CXIII

At the beginning of the last week in August Philip entered upon his duties in the `district.’  They were arduous, for he had to attend on an average three confinements a day.  The patient had obtained a `card’ from the hospital some time before; and when her time came it was taken to the porter by a messenger, generally a little girl, who was then sent across the road to the house in which Philip lodged.  At night the porter, who had a latch-key, himself came over and awoke Philip.  It was mysterious then to get up in the darkness and walk through the deserted streets of the South Side.  At those hours it was generally the husband who brought the card.  If there had been a number of babies before he took it for the most part with surly indifference, but if newly married he was nervous and then sometimes strove to allay his anxiety by getting drunk.  Often there was a mile or more to walk, during which Philip and the messenger discussed the conditions of labour and the cost of living; Philip learnt about the various trades which were practised on that side of the river.  He inspired confidence in the people among whom he was thrown, and during the long hours that he waited in a stuffy room, the woman in labour lying on a large bed that took up half of it, her mother and the midwife talked to him as naturally as they talked to one another.  The circumstances in which he had lived during the last two years had taught him several things about the life of the very poor, which it amused them to find he knew; and they were impressed because he was not deceived by their little subterfuges.  He was kind, and he had gentle hands, and he did not lose his temper.  They were pleased because he was not above drinking a cup of tea with them, and when the dawn came and they were still waiting they offered him a slice of bread and dripping; he was not squeamish and could eat most things now with a good appetite.  Some of the houses he went to, in filthy courts off a dingy street, huddled against one another without light or air, were merely squalid; but others, unexpectedly, though dilapidated, with worm-eaten floors and leaking roofs, had the grand air:  you found in them oak balusters exquisitely carved, and the walls had still their panelling.  These were thickly inhabited.  One family lived in each room, and in the daytime there was the incessant noise of children playing in the court.  The old walls were the breeding-place of vermin; the air was so foul that often, feeling sick, Philip had to light his pipe.  The people who dwelt here lived from hand to mouth.  Babies were unwelcome, the man received them with surly anger, the mother with despair; it was one more mouth to feed, and there was little enough wherewith to feed those already there.  Philip often discerned the wish that the child might be born dead or might die quickly.  He delivered one woman of twins (a source of humour to the facetious) and when she was told she burst into a long, shrill wail of misery.  Her mother said outright: