The Land Of Mist - Doyle Arthur Conan - Страница 35

«Been caught out already?»

«I tell you not to talk about it, Woman!» the man shouted. «I'm just in the mood to give you the hidin' of your life, so don't you get my goat' or you'll be sorry.» He stepped across and pinched the boy's arm with all his force. «By Cripes, he's a wonder! Let us see how far it will go.»

He turned to the sinking fire and with the tongs he picked out a half-red ember. This he placed on the boy's head. There was a smell of burning hair, then of roasting flesh, and suddenly, with a scream of pain, the boy came back to his senses.

«Mother! Mother!» he cried. The girl in the corner took up the cry. They were like two lambs bleating together.

«Damn your mother!» cried the woman, shaking Margery by the collar of her frail black dress. «Stop squallin', you little stinker!» She struck the child with her open hand across the face. Little Willie ran at her and kicked her shins until a blow from Silas knocked him into the corner. The brute picked up a stick and lashed the two cowering children, while they screamed for mercy, and tried to cover their little bodies from the cruel blows.

«You stop that!» cried a voice in the passage.

«It's that blasted Jewess!» said the woman. She went to the kitchen door. «What the 'ell are you doing in our 'ouse? 'Op it, quick, or it will be the worse for you!»

«If I hear them children cry out once more, I'm off far the police.»

«Get out of it! 'Op it, I tell you!» The frowsy stepmother bore down in full sail, but the lean, lank Jewess stood her ground. Next instant they met. Mrs. Silas Linden screamed, and staggered back with blood running down her face where four nails had left as many red furrows. Silas' with an oath, pushed his wife out of the way, seized the intruder round the waist, and slung her bodily through the door. She lay in the roadway with her long gaunt limbs sprawling about like some half-slain fowl. Without rising, she shook her clenched hands in the air and screamed curses at Silas, who slammed the door and left her, while neighbours ran from all sides to hear particulars of the fray. Mrs. Linden, staring through the front blind, saw with some relief that her enemy was able to rise and to limp back to her own door, whence she could be heard delivering a long shrill harangue as to her wrongs. The wrongs of a Jew are not lightly forgotten, for the race can both love and hate.

«She's all right, Silas. I thought maybe you 'ad killed 'er «

«It's what she wants, the damned canting sheeny. It's bad enough to have her in the street without her daring to set foot inside my door. I'll cut the hide off that young Willie. He's the cause of it all. Where is he?»

«They ran up to their room. I heard them lock the door.»

«A lot of good that will do them.»

«I wouldn't touch 'em now, Silas. The neighbours is all up and about and we needn't ask for trouble.»

«You're right!» he grumbled. «It will keep till I come back.»

«Where are you goin'?»

«Down to the 'Admiral Vernon'. There's a chance of a job as sparrin' partner to Long Davis. He goes into training on Monday and needs a man of my weight.»

«Well, I'll expect you when I see you. I get too much of that pub of yours. I know what the 'Admiral Vernon' means.»

«It means the only place in God's earth where I get any peace or rest» said Silas.

«A fat lot I get – or ever 'ave 'ad since I married you.»

«That's right. Grouse away!» he growled. «If grousin' made a man happy, you'd be the champion.»

He picked up his hat and slouched off down the street, his heavy tread resounding upon the great wooden flap which covered the cellars of the brewery.

Up in a dingy attic two little figures were seated on the side of a wretched straw-stuffed bed, their arms enlacing each other, their cheeks touching, their tears mingling. They had to cry in silence, for any sound might remind the ogre downstairs of their existence. Now and again one would break into an uncontrollable sob, and the other would whisper, «Hush! Hush! Oh hush!» Then suddenly they heard the slam of the outer door and that heavy tread booming over the wooden flap. They squeezed each other in their joy. Perhaps when he came back he might kill them, but for a few short hours at least they were safe from him. As to the woman, she was spiteful and vicious, but she did not seem so deadly as the man. In a dim way they felt that he had hunted their mother into her grave and might do as much for them.

The room was dark save for the light which came through the single dirty window. It cast a bar across the floor, but all round was black shadow. Suddenly the little boy stiffened, clasped his sister with a tighter grip, and stared rigidly into the darkness.

«She's coming!» he muttered. «She's coming!» Little Margery clung to him.

«Oh, Wiliie, is it mother?»

«It is a light – a beautiful yellow light. Can you not see it, Margery?»

But the little girl, like all the world, was without vision. To her all was darkness.

«Tell me, Willie,» she whispered, in a solemn voice. She was not really frightened, for many times before had the dead mother returned in the watches of the night to comfort her stricken children.

«Yes. Yes, she is coming now. Oh, mother! Mother!»

«What does she say, Willie?»

«Oh, she is beautiful. She is not crying. She is smiling. It is like the picture we saw of the angel. She looks so happy. Dear, dear mother! Now she is speaking. 'It is over', she says. 'It is all over'. She says it again. Now she beckons with her hand. We are to follow. She has moved to the door.»

«Oh, Willie, I dare not.»

«Yes, yes, she nods her head. She bids us fear nothing Now she has passed through the door. Come, Margery, come, or we shall lose her.»

The two little mites crept across the room and Willie unlocked the door. The mother stood at the head of the stair beckoning them onwards. Step by step they followed her down into an empty kitchen. The woman seemed to have gone out. All was still in the house. The phantom still beckoned them on.»

«We are to go out.»

«Oh, Willie, we have no hats.»

«We must follow, Madge. She is smiling and waving.»

«Father will kill us for this.»

«She shakes her head. She says we are to fear nothing. Come!»

They threw open the door and were in the street. Down the deserted court they followed the gleaming gracious presence, and through a tangle of low streets, and so out into the crowded rush of Tottenham Court Road. Once or twice amid all that blind torrent of humanity, some man or woman, blessed with the precious gift of discernment, would start and stare as if they were aware of an angel presence and of two little white-faced children who followed behind, the boy with fixed, absorbed gaze, the girl glancing ever in terror over her shoulder. Down the long street they passed, then again amid humbler dwellings, and so at last to a quiet drab line of brick houses. On the step of one the spirit had halted.

«We are to knock,» said Willie.

«Oh, Willie, what shall we say? We don't know them.»

«We are to knock,» he repeated, stoutly. Rat-tat!

«It's all right, Madge. She is clapping her hands and laughing.»

So it was that Mrs. Tom Linden, sitting lonely in her misery and brooding over her martyr in gaol, was summoned suddenly to the door, and found two little apologetic figures outside it. A few words, a rush of woman's instinct, and her arms were round the children. These battered little skiffs, who had started their life's voyage so sadly, had found a harbour of peace where no storm should vex them more.

There were some strange happenings in Bolton's Court that night. Some folk thought they had no relation to each other. One or two thought they had. The British Law saw nothing and had nothing to say.

In the second last house, a keen, hawklike face peered from behind a window-blind into the darkened street. A shaded candle was behind that fearful face, dark as death, remorseless as the tomb. Behind Rebecca Levi stood a young man whose features showed that he sprang from the same Oriental race. For an hour – for a second hour – the woman had sat without a word, watching, watching . . . At the entrance to the court there was a hanging lamp which cast a circle of yellow light. It was on this pool of radiance that her brooding eyes were fixed.