LITMIR.BIZ

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I’d rather watch th’ rabbits an’ th’ birds; an’ it’s easier breeding brats in th’ Kennels than in th’ town.”

      “They are yours, are they?” said I.

      “You know’ em, do you, Sir? Aren’t they a lovely little litter? — aren’t they a pretty bag o’ ferrets? — natural as weasels — that’s what I said they should be-bred up like a bunch o’ young foxes, to run as they would.”

      Emily had joined Lettie, and they kept aloof from the man they instinctively hated.

      “They’ll get nicely trapped, one of these days,” said I. “They’re natural — they can fend for themselves like wild beasts do,” he replied, grinning.

      “You are not doing your duty, it strikes me,” put in Leslie sententiously.

      “Duties of parents! — tell me, I’ve need of it. I’ve nine — that is eight, and one not far off. She breeds well, the ow’d lass — one every two years — nine in fourteen years — done well, hasn’t she?”

      “You’ve done pretty badly, I think.”

      “I— why? it’s natural! When a man’s more than nature he’s a devil. Be a good animal, says I, whether it’s man or woman. You, Sir, a good natural male animal; the lady there — a female un-that’s proper as long as yer enjoy it.”

      “And what then?”

      “Do as th’ animals do. I watch my brats — I let ’em grow. They’re beauties, they are — sound as a young ash pole, every one. They shan’t learn to dirty themselves wi’ smirking deviltry — not if I can help it. They can be like birds, or weasels, or vipers, or squirrels, so long as they ain’t human rot, that’s what I say.”

      “It’s one way of looking at things,” said Leslie.

      “Ay. Look at the women looking at us. I’m something between a bull and a couple of worms stuck together, I am. See that spink!” he raised his voice for the girls to hear, “Pretty, isn’t he? What for? — And what for do you wear a fancy vest and twist your moustache, Sir! What for, at the bottom! Ha — tell a woman not to come in a wood till she can look at natural things — she might see something. — Good night, Sir.”

      He marched off into the darkness.

      “Coarse fellow, that,” said Leslie when he had rejoined Lettie, “but he’s a character.”

      “He makes you shudder,” she replied. “But yet you are interested in him. I believe he has a history.”

      “He seems to lack something,” said Emily.

      “I thought him rather a fine fellow,” said I.

      “Splendidly built fellow, but callous — no soul,” remarked Leslie, dismissing the question.

      “No,” assented Emily. “No soul — and among the snowdrops.”

      Lettie was thoughtful, and I smiled.

      It was a beautiful evening, still, with red, shaken clouds in the west. The moon in heaven was turning wistfully back to the east. Dark purple woods lay around us, painting out the distance. The near, wild, ruined land looked sad and strange under the pale afterglow. The turf path was fine and springy.

      “Let us run!” said Lettie, and joining hands we raced wildly along, with a flutter and a breathless laughter, till we were happy and forgetful. When we stopped we exclaimed at once, “Hark!”

      “A child!” said Lettie.

      “At the Kennels,” said I.

      We hurried forward. From the house came the mad yelling and yelping of children, and the wild hysterical shouting of a woman.

      “Tha’ little devil — tha’ little devil — tha’ shanna — that tha’ shanna!” and this was accompanied by the hollow sound of blows, and a pandemonium of howling. We rushed in, and found the woman in a tousled frenzy belabouring a youngster with an enamelled pan. The lad was rolled up like a young hedgehog — the woman held him by the foot, and like a flail came the hollow utensil thudding on his shoulders and back. He lay in the firelight and howled, while scattered in various groups, with the leaping firelight twinkling over their tears and their open mouths, were the other children, crying too. The mother was in a state of hysteria; her hair streamed over her face, and her eyes were fixed in a stare of overwrought irritation. Up and down went her long arm like a windmill sail. I ran and held it. When she could hit no more, the woman dropped the pan from her nerveless hand, and staggered, trembling, to the squab. She looked desperately weary and foredone — she clasped and unclasped her hands continually. Emily hushed the children, while Lettie hushed the mother, holding her hard, cracked hands as she swayed to and fro. Gradually the mother became still, and sat staring in front of her; then aimlessly she began to finger the jewels on Lettie’s finger.

      Emily was bathing the cheek of a little girl, who lifted up her voice and wept loudly when she saw the speck of blood on the cloth. But presently she became quiet too, and Emily could empty the water from the late instrument of castigation, and at last light the lamp.

      I found Sam under the table in a little heap. I put out my hand for him, and he wriggled away, like a lizard, into the passage. After a while I saw him in a corner, lying whimpering with little savage cries of pain. I cut off his retreat and captured him, bearing him struggling into the kitchen. Then, weary with pain, he became passive.

      We undressed him, and found his beautiful white body all discoloured with bruises. The mother began to sob again, with a chorus of babies. The girls tried to soothe the weeping, while I rubbed butter into the silent, wincing boy. Then his mother caught him in her arms, and kissed him passionately, and cried with abandon. The boy let himself be kissed — then he too began to sob, till his little body was all shaken. They folded themselves together, the poor dishevelled mother and the half-naked boy, and wept themselves still. Then she took him to bed, and the girls helped the other little ones into their nightgowns, and soon the house was still.

      “I canna manage ’em, I canna,” said the mother mournfully. “They growin’ beyont me — I dunna know what to do wi’ ’em. An’ niver a ‘and does ‘e lift ter ‘elp me — no —‘e cares not a thing for me — not a thing — nowt but makes a mock an’ a sludge o’ me.”

      “Ah, baby!” said Lettie, setting the bonny boy on his feet, and holding up his trailing nightgown behind him, “do you want to walk to your mother — go then — Ah!”

      The child, a handsome little fellow of some sixteen months, toddled across to his mother, waving his hands as he went, and laughing, while his large hazel eyes glowed with pleasure. His mother caught him, pushed the silken brown hair back from his forehead, and laid his cheek against hers.

      “Ah!” she said, “tha’s got a funny Dad, tha’ has, not like another man, no, my duckie. ‘E’s got no ‘art ter care for nobody, ‘e ‘asna, ma pigeon — no — lives like a stranger to his own flesh an’ blood.”

      The girl with the wounded cheek had found comfort in Leslie. She was seated on his knee, looking at him with solemn blue eyes, her solemnity increased by the quaint round head, whose black hair was cut short.

      “‘S my chalk, yes it is, ‘n our Sam says as it’s ‘issen, an’ ‘e ta’es it and marks it all gone, so I wouldna gie ‘t’ ’im,”— she clutched in her fat little hand a piece of red chalk. “My Dad gen it me, ter mark my dolly’s face red, what’s on’y wood — I’ll show yer.”

      She wriggled down, and holding up her trailing gown with one hand, trotted to a corner piled with a child’s rubbish, and hauled out a hideous carven caricature of a woman, and brought it to Leslie. The face of the object was streaked with red.

      ‘Ere sh’ is, my dolly, what my Dad make me —‘er name’s Lady Mima.”

      “Is it?” said Lettie, “and are these her cheeks? She’s not pretty, is

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