LITMIR.BIZ

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I’ve got no gloves, an’ I’m sure my hair’s a sight. I never thought she could ‘a reached up like that.”

      George laughed, tickled.

      “No,” he said, “she Was in a temper. But we can get you some gloves directly we get to Nottingham.”

      “I haven’t a farthing of money,” she said.

      “I’ve plenty!” he laughed. “Oh, an’ let’s try this on.”

      They were merry together as he tried on her wedding ring, and they talked softly, he gentle and coaxing, she rather plaintive. The mare took her own way, and Meg’s hat was disarranged once more by the sweeping elm-boughs. The yellow corn was dipping and flowing in the fields, like a cloth of gold pegged down at the corners under which the wind was heaving. Sometimes we passed cottages where the scarlet lilies rose like bonfires, and the tall larkspur like bright blue leaping smoke. Sometimes we smelled the sunshine on the browning corn, sometimes the fragrance of the shadow of leaves. Occasionally it was the dizzy scent of new haystacks. Then we rocked and jolted over the rough cobblestones of Cinderhill, and bounded forward again at the foot of the enormous pit hill, smelling of sulphur, inflamed with slow red fires in the daylight, and crusted with ashes. We reached the top of the rise and saw the city before us, heaped high and dim upon the broad range of the hill. I looked for the square tower of my old school, and the sharp proud spire of St Andrews. Over the city hung a dullness, a thin dirty canopy against the blue sky.

      We turned and swung down the slope between the last sullied cornfields towards Basford, where the swollen gasometers stood like toadstools. As we neared the mouth of the street, Meg rose excitedly, pulling George’s arm, crying:

      “Oh, look, the poor little thing!”

      On the causeway stood two small boys lifting their faces and weeping to the heedless heavens, while before them, upside down, lay a baby strapped to a shut-up baby-chair. The gim-crack carpet-seated thing had collapsed as the boys were dismounting the kerb-stone with it. It had fallen backwards, and they were unable to right it. There lay the infant strapped head downwards to its silly cart, in imminent danger of suffocation. Meg leaped out, and dragged the child from the wretched chair. The two boys, drenched with tears, howled on. Meg crouched on the road, the baby on her knee, its tiny feet dangling against her skirt. She soothed the pitiful tear-wet mite. She hugged it to her, and kissed it, and hugged it, and rocked it in an abandonment of pity. When at last the childish trio were silent, the boys shaken only by the last ebbing sobs, Meg calmed also from her frenzy of pity for the little thing. She murmured to it tenderly, and wiped its wet little cheeks with her handkerchief, soothing, kissing, fondling the bewildered mite, smoothing the wet strands of brown hair under the scrap of cotton bonnet, twitching the inevitable baby cape into order. It was a pretty baby, with wisps of brown-gold silken hair and large blue eyes.

      “Is it a girl?” I asked one of the boys —“How old is she?”

      “I don’t know,” he answered awkwardly. “We’ve ‘ad ‘er about a three week.”

      “Why, isn’t she your sister?”

      “No — my mother keeps ‘er”— they were very reluctant to tell us anything.

      “Poor little lamb!” cried Meg, in another access of pity, clasping the baby to her bosom with one hand, holding its winsome slippered feet in the other. She remained thus, stung through with acute pity, crouching, folding herself over the mite. At last she raised her head, and said, in a voice difficult with emotion:

      “But you love her — don’t you?”

      “Yes — she’s — she’s all right. But we ‘ave to mind ‘er,” replied the boy in great confusion.

      “Surely,” said Meg, “surely you don’t begrudge that. Poor little thing — so little, she is — surely you don’t grumble at minding her a bit —?”

      The boys would not answer.

      “Oh, poor little lamb, poor little lamb!” murmured Meg over the child, condemning with bitterness the boys and the whole world of men.

      I taught one of the lads how to fold and unfold the wretched chair. Meg very reluctantly seated the unfortunate baby therein, gently fastening her with the strap.

      “Wheer’s ‘er dummy?” asked one of the boys in muffled, self-conscious tones. The infant began to cry thinly. Meg crouched over it. The “dummy” was found in the gutter and wiped on the boy’s coat, then plugged into the baby’s mouth. Meg released the tiny clasping hand from over her finger, and mounted the dog-cart, saying sternly to the boys:

      “Mind you look after her well, poor little baby with no mother. God’s watching to see what you do to her — so you be careful, mind.”

      They stood very shamefaced. George clicked to the mare, and as we started threw coppers to the boys. While we drove away I watched the little group diminish down the road.

      “It’s such a shame,” she said, and the tears were in her voice, “— A sweet little thing like that —”

      “Ay,” said George softly, “there’s all sorts of things in towns.”

      Meg paid no attention to him, but sat woman-like, thinking of the forlorn baby, and condemning the hard world. He, full of tenderness and protectiveness towards her, having watched her with softening eyes, felt a little bit rebuffed that she ignored him, and sat alone in her fierce womanhood. So he busied himself with the reins, and the two sat each alone until Meg was roused by the bustle of the town. The mare sidled past the electric cars nervously, and jumped when a traction engine came upon us. Meg, rather frightened, clung to George again. She was very glad when we had passed the cemetery with its white population of tombstones, and drew up in a quiet street.

      But when we had dismounted, and given the horse’s head to a loafer, she became confused and bashful and timid to the last degree. He took her on his arm; he took the whole charge of her, and laughing, bore her away towards the steps of the office. She left herself entirely in his hands; she was all confusion, so he took the charge of her.

      When, after a short time, they came out, she began to chatter with blushful animation. He was very quiet, and seemed to be taking his breath.

      “Wasn’t he a funny little man? Did I do it all proper? — I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sure they were laughing at me — do you think they were? Oh, just look at my frock — what a sight! What would they think —!” The baby had slightly soiled the front of her dress.

      George drove up the long hill into the town. As we came down between the shops on Mansfield Road he recovered his spirits.

      “Where are we going — where are you taking us?” asked Meg.

      “We may as well make a day of it while we are here,” he answered, smiling and flicking the mare. They both felt that they were launched forth on an adventure. He put up at the Spread Eagle, and we walked towards the market-place for Meg’s gloves. When he had bought her these and a large lace scarf to give her a more clothed appearance, he wanted dinner.

      “We’ll go,” he said, “to an hotel.”

      His eyes dilated as he said it, and she shrank away with delighted fear. Neither of them had ever been to an hotel. She was really afraid. She begged him to go to an eating-house, to a cafe. He was obdurate. His one idea was to do the thing that he was half afraid to do. His passion — and it was almost intoxication — was to dare to play with life. He was afraid of the town. He was afraid to venture into the foreign places of life, and all was foreign save the valley of Nethermere. So he crossed the borders flauntingly, and marched towards the heart of the unknown. We went to the Victoria Hotel — the most imposing he could think of — and we had luncheon according to the menu. They were like two children, very much afraid, yet delighting in the adventure. He dared not, however, give the orders. He dared not address anybody, waiters or otherwise. I did that for him, and he watched me, absorbing, learning, wondering that things were so easy and so delightful.

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