The Everlasting Mercy Part 4

Your well-packed bench, your prison pen, To keep them something less than men; Your friendly clubs to help 'em bury, Your charities of midwifery.

Your bidding children duck and cap To them who give them workhouse pap.

O, what you are, and what you preach, And what you do, and what you teach Is not G.o.d's Word, nor honest schism, But Devil's cant and pauperism.'

By this time many folk had gathered To listen to me while I blathered; I said my piece, and when I'd said it, I'll do old purple parson credit, He sunk (as sometimes parsons can) His coat's excuses in the man.

'You think that Squire and I are kings Who made the existing state of things, And made it ill. I answer, No, States are not made, nor patched; they grow, Grow slow through centuries of pain And grow correctly in the main, But only grow by certain laws Of certain bits in certain jaws.

You want to doctor that. Let be.

You cannot patch a growing tree.

Put these two words beneath your hat, These two: securus judicat.

The social states of human kinds Are made by mult.i.tudes of minds.

And after mult.i.tudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it's not the whole.

This state is dull and evil, both, I keep it in the path of growth; You think the Church an outworn fetter; Kane, keep it, till you've built a better.

And keep the existing social state; I quite agree it's out of date, One does too much, another shirks, Unjust, I grant; but still ... it works.

To get the whole world out of bed And washed, and dressed, and warmed, and fed, To work, and back to bed again, Believe me, Saul, costs worlds of pain.

Then, as to whether true or sham That book of Christ, Whose priest I am; The Bible is a lie, say you, Where do you stand, suppose it true?

Good-bye. But if you've more to say, My doors are open night and day.

Meanwhile, my friend, 'twould be no sin To mix more water in your gin.

We're neither saints nor Philip Sidneys, But mortal men with mortal kidneys.'

He took his snuff, and wheezed a greeting, And waddled off to mothers' meeting; I hung my head upon my chest, I give old purple parson best.

For while the Plough tips round the Pole The trained mind outs the upright soul, As Jesus said the trained mind might, Being wiser than the sons of light, But trained men's minds are spread so thin They let all sorts of darkness in; Whatever light man finds they doubt it, They love not light, but talk about it.

But parson'd proved to people's eyes That I was drunk, and he was wise; And people grinned and women t.i.ttered, And little children mocked and twittered So blazing mad, I stalked to bar To show how n.o.ble drunkards are, And guzzled spirits like a beast, To show contempt for Church and priest, Until, by six, my wits went round Like hungry pigs in parish pound.

At half-past six, rememb'ring Jane, I staggered into street again With mind made up (or primed with gin) To bash the cop who'd run me in; For well I knew I'd have to c.o.c.k up My legs that night inside the lock-up, And it was my most fixed intent To have a fight before I went.

Our Fates are strange, and no one knows his; Our lovely Saviour Christ disposes.

Jane wasn't where we'd planned, the jade.

She'd thought me drunk and hadn't stayed.

So I went up the Walk to look for her And lingered by the little brook for her, And dowsed my face, and drank at spring, And watched two wild duck on the wing.

The moon come pale, the wind come cool, A big pike leapt in Lower Pool, The peac.o.c.k screamed, the clouds were straking, My cut cheek felt the weather breaking; An orange sunset waned and thinned Foretelling rain and western wind, And while I watched I heard distinct The metals on the railway clinked.

The blood-edged clouds were all in tatters, The sky and earth seemed mad as hatters; They had a death look, wild and odd, Of something dark foretold by G.o.d.

And seeing it so, I felt so shaken I wouldn't keep the road I'd taken, But wandered back towards the inn Resolved to brace myself with gin.

And as I walked, I said, 'It's strange, There's Death let loose to-night, and Change.'

In Cabbage Walk I made a haul Of two big pears from lawyer's wall, And, munching one, I took the lane Back into Market-place again.

Lamp-lighter d.i.c.k had pa.s.sed the turning And all the Homend lamps were burning, The windows shone, the shops were busy, But that strange Heaven made me dizzy.

The sky had all G.o.d's warning writ In b.l.o.o.d.y marks all over it, And over all I thought there was A ghastly light beside the gas.

The Devil's tasks and Devil's rages Were giving me the Devil's wages.

In Market-place it's always light, The big shop windows make it bright; And in the press of people buying I spied a little fellow crying Because his mother'd gone inside And left him there, and so he cried.

And mother'd beat him when she found him, And mother's whip would curl right round him, And mother'd say he'd done't to crost her, Though there being crowds about he'd lost her.

Lord, give to men who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undented The young years of the little child.

I pat his head at edge of street And gi'm my second pear to eat.

Right under lamp, I pat his head, 'I'll stay till mother come,' I said, And stay I did, and joked and talked, And shoppers wondered as they walked.

'There's that Saul Kane, the drunken blaggard, Talking to little Jimmy Jaggard.

The drunken blaggard reeks of drink.'

'Whatever will his mother think?'

'Wherever has his mother gone?

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, 'Hush! Hush! 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 shire: 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 shift 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.