And when he stopped his shovelling he looked Over the junipers towards Plaister way, The beauty of his darling had him hooked, He had no heart for wrastling with the clay. ’O Lord Almighty, I must get away; O Lord, I must. I must just see my flower, Why, I could run there in the dinner hour.’
The whistle on the pilot engine blew, The men knocked off, and Jimmy slipped aside Over the fence, over the bridge, and through, And then ahead along the water-side, Under the red-brick rail-bridge, arching wide, Over the hedge, across the fields, and on; The foreman asked: ’Where’s Jimmy Gurney gone?’
It is a mile and more to Plaister’s End, But Jimmy ran the short way by the stream, And there was Anna’s cottage at the bend, With blue smoke on the chimney, faint as steam. ’God, she’s at home,’ and up his heart a gleam Leapt like a rocket on November nights, And shattered slowly in a burst of lights.
Anna was singing at her kitchen fire, She was surprised, and not well pleased to see A sweating navvy, red with heat and mire, Come to her door, whoever he might be. But when she saw that it was Jimmy, she Smiled at his eyes upon her, full of pain, And thought, ’But, still, he mustn’t come again.
People will talk; boys are such crazy things; But he’s a dear boy though he is so green.’ So, hurriedly, she slipped her apron strings, And dabbed her hair, and wiped her fingers clean, And came to greet him languid as a queen, Looking as sweet, as fair, as pure, as sad, As when she drove her loving husband mad.
’Poor boy,’ she said, ’Poor boy, how hot you are.’ She laid a cool hand to his sweating face. ’How kind to come. Have you been running far? I’m just going out; come up the road a pace. O dear, these hens; they’re all about the place.’ So Jimmy shooed the hens at her command, And got outside the gate as she had planned.
’Anna, my dear, I love you; love you, true; I had to come--I don’t know--I can’t rest-- I lay awake all night, thinking of you. Many must love you, but I love you best.’ ’Many have loved me, yes, dear,’ she confessed, She smiled upon him with a tender pride, ’But my love ended when my husband died.
Still, we’ll be friends, dear friends, dear, tender friends; Love with its fever’s at an end for me. Be by me gently now the fever ends, Life is a lovelier thing than lovers see, I’d like to trust a man, Jimmy,’ said she, ’May I trust you?’ ’Oh, Anna dear, my dear---- ’Don’t come so close,’ she said, ’with people near.