Part 75 (2/2)
I soon found that out. A lie is well named, you know--it hasn't a leg--to stand upon. Ha, ha, ha!”
Nothing would serve but that they should go to look at the scene of their future life, and with Don--he had brought his dog; it had to be held back from the pug under the table--they set off immediately. It was Sat.u.r.day night, and as they dipped down into the slums that lie under the shadow of the Abbey, Old Pye Street, Peter's Street, and Duck Lane were aflare with the coa.r.s.e lights of open naphtha lamps, and all but impa.s.sable with costers' barrows. There were the husky voices of the street hawkers, the hoa.r.s.e laughter, the quarrelling, the oaths, the rasping shouts of the butcher selling chunks of dark joints by auction, the screeches of the roast-potato man, and the smell of stale vegetables and fried fish. ”Jow, 'ow much a pound for yer turmaters?” ”Three pence; I gave mor'n that for 'em myself.” ”Garn!” ”S'elp me, Gawd, I did, mum!”
”Isn't it a glorious scene?” said John; and Glory, who felt chilled and sickened, recalled herself from some dream of different things altogether and said, ”Isn't it?”
”Sanctuary, too! What human cats we are! The poor sinners cling to the place still!”
He took her into the alleys and courts that score and wrinkle the map of Westminster like an old man's face, and showed her the ”model”
lodging-houses and the gaudily decorated h.e.l.ls where young girls and soldiers danced and drank.
”What's the use of saying to these people, 'Don't drink; don't steal'?
They'll answer, 'If you lived in these slums you would drink too.' But we'll show them that we can live here and do neither--that will be the true preaching.”
And then he pictured a life of absolute self-sacrifice, which she was to share with him. ”You'll manage all money matters, Glory. You can't think how I'm swindled. And then I'm such a donkey as far as money goes--that's not far with me, you know. Ha, ha, ha! Who's to find it?
Ah, G.o.d pays his own debts. He'll see to that.”
They were to live under the church itself; to give bread to the hungry and clothes to the naked; to set up their Settlement in the gaming-house of the Sharkeys, now deserted and shut up; to take in the _un_deserving poor-the people who had nothing to say for themselves, precisely those; and thus they were to show that they belonged neither to the publicans and sinners nor to the Scribes and Pharisees.
”Only let us get rid of self. Only let us show that self-interest never enters our head in one single thing we do----” and meantime Glory, who had turned her head aside with a lump in her throat, heard some one behind them saying:
”Lawd, Jow, that's the curick and his dorg--'im as got pore Sharkey took! See--'im with the laidy?”
”S'elp me, so it is! Another good man gorn to 'is gruel, and all 'long of a bloomin' dorg.”
They walked round by the church. John was talking--rapturously at every step, and Glory was dragging after him like a criminal going to the pillory. At last they came out by Great Smith Street, and he cried: ”See, there's the house of G.o.d under its spider's web of scaffolding, and here's the Broad Sanctuary--broad enough in all conscience! Look!”
A crowd of girls and men were trooping out of a place of entertainment opposite, and there were screams and curses. ”Look at 'im!” cried a woman's voice. ”There 'e is, the swine! And 'e was the ruin of me; and now 'e's 'listed for a soldier and going off with another woman!”
”You're bleedin' drunk, that's what you are!” said a man's voice, ”and if you down't take kear I'll send ye 'ome on a dawer!”
”Strike me, will ye, ye dog? Do it! I dare you!”
”She ain't worth it, soldier--come along,” said another female voice, whereupon the first broke into a hurricane of oaths; and a little clergyman going by at the moment--it was the Rev. J. Golightly--said: ”Dear, dear! Are there no policemen about?” and so pa.s.sed on, with his tall wife tucked under his arm.
John Storm pressed through the crowd and came between the two who were quarrelling. By the light of the lamp he could see them. The man was Charlie Wilkes, in the uniform of a soldier; the woman, with the paint running on her face, her fringe disordered, and her back hair torn down, was Aggie Jones.
”We down't want no religion 'ere,” said Charlie, sneering.
”You'll get some, though, if you're not off quick!” said John. The man looked round for the dog and a moment afterward he had disappeared.
Glory came up behind. ”O Aggie, woman, is it you?” she said, and then the girl began to cry in a drunken sob.
”Girls is cruel put upon, mum,” said one of the women; and another cried, ”Nix, the slops!” and a policeman came pus.h.i.+ng his way and saying: ”Now, then, move on! We ain't going to stand 'ere all night.”
”Call a cab, officer,” said John.
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