Clayhanger | Page 2

Edwin had been chums for several years. They had not sworn fearful oaths of loyalty; they did not constitute a secret society; they had not even pricked forearms and written certain words in blood; for these rites are only performed at Harrow, and possibly at the Oldcastle High School, which imitates Harrow. Their fellowship meant chiefly that they spent a great deal of time together, instinctively and unconsciously enjoying each other's mere presence, and that in public arguments they always reinforced each other, whatever the degree of intellectual dishonesty thereby necessitated.
"I'll bet you mine gets to the bridge first," said the Sunday. With an ingenious movement of the shoulders he arranged himself so that the parapet should bear the weight of his satchel.
Edwin Clayhanger slowly turned round, and perceived that the object which the Sunday had appropriated as "his" was the other canal-boat, advancing from the south.
"Horse or boat?" asked Edwin.
"Boat's nose, of course," said the Sunday.
"Well," said Edwin, having surveyed the unconscious competitors, and counting on the aid of the whipping child, "I don't mind laying you five."
"That be damned for a tale!" protested the Sunday. "We said we'd never bet less than ten--you know that."
"Yes, but--" Edwin hesitatingly drawled.
"But what?"
"All right. Ten," Edwin agreed. "But it's not fair. You've got a rare start on me."
"Rats!" said the Sunday, with finality. In the pronunciation of this word the difference between his accent and Edwin's came out clear. The Sunday's accent was less local; there was a hint of a short "e" sound in the "a," and a briskness about the consonants, that Edwin could never have compassed. The Sunday's accent was as carelessly superior as his clothes. Evidently the Sunday had some one at home who had not learnt the art of speech in the Five Towns.
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THREE.
He began to outline a scheme, in which perpendicular expectoration figured, for accurately deciding the winner, and a complicated argument might have ensued about this, had it not soon become apparent that Edwin's boat was going to be handsomely beaten, despite the joyous efforts of the little child. The horse that would die but would not give up, was only saved from total subsidence at every step by his indomitable if aged spirit. Edwin handed over the ten marbles even before the other boat had arrived at the bridge.
"Here," he said. "And you may as well have these, too," adding five more to the ten, all he possessed. They were not the paltry marble of to-day, plaything of infants, but the majestic "rinker," black with white spots, the king of marbles in an era when whole populations practised the game. Edwin looked at them half regretfully as they lay in the Sunday's hands. They seemed prodigious wealth in those hands, and he felt somewhat as a condemned man might feel who bequeaths his jewels on the scaffold. Then there was a rattle, and a tumour grew out larger on the Sunday's thigh.
The winning boat, long preceded by its horse, crawled under the bridge and passed northwards to the sea, laden with crates of earthenware. And then the loser, with the little girl's father and mother and her brothers and sisters, and her kitchen, drawing-room, and bedroom, and her smoking chimney and her memories and all that was hers, in the stern of it, slid beneath the boys' down-turned faces while the whip cracked away beyond the bridge. They could see, between the whitened tarpaulins, that the deep belly of the craft was filled with clay.
"Where does that there clay come from?" asked Edwin. For not merely was he honestly struck by a sudden new curiosity, but it was meet for him to behave like a man now, and to ask manly questions.
"Runcorn," said the Sunday scornfully. "Can't you see it painted all over the boat?"
"Why do they bring clay all the way from Runcorn?"
"They don't bring it from Runcorn. They bring it from Cornwall. It comes round by sea--see?" He laughed.
"Who told you?" Edwin roughly demanded.
"Anybody knows that!" said the Sunday grandly, but always maintaining his gay smile.
"Seems devilish funny to me," Edwin murmured, after reflection, "that they should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of it here. Why should they choose just this place to make crocks in? I always understood--"
"Oh! Come on!" the Sunday cut him short. "It's blessed well one o'clock and after!"
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FOUR.
They climbed the long bank from the canal up to the Manor Farm, at which high point their roads diverged, one path leading direct to Bleakridge where Orgreave lived, and the other zigzagging down through neglected pasturage into Bursley proper. Usually they parted here without a word, taking pride in such Spartan taciturnity, and they would doubtless have done the same this morning also, though it were fifty-fold their last walk together as two