Free Alley Urchin by Josephine Cox

madness, he was frantic to gratify only the base primitive instincts which drove him. Gripping Emma into him again and again, he smothered her with his vile body and kissed her nakedness, all the while telling her how she was his now . . . and could never belong to any other.
    Of a sudden, there came another scream as Nelly woke to the horror of what was happening. Almost at once, there was a rush of footsteps into the room and the darkness was penetrated by the light which Roland Thomas carried high before him. With a cry of ‘You filthy bastard!’ he sprang forward, dropping the lantern to the floor and clawing at his son’s bare flesh, his nails digging so deep into it that the blood spurted out like a crimson shower to fall in spattered drops along his back and shoulders. With the might of a demon, he yanked him from the bed and from Emma, who was as still and white as death.
    ‘Oh God! Emma, will yer forgive me, will yer ever forgive me, darlin’?’ Nelly had recovered the lamp which, in his rage, Roland Thomas had dropped to the floor and she had placed it on the bedside cupboard. Having drawn up the bedclothes over Emma’s violated body, she was cradling her dear friend’s head to her bosom and sobbing as though her heart would break. ‘Will yer ever forgive me, darlin’ Emma,’ she cried over and over, ‘for I’ll never be able ter forgive meself!’
    It was a night that no one there would ever forget. For although he was an older and slower man, Roland Thomas’s fury and disgust knew no bounds as he thrashed his son unmercifully. First throwing him down the stairs, he took a bull-whip from the stores and, without heed of his cowardly son’s cries for mercy, he brought it down again and again across his bare back and shoulders, the tip of it lashing over his face and neck and cutting so deep that he would carry the scars for the rest of his miserable life. Afterwards Roland Thomas flung Foster out on to the porch, with his clothes and belongings in a heap beside him. ‘You’re a no-good bastard!’ he told his son in a voice that still trembled with rage. ‘Your own mother’s to be buried this day, and you bring nothing but shame on our heads. Let the devil take you, Foster Thomas, because I want nothing more to do with you! Never set foot near me again . . . stay out of my sight. You’re no son of mine. From this day on, I have no son!’ He watched the crumpled figure begin to stir on the porch, and he knew that his words had been heard. It was enough.
    In the darkness, Roland Thomas’s terrible words had also been heard by many of the startled neighbours, who had been roused from their beds by the worst upheaval they had ever been witness to. No one knew what dreadful reason could have provoked such an amiable and mild-mannered man as Roland Thomas, the well-liked and respected trader, to cast his own son from his house, and to issue such strong and awful words that made them tremble. Yes, it was true that Foster Thomas was not the man his father was . . . nor the man his father might have wished him to be, for he was both weak and wasteful. It was also true that the confrontation between them had been a long time brewing. But, so terrible and final, and on the very day in which poor Mrs Thomas was to be laid to her rest? It didn’t bear thinking about. All the same, they were intrigued to know what awful thing had triggered off Roland Thomas’s fury. But, as the trader stormed back into his store, and the son spat in the dust behind him with a look of deep hatred on his bleeding face, something told them that they might never know the truth of what had happened that night, for the old one was too proud to disclose it, and the other too cowardly.

Chapter Three
    It was a wonderful balmy day, with the sun playing hide-and-seek amongst the clouds, and the gentle breezes blowing in off the sea to cool the land and bring with them the promise of rain.
    Four whole weeks had passed and January had