Portrait of a Man with Red Hair: A Romantic Macabre

by Hugh Walpole

IV

Even as the strokes sounded in the air the wide doors of the Town Hall unfolded and a tall stout man, dressed in the cocked hat and the cape and cloak of a Dickensian beadle, appeared. Flaming red they were, and very fine and important he looked as he stood there on the steps, his legs spread, holding his gold staff in his hands. He was attended by several other gentlemen who looked down with benignant approval upon the crowd, and by a drum, a trumpet, and a flute, these last being instruments rather than men.

A crowd began to gather at the foot of the steps and the beadle to address them at the top of his voice, but unlike his rival, the preacher, his voice did not carry very far.

And now the Fair, having only five minutes more of life before it, lifted itself into a final screaming manifestation. Now was the time for which the wise and the cautious had been waiting throughout the three days of the Fair—the moment when all the prices would tumble down with a rush because it was now or never. The merry-go-round shrieked, the animals bellowed, lowed, mooed and grunted, the purchasers argued, quarrelled, shouted and triumphed, the preacher and his followers sang and sang again, the bells clanged, the gas-jets flared, the bonfire rose furiously to heaven. But meanwhile the crowd was growing larger and larger around the Town Hall steps; they came with penny whistles and horns and hand-bells and even tea-trays. Then suddenly, strong above the babel, carried by men's stout voices, the song began:

Now, gentles all, attend this song,
Tra-la, la-la, Tra-la,
It is but short, it can't be long,
Tra-la-la-la, Tra-la,
How Farmer Brown one summer day
Was in his field a-gathering hay,
When by there came a pretty maid
Who smiling sweetly to him said,
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la,

Then Farmer Brown, though forty year,
Tra-la, la-la, Tra-la,
When he that pretty voice did hear,
Tra-la-la-la, Tra-la,
He threw his fork the nearest ditch
And caught the maiden tightly, which
Was what she wanted him to do,
And so the same would all of you,
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la,

But she withdrew from his embrace,
Tra-la-la-la, Tra-la,
And mocked poor Farmer to his face,
Tra-la-la-la, Tra-la,
And danced away along the lane
And cried "Before I'm here again
Poor Farmer Brown you'll dance with Pain,"
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la,

And that was true as you shall hear,
Tra-la, la-la, Tra-la,
Poor Farmer Brown danced many a year,
Tra-la-la-la, Tra-la,
But never once that maid did see,
He grew as aged as aged could be,
And danced into Eterni-tee,
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la.

The red-flaming beadle moved down the steps, and behind him came the drum, the trumpet and the flute. The drum a stout fellow with wide spreading legs, had from the practice of many a year, and his father and grandfather having been drummers before him, caught the exact measure of the tune. Along the market-place went the beadle, the drum, the trumpet and the flute.

For a moment a marvellous silence fell.

To Harkness this silence was exquisite. The myriad stars, the high buildings, their façades ruby-coloured with the leaping light, the dark piled background, the crowd humming now with quiet, like water on the boil, the glow of rich suffused colour sheltering everything with its beautiful cloak, the rich voices tossing into the air the jolly song, the sense of well-being and the tradition of the lasting old time and the spirit of England eternally fresh and sturdy and strong; all this sank into his very soul and seemed to give him some hint of the deliverance that was, very soon, to come to him.

Then the procession definitely formed. All the voices—men's, women's and children's alike—caught it up. One—two—three, one—two—three. The drum, the trumpet and the flute came to them through the air:

How Farmer Brown one summer day
Was in his field a-gathering hay,
When by there came a pretty maid
Who smiling sweetly to him said,
Tra-la-la-la-Tra-la.

He was never to be sure whether or no he had intended to join in the dance. He was not aware of more than the colour, the lights, the rhythm of the tune when a man like a mountain caught him by the arm, shouting, "Now we're off, brother—now we're off," and he was carried along.

There had always been a superstition about the dance that to join in it, to be in it from the beginning to the end, meant the best of good luck, and to miss it was misfortune. There was, therefore, now a flinging from all sides of eager bodies into the fray. No one must be left out and as the path between the line of bodies and houses was a narrow one, every one was pressed close together, and as there had been much friendly swilling of beer and ale, every one was in the highest humour, shouting, laughing, singing, ringing their bells and blowing their whistles.

Harkness was crushed in upon his enormous friend so completely that he had no other impression for the moment but of a vast expanse of heaving, leaping, corduroy waistcoat, of a hard brass button in his eye, and of himself clutching with both hands to a shiny trouser that must hold himself from falling. But they were off indeed! Four of them now in a row and the song was swinging fine and strong. One—two—three, one—two—three. Forward bend, one leg in air, backward bend, t'other leg in air, forward bend again, down the market-place and round the corner voices raised in one tremendous song.

He was easier now and able more clearly to realise his position. One arm was tightly wedged in that of his companion, and he could feel the thick welling muscles taut through the stuff of the shirt. On the other side of him was a girl, and he could feel her hand pressing on his sleeve. On her side, again, was a young man—her lover. He said so, and shouted it to the world.

He leaned across her and cried out her beauties as they moved, and she threw her head back and sang.

The giant on the hitherside seemed to have taken Harkness into his especial protection. He had been drinking well, but it had done him no order of harm. Only he loved the world and especially Harkness. He felt, he knew, that Harkness was a stranger from "up-along." On an average day he would have resented him, been suspicious of him, and tried "to do him out of some of his blasted money." But to-night he would be his friend and protect him from the world.

He would rather have had a girl crooked there under his arm, but the girl he had intended to have had somehow missed him when the fun began—but it didn't matter—the beer made everything glorious for him—and after all he had two daughters "nigh grown up," and his old missus was around somewhere, and it was just as good he didn't slip into any sort of mischief which it was easy to do on a night like this—and his name was Gideon. All this he confided to Harkness while the procession halted, for a minute or two, at the corner of the market-place to pull itself straight before it started down the hill.

He had his arm around Harkness's neck and words poured from him. Gideon what or something Gideon? It didn't matter. Gideon it was and Gideon it would be so long as Harkness's memory remained.

All the soil of the English country, all the deep lanes with their high dark hedges, the russet cornfields with their sudden dips to the sea, the high ridges with the white cottages perched like birds resting against the sky, the smell of the earth, the savour of the leaves wet after rain, the thick smoke and damp of the closed-in rooms, the mud, the clay, the running streams, the wind through the thick-sheltering trees, all these were in Gideon's speech as he stood, close pressed, thigh to thigh with Harkness.

He was happy although he knew not why, and Harkness was happy because he was in love for the first time in his life and tingled from head to foot with that knowledge. And up and down and all around it was the same. This was the night of all the nights of the year when enmities were forgotten and new friendships made. As Maradick once had felt the current of love running strong and true through a thousand souls, so Harkness felt it now, and, as with Maradick once, so with Harkness now, it seemed strange that life might not be simply run, that the lion might not lie down with the lamb, that nations might not be for ever at peace the one with another, and that the Grand Millennium might not immediately be at hand.

All beer you say? Maybe, and yet not altogether so. Something anxious and longing in the human heart was rising, free and strong, that night, and would never again entirely leave some of the hearts that knew it.

Harkness for one. There were to be many years in the future when he was to feel again the beating of Gideon's heart under his arm. Something of Gideon's was his, and something of his was Gideon's forevermore, though they would never meet again.