i’d been sitting in the axe & cleaver along of mrs. pellegrini for an hour at least; i hadn’t seen her in five years since she was doing the roads near pontypool. an hour at least, for isn’t the axe & cleaver the pleasant kind of place? talking or not talking you can always hear the water lashing from the outfall above hinney lock, the sound of it making you feel drowsy and kind. and isn’t the old bridge there a thing to be looking at indeed?
mrs. pellegrini had a family of pikeys who traded in horses, willow-wattles, and rocksalt; she was as cunning as a jacksnipe, and if she had a deep voice like a man she was full of wisdom. a grand great woman was rosa pellegrini, with a face silky-brown like a beechnut, and eyes and hair the equal of a rook for darkness. the abundance of jewellery hooked and threaded upon her was something to be looking at too. old man and young isaac kept going out to look at the horses, or they’d be coming in to upbraid her for delaying, but she could drink a sconce of beer without the least sparkle of hilarity, as if it were a tribute she owed her whole magnificent constitution, or at least a reward for some part of it. so she kept doing it,[152] while her son and her husband could do no other and did it with nothing of her inevitable air.
well, i was sitting in the axe & cleaver along of mrs. pellegrini when who should rove in but larry mccall, good-looking larry, bringing a friend with him, a soft kind of fellow who’d a harsh voice and a whining voice that we didn’t like the noise of tho’ he had good money in his purse. larry gave me the grace of the day directly he entered the door, and then, letting a cry of joy out of him, he’d kissed mrs. pellegrini many times before she knew what was happening to her. she got up and punished him with a welt on his chin that would have bruised an oak-tree, and bade him behave himself. he sat down soothingly beside her and behaved very well. his companion stood very shy and nervous, like a kitten might be watching a cockfight.
“who is this young man?” mrs. pellegrini asks.
“that’s arthur,” said larry: “i forget what arthur knocks a living out of—i’ve known him but these three bits of an hour since we were walking in the one direction.”
“my dad,” said arthur slowly and raspingly, “is an undertaker, and he lets me help him in his business: we bury people.”
“oh come, young man,” said mrs. pellegrini, “that’s no sort of a trade at all—d’ye think it, mr. mccall?”
“no, i do not,” replied larry, “but arthur does. it don’t seem to be a trade with very much humour in it. life ain’t a sad solid chunk.”
[153]
“now that’s just where you’re wrong,” drawled arthur.
“’tain’t a life at all,” rosa interrupted severely, “it’s only sniffing, having a bad cold! no sort of a life at all—d’ye think it, mr. mccall?”
“no, i do not,” said larry with a chuckle, “but arthur does!”
“oh, i know what you’re a deluding on,” commenced the young man again, “but....”
“strike me dead if i can see any fun in funerals!” mrs. pellegrini said with finality, taking up her mug. “but if you will have your grief, young man,” she added, pausing in one of her gulps to gaze at arthur until he quivered, “you must have it, and may fortune fall in love with what we like. fill up that cup now!”
the young man in agitation obeyed, and while this was doing we all heard someone come over the bridge singing a song, and that was jerry ogwin, who could tell the neatest tales and sing the littlest songs. well, there were great salutations, for we all knew jerry and loved jerry, and he loved some of us. but he was the fiercest looking, fieriest gipsy man you ever saw, and he had all the gullible prescience of a cockney.
“my fortune! where are you from, you cunning little man?”
“i bin doing a bit o’ road down kent and london way. d’ye know lewisham?” commenced jerry.
“no,” said larry, grinning at me, “but arthur does!”
“no, i don’t; i never been there,” chanted arthur.
[154]
“now what’s the good of talking like that!” said mccall sternly, and letting a wink at me.
“more i ain’t,” asserted arthur.
“then i was at deptford and greenwich—know greenwich?” continued jerry.
“no,” replied larry, then adding nonchalantly, “arthur does.”
“no, i don’t, i don’t,” said arthur wormily, for jerry was glaring at him, and that fighting scar all down his nose, where his wife katey once hit him with the spout of a kettle, was very disturbing.
“what’s the good of that?” urged the devilish-minded larry. “why don’t you talk to the gentleman, you don’t want to vex him, do you?”
“you ain’t blooming silly, are you?” queried jerry.
without waiting for reply he drifted off again.
“me and my mate was doing a bit o’ road with oranges and things, you know—three for a ’eaver—down mary’s cray; d’ye know mary’s cray?”
but this time arthur was looking avidly out of the window.
“well, we was ’avin’ a bit of grub one night, just about dark it was, you know, with a little fire, we’d bin cookin’ something, when a blooming sweep come along. i’ll tell it to you; it was just inside a bit of a wood and we was sleeping rough. my mate was a bit nervous, you know, ’e kept looking round as if ’e could see something, but it was that dark you might be looking in a sack. i says to timmy: what’s up with you? i dunno, ’e says, something going on, and just as ’e says that this blooming sweep ’oofs in from nowhere and[155] falls over our beer. i says to timmy, ’e’s knocked over our beer; are you going to fight ’im or shall i? and timmy shouts: look at ’im, ’e’s laying on the fire! and s’elp me god so ’e was, ’is legs was in the sticks and ’is trousers was a-burning. come out of it, we says, but ’e didn’t move. no, my oath, ’e layed there like a dead sheep. well, we pulled ’im off it, but ’e was like a silly bloke. ’e couldn’t stand up and ’e couldn’t say anything. ’e got a lot of froth round ’is mouth like a ’orse that’s going wicked. and ’e wasn’t drunk, neither, but, you know, ’e was just frightened out of ’is life about something. we sit ’im down with ’is back against a tree and made the fire up again. what’s the matter with you, we says; you got a fit, we says; what d’ye want coming ’ere, we says? but we couldn’t get no answer from ’im. ’is face was that dam white ’cept where it was smudged with soot, and there was this froth dribbling on ’im, and what d’yer think, ’e’d got a red rose stuck in ’is button-’ole. ’e was a horrible sight; we couldn’t bear ’im, so we picks ’im up, and timmy give ’im a clout in the ear and shoves ’im out among some bushes where we couldn’t see ’im. sw’elp me if ’e didn’t come crawling back on ’is hands and knees where we was sitting round the fire. oh, ’e was horrible. timmy went nearly daft and i thought ’e was going to give ’im one good kick in the mouth and finish ’im. ’stead of that we picks ’im up again and runs ’im further down the wood and heaves ’im into some blackberry bushes and tells ’im what we’d do to ’im if ’e come again. that was no good; in five minutes ’e crawled back. timmy[156] was shaking like a dog, and fell on ’im as if ’e was going to strangle ’im, but we had to let ’im stay, and old timmy was blacker than the sweep when ’e’d done with ’im. but the bloke wouldn’t say nothing or open ’is eyes, you know, he wouldn’t open his eyes, ’e was like something what had been murdered and wouldn’t die, if you know what i mean. blast ’im, i could kill ’im, timmy says. that’s no good of, says i, and at last we left ’im ’side the fire, and we went off somewhere just outside the wood and packed up in a clump of ur-grass. i went to sleep, but i don’t believe old timmy did, well, i know ’e didn’t. now we hadn’t ’eard nothing all night, nothing at all, but when i wakes up in the morning the blooming sweep was gone and not a chink of ’im left anywhere. but,” said jerry impressively to arthur, who eyed him with horror, “we found something else!” there was silence while jerry’s face was connected to his mug of beer. nobody spoke. we eyed him with eager interest. he vanquished his thirst and smacked his lips but held the mug in readiness for further libation.
“not twenty chain away a woman was laying down. timmy touches me frightened like and says, look, what’s that? my eyes was nearly skinned out of me. i couldn’t speak. we walked quietly up to ’er like two sick men. she lay there just as if she’d dropped out of the sky, naked as an angel, not a shift nor a stocking, not a button on ’er.” there was again silence until larry struck a match loudly on a jar, his pipe, hooked tightly in his forefinger, having gone out. mrs. pellegrini stared, and breathed audibly. “and,” said[157] jerry impressively, “she was the grandest creature what ever you see. i touched ’er with them two fingers and she was cold as iron, stiff, gone a bit dull like pearls look, but the fine build of that lady was the world’s wonder. there was not a scratch or a wound on ’er or the sign of ’er death anywhere. one of ’er legs was cocked up at the knee like she’d lay in bed. ’er two eyes was just looking at the ground and there was a kind of funny smile on ’er face. fine long hair she had, black as a cat’s back and long as the tail of a horse. and in it there was a red rose, and in one of ’er hands she was holding a white lily. there was a little bird’s dropping on ’er stomach. i wiped it off. i says to timmy: that sweep! and ’e says to me, jerry ogwin, we’re ’aving a share out. what about that sweep i says to ’im, but all ’e says was: we’re ’aving a share out. ’e was afraid of getting pulled for this job, you know. i never seen a man so frightened afore, and ’e was not a chap as renagged ever, not timmy.”
“that ’e wasn’t,” said mrs. pellegrini, “i seen ’im once half murder two sojers for beating a deaf and dumb man.”
“well,” continued jerry, “i says all right timmy, and so we ’as a share out and gits on different roads. my share was a clothes basket and a pair of spectacles cost tuppence ha’penny, you know, and i walked all that day as ’ard as ever i could. then i bushes for the night, and when i woke up nex’ morning i ’eard some talking going on. i looks under the ’edge and found i was side a strawberry field, you know, a lot of strawberries.[158] so i ’ops in and sells my basket to the strawberry pickers for a shilling. they give me a shilling for it, so that was all right. ’ad a shilling and a pair of spectacles for my share out. i goes on a bit and then i comes across a beanfeast party, and i showed ’em my pair o’ gold spectacles—i’d just found ’em—you know!”
larry burst into a peal of laughter that seemed to surprise jerry and he said:
“ain’t you ever met a feller what’s found a pair of gold spectacles?”
larry couldn’t reply and jerry continued:
“no, ain’t you really? god, what a laugh! yes, i sells ’em to a fly young party for two and fo’ pence and off i goes. never ’eard no more of timmy. never ’eard no more of anything. i dunno if they found the girl. i dunno if they found that sweep. they didn’t find me.”
he paused for a moment.
“they didn’t find me,” he repeated.
there was silence at last; the room was getting dim with evening. mrs. pellegrini spoke:
“and you wiped it off her stomach, did you, jerry?”
“i did,” said he.
mrs. pellegrini turned to arthur and said in a sharp voice:
“fill that pot for the gentleman!”
the young man in terror obeyed, he exceedingly obeyed.
when the last pot was emptied jerry and larry and the wretched mute went off along the road together.[159] rosa pellegrini said “so long” to me and drove off with her cavalcade. the inn was empty and quiet again so you could hear the water at the outfall.
i walked along the bank of the old river until i came to the lock where the water roaring windily from the lasher streamed like an old man’s beard; a pair of swans moved in the slack water of the pool. away there was a fine lea of timothy grass looking as soft as wool. and at the end of the lea there was a low long hill covered with trees full of the arriving darkness; a train that you could not hear the noise of shot through a grove and poured a long spool of white fume upon the trees quietly, a thing to be looking at, it was so white and soft. but i was thinking ... thinking ... thinking of the grand white slim woman who did not seem dead at all to me, lying with a lily in her hand, a red rose in her hair. and i could not think it to be true at all; i believe jerry was only telling us one of his tales.
