The
thin-faced woman took it, and, coughing above it, went away. The girl,
who could not take her eyes off Thyme, now served them with three
pennyworth of bull's-eyes, which she took out with her fingers, for
they had stuck. Putting them in a screw of newspaper, she handed them
to Martin. The young man, who had been observing negligently, touched
Thyme's elbow. She, who had stood with eyes cast down, now turned. They
went out, Martin handing the bull's-eyes to the little girl with an
affection of the skin.
The street now ended in a wide road formed of little low houses.
"Black," said Martin, "here; all down this road-casual labour,
criminals, loafers, drunkards, consumps. Look at the faces!"
Thyme raised her eyes obediently. In this main thoroughfare it was not
as in the by-street, and only dull or sullen glances, or none at
all, were bent on her. Some of the houses had ragged plants on the
window-sills; in one window a canary was singing. Then, at a bend, they
came into a blacker reach of human river. Here were outbuildings, houses
with broken windows, houses with windows boarded up, fried-fish shops,
low public-houses, houses without doors. There were more men here than
women, and those men were wheeling barrows full of rags and bottles,
or not even full of rags and bottles; or they were standing by the
public-houses gossiping or quarrelling in groups of three or four;
or very slowly walking in the gutters, or on the pavements, as though
trying to remember if they were alive.
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