FullReads

“Let’s call it off, then,” Charlie suggested at length. “That’ll settle it. And it being twins–“

“Nay, thou old devil, I’ll none call it off. Thou owes me half a quid, and I’ll have it out of thee.”

“Look ye here,” Charlie said more softly. “I’ll tell thee what’ll settle it. Which on ’em come first, th’ lad or th’wench?”

“Th’ wench come first,” Jos Myatt admitted, with resentful reluctance, dully aware that defeat was awaiting him.

“Well, then! Th’ wench is thy eldest child. That’s law, that is. And what was us betting about, Jos lad? Us was betting about thy eldest and no other. I’ll admit as I laid it wasna’ a lad, as thou sayst. And it wasna’ a lad. First come is eldest, and us was betting about eldest.”

Charlie stared at the father in triumph.

Jos Myatt pushed roughly past him in the narrow space behind the bar, and came into the parlour. Nodding to me curtly, he unlocked the bookcase and took two crown pieces from a leathern purse which lay next to the bag. Then he returned to the bar and banged the coins on the counter with fury.

“Take thy brass!” he shouted angrily. “Take thy brass! But thou’rt a damned shark, Charlie, and if anybody ‘ud give me a plug o’ bacca for doing it, I’d bash thy face in.”

The other sniggered contentedly as he picked up his money.

“A bet’s a bet,” said Charlie.

He was clearly accustomed to an occasional violence of demeanour from Jos Myatt, and felt no fear. But he was wrong in feeling no fear. He had not allowed, in his estimate of the situation, for the exasperated condition of Jos Hyatt’s nerves under the unique experiences of the night.

Jos’s face twisted into a hundred wrinkles and his hand seized Charlie by the arm whose hand held the coins.

“Drop ’em!” he cried loudly, repenting his naive honesty. “Drop ’em! Or I’ll–“

The stout woman, her apron all soiled, now came swiftly and scarce heard into the parlour, and stood at the door leading to the bar-room.

“What’s up, Susannah?” Jos demanded in a new voice.

“Well may ye ask what’s up!” said the woman. “Shouting and brangling there, ye sots!”

“What’s up?” Jos demanded again, loosing Charlie’s arm.

“Her’s gone!” the woman feebly whimpered. “Like that!” with a vague movement of the hand indicating suddenness. Then she burst into wild sobs and rushed madly back whence she had come, and the sound of her sobs diminished as she ascended the stairs, and expired altogether in the distant shutting of a door.

The men looked at each other.

Charlie restored the crown-pieces to the counter and pushed them towards Jos.

“Here!” he murmured faintly.

Jos flung them savagely to the ground. Another pause followed.

“As God is my witness,” he exclaimed solemnly, his voice saturated with feeling, “as God is my witness,” he repeated, “I’ll ne’er touch a footba’ again!”

Little Charlie gazed up at him sadly, plaintively, for what seemed a long while.

“It’s good-bye to th’ First League, then, for Knype!” he tragically muttered, at length.

VIII

Dr Stirling drove the car very slowly back to Bursley. We glided gently down into the populous valleys. All the stunted trees were coated with rime, which made the sharpest contrast with their black branches and the black mud under us. The high chimneys sent forth their black smoke calmly and tirelessly into the fresh blue sky. Sunday had descended on the vast landscape like a physical influence. We saw a snake of children winding out of a dark brown Sunday school into a dark brown chapel. And up from the valleys came all the bells of all the temples of all the different gods of the Five Towns, chiming, clanging, ringing, each insisting that it alone invited to the altar of the one God. And priests and acolytes of the various cults hurried occasionally along, in silk hats and bright neckties, and smooth coats with folded handkerchiefs sticking out of the pockets, busy, happy and self-important, the convinced heralds of eternal salvation: no doubt nor hesitation as to any fundamental truth had ever entered their minds. We passed through a long, straight street of new red houses with blue slate roofs, all gated and gardened. Here and there a girl with her hair in pins and a rough brown apron over a gaudy frock was stoning a front step. And half-way down the street a man in a scarlet jersey, supported by two women in blue bonnets, was beating a drum and crying aloud: “My friends, you may die to-night. Where, I ask you, where–?” But he had no friends; not even a boy heeded him. The drum continued to bang in our rear.