Green gravel, green gravel,
Your true love is dead;
I send you a message
To turn round your head.


They are ragged and dirty, true children of the gutter, but Romance, with
the cloudy hair and starry eyes, holds them captive for a few merciful
years. Their parents loll against the walls, or squat on the kerbstone,
devouring with infinite relish petty scandals about their neighbours,
or shaking with laughter at some spicy yarn.

About ten o'clock the children are driven indoors with threats and blows,
and put to bed. By eleven the street is quiet, and only gives a last
flicker of life when a drunken man comes swearing down the street, full of
beer, and offering to fight anyone for the pleasure of the thing.
By twelve the street is dead, and the tread of the policeman echoes with
a forlorn sound as if he were walking through a cemetery.

As Mrs Yabsley leaned over the gate, Mrs Swadling caught sight of her,
and, throwing her apron over her head, crossed the street, bent on gossip.
Then Mrs Jones, who had been watching her through the window, dropped
her mending and hurried out.

The three women stood and talked of the weather, talking for talking's
sake as men smoke a pipe in the intervals of work. Presently Mrs Yabsley
looked hard at Mrs Swadling, who was shading her head from the sun
with her apron.