第23章 ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT(1)

CHAPTER I

The man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives hereafter depicted--no great man,in any sense,by the way--first had knowledge of them on an October evening,in the city of Melchester.

He had been standing in the Close,vainly endeavouring to gain amid the darkness a glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediaeval architecture in England,which towered and tapered from the damp and level sward in front of him.While he stood the presence of the Cathedral walls was revealed rather by the ear than by the eyes;he could not see them,but they reflected sharply a roar of sound which entered the Close by a street leading from the city square,and,falling upon the building,was flung back upon him.

He postponed till the morrow his attempt to examine the deserted edifice,and turned his attention to the noise.It was compounded of steam barrel-organs,the clanging of gongs,the ringing of hand-bells,the clack of rattles,and the undistinguishable shouts of men.

A lurid light hung in the air in the direction of the tumult.

Thitherward he went,passing under the arched gateway,along a straight street,and into the square.

He might have searched Europe over for a greater contrast between juxtaposed scenes.The spectacle was that of the eighth chasm of the Inferno as to colour and flame,and,as to mirth,a development of the Homeric heaven.A smoky glare,of the complexion of brass-filings,ascended from the fiery tongues of innumerable naphtha lamps affixed to booths,stalls,and other temporary erections which crowded the spacious market-square.In front of this irradiation scores of human figures,more or less in profile,were darting athwart and across,up,down,and around,like gnats against a sunset.

Their motions were so rhythmical that they seemed to be moved by machinery.And it presently appeared that they were moved by machinery indeed;the figures being those of the patrons of swings,see-saws,flying-leaps,above all of the three steam roundabouts which occupied the centre of the position.It was from the latter that the din of steam-organs came.

Throbbing humanity in full light was,on second thoughts,better than architecture in the dark.The young man,lighting a short pipe,and putting his hat on one side and one hand in his pocket,to throw himself into harmony with his new environment,drew near to the largest and most patronized of the steam circuses,as the roundabouts were called by their owners.This was one of brilliant finish,and it was now in full revolution.The musical instrument around which and to whose tones the riders revolved,directed its trumpet-mouths of brass upon the young man,and the long plate-glass mirrors set at angles,which revolved with the machine,flashed the gyrating personages and hobby horses kaleidoscopically into his eyes.

It could now be seen that he was unlike the majority of the crowd.Agentlemanly young fellow,one of the species found in large towns only,and London particularly,built on delicate lines,well,though not fashionably dressed,he appeared to belong to the professional class;he had nothing square or practical about his look,much that was curvilinear and sensuous.Indeed,some would have called him a man not altogether typical of the middle-class male of a century wherein sordid ambition is the master-passion that seems to be taking the time-honoured place of love.

The revolving figures passed before his eyes with an unexpected and quiet grace in a throng whose natural movements did not suggest gracefulness or quietude as a rule.By some contrivance there was imparted to each of the hobby-horses a motion which was really the triumph and perfection of roundabout inventiveness--a galloping rise and fall,so timed that,of each pair of steeds,one was on the spring while the other was on the pitch.The riders were quite fascinated by these equine undulations in this most delightful holiday-game of our times.There were riders as young as six,and as old as sixty years,with every age between.At first it was difficult to catch a personality,but by and by the observer's eyes centred on the prettiest girl out of the several pretty ones revolving.

It was not that one with the light frock and light hat whom he had been at first attracted by;no,it was the one with the black cape,grey skirt,light gloves and--no,not even she,but the one behind her;she with the crimson skirt,dark jacket,brown hat and brown gloves.Unmistakably that was the prettiest girl.

Having finally selected her,this idle spectator studied her as well as he was able during each of her brief transits across his visual field.She was absolutely unconscious of everything save the act of riding:her features were rapt in an ecstatic dreaminess;for the moment she did not know her age or her history or her lineaments,much less her troubles.He himself was full of vague latter-day glooms and popular melancholies,and it was a refreshing sensation to behold this young thing then and there,absolutely as happy as if she were in a Paradise.

Dreading the moment when the inexorable stoker,grimily lurking behind the glittering rococo-work,should decide that this set of riders had had their pennyworth,and bring the whole concern of steam-engine,horses,mirrors,trumpets,drums,cymbals,and such-like to pause and silence,he waited for her every reappearance,glancing indifferently over the intervening forms,including the two plainer girls,the old woman and child,the two youngsters,the newly-married couple,the old man with a clay pipe,the sparkish youth with a ring,the young ladies in the chariot,the pair of journeyman-carpenters,and others,till his select country beauty followed on again in her place.He had never seen a fairer product of nature,and at each round she made a deeper mark in his sentiments.The stoppage then came,and the sighs of the riders were audible.