An End and a Beginning by James Hanley Page B

shut off the sky, long enough to make a great funnel to the sea. And as he drew nearer he saw the shadows. He saw two men, one short, one very tall. Their shoulders were bent, their close together heads almost touched each other. He could see their lips moving, but no sounds came out. He drew nearer still. The men were whispering to each other. Words do not travel far from conspiratorial tongues. If he got close enough to them he would hear what they were saying. The gently swinging light played havoc with their shadows. Within a few feet of them he suddenly stopped, drew in to the wall. The very look of these men aroused his curiosity. The tall one stood listening to the other, seemed almost bent in two. They might have been a couple of goblins from the inferno. What made him stand there, what made him listen? Peter did not know. He just stood there, and he listened.
    â€œHas he gone?”
    â€œYus.”
    â€œGood! Good!”
    â€œBit of trouble with him though.”
    â€œHow much?”
    â€œWell, the silly bastard told his missus he was sailin’ in her at midnight, and at once she got a-feared ’count of that ship’s rottenness, but he said he didn’t care since he had got this damned boat at last, what’s hard to get these days, he told her, and anyhow he said to her he was sick and rare sick of her growlin’ at him day after day, and night after night about having no ship. At him all the time she was about something he could never mend without a miracle, and her cried the night he was goin’ in her. But he cared no damn, he didn’t, why should he, cos if he lost that ship he might never get another one for God knows how bloody long, he said, and she was still cryin’ at him about goin’ in her what would sink anyhow, she’s certain, and her hung on to him at the front door near midnight and begged him not to go, saying, ‘Don’t go in her, Andrew, don’t go, she’ll sink, I know it, I feel it,’ and he got right mad at her then, him hearing that boat blowing, and he beat her senseless then cos he was a-feared, and left her there by the front door and run off, and took with him only one silk handkerchief what was all the clobber he had by him then. And the man next door said it was sad him knockin’ her up like that cos her was a good woman any time.”
    â€œWell, he’s gone, and that’s all that matters, and we click, what means five pounds to me and ten bob to you, Guttlaw.”
    â€œYus.”
    â€œAnd how about Mrs. McGinty?”
    â€œHer supplied one man. Lackmass got him. Lackmass’s the fust man I ever saw with only half a mouth, ’struth. He went along to where he had to go to as he was told by McGinty, and he picked up the first drunk what he saw lying aside a tart, and he heaved him up on his back and carried him out of that red light shop what shall be nameless to you and me, Argy, and carried him all along through them streets, and saw no one, and no one didn’t see him, and McGinty was waiting on him soon’s he got to her place, standing on her own step she was, gone midnight, and at once she says to Lackmass, ‘Get him down to the Truculent right away what’s waiting on one miserable man.’ And he went off then with this chap still sat on his back, and carried him all again through them streets, and come by that Truculent what’s fair wrapped up in the dark she is, and he carried him up her gangway, and chucked him down. And as he was coming down again he heard a noise, and he turned, and it was an officer at her gangway head what was shoutin’ loud enough to shift his own liver, ‘Where’s his bloody leg?’ he says, becos you couldn’t stand that one on his feet drunk or sober, and Lackmass went off then searching about the quay for his leg what had dropped off him, it having a screw loose in it. But he found it all right lying up agin a coil of manilla,