Jonah

by Louis Stone

  Jonah nodded.

  “My oath, she was! Gi’ me a knockout in one act,” said Chook; and the others laughed.

  “Ginger fer pluck!” cried someone.

  And they began to argue whether you could tell a woman’s character from the colour of her hair; whether red-haired women were more deceitful than others.

  Suddenly, up the road, appeared a detachment of the Salvation Army, stepping in time to the muffled beat of a drum. The procession halted at the street corner, stepped out of the way of traffic, and formed a circle. The Push moved to the kerbstone, and, with a derisive grin, awaited the performance.

  The wavering flame of the kerosene torches, topped with thick smoke, shone yellow against the whiter light of the gas-jets in the shops. The men, in red jerseys and flat caps, held the poles of the torches in rest. When a gust of air blew the thick black smoke into their eyes, they patiently turned their heads. The sisters, conscious of the public gaze, stood with downcast eyes, their faces framed in grotesque poke-bonnets.

  The Captain, a man of fifty, with the knotty, misshapen hands of a workman, stepped into the centre of the ring, took off his cap, and began to speak.

  “Oh friends, we ’ave met ’ere again tonight to inquire after the safety of yer everlastin’ souls. Yer pass by, thinkin’ only of yer idle pleasures, w’en at any moment yer might be called to judgment by ’Im Who made us all equal in ’Is eyes. Yer pass by without ’earin’ the sweet voice of Jesus callin’ on yer to be saved this very minit. For ’E is callin’ yer to come an’ be saved an’ find salvation, as ’E called me many years ago. I was then like yerselves, full of wickedness, an’ gloryin’ in sin. But I ’eard the voice of ’Im Who died on the Cross, an’ saw I was rushin’ ’eadlong to ’ell. An’ ’Is blood washed all my sins away, an’ made me whiter than snow. Whiter than snow, friends—whiter than snow! An’ ’E’ll do the same fer you if yer will only come an’ be saved. Oh, can’t yer ’ear the voice of Jesus callin’ to yer to come an’ live with ’Im in ’Is blessed mansions in the sky? Oh, come tonight an’ find salvation!”

  His arms were outstretched in a passionate gesture of appeal, his rough voice vibrated with emotion, the common face flamed with the ecstasy of the fanatic. When he stopped for breath or wiped the sweat from his face, the Army spurred him on with cries of “Hallelujah! Amen!” as one pokes a dying fire.

  The Lieutenant, who was the comedian of the company, met with a grin of approval as he faced the ring of torches like an actor facing the footlights, posing before the crowd that had gathered, flashing his vulgar conceit in the public eye. And he praised God in a song and dance, fitting his words to the latest craze of the music-hall:

  “Oh! won’t you come and join us?

  Jesus leads the throng,”

  snapping his fingers, grimacing, cutting capers that would have delighted the gallery of a theatre.

  “Encore!” yelled the Push as he danced himself to a standstill, hot and breathless.

  The rank and file came forward to testify. The men stammered in confusion, terrified by the noise they made, shrinking from the crowd as a timid bather shrinks from icy water, driven to this performance by an unseen power. But the women were shrill and self-possessed, scolding their hearers, demanding an instant surrender to the Army, whose advantages they pointed out with a glib fluency as if it were a Benefit Lodge.

  Then the men knelt in the dust, the women covered their faces, and the Captain began to pray. His voice rose in shrill entreaty, mixed with the cries of the shopmen and the noise of the streets.

  The spectators, familiar with the sight, listened in nonchalance, stopping to watch the group for a minute as they would look into a shop window. The exhibition stirred no religious feeling in them, for their minds, with the tenacity of childhood, associated religion with churches, parsons and hymn-books.

  The Push grew restless, divided between a desire to upset the meeting and fear of the police.

  “Well I used ter think a funeral was slow,” remarked Chook, losing patience; and he stepped behind Jonah.

  “’Ere, look out!” yelled Jonah the next minute, as, with a push from Chook, he collided violently with one of the soldiers and fell into the centre of the ring.

  “’E shoved me,” cried Jonah as he got up, pointing with an injured air to the grinning Chook. “I’ll gi’ yer a kick in the neck, if yer git me lumbered,” he added, scowling with counterfeit anger at his mate.

  “If yer was my son…” said the Captain severely. “If yer was my son…” he repeated, halting for words.

  “I should ’ave trotters as big as yer own,” cried Jonah, pointing to the man’s feet, cased in enormous bluchers. The Push yelled with derision as Jonah edged out of the circle, ready for flight.

  The Captain flushed angrily, and then his face cleared.

  “Well, friends,” he cried, “God gave me big feet to tramp the streets and preach the Gospel to my fellow men.” And the interrupted service went on.

  Jonah, who carried the brains of the Push, devised a fresh attack, involving Chook, a broken bottle, and the big drum.

  “It’ll cut it like butter,” he was explaining; when suddenly there was a cry of “Nit! ’Ere’s a cop!” and the Push bolted like rabbits.

  Jonah and Chook alone stood their ground, with reluctant valour, for the policeman was already beside them. Chook shoved the broken bottle into his pocket, and listened with unusual interest to the last hymn of the Army. Jonah, with one eye on the policeman, looked worried, as if he were struggling with a desire to join the Army and lead a pure life. The policeman looked hard at them and turned away.

  The pair were making a strategic movement to the rear, when the two girls who had exchanged shots with Chook at the corner passed them. The fat girl tapped Jonah on the back. He turned with a start.

  “Nit yer larks!” he cried. “I thought it was the cop.”

  “Cum ’ere Joe; I want yer,” said the girl.

  “Wot’s up now?” he cried, following her along the street.

  They stood in earnest talk for some minutes, while Chook complimented the red-headed girl on her wit.

  “Yer knocked me sky-’igh,” he confessed, with a leer.

  “Did I?”

  “Yer did. Gi’ me one straight on the point,” he admitted.

  “Yous keep a civil tongue in yer head,” she cried, and the curious pink flush spread over her white skin.

  “Orl right, wot are yer narked about?” inquired Chook.

  He noticed, with surprise, that she was pretty, with small regular features; her eyes quick and bright, like a bird’s. Under the gaslight her hair was the colour of a new penny.

  “W’y, I don’t believe yer ’air is red,” said Chook, coming nearer.

  “Now then, keep yer ’ands to yerself,” cried the girl, giving him a vigorous push. Before he could repeat his attack, she walked away to join Ada, who hailed her shrilly.

  Jonah rejoined his mate in gloomy silence. The Push had scattered—some to the two-up school, some to the dance-room. The butcher’s flare of lights shone with a desolate air on piles of bones and scraps of meat—the debris of battle. The greengrocer’s was stripped bare to the shelves, as if an army of locusts had marched through with ravenous tooth.

  “Comin’ down the street?” asked Chook, feeling absently in his pockets.

  “No,” said Jonah.

  “W’y, wot’s up now?” inquired Chook in surprise.

  “Oh, nuthin’; but I’m goin’ ter sleep at Ada’s tonight,” replied Jonah, staring at the shops.

  “’Strewth!” cried Chook, looking at him in wonder. “Wot’s the game now?”

  “Oh! the old woman wants me ter put in the night there. Says some blokes ’ave bin after ’er fowls,” replied Jonah, hesitating like a boy inventing an excuse.

  “Fowls!” cried Chook, with infinite scorn. “Wants yer to nuss the bloomin’ kid.”

  “My oath, she don’t,” replied Jonah, with great heartiness.
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  “Well, gimme a smoke,” said Chook, feeling again in his pockets.

  Jonah took out a packet of cigarettes, counted how many were left, and gave him one.

  “Kin yer spare it?” asked Chook, derisively. “Lucky I’ve only got one mouth.”

  “Mouth? More like a hole in a wall,” grinned Jonah.

  “Well, so long. See yer tomorrer,” said Chook, moving off. “Ere, gimme a match,” he added.

  “Better tell yer old woman I’m sleepin’ out,” said Jonah.

  He was boarding with Chook’s family, paying what he could spare out of fifteen shillings or a pound a week.

  “Oh, I don’t suppose you’ll be missed,” replied Chook, graciously.

  “Rye buck!” cried Jonah.

  2

  JONAH EATS GREEN PEAS

  Eighteen months past, Jonah had met Ada, who worked at Packard’s boot factory, at a dance. Struck by her skill in dancing, he courted her in the larrikin fashion. At night he stood in front of the house, and whistled till she came out. Then they went to the park, where they sprawled on the grass in obscure corners.

  At intervals the quick spurt of a match lit up their faces, followed by the red glow of Jonah’s everlasting cigarette. Their talk ran incessantly on their acquaintances, whose sayings and doings they discussed with monotonous detail. If it rained, they stood under a veranda in the conventional attitude—Jonah leaning against the wall, Ada standing in front of him. The etiquette of Cardigan Street considered any other position scandalous.

  On Saturday night they went to Bob Fenner’s dance-room, or strolled down to Paddy’s Market. When Jonah was flush, he took her to the “Tiv.”, where they sat in the gallery, packed like sardines. If it were hot, Jonah sat in his shirtsleeves, and went out for a drink at the intermission. When they reached home, they stood in the lane bordering the cottage where Ada lived, and talked for an hour in the dim light of the lamp opposite, before she went in.

  Sometimes, in a gay humour, she knocked off Jonah’s hat, and he retaliated with a punch in the ribs. Then a scuffle followed, with slaps, blows and stifled yells, till Ada’s mother, awakened by the noise, knocked on the wall with her slipper. And this was their romance of love.

  Mrs Yabsley was a widow; for Ada’s father, scorning old age, had preferred to die of drink in his prime. The publicans lost a good customer, but his widow found life easier.

  “Talk about payin’ ter see men swaller knives an’ swords!” she exclaimed. “My old man could swaller tables an’ chairs faster than I could buy ’em.”

  So she opened a laundry, and washed and ironed for the neighbourhood. Cardigan Street was proud of her. Her eyes twinkled in a big, humorous face; her arm was like a leg of mutton; the floors creaked beneath her as she walked. She laughed as a bull roars; her face turned purple; she fought for air; the veins rose like cords on her forehead. She was pointed out to strangers like a public building as she sat on her veranda, gossiping with the neighbours in a voice that shook the windows. There was no tongue like hers within a mile. Her sayings were quoted like the newspaper. Draymen laughed at her jokes.

  Yet the women took their secret troubles to her. For this unwieldy jester, with the jolly red face and rough tongue, could touch the heart with a word when she was in the humour. Then she spoke so wisely and kindly that the tears gathered in stubborn eyes, and the poor fools went home comforted.

  Ever since her daughter was a child she had speculated on her marriage. There was to be no nonsense about love. That was all very well in novelettes, but in Cardigan Street love-matches were a failure. Generally the first few months saw the divine spark drowned in beer. She would pick a steady man with his two pounds a week; he would jump at the chance, and the whole street would turn out to the wedding. But, as is common, her far-seeing eyes had neglected the things that lay under her nose. Ada, in open revolt, had chosen Jonah the larrikin, a hunchback, crafty as the devil, and monstrous to the sight. In six months the inevitable had happened.

  She was dismayed, but unshaken; and set to work to repair the damage with the craft and strategy of an old general. She made no fuss when the child was born, and Jonah, who meditated flight, in fear of maintenance, was assured he had nothing to worry about. Mrs Yabsley had a brief interview with him at the street corner.

  “As fer puttin yous inter court; I’ll wait till y’earn enough ter keep yerself, an’ Gawd knows w’en that’ll ’appen,” she remarked pleasantly.

  As she spoke she earnestly considered the large head, wedged between the shoulders as if a giant’s hand had pressed it down, the masterful nose, the keen grey eyes, and the cynical lips; and in that moment determined to make him Ada’s husband. Yet he was the last man she would have chosen for a son-in-law. A loafer and a vagabond, he spoke of marriage with a grin. Half his time was spent under the veranda at the corner with the Push. He worked at his trade by fits and starts, earning enough to keep himself in cigarettes.

  That was six months ago, and Ada had returned to the factory, where her disaster created no stir. Such accidents were common.

  Mrs Yabsley reared the child as she had reared her daughter, in a box-cradle near the wash-tub or ironing-board, for Ada proved an indifferent mother.

  Then, with a sudden change of front, she encouraged Jonah’s intimacy with Ada. She invited him to the house, which he avoided with an animal craft and suspicion, meeting Ada in the streets. It was her scheme to get him to live in the house; the rest, she thought, would be easy. But Jonah feared dimly that if he ventured inside the house he would bring himself under the law. So he grinned, and kept his distance, like an animal that fears a trap.

  But at last, his resistance worn to a thread by constant coaxing, he had agreed to spend the night there on account of the fowls. He was interested in these, for one pair was his gift to Ada, the fruit of some midnight raid.

  Jonah stood alone at the corner watching the crowd. Chook’s reference to the baby had shaken his resolution, and he decided to think it over. And as he watched the moving procession with the pleasure of a spectator at the play, he thought uneasily of women and marriage. As he nodded from time to time to an acquaintance, a young man passed him carrying a child in his arms. His wife, a slip of a girl, loaded with bundles, gave Jonah a quick look of fear and scorn. The man stared Jonah full in the face without a sign of recognition, and bent his head over the child with a caressing movement. Jonah noted the look of humble pride in his eyes, and marvelled. Twelve months ago he was Jonah’s rival in the Push, famous for his strength and audacity, and now butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Jonah called to mind other cases, with a sudden fear in his heart at this mysterious ceremony before a parson that affected men like a disease, robbing them of all a man desired, and leaving them contented, and happy. He turned into Cardigan Street with the air of a man who is putting his neck in the noose, resolving secretly to cut and run at the least hint of danger.

  As he walked slowly up the street he became aware of a commotion at the corner of George Street. He saw that a crowd had gathered, and quickened his pace, for a crowd in Cardigan Street generally meant a fight. Jonah elbowed his way through the ring, and found a young policeman, new to this beat, struggling with an undersized man with the face of a ferret. Jonah’s first thought was to effect a rescue, as his practised eye took in the details of the scene. Let them get away from the light of the street lamp, and with a sudden rush the thing would be done. He looked round for the Push, and remembered that they were scattered. Then he saw that the captive was a stranger, and decided to look on quietly and note the policeman’s methods for future use.

  On finding that he was overmatched in strength, the prisoner had dropped to the ground, and, with silent, cat-like movements baulked the policeman’s efforts. As Jonah looked on, the constable straightened his back, wiped the sweat from his face, and then, suddenly desperate, called on the nearest to help him. The men slipped behind the women, who laughed in his face. It was his first arrest, and he looked in astonishme
nt at the grinning, hostile faces, too nervous to use his strength, harassed by the hatred of the people.

  “Take ’im yerself; do yer own dirty work.”

  “Wot’s the poor bloke done?”

  “Nuthin’, yer may be sure.”

  “These Johns run a man in, an’ swear his life away ter git a stripe on their sleeve.”

  “They think they kin knock a man about as they like ’cause ’e’s poor.”

  “They’d find plenty to do if they took the scoundrels that walk the streets in a top ’at.”

  “It don’t pay. They know which side their bread’s buttered, don’t yous fergit.”

  Chiefly by his own efforts the prisoner had become a disreputable wreck. Hatless, with torn collar, his clothes covered with the dirt he was rolling in, ten minutes’ struggle with the policeman had transformed him into a scarecrow.

  “If there was any men about, they wouldn’t see a decent young man turned into a criminal under their very eyes,” cried a virago, looking round for a champion.

  “If I was a man, I’d…”

  She stopped as Sergeant Carmody arrived with a brisk air, and the crowd fell back, silent before the official who knew every face in the ring. In an instant the captive was lifted to his feet, his arms were twisted behind his back till the sinews cracked, and the procession moved off to the station.

  When Jonah reached the cottage, he stood irresolute on the other side of the street. Already regretting his promise, he turned to go, when Ada came to the door and saw him under the gas lamp. He crossed the street, trying to show by his walk that his presence was a mere accident.

  “Cum in,” cried Ada. “Mum won’t eat yer.”

  Mrs Yabsley, who was ironing among a pile of shirts and collars, looked up, with the iron in her hand.

  “W’y, Joe, ye’re quite a stranger!” she cried. “Sit down an’ make yerself at ’ome.”

  “’Ow do, missus?” said Jonah, looking round nervously for the child, but it was not visible.

  “I knowed yer wouldn’t let them take the old woman’s fowls,” she continued. “’Ere, Ada, go an’ git a jug o’ beer.”