I
We are a stolid and a taciturn race, we of the Five Towns. It may be
because we are geographically so self contained; or it may be because
we work in clay and iron; or it may merely be because it is our nature
to be stolid and taciturn. But stolid and taciturn we are; and some of
the instances of our stolidity and our taciturnity are enough to
astound. They do not, of course, astound us natives; we laugh at them,
we think they are an immense joke, and what the outer world may think
does not trouble our deep conceit of ourselves. I have often wondered
what would be the effect, other than an effect of astonishment, on the
outer world, of one of these narratives illustrating our Five Towns
peculiarities of deportment. And I intend for the first time in history
to make such a narrative public property. I have purposely not chosen
an extreme example; just an average example. You will see how it
strikes you.
Toby Hall, once a burgess of Turnhill, the northernmost and smallest of
the Five Towns, was passing, last New Year's Eve, through the district
by train on his way from Crewe to Derby. He lived at Derby, and he was
returning from the funeral of a brother member of the Ancient Order of
Foresters at Crewe. He got out of the train at Knype, the great railway
centre of the Five Towns, to have a glass of beer in the second-class
refreshment-room. It being New Year's Eve, the traffic was heavy and
disorganized, especially in the refreshment-room, and when Toby Hall
emerged on to the platform again the train was already on the move.
Toby was neither young nor active. His years were fifty, and on account
of the funeral he wore broadcloth and a silk hat, and his overcoat was
new and encumbering. Impossible to take a flying leap into the train!
He missed the train. And then he reflectively stroked his short grey
beard (he had no moustache, and his upper lip was very long), and then
he smoothed down his new overcoat over his rotund form.
'Young man,' he asked a porter. 'When's next train Derby way?'
'Ain't none afore tomorrow.'
Toby went and had another glass of beer.
'D--d if I don't go to Turnhill,' he said to himself, slowly and
calmly, as he paid for the second glass of beer.
He crossed the station by the subway and waited for the loop-line train
to Turnhill. He had not set foot in the Five Towns for three-and-twenty
years, having indeed carefully and continuously avoided it, as a man
will avoid the street where his creditor lives. But he discovered no
change in Knype railway-station. And he had a sort of pleasure in the
fact that he knew his way about it, knew where the loop-line trains
started from and other interesting little details. Even the special
form of the loop-line time-table, pasted here and there on the walls of
the station, had not varied since his youth. (We return Radicals to
Parliament, but we are proud of a railway which for fine old English
conservatism brooks no rival.)
Toby gazed around, half challengingly and half nervously--it was
conceivable that he might be recognized, or might recognize. But no!
Not a soul in the vast, swaying, preoccupied, luggage-laden crowds gave
him a glance. As for him, although he fully recognized nobody, yet
nearly every face seemed to be half-familiar. He climbed into a
second-class compartment when the train drew up, and ten other people,
all with third-class tickets, followed his example; three persons were
already seated therein. The compartment was illuminated by one lamp,
and in the Bleakridge Tunnel this lamp expired. Everything reminded him
of his youth.
In twenty minutes he was leaving Turnhill station and entering the
town. It was about nine o'clock, and colder than winters of the period
usually are. The first thing he saw was an electric tram, and the
second thing he saw was another electric tram. In Toby's time there
were no trams at Turnhill, and the then recently-introduced steam-trams
between Bursley and Longshaw, long since superseded, were regarded as
the final marvel of science as applied to traction. And now there were
electric trams at Turnhill! The railway renewed his youth, but this
darting electricity showed him how old he was. The Town Hall, which was
brand-new when he left Turnhill, had the look of a mediaeval hotel de
ville as he examined it in the glamour of the corporation's
incandescent gas. And it was no more the sole impressive pile in the
borough. The High Street and its precincts abounded in impressive
piles. He did not know precisely what they were, but they had the
appearance of being markets, libraries, baths, and similar haunts of
luxury; one was a bank. He thought that Turnhill High Street compared
very well with Derby. He would have preferred it to be less changed. If
the High Street was thus changed, everything would be changed,
including Child Row. The sole phenomenon that recalled his youth
(except the Town Hall) was the peculiar smell of oranges and apples
floating out on the frosty air from holly-decorated greengrocers' shops.
He passed through the Market Square, noting that sinister freak, the
Jubilee Tower, and came to Child Row. The first building on your right
as you enter Child Row from the square is the Primitive Methodist
Chapel. Yes, it was still there; Primitive Methodism had not failed in
Turnhill because Toby Hall had deserted the cause three-and-twenty
years ago! But something serious had happened to the structure.
Gradually Toby realized that its old face had been taken out and a new
one put in, the classic pillars had vanished, and a series of Gothic
arches had been substituted by way of portico; a pretty idea, but not
to Toby's liking. It was another change, another change! He crossed the
street and proceeded downwards in the obscurity, and at length halted
and peered with his little blue eyes at a small house (one of twins) on
the other side from where he stood. That house, at any rate, was
unchanged. It was a two-storeyed house, with a semicircular fanlight
over a warped door of grained panelling. The blind of the window to the
left of the door was irradiated from within, proving habitation.
'I wonder--' ran Toby's thought. And he unhesitatingly crossed the
street again, towards it, feeling first for the depth of the kerbstone
with his umbrella. He had a particular and special interest in that
house (No. 11 it was--and is), for, four-and-twenty years ago he had
married it.