Gates of Paradise Read Online Free Page A

and cart outside the Nag’s Head and prepared themselves for their shopping expedition in their usual sensible way, Johnnie strapping on his gaiters to protect his stockings, Betsy pinning up her skirt and easing a good stout pair of pattens over her boots.
    The newsagent’s was right in the centre of the town near the market cross and was so full of customers that it took some time for Johnnie to push his way to the counter. But
The Times
was duly bought and stowed away in his waistcoat and then they were off to the grocer’s for coffee beans, cocoa nibs and a sugar loaf neatly wrapped in blue paper, to the chandler’s for tallow candles and beeswax, and finally to the haberdasher’s forChichester needles and coloured threads and the exact quantity of linsey woolsey that Mrs Beke had specified.
    At which point Betsy said she must make her next purchase on her own, ‘being ’tis a secret.’ So Johnnie took himself off to the Nag’s Head for a pint of porter to slake his thirst and settled by the window to read the paper and watch for the return of his beloved. She was a long time gone, long enough for him to read all about the bread riots in London and how the Corn Market had been stormed and how handbills had been posted on the Monument, ‘instigating insurrection’.
    He saw the scarlet cloth approaching through the massed blues and browns of the crowd long before he realised who was sporting it so boldly. At first he thought it was a soldier’s bright jacket but as it neared the window he realised that it was a woman’s cloak and that the face framed by its thick hood belonged to Betsy Haynes. ‘My stars!’ he said, as she swept into the inn and strode towards him, gathering admiration from every man in the bar. ‘Fancy you in a cardinal. You do look a swell.’
    Her face was flushed with the warmth of her new garment and the triumph of its purchase. ‘I been savin’ for it for two whole years,’ she told him. ‘I’ve wanted it, and wanted it, for so long as I can remember. What d’you think of it?’
    He thought it was the finest cloak he’d ever seen and that she was the prettiest girl in the town with her face framed by the bright cloth and her darkhair curling under the white frill of her cap, and he caught her by the hands as if he was going to pull her towards him and kiss her, which he might well have done if they hadn’t been in a public place and he hadn’t been afraid of being rebuked. But then the cathedral clock struck the hour to bring him back to his senses and to remind them both that they ought to be getting home, so he let go of her hands and tried to act with more decorum.
    She took off her new possession and folded it carefully. Then she wrapped the resulting bundle in a length of brown paper and lowered it neatly into her wicker basket. ‘I shan’t wear it yet awhile,’ she confided. ‘I only put it on for you to see. ’Tis for high days and holidays and when the weather’s cold.’
    â€˜Then I can’t wait for cold weather,’ he said, and was rewarded with a rapturous smile.
    The return journey took longer than they expected, for halfway home they rounded a copse to find that their way was blocked by the massed backs of a flock of sheep, who having followed their leader through a gap in the hedge were now ambling about on the path in baaing confusion and wouldn’t get out of the way no matter how loudly Johnnie shouted or how much he waved his arms. It was more than half an hour before the noise he was making attracted the shepherd who arrived with a couple of dogs to tease his charges back to the meadow. ‘They got no sense in those funny ol’ heads,’ he explained,’ ‘’ave ’ee my woolly lovelies.’
    â€˜Tha’s all very well,’ Johnnie said. ‘Now we shall be late back an’ Mrs Beke’ll have