THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. I MARCH 1891. SALLY. BY ALBERT FLEMING. CHAPTER I. T was a hot day in August, one of those reeking days that begin to be hot early in the morning and go on getting hotter and hotter till nearly midnight. In the West End the heat did not much matter, because nearly everyone was out of town; but in Cow Court, Gray's Inn Road, such a day mattered much. It meant a hundred additional smells, more disease, dirt, and drunkenness. It necessitated the emptying of the inhabitants into the court itself, with the certainty of many quarrels and pitched battles. When the shade temperature is eighty, and each room has six occupants, life within doors becomes burdensome; even Lady Clara Vere de Vere could scarcely maintain repose of manner under such circumstances. In the year 1870 Cow Court and its unwholesome cluster of neighbours still clung to the skirts of Holborn and festered round St. Alban's Church, stretching from Gray's Inn Road to Leather Lane. The fine shops and warehouses that now adorn Gray's Inn Road then only existed in the brain of some City architect. Of all these alleys Cow Court carried off the palm for squalor, dirt, and general decay. You had to turn out of Leather Lane to get there ; the turning was flanked on either side by a tavern, and these taverns, with their plate-glass and gilding, were the only things that were bright and cheerful in this region. If you explored farther you saw an archway on the right, made by sweeping away the ground floor of one of the crazy tenements. This was the postern-gate to Cow Court. If any one ever got so far as this and retained his watch and chain, he always lost them on approaching this archway. A stout VOL. CCLXX. NO. 1923. Q iron post stood in the middle of the archway, so that no scavenger's carts or dustmen's barrows could penetrate into the court beyond. The boys played at leap-frog over the post, drunkards leaned against it, shrieking wives dodged pursuivant husbands round it, and on Saturday nights the post was usually the only thing that could stand upright. Any one could see at a glance that Cow Court was a royal preserve in the kingdom of want, dirt, and misery. Down either side crazy three-storied tenements leant and staggered; the windows were patched with rags and paper; the walls black and rotten with filth; and the sodden side-walks were trampled into black, glutinous mud. An open gutter ran (or rather oozed and soaked) down the middle of the court; the flowers that sprang beside that foul stream were fever, contagion, and death. Frowsy men leant on the windowsills, cursing each other across the court; women, still more frowsy, stood gossiping shrilly in the doorways. The distant roar of the larger life outside filled Cow Court with a continuous murmur; but Cow Court had a continuous murmur of its own, made up of oaths, blows, and ribald songs. On this particular evening the entire residential population were taking the air in the open court. They sat on the door-steps or lounged against the walls; but one lady was provided with a chair. When every one else has to sit upon the bare ground, a chair, even if unsteady on its legs, confers a certain air of distinction on its occupant. The lady seated on it was very shrivelled, yellow, and old; she was lame, too, and walked with a stick. The stick was recognised by the court as a sceptre of sovereignty, for "old Biddy" was undisputed queen of Cow Court. She had lived there the longest, drunk the hardest, and swore oaths of an unsurpassable quality. In her palmy days, before her leg was broken, she had been victress in many a gallant fight; rivals had arisen, but Biddy had fallen on them and overcome them. Towards seven o'clock Cow Court pulled itself together for a little diversion. This generally took the form of a fight, sometimes originating on the pavement, and spreading contagiously until there was a general mêlée; but it was considered more consistent with recognised traditions for the quarrel to arise indoors, and to be intimated to the outside world by the smashing of glass and the passage of bulky articles through the windows; then Cow Court felt a glow of expectation, and exhorted the belligerents to come down and fight it out like men. A ring would be formed, and the fight conducted in a legitimate way. On such occasions Biddy was always summoned as queen of these most unchivalric tournaments. On this August evening a young man was passing through Leather Lane in search of Cow Court. He was dressed in the latest West End fashion; but even the hideous chimney-pot hat, pointed shoes, and rigid collar, could not disguise his comeliness. At a guess he was three-and-twenty. Being of a trusting nature, he allowed his gold chain to disport itself across his waistcoat, and his jewelled pin remained in his scarf. Kenneth Gordon was down from Oxford and had been calling on one of the clergymen at St. Alban's, who had asked him to take a letter to a dying girl in Cow Court. He strode through the dingy street, sometimes asking his way of one of the residential ladies of Leather Lane, and always winning a civil answer by the force of his genial smile. When he reached Cow Court, a pleasant thrill of excitement pervaded that locality: the watch and chain had survived Leather Lane, and now flashed gaily in the evening light; his pin held its accustomed place; his handkerchief gleamed white against his coat. He paused at the low archway: this was doubtless the place there, at any rate, were the remains of its name. The "w" had dropped away from the "Cow," and much of the "Court" had vanished too. He stared in amazement at the throng of haggard, unwashed people-compared with this, Leather Lane was as Bond Street. At his feet ran the gutter, choked with filth; on either side the black crazy houses leant and staggered; dreadful odours and sights greeted him. Inquiring of a boy, he learnt that Polly Turner lived at No. 7, and was escorted there by a crowd of loafers. The girl was dying; the stuffy room, crowded with friends, nearly dark and unspeakably miserable. Kenneth gave her the letter, but had to take it back and read it to her. In the presence of that deathly white face he felt all usual forms of speech to be useless. He held her hand for a minute, tried to say a few kind words, and then felt that he had failed; but the gentle touch and words went straight to the girl's heart, and there rested until it ceased to beat. When Kenneth left No. 7, a child was lying in a doorway just opposite. Dirt, famine, and ill-usage had effectually obscured the bloom of youth in her. Her face was so dirty that he could only see two large eyes flashing from a tangled mass of hair. This was "Sally." As she never owned a surname, it is impossible to introduce her more formally; if her friends wished to identify her with precision, they called her "Tim's Sally." Tim was her father, and his surname also was hidden in obscurity. Sally had heard that a young swell had come into Cow Court, and was waiting to have a look at him. On that she reckoned without her father, for Tim, coming down the passage behind her, enforced parental discipline by a vigorous kick on her shins. When you have kicked a body for ten years you acquire precision in the art, and Tim planted his kick with such exactness that the girl fell down on the door-step, and there she lay too listless to cry out. Now nothing is tamer or more monotonous than to waste good kicks on an irresponsive person; so Tim was aggrieved, and followed up his first kick by others, accompanying them with a volley of inspiriting oaths. The last kick must have caught Sally in a sensitive place, for she gave a sharp scream of agony. "What's that?" cried a woman from an inner room. As Kenneth left No. 7 he saw this kick and heard Sally's scream. He instantly strode across the court. Tim was girding himself up for more kicks. For the first time in his life he found this simple pastime of his interfered with. Kenneth faced him sternly. "Leave the girl alone, you blackguard! How dare you kick a woman?" Not kick a woman! Cow Court was convulsed. Why, women were kicked every day; they expected it--accepted it as a law of nature. Tim and the bystanders paused for a moment to grasp the full absurdity of the idea; but only for a moment. Then Tim turned on him like a wild beast, the veins in his great bull's neck swelling like cords. "Who the are you? Can't a man kick his own gell? Get out of this, or I'll kick you too!" Then, in mere bravado, he lifted his foot to give the girl another refresher. "Touch her at your peril!" cried Kenneth, flushing to the roots of his hair. In another moment he heard the thud of Tim's foot as it drove lustily into the girl, and, at the self-same moment, Kenneth's fist crashed into Tim's face, catching him on the jaw and sending him reeling backwards down the passage. Then Cow Court perceived that there was a joyful prospect of a Homeric combat. In a few moments a ring was formed, and old Biddy was whisked aloft in her chair in the arms of two stalwart supporters. Kenneth's blood was up; he flung his coat and waistcoat to one bystander and his hat to another. Cow Court accepted them with alacrity. Tim divested himself of some superfluous rags, bared his stalwart arms, and prepared to "smash the swell." Biddy surveyed both combatants with a critical eye; she knew the points of a man. "Blood 'll tell," she said oracularly, as she saw Kenneth straighten himself for the fight; he had boxed at Oxford, and was in fair condition, sound in wind, above all temperate and cool. The first round revealed to him that Tim fought in a very effective but utterly unscientific manner. He came at his enemy with a furious rush and planted terrific chance blows; but he left himself unprotected, and wasted a lot of strength to no purpose. Kenneth quietly bided his time, parried Tim's blows, and let him exhaust. himself. Tim drew first blood, beating down Kenneth's parry, and landing on his temple with considerable force; still Kenneth kept his temper, and the cooler he was the more savage grew Tim; the ring cheered him on, exhorting him to go in and do for the swell. Kenneth now began to act on the offensive: letting drive, he caught Tim full on the mouth with all the strength of his sturdy left hand. His knuckles cut deeply into Tim's lips, and sent him crashing to the ground. Biddy rapped approval with her crutch; she loved to see a straight blow well planted. Tim was set on his feet, rather giddy and dazed-he was not a pretty sight: his lips were like raw liver, and his face distorted with passion; what little steadiness he had he then threw to the winds, and Kenneth's next blow caught him full in the eye. After this he summoned his strength for one more furious onslaught. His blow was partially parried, but landed on Kenneth's shoulder; in reply, Kenneth caught him full in the forehead, felling him to the ground as a butcher does an ox. After this Tim did not come up to time; he was dragged off into some back region, and left Kenneth undisputed master of the field. Old Biddy took a pull at her pipe, expectorated, and said simply: "Ah, blood has told!" When Kenneth pulled down his shirt sleeves, and turned to the crowd to demand his coat and waistcoat, they were not forthcoming -they had vanished. Then Kenneth flashed out, called them curs, sneaks, and thieves. Cow Court being accustomed to language of far greater pungency, preserved an unbroken calm. Then Biddy rose in her wrath, and steadying herself on her crutch, vowed, with many blood-curdling oaths, that the missing garments should be forthcoming, and that quickly-condemning, en passant, the eyes and limbs of the thieves to infernal torments. The clothes appeared, and it was an ennobling sight to see the old crone stand up and order him to search his pockets while she asked categorically"Purse? Wipe? Cigar-case? Watch? Chain?" &c. Each had been honestly replaced. Kenneth then shook Biddy by the hand and gave her a sovereign to distribute amongst her subjects. Just then he felt something at his feet. He had almost forgotten the girl he had fought for: she had crawled to his feet and kissed |