Jungfraujoch

“ But for the police in the Jago that night, there would have been many a sore head, if no worse, among the Learys by visitation of Josh Perrott. Sally Green's husband had fled years ago, and Billy Leary, her brother, was the obvious mark for Josh's vengeance. He was near as eminent a fighter among the men as his sister among the women, and a charming scrap was anticipated. It would come off, of course, in Jago Court one Sunday morning, as all fights of distinction did, and perhaps somebody in the High Mob would put up stakes. ”

“ I hardly know you—I wanted to help you—I cannot even help you now, because I am poorer now than you are—but, perhaps, that is all to the good.... Joh Fredersen's son can, perhaps, be betrayed—but I, Josaphat? A man who has nothing but a will and an object? It cannot be worth while to betray him—eh, Josaphat?"
"May God kill me as one kills a mangy dog...."
"That's all right, that's all right...." Freder's smile came back again and stood, clear and beautiful in his tired face. "I am going now, Josaphat. I want to go to my father's mother, to take her something which is very sacred to me.... ”

“ Josh, with a shifting of the object under his coat, hastened to tap his cap-peak with his forefinger before shaking hands. He grinned broadly, and looked this way and that, with mingled gratification and embarrassment, as was the Jago way in such circumstances. Because one could never tell whether Father Sturt would exchange a mere friendly sentence or two, or, with concealed knowledge, put some disastrous question about a watch, or a purse, or a breast-pin, or what not. ”

“ When Ranns joined Learys it was an ill time for them they marched against; and never were they so ready and so anxious to combine as after a fight between themselves, were but some common object of attack available. Here it was. Here were these pestilent outsiders, the Ropers, assailing the reputation of the neighbourhood by complaining of being robbed. As though their mere presence in the Jago, with their furniture and their superiority, were not obnoxious enough: they must turn about and call their neighbours thieves! ”

“ The defeated sortie-party from Jago Court, driven back, had gained New Jago Street by way of the house passages behind the court and set to gathering the scattered faction. Now the Ranns came, drunk, semi-drunk and otherwise, and the Learys, leaving Jerry Gullen's, rushed to meet them. There was a great shock, hats flew, sticks and heads made a wooden rattle, and instantly the two mobs were broken into an uproarious confusion of tangled groups, howling and grappling. Here a man crawled into a passage to nurse a broken head; there a knot gathered to kick a sprawling foe. ”

“ Always the answer, all over the Jago.
"Not quite such odd jobs as usual, I hope. Josh, eh?" Father Sturt smiled, and twitched Josh playfully by the button-hole as one might treat a child. "I once heard of a very odd job in the Kingsland Road that got a fine young man six months' holiday. Eh, Josh?"
Josh Perrott wriggled and grinned sheepishly; tried to frown, failed, and grinned again. He had only been out a few weeks from that six moon. Presently he said: "Awright, Father; you do rub it into a bloke, no mistake." ”

“ He asked, too, much about Josh's intentions for the future. Of course, Josh was "going to look for a job." Father Sturt knew he would say that. Every Jago had been going to look for a job ever since the vicar first came to the place. But he professed to take Josh's words seriously, and offered to try to get him taken on as a plasterer at some of the new County Council buildings. He flattered Josh by reminding him of his command of a regular trade. Josh was a man with opportunities, and he should be above the pitiable expedients of the poor untradesmanlike people about him. ”

“ Dicky looked to see this man beaten down, kicked and stripped. But a well-dressed stranger was so new a thing in the Jago, this one had dropped among them so suddenly, and had withal so bold a confidence, that the Jagos stood irresolute. A toff was not a person to be attacked without due consideration. ”

“ On an autumn day, four years after his first coming to the Jago, the Reverend Henry Sturt left a solicitor's office in Cheapside, and walked eastward with something more of hope and triumph in him than he had felt since the Jago fell to his charge. For the ground was bought whereon should be built a church and buildings accessory, and he felt, not that he was like to see any great result from his struggle, but that perhaps he might pursue it better armed and with less of grim despair than had been his portion hitherto. ”

“ Now there was an irregular space of bare cobble stones and house refuse, five or six yards across, in the middle of Jago Court, and all round it the shouting crowd was packed tight, those at the back standing on sills and hanging to fences. Every window was a clump of heads, and women yelled savagely or cheerily down and across. The two groups were merged in the press at each side of the square, Billy Leary and Josh Perrott in front of each, with his seconds. ”

“ Now, of the few neutral Jagos: most lay low. Josh Perrott, however, hard as nails and respected for it, feared neither Rann nor Leary, and leaving a little money with his missis, carried his morning mouth in search of beer. Pigeony Poll, harlot and outcast, despised for that she neither fought nor kept a cosh-carrier, like a respectable married woman, slunk and trembled in corners and yards, and wept at the sight of bleeding heads. ”

“ The man and woman vanished in a doorway near the Jago Row end, where, for some reason, dozers were fewer than about the portal of Jago Court. There conversation flagged, and a broken snore was heard. It was a quiet night, as quietness was counted in the Jago; for it was too hot for most to fight in that stifling air—too hot to do more than turn on the stones and swear. Still, the last hoarse yelps of a combat of women came intermittently from Half Jago Street, in the further confines. ”

“ At the moment Johanna was hurt by such speeches from Ludwig, but she never resented them for long. Perhaps she had an involuntary suspicion that his mistrust and misconception sprang from disappointed affection, or perhaps her heart was full of other things. The explanation she gave herself was that for the sake of the help and comfort he gave to Johann Leopold, to her grandfather, and to Aunt Thekla, she must forgive her childhood's playmate any harshness of demeanour. ”

“ If I were to be paralysed—with paralysed feet, I should still find my way to Hell—' Freder is your son. What do you think, Joh, he would answer me were I to say to him: give up the girl you love...?"
Joh Fredersen was silent.
"Take care, Joh," said the old mother. "I know what it means when your eyes grow cold, as now, and when you grow as pale as one of the stones of the wall. You have forgotten that lovers are sacred. Even if they are mistaken, Joh, their mistake itself is sacred. Even if they are fools, Joh, their folly itself is sacred. ”

“ So Father Sturt tramped back to the Jago, and to the strain and struggle that ceased not for one moment of his life, though it left never a mark of success behind it. For the Jago was much as ever. Were the lump once leavened by the advent of any denizen a little less base than the rest, were a native once ridiculed and persuaded into a spell of work and clean living, then must Father Sturt hasten to drive him from the Jago ere its influence suck him under forever; leaving for his own community none but the entirely vicious. ”

“ Father Sturt met the surgeon as he came away in the later evening, and asked if all were well. The surgeon shrugged his shoulders. "People would call it so," he said. "The boy's alive, and so is the mother. But you and I may say the truth. You know the Jago far better than I. Is there a child in all this place that wouldn't be better dead—still better unborn? But does a day pass without bringing you just such a parishioner? Here lies the Jago, a nest of rats, breeding, breeding as only rats can ”

“ For the women there were sewing-meetings and singing. And all governed with an invisible discipline, which, being brought to action, was found to be of iron.
Now there was ground on which might be built a worthier church; and Father Sturt had in mind a church which should have by its side a cleanly lodging-house, a night-shelter, a club, baths and wash-houses. And at a stroke he would establish this habitation and wipe out the blackest spot in the Jago. For the new site comprised the whole of Jago Court and the houses that masked it in Old Jago Street. ”

“ Lefrank, a man must be a little mad who shows his grief at losing his wife by vowing that he will never shave himself again? Well, that's what they do say John Jago vowed. Perhaps it's a lie. People are such liars here! Anyway, it's truth (the boys themselves confess that) , when John came to the farm he came with a first-rate character. The old father here isn't easy to please; and he pleased the old father. Yes, that's so. Mr. Meadowcroft don't like my countrymen in general. ”

“ Nothing was to be done with a man of this disgustingly practical turn of mind, and the Jagos soon ceased from trying.
Father Sturt had made more of the stable than the make-shift church he had found. He had organized a club in a stable adjoining, and he lived in the rooms over the shut-up shop. In the club he gathered the men of the Jago indiscriminately, with the sole condition of good behaviour on the premises. And there they smoked, jumped, swung on horizontal bars, boxed, played at cards and bagatelle, free from interference save when interference became necessary. ”

“ Clearly the pogue-hunter, emptying the pogues in his pocket by sense of touch, had missed the flat pocket. Dicky was not yet able to run with freedom, but he never ceased from trotting till he reached his own staircase in Old Jago Street. And so the eight or nine days passed, and Josh went out into the Jago with no more than a tenderness about his ankle. ”

“ What Silas Meadowcroft said to his brother of John Jago was what I myself was thinking of John Jago at that very moment. It startled me to find my own thought in a man’s mind spoken for me by a man. I am the person, sir, who has driven John Jago away from Morwick Farm ”

“ Otto started up. He had prepared himself to endure violent reproaches and perhaps temporary banishment from Dönninghausen, but to be obliged to betroth himself—to Johanna! What would his former comrades, what would the Klausenburg sisters, above all, what would Magelone say?
"My dear sir," he stammered, as all this flashed through his brain like lightning, "how is this possible? My affairs——"
"Are certainly not in a condition to make you a very brilliant match," the Freiherr sarcastically completed his sentence. "But Johanna is magnanimous. If she loves you, she will not be calculating. ”

“ Cousin Johanna has improved wonderfully in appearance."
Magelone glanced hastily towards Johanna. "You are right: she has gained life and colour;" and she added, mentally, "Is he trying to make me jealous? He shall not succeed."
In spite of this resolution, she could not away with a slightly disagreeable sensation when, sitting beside Johann Leopold at table, she noticed the assiduity with which Otto, who was Johanna's neighbour, obeyed her command, and how Johanna's eyes sparkled as she talked with her cousin. ”

“ Christine said, in her gentle, soothing way. "A gentleman like that doesn't mean anything when he jokes and laughs with one of us——"
"But I mean something, curse him!" shouted Jakob—and the savage sparkle of his eyes gave him more than ever the look of some beast of prey—"I'll kill him like a dog——" He suddenly fell silent before Johanna's sad, reproachful gaze. "Just like a wounded deer when it's dying," he said to himself; and he added aloud, "Indeed, indeed I meant well, if the Fruleen could only believe it!"
Johanna collected herself. "I believe it," she made answer, after a short pause ”

“ He had seen no clock in Dicky's possession—had but met him on the stairs with a bulging jacket. The thing might be suspicious, but the new parson knew better than to peril his influence by charging where he could not convict. So he duly commiserated Hannah Perrott's troubles, suggested that the baby seemed unwell and had better be taken to a doctor, and went his way about the Jago. ”

“ Wherefore he listened now to the tale of the coming fight, and agreed to provide something in the way of stakes, and to put something on for Josh himself: looking for his own profit to the bets he might make at favourable odds with his friends. For Billy Leary was notorious as being near prime ruffian of the Jago, while Josh's reputation was neither so evil nor so wide. And so it was settled, and Josh came pleased to his tea; for assuredly Billy Leary would have no difficulty in finding another notable of the High Mob to cover the stakes.
Dicky was at home, sitting by Looey on the bed ”

“ As the night wore on, taunts and defiances were bandied from window to door, and from door to window, between those who intended to begin fighting to-morrow; and shouts from divers corners gave notice of isolated scuffles. Once a succession of piercing screams seemed to betoken that Sally Green had begun. There was a note in the screams of Sally Green's opposites which the Jago had learned to recognise. Sally Green, though of the weaker faction, was the female champion of the Old Jago: an eminence won and kept by fighting tactics peculiar to herself. ”