"Yes! much you care!" she scolded, "but I tell you, Jim Adams, I won't do it! You can write and tell your precious sister she can make other arrangements. You are married now and you can't do just as you like; you've got a wife, and I won't do it! There! you've waked the baby, shouting at me about your sister; but I won't have anybody else's child, so there!"
The lusty crying from the adjoining room continuing, she went in, banging the door behind her, and Jim was left alone, staring doggedly out at the tall houses opposite.
Should he write to his dying sister at Whitecliff and tell her to make other arrangements? What other arrangements could she make? Could she bring back her young sailor husband from his grave in the Red Sea? Could she stay the progress of the cough, the outward sign of the fatal sickness which was bringing her to an early death? Could she send the child, her treasured little boy, to any other relative? Jim knew she could not. Nellie and he had been alone in the world since they were children. If he did not take little Harry, the boy must go into the workhouse.
Should he tell Nellie that she must make that arrangement? He was an easy-going chap, this Jim Adams, too easy-going. He stood six feet one in his socks and was big and broad in proportion, a veritable giant in looks, but his strength was mere physical strength, and he knew it. He was not strong in himself. This was the very first time, since he had known and courted Jane Green, that he had resisted her will for twenty-four hours, and even now he was contemplating the possibility of giving way.
Jane could make herself very disagreeable indeed if she were thwarted. He had had nothing but storming since yesterday morning when Nellie's letter had come, and he had had two half-cooked suppers and a miserable cold breakfast. He did like a good supper, and if this was what it was going to be if he had Harry——
The sound of a gay voice singing on the pathway below, startled him. There were always noises in the street, but this song caught his attention.
| "They had not been married a month or more |
| When underneath her thumb went Jim, |
| It can't be right for the likes of her |
| To put upon the likes of him. |
| It's a great big shame, and if she belonged to me |
| I'd let her know who's who; |
| Putting on a fellow six foot three |
| And her only four foot two!" |
Jim smiled grimly to himself; it was so absolutely true. Then his wrath rose. What business had Jack Turner to be singing that ditty under his window? He supposed all the neighbours laughed behind his back at the way his small wife ruled him. If they only had a taste of her nagging tongue they would not, perhaps, laugh so much. He would let them see he was not under Jane's thumb!
He turned at the opening of the bedroom door, prepared to have his say, and there was Jane with their big bouncing baby in her arms. "Here!" she said crossly, "you just get this kid off to sleep, I'm going for the supper beer. I've minded him all day, and I'm tired of him. I believe he wakes up in the evening just to spite me!"
Jim took his baby and his eyes softened as he cuddled the little fellow in his arms. He thought of Nellie's beseeching letter, and he thought of himself as dead and of Jane as dead, and this baby left to face a cold, unloving world. Would not Nellie have taken him? Would she not have been a mother to him?