Chapter IV

Bessie, the gipsy, got with child by Ern, She joined her tribe again at Shepherd's Meen, In that old quarry overgrown with fern, Where goats are tethered on the patch of green. There she reflected on the fool she'd been, And plaited kipes and waited for the bastard, And thought that love was glorious while it lasted.

And Ern the moody man went moody home, To that most gentle girl from Ercall Hill, And bade her take a heed now he had come, Or else, by cripes, he'd put her through the mill. He didn't want her love, he'd had his fill, Thank you, of her, the bread and butter sack. And Anna heard that Shepherd Ern was back.

'Back. And I'll have him back to me,' she muttered, 'This lovesick boy of twenty, green as grass, Has made me wonder if my brains are buttered, He, and his lockets, and his love, the ass. I don't know why he comes. Alas! alas! God knows I want no love; but every sun I bolt my doors on some poor loving one.

It breaks my heart to turn them out of doors, I hear them crying to me in the rain; One, with a white face, curses, one implores, "Anna, for God's sake, let me in again, Anna, belov'd, I cannot bear the pain." Like hoovey sheep bleating outside a fold "Anna, belov'd, I'm in the wind and cold."

I want no men. I'm weary to the soul Of men like moths about a candle flame, Of men like flies about a sugar bowl, Acting alike, and all wanting the same, My dreamed-of swirl of passion never came, No man has given me the love I dreamed, But in the best of each one something gleamed.

If my dear darling were alive, but he... He was the same; he didn't understand. The eyes of that dead child are haunting me, I only turned the blanket with my hand. It didn't hurt, he died as I had planned. A little skinny creature, weak and red; It looked so peaceful after it was dead.

I have been all alone, in spite of all. Never a light to help me place my feet: I have had many a pain and many a fall. Life's a long headache in a noisy street, Love at the budding looks so very sweet, Men put such bright disguises on their lust, And then it all goes crumble into dust.

Jimmy the same, dear, lovely Jimmy, too, He goes the self-same way the others went: I shall bring sorrow to those eyes of blue. He asks the love I'm sure I never meant. Am I to blame? And all his money spent! Men make this shutting doors such cruel pain. O, Ern, I want you in my life again.'

On Sunday afternoons the lovers walk Arm within arm, dressed in their Sunday best, The man with the blue necktie sucks a stalk, The woman answers when she is addressed. On quiet country stiles they sit to rest, And after fifty years of wear and tear They think how beautiful their courtships were.

Jimmy and Anna met to walk together The Sunday after Shepherd Ern returned; And Anna's hat was lovely with a feather Bought and dyed blue with money Jimmy earned. They walked towards Callows Farm, and Anna yearned: 'Dear boy,' she said, 'This road is dull to-day, Suppose we turn and walk the other way.'

They turned, she sighed. 'What makes you sigh?' he asked. 'Thinking,' she said, 'thinking and grieving, too. Perhaps some wicked woman will come masked Into your life, my dear, to ruin you. And trusting every woman as you do It might mean death to love and be deceived; You'd take it hard, I thought, and so I grieved.'

'Dear one, dear Anna.' 'O my lovely boy, Life is all golden to the finger tips. What will be must be: but to-day's a joy. Reach me that lovely branch of scarlet hips.' He reached and gave; she put it to her lips. 'And here,' she said, 'we come to Plaister Turns.' And then she chose the road to Shepherd Ern's.

As the deft angler, when the fishes rise, Flicks on the broadening circle over each The delicatest touch of dropping flies, Then pulls more line and whips a longer reach, Longing to feel the rod bend, the reel screech, And the quick comrade net the monster out, So Anna played the fly over her trout.

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.