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In the Five Towns the following history is related by those who
know it as something side-splittingly funny--as one of the best
jokes that ever occurred in a district devoted to jokes. And I,
too, have hitherto regarded it as such. But upon my soul, now that
I come to write it down, it strikes me as being, after all, a
pretty grim tragedy. However, you shall judge, and laugh or cry as
you please.
It began in the little house of Mrs Carpole, up at Bleakridge, on
the hill between Bursley and Hanbridge. Mrs Carpole was the second
Mrs Carpole, and her husband was dead. She had a stepson, Horace,
and a son of her own, Sidney. Horace is the hero, or the villain,
of the history. On the day when the unfortunate affair began he
was nineteen years old, and a model youth. Not only was he getting
on in business, not only did he give half his evenings to the
study of the chemistry of pottery and the other half to various
secretaryships in connection with the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel
and Sunday-school, not only did he save money, not only was he a
comfort to his stepmother and a sort of uncle to Sidney, not only
was he an early riser, a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a good
listener; but, in addition to the practice of these manifold and
rare virtues, he found time, even at that tender age, to pay his
tailor's bill promptly and to fold his trousers in the same crease
every night--so that he always looked neat and dignified. Strange
to say, he made no friends. Perhaps he was just a thought too
perfect for a district like the Five Towns; a sin or so might have
endeared him to the entire neighbourhood. Perhaps his loneliness
was due to his imperfect sense of humour, or perhaps to the dull,
unsmiling heaviness of his somewhat flat features.
Sidney was quite a different story. Sidney, to use his mother's
phrase, was a little jockey. His years were then eight. Fair-
haired and blue-eyed, as most little jockeys are, he had a smile
and a scowl that were equally effective in tyrannizing over both
his mother and Horace, and he was beloved by everybody. Women
turned to look at him in the street. Unhappily, his health was not
good. He was afflicted by a slight deafness, which, however, the
doctor said he would grow out of; the doctor predicted for him a
lusty manhood. In the meantime, he caught every disease that
happened to be about, and nearly died of each one. His latest
acquisition had been scarlet fever. Now one afternoon, after he
had 'peeled' and his room had been disinfected, and he was
beginning to walk again, Horace came home and decided that Sidney
should be brought downstairs for tea as a treat, to celebrate his
convalescence, and that he, Horace, would carry him downstairs.
Mrs Carpole was delighted with the idea, and Sidney also, except
that Sidney did not want to be carried downstairs--he wanted to
walk down.
'I think it will be better for him to walk, Horace dear,' said Mrs
Carpole, in her thin, plaintive voice. 'He can, quite well. And
you know how clumsy you are. Supposing you were to fall!'
Horace, nevertheless, in pursuance of his programme of being uncle
to Sidney, was determined to carry Sidney. And carry Sidney he
did, despite warnings and kickings. At least he carried him as far
as the turn in the steep stairs, at which point he fell, just as
his stepmother had feared, and Sidney with him. The half-brothers
arrived on the ground floor in company, but Horace, with his
eleven stone two, was on top, and the poor suffering little
convalescent lay moveless and insensible.
It took the doctor forty minutes to bring him to, and all the time
the odour of grilled herrings, which formed part of the uneaten
tea, made itself felt through the house like a Satanic comment on
the spectacle of human life. The scene was dreadful at first. The
agony then passed. There were no bruises on the boy, not a mark,
and in a couple of hours he seemed to be perfectly himself. Horace
breathed again, and thanked Heaven it was no worse. His gratitude
to Heaven was, however, slightly premature, for in the black
middle of the night poor Sidney was seized with excruciating pains
in the head, and the doctor lost four hours' sleep. These pains
returned at intervals of a few days, and naturally the child's
convalescence was retarded. Then Horace said that Airs Carpole
should take Sidney to Buxton for a fortnight, and he paid all the
expenses of the trip out of his savings. He was desolated, utterly
stricken; he said he should never forgive himself. Sidney
improved, slowly.
Read next: PART I - The Lion's Share: CHAPTER II
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