Part 3

Twice she passed, thrice, she with the boy beside her, A lovely fly, hooked for a human heart, She passed his little gate, while Jimmy eyed her, Feeling her beauty tear his soul apart: Then did the great trout rise, the great pike dart, The gate went clack, a man came up the hill, The lucky strike had hooked him through the gill.

Her breath comes quick, her tired beauty glows, She would not look behind, she looked ahead. It seemed to Jimmy she was like a rose, A golden white rose faintly flushed with red. Her eyes danced quicker at the approaching tread, Her finger nails dug sharp into her palm. She yearned to Jimmy's shoulder, and kept calm.

'Evening,' said Shepherd Ern. She turned and eyed him, Cold and surprised, but interested too, To see how much he felt the hook inside him, And how much be surmised, and Jimmy knew, And if her beauty still could make him do The love tricks he had gambolled in the past. A glow shot through her that her fish was grassed.

'Evening,' she said. 'Good evening.' Jimmy felt Jealous and angry at the shepherd's tone; He longed to hit the fellow's nose a belt, He wanted his beloved his alone. A fellow's girl should be a fellow's own. Ern gave the lad a glance and turned to Anna, Jim might have been in China by his manner.

'Still walking out?' 'As you are.' 'I'll be bound.' 'Can you talk gipsy yet, or plait a kipe?' 'I'll teach you if I can when I come round.' 'And when will that be?' 'When the time is ripe.' And Jimmy longed to hit the man a swipe Under the chin to knock him out of time, But Anna stayed: she still had twigs to lime.

'Come, Anna, come, my dear,' he muttered low. She frowned, and blinked and spoke again to Ern. 'I hear the gipsy has a row to hoe.' 'The more you hear,' he said, 'the less you'll learn.' 'We've just come out,' she said, 'to take a turn; Suppose you come along: the more the merrier.' 'All right,' he said, 'but how about the terrier?'

He cocked an eye at Jimmy. 'Does he bite?' Jimmy blushed scarlet. 'He's a dear,' said she. Ern walked a step, 'Will you be in to-night?' She shook her head, 'I doubt if that may be. Jim, here's a friend who wants to talk to me, So will you go and come another day?' 'By crimes, I won't!' said Jimmy, 'I shall stay.'

'I thought he bit,' said Ern, and Anna smiled, And Jimmy saw the smile and watched her face While all the jealous devils made him wild; A third in love is always out of place; And then her gentle body full of grace Leaned to him sweetly as she tossed her head, 'Perhaps we two'll be getting on,' she said.

They walked, but Jimmy turned to watch the third. 'I'm here, not you,' he said; the shepherd grinned: Anna was smiling sweet without a word; She got the scarlet berry branch unpinned. 'It's cold,' she said, 'this evening, in the wind.' A quick glance showed that Jimmy didn't mind her, She beckoned with the berry branch behind her,

Then dropped it gently on the broken stones, Preoccupied, unheeding, walking straight, Saying 'You jealous boy,' in even tones, Looking so beautiful, so delicate, Being so very sweet: but at her gate She felt her shoe unlaced and looked to know If Ern had taken up the sprig or no.

He had, she smiled. 'Anna,' said Jimmy sadly, 'That man's not fit to be a friend of yourn, He's nobbut just an oaf; I love you madly, And hearing you speak kind to'm made me burn. Who is he then?' She answered 'Shepherd Ern, A pleasant man, an old, old friend of mine.' 'By cripes, then, Anna, drop him, he's a swine.'

'Jimmy,' she said, 'you must have faith in me, Faith's all the battle in a love like ours. You must believe, my darling, don't you see That life to have its sweets must have its sours. Love isn't always two souls picking flowers. You must have faith. I give you all I can. What, can't I say "Good evening" to a man?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'But not a man like him.' 'Why not a man like him?' she said, 'What next?' By this they'd reached her cottage in the dim, Among the daisies that the cold had kexed. 'Because I say. Now, Anna, don't be vexed.' 'I'm more than vexed,' she said, 'with words like these. "You say," indeed. How dare you. Leave me, please.'

'Anna, my Anna.' 'Leave me.' She was cold, Proud and imperious with a lifting lip, Blazing within, but outwardly controlled; He had a colt's first instant of the whip. The long lash curled to cut a second strip. 'You to presume to teach. Of course, I know You're mother's Sunday scholar, aren't you? Go.'

She slammed the door behind her, clutching skirts. 'Anna.' He heard her bedroom latches thud. He learned at last how bitterly love hurts; He longed to cut her throat and see her blood, To stamp her blinking eyeballs into mud. 'Anna, by God!' Love's many torments make That tune soon change to 'Dear, for Jesus' sake.'

He beat the door for her. She never stirred, But primming bitter lips before her glass; Admired her hat as though she hadn't heard, And tried her front hair parted, and in mass. She heard her lover's hasty footsteps pass. 'He's gone,' she thought. She crouched below the pane, And heard him cursing as he tramped the lane.

Rage ran in Jimmy as he tramped the night; Rage, strongly mingled with a youth's disgust At finding a beloved woman light, And all her precious beauty dirty dust; A tinsel-varnish gilded over lust. Nothing but that. He sat him down to rage, Beside the stream whose waters never age.

Plashing, it slithered down the tiny fall To eddy wrinkles in the trembling pool With that light voice whose music cannot pall, Always the note of solace, flute-like, cool. And when hot-headed man has been a fool, He could not do a wiser thing than go To that dim pool where purple teazles grow.

He glowered there until suspicion came, Suspicion, anger's bastard, with mean tongue, To mutter to him till his heart was flame, And every fibre of his soul was wrung, That even then Ern and his Anna clung Mouth against mouth in passionate embrace. There was no peace for Jimmy in the place.

Raging he hurried back to learn the truth. The little swinging wicket glimmered white, The chimney jagged the skyline like a tooth, Bells came in swoons for it was Sunday night. The garden was all dark, but there was light Up in the little room where Anna slept: The hot blood beat his brain; he crept, he crept.

Clutching himself to hear, clutching to know, Along the path, rustling with withered leaves, Up to the apple, too decayed to blow, Which crooked a palsied finger at the eaves. And up the lichened trunk his body heaves. Dust blinded him, twigs snapped, the branches shook, He leaned along a mossy bough to look.

Nothing at first, except a guttering candle Shaking amazing shadows on the ceiling, Then Anna's voice upon a bar of 'Randal, Where have you been:' and voice and music reeling, Trembling, as though she sang with flooding feeling. The singing stopped midway upon the stair, Then Anna showed in white with loosened hair.

Her back was towards him, and she stood awhile, Like a wild creature tossing back her mane, And then her head went back, he saw a smile On the half face half turned towards the pane; Her eyes closed, and her arms went out again. Jim gritted teeth, and called upon his Maker, She drooped into a man's arms there to take her.

Agony first, sharp, sudden, like a knife, Then down the tree to batter at the door; 'Open there. Let me in. I'll have your life. You Jezebel of hell, you painted whore, Talk about faith, I'll give you faith galore.' The window creaked, a jug of water came Over his head and neck with certain aim.

'Clear out,' said Ern; 'I'm here, not you, to-night, Clear out. We whip young puppies when they yap.' 'If you're a man,' said Jim, 'Come down and fight, I'll put a stopper on your ugly chap.' 'Go home,' said Ern; 'Go home and get your pap. To kennel, pup, and bid your mother bake Some soothing syrup in your puppy cake.'

There was a dibble sticking in the bed, Jim wrenched it out and swung it swiftly round, And sent it flying at the shepherd's head: 'I'll give you puppy-cake. Take that, you hound.' The broken glass went clinking to the ground, The dibble balanced, checked, and followed flat. 'My God,' said Ern, 'I'll give you hell for that.'

He flung the door ajar with 'Now, my pup-- Hold up the candle, Anna--now, we'll see.' 'By crimes, come on,' said Jimmy; 'Put them up. Come, put them up, you coward, here I be.' And Jim, eleven stone, what chance had he Against fourteen? but what he could he did; Ern swung his right: 'That settles you, my kid.'

Jimmy went down and out: 'The kid,' said Ern. 'A kid, a sucking puppy; hold the light.' And Anna smiled: 'It gave me such a turn, You look so splendid, Ernie, when you fight.' She looked at Jim with: 'Ern, is he all right?' 'He's coming to.' She shuddered, 'Pah, the brute. What things he said'; she stirred him with her foot.

'You go inside,' said Ern, 'and bolt the door, I'll deal with him.' She went and Jimmy stood. 'Now, pup,' said Ern, 'don't come round here no more. I'm here, not you, let that be understood. I tell you frankly, pup, for your own good.' 'Give me my hat,' said Jim. He passed the gate, And as he tottered off he called, 'You wait.'

'Thanks, I don't have to,' Shepherd Ern replied; 'You'll do whatever waiting's being done.' The door closed gently as he went inside, The bolts jarred in the channels one by one. 'I'll give you throwing bats about, my son. Anna.' 'My dear?' 'Where are you?' 'Come and find.' The light went out, the windows stared out blind.

Blind as blind eyes forever seeing dark. And in the dim the lovers went upstairs, Her eyes fast closed, the shepherd's burning stark, His lips entangled in her straying hairs, Breath coming short as in a convert's prayers, Her stealthy face all drowsy in the dim And full of shudders as she yearned to him.

Jim crossed the water, cursing in his tears, 'By cripes, you wait. My God, he's with her now And all her hair pulled down over her ears; Loving the blaggard like a filthy sow, I saw her kiss him from the apple bough. They say a whore is always full of wiles, O God, how sweet her eyes are when she smiles.

Curse her and curse her. No, my God, she's sweet, It's all a helly nightmare. I shall wake. If it were all a dream I'd kiss her feet, I wish it were a dream for Jesus' sake. One thing: I bet I made his guzzle ache, I cop it fair before he sent me down, I'll cop him yet some evening on the crown.

O God, O God, what pretty ways she had, He's kissing all her skin, so white and soft. She's kissing back. I think I'm going mad. Like rutting rattens in the apple loft. She held that light she carried high aloft Full in my eyes for him to hit me by, I had the light all dazzling in my eye.

She had her dress all clutched up to her shoulder, And all her naked arm was all one gleam. It's going to freeze to-night, it's turning colder, I wish there was more water in the stream, I'd drownd myself. Perhaps it's all a dream, And bye and bye I'll wake and find it stuff; By crimes, the pain I suffer's real enough.'

About two hundred yards from Gunder Loss He stopped to shudder, leaning on the gate, He bit the touchwood underneath the moss; 'Rotten, like her,' he muttered in his hate; He spat it out again with 'But, you wait, We'll see again, before to-morrow's past, In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.'

All through the night the stream ran to the sea, The different water always saying the same, Cat-like, and then a tinkle, never glee, A lonely little child alone in shame. An otter snapped a thorn twig when he came, It drifted down, it passed the Hazel Mill, It passed the Springs; but Jimmy stayed there still.

Over the pointed hill-top came the light Out of the mists on Ercall came the sun, Red like a huntsman halloing after night, Blowing a horn to rouse up everyone; Through many glittering cities he had run, Splashing the wind vanes on the dewy roofs With golden sparks struck by his horses' hoofs.

The watchman rose, rubbing his rusty eyes, He stirred the pot of cocoa for his mate; The fireman watched his head of power rise. 'What time?' he asked. 'You haven't long to wait.' 'Now, is it time?' 'Yes. Let her ripple.' Straight The whistle shrieked its message, 'Up to work! Up, or be fined a quarter if you shirk.'

Hearing the whistle, Jimmy raised his head, 'The warning call, and me in Sunday clo'es; I'd better go; I've time. The sun looks red, I feel so stiff' I'm very nearly froze.' So over brook and through the fields he goes, And up the line among the navvies' smiles, 'Young Jimmy Gurney's been upon the tiles.'

The second whistle blew and work began, Jimmy worked too, not knowing what he did, He tripped and stumbled like a drunken man; He muddled all, whatever he was bid, The foreman cursed, 'Good God, what ails the kid? Hi! Gurney. You. We'll have you crocking soon, You take a lie down till the afternoon.'

'I won't,' he answered. 'Why the devil should I? I'm here, I mean to work. I do my piece, Or would do if a man could, but how could I Then you come nagging round and never cease? Well, take the job and give me my release, I want the sack, now give it, there's my pick; Give me the sack.' The sack was given quick.

V

Dully he got his time-check from the keeper. 'Curse her,' he said; 'and that's the end of whores'-- He stumbled drunkenly across a sleeper-- 'Give all you have and get kicked out a-doors.' He cashed his time-check at the station stores. 'Bett'ring yourself, I hope, Jim,' said the master; 'That's it,' said Jim; 'and so I will do, blast her.'

Beyond the bridge, a sharp turn to the right Leads to 'The Bull and Boar,' the carters' rest; An inn so hidden it is out of sight To anyone not coming from the west. The high embankment hides it with its crest. Far up above the Chester trains go by, The drinkers see them sweep against the sky.

Canal men used it when the barges came, The navvies used it when the line was making; The pigeons strut and sidle, ruffling, tame, The chuckling brook in front sets shadows shaking. Cider and beer for thirsty workers' slaking, A quiet house; like all that God controls, It is Fate's instrument on human souls.

Thither Jim turned. 'And now I'll drink,' he said. 'I'll drink and drink--I never did before-- I'll drink and drink until I'm mad or dead, For that's what comes of meddling with a whore.' He called for liquor at 'The Bull and Boar'; Moody he drank; the woman asked him why: 'Have you had trouble?' 'No,' he said, 'I'm dry.

Dry and burnt up, so give's another drink; That's better, that's much better, that's the sort.' And then he sang, so that he should not think, His Binger-Bopper song, but cut it short. His wits were working like a brewer's wort Until among them came the vision gleaming Of Ern with bloody nose and Anna screaming.

'That's what I'll do,' he muttered; 'knock him out, And kick his face in with a running jump. I'll not have dazzled eyes this second bout, And she can wash the fragments under pump.' It was his ace; but Death had played a trump. Death the blind beggar chuckled, nodding dumb, 'My game; the shroud is ready, Jimmy--come.'

Meanwhile, the mother, waiting for her child, Had tottered out a dozen times to search. 'Jimmy,' she said, 'you'll drive your mother wild; Your father's name's too good a name to smirch, Come home, my dear, she'll leave you in the lurch; He was so good, my little Jim, so clever; He never stop a night away, not ever.

He never slept a night away till now, Never, not once, in all the time he's been. It's the Lord's will, they say, and we must bow, But O it's like a knife, it cuts so keen! He'll work in's Sunday clothes, it'll be seen, And then they'll laugh, and say "It isn't strange; He slept with her, and so he couldn't change."

Perhaps,' she thought, 'I'm wrong; perhaps he's dead; Killed himself like; folk do in love, they say. He never tells what passes in his head, And he's been looking late so old and grey. A railway train has cut his head away, Like the poor hare we found at Maylow's shack. O God have pity, bring my darling back!'

All the high stars went sweeping through the sky, The sun made all the orient clean, clear gold, 'O blessed God,' she prayed, 'do let me die, Or bring my wand'ring lamb back into fold. The whistle's gone, and all the bacon's cold; I must know somehow if he's on the line, He could have bacon sandwich when he dine.'

She cut the bread, and started, short of breath, Up the canal now draining for the rail; A poor old woman pitted against death, Bringing her pennyworth of love for bail. Wisdom, beauty, and love may not avail. She was too late. 'Yes, he was here; oh, yes. He chucked his job and went.' 'Where?' 'Home, I guess.'

'Home, but he hasn't been home.' 'Well, he went. Perhaps you missed him, mother.' 'Or perhaps He took the field path yonder through the bent. He very likely done that, don't he, chaps?' The speaker tested both his trouser straps And took his pick. 'He's in the town,' he said. 'He'll be all right, after a bit in bed.'

She trembled down the high embankment's ridge Glad, though too late; not yet too late, indeed. For forty yards away, beyond the bridge, Jimmy still drank, the devil still sowed seed. 'A bit in bed,' she thought, 'is what I need. I'll go to "Bull and Boar" and rest a bit, They've got a bench outside they'd let me sit.'

Even as two soldiers on a fortress wall See the bright fire streak of a coming shell. Catch breath, and wonder 'Which way will it fall? To you? to me? or will it all be well?' Ev'n so stood life and death, and could not tell Whether she'd go to th'inn and find her son, Or take the field and let the doom be done.

'No, not the inn,' she thought. 'People would talk. I couldn't in the open daytime; no. I'll just sit here upon the timber balk, I'll rest for just a minute and then go.' Resting, her old tired heart began to glow, Glowed and gave thanks, and thought itself in clover, 'He's lost his job, so now she'll throw him over.'

Sitting, she saw the rustling thistle-kex, The picks flash bright above, the trollies tip. The bridge-stone shining, full of silver specks, And three swift children running down the dip. A Stoke Saint Michael carter cracked his whip, The water in the runway made its din. She half heard singing coming from the inn.

She turned, and left the inn, and took the path And 'Brother Life, you lose,' said Brother Death, 'Even as the Lord of all appointed hath In this great miracle of blood and breath.' He doeth all things well as the book saith, He bids the changing stars fulfil their turn, His hand is on us when we least discern.

Slowly she tottered, stopping with the stitch, Catching her breath, 'O lawks, a dear, a dear. How the poor tubings in my heart do twitch, It hurts like the rheumatics very near.' And every painful footstep drew her clear From that young life she bore with so much pain. She never had him to herself again.

Out of the inn came Jimmy, red with drink, Crying: 'I'll show her. Wait a bit. I'll show her. You wait a bit. I'm not the kid you think. I'm Jimmy Gurney, champion tupper-thrower, When I get done with her you'll never know her, Nor him you won't. Out of my way, you fowls, Or else I'll rip the red things off your jowls.'

He went across the fields to Plaister's End. There was a lot of water in the brook, Sun and white cloud and weather on the mend For any man with any eyes to look. He found old Callow's plough-bat, which he took, 'My innings now, my pretty dear,' said he. 'You wait a bit. I'll show you. Now you'll see.'

Her chimney smoke was blowing blue and faint, The wise duck shook a tail across the pool, The blacksmith's shanty smelt of burning paint, Four newly-tired cartwheels hung to cool. He had loved the place when under Anna's rule. Now he clenched teeth and flung aside the gate, There at the door they stood. He grinned. 'Now wait.'

Ern had just brought her in a wired hare, She stood beside him stroking down the fur. 'Oh, Ern, poor thing, look how its eyes do stare,' 'It isn't it,' he answered. 'It's a her.' She stroked the breast and plucked away a bur, She kissed the pads, and leapt back with a shout, 'My God, he's got the spudder. Ern. Look out.'

Ern clenched his fists. Too late. He felt no pain, Only incredible haste in something swift, A shock that made the sky black on his brain, Then stillness, while a little cloud went drift. The weight upon his thigh bones wouldn't lift; Then poultry in a long procession came, Grey-legged, doing the goose-step, eyes like flame.

Grey-legged old cocks and hens sedate in age, Marching with jerks as though they moved on springs, With sidelong hate in round eyes red with rage, And shouldered muskets clipped by jealous wings, Then an array of horns and stupid things: Sheep on a hill with harebells, hare for dinner. 'Hare.' A slow darkness covered up the sinner.

'But little time is right hand fain of blow.' Only a second changes life to death; Hate ends before the pulses cease to go, There is great power in the stop of breath. There's too great truth in what the dumb thing saith, Hate never goes so far as that, nor can. 'I am what life becomes. D'you hate me, man?'

Hate with his babbling instant, red and damning, Passed with his instant, having drunken red. 'You've killed him.' 'No, I've not, he's only shamming. Get up.' 'He can't.' 'O God, he isn't dead.' 'O God.' 'Here. Get a basin. Bathe his head. Ernie, for God's sake, what are you playing at? I only give him one like, with the bat.'

Man cannot call the brimming instant back; Time's an affair of instants spun to days; If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may, but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instant's blaze. Life's an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.

Then Anna screamed aloud. 'Help. Murder. Murder.' 'By God, it is,' he said. 'Through you, you slut.' Backing, she screamed, until the blacksmith heard her. 'Hurry,' they cried, 'the woman's throat's being cut.' Jim had his coat off by the water butt. 'He might come to,' he said, 'with wine or soup. I only hit him once, like, with the scoop.

Splash water on him, chaps. I only meant To hit him just a clip, like, nothing more. There. Look. He isn't dead, his eyelids went. And he went down. O God, his head's all tore. I've washed and washed: it's all one gob of gore. He don't look dead to you? What? Nor to you? Not kill, the clip I give him, couldn't do.'

'God send; he looks damn bad,' the blacksmith said. 'Py Cot,' his mate said, 'she wass altogether; She hass an illness look of peing ted.' 'Here. Get a glass,' the smith said, 'and a feather.' 'Wass you at fightings or at playings whether?' 'Here, get a glass and feather. Quick's the word.' The glass was clear. The feather never stirred.

'By God, I'm sorry, Jim. That settles it.' 'By God. I've killed him then.' 'The doctor might.' 'Try, if you like; but that's a nasty hit.' 'Doctor's gone by. He won't be back till night.' 'Py Cot, the feather was not looking right.' 'By Jesus, chaps, I never meant to kill 'un. Only to bat. I'll go to p'leece and tell 'un.

O Ern, for God's sake speak, for God's sake speak.' No answer followed: Ern had done with dust, 'The p'leece is best,' the smith said, 'or a beak. I'll come along; and so the lady must. Evans, you bring the lady, will you just? Tell 'em just how it come, lad. Come your ways; And Joe, you watch the body where it lays.'

They walked to town, Jim on the blacksmith's arm. Jimmy was crying like a child, and saying, 'I never meant to do him any harm.' His teeth went clack, like bones at murmurs playing, And then he trembled hard and broke out praying, 'God help my poor old mother. If he's dead, I've brought her my last wages home,' he said.