Catherine Cookson by The Whip

Author:The Whip
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-08-27T22:40:36+00:00

PART FIVE

The Daughter

Pete sat to the side of the single bed in the

sitting-room of the farmhouse. To the parson who

was seeing him for the first time since he had left

home thirteen years earlier when he was already a

man, he seemed to have grown to twice his size,

not in breadth, for he was sparse of flesh, but for

some reason in height. He was even taller

than himself. His voice too had changed; no

longer was it slow nor was he hesitant with

words. This apparently was his fourth visit

home, and as on the other occasions so now he was

holding his audience riveted with his tales, and

neither of his two listeners was concerned that he

exaggerated.

"You have to see it, the river in London I

mean. I have no words with which to tell what it's

like. Newcastle is like a plaything to it. Wide

it is past Greenwich, and so full of ships

unloading and loading with everything you could put your mind to. The river's packed but the quays is crammed. You know, out foreign parts

I once saw an ant-heap almost up to the

ceiling." He raised his head and his arm

simultaneously and the eyes of both Barney and

Henry followed the direction. "'Twas

crawling alive with billions of 'em.

Well, the London quays, 'tis like that, with

yards and docks and cranes and houses. Aye

yes, livin' dwellings all jumbled up together.

And I thought when I last saw it, which was but a

week gone, I had never seen no port in the

world so full of franticness, an' when inshore

no such mixture of rich and poor. There's

poor enough around here; you know that, Parson." He nodded towards Henry, and Henry answered,

"Yes, indeed, Pete. Yes indeed, I know

that only too well, and I have thought that parts of Newcastle would be hard to beat. But from some of the things you have told us before, there are many worse places."

"Oh aye, Parson. Oh aye, many

worse. And 'tis the children that make it worse for

them. And"--he grinned widely now--"worse

for your pocket if you're not wary. Oh aye. An' 'tis no use to pity 'em, that's fatal: give to one and you have 'em on you as

thick as that ant-heap I was tellin' you about.

An' the children are not the only ones who rook us,

we sailors. One of me mates last trip

was beaten up an' was only saved from death by our

captain and his brother. They nabbed the

culprits but what did they get from the

judges? Hardly anything, so our captain

said, but the same day a man was sentenced to penal

servitude for stealing half a crown from the

housekeeper of a rich man, an' he did it for

bread for his bairns. There's no justice, not

in London city."

During Pete's pause for breath Henry

said, "But you seem to like the sea more and more, Pete."

"Oh aye, I like it, Parson. I wouldn't

say more and more. But I didn't like it at all as

you've heard"--he now laughed from one to the other

--"those first two years. Oh no! I longed for

this room and me bed upstairs. When the skin

came off me hands as

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