“Well, I never!” said Mrs. Fettley. “Did—did ye foller it up, anyways?”
“She askt me to, but I wouldn’t ’ave no such dealin’s with a child.”
“What did ye do, then?”
“’Sat in me own room ’stid o’ the kitchen when me ’eddicks come on. But it lay at de back o’ me mind.”
“’Twould. Did she tell ye more, ever?”
“No. Besides what the Gippo girl ’ad told ’er, she knew naught, ’cept that the charm worked. An’, next after that—in May ’twas—I suffered the summer out in Lunnon. ’Twas hot an’ windy for weeks, an’ the streets stinkin’ o’ dried ’orse-dung blowin’ from side to side an’ lyin’ level with the kerb. We don’t get that nowadays. I ’ad my ’ol’day just before hoppin’,[2] an’ come down ’ere to stay with Bessie again. She noticed I’d lost flesh, an’ was all poochy under the eyes.”
“Did ye see ’Arry?”
Mrs. Ashcroft nodded. “The fourth—no, the fifth day. Wednesday ’twas. I knowed ’e was workin’ at Smalldene again. I asked ’is mother in the street, bold as brass. She ’adn’t room to say much, for Bessie—you know ’er tongue—was talkin’ full-clack. But that Wednesday, I was walkin’ with one o’ Bessie’s chillern hangin’ on me skirts, at de back o’ Chanter’s Tot. Prasin’ly, I felt ’e was be’ind me on the footpath, an’ I knowed by ’is tread ’e’d changed ’is nature. I slowed, an’ I heard ’im slow. Then I fussed a piece with the child, to force him past me, like. So ’e ’ad to come past. ’E just says ‘Good-evenin’,’ and goes on, tryin’ to pull ’isself together.”
“Drunk, was he?” Mrs. Fettley asked.
“Never! S’runk an’ wizen; ’is clothes ’angin’ on ’im like bags, an’ the back of ’is neck whiter’n chalk. ’Twas all I could do not to oppen my arms an’ cry after him. But I swallered me spittle till I was back ’ome again an’ the chillern abed. Then I says to Bessie, after supper, ‘What in de world’s come to ’Arry Mockler?’ Bessie told me ’e’d been a-Hospital for two months, ’long o’ cuttin’ ’is foot wid a spade, muckin’ out the old pond at Smalldene. There was poison in de dirt, an’ it rooshed up ’is leg, like, an’ come out all over him. ’E ’adn’t been back to ’is job—carterin’ at Smalldene—more’n a fortnight. She told me the Doctor said he’d go off, likely, with the November frostes; an’ ’is mother ’ad told ’er that ’e didn’t rightly eat nor sleep, an’ sweated ’imself into pools, no odds ’ow chill ’e lay. An’ spit terrible o’ mornin’s. ‘Dearie me,’ I says. ‘But, mebbe hoppin’ ’ll set ’im right again,’ an’ I licked me thread-point an’ I fetched me needle’s eye up to it an’ I threads me needle under de lamp, steady as rocks. An’ dat night (me bed was in de wash-house) I cried an’ I cried. An’ you know, Liz—for you’ve been with me in my throes—it takes summat to make me cry.”