Published by the Penguin Group
First published in Great Britain by William Heinemann Ltd 1897
| Chapter 1 |
| Chapter 2 |
| Chapter 3 |
| Chapter 4 |
| Chapter 5 |
| Chapter 6 |
| Chapter 7 |
| Chapter 8 |
| Chapter 9 |
| Chapter 10 |
| Chapter 11 |
| Chapter 12 |
It was the first Saturday afternoon in August; it had been broilinghot all day, with a cloudless sky, and the sun had been beating downon the houses, so that the top rooms were like ovens; but now with theapproach of evening it was cooler, and everyone in Vere Street was outof doors.
Vere street, Lambeth, is a short, straight street leading out of theWestminster Bridge Road; it has forty houses on one side and fortyhouses on the other, and these eighty houses are very much more likeone another than ever peas are like peas, or young ladies like youngladies. They are newish, three-storied buildings of dingy grey brickwith slate roofs, and they are perfectly flat, without a bow-window oreven a projecting cornice or window-sill to break the straightness ofthe line from one end of the street to the other.
This Saturday afternoon the street was full of life; no traffic camedown Vere Street, and the cemented space between the pavements wasgiven up to children. Several games of cricket were being played bywildly excited boys, using coats for wickets, an old tennis-ball or abundle of rags tied together for a ball, and, generally, an oldbroomstick for bat. The wicket was so large and the bat so small thatthe man in was always getting bowled, when heated quarrels wouldarise, the batter absolutely refusing to go out and the bowlerabsolutely insisting on going in. The girls were more peaceable; theywere chiefly employed in skipping, and only abused one another mildlywhen the rope was not properly turned or the skipper did not jumpsufficiently high. Worst off of all were the very young children, forthere had been no rain for weeks, and the street was as dry and cleanas a covered court, and, in the lack of mud to wallow in, they sat [6]about the road, disconsolate as poets. The number of babies wasprodigious; they sprawled about everywhere, on the pavement, round thedoors, and about their mothers' skirts. The grown-ups were gatheredround the open doors; there were usually two women squatting on thedoorstep, and two or three more seated on either side on chairs; theywere invariably nursing babies, and most of them showed clear signsthat the present object of the maternal care would be soon ousted by anew arrival. Men were less numerous but such as there were leantagainst the walls, smoking, or sat on the sills of the ground-floorwi