Читать книгу The Boy in the Bush - D. H. Lawrence - Страница 15

They had all gone silent again, and collected under the peppermint tree at the back door, where Ma ladled out tea into mugs for everybody. Ma was Mrs. Ellis. She still had the tired, distant look in her eyes, and a tired bearing, and she seemed to take no notice of anybody, either when she was in the kitchen or when she came out with pie to the group squatting under the tree. When anyone said: "Some more tea, Ma!" she silently ladled out the brew. Jack was not a very intent observer. But he was-struck by Mrs. Ellis' silence and her "drawn" look.

Tom came and hitched himself up against the trunk of the tree. Lennie was sitting opposite on a log, holding his tin mug and eyeing the stranger in silence. On another log sat the two urchins, sturdy, wild little brats, barefooted, bare-legged, bare-armed, as Jack had first seen them, their dress still consisting of a little pair of pants and a cotton undervest: and a pair of braces. The last seemed by far the most important garment. Lennie was clothed, or unclothed, the same, while Tom had added a pair of boots. The bare arms out of the cotton vests were brown and smooth, and they gave the boys and the youth a curiously naked look. A girl of about twelve, in a dark-blue spotted pinafore and a rag of red hair-ribbon, sat on a little stump near the twins. She was silent like her mother—but not yet "drawn."

"What d'ye think of Og an' Magog?" said Tom, pointing with his mug at the twins. "Called for giants 'cos they're so small."

Jack did not know what to think. He tried to smile benevolently.

"An' that's Katie," continued Tom, indicating the girl, who at once looked foolish. "She's younger'n Lennie, but she's pretty near his size. He's another little 'un. Little an' cheeky, that's what he is. Too much cheek for his age—which is fourteen. You'll have to keep him in his place, I tell you straight."

"Ef ye ken!" murmured Len with a sour face.

Then, chirping up with a real street-arab pertness, he seemed to ignore Jack as he asked brightly of Tom:

"An' who's My Lord Duke of Early Risin', if I might be told?—For before Gosh he sports a tidy raiment."

"Now, Len, none o' yer lingo!" warned Tom.

"Who is he, anyway, as you should go tellin' him to keep me in my place?"

"No offence intended, I'm sure," said Jack pleasantly.

"Taken though!" said Lennie, with such a black look that Jack's colour rose in spite of himself.

"You keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll punch it for you," he said. He and Lennie stared each other in the eye.

Lennie had a beautiful little face, with an odd pathos like some lovely girl, and grey eyes that could change to black. Jack felt a certain pang of love for him, and in the same instant remembered that she-lioness cub of a Monica. Perhaps she too had the same odd, lovely pathos, like a young animal that runs alert and alone in the wood. Why did these children seem so motherless and fatherless, so much on their own?—It was very much how Jack felt himself. Yet he was not pathetic.

Lennie suddenly smiled whimsically, and Jack knew he was let into the boy's heart. Queer! Up till now they had all kept a door shut against him. Now Len had opened the door. Jack saw the winsomeness and pathos of the boy vividly, and loved him, too. But it was still remote. And still mixed up in it was the long stare of that Monica.

"That's right, you tell 'im," said Tom. "What I say here—no back chat, an' no tales told. That's what's the motto on this station."

"Obey an' please my Lord Tom Noddy,"

"So God shall love and angels aid ye——" said Lennie, standing tip-toe on his log and balancing his bare feet, and repeating his rhyme with an abstract impudence, as if the fiends of air could hear him.

"Aw, shut up, you!" said Tom. "You've got ter get them 'osses down to Red's. Take Jack an' show him."

"I'll show him," said Len, munching a large piece of pie as he set off.

"Ken ye ride, Jack?"

Jack didn't answer, because his riding didn't amount to much.