The stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill.
There is always, here, a sound of the sea. When, at night, the Square is still, it seems to advance, to come nearer, to be claiming one for its own.
But the Square, though still at night compared with daytime, is never dead, never absolutely asleep. Fishermen returning from sea crunch on the gravel. Lights in the windows (most of the people seem to burn night lamps) give it a cosy appearance; the cats make one think that fiends are pouring out of hell, through a hole in the roadway. Peep o' day is the stillest time of all. The cats seat themselves on walls. Sparrows chirp sleepily. Some rooks and a hoary-headed jackdaw come down from the trees nearby, quarter the roadway for garbage, and fly away croaking. Busy starlings follow. If the weather is hard and fish offal scarce on the beach, the gulls will pay us a supercilious visit. About six o'clock the children begin singing in bed, and soon afterwards one hears the familiar conversation of families getting up. "Edie! what for the Lord's sake be yu doing? Yu'll catch your death o' cold. Johnnie, if yu don't make haste, I'll knock your head off, I will!" A child or two may cry, but on the whole their merriment does not seem greatly damped by their mothers' blood-curdling threats. I hear also, but not very often, the shrill wailing monotone, the weep dissolved in a shout, of a woman upbraiding her man for the previous night.
The children being dressed, but not washed (it is useless to wash the average child very long before sending it off to school), they run out to the beach to see what there is to be seen and to inspect the ash-buckets for treasure. An ash-bucket is Eldorado to them. If nothing is happening, are they at a loss for something to do? By no means. They come in house, fetch out tin cans, and beat them in a procession round the Square.
The milkmen arrive, then several greengrocers. One would think that Under Town lived on vegetables. The explanation is that the greengrocers can come here, and, in tidying up their carts, can throw their refuse upon the roadway, as they would not be allowed to do in 'higher class' streets. They swear genially at the housewives, and are forgiven.
So the work and gossip of the day goes on, with a slight quieting down in the afternoon and an incredible amount of conversation after work, in the evening.
THE ALEXANDRA BACK-DOOR
On Sundays, the great fact of best clothes lends a different and, to my mind, a less pleasant—a harder—tone to the children's voices. But their merriment cannot wholly be suppressed. Did those who dislike the Salvation Army wish to illustrate its shortcomings, they could find a biting satire ready-made by the children of Under Town. A fat small boy comes round here, who has attentively studied the meetings; who can copy the canting, up-and-down, gentle-explosive, the Behold I am saved, ye sinners! tone to a nicety. He marches at the head of a band of serious infants who bear rags, tied to sticks and parasols, as banners. Every now and then he circles them to a standstill for an harangue about blood, fire and Jesus. (It is the gory part which delights him.) Then the procession re-forms, imitating brass instruments as unbroken voices can, and singing a Salvation hymn. They are earnest, the children; except Tommy Widger, whose irrepressible spirit causes him to march in the rear with a mocking dance and an infinitely grotesque squint. He is a pagan. He can turn the children's serious imitation into roaring Aristophanic farce. He represents the healthful laughing element of an age wherein rest from sorrow is too much sought in fever. He infects us all with jollity.