<h2><SPAN name="page252"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>XXXI.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Long Hicks’s</span> holiday had
lasted three days, and Mr. Butson’s minor bruises were
turning green. It was at the stroke of five in the
afternoon, and Bessy was minding shop. From the ship-yard
opposite a score or so of men came, in dirty dungaree (for it was
Friday), vanguard of the tramping hundreds that issued each day,
regular as the clock before the timekeeper’s box.
Bessy rose on her crutch, and peeped between a cheese and a
packet of candles, out of window. Friday was not a day when
many men came in on their way home, because by that time the
week’s money was run low, and luxuries were barred.
Bessy scarce expected a customer, and it would seem that none was
coming.</p>
<p>Peeping so, she grew aware of a stout red-faced woman
approaching at a rapid scuttle; and then, almost as the woman
reached the door, she saw Hicks at her heels, his face a long
figure of dismay.</p>
<p>The woman burst into the shop with a rasping shriek.
“I want my ’usband!” she screamed.
“Where’s my ’usband?”</p>
<p>“Come away!” called Hicks, deadly pale, and <SPAN name="page253"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>nervously
snatching at her shoulder. “Come away! You know
what you promised!”</p>
<p>“Take yer ’and auf me, ye long fool!
Where’s my ’usband? Is it you what’s got
’im?” She turned on Bessy and bawled the words
in her face.</p>
<p>“No—no it ain’t!” cried Hicks, near
beside himself. “Come away, an’—an’
we’ll talk about it outside!”</p>
<p>“Talk! O yus, I’ll give ’im
talk!” The woman’s every syllable was a harsh
yell, racking to the brain, and already it had drawn a group
about the door. “I’ll give ’im talk,
an’ ’er too! Would anyone believe,” she
went on, turning toward the door and haranguing the crowd, that
grew at every word, “as ’ow a woman calling
’erself respectable, an’ keepin’ a shop like
any lady, ’ud take away a respectable woman’s
’usband—a lazy good-for-nothin’ scoundril as
run away an’ left me thirteen year ago last
Whitsun!”</p>
<p>Boys sprang from everywhere, and pelted in to swell the crowd,
drawn by the increasing screams. Many of the men, who knew
the shop so well, stopped to learn what the trouble was; and soon
every window in Harbour Lane displayed a woman’s head, or
two.</p>
<p>“My ’usband! Where’s my
’usband? Show me the woman as took my
’usband!”</p>
<p>Nan came and stood in the back parlour doorway, frightened but
uncomprehending. The woman turned. “You!
You is it?” she shrieked, oversetting a pile <SPAN name="page254"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>of tins and
boxes, and clawing the air above her. “Gimme back my
’usband, you shameless creechor! Where
’a’ ye got ’im? Where’s my
’usband?”</p>
<p>Hicks put his arm about the woman’s waist and swung her
back. He was angry now. “Get out!” he
said, “I didn’t bring you to make a row like
that! You swore you wouldn’t!”</p>
<p>Finding his arm too strong for her, the woman turned on Hicks
and set to clawing at his face, never ceasing to scream for her
husband. And then Johnny came pushing in at the door,
having run from the far street-corner at sight of the crowd.</p>
<p>Hicks, as well as he could for dodging and catching at the
woman’s wrists, made violent facial signals to Johnny, who
stared, understanding none of them. But he heard the
woman’s howls for her husband, and he caught at her
arm. “Who is your husband?” he said.
“What’s his name?”</p>
<p>“What’s ’is name? Why
Butson—’enery Butson’s ’is name!
Gimme my ’usband! My ’usband! Let me go,
you villain!”</p>
<p>It was like an unexpected blow on the head to Johnny, but,
save for a moment, it stunned not at all—rather roused
him. “I’ll fetch him!” he cried, and
sprang into the house.</p>
<p>Here was release—the man had another wife! He
would drag the wretch down to her, and then give him <SPAN name="page255"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>to the
police. No wonder he feared the police! The load was
lifted at last—Butson’s punishment was come
indeed! Fiercely glad, and thinking of nothing but this,
Johnny swung into each room in turn.</p>
<p>But there was no Butson. His pipe lay broken on the
front bedroom fender, and his coat hung behind the door; but
there was no other sign.</p>
<p>Johnny dashed into the back yard. That, too, was
empty. But in the yard behind, the old lighterman,
paint-pot in one hand and brush in the other, just as he had
broken off in the touching up of his mast, stood, and blinked,
and stared, with his mouth open. His house-doors, back and
front, stood wide, because of wet paint, and one could see
through to the next street. It was by those doorways that
Mr. Butson had vanished a minute ago, after scrambling over the
wall, hatless, and in his shirt sleeves. And the old
lighterman thought it a great liberty, and told Johnny so, with
some dignity.</p>
<p>Johnny rushed back to the shop. “Gone!” he
cried. “Bolted out at the back!”</p>
<p>He might have offered chase, but his mother lay in a swoon,
and Bessy hung over her, hysterical. “Shove that
woman out,” he said, and he and Hicks, between them, thrust
the bawling termagant into the street and closed the door.</p>
<p>Without, she raged still, and grew hoarser, till a <SPAN name="page256"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>policeman
came to quiet her; and in the end she marched off with him,
talking at a loud scream all the way. And Harbour Lane
flamed with the news of Nan’s shameless bigamy.</p>
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