She cut the bread, and started, short of breath, Up the canal now draining for the rail; A poor old woman pitted against death, Bringing her pennyworth of love for bail. Wisdom, beauty, and love may not avail. She was too late. ’Yes, he was here; oh, yes. He chucked his job and went.’ ’Where?’ ’Home, I guess.’ ’Home, but he hasn’t been home.’ ’Well, he went. Perhaps you missed him, mother.’ ’Or perhaps He took the field path yonder through the bent. He very likely done that, don’t he, chaps?’ The speaker tested both his trouser straps And took his pick. ’He’s in the town,’ he said. ’He’ll be all right, after a bit in bed.’ She trembled down the high embankment’s ridge Glad, though too late; not yet too late, indeed. For forty yards away, beyond the bridge, Jimmy still drank, the devil still sowed seed. ’A bit in bed,’ she thought, ’is what I need. I’ll go to "Bull and Boar" and rest a bit, They’ve got a bench outside they’d let me sit.’ Even as two soldiers on a fortress wall See the bright fire streak of a coming shell. Catch breath, and wonder ’Which way will it fall? To you? to me? or will it all be well?’ Ev’n so stood life and death, and could not tell Whether she’d go to th’inn and find her son, Or take the field and let the doom be done. ’No, not the inn,’ she thought. ’People would talk. I couldn’t in the open daytime; no. I’ll just sit here upon the timber balk, I’ll rest for just a minute and then go.’ Resting, her old tired heart began to glow, Glowed and gave thanks, and thought itself in clover, ’He’s lost his job, so now she’ll throw him over.’ Sitting, she saw the rustling thistle-kex, The picks flash bright above, the trollies tip. The bridge-stone shining, full of silver specks, And three swift children running down the dip. A Stoke Saint Michael carter cracked his whip, The water in the runway made its din. She half heard singing coming from the inn. She turned, and left the inn, and took the path And ’Brother Life, you lose,’ said Brother Death, ’Even as the Lord of all appointed hath In this great miracle of blood and breath.’ He doeth all things well as the book saith, He bids the changing stars fulfil their turn, His hand is on us when we least discern. Slowly she tottered, stopping with the stitch, Catching her breath, ’O lawks, a dear, a dear. How the poor tubings in my heart do twitch, It hurts like the rheumatics very near.’ And every painful footstep drew her clear From that young life she bore with so much pain. She never had him to herself again. Out of the inn came Jimmy, red with drink, Crying: ’I’ll show her. Wait a bit. I’ll show her. You wait a bit. I’m not the kid you think. I’m Jimmy Gurney, champion tupper-thrower, When I get done with her you’ll never know her, Nor him you won’t. Out of my way, you fowls, Or else I’ll rip the red things off your jowls.’