Boys -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Slums -- Fiction
Norah Walsh, vanquished champion, now somewhat recovered, looked from a
window, saw her enemy vulnerable, and ran out armed with a bottle. She
stopped at the kerb to knock the bottom off the bottle, and then, with
an exultant shout, seized Sally Green by the hair and stabbed her about
the face with the jagged points. Blinded with blood, Sally released her
hold on Mrs Perrott and rolled on her back, struggling fiercely; but to
no end, for Norah Walsh, kneeling on her breast, stabbed and stabbed
again, till pieces of the bottle broke away. Sally's yells and plunges
ceased, and a man pulled Norah off. On him she turned, and he was fain
to run, while certain Learys found a truck which might carry Sally to
the hospital.
* * * * *
Hannah Perrott was gone indoors, hysterical and helpless. She had scarce
crossed the street on her errand when she had met Sally Green in quest
of female Ranns. Mrs Perrott was not a Rann, but she was not a Leary, so
it came to the same thing. Moreover, there was her general
obnoxiousness. She had tried to run, but that was useless; and now,
sobbing and bleeding, she was merely conscious of being gently led,
almost carried, indoors and upstairs. She was laid back on the bed, and
somebody loosened her hair and wiped her face and neck, giving her
hoarse, comforting words. Then she saw the face--scared though coarse
and pitted, and red about the eyes--that bent over her. It was Pigeony
Poll's.
Dicky had followed her in, no longer the hero of the Jago Row retreat,
but with his face tearful and distorted, carrying the baby in his arms,
and wiping the mud from her eyes. Now he sat on the little box and
continued his ministrations, with fear in his looks as he glanced at his
mother on the bed.
* * * * *
Without, the fight rallied once more. The Learys ran to avenge Sally
Green, and the Ranns met them with a will. Down by the Bag of Nails a
party of Ranns was driven between the posts and through the gut into
Shoreditch High Street, where a stand was made until Fag Dawson dropped,
with a shoemaker's knife sticking under his arm-pit. Then the Ranns
left, with most of the Learys after them, and Fag Dawson was carried to
a chemist's by the police, never to floor a Rann again. For he was
chived in the left lung.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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