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SLAVES OF FREEDOM

By Coningsby Dawson

New York: Henry Holt And Company

1916


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A SLAVE OF FREEDOM


                   The Night slips his arm about the Moon

                   And walks till the skies grow gray;

                   But my Love, when I speak of love,

                   Has never a word to say.

                   I set my dreams at her feet as lamps

                   For which all my hope must pay;

                   But my Love, when I speak of love,

                   Has never a word to say.

                   I fill her hands with a gleaming soul

                   For her plaything night and day;

                   But she, when I speak to her of love,

                   Has never a word to say.

                   I give my life, which is hers to kill

                   Or to keep with her alway;

                   And still, when I speak to her of love,

                   She’s never a word to say.

                   _The Night slips his arm about the Moon

                   And walks till the skies grow gray;

                   But my Love, when I speak of love,

                   Has never a word to say._





BOOK I--LIFE TILL TWENTY-ONE




CHAPTER I--MRS. SHEERUG’S GARDEN


Nother bucket o’ mortar, Mr. Ooze.”

The excessively thin man glanced up from the puddle of lime that he
was stirring and regarded the excessively fat man with a smile of meek
interrogation.

“‘Nother bucket o’ mortar, Willie Ooze, and don’t you put your ’ead on
one side at me like a bloomin’ cockatoo.”

Mr. William Hughes stuttered an apology. “I was thin-thinking.”

“Thin-thinking!” The fat man laughed good-naturedly. Turning his back
on his helper, he gave the brick which he had just laid an extra tap to
emphasize his incredulity. “’Tisn’t like you.”

The thin man’s feelings were wounded. To the little boy who looked on
this was evident from the way he swallowed. His Adam’s-apple took a
run up his throat and, at the last moment, thought better of it. “But I
_was_ thinking,” he persisted; “thinking that I’d learnt something from
stirring up this gray muck. If ever I was to kill somebody--you, for
instance, or that boy--I’d know better than to bury you in slaked lime.”

“Uml Urn!” The fat man gulped with surprise. He puckered his vast chin
against his collar so that his voice came deep and strangled. “It’s
scraps o’ knowledge like that as saves men from the gallers. If ’alf
the murderers that is ’anged ’ad come to me first, they wouldn’t be
’anging. But--but----” He seemed at last to realize the unkind
implication of Mr. Hughes’s naive confession. “But I’d make four o’ you,
Willyum! You couldn’t kill me, however you tried.”

In the face of contradiction Mr. Hughes forgot his nervousness. “I
could.” he pleaded earnestly. “I’ve often thought about it. I’d put off
till you was stooping, and then jump. What with you being so short of
breath and me being so long in the arms and legs, why-----------! I’ve
planned it out many times, you and me being such good friends and so
much alone together.”

The face of the fat man grew serious with disapproval. “You?
’ave, ’ave you! You’ve got as far as that! You’re a nice domestic
pet, I must say, to keep unchained to play with the children.” He
attempted to go on with his bricklaying, but the memory of Mr. Hughes’s
long arms and legs so immediately behind him was disturbing. He swung
round holding his trowel like a weapon. “Don’t like your way of talking;
don’t like it. O’ course you’ve ‘ad your troubles; for them I make
allowances. But I don’t like it, and I don’t mind telling you. Um! Um!”

The thin man was crestfallen; he had hoped to give pleasure. “But I
thought you liked murders.”

“Like ’em! I enjoy them--so I do.” The fat man spoke tartly. “But when
you make me the corpse of your conversations, you presoom, Mr. Ooze, and
I don’t mind telling you--you really do. Let that boy be the corpse next
time; leave me out of it---- ’