V
It is Saturday afternoon again, and once more something queer is happening in that narrow thoroughfare to the west of the town, Manchester Road. A grey-green tide flows sluggishly down the road a tide of cloth caps, leaving the ground of ‚Äút‚ÄôUnited,‚Äù where Huddersfield have just been defeated by three goals to two. Somewhere in the middle of this thick stream of cloth caps is one that looks newer than most of its neighbours. It belongs to Mr.¬ÝJesiah Oakroyd, who has contrived to attend this match before leaving Bruddersford for years, perhaps forever. He is catching a train to Gatford, his first little halt on his long journey, this very evening, and already his suitcase and his big tin trunk are at the station, waiting for the 6:50. Casual talk is easy in such a slowly moving throng and is favoured because it helps to pass the time even when it does not also relieve the feelings. Mr.¬ÝOakroyd is engaged in it. We can just overhear a sentence or two.
“Ay,” his neighbour observes, “if they’d nobbut laked like this all t’season they’d ha’ been somewhere at the top instead of being nearly at bottom. They’re just wak’ning up nar it’s nearly over.”
‚ÄúWell, it‚Äôs been a grand match today, it has,‚Äù says Mr.¬ÝOakroyd dreamily. ‚ÄúI nivver want to see a better. Eh, it were t‚Äôowd form all ower agen. Them last two goals‚ÅÝ‚Äînay, by gow!‚Äù
“Ay, them wor a bit of all right.”
“All right! They wor grand!”
And then we hear no more. The tide of caps and men flows on, slowly but gradually gathering speed, like our years. It recedes, shrinks, until at last you do not notice it at all. Manchester Road is now only one of a hundred thoroughfares, for Bruddersford itself, the whole spread of it, has come into view. Holdsworth’s giant mill looms there on the left; the Midland Railway’s station glitters in the sun again, and there is an answering gleam from the glass roof of the Market Hall; a silver streak shows one of the canals; and in the centre of the tall chimneys, shaking the air with its “Lass of Richmond Hill,” is the tower of the Bruddersford Town Hall. It points a finger at us, and then is gone, lost in a faint smudge of smoke. Another moment and Bruddersford is only a grimy crack in the hills. The high moorland between Yorkshire and Lancashire rises steadily, clear in the pearly light of Spring. Once more, the miles and miles of ling and bog and black rock, and the curlews crying above the scattered jewellery of the little tarns. There are the Derbyshire hills, and there, away to the north, are the great fells of Cumberland, and now the whole darkening length of it, from the Peak to Cross Fell, is visible, for this is the Pennine Range, sometimes called the backbone of England.