Part 4 (2/2)

Nip round to Mrs Jaggard's, John, And say her Jimmy's out again, In Market-place, with boozer Kane.'

'When he come out to-day he staggered.

O, Jimmy Jaggard, Jimmy Jaggard.'

'His mother's gone inside to bargain, Run in and tell her, Polly Margin, And tell her poacher Kane is tipsy And selling Jimmy to a gipsy.'

'Run in to Mrs Jaggard, Ellen, Or else, dear knows, there'll be no tellin', And don't dare leave yer till you've fount her, You'll find her at the linen counter.'

I told a tale, to Jim's delight, Of where the tom-cats go by night, And how when moonlight come they went Among the chimneys black and bent, From roof to roof, from house to house, With little baskets full of mouse All red and white, both joint and chop Like meat out of a butcher's shop; Then all along the wall they creep And everyone is fast asleep, And honey-hunting moths go by, And by the bread-batch crickets cry; Then on they hurry, never waiting To lawyer's backyard cellar grating Where Jaggard's cat, with clever paw, Unhooks a broke-brick's secret door; Then down into the cellar black, Across the wood slug's slimy track, Into an old cask's quiet hollow, Where they've got seats for what's to follow; Then each tom-cat lights little candles, And O, the stories and the scandals, And O, the songs and Christmas carols, And O, the milk from little barrels.

They light a fire fit for roasting (And how good mouse-meat smells when toasting), Then down they sit to merry feast While moon goes west and sun comes east.

Sometimes they make so merry there Old lawyer come to head of stair To 'fend with fist and poker took firm His parchments channelled by the bookworm, And all his deeds, and all his packs Of withered ink and sealing wax; And there he stands, with candle raised, And listens like a man amazed, Or like a ghost a man stands dumb at, He says, 'Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ I'm sure there's summat!'

He hears outside the brown owl call, He hears the death-tick tap the wall, The gnawing of the wainscot mouse, The creaking up and down the house, The unhooked window's hinges ranging, The sounds that say the wind is changing.

At last he turns, and shakes his head, 'It's nothing, I'll go back to bed.'

And just then Mrs Jaggard came To view and end her Jimmy's shame.

She made one rush and gi'm a bat And shook him like a dog a rat.

'I can't turn round but what you're straying.

I'll give you tales and gipsy playing.

I'll give you wand'ring off like this And listening to whatever 't is, You'll laugh the little side of the can, You'll have the whip for this, my man; And not a bite of meat nor bread You'll touch before you go to bed.

Some day you'll break your mother's heart, After G.o.d knows she's done her part, Working her arms off day and night Trying to keep your collars white.

Look at your face, too, in the street.

What dirty filth 've you found to eat?

Now don't you blubber here, boy, or I'll give you sum't to blubber for.'

She s.n.a.t.c.hed him off from where we stand And knocked the pear-core from his hand, And looked at me, 'You Devil's limb, How dare you talk to Jaggard's Jim; You drunken, poaching, boozing brute, you.

If Jaggard was a man he'd shoot you.'

She glared all this, but didn't speak, She gasped, white hollows in her cheek; Jimmy was writhing, screaming wild, The shoppers thought I'd killed the child.

I had to speak, so I begun.

'You'd oughtn't beat your little son; He did no harm, but seeing him there I talked to him and gi'm a pear; I'm sure the poor child meant no wrong, It's all my fault he stayed so long, He'd not have stayed, mum, I'll be bound If I'd not chanced to come around.

It's all my fault he stayed, not his.

I kept him here, that's how it is.'

'Oh! And how dare you, then?' says she, 'How dare you tempt my boy from me?

How dare you do't, you drunken swine, Is he your child or is he mine?

A drunken sot they've had the beak to, Has got his dirty wh.o.r.es to speak to, His dirty mates with whom he drink, Not little children, one would think.

Look on him, there,' she says, 'look on him And smell the stinking gin upon him, The lowest sot, the drunk'nest liar, The dirtiest dog in all the s.h.i.+re: Nice friends for any woman's son After ten years, and all she's done.

'For I've had eight, and buried five, And only three are left alive.

I've given them all we could afford, I've taught them all to fear the Lord.

They've had the best we had to give, The only three the Lord let live.

'For Minnie whom I loved the worst Died mad in childbed with her first.

And John and Mary died of measles, And Rob was drownded at the Teasels.

And little Nan, dear little sweet, A cart run over in the street; Her little s.h.i.+ft was all one stain, I prayed G.o.d put her out of pain.

And all the rest are gone or going The road to h.e.l.l, and there's no knowing For all I've done and all I've made them I'd better not have overlaid them.

For Susan went the ways of shame The time the 'till'ry regiment came, And t'have her child without a father I think I'd have her buried rather.

And d.i.c.ky boozes, G.o.d forgimme, And now't's to be the same with Jimmy.

And all I've done and all I've bore Has made a drunkard and a wh.o.r.e, A b.a.s.t.a.r.d boy who wasn't meant, And Jimmy gwine where d.i.c.ky went; For d.i.c.k began the self-same way And my old hairs are going gray, And my poor man's a withered knee, And all the burden falls on me.

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