Is also key to money earning. But quite your damn'dest want of grace Is what you do to save your face; The way you sit astride the gates By padding wages out of rates; Your Christmas gifts of shoddy blankets That every working soul may thank its Loving parson, loving squire Through whom he can't afford a fire. Your well-packed bench, your prison pen, To keep them something less than men; Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury, Your charities of midwifery. Your bidding children duck and cap To them who give them workhouse pap. O, what you are, and what you preach, And what you do, and what you teach Is not God's Word, nor honest schism, But Devil's cant and pauperism.'

By this time many folk had gathered To listen to me while I blathered; I said my piece, and when I'd said it, I'll do old purple parson credit, He sunk (as sometimes parsons can) His coat's excuses in the man. 'You think that Squire and I are kings Who made the existing state of things, And made it ill. I answer, No, States are not made, nor patched; they grow, Grow slow through centuries of pain And grow correctly in the main, But only grow by certain laws Of certain bits in certain jaws. You want to doctor that. Let be. You cannot patch a growing tree. Put these two words beneath your hat, These two: securus judicat.

The social states of human kinds Are made by multitudes of minds. And after multitudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it's not the whole. This state is dull and evil, both, I keep it in the path of growth; You think the Church an outworn fetter; Kane, keep it, till you've built a better. And keep the existing social state; I quite agree it's out of date, One does too much, another shirks, Unjust, I grant; but still ... it works. To get the whole world out of bed And washed, and dressed, and warmed, and fed, To work, and back to bed again, Believe me, Saul, costs worlds of pain. Then, as to whether true or sham That book of Christ, Whose priest I am; The Bible is a lie, say you, Where do you stand, suppose it true?

Good-bye. But if you've more to say, My doors are open night and day. Meanwhile, my friend, 'twould be no sin To mix more water in your gin. We're neither saints nor Philip Sidneys, But mortal men with mortal kidneys.' He took his snuff, and wheezed a greeting, And waddled off to mothers' meeting; I hung my head upon my chest, I give old purple parson best. For while the Plough tips round the Pole The trained mind outs the upright soul, As Jesus said the trained mind might, Being wiser than the sons of light, But trained men's minds are spread so thin They let all sorts of darkness in; Whatever light man finds they doubt it, They love not light, but talk about it.

But parson'd proved to people's eyes That I was drunk, and he was wise; And people grinned and women tittered, And little children mocked and twittered So blazing mad, I stalked to bar To show how noble drunkards are, And guzzled spirits like a beast, To show contempt for Church and priest, Until, by six, my wits went round Like hungry pigs in parish pound. At half-past six, rememb'ring Jane, I staggered into street again With mind made up (or primed with gin) To bash the cop who'd run me in; For well I knew I'd have to cock up My legs that night inside the lock-up, And it was my most fixed intent To have a fight before I went. Our Fates are strange, and no one knows his; Our lovely Saviour Christ disposes.

Jane wasn't where we'd planned, the jade. She'd thought me drunk and hadn't stayed. So I went up the Walk to look for her And lingered by the little brook for her, And dowsed my face, and drank at spring, And watched two wild duck on the wing.

The moon come pale, the wind come cool, A big pike leapt in Lower Pool, The peacock screamed, the clouds were straking, My cut cheek felt the weather breaking; An orange sunset waned and thinned Foretelling rain and western wind, And while I watched I heard distinct The metals on the railway clinked. The blood-edged clouds were all in tatters, The sky and earth seemed mad as hatters; They had a death look, wild and odd, Of something dark foretold by God. And seeing it so, I felt so shaken I wouldn't keep the road I'd taken, But wandered back towards the inn Resolved to brace myself with gin. And as I walked, I said, 'It's strange, There's Death let loose to-night, and Change.'

In Cabbage Walk I made a haul Of two big pears from lawyer's wall, And, munching one, I took the lane Back into Market-place again.

Lamp-lighter Dick had passed the turning And all the Homend lamps were burning, The windows shone, the shops were busy, But that strange Heaven made me dizzy. The sky had all God's warning writ In bloody marks all over it, And over all I thought there was A ghastly light beside the gas. The Devil's tasks and Devil's rages Were giving me the Devil's wages.

In Market-place it's always light, The big shop windows make it bright; And in the press of people buying I spied a little fellow crying Because his mother'd gone inside And left him there, and so he cried. And mother'd beat him when she found him, And mother's whip would curl right round him, And mother'd say he'd done't to crost her, Though there being crowds about he'd lost her.

Lord, give to men who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child. I pat his head at edge of street And gi'm my second pear to eat. Right under lamp, I pat his head, 'I'll stay till mother come,' I said, And stay I did, and joked and talked, And shoppers wondered as they walked. 'There's that Saul Kane, the drunken blaggard, Talking to little Jimmy Jaggard. The drunken blaggard reeks of drink.' 'Whatever will his mother think?' 'Wherever has his mother gone? Nip round to Mrs Jaggard's, John, And say her Jimmy's out again, In Market-place, with boozer Kane.' 'When he come out to-day he staggered. O, Jimmy Jaggard, Jimmy Jaggard.' 'His mother's gone inside to bargain, Run in and tell her, Polly Margin, And tell her poacher Kane is tipsy And selling Jimmy to a gipsy.'

'Run in to Mrs Jaggard, Ellen, Or else, dear knows, there'll be no tellin', And don't dare leave yer till you've fount her, You'll find her at the linen counter.'

I told a tale, to Jim's delight, Of where the tom-cats go by night, And how when moonlight come they went Among the chimneys black and bent, From roof to roof, from house to house, With little baskets full of mouse All red and white, both joint and chop Like meat out of a butcher's shop; Then all along the wall they creep And everyone is fast asleep, And honey-hunting moths go by, And by the bread-batch crickets cry; Then on they hurry, never waiting To lawyer's backyard cellar grating Where Jaggard's cat, with clever paw, Unhooks a broke-brick's secret door; Then down into the cellar black, Across the wood slug's slimy track, Into an old cask's quiet hollow, Where they've got seats for what's to follow; Then each tom-cat lights little candles, And O, the stories and the scandals, And O, the songs and Christmas carols, And O, the milk from little barrels. They light a fire fit for roasting (And how good mouse-meat smells when toasting), Then down they sit to merry feast While moon goes west and sun comes east.

Sometimes they make so merry there Old lawyer come to head of stair To 'fend with fist and poker took firm His parchments channelled by the bookworm, And all his deeds, and all his packs Of withered ink and sealing wax; And there he stands, with candle raised, And listens like a man amazed, Or like a ghost a man stands dumb at, He says, 'Hush! Hush! I'm sure there's summat!' He hears outside the brown owl call, He hears the death-tick tap the wall, The gnawing of the wainscot mouse, The creaking up and down the house, The unhooked window's hinges ranging, The sounds that say the wind is changing. At last he turns, and shakes his head, 'It's nothing, I'll go back to bed.'

And just then Mrs Jaggard came To view and end her Jimmy's shame.

She made one rush and gi'm a bat And shook him like a dog a rat. 'I can't turn round but what you're straying. I'll give you tales and gipsy playing. I'll give you wand'ring off like this And listening to whatever 't is, You'll laugh the little side of the can, You'll have the whip for this, my man; And not a bite of meat nor bread You'll touch before you go to bed. Some day you'll break your mother's heart, After God knows she's done her part, Working her arms off day and night Trying to keep your collars white. Look at your face, too, in the street. What dirty filth 've you found to eat? Now don't you blubber here, boy, or I'll give you sum't to blubber for.' She snatched him off from where we stand And knocked the pear-core from his hand, And looked at me, 'You Devil's limb, How dare you talk to Jaggard's Jim; You drunken, poaching, boozing brute, you. If Jaggard was a man he'd shoot you.' She glared all this, but didn't speak, She gasped, white hollows in her cheek; Jimmy was writhing, screaming wild, The shoppers thought I'd killed the child.

I had to speak, so I begun. 'You'd oughtn't beat your little son; He did no harm, but seeing him there I talked to him and gi'm a pear; I'm sure the poor child meant no wrong, It's all my fault he stayed so long, He'd not have stayed, mum, I'll be bound If I'd not chanced to come around. It's all my fault he stayed, not his. I kept him here, that's how it is.' 'Oh! And how dare you, then?' says she, 'How dare you tempt my boy from me? How dare you do't, you drunken swine, Is he your child or is he mine? A drunken sot they've had the beak to, Has got his dirty whores to speak to, His dirty mates with whom he drink, Not little children, one would think. Look on him, there,' she says, 'look on him And smell the stinking gin upon him, The lowest sot, the drunk'nest liar, The dirtiest dog in all the shire: Nice friends for any woman's son After ten years, and all she's done.

'For I've had eight, and buried five, And only three are left alive. I've given them all we could afford, I've taught them all to fear the Lord. They've had the best we had to give, The only three the Lord let live.

'For Minnie whom I loved the worst Died mad in childbed with her first. And John and Mary died of measles, And Rob was drownded at the Teasels. And little Nan, dear little sweet, A cart run over in the street; Her little shift was all one stain, I prayed God put her out of pain. And all the rest are gone or going The road to hell, and there's no knowing For all I've done and all I've made them I'd better not have overlaid them. For Susan went the ways of shame The time the 'till'ry regiment came, And t'have her child without a father I think I'd have her buried rather. And Dicky boozes, God forgimme, And now't's to be the same with Jimmy. And all I've done and all I've bore Has made a drunkard and a whore, A bastard boy who wasn't meant, And Jimmy gwine where Dicky went; For Dick began the self-same way And my old hairs are going gray, And my poor man's a withered knee, And all the burden falls on me.

'I've washed eight little children's limbs, I've taught eight little souls their hymns, I've risen sick and lain down pinched And borne it all and never flinched; But to see him, the town's disgrace, With God's commandments broke in's face, Who never worked, not he, nor earned, Nor will do till the seas are burned, Who never did since he was whole A hand's turn for a human soul, But poached and stole and gone with women, And swilled down gin enough to swim in; To see him only lift one finger To make my little Jimmy linger.