The Widow in the Bye Street Part 6

'Dear one, dear Anna.' 'O my lovely boy, Life is all golden to the finger tips.

What will be must be: but to-day's a joy.

Reach me that lovely branch of scarlet hips.'

He reached and gave; she put it to her lips.

'And here,' she said, 'we come to Plaister Turns.'

And then she chose the road to Shepherd Ern's.

As the deft angler, when the fishes rise, Flicks on the broadening circle over each The delicatest touch of dropping flies, Then pulls more line and whips a longer reach, Longing to feel the rod bend, the reel screech, And the quick comrade net the monster out, So Anna played the fly over her trout.

Twice she pa.s.sed, thrice, she with the boy beside her, A lovely fly, hooked for a human heart, She pa.s.sed his little gate, while Jimmy eyed her, Feeling her beauty tear his soul apart: Then did the great trout rise, the great pike dart, The gate went clack, a man came up the hill, The lucky strike had hooked him through the gill.

Her breath comes quick, her tired beauty glows, She would not look behind, she looked ahead.

It seemed to Jimmy she was like a rose, A golden white rose faintly flushed with red.

Her eyes danced quicker at the approaching tread, Her finger nails dug sharp into her palm.

She yearned to Jimmy's shoulder, and kept calm.

'Evening,' said Shepherd Ern. She turned and eyed him, Cold and surprised, but interested too, To see how much he felt the hook inside him, And how much be surmised, and Jimmy knew, And if her beauty still could make him do The love tricks he had gambolled in the past.

A glow shot through her that her fish was gra.s.sed.

'Evening,' she said. 'Good evening.' Jimmy felt Jealous and angry at the shepherd's tone; He longed to hit the fellow's nose a belt, He wanted his beloved his alone.

A fellow's girl should be a fellow's own.

Ern gave the lad a glance and turned to Anna, Jim might have been in China by his manner.

'Still walking out?' 'As you are.' 'I'll be bound.'

'Can you talk gipsy yet, or plait a kipe?'

'I'll teach you if I can when I come round.'

'And when will that be?' 'When the time is ripe.'

And Jimmy longed to hit the man a swipe Under the chin to knock him out of time, But Anna stayed: she still had twigs to lime.

'Come, Anna, come, my dear,' he muttered low.

She frowned, and blinked and spoke again to Ern.

'I hear the gipsy has a row to hoe.'

'The more you hear,' he said, 'the less you'll learn.'

'We've just come out,' she said, 'to take a turn; Suppose you come along: the more the merrier.'

'All right,' he said, 'but how about the terrier?'

He c.o.c.ked an eye at Jimmy. 'Does he bite?'

Jimmy blushed scarlet. 'He's a dear,' said she.

Ern walked a step, 'Will you be in to-night?'

She shook her head, 'I doubt if that may be.

Jim, here's a friend who wants to talk to me, So will you go and come another day?'

'By crimes, I won't!' said Jimmy, 'I shall stay.'

'I thought he bit,' said Ern, and Anna smiled, And Jimmy saw the smile and watched her face While all the jealous devils made him wild; A third in love is always out of place; And then her gentle body full of grace Leaned to him sweetly as she tossed her head, 'Perhaps we two'll be getting on,' she said.

They walked, but Jimmy turned to watch the third.

'I'm here, not you,' he said; the shepherd grinned: Anna was smiling sweet without a word; She got the scarlet berry branch unpinned.

'It's cold,' she said, 'this evening, in the wind.'

A quick glance showed that Jimmy didn't mind her, She beckoned with the berry branch behind her,

Then dropped it gently on the broken stones, Preoccupied, unheeding, walking straight, Saying 'You jealous boy,' in even tones, Looking so beautiful, so delicate, Being so very sweet: but at her gate She felt her shoe unlaced and looked to know If Ern had taken up the sprig or no.

He had, she smiled. 'Anna,' said Jimmy sadly, 'That man's not fit to be a friend of yourn, He's n.o.bbut just an oaf; I love you madly, And hearing you speak kind to'm made me burn.

Who is he then?' She answered 'Shepherd Ern, A pleasant man, an old, old friend of mine.'

'By cripes, then, Anna, drop him, he's a swine.'

'Jimmy,' she said, 'you must have faith in me, Faith's all the battle in a love like ours.

You must believe, my darling, don't you see That life to have its sweets must have its sours.

Love isn't always two souls picking flowers.

You must have faith. I give you all I can.

What, can't I say "Good evening" to a man?'

'Yes,' he replied, 'But not a man like him.'

'Why not a man like him?' she said, 'What next?'

By this they'd reached her cottage in the dim, Among the daisies that the cold had kexed.

'Because I say. Now, Anna, don't be vexed.'

'I'm more than vexed,' she said, 'with words like these.

"You say," indeed. How dare you. Leave me, please.'

'Anna, my Anna.' 'Leave me.' She was cold, Proud and imperious with a lifting lip, Blazing within, but outwardly controlled; He had a colt's first instant of the whip.

The long lash curled to cut a second strip.

'You to presume to teach. Of course, I know You're mother's Sunday scholar, aren't you? Go.'

She slammed the door behind her, clutching skirts.

'Anna.' He heard her bedroom latches thud.

He learned at last how bitterly love hurts; He longed to cut her throat and see her blood, To stamp her blinking eyeb.a.l.l.s into mud.

'Anna, by G.o.d!' Love's many torments make That tune soon change to 'Dear, for Jesus' sake.'

He beat the door for her. She never stirred, But pr.i.m.m.i.n.g bitter lips before her gla.s.s; Admired her hat as though she hadn't heard, And tried her front hair parted, and in ma.s.s.

She heard her lover's hasty footsteps pa.s.s.

'He's gone,' she thought. She crouched below the pane, And heard him cursing as he tramped the lane.

Rage ran in Jimmy as he tramped the night; Rage, strongly mingled with a youth's disgust At finding a beloved woman light, And all her precious beauty dirty dust; A tinsel-varnish gilded over l.u.s.t.

Nothing but that. He sat him down to rage, Beside the stream whose waters never age.

Plashing, it slithered down the tiny fall To eddy wrinkles in the trembling pool With that light voice whose music cannot pall, Always the note of solace, flute-like, cool.

And when hot-headed man has been a fool, He could not do a wiser thing than go To that dim pool where purple teazles grow.

He glowered there until suspicion came, Suspicion, anger's b.a.s.t.a.r.d, with mean tongue, To mutter to him till his heart was flame, And every fibre of his soul was wrung, That even then Ern and his Anna clung Mouth against mouth in pa.s.sionate embrace.

There was no peace for Jimmy in the place.

Raging he hurried back to learn the truth.

The little swinging wicket glimmered white, The chimney jagged the skyline like a tooth, Bells came in swoons for it was Sunday night.

The garden was all dark, but there was light Up in the little room where Anna slept: The hot blood beat his brain; he crept, he crept.

Clutching himself to hear, clutching to know, Along the path, rustling with withered leaves, Up to the apple, too decayed to blow, Which crooked a palsied finger at the eaves.

And up the lichened trunk his body heaves.

Dust blinded him, twigs snapped, the branches shook, He leaned along a mossy bough to look.