‘I think it’s awful the way they be’ave!’ said Alice, hugging the baby to her breast as though she thought he might be corrupted by the sight of so much unbridled passion. It came natural to her to adopt this pose of modesty in Abner’s company. She expected him to agree with her; but he only laughed, and this set her thinking of the dark episode of Susan Wade and wishing she knew what actually had happened. ‘You didn’t ought to laugh,’ she said, ‘it bain’t decent.’
But Abner was too contented to pursue the argument.
The child slept for an hour, and Abner sat smoking beside them. He went back to the fair-ground and brought her a cup of tea. Thus refreshed they returned to the castle courtyard. The sun was setting; the uppermost storeys of the ruins were tinged with warm and mellow light, but the crowded space beneath them had grown cooler. Hissing flares of naphtha were lighted. Swing-boats soared out of the pit of the ruins into the glowing sky. The crowd, released from the burden of heat under which it had laboured, began to pluck up spirits. There was a good deal of friendly horse-play, from which Alice shrank into the protection of Abner’s bulk. Little John did not seem much the better for his sleep. He was tired and irritable, and frightened by the squirts of water and the feathered teasers. It seemed as if they would have to take him home. ‘But I did want him to see the fireworks!’ Alice said regretfully. Already two monstrous fire-balloons had ascended and drifted away till they showed no bigger than the moon.
‘Come on then,’ said Abner. ‘I’ve had enough of it if yo’ have. Let’s get back before the trams is crowded.’
He took the baby from her arms and she, almost unwillingly, followed him.
At the end of the courtyard, near the Norman archway by which they had entered, stood a boxing-booth, inside which the show was just on the point of beginning. The proprietor, a heavy-jowled ruffian in a sweater, whose board proclaimed him to be an ex-welter-weight champion of Bermondsey, had collected a crowd round his platform by inveighing, in the intervals between ringing his bell, against the sporting reputation of the black-country. At the back of the platform two of his staff, a nigger and a Hebrew, were sparring gently like kittens at play. It seemed that the reason for his resentment was his failure to get the Dulston audience to do anything but watch him and his pets. What he wanted, he said, was sport . . . just to see what the local talent was made of.
‘Sport?’ he said, ‘you don’t know the meaning of the word in this gord-forsaken ’ole. When I puts up this tent in Durham or Middlesborough or Wales, they flock into it, flock in . . . ready to take a turn with the boys and give a little exhibition. Frightened to use your fists, that’s what you are here. What the hell’s England coming to? That’s what I want to know. It’s enough to make me sick, you people! It’s enough to make me want to take down the saloon and burn the whole bleedin’ bag of tricks, damme if it isn’t, an’ the boys waiting here for a bit of sport.’ The nigger had stopped sparring and was grinning insolently at the crowd, among the younger women of which his strangeness exercised an attraction. Nobody, however, seemed inclined to enter the booth.
‘Come along, Abner,’ Alice whispered, tugging at his arm.
The proprietor rang his bell again. ‘Now, for the last time,’ he said. ‘Just commencing! If you haven’t the spunk to put on the gloves yourselves, come and see a pretty exhibition of scientific boxing. And I give you my word this is the last time I ever bring my entertainment into the bleedin’ black-country!’
‘Good job, gaffer,’ said somebody.