“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 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 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 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. 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.