d
yet ye come here and mouth 'em in a Christian pulpit. _You_ agen
stage-plays! Weren't ye seen talking by the hour to one o' them trulls,
Friday night--? And weren't ye seen peeping through th' canvas last
night? And now--"
"Now what?" Jock inquired, approaching Jabez on his springy toes, and
looking up at Jabez's great height.
Jabez took breath. "Now ye bring yer fancy women into the House o' God!
You--a servant o' Christ, you--"
Jock-at-a-Venture interrupted the sentence with his daring fist, which
seemed to lift Jabez from the ground by his chin, and then to let him
fall in a heap, as though his clothes had been a sack containing loose
bones.
"A good-day to ye, Brother Brett," said Jock, reaching for his hat, and
departing with a slam of the vestry door.
He emerged at the back of the chapel and got by "back-entries" into
Aboukir Street, up which he strolled with a fine show of tranquillity,
as far as the corner of Trafalgar Road, where stood and stands the great
Dragon Hotel. The congregations of several chapels were dispersing
slowly round about this famous corner, and Jock had to salute several of
his own audience. Then suddenly he saw Mrs Clowes and her four children
enter the tap-room door of the Dragon.
He hesitated one second and followed the variegated flotilla and its
convoy.
The tap-room was fairly full of both sexes. But among them Jock and Mrs
Clowes and her children were the only persons who had been to church or
chapel.
"Here's preacher, mother!" Kezia whispered, blushing, to Mrs Clowes.
"Eh," said Mrs Clowes, turning very amiably. "It's never you, mester! It
was that hot in that chapel we're all on us dying of thirst.... Four
gills and a pint, please!" (This to the tapster.)
"And give me a pint," said Jock, desperately.
They all sat down familiarly. That a mother should take her children
into a public-house and give them beer, and on a Sunday of all days, and
immediately after a sermon! That a local preacher should go direct from
the vestry to the gin-palace and there drink ale with a strolling
player! These phenomena were simply and totally inconceivable! And yet
Jock was in presence of them, assisting at them, positively acting in
them! And in spite of her enormities, Mrs Clowes still struck him as a
most agreeable, decent, kindly, motherly woman--quite apart from her
handsomeness. And her offspring, each hidden to the eyes behind a mug,
were a very well-behaved lot of child
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