He passed down Ludgate Hill, across Ludgate Circus, into Fleet Street,
turning for a few moments to look back at the Cathedral. Again, he had
a sense of anger against the English people who could allow a railway
company to fling an ugly bridge across the foot of Ludgate Hill and
destroy the view of St. Paul's from the Circus; but he had had too many
shocks that morning to feel a deep anger then, and so, turning his back
on the Cathedral, he walked up Fleet Street. He stared about him with
interest, gazing up at the names of the newspapers that were exhibited
in large letters on the fronts of the houses. The street seemed to be
shouting at him, yelling out names as if it were afraid to be silent.
It was a disorderly street. It seemed to straggle up the hill to the
Strand, as if it had not had time to put its clothes on properly. All
along its length, he could see, at intervals, scaffold-poles and
builders' hoardings. Houses and offices were being altered or repaired
or rebuilt. He felt that the street had been constructed for a great
game of hide-and-seek, for the flow of the buildings was irregular:
here, a house stood forward; there, a house stood back. In one of these
bays, a player might hide from a seeker!... Somewhere in this street,
John remembered, Dr. Johnson had lived, and he tried to imagine the
scene that took place on the night of misery when Oliver Goldsmith went
to the Doctor and wept over the failure of _The Good Natured Man_,
and was called a ninny for his pains. But he could not make the scene
come alive because of the noise and confusion in the street. The air of
immediacy which enveloped him made quiet imagination impossible. His
head began to ache with the sounds that filled his ears, and he wished
that he could escape from the shouting herd into some little soundless
place where his mind could become easy again and free from pain. He
stared around him, glancing at the big-lettered signs over the
newspaper offices, at the omnibuses, at the crowds of men and women,
and once his heart leaped into his throat as he saw a boy on a bicycle,
carrying a bag stuffed with newspapers on his back, ride rapidly out of
a side street into the middle of the congested traffic as if there were
nothing substantial to hinder his progress ... and as he stared about
him, it seemed to him that Fleet Street was on the verge of a nervous
breakdown....
"I must get out of this," he said to himself, turning aimlessly out of
the street.
He found himself presently in a narrow lane, and, looking up at the
sign, saw that it was called "Hanging Sword Alley." He looked at the
bye-way, a mere gutter of a street, and wondered what sort of a man had
given it that romantic name; and while he wondered, it seemed to him
that his mind had suddenly become illuminated. His Uncle Matthew had
had romantic imaginings all his life about everything except the things
that were under his nose. He had never seen Queen Victoria, but he had
suffered for her sake. He had never seen London, but he had declared it
to be a city of romance and colour and vivid happenings. Perhaps Uncle
Matthew was like the man who had named this dull, grimy, narrow
passage, "Hanging Sword Alley"! Perhaps Queen Victoria was not
quite ... not quite all that Uncle Matthew had imagined her to be. The
thought staggered him, and he felt as if he had filled his mind with
treason and sedition!... He could not say what Queen Victoria was, but
with his own eyes he had seen London, and London had as little of
romance in it as Hanging Sword Alley had. There were noise and scuffle
and dingy distraction and mobs of little white-faced, nervous men and
women, and a drab content with blotched beauty ... but none of these
things had romance in them. He had been told that London flower-girls
were pretty ... and he had seen only coarse and unclean women, with
towsled hair. He had been told that London 'busdrivers were cheerful,
witty men ... but the driver to whom he had spoken had been surly at
the beginning and witless to the end. If Uncle Matthew had come into
this dirty bye-way, he would have seen only the name of Hanging Sword
Alley, but John had seen more than the name: he had seen the inadequacy
of the bye-way to the name it bore.
"Perhaps," he said to himself, "I can't see the romance in things.
Mebbe, Uncle Matthew could see more than I can!..."
His head ached more severely now, and he wandered into Tudor Street. A
great rurr-rurr came from the cellars of the houses, and glancing into
them, he could see big machines working, and he guessed that these were
the engines that printed the newspapers. The thump of the presses, as
they turned great rolls of white paper into printed sheets, seemed to
beat inside his head, causing him pain with every stroke. He pressed
his fingers, against his temples in an effort to relieve the ache, but
it would not be relieved. "Oh!" he exclaimed aloud after one very sharp
twinge, and then, as he spoke, he found himself before a gate and,
heedless of what he was doing, he passed through it ... and found
himself in an oasis in a desert of noise. The harsh sounds died down,
the _rurr-rurr-rurr_ of the machines ceased to trouble him, the
scuffle and haste no longer offended his sense of decency. He was in a
place of cool cloisters and wide green lawns. He could see young men in
white flannels playing tennis ... in Ballyards it was called "bat and
ball" ... and beyond the tennis-courts, he saw the shining river.
"What place is this?" he said to a man who went by.
"Temple Gardens!" the man replied.
He walked about the Gardens, delighting in the quiet and the coolness.
Pigeons flew down from the roof of a house and began to pick bread-crumbs
almost at his feet. There was a sweet noise of birds....
He looked at the names of the barristers painted on the doorways of the
houses, and wondered which of them were judges. He wished he could see
a judge in his crimson robes and his long, curly wig, coming out of the
chambers, and while he wished for this splendid spectacle, he saw a
barrister in his black gown and horse-hair wig, come down a narrow
passage from the Strand and enter the doorway of one of the houses. He
walked on into Pump Court and watched the sparrows washing themselves
in the fountain where Tom Pinch met Ruth ... and while he watched them,
his sense of loneliness returned to him. His head still ached and now
his heart ached, too. Disappointment had come to him all day. He was
alone in a city full of people who knew nothing of him and cared
nothing for him. And his heart was aching. The peace of Pump Court only
served to make him more aware of the ache in his head. As he dipped his
hand in the water of the fountain, he wished that he could go round a
corner and meet Uncle William or Mr. Cairnduff or the minister or even
Aggie Logan ... meet someone whom he knew!...
"I'd give the world for a cup of tea," he said to himself suddenly, and
then, "I wonder could I find that place where I saw the girl. Mebbe
she'd be there again!..."
He looked about him in an indeterminate way. Then he moved from the
fountain in the direction of the Strand. "I can try anyway!" he said.